Episode 814 - Danny Fields / J Mascis
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuckanistas?
Marc:What the fucktuckians?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:Today on the show, Jay Mascus drops by.
Marc:Literally, he just wanted to come by.
Marc:I mean, to me, that is an honor.
Marc:And it makes me feel good.
Marc:If you didn't have anything to really promote, you just wanted to chat, play a couple songs.
Marc:So look forward to that.
Marc:Coming up, me and Jay Mascus, Dinosaur Jr.
Marc:If you don't, if you're like, who the fuck is Jay Mascus?
Marc:Oh, also on the show, Danny Fields.
Marc:I tried to wrangle about 50 years of rock history into a conversation with Danny, who's not always following a straight line.
Marc:But he is like he's like punk rock rock zeleg, man.
Marc:He was he was there at the juncture of some of the most important turning points of modern rock fucking music, Danny Fields.
Marc:And I was happy he was out here.
Marc:I wrote his mind.
Marc:You know, I held on and we got somewhere.
Marc:Got a lot of places.
Marc:Got an interesting email today.
Marc:Eureka, I'm manic.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:40-something Long Island artist type living in SoCal.
Marc:I enjoy your podcast for your relatable guests and the memories of the tri-state area.
Marc:WTF is like an East Coast slice of pizza.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Nice thin crust.
Marc:I recently listened to the AJ Mendez Brooks interview and had a eureka moment.
Marc:Holy shit, I'm bipolar.
Marc:Everything completely made sense to me.
Marc:Like the scene when Ed Norton found out he was also Brad Pitt in Fight Club.
Marc:Recollections of manic episodes raced through my mind.
Marc:Like this one time I was rifling through my trunk for an ice scraper during a New York blizzard, and four days later my car is overheating in California.
Marc:No job, no plan, and no resolve for the mania.
Marc:I used to refer to these moments as firecrackers.
Marc:They are fun to play with, slightly dangerous, bright, loud, then go away.
Marc:Afterward, the smoke, it's a mess, it smells, and always costs money.
Marc:I'm going to take a pause and look at myself.
Marc:I'll let you know how things go.
Marc:Keep it up.
Marc:You're changing lives.
Marc:Signed, Tyler Durden.
Marc:Anyway, let me tell you this story.
Marc:Look, I don't see myself as a celebrity.
Marc:You know, I'm a mid-level guy who works at home, sometimes does some on-camera stuff, also gets out on stage a lot.
Marc:But, you know, I'm just a working stiff in the big business of show, you dig?
Marc:Whatever experience I've had here in the garage with very famous, brilliant,
Marc:not so brilliant and famous people that have come through here.
Marc:Once I sit down after about 10 minutes, I can kind of, you know, manage myself, you know, manage whatever fan-ness I might have, fandom, or just, you know, people become people very quickly, you know, and it just, and I know that, I know that, but here's what happened.
Marc:It was, you know, it was pretty exciting.
Marc:I guess I don't know if it was exciting.
Marc:It was weird because I don't live the life.
Marc:I'm not living the life.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know if you know that, but I'm not living the life.
Marc:OK, like I here's what I assume.
Marc:I assume people who are living the life don't ever have to unplug things to plug other things in.
Marc:And it's a weird thought I always have when I'm trying to plug in my burr grinder and also my blender.
Marc:Can't do it.
Marc:Got to unplug one to plug in the other.
Marc:And I always think at that moment, you know, people who are living the life, they got plenty of plugs and everything's in its own place and it all works together.
Marc:And it's just a beautiful, clean and easy move through the world for the people that are living the life.
Marc:Plenty of plugs.
Marc:Anyway.
Marc:I go to the U2 concert.
Marc:Now, I don't go to many concerts.
Marc:You know that.
Marc:But I got offered some tickets to go see U2 here at the Rose Bowl.
Marc:Dan Cook over at Gimme Gimme Records was actually the best guy to go with.
Marc:Dan and I went, and at the last minute, the publicist sent me a parking pass.
Marc:So it was like, all right, now I'm living the life.
Marc:We are just cruising down through cop checkpoints directly into the parking lot.
Marc:No other cars.
Marc:There's a special lane for people living the life, and we're in it.
Marc:Dan and I are living the life, parking at the Rose Bowl to see you two.
Marc:So we go in, we get our seats.
Marc:They're nice seats.
Marc:They're not on the field, which is all standing.
Marc:They're seated and they're like stage right.
Marc:And we can see the big screens.
Marc:We can see everything.
Marc:It's nice out.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:You know, got a lemonade sitting around talking about music and we're waiting.
Marc:And then the luminaires come on.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:You know, I like them.
Marc:It's a country band.
Marc:It seems like it to me.
Marc:I don't know what people are calling them, but it seemed like pretty solid kind of folk country stuff.
Marc:Enjoyed it.
Marc:About midway through the luminaires, luminaires, luminaires,
Marc:I get a text from the publicity people.
Marc:They're like, hey, we're going to come down and give you a pass to the desert lounge.
Marc:I'm like, all right.
Marc:I don't know what that is.
Marc:So Steve from the publicity place, he comes over, gives me a desert lounge pass.
Marc:And, you know, we were pretty comfortable there having a lemonade, talking music and the beautiful night waiting for you to listen to the luminaires.
Marc:But, you know, we go with Steve to the desert lounge.
Marc:Now, the desert lounge is just a big tent with a bunch of people in it.
Marc:And I don't know what we're doing there.
Marc:It's like, you know, it's not like the special, special room.
Marc:It's just a room with people who are affiliated or paid some money or family, friends, whatever, hanging out in a big bar setting in a tent that they're conditioned, which was nice.
Marc:Someone told me they just saw, you know, Scott Ackerman and Adam Scott.
Marc:And I'm like, I know those guys.
Marc:Where are they?
Marc:I don't know where they are.
Marc:They're not here anymore.
Marc:I said, let's just go back out, man.
Marc:I was in the zone.
Marc:I was sitting in an arena.
Marc:I was waiting for the band.
Marc:I was like in the zone.
Marc:I liked it outside.
Marc:I don't know who these people are.
Marc:It's like a fucking nightclub.
