Episode 1007 - T Bone Burnett
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:As you can tell, I am not in the garage.
Marc:I think you can tell or maybe I'm getting more sensitive to sound as I get older.
Marc:Obviously, you can tell because it sounds different.
Marc:I would think this is one of the weirdest hotel rooms I've ever been in.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Everything all right with you?
Marc:Oh, these mics are sensitive.
Marc:My body doesn't know what time it is.
Marc:That is the fucked up thing about traveling internationally is that I kind of want to go to bed.
Marc:It's kind of late here.
Marc:I've got a lot of press to do coming up.
Marc:I don't know if I'll be able to sleep.
Marc:I don't know if I'll wake up at 3 in the morning with my body thinking it's breakfast time or dinner time.
Marc:I don't fucking know, man.
Marc:Did I mention that T-Bone Burnett's on the show today?
Marc:He is.
Marc:T-Bone Burnett.
Marc:This is one of those guys...
Marc:that uh you know he just shows up everywhere he's like this grand american music archivist producer musician in his his career has spanned decades it just seemed like one of those another one of those sort of like i wouldn't call him a dark wizard but he's certainly a wizard of something of american music and production and history of music i i
Marc:I was thrilled when I could talk to him, but when I did some research about him, I thought, man, how am I going to cover this?
Marc:But we had a really, really good conversation.
Marc:It was very exciting.
Marc:And he's got a new album coming out.
Marc:It's his first album in 11 years.
Marc:It's called The Invisible Light Acoustic Space.
Marc:It comes out next Friday, April 12th.
Marc:But yeah, he's here.
Marc:And I mistakenly thought he was related to the Rockabilly Burnett's, the Rocky Burnett.
Marc:Is that the guy's name from back in the day?
Marc:They're not.
Marc:They're not related at all.
Marc:So that didn't go anywhere.
Marc:That trajectory of possible conversation ended with, oh, you're not related to him?
Marc:Yeah, good times.
Marc:Not thorough research.
Marc:I thought I'd go out of the box a little bit and make an assumption.
Marc:And they don't even spell their names the same.
Marc:That's the kind of show I do.
Marc:What kind of show are you doing?
Marc:So look, folks, before I get too lost in my self-loathing and what I ate earlier on the plane and just downstairs in this weird hotel, truly weird hotel, we're just a little more than a week away from Record Store Day.
Marc:And if you don't know about Record Store Day, it's on Saturday, April 13th, and it's an annual event where fans and artists can celebrate the culture of independently owned record stores.
Marc:Well, this year we worked with the good people at Newberry Comics to put together a very limited edition vinyl album on the official record store day label.
Marc:It's called In the Garage Live Music from WTF with Marc Maron.
Marc:That's the show you're listening to right now.
Marc:We got some great artists who agree to be on the record.
Marc:So you'll get 10 acoustic performances with Jay Mascus, Melissa Etheridge, E from Eels.
Marc:Karen Kilgariff, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite, Nick Lowe, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Amy Mann, and Dave Alvin.
Marc:We're donating our proceeds to the charity Musicians on Call who bring music to patients and healthcare facilities to add some joy to their day as music will.
Marc:If you want more info about the album or about Record Store Day in general, go to RecordStoreDay.com.
Marc:You can search on the site for your local record store and make sure you find out when they open because a lot of exclusive Record Store Day albums sell out like immediately.
Marc:A big thanks to Newberry Comics for collaborating with us and to Fingerprints Music and Long Beach who kicked ass with the artistic design on the album.
Marc:The cover is really something else.
Marc:It's worth it for the cover.
Marc:Cover art means something.
Marc:I mean, if you're going to do the vinyl thing, appreciate the cover art.
Marc:Again, Record Store Day 2019 is on April 13th.
Marc:So go find participating stores at recordstoreday.com and get your copy of In the Garage before they sell out, folks.
Marc:So this hotel is very odd.
Marc:I'm staying at a hotel in London.
Marc:But do you know the scenes in 2001, the movie that take place in that room where he sees himself as an old guy and it's just like a white room with some fairly...
Marc:kind of Victorian-ish furniture in my recollection.
Marc:This room looks like it was kind of based on it.
Marc:It's sparse.
Marc:It's laid out, oddly.
Marc:I do not see an old man version of myself sitting on the chair.
Marc:Wait a minute.
Marc:I am him.
Marc:I am the old man version of myself sitting on the chair.
Marc:Where's the younger me sitting across the room?
Marc:Or the infant me?
Marc:Where's the star child?
Marc:But yeah...
Marc:This whole hotel looks like it's sort of a riff on Kubrick.
Marc:Like out in the hall, there's like, I don't know what's going on out there, but it's a long gray hall.
Marc:That's not too Kubrick-y, but...
Marc:But there's a guy painting the walls out there.
Marc:It is a little shining-like, but not as shining as the elevator lobby, and the main lobby is very minimal.
Marc:It's trippy, man.
Marc:I'm in a trippy place, and it echoes.
Marc:So I'm sorry about that, but why is there a guy out there painting
Marc:at 1030 at night.
Marc:There's a gentleman in the hallway just patiently painting the dark gray walls at 1030 at night.
Marc:I believe he's real.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I did not see a pair of twins or a river of blood rushing out of the elevator, but there is what I'm assuming to be a real person painting out there at 1030 at night.
Marc:I will go double check again.
Marc:If I see him again, maybe what will unfold here is maybe I'll never leave this hotel.
Marc:Maybe that's what's happening.
Marc:Oh, fuck, man.
Marc:I'm sleep deprived.
Marc:But if I go downstairs tomorrow and ask them,
Marc:Why is there a guy painting the walls at 1030 at night?
Marc:And they go, what guy?
Marc:I don't know if you're going to talk to me again or the show is going to get very interesting because I've entered another dimension.
Marc:Am I even alive?
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.
Marc:And because I'm a little tweaked and a little full of anxiety and because I'm slowly slipping off my regimen that got me down to these felt weight of 167 pounds that I've been holding with exercise and diet, which I enjoy a great deal.
Marc:I'm already discouraged about the possibility of going to the gym here because the pound to kilogram thing kind of fucks me up with the weights and I need consistency.
Marc:That's what happens.
Marc:I think that's what it is, folks.
Marc:is that when I go abroad, my sense of consistency seems to get a little tweaked.
Marc:I went down to the restaurant downstairs, and I think I ate a half a loaf of bread, fresh bread with the crispy crust, never eat the bread, and just maybe about a quarter cup of butter with the large rock salt sprinkled on it.
Marc:Just slathered the crust of the bread with just like spoonfuls of butter and ate it.
Marc:I'm realizing that may have been a suicide attempt.
Marc:But I'm talking about it, and it was amazing.
Marc:It's a real slow one.
Marc:It's one of those slow suicide attempts, but I do have a little bit of cholesterol.
Marc:I do think I just... I think that butter probably stopped in my heart, and I'm going to double up on the statins.
Marc:That's my big plan.
Marc:I will eat this half a loaf of bread and slather it with salted butter so I can feel cozy inside, followed by maybe eight to...
Marc:72 hours of self-loathing.
Marc:So I got a plan.
Marc:I can schedule it.
Marc:I got a plan.
Marc:Keep myself in a sort of a slow percolation of shame, self-judgment, and a bit of self-contempt.
Marc:And that's how I prepare to do shows abroad.
Marc:yep i used to i used to do that in the states too but that seems to have gone away there but i'm going old school just uh fuck man what's this gonna be like god damn it i'm an asshole what the fuck did i do and now mark maron how's everybody doing
Marc:Yeah, a little tip, pro tip for you.
Marc:If you want to work from that place, it's worked for me on and off, mostly off.
Marc:But do what you got to do to figure out where you're at.
Marc:If you got to push yourself down in the pit every few years just to pull yourself out and make note of what you learned there or how you're going to change, then you got to do it.
Marc:All right, this is turning into something that's becoming emotionally abstract.
Marc:I think we should move along.
Marc:I did get a funny email.
Marc:Because you guys know how much I talk about that movie, Michael Clayton.
Marc:This was good.
Marc:Subject line, Michael Clayton, Mark.
Marc:I also love the film and felt obligated to share this quick story.
Marc:I saw Michael Clayton in Manhattan.
Marc:I think it was Kipps Bay.
Marc:Anyway, at the end of the film, he walks out of the 52nd and 6th Avenue Hilton and immediately hails a cab in what looks like rush hour.
Marc:Someone in the theater shouts aloud, no way does he get a cab on 6th Avenue that fucking quick.
Marc:It was hysterical and a great New York moment.
Marc:The crowd erupted in laughter.
Marc:Anyway, thinking of that makes me laugh.
Marc:Love the pod.
Marc:Thank you, friend.
Marc:Mike, thank you for that.
Marc:It's always good.
Marc:It's nice that if someone's going to yell at the screen, it's nice that it happens at the end during the credits and he delivers.
Marc:It gets a good laugh.
Marc:Solid.
Marc:Because 99.5%.
Marc:Nine percent of the time it doesn't get a good laugh and the person's an asshole and it's not at the end of the movie.
Marc:So I'm glad you had that experience.
Marc:Glad you shared it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Yeah, it was a little daunting, folks, a little daunting to know that I was going to have T-Bone Burnett on the show.
Marc:I've always been impressed with his work.
