Episode 586 - John Doe

Episode 586 • Released March 18, 2015 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:10Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:13Marc:What the fucksicles?

00:00:15Marc:What the fuckadelics?

00:00:16Marc:And what the fuck hawks?

00:00:18Marc:Like it just came out of me.

00:00:19Marc:Don't know where from, but that's what happened.

00:00:22Marc:Welcome to the show.

00:00:23Marc:I am Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Thank you for being here.

00:00:24Marc:And yes, I am a little sick.

00:00:26Marc:I am battling something for a change.

00:00:28Marc:I did not pace myself well.

00:00:31Marc:I got done with the shoot and I scheduled, you know, months ago, I scheduled work right away because I'm a fucking idiot.

00:00:38Marc:So now I'm worn out and beat up.

00:00:40Marc:I haven't even been able to sleep right since we stopped the insane schedule of shooting.

00:00:45Marc:And then I got some sort of heinous cold, and now I'm off to Rochester as we speak.

00:00:51Marc:I'll be at the Comedy Club in Webster, New York, in the Rochester area if you want to come.

00:00:56Marc:I'll be doing four shows there.

00:00:58Marc:And I will be battling it cold during those shows and reacquainting myself with the hour I've been doing before I started shooting and probably having some sort of mild meltdowns during each show, which is a signature hook of mine when I travel on the road.

00:01:16Marc:Which show is Marin going to lose it?

00:01:18Marc:And is he going to pull it around?

00:01:21Marc:That's the name of my next CD.

00:01:23Marc:Is he going to pull it around?

00:01:26Marc:I don't know, could take 25 years.

00:01:30Marc:I jest, kind of.

00:01:32Marc:I'm jesting a bit.

00:01:33Marc:Perhaps not.

00:01:34Marc:I think it's going to be a good weekend.

00:01:35Marc:I'm excited to get back into the trenches.

00:01:37Marc:And, of course, when I go, it looks like it's going to be raining, maybe snowing.

00:01:40Marc:And then I'm thinking about going down to New York City for a couple days, do some business, and it's probably going to be raining and snowing there because it's been that way ever since.

00:01:46Marc:Every time I've gone there.

00:01:47Marc:Now, look, I'm not complaining.

00:01:49Marc:I know a lot of you guys have been through a lot of stuff through the winter.

00:01:51Marc:It's been difficult for you.

00:01:52Marc:It has not been as difficult for me out here in the beautiful weather of Los Angeles.

00:01:57Marc:But I do like it to be nice when I travel to the Big Apple.

00:02:02Marc:Anywho, did I just say that?

00:02:05Marc:I'm embarrassed.

00:02:06Marc:Anyway, today on the show, John Doe of the band X, who I was thrilled to talk to.

00:02:14Marc:Quite a history.

00:02:15Marc:What a fucking amazing band that was.

00:02:18Marc:He'll be forming this weekend in the L.A.

00:02:20Marc:area on Saturday.

00:02:21Marc:He's at the First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles, along with Exine of X and Robin Hitchcock, another genius, been on this show.

00:02:30Marc:You can also see the three of them Sunday in Solana Beach at Belly Up.

00:02:35Marc:Man, that's good shit, man.

00:02:37Marc:That is some good rock and roll there or whatever they'll be doing.

00:02:41Marc:Some form of it.

00:02:42Marc:It takes many forms to rock and roll.

00:02:45Marc:All right, relax, man.

00:02:46Marc:Relax.

00:02:48Marc:What else is happening on the personal front?

00:02:50Marc:Well, yeah, I'm a little sick.

00:02:52Marc:I'm eating a lot of oranges.

00:02:53Marc:I got this thing in my mouth that I'm not going to freak out about because I've had it before.

00:02:57Marc:And I don't know anybody else who gets them, which makes me embarrassed to talk about it, which means I'm going to fucking talk about it.

00:03:02Marc:I'm going to fucking talk about it with you.

00:03:03Marc:That's right, you.

00:03:05Marc:Maybe someone can identify with me.

00:03:07Marc:I've never felt so alone in a weird ailment than these things that happen inside of my mouth.

00:03:14Marc:What happens inside of my mouth is sometimes if I bite my lip too much or like I bit my lip in one spot a few times, it got all fucked up.

00:03:21Marc:But then what happens is somehow or another, one of the thousands of salivary glands you have in your mouth, one of mine will get clogged or crushed and create what looks to be a blister, but it's not.

00:03:30Marc:It's a clogged salivary gland.

00:03:32Marc:And that means I have to go to an oral surgeon and have it removed, taken out of my mouth.

00:03:40Marc:Now, I've talked about this with people, and they're like, what the fuck?

00:03:42Marc:And I'm like, no, doesn't this happen to you?

00:03:43Marc:No, it doesn't.

00:03:45Marc:So if someone out there has had this, where they get that little balloon of a clogged salivary gland in their mouth that they've had to have surgically removed, I would like to know so I don't feel alone in the world.

00:03:56Marc:Could you do that for me?

00:03:57Marc:Or else I just feel like some freak.

00:03:59Marc:I made an appointment to get it taken out.

00:04:01Marc:And I asked a woman, I said, is this a common thing?

00:04:03Marc:And she's like, well, you know, it's not that common, but people, it happens to, it happens to.

00:04:08Marc:I'm like, that was not helpful at all.

00:04:11Marc:Oh, here's some interesting business.

00:04:14Marc:I got a piece of written mail and a CD in the mail.

00:04:19Marc:Hello, Mark.

00:04:20Marc:I lived in blah, blah, blah, blah, blah before you.

00:04:23Marc:That was my address that I didn't read, like that matters.

00:04:26Marc:To cut to the chase, my wife just brought home your book, Attempting Normal, from the library, and we were laughing at your description of the garage.

00:04:33Marc:And then in parentheses, it says, you should have seen it when we bought the place.

00:04:37Marc:So I thought I'd send along this CD that I recorded in there.

00:04:41Marc:Broken concrete is hard to set up drums on, but we did.

00:04:44Marc:That's right.

00:04:44Marc:Before I put this temporary floor in, it was all shattered concrete.

00:04:48Marc:Not sure if it's your kind of thing, but thought you'd dig some history.

00:04:51Marc:My buddy Richie Hayward from Little Feet recorded with me in that garage.

00:04:56Marc:Hope all is great in Highland Park.

00:04:57Marc:Your book is great.

00:04:58Marc:Keep on keeping on.

00:04:59Marc:I knew he was a musician, but I didn't know this album, Wildflowers by Connie Price and the Keystones, was recorded in this garage.

00:05:08Marc:And it must have been something because there's like a lot of dudes in this band.

00:05:11Marc:There's horn players and everything.

00:05:13Marc:And that happened in here, and I didn't even know it.

00:05:15Marc:And the dude from Little Feet was in here jamming too.

00:05:18Marc:In this garage!

00:05:19Marc:So it's been a magical place before.

00:05:21Marc:I listen to the records.

00:05:23Marc:Really good.

00:05:24Marc:Really good.

00:05:27Marc:The guy who is behind me has this open field in the back and he just randomly creates, starts projects, just mysteriously sawing things, making piles of stuff.

00:05:41Marc:Planting things.

00:05:43Marc:It's interesting.

00:05:43Marc:I wish I had a hobby field.

00:05:45Marc:That's what I need.

00:05:46Marc:You need a hobby field.

00:05:48Marc:You guys, I got to be honest with you.

00:05:51Marc:One of these days, I'm going to disappear into the wilderness.

00:05:55Marc:I think I've talked about this before.

00:05:56Marc:I'm going to Jeremiah Johnson, my life, just head out with a heavy jacket of furs and a beard and find the open wilderness.

00:06:10Marc:Do some trapping.

00:06:11Marc:What is happening?

00:06:14Marc:What is happening?

00:06:15Marc:Why is that happening?

00:06:17Marc:I can't.

00:06:17Marc:Why is it coming through my computer?

00:06:20Marc:What is going on?

00:06:22Marc:When did the phone start coming through the computer?

00:06:25Marc:My god.

00:06:29Marc:That was jarring.

00:06:32Marc:The band X.

00:06:34Marc:is one of the great L.A.

00:06:36Marc:bands.

00:06:37Marc:It's one of the great, I guess you would definitely call them a punk band, but L.A.

00:06:44Marc:punk, American punk, fucking rock and roll, X was a great fucking band, and John Doe is an amazing musician and songwriter, and he's here with us today, and we're going to talk to him right now.

00:07:06Marc:You lived in Mount Washington with Eggzine in the 80s.

00:07:09Marc:Yes.

00:07:10Marc:But it was pretty, it was sort of nice up there, right?

00:07:13Marc:Oh, yeah, it was nice.

00:07:15Marc:I mean, Highland Park was nice.

00:07:17Marc:But I mean, up there, it feels like when I go to Mount Washington, the only thing that scares me is there's only one road down.

00:07:23Marc:Yeah.

00:07:23Marc:You know what I mean?

00:07:25Guest:Just stay up top at the self-realization center and watch it all burn.

00:07:29Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:07:30Guest:You know, that was a sanitarium.

00:07:32Guest:It was?

00:07:32Guest:Yeah.

00:07:34Guest:The place up at the top of Mount Washington was like a dryout center for all the big shit movie stars.

00:07:40Marc:No kidding, like back in the day.

00:07:42Marc:Yeah, like in the 20s.

00:07:44Marc:So we're going to hide them up there, and they won't be able to get off the hill, and just wait until they get better.

00:07:50Marc:Wait until they get better from there.

00:07:51Marc:Who knew that would become one of the biggest businesses in the country?

00:07:55Marc:The drying out business.

00:07:57Marc:So you lived up there, so you know this area.

00:07:59Marc:Avenue 45.

00:07:59Marc:Yeah.

00:08:00Marc:Yeah.

00:08:01Guest:And now somebody else that knew us.

00:08:05Guest:Sean Wheeler from Sean and Xander.

00:08:09Guest:Yeah.

00:08:10Guest:You know, they're a folk duo.

00:08:12Guest:Yeah.

00:08:12Guest:And Sean was in the throw rag and stuff like that.

00:08:16Guest:Anyway, he was doing a recording next door to the old house.

00:08:20Guest:It's like, hey, I could...

00:08:22Guest:Some of the palm fronds on that tree.

00:08:23Guest:That's why it looks so freaking good.

00:08:26Guest:Watch out for the caster beans.

00:08:28Guest:They'll poison you.

00:08:29Marc:They'll kill you.

00:08:31Marc:You know the place.

00:08:33Marc:Yeah.

00:08:33Marc:But I'm sorry I was so hopped up when you came in.

00:08:37Marc:Hopped up.

00:08:37Marc:I don't know how to handle new equipment.

00:08:39Marc:I felt like I was very uncool when you first checked in.

00:08:42Marc:I'm like, I got a new guitar.

00:08:44Guest:You know, I bought a piano.

00:08:45Guest:It cost 200 bucks.