Marc:I go tell Steve, like, thanks for the Desert Lounge Pass and we're going to go back out to the arena.
Marc:And he's like, well, don't you want to meet you too?
Marc:And I'm like, what?
Marc:He's like, yeah, I mean, they're going to do a little meet and greet, I think, in about 15 minutes.
Marc:I mean, Bono's not because he's taking care of his voice, but I think the other guys are.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know.
Marc:What for?
Marc:I can't interview him here.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:And he looked at me weird.
Marc:I'm like, what am I?
Marc:I'm an idiot.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, of course.
Marc:Yeah, I want to.
Marc:I can do that.
Marc:I don't have to go sit out there in the arena.
Marc:And then we walk through this little tunnel area backstage-y looking, you know, locker room kind of into a room that's hot.
Marc:All I know is we were just in an air-conditioned room, and now we're walked into a room full of people, and it's hot as fuck, like a sauna hot.
Marc:And I'm like, what is this?
Marc:And all of a sudden my eyes just start looking around and I do a little like 180 look and I'm like, that's Sean Penn on the couch.
Marc:Sean Penn on the couch.
Marc:Sean Penn's just sitting there talking to people.
Marc:Now, look, I don't care how many people I've had in here or what you think of anybody.
Marc:You know, when I see movie stars, I act like a person who's seeing a movie star.
Marc:And I'm like, well, I don't tell my face to do that because I'm a professional.
Marc:But inside I'm like, fucking Sean Penn, look at him.
Marc:Look at his face.
Marc:It's Sean Penn's face.
Marc:He's like a little Sean Penn's old face with his mustache.
Marc:And then I start scanning around.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck is happening in here?
Marc:There's Julia Roberts.
Marc:What is going on in here?
Marc:And then I see Ackerman and Adam Scott.
Marc:I'm like, okay, I know those guys.
Marc:So I go over there.
Marc:I'm like, what's up?
Marc:Hey, we're chit-chatting around.
Marc:Then I start looking around.
Marc:I'm like, holy fuck.
Marc:Isn't Josh Brolin?
Marc:Is that Josh Brolin?
Marc:Jesus Christ, what is this place?
Marc:So then I'm like, holy shit, there's Sacha Baron Cohen.
Marc:So I know him because he was on the show.
Marc:So I started talking to Sacha Baron Cohen.
Marc:Then Jimmy Kimmel comes over.
Marc:We're talking about his kid who's doing all right.
Marc:And then Patricia Arquette, who's been on the show, she says hi.
Marc:And it's like, oh, my God, this is it.
Marc:This is a big time celebrity holding pen.
Marc:And I'm just always surprised.
Marc:Like, I could not stop looking at the side of Josh Brolin's head because I think he's a great actor.
Marc:And my brain is sort of like, he's just a dude.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, but God damn it.
Marc:He was good.
Marc:No country for old men.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Hail Caesar, please.
Marc:Whatever.
Marc:I have a natural fan reaction to movie stars and actors that I like.
Marc:And I'm fighting it.
Marc:I'm fighting it.
Marc:I'm doing okay with the fight.
Marc:I'm talking.
Marc:It was nice to talk to people that I knew in here who know me.
Marc:And that was fun to be.
Marc:But I'm not that level.
Marc:I'm not living the life.
Marc:I'm really, on some level, just a guy who works out of his house.
Marc:And I was excited.
Marc:And Dan had never been.
Marc:He was hiding his shit better than me.
Marc:Just acting normal around these highly celebritized people.
Marc:But at some point, me and Dan pull away.
Marc:And it happened.
Marc:It just it just happened.
Marc:You know, I'm scanning the room, not really scanning it because I've already taken it in.
Marc:And then the edge comes out.
Marc:And then I'm like, there's the edge.
Marc:Maybe I should go say hi.
Marc:Oh, he's talking to Matt Damon.
Marc:I don't know Matt Damon.
Marc:I'm not just going to walk up and go, hey, man, what's going on?
Marc:Mark Barron.
Marc:Excuse me, Matt.
Marc:I don't know him.
Marc:I know he's just a person.
Marc:They're all just people, but I don't know him.
Marc:So I didn't meet the edge.
Marc:But anyway, so Dan and I are getting, I'm like, I can't take anymore.
Marc:I met Hal Wilner.
Marc:That was actually very exciting.
Marc:The music producer.
Marc:But...
Marc:Right before we were about to leave the room, because it was too hot, and I just wanted to go sit out in the arena and wait for the fucking band.
Marc:It was where it's nice and comfortable, have a lemonade.
Marc:And we're about to walk out, and I look towards the door, and there's a man surrounded by people, a few people, and that's when I just broke.
Marc:And I just looked at Dan, I pointed across the room, and I said, Quincy Jones, about that loud.
Marc:Quincy Jones no one it didn't no one turned or looked or heard me but that was it that's what tipped it Quincy Jones so then we left the celebrity holding pen and we went back to the seats and sure enough like about 15 minutes after we went back to the seats they led every occupant of the celebrity holding pen into the stands where they were magically just people at a show and
Marc:And Quincy Jones sat just down to the right where we were sitting.
Marc:And Bono gave him a shout-out during the show, which I thought was beautiful.
Marc:And, of course, it was so funny because these were good seats, obviously.
Marc:But right behind us, there was this couple that were just... I think they were fucking tripping, man.
Marc:I mean, full-on tripping balls.
Marc:And they were right behind me.
Marc:And, you know, they're playing the whole Joshua Tree.
Marc:And the band sounds fucking great.
Marc:And they're focused.
Marc:And I'd forgotten what a tremendous fucking record that is.
Marc:What a huge fucking record that is.
Marc:Just...
Marc:shaking me at the foundation of my soul.
Marc:Beautiful.
Marc:But there was this couple behind us.
Marc:They were dancing so much that the people around them had to move aside.
Marc:And the girl was just screaming out of context.
Marc:It's like, yeah!
Marc:But really obnoxious, horrible scream.
Marc:Ah!