Marc:I remember some of his solo stuff from back in the day.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:But he was always that guy that you'd see that was producing a lot of the traditional Americana music like the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and a lot of live events.
Marc:But he's just one of these guys where you really, you know, you kind of pop in to check out what he's done and what he's doing and it never stops.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:This was one of those conversations that really blew my mind about music in a way.
Marc:It was engaging and exciting, and I'm glad I had him.
Marc:And his new album is very interesting.
Marc:It's very good.
Marc:It's the first album he's done in 11 years.
Marc:The Invisible Light Acoustic Space comes out next Friday, April 12th.
Marc:You can get that wherever you get your music.
Marc:And this is me talking to T-Bone Burnett back in the garage.
Marc:And I'm going to, while you listen to this, I'm going to go outside in the hall and see if I'm hallucinating.
Marc:So enjoy the talk.
Marc:Boy, you don't do these long-form situations much?
Guest:I haven't been doing much of anything except writing for a few years now.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You just hold up and write?
Guest:Yeah, I sort of hold up and write.
Guest:I quit producing records.
Guest:I worked with a couple of people and did a TV show, did True Detective in the last year.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I just watched the... You did the latest one?
Marc:I did all of them, yeah.
Marc:The music's great.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Now, is that... I'm trying to remember.
Marc:So there's soundtrack, and then there's original songs, but was there any kind of archival stuff that you did, or was it all... No, it was mostly score this third season.
Guest:Right.
Guest:With a few... One piece I did with Andrew Bird...
Marc:Right.
Marc:He's sort of a genius, right?
Marc:He's amazing, yeah.
Marc:That's what I hear.
Guest:Yeah, he's good.
Marc:He did my friend Lynn's last movie.
Guest:Did he?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he's very good.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I liked this last season.
Marc:So you got to see it before anyone else.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Marc:So when you do something like True Detective, you did all three seasons and you're scoring it, do you sit down with someone like Nick and he says, watch this, feel the tone, and apply your wizardry?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, I'm not a film scorer by profession.
Guest:You've done enough.
Guest:I do it and I love it.
Marc:At what point do you call yourself that, man?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't think I'll ever call myself that, but I love to do it.
Guest:I love to put image and music together.
Guest:And I just always stay inside the character.
Guest:I come from completely in the character.
Guest:So in this case, it was a character whose mental state was degenerating.
Guest:And so we started off with the idea that this was a dangerous place.
Marc:Right.
Marc:His brain?
Guest:No, the place, Arkansas.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Arkansas, Vietnam, where?
Guest:Yeah, all of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the planet Earth is a dangerous place.
Marc:Getting there.
Guest:Yeah, but as we go into it, we started not quite as discordant a place as we get to, as his mind disintegrates.
Guest:And so, you know, as we went along, things got more distorted, more discordant.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:More fractured.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you were matching sound to that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I don't believe that the music is supposed to lead the viewer through the emotions.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I believe the music is supposed to stay with the character.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Marc:And is that something that you conceived, or is that something that was passed down to you by some elder?
Yeah.
Guest:No, you know, I will say that Danny Elfman taught me a tremendous amount about film score.
Guest:And he is a master and he is a film scorer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Among other things.
Marc:So if you don't consider yourself a film scorer necessarily, you are somebody that does soundtracks.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I sort of just help with the music.
Guest:That's your job.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:T-Bone Burnett helps with music.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:That's on your business card.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, talking about darkness and talking about I mean, I did.
Marc:I listened to the new record a couple of times that the invisible light acoustic space.
Marc:And it seems a little dark.
Marc:Well, that's it.
Marc:It is a dark meditation on the culture we're living in.
Guest:Yes, it is.
Guest:But that's but I do feel there's a great deal of light in it, but it's invisible.
Guest:I think that's the.
Marc:Well, no, I did.
Marc:I kind of got what you were saying, because, I mean, it's it's it seems different in in musically than than a lot of your records.
Marc:There is more space and there is a sort of more of a almost mystical continuity.
Marc:It's not about hooks.
Marc:It seems like most of the songs are spoken word poetry almost.
Marc:That's right, yeah.
Marc:Beat poetry.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You seem to like that.
Marc:It comes and goes throughout all your stuff.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:There's usually a tune or two where you're just talking.
Guest:Yeah, well, I think of myself as a beat generation person.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think we're still a beat generation world.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Everybody says cool now.
Guest:Well, you know, cool was a term that came about that African-Americans initiated or innovated as a way of not to get shot in the street for doing nothing.
Guest:Are we cool?
Guest:Yeah, let's be cool, man.
Guest:And junkies had to be cool not to get arrested.
Guest:So it came from that world.
Guest:And, you know, but at the time, it was only the initiates understood it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Everybody uses it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, the beat generation, they've redefined the way we look at everything, really.
Guest:Sex, politics.
Guest:It started during the Second World War when all the men were away.
Guest:The dancers, the dances stopped happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the musicians just sat down and said, okay, we're artists.
Guest:We're not going to play for you to dance.
Guest:We're going to play for you to listen.
Guest:I don't need to be in that big band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So sit down and listen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, they were playing in the cabarets, which were in the basements of apartment houses, basically.
Guest:So there were no drums initially because they would make too much noise.
Guest:And the people snapped because they couldn't clap because that would make too much noise.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so it just got it got cool.
Marc:So that was it, really?
Marc:No drums to begin with?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were a lot of them then, by saying the dancing stops, that means that a lot of them were out of work from their gig in the big band?
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And then they were all responding to the war.
Guest:The end of the war, certainly Jackson Pollock's paintings are like being in the middle of an atom bomb explosion as all the molecules fly apart.
Guest:They were codifying these things and trying to find some order in all of this lunacy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then it was also sort of at that time where the blues really sort of moved northward.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And started to expand instrumentally.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:So, you know, then you have that whole sort of the intensity and depth of the Chicago blues scene starting to happen alongside of this pre-bebop, no drum jazz business in Basements.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:It was all happening.
Marc:And where's country music at that time?
Marc:I guess a lot of the drunky outlaws are starting to get big hits.
Guest:Yeah, well, Hank Williams, you mean?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Lefty Frizzell.
Guest:Yeah, they were, yeah, you know, Hank Williams' co-writer, Rose, what was his name?
Guest:I forget the guy's first name, not Wesley, but Wesley's dad.
Yeah.
Guest:uh he was a pit 10 pen alley songwriter and they were trying to write broad hits too they were right they weren't trying to be country necessarily they were just trying to be they were all trying to be pop artists jimmy rogers who's called the father of country music the singing break man yeah he learned to play from an african-american hank williams learned to play from an african-american really did he yeah yeah in fact there's a there's a series we did i did uh
Guest:with Drew Christie called Drawn and Recorded, and there's a great story in it about Jimmy Rogers, about some missionaries going to Central Africa in the 20s and taking, or 30s maybe, and taking a Jimmy Rogers record.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And over time, Jimmy Rogers got mythologized in the Kipsicus era.
Guest:tribe as a half-man, half-antelope.
Guest:And they have a song.
Guest:They called him Chibi Rocha, and they have a song about that.
Marc:So I understand the beat started where we're talking about, but the poetry of the beat, Nick, really started with...
Marc:I don't know which way.
Marc:I guess some people attribute it to Ferlinghetti.
Marc:Ginsburg.
Marc:Ginsburg, yeah, and Ferlinghetti.
Marc:And then there was a Kerouac's 200-something choruses.
Marc:That was something.
Marc:But there's a rhythm to it.
Marc:Lord Buckley.
Marc:Yeah, I love Buckley.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Killer.
Marc:But it's a familiar mode of talking when you want to convey poetic impact.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And you do it throughout this record.
Marc:Is that how you saw the background?
Marc:Did you see?
Marc:Because the music is not obtrusive.
Marc:It's woven in.
Marc:And it seems like this is really showcasing what you're saying.
Guest:Well, yeah, the music grew out of the work we were doing in True Detective, really, which became very abstract.
Marc:The dark kind of like.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't mean to keep saying dark because I like dark.
Marc:So when I say dark, I'm not saying like, I don't know if you should.
Marc:It's not danceable.
You know?
Guest:I like it dark, as the man said.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:The music kind of floats.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, the music, I think of it, the drum was the first folk instrument.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If this was being played in this village, the village over there knew not to come around.
Marc:Well, I mean, I noticed that about a lot of your stuff is that, you know, you do use, you know, we're not talking.
Marc:You use indigenous American drum beats.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:A lot of times.
Marc:So I say they're not like they're not blues beats or not shuffles.
Marc:They're they're they're American Indian.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But, you know, back in those days, everybody listened to everybody back in the 20s, back in the early times.
Guest:There's a lot.
Guest:If you listen to, like, from the Kiowa Indians, where I'm from.
Guest:Where are you from?
Guest:From Fort Worth, Texas.
Guest:Fort Worth.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the Indian songs would be like, hey, you know, it sounds just like bluegrass.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So everybody was checking out everybody.
Guest:Jimmy Rogers was listening to Louis Armstrong.
Marc:No, I get that, but it's hard for me sometimes to find the integration of American Indian into certain things until there's a movie on called Rumble, a documentary about Link Ray and some of the pioneers of rock and roll.
Marc:Yeah, that's a good movie.
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's trippy, right, man?
Marc:I mean, who would have known that?
Marc:That was usually carried down genetically through actual individuals where they picked up the groove.