00:08:46Guest:It was like 100 bucks for the piano and 75 to deliver it.

00:08:51Guest:Where do you live now?

00:08:52Guest:I live in the East Bay, Richmond.

00:08:55Marc:Oh, up north?

00:08:56Marc:Yeah, up north.

00:08:57Marc:Really?

00:08:58Marc:Yeah.

00:08:58Marc:Oh, that's nice.

00:08:59Guest:Yeah, I haven't lived in L.A.

00:09:00Guest:forever.

00:09:01Marc:Did you run away from L.A.?

00:09:04Guest:I had to leave.

00:09:06Guest:Los Angeles.

00:09:09Guest:No, I didn't run away.

00:09:10Guest:I worked with X for years and years, and then I did two movies pretty close together, Great Balls of Fire and Roadhouse.

00:09:20Guest:I was like, fuck, I can buy a house now.

00:09:23Guest:Yeah.

00:09:24Guest:Oh, wait a minute.

00:09:24Guest:I can't buy a house in L.A.

00:09:26Guest:because it was 1986 or something like that.

00:09:30Guest:Yeah.

00:09:31Guest:And there was a top of another real estate.

00:09:34Guest:Yeah.

00:09:34Guest:And so and I didn't I was done.

00:09:36Guest:You know, I was done with it.

00:09:38Guest:And fried.

00:09:39Guest:Yeah.

00:09:40Guest:Just it was no longer inspiring.

00:09:42Guest:And so my wife at the time and I moved up to the grapevine.

00:09:47Guest:But you're still friends with Exine?

00:09:49Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:09:50Guest:Yeah?

00:09:50Guest:We're partners.

00:09:51Marc:That's great.

00:09:52Guest:It is great.

00:09:53Marc:And do you have kids?

00:09:54Marc:Three thick and thin.

00:09:55Marc:Do you have kids with both of them?

00:09:57Guest:No.

00:09:57Guest:No, Exine and I never had kids, but I have three daughters that are just awesome.

00:10:03Guest:But, you know, I qualify that.

00:10:06Guest:Yeah.

00:10:07Guest:Kids are wonderful.

00:10:09Guest:Yeah.

00:10:10Guest:But everybody shouldn't have them.

00:10:11Guest:And it doesn't complete your life and all that other bullshit.

00:10:15Marc:I haven't had them.

00:10:16Guest:Well, especially new parents that start going all goo goo about, you know, and maybe I'm just too selfish.

00:10:22Guest:I don't know.

00:10:22Guest:How old were you when you had your first kid?

00:10:25Marc:Oh, older, like 30...

00:10:28Guest:four right but not 50 like i still haven't had one yet and there's still part of me that's sort of like no maybe i can yeah yeah maybe you could maybe i could i've been in a relationship with with uh with my current sweetheart yeah uh for seven years we've known each other for like 13 yeah and um and uh we had a conversation several years ago that luckily only lasted about

00:10:52Guest:a couple days yeah you know off and on and it's like and she said i had a pretty rough childhood and i yeah that's fine with me she's several years younger than me which is oh so this is the third one third long term yes okay so you had the the three kids with the one in between yes okay i got it i got it

00:11:11Guest:So she's good.

00:11:12Guest:Yeah, she's fine.

00:11:13Guest:I actually just saw her last night at a dance recital in Santa Cruz.

00:11:18Guest:My youngest daughter was part of a dance program.

00:11:20Marc:Oh, that's exciting.

00:11:21Guest:She's going to Santa Cruz?

00:11:24Guest:She just finished there, yeah.

00:11:25Guest:That's a trippy school, man.

00:11:27Guest:It's a great school.

00:11:27Marc:Yeah.

00:11:28Marc:So beautiful.

00:11:29Marc:It's beautiful down there.

00:11:30Marc:It's a little wild vibe in Santa Cruz.

00:11:33Marc:The town is wild.

00:11:33Marc:Yes.

00:11:34Marc:The town is like... Like, what's going on?

00:11:36Marc:Wide open.

00:11:37Marc:Wide open.

00:11:38Marc:That's...

00:11:39Guest:That's what they used to call it back in the cow puncher days.

00:11:42Guest:Oh, that place is wide open.

00:11:44Guest:On a psychic level.

00:11:45Guest:I think you can get whatever you want in Santa Cruz.

00:11:47Marc:Exactly.

00:11:48Guest:Pretty much whatever you want.

00:11:49Marc:But on some level, you've got to, these days, have these moments where you're like, holy shit, I survived.

00:11:56Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:11:57Marc:I mean, I can't imagine.

00:11:58Guest:I'm so grateful.

00:12:00Marc:Whatever happened, what was it, in the late 70s, early 80s in this city, was crazy, man.

00:12:05Marc:I mean, a lot of people went down.

00:12:07Yeah.

00:12:08Guest:yeah like during the time and then not so i mean i there's a song that i play called ready yeah and it's kind of a tribute to uh jeffrey lee pierce and i was gonna ask you about that darby and yeah and uh elliot smith i was kind of friends with him too and it's uh uh i will introduce it live and say you know i'm i'm not wishing ill will to many people but all the eagles are still alive and

00:12:31Guest:So are Fleetwood Mac, except for the good ones.

00:12:34Guest:And, you know, is it just better health care?

00:12:36Guest:You know, because like a lot of fucking punk rockers that are dead.

00:12:41Guest:It's sad and scary.

00:12:44Marc:But do you come up with an answer for that?

00:12:46Guest:No, I think it's better health care.

00:12:48Guest:Yeah.

00:12:49Guest:You know, it's like they got rich and they could take care of themselves.

00:12:52Marc:But also it seemed that at the time, I was listening to the first four X records over the last couple of days, and I listened to Fire of Love.

00:13:02Marc:I listened to Gun Club still.

00:13:04Marc:It's a great record.

00:13:06Marc:Oh, my God.

00:13:07Marc:Yeah.

00:13:07Marc:But I think the answer is that what was at stake for you guys, what you were chasing, was different.

00:13:15Marc:It seemed like these studio musicians and these guys that evolved into Fleetwood Mac or, say, the Eagles, they were looking to live large.

00:13:24Marc:And it just seemed like the hunger during that punk scene was not about that.

00:13:28Marc:No, it wasn't.

00:13:28Marc:It was about pushing the fucking envelope.

00:13:30Guest:I think embarking on writing a book.

00:13:34Guest:Okay.

00:13:35Guest:I am.

00:13:35Guest:This guy, Tom DeSavia, a friend of mine and I, are going to work on a book, and we're going to do an L.A.

00:13:40Guest:punk rock history book.

00:13:42Guest:Right.

00:13:42Guest:But we're going to get Exene and Keith Morris and a bunch of other people who were there, Alice Bagg and Terry Graham from Gun Club and all these people, Chris D. from the Flesh Eaters,

00:13:54Guest:We're going to get each of them to write a chapter.

00:13:56Guest:I've written a couple.

00:13:57Guest:Tom's going to do some intro.

00:13:59Guest:He's like a publisher guy.

00:14:02Guest:But it was a fan, like a 15, 16-year-old that scared the shit out of him.

00:14:08Guest:Holy shit.

00:14:10Guest:Yeah.

00:14:11Guest:But I'm hooked.

00:14:11Guest:Right.

00:14:12Marc:Oh, my God.

00:14:14Guest:Oh, fuck.

00:14:15Guest:They've got razor blades in their boots or something.

00:14:18Guest:And it's fast.

00:14:19Guest:Yeah.

00:14:19Marc:But where'd you come from originally?

00:14:21Guest:Baltimore.

00:14:22Guest:That's where you grew up?

00:14:23Guest:Pretty much from third grade on.

00:14:25Guest:My dad was a librarian.

00:14:27Guest:Really?

00:14:27Guest:Yeah.

00:14:28Guest:A very ambitious librarian.

00:14:31Guest:What does that mean?

00:14:32Guest:It means he ended up being a big administrator.

00:14:35Guest:He was the head of Brooklyn Public Library at the end of his life.

00:14:39Marc:And you have a big family?

00:14:41Marc:You come from a big family?

00:14:41Guest:No, just one brother.

00:14:43Guest:Both my folks are dead.

00:14:44Guest:Yeah.

00:14:44Guest:And what's the real name?

00:14:46Guest:Oh, it's Czech.

00:14:48Guest:It's a Czech name?

00:14:49Guest:It's a Czech name, and it's Dukac, and it's spelled all backwards.

00:14:53Guest:But then I changed it to my mom's maiden name so my kids wouldn't have to suffer from my sins.

00:14:58Guest:And at least my mom's maiden name is Danish, and so it's at least phonetic.

00:15:03Guest:It's online if people need to know, but...

00:15:05Guest:Sometimes they'll say it's Hitler, but I didn't think it would do so good in the entertainment business.

00:15:10Marc:Might have been great for punk rock, though.

00:15:12Guest:Yeah, I know.

00:15:14Marc:So what compelled you to come out here?

00:15:17Marc:When did you leave Baltimore?

00:15:21Guest:The end of 76.

00:15:22Guest:How old were you?

00:15:23Guest:23.

00:15:25Marc:Were you already playing back there?

00:15:27Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:15:27Guest:Went in bar bands, played, you know, played, like, the band and Neil Young songs and, you know, Rolling Stones songs.

00:15:37Marc:So that was always your thing?

00:15:38Marc:Yeah.

00:15:38Marc:Like an American catalog?

00:15:40Marc:Yeah.

00:15:40Guest:Yeah.

00:15:41Guest:Yeah, and I wrote poetry.

00:15:43Guest:I went to Antioch College in Baltimore, which was just totally hilarious.

00:15:47Marc:Yeah.

00:15:48Marc:You went all the way through?

00:15:49Yeah.

00:15:49Guest:Yeah.

00:15:50Guest:Yeah?

00:15:50Guest:Well, I quit.

00:15:51Guest:I went to George Washington for a year, then I quit for like a year and a half and put on aluminum siding and roofing and all kinds of lovely things.

00:15:58Marc:Going to be a working man for a little while?

00:16:00Guest:I was, and then I thought, this sucks.

00:16:01Guest:Yeah?

00:16:02Guest:This is terrible.

00:16:03Guest:Yeah.

00:16:03Guest:No, I just wasn't interested, and I wanted to play, and I played music, you know.

00:16:06Guest:What was your degree in?

00:16:08Guest:Poetry and American literature.

00:16:11Guest:So that was your thing?

00:16:12Guest:That was my thing.

00:16:13Guest:I ran a poetry reading series in Baltimore called The Poetry Project.

00:16:17Guest:I'm realizing now that I was seeing it with a little bit longer view.

00:16:24Guest:Now?

00:16:25Guest:No, then.

00:16:26Guest:Really?

00:16:27Guest:And I think that the other people like Darby and the other people that were in a lot of bands that were just like fucking teenage runaways, they were just in it for the kicks and just like, let's tear this shit up.

00:16:39Guest:Right.

00:16:39Guest:And let's just see what happens.

