La Vie En Robe

Memoirs of a Reluctant Catcher, Part Two

 

(Above: Me catching, with Eddie Vedder at the plate.)

Back in the mid-1970s, when I first fell in love with baseball, I dreamed of playing catcher for a big league team. Not only did some of the best and most colorful players of the era squat behind the plate — guys like Johnny Bench, Thurman Munson, Carlton Fisk, Ted Simmons and Manny Sanguillen, to name a few — but the idea of the catcher as the "captain of the defense" really appealed to my inner Napoleon. And then there was the gear that came with the position — not just the special glove, but the whole bad-ass body armor ensemble, which could make even a relative scrub like Biff Pocoroba look like a man to be reckoned with.

My Little League catching career was short-lived, however; like, "one game" short-lived. The dream started to unravel before our 1977 season even began, when my coach had me warm up a pitcher on the sidelines — but without a mask, since our team's budget only afforded us one of those, and it was currently in use by our starting catcher. Failing to get my glove on an 11 year-old's attempt at a curveball, I took it squarely in the side of the noggin, triggering an expletive-laden tantrum that was a deep shade of blue even by my youthful standards. It also triggered a fear of the ball that stood me in lousy stead once I actually donned "the tools of ignorance" and caught a few innings in a real game; I think I caught most of the pitches that were thrown to me in that game...but only after they bounced off the screen behind me and ricocheted back towards the plate.

From then on — with the exception of a brief but equally unsuccessful attempt at becoming a 12 year-old junkballer — it was strictly IF/OF for me. During my previous visit to Randy Hundley's Cubs Fantasy Camp in 2010, I spent most of the games at second base (a position I can handle pretty well) and far right field (a position that, given our four-man outfield setup, adequately hides my lack of speed). So I figure that, this time around, I'll just tell my new teammates and coach that they'd be best off putting me at second or in right.

Of course, as I quickly realize, you can't just appear in camp on the last day of the season and decide where you'd like to play. When I show up at the Fitch Field clubhouse at 8:45 on Friday morning, my coach — Rick "Big Daddy" Reuschel — reiterates that I'll be catching today...in both games.

"Big Daddy, I've never caught a game in my life," I protest, lying only slightly.

"Then this is a great time for you to learn," he chuckles. He also mentions that we're in contention for the camp championship, and we'll most likely need to win both games in order to take home the trophy. So, you know, no pressure.

My stomach is beginning to churn audibly at the prospect, but I feel a little better once I don my blue Cubs road jersey (emblazoned with #8, in honor of Joe Pepitone) take a stool in the meeting room next to my pals Paul Malek, Beth Chaplin, and Bobby "Skates" Farinelli. Paul was my double-play partner in 2010, and though both Beth and Skates played on another team that year, they're dear pals of mine as well — Skates even made the four-hour drive from Iowa to come to one of my Big Hair & Plastic Grass Chicago events in 2010, and I hung out with him and Beth in Minneapolis last summer at a Twins game, followed by a legendarily festive evening with Ron Coomer, his wife Paula, and several other Cubs campers.

The morning clubhouse meeting is exactly like how I remembered it. The coaches take turns running down the games from yesterday, alternately praising their players and fining them for a variety of comical infractions. This year's crop of coaches include former players Bobby Dernier, Ed Lynch, Pete LaCock, Jose Cardenal, Lee Smith, Todd Hundley, Willie Wilson, Larry Biittner, Carmen Fanzone, Ron Coomer, Keith Moreland, Glenn Beckert and Rick Reuschel — all of whom were here in 2010 — and Hall of Famer Billy Williams, who arrived late in the week to fill in for a now-departed Fergie Jenkins. Joe Pepitone, who was supposed to participate in 2010 and didn't, apparently showed up for two days this year and then disappeared. Thus, my treasured copy of Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud remains sadly unautographed...

With Randy Hundley acting as MC, some of the coaches also offer up a few war stories from their playing days. Hundley Sr. tries to get Cardenal to re-tell his famous "Ham and Eggs" story (about how he ordered that dish virtually ever day during his first season in the minors, because he didn't know enough English to order anything else); but Jose has been suffering from a bad cold and can barely speak, so he calls upon Eddie Vedder to serve as his "interpreter". Vedder, a close friend of the Cuban outfielder, proceeds to tell the whole story in a hilariously note-perfect approximation of Cardenal's Chico Esquela-esque patois.

On my way out of the clubhouse after the meeting, someone stops me and lets me know that Robert Hegyes, aka "Epstein" of Welcome Back, Kotter fame, has passed away at the too-young age of 60. Though I had no love for the Epstein character — or for the amount of times I got called "Juan" in school because of him — I inwardly decide to dedicate my first game to my pop-culture namesake.

We're scheduled to face Vedder's team (coached by Cardenal and LaCock) in the Friday morning game. As anyone who knows me (or has ever read this blog) can probably tell you, I am not a Pearl Jam fan, to say the least. But I've gotta give it up for Eddie — not only can the guy cover some serious ground in centerfield, but he also turns out to be a genuinely sweet and open guy. His teammate, my friend Bryan Redington, introduces us in the dugout before the game, and tells Eddie about Big Hair & Plastic Grass; we immediately begin to riff on Oscar Gamble, Bake McBride, and the fact that we both have the best hair in camp. He then proceeds to take a hit away from me during my first at-bat of the game, spearing a sinking liner to dead center, but I can't really hold it against him. Is it possible to recognize a kindred spirit in someone, even if you can't stand their art?