Marc:But I never associate them as being singularly part of the great mix that evolved modern music.
Marc:But they're kind of there.
Guest:Well, they are.
Guest:They're a crucial, important part of this.
Guest:music of the United States, to be sure.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:You know, here's one other interesting thing, just off on the side for a minute.
Guest:A guy named Mac McCormick, who's probably the greatest blues archivist of all time, died recently.
Guest:And I was down in Houston a couple weeks ago looking at his archives, and one of the things I learned while I was
Marc:Did they just call you?
Marc:Yeah, they did.
Marc:You were one of the guys that's like, you might want to go through this stuff.
Guest:Yeah, they did.
Guest:They called, his family called and said, come look at this stuff because they were wondering where to put it and what to do with it.
Guest:Because he was bipolar and he didn't want anybody to see his stuff.
Guest:But, you know, Robert Johnson's name was Dusty Spencer, his real name.
Guest:Robert Johnson was a stage name.
Marc:Wow, Dusty Spencer is even a better name.
Guest:Yeah, I thought so too.
Guest:They called him Little Dusty because his dad was Big Dusty.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:But one of the things I learned is, and he's got pictures of Robert Johnson no one's ever seen.
Guest:He's got pictures of Blind Lemon Jefferson no one's ever seen.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, it's an amazing archive.
Guest:But one of the things he uncovered was that Blind Lemon Jefferson had a song called The Blues Came From Texas Loping Like a Mule.
Guest:And it was his theory that the blues actually did come from Texas because the blues came from all the fife and drum players back in the South in the very early days.
Guest:And the Pipers, when the Germans came into Texas, the Pipers picked up the harmonica, which the Germans brought with them.
Guest:And Mack McCormick said that was the actual beginning of the blues.
Yeah.
Marc:Through that harmonica.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:You buy it?
Marc:Yeah, I do buy it, actually.
Marc:Are those just shitty headphones?
Guest:No, no, I just have one off.
Marc:Does that happen whenever you wear other headphones?
Guest:I never wear headphones, but I'm doing it here today.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:This is a big step.
Marc:T-Bone Burnett, the prolific producer and musical artist, has never worn headphones.
Guest:Yeah, I try not to.
Marc:Well, you want to keep it real.
Marc:You don't want to mediate anything.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You're so right about that.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Well, I'll go with that.
Marc:So the harmonica traveled from Germany through Texas into the Delta.
Guest:But yeah, but you're right.
Guest:The other thing is there were all of these France, you know, the mariachi musicians in Mexico were French wedding.
Guest:It came from mariage, you know, from they played at French weddings.
Guest:That was the music of the French weddings, the horns and.
Marc:But the polka groove came from the Germans.
Marc:From the Germans, yeah.
Marc:And that's like, you know, that is some of the happiest music I can listen to.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't understand Spanish, man, but I grew up in New Mexico, and there's always a station, and I'm sure there's one here that was just that music all the time.
Marc:Ba-ba-ba-da, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
Guest:Who stole Lakishka.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it's speaking in Spanish, and I like that I didn't understand it because it probably might have ruined it for me.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Well, you're saying that it started with the drums on the new record.
Guest:Oh, well, yeah, I was saying.
Guest:So I look at this music as part folk music because it's very... There are only two...
Guest:things happening their drums and then there's electronic music so that's the global part of it the electronic music that's how you're trying to bring the kids in yeah i know you know the kids yeah i hope they come in they're certainly welcome they used to say when i would go out and talk about technology in the 15 years ago they would say hey you're just an old man saying get off our yards kids and i would say no i'm saying
Guest:You're welcome to play in my yard.
Guest:There's grass and there are trees and there are birds.
Guest:You're welcome here.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Just don't bring the machine.
Guest:Yeah, don't grind the birds.
Marc:Then how did you transition to a more open-minded approach to electronic music?
Guest:Well, you know, I started when I was 17 in Fort Worth.
Guest:I bought a recording studio and I started recording.
Guest:And any time you put a mic in front of an instrument, whether it's an acoustic guitar or a violin or a horn, it becomes an electric instrument.
Guest:I get that.
Guest:As soon as you do that.
Guest:So I've been doing electronic music, and especially in the early days.
Marc:That's a pretty broad definition, though.
Marc:I mean, and I'm sure that at the time you were starting doing that, you were sort of like, which mic is going to be the most... Did you use old mics to begin with?
Guest:Well, I used the mics they had, which are great mics, and people are still using them.
Guest:Neumann U47s.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:So it was all great.
Guest:Class A hi-fi equipment.
Marc:But in this record, there seems to be a synthesized sound that has a continuous sort of hum to it.
Marc:That's almost Eastern sounding to this.
Marc:That gives it a meditative quality.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:It's country and Eastern music.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's right.
Marc:Do you recognize that going in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're right.
Marc:So now I guess when I say electronic music, you know, did there was there a period because, you know, even listening to stuff that you did with the alpha band and listening, you know, through your solo stuff that there is a commitment to very clean sounding instruments and not there's not a big synthesizer sound.
Marc:I don't.
Guest:Yeah, you know, we're using analog synthesizers, I will say.
Marc:Where you got to plug things in?
Guest:Yeah, you know, Moogs and things.
Guest:And some of the old synth... Well, you know, when I started, when I was 17... You used analog on this record?
Guest:Yeah, this is all... Yeah, definitely.
Marc:Oh, so that's funny.
Marc:So that, like... It's all analog still.
Marc:Keep it honest, right?
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:So you're using analog synthesizers?
Guest:Yeah, mostly.
Guest:But we're using everything at this point, you know, because, you know, we certainly...
Guest:And certainly in film and television, Pro Tools and the editing that you can do.
Marc:You've surrendered to that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're not going to be like, no, just tape.
Guest:No, I'm getting ready to just do a project on tape at the end of this month.
Guest:But I have to say digital sound has come a long way since 1987 when we first started releasing Beatles records that sounded...
Marc:like somebody scratching their fingers on a chalkboard yeah well when we were just in my house you said that you know and i showed you my my small record collection i'm sure in relation to yours that uh that 78s are actually the best way to to the best sounding records that's right the best sounding storage medium for sure the best sounding transcriptions so i'm we're not being crazy when we say vinyl's better
Guest:No, it's actually... No, you know, there's a translation that takes place between an analog signal and a digital signal that actually degrades it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And part of the problem is, you know...
Guest:Sound is all travels in waves.
Guest:A hundred cycle tone takes probably 10 or 12 feet to fully realize.
Guest:So when you take a hundred cycle tone and you break it up into samples, you're going from a wave into these square forms, squares.
Guest:It's pixelated.
Guest:And the problem is the higher sampling rate you get,
Guest:use, the more corners you're creating.
Guest:They try to emulate a wave with squares.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:I get it.
Guest:But it never really happens the same way, so you lose resonance.
Marc:Sounds like a bunch of blocks.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:It's the same thing that happens with JPEGs, with pictures.
Marc:If you blow them up, they come apart.
Guest:The same thing happens with sound.
Guest:So it's not just that for a long time they said analog sounds warmer, and that was a cliche.
Guest:But it's not that you have more depth.
Guest:depth that's what i noticed the most yeah you have more the imaging is much clearer yeah you have much more resonance because the because those those captures aren't able to really recognize all of the overtones that are happening like when when you hit any note on a piano every other note on the piano is happening at some volume in that note so so really but yeah because it just rings in the strings
Guest:yeah and it's just but it's just there right okay in some volume most of the time very very low volumes but when you hit two or three notes together an overtone series is created and some of those uh notes that are at low volumes get repeated yeah and they come out in higher volumes and different rhythms happen and different yeah different whole chords different tones happen that all gets flattened out and blocked
Guest:Yeah, well, it gets squared.
Guest:Yeah, it gets removed, actually.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Yeah, because it just doesn't see it.
Guest:It can't hear it.
Guest:It's like, you know, what they call in video, they call it the soap opera effect.
Guest:When you see an old film that's transferred to some kind of high-definition video, suddenly it looks like everybody's...
Marc:The depth is weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You see the space between the people and you know it's not real.
Guest:And the thing about, this is a thing Joel Cohen and I have talked about quite a bit.
Guest:The thing about film is it's already too high definition.
Guest:That's why they put smoke and filter.
Guest:That's why they have filters for the lights.
Guest:They're always trying to create some sort of glue between the different elements.
Marc:To make it what?
Marc:Softer?
Guest:To make it feel real.
Guest:Oh, interesting.
Guest:To make it feel like you were looking at something.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:So Joel Cohen and you have discussed this idea that the detail of film actually works against creating something that is convincing.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Because you can see too much.
Marc:You see the process rather than listening to a story.
Marc:That's interesting because they're so meticulous, those Coens.
Marc:They are indeed.
Marc:About framing and about dialoguing, like everything is meticulous.
Guest:Everything.
Guest:You know, it's fun to sit behind the screen when they're shooting and they're just pointing to different points in the screen, like what's happening there?
Guest:Oh, during a shot?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the viewfinder?
Guest:Yeah, in the viewfinder.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah, they are meticulous.
Guest:And yet it seems so free-flowing.
Guest:They do one or two takes, two or three takes.
Marc:It seems to me from people I've talked to that have worked with them, I've not talked to them yet, that they know exactly what they want.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Every day, every actor gets sides with his lines with the with the frame above them.