00:16:40Guest:Right.

00:16:40Guest:And I don't give a flying fuck about anything.

00:16:43Guest:And I didn't in a rebellious, like I'm going to stick it to the man or I don't like this whole corporate rock thing that's going on and there's too much money and there's too much extravagance.

00:16:57Marc:This is what you thought.

00:16:58Guest:Yeah.

00:16:59Guest:It's all deteriorated into bullshit.

00:17:01Guest:And I saw Talking Heads in New York and I saw The Heartbreakers because my folks lived in Brooklyn and

00:17:09Marc:Oh, my God.

00:17:10Marc:That must have been awesome.

00:17:11Marc:It was great.

00:17:11Marc:Were they on it?

00:17:12Marc:Oh, hell yeah.

00:17:14Marc:Yeah.

00:17:15Marc:Yeah.

00:17:15Marc:The Heartbreakers were such a game changer for everyone, it seemed.

00:17:19Guest:You know, that was when Richard Hell was still in them.

00:17:23Guest:But I realized that, and I was so sick of the East Coast.

00:17:26Guest:Yeah.

00:17:26Guest:I mean, I love John Waters.

00:17:28Guest:Right.

00:17:28Guest:And he and I were, you know, kind of acquaintances then.

00:17:32Guest:How would you know him?

00:17:33Guest:Yeah.

00:17:33Guest:Just from hanging out in the bars in Fells Point.

00:17:37Guest:Fells Point evidently now is all full of yuppies and frat boys and bullshit like that.

00:17:41Guest:Then it was just Edie and Mink Stoll and Mary Vivian Pierce and David Lockery and all the people that were the bums that would come in there.

00:17:51Guest:I'm positive there was one bum that used to masturbate while we played.

00:17:58Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:17:59Guest:He'd stand over in the corner and he'd have this big, long raincoat on and sort of bounce around.

00:18:02Guest:I was like, oh, there's Johnny.

00:18:04Guest:There's Johnny.

00:18:06Guest:He's doing his thing.

00:18:07Guest:I don't want to know what that thing is.

00:18:08Guest:It's like in San Francisco.

00:18:09Guest:Like, don't look over.

00:18:10Guest:Just keep walking.

00:18:11Guest:There's nothing to see there.

00:18:12Guest:Just keep walking.

00:18:13Yeah.

00:18:14Guest:But I was just sick to death of the weather and the people.

00:18:17Guest:And, you know, when you get too many ghosts and too many, like, oh, I remember that bad time I had there.

00:18:23Guest:And, oh, that's this, you know.

00:18:24Guest:And the East Coast can be really, especially Baltimore.

00:18:29Guest:it's like the good part of it was you couldn't put on any airs yeah so it's like oh wait a minute are you from balmer yeah oh yeah i thought so yeah yo yeah you're you're fucking nobody yeah you're fucking nobody because you're from balmer yeah you know like and then you know so so you got run out by ghosts no yeah but that was great because people just did art for art's sake they didn't they couldn't capitalize they couldn't you know

00:18:57Marc:Yeah, the point being is that you wanted to live.

00:19:01Guest:Yes, I did.

00:19:02Guest:I think it's a very nice thing.

00:19:03Guest:The living thing is the nice thing.

00:19:06Guest:And there were definitely guys back then that were gunning for it.

00:19:10Guest:But I think I had an idea that this was an extension of the beatniks and the psychedelic era and some sort of... It was an extension of some kind of art.

00:19:25Guest:Punk was.

00:19:26Guest:Yeah.

00:19:26Guest:Yeah, not high art, but art like Andy Warhol and John Waters and stuff, you know, it's like popular art.

00:19:35Guest:And it's like, I think the Ramones and all of us, we wanted to be famous.

00:19:41Guest:Right.

00:19:42Guest:We wanted to be popular.

00:19:43Guest:And then the Sex Pistols came in and fucked it all up for everybody.

00:19:47Guest:They kind of did, right?

00:19:48Guest:In some ways.

00:19:49Marc:I listened to that record the other day.

00:19:50Guest:It's okay.

00:19:51Guest:It's a good record.

00:19:52Guest:The sounds are great.

00:19:54Guest:Steve Jones is a kick-ass guitar player.

00:19:56Guest:Yeah, but the fashion thing kind of... That was it, and also pissing off people and saying to the press... We never told the press to fuck off.

00:20:03Guest:Right.

00:20:04Guest:And I think the Pistols and some other bands said, oh, fuck off, all you.

00:20:08Guest:And it's like...

00:20:09Guest:the powers that be said okay fine yeah as a matter of fact fuck you yeah good luck you're going nowhere yeah because there was the you know the hourglass of art and then the media and then the people have fun with your one record yeah so yeah surviving the one record no but i well no but i think that's interesting although you know dylan was kind of

00:20:29Guest:you know standoffish and prickly with the press and there was definitely you know a tradition to it true but uh he was dylan yeah he could get away with yeah he had more than one record in him yeah so somebody said so he said you know if you hear if you hear some words or some lyrics or you get an idea for a song at 2 30 in the morning you better get up and and write it down because if it doesn't by default it goes to bob dylan

00:20:53Marc:That was a great one.

00:20:56Marc:That's great.

00:20:56Marc:There's just lyrics running around the ether.

00:20:59Guest:Exactly.

00:21:00Guest:Oh, well, he doesn't want it.

00:21:02Guest:Better give it to Uncle Bob.

00:21:03Marc:I tried to wake you up, man.

00:21:08Marc:But, but, but seriously, I don't think it's boring.

00:21:11Marc:I think like, you know what you were, you know, cause I mean, I used to do, I wrote poetry.

00:21:15Marc:I edited the literary journal in college.

00:21:17Marc:I was, I believe in it and I can still read it and I, and I love it.

00:21:22Marc:And I think that there's sort of like, you know, there's a lot of life equations that works out in your songs and also in poetry.

00:21:29Marc:So like, what were you going to say?

00:21:30Marc:What was the, who was the guy you were into at the beginning that kind of blew your mind?

00:21:34Guest:um i like john ashbury who's one of the and and frank o'hara oh yeah um uh you know of course sylvia plath and and denise levertov and diane wikoski and i mean i came to la mostly because i was sick of the east coast but also because i love the um the movies and the whole hollywood and as soon as i saw hollywood was in a like

00:21:58Guest:in the state of tennessee williams decay yeah you know the hollywood sign the oh had fallen down it was broken at that point it was falling down it's like nobody had the civic pride to put the motherfucker up and it's like this is perfect yeah oh yeah and oh by the way there's no live music that's interesting there wasn't not really yeah because what there was just a few clubs that were kind of tired oh it's a lot of that's right yeah it was all gone it's a mid-70s right yeah

00:22:26Marc:That's hilarious.

00:22:28Guest:Whiskey, you know, they would have cover bands, and Van Halen was playing around a little bit.

00:22:33Guest:Yeah.

00:22:33Guest:And early on, I saw Cheap Trick at the Starwood.

00:22:36Guest:In 76, 77?

00:22:37Marc:Yeah, 76.

00:22:39Marc:They were good.

00:22:40Marc:Cheap Trick was good.

00:22:40Guest:It was awesome.

00:22:41Marc:So you come out here with just sort of this romantic idea of what Hollywood was, and were you looking for the decay, or were you thinking that it would be glamorous?

00:22:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:52Guest:Of course.

00:22:53Guest:Where's the darkness?

00:22:55Guest:Don't be silly, Mark.

00:22:56Guest:I knew where my bread was buttered.

00:22:59Guest:Had you published any poems at that point?

00:23:04Marc:Yeah, and a couple literary magazines.

00:23:06Marc:Was that satisfying for you or not?

00:23:08Marc:No, not really.

00:23:10Guest:It's not, right?

00:23:10Guest:No, it wasn't.

00:23:11Marc:It's so insulated, the world that loves that stuff.

00:23:14Guest:But there was a lot of DC poets, a lot of, you know, they were very much into entertaining, very much the spoken word and, you know, writing stuff that was guaranteed to get a laugh.

00:23:28Guest:Right.

00:23:28Guest:Guaranteed to get a reaction out of the audience.

00:23:31Guest:Tim Dugos was one of them and Terry Winch and Terry's gone on to do some other books.

00:23:36Guest:Right.

00:23:36Guest:play in an irish band and i mean it was kind of like in 73 74 it was like you know along with patty smith yeah i'll give her that i'll give her due there you know it was like a performance thing right and it was you know even though her stuff wasn't funny i mean there was a lot of people that was the stuff was uh you know ironic and and like talking about your parents and sure and you know all this strange and were you doing that

00:24:02Guest:a little bit yeah i tried to in dc uh in baltimore in dc yeah and when in terms of playing in the band you were just you were playing guitar and singing from what age really no i started on playing bass oh really yeah i mean i learned so i took piano lessons like everybody yeah or a lot of people and and then i i thought oh well that's only got four strings that must be easier it is a little bit a little a lot yeah

00:24:26Guest:That's why bass players can, you know, carry on a conversation and some guitar players can't.

00:24:30Guest:Yeah.

00:24:31Guest:Whoa.

00:24:32Guest:Just lay back.

00:24:33Guest:It's like sitting in your room figuring out that.

00:24:35Guest:That's why.

00:24:40Guest:Exactly.

00:24:41Guest:I'm done.

00:24:44Marc:I got it.

00:24:47Marc:So, but were you singing at that time?

00:24:49Marc:yeah yeah i sang from when i was young and that kind of music though so what was it in terms of musically was it was it seeing somebody like the heartbreakers that made you realize like holy fuck you know i gotta get out of this cover band something's gotta change yeah well yeah i i was just done i was done with the whole baltimore cover bands thing the poetry even though we were i was writing songs this guy and i were writing songs together and stuff what happened to that guy

00:25:14Guest:uh he moved back and then he uh ended up in austin i kept touch with him a little bit i saw him a few years ago and he's actually working for a natural foods company he's really high up in this annie's oh yeah summer other annie's frozen yes oh yeah i know that don't they make salad dressings and shit

00:25:32Guest:i think they make everything yeah yeah they're really big it's interesting what people end up doing when they live isn't it yeah how it goes for other people i think he still made music but um yeah it was the the i did have some stars in my eyes because of you know well charles bukowski he's an idiot yeah he seems to get through you know

00:25:53Marc:And he was around when you came out here.

00:25:56Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:25:57Guest:I never met him.

00:25:57Marc:You never sought him out?

00:25:59Guest:I tried to, but he had already moved down to San Pedro or was in the process.

00:26:04Guest:He had hooked up with his wife of many years, Linda, at that point.

00:26:09Guest:The interesting thing with him is that I ended up moving into a house that he had spent some time in.

00:26:15Guest:Right.

00:26:15Guest:There was a big drawing in the kitchen on a four by eight sheet of plywood with his little funny like James Thurber kind of drawings and little cartoon bubbles and stuff like that.

00:26:27Guest:And the lady who was the landlord next door, she was like a museum curator.

