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Interactuando con las Diosas | ||
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THE CHICKS | ||||
The humble servant meets the mistress | ||||
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London: March 30, 2005 | ||||||
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ON THE "MIDLIFE CRISIS" VIDEO THERE IS SOME SAD FOOTAGE OF YOU PLAYING FOR REALLY SMALL AUDIENCES IN EUROPE. IT´S HARD TO BELIEVE YOU EVER WANTED TO COME BACK HERE. AS A FAN THAT WAS HARD TO SEE... (laughs) WHEN I SAW THAT I THOUGHT "THEY ARE NEVER COMING BACK!" I was telling Gabriel (the new drummer) today. I took him on a tour of the area we used to stay to. I call it “The Concrete Blonde Poverty Tour”, because when we had no money we used to stay in a flat, we used to sneak out in the night so nobody would see us because we had no money to pay. It was really funny. So those were the old days: we´d get in the van and just drive everywhere, nor to Norway, back down, we´d be in the van twelve hours a day. It was tough, but that´s called “paying your dues”. That´s what you have to do. WHEN WAS YOUR LAST TIME IN EUROPE? I haven´t been in Europe to play music in a long time. I can´t remember when was the last time. Yes, it was when I was with The Heads for a while. SO THAT WAS SEVEN, EIGHT YEARS AGO... Yeah, I know. Time flies! (laughs) HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE MUSIC YOU PLAY? I always say this as a joke, specially to Emigration people when we go to different countries and they ask “what kind of music do you play?” it depends on how much they hassle you, I usually say “well, there´s only two kinds of music. Good and bad”. But in general I usually just say “We are a three-piece Rock band like the Police” I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE REALLY EARLY DAYS. Ok, I´ll try to remember then R.E.M.´S MICHAEL STIPE SUGGESTED THE CHANGE OF NAME FORM "DREAM 6" TO "CONCRETE BLONDE". BUT WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "CONCRETE BLONDE"? It doesn´t mean anything. And I never asked him. Never in my life IS THERE ANY RELATION TO THAT BOOK CALLED "CONCRETE BLONDE"? No, I think that was written after us, so I don´t know if they got the title from our name, I have no idea. But I remember there was a big deal with Bill Clinton. There was a picture on a paper of Bill Clinton carrying this book, and it was great (laughs) FREE ADVERTISING! Yeah (laughs) AROUND THE LABEL ON THE "DREAM 6" LP THERE ARE TWO MYSTERIOUS SENTENCES ETCHED ON THE VINYL: “Attempt the absurd. Stanley does often” AND “Achieve the impossible. Thank you Howard”. WHAT´S THEIR MEANING? I can´t believe it! I didn´t know! I have no idea who Howard is... Let me think... “Attempt the absurd. Stanley does often” and “Achieve the impossible. Thank you Howard”... (long pause) Ooooh! (big laughter). I worked in a recording studio called “Goldstar recording studios”, and it´s not there anymore. As a matter of fact they´re making a movie about it now. That´s where Phil Spector did all his hits, The Ronettes, Nancy Sinatra, it´s a legendary recording studio, everybody did their hits there, and I used to work there. Stan was one of the owners of the studio and Dave, his partner, did the mastering so he must have just put that to say hi to Stan DIDN´T YOU KNOW ABOUT THE QUOTES? No, I didn´t know that! Well it was supposed to say just “Attempt the absurd, achieve the impossible”. It wasn´t supposed to have the “Stanley does often” or the “Thank you Howard”. I didn´t know about that. That´s very funny. ALSO ON THE CREDITS OF THE "DREAM 6” ALBUM YOU THANK "KIM". IS SHE THE SAME KIM OF "SONG FOR KIM" WHO IS SHE? Yes, it´s the same person. She was a very close friend. It was the very first loss of somebody who was really close to me. She committed suicide, and that was tough, really tough, I hard a very hard time with that because I had never had anybody that close go like that, and it was very nasty. She was a very good poet and a really good friend. Huge influence on me. She was a punk back in 1979 or something like that. She was a waitress in Hollywood when I worked at the studio and she turned me on to a whole lot of stuff. As a matter of fact when she died I got a lot of her stuff. I got some of her records, like Generation X vinyls, P.I.L, all kinds of all stuff she turned me on to. Because I wasn´t really into Punk. The one think that Punk did was enable women