This is a British documentary, so you know which one of the three is getting the main focus. Okay, picture two pyramids next to each other. The one on the left is Lou Reed and the one on the right is Iggy. Balancing between them is a line connecting the two (that is Marc Bolan, mentioned often but not in detail). And finally there is the third pyramid of the “sacred” triangle, David Bowie, on top of it all. That is the vision presented here. Okay, I’m done. Naw, not really, as this is still an interesting – albeit somewhat skewed – vision of the three.
Let me quickly add here that I am totally impressed by the choice of interviews that have been selected for this doc, which is so much better than the Pearl Jam one in this series. But more on the talking heads later.
There’s no doubt that Bowie was influenced by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, but that’s nothing new. Just listen to David Jones’ singing style around the Ziggy Stardust period, and it’s easy to see the progression from his earlier works. Personally, I’d rather listen to Reed’s take, but that’s just me, walkin’ on the wild side on a Sunday morning when comes the dawning.
There’s plenty of clips here of the Velvets; well, as much as there really is, which is limited, and taken by the Warhol crowd “artfully” (i.e., in fast speed) while in Exploding Plastic Inevitable mode (Gerard and his whip dance is often present). Bowie was still in folkie / cutsie mode when he first heard “Waitin’ for My Man,” and (rightfully) became a huge VU fan. An example given here is his “Toy Soldier,” which is such a – er – homage to “Venus in Furs,” it even quotes it in a few place, such as the line “bleed for me.” The video for the song has someone dancing with whips. And on “Black County Rock,” as explained in this doc, Bowie even imitates Bolan. MainMan publicist and photographer Leee Black Childers, who would later manage Iggy and then the Heartbreakers, states here that Bowie’s true talent is to know what to steal. In fact he said this and many of other the other bon mots he posits in a FFanzeen interview conducted by our own Nancy Foster (aka Nancy Neon) back in 1982 (reprinted here: ffanzeen.blogspot.com/2010/02/portrait-leee-black-childers.html).
Andy Warhol is shown as possibly as big an influence as the VU, and to talk about the theatrics of the Factory and its influence on Bowie are the likes of the very wound up VU biographer Victor Bockris, the fabulous aforementioned Childers (who used to have one of the coolest motorcycle jackets ever, with an image of Gene Vincent painted on its back), the equally extraordinary Jayne County, smartly dressed in bright red Little Red Riding Hood mode (she even matches the couch!), 16 Magazine publisher (early on) and Ramones manager Danny Fields, and the Psychotic Frog himself (who was also one of Andy’s superstars), Jimi LaLumia. They paint a vivid picture of Lou and Andy’s influence on not only Bowie, but music in general. But Bowie is the main focus here, and in this case almost rightfully so, as Lee, Jayne, and Jimi were all hired by the Bow-ster to work with Tony DeFries and help run his production company, MainMan. One person seriously missing from the interview call list, though, is Cherry Vanilla, which is a serious deficit.
But the person of interest for me here, interview wise, is definitely Angela Bowie. A while back I found her kind of abrasive, but I must say that my opinion has totally changed, and I now I can see her as incredibly refreshing. She holds nothing back, and will tell the most intimate details at top volume. My apologies to you, for any negative thoughts I may have had in the past. But I digress…
Other interviewees include writers Paul Tryoka and Dave Thompson, and musician John Harlsen, who was a drummer on the Bowie-produced Lou Reed first popular solo effort, Transformer (as well as being Barry Womble, of the Rutles), which included his hits “Satellite of Love” and “Walk on the Wild Side.” They all paint a very detailed portrait of Bowie, and what effect Reed and Iggy had on him, and how Bowie had affected them. Also included are some short interviews (more likely called clips) with the key artists involved, such as Bowie (from 2001 and 2007), Lou Reed (1986), Iggy (1988), and just as importantly, Mick Ronson (looking extremely frail shortly before his death in 1993). There would arguably be no Bowie to the scale he achieved without Ronson as a musical driving force (rather than an influence, like Reed and Pop), I’m convinced.
Possibly one of Warhol’s biggest influences (and he really is as big as either Lou or Iggy in the David Jones pantheon) is the idea that “You’re a Star!” and if you act like it, people will come to believe and expect it. Even before the money, there was the wardrobe, the limos, the expense accounts, and all the trappings. LaLumia states it quite well when he relates that Bowie claimed that “I’m an actor. I’m not a musician. I’m portraying a rock star.” I can’t argue with that, as I’ve always found that Lou Reed was true to what he believed, as was Iggy totally committed to what he was doing, but Bowie was posing, rather than being. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never found him to be someone I’ve looked up to musically, especially in the reality of the punk days of the Ramones and the ilk.
While Iggy’s role in the Bowie history (and vice-versa) is more commonly known, there is much less about Iggy here than either Reed or especially Warhol. Bowie famously helped Pop both get off drugs and revive his career. For me, Bowie major force was in the studio as a producer, more than a vocalist, or especially as an innovator, as he was a series of influences creatively recast. Angela probably had as much to do with Bowie’s success as did David or Ronson – or even DeFries. And I won’t even detail Cherry Vanilla’s outreach program.
The added feature to the DVD is a seven-minute documentary called “The Nico Connection,” which shows how she had touched the lives of all three musicians that are the focus of the main feature. There is a bio for each of the contributors, and it put a smile on my face to see my pals the She Wolves given a shout out by Jayne County, as they’ve worked together over the past few years.
As a last note, I would like to add that after viewing this DVD, check out The Velvet Goldmine, which will then make so much more sense.
Like the Velvet Underground, a band they shared a bill with many times in the VU’s nascent period, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention are hard to define, let alone put into a genre box. If it were called up to name the format, I would call his music jazz in a rock milieu. But even that is too limited a definition for one of the more groundbreaking avant-garde musicians of the later 20th Century.
