In 1835, the New York Sun ran a series of articles reporting the discovery of life on the moon. The Sun claimed that a British astronomer, using a powerful telescope, had observed all variety of lunar life, including a race of intelligent bat-like men. The whole thing, of course, was just a circulation-building hoax. This blog has absolutely nothing to do with the Sun, the moon or hoaxes. I just happen to like that story. My name is Sean Glennon.

 
Today's Leftovers, Part II -- Ken Stringfellow

First, the story, another feature from today's Journal News. Now, onto the leftover quotes. The format, again, is a sort of sloppy, broken, unedited Q&A, starting from right after the pleasantries and small talk and ending wherever the conversation started to trail off.

I'm assuming this record [Soft Commands] was made sometime last year, but I can't figure out how you found time with everything else you had going on.
I started working on it in earnest, like, March of 2003. I'd already cut one of the tracks without knowing it at that point, but everything else kinda started then. And I was putting the finishing touches on it the last few days of January of this year. I finished the record January 31 and then the next day February 1, started the new Posies record.

How'd that go? The Posies record.
The Posies record is something quite amazing, actually, considering we wrote it all together starting that day, February 1 and then for the next two and a half weeks we pretty much wrote a piece of music every day that was arranged and sounded like a real piece of music. It was a real explosion of creative energy. And then we wrote the lyrics for it, Jon and I, over the next month or so. And it all came together. It's amazing to me that that's possible, you know? My record, I had some songs and went in and recorded them and made up a few there but worked on them for months, and I would take a lot of time between recording sessions. And this one there's a lot less time between sessions and a lot less sessions and it managed to come out great.

Are you ... am I hearing that you would have preferred to have made your record the way you did the Posies record?
I don't think I would want to make one start to finish that way. I'm glad, especially the kind of writing that happens in a studio, like, stuff comes up while you're there you have everything set up, especially if you have musicians there, and stuff can just arrive, so you wanna be able to capitalize on that. Writing a piece of music is quite easy to do in a day, especially the three- or four-minute songs, verses and choruses, whatever. The lyrics, I need to take time for that to happen. They may come quickly when they come, but I can't make them come on demand. I have to give it time to have observations about things kind of building up in my head.

So is it just that it's easier for you to write when you're working with someone else? Or is it specific to working with Jon?
It's half the work, obviously. With two people working on the lyrics and two people who'll be eating up the same amount of lyric real estate on the record, there's some pressure to produce, because otherwise somebody else will be happy to do it. And then as far as the music goes, you know, you have all four of us in the studio so if somebody has an idea you can quickly hear what that's gonna sound like. You can have a rough idea of what the recording will sound like in minutes. We're always rolling something while we come up with these pieces of music and we can go back and listen to it and see what it needs or if it will fly or whatever. But the interesting thing to me was, pretty much, there wasn't anything that we started playing together that after working on it for a couple of hours we said, ah, this isn't leading to anything, this is kind of a dead end. Everything we came up with led to something good, led to something that is on the record.

That's remarkable. Is that, do you think, something that can only happen when you're all together like that? I mean, during the creative phase? You know, as opposed to doing a reunion record the way the Go-Betweens did, where you're writing songs over the phone or whatever and you just get together to record them.
That can work for us. It was just so much easier at the time. The studio is in the neighborhood. I can see that geography might make things more difficult now that I'm living in France. But I'm much more into having us in the same room. I think it answers questions quickly in a way that my personality kind of needs.

OK, so, if you have the kind of personality that needs questions answered right away, how do you make a record like Soft Commands? You made this record a bit at a time, but it doesn't sound fragmented at all.
When I was in the studio I was productive and moving quickly. It's just that there were lots of times when I was doing other things in between, like going on tour with REM or recording with them, that's a big chunk of time. So in between doing things with them I would sneak into the studio and work on my stuff.

[This is where most of the quotes in the story come from, so we'll pick things up a bit later in the conversation.]

[He's been talking about how easy it is to write a song quickly, which has me dumbfounded.]You really believe anyone can write ... I mean, complete a song in a couple of hours if they want to?I think you'd be surprised how true that is with many musicians. I'm sure that some of the nine-minute or 29-minute John Coltrane compositions were not labored over in the writing process. They got together, they played. The human brain can do some really complex things on short notice.