to play. I wasn´t so much influenced by the music as I was by the attitude, and that´s the only reason I started playing bass. Nobody wanted to be in the band so I said “Fuck it. Girls are playing now”, so I just picked up the bass and play FOR THE RE-RELEASE OF THE "DREAM 6" CD AN UNRELEASED SONG CALLED "IT´S MY LIFE" HAS BEEN INCLUDED. TELL ME ABOUT IT. We financed the record ourselves, and we wouldn´t do covers, because you had to pay for publishing rights. Because Jim has tons of stuff you wouldn´t believe, and me too, I have a box full of cassettes with rehearsals. We could put out a record every six months for the next twenty years. We got so much stuff IS THERE SOME MORE DREAM 6 MUSIC TO BE RELEASED? No, there´s no more Dream 6. Another thing is that we kept it all ourselves. We didn´t give our record company any extra stuff, we wanted to keep it ourselves. So when we decided to re-release the Dream 6 cd we had one song, one outtake from that session, and it´s funny because Eric Burdon lives in Joshua Tree, where I live, so I see him sometimes, and I don´t konw if he even knows about it. But he didn´t write it. And it´s a really hard song to play on the bass, and I can´t believe I ever could play it!. I was trying to play it the other day and I went “What the hell! How did I ever know this?”. A hard song to play, and a hard song to sing to. YOUR FIRST HOME VIDEO WAS CALLED "December 16, 1986 - September 17, 1990": I GUESS THOSE DATES ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU, BUT WHAT´S THEIR SIGNIFFICANCE? The dates on the video mean nothing: it's just the period of time I spent filming things... YEARS AGO I SAW DRAWINGS THAT YOU HAD DONE USING BLOOD. THAT WAS WEIRD! Yes. I did them. They shouldn´t be for sale , either. Actually I just now have a new series of them. There is an art show called “The Rock show” and I show art there every year, because I am also an artist. And specially as I get older I want to do more art. But I didn´t do it on purpose. I do prints, you konw, carving, and I cut myself one day really badly and I was just bleeding everywhere (laughs). And I said “Fuck, awesome!” so I took the block and I just started printing. So there are some limited editions bloodprints around, yeah (laughs). I didn´t do it on purpose, really (laughs) AS A COLLECTOR MYSELF I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE IS LIVE MATERIAL OF YOU WITH THE ILLEGALS, VOWEL MOVEMENT, THE HEADS OR PRETTY & TWISTED. DID YOU GET TO PLAY LIVE SHOWS WITH THEM? Yes. Not with Vowel Movement, though. But Pretty & Twisted, I imagine there´s quite a bit of live stuff. In fact there was one guy that I threw off out of the gig because he´d go the every gig and at the time that we were touring, my drummer Danny Montgomery had cancer, and every city that we came in, we´d drive at night, and Danny would have to go to have his chemotherapy the first thing in the morning, and it was rough. And there was this guy who was there at every show with a recorder! “Fuck you, get out of here!” But there must have been a lot of recordings. And I have quite a bit of stuff, so that´s what I´m working on right now. I just moved out, really far away in the desert, so I can sit, and listen, and go though everything. I have boxes and boxes of stuff. I have no furniture, but I have a lot of guitars and tapes (laughs) DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS TO PUT THIS MATERIAL IN A BOX SET, OR TO RELEASE IT SOMEHOW? Yes I do. I don´t know how. I´m in touch with Marc (Moreland)´s mother a lot, all the time, and I actually want to work with Bruce Moreland, Marc´s brother, and try to put some Pretty & twisted stuff together, because that´s one of my favorite music. And I actually just got some new business manager and he really wants to put it out WELL, THE PRETTY & TWISTED ALBUM IS JUST FANTASTIC, AMONG YOUR FINEST WORK Thank you. I also worked a lot with Danny Lohner who used to be in NIN, and I was in the “Underworld” sountrack last year, and right before I came here I worked with Wes Borland, from Limp Bizkit, I just sang for his solo record, which is great, amazing, it´s not like Limp Bizkit at all, it´s very dark and very moody. It´s more like Leonard Cohen IT´S HARD TO KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING! THERE IS ALSO AN UNRELEASED TRACK ON AN ALBUM CALLED “FAST TRACK TO NOWHERE. MUSIC FROM THE REBEL HIGHWAY SERIES", AND I STILL HAVEN´T FOUND THE SONG "THE GOD IN