Zappa was aware of this conundrum, even in his early days, and on the Mothers of Invention freshman Freak Out album back in 1966, he tried to help out the listener by preparing a list of his influences among the fold-out liner notes for the double-disk. This includes a wide variety of names and styles, from the blatant to the obscure, and nearly all are present in his music.
The purpose of this documentary is to partially explore this list (not all on the list are musicians, such as Wolfman Jack, Sacco & Vanzetti, and John Wayne), and not just show why particular composers and artists are important to Zappa, but to the world of music at large.
One of Zappa’s gifts was as a deconstructionalist. He knew how to synthesize different sounds and genres, and meld them together into a form that made sense. As one talking head interview states in this doc, Zappa did not see genre lines when listening to sounds, it was all just music. He also rebelled against being called jazz, or rock, or anything else; he was performing music that mattered to him, and that’s what was important. That different albums slid over style to style, was more a testament to his versatility than to being an auteur. Or perhaps he was an auteur in his non-auteurism. Deep, man.
I have to say, at this point, that I wasn’t much of a fan of Zappa’s recordings, in fact only owning Freak Out in my collection, finding most of his work too esoteric and usually a-melodic, in the same way that, say, the Velvet Underground’s “European Son” is lost on me (though I like the VU sound in general) in a similar fashion. I’m more of a linear kinda guy. Even so, I found this documentary fascinating in what motivated the man. Zappa is correct, to some extent, that music is music, and what contributes as an influence helps create the output.
As Zappa is deceased (1940-93), and this is not a Zappa-family “official” telling, instead we hear from lots of other musicians, such as numerous members of the Mothers, and music experts / historians / professors of various genres, but we’re not done yet folks, there is also more than one Zappa biographer. Needless to say, the people who talk about the music and Zappa know their topic. Thomas Arnold’s narration is also handled well.
Once the foundations are set about the Freak Out! album and Zappa in general in act one, if you will, the list begins to be broken down by the experts and band members. The first stop is the classical input, by other 20th Century deconstructionalists, such as Stockhausen and Schoenberg, who used patterns rather than formulaic measures.
Moving on to R&B, there’s the likes of Hank Ballard and the Moonlighters, Richard Berry (who wrote “Louie, Louie”), and Johnny Guitar Watson are introduced, the latter of whom would become both a collaborator and friend of Zappa’s.
The progression continues into one of Zappa’s favorite sounds, doo-wop, which has shown up in many forms on various Mother’s albums, specifically the Ruben and the Jets LP. Included in the list is the Cadillacs (“Speedo”).
The progression from there, posits the documentary, is jazz. Miles Davis and his Bitches Brew is cited, though Zappa was already releasing similar sounds before Miles did. Also mentioned are the likes of Eric Dolphy, and another Mothers influence and member, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.
There are many clips of music used, and not just of Zappa’s, but of the original sources (Miles, for example), sometimes shown one after the other, so the viewer can see by example. These pieces are given enough time to hear what we need (and sometimes thankfully more), but nothing complete considering the length of the music used vs. the length of the documentary.
One part of the film I particularly enjoyed was the discussion of Zappa’s work as the soundtrack writer for one of the best “worst” films, The World’s Greatest Sinner, which I was lucky enough to see in a revival thanks to Walter Ocner (also in attendance was A-Bones’ Miriam Linna and Billy Miller, both big supporters of the film).
Whatever point on the musical map one wants to put Frank Zappa, if they need to, well, it’s only partial because he jumped the genre lexicons the way the Ramones didn’t. But being a stylistic shape-shifter is part of what makes Zappa so important, especially in the time period this film covers.
Some of the extras on the DVD include a short commentary (more like a single-camera class lesson) about a couple of albums that mattered to the man, titled “Desert Island Disks,” which includes Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. There is also a person-by-person text biography for all the people who spoke during Frank Zappa: The Freak-Out List.
White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day By Richie Unterberger Jawbone Press (London), 2009 367 pages, USD $29.95 ISBN: 978-1-906002-22-0 www.jawbonepress.com If it’s true that God is in the details, then White Light/White Heat must be considered some kind of scripture, especially for those Velvet Underground fans, both informed and not.
But I get ahead of myself.
Richie Unterberger has a long record of rock journalism, with a number of books, including the topics of obscure bands, the history of folk rock, and the Beatles; this is only the latest in a long line of his informative and enjoyable readings by him. WL/WH is the latest in a series of Day-By-Day tomes by different authors about various bands, such as the Byrds. I haven’t read the others, but this is certainly a good start.
Essentially the book is broken down into sections, usually in calendar headings with a date – exact if known, vague if not – but Unterberger still keeps the flow going at all times in as close to chronological order as can be expected, if not more so.
It starts with the pre-original band (Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Angus MacLise, and Nico), and brings the reader up to speed, as it were, with their history just prior to /relevant to the band, with what was happening in their lives that would influence them, or direct them, into this group of both like-minded musicians, and not (i.e., Nico). Some of the other musicians aren’t “revealed” early on, such as Maureen Tucker, until they show up in the time of the band.
Unterberger takes many sources, including previous books (such as Victor Bockris’ Transformer: The Lou Reed Story [who is of the dreaded “This is what Lou Reed was thinking when…” style] and Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon, by Richard Witts), articles, fanzines, and first hand accounts from over 100 people interviewed personally by the author. He does not just repeat the information, however, he synthesizes all of the accounts, and then clarifies whenever he can. For example, he might say that something is quoted – even by the band members - as being on a certain date, but since so-and-so was someplace else from such-and-such a time, it more likely was around this time. This thoughtful processing and evaluating makes WL/WH an invaluable resource.