Guest:So he knows exactly where the camera is going to be when he says this line.
Guest:So, you know, he gets ready and it just flows.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's why they're able to do what they do, because they do it economically, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So but getting back to this idea of I think we started with, you know, the progress that has been made in technology in terms of honoring what I assume you were saying is a more authentic sound enables you to be a little less hard on yourself about using certain technologies.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, it's come a long way.
Guest:And we've learned, we've spent a lot of time learning how to put smoke into the digital realm.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To filter it so that it feels like something's actually happening.
Marc:Well, Neil Young tried with that Pomo player.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Did you like it?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't a big enough idea in the face of this avalanche that we've been... Of disposable garbage.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:Well, that's the thing that I noticed when I started getting into records again was that, you know, music that I grew up with, which, you know, I'm 55.
Marc:So, you know, I'm just talking about radio.
Marc:And I had records when I was a kid, but I mean, I don't know that my system would have enabled me to be sensitive to it, but I was listening to stuff that I knew well.
Marc:On record, maybe for the first time through a good system since I was in high school, and I didn't hear how it was supposed to sound until I listened to it.
Marc:I got a pretty good system in there, but it's really about the depth, and it's about the mix, that the mix flattens out, whether it's through an AM speaker or even through a mildly, even through a fairly good car stereo, it still flattens out.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So when you hear records through a decent system for the first time, you're like, what's wrong with this song?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was talking to Gillian Welch the other day, and she said she was listening to Astral Weeks, and she said they have two systems, a digital system upstairs and an analog system downstairs.
Guest:And she was listening to Astral Weeks on the digital system, and then she went downstairs and put it on a record, and she said suddenly she was able to hear everything she needed to know about
Guest:for how to play that kind of music in the analog.
Guest:So that's a description of it.
Guest:That's a good description of it.
Guest:It's a hard thing to, you know, you can't put it into a word like it's warmer.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:I think it's more about depth.
Guest:Yeah, and clarity and size.
Guest:And honoring the mix.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:I mean, you know, that's what really gets flattened out is like the decisions that a producer or an artist made in what should be up front and what should be in the back and, you know, because everything kind of gets smashed together.
Guest:Yeah, everything's the same volume, essentially.
Marc:When you started, you grew up in Texas the whole time?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You're a Texas guy.
Guest:Essentially, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And were you playing in high school?
Marc:What was it?
Marc:You know, when did it start?
Guest:yeah i started playing my mom brought me back an acoustic guitar for a gut string guitar from mexico which is the story of just about every texas guitar player i know the the gut string classical guitar right yeah from mexico probably cost five dollars or something but it made this crazy sound and so i started playing with it yeah and uh every also the other one interesting thing since we're back there
Guest:The first song I learned to play was Wildwood Flower, Maybel Carter, playing Wildwood Flower.
Guest:And that turns out is just about every rock and roll guitar player learned to play guitar from Mother Maybel.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know that one because I'm a different generation maybe, but I don't even know who she is.
Guest:Well, she was the daughter.
Guest:She was one of the Carter family.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:Oh, the extended Carter family.
Guest:Yeah, A.P.
Guest:Pop Carter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His wife was Sarah.
Guest:And then I think Maybel was, was she the mother?
Guest:I think she was the daughter.
Guest:Probably the mother, no?
Guest:Yeah, she was called Mother Maybel.
Guest:So, yeah.
Marc:So, it was a country folk, what, Appalachian trip?
Marc:yeah that's right exactly and that's what you learned first yeah because that that's just what everybody learned that was that was like the step one that laid the original groove that was the first track you recorded in your brain she grooved like a mother i'll say that yeah yeah she did so okay so you're doing that with your gut guitar and then what year are we talking when did rock and roll ruin your brain
Guest:uh you know i i think the first rock and roll record i bought was a ricky nelson song called waiting in school and i i think that's where i i first connected with rock and roll was uh on the ozzy and harriet show oh really because at the end of every show ricky nelson would come on and play a song and he killed it he was you know james burton was the guitar player yeah monster guitar player yeah and so but before that what was being played in the house what was what enchanted you
Guest:Well, downstairs, my parents had a 78 collection that had been retired, but there was a 78 player and shelves of 78.
Guest:So I was listening to Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald.
Marc:So you had that in your brain, that sophisticated melody.
Guest:Yeah, and also just the idea, the thing that I love the most about all that old music, there was a song called The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane that was about a three-month-old baby, and the way you could play with worlds.
Guest:And there was a song called Begin the Beguine.
Marc:Yeah, oh, that's great.
Marc:That's a great, I think I heard Artie Shaw do that.
Guest:Yeah, Cole Porter, Cole Porter tune, I think.
Guest:But it's, you know, I was taken with how you could create a whole world, a whole environment with a song, with a piece of music.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I would put that on and close my eyes, and I would be in some world of tropical splendor, as the lyric said.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:With these people dancing the begin, whatever that was.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it was, it took you out.
Guest:Yeah, it did.
Guest:It was psychedelic.
Marc:Yeah, early on.
Marc:That's the weird thing when you really think about the way you're talking about music.
Marc:What music isn't psychedelic?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:If it's not psychedelic, it's probably not doing its job.
Guest:It's probably not music.
Marc:Or else it's just a pop song.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Marc:Pop songs do a different thing.
Marc:I think a pop song is designed to satisfy quickly.
Marc:And, you know, I think they can go pretty deep, obviously, but I think to really, you know, get into a song, to get into it as a place, an environment, you know, it's a different part of the brain.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you start playing the gut guitar, but then are you compelled towards rock music?
Guest:Yeah, well, at the time, you know...
Guest:Elvis Costello says that there was rock and roll, and then it became rock music.
Guest:And as soon as it became rock, it took on all the qualities of a rock.
Guest:It was hard and inert.
Guest:But I look at it this way, that there are two kinds of music.
Guest:There's sex music and war music.
Guest:And rock music is more of war music.
Guest:It's martial.
Guest:It's doom, doom, doom, doom.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And rock and roll is sex music.
Guest:It's swing music.
Marc:Oh, okay, so that's a differentiation, rock and rock and roll.
Guest:Yeah, so I would say there's swing music and martial music.
Guest:Yeah, it's got to swing.
Marc:You've got to have a good drummer.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:So, you know, river dance or those things, that's martial music.
Guest:Sure, you can feel that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Right, but like, so where do you put the, what's your take on the first rock song?
Marc:Is it Rock at 88 or is it Rock Around the Clock or is it Blue Suede Shoes?
Marc:What do you think is the first rock and roll song?
Guest:Well, first, you know, a lot of people say rock at 88.
Guest:I know.
Guest:So, you know, but I don't know.
Guest:I hear it going back to Milton Brown and the Brownies.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And Jimmy Rogers certainly played rock and roll songs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If rock and roll part one definition of rock and roll, it's the blending of black and white culture, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, that Jimmy Rogers would certainly be Hank Williams would be an early version of that.
Guest:yeah you know move it on over that's certainly a rock and roll song oh yeah so when you started when you get this studio at 17 i mean what's uh what's your agenda what what compels you are you in a band at the time no i i i at the time i wanted to be uh bert baccarat i thought he had the ideal life he wrote songs for movies wrote great songs yeah did arrangements produced records yep
Guest:Got to work with Dion Warwick.
Guest:Got to work with whomever he wanted to.
Guest:Married Angie Dickinson.
Guest:Had racehorses.
Guest:That was your life.
Guest:That's what he wanted.
Marc:That was the aspiration.
Guest:Yeah, that's the direction I was going.
Guest:But we were doing a lot of experimental music.
Guest:I was working with a band.
Guest:with some guys that were that later became space opera they were called uh-huh doing psychedelic music but we were turning tapes around backwards and cutting things we were doing a lot of uh in what year is this 65 oh okay yeah okay so that so you're a little ahead of the curve on that
Guest:Well, you know, it was already being done, but yes, it was being done in the 50s even, you know, in the 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As soon as people got taped, they started playing with it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Give people something, they'll turn it inside out.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're recording your own stuff in the studio.
Marc:That was the plan.
Guest:That was the plan, yeah.
Guest:The plan was to write songs and get other people to sing them.
Marc:So you had a business mindset about it.
Guest:Yeah, I guess I did, I have to say.
Marc:You knew that you're going to write this down and get someone who's got some juice to do it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, you're going to build an empire.
Guest:Yeah, Harlan Howard said once, he said, son, you can either write 10 songs and get a truck and a PA system and a bus and some musicians and a publicist and a producer, and you can go around and play those songs, or you can write 10 songs and get 10 guys with 10 trucks and 10 buses and 10 PA systems.
Guest:And yeah, I thought there's some wisdom in that.
Guest:Did you land any?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:Not early on.
Guest:The first stuff I started doing, funnily enough, was blues bands.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Like who?
Marc:Anybody?
Guest:My favorite record was a band called Robert Ely and His Five Careless Lovers that we recorded live in the New Blue Bird nightclub.
Guest:I worked with a band called the Van Dykes.
Marc:I remember that name.
Guest:They were an R&B band in the 60s.
Guest:And then, you know, there was a club in town called Panther Hall.
Guest:In Fort Worth?
Guest:Yeah, in Fort Worth, where all the country musicians played.
Guest:And Friday and Saturday nights, they would come over after work and record in the studio.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:In your studio?