Marc:I don't know why and the guy was singing along with Bono and then doing call and response with him and nobody else was but they you know they were just like sweaty and tripping balls and annoying but I had that moment where I'm like at first it was like you know why we got just my luck I gotta be in front of these two people but then it was sort of like you know that's what music does man
Marc:That's what music does.
Marc:That guy's singing along with Bono in the same space, and it's probably the greatest day, one of the best days he's having.
Marc:She's going crazy.
Marc:I turned around once or twice.
Marc:She was crying.
Marc:And I'm like, they're not annoying.
Marc:They're doing what they should be doing.
Marc:They're ecstatic.
Marc:They're ecstatic at a rock and roll show.
Marc:What more can you ask for?
Marc:So, look, Jay Mascus just wanted to come by.
Marc:So I said, sure, Jay, come by.
Marc:And he came by and he left his capo.
Marc:He left his capo here.
Marc:He took my tuner and left his capo.
Marc:So I emailed him and I said, Jay, I think we swapped my tuner for your capo.
Marc:And then Jay wrote back, okay, you cool with it or should I mail it back?
Marc:Good seeing you.
Marc:And I said, cool with me if it's cool with you.
Marc:Just wanted to make sure you knew before you had to play a gig.
Marc:I needed a capo.
Marc:And then he said, cool, find your key.
Marc:Isn't that the whole thing?
Marc:Find your key.
Marc:This is me and Jay Mascus.
Marc:The last Dinosaur Jr.
Marc:album was a while ago.
Marc:You can get any Dinosaur Jr.
Marc:album.
Marc:Give a Glimpse of What You're Not was released last year.
Marc:But he just wanted to hang out.
Marc:So this is me and Jay.
Marc:Jay Mascus back in the garage, round two.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm going to get pumped up right now.
Marc:Yeah, use that little squeeze.
Marc:That's a hard one, too.
Marc:I always wonder what the... It's interesting when people fidget with you.
Marc:I don't know what they're going to pick up.
Marc:So I haven't seen you in a few years.
Marc:We had a nice chat the last time.
Marc:What are you doing out here?
Guest:Not much.
Guest:My kid was going to Disney World with my two sisters and my brother, and me and my wife didn't want to go, so we decided to come to California, and it's our first trip together away from the kid.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How old's the kid now?
Marc:Nine.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So are you staying at a swanky hotel?
Marc:Not swanky, yeah.
Guest:we had a bit of a airbnb disaster you know oh yeah we were supposed to go to this place in malibu and uh you know my wife's really into colombo so you know there's these winding hills yeah you know it does look like colombo up there but when we got to the house tv show colombo yeah yeah
Guest:When we got to the house, we got really scared, and there was really loud wind chimes, and it was just creepy, and the shower looked like some weird hobbit cave, and I was just like, I gotta get out of here.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So it was a vibe?
Marc:It wasn't like there wasn't people living there?
Marc:No.
Marc:You just got creeped out?
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Well, I mean, that sounds like just one of those weirdo Malibu houses.
Guest:yeah but you had something else going on i didn't want to be there when night fell you know what i mean i was just like i couldn't i couldn't picture that so did you end up coming back into town did you get whole up out in malibu no yeah we bailed back to santa monica well it's fun how long you in town for it's a monday who are you hanging out with what'd you do today um just rode a bike on the beach and came over here
Marc:All right, so now we're going to talk about this record because I pulled it out just because it was something that I bought.
Marc:The story with this, her name is, how do you pronounce it?
Marc:Sibyl Baer.
Marc:Sibyl Baer?
Marc:Baer.
Marc:Baer?
Marc:Because you're German.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Your wife's German.
Yeah.
Marc:But I had this.
Marc:It was sent to me probably by the label.
Marc:And I was going through records.
Marc:And I put it into a box that I was going to trade out.
Marc:But I knew I thought I'd listen to it.
Marc:And I thought it was something.
Marc:And I didn't know anything about it.
Marc:And I brought it over to Dan.
Marc:The guy who likes a certain type of music goes, oh, you don't want to get rid of this one.
Marc:I'm like, really?
Marc:He's like, yeah, no, that's a great record.
Marc:And I think that's the only way it exists.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:this record it's not a reissue no but you had something to do with this because i just pulled this out but what happened with this record well um yeah since my wife's germans we know a lot of other germans wandering around in the northeast and uh one of them brought us to this guy robbie buyer's house yeah like an hour away and said oh he's my friend blah blah blah what's he do that guy's a musician okay well and
Guest:we go there and he's playing this music and it's like sounds very like contemporary like this sounds like this could be an indie rock hit yeah yeah very cat power like right it was like what is this is like
Guest:this is totally um what's happening right yeah so you know this is my mom i compiled some of her songs for her birthday i made it into uh i went through her tapes and made this you know compilation i was like you could definitely get this put out and he's like oh really uh you wanna yeah just give me the tape i'll give it to some people and and then i gave it to some people and um this guy in elf power i knew he'd be really into it he was over at my house and i played him and his eyes lit up you know i knew
Guest:You got all psyched.
Marc:And did it find success?
Guest:Well, with record nerds, yes.
Marc:Right, right, yeah.
Marc:It's a really beautiful record.
Guest:Yeah, it's awesome.
Marc:You know what I listened to for the first time, I think?
Marc:Adele.
Guest:yeah i got into adele through the voice like right i started watching the voice with my kid and yeah this guy billy gilman did an adele song and i was like billy gilman i was obsessed with him like in the early 90s because he was this child country star he was like 12 and he had these hits and and we went to the beach once with this drag queen who's like you gotta listen to billy gilman like all the drag queens were all over this kid they could smell the tragedy on him already and
Guest:and I was like we'd listen to it and the song was amazing and I couldn't believe suddenly he's grown up and on the voice and he's a judge no he was a contestant oh he was a contestant and it turned out he was gay like they could sniff it out back then they knew and he did an Adele song he did an Adele song I got into Adele through that
Marc:I had this moment where I'm like, I don't know if I've ever heard an Adele song.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like these records and, you know, pop music is pop music, but people love her.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's not like she's some fluke.
Marc:So I listened and I'm like, holy shit.
Marc:It's like some of the stuff I heard was kind of like, you know, like old soul kind of stuff.
Guest:I like her.
