Well you have been touring a lot, so have you noticed any neuroses developing? Logan: For sure. Before I got my own seat it was routine to show up and scope out the chair situation. Now I am more focused on whether or not there are towels. Meric: Seriously. I think you would welt and die without the towels. Logan: I sweat – C&C Music Factory over here. So yeah, I gotta towel up. That is my particular neurosis. I get paranoid and sticky if I cannot towel off my arms. My hands get really sweaty, so I have to grip my sticks tighter so I don’t drop them, which would be a big mistake. That is my fear on stage, dropping a stick. Meric: Probably my strings. I have to change my strings a lot. Like when I go to sleep, if I haven’t changed my strings then I have to. It sucks when I break a string because it always happens on this one song, “Fools.” I just hate that feeling when you break a string and there is all this attention on you...actually, I just realized another thing is not to drink beer within a certain time period before playing because I will keep belching while I am singing.
Interview by Chris Rolls
B
ay Area based trio, The Dodos took a few moments out of their busy schedule to chat with us in San Francisco.
Well first off, it is apparent that once there were two and now there are three. When did you decide to add a third member, and why this motherfucker? Meric: He is the face of the band. Logan: He is the only one who stands, so people see him more than anyone else. Since you are seated most of the time, are there chairs in your rider? Do you have a specific type you like to sit on?
Photography by David Franklin
Or large quantities of cocaine?
Logan: I used to play on anything as well, but last time we went out I finally bought a drum stool. And that has been very good, because before I ended up on shit that was all angled and jumped around on me. I have sat on Meric’s guitar amp before and fucked up all his settings…
Meric: I have yet to do that, but I kind of want to.
Meric: Yeah, like in the middle of a set all the sudden the distortion just goes all fucking crazy. Actually it’s weird for me how important what I sit on has become. We were in Brighton and I spent like 15 minutes walking around looking for the perfect thing to sit on.
Do you smoke weed or have another drug routine, aside from drinking, before playing?
Why is it so important? Meric: It can totally fuck up my mojo.
4
The drug itself? Meric: No, the combo. I have never played a show on drugs with this band.
Logan: I was with a friend at Treasure Island [Music Festival] who ran into Devendra Banhart. He said the policy is if one of them is going to smoke weed then the whole band has to, and I feel like that is kind of our policy. I do not want to go on stage being the only
stoned person, but if we all were then it would be totally cool. I will definitely play Wii at home stoned. That is A-OK, but if I am going to play music I do not want to be the only one going for the cosmos.
Meric: A little bit. It is harder to create a vibe at the show. At first it was “we’re playing this big festival and we have to get some fireworks,” and...I mean not really, but at first playing the festivals was exciting!
Meric: We are about to tour the East Coast with this band, and they smoke a lot of weed, and I kind of want to do this whole tour totally stoned.
Logan: I think that we are definitely not a band that can throw down a bunch of hits and satisfy a raging public, but the whole atmosphere at festivals is pretty entertaining. It is like a little city that is dedicated to throwing a party, and there is another little city for the artists where they give you food and drink. It is a fun little thing, and it’s
Logan: Let’s do it! Meric: No, I am totally serious about it. I’ve been smoking weed this whole week just to get ready. Smoking weed and playing used to be synonymous with me, but with this band I feel like the responsibilities are too great for my stoned mind.
Meric: We did both records pretty sober. I did a few vocal tracks on whiskey (laughs).
Like window shopping?
Meric: I would never in a million years have guessed that would happen – we would be playing the same stage, let alone right after Faust. I am noticing some self-deprecation, which is odd because you are being invited to play these festivals. People obviously like your music. Visiter is a popular album, and certainly with critics.
Meric: It doesn’t really say anything about where you are. We didn’t earn that.
Logan: I remember going out, getting the whiskey, and it was like bringing a foreign substance into the studio. It is usually just food and coffee.
Meric: One thing I have to say about festivals for us is that we played a bunch in Europe, and half the people would leave while we were playing. At first it was like, “Aw fuck!” I feel like we are not made for the festival circuit – it works better in clubs. A lot of people at festivals are like checking shit out.
Logan: Yeah, and a bucket full of grass that they tossed everywhere, and guys with brooms sweeping it all up before we could put our shit down.
Logan: Festivals create a false image. It’s like here is the stage, here are the people, and it seems like you are bigger than you are. There were people there to see us, people were enjoying it, and some people didn’t know us, but it’s false...like it is a fucking U2 concert or something. It looks like more than we are.
What about in the studio? Do you keep it clean?
We were talking about Treasure Island earlier…now that the Dodos have been pushed into the festival circuit what is your general feeling about it?
they chopped with a chain-saw was all over the stage when we got on...
What do you mean you didn’t earn it! You’ve been playing a ton of shows and great music.
summertime in Europe, you know, why not? But I don’t know, compared to some other bands that we saw I don’t know if it is our thing in particular…but it was fun. I got to see a lot of music, which is an upside – since we play a lot of shows in clubs, we do not get to see a wide variety. Do you get to meet a lot of people?
Logan: It is just a big fucking jump. It’s like there is no way of working your way up. You are either in or you are out. It is not like you can go House of Shields, Edinburgh Castle, Cafe du Nord... there are festivals, and then there’s not. They need to keep making money, and we snuck in the door. It feels a little weird. Would you play state fairs? Bands should have to play state fairs, then All Tomorrow’s Parties.
Logan: If you are lucky! Meric: We got to see some crazy bands...like we played after Faust. Like the debris from the sheets that
5
Logan: Right. State fairs first, get some shit thrown at you, and then you earn your stripes and get to play somewhere cool.