Guest:Yeah, so Conway Twitty.
Marc:Early Conway Twitty.
Guest:Yeah, and Doug Kershaw and those cats.
Guest:Oh, Doug Kershaw.
Marc:Yeah, he lived long enough to go hippie, didn't he?
Guest:Yeah, he did, yeah.
Guest:He was pretty hippie from the get-go, I've got to say.
Marc:Conway never went hippie.
Guest:No, no, he went very bouffant.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Who else?
Guest:And permed.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:But then there were a lot of kids.
Guest:That wave that goes up, yeah.
Guest:There were a lot of kids.
Guest:There was a Tina Gogo scene in Fort Worth at the time, so I worked a lot with a lot of bands, bands called like the Cynics, you know.
Guest:No, I don't think anybody really did anything out of that scene, but there was a thriving scene at the time.
Marc:Did you ever come across Billy Gibbons in any iteration?
Guest:Well, I saw him.
Guest:I met him much later, but I saw him at the time playing at the Cellar Club.
Marc:What were they called?
Marc:Moving Sidewalks?
Guest:Yeah, I think that's right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and they played.
Guest:There were two or three cellars.
Guest:There was one in Houston and one in Fort Worth and I think one in Dallas, and that was a circuit, the Cellar Club circuit.
Yeah.
Marc:owned by a guy named pat kirkwood who was a character sure they're all characters the guys who own clubs that's right yeah yeah their world yeah yeah they are the king of their world that's right you're so right so how do you shift out of uh you know that groove into like you know what changes for you at what age to where you start playing more and and and playing your own songs and
Guest:Well, I ran into Bobby Newerth.
Guest:It's a funny story, really.
Guest:Just after Janis Joplin died, I got a call from Albert Grossman, who wanted me to come up to Woodstock and audition with the Full Tilt Boogie Band.
Guest:For what reason, I don't know.
Guest:But I guess because Dylan had liked my songs, and Albert had heard the songs.
Marc:Which songs did Dylan like?
Guest:there was a you know i was i had recorded a maybe eight or ten demos that i was sending around to people to to get recorded and dylan heard a friend of mine named lindsey holland yeah was working for dylan at the time and was playing the songs on the bus yeah oh wow and and dylan liked him so anyway i got this call from albert grossman to to uh
Guest:Come up to Woodstock, and I was standing at my friend Stephen Bruton's house, and the first night I was there, there was this extraordinary jam session with Bobby Charles.
Guest:First night I heard Tennessee Blues.
Guest:He had just gotten out of jail in Tennessee and came to town with this song, Tennessee Blues.
Marc:What was going on in Woodstock that everyone's going up there?
Guest:Well, the band was up there.
Marc:Yeah, I knew that.
Marc:So they were kind of attracting everybody.
Marc:They were wrangling the roots of America.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Amos Garrett was there who had just played this great solo on Midnight at the Oasis.
Guest:And we played music all night long, drank a lot of tequila.
Guest:There was this guy Bobby Newarth there.
Guest:I know his name.
Guest:Yeah, he's an extraordinary cat.
Guest:He was the straw that stirs the drink, as they say in the folk music in Cambridge and in New York.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he was in Don't Look Back with Dylan.
Guest:He was Dylan's aide de camp in that movie, Don't Look Back.
Guest:And I woke up the next morning not remembering going to bed at all, and I woke up, and we were in these two twin beds, and I looked up, and New Earth was in the other bed, and there was a bottle of tequila between us.
Guest:And I looked at him through the tequila, and he woke up, and he grabbed the tequila and took about three massive swallows of this thing and handed it to me, and I sipped it, and he said, I didn't see any bubbles.
Yeah.
Guest:and that was that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and new earth and i've been close friends since that night he's still around yeah he is yeah yeah and uh and when he was putting together the rolling thunder review in new york so he's is he a producer or an a&r guy or no he's a songwriter and a painter he's you know he's never signed a contract in his life he's got records out
Guest:Yeah, he does.
Guest:He wrote Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:He's a great songwriter.
Guest:He worked with Christopherson for years.
Marc:Okay, yeah, that's how I know the name.
Guest:Worked with Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin.
Marc:At any rate... You didn't take the gig with the Full Tilt Boogie Band.
Guest:No, I didn't take that gig, but then this Rolling Thunder thing came up, and I was not really ready to be a performer for the Full Tilt Boogie Band or Rolling Thunder.
Marc:They wanted you as a guitar player?
Guest:Yeah, and to sing some songs.
Guest:But I took the gig for the Rolling Thunder tour, and that was the beginning of me trying to learn how to perform.
Marc:So that was a real circus, right?
Guest:It was, yeah.
Marc:I mean, wasn't Ginsberg there too for a while?
Guest:He was there the whole time.
Marc:Sam Shepard?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like odd sorts.
Marc:Everybody traveled together to all the shows?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So what'd you earn on that thing?
Marc:What'd you take away from it to kind of enter your own musical?
Guest:Oh, everything.
Guest:You know, I've repeated that Rolling Thunder of You again and again.
Guest:The Roy Orbison Black and White Night Show was a version of the Rolling Thunder of You.
Guest:The Oh Brother Where Art Thou, the Down From the Mountain tour in film that came after Oh Brother Where Art Thou was a version of the Rolling Thunder.
Marc:So just the kind of, not quite a variety show, but a traveling community.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:A collaboration among various artists.
Guest:Jacques Levy actually really helped me.
Guest:I talked to Jacques a lot about how he...
Guest:Do you remember Jacques Levy?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:He directed Ocalcutta Off-Broadway.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he wrote Desire with Bob.
Guest:He did.
Guest:And he directed The Rolling Thunder Review.
Guest:And he taught me a lot about how you tell a story with different songs and different artists over a period of time.
Guest:So you can do a three or four hour show.
Guest:Where you're changing the voice every 10 or 15 minutes.
Guest:So the audience never has the chance to become used to a voice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you combine those voices in different configurations.
Marc:Right.
Marc:They don't get used to a voice, but they get used to the context.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You've created this vast...
Marc:that's it context yeah you create a context and then you tell a story and what are the what are the songs about and what part of the story are they telling right so you you that's exactly what we did with oh brother where art thou right well yeah man i mean it's like you know i i don't know you know i know that that's a lot of what people know you for i think the first time uh i i got into your stuff was that uh the album
Marc:The Talking Animals.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because I was in college.
Marc:It was probably my last year at school.
Marc:And I was like, what the fuck is this?
Marc:And that was before I knew anything really in any broad sense about music or what you might have been doing previous or what you were producing or anything else.
Marc:But I loved that record.
Marc:You know, and from there, you know, when I kind of start to hear about you here and there and then, oh, brother, where art thou?
Marc:I just pictured you as this guy that, you know, would go out and do your music, but then just, you know, be overwhelmed by all the music in the world.
Guest:I think that's probably a pretty good description.
Guest:I'll take that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that thing is, it was so funny because when I was walking around my house before you came trying to figure out where to start a conversation with you, for some reason, in that moment, I was like, I have to ask him if he believes in ghosts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why not?
Marc:You know, well, because when I think about, you know, when you put together something like that, that soundtrack and that group of artists to do songs that are traditional and older and their specific songs that you chose from, you know, however you chose them, that you start to realize that that music.
Marc:if you honor it, you know, especially traditional music or old music, that that is a sort of a good ghost.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:That, you know, that you're trying to honor a ghost and then allow them to talk again.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:I agree with that.
Marc:So what was the process?
Marc:I mean, you know, I know you did a lot of solo records and on your own, but, you know, production and curating, you know, seems to be have taken up a lot of your time.
Guest:Right, well, yeah, that's what I've spent most of my time on.
Guest:Just recently, about three years ago, Marshall Brickman called me up.
Guest:You know Marshall Brickman?
Marc:Yeah, he's a screenwriter, right?
Guest:Well, he's an interesting guy.
Guest:I wanted to give you a quick description of Marshall Brickman.
Guest:He was...
Guest:One of the original folk musicians in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village in the 50s.
Guest:And he played all the instruments.
Guest:He played on Judy Collins' records.
Guest:He played on a lot of records.
Guest:He was a session guy.
Guest:He was the guitarist on dueling banjos from Deliverance.
Marc:Oh, so I'm thinking of a different guy, I guess.
Guest:No, I'll get to that.
Guest:So he did that for a number of years.
Guest:He ended up, by the time he was in his early 20s, he ended up in Hollywood working on Candid Camera with Alan Funt.
Guest:Then by the time he was 23, he was head writer on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show.
Guest:And then he invented the Dick Cavett Show, just whatever you call that.
Marc:Oh, and that's where he got hooked up with Woody Allen through Rollins and Jaffe and Dick Cavett.
Guest:Right, and then he wrote Manhattan, and then he wrote Annie Hall.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then he got into Broadway, and he wrote Jersey Boys and some other plays.
Guest:That's recent.
Guest:Yeah, recently.
Guest:He's still going.
Marc:Yeah, he's an amazing cat.
Marc:It's interesting the guys that survive because they change.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I've talked to a couple of cats from that scene in New York.
Marc:I've talked to David Bromberg, and I've talked to John Hammond Jr.,
Marc:And, you know, neither one of them, you know, after the fact, I realized they were both sort of hobbled by by drugs at different points in their careers.
Marc:But but they were they were part of that.