Having taken the precaution of visiting a batting cage right before the trip to Mesa, I'm already swinging the bat as well or better than I ever did in 2010. It's one frozen rope after another for me, two of which drop for hits and kick off big innings for us. "Larry told me you couldn't hit a lick," chuckles Big Daddy, after I make it safely to first for the second time in the game. While we're laughing, Vedder's bodyguard nails me lounging off of first with the "hidden ball" trick. But Big Daddy claims that he called time out, and thankfully the umpire buys it.

Two plays later, I cross home plate for the second time today, and we're well on our way to a 20-10 hammering of the "Celebrity Team". Everyone on our team contributes, but it's Joe Fath, our stellar left fielder and cleanup hitter, who leads the way with a single, two triples, and an inside-the-park home run. We have qualified for a spot in the one-game championship playoff!

Unlike the three other games happening in camp, ours is fairly well-attended, mostly by curious fans who want to see Vedder, John Cusack and Chris Chelios play. For the record, Vedder's a very good player, and Chelios was reportedly playing great until he busted his ankle; Cusack (pictured below) hit some ropes in our game, but the consensus seems to be that he's, er, much less of a natural ballplayer than Vedder or Chelios.

I've gotta say — it's really nice to play a winning game in front of a crowd, but it's even better to play a winning game with your girlfriend cheering you on and blowing you kisses from the stands, which is something I've truly never experienced before. (Thanks for the support, Miss Howerton, and thank you as well for taking these awesome action shots.)

Oh yeah — this catching thing, while not easy, is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It helps that we're not allowed to steal in our games, of course, and that I'm catching balls thrown by a (relatively) accurate pitching machine, but it's still a fairly rigorous position. You're literally involved in every play, every pitch, and catching keeps you on your toes (and on your knees) in a way that no other position does. The other team's leadoff hitter fouls one off my mask on the third pitch of the game...but much to my surprise, it doesn't hurt at all. Much more painful are the sinking pitches that land on my right thigh; my weak knees won't allow me to do a full catcher's squat, so I'm essaying a combination Manny Sanguillen/Randy Hundley stance, with my right knee down and my right hand behind my back. This leaves my upper right thigh relatively unprotected, though, and by the end of the day I'll have a bruise on my thigh running from knee to groin, looking like a sideways map of Great Britain fashioned from corned beef. But the satisfying "Thwhomp!" I hear everytime the ball lands in the mitt's sweet spot more than compensates for the pain.

The only drag about catching that I hadn't anticipated is that, with all the putting on and taking off of the shinguards and chest protector, you wind up missing a lot of the actual game — and you spend a lot of time anticipating when your next at-bat will be, so that you'll have all the equipment off in time to head to the plate. By the same token, you don't wanna "take it all off" and have the inning end before you get up to bat, and then have to put it all back on again. Thanks mucho to Rob Skinner, our opponent's impressively bearded catcher (pictured below), who not only gave me several helpful hints about donning the "tools of ignorance," but also volunteered on a couple of occasions to fill in for me on the field while I got my shit together in the dugout. That same spirit of friendliness and cooperation seems pretty widespread in camp this year, and that's truly a beautiful thing.

 

Memoirs of a Reluctant Catcher, Part One

The original plan was just to spend a long, relaxing weekend in Mesa, AZ, cheering on my pals as they played out their final games at Randy Hundley's Cubs Fantasy Camp, and enjoying dinner and drinks with them afterwards. And then, two days before I was planning to hit the road, the injury reports started piling up in my inbox. "Wheels, bring your uniform," was the basic gist. "Everybody's getting hurt. We might need you to fill in!"

And so it is that Miss Howerton and I set off across the desert on Thursday morning, Boston and the Bee Gees blasting from my iPod (with some Flying Burrito Brothers on deck for the Joshua Tree-adjacent section of our trip), and my regulation Cubs home and road jerseys hanging in the window. The drive from LA to Mesa is, for the most part, a total pleasure. I think, with the right company and proper soundtrack, I could probably drive across the desert forever. The passing mountains, rock formations, and (in Arizona, at least) silent armies of saguaro cacti never fail to put my heart and mind in a state of peaceful contentment.

Other than a brief detour outside of Cabezon for gas and snacks, and a couple of bathroom breaks, our only real driving break comes in Blythe, CA, where we stop for lunch at the Courtesy Coffee Shop, which was highly recommended by my friends Gerry & Ante. (Thanks, Wendels!) A down-at-the-heels Googie-style diner, the place was probably a real knockout in its day, but still retains plenty of faded period charm...

Good sandwiches, too, though their fries have clearly fallen prey to the same "coated and seasoned" plague that has afflicted so many restaurants, great and small, from coast to coast. Should've ordered the onion rings instead. Ah, well... The other great thing about the Courtesy is their "Cocktail Lounge" sign, which is missing an "o" — I take it as a good omen, since we'll probably be doing a fair amount of cocktail lunges before the weekend is over.

The last 90 minutes of the drive — which involves fighting our way inch-by-inch through Phoenix-area rush hour traffic — just intensifies the need for one of those aforementioned cocktails. Happily, we arrive at the Dobson Ranch Inn just in time for the annual camp BBQ, that time of the week when the coaches man the grills and cook up a mountain of burgers, brats, Italian sausage, chicken breasts and veggie patties for the hungry campers...and there's always plenty of liquid refreshment on hand, as well. 

We say hello to quite a number of my old pals from 2010 (including coaches Bobby Dernier, Ron Coomer and Pete LaCock), and all the conversations pretty much hit on the same two points: The list of casualties from the week thus far, and how this year's "Celebrity Team" — whose roster includes Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, actor John Cusack and retired hockey star Chris Chelios — held a massive karaoke blowout at the hotel bar last night, in honor of Chelios' 50th birthday. Other guests included Cubs hurler Ryan Dempster and actors DB Sweeney and John C. McGinley; by all accounts we missed the party of the year, or at very least the surreal spectacle of Chelios (who looks like he's about 30, btw) and Dempster serenading Vedder with his own songs...