YOU", WHICH IS A B-SIDE FROM THE "ROXY" SINGLE.... Yes, that´s an Australian single AND SOME STUFF YOU DID WITH BAD RELIGION; AND I FOUND BY A COMPLETE COINCIDENCE THE UNRELEASED TRACK "SHE´S SO FREE", WHICH I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT, BACKING UP A TOMMY LEE & PAMELA ANDERSON CD-SINGLE... Yes! And there´s a version of “She´s so free” in Spanish. And I´d love to have Danny Lohner remixing the Pretty & Twisted record. “GROUP THERAPY” AND "MOJAVE" ARE SAD AND WAY DARKER THAN THE OLD ALBUMS... You think so? Well, this is interesting because when we recorded “Group therapy” we were in the studio for ten days. From August 1st to the 10th. Then September 11 happened. So if you listen to that record knowing that, you´ll see that some of the lyrics are very strange, like “violent”. I think we might play it tonight, actually. OR "ANGEL”... “Angel”! it´s crazy! “I saw the world go dark & dead & then go green & blue again” Oh my fuck! And then 9/11 happened and I just couldn´t believe it! I looked at some of those words and went “Wow!”. And I was cracking up, that´s why it´s called “Group therapy”, because I was going crazy. My theory is, you know how animals go crazy before an earthquake? That´s the way I got before September 11 TELL ME THE STORY BEHIND "JIM NEEDS AN ANIMAL". THERE MUST BE A CRAZY ONE THERE! Jim has a big house. He´s got a bigger house than me, that´s for sure. And he´s got a dog house, but he doesn´t have an animal. He went through a divorce a couple of years ago and that was very hard on him, and he had a cat for sixteen years that died, even though he tried to keep it alive for a long time, and doesn´t want to go through that again. But he watches my dogs, I have three dogs THAT SONG HAS A STRONG ROXY MUSIC FEEL THERE... I know (laughs), I totally ripped off Bryan Ferry! I KNEW ABOUT YOUR LITTLE DOG "CHIHUAHUA". She had cancer surgery last year. She´s twenty years old. She might be even older. I got her when we were doing “Mexican moon” SHE WAS ON THE LABEL ON THE "SCRATCHBOOK" CD, AN MENTIONED ON THE CREDITS... And she´s the one in the cover of “Vowel movement” (laughs) I GUESS "BLOODLETTING" WAS YOUR BEST SELLING ALBUM, BECAUSE OF "JOEY" AND "CAROLINE", BUT WHICH ONE DO YOU LIKE THE MOST... AND DON´T SAY "MY LAST ONE" (laughs). Well, if I can´t say “Mojave” I don´t know what to say (long pause). I´d probably say “Bloodletting”, because the odds of that happening at all were so slim. We played “The Borderline” here in London and we were supposed to go to the studio the following day, and our drummer was so strung out he didn´t know where he was. I had to fire him that night, and we didn´t know what we were going to do. We were recording our third album the next day and it was fucked. He said “You can´t fire me now, we start the record tomorrow”, “yes I can, go home.” And I bought him a ticket home. Paul Thompson, from Roxy Music, happened to be at that show, and he just loved the band and wind up with us. Talk about a dream come true! YOU´RE TELLING ME!!! (laughs) YOU HAVE MORE TATTOOS THAT THE REST OF THE BAND ALL TOGETHER. TELL ME ABOUT THEM. Yes. This is the last one (she shows me an angel on the lower part of her back). That came from my grandmother. She is from Russia, and when she came to America during World War II they gave her a prayer book, and this was in it, and I wanted it on my back HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY HATE MAIL OR BAD FEEDBACK FROM YOUR REPUBLICAN FANS BECAUSE OF THE ANTI-BUSH SPEECH ON THE "LIVE IN BRAZIL" CD? You have no idea! You better fucking believe it! It was amazing!. I don´t have so many now, but when it first started...because now people are realizing that it´s bullshit but in the beginning I remember playing Atlanta...oh I still burn when I think about it! I had people waiting for me at the shows, saying I didn´t know what I´m talking about, which I do, thank you very much...And there was two marines, women, nineteen, who came to the show. One of them had a four-month old daughter, and she was leaving to go fight this fucking war. My tour manager said to me: “There´s two girls who really wanna talk to you”, and I said “Bring them in”. And they came down and said to me “We have lost a lot of respect for you and we don´t know if we want to buy your records anymore” I said “Fine, go buy somebody else´s. But I can´t believe you´re leaving your daughter. This war is wrong, and you are wrong for going, and for