Marc:And they stayed within the confines of what happened at that time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, they didn't move on.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But Hammond's pretty great.
Guest:They're both great.
Guest:They're both killer musicians.
Guest:Love John Hammond, Jr.
Guest:The best.
Guest:So Marshall Brickman calls up and says he's writing a play about the people who played Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
Guest:And most of your listeners may not even know who Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were, but Roy Rogers was the biggest cowboy star, singing cowboy in the 40s.
Guest:He was a huge movie star.
Guest:And then in the 50s, when my generation, my friends were all growing up, he had a television show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, everybody wanted to be Roy Rogers.
Guest:He was the most marketed person.
Guest:They had Roy Rogers everything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Roy Rogers lunchboxes.
Marc:There was a restaurant, chain restaurant for years.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So, but it was an interesting idea to me because the people who play, we all thought that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were actual people, but they were actors.
Guest:It was a guy named Leonard Sly who played Roy Rogers and a woman named Frances Fox who played Dale Evans.
Guest:Was his horse Trigger?
Guest:Yeah, that was his horse.
Guest:And his dog was Bullet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good name.
Guest:Yeah, but he was also Native American, so he never would shoot an Indian in any of his films or television shows.
Guest:At any rate, I started writing the music for this play with Marshall, and it took me a solid year.
Guest:Once I took the job of writing a musical, and even though Sam Shepard and I worked on several plays together, I was writing music for plays, but this was different.
Guest:This was like a...
Guest:where i was writing lyrics that became part of the story right and uh and um i started studying all the great broadway composers frank lesser who i think is the greatest of them all i read sondheim's books yeah and i listened to rogers and hart's stuff and how they how they went about doing that and
Guest:It was daunting, and it took me a solid year to write it.
Guest:And after I got through, I started waking up at four in the morning every morning and writing for three or four hours.
Guest:And then when I got through with those 20 songs, I just kept writing, which is all the stuff that's turned into the invisible light.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, even in like, because I really listen to Talking Animals, and it seems like thematically, that first song that I think was a little bit of a hit for you, The Wild Truth, would have fit on this record.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I've only written about the same thing my whole life.
Guest:Yeah, you and me both.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I think that's what everyone does, but I've written about self-delusion and self-deception my whole life.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Except I know so much more about it now than I did when I was a kid.
Marc:So have you finally, do you know when you're deluding yourself at this point?
Guest:Yeah, I'm better.
Guest:I'm better.
Guest:I catch it more quickly.
Marc:Well, you know, there is a certain amount of self-doubt that you have to let go of in order to, you know, engage in your creativity.
Marc:And maybe, you know, I'm projecting, but, you know, if that's been the struggle, I could see your appeal to working with other artists.
Marc:Yeah, exactly right.
Marc:You know, I don't know if this is real or not.
Marc:Can you just do your thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, it helps.
Guest:I'm able to help them not make the same mistakes I've made.
Guest:That's been part of that the whole time.
Marc:So that brings us, where does it bring us?
Marc:Where are we exactly?
Marc:When did you come to Los Angeles?
Guest:I came to Los Angeles in 1965 to sell a record I'd produced.
Guest:And then I went to New York in 65 for the same reason.
Guest:And then I moved out here probably about 1967 or 68.
Marc:So you were here through all the Laurel Canyon shit, and you watched it all turn to garbage.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:In a word, yeah.
Guest:He saw something beautiful just turn into garbage.
Guest:That Manson deal really hurt everybody badly.
Marc:Yeah, he fucked the whole movement.
Marc:He really did.
Marc:Yeah, he gave everybody a bad name.
Guest:Gave everybody a bad feeling.
Guest:Did you see him around?
Guest:No, never saw him.
Guest:And as soon as that thing happened, I got in my car and left.
Guest:I just thought, this is bad.
Guest:I drove back to Fort Worth.
Guest:Going back to Texas where things make sense.
Marc:Go look at the flatness.
Marc:Yeah, I can't imagine.
Marc:It just seemed like...
Marc:Yeah, it was bending into some sort of drug-driven chaos out here in the late 60s, wasn't it?
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:Joni Mitchell was the queen of everything back then.
Guest:She was so beautiful.
Guest:It was like Elkie Summer, if Elkie Summer could have sung and written the most extraordinary songs.
Guest:There was this feeling of...
Guest:uh possibility and feeling of this is going to go someplace and it ended up just sort of getting turned into a commercial venture you know yeah and in a drug-ridden cesspool yeah that too yeah but you were there for the the like you know um the troubadour you know all that every night yeah oh yeah so you saw everybody coming up yeah we were somebody somebody went through the window of the troubadour one night in the car
Guest:No, and from inside.
Guest:Oh, out.
Guest:I can't remember who.
Guest:I don't remember if I had anything to do with it.
Guest:I might have had something to do with that.
Marc:I guess that's a good description of the time.
Marc:A guy went through the window, not sure if I was involved.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But were you friends with, like, Harry Nilsson or any of the Eagles guys or Ronstadt?
Guest:No, I knew Ronstadt a little bit.
Guest:I met Harry Nilsson later.
Guest:I met them all later, but at the time I was maybe just a little bit younger than them.
Marc:Graham Parsons?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Marc:Missed that.
Marc:But you work with Emmylou.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, what I did see, I saw Richard Pryor there.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Who absolutely killed.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:You know, I saw incredibly great shows there.
Guest:And I'm sure I ran into all those guys and talked to them and everything, but nobody knew.
Guest:There was...
Guest:Long Branch and Penny Whistle.
Guest:I think that was maybe J.D.
Guest:Souther and Glenn Frey or something like that.
Marc:I just got one of their record, the two of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all right.
Guest:Yeah, they were there.
Guest:I would talk to those guys.
Guest:I would see Linda around.
Marc:But see, that's interesting because that was sort of, you know, that kind of...
Marc:I guess that's within the parameters of sort of your world in the way that, but I think you go deeper into it, that that was this idea that we were moving forward American music.
Marc:We're melding contemporary rock and what was known as country into something else with the Byrds and Ronstadt and JD and those guys.
Marc:We're doing something with singer-songwriter stuff that was taking it out of that Nashville model.
Marc:But it wasn't really... It just became the Eagles, really.
Guest:Yeah, that kind of happened.
Guest:They soaked the whole thing up.
Marc:Right, and made it popular music.
Marc:And that's sort of the template for a long time for country music, actually.
Marc:The country music came around, appropriated it, and still didn't give those guys the credit they deserved.
Guest:That's true.
Marc:So do you see, like, you know, let's move from Oh Brother, you know, so do you feel as much as everyone else felt that that was sort of a masterwork of curation and production for you?
Guest:Well, it was an extraordinary collaboration with Joel and Ethan, who are two of the most, two of the smartest and funniest people I know.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:Deeply funny.
Marc:Was that where you started your relationship with Jillian Walsh or was that before?
Yeah.
Guest:No, I started working with Gillian.
Guest:I'm sorry, Gillian.
Guest:Yeah, I started working with Gillian.
Guest:I produced her first couple of records.
Guest:I saw her playing at the Station Inn in Nashville for about 12 people.
Guest:And she had beautiful songs.
Marc:Yeah, she's something, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you started really producing full on in the 80s, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, I started out as a writer-producer.
Guest:Oh, yeah, but full-on, yeah, I started probably in the 1980s.
Marc:And it seems very eclectic to me.
Marc:I've only talked to a few producers.
Marc:I talked to John Cale about production, which was, you know, I fucked that interview up.
Marc:Because at the time I talked to him, I really wasn't on the pulse of his solo career, which is astounding.
Guest:Yeah, he's amazing.
Marc:I'm talking to him about producing Patti Smith and Iggy and the Stooges, and he's like, I just took the gig, man.
Marc:They knew I could move the knobs.
Guest:You know, he made some great records with Bobby Newerth, too, the cat we were talking about earlier.
Marc:Which one?
Guest:Yeah, I don't remember the name of them.
Guest:They did them over in Germany, I think.
Marc:He produced them, Neuwirth did?
Guest:No, they collaborated.
Marc:Yeah, I probably have them.
Marc:I kind of scramble to get caught up on people, but that whole crew of people in England, Ayers and Eno and a couple of the other ones, it was some odd, interesting music.
Guest:Very much so, yeah.
Guest:that was from the time of experimentation and freedom and this is what you know i'm trying to live in that ghost on this new stuff we're doing where right to work to work in full autonomy right because the greatest art is made by artists working at full autonomy right and the more you know this is what i love to as a producer i love to work on first records with people like i did with gillian and los lobos and
Guest:The Bodines.
Guest:I've done a lot of first records, the Counting Crows.
Guest:People say, well, they had 20 years to write their first record and then not much time to write the second one, which is all true.
Guest:But the writing for 20 years, they were writing in full autonomy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had nobody, no record company telling them what the charts said or any of that.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:So I feel you get a real pure shot of the artist in that first record.
Marc:And you did that with, well, I mean, did you do, was that Marshall Crenshaw's first record?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:That was probably his third record or something.
Marc:But it seems like you work with the Bodines every few years.
Guest:Every once in a while, yeah.
Guest:I like those guys.
Marc:Yeah, the first Bodines record was a pretty big record.
Guest:Yeah, it did really well.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Elvis Costello you picked up later in life.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:But Spike's a great record.
Marc:You did Spike?