It isn't too surprising to hear the litany of injuries currently afflicting the campers; as I discovered during my week-long baseball fantasy camp foray in 2010, the fantasy camp experience will definitely blow your mind — but it may quite possibly blow your hamstring, as well. You play hard, at least 14 innings a day; and even if you're in decent shape and/or lucky enough make it through the week relatively unharmed, you may still find your body increasingly refusing to co-operate with your desire to play. ("Dive for that ground ball? Fuck YOU, pal.")

This year, however, two of my favorite teammates from 2010 are already relegated to the DL. Scotty Marks, always one of the fastest guys in camp, took a tumble on Tuesday while trying to beat out a groundball, and wound up having to have extensive surgery on his hand; by the time I make it to camp, he's already gone home. Jerry Cook, who anchored us at third base in 2010, has locked up his back so badly, he's decided to head home Friday morning to see his doctor. Larry Malcolmson, our catcher and team leader, isn't hurt, but he also has to leave on Friday due to some pressing business appointments.

With Jerry and Larry splitting town, their team is now down to eight players — and since the camp games are played with a four-man outfield, this leaves them at a one-man disadvantage, even with team coach Rick "Big Daddy" Reuschel taking over in the field at first base. (Glenn Beckert, the team's other coach, is in no shape to play.) Jerry, Larry and Big Daddy have arranged for me to fill in as a "late-season call-up," playing the last two games of the camp session for the Reuschel-Beckert squad. However, there's a slight, er, catch:

"I hope you brought your cup," says Big Daddy, "Because you're catching tomorrow."

Oh, shit.

Don Cornelius, RIP

What a supreme stone drag it was to open up the internet this AM and read that Don Cornelius had died, most likely from a self-inflicted gunshot. That's no way at all for the unimpeachably smooth cat who brought us Soul Train to go out...

I can't put it as beautifully as Questlove from The Roots says it here, but suffice to say that my life would have been considerably poorer — and a lot less funky — without all the amazing music, dances and fashions that Soul Train turned me on to in the 1970s. For me, Don Cornelius was more important than Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack and Don Kirshner combined. Thank you, Don... I only hope you know how much joy and meaning you brought to so many people...

So let's go down the Soul Train line, one more time for DC...

Mo' Puckett

Sticking with yesterday's theme — my current obsession with the intense creepiness of Gary Puckett's oeuvre — here's a clip from the December 3, 1969 episode of "The Jack Benny Show," which features Gary and the Union Gap running through "The Beggar" (which is now really starting to grow on me, thanks in part to the groovy guitar riff that sounds like a cross between Elvis's "Edge of Reality" and the Mamas and the Papas' "Straight Shooter"), followed by a duet with Nancy Sinatra on Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel."

The latter number is especially interesting, because it backs up what I was saying earlier about how GP-UG could be considered an underappreciated "horn-rock" (or, in this case, "horn-dog rock") band. "Spinning Wheel," after all, is one of the acknowledged classics of the genre, and Gary handles his vocal parts with ease — and minus all the David Clayton Thomas/Jim Peterik "desperately in need of stool softener" grunting that went hand-in-hand with horn-rock.

It's also interesting to note that Gary seems to have no chemistry at all with the lovely Ms. Sinatra — though I guess that's not entirely surprising, given that she was 28 at the time, which would have put her out of Gary's, er, "target demographic" by at least 12 years...

The Curious Case of Gary Puckett

"Have sex with me while my friends watch!"

Sometimes, when the shuffled selections of my iPod intersect with music-geek conversations I'm having with friends in certain corners of the internet, I find myself considering the strange case of Gary Puckett. Born in 1942 in the same town (Hibbing, Minnesota) where Bob Dylan grew up, Gary went on to become a labelmate of the Mighty Zimm's, though the records he made occupied an entirely different part of the musical spectrum, to say the least.

Though one could argue that Gary Puckett and the Union Gap were un-credited/underappreciated purveyors of what would come to be known as "horn rock," their music was never considered to be anywhere as hip as that of, say, Chicago, Blood Sweat & Tears, the Buckinghams, or even Chase. It was tuneful and commercial as hell, though, with Gary's big, burly, man-tastic voice soaring through one catchy, dinner theater-worthy chorus after another. I remember my aunt playing her 45 of "Lady Willpower" for me when I was 12, and I couldn't help getting swept up in the record's thrilling horn-powered surges. A week later, I heard "Over You" on the local oldies station, and I thought, "Hey, it's 'Lady Willpower'!" — but as I would soon come to realize, all of his hits kind of sounded the same.

What I didn't realize at the time was just how fucking creepy his hits actually were; that particular lightbulb wouldn't go off over my head until the late 90s, when I saw him perform them all in the space of 45 minutes during an oldies show at the Greek Theater. (He also did a medley of Jimi Hendrix songs, which really had to be heard/seen to be believed.) At that moment, I realized that all of his hits could basically be broken down accordingly:

HAVE SEX WITH ME: "Lady Willpower," "Let's Give Adam and Eve Another Chance."

I HAVE HAD SEX WITH YOU: "Over You," "This Girl Is A Woman Now" (the latter of which contains the completely foul line, "This girl has tasted love," which made me laugh so hard at the Greek that I spit beer through my nose.)

DON"T HAVE SEX WITH HIM: "Woman, Woman" (which could have easily been subtitled "Have You Got Cheating On Your Mind") and "Don't Give In to Him". Of the latter's line, "...because he will only ask for more," my friend Jason wonders, "What the hell does that mean? Anal?"

YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO HAVE SEX WITH ME: "Young Girl," which contains the immortal line, "With all the charms of a woman/You've kept the secrets of your youth" — Example A of my long-held belief that "charms" used to be a pop code-word for "breasts". "This Girl Is A Woman Now" would probably qualify as well, if somebody'd bothered to check her ID.

Now, this inherent creepiness wasn't entirely Gary's fault — these songs were all penned by outside songwriters, including his producer Jerry Fuller, who wrote "Young Girl," "Lady Willpower" and "Over You". But Gary sure sold those songs, in several senses of the term. And in the course of today's Puckett conversation, I've discovered a few new additions to the Puckett canon, with some interesting variations on the aforementioned messages.

"His Other Woman":

Or rather, HE'S HAVING SEX WITH HER.

"The Pleasure of You":

The B-side of "This Girl Is A Woman Now" manages to combine the "Have Sex With Me" pleading of "Lady Willpower" and the pedophilic yuck factor of "Young Girl" (Though you were a child, nature had blessed you ahead of your time...") in a tender tale of a girl who has already slept with most of the guys in town before Gary got to her. In other words, THEY HAVE HAD SEX WITH YOU.

And finally, there's "The Beggar," the B-side of "Adam and Eve." It's an odd song that's almost Scott Walker-esque in its baroque lyrics and overwrought delivery, and which comes complete with this equally odd video of Gary moping around on a French Quarter rooftop in a pretty cool fringed-sleeve jacket. The message, perhaps, is SOMEONE, ANYONE, PLEASE HAVE SEX WITH ME.

Puckett reminded us several times that night at the Greek, he's since found God — which, given the underlying (and overlying) themes at work in his classic hits, was probably a good thing for everyone involved...

 

Bobby Fuller: Never To Be Forgotten

Forty-five years ago today, Bobby Fuller — one of my all-time musical heroes — was found dead in his car in Hollywood, under extremely questionable circumstances. It was a tragic and unjust end to a really promising career, and to the life of an enormously talented young gent who truly lived for his music.

I wish I had time right now to write more about who he was and what his music has meant to me, but I'm on a crazy deadline. Still, even though I'd rather pay tribute to my heroes on their birthdays, the anniversary of Bobby's death deserves some reflection. Watch the Shivaree clip above, if you have a chance — sure, they're lip-synching, but it gives you a great idea of Bobby's charisma, as well as the way he fused the '50s rock of Buddy Holly with a contemporary '60s groove and sound. And he was really just getting started.

And if you want to delve a bit into the mystery of his death, this E! Mysteries & Scandals episode from the late 90s is a good introduction — and it features some talking-head interjections from a younger, thinner version of yours truly. (If you have the scratch, you can also pony up for an out-of-print copy of Never to Be Forgotten: The Mustang Years, which I wrote the liner notes for.) The great Miriam Linna of Kicks fame has a book coming out soon that will reportedly shed new light on what happened; I can't wait to read it.

 

Apologies To The Hotel Detective

For lusty anthems of rock n' roll road mayhem, you just can't beat Grand Funk's "We're An American Band." So it was my great pleasure to be invited onstage to sing it last week with my boys The Static Minds — one of the more kick-ass pure rock n' roll ensembles currently treading the boards — during their gig at Kings in Raleigh, NC. Check 'em out in the clip below, and then watch me wander onstage around the 6:50 mark to belt out Don Brewer's immortal jam. Feelin' good, feelin' right, it was Friday night; the hotel detective was indeed out of sight.

I Think I'll Call It Mourning

Gil Scott-Heron died last Friday — which, in our no-attention-span, endless-news-cycle present, means that I'm way late to the funeral party. Everybody's already onto the next big piece of news, like the NBA finals, or that Facebook spam video thang wherein some woman "gives birth" to a grown man's head. A few folks, like Greg Tate of the Village Voice, have already penned some wonderful eulogies for a man who was one of the great poets and prophets of our time; countless others have hung two-paragraph obits upon such easily-digestible (if profoundly limiting) phrases like "godfather of rap" and "spoken-word artist." Why add one more voice to the chatter, this "late" in the game? Well, Gil Scott-Heron's music and message touched me deeply, and I've got a few things of my own to say about him.

But let's start with something someone else has already said. As Tate points out in his fine piece, "Gil knew he wasn't bigger than hip-hop—he knew he was just better. Like Jimi was better than heavy metal, Coltrane better than bebop, Malcolm better than the Nation of Islam, Marley better than the King James Bible. Better as in deeper—emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, politically, ancestrally, hell, probably even genetically." Which is why it tastes like spoiled milk every time I read some obit that calls Gil Scott-Heron a "spoken-word artist"; yes, the man had a gift for words, and he often delivered them with a profoundly resonant speaking voice, but he was also an incredibly soulful singer, songwriter and keyboard player, not to mention a (Tate again) "oracle, troubadour, poet, gadfly, muckraker, and grassroots shit-talker." Yeah, he's the guy who did the brilliantly incisive "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and "Whitey On The Moon," but to consign Gil Scott-Heron to the "spoken-word artist" box is like calling Curtis Mayfield a "soundtrack composer" — it was truly only one small facet of who he was and what he did.