leaving your own child for a government who doesn´t give a shit if you care as a mother or not”. They just shook their heads. I started talking to them about Albert Einstein. He was a pacifist who gave the two percent solution. If two percent of the army wouldn´t exist, then nobody would enlisted, basically. And she said “just because an author says something doesn´t mean he´s right”. She called Einstein “an author” she had no idea. So I just went: “You guys gotta go but, you know what? I don´t want you to by my records again, but you´re gonna know one day that I was right” WELL, IT WAS QUITE A STRONG STATEMENT TO LEAVE ON A LIVE ALBUM... I don´t care. Fuck it. And the guys in the band agree with me. It´s a little more difficult on Gabriel sometimes, because he just wants go play and have a good time, but Jim agrees with me. Look, the media is so impenetrable, it´s so controlled... Gabriel was watching the news on British television, because you can´t get news in America, we do not have news. Period. Everything is controlled, everything is edited. They want Americans to be stupid. I figured if I had just one minute of media, it´s my duty as a human being, and certainly as an American, to speak for those who don´t have access to the media. My country is in sad shape. It´s split evenly in two AT THIS POINT YOU ARE FAMOUS WORLDWIDE, BUT IN AN UNDERGROUND KIND OF WAY, SO HOW DOES THE ILLEGAL DOWNLOADING OF YOUR ALBUMS AFFECT YOU? It has helped us a lot. YOU ARE REACHING MORE PEOPLE Absolutely. That´s why we are still around “THE SHIP SONG" (NICK CAVE), "EVERYBODY KNOWS" (LEONARD COHEN), "IT´S A MAN´S WORLD" (JAMES BROWN), "SHOUT" (TEARS FOR FEARS), "MERCEDES BENZ" (JANIS JOPLIN), "LITTLE WING" (HENDRIX), "MOTHER OF PEARL" (ROXY MUSIC)... YOUR COVER VERSIONS ARE JUST TERRIFIC. “THE SHIP SONG" AND "EVERYBODY KNOWS" ARE WAY BETTER THAN THE ORIGINALS! (laughs) Thank you! HAVE YOU THOUGHT OF RECORDING AN ALL-COVER-VERSION ALBUM? Yes, and I want to. I also wanna do an album entirely in Spanish. I just co-wrote something for “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” by Andrés Segovia... I KNOW THAT ONE! Good! You better! (laughs) It´s beautiful, and I didn´t know there was never any singing on it, but I have my computer, and my Pro-tools and stuff and I sang this part over it. I BOUGHT THE "LIVE IN BRAZIL" CD JUST TO KNOW THAT THE BRAZILIAN VERSION OF THE ALBUM HAD A QUITE BIZARRE COVER VERSION OF "GIRL FROM IPANEMA" AS A BONUS TRACK! (laughs) How funny is that!! NOT VERY FUNNY. I HAD TO BUT THE ALBUM AGAIN! (laughs) Well I wanted the Brazilians to have something special, because I love brazil, and I love the people, so people would have to buy the album as an import to get that special song. It was very deliberate. We played Rio, it was our last show, it was an arena. So there was a shower downstairs, and we were all partying there, with the record company, and we were all in the shower. And “Girl from Ipanema” was the first song Jim learnt how to play on guitar. So everybody was “play it!, play it!”. And he got a guitar, and we were so drunk, and it was so funny, it was the way the idea came out. I wish I had the shower recording (laughs) ON THE OTHER WAY AROUND, WITH SO MANY TRIBUTE ALBUMS, HAS ANYBODY THOUGHT OF A CONCRETE BLONDE TRIBUTE ALBUM? EVEN G.G.ALLIN HAS ONE! (laughs) Yes. I think somebody is doing it, I´m not sure though. I got an email from some band. I know some bands are starting to do Concrete Blonde songs, so maybe there will be...But I hope they do it right. We are on the Steve Wynn Tribute album. You know Steve Wynn, from The Dream Syndicate. We did “When you smile” on that one. ON THE "STILL IN HOLLYWOOD" CD THERE IS AN UNPLUGGED VERSION OF "JOEY" THAT YOU RECORDED FOR MTV. DID YOU RECORD AN ENTIRE SHOW, OR JUST ONE SONG? Well, they very much tell you what they want you to do. It´s not like you go to Mtv and you do whatever you want. They said “We want Joey”. It was a hit, so it was very formula. We didn´t play an entire show. I bet you wanted that show , and you can´t find it. That´s why you can´t find it, because there isn´t one (big laughs) YES, I HAVE GONE APE TRYING TO GET THE CONCRETE BLONDE MTV UNPLUGGED SHOW! LET´S KEEP TALKING ABOUT COLLECTING: I PAID 100$ FOR AN ORIGINAL COPY OF THE "MIDLIFE CRISIS" VIDEO YEARS AGO. Damn, that video is good! DO YOU GO TO EBAY TO CHECK HOW YOUR PAST MATERIAL IS DOING IN TERMS OF VALUE? I don´t know how to work Ebay. I don´t like it. I´m