Guest:Yeah, she has such a cool personality like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And she's in the car singing with James Corden.
Marc:I've got to watch that.
Guest:It's pretty amazing.
Marc:You're the second person that told me to watch that.
Marc:What about Lorde?
Marc:Let's talk pop stars.
Guest:I don't know much about her.
Marc:You don't know much about her?
Marc:You ever seen her?
Marc:She dances wild.
Guest:No, she played with Nirvana, I remember, at the rock and roll hall.
Marc:That's where I first saw her.
Marc:She must have been like 15, 16, maybe 17 years old, and that kind of blew me away.
Marc:Very intense.
Guest:Yeah, then I played an after party with Nirvana that same night, and everyone else came, but she didn't show up to sing.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Maybe it was too late.
Marc:She was like in high school.
Marc:You know what I've been listening to is the Ravi Shankar records.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:He's got a vibe, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're relaxing, aren't they?
Guest:Yeah, I love all that any raga thing I'm a sucker for.
Marc:Do you ever think about doing like a J.Maskis raga?
Guest:Yeah, I do like sometimes some fake kind of stuff like that in yoga places with some, you know, guys I know who do, who's playing yoga places and do kirtans.
Marc:So wait, now let me just understand this.
Marc:You're doing some yoga place gigs?
Guest:Sometimes.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I'll do my impression of Ravi Shankar, which sounds more like Mick Taylor.
Marc:Wait, let's flesh this out a little bit.
Marc:Where does the yoga tour take you?
Marc:Brooklyn, usually.
Marc:So you just show up, like they do live music at yoga places?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, are you billed?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Jay Mask is yoga?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I have a gig coming up.
Guest:Yeah, it's me and this guy, David Doss, and Tony, who I play with.
Guest:We usually play together.
Marc:And people are doing yoga, so you're working.
Guest:No, no, it's just at a yoga place.
Guest:They're just singing.
Guest:Oh, that's different.
Marc:Singing along.
Marc:I pictured that, like, today's class is going to be interesting.
Marc:I'm going to talk you through the poses, and Jay Mascus...
Marc:He's going to be playing some music for you.
Marc:I would do that, yeah.
Marc:Well, is it challenging to do something meditative?
Marc:No, I like it.
Marc:What, do you do acoustic?
Guest:No.
Guest:No?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah, I like to play electric.
Guest:Or I can play my electric sitar.
Guest:You have one of those?
Guest:Yeah, the fake, you know, like 60s.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, does it look like a guitar?
Guest:Well, they try to make it look like a sitar, but it plays like a guitar, yeah.
Marc:So what is the difference?
Marc:Like there's more strings?
Marc:No, it just buzzes, you know.
Marc:So it sounds like a sitar a little bit.
Marc:Because, like, that whole thing, like, sometimes I try to add those flourishes, those... Those things.
Marc:And they don't fit into a lot of what I do.
Marc:They stand out, like, in the middle of a sort of Peter Green blues run.
Marc:If you throw one of those... It doesn't quite fit.
Guest:Do you ever watch Peter Green showing off his guitars?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The old Peter Green?
Guest:Oh, no, no, I got this one.
Guest:It has 14 different, you know, triangles coming out of it.
Guest:And you're just like...
Marc:It's where he's walking around the weird gated lockup.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Where's the Les Paul again?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But tell me, though, I always enjoy hearing the Jay Mascus play.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Let's see what's going on here.
Marc:Yeah, I'll try to set up, too.
Guest:Sound good to you?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're hearing it, aren't you?
Guest:I'm hearing it.
Guest:I'm not a fan.
Guest:I always hear my voice.
Marc:I'll be over here riding the levels.
Marc:All right.
Go ahead.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Calling out I'm
Guest:I can give you less than what I mean to you.
I'll pretend, but I don't see you there.
Guest:I want to know.
Guest:I want to go.
Guest:I'm all alone.
Guest:I want to know.
Guest:You're a place of friend.
Guest:I'm overwhelmed.
Guest:You understood it wrong Boxes overflow and then I see you Near as in I can't be friends for long I wanna know I wanna go I'm all alone
Guest:I blow and I know, yeah, it burns Did I show you a crump?
Guest:It's a blur
Guest:I know it, I know it.
Guest:Calling out is all about to meet you.
Guest:Calling almost always gets me there.
Guest:Living with a doubt or two for me too.
Guest:Calling out the last place I
Marc:Yeah, nice.
Marc:Nice little blues riff on the tag.
Guest:Yeah, I'm practicing my blues for my sound man.
Marc:Oh, does he?
Marc:That's his thing?
Marc:Wait, you want to do one more?
All right.
Guest:I don't see you, I won't call you, I don't know enough to stall you.
Guest:Is it me or is it on you?
Guest:Guess it's on and on.
Guest:On a date, maybe I'll show you, but it's the least of all I go through.
Guest:But the thing is, I don't know you and it's on and on.
Guest:And the words won't make my eyes close.
Guest:And if anyone and you know, I can't find out.
Guest:Cause you won't show when it's on and on.
Guest:Every dream shot by daylight.
Guest:And I pray maybe that you're right.
Guest:But if you don't, maybe I might.
Guest:Cause it's on and on.
Guest:Not gonna get me through this all year.
Guest:You're not gonna get me through this side here
Guest:Anytime I'm there to show you If it takes too long I know you out the door Leaving me screwed and it's on and on Every dream is shot by daylight And I say maybe that you're right But if you don't, maybe I might Cause it's on and on You're not gonna get me through this, are you?
Guest:You're not gonna get me through this line.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That was great, Jay.
Marc:Thanks for coming by.
Marc:Sure, thanks.
Marc:So that was me and Jay Maskis.
Marc:That was fun, right?
Marc:It's always good to see Jay.
Marc:He cracks me up.
Marc:Once you get to know him, he cracks you up.
Marc:Danny Fields, the man at the juncture of a lot of rock history.
Marc:And a lot of great stories.
Marc:I was just surprised I got to talk to him because I don't think he gets out much to do these.
Marc:And he's got there's a there's a documentary out.
Marc:This is what spurred me to talk to him.