00:26:31Guest:She worked for a museum or something like that.

00:26:33Guest:So I said, look, we're going to take this thing out and put in a nursery.

00:26:39Guest:Yeah.

00:26:40Guest:And what was the laundry room?

00:26:41Guest:Right.

00:26:41Guest:It was like half the size of a quarter of the size of the studio.

00:26:44Guest:Yeah.

00:26:45Guest:So I got into I got a P.O.

00:26:48Guest:box for Charles Bukowski.

00:26:50Guest:And I said, look, there's this.

00:26:52Guest:And the address is in one of his books.

00:26:54Guest:2347 Dwayne Street.

00:26:56Guest:in one of his early poetry books.

00:26:58Guest:That was the title of one of the poems.

00:27:00Guest:So I thought, oh, well, this is definitely his because there's a book at the bottom.

00:27:03Guest:So I said, look, if you want this, be happy to figure out a way to get it to you.

00:27:07Guest:I don't, you know, but I'm going to take it down.

00:27:09Guest:And he goes, I have no idea what you're, he writes back, I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:27:14Guest:I've never been in that place.

00:27:16Guest:You can chop it up for firewood as far as I'm concerned.

00:27:19Guest:Just a bunch of like typical Bukowski kind of like, go fuck yourself stuff, right?

00:27:24Guest:Yeah.

00:27:24Guest:Which was perfect.

00:27:25Guest:I still have the letter.

00:27:26Guest:It was like, oh, it warms my heart.

00:27:28Guest:You're such a prick.

00:27:30Guest:And then at the very end that he signs it, and at the very end, P.S., my wife says you have a good band.

00:27:35Guest:So Linda's like standing over and tapping her foot going, you better tell him.

00:27:40Guest:So I gave it to the landlord who gave it to some museum and somewhere.

00:27:44Marc:oh rotting yeah yeah i didn't want it you know it was like so between bukowski and the heartbreakers that's what set you up to los angeles yeah sure yeah why not and what'd you come out here with anything a truck yeah ford yeah chevy international an international travel all uh-huh i was a part of the suburban you know group before the suburbans were cool or not cool so all your shit was in there

00:28:07Guest:All my shit was in there, and then I bought a bed and a table and a thing, and I moved to Venice, and then I moved, like, six other places.

00:28:15Guest:When did you meet Exeme?

00:28:17Guest:Early on.

00:28:18Guest:Like, I think it was... I moved in on Halloween.

00:28:23Guest:I left on Halloween, which I thought was good.

00:28:26Guest:Left Baltimore?

00:28:27Guest:Yeah.

00:28:27Guest:It means something.

00:28:27Guest:I'm going to leave this, you know, ghosty town for...

00:28:31Guest:on halloween and then i i met her probably in um like within a couple of weeks at a re at a writing workshop the venice poetry workshop which still goes on at the venice jail the old venice jail so you right when you got here did you had you signed up before you left baltimore no i just looked around i thought okay well i'm gonna you know i gotta you know find some people to hang out with so and she had a job there through a like a government program she was learning to typeset mm-hmm yeah

00:28:59Guest:And she and they gave her.

00:29:00Marc:She has that skill, I guess.

00:29:01Marc:That's one of those ones that went away.

00:29:04Marc:Yeah.

00:29:04Marc:Necessity of it.

00:29:05Guest:But it was, you know, I was like, wow, this is, you know, she actually got a job.

00:29:11Guest:And then she was nice.

00:29:12Guest:And the people that be on Baroque, which is still going, people can go down and, you know, read their work.

00:29:18Guest:Yeah.

00:29:18Guest:And get it critiqued and supported or not.

00:29:22Guest:And they gave her a place to live up above the small press library.

00:29:27Guest:And it had moved.

00:29:27Guest:It was in a different place than it is now.

00:29:30Guest:Did she grow up here or she came from another place?

00:29:32Guest:Came from Florida.

00:29:32Guest:Okay.

00:29:33Guest:But she had only been here maybe eight months.

00:29:35Guest:What was her dream?

00:29:38Guest:To get the hell out of Florida.

00:29:39Guest:Yeah.

00:29:39Guest:She was living in Tallahassee, which is like Georgia.

00:29:43Marc:Yeah.

00:29:44Guest:It's not good.

00:29:46Guest:yeah not good florida and you guys just hit it off right away yeah yeah i mean she's very uh alluring and still is she's got a mind that is like just incredible and yeah and she's she's crazy and sweet and you know she was a quintessential she is more so than quintessential lead singer

00:30:07Guest:yeah lots of demons right just lots of desire for not just for fame not at all for fame just desire to to hold that big flag and say come on yeah here we go yeah but at the same time very reticent you know so a lot of uh a lot of yeah and did you need somebody like that sure at that time yeah i don't i'm i mean i can be a front person but i'm i'm much happier working with other people

00:30:36Marc:So how did the band develop?

00:30:39Marc:When did you pick up the guitar?

00:30:40Marc:When did you guys start doing that?

00:30:41Guest:Well, I met Billy through a recycler ad.

00:30:43Guest:There was a paper, a free paper, or a paper called a buck and a quarter.

00:30:47Guest:Billy Zoom.

00:30:48Guest:Yeah.

00:30:50Guest:I met him early on, too, within the first two months.

00:30:52Guest:You were looking to put a band together immediately?

00:30:54Guest:Yes.

00:30:55Guest:Okay.

00:30:56Guest:Yeah.

00:30:56Guest:and um i actually auditioned for a band called the pop yeah which had a a song or two a record or two uh along with the motels they they i think they were like the precursor like with the runaways and the pop and the motels but billy and i there was a thing called the recycler and there were a lot of personal ads and a lot of ads for musicians and then also you know refrigerators tvs and car parts and things like that and it came out every thursday and everybody would go to the thing you know and like look it up

00:31:23Guest:And I called his number.

00:31:25Guest:He called mine.

00:31:26Guest:There were no answering machines or anything like that because it was 1976.

00:31:34Guest:And he had a note on his bulletin board to call John Doe.

00:31:40Guest:But he and I worked together for a little while before Xane came in to sing.

00:31:45Guest:Right.

00:31:45Guest:Xena and I were just friends, and I thought her poetry was incredibly vital and simple.

00:31:53Guest:And she had no background in studied poetry.

00:31:57Guest:Right.

00:31:57Guest:She just wrote.

00:31:58Guest:Right.

00:31:59Guest:And there was a couple songs.

00:32:00Guest:One of them, I'm Coming Over, it was a song, clearly.

00:32:03Guest:Yeah.

00:32:04Guest:And she kind of sang it to me.

00:32:06Guest:And I said, well, I'd like to do that in this band that I'm trying to put together.

00:32:11Guest:And she goes, I don't think so.

00:32:13Yeah.

00:32:13Guest:i said well what do you mean and later on she said well that was the only thing that i that someone else thought was a value so why in the hell would i give it away why the hell would i let him do it yeah that's a stupid idea so then you know billy thought oh i found a bass player that seems pretty good and now his girlfriend wants to get in the band oh that was his yeah which we weren't actually boyfriend girlfriend at that point

00:32:38Marc:But when you say the motels and the runways were the precursors, what do you mean?

00:32:43Guest:I mean that they were kind of the bridge between glam rock.

00:32:47Guest:Right.

00:32:49Guest:Because they were putting on shows of their own.

00:32:52Guest:The Dogs was another band, and I think they had a big PA system, and that eventually became huge, a huge company.

00:33:02Guest:They were independently putting on shows.

00:33:05Marc:Right.

00:33:05Marc:So in the middle of this horrible disco period.

00:33:08Marc:Right.

00:33:08Guest:A little before a little before the mask started.

00:33:11Guest:Right.

00:33:12Guest:And and then, you know, 76, 75, 76.

00:33:15Guest:It all started just like all these people were around and like, yeah, you don't like the music.

00:33:21Guest:You know, you don't like Peter Frampton.

00:33:23Guest:Good.

00:33:23Guest:I'm in.

00:33:23Guest:Yeah.

00:33:24Guest:You don't like Linda.

00:33:24Guest:Ron said good.

00:33:25Guest:Me too.

00:33:26Marc:Good.

00:33:26Marc:That's that was the enemy.

00:33:28Marc:Disco in Brampton.

00:33:29Marc:Yeah.

00:33:30Marc:No, I get it.

00:33:31Marc:So, all right.

00:33:32Marc:So, Eggsy's not in yet.

00:33:33Marc:You talk with Billy.

00:33:34Marc:And what kind of songs are you playing?

00:33:35Marc:Because he's like, you know, he's kind of heavy duty.

00:33:38Marc:Rockabilly.

00:33:38Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:39Guest:We were just kind of like feeling each other's sensibilities out.

00:33:43Guest:You know, kind of like we're doing...

00:33:47Guest:blue suede shoes and uh honey don't and and um uh you really got a hold on me and and you know just some oldie songs yeah you know just to see how we like playing together and i was trying to you know put in some like velvet underground into the into the oldies thing you know instead of doing a shuffle keep it like straight eighths yeah yeah yeah you like the velvets

00:34:09Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:34:09Marc:Love them, right?

00:34:10Marc:Yeah.

00:34:10Marc:They're great.

00:34:11Marc:Yeah.

00:34:11Marc:Live in 69 changed my life.

00:34:13Marc:Yeah.

00:34:14Marc:That was the first one I heard.

00:34:16Marc:It was weird because that's how I came into them.

00:34:18Guest:My older brother had the Andy Warhol one.

00:34:22Marc:The older brother, yeah.

00:34:23Guest:Oh, so essential.

00:34:24Guest:And I was thinking, huh, who is this man?

00:34:27Guest:And why is he waiting for him?

00:34:33Marc:Whatever.

00:34:33Marc:It sounds a little urgent.

00:34:35Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:34:36Marc:I guess you'll find out later.

00:34:37Marc:I guess I'll find out later.

00:34:38Marc:Sure.

00:34:38Guest:Boy, did I. But we were pretty good.

00:34:42Guest:I mean, we dabbled.

00:34:43Guest:We did our fair share.

00:34:45Guest:We tried it out.

00:34:47Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:34:47Guest:We didn't get hooked.

00:34:49Guest:Not like, you know, Rick Wilder from the Mau Mau's or Darby or any of the.

00:34:53Marc:Oh, you mean back when you were here.

00:34:56Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:34:56Marc:Yeah.

00:34:56Marc:A lot of people got strung out, though.

00:34:58Yeah.

00:34:58Guest:I know.

00:34:59Guest:Yeah.

00:34:59Guest:It's king heroin.

00:35:00Marc:Yeah.

00:35:00Marc:What was your thing?

00:35:02Marc:What was your drug?

00:35:03Guest:More speed.

00:35:04Marc:Yeah.

00:35:05Guest:Then I graduated to cocaine and it's like, that was the beginning of the end.

00:35:09Guest:I was like, oh, this is terrible.

00:35:10Guest:It took a while.

00:35:11Guest:It took a long time.