not online where I live. Not on line. I have to go to the library to log on. If I am in front of a computer I want it to be for work, or creating, I don´t want to go surfing around, and buying things. PRO-TOOLS... Yes, that´s right. And the Vegas video. I´m working on a Dvd right now YOU MEAN TO PUT IT FOR SALE? Yes CONCRETE BLONDE BOOTLEG LIVE ALBUMS ARE ALSO QUITE RARE, AND VERY EXPENSIVE. WHAT´S YOUR POSITION ON THE SUBJECT OF PEOPLE RECORDING YOUR SHOWS AND CHARGING FANS FOR THEM? Well, it´s a good thing they´re hard to get because we have discouraged that all our lifes, so people call us assholes, but I don´t care. I don´t think it´s fair, I don´t think is right. You never know what´s gonna happen in a show, you don´t pay the musicians for it, which is wrong. Our concept is we give away as much as we charge for, an equal amount, so we´ll give away a lot of music, but it´s also work, and if you don´t pay musicians they can´t work. Besides I just want to release my best work, and I don´t know,unless it´s an album, if that´s my best work HOLLYWOOD IS VERY MUCH LINKED TO CONCRETE BLONDE. HAVE YOU BEEN OFFERED TO APPEAR ON ANY MOVIE? Yes. I´ve never done it, though. I have never found anything I liked enough. They offered very cliché, very stereotyped things. Back when we were bigger they would send some tragic parts ARE YOU INTERESTED IN ACTING? I did theatre. I scored fourth in a Shakespeare festival, but I´m actually more interested in writing,directing, shooting, and the making of the stuff. Rather that being in front of the camera LET´S TALK ABOUT "SKETCKBOOK". FIRST OF ALL, MY COPY CAME TO ME ON THE MAIL SIGNED BY YOU. DID YOU PERSONALLY SIGNED EVERY SINGLE OF THE 1.000 COPIES? Yes, I signed every copy. That´s 300$ on Ebay THERE ARE ONLY 1.000 COPIES, RIGHT? Maybe 1.200, but I have 5 copies left. And there´s not going to be anymore. Because my theory was: It´s going to end up on the internet anyway, and when people buy something there´s only so many and when they´re gone, that´s it. You won´t get another one. I´m not going to make them again. So that´s a very special thing to have. And then if it shows up on the internet, great. I made my money ...AND I GUESS THE GIRL ON THE COVER IS YOU... Yes, when I was five WILL YOU BE RECORDING MORE STUFF FOR A "SKETCHBOOK PART II"? Yes LIMITED EDITIONS AGAIN? Yes, limited editions, I believe in that. Well, first of all, I can pay for that with my own money, and it might cost me around 1.200 Dollars to do 1.000 records, to make 9.000 Dollars. That´s not rich, but it keeps me going pretty good. I don´t have a high overhead. I am very easy person YOU CLAIM THAT THERE IS AN ELEMENT OF TRUTH BEHIND THE STORY OF "GHOST OF A TEXAS LADIES´ MAN", AND IN A PREVIOUS INTERVIEW YOU SAID YOU HAD VISIONS OF BOMBS AND DESTRUCTION BEFORE 9/11. WHAT´S YOUR RELATION WITH THE SUPERNATURAL WORLD? I am a professional psychic. I actually just got higher. I used to work professionally on the phone, and I did it for years. As a matter of fact, when I go back, I start my new job from 6 in the morning to 12 noon, and I work on the line, on the psychic line. I do palms, but on the phone I hear things, there are people that talk to me, and tell me things, I get initials... WELL, TO BE HONEST, I HAVE ALWAYS FOUND SOME MYSTERIOUS ASPECTS IN THE MUSIC YOU WRITE, THERE IS SOMETHING WITCHY, SOMETHING DARK THERE... (laughs) Listen, songs come to me as a whole. They just come and I listen. When people think I´m difficult, that I fight in the studio, it´s because the song is being given to me exactly the way it should be played, and that´s my duty. If someone is giving me a song, my duty is to deliver it the way it´s been given to me. Music is very pure and I don´t like it mess around with. I get really bitchy about that. TELL ME THE SORY BEHIND THE "THE REAL THING" SINGLE Thank you, thank you!. Look, I´m not a political writter, but I have a lot of experience in the military, and I get mail and emails from soldiers. I did during the Gulf War, and I have during this war. I recently received an email from a soldier. He said “I don´t think we agree politically, but I have three of your albums in my iPod, and it helps me, it keeps me motivated” and I went “Fuck! motivated to do what?” The great thing about the internet and being in an underground band basically, is that I can say whatever I want: I can say “fuck”, “shit”, whatever.So I wanted to make an statement, but I didn´t want to do