To me, Gil's greatest gift — and perhaps ultimately his Achilles heel — was his humanity, his empathy for other human beings. For all his righteous anger, for all his intimidatingly-sharp intellect, for all his deft wordplay, for all his loose-limbed funk grooves, an open heart was his most important tool. Songs like "Home is Where the Hatred Is," "The Bottle" and "Angel Dust" stared unflinchingly at addiction, just like "No Knock," "Winter in America" and "Johannesburg" faced down The Man, but they were anything but dispassionate journalistic missives. You knew that Gil gave a shit about what was going down, on an emotional level as well as intellectual, and that it hurt him severely to see other people hurting, being exploited, being oppressed. But when you feel that much, when you care that deeply about the fate of your fellow man, when you make your art and your living by communicating those feelings and concerns to the rest of the world — and creating such nakedly emotional songs as "Save the Children," "Your Daddy Loves You" and "I Think I'll Call It Morning" — and you don't have a filter to shut off the hurt and despair...well, the process comes with an eventual price. Who can really blame him for his tragic, decades-long romance with the crack pipe? “Ten to fifteen minutes of this, I don’t have pain,” he said in last year's upsetting New Yorker profile, referring to his crack smoking. The pain he spoke of was from a spinal issue, but there had to be a great deal of psychic pain going on within him, as well.

Still, it's that same open-heartedness — as well as his clear-eyed anger — that has repeatedly drawn me back to Gil Scott-Heron's records over the years. I recall hearing his stuff for the first time in the late 70s, probably through one of my Mom's friends, and I seem to remember that 1984's "Re-Ron" — a typically scathing indictment of Ronald Reagan and those who wanted to re-elect him — got some decent airplay in Chicago at the time. But it wasn't until 1990, when I was a college grad trying to make sense of the world I'd graduated into, that I really started exploring his work, which thankfully started being reissued on CD in the early '90s. And in late 2000, when George W. Bush was handed the keys to the White House in the same way he'd been handed everything else in his life, I spent countless hours curled up with 1971's Pieces of a Man LP; though it was nearly three decades old, it was still the only album I could find at the time that fully articulated and validated my depression and anger, while simultaneously reminding me to live and love life to the fullest, as opposed to becoming fatally consumed by the despair I felt and the bad times that I knew were on the way.

Which is, unfortunately, much more than I can say about 2010's I'm New Here, his final studio album. A haunted, haphazard affair recorded after he was released from his second prison stint, the album lasts only 28 minutes and contains far more of Gil's parched-voiced reminiscences than actual new songs. While XL Recordings head honcho Richard Russell is to be commended for trying to get Gil back into the studio, the results are hard to listen to; though many buckets of critical jizz have been spilled over I'm New Here, Gil frankly sounds like a reluctant guest on his own album. “This is Richard’s CD,” he told the New Yorker. “My only knowledge when I got to the studio was how he seemed to have wanted this for a long time. You’re in a position to have somebody do something that they really want to do, and it was not something that would hurt me or damage me—why not? All the dreams you show up in are not your own.”

The Gil Scott-Heron who shows up in my dreams is the one of "Lady Day & John Coltrane," a song from Pieces of a Man that I have put on countless mix tapes for friends over the years. Quite possibly the best song ever written about the transcendent, transformative, healing and uplifting power of music, "Lady Day & John Coltrane" also manages to be remarkably healing and uplifting in its own right. It's a song that will stay with me for the rest of my life, both as a reminder of why I care so much about music, and as a reminder (and a means) to "let the sun shine through" and keep my heart open during those times when living all of my days in darkness seems an easier option. It's a complicated, maddening, fucked-up world we live in, and Gil saw that clearer than most; but he also communicated its beauty (and the beauty of existence) more effectively than most, and for that I will always be grateful.

Peace go with you, Brother. Thank you for helping to wash my troubles away.

Mastodon: Lost In Space

I first met the dudes from Mastodon during the summer of 2004, when I interviewed them for Revolver shortly before the release of the mighty Leviathan album. Our paths have crossed numerous times since then,but I've never seen them as utterly fried as they were on this April 2010 day when I did this interview for ShockHound. Not fried as in wasted, but fried as in completely worn-the-fuck-out from touring; they had one day "off" before heading to Coachella, and they were spending it shooting their "Oblivion" video in a sweltering studio in the Valley. Happy campers, they were definitely not...

Mastodon: Lost In Space — Interview by Dan Epstein

Brent Hinds can barely move. While Mastodon’s red-bearded axe-man does have a rather colorful history of recreational pharmaceutical usage, and did suffer a life-threatening brain hemorrhage in 2007 after hitting his head on a sidewalk during an altercation outside an MTV Music Video Awards after-party, Hinds isn’t to blame for his current state of semi-paralysis. Rather, it’s due to the tight-fitting space suit that his burly frame has somehow been shoehorned into, a realistic-but-uncomfortable costume requisitioned for use in the video for “Oblivion,” which the band is shooting today at a San Fernando Valley soundstage. “This fuckin’ sucks,” Hinds mutters.
    Hinds’ bandmates, guitarist Bill Kelliher, bassist Troy Sanders and drummer Brann Dailor, aren’t in substantially better moods. This was originally supposed to be one of the rare days off on their tour supporting Crack The Skye, their latest mind-boggling prog-metal epic; but their mangement and record company figured that, well, as long as they’re in the LA area, they might as well use the free time to bang out a video. And while Dailor at least expresses some genuine enthusiasm over the fact that he’s getting to sit at the same spaceship console that was originally used in the sci-fi flick 2010, his weariness is thoroughly palpable.
    Still, these guys are total troopers — and, having spent years touring the US in a cramped van known as the “Fart Box” before making even the barest of radar blips outside of the metal underground, they’re not gonna let a little thing like exhaustion get in the way of carrying out their mission. During a break from filming, Dailor and Sanders sat down with ShockHound to give us the scoop on the “Oblivion” video, and how it fits in with Crack The Skye’s complex concept involving space travel, mad monks, and the Russian Revolution.