It is also this progression that takes the conglomeration of old and new information that keeps it all fresh and, well, fascinating. Like oral histories, there are definitely some contradictions from the different multitude of sources, and Unterberger works it into a nice mixture that respects the source, and yet makes it innovative and new.
This is a big book in many ways, but certainly due to the importance of the subject matter in a cultural context, and the physical volume itself. I’ll start with the latter.
An oversized paperback on thick, glossy paper (it is physically heavy), with clear and often large photos and images throughout, the text is teeny-tiny serif type (7 pt?), with three columns per page. On a normal book, that would be the equivalent of three pages there to one page here. In other words, this 360-plus page book would actually be over 1,000 pages in any regular size print book. The reader is definitely getting his or her money’s worth on sheer volume alone.
Needless to say, it took me a hell of a long time to get through this book, which is a good thing, because I did not read it as much as savor it. There is a lot of detailed information to process, and to Unterberger’s credit, I never felt bored or lost interest, even after Nico, Reed and Cale left the band, their places taken up by Doug Yule and Willie Alexander, to name a few.
Who can argue that the Velvet Underground were one of the more important musical entities during their period – whether one enjoyed their music or not – on so many scenes, be it rock’n’roll, rock, avant-garde, jazz, and yes, punk. They would as easily be put in the Captain Beefheart category as, say, the Stooges. Unterberger takes their influential status in the musical strata and is hardly cowed by it, nor is he condescending, but he seems to be as objective as possible (of course, there is no such thing as true objectivity), while it is obvious he is a fan at the same time.
My long-time friend Walter Ocner is a veteran VU fan in good standing, and he recently summed up WL/WH in one word: “Brilliant.” It’s hard to argue with that.
Some additional Richie Unterberger's books, in no particular order:
The following article about Boston-based bassist Ernie Brooks was originally published in FFanzeen magazine, issue #7, in 1981. It was written by John Morace.
By the time I saw the Modern Lovers in 1977, Ernie Brooks was no longer in the band. I did see him play a couple of times backing up other musicians, but never really got to know him personally, or as an individual musical entity. He certainly has had quite the career so far, as the list below will attest, as it is only partial. – RBF, 2010
Catfish Black Bassist (1969-70) The Modern Lovers Bassist (1971-74) Elliott Murphy Bassist (1976-) David Johansen Bassist (1982) Jerry Harrison Bassist (1990) Gods and Monsters Bassist (1994-) Gary Lucas Bassist (1994-)
[The original Modern Lovers; Jonathan Richman, Ernie Brooks, David Robinson, John Felice, Jerry Harrison] FFanzeen: This is Ernie Brooks, formerly with Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, and is now with the Necessaries. Ernie Brooks: Yes, and you could also add formerly with Elliot Murphy, formerly with the Love of Life Orchestra [LOLO], and formerly with what was pretty much my own band, the Flying Hearts, which included Dave van Tiegham, currently of LOLO, Larry Salzman, who now plays guitar for Peter Allen, and Arthur Russell, who’s been making disco records. The Flying Hearts played about. We played at the Ocean Club a few times… (The Ocean Club) was on Chambers Street. It was owned by Mickey Ruskin [d. 1983]. He’s a famous New York character. He was the one who started the original Max’s (Kansas City) and made it the hang-out for everybody. The back room at Max’s in the late ‘60s was where the Velvet Underground and the rest of Warhol’s super stars used to go. Plus artists, poets, scenemakers of all descriptions. Mickey was great. He was almost a patrol of the artists and musicians, letting them run up tabs. Painters could sometimes settle their bill by giving Mickey a piece of their work to hang on the wall. He runs One University Place, but it’s not the old Max’s. Anyway, the Ocean Club had a lot of Tribeca artists and musicians hanging out, just as the whole punk-New Wave thing was starting. He used to occasionally have bands play there.
FF: So you used to hang out at Max’s. Ernie: Yeah, when I used to come down here from Boston. In fact – it was before I knew him – Jonathan (Richman) was a bus-boy at Max’s, but I think he dropped so many things on people that he got fired [laughs]. Before starting the Modern Lovers, he used to come to New York. He’d hang out with Lou Reed, sleep on his sofa, and listen to the Velvets rehearse.
FF: So he goes way back with them. Ernie: Oh, yeah. It’s interesting because in a way, Jonathan is the other side of Lou Reed’s coin. I mean, Lou was always very openly into drugs and every kind of sexuality and perversity. Jonathan’s thing was that while he borrowed a lot from Lou in terms of musical style – in his guitar playing and vocal phrasing – in his lifestyle he took an opposite course. He never touched drugs as far as I know, including alcohol and cigarettes. He was against casual sex. He put girls on pedestals and worshipped them, and met them more on the astral plane than in the flesh. It’s interesting, a stance of innocence, of purity like Jonathan’s, can seem perverse when it’s taken to an extreme as it is in some of his newer songs, the ones about how beautiful everything is and how beautiful he is. I mean, something about songs like “Ice Cream Man” bothers me. He's repressing the dark side of his nature. Why is he writing all these songs for children? In a way it’s neat, so maybe it’s just a matter of taste that I like the old songs better.
FF: When did Jonathan first get a band together? Ernie: Ah, it must have been about 1969. He started it with David Robinson as the drummer and a bass player named Rolf. Soon after, John Felice, a long-time neighbor and friend, joined as a second guitarist. He was in and out of the band for years, finally leaving to start his own group, the Real Kids. Jerry (Harrison) and I joined the group a couple of months after it started; I think it was 1971. It’s hard to remember. It was when Jerry and I were in our senior year at Harvard.