politics. So I went through Michael Moores website, that has all these letters from the soldiers,so I went throught that, and picked some of that, and picked some of the letters that I received. So no matter what you think of the war , this is actually what a soldier thinks, and he´s there. So you can´t disrespect his or her emotions. The lyrics are a combination of actual letters from soldiers. WHEN YOU RECORD ALBUMS, DO YOU KNOW WHICH SONGS ARE GOING TO BE PLAYED LIVE, OR ANY SONG CAN BE INCLUDED IN A SHOW? In the early days I felt that we had to do everything live, because we didn´t have that many songs. And we used to try to keep everything simple as a three-piece, so we didn´t have to hire other musicians. And now, pretty much every song we record can be put live. But sometimes it´s hard to have the keyboards going around. WHERE DOES THE RUMOR OF YOU BEING THE NEXT INXS SINGER COME FROM? I don´t know! There no evidence, nobody ever talked to me about it, I would never even think of doing that, because I respect Michael Hutchence so much, nobody ever asked me anything about it, they just printed it. What I think is that some manager just released all that to see if somebody was interested WHAT´S BEEN THE BEST MOMENTS IN CONCRETE BLONDE´S CAREER? AND THE WORST? (laughs) We´ve had some bad times. We´ve been to court a lot, with bankrupt, problems with Harry, with his drugs, that´s all been hell. The worst has been Harry´s drug shit. I hated that, because he would always get arrested, we wouldn´t know if he was going to show up for a gig... but there was one defining moment, which is when we received our first gold record, and we were in the Sidney harbour, because our first gold record was in Australia, and we were out in a boat, and the minute I got it I thought “Well, ok, until the next thing”. You know what I mean?. It´s something you think is never going to happen, and when it happened I felt strange, a “where do you go from here?” kind of a thing. “Yes, so now I´m successful, but what do I want to really do with this?”. I was completely confused confused (laughs) YOU HAVE JUST RECORDED A SINGLE CALLED "CHEAP TEQUILA" WITH BUZZ GAMBLE. WHO IS HE? Buzz was a very good friend of mine. He was a local desert caracter, an ex-con, he´s been in prison a lot of his life. He was an old cowboy, an old outlaw, not that old actually but he looked a lot older. He just had a very tough life. And he was a good friend of mine, and a hell of a fucking blues singer. He used to sing in a club in Pioneer Town, which is in the desert near me. Pioneer Town was built as al old movie set, in nineteen forty-something. And people live there, but it´s crazy, it looks like the wild wild West. They shot a lot of old movies there, a lot of Gary Cooper movies and old Westerns. So me and Buzz, we hang out, and took him in the studio and recorded with him, and he got the cd in his hand about one month or threee weeks before he died. And I´m very grateful that I got to do that, because he never made a record in all of his life, and that was like a dream come true for him before he passed away YEARS AGO YOU WROTE MATERIAL WITH TERRI NUNN, FROM BERLIN (WHO I ABSOLUTELY ADORE). WHAT HAPPENED WITH THAT? I wrote a couple of songs. Terri is a great singer. I would rather write songs with Terri than record something with her. I didn´t even feel it made sense conceptually. When Berlin was very hot, we weren´t, because we were a guitar band. It was all about Berlin, Duran Duran, all that stuff. So I wrote a couple of songs with her, and I don´t remember if she recorded them or not, I think she didn´t. I just don´t think that us and Berlin are even on the same planet. I love her, I think she´s cool, and I love Berlin. I just don´t feel like it makes sense conceptually, it doesn´t fit together. I don´t know why, but it just doesn´t. I want to record with other two women, neighbours of mine who are amazing, but they won´t call back. One is Deborah Lyall, from Romeo Void. Chicks, you know. They only care about boyfriends, they don´t care about working enough. IS THERE ANY MATERIAL AVAILABLE OF THE DAYS OF JIM IN THE SPARKS? I have no idea. You´ll have to ask him. And you should (laughs) (He later told me they released three albums) WHAT WAS THE MESSAGE BEHIND THE "GROUP THERAPY" COVER? We were all fucking crazy at the time. I hadn´t seen Harry in eight years, I hadn´t seen Jim in a long time, since he was married. but I started flipping out so bad