I
have grown to become a strong believer in serendipity. Three years ago my friend had been urging me to check out an Israeli band by the name of Monotonix. Initially I didn’t pay too much attention, but then I heard they were opening up for the Silver Jews. “Honk if you’re lonely tonight,” “What is not but could be if,” these and other Silver Jews lines have narrated different stages of my life. I naturally leapt at the opportunity to witness the legacy that David Berman has been spinning for over fifteen years.
arranged to go to Berman’s old apartment in Hoboken the next day for a photo shoot before their gig at Maxwell’s.
Walking down the quaint, tree-lined streets of New Jersey, Berman gave photographer Carlos and me a virtual tour of his past. As the gentle rhythm of his voice calmly narrated our saunter, I couldn’t help but feel like I was stepping into the chorus of a Silver Jews song. As we edged closer and turned down the street, his pace picked up with the excitement of seeing his old flat. We turned the corner and he took a long pause. He couldn’t Monotonix’s stage show floored me that night. A few shows later I quite remember which apartment had been his, and borrowed offered to add them to my booking agency’s roster. They took me my cell phone to call (founding member of Pavement and Silver up on it, and here we all are over 250 shows later with our lives Jews) Bob Nastanovich. When he got no answer, Berman took inseparably intertwined. So when I heard the Silver Jews were it upon himself to open the gate and peer into the windows, once again sailing the North American terrain, I was ecstatic that uncertain of whether it was actually his old building. He rapped Monotonix were invited on board. As the idea of re-launching on the door and tried unsuccessfully to force the knob. the magazine became a realistic venture, I investigated the opportunity of interviewing Berman. Upon emailing him, his initial As Carlos set up the camera, Berman took residence on the response surprised me. He was well aware of Panache and was neighboring steps and continued reminiscing about the ‘90s. excited to hear that I would conduct the interview. Somehow he He engaged me in tales of drunken nights, when many of their had the impression that I was a serious fan of Montana-based early songs were captured with simply a handheld recorder. He grind-core. Ha! Well, we finally met at their New York show and explained how hundreds of tapes of unreleased material were
10
SILVER JEWS
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"#$%&!$'!()!*!+,$--$!+.(-$!!!!!!!/,0#01%./,)!()!+.%-02!+,.%-!$!/$%$3 buried away in his current home in Nashville. To this day he is still The sun setting over the Mediterranean. Since we were staying timid about listening to those indecipherably archived recordings by the beach, on the eastern beaches of the Mediterranean, from the past, let alone allowing someone else to access them. facing back at Gibraltar and the Atlantic. Being in Israel and facing America, instead of, the only thing I’ve ever known, which As the sun began to set we talked about addictions, second is to be in America, facing Israel. Of course the sunsets were chances, and new beginnings, topics I avoided in our interview completely and thrillingly beautiful, but it was the novelty of that for fear of them being too personal or blunt. But Berman’s perspective that floored me. conversational mannerisms are similar to his songs. Lyrically they captivate you by beginning with sharp-lined wit and humor, I wanted to talk a bit about Monotonix, since they are going along whether he’s referencing his favorite sandwich, his brush with on this upcoming tour. You’ve described having Monotonix open suicide, or explaining how he couldn’t set foot into New York for you as “the wrong thing to do,” can you expand on this? I for eight solid years until he found inner peace. He speaks of laughed when I read that, as I totally agree, but see it as the best his past so freely, distinctly remembering the darkness but no thing at the same time… longer totally engulfed by it. Admittedly, this is one of the reasons his latest album Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea differs from its There’s a couple things that are interesting about it. There were predecessors: it ends pleasantly. And it resonates loud and clear two instances in England where comparatively twee rock bands were added as third on the bill, before Monotonix. In both cases with a beautiful and hopeful grace. the promoter was wanting to switch Monotonix to first but we [What follows is an interview conducted just prior to the Jews’ refused. I tried to explain that they would be glad they played first fall 2008 tour, a few months before our New York/New Jersey after they’d seen Monotonix obliterate boredom and mediocrity in their total excellence. All that to say Monotonix are the kind meeting.] of band that 99% of bands wouldn’t want as openers. The reason they’re perfect for me is that they kill any preciousness So how is preparation going for the big tour? Berman: Well I’m down to 36 hours before we leave. My list or nervousness about me or the Silver Jews. By the time we of things to do is long. Like the grass which needs cutting. come on everyone has been smiling, and in a sense, has already You need to present any burglar with the illusion that this is an gotten entertained in a very immediate way. Monotonix are so occupied house. I have a couple of lamps on white ticking timers. centered in the present moment, while the Silver Jews have a lot Television loudly set on ESPN as if to imply that athletes live of frozen time in the songs, or in people’s relationships with the songs. They get a completely-out-of-nowhere adrenaline rush inside. going and then I just try to paddle along as fast as I can. So how’s Nashville? How did you end up there after going to Did you meet them in Israel? Are you guys going to take out school in Virginia? some kind of insurance policy on your equipment for the dates I moved to New York (really Hoboken, but really it was Jersey on tour with them? City. Right on top of the hill at the back of Hoboken, Jersey City Heights.) with a couple of friends in November of 1989. After They opened for us for the second show there. The first show school I had gone to Austin for a few months. I worked in a lot had [Monotonix guitarist] Yonatan playing acoustic guitar and of kitchens back then but one of the weirdest was the Bedrock singing his own songs as the opener. They came with us when Café in Austin. It was an outdoor stand so when the weather we went down to Jerusalem and showed me all around. As far started cooling off I went up to live with Bob Nastanovich who as the equipment goes, it’s always nice to have them play on the had that apartment on Jersey City Heights and was driving a floor as is their preference. Another big plus about them is you shuttle bus for a Weehawken Ferry Service. Our other friend sound check and nothing gets moved. from school, Steve Malkmus arrived from California a little after I came in from Texas. He and I got jobs working at the Whitney I read an interview recently where you jokingly referenced Museum as security guards. I think it was nine-fifty an hour. It yourself as a con man in the art, music, and poetry fields. Which was a Teamsters Shop. I was proud to be a Teamster for those do you feel you have more of a natural inclination towards? Do three years. Anyway, it’s still a long way until Tennessee from you have a preferable medium that you find suits you best? here so I’ll save it for another time. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the same concoction poured into Speaking of long distances, besides this tour and latest album, different vessels. I don’t have time for little vessels right now. there’s a documentary coming out (Silver Jew – Drag City) about If the future was more certain I might naturally wander back to your time in Israel. I’ve heard you haven’t watched it, but can you writing. To tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking about getting an even bigger vessel, a motion picture screenplay, to work with. I talk about some of your strongest memories?