SHOCKHOUND: Let’s talk about this video that you’re shooting.

DAILOR: We’re shooting a video for the song “Oblivion,” and the video’s basically a 2001-ish vibe where there’s a destroyed planet Earth and a now not-functioning space station. The crew members — the guys in the band — start to die; something is luring us off the ship to get us to take our helmets off. There’s one part where there’s something wrong with the outside of the ship so it needs to be checked out, and one of us goes out there and pulls a panel back and sees that there’s vines and things growing all over, and some giant moths start to fly out. It’s a hallucination, but it makes you think there’s breathable air, so you take your helmet off and that kills you. There’s another scene inside the space station where we’re kinda floating down a hallway, then the hallway suddenly turns into this old wallpaper and you see a normal door, so it’s this hallucination that makes you think you’re back at home, or something like that. Then you open up the door and it’s the hatch that leads to space, and you get sucked out and killed that way.  

SHOCKHOUND: How much of what’s going on in the video actually has anything to do with the song?

SANDERS: If anything, if you’re lost and dying in outer space, you’re gonna feel like you’re lost in oblivion and this is nearing the end.

DAILOR: That’s a real fear for me, being lost in space. I do not want that. That’s why I don’t ever go near space. You know what I mean?

SANDERS: He doesn’t even jump on a trampoline, ‘cause he’s scared he’ll get sucked up in the atmosphere. It’s like, “Dude, c’mon.”

DAILOR: You never know. You just don’t.

SANDERS: Diving boards? Forget it.

DAILOR: That’s not gonna happen.

SHOCKHOUND: You’ve said that Crack the Skye was a hard record to write, but an easy record to make. Can you elaborate on that?

DAILOR: I guess it wasn’t necessarily hard to write it, but it takes a long time. There’s ups and downs in the writing process where you’re like, “I don’t know if this is good enough,” ‘cause the songs aren’t fully realized yet. It took a while for them to get to where we were all really happy with them, but I’m glad that we decided to really just wait until they were done cookin’. That was the main difference that we wanted coming into this record. I think when we signed with Warners initially, we kinda wanted to get in there and [record 2006's Blood Mountain] and put it out and get back on tour immediately. With this one we were like, “It doesn’t matter how long it takes, it’s gotta be perfect and everybody has to love every moment that’s happening on it” — the four of us in the band, at least. I think that we achieved that, and that’s what I’m most happy about.

SHOCKHOUND: Let’s talk a bit about the theme of the album, and how you came up with it. I remember running into you after your London show in early 2007, and you were already talking about how your next record was going to be space-related.

DAILOR: Ether?

SHOCKHOUND: Ether, yeah.

DAILOR: I think at that point we must have had the astral travel thing already happening. That was the first main subject matter. We definitely wanted to use ether, the fifth element of the occult, and we wanted to have some kind of astral travel-lost in space-wormholes-Stephen Hawkins [thing] — we just didn’t know how it was all gonna tie in. I went to Russia for a couple weeks for vacation, and I came back and met up with these guys. I was like, “Rasputin and this group called the Khlysty had a wrought-iron spiky collar on a bear and [Rasputin was] a dude with a huge beard and a crazy black robe.” It seemed to fit our aesthetic, so we kinda shoehorned them in together and it worked out.

SHOCKHOUND: For those out there who don't know their Russian Revolution-era history — who was Rasputin, and what about him did you find so fascinating and inspirational?

DAILOR: Well, he was a supposed healer and holy man that came from the middle of nowhere in Russia and Siberia [in the early 1900s], and really he was just kind of a drunk crazy person. [He was] always in fights, but then he found God and he went and observed all the fasts and spent a lot of time with this particular sect of the Orthodox Church called the Khlysty, who’d have these crazy orgies out in the middle of the woods. He ended up gaining access to the Czar and Czarina, because their child came down with Hemophilia. The Czarina heard about Rasputin and Rasputin came over, spent one night with the child, and the next day he was miraculously healed and had no more symptoms of Hemophilia. She thought that he really had some kind of magical powers that could heal her son, so she kept him close by at all times…
    He was with a lot of different women. He would tell them that if they had sex with him that he’d he purifying their womb and all this stuff. He had some really good pick-up lines. [Laughs] But yeah, he got stabbed in the chest by one of his women, and he was in a lot of discomfort so he started drinking heavily again and hanging out in bars talking about his relationship with the Czar and the Czarina. The Bolshevik Revolution was bubbling under at that particular time period, and [Russian count] Yusupov and his cohorts got together and decided that they had to kill Rasputin. I guess he had too much influence and was just making everybody look really bad.

SHOCKHOUND: Is this where he appears in Crack the Skye — right as he’s about to be murdered?

DAILOR: Kind of. Basically, he’s part of a divination séance that’s being held by the Khlysty. None of it is specifically, historically accurate in any way, shape or form — we’re just using characters. We’re using the Khlysty as a group that we can pull [in] this spirit that had gone up traveling; the umbilical cord that ties you to the material world was burned off, and he got sucked into a wormhole and put into the spiritual realm. In an attempt to get it back to his body, they put him into the divination being performed by the Khlysty, then the Khlysty decide to put his spirit inside of Rasputin because they know that Rasputin’s gonna be murdered. Rasputin’s kinda like the wise man and the martyr of the situation. So yeah, all that. [Laughs]

SANDERS: It’s pretty basic stuff.

SHOCKHOUND: In the past, a lot of the main riffs for your songs have come from Brann singing into a Dictaphone. How much of this record was written that way?