[More quotes for the story came from here.]

So give me a thumbnail sketch of the process for Soft Commands.How many sessions over how much time?
I did a couple of things in Seattle and then went to Sweden for like a month and did a lot of the work, so the record had a definite shape and form by the time the REM tour started. And then in between the European and US tours I had another two weeks to work on it in Seattle. And then after the tour, another two weeks in Seattle. And then the last sessions I did in Seattle in January was just a few days, you know, mixing a few things and doing one vocal, I think.

And there was one big push in there somewhere where most of the record came together?
The thing I did in Sweden was really quite complete. I came out of there with several finished songs, more or less. It just needed to be mixed and a few overdubs. But the record had a personality and a feel and almost a running order. I think most of the songs, the first half of the record was done in the running order that exists now.

That's not typical, is it?
[Laughs] No.

Did it help that, umm, this record sort of has a theme -- like a '70s sort of Carole King thing -- which I assume was intentional ... so did that make it easier in some way ... just knowing, OK, this is gonna go in this direction, so you can just sort of sit down and do it. Did that make sense?
Yeah, I think so. I'd had the idea to make a really old-school soul record, that was my first idea, or something that reminded me of some of those soulful pop records, be it Laura Nyro or something like that. And the song 'Let Me Do' is sort of of that ilk. And even 'You Drew,' which sounds to me like Don McLean, was kind of an homage to very soul-influenced '70s and '60s pop music. But I didn't stay on that tangent for long. That was an interesting thing to think about, making a really old-sounding record. And I think there are songs that the actual sound sounds quite old, like we used one mike on the drums and stuff like that. But stylistically it managed to be a little more diverse and be its own thing. It doesn't sound exactly like soul music and it doesn't sound exactly like anything else, really. It just sounds like itself, which is what I would hope to do with a record.

It also doesn't sound much like what I expect from Ken Stringfellow. Were you just in the mood to try something different? Did you feel like you needed to break out of a rut? What's behind this sound?
I really enjoyed what I did with Mitch [Easter, who produced Ken's last solo record, ] for the preceding record and I didn't really know how to improve on his work. I thought he did a really great job of making a record sound, you know, like giving the record a comprehensive mood and everything, even with all the experiments I wanted to try. With this one, I thought, well, it's just more of the same, really. And I didn't want that. So I tried to find ways to make it different.

And, ultimately, what you came up with was a different musical style.
Yeah, but not just that. Like, I knew that by going somewhere different, you know, like going to Sweden, and looking at a totally different studio as a totally different person, I knew that would at least impart some different tones on the record. And that's all I could really do.

You feel like that helped, I assume.
I think the writing got better. That's one thing I can say. There was more diversity and more spontaneity to the writing. So that also helped a lot.

Do you think it's important to, umm, to try to find something to do differently from one record to the next?
I'm always trying to improve, especially the lyrics. I try to make them more interesting, but also more open in a way. I want them to be something to be curious about if you dig into them and go, "Oh, that's an interesting image," or whatever, but I don't want them to be so opaque that it's just nonsense or whatever. I want to at least evoke something in the listener. And sometimes I've been quite literal in my lyrics and sometimes I've been abstract to the point of being completely Egyptian, you know?

These aren't exactly narrative songs, though. Or am I missing something?
A couple songs actually have little stories that, even if they aren't linear, the images are all related in a nice way. And some of them are just quick little themes or declarations that I'm making that don't break from the structure of the song, you know, the song is well rounded thematically, which is pleasant.

[Lifted more quotes here.]

[Ken's been talking about working on his lyric writing and how he thinks it needs improvement. He offers the following in that context.]
What's the main thing you feel like you need to work on?
You wanna be able to follow through on an idea and fill that out with images, but without making it really leaden and without going for the obvious images that would come to mind.