11
bought the CD-ROM “Final Draft”. You just fill in the blanks and it writes it for you.
Maybe with known individuals. In the presence of strangers I clam up. With old people I immediately begin to lie. Kids make me sneeze. So you see…
How did you get into playing music? Also, where do a lot of the ideas for your songs come from? Do When I was 21, I bought a teal-blue Japanese Les Paul for 50 you still pull words from bathroom walls? dollars from a guy who only listened to The Cure. My housemates and I began to play a single noise jam that lasted for a year and I get a lot of ideas by assuming a state of intellective receptivity while I’m doing other things. I have miniature legal pads all over a half. the house. What did your parents listen to as you were growing up? The lyrics of Lookout are very simple and straight forward, but From my father it was seventies soft rock all the way. Jimmy there’s a rich context to them that initially hits you with a subtle Buffet Son of a Son of a Sailor made a big impression on me. grace, then as you revisit the album again, the impact grows. I’ve My mom had some Neil Diamond Records. Kris Kristofferson read many of your interviews, and you have a lot of things to say, and Rita Coolidge. Charlie Rich Behind Closed Doors. My first is it hard to condense your thoughts into one song or album? addition to the collection was Little River Band. It was the song “Lonesome Loser” that I loved, but “Cool Changes” was great on You are just worrying about saying one thing when you’re writing. the flipside. The Doobie Brothers “What a Fool Believes.” That Maybe ambiguity will lend it a second meaning. Then later when you’re done it starts to be analyzable and so you start making song thrilled me and still does. connections that have personal and political meaning and so You sing a lot about the radio and jukeboxes, I am curious to forth. You don’t write all that meaning in there yourself. It’s more hear where your favorite jukebox is? And what’s your favorite like developing a seed than stuffing sausage. radio station? Do you find yourself a big collector of records and books? What The Radio Stations I love are both on the web: WFMU- in New kinds of things do you find entertaining these days? Jersey and WSM-650 AM broadcasting from Music Valley, TN. First I’ll exclude great jukeboxes that are always backed up with I don’t watch movies often. I like some reality TV shows. But other people’s selections. Second question, Is it even going to mostly I read a lot of critical theory, sociology, philosophy, and be loud enough to get over the room noise? To really test it out theology. When I drank, I used to go to Robert’s Western World, you have the bar locked because it’s closing hours and ‘you can to hear loud country standards, played by pros. stay here and drink for free for as long as you want.’ Then the Over the years, in what sense has your nature and freedom in Charlie comes out and you’ve just missed your flight. expressing yourself changed? Haha. So this is the sixth SILVER JEWS album after two decades This touring era is a second act. I mistakenly thought it was going of music, is it difficult for you to play particular early songs? to be first act all the way. Somehow I was able to detect and From the first album there are two I can play. From the second engage the antagonist. That started the clock ticking again. album I enjoy playing four songs, from the third album – four, the fourth album – four, fifth album – four, and the new album For 15 years, you never performed live, what inspired touring? – eight. The others are ones I either don’t relate to, disagree with, or just never intended for them to be publicly performed by Hospital bills. Bills in general. me…It’s hard to get back in that skull sometimes. Most people wouldn’t enjoy having to communicate through the thoughts they Lookout plays like a narrative to a historical novel. I know you reference a 1913 Teddy Roosevelt speech, where he riles up had when they were 24 or 27. a bunch of kids to take action. You’ve described this album as Your lyrics are very true to life and relatable. Most of them seem having a message to anyone born in the 1980s or later, what do autobiographical. Is this true? Do you ever come to a point where you find yourself saying to them? you stop and want to censor yourself, or realize it’s too late [to It’s bitter and bad when the People are wrong. Don’t be scared do so] and the album is already out? when you have no other choice. If you can’t go under go over. I feel a little bad about how hard I was on Louisville. In the song “Tennessee,” it has autobiographical aspects. But, for instance, Do you find that people are receiving this message? Cassie’s character’s Sister is ruined and left behind in the song. But Cassie’s real sister is a doctor in a beach community. So I don’t know. things are often autobiographical in part, but less often than not. Last words? You are straightforward and blunt in interviews and with your lyrical With patience you can drink a brook. content. Does this hold true in your day to day interactions?
12
HIGH PLACES
Interview by Spencer Doran Photography by Hisham Bharoocha thing. I would say that a lot of times Rob will be messing around with something on the computer and playing an instrument where he’ll have this little sketch to show me, and then I come in and do the same thing alongside him. So we’ll both play instruments and record them. I’m more involved in the editing process and writing. But often we’ll both have a guitar, or I’ll have a hand drum, and we’ll record that at the same time. Your instruments generally have pretty heavy effects on them – delays and whatnot. Do you use a computer or do you run stuff into pedals and things first?