00:35:13Guest:A couple of three years, yeah, back and forth.

00:35:16Marc:But for me, coke was always sort of like speed, though I didn't do it a lot, seemed a lot more economical.

00:35:21Yeah.

00:35:21Marc:Totally, and you could actually create a government in that one night.

00:35:27Guest:Whereas cocaine, it never was enough.

00:35:29Marc:You just chased it, man.

00:35:30Marc:It was just like, where do we get more of that?

00:35:32Marc:That was where your energy went.

00:35:33Marc:All right, you're going to need some more.

00:35:35Marc:Speed, you're up for three days.

00:35:37Marc:You've got big plans.

00:35:38Guest:Yeah.

00:35:38Guest:Well, we were lucky too.

00:35:39Guest:I mean, I was anyway.

00:35:41Guest:And I include Exene in this.

00:35:43Guest:If we did some, it would be like after it was done, you'd be up for 18, 20, 24 hours or something like that.

00:35:52Guest:And you were, whew, boy, that was rough.

00:35:55Guest:Let's go to sleep.

00:35:56Guest:Yeah, that's a great idea.

00:35:57Guest:Let's go to sleep.

00:35:58Marc:We did.

00:35:59Marc:For a day or two.

00:36:00Marc:Yeah.

00:36:01Guest:Rather than...

00:36:02Guest:But it was a good time.

00:36:03Guest:Yes, it was a great time.

00:36:04Guest:But that was back when it was a horrible yellow biker crank, right?

00:36:08Guest:Yeah.

00:36:09Guest:Like that weird smell of shit.

00:36:11Guest:Yeah.

00:36:11Guest:At least it was made out of, you know, contact pills or acetaminophen.

00:36:16Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:36:17Marc:Sudafeds.

00:36:18Guest:Yeah.

00:36:19Guest:At least it wasn't.

00:36:20Guest:Yeah.

00:36:20Marc:Yeah.

00:36:21Marc:So, all right.

00:36:21Marc:So, but before you get into all that, so once you guys figure out, you and Zoom figure out that you can groove together with the oldies, how does it evolve into, like, how does X-Zine get involved?

00:36:32Marc:Where do you find the drummer?

00:36:33Marc:And what are those, where does the gig start happening?

00:36:37Yeah.

00:36:37Guest:77 yeah yeah it was pretty pretty soon like the middle of 77 yeah um we went through a bunch of different drummers kk barrett from the screamers played drum with us and he's a big you know movie uh set designer and

00:36:53Guest:Oh, really?

00:36:53Marc:That's where he ended up?

00:36:54Marc:Yeah.

00:36:55Marc:It's wild, man.

00:36:55Marc:He did good.

00:36:56Guest:He did real good.

00:36:57Guest:I mean, he does some big shit like Coen Brothers and stuff like that.

00:37:01Guest:I don't know if he does that, but other big time indie movies.

00:37:05Guest:K.K.

00:37:06Guest:Barrett played drums with us for a while.

00:37:08Guest:Another guy named Mick from Boston and his dad got sick and he had to go back home and then

00:37:13Guest:I saw DJ Bonebreak playing with the eyes and he had a big parade snare, which are, you know, like 18 inches or 12 inches deep.

00:37:23Guest:Right.

00:37:23Guest:And they're all silver.

00:37:24Guest:And I thought, God, this is huge.

00:37:27Guest:But he's DJ is just a great drummer.

00:37:28Guest:Yeah.

00:37:29Guest:Yeah.

00:37:30Guest:I called up Billy from the payphone.

00:37:32Guest:Yeah.

00:37:32Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:37:33Guest:Back when they had him.

00:37:34Guest:Yeah, sure.

00:37:34Guest:The payphone at the mask.

00:37:35Guest:Yeah.

00:37:36Guest:They had a payphone downstairs in the basement of the mask.

00:37:38Guest:Remember payphones?

00:37:39Guest:Yeah.

00:37:40Guest:They're still around.

00:37:40Guest:Yeah.

00:37:41Guest:Sort of.

00:37:41Guest:Yeah.

00:37:42Guest:You don't want to touch him, though.

00:37:44No.

00:37:44Guest:there's one of them you have to consider who's using them yeah that'd be in pretty bad shape yeah anyway uh yeah there was a somehow brendan mullen had a had a payphone installed at the mask yeah so it was louder than shit yeah you couldn't hear anything yeah were you holding the phone up to the drummer saying like listen to this guy no i found him i found billy i found him okay promise him anything yeah we'll figure it out later yeah

00:38:09Guest:And he took it.

00:38:10Guest:But Axine was already playing with us at that point.

00:38:12Marc:And you guys, how'd you figure out that she could sing?

00:38:16Marc:She just sang.

00:38:17Marc:Yeah.

00:38:17Marc:Because she had heart.

00:38:18Guest:Yeah.

00:38:18Marc:She has heart.

00:38:20Marc:And your harmonies are so specifically yours.

00:38:23Marc:Yeah.

00:38:23Marc:How'd you guys land on that?

00:38:24Marc:Just by playing around with it?

00:38:25Marc:Just playing.

00:38:26Guest:Yeah, man.

00:38:27Guest:And I think that Xene, you know, I'll give Xene and Billy the lion's share of credit.

00:38:31Guest:I was, you know, I'm one of the songwriters, but I kind of collect things.

00:38:35Guest:I'm like the traffic director.

00:38:37Marc:Right.

00:38:38Guest:Yeah.

00:38:39Guest:I'm the traffic cop of X. Uh-huh.

00:38:41Guest:And even though, you know, I wrote some songs on my own and Xene would write songs and we would give each other credit because it was all us.

00:38:50Guest:Right.

00:38:50Guest:Yeah.

00:38:50Guest:But we just sang, and she didn't know a traditional harmony.

00:38:55Guest:She learned it eventually.

00:38:56Marc:What is that harmony, though?

00:38:57Marc:Because I don't know harmonies, but it's almost like... She would sing a second if it felt good.

00:39:02Marc:It's almost Appalachian.

00:39:03Guest:Yeah, just sing whatever.

00:39:05Guest:Fourths, I think.

00:39:07Guest:Is that what it is?

00:39:08Guest:Usually it's like in rock and roll music, thirds and fifths.

00:39:11Guest:Oh, so this is a little different.

00:39:13Marc:Yeah, but she would just hear it, and she'd sing it.

00:39:15Marc:Yeah.

00:39:16Marc:And when you started to really work, so it was 77, so it took like, what, a few years to put that first record together?

00:39:24Marc:Well, yeah, we just had no place to, there was no record company.

00:39:28Marc:But you were out just jamming and playing gigs every night, making the rounds?

00:39:32Guest:every weekend not every night who were the guys around like who was around black flag the blasters like who were the no no earlier it was um people like black randy and the metro squad and the deadbeats and the alley cats and the gogos were there oh yeah what were they like early on just like yeah i mean they couldn't play that well right but they still had the songs and they were just that was baffling for everybody what the gogos

00:39:57Guest:That they weren't signed and it didn't have like a million dollars.

00:40:03Marc:Because you just felt it.

00:40:04Marc:You were like, oh my God.

00:40:05Guest:Are you kidding?

00:40:06Marc:Yeah.

00:40:07Guest:There's five girls that are adorable and they play pop music.

00:40:11Guest:Are you out of your fucking mind?

00:40:13Guest:How far do you have your head up your ass?

00:40:15Guest:You can't see that.

00:40:17Guest:But I think a lot of it was pride.

00:40:20Guest:What, the record companies?

00:40:22Marc:Yeah.

00:40:22Guest:We like it the way it is.

00:40:23Guest:Don't you kids come in here messing up our program that was going on up until they just like collapsed.

00:40:31Marc:Yeah.

00:40:31Marc:Well, I guess that's true.

00:40:32Marc:Yeah.

00:40:33Marc:I'm trying to think 77,000 high school.

00:40:35Marc:So that was like fucking what was it?

00:40:38Marc:Foreigner.

00:40:38Guest:well i mean what that kind of shit yeah i don't know but uh the go-go's and who else the deadbeats and the alley cats and of course the germs but the germs really couldn't play that much because they would constantly their them or the audience would screw stuff up would break the toilet and then oh well they can't play that gig anymore um which was fun i personally did not pull the toilet i was i think that was black randy that was his trick

00:41:07Guest:What, pull the toilet out of the ground?

00:41:09Guest:Yeah.

00:41:11Guest:With some help.

00:41:12Guest:You know, a couple of, so there's a big sense of cooperation.

00:41:16Guest:It takes a village.

00:41:17Guest:LA punk, yeah, it takes a village to pull the toilet.

00:41:21Guest:It takes a village.

00:41:22Guest:But, you know, Brendan Mullen, bless his heart, rest in peace.

00:41:26Guest:You know, he had the mask, and he somehow convinced people for a short period of time that that was okay.

00:41:33Marc:Where was that poison?

00:41:34Guest:it was off of uh Cherokee uh-huh you know in an alley the entrance luckily it was below what used to be the Pussycat Theater which I don't know what it is now it's still sort of a theater I think yeah maybe it's a like a church yeah but uh yeah luckily the entrance was in the alley there was only one entrance and one exit when there were like 400 people down there oh my god such a fire trap yeah but there was rehearsal places down there we we shared one with the go-go's for a while and

00:42:04Marc:When did the scene really sort of take hold and start to win?

00:42:09Guest:I'm not sure that it ever really did.

00:42:11Guest:I mean, it got popular through the free papers, through the L.A.

00:42:16Guest:Reader.

00:42:17Guest:Chris Morris was a good champion.

00:42:19Guest:And then Christine McKenna from the L.A.

00:42:22Guest:Times.

00:42:23Guest:The two of them and Slash Magazine.

00:42:26Guest:That was a monthly free magazine that was all about punk rock, all about what's going on.

00:42:33Guest:It's under your nose.

00:42:34Guest:Find a band.

00:42:35Guest:There's plenty of them out there.

00:42:37Guest:The original punk rock scene in L.A.

00:42:39Guest:was eclectic.

00:42:41Guest:It was the weirdos and the screamers and the germs and fear and the controllers and the alley cats and the go-go's.

00:42:48Guest:And, you know, it was all like arty and then rock and roll.

00:42:54Guest:Right.

00:42:55Guest:But people had cars.

00:42:56Guest:So there was like this kind of Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry thing.

00:42:59Guest:Right.

00:43:00Marc:You know, in there.

00:43:01Marc:And it was...

00:43:03Marc:Everyone was represented.

00:43:05Marc:And then I guess when the testosterone comes around, there must have been a feeling of like, these were the guys that we were fighting against.

00:43:12Marc:In a way.

00:43:12Guest:It was a little bit of bridge and tunnel kind of stuff.

00:43:16Guest:And that was confusing.

00:43:17Guest:But by that time, we put out Los Angeles.

00:43:19Guest:It was 1980.

00:43:20Guest:And then we were starting to go on the road.

00:43:22Guest:Yeah.

