Music and John

I had the pleasure of chatting with Doug from Built to Spill at his show in Wilmington, DE recently. Doug's a comics guy, and we always have a nice chat about that. I told him about the documentary and -- without missing a beat he said -- 'I love that guy! We played a show with him back on our first tour!'

Doug went on to say that he remembers John as being super friendly and that he sold comics at the show which were really good. Anyway, kind of neat the way the universe works. I looked it up and, yes indeedy, on Built to Spill's first tour in '94, they played the Club 156 on the CU Boulder campus for $5 with Felt Pilotes opening up.


I then remembered this gem. I love Luna, and when I lived in Denver in the 90's, I'd see this poster for sale from a '95 show at the Fox. I didn't know John P. of King Cat was in Felt Pilotes, I just liked that the opener was seemingly named after a pen (not true).  I really regret not buying it now.

I also dug up an article about FP opening up for Guided by Voices on their swing through CO in 1995 as well. Kind of neat!

I bring this up because dealing with John P. and King-Cat is one thing, but man, the music thing is another. He was in many great and legitimate bands. Smile, FP, T.A.C. -- bands that played lots of shows, toured, put out records -- the whole deal. It's a little hard figuring out incorporating some of that into the doc, outside of peripherally.

But I'll get there!

In the meantime, here's a clip I'm trying to get Paul Westerberg's manager to let me use for free. I think I can post it here without pissing anyone off, but Darren, let me know if you want me to pull it for now.

Black Squirrel

While driving around the Moon Lake subdivision in Hoffman Estates with John, we created this gem of a clip. 

We were driving by the house he grew up in from 1979-86, so if you love Perfect Example, October, or any of his other middle/high school stories, this is the neighborhood for you. 

This clip sums up many of my favorite things about John. In pointing out the deck his dad built (which I'm sure both father and son have some pride about), he gets super excited upon seeing a black squirrel. After the squirrel interlude, he answers a question asked an hour earlier. The line that gets me is, 'I can't think I've ever seen a black squirrel….'. It's hard to describe, so I'll just let you watch what I think is a really funny and touching clip which won't make it into the final project. 

A King Cat review thirteen years later

I've been obsessively reading and re-reading King-Cat related stuff of late, and I just have to share my opinion about the 'best' issue of King Cat. Let's not say best. Let's say, the issue that I've read the most times, and the issue which always brings tears to my eyes and a smile to my face.

Back in January of 2001, ole John P. put out the incredible King Cat Comics and Stories #58 for the extremely fair price of $2. It was the middle of winter in Elgin. John was living at 212 N. Melrose in the Sears model home he'd purchased in 1998 (and which he would leave in 2002). Maisie K. indubitably curled up nearby while John wrote and drew the stories that would make up this issue.

King Cat #58 is a strange one, by KC standards. No Catcalls. No Snornose. No Top 40. There's nothing cute about this issue. This one is all heart. 100%. The issue is comprised of five simple (and nearly perfect) elements:

- the cover drawing of a tall bare tree on a sparsely populated hill
- 'An open letter to Dough Mioducki' - John thanks Doug for a letter and check and then describes being sad in one short paragraph
- 'Forgiveness' - a 31-page story about John as a boy getting a sling-shot, killing a bird, and that fact eating him up inside, until he emotionally explodes after accidentally sending the dog into the basement after a ball. This story grips me every time. The secret shame you have as a child when you do something wrong. Without an adult's ability to rationalize, justify, or simply not care, a child can be so susceptible to agony over wrong-doing. This story is gut wrenching every time I read it, and when I asked John about it one time, he told me it was one of the hardest stories he'd ever written, because he still felt that shame about the bird. I believe he said he'd been trying to put out that story for years before he actually did.
- 'Rockford Station' - a 2-page JP classic. This story feels like John closing the door on his first marriage, in a sweet, nostalgic way. The story starts with 'We….' and you expect it to be one person remembering something fondly to another. Then, in panel 6, he says, 'One day I was hungover and I laid my head in her lap'. Not 'your' lap, but 'hers'. The final panel of this story would make up most of the cover to 'Map of My Heart' & on his book tour, John always included this comic. It's really a classic.
- Back page gag panel - two rich ladies walking tiny dogs past a diamond store - one says to the other 'So I said, 'No- You listen to me!'" Just a perfect knee-slapping palate cleanser.

This issue, for me, sums up pretty perfectly why single issue comics exist and are critical. The five elements of King Cat #58 work in a way that they simply don't in a collection. In 'Map of My Heart', 'Forgiveness stands out, because it's such a singular work. But the way it's juxtaposed with the letter to Doug and 'Rockford Station' get lost in the collection, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, this issue is out of print, and while I could find two copies on Amazon, they're priced at $20. Who knew that investing $2 in John P. thirteen years ago would give you a tenfold profit!

Aren't you working on a documentary?