T
wo years ago I was visiting Humboldt County, California (my and the magazine’s birthplace), and I caught a show at the infamous Green House in downtown Arcata. An odd duo from Brooklyn, the act still in its infancy, played a refreshingly breezy form of deconstructed bedroom pop, featuring contact-mic’d brush percussion, simple vocal melodies, and backing samples full of organic thwaps, clicks, flops, whisps, and distant guitars. Now, after a string of wellreceived 7”s, CD-Rs, and comp appearances, High Places are on tour in support of their eponymous Thrill Jockey debut. Mary Pearson and Rob Barber passed their cell phone back and forth on their drive through Colorado, and we talked about what makes their band what it is. Starting off at the beginning, give me some background about how you started as a band. Mary: Well, I graduated college in Spring of 2006, and Rob and I had been introduced (when I was visiting New York) by a mutual friend who was a roadie for this band Japanther. By the time I graduated college we had become pretty good pen pals, but we hadn’t spent too much actual time together. I was going to go into grad school for music performance, but as we became friends I started thinking that I might want to try something else. We started talking about trying to make some music together or just going on tour with our solo projects. I ended up moving in with Rob in May of 2006. We started High Places a couple weeks after and went on tour a few weeks after that. Rob: When we first started out we just wanted to be immediate, we literally just wanted to get on the road, go travel and go camping and see our friends. We used to call our genre of music “adventure band,” ‘cause it’s the excuse to go out and do stuff and get away. It still is that to a big degree, but obviously we’re honed in on what we do more. Does Rob do all the music and you do the lyrics/vocals, or is it more of a back and forth? Mary: As far as lyrics, I guess that’s my territory…I ask Rob’s opinion and he tells me, “That works with that,” or, “That could be changed a little bit….” It’s definitely a back and forth kind of
Mary: Yeah, they don’t usually sound like a straight up guitar or recorder or something. It just depends. We do any number of things to create the sound that we have in our head. Sometimes that’s a pedal or us entering a number into this program we use when editing music, and that will put that many echoes on it. It’s a really old program, so we have to do math for how many milliseconds each echo is going to take up. Rob: There’s some songs where we sit down and work on something from the beginning, and that’s the root piece that we work off of. So it’s almost like we’re creating a metronome, whether it’s a melody or a rhythm, and then we just keep adding onto it until it gets layered enough that it feels complete. We always say it’s like exquisite corpse style, like exquisite corpse writing but with sound. The program we use is really old, I bought it in like 1997. It’s really rudimentary, but I feel really comfortable with it. Music-wise, what kind of stuff influences you guys? Is there anything that you could say has a direct effect on the band? Mary: Well, it’s really all over the place and the two of us have spent so much time together. I think since May 2006, we’ve spent maybe four weeks apart, total. We’ve gone through tons of phases, and we’re always showing each other things. Like I was playing something for Rob that’s actually a Bob Marley concert in Paris in 1984. You almost can’t tell what’s happening and that it’s Bob Marley, and every now and then you hear a little “No Woman No Cry” or something. I think a lot of the stuff we’re influenced by is something a little more peripheral like that…like there’s this old blues record and there’s this sort of tinny-ness to it that we’d like to get in our music. Or you can hear someone talking in the room somewhere, and we really like things like that. So is your new album different from your other releases? Mary: I think it’s different in the fact that we’re constantly evolving. I don’t think we made some big jump that’s a total departure from what we were doing, but I think that we’ve learned things. As far as the production of it, we’re just getting more familiar with collaborating. Earlier on my lyrics were said to be childlike or naïve…I mean they probably were, but that’s always kinda weird to hear about when you’re pouring your heart out and people are like, ‘Awww…little kid.’ But I think they’re a little more mature now. It’s been a couple years, and I’ve kinda grown up a little bit. I think that’s the theme of the record, sonically and lyrically: growth, human growth reflected in nature, learning from difficult things or challenging things – not just sugar-coating things but really experiencing them and trying to gain something from the challenge.
13
what about it? What mystery, written on the walls of this cave, strikes fear in the soundman’s heart tonight? None, actually. I got tipped by the very kind headliners (a rarity at a club our size where many performers are even less gainfully employed than the staff). Including the punk matinee and the night show and aforementioned gratuity, and if tonight were every night, I’d almost be middle class (again). 13/28/08 Sometime tonight we get a delivery of the new Cometbus, which I duly purchase and bring downstairs to read during the night show. This one’s sort of a historical anthropological look at Telegraph Avenue, Berkley bookstores. He includes details about the lives and work of, for example, seemingly minor bookstore department managers and the like resonate in my thoughts with the situation my colleagues and I find ourselves in, which frankly I’d been kind of down about this summer. I need to be reminded that everything matters.5
Among other things, I am a sound guy at a Lower East Side music venue, let’s call it Laketop. Since you are reading a copy of Panache and have probably witnessed live music before I won’t give you the Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood explanation of what my job entails. What follows are brief excerpts from my in the field diary from a few nights this summer. 1 13/25/082 Biggest Pet Peeve: When a band shows up before I do and rehearses instead of just waiting and sound checking properly. That’s what was happening when I arrived tonight. Inevitably said band sets up their amps on top of microphone cables and such that have been left out by the band of high school kids3 sanctioned to rehearse on the stage during the day and said cables need to be laboriously fished out from under said amps for a good fifteen minutes while bros continue to jam, oblivious. They must be teaching cable smooshing electives at rock camp. So guess what guys? “No fourth vocal tonight, m’kay? I had a mic stolen yesterday (or something) mumble, mumble…” Anyway I am cranky and I just want to read the 331/3 book about Guns n’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I and II in the booth and be alone. The book only worsens my mood. I don’t recall the nineties that fondly. As for the night of 13/25/08 at least on the surface it’s all smiles and things go fine.