FF: How did Jerry Harrison hook up with Talking Heads? Ernie: There were the three of them, and I ran into Chris (Franz) at a place called the Local near the Bottom Line (in NYC). Mickey Ruskin ran that place, too. Well, we started talking and they were considering adding a keyboard player at that point. I was with Elliott (Murphy) and Jerry wasn’t really doing anything besides going to architecture school. So they sort of got together. That’s when he started commuting to New York to try and work it out… and jamming and it worked out, so they got together.
FF: So the Modern Lovers played around Boston. Ernie: Yeah, we used to play at all the college dances, and all the so-called mixers. We could always get a job once; then they found out what we were really like [laughs]. We had a great song called “The Mixer.” It was like “Hey girls, do you notice the smell?” Things like that. It pointed out to the people at the mixer all the ridiculous things about a mixer, which was like a lot of guys and girls standing around pretending that they were having a good time.
FF: How many songs did you have? About nine of them made it onto the Modern Lovers album. Ernie: We had lots. We recorded some stuff with Kim Fowley, which I assume is the stuff they might release. That was about another 10 songs. Plus, I have some, and David Robinson has some tapes. Two songs, “I’m Straight” and “Government Center” have been released on a Warners' discount LP called Troublemakers.
FF: How did David Robinson hook up with the Cars? Ernie: I don’t know exactly, but I do remember the bass player and Ric Ocasck were around Cambridge for a long time. I had met them before. They had a band called Milkwood, a folk-rock band. I remember when the Cars were getting together. It was funny, David said this was the last band he was ever going to join. He was so fed up, he’d been in so many bands.
FF: And it worked. Ernie: It worked; it worked incredibly. They have been one of the most successful bands in the last couple of years. Their albums are just… You see, they’ve made a perfect combination of somewhat New Wave, somewhat quirky lyrics with really simple, basic pop formulas, in terms of their hooks. They’ve taken their hooks and they’ve twisted them just enough and put in a bizarre synthesizer like here, a bizarre word or two there. It’s a perfect combination.
FF: Do you think it’s contrived, or is it just what they feel like doing? Ernie: It’s not… Yeah, I think it’s contrived. But in a good sense. I think it’s really well-crafted. I really respect it. It doesn’t move me a lot. But I love the way it sounds. It has an incredible sound.
FF: One thing about rock music that’s different from other kinds of expression is that for it to be successful it has to generate an audience to pay to support it because of all the expenses involved in touring, equipment, and albums. That, of course, has an influence on the music. Ernie: It’s always a compromise. But at least in rock’n’roll, there is something very honest about the fact that you’re doing what you’re doing; nothing else. In a certain sense, it’s very ironic because on the one hand rock’n’roll is the most commercial, most compromised of arts, and on the other it’s the most honest and has the most integrity of the modern art forms because it’s so direct. You’re there in front of your audience. Either you turn them on or you don’t; you’re not supported by state grants. You’re not kissing the ass of some humanities foundation so you can get a grant and go off into a cabin in the woods and write poetry. You’re not involved in the university system, making friends with a professor so he’ll make you a teaching assistant so you can survive to write your novel. Ya know, that’s what I like about rock’n’roll.
FF: But some people are contrary to that opinion, such as the Copeland brothers on IRS, who are distributed by AM. They say that the size of the act depends upon how much A&M likes them and not the act itself. Ernie: I think that’s partly true in the sense that a group can be hyped by a record label and the record label can put a lot of money into advertising and promotion and stuff like that, but unless the goods are there and people like it, it’s still not gonna sell. Kids can only be hyped to a certain extent. Not to say that kids always have good taste. There are some really good groups that are really big, but you can have groups like Styx and Foreigner, who I find really boring. But you understand that they are competent. Copeland, I think, likes to paint himself as the adversary of the big record labels.
FF: It think that’s very different from rock people, outside of Factory people like Andy Warhol and John Cale, who were into all kinds of art forms. Ernie: It’s true, and that’s where Jonathan’s work was really seminal, in a way, for a lot of the art-rock bands like Talking Heads. They deal with issues, artistic or literary. It opened up the concept of a rock’n’roll song as being able to deal with a whole range of issues that it never dealt with before. Of course, a lot of people did that; Dylan certainly did, and the Velvet Underground. Jonathan was just another person who helped open it up.
FF: How did John Cale get involved in producing the album? Ernie: Well, the Velvet Underground was sort of looked up to by the band. And Cale had produced albums, like the Nico album and the first Stooges album, which were really important.
FF: Or the Patti Smith album. Ernie: Yeah, but this was long before that. The first Stooges album was in ’69. Iggy’s been around for along time. He was someone who totally gave himself to an audience, even to the point of hurting himself. He’d jump into the crowd, offer his body to the crowd. He’s great; he’s one of the best.
FF: I remember reading about a Velvet’s show at Farleigh Dickinson (University) – one of their multimedia presentations – and people just freaked. They started throwing bottles at the stage. Ernie: Sure, I remember in the Modern Lovers, we played with Lee Michaels and Tower of Power in San Bernardino, in California, in this huge arena. A real redneck town. People driving their El Caminos up and down the street outside. People went crazy. There was just this angry roar from the crowd and all of a sudden this stuff started coming up on the stage; bottles, cans, all sort of trash.
FF: That must have felt great. Ernie: Yeah, right. Warner Bros. had also brought all their people out to see us, their great new group. It was great.
FF: Was that John Cale’s doing? Ernie: Yeah, he was an A&R man, and a producer for Warner’s. But that didn’t last long.
