A Quip and a Cigarette

Last presentation. I’m excited

I just realized that I never posted my podcast interview that Terrell sent me a thousand years ago. It’s been saved on my computer forever, and I just found it again. I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m really happy that I was paired with Terrell because this was a bonding experience for us (not to sound corny) because it was the first time we talked, and we’ve been friends ever since. Close enough, even, so that I can attack him on campus walk

So, here’s my interview:

1. What’s your earliest memory of music?
The earliest memory I have is of my dad blaring 80s metal in our driveway. I remember being like 4 and singing a lot to Enter Sandman by Metallica in the back of my dad’s Mustang. He was astonished! [laughter]

2. Did you have a favorite song when you were growing up? What, and why? Do you still like that song?
Well. Uh, there isn’t really a particular song that was consistently my favorite throughout my childhood. But, I really liked Motley Crue’s album Dr. Feelgood at one point, after that I was obsessed with Elvis and then I went through a Beach Boys phase… There isn’t really anything I can think of that was consistent though.

3. What role does music play in your parents’ life?
My dad is obsessed with music! He buys at least an album a week and it’s never the same genre twice in a row. The majority of our bonding when I was little was him going “Hey, Magan, come listen to this” and playing a song for me. I think that it’s his way of escaping and enjoying his life. A three minute vacation, you know? My mom doesn’t really have a particular passion for music, but she is very into Christmas carols during the winter.

4. What was the first song or album you bought with your own money?
The first album I bought was Chuck Berry’s Greatest Hits in 4th grade at the House of Blues in New Orleans. I couldn’t tell you why, but I just wanted it. It’s still one of my favorite cds.

5. What was your first concert? Tell us about the experience?
My first concert was Motley Crue, also in fourth grade. It was so smoking that I could barely see the stage and, near the end, there was a riot on stage. I got to see Nikki Sixx punch a fan in the face while simultaneously playing a song. It was intense.

6. Who are your favorite bands and solo artists today? Why do you like them?
My favorite band right now is Flogging Molly. They’re so raw and intense and sad and strong. Plus, they have a lot of catchy hooks. I just really like listening to them because it’s almost a visceral experience, I guess.

7. Do you play a musical instrument–or instruments? What, and for how long? Do you sing?
I CAN NOT sing! [laughter] Animals dying sounds a bit better than my vocals. I played piano for a while, but got bored with it. I’m not very musical.

8. Have you ever been in a band? Tell us about it.
HAH. No.

9. How does it feel to take a college course in rock, soul, and progressive music? What do you hope to learn as a result?
It, uh, I don’t know… I don’t know if it feels like anything. I enjoy it because it’s a class about something fun. I want to learn about the historical context of bands, and what makes a genre a genre. I think. Yeah.

Well, there you go. Sorry it was so late.

So, a friend of mine had to go see Saul Williams for her Contemporary Drama (I think) class at the 930 club. I hadn’t seen much of Saul Williams beforehand– I’ve seen him on Russel Simmon’s Def Poetry and I’ve heard Black Stacey and List of Demands (youtube for each below), but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I knew that he was a poet advocating the eradication of racism, but that’s so vague that it doesn’t really have a meaning.

Being the type of person that I am, I had to wiki Saul before I went to the show and found out a few interesting tidbits. He got a BA in Philosophy from Morehouse College and an MFA from NYU for Acting. Well, then. I suppose he’s making the most of learning how to entertain. He’s also been published in New York Times and Esquire. Hm. Intelligent. He was in K-Pax. Wait. What?

So basically, this educated, Kevin-Spacey-knowing, published rapper/poet/musician is really hard to pin down. Nonetheless, I thought I kind of knew what to expect at 930. I couldn’t be more wrong.

Saul came out decked out in feathers and a blue coat. His music was intense, had a thrash metal-esque and a beat that was going at breakneck speed. Halfway through the first song, he sat down disdainfully because the audience was not dancing. Near the end, he was dancing with them in the crowd. Somewhere in the middle his daughter (I guess? She was like 12) was leading the audience to sing along and, of course, move to the music with her.
He opened with “Coded Language” the poem I saw him recite on Def Poetry forever ago. He ended with “List of Demands” the only song I actually knew the words to. Needless to say, I was overjoyed on both ends. My favorite thing about the performance was when he would pause between songs to recite some of his poetry. His voice is beautiful and his words are deliberate and powerful.