13/30/08 Tonight’s opener is a quiet instrumental combo. During set up the cellist says she remembers me from last time she played at Laketop…. “Oh yeah you look familiar too.” “You’ve been working here a while, huh?’ “Umm, shit yeah I guess I have.” “It’s N--- right? I remember because I have a cousin named N----” “Yeah there aren’t many around, but I’ve met a few.” I continue, “Although on a ‘FacesterSpace’ I recently found a 17 year old kid in Jerusalem with my first and last name. He has dreadlocks and is really into Guns n’ Roses6 and claims he wants to be a sound engineer when he grows up.” 7 She laughs. Her band’s set sounds fine which is a relief as, believe you me, there is somehow nothing worse than finding yourself kind of attracted to a member of a band before they play, all friendly conversation and smiles, only to have some unforeseeable and unfixable8 disaster result in a crappy sounding set and then a good deal of pretending to be really interested in rearranging the power strips in the corner while her band takes down their stuff.
14/01/08 At some point during the second band’s set I notice a rugged middle aged British seeming man lurking near the booth looking like he needs to say something to me. For some reason it feels like a definite threat. Skittish today, skittish all summer, or maybe just bored, my mind conjures tales of soccer thuggery heard long ago, of the possibility of my eyeball being bit from its socket right here in the Laketop sound booth for no apparent reason. He approaches the booth and addresses me, “You’ve made them sound incredible. I’ve never heard them sound so good.” Phhew.. He’s for real, not ‘takin’ the piss’ pre beat down. I thank 13/27/08 There is a new piece of graffiti in one of the bathrooms here that him earnestly. I am allowed to live, and mix bands, another day. simply reads, “Scotty Pippen’s Penis.” I recall being told as a child perhaps erroneously, that one of the worst things you could say to insult someone in Arabic is “Your sister’s pussy” Well, what 5 “Every blade of grass has its angel that stands over it and whispers ‘Grow, grow’” – The Talmud about it? Apparently, that mystery, that realm of the unknown is 6 Why two mentions thus far of a band I never think about? I guess I just think I never think wherein lies the fear and thus the psychic injury.4 And so well, about them. My therapist would want to know what I remember about Guns n’ Roses and what was going on 1 Footnotes herein dedicated to the master thereof, btw. RIP, DFW. 2 Dates are faked to keep performers unidentifiable. I have to walk these streets everyday. Remember the ‘minus levels’ in the first Mario Brothers game? These dates are like that except there is probably a way out. 3 All due respect is intended here. These kids are like seventeen and dress like the Stones in ’73. That’s truly being down for it. I don’t know if being seventeen in ‘94 and dressing like Bob Nastanovich in, well, ‘94 took as much effort or care on my part. 4 A Google search for any information regarding the ex-Bull’s member provides way less interesting results than I had anticipated
in my life when those albums came out. I just think of before that, of Appetite for Destruction’s inner sleeve drawing of robot rape. Big points for that in therapy. 7 All true. 8 And I mean that. As we approach the twilight of the reign of the post-Enlightenment West we must begin to admit that there is not a rational scientific explanation and solution for everything. I have to come to believe in ghosts in machines. Example: Last night the headliner’s lead vocals stopped working twice during their set. I’m no technical mater, but when I thoroughly troubleshot each cable and microphone after the show they worked perfectly. To make matters worse, at some point while I was on stage dealing with it all an apparent friend of the band thought it’d be a good idea to jump in the sound booth and correct it himself by twiddling knobs. Nowadays, every schmuck’s an expert.
19
W
hen I found out that Panache Magazine was being resurrected from the grave I was psyched! One, because Michelle finally got off her lazy ass to bring out another issue of this incomparable magazine, and two, because it was coming out right before the election. I figured I would write a political story on how Sarah Palin fist-fucks dead baby otters and how Obama is really white and democratic strategists spray tanned him brown to gain minority votes. You know, your usual political tactics. Then I figured: what’s the difference? This “election” has been such a circus that we should all just sit back and watch the show. Either way, the world is slowly unraveling and the song of the doomed lingers in the air stronger than the ozone layer. But I digress. This past summer I was in Vancouver. Such an amazing place with its clean, mountainous air, friendly people, and free health care. I was shooting a photo essay for a magazine called Adbusters. Every person I met, from cabbies to waiters, from ad execs to the homeless, all mentioned a man named Marc Emery. “He’s kind of famous,” this 17year-old high school student told me. “He’s the prince of pot!” mumbled a street junkie in between scratches. A week into my trip I went to East Hastings Street to observe the bizarre stretch of road filled with junkies, the insane, and the broken. The smell of urine consumed me and the street reminded me of the old San Francisco Mission. The Mission that reeked of insanity, art, and that had character before the hipsters (the American Apparel generation) stripped it of its culture. Anyway, I got a call from my friends who train monkeys (seriously). They invited me to the Amsterdam
Café to indulge in some of the local smoke. I knew that Marc Emery owned the “joint” so I was curious and headed over. Entering the front gates I was eyed by a sea of bloodshot, paranoid eyes hovered over vaporizers. It was dark and the pungent scent of grass immediately calmed my soul. I went downstairs to find my monkey trainers and spotted them on a lavish couch each with a joint. Before I even took a seat, the strong smoke entered my lungs and the world was slightly altered. All of a sudden the curtain lifted revealing a huge screen and the soothing soundtrack of The Big Lebowski started. The night had become a dream! Within that dream, an epiphany: I must meet Marc Emery, local legend and provider of this fantasy.