FF: Who did the record finally come out with? Not Warner’s. Ernie: Beserkley Records, a small label that has been through every conceivable distributorship. It’s run by this genial madman named Matthew Kaufman. He was the guy who wanted to manage the Lovers when the original band was still intact. And he had the idea, even back then, of starting his own label. And Jonathan always really liked this guy. After the band broke up, he started managing Jonathan and issued a Beserkley Chartbusters record with a few songs of Jonathan’s on it. Then he had the idea of putting out an album of the original Modern Lovers, which was just a demo tape we made for Warner Bros. He came to us and asked if he could buy the tapes from Warner Bros. No one else was really interested in them then, so we said OK – which I realize now was probably stupid. If we had waited and held on to them we could have made some real money off the tapes, I suppose. I’ve never gotten any royalties… When I get rich enough to afford a lawyer, I’ll sue them.
FF: How did the band break up? Ernie: Well, it was philosophical differences about the music; Jonathan wanted to go in a more acoustic direction. He started thinking that electricity was too weird… At various points he decided he didn’t want any guitar. He didn’t want anything besides voice because that was the thing that was – real. Voice came from your soul and everything else was just trappings; extra. And we wanted to keep it a real rock’n’roll band. After all, David played drums, I played electric bass and Jerry played keyboards. And that’s what we wanted to do. And so we had these big arguments about that. Ya know, we were all living in this big house, just off Sunset Boulevard. It was big with a red-tiled roof; one of those Spanish palazzos. We were out there and we were totally dependent on Warner Bros. We’d have to go down to Burbank every couple of days and get some money from them. There we were, all these hardcore Easterners in LA, and I sort of loved it in a way, but it was also disorienting and crazy. Too many beautiful mindless people out there. We were all just crammed together in this house and had nothing else to do but get on each other’s nerves. It did make me realize the importance of just being together as a band. When you have to deal with the record company, when you have to deal with the business part of rock’n’roll, you really have to be together or you can be destroyed very quickly. That was really one of the problems. If we’d had a manager that we could have trusted, that would have made a big difference. Warner Bros., already worried by what they'd heard about Jonathan’s changing musical ideas, would call our house every day to talk to him. They really freaked out when he told them, “Yeah, we’ll make a record, but when we go on tour - if we go on tour – we won’t play any of the songs on it.” As his ideas about the sound of the band changed, he also changed his mind about the songs we were recording, decided most of them weren’t valid anymore.
FF: They must have loved that. Ernie: Oh, yeah. That’s just what a record company wants to hear when it’s spending a lot of money on a band. Again, if only we had a manager at that time to mediate between ourselves, and between us and the record company.
FF: Where did the name Modern Lovers come from? Ernie: That was Jonathan’s invention. The idea was to do modern love songs. Almost all of the songs that we did, in one way or another, involve girls and are about relationships that always involved, somehow, with the modern world of suburbs, shopping centers, beltways – a bleak but often beautiful landscape. That was part of it. Also, Jonathan always had the idea of being, along with the rest of us in the band, a “modern lover,” a modern romantic believing, as the song says, “I don’t want a girl to fool around with / I don’t want someone just to ball / I want someone I care about / Or I want nothing at all” [“Someone I Care About” – Ed.]. Of course, that wasn’t a modern idea, but expressed in a rock song and combined with the image of the group, it was at least different.
FF: Did Jonathan find what he wanted? Ernie: I don’t know. Maybe he has. Maybe that’s why his new songs seem happier. This ties in with and half-contradicts what I said earlier: maybe the old adolescent pain and sexual frustration are resolved; maybe he has really exorcised the darker side of his character. Maybe I like the older songs better because I’m still adolescent at heart or maybe it’s true that repressed sexual energy sparks the best art [yawns].
FF: I notice all the songs on the first album are really simple, or repetitive. Even I can play “Roadrunner” on guitar. Ernie: Sure, it’s two chords: A and D.
FF: Why was he doing that? Ernie: Well, it was partly the fact that he picked up a guitar and didn’t know how to play it and he just started doing what he could do. And also, he believed there was a virtue in simplicity. Again, that’s certainly something the punk thing picked up on, because the whole idea, in a way, of New Wave was that technique didn’t matter. That it was the emotion and the feeling. If you did something with confidence you could do it. That’s always a part of rock’n’roll. What really mattered was the emotion, not the technique.
When Joan did this interview, her photographer friend Gay Fast took a photo of Willie wearing one of my FFanzeen tee-shirts, which I still have and treasure. Oh, and I also have one of Pete Shelley.
Willie has been a mainstay in the Boston scene, having fronted a few seminal bands, such as the Lost. He was also Lou Reed’s replacement in the Velvet Underground when they toured Europe in the early ‘70s. He also recorded a single with VU drummer Mo Tucker and Jonathan Richman.
I had the opportunity to see Willie play in Boston a few times during the 1980s, including at the Paradise during one of Joe Viglione’s amazing Spectaculars, where I went with noted photographer at the time, Rocco Cippilone (aka Peter Parka), who went on to publish the excellent Bang! fanzine. – RBF, 2010
Willie Alexander has been an important part of the music scene in Boston and in general for many years. He has been involved in a number of bands, one of the best known being the Boom Boom Band. When they disbanded in the summer of 1978, Willie dropped out of sight for a number of years. He came into view on a few occasions with various single projects, but didn’t emerge fully until November 1981.
Since then, a solo album, Solo Loco, has been released on RCA Records in France and Bomp! Records in the States, full of new material with a different twist. It’s still new and exciting but experimental in areas he’d never before explored; self-produced, as well.
Most recently, he’s gotten together a new band called the Confessions, consisting of himself on vocals and keyboards, Walter Powers on bass, Mathew McKenzie on guitar, and Ricky Rothchild on drums. In the past few months, they’ve been playing an assortment of live dates around the East Coast – including a few opening for the J. Geils Band – and have gone over extremely well. The future looks better than it ever has before. Willie has settled down in both his personal and business life. Since he’s already, in previous interviews, answered all the straight questions about his work, we decided to chat with him and find out his inner thoughts and feelings on himself at this point in his life.