Guest:I did Spike and King of America.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:King of America is one of my favorite records I've ever gotten to work on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Elvis is an extraordinary cat.
Guest:Great teacher.
Guest:Yeah, he does have the big brains.
Guest:He works under full autonomy himself.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He's always maintained full autonomy.
Guest:So have the Coens, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So is Dylan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So is Sam Shepard.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So all of these guys, this is one of the things I've learned from them is how to do that.
Guest:And certainly this new record where nobody's telling anybody anything.
Marc:Did you ever work under those pressures?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:As a solo artist?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Through record companies?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, occasionally, but they've never said much to me.
Guest:The record companies actually, although they had terrible reputations because they would rob artists blinds, certainly, but they didn't completely destroy artists' lives like the internet.
Guest:thugs have right sure you know yeah but uh by and large they were almost patrons of the arts compared to what we have now yeah except on that second or third record yeah they're just wonderful on that first record because they're rolling the dice
Guest:They could metal, but I never got anything like the kind of notes that I've seen networks give to writers and artists.
Guest:Oh, yeah, so many people.
Marc:It feels to me that with the record companies, it's just one asshole.
Marc:With TV, there's like a dozen.
Yeah.
Guest:And they would usually say, everything's great except we need a single.
Guest:It would usually be just like, how are we going to sell this?
Guest:Give us something to sell this with.
Guest:So it was the other 12 or 15 or 10 or however many songs they would let you do what you wanted.
Marc:Yeah, if they could move that thing.
Guest:If they would just if you would just give them the one thing.
Marc:But what's interesting about the production resume is that, you know, you seem sort of adept at really approaching a lot of different types of people.
Marc:And there's people that you've recorded, you know, several times.
Marc:I mean, I think that last Almond, brother, you know, that was really a great bit of producing.
Guest:Oh, I love, you know, I love that record.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I love Greg.
Guest:And that's that's another one of my favorite records I've ever got.
Marc:I think that was his last record, right?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I think he may have made one more, but... But Low Country Blues, I think you've opened that portal.
Guest:Yeah, I went... I just went... You know, C.S.
Guest:Lewis said, if you're doing a mathematical sum and you come up with the wrong answer, there's no use proceeding from there.
Guest:You have to go back and find where you made the mistake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then that's where progress can begin.
Guest:So sometimes progress moving forward is accomplished by moving backward.
Yeah.
Guest:That's what I've done with several artists.
Marc:But you get to move backward in a vehicle that's modern.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So you get to do both at once.
Guest:You get to go two directions at once.
Guest:And that's what we did with Low Country Blues.
Guest:I've tried to do that with Elton on some of his things.
Marc:On the Leon Russell record?
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:The two of them?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I was there at the Troubadour when Elton came to town.
Guest:The first time?
Guest:Yeah, for that week and blew everybody's mind and just exploded into a major star in a week.
Marc:Did you feel that you had success in doing that with Elton?
Guest:Yeah, I thought so.
Guest:The record we made, Diving Board, was very much a trio, piano, bass, and drums record, which is how he was playing at the time.
Guest:Of course, I mean, his voice is at least an octave lower than it was.
Guest:I listen to those early Elton records now, and it sounds like he's on Helium or something.
Yeah.
Guest:It was a good band, though.
Guest:Oh, the band's great, and he was great.
Guest:I don't mean that to denigrate his early records in any way.
Marc:You know, as people get older to strip it down, it makes it interesting.
Marc:I mean, I think that what Ruben did with Johnny Cash was sort of astounding, right?
Guest:Beautiful, yeah.
Guest:That's the same idea.
Guest:Just go back to the core of who the person is and what he loves in the first place.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Try to identify the person's true love.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, but you recorded you recorded B.B.
Marc:King late, too.
Marc:I mean, 2008.
Guest:Same sort of process.
Guest:Going back into going back into, you know, see that my grave is kept clean and those songs of his youth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And though you didn't get to work with Bob, you did you did carry Jacob through a couple, huh?
Guest:Well, I wouldn't say carry him, but yeah, I love, Jacob's a beautiful artist.
Marc:Oh, yeah, he's great.
Marc:Yeah, I've talked to him.
Marc:Yeah, it's funny because, like, you know, it was one of those interviews where it's sort of like, am I allowed to talk about his dad?
Marc:And then, like, you know, and even if he's reticent to it, eventually you're sort of like, you know, well, do you talk to your dad?
Marc:He's like, yeah, of course, he's my dad.
Yeah.
Guest:well jacob is a very funny witty guy very funny and he uh he never reveals that in in public for some reason he's very guarded which i understand i used to be very guarded too i've given up on being guarded well i mean it's like you know i mean he knew what he was getting into it's like if your dad's bob dylan i'm gonna gonna be a singer songwriter yeah well yeah good luck
Guest:Yeah, he knew what he was getting into, but there was no way for him to know what he was getting into at the same time.
Marc:But he's a great songwriter in his own right.
Marc:You never got to work with the Heartbreakers, though, huh?
Guest:Tom Petty and those guys?
Guest:No, I never did.
Marc:It would seem like it would be a good match.
Guest:Yeah, I would have loved to have worked with Tom.
Guest:I did music direct his Music Cares tribute a year before he died.
Guest:I love Tom.
Guest:He was an amazing cast.
Marc:He's one of those guys where if you just sit with the catalog, you're like, holy God.
Guest:Yeah, one great song after another.
Marc:Really something amazing about that.
Marc:And you recorded your ex-wife a few records.
Guest:Yeah, six or seven records, yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's nice.
Guest:She is still one of my very, she's maybe my favorite artist I've ever worked with.
Guest:Yeah, Sam Phillips is incredible.
Guest:She's a great, great songwriter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She lives right around the corner from where we're sitting at the moment.
Marc:I know.
Marc:That's wild.
Marc:Now I know that.
Guest:She's a great songwriter and a deep-souled woman.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then out of wherever you do a Cassandra Wilson record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I've worked with Cassandra a lot.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:We just put her, we used her to good effect in the latest season of True Detective.
Guest:She sang the main title song.
Guest:Oh, that's her?
Guest:Yeah, that makes sense.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I didn't keep up with her, but the first time I heard her, it was like, holy shit.
Guest:Yeah, she's the last living jazz singer, you know?
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:I think so, probably.
Guest:I mean, I think you could say Diana Krall is a jazz singer, but she's not the kind of jazz singer that Cassandra is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Diana is a great pianist.
Guest:She was Oscar Peterson's protege.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's a brilliant musician and a great singer.
Guest:She's also Canadian, you know, so that and Cassandra doesn't have the same baggage.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Doesn't have the American baggage.
Marc:Well put.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Cassandra says that down in Mississippi, they say the reason there's so much trouble between the races is because we're all related.
Yeah.
Guest:And she comes from right down there in the Delta, and she's got all of that.
Marc:And you also helped old Robert Plant turn his vibe around.
Guest:I hope to do that again one of these days.
Guest:You like that guy.
Guest:I do love Robert, and I love Robert and Allison together.
Guest:The two of them have extraordinary chemistry.
Guest:And, you know, speaking of someone who, when you listen to his early stuff, sounds like he's on helium, you know?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But as a grown man, when he lowers his voice into that softer place, it's more mystical.
Guest:It's more beautiful.
Guest:Well, he can sing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he can sing great.
Guest:And the two of them together, they have these beautiful tones that create five other people.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:Here's the weird thing about superstars aging.
Marc:And I've talked to a lot of them, a few of them anyways, and they always think they're doing their best work now.
Marc:And they might very well be.
Marc:It's just that the audience has gotten a little smaller.
Marc:And the expectations are different.
Marc:And they're older gentlemen.
Marc:And they may not get the reverence that they once had for what they did when they were kids, but they could be right.
Marc:And it's funny, because I interviewed McCartney.
Marc:It was one of the greatest moments of my life.
Marc:Because every guy his age that I've talked to says that.
Marc:Let's talk about the new record.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:And a lot of times they're not right, but it's fine, you know.
Marc:But I said to McCartney, I said to him, I said, you know, a lot of artists your age think they're doing their best work now.
Marc:Do you feel that way?
Marc:And he goes, I was in the Beatles.
Guest:Well, good for him.
Guest:Because how do you put down the Beatles, man?
Guest:That's a pretty high bar.
Guest:They're our Bach, you know.
Guest:They're just in another.
Guest:It was so funny.
Guest:It was so beautiful.
Guest:But a very good provocative question, I have to say.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I really thought I had it in the bag.
Guest:I was going to.
Guest:We're gonna get him on that one.
Marc:Nope, completely self-aware.
Marc:What, are you kidding me?
Marc:I'm not gonna, it's really something.
Marc:Now, let's just talk a couple more minutes about working with the Coens.
Marc:Inside Llewyn Davis,
Guest:One of my favorite.
Guest:That's maybe their best movie.
Guest:Yeah, I love it.
Guest:You know, not everybody loved it, but I liked it because it was the story of my life.
Guest:That's what I thought.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So and Springsteen said, it's a story of my life, except with a happy ending.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's that's what we all that's what we all went through.
Guest:That was the that was the gauntlet we ran.
Guest:Oscar Isaac is did an incredible job.
Guest:of playing authentic folk music from the 50s.
Guest:Did you have to coach him?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:I mean, what I did mostly was just keep everything away, just to give him space to do what he did.