After all, as the stranger in Lebowski states, “Sometimes there’s a man. I won’t say hero because what’s a hero. But sometimes there’s a man…” The next morning I made my way back to 307 Hastings in the heart of the bizarre and twisted section of town. I asked the young, smoke-eyed girl behind the counter if I can speak with the owner. “Ummmm, I haven’t seen him all day, but
20
I’ve seen his dog. So he must be here.” We went down a hidden stairwell in the back and entered the lobby of his political office, where his magazine Cannabis Culture and his television show Pot TV were produced. Lining the walls were “Ron Paul for President” posters, pot propaganda and a “Prince of Pot” pinball machine gathered dust in the corner. There was a leather couch and a vaporizer on the glass table. These were the cannabis headquarters of Canada and I was about to be taken to their leader. A portly woman with relaxed eyes greeted me. She was chomping on what appeared to be a jelly donut. “I’m here to see Marc Emery,” I stated. “Sure, come on in,” she sputtered out of her powdered lips. He sat at a desk. Piles of papers, photos, and clutter consumed the desk. It looked like what I imagined that snake Jann Wiener’s desk looked like when Rolling Stone had integrity and was worth reading. Ironically, Marc Emery looked like Jim Breuer from the movie Half Baked. His eyes were sort of half-open and puffy, his style much like a guy who works at the corner store in upstate New York. He appeared to be a very simple man. Without salutation, he started: ”You know there’s a movie about me? It’s airing three times tonight on CBC. I think that you should watch it. Most of the information is out there.” “Ok, but…” “Hold on!” he interrupted, shouting into the other room. “Did you get that story in about the health benefits of marijuana?” He continued to talk as if I wasn’t there. After a while a young girl walked in. “Hey Marc,” she said “ummm… I forgot what I was going to say. Hahahaha” After a couple of minutes of their conversation I chimed in. “Can I get a few pictures of you?” “Sure,” he said. “He’s with a magazine from NY,” he proudly told her as we walked out. We made our way to the back of the building to a beautiful patio that was fenced in from the riff-raff of the street. We snapped a few shots while we discussed the CMJ music festival. “I coordinated a political event with KRS-1 in the early ‘90s at CMJ. He’s a very cool man. And intelligent!” His confidence reeked of an almost royal heir. After a few photos he exclaimed, “I need a bong hit for this.” We went back inside and I waited on the couch for a while. From his office I heard him passionately speaking to members of his staff, punctuated by the bubbling and slurp of a bong. My patience was wearing thin so I walked into the other room and stood there to remind him that we were in the middle of an “interview.” I needed to be a little more aggressive so he wouldn’t get so distracted. “Let me show you the trick to cleaning a bong properly,” he said to me and we walked towards the restroom. I now had as much of his attention as I would get. “You take some kosher salt and mix it with a little alcohol.” He confidently swirled and maneuvered the bong as if he was an honor guard. We started discussing the history of the “Prince of Pot,” as the media labeled him. Marc Emery started his first business at the ripe age of 14. It was a comic book distribution company out of his parents’ house. At 17, he dropped out of school to open a bookstore. This bookstore became a mecca for intellects. They came together to talk about world issues and political concerns.
Marc’s first battle was when he refused to close his doors on Sunday, which was a law in London, Ontario. He was fined and refused to pay his ticket. He was arrested, and a rebel was born. When Canada began banning some of the controversial literature in Marc’s store he fought back. He realized, however, that you must be arrested to champion a constitutional change. “Only in the court of law does change happen,” he confidently spoke while swirling his bong. He did everything to try and get arrested for selling these controversial publications but the police would not bite. At one point he was selling these magazines outside of the police station. They stopped him but would not arrest him. As a last resort, he went inside the police station and tried to arrest himself! This did not work either. Since that time, he has been politically active. In 1980 he ran as a Libertarian Party candidate for the Canadian House of Commons. In 1984 he created the Unparty (which still exists). In 1987 he was a candidate of the Freedom Party. In 1990 he organized his first Pro-Pot rally. Since then he has fought for this cause. He has advertised, funded, and lobbied for cannabis more than any other person in history. He even ran for Mayor of Vancouver in 1996 and 2002. In my eyes, one of his greatest feats was in 1992 during those pathetic days of music censorship. Because of “explicit lyrics” The 2 Live Crew album was banned in Canada. Marc drove over the border to the U.S. and purchased copies to sell in Canada. He was charged and convicted for selling these records. Our conversation, or rather, his soapbox spiel, felt like a speech he had given before. He was very comfortable as if he were used to the fight. He was defending himself before I even spoke a word or asked a question. He sprang into numbers about detainees based on drug arrests and jail space. He shouted tax proposals for marijuana if it was legalized. I loved his spirit, and his information was vast. I couldn’t process it all, but his attitude was unquestionable and validated his verse. He told me that the youth looked up to him in the community. “A mixture of the finest grass and a young mind inspires people to question and rethink some of the codes that they have previously honored. I give them a place to do this,” he said with a grin and a proud twinkle in his eye. He listed his rap sheet with nostalgia. He had pride in his record and bragged about his jail time. When I felt punch-drunk from his words, and dizzied by his orchestrated bong cleansing, I proposed to get a photo of him in front of the club. I actually just needed a breath of fresh air. The walk to the front door became a tour of the various paraphernalia stores, the bookstore, the museum, and the hemp clothing store. It felt like Wonka Land for potheads. It was amazing to see all that he developed, but the slow pace was excruciating. We strolled up and down flights of stairs and he spoke to every man, woman, and child that walked by. He spoke to them with such sincerity and passion, as if it would be the last time that he would see them. The young girls got the most attention. He flirted with every girl