You know, I understand that you want to keep getting better, but at the same time, I've gotta tell ya, it's kinda funny to me to hear about working on lyrics from a guy I think of as having a real talent for turn of phrase.
Turn of phrase is the beginning. Turn of phrase is one thing, especially at the beginning, that I pursued a lot. And then turning a phrase with heart is the next step. Giving it a depth of feeling is, to me, the next level. Some songwriters go more into giving the depth of feeling without too much verbal filigree, like somebody like Neil Young, and then some people give verbal filigree without feeling. Even things that I loved, like XTC, their early lyrics are pushing to have so much turn of phrase in them. They're really ingenious, but there's a point where you learn a little bit more about the writer in the later records of XTC and they're still inventive lyrically. Where that point crosses is, I think, their best work.

And so you hold Neil Young up as the opposite of that?
His songs are simple to the point where you want more imagery in some songs. I think I think 99 percent of Neil Young songs are great songs, but on the last couple of records before Greendale, I would say that they're not as mysterious to me. They're almost too plain.

Is there ... getting back to your writing, is there a ... do you tend to do a lot of refining, then? I mean, to try to reach that standard that you're after? Umm, what am I trying to say here? I guess I'm asking if you tend to throw away a lot of material during the writing process?
I follow the Eskimo theory of writing. Every piece is used for something. If I don't like something, I'll know in five minutes if it's not worth following. Everything else gets molded and shaped into something that's usable.

I assume that doesn't have to happen right away, though. Like, do those pieced get molded for whatever record you're working on right then, or can it be for something later?
Oh, no. It doesn't have to be right away. Something like "Don't Die," I've been playing with that music for two or three years, and it never coalesced into anything interesting. It started out as a more somber piano piece and then I just couldn't think of anything melodically for it at that speed. And then I thought, well, it could be sped up to be something more high energy. I had this idea that it would be something glam, David Bowie-influences, and it kind of is, but I didn't just wanna make the lyrics like T-Rex nonsense, much as I like that stuff. I'll mess with stuff forever. It just gets put away.
posted by Sean at 7/22/2004 10:33:00 AM

 
Today's Leftovers, Part I -- Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura

OK, I've got more of those leftover quotes for ya. Two batches today, starting with Tracyanne Campbell, who leads (and does most of the singing and writing) for the Glasgow-based band Camera Obscura. Go read my Journal News feature first and learn more about them. Then come back for the leftover quotes. Again, I'm presenting what I didn't use, in a sort of unedited Q&A format, starting, in this case, about halfway through the interview (because most of the quotes I used came from the top half of our chat, and I don't post what I used in the piece) and ending just before the goodbyes. I should point out here that the piece is pretty quote heavy, so there's not that much left, though I think what is left is worth posting. But you judge for yourself. Here goes:

[As you know if you read the piece, Tracyanne's been speaking about how Camera Obscura isn't well known at home in the UK.]

Do you have enough support at home that you're able to tour?
We've maybe done one trip that I'd say qualifies as a tour. I mean, we've played in the UK. We've played cities in the UK, but we've only ever done, I think it was a two-week tour, and it only had seven or eight dates or something like that. So not too much. But we have played in Glasgow and we've played in London loads of times, and a few cities in between, but not on the scale that we're going to do in America.

So the issues have been more about getting press than drawing audiences.
I guess so, yeah. We've always been able to play concerts in Glasgow and London. Bot big concerts, but we're getting a wee bit bigger gradually over the years. But we don't play major venues or anything, you know? Because we book the shows ourselves and we've often got friends doing it for us, we tend to go for things that will fit the band, like church halls and stuff like that. If we decided to go play a gig in London I'm sure we'd get a few hundred people coming out to see us, but we certainly wouldn't have a booking agent booking shows for us in the UK. Any shows we've played pretty much we've been either supporting a band or we've booked it ourselves. And pretty much you turn up on the night and you hope for the best. But it's not like we can go on a regular tour up and down the country, because I'd be scared nobody would turn out.

It must feel pretty good when you're playing in Spain, then.
It's great going there, because we know we're guaranteed to have people who will come and who really like the band and who to see us play. And I think that's what we're hoping to get in America. I hope it will have the same sort of vibe, because that's what we want, you know?