Guest:But I'll tell you, he did an extraordinary thing, which the Coens wanted to shoot all the music live, which is the best way to do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We did it without a click track, which you never do in the movies because you can't cut from one shot to another if it's not done to a consistent tempo.
Guest:So I was sitting about four or five feet away from him with a stopwatch timing measures.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, we shot to make sure he didn't speed up or slow down.
Guest:And he had drilled so hard for six months that he didn't once.
Guest:He never varied tempo.
Guest:It's an extraordinary feat.
Marc:Yeah, I do have to watch that again.
Marc:So all that stuff, what was the process of deciding the songs for all of it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:We've always just kind of talked about it until they're there.
Marc:You and the Coens?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that's the same with the O Brother?
Guest:Yeah, all of them.
Marc:And what other ones do you do?
Marc:The Lebowski?
Guest:Big Lebowski.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Lady Killers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we've done a few documentaries in between.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There may be another one or two in there.
Guest:I can't remember.
Marc:Yeah, but you guys all get along?
Yeah.
Guest:Very much so.
Guest:In fact, they're so good at getting along, the two of them, and they are able to reach a consensus so effortlessly that they are able to include anyone else in their process.
Guest:So I've never seen a really uncomfortable moment on a set with those guys.
Marc:One of my favorite movies is A Serious Man because I'm an American middle-class Jew, and it all seemed very familiar to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I just thought it was seemingly a very personal movie.
Marc:And again, the ending with the old rabbi listening to White Rabbit.
Marc:The kid stoned his bar mitzvah.
Marc:Too good.
Marc:It's too good.
Marc:I gotta watch them all again.
Marc:So let's zero in on one other thing.
Marc:I wanna talk about this because I got the record
Marc:and I didn't know what the fuck it was, and I still don't know where it comes from, but music from the American Epic Sessions.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I listened to it, and I'm like, did Third Man put it out?
Guest:Yeah, Jack put it out.
Marc:And what was the conceit of that?
Marc:You were involved with it.
Marc:They pulled out an old machine?
Guest:Yeah, they found an old... Back in the old days, what happened was in 1926, the record business collapsed because of the proliferation of radio in the big cities.
Guest:And all the records were sold in the big cities.
Guest:And because people could get music for free, they didn't want to pay for it anymore.
Guest:So the record companies took these portable...
Guest:recorders down south and started going recording blues and country musicians with the idea they weren't called blues and country musicians at the time they were recording poor musicians in poor parts of the world because they didn't have the same radio
Guest:access that they had, and they could still sell records.
Guest:So they would go to a furniture store in Mississippi and say, is there anybody around here who's good?
Guest:Because all the records and the record players were sold in furniture stores and manufactured by furniture companies.
Marc:Oh, interesting.
Guest:It was in the 20s.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they would say, well, if you go down the road here, this road, there's a guy down there who's really good, Mississippi John Hurt, go down there and record him.
Guest:So they would take these massive machines that were portable down the road and they would record.
Marc:No electricity.
Guest:No electricity.
Guest:It was all done by pulleys.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how did they work?
Marc:It was like the weight would drop in a certain time frame.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that was what was digging the grooves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you only had, it would last two minutes, two minutes and 20 seconds was all the time you had.
Marc:So you had the weight hooked up to a pulley that was hooked up to the needle that was grinding.
Guest:It was hooked up to the turntable.
Marc:That was digging the plate.
Guest:Yeah, the turntable was moving.
Guest:The needle was stationary, but it would move around the needle.
Marc:And that's where you get the original plate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so they would take those recordings, and they were on discs, and they would pack them in ice.
Guest:They could only record in the winter because it was done on wax.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So they would pack it in ice and they would ship it up to New Jersey or wherever the pressing press was.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:And the guy at the furniture store would say, OK, well, if you do that, I'll take a thousand records.
Guest:So they would send the discs up, the masters up.
Guest:The wax masters.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then send back a thousand records and that would be it.
Marc:So you got one of those machines and recorded a bunch of current artists and a couple of older artists on them.
Guest:Yeah, I thought the Nas piece was really great.
Marc:Yeah, some of them are good.
Marc:It's interesting that what was interesting to me listening to it is that some of the way those records sounded was not age.
Marc:It was the equipment.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Which would make sense, but a lot of times you assume something's old about it, but it was amazing that the sound was there, that it did work, that you could hear.
Guest:Yeah, it still works.
Guest:I mean, it's pretty crude mechanics, but it still works really well.
Marc:You and Jack, you must have good talks.
Marc:He's an analog freak.
Guest:Yeah, Jack and I are, he's like a younger brother.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, you know, he's doing those direct to disc, direct to, what do you call it?
Marc:All those third men, the records that he records in the stage space go right onto the plate.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Some of them are great.
Guest:Yeah, they are.
Guest:As I said, it's still the best sound.
Guest:The best sound, I think every musician will tell you, that when you're working in tape or digital, any time you go to a disc...
Guest:The acetate that you first record on is the best sound you'll ever hear.
Marc:What is that made out of?
Guest:Copper or aluminum?
Guest:I think it's aluminum base with acetate on top of it.
Guest:But the acetate is very soft.
Guest:So once again, the needle pressing into the groove creates heat, which melts the acetate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Same with wax.
Guest:Once you cut one of those masters, you couldn't play it.
Guest:You just had to send it off and get it made.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:Because they would melt.
Guest:So acetate is the first step you take in making an album, a vinyl record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But if you just listen to the acetate before you press, then it's the best sound you'll ever hear.
Guest:The pressings never sound as good as the acetate.
Marc:Do you have an acetate collection?
Guest:I do, actually.
Guest:I do, but they've all been played, so they're all pretty scratchy.
Marc:They're spent?
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Marc:Well, the new record's great.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:And, you know, I hope it finds an audience.
Marc:I think it will.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:But you're happy with it.
Marc:It's autonomous.
Guest:It is autonomous.
Guest:There are three of them.
Guest:We've just finished recording the second one, and we're going to put them out every few months.
Marc:Is it the Acoustic Space series?
Guest:It's the Invisible Light series.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:The second one's called Spells.
Guest:We've recorded the second one because I hope to put it out in August or September.
Marc:And is it thematically different?
Guest:Yeah, it's a little more driving.
Guest:It's a little more up.
Marc:Okay, so you're starting low.
Guest:But thematically, it's all about the same thing.
Guest:All of it is about the fact that human beings have undergone over a century of electronic programming and what that's done to us as a people and where that's led us.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:between the conditioned responses that Pavlov pioneered.
Marc:Sure, yeah, our addiction to our film, but it's also led us to the place where we started, where you could do a lifetime of work and celebrate it in three sentences, put it out into the world, and someone with no name and a picture of Bob Newhart as an avatar will say, you suck.
You suck.
Guest:It's funny, and I'll tell you a true story.
Guest:From the time I was probably 10 or 11 until the time I was probably 16 or 18, I had a recurring nightmare, which was I was in the parish hall of my Episcopal church, and we were all lined up against the wall.
Guest:And at the very far corner were these men dressed all in black.
Guest:I couldn't see their faces, but they were black, and they were intimidating and threatening.
Guest:And they were taking off everyone's right hand and replacing it with an electronic hand that would be their new control mechanism.
Guest:And I would wake up every night from that dream in a cold sweat, panicked.
Guest:I had it probably 15 or 20 times.
Guest:And it wasn't until probably 15 years ago that I walked into a coffee shop and I saw everybody staring at their hands that I realized, oh, they didn't have to cut off our hands.
Guest:They just put it in our hands.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I feel that that dream was given to me because actually that's what I've been writing about all of these years is that dream sort of propelled me into this.
Guest:I started reading Teilhard de Chardin and I started reading Jacques Ellul and Marshall McLuhan and getting into this idea of where are we going with this technology?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:With every technological advance, we have to stop and take a minute to determine whether this is going to be something that makes us more human or less human.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at the moment, this current digital technology is certainly making us less human in just that way you said, that somebody who no one's ever heard of and has never done one good piece of work suddenly becomes an expert on everything that's wrong.
Marc:Or just an asshole.
Guest:Or just that, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:it's usually just that yeah it goes like nine times out of ten when you respond and they're like i got you yeah they just want to connect so that is that's human yeah that's all that's left that's all too yeah that's right well we'll see they don't care how they connect yeah for how long yeah but but what they're really doing is disconnecting and that's no for sure the problem
Marc:Have you used the description of that dream in any of the spoken pieces?
Guest:No, I haven't.
Guest:I did an interview and somebody asked me, why did I get into this?
Guest:And I started thinking about it and I realized, oh, that's why I got into this.
Guest:That's why I went on this whole... Fear of the hand.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:Don't talk to the hand.
Guest:Too late.
Marc:Good talking to you man.
Guest:You too man.
Marc:That was T-Bone Burnett.
Marc:The new album, The Invisible Light Acoustic Space, comes out next Friday, April 12th.
Marc:You can get it wherever you get those records.
Marc:I may have been hallucinating.
Marc:If you're still hanging in, I may have been hallucinating.
Marc:And I may need some sleep.
Marc:And I have no idea what the future holds for me in a lot of ways.
Marc:If everything works out in the immediate future, it'll be a show in Manchester.
Marc:Uh...
Guest:tonight oh god ah the butter the fucking butter so good though right butter boomer lives
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