21
within 20 feet of him–most of them 20 years his junior. Each person warranted a personalized conversation, as if they were the only ones in the room. In the corner there was a group of kids who were discussing schoolwork as if in study hall. The only difference was that Wu-Tang was playing through the sound system and they were passing around a joint. As Marc walked by they all shouted “What up, Marc?!” Of course he entertained them and asked them how the school year was going. “OK, kids, get back to the books now!” he stated like a proud father. Needless to say, we never made it to the front door. He continued to make his rounds with his bong over his shoulder patrolling his fort like a general. When we were sidetracked by yet another young girl, I knew that our time was up. I interrupted him and told him that I’d be in touch. He shook my hand and smiled at the girl, “He is from a New York magazine.” I felt overwhelmed as I walked back to the hotel past the Starbucks, McDonalds, and other American franchises. Who was this man? Why was he so important? What strange twisted sets of fate put me in contact with him? He sort of reminded me of a guy that you’d walk away from at a bus stop or a friend that never grew up. I liked what he stood for, but marijuana advocates sort of annoy me. They’re always kind of aggressive, defensive, and spacey. It seems they never reach their goals because the very thing they are advocating has left them kind of scatterbrained. I didn’t write this article to support the marijuana movement, because I’m indifferent to the whole topic. I wrote it because Marc Emery is not your typical pothead: he is a fighter! He is a man cut from the same dirty cloth as the freethinking rebels that inspire me! The people with deep fires burning inside that challenge the norms and make a difference. Marc Emery embodies the concept of punk rock more than most punk rockers and is more passionate about changing the world than any politician. Personally, I wish he wasn’t consumed in a cloud of pot smoke and took his battles to “higher” places. But hey, to each his own. Unfortunately, he might soon be fighting from a jail cell. It seems that every time he was featured in an American news story, The Amsterdam Café would get raided. The siege was always guided by the DEA. It seems that our government is involved with affecting the politics of another country. Sound familiar? In 2005, Marc and his two work associates were arrested in Vancouver by the Canadian government at the request of the DEA for “Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana,” “Conspiracy to Distribute Marijuana Seeds,” and “Conspiracy to Engage in Money Laundering.” The DEA wants to extradite Marc and his associates to the U.S. to be tried by the U.S. government. They face a minimum of 10-years-to-life. Marc has requested a plea bargain for 5 years and to let his two associates go free. The facts of this case are in a vast gray area. Selling seeds is illegal but never enforced. There are seed dealers all over the world including the good ol’ U.S. who never get arrested, just independently wealthy. Marc, on the other hand, used most of his money ($15 million in 11 years) to
fund politicians and political causes extending across the border into the “Land of the Free.” It seems he has become more of a political threat than a drug threat. Aside from that, he has paid over 500 thousand dollars in taxes to Canada, which, by the way, doesn’t care what he is doing at all. The U.S. government is totally out of control. It commits genocide in foreign countries, it bullies other nations using “freedom” and “democracy” as its war cry, it plants our “culture” around the world like a poisonous weed. They even go as far as disrupting the calm and harmless cannabis culture. A war on stoners?!?! C’mon! Aren’t there bigger fish to fry!? In a day and age where the controlling powers have taken the sword, the pen, and the intellectual mace out of our hands, it is a relief to know that somebody is out there stirring it up. In a day and age when our country has become a corporate version of Nazi Germany, it feels good to know that some people will continue to stand up and fight. In a day and age when marijuana is still frowned upon but bars are packed with disease ridden fiends swallowing poisons and aggressively violating moral codes, it’s comforting to know that Marc Emery is out there, bloodshot-eyed, verbally lashing this government for–once again–being involved in something in which America has no business being involved. Much like The Dude in The Big Lebowski says: “Sometimes there’s a man for his time and place.” And that man is Marc Emery and the time is now. Wake up people, follow his lead and create change! The Dude abides...
22
BLUE CHEER
INTERVIEW WITH DICKIE PETERSON BY EDWARD B. GIEDA III PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN KOZLOWSKI Yeah, I think for a live performance, definitely. I mean, if you wanna go and see a techno DJ or something, that’s all over the place. But I think it’s getting harder and harder to get to go and see a good quality rock and roll band, especially one that’s traveling. I don’t know if that’s bad or not, I mean maybe that puts everything back into the local band, which I don’t think is such a bad idea. A lot of local bands open for us on tour, and there are a lot of really great bands out there.
E
ddie from An Albatross sits down with ‘70s heavy metal/stoner rock pioneer, Dickie Peterson of Blue Cheer. The two met while their bands were touring North America together in 2007 and were reunited over a telephone line from Germany for the following interview. What do you feel are the differences between the touring scene of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and today? Do you think that technologies have made things tighter-knit and better, or do you think it’s gone downhill? Well, y’know, with the equipment that a traveling band has available to them – a big difference is that you can condense a lot of stuff. You can have a lot more amplification in a lot smaller space these days. The one big drawback is that it costs so damn much money for a band to get from one place to another. A lot of fans, you know, save up their money just to go and see three or four bands a year. A lot of these top-name acts are selling like $500 tickets and things. But when it comes down to a traveling road band a lot of people aren’t around because they spent their money on a festival that costs $400500, with all their transportation, tickets and food. That’s happening quite a bit. Would you say that things have become less accessible for the typical show-goer?