Marc:It's called Danny Says, a documentary on the life and times of Danny Fields is now available on iTunes, Amazon DVD and other on demand services.
Marc:But it was good.
Marc:It was actually a challenging conversation, not in the way that you would think, just in the way of like, man, there's a lot here.
Marc:How do I get it all in a line?
Marc:So this is me and Danny Fields.
Marc:I can't even tell you what exactly he is.
Marc:He's an R guy, a publicist, a provocateur in a way, a conduit.
Marc:Danny Fields is a connector.
Marc:and a through line to some of the best bands ever.
Marc:Okay, this is me and Danny.
Guest:I didn't send you that book.
Guest:It's the only thing in my life that I ever did.
Guest:I never did anything except take pictures, and that's why I'm so proud of it.
Guest:I don't know that it's the only thing you did in your life.
Guest:It's the only thing I did that I did that was mine because it's my camera and my pictures and my film and my writing and my choosing them and my being able to take them.
Guest:Of the Ramones.
Guest:Yeah, just during... What year?
Guest:76 and 77.
Guest:Those years.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The important years, the first trip to Los Angeles, the first trip to London, the first, you know, walking through Washington, D.C.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My voice is shaky because I'm just starting because I'm always nervous.
Guest:You're nervous?
Guest:Always.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Like even if you're just sitting still?
Guest:I used to have a show on WFMU, eight hours a week, Thursday and Friday, eight to midnight.
Guest:That was a life changer for you, wasn't it?
Guest:I know.
Guest:And I'm so nervous.
Guest:And if you listened, because they kept it all.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I have this like, hello, mellow, hey.
Guest:yeah yeah yeah yeah the classic hey man yeah the classic fmu yeah um late 60s fm voice yeah and i had such freedom and i just would play half hour blocks of music and back sell them i never say coming up this and they just segued and it was kind of wonderful
Marc:And you started, like, I watched a documentary, Danny says, and I liked it.
Marc:Now, what was interesting about it is how much different footage they had of you over many different years.
Guest:And many different lifetimes, and all squashed together.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I've talked to a couple of people that talked about you directly.
Marc:I had Legs in here recently, but I had Iggy in here, and I had Wayne Kramer in here.
Marc:And I think the guy that talked about you the most was probably Wayne.
Marc:But you didn't start out in music.
Marc:You were like some whiz kid, right?
Marc:Where did you grow up?
Marc:In Queens.
Guest:Which part of Queens?
Guest:Which part of Queens?
Guest:The southern, not good part of Queens.
Guest:There's a good part?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:When it gets hilly, it's better.
Marc:I lived in Astoria for a while.
Marc:So, you were just like a Jewish kid from Queens.
Marc:Well, I'm just like.
Guest:First of all, there weren't many in my part of Queens.
Guest:The Jews were rare.
Guest:We were not in Forest Hills.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Something called, something Goodfellas territory.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Does that say, kind of like bring something to mind?
Guest:Mostly Italian.
Guest:Yes, mostly Italian, Irish, German.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My father was the doctor.
Marc:Oh, he was a doctor.
Guest:So he was second only to the priest and authority.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Sacredness.
Guest:He got respect.
Guest:And I was the doctor's obnoxious son.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, loser, sissy son.
Guest:So, yeah, that was rough.
Marc:Did you have brothers and sisters?
Guest:I had a younger brother.
Guest:But, you know, Manhattan was there.
Guest:It was a subway ride away.
Guest:When did you start going in?
Guest:As soon as I could get on the train.
Guest:As soon as I could reach the turnstile.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Always.
Guest:But, you know, I didn't start going in.
Guest:my family was all over it was a new york family so there was the manhattan branch and riverside drive right people and aunts and uncles and then the sun wants to be jersey and so they spread out it was spread out yeah the uh the the fields diaspora yeah yeah it's all over brooklyn-ish
Marc:And when did you... Like, you ended up like... Because I did watch the movie, so I know more than I should than when I do generally interview people.
Marc:But you were a bright kid, right?
Guest:And you're running... I'm still a bright kid.
Guest:Everyone else was so stupid.
Guest:But did you go to college when you were like 15?
Guest:Yeah, I was 15.
Guest:And...
Guest:That was, you know, not the easiest.
Guest:No, I can't imagine.
Guest:There's worse things in the world.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And what was your interest?
Marc:What were you going to do?
Marc:Nothing.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:No interest to have friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I wanted friends.
Guest:I never had any.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's so sad.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:I went to Penn.
Guest:yeah which is in some place called philadelphia right sure philly and uh it was not heaven on earth it was not i mean compared to new york it sure did not being in the ivy league which is meaningless but the only thing that i meant was that on weekends you got in a car and pretended you cared about a football game right which i don't even know what the rules are
Guest:but you pretended that we're playing yeah we yeah the collective we i mean politically this is no it makes me sick to think that i ever used that word and we were in we were in princeton or sure in providence right new haven yeah or cambridge right boston cambridge and i just thought why
Guest:Why am I not here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In Boston.
Guest:This is where I want to be.
Guest:I want to be in Cambridge.
Guest:You want it?
Guest:I want to be near the streets of Harvard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just, I want to be there.
Guest:Because it felt... It felt like I should be, it's like, I feel now I want to be in London.
Marc:Right, I get it.
Marc:I don't want to be in New York.
Guest:It's like, wherever you are.
Marc:There's some order to it.
Marc:There's some style to it.
Marc:There's an aristocratic vibe.
Guest:No, that's not that.
Guest:There's...
Guest:it's a selfish longing to feel as if i'm kind of home right you know i like these people they like me did you long last right did you end up you ended up going there right so i applied to harvard law school yeah so not interested in being a lawyer it's one of those things like a dentist i need one of these right things i'll hire one right be one yeah
Guest:You know, but it was an easy way to get in and to be living in the Harvard University community because my marks were so good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I got this really high score on the law school aptitude test.
Guest:And you went to law school.
Guest:I went to law school and he did law school.
Guest:But loved, as I thought I would, as my fantasy told me I would, loved being in Harvard Square.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was very not like Queens.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Or Philadelphia.
Marc:It is kind of stunning.