He’s so eloquent. One of the things he said was, “This shouldn’t be a fight against racism. This should be a fight against race. Anything after ‘I am’ is self destructive.” He had a great balance between being playful and serious. His performance was perfectly balanced– we danced and had fun, but he brought to the front his standpoint. It was one of the top 10 best times I’ve ever had.

And I wasn’t even supposed to go. Taylor was supposed to, but he had rehearsal. Life’s funny that way.

I would just like to say that, without a shadow of a doubt, Hall and Oates are the creepiest two people I’ve ever had the displeasure of researching. They’re not interesting creepy like Caligula or kind of funny creepy like Dexter. They’re just straight up creepy. To me, Hall and Oates always just seemed to be kind of vanilla guys who liked to do the type of songs my grandma listens to, but after reading a few articles from magazines for my project, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are completely sketch.  Maybe I’m just having an adverse reaction to how candid they are in interviews but, honestly, I don’t want to picture Hall “heavy into the middle of something deep” with his girlfriend when he first heard his song on the radio. I’m sure the female populace of 1985 swooned when they read that, but honestly, I just think it’s a lot of information I don’t want to deal with. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, all of the quotations that sketched me out came from Hall. Oates just said stuff about the record label or otherwise remained quiet.

Poor Oates. He never got to talk about doing heavy things with deep women.

…

::cringe::

A couple of nights ago, I was pawning some Easter chocolate off to my friend Zack. As he was eating, we got to talking about his family, which was interesting, but then he told me something significantly more interesting. He glanced over and saw my copy of Sweet Soul Music and (being that we had recently watched The Commitments together) commented, “You’re really on a soul kick, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” I said.

“Hey, did I ever tell you that I used to live across the street from Wilson Pickett?”

I was stunned. I had never known that Wilson Pickett lived in NoVA, and I certainly never entertained the idea that people that go to UMW could have interacted with him.

“No… I never heard that.”

“Yeah, the first time I saw him, his bald head was getting pecked by birds. I think it may have been the greatest day of my life.”

Instantly, I was fascinated. I couldn’t even begin to process the information I was being given, but I listened intently because first hand accounts of musicians after the fact is relatively rare. Zack told me about living near Pickett like he was telling me what the weather was like today. He had no idea what the gold mine he had on his hands. Well, to people like me… and I don’t know how many people like me there are here. Anyway, here’s how the story went:

“He was kind of a douche bag, but he was still a nice old man. It’s just he got pretty senile near the end. He hung out with our creepy Asian neighbor that no one else talked to… they would go fishing  and have cook outs. He had a FOXY young thing chasing after him though. I mean, he was Wilson Pickett! He was loaded! He bought a house in Northern VA in cash.  He was crazy.”

There was more that he told me, but I can’t remember what he said, just the images that flashed in my head when he said it. Overall, I’d call it a blog worthy conversation.

In looking for Nick Cohn’s contact information (failure, btw), I found an article he wrote for The Guardian about Elvis. I was immediately excited because in class we were talking about how odd it felt that Cohn spoke about Elvis in the present tense because he hadn’t died yet. This article was written in 2007. Now, are you ready for the plot twist? In the article, Cohn is interviewing a man who believes he’s Elvis. In Louisiana. Alive. Well, sort of. I don’t want to give too much away, but the article is interesting, funny and a little unsettling at the same time. Oh, yeah, and it has a good hook.

The weirdest part, to me, is that PseudoElvis is from Metairie, Louisiana. I’m from Kenner which is literally 30 seconds away from Metairie. It’s such a bizarre story, but don’t get it twisted. Cohn takes the interview seriously and PseudoElvis is pretty convincing and, frankly, sweet. It’s such a fascinating read. I delicioused it, but here’s the link for your convenience.

Elvis Lives

Oh, and, PS. Elvis apparently is a fan of Prince.

For some reason, the topic of mix tapes/cds has been coming up a lot in my life. My roommate played me one she made for her friend, and he made her one in kind. Hers is the only one I’ve fully heard, but I was surprised at the awesomeness of it. Seriously, I wanted to steal it and put it on my computer before she gave it to him. The most interesting part was that he prompted her to make it “tell a story.” She took the challenge and starts it off dreamy and summery and then turns into a traveling narrative. At the end, she finished with “Les Champs Elysees” to make it end on a high note. The thought that was put into this cd fascinates me, and even more than that, how much the songs fit together and make sense. Of course, this makes me think of High Fidelity… “Making a mix tape is a very subtle art…” etc etc, but it also leads my mind to Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, a book I saw carelessly laying on Taylor’s desk. It’s a book about a man who’s wife dies of an embolism and the effect it had on him (specifically, his inability to listen to songs that remind him of her) or something to that effect. I haven’t read it, but I’m intrigued by it.