Blue Cheer in my mind has always had this strange gravitational pull about it. Looking at the counterculture of the ‘60s, and particularly in the Bay Area – you guys have mingled with the Hell’s Angels, bumped elbows with the Merry Pranksters, why do you think your music has served as a unifying soundtrack for such crazies? I don’t know other than as a band we’ve always been really honest. We’re not pretentious about what we do. There’s no smoke or mirrors, nobody’s gonna be turning back flips on the stage. We stand up and we play straight-ahead at-you rock and roll. There’s a raw honesty in what we do. I think that’s a lot of the kinda people we attract. Can you elaborate on your relationship with renowned acid guru/chemist Owsley [Stanley] (who wrote the liner notes for Vincebus Eruptum)? Owsley was a close and personal friend of Gut Turk’s, who was one of our managers and an Angel. Of course, consequently we got all of our acid for free – basically. I didn’t hang out with Owsley, Owsley was at a lot of our gigs and came by our house and stuff sometimes, but Owsley was a very busy man! I remember being at gigs, and we’d all just line up and Owsley would be just walkin’ down the line poppin’ tabs of acid in everybody’s mouth…then they’d send us on stage! But I never really hung out with him. He was more or less comin’ in and out of our scene and like – he was in everybody’s scene, man…
28
It’s kinda crazy when you look at the cross references a lot of these characters have within these scenes. You can read about Gut Turk in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and Hunter Thompson’s Hell’s Angels. How did a former Angel make the transition into the music world? What are your recollections of Gut? How long was he on board? Gut was on board for two or three years. You gotta remember – I was pretty young at the time, under 20. Gut for me was a mentor. He taught me many things about myself and about other people and these are things that I use to this day. I think about him often. We ran into Gut through our other manager Joey Russell. Different people in the scenes put us together. It wasn’t like one day he said, “I want to be your manager” or we said, “We want you to be our manager.” It just metamorphosized itself. He left around the third album, maybe? I mean, he was there for the first two and it was shortly after that he left the band. He didn’t like the way things were going, and he split. I was really disappointed when he left the band. I was in a state of shock for a couple months. I didn’t like it. It was on the second side of that third record New! Improved! that your lineup became you, Paul, and some of the guys from Mint Tattoo. I remember a story you were telling me about Mint Tattoo and how they joined the group… something about an assault rifle at practice? Oh yeah! Both bands had houses in the Haight. They had a house on upper Clayton Street, and they had a guy named Crazy Nick who was living in the basement. One day we were sitting around the house, y’know? Machine gun fire erupted from the basement – bullets started flying up from the floor. It was Crazy Nick – I don’t know, man. He got paranoid or something. It only lasted a few minutes, but it was pretty scary, man. Didn’t the Angels sort of live at your place, or nearby? Our flat on Masonic had three floors. The bottom flat had a bunch of Angels livin’ in it, the second story was our road crew, and the third story was the band’s flat. We had all the bottom doors bolted shut, so the only way to get to the top flat was to go through the Angel’s flat. Any visitor we had was someone who was “okay to see.” I remember you talkin’ about this one story, I don’t remember where we were talkin’ about it, but it had to do something with a girl and a mason jar full of LSD? (pauses)… Oh! About the girl who took all the acid? Yeah! No names or anything, but just the story, man. Sure, we were at this house in San Francisco. The basement
was an LSD lab. The chemist who was downstairs who I knew came upstairs and set a water glass on the table that we [the whole band] were sitting around. He set it down and said “Here’s like I-don’t-know-how-many-hundreds-ofthousands of hits of acid”. It was a tremendous amount. He set it down and went to go do something, and we didn’t think about it anymore… Then this guy’s lady came walking in and she went for a drink of water and grabbed the glass and drank about half of it. We’re all watching her saying “Oh shit!” We got the guy and told him what happened – when we left she was going through some shit. You know how when they hypnotize people and they take them back into their life? You know – this is what she was doing. She was getting younger and younger and younger and when we left she was an infant. So the next thing I know, they move to Hawaii and uh… as far as I know, she’s still on an island in Hawaii. As I understand it, they stayed together and they’re away… It was a pretty hairy scene. From the self-titled album onward there is very little evidence of the Outsideinside Blue Cheer – no video footage or photographs. Is there stuff around that captures tour footage from any of those lineups? Not that I know of. The reason those other bands… other lineups – I almost call them other bands because I mean I have a philosophy: rock and roll is 10 percent technique and 90 percent attitude. Those later albums got into technique more than they did attitude, and I think the balance was off, which is why I was having problems at the time with the band and why I don’t have any problems with the band now – because the attitude is right on the money. It’s a rock and roll attitude, and that was missing. With the new album [What Doesn’t Kill You…] out, do you guys have anything planned for future recordings? They’re talking about it, but no dates and no plans. Over here in Germany we did a tour in May. We did a show at the Rock Palace in Bohn where we did a seven camera DVD which our record company bought. I flew into L.A. and did an interview and some commentary. They’re collecting a bunch of videos of tours over the last three or four years, and we’re going to do the first Blue Cheer concert DVD. The introduction will be the one Bobby Black of High Times gave us when we did the Doobie Awards at SXSW. The original introduction is all in German. They did a good job. Now it’s down to editing and mixing. I’m sure it’ll be coming out shortly after the New Year, and then after that we’ll be out pushin’ it…if there’s any place left to tour over there, if Hurricane Ike didn’t tear everything to pieces. We’ll see, they’re still estimating the toll, man. I was watchin’ the TV – I have friends in Texas and Oklahoma. I see people that wrote messages to Ike on the wall on the beaches. They were showing one that said “Ike: don’t beat us like you beat Tina!” I said “Jesus Christ, man!” Man, I loved Ike and Tina Turner.
29