Some neat stuff I've scanned recently for the doc.

Vonnegut & Martsch

A handful of years back -- around 2006 -- I sent off a handwritten interview request to Doug Martsch, of Built to Spill. These are interviews I do where I send 10-11 questions to an artist, cartoonist, musician, author, etc. and ask them to respond in their own handwriting, because I'm a nut for handwriting.

I had met Doug outside the Fox Theater in Boulder and asked about doing one, he was game, and gave me his address to send the questions to, so I did. When I do these, I try to include a 'thank you gift' to the person doing it. I sent Joe Matt $5, I sent Seth the uncollected Salinger, and so forth.

I sent Doug an orange shirt with Kurt Vonnegut's face screened on it, with a bunch of questions & return postage, but never heard anything back. A couple years went by and a buddy of mine emailed to say she had just seen Built to Spill in Portland, and Doug was wearing a Vonnegut shirt. She didn't know I made the shirt, just that I was a Vonnegut freak. So I did some Google image searching and found a bunch of pics of Dough wearing my shirt. Neat-o!

Here's a nice video of the band, with my shirt heavily featured, six years after I sent it to him. I did a decent printing job -- it's holding up pretty well!

The Plan

I've been up since five, ostensibly to 'get stuff done', but that only counts if 'getting stuff done' is the same as 'farting around on time wasting websites'. 

Today I may have a baby swap with a friend of mine. She's a writer with an nine month old, and I'm trying to finish a documentary with a fourteen month old. We set it up this week to start doing a swap. One day I watch both babies, and she writes, and another she watches them so I can edit. Today's my day -- we'll see how it goes. Going to hole up in a Starbucks and see what I can get done. 

I scared the shit out of John P. the other day when I told him, excitedly, "I've got like six minutes edited!" I think I heard him swallow his own tongue. Then I explained that that's like having six pages inked, and it made a bit more sense. 

I'm trucking to get this damn thing done so that I can then go back and do actual post production work. Making sure the sound is good, lighting is balanced out, all that stuff. I'm planning on a debut at SPX in September, so my hope is to be done editing by the end of May. That gives a few summer months to tidy things up. 

I think today I'm going to focus on getting a couple outsider interviews in there, and then this afternoon when Oscar's down, get to scanning some stuff. If this comes off like it looks in my head, it'll be at least watchable. 

As Doug sings, 'The plan won't accomplish anything if it's not implemented'. Speaking of Doug, Built to Spill is coming back east -- nine shows in ten days. I'm in the works to catch two of them, and just this AM realized that 'Wilmington, DE' is a mere 100 miles away. Totally doable. 

This has been a pretty strange and challenging year in many ways, and I feel like I'm just getting my head together/screwed on right, and frankly, a few Built to Spill shows is just what the doctor ordered, so we'll see. 

It's funny, when I was 15-18, I'd drive hundreds of miles with my friends for a show. I remember driving three hours each way to see Tracy Chapman -- someone I only sort of liked. By the time I was in my mid-20's, I wouldn't catch a bus to Slim's if it was going take more than twenty minutes to get there. 

As I get older, I'm content seeing Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo over and over again with the random one-off special show thrown in for good measure (Neutral Milk Hotel, for example).

Wish me luck. 

Neil Young 1968 -> mid 1972

Ok, I've spent a month or so with the first eight Neil Young albums, and have some thoughts.

Neil Young (December 1968) - C+
Meh. If you love Neil Young, this is a tough record. It's long-time complaint has been that it's over produced (which is true), but it's also just clearly an album written by a twenty-two year old. By a YOUNG twenty-two year old. Compare it to 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' which came out in 1963, when Dylan was 22 and you'll see what I mean.

It's chock full of teenage pseudo poetry stuff. Even the titles of the songs point to a guy trying way too hard. There's not much subtlety in 'The Loner', 'If I Could Have Her Tonight', 'I've Been Waiting for You', or 'I've Loved Her So Long'.

There are a couple tracks I dug. 'The Old Laughing Lady', 'Here We Are In the Years', and even 'The Last Trip to Tulsa' -- but mostly I wished I could hear them as done solo on piano, or with Crazy Horse, around 1970-71.

This album IS notable, however, because it brought Neil together with Jack Nitzsche, the incredible (and tragic) keyboardist, and the man who would become synonymous with Neil Young albums, producing basically every Neil Young album until his death in 1995, David Briggs.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (May 1969) - A+
Released a scant six months after his solo debut, this album is to its predecessor what Neil Armstrong was to Orville Wright. Talk about one giant step for Neil Young. From the crunchy guitar and hand clap opening of 'Cinnamon Girl' to the winding down guitar solo of 'Cowgirl in the Sand', the seven songs in 40.5 minutes that make up this album are damn close to perfection.