Marc:I lived in Boston for a long time, and there's something about Harvard Square.
Marc:They want to look cool.
Marc:Didn't they look cooler?
Guest:Oh, sure.
Marc:Bigger density of coolness.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:A lot of layers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you had a lot of options to wear sporty clothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I always wanted to know someone who looked like that or all the sporty clothing.
Guest:Just steal sporty clothing at J Press and all the great stores and try it on.
Guest:So what changed with the law school?
Guest:It was so boring.
Guest:You had to memorize things.
Guest:It's not about how smart you are anymore.
Guest:It's about how good is your memory.
Guest:Right.
Guest:How well do you know what some judge one day decided should be this final solution.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But should be the ultimate way of reasoning out this problem that is before us.
Guest:And that becomes the law.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the tradition.
Guest:This is the common law.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It all isn't written down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like precedent.
Guest:And what year was this?
Guest:I hated this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, going to 5960.
Guest:So what... Everyone had a suit and then people...
Guest:you like that though right no you didn't like this suit i'd like dressed like this oh oh no no and i never yeah oh i hated it i still don't i couldn't do it today yeah and and people went to the bathroom with each other sat on adjacent toilet bowls so that they could refresh their memories excuse me about
Guest:the law this case yeah which is going to be on the test yeah this is the way so you go into the bathroom and hear people in the stalls discussing uh arguments wait wait if you were there alone you started to feel i'm doing something wrong i don't belong here i'm gonna flunk out if you go to the bathroom alone yeah yeah i should be with some i shouldn't be wasting my time yeah so i think i'll just play bridge yeah
Guest:There's a bunch of other people who hate going to these classes, too.
Guest:You found them?
Guest:I found them.
Guest:We found each other.
Guest:We didn't believe it.
Guest:And so we sat there playing British.
Marc:That's arrogant.
Marc:What was it that sparked the interest in, I don't know, it wouldn't be counterculture, but it would have been what was happening.
Marc:You know, like music and everything else.
Guest:I think my life and my education probably started there.
Guest:People who read, people who didn't really know what they wanted to do.
Guest:Right, but were smart.
Guest:Those are my kind of people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're really smart, and they don't know what they want to do, and they're beautiful, and they're young, and they go to Harvard, and they love to fuck, which is important.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When you're 19.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I was 19 in law school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And... Was it easy to get fucked at Harvard?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes, if you were 19, it would be easy for anyone in the world to be fucked when they're 19.
Guest:But it wasn't, you couldn't be out, really, right?
Guest:Yes, you could.
Guest:Oh, you could?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:There's that word that gets sprung on me.
Guest:It meant nothing to me.
Guest:Was I out?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's a word that I guess straight people know.
Guest:Yeah, but there were no straight people to know...
Guest:We found each other.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:In a community of, in many ways, like-minded people.
Guest:Some of whom went to Harvard.
Guest:Some of whom once went and now are in graduate school.
Guest:Some of whom went and finished graduate school but stayed there because it was the coolest place they ever stayed and they couldn't imagine having to leave this bosom of elitism.
Guest:Right.
Marc:so when do you go to new york okay when i flunk at a car when when i dropped out yeah i dropped out of harvard law school and said i can no longer continue to take up a seat like 1960 yeah and when did you get like locked in with uh when did you sort of find yourself in the orbit of whatever was going on in the art wise okay with warhol yes okay there was a bar
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Called the San Remo with Bleeker and McDougal.
Guest:So it was there and it was a bar that was turning quasi-gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was Edward Albee, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Bob Rauschenberg, the...
Guest:Hanging out.
Guest:Thought of great art.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Happened to be gay, but some of the great geniuses of that era hung out there.
Guest:So that's kind of where one would go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And bars that sprung up around that neighborhood.
Guest:and you just met them there just went yeah and you know you'd make a friend and just be like someone who goes and then yeah three girls had an apartment on that we loved on what eighth street yeah that was a hangout and you went from being sitting at one table to being able to get up and go and sit in another which is very important sure and then you then all of a sudden making your own table because the
Guest:The ultimate thing, man, things must be different, but to find a prime empty table, sit on it by yourself, and then watch.
Guest:Who comes?
Guest:Watch who comes.
Guest:And a competition that you have with your destiny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to make a great table.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to start with nothing, no money, no drinks for everyone, no buckets of champagne, nothing.
Guest:Just I'm going to be sitting there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's going to be all right to sit there and let's see what happens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And did you collect?
Guest:Did you make your table?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, yeah.
Guest:I wouldn't be talking about it now if it had been a complete failure.
Guest:That was, yeah.
Guest:This is why you came to New York.
Guest:So, you could start a table.
Guest:That was my, start a table.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But you must have been a raconteur or at least fun.
Guest:You know, I wasn't.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:I wasn't.
Guest:I never was.
Guest:I could.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:No, I could.
Marc:What was your gift then?
Guest:I could suffer geniuses.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:I could love them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were a good audience.
Guest:You were a good battery.
Guest:I was a good friend to people who are really smart.
Marc:When you go to the factory, like, you know, I've only seen this in movies and, you know, I've read about it, but I mean, what...
Marc:what was the experience i mean did you he doesn't sound like he had any real affinity for the art necessarily it was more of a scene right well the art you said that was some amount of patronization what did you mean by that well i meant that like you know when art was it i get it i get it you know it was whatever andy was yeah there was art being generated yeah need to be proved
Guest:Oh, it's okay.
Guest:He was having art because he was into mass multiples.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Multiples, which is the story about an art.
Guest:This is how Campbell's soup cans is art.
Guest:It's getting big.
Guest:I mean, come on, think about that.
Guest:Yeah, it was crazy.
Guest:No one ever seen it before.
Guest:Antelopes and then virgins and then Jesus and saints and now soup cans, what?
Guest:You know, dukes and soup cans.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Historical events and soup cans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is wonderful.
Marc:And it... It turned the whole intelligentsia and art scene upside down.
Guest:It turned everything upside down.
Marc:But I know at some point you transitioned into working in the music business.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:Legitimately.
Guest:Legitimately, but I asked her and I had...
Guest:I always was going to go into print media.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I didn't know what else to say.