FFanzeen: How did the break-up of the Boom Boom Band affect your mood? What did you feel at that point? Willie Alexander: I felt… shell-shocked. I guess I had just about had it at that point. The whole business side of it all, and everything else combined.
FF: You stayed out of action for quite some time after that. Willie: Yes, I needed some time to get better control of myself and what I was doing. I needed the time off to think about what direction I was going in.
FF: Then you decided to get back into the swing of things [“B.U. Baby” single; “Gin” single]. What prompted this? Willie: Different people more or less asked me to do them, so it was made easy for me.
FF: Were they projects that would have come out on independent singles promoted by you at some later date anyway? Willie: No, some of them I wouldn’t have ever thought of doing. Like “B.U. Baby.” I’d never have thought of that, or “Gin” either, but I was approached, and after doing it, I felt it came out really great and I was happy with it. I was glad they got revived. I got a lot of mileage out of “Gin,” for instance. At that time, especially, it was really good for me.
FF: Since it came at a time when you were perhaps still disillusioned, did these projects make you more optimistic, maybe motivate you towards getting a band together, getting out –? Willie: Yes, it really did. It was nice to see my name in the papers again. That way you’re establishing contact again. People probably say, “Gee, it’s been a long time between engagements for this guy, but at least he’s still making records – that’s good.” It’s a way of staying in there without actually having to put a band together.
FF: Were the thoughts of a solo LP lingering in your mind for some time before it actually materialized? Willie: Yes, I had some things I didn’t think would be band material, so I did them in a solo way. Now that I have a band, I look at them like they’re band material. Definitely; I mean, I changed them.
FF: What actually motivated you to get moving on the solo project, especially as it sounds completely different from your previous work? Was it the freedom of doing it yourself and having it turn out the way you wanted it to, especially having produced it yourself when you could have gotten someone to do it? Willie: I wasn’t really looking at the time. I felt it was something I had to do at the time. The solo LP concept came up when I was with the Boom Boom Band doing the second LP [Meanwhile, Back in the States – Ed.] . I was talking with (producer) Craig Leon and I told him I really didn’t like the way things were going with it, and he kept saying, “oh, don’t worry, we’ll do a solo LP after this.” Then it turned out later it didn’t work out; we tried a couple of cuts. I seemed to do much better myself, doing some of the same songs. Some of them I just went in and did totally experimental. I used the studio as a medium, sort of, some of them are like sketches, but most of them are pretty flushed out.
FF: Did you think at the time, that maybe you couldn’t find musicians or a producer, to get a cross the type of sound you wanted? Willie: I didn’t even know what type of sound I wanted. I didn’t know what was going to happen in there.
FF: Were you perhaps surprised at the outcome? Possibly, that you went in to do demos for songs and they more or less ended up finished projects? Willie: Well, I was thinking of it as a real album. I mean, I was doing it cut by cut. I really didn’t have an overall plan for it. It was a do-or-die thing.
FF: Were you pleased with the outcome? What are your thoughts now that you look back on it? Any changes you would like to have made? Willie: It’s the way I wanted it to come across. I wanted to convey a lot of different influences, not the usual type of thing that people were used to hearing from me. You know, guitars, bass – to me it’s more of a jazz-oriented feeling throughout, with my choices of instruments and the improvisations of melody lines. I really didn’t have songs written out; a lot of things would be improvised. And leave it like it was a jazz piece.
FF: But, then, strangely enough, you went out and put together a band: guitars, bass and drums. Why? Willie: Yes, but I used a lot of the riffs from that, the ones that came out of this context.
FF: You didn’t have any thoughts of doing it solo, standing up in front of a packed crowd with backing, tapes and you singing? Willie: No, I don’t think I would have been comfortable doing that. It had to be a real rock’n’roll band, as that’s as much fun as doing a solo LP.
FF: Being so comfortable with the band now, would it have made a difference if they had been accessible at the time you were recording? Willie: No, I had to do it the way I did. I just walked into the studio alone most of the time. I used Ted St. Pierre, the engineer. He played bass and guitar, so we did most of the stuff ourselves. I’d, like, play drums and piano, start with one or another, and gradually add bass, sometimes guitar, synthetics, and things.
FF: Then that was the sound you liked all along? Willie: Because it was so unplanned. I really couldn’t teach people too many parts to these things. It more or less just fell together. Even I didn’t know all the parts; I have to learn them myself to make them work in a band context.
FF: When the French deal [with New Rose – RBF] came about for the LP, what were your thoughts on it? Willie: A ray of hope. I was a bit leery of all the business connected with it, but the way it was approached, I wasn’t selling my body and soul to a company, more like selling a product I’d already finished. I got to maintain my artistic freedom.
FF: What made you actually get back to playing live, and getting a band together? All the hype from the LP? Willie: It was something I think I really had to do, to make me feel better as a person. It also would help the album as well. Promotion in general, that was the main purpose. I reached a point just going into the studio alone and all. I think I needed the combinations, friction, interaction of different people.
FF: You must feel better about yourself, then? Willie: Yes, I feel more in control now, more productive in my own way. I don’t feel depressed thinking about the future anymore. It seems more hopeful now, not like an obligation to fulfill. I feel comfortable for the future.
FF: Concerning the band you’re working with now (The Confessions), what made you believe that these were the right people to add? How did it all fall into place? .Willie: Some of them I’d known for a while; I knew what they were capable of doing. I figured it was about time to do it then. I had played with Walter Powers in a lot of bands, and I played with Mathew McKenzie in a band. It just had to be the right people this time around. Not that the other guys weren’t right for that time, but I can talk a little easier to Mathew than the other guitar player, nothing personal. I know him, we’ve shared a lot of things, we can be honest, and most of all, we can bounce ideas of one another.