This was Young's first album with Crazy Horse (formerly 'The Rockets', hence the title of 'Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)'), and you can tell the band really set up the sonic space they needed to let their sound hit the tape exactly right. Young's vocals are much more open, his guitar work is both more focused and more relaxed at the same time, and the addition of the incredibly Crazy Horse gives his song the direction they needed.

As a lyricist, Young seems to improve quite a bit on this album over his predecessor. 'Down By The River' a song where the singer kills his lover, and seems to relish in it, is amazingly counterbalanced by the plaintive almost-sobbing of 'Running Dry's' "I left my love with ribbons on, and water in her eyes. I took from her the love I'd won, and turned it to the sky'.

This is my most-listened to Neil Young album. If you don't have it, get it. It's really good. I think it's perhaps the perfect album to listen to when it's really hot, kind of dusty, and you've got a can of beer in your hand.

After the Gold Rush (August 1970) - A+
Two home runs in a row? Seems unlikely, but it's true. This is Young's first stab at the acoustic/ballad-y side that would gain him worldwide fame with 'Harvest' (released eighteen months after this LP), but is counterbalanced with plenty of 'Everybody Knows'-era fuzz guitar tunes. Of course, the album goes much deeper than 'it's half electric and half acoustic'.

At thirty-five minutes, ten seconds, the elven songs on this record pack a real punch. Kicking off with the the heartbreak trinity of 'Tell Me Why', 'After the Gold Rush' & 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart', side one takes a sharp left into the overtly political 'Southern Man' -- a rocker calling out racism in the south -- and lands on the jaunty piano ditty, 'Till the Morning Comes'.

Side two kicks off with the harmonica wail of Neil's incredible cover of the country tune 'Oh, Lonesome Me' and continues in the heartbreak vein right on through. This album may be the best break up album of all time, but it ends with the raucous sing-along of 'Cripple Creek Ferry'.

This album flows so wonderfully, that as soon as the first track starts, you know you're going to listen to it all the way through. And, somehow, this album which is full of heartbreak, loss, sorrow and anger leaves you at the end…..smiling? It's crazy. Great work Neil. Allegedly the project started as the soundtrack to an unmade movie written by the great Dean Stockwell, but even the script has been lost.

This album features an incredible line up of players. Nils Lofgren in his first released recording at the age of 19, the incredible (and incredible messed up) Jack Nitzsche, Stephen Stills, and then the folks from Crazy Horse are all here as well -- Bill Talbot, Ralph Molina, and in what I think is the last released studio work with Young, Danny Whitten, who would die of a heroin overdose in 1972, and send Neil on a strange three year musical journey.

Fun aside: Lynard Skynard famously sang 'I hope Neil Young will remember, southern man don't need him around anyhow' in 1974. Warren Zevon responded in 1980 (in 'Play it All Night Long') with 'Sweet Home Alabama, play that dead band's song, turn the speakers up full blast, play it all night long'.

Harvest (February 1972) B+ 
In the eighteen months between records, Neil had hooked himself up with the folks over at Crosby, Stills & Nash and put out one studio album (Deja Vu) and one live album (4 Way Street) and while there are many folks who love CSNY (myself being one of them), I wonder if it wasn't too much of a distraction for him, at (arguably) the height of his powers.

I think Harvest is a great album, but it's all over the place. While on Gold Rush, he was able to mix styles, themes and sounds seamlessly, 'Harvest' feels like a compilation album -- in fact, I'd argue it's the  logical predecessor to the next two NY releases which are SO all over the place, he's never bothered to released them on CD or digitally (Journey Through the Past & Time Fades Away).

Harvest has some great tunes, and was the best selling album of 1972 in the U.S. Obviously, 'Heart of Gold' and 'Old Man' are the two insanely popular songs from this record, but the other cuts are just as good -- however, the albums lacks cohesion.

He's got a couple tunes with the London Symphony backing him up -- 'A Man Needs a Maid' and 'There's a World' - which I can't stand at all. He's got the live acoustic 'The Needle and the Damage Done', his classic song about heroin abuse, which is great, but sonically is very out of place on this album.

Then there's the folk-country James Taylor blueprint 'Harvest' a pretty song, and his continuing battle with the south in fuzz rocker 'Alabama' (which I believe is the inspiration for 'Sweet Home Alabama'), and the piano rocker 'Are You Ready for the Country?'.

Personally, my two favorites are the opener 'Out on the Weekend', which kicks off the country/folk theme of the album, but is a great song of resignation, and the molasses dirge of the album's closer, 'Words', which I've always blown off until I dug into the 16-minute version that shows up in '72's 'Journey through the Past'.

The tunes are great on here, but as Neil said himself (paraphrased by me) 'With Harvest I was in the middle of the road. I can't stay there, and I can't go back'. It's his most popular album and the one I think he feels furthest from.


Next installment:
Journey through the Past (November 1972)
Time Fades Away (October 1973)
On the Beach (July 1974)
Tonight's the Night (Recorded Sept-Oct 1973/Released June 75)