00:43:23Marc:And at that time, also, the crew that got sort of called the Roots music thing, like the Blasters, Lone Justice, You Guys, and I know there's a couple other ones.

00:43:33Marc:Gun Club would be included.

00:43:34Marc:Yeah, Gun Club.

00:43:35Guest:Blood on the Saddle, Texan Horseheads.

00:43:38Guest:They were a great band.

00:43:39Guest:Yeah?

00:43:40Guest:I don't know them.

00:43:42Guest:I produced a record of theirs.

00:43:43Guest:They did some really great stuff.

00:43:45Okay.

00:43:45Marc:Yeah, I mean, because you guys had a place, and everybody seemed to have their place.

00:43:49Guest:It was big enough so things could start fracturing.

00:43:52Guest:And there would be factions of, like, there was more rockabilly, rootsy gigs.

00:43:57Guest:And then there was more, like, badass, hardcore punk rock gigs.

00:44:00Guest:I guess the Los Lobos, too, right?

00:44:02Guest:Los Lobos were, I mean, they've been playing since 76 or something like that.

00:44:05Marc:What's that dude's name that, oh, he did a record...

00:44:11Marc:He got real strung out.

00:44:12Marc:He did that kind of roots music, and he's up in the Bay Area, and the guy's from Las Vegas and some people.

00:44:16Marc:Carlos Guitarlas.

00:44:18Marc:Carlos Guitarlas.

00:44:18Marc:Are you on that record?

00:44:20Marc:Yeah.

00:44:20Marc:That's right.

00:44:21Marc:Yeah.

00:44:21Marc:What was that guy's story?

00:44:26Guest:Carlos was a guy from, I don't know, Glassal Park.

00:44:30Guest:But he was around, right, in the 80s?

00:44:32Marc:Yeah, he was from around here.

00:44:33Marc:And he had a band.

00:44:34Guest:Well, he and Top Jimmy had a band called Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs.

00:44:40Guest:And Jimmy Konchak, he used to work at a place called Top Taco.

00:44:45Guest:And he was going to call himself Top Taco Jimmy.

00:44:47Guest:I said, that's a terrible name, Jimmy.

00:44:50Guest:How about Top Jimmy?

00:44:51Guest:It sounds like he could be from a reggae guy.

00:44:55Guest:But they played blues and they played great stuff.

00:44:56Guest:That was an awesome band.

00:44:58Guest:Steve Berlin from Los Lobos was in that band.

00:45:00Guest:And...

00:45:02Guest:Carlos Guitarros was a songwriter and just he was crazy.

00:45:05Guest:He was just so nutty.

00:45:07Guest:And he went up to San Francisco.

00:45:10Guest:But the whole time he would have these episodes where he'd be completely out of control.

00:45:15Guest:And he had diabetes the whole time.

00:45:16Guest:Yeah.

00:45:17Guest:And it was driving him insane.

00:45:18Guest:Right.

00:45:19Guest:And had control on drugs.

00:45:20Guest:Yeah, do a bunch of coke and drink whiskey and then he's big too.

00:45:26Guest:I can remember a guy punching him in the middle of the forehead like he would take out a cow.

00:45:31Guest:And he just went down straight backward and they just came right back up.

00:45:36Guest:It was like the living dead.

00:45:37Guest:I was like, oh, that's when like eight people grabbed him.

00:45:42Guest:But he, you know, became a street person in San Francisco.

00:45:46Guest:And then everyone nursed and he was very humbled and nursed him back to health.

00:45:51Guest:And then as soon as he got healthy...

00:45:54Guest:He was difficult again.

00:45:56Guest:He was really full of himself.

00:45:58Marc:I love Carlos, but he's such a handful.

00:46:00Marc:It's an interesting album, man.

00:46:02Marc:To hear a guy with that story, it sounds like he might have lost a couple of teeth along the way.

00:46:09Guest:Check out Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs.

00:46:11Guest:That's the name of that guy's band, huh?

00:46:14Guest:Top Jimmy was a great singer.

00:46:15Guest:Carlos is just the guitar player, and he's a great guitar player.

00:46:18Marc:And Jeffrey Lee was a friend of yours?

00:46:20Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:46:20Marc:Like, it seemed like he had his own, like, weird kind of... Demons.

00:46:24Marc:Yeah, demons, but also like a kind of charm that was a little transcendent in a way.

00:46:31Marc:Yes.

00:46:31Guest:Gift of gab, and he was really sweet and kind of helpless at times, and people wanted to, you know, take him under their wing.

00:46:40Guest:Yeah.

00:46:41Guest:But Jeffrey was kind of like... He kind of invented himself.

00:46:45Guest:Right.

00:46:46Guest:He's from...

00:46:46Guest:you know the west valley yeah but he listened to a bunch of 78s and he goes i i get this yeah and i get this blues thing and he and you know his idea of melody and hitting the right note was like from outer space well they covered that robert johnson tune was it preach preach the blues preaching blues that's great that was great

00:47:07Guest:But Jeffrey Lee kind of invented himself.

00:47:09Guest:And, you know, if you do that long enough, then you become that person.

00:47:13Guest:And he sort of invented this persona of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the punk rock blues man.

00:47:19Guest:You know, he took a page from the cramps for sure.

00:47:21Guest:Uh-huh.

00:47:22Guest:But he definitely brought that swampy voodoo, you know.

00:47:28Marc:Was he at odds with the character he created?

00:47:31Guest:No, I think he just got sucked into the drugs and everything else.

00:47:35Marc:Yeah.

00:47:35Marc:So how did you, like on the first album, like why, how did, you know, Ray Manzarek get involved?

00:47:41Marc:He saw us at the Whiskey.

00:47:43Guest:We were opening for the band called Levi and the Rock Cats.

00:47:46Guest:Uh-huh.

00:47:47Guest:Ray and his wife Dorothy went down there and we played Soul Kitchen because we were playing that anyway.

00:47:52Guest:Yeah.

00:47:52Guest:It was, you know, twice as fast.

00:47:54Marc:Right.

00:47:55Marc:You guys do a great cover of that thing.

00:47:57Guest:And Exine was singing it and Dorothy, because ladies are usually smarter than men, said, hey, Ray, they're playing your song.

00:48:04Guest:He said, what?

00:48:05Yeah.

00:48:05Guest:they are uh and then we you know met him that night and it was i i don't remember it actually remembers it pretty well but yeah i just remember that he came to a rehearsal and i was sweating yeah shitting bricks and but he seemed to like it and that was a huge uh for roxine and i especially were you doors fans oh yeah yeah i used to try to sing like jim morrison oh wow oh yeah i thought yeah that's not no easy trick no

00:48:35Guest:He had a scream that I could never, I could croon, but I couldn't.

00:48:41Marc:Oh, the scream like on the live album, like one in five?

00:48:44Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:48:47Marc:But yeah, that was a big deal for me.

00:48:50Marc:And what does he bring to it in your mind when you listen to that record?

00:48:55Marc:Well, he played on it for one, but he did the first four records because we loved him.

00:48:59Marc:He did all of those?

00:49:00Marc:Yep.

00:49:01Guest:Every one?

00:49:01Guest:Yep.

00:49:02Guest:And then when we went away from him, we made that questionable heavy metal record with Michael Wagner called Ain't Love Grand because we started believing our own bullshit, I think.

00:49:13Guest:We thought, oh, well, we're not.

00:49:14Guest:Wait a minute.

00:49:14Guest:Everyone says we're the next big thing.

00:49:15Guest:Maybe it's the producer that's holding us back.

00:49:18Guest:Right.

00:49:18Guest:No.

00:49:20Guest:No.

00:49:20Guest:Anyway, what did he bring?

00:49:21Guest:He was a great cheerleader.

00:49:25Guest:He knew how to give you the confidence that you might have lacked, and he would know when a take was good.

00:49:35Guest:And he didn't try to mess with us, and he recorded us like the Doors recorded.

00:49:41Guest:We just all were in a room, and then we fixed stuff that was bad.

00:49:44Guest:We'd play along and then punch in and punch out and fix little pieces that were bad.

00:49:50Guest:But it was all generally a live performance.

00:49:53Guest:And he also, on that first record, I think he chose the songs.

00:49:59Guest:Because we had songs like Adult Books or I'm Coming Over or We're Desperate.

00:50:05Guest:There were more punk rock.

00:50:08Guest:And that first record was more...

00:50:13Guest:Us.

00:50:14Marc:Some of that stuff shows up on that collection that I have, like some of the alternative takes and some of the unreleased stuff, right, on that, which one, Beyond and Back.

00:50:21Marc:Yeah.

00:50:22Marc:There's a lot of good stuff on there that's not on the records.

00:50:24Guest:Yeah.

00:50:24Marc:And there's a couple on your new big collection that's unreleased stuff.

00:50:29Guest:Yeah, a couple.

00:50:29Marc:That you actually wrote with Exine, and it seemed like you covered them acoustic.

00:50:33Marc:i did uh take 52 and poor girl yeah and uh poor girl's great i listened to that stuff last night good yeah but like okay so let's get to the the rise and fall of that and then the solo career is that what were the pressures because i mean you did these like los angeles wild gift under the big black sun more fun the new world and those they're they're all great records

00:50:55Guest:and they all have their you know a couple of them have you know kind of hits right it wasn't a matter of like getting a hit at least for the first two songs right first two records right we were just playing live and we were doing well yeah we got to tour and actually we got you know really good notice in the new york times and the la times like number one record and a number two record in the village voice jazz or for which one wild gift or los angeles both of them

00:51:23Guest:Wild Gift, actually, I think was number one in New York and L.A., which was like, fuck.

00:51:30Guest:And we had no idea.

00:51:31Guest:We're like, oh, well, I guess this is good.

00:51:34Guest:Yeah, okay, let's go play.

00:51:36Guest:What do you want to do now?

00:51:38Guest:It wasn't about having a hit.

00:51:39Guest:It was about just turning things upside down, and it was about proving that we could actually do this and that people did like it.

00:51:48Guest:And we played...

00:51:48Guest:you know, like the Greek theater, and pretty much sold it out after Wild Gift with no major record company.

00:51:55Guest:Right.

00:51:56Guest:You know, it's like 7,000 people.

00:51:57Guest:Yeah.

00:51:58Guest:So that was a big deal.

00:52:01Guest:But then we signed to Elektra because we thought, well, now they gave us complete artistic freedom.

00:52:06Guest:You were at Slash.

00:52:07Guest:Yes, we were at Slash Records.

00:52:08Guest:And then went to Elektra, and that was where the Doors were from, and that's where, you know, Phil Oakes was from.

00:52:16Guest:They were in, you know, so...

00:52:18Guest:The history.

00:52:18Guest:And Love was on Elektra.

00:52:21Guest:Yeah.

00:52:22Guest:And, yeah, that didn't, I mean, it got us around a little bit more.

00:52:26Guest:You know, a lot of people said, oh, yeah, the first record I knew that you had was Under the Big Black Sun.