DAILOR: None, really. It was more Brent’s guitar stuff. Once we all get in a room together, we chip in and go, “Hey, maybe we can play a heavier version of that,” or we just start working off of each other to make it the best song that it can be. Brent was at home with his acoustic guitar; then he would take it down to the practice space with us and we’d sit down there and learn it and go through it, and from there it was just a lot of rearranging.

SHOCKHOUND: Was this all stuff that Brent wrote after his head injury?

DAILOR: Well, there was a bunch of it that was from that, but none of us ever really stop writing. There’s stuff on the record from when we were recording Blood Mountain. “Bill! What’s that thing you had?” or, “Brent, what’s that?” and some stuff that Troy had as well. We just throw everything we can into the pot and see what works the best. There was a lot Brent going over to Bill’s house in the beginning stages of it; Bill had his Pro Tools thing hooked up, and Brent would just sit there and play guitar forever. Bill would listen to it later and come in the next day [and say], “Hey, you played this really cool thing.” I think that’s where the main riff for the song “Oblivion” came from.

SHOCKHOUND: You guys really paid your dues for years; how does it feel now that all of your hard work is paying off?

SANDERS: You know what I think is best about it, is that it’s all been very gradual. We’ve been together for over nine years now, and we’ve toured like crazy. We’ve done about a thousand gigs, and this is our fifth record. We started out with nothing and played for nine people. We were like, “Dude, this rules.” We’d sell like three t-shirts and be like, “Hell yeah, that’s awesome. That’s thirty bucks.” Slowly, in little baby steps, it just continued to get a little bigger and a little better every time. I think that gradual process is really important for us, because none of this shit was just handed to you. It was far from an overnight success story, and I’m really glad that it’s been that way.

New York Dolls: Talkin' Trash

When I was eighteen years old and learning to play guitar by bending strings to the tune of the first two New York Dolls albums, the notion that I would someday be shooting the shit with David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain — and getting paid for it — seemed as remote as landing on the moon probably would have seemed to a teenaged Neil Armstrong. So I was pretty stoked for this ShockHound assignment, which was rather surreally paired with Tori Amos, who I interviewed about two hours before I sat down with David and Syl on a May afternoon in 2010. Actually, it was a pretty weird day in general, and David turned out to be cranky as fuck, but it was all worth it...

New York Dolls: Talkin' Trash — Interview by Dan Epstein

One of the more unexpected (and unexpectedly gratifying) comebacks of the past decade has been that of the New York Dolls. Like the Velvet Underground, the MC5 and the Stooges before them, the Dolls were prime movers in the pre-punk US underground who profoundly influenced an incalculable number of punk bands at home and abroad, despite selling relatively few records back in the day.
    Formed in New York City in 1971, the Dolls released two crucial albums of raw, gutter-flavored rock n’ soul — 1973’s New York Dolls and 1974’s aptly-titled  Too Much Too Soon — before drug problems and diminishing commercial returns splintered the band in 1975. Though the Dolls’ legend grew more lustrous through the years, the deaths of iconic lead guitarist Johnny Thunders (heroin overdose) and drummer Jerry Nolan (bacterial meningitis) in the early ‘90s seemed to rule out the possibility of a Dolls reunion.
    But in 2004, lead vocalist David Johansen (who went on to achieve a fair degree of solo fame, both under his own name and as irrepressible lounge lizard Buster Poindexter), guitarist Syl Sylvain and bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane reunited for an appearance at the UK’s Meltdown Festival, curated that year by Morrissey, one of the band’s biggest fans. Kane died of leukemia soon afterwards, but Johansen and Sylvain decided to soldier on; abetted by lead guitarist Steve Conte, drummer Brian Delaney and former Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa, they’ve now toured the world and played for far more people than they ever did in their original incarnation.
    But as their latest album, ‘Cause I Sez So, proves, the Dolls are far more than just a nostalgia act. Produced by Todd Rundgren, who helmed their debut album 35 years earlier, songs like “Exorcism of Despair,” “This Is Ridiculous” and the title track show the band aging gracefully while still retaining their wry sense of humor, their bluesy roots and their will to rock. ShockHound sat down with Johansen and Sylvain on their recent swing through Los Angeles, and asked them about their new record and their lasting legacy.

SHOCKHOUND: You guys got Todd Rundgren to produce your new album. What made you decide to work with him again after 35 years?

SYL SYLVAIN: We had a date. We set it like in 1973.

DAVID JOHANSEN: It was kinda like William Holden and Shelley Winters. You know they used to meet every Christmas?

SYLVAIN: Is that true?

JOHANSEN: That’s what I heard.

SHOCKHOUND: How did working with him in 2008 differ from working with him in 1973?

JOHANSEN: I don’t remember much about the ’73 one, but I don’t think it was that different, except that when we did the first one we would be walking down St. Mark’s Place with guitars going to the studio — I guess it was the Record Plant, right?

SYLVAIN: Mmm-hmm.

JOHANSEN: We’d be going to get the BMT and all the kids in the street would be sayin’ “Where you goin’?” We’d say, “We’re goin’ to make a record,” and they’d say, “Oh, let me come!” So, there would be a lot of people in the studio drinking beer. [Laughs] This time it was just a few of us out in Hawaii — in Kauai.

SYLVAIN: I was the only one drinking beer this time. [Laughs]

JOHANSEN: That was different. The environment was different, but the technique wasn’t really. We just play. Todd records us and he does what he does really good, and we do what we do as best we can.

SYLVAIN: Yeah, we basically did it live. The recording itself went just for two weeks, from the day that we started to the day that we finished. That’s basically how we recorded the first album — it was done live. That’s the nice thing about Todd. He lets you be yourself, actually. I don’t know what it is. I’ve heard other stories with other people, but with our band, he lets us be ourselves, I guess?