Mix tapes are, in my opinion, more than just giving someone something to listen to. It’s documentation of that moment, that week, that summer, that love. They’re priceless because they’re narratives that express intangible moments, and give them back to those who experienced them. Music in general does do that, sure. Whenever I listen to Hot Fuss, I’m immediately transported to two summers ago when I drove to Whole Foods for no good reason. But mix tapes are different. They’re given, not bought. It’s a transference of heart from one person to another, and then, on top of that, you have it forever.

Awesome.

Daniel’s back from his tour. So far, he’s told me he hated Brooklyn, loved Boston, and that he met people crazier than the crazy people we know here in Dead Fred. All in all, he summed up the tour as, “A great learning experience.” Hopefully, he’ll write it all down, and I (and you, dear readers) can get all the sordid details of the tour.

Basically, the hatred of Brooklyn stemmed from the venue having 20 people that didn’t come out for his type of music. I think it’s really unfortunate that the people that were there weren’t open to listening to something new. Sure, Daniel’s music is basically psychedelic noise, but, regardless of what your tastes are, you should be able to appreciate a new type of music that came from somewhere else. But whatever, I guess.

For about an hour, you may have walked past a bunch of dirtbags playing music. The loser playing the saw was Daniel! The music sounded so gooood and I danced and it was awesome.

So, I’m definitely in love with Sweet Soul Music. So far, it’s my favorite book. It could be because I have a love affair with soul to begin with, but I also think it’s a wonderfully written book. The thing that makes the book work for me is the importance of the visceral experience that comes with soul. Yes, Guralnick is kind of biased due to his unabashed love of soul, but I think that soul doesn’t need logical reporting. It’s all about emotion and lifting you up… That’s what the book should be too. So yeah, I’m completely on board.

Sorry, Dr. C! I should be creating thoughtful blogs consistently, but here it is: The Miller blog.

So, before I get into the meat of this blog, I want to talk about my plans for good ole’ A Quip and a Cigarette. A few upcoming projects: I’m going to be interviewing Cesar Zurita, a local painter and photographer, soon because, basically, he’s making me. So, that’ll be happening soon. Also, I’m going to email Rocky’s Revival bassist to interview him about his band and upcoming plans. There’s a house show on Sunday that I’ll be covering. My favorite thing coming up though is that I’ll be working with Will Seaver to compile a collection of musical moments that really hook the listener to the point that it’s memorable. It’ll be called “And it stoned me: Musical Moments That Grabbed the Shit Out of Me” Oh yeah, it’s going to be awesome.

So, being the precocious young lady I am, I sent Miller (author of Flowers in the Dustbin) an email, questioning his disillusionment from the 60’s. Without further ado, here are the emails:

Dear Mr. Miller,
I’m Magan Carrigan, a freshman at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. I’m taking a seminar on rock, soul and progressive music from 1955 to present, and, currently, we’re reading Flowers in the Dustbin. During today’s class, we focused almost entirely on your assertion that the unity and happiness that the world felt with the release of Sgt Pepper’s was “of course” an illusion. Being as young as I am, I obviously have no way to fully experience the beautiful, liberating peak of the 60s and its subsequent tumble into hell, but, excuse me for being potentially impertinent, I have trouble believing that you, without a shadow of a doubt, hung up your spurs, rode off into the sunset, and denounced the entire thing as some kind of mass hallucination. Yes, it got bad. Yes, it got horrible. But does the absence of beauty cast a haze over everything, making all that was beautiful grotesque and horrifying when, once, it was the driving force of millions? I don’t think so.
You could easily look at the disillusionment that came from the 60s with anger for your naiveté, but you could also be grateful. Mr. Miller, think of m generation. We’re all coasting through life fragmented, unable to connect and obsessed with shows like Rock of Love, the antithesis of anything meaningful and artistic. We’re shells. So what if what you felt was an illusion? It made you full, woke you up, gave the vanilla, middle class existence that so many are doomed to live new life. It made people move, people shake and rattle their cages. Just like any great love, it filled your heart until it could burst. Regardless of its veracity, or lack thereof, later in life, the happiness and excitement you felt seems to me, a jaded, unremarkable college student, the most beautiful truth I’d ever want to hear.
I really hope you can still feel it and that my class was wrong about you.