FF: Do you, as an artist, find it hard to keep a band together, especially since you write the songs and the band almost serves as your vehicle? Is it a tense situation at times? Willie: So far, so good. We’ve got a good interaction going. We struggle with the songs, I’ll bring in a part and we’ll keep trying new ideas out on it. With a lot of my material, I’ll lay down the skeleton of it and I know how Mathew will work it out because I know his style. But, he never fails to surprise me. I think he’s got a lot of jazz influence, even though he might not think so. He’s got a certain reckless abandon in his playing sometimes, like a number of the great jazz players. I’d rather work with someone like that than a standard rock guitarist. I never know what’s really going to happen with him.
FF: What’s your attraction to jazz playing? Is it the fact that often times they’re learned musicians? Willie: When I started out, I wanted to be a jazz musician, so I still kind of think of that. When I didn't like where rock’n’roll was going, I started listening more to jazz. When I was in high school, I was more interested in playing jazz drums than in trying to play the type of rock’n’roll on the radio at that time. Every five years, rock’n’roll gets good again. I really liked the ‘50s. Then it got good again mid-‘60s.
FF: What parts of it didn’t you like, specifically? Willie: I think it was the sound at different times. It started to sound too manufactured. It was lacking the rawness. It was too slick and sophisticated for me. I seem to have a lot of complaints. What’s funny is that the slickness is what the majority of people like. These are people who consider my stuff and I think that’s pretty good because lots of times I do my best to keep it sounding primitive. The album sounded that way, but with only 8 tracks it would be hard to get it too slick. Maybe the next time when I get 16 tracks or with 24, my troubles would be over.
FF: Then we can all hate it. Willie: Yes, but it would sell millions.
FF: What are your thoughts about touring? Willie: In general, it can be fun, but it’s still work. You get to see the country. It’s necessary, I know. We’re going to be going to France, hopefully, in the spring, which is a lot better than saying, “Hey, would you like to go to Indianapolis or St. Louis for the weekend?” Sure, I like touring. Going to France is pretty hot stuff.
FF: Do you find it exciting that you’re going to some place where, as a solo performer, you’ve never been, and your material has sold extremely well and gotten good press? Willie: It’ll be pretty wild. It’s almost surrealistic in a way. I went through France with Walter (Powers) when we were with the Velvet Underground in 1971, and all this wasn’t even a glimmer in my eye then, just guys on bicycles with berets and cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and turtleneck sweaters. I never thought they’d be buying my album. I had heard, though, that they liked American music, jazz and rock’n’roll. I guess it sold because we had sent the singles over there and the right people got them and wrote about them. There were also, around 1977-78, big articles over there about the Boston music scene, and they talked a lot about the Boom Boom Band, garage records… I think that’s what started it. It’s great to be popular in your home town, but imagine a foreign country. It’s crazy. And they’re only going by records. I make records and they’re accepted in another place. I’m conveying my thoughts and getting something across, which is something you always hope for when you do it. FF: Do you think your record sounds different than a lot of things today? Willie: No, not to me, because I see where it’s coming from and the influences. Basically, it’s rock’n’roll with Latin-American overtones. The freedom of jazz with rock’n’roll rhythms.
FF: Although it may be hard to tell because the LP just came out domestically, do you feel you get better promotion overseas? Willie: I haven’t actually witnessed the promo there, but it gets press and I hear that when it came out, you know, it was in stores with big displays and all that. I had that with the first Boom Boom Band album [Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band – Ed.], but this is different.
FF: What do you think when you look back and listen to the Boom Boom album? Willie: It’s kind of weird. I don’t play it that much at all. I was real close to it then and I’m so far from the person singing sometimes. Although I know it was me and I’d never go back on anything I ever did, I can just see it differently now. Even with the solo LP sometimes – but if I’d stayed in the studio, the record wouldn’t be out now.
FF: Do you feel that it’s a valid piece of history? A stepping stone? Willie: Sure, because the songs needed to be out. There’s a few I’d like to even record again, I don’t know when.
FF: Is there a real obsession to get certain songs out on an actual piece of vinyl? Willie: Yes. I look at an old song and think, gee, I never recorded that and I should. Sometimes, I forget my thoughts. It really makes it final. Sometimes, I think I’m not that prolific. I have to look in old notebooks, but when I look around, at one point I had, like, 100 songs, but I lost that list. When I rewrote it, I only had 30. A lot I forget. We do 22 in the band right now. I don’t finish things right away. I write bits and pieces and they eventually fall into place. Some of the riffs, especially on “Take Me Away” (on the solo LP), I’ve been fooling with for 10 years. It changes when it’s done live, as well. I went in the studio for the wild and crazy changes. People either like it or they don’t. It doesn’t represent my whole life or anything, just a small part of it.
FF: What are your lyrical influences? Willie: Everyday life, all the thoughts that run through my head. It is amazing when you’re thinking of something and it’s that good that you say, “That’s a song!” I’ve got dozens of notebooks with lines in them. You’ve got to exercise your thoughts. The next project for me will no doubt sound much different than this. They’ll be a constant thread running through it all – me, and my trademarks through the years.
FF: How do you think fans will take to the constant changes? Willie: I’m not sure, especially new fans. What they think of the solo LP. It’s all a constant progression or digression. I stick with a number of some things so well, the really heavy beat for starters. It’s easy for me to adapt any of my songs for the unit I’m in at the moment. Or drop the song maybe, or the band changes the song to fit them. It’s fun. I know what to look for in musicians now. I’ve been around a long time. It all evolves. It depends on the song itself.