And, obviously, you'd just like to have that same sort of experience at home, too.
There's been a few gigs here in this country where we've really had a good time and had good feedback and it's been a great experience, but that's a relatively rare thing here, I think. I mean, I don't mean to sound like I can't stand it here and I'm gonna get up and move to Spain or something. [Laughs.] It's not the case, it's just different, very different than here.

[Pulled a quote from here.]

I want to find out about your writing process. You do most of the writing, right?
Yeah.

And is it a situation where you're coming to the band with songs that are complete or is it ... umm, something else?
I generally will come up with, like, a melody and a chord structure or something like that and have a general idea for the song. And I'll probably have written the words or I'll have written a lot of them. And I'll basically have the words, an idea of how the song's gonna go, and have the melody, and then the rest of the band suggests the arrangement. And most of the time it's pleasing to me and I don't have to change things that much.

So it's not a situation where you're walking in and saying "I've written a new song. Here are the parts. I want you to play them just like this."
Some songs I might come to the rehearsal and say I've got this song and I want it to sound exactly like this, but I'm never turning up saying I've got this song and I've made a wee demo of it, could you all copy your parts?

So the creative process isn't entirely collaborative, but it isn't authoritarian.
[Laughs] No. But we're not the sort of band who will turn up at a rehearsal and someone will play some sort of riff and the rest will join in. It's not that I'm against it, I just personally don't feel comfortable doing that. I don't know if it's a control thing, but I need to have words and the melody for me to sort of join in. Plus, I don't think I'm that good at playing the guitar, so I'd probably not do well in that kind of situation. But I think some people would like to maybe do it like that, you know, try something. And I think as bands progress, they've got to change and they've got to get their inspiration from other places. And maybe it could happen in the future. I don't know. But not at the moment.

Do you have to wait for inspiration to strike when you write, or are you one of these people who can decide, OK, I'm gonna write for a while now?
Most of the time, it's just when it comes to me. Maybe I've got a tune in my head when I'm driving in the car or something like that. Or just before I'm going to sleep I'll jump up and I'll sing a wee melody into the recorder. Or there have been times in the past, like when we finished the first record and I knew we had a new record, I actually did start to panic and did actually sit down and think to myself, write a song today; you've got to write a song today.

Did that work?
[Laughs] No.

So did you sort of decide after that that you're better off just doing it the way that feels most natural to you.
I guess so, yeah. But I think that's quite scary, that that's the way I do it, because I always think well what if it doesn't come one day? Whereas other people who are probably better musicians can probably sit down at a piano and, you know, they'll get something, 'cause there's more to till from.

That fear is pretty common, I think. I mean, I can't imagine there's any creative person who doesn't worry about when the well will run dry.
I think it's really common and maybe that's just part of it. I don't know. But no matter how much I try I can't stop being scared of not being able to write another song. Every song I write, I think, that might be my last song, that might be my last song, and then what's gonna happen? You know? And then all of a sudden out of the blue somewhere down the line another song will come. And that's how it works. And it's almost like, me personally, it's like I've got no control over it and that's why it's so scary. You know, it's like, it's not anything to do with you that these songs come.
posted by Sean at 7/22/2004 10:30:00 AM

 
More Ink

More good ink for This Pats Year. This time in the trade publication Library Journal, which reviewed the book along with along with Rammer, Jammer, Yellow Hammer by Warren St. John, which looks like a good read to me.

Here's some of what LJ had to say about the books:

"Both books are essentially entertaining romps."

"Despite all the fun the authors seem to have in their travels, they note some disturbing tendencies among many fans: large-scale drunkenness, racism, and homophobia, and a strong "us/them" mentality."

"Still, both authors portray a football game as a pretty perfect place to be on an autumn weekend, and both books are recommended for medium to large public libraries."

So that's pretty good.

The This Pats Year Web site is almost finished and should be up soon, by the way. I will, of course, post something when it hits. In the meantime, you can get more information about the book, see the cover and find out about upcoming events (like the reading/signing at Barnes & Noble in Hadley Oct. 7) on the publisher's Web site.
posted by Sean at 7/20/2004 02:59:00 PM