that summer, before 9/11, that I just had to make a record. I was losing it, I wasn´t sleeping for days, I was paranoid, I was having nightmares about women running with babies in their arms and lasers coming down and chasing them. And I had this sense of doom that is indescribable. I was convinced I was going to die and that something really bad was going to happen, and before it did I needed to do another record. I called Jim, 2.30 in the morning, and he came over and got me, and I said “We got to have Harry. Where is Harry?” And Harry had been in rehab, in a place in Venice, California. So we went to get Harry and we locked ourselves in a room for two months writing “Group therapy”. What we didn´t know, because we knew Harry had his fucking drug problems, he´s been in and out of jail for the last twenty years, but we didn´t know Jim was going through a bad divorce. His marriage was falling apart, I was going crazy and I coudln´t understand why, and the minute 9/11 happened I knew that´s what it was. We were all going through our personal little hell, so I had the idea of the pictures with the straitjacket. Originally I wanted us all in straitjackets on the cover, with a 3-D effect that when you moved the case our heads would move as well (laughs). But that was quite expensive! (laughs) WHAT ABOUT THE PICTURE OF THE ELECTRIC CHAIR? Ed Colver did it. This photographer is one of the legendary Los Angeles photographers. He´s got photos of the Chilli Peppers before they got tattoos! (laughs) THAT´S WHEN THEY WERE BABIES! yeah (laughs) DO YOU SEE YOUSELF AWAY FROM ROCK AND ROLL, FORMING A FAMILY? Well, like somebody said before John Lennon: “Life is what happens when you´re making other plans”. I thought for sure that I´d be retired by forty, because Rock and Roll, generally, until this generation, was a youth thing. So I figured “I´m going to get my own equipment and learn to record myself, so I can stay home in case I get a family”. But I can´t retire. I was going to do art. I just got an art representative in New York, and I´m thrilled, it´s like a dream come true, so I can do art, and I have my job on the psychic line so I have everything happening. But with this generation we can have Rock and Roll during our whole lifes, we are the first ones. But we are young now, none of us are getting any older , you know, Rock and Roll keeps us young (laughs) YOU WENT FROM RECORDING "TRUE" (ON THE FIRST CD), TO RECORD "TRUE III" (ON GROUP THERAPY”) WHATEVER HAPPENED TO "TRUE II"? That´s a good question. Well, there were two versions of that song on the first album, there was an instrumental version. I tell you what, Jim is nuts. He had a cassette with some songs ideas he had. And that´s the one he hated. Basically there were ideas for two songs: The music for “God is a bullet” and “True”. And he hated, he wanted to throw it away. And I refused, I said “No way, this is the best piece of music you´ve ever written”. And I loved it so much as an instrumental that I wanted to keep it like that. So that´s the first one. The second one is the one with the vocals on it, and the third one came years later, checking my head “Are you still there? Are you still true?” DO YOU PREPARE SETLISTS TO ACHIEVE SOME SPECIFIC ATMOSPHERE, OR PUT SLOW AND FAST SONGS WITH NO ORDER WHATSOEVER? Well, when we play a city I try to remember “ok, what did I play the last time I was here?” to change it up because there are some devoted people who come to all the shows, and you want to change it up for them, but I´m more interested in making sure that if somebody has a favorite record they at least get to hear a couple of songs off it. Also a lot of it depends on how we sound that night, because if some song doesn´t sound right I can´t do that song. Anyway, we are very strict about setlists. We have to be, otherwise my soundman will choke me to death (laughs) HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT THE GUITAR RIFF FOR "TONIGHT" IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE ONE WRITTEN BY HEART IN "WILD CHILD"? Oh really? Which one came out first? HEART´S! Oh, oh. You better tell Jim, he´s the guitar player I GOT IT ON MY iPOD, DO YOU WANT TO HEAR IT? Oh, no! I feel bad! I feel free that I never heard it WILL WE EVER SEE YOU IN SPAIN? I hope so. As a matter of fact Ihad a ticket to Spain, but are we playing? I don´t know, I hope so. I want to go to Jerez and Cádiz very badly. And Triana. I WENT TO JEREZ ONCE.. TO SEE IGGY POP AND GARBAGE IN A FESTIVAL Oh really? Was it full of gypsies? What is it like? WELL, I ENJOY BIG CITIES MUCH MUCH BETTER! You do? You don´t want to dance in a cave? NO WAY! | ||