FF: Do any of the others in the band write songs? Will they get filtered in? Willie: Mathew writes a lot of great songs. I don’t’ know if I could do someone else’s material. We do a few covers, you never know, it’s always possible. I like it better if they’ve been dead for 20 years.
FF: Do you view the band as a long-term project, or do you like variations? Willie: It’ll be a long-time thing for a while. It’s just starting so I can’t see any end. I can see recording with them; other things I want to do solo. Both, I guess. It’s all a very comfortable atmosphere.
FF: What are some of your upcoming plans for the future? Willie: Rochester, New York, Saturday. No, seriously, video I’m quite interested in. It’s all exciting to think about, all the open options. I have ideas for videos, nothing really formulated as of yet. We did a few with the Boom Boom Band and they were horrible. I said, “Next…”
FF: What is your driving force after all these years? Willie: I really like to do it; I can’t picture myself doing anything else. It’s all new to me now, with the band. I’m also a little more cautious. I know what I don’t want. It’s a new ballgame and it's scary sometimes. But so is crossing the street.
FF: Is success all that important to you Willie: Right now, to me, I feel as though I already have it. Any little thing that happens grouped together is success. I wouldn’t mind having a hit record. That means my ideas have corresponded with so many more people, but I have to keep my credibility. I mean, I still think of having a hit record after all this time in music. The audacity of myself, sometimes. That may be the force.
FF: How did you feel about your first comeback show at the Paradise [Boston] this year when it sold out and you got a standing ovation? What were you thinking? Willie: I was stunned. It was wild and great. It becomes unreal – I was extremely happy, especially since I’ve been out of it for a while. It made it all worthwhile for me as a person. That’s why I do it all. I still get nervous that no one will show up. When I reflect back on it as a whole, I really feel proud. I keep my fingers crossed at all times. If I didn’t get a response, I wouldn’t do it. I’d stop. It makes it all seem right.
FF: Why do people go to see you? What do you think it is? Willie: It’s hard to say, it’s all still a fantasy to me, the whole rock’n’roll trip, and going on stage. It’s real life and I’m still getting used to it. I worry if I’ll still be popular the next day. I had to learn to cope with it all.
FF: Are you self-motivated? Willie: Yes, I think so. I probably need a push here and there. If I decide to do something, I do it, and vice versa. The fantasy is all real now, yet it still surprises me to walk out on a stage or have things click at rehearsal. The element of suspense keeps me going. Sometimes, I think, “Oh, this can’t last.” It’s already gone so much longer than I thought it would in the beginning. Thank God, it’s happening.
FF: Do you think that you settling down to your personal life made your music settle as well? That you were more in control of both? Willie: Yes. They both interacted with each other, I think. It helped the music. I feel very happy and content at the moment. There's always some days, but – it all balances out. I was really screwed up before. There’s a fine line between being in and out of control. I guess I label it: The Edge. I believe I’m on the right track now. It’s kind of like that old John Sebastian song, “Do You Believe in Magic?” That’s what music is all about.
Twasn’t brillig – it didn’t dare. And the slithy toves weren’t gyring or gimbling. Not if they knew what was good for them. As for the borogoves and the mome raths, they were sitting under the Tumtum tree, sipping cups of Earl Grey and having a quiet game of rummy. And the Jabberwock? Well he was perched on a rock in the sun giving his claws a particularly focused and fastidious manicure. Broken strains of Moon River drifted through the wood as he whistled toothily to himself. In the background Alph the sacred river was running away faster than any river had the right to do and was flinging itself over the cliff - quite happy to smash itself on the rocks of very sunny sea far below. As for Kubla Khan, he’d clearly got word and had buggered off long ago. Somewhere on the path leading to the stately pleasure dome, the Jean Genie was practicing yoga. Nothing at all outrageous, you understand, and definitely no screaming or bawling. On the steps of the dome Ziggy Stardust had all the spiders from Mars on a leash and was humming a lullaby to them while they practiced their knitting. This, I have to tell you, in case you’re wondering, is what it’s like in Granny Were’s subconscious. Even her nightmares are so frightened of her that they behave well. There isn’t a hint of a whinny and definitely no bucking or wild, untamed rearing. Who’d have thought it, right? You’d have expected a werechicken to have violent dreams. But oh no.
You’re wondering, I can tell, what on earth I’m doing in Granny’s subconscious in the first place. To be honest, I’m not really sure. See, the thing is, as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve not heard from the Hens in a while. I might even be pushed so far as to admit that I was getting a little worried - and missing them. And then Granny turned up.
Note to self: remember to keep mind fully sealed when thinking about the Hens – it’s not like they really need the encouragement.
She’d nicked a spacepod from High Command and come whizzing through the singularity in time and space and landed, with an almighty splash in the swimming pool - of course - leaving the neighbour’s washing (and dog) well-soaked. “Darling girl!” she squawked, flinging yellow tipped wings around me. “How are you! So delighted to hear you’ve been missing us.” “I wasn’t really -” I started to say and thought better of it. “Where’s Atyllah?” “Oh,” said Granny waving a claw, “she’s off in the Pleiadean system gathering meteors. We use them, you know, in our heat reactor – to keep the Novapulse temperature nice and temperate – none of this climate nonsense for us.” It was some time later, while sipping hot chocolate and nibbling on mopani worm crisps that Granny suggested I might like to get to know her a little better. It was, she assured me, a genuine gesture of interspecies and intergalactic goodwill. Right now, as I dust Jubjub bird pooh off my shoulders and find myself reading a bedtime story, called the Velvet Goldmine to the bandersnatch, I’m really not so sure about all that interspecies goodwill. For one thing. I have utterly no idea how I’m going to get out of Granny’s head. (Mind you, I’ll say this: it makes a change from having her and Atyllah in my head...)