Sincerely,
Magan Carrigan

And the reply:

Dear Magan,

I hope my book conveyed the sense of excitement and joy that I experienced for myself in 1967.  Utopia – “that was how it really felt.”  But surely Kenneth Tynan was wrong about Sgt. Pepper being “a decisive moment in the history of Western civilization”!!!  THAT was the illusion my sentence referred to.  Sgt. Pepper was a grand recording; and surely it was bliss to be young that summer in the 1960s. 

Hope this clarifies matters.

And thanks for the email.

All best,

Jim

Then I said:

Okay that’s fair, but who’s to say it couldn’t have been? Maybe the dice didn’t fall exactly where they should, but it’s possible that it was a decisive moment, people just weren’t capable of running with it?

Oh, and I adored the chapter on “Maybellene”. It was the first song I ever heard outside of nursery rhymes and my dad’s steady diet of heavy metal, so it was a great experience getting the backstory.

-MC

Did he reply to that one, you ask? Well, no he didn’t. I don’t particularly mind because he’s probably a very busy man, but I was really hoping to get a dialogue going with him because, above all else, I really just wanted to understand. I wanted to know what made him the way he is, and how he feels about that. Unfortunately, he didn’t see it to be as important.

Because I write so much about the local music in Fredericksburg, I thought I would start doing a thing where I interview the musicians I know so that you (the readers that I assume I have) can get the info first hand. That being said, I interviewed Daniel Bachman, founder of Sacred Harp, a couple of nights ago at Pizza Hut. I’ve been trying to get Daniel to sit in the same place for a couple of minutes for the past two weeks, so when we happened to be eating dinner together, I whipped out a notebook and, basically, ambushed him. Daniel, sitting across from me, was wearing a navy blue Fairfax High hoodie (probably a Goodwill find) and his signature patched-at-the crotch pants. Immediately before the interview began, he looked down and realized that his belt has been unbuckled since he left the house. Daniel isn’t very observant when it comes to many things, but this has never carried over to his work. Leaving highschool halfway through his junior year, he’s been getting his diploma via internet correspondence, and, due to this unusual situation, has been able to focus on his music, his work and his eventual move to Philadelphia in August. He’s a quiet, thoughtful man who, without prior knowledge, would never be pegged as one of the most talented young acts coming out of Fredericksburg. His music is soulful and beautiful without discounting the modern sensibilities he’s gleaned off of today’s music. So, to make a long story less long, here’s the interview.

M: How did you choose your name?

D: Uhh… (pause) Well, I went to Baltimore, Maryland at a record store and bought I Belong to this Band. (Editor’s note: I Belong to This Band describes the music as sacred harp recordings).

M: Are there any other permanent members of the band?

D: (long pause) No.

M: How do you get people to play with you?

D: Well, I have a couple of friends on Myspace that I met at shows. I ask them to play, and they do.

M: How would you describe your music?

D: Do you want how my dad describes it, or do you want how I describe it?

M: Whichever you think is more interesting.

D: Well, John describes it as “If Johnny, this guy that plays bango in the mountains, was given peyote buttons.”

M: And how would you describe it?

D: Just as old time banjo and fiddle music, taking that and giving it a psychadelic twist.

M: How many instruments can you play?

D: (long pause) I don’t know… six, I guess. Bass, guitar, banjo, saw… what else… I can kind of figure out anything with strings.

M: What’re your upcoming shows?

D: I’m playing on the 16th of February at the Brick Bat in Philly, the 17th at Radio Bean in Burlington, VT, 19th a house show in Jamaica Plains Boston, Mass, 20th at Goodbye, Blue Monday in Brooklyn, 21st in Manchester, NH at the 11:11 club, 22nd March at Blue Carpet Garage in VA Beach. Ask your class if anyone knows of any places up North during the 21st and 26th of March because I’m going on tour with Phelan (Editor’s note: Phelan is the bassist for local band Rocky’s Revival)

M: What’s your long term goal?

D: Uh… Just to travel a lot and play music. (laughs) To have one person that really likes on of my songs.

M: What do you want people to take away from your music?

D: (raises eyebrow) Memories from past lives.

M: I know this is ridiculously cliche, but what’s one word that describes you?

D: (at this point, there is a cacophony of sound as our friends scream different words that describe him. Finally, he smiles quietly) Can I write it?

M: Mk.

D: Babipüj

M: Any last words?

D: I’m making a new split tape with wigwam out on the 16th of February

M: Thanks, D.

So, that’s it. Here’s his myspace, listen to it. So good. The other night he played a song with a playing saw, a xylophone and a guitar. Sounds like it’s worth a listen, right?

Check it out here.