00:52:31Guest:Right.

00:52:32Guest:Right.

00:52:33Guest:And that still has, they all still have relevance and, because we didn't just play punk rock and that was, you know, like Darby would always say, you guys are a bunch of hippies.

00:52:43Yeah.

00:52:43Guest:Because we play songs like, you know, Blue Spark or adult books or something that's slower because it wasn't all just.

00:52:52Marc:Right.

00:52:52Marc:Do you think that was the blessing and the curse that you didn't have a, you know, like a repeatable, like it seems that what makes people popular, unfortunately, is their ability to repeat themselves over and over again.

00:53:07Guest:Yeah, that's true.

00:53:07Guest:I didn't think about that.

00:53:08Guest:um no i think that i think that just uh the way we played and the subject matter was too and the timing was all wrong and and they couldn't take advantage of a of you know like a hot couple that was a you know it's like what they have two lead singers now this i don't want to know about it then punk rock had a terrible um reputation you know even as late as uh like 84 85 we did a version of of of a wild thing

00:53:35Guest:Yeah.

00:53:35Guest:It sounds a lot like Joan Jett.

00:53:37Guest:Right.

00:53:37Guest:But it was us.

00:53:39Guest:And they sent it around to a bunch of classic rock stations, Elektra did, in a plain package with no credit.

00:53:47Guest:And they said, oh, this is great.

00:53:48Guest:Who is it?

00:53:49Guest:They say X. And they go, oh, we can't play it.

00:53:52Guest:Why?

00:53:53Guest:Because it's punk rock.

00:53:53Guest:Oh, so you got labeled somehow and that was a liability?

00:53:58Guest:Yeah.

00:53:58Guest:I mean, for us, it was a badge of honor.

00:54:00Guest:I mean, it was ghettoized, but, you know.

00:54:03Guest:That's interesting.

00:54:03Marc:It pissed us off, but whatever.

00:54:05Marc:There are these lines drawn between rock and punk rock.

00:54:10Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:54:11Guest:Big time.

00:54:11Guest:That's wild.

00:54:12Guest:There's a lot of revisionist history, you know, like saying that Rolling Stone really led the charge with the Ramones and stuff like that.

00:54:19Guest:The Ramones didn't get popular until the last, I mean, really popular to the last two or three years of their career.

00:54:25Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:54:26Guest:There are bits and pieces, you know, like Chrissy Hynde, because she had a more rock kind of thing.

00:54:31Guest:Right.

00:54:32Guest:And Elvis Costello would break through because he was, you know, very clever and poppy.

00:54:37Guest:Yeah.

00:54:38Guest:And the Go-Go's and so some of the new wave bands.

00:54:41Guest:But, you know, we just sang weird and whatever.

00:54:44Guest:Maybe that's why we still play.

00:54:46Marc:Yeah.

00:54:46Marc:You know, maybe that's why we're not just a joke.

00:54:48Marc:And you're still sort of vital.

00:54:50Marc:It still means something to you.

00:54:51Guest:Yeah, it means something to the people that come.

00:54:53Guest:I mean, you sent me down to the burrito joint.

00:54:56Guest:Yeah.

00:54:56Guest:This kid who was like a Latino kid, probably 20.

00:55:00Guest:Yeah.

00:55:01Guest:Got a giant X tattoo on his shin.

00:55:03Guest:Really?

00:55:04Guest:He goes, dude, what are you doing in the neighborhood?

00:55:06Ha, ha, ha.

00:55:06Guest:I said, well, I'm just getting a burrito, and there's this guy.

00:55:09Guest:I'm doing a podcast.

00:55:10Guest:No shit.

00:55:11Guest:Well, that's cool.

00:55:13Guest:Man, I got a band.

00:55:14Guest:It's called The Goons.

00:55:16Guest:I think his name was Odie.

00:55:18Guest:Yeah.

00:55:19Guest:Odie and The Goons, man.

00:55:20Guest:That's got to mean something.

00:55:22Marc:Keep it real.

00:55:22Marc:Here on York.

00:55:23Marc:That's got to mean something, though.

00:55:25Marc:Hell, yeah.

00:55:26Marc:I mean, that's a lasting thing, man.

00:55:28Guest:It is on his leg.

00:55:30Guest:Yeah.

00:55:31Yeah.

00:55:32Guest:No, I do.

00:55:34Guest:I'm totally grateful and I honor that.

00:55:38Marc:It means you invented something that has a life, you know, transcendent of anything, of time.

00:55:44Marc:Yeah.

00:55:44Marc:That, you know, like someone saying like, oh, you want to know what punk is?

00:55:47Marc:You want to know what music is?

00:55:49Marc:Go listen to X. Yeah.

00:55:50Marc:You like that.

00:55:51Guest:That's one kind of punk rock.

00:55:52Guest:Right, but you know what I mean.

00:55:54Marc:You set a thing.

00:55:54Marc:You set a standard.

00:55:56Guest:That's the cool thing about what L.A.

00:55:58Guest:had and what New York had is that it wasn't all the same.

00:56:02Guest:Right.

00:56:02Guest:And that's where it's gone a little bit wrong.

00:56:04Guest:And I do love Green Day.

00:56:07Guest:I think they brought it to the audience that needed to hear it, the 15 and 16-year-olds.

00:56:14Guest:Right.

00:56:14Guest:And Billy Joe is kind of a friend of mine, and their band is great.

00:56:20Right.

00:56:20Guest:However, it became a much narrower definition because Blondie, Talking Heads, Ramones, Richard Hell, Heartbreak, they're all different.

00:56:31Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:56:31Guest:You know, and all the bands that were in L.A., they're all different.

00:56:33Marc:Yeah.

00:56:34Guest:But then it got a little narrower.

00:56:35Guest:It became a little narrower, right?

00:56:36Marc:Yeah, it became sort of a caricature of itself in a way.

00:56:41Marc:Yeah, I don't know what you want.

00:56:42Marc:That's, yeah.

00:56:43Marc:Like it landed on this one thing, this sort of British poppy pace thing.

00:56:48Marc:It didn't have any range to it.

00:56:49Marc:Like even like the Dead Boys and like, you know, things, the Dolls, which was a little before that, it allowed it to get weird and everyone was sort of accepting.

00:56:58Marc:It was a community of weirdos.

00:56:59Marc:Yeah.

00:57:00Marc:And then it just kind of narrowed into this one sound.

00:57:03Marc:Oh, wow.

00:57:03Marc:You can hear it in the drums right away.

00:57:05Marc:I get records all the time and I put it on.

00:57:06Marc:Okay, here we go.

00:57:09Marc:Exactly.

00:57:11Marc:They think they got the punk rock going.

00:57:13Guest:Hey, you guys play so fast.

00:57:15Guest:Yeah.

00:57:15Marc:So what led to the sort of breaking apart of the band?

00:57:20Guest:Well, opportunities.

00:57:22Guest:Yeah.

00:57:23Guest:Geffen Records waved a bunch of money in my face and said, you want to make a solo record?

00:57:26Guest:And I said, sure.

00:57:27Guest:That doesn't mean that X was done.

00:57:28Guest:Right.

00:57:29Guest:Because I could do both.

00:57:29Guest:And then Tony Gilkison, Dave Alvin played in the band for a little while.

00:57:33Guest:And then Tony Gilkison played with us for many years.

00:57:37Guest:Yeah.

00:57:37Guest:And then in 99, Billy said, well, what if we did some more stuff?

00:57:43Guest:Yeah.

00:57:44Guest:Because we were doing that electric compilation.

00:57:47Guest:Yeah.

00:57:49Guest:And we said, sure.

00:57:50Guest:And then we played the Palladium and it was awesome and fun.

00:57:53Guest:And when we first started rehearsing, it was like it just clicked.

00:57:57Guest:Like we never stopped playing.

00:57:58Guest:Yeah.

00:57:59Guest:And I don't know.

00:58:00Guest:Now we're trying something different.

00:58:02Guest:We're doing it like a quieter, but trying to be as intense.

00:58:08Guest:And what's the lineup now?

00:58:10Guest:It's the same.

00:58:10Guest:Yeah.

00:58:11Guest:Last punk rock band standing.

00:58:13Guest:Yeah.

00:58:14Guest:Billy, DJ, and Xene, and John.

00:58:16Guest:That's unbelievable.

00:58:17Guest:You're telling me, brother.

00:58:19Yeah.

00:58:19Guest:But, you know, we buried a lot of our bullshit and acceptance.

00:58:25Guest:Age.

00:58:26Guest:Age, yeah.

00:58:28Guest:You guys are survivors.

00:58:30Marc:I've got to imagine some of this shit's not as important as it used to be.

00:58:33Marc:Right.

00:58:34Marc:It's not.

00:58:34Marc:Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

00:58:35Guest:No, it's okay.

00:58:36Guest:Things are not as important.

00:58:37Guest:And you learn to forgive people and just accept them as who they are.

00:58:42Guest:What was the biggest sticking point?

00:58:44Guest:I mean, what was the hardest thing?

00:58:45Guest:I have no idea.

00:58:46Guest:Probably that they thought I was a controlling asshole.

00:58:50Guest:which i guess i was at times and i still am yeah i still like to take charge and whatever who's that guy you work with on the solo stuff that guitar player smoky um smoky hormel i didn't know him until i started listening to you and i was like how did i not know this guy he's great he's terrific he plays with everybody yeah he's playing with beck now where did he come from he was around here actually he uh

00:59:14Guest:Smokey bought Billy's other really fucking loud amp.

00:59:19Guest:The concert, the Fender concert amp that Billy hopped up.

00:59:22Guest:Billy is an electronics genius.

00:59:24Guest:Oh, he is.

00:59:25Guest:And he can take a carb engine apart and put it back together and run better.

00:59:30Guest:Oh, right.

00:59:31Guest:He was doing studio repairs before he got busy with X back in the mid-70s.

00:59:39Marc:Didn't he have some other business going for a while?

00:59:41Marc:He still does.

00:59:42Marc:What is it?

00:59:42Guest:i don't know zoom industries or something like that i can't remember what it was billy zoom music but he builds this incredible uh reverb and uh uh reverb he would correct me yeah reverb yeah because it's reverberation right but it's a standalone unit and you plug it into there and then you go into the amp and it's like it's got all these different crazy things and it's all analog shit that's great

01:00:05Guest:And you guys are all together and you're playing.

01:00:07Guest:But now we're playing like we're taking down the decibels.

01:00:11Guest:Yeah.

01:00:12Guest:So when we do the Christmas shows around here in December, it's like the ex-folk show.

01:00:20Guest:It's kind of crazy.

01:00:21Guest:It must be.

01:00:22Guest:I was really reluctant.

01:00:25Guest:I thought, what are you fucking nuts?

01:00:27Guest:Yeah.

01:00:27Guest:You're going to take away some of the speed and the volume?

01:00:30Guest:This is insane.

01:00:31Guest:Yeah.