JOHANSEN: He throws his hands up in disgust and lets us be ourselves.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] And we take over.

SHOCKHOUND: Even with three new-ish members, you’ve managed to keep the sound on ‘Cause I Sez So very similar to the original Dolls template.

SYLVAIN: We don’t know anything else. [Laughs] No, actually, when we get together, that sound comes out.

JOHANSEN: To me it just sounds good, because it sounds to me the way I think rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to sound… what we try to do is make rock ‘n’ roll the way we think it’s supposed to be. We plug in and we start playing and everybody in the band has got the same idea about rock ‘n’ roll. It’s easy to do, it’s not like you have to tell anybody what to play or talk about it. We just do it.

SHOCKHOUND: Steve Conte has pretty big shoes to fill, subbing for Johnny Thunders. How did you guys first hook up with him?

JOHANSEN: Well, when we first got [back] together we were just gonna do one show in London, so we weren’t really thinking about gettin’ married or anything. We had Brian Delaney playing drums for us when we rehearsed for that show in London that we were gonna do. Anybody I asked, “Who should we get for this Dolls’ gig?” said Conte. I didn’t know Conte. They weren’t saying, “Let me have that gig” — everybody thought Conte’s the guy. I thought, “Well, he must be somebody.”  I went and met him and thought, “Well, for a gig it’ll be good,” but now here it’s like five years later, and we’re still playing. It was instinctive in a way, but it was good. I think if we were thinking about it, it would’ve taken forever. We would think, “We’re gonna be doing this for a long time.”

SYLVAIN: We have a very natural way of doing things. If it feels good, it’s a keeper, and that’s across the board. If it’s not, it doesn’t happen. We rarely trash anything besides our music. [Laughs] Anything else is like a little baby handled with care.

SHOCKHOUND: Speaking of trash, why’d you guys decide to do a reggae remake of the song “Trash”?

SYLVAIN: Well see, that’s one of the things we planned on in 1973 — when we get back together 300 years from now…

JOHANSEN: There’s a couple of reasons why we did “Trash” again.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] We never planned it.

JOHANSEN: Can I tell the truth?

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] You wanna hear the truth? Talk to this guy.

JOHANSEN: We had another song we were workin’ on, but it sounded too much like the Doogie Brothers (sic).

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] The Doogie Brothers!

JOHANSEN: So, we decided, “Let’s not do this song anymore,” then we said, “Yeah, but we’ve only got 11 songs.”

SYLVAIN: “We need music!”

JOHANSEN: Yeah, so when we got to the studio one early afternoon and everybody’s like, “Ugh,” trying to make their arms move, Syl started playing “Trash” like that and we all started playing along, just warming up. Todd taped it and we heard it and we’re like, “There’s our song! Hello! I think we are contractually fulfilled!” [Laughs] We’re making all these masterpieces and it’s exhausting.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] These epics, they take time.

SHOCKHOUND: I got into your first two records when I was 18, which was 1984. I’m talking to 18 year olds now who are just getting into your records. Why do you think those two albums have had such an extended shelf life?

JOHANSEN: Well, because if…you take a bunch of 18 year old kids who wanna play guitar or something, and you play them the Dolls’ record and the kid doesn’t like it, then he should probably not be a rock n’ roll guitar player, because it’s not gonna work out for him. He’s gonna be technically proficient and use a lot of machines with his guitar, but it’s not gonna be rock n’ roll. We play rock n’ roll and that’s a visceral thing. People who like it are of a certain ilk. [Laughs] There’s a lot of ‘em, though.

SYLVAIN: I think on our new album, ‘Cause I Sez So, the song “Trash” says it all. I think if you write a good song, it could be interpreted over and over again, in many different styles of music. I always knew that song, by the way, was a love song. Not many people — well, some people did get it, but now in the state that it’s in on this new album, where David has this deep voice, I think it’s beautiful. It makes a really beautiful piece. Recording is a great thing. When you get whatever format you’re recording on, it’s empty, and it’s like everybody has a chance to fill that void and that emptiness, and you can do whatever you want with it.

JOHANSEN: Out of nothingness.

SYLVAIN: Out of nothing comes…

JOHANSEN: Manifestation arises!

SYLVAIN: Yes! [Laughs] Thanks you.

SHOCKHOUND: When you’re playing, do you ever look over and think for a second that you’re gonna see Arthur or Johnny or Jerry?

JOHANSEN: That would be spooky.

SYLVAIN: Yeah, I think they’re more in our hearts and in spirit.

JOHANSEN: I see a lot of fat people, but I don’t see dead people.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] Are you trying to say our audience has to go on a diet or something?

JOHANSEN: No, I’m just saying in my life, walking around. Just out walking around, Syl, minding my own business.

SHOCKHOUND: Is it vindicating at this point to be able to play big venues all over the world?

JOHANSEN: That all depends on what you’re gonna get vindicated from, but if the cat ever got out of the bag about us, we would be ruined.

SYLVAIN: [Laughs] No, we’ll play whatever houses, as long as they’re filled. It doesn’t matter. We give that as a passing down of the torch to anybody that hears their calling and wants to do something in entertainment. You learn your craft and you learn it all onstage.

JOHANSEN: Are we almost done? ‘Cause this is like a root canal.

SHOCKHOUND: All right, last question: What’s the best record to make sweet, sweet love to?

SYLVAIN: Best record to make sweet, sweet love to? Let me see, I gotta think about this one. Oh! I would think the theme song of the movie Barbarella.

JOHANSEN: On that note, we wish you all a good day.