Guest:It was like, what do you want to be?
Guest:And the kid's been asking me this forever.
Guest:Leave me alone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You eventually have to sort of kind of answer when you start looking at wantes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I sold books.
Guest:I worked at a magazine called Liquor Store Monthly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As a production.
Guest:So I learned how magazines get made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All this enhanced my viability as a print medium.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Person.
Guest:Duh.
Guest:And so I'm out saying managing editor for pop magazine.
Guest:It's being sought.
Marc:A pop magazine or pop magazine?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Knowledge of pop world.
Guest:So this is post world.
Marc:This is like you're already there.
Guest:I'm there being nobody.
Guest:I'm there being somebody with a floor you could sleep on.
Guest:Dang it.
Guest:And friends.
Guest:Hanging out with Edie Sedgwick.
Guest:And friends of friends.
Guest:And we were, it's like turning into like a family.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:You always want, well, he's there because he writes songs.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he's there because he could do silk screens.
Guest:And Andy is at the center of this, like, God.
Guest:And he's there because he's the night watchman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's there because he takes photographs.
Marc:And you were just there.
Marc:I was there being cool.
Guest:yeah yeah i got the job there were hundreds hundreds of applicants i was told i don't know i could prove that ever uh by lying and saying pretending he meant the pop art scene because there i was going to all these parties at castelli gallery yeah so i said knowledge of pop scene sure i'm going to Rauschenberg opening yeah yeah i could do that and then i got billboard magazine and memorized it
Guest:I could still do.
Guest:Look how I got through college and memorized textbooks.
Guest:And I came in for the next meeting.
Guest:I could tell him I was 14 on the charts and didn't know anything about this.
Guest:And he said, you're hired to be managing editor of a teenage magazine called Datebook.
Guest:Well, this is nice.
Guest:He wanted it to be, he wanted to follow in the successful steps of 16 magazine.
Guest:Get those little girls buying the magazine.
Guest:I didn't want to do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Always write about the birds and Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones.
Guest:And what was cool, but I had my in.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So it was mainstream and you were not, that was not what you were.
Marc:It was always alternative.
Marc:When did you meet the Velvet Underground?
Marc:How early on was that?
Guest:It was.
Guest:we a bunch of a bunch of people from the factory went to hear them play at the wherever they were playing yeah but before that donald lyons and i had chased this really really good looking guy down the street carrying guitar mcdougall street yeah of course and ran out to him and said
Guest:Hey, you're so good looking.
Guest:You should be in an Andy Warhol movie.
Guest:Doesn't this sound amazing to admit this?
Guest:We actually did that because why not?
Guest:This guy has a guitar.
Guest:He could be singing.
Guest:That's legit.
Guest:Andy likes guys that look good on film.
Guest:I bet he's going to.
Guest:So why not?
Guest:Why's that?
Guest:balls to go up to someone say would you like to be in an angie warhol as it was it turned out great and there is was it lou it was eric anderson uh-huh okay this is in the movie it was called space a bunch of people
Guest:at the factory about a dozen sitting around eric anderson is there with the guitar and he is learning how to focus how to pan tilt yeah you know yeah on camera right and there's this movie yeah and eric is
Guest:What can we do to have a hoot nanny at the factory in 1965?
Guest:Oh, what a nice idea.
Guest:We're going to have a hoot nanny.
Guest:You know, we do everything else.
Guest:Why not have a hoot nanny?
Guest:Michael rode the boat ashore and they tried that.
Guest:And people fell over and, you know, pushed each other out of the way and...
Guest:brained and all that yeah and eric and edie are sort of making eyes at each other um extremely extremely wonderful my friend donald is trying to teach edie the words to the hail mary yeah imagine like 30 times and this is like yes this is an anti-war horror movie right it's kind of perfect
Guest:yeah and it was supposed to have been scripted the script writer in ronnie to bell and disgust walked out and everybody just kept laughing yeah and having a good time okay five months after that the velvet underground moved in so this to answer your question i had to take this back route
Guest:So that was the music comes through the factory.
Guest:Through arrogance.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:A solo acoustic singer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Who was really talented and beautiful and wonderful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then come the Velvet Underground.
Guest:Might as well have a band.
Guest:Hey, we had a folking that worked out pretty well.
Guest:And they hung out for a while.
Guest:They hung out for quite a while.
Guest:And they more than hung out.
Guest:I mean, it became a professional association with a record and tour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was real.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The factory found itself in the music business.
Guest:Right.
Guest:With the first Velvet Underground album.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And forever, when you think of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because, you know, then Lou and John go do songs for Drella long after Andy's gone.
Marc:How much did he influence them, really?
Marc:I mean, what was his impact on the Velvet Underground?
Marc:You know, they talk about it a lot.
Guest:They worship him.
Guest:Certainly in retrospect, at the time, you know, they are a rock and roll band.
Guest:They're kind of being used as sort of a toy.
Guest:Oh, it's possible to get a movie projector and run a movie and shine it onto the band that's playing up there.
Guest:At the same time, we want to do that.
Guest:Let's do that.
Guest:Oh, let's put all these gels into projectors and cover the band with, you know, hope dots and stripes.
Guest:Oh, let's do that.
Marc:But they just wanted to play.
Guest:Yeah, but they also wanted the audience that the celebrity of Andy Warhol and a place...
Marc:So here you are immersed in this and now you've got this job at a pop rock magazine.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And what was your first big... My first big thing was to do something spectacular and mischievous because I kind of resented it a great deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did get an invitation to go on the Rolling Stones boat ride, which the boat pulled away before I got there.
Guest:But that's when I met Linda Eastman too because I waited for someone to get off the boat with the camera.
Guest:There's a whole other story.
Guest:Linda McCartney, the future Linda McCartney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was, you know.
Guest:Did she inspire you to take photographs?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Very much.
Guest:Very much.
Guest:You wrote a book on her, too, didn't you?
Guest:I wrote, yeah, I wrote a tribute memoir, sort of, of me and her.
Marc:Did you stay in touch with her all the way through?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And as much as you could, because I think when she first married Paul in 1968, 69, I think I get the feeling he didn't encourage her to keep in touch with her friends at New York, most of whom had columns or edited magazines, et cetera.