01:00:31Guest:yeah and billy said nope this is the way it's gonna be uh-huh the next scene said yep i'm with him and i was like okay i guess i'm with you guys but it's really fun it's it's uh it's like much more musical and who do you see when you look out in the audience usually young people yeah yeah it's amazing man yeah it's really rewarding and they dig it oh of course they do that's great yeah

01:00:54Marc:But the solo career, when I got the collection in the mail, I remember buying Meet John Doe, and I remember one of the other ones, but you just kept going, man.

01:01:07Marc:Yeah.

01:01:08Guest:That's why I did the best of.

01:01:10Guest:Yeah.

01:01:10Guest:And I'm glad you didn't say greatest hits, because there are no hits.

01:01:13Guest:right but i was really no hits well i was gonna ask you how it could have been but they weren't anyway uh how do you go about selecting that i mean you're sitting down with a catalog of work who'd you sit with to make those decisions um myself and my sweetheart like a smart person yeah smart man yeah yeah yeah no i did most of it and then i i asked uh dave way who's recorded most of him he's a great producer and engineer yeah he did a lot of macy gray's stuff uh-huh early macy gray stuff and

01:01:42Guest:some Ringo Starr and all kinds of cool stuff.

01:01:47Guest:Talked to him.

01:01:48Guest:I talked to, you know, a few other friends and just said, well, I like this one and I like that one.

01:01:52Guest:And that's, I felt was better and no one really noticed it.

01:01:57Guest:So let's try that one.

01:01:58Guest:And then my sweetheart would say, well, don't forget that one.

01:02:01Guest:And I thought, oh yeah, yeah, that's good.

01:02:03Guest:Yeah, let's get that one.

01:02:05Guest:I did it because I had more solo records than X records.

01:02:10Guest:Right.

01:02:11Guest:I thought, well,

01:02:11Marc:shit yeah it's interesting that all the uh you know when i started reading lyrics i'm not fundamentally a lyric driven person i like reading poetry but i like music i like listening to riffs yeah and it's all really poetry still oh with you well shucks thanks i mean well how does that process work for you i mean do you you don't come up with a melody first you write those words right

01:02:34Guest:uh sometimes i'll just sing along with a melody and i'll and i'll make it up as i go uh-huh but then but then the poet kind of kicks in and and does the editing and and changes little words and messes around with it but i try not to be too intellectual about it right right that's that'll kill it yeah um and sometimes i'll just have a you know a bunch of words like the stuff that i that i still write with vaccine she'll just give me a song that's like top to bottom it's a song

01:03:03Marc:yeah wow yeah how did you do that you just like four lines and then there's a little two line in between and then it goes into a chorus wow you just wrote that from the beginning to the end um it's good that you still respect each other oh god yeah it's great it's good to hear and then the acting career i mean jesus man i was like i knew you were in a few movies i remember seeing you but you've done like 50 60 movies yeah crazy a little here and there

01:03:31Marc:But I mean, how do you get movies?

01:03:35Marc:You got an agent, obviously.

01:03:36Guest:I didn't used to.

01:03:37Guest:I just recently did.

01:03:38Marc:So people are like, let's get John Doe to do this.

01:03:41Guest:Let's get John Doe to play a musician.

01:03:43Marc:Don't!

01:03:44Marc:No, but you played a shitty dad once, didn't you?

01:03:46Marc:I can't remember.

01:03:47Guest:Oh, of course.

01:03:48Guest:Played a shitty cop, shitty dad, shitty everything.

01:03:51Guest:Because that dark side, it never goes away.

01:03:54Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:03:55Guest:He brings the darkness.

01:03:57Guest:But are you sober?

01:03:59No.

01:03:59Guest:No.

01:04:00Guest:No.

01:04:00Guest:But I don't do drugs.

01:04:02Guest:Yeah.

01:04:03Guest:I'll drink responsibly.

01:04:05Guest:Yeah.

01:04:05Guest:Like 90% of the time.

01:04:07Marc:Right.

01:04:08Guest:So you were just a lucky one.

01:04:09Guest:You just leveled off.

01:04:10Marc:Yeah.

01:04:11Marc:You aged out.

01:04:12Guest:I aged out.

01:04:15Guest:I keep thinking about quitting the drink.

01:04:18Guest:Yeah.

01:04:19Guest:And I still might.

01:04:20Guest:I think I might clear my head.

01:04:22Guest:Yeah.

01:04:23Guest:That's what they say.

01:04:24Guest:But, you know, I don't know.

01:04:27Guest:Tomorrow, man.

01:04:28Guest:Tomorrow.

01:04:28Guest:Yeah, maybe tomorrow.

01:04:31Guest:Why don't you kick tomorrow?

01:04:34Guest:That was a song.

01:04:35Guest:I'll quit tomorrow.

01:04:37Guest:Yes, that was a Texan the Horsehead song.

01:04:38Guest:Oh, really?

01:04:39Guest:You're going to have to look it up.

01:04:40Guest:I'll quit tomorrow.

01:04:41Guest:So you like acting.

01:04:42Guest:Sure.

01:04:43Guest:It's another creative thing.

01:04:46Guest:And the best part is doing the research to figure out who the character is.

01:04:50Guest:And I take it real seriously, but I will never say the work.

01:04:55Guest:Yeah, right.

01:04:56Guest:I don't take it like that seriously.

01:04:57Guest:But I did some scene study and some improv and some stuff like that.

01:05:02Marc:So when in the history of X were you doing scene study and improv?

01:05:06Marc:Yeah.

01:05:06Marc:When we weren't touring.

01:05:09Marc:Oh, so you were actually kind of like... Yeah, here in L.A.

01:05:12Marc:Yeah.

01:05:12Guest:Well, I did a movie with Harry Dean Stanton called Slamdance.

01:05:16Guest:And Tom Hulse was in it, and so was Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Virginia Madsen and...

01:05:23Guest:anyway harry dean and i were cops like uh homicide cops and i was the dirty cop and he was the good cop and and we would do these scenes and i would realize as we're doing it holy shit i'm getting left in the dust i am i am like i am barely keeping up with this guy this guy is fucking burying me he's his end master he's you know and then he wasn't doing anything right that's what makes him amazing god damn

01:05:49Guest:And so I thought, I don't want to embarrass myself.

01:05:52Guest:Right.

01:05:52Guest:Because this is going to be like a nine foot high embarrassment.

01:05:56Guest:It's going to be a giant, like, I can see that.

01:06:01Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:02Guest:I can see that you suck.

01:06:03Guest:Yeah.

01:06:04Guest:And I don't, I'm obviously not.

01:06:05Guest:Great.

01:06:07Guest:I can do some stuff.

01:06:08Guest:You can show up and do it, yeah.

01:06:09Guest:The most recent one I did was called Pleased to Meet Me, and that was really fun.

01:06:13Guest:It was a super fast, independent movie with Amy Mann and Loudon Wainwright and Joe Henry.

01:06:20Guest:A bunch of musicians, huh?

01:06:20Guest:Yeah, and it was really fun.

01:06:23Guest:Who shot that movie?

01:06:25Guest:This guy named Archie Borders did it in Louisville, Kentucky.

01:06:28Guest:Got a bunch of independent investors, and it's on video on demand and Blu-ray and all that bullshit.

01:06:34Guest:I like Amy.

01:06:35Guest:I know Amy.

01:06:36Guest:Amy's awesome.

01:06:37Guest:She is amazing, huh?

01:06:38Guest:Yeah, she's funny.

01:06:40Guest:She's funny and dark and sweet.

01:06:43Guest:Solid musician.

01:06:45Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:06:45Marc:Jesus.

01:06:47Guest:Yeah, she's scary.

01:06:47Guest:How good she plays?

01:06:48Marc:It's wild, man.

01:06:49Marc:It's all you guys.

01:06:51Marc:I'm always amazed because I get people in here.

01:06:53Marc:Now, she's smart.

01:06:55Guest:When you look at her lyrics, you go like, how did you use some $50 word and make it sound normal?

01:07:02Marc:damn but she's also like she's different than us in that and i'm just putting myself into this crew like she's not a chaos person man i mean she's a you know she can control the environment you know everything's gonna be tight you know what i mean i'm glad that that you included me in your chaos team

01:07:21Marc:Well, am I wrong?

01:07:23Guest:No, you're totally right.

01:07:25Guest:I'm glad.

01:07:25Guest:I'm glad I'm part of the... Team chaos, baby.

01:07:28Guest:Let's fuck shit up.

01:07:29Guest:Yeah.

01:07:30Guest:You want to play one?

01:07:32Guest:Yeah, I don't know what to play, but let's figure it out.

01:07:36Guest:This is the only song that I've composed that I could say is sort of a John Doe hit.

01:07:42Guest:Okay.

01:07:43Guest:This is the closest that I've gotten.

01:07:45Guest:Okay.

01:07:47.

01:07:51.

01:07:54Guest:You are the hole in my head.

01:07:59Guest:I am the pain in your neck.

01:08:03Guest:You are the lump in my throat.

01:08:07Guest:I am on the tip of your tongue.

01:08:13Guest:We are tangled.

01:08:16Guest:We are stolen.

01:08:18Guest:We are living where things are hidden.

01:08:22Guest:You are something in my eye I am the shiver down your spine And you are the lick of my lips I am on the tip of your tongue We are tangled, we are stolen We are buried up to our necks in sand We'll look

01:08:52Guest:We are fate, we are the feeling you get in the golden state We are love, we are hate, we are the feeling I get when you walk away, walk away

01:09:15Guest:You are the dream in my nightmare.

01:09:24Guest:I am that falling sensation.

01:09:27Guest:You are my needles and pins.

01:09:32I am

01:09:34Guest:We are tangled.

01:09:39Guest:We are stolen.

01:09:40Guest:We are living where things are hidden.

01:09:46Guest:We are luck.

01:09:47Guest:We are fate.

01:09:49Guest:We are the feeling you get in the golden state We are love, we are hate We are the feeling I get when you walk away Walk away Walk away

01:10:15Guest:You are the hole in my head I am the pain in your neck You are the lump in my throat I am the aching in your heart

01:10:45Marc:That was great, man.

01:10:46Marc:I really appreciate you coming.

01:10:48Marc:Yeah.

01:10:48Marc:Thanks for doing it.

01:10:49Guest:My pleasure.

01:10:56Marc:All right, that's it.

01:10:56Marc:That's our show.

01:10:57Marc:John Doe, thank you for being here, if you're listening.

01:11:01Marc:Good talk.

01:11:03Marc:Thanks again to our sponsor, A24, and their new film, While We're Young, a comedy from writer-director Noah Baumbach.

01:11:09Marc:Also, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.

01:11:12Marc:Get the app.

01:11:13Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.

01:11:17Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:11:17Marc:God knows I go out of my way to mail you something every week.

01:11:22Marc:Do what you're going to do.

01:11:26Yeah.

01:12:05Marc:Boomer lives!

01:12:08Marc:Three chords, man.

01:12:10Marc:Three chords.