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September 2007 | ||
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FIRST OF ALL, I´M WONDERING WHAT´S BEHIND YOUR NEW CD´S TITLE "SCARRED". THERE MAY BE SOMETHING INTERESTING THERE... my life. not to mention my body is like a battlefield. Literal as well a metaphor; that's just the way it is if one is lucky enough to live this long. I´D LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT CATFISH SCAR. WHO FORMED THIS BAND? ONLY YOU AND WILL CREWDSON? Will I met in a record store inLondon years ago: his partner is Sultan Ahmed, a very talented filmmaker in London. It's not a band so much as a production entity; a collaboration, a recording unit. ALSO, THE 3 CATFISH SCAR SONGS THAT COULD BE DOWNLOADED MONTHS AGO ("Save me", "Scarred", and "Like a wave") ENDED UP ON YOUR NEWEST CD, "SCARRED", SOUNDING TOTALLY THE SAME. DOES THAT MEAN THAT THE CATFISH PROJECT IS OVER, AND THAT THOSE ARE JUST "JOHNETTE SONGS" NOW. -for marketing purposes we decided that the best chance this project would have is if it were labelled a 'johnette' album. it's the music that matters, not what we call ourselves. I already have 3 more tracks from Will I'm working with for the next project, whenever that happens. It's simply too difficult to get a new band off the ground, I already have a recognized name, it was simply a marketing decision between the 3 of us, and to have the music heard is more important than what the label is. I "MET" A CANADIAN GUY OVER THE INTERNET WHO SENT ME A COPY OF THE "SOUND OF A WOMAN" CD AND OTHER RARE STUFF. I DIDN´T KNOW A WORD ABOUT THIS "SECRET" ALBUM!!! WHEN WAS THAT RECORDED? I UNDERSTAND THAT WAS NEVER RELEASED, RIGHT? SO WHAT HAPPENED? BECAUSE IT DOES SOUND LIKE A TOTALLY FINISHED ALBUM, NOT STOLEN DEMOS OR BOOTLEG RECORDINGS. - it was finished and ready to be released on Island when Chris Blackwell left, and Hooman Majd, who signed me, was let go. (Chris Blackwell is a legend who founded Island Records and Hooman Majd was A&R at Island.)I did not see a happy future for Island when they left, and opted to 'take the money and run'. It's a good record; and the fact that people somehow hear it today justifies my decision: people will always hear the music, but given the chance, take the money and run. I ADOOOOOOOOOOORE THE PRETTY & TWISTED B-SIDE "CADILLACS AND WHISKEY" AND AN INSTRUMENTAL SONG CALLED "JUAN QUESADA". BOTH OF THEM, NO DOUBT, AMONG MY ALL-TIME FAVORITES!! -I love 'Quezada' please send it to me as I don't have a copy of it anymore. THIS CANADIAN GUY WHO TOLD ME ABOUT A CANADIAN BAND CALLED "NATIONAL VELVET" WHO SOUND SOOOOOO MUCH LIKE CONCRETE BLONDE!! DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THEM? No..but I'm flattered by that! YOU TOLD ME SOME YEARS AGO THAT JIM MANKEY HAD SOME SERIOUS HEARING PROBLEMS THAT WOULDN´T ALLOW HIM TO PLAY LIVE. I GUESS THAT WAS "THE FINAL NAIL IN CONCRETE BLONDE´S COFFIN", RIGHT? BY THE WAY, HOW IS HE DOING?. Jim is great, he does have hearing issues but we just recorded together 2 days ago, although the days of hauling around Marshall amps and boring drum soundchecks and crappy p.a. systems I do not believe either of us care to see ever again. A COUPLE OF NAMES COME TO MY MIND, OF BANDS KEEPING THEIR NAME EVEN THOUGH ONLY ONE OR TWO ORIGINAL MEMBER REMAIN. DID YOU THINK ABOUT KEEPING THE "TRADEMARK" CONCRETE BLONDE NAME TO YOURSELF? CB is Jim and I. Period. I will never use that name out of that context, people are very silly and romantic about such things..I am as well, which is why I won't hire a band of 20 year olds to play with me, and I was a human being and artist adn writer way before CB, and am very happy to be myself again. WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE NEAR FUTURE? -to not get a parking ticket here in Hollywiood where I am at the time. I'm going on tour and David J from Bauhaus & Love & Rockets is coming with me, thank God, he is amazing and talented and I'm such a fan, we did a radio thing last night here in Hollywood and I was just rapt. AN AS A FAN MYSELF, I HOPE YOU TELL ME YOU ARE WORKING ON A NEW DVD. -I am DOESN´T MATTER IF ITS CONCRETE BLONDE, PRETTY & TWISTED OR JOHNETTE SOLO! -you are sweet! | ||
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