Guest:But yeah, at the time of his first album, they came back.
Guest:Oh, a McCartney album?
Guest:Yeah, tell us about this music business now.
Guest:There's no more Beatles.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Here I am.
Guest:We can use that guy now.
Guest:Yeah, well, we could, yeah.
Guest:Let's, you know, remind us what's been happening these years.
Marc:But you worked at, you did a Beatles story, though.
Marc:You did Beatles stories for the date book.
Guest:We owned Beatles stories.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Among the things we owned, which Art Unger had purchased, was a series of interviews with each of them done by Maureen Cleave, who's a London journalist.
Guest:And I found that we owned them.
Guest:We owned the right to publish them in America.
Guest:And so I read them and I said, whoa, this is quite extraordinary.
Guest:Here...
Guest:Well, I have to just say what Sir Paul McCartney said.
Guest:Talking about America.
Guest:It's a lousy country where anyone black is a dirty nigger.
Guest:So, whoa, there's a line.
Guest:Let's put it on the cover of a magazine for 11-year-old girls.
Guest:Let's see what happens.
Guest:You did that?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And, oh, yeah.
Guest:Then there's an interview with John Lennon.
Guest:And in the course of the interview, he says, oh, we're more popular than Jesus now.
Guest:And elsewhere in the same interview, he says, I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity.
Marc:And he put the other quote on the cover too?
Guest:Yes, both of them.
Guest:And followed by Timothy Leary says something and Bob Dylan says something.
Guest:Message songs or something.
Marc:So what was Unger saying when you're taking the magazine in this direction?
Guest:Oh, he was saying, well, this is really a big step.
Guest:But hey...
Guest:and as I'm discovering now many years later he's considered a pioneer having been the publisher in promoting a left-wing ethos and directing it at young rock and roll kids and consumers in the middle 60s which was ahead of its time because hey he bought those hey he said okay he said yes
Guest:we can use them on the cover and as the headlines inside so but okay that's how history is treating him i'm glad it's starting to and in academia yeah sort of because he is rather if i'm obscure can you imagine how obscure he must be right um and i was fired for not that
Guest:Just because I didn't know how to put out a magazine.
Guest:I pretended.
Guest:I was faking.
Guest:I didn't know how to be an editor.
Guest:And I've learned.
Guest:But I wasn't then.
Guest:After I was fired, the magazine came out as the Beatles were doing a giant stadium tour of the United States.
Guest:And an irate mother in Alabama saw this.
Guest:We're more popular than Jesus quote.
Guest:From the Beatles.
Guest:They were predisposed in certain regions of the United States to despise the Beatles existentially.
Guest:This is kind of like the prick that did it.
Guest:I think they hated them because their daughters liked them, because they had long hair, and so they thought they were faggots.
Guest:yeah um because they sang and they looked you know they were sissies or something right and girls screamed and boys hated them yeah because the girls screamed over them except the boys were cool enough to like them as a band right so it turned into big screaming and then it turned into uh
Guest:A book burning where pastors and preachers and DJs.
Guest:Imagine if you were sitting there.
Guest:Okay, kids.
Guest:We just found out that the Beatles are antichrist.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And they think they're bigger than Jesus.
Guest:Well, first of all, they're bigger than Jesus is one of those quotes that never got said, but it's come down in history, so it has kind of familiarity to it.
Guest:It's wrong.
Guest:He said, we're more popular than Jesus.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:And there were bonfires, bonfires.
Guest:And people brought their records and trucks, ran them over, and they poured melted tar on them, and they had blazes.
Guest:It was like Berlin in 1933.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Burning books.
Guest:They were burning images.
Guest:Burning records.
Guest:Of the Beatles.
Guest:This is how do you get rid of Satan?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why do you burn a witch?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't just chop over her head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You burn her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, this was it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just a metaphor for that.
Guest:And that was happening.
Guest:Yes, my magazine appeared on the newsstands and
Guest:It was causing a real reaction.
Guest:And the Beatles were set to tour?
Guest:The Beatles were on tour, encountered death threats, fears, paranoia.
Guest:What is that sound?
Guest:Is it a shot?
Guest:And then we'd go on stage and they could hear nothing.
Guest:These were stadiums that were playing.
Guest:And the girls screaming.
Guest:Yeah, the girls screaming.
Guest:They couldn't hear themselves.
Guest:They could have been mouthing the words.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think.
Guest:I did not know them.
Guest:And then was that it for them?
Guest:They played San Francisco, and it was the end of the two-week tour, and whatever the conversation, the different accounts of it they had backstage was, this is going to be our last show.
Yeah.
Guest:and it was candlestick park in september 1966 in san francisco and they put down and they never played again except an impromptu thing in london on a rooftop but this was it now i didn't first of all it wasn't intentional right i broke up the beatles no i just printed a story that had run in london and
Guest:nobody even paid attention to it when it did nobody said oh dear nobody in london right uh in all of wherever six months earlier this happened it sank without a trace right but in alabama it made it was quite a furor galvanized yeah and it started a fire that spread right and then it was also it became clear where the rock lines were drawn in a way
Marc:I mean, if that's the reaction the Beatles get.
Marc:I mean, that was the fight for rock and roll at that time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's so good.
Guest:Isn't that great that we can look at it now and say that?
Guest:But imagine if you were consumed by it.
Guest:And imagine if you were them or their fans or the people who said...
Guest:They would turn out to be Jesus haters because they have long hair.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what?
Marc:And within three years from there, Rock would ultimately win that cultural war in a way.
Guest:Well, it was a beachfront, let's say.
Marc:Beachhead.
Guest:What's the word?
Guest:Beachhead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a big battle.
Guest:It was big.
Guest:It still, I think, has not been really explored.
Marc:No, we've lost some territory in the last year.
Guest:Yes, and you're going to.
Guest:And this is part of the story is that perhaps we're too close to it now, though it was 50 years ago, last fall, last full 50.
Guest:And we still haven't gotten our arms around, what the hell happened?
Guest:and what happened to them but what happened to music and what happened to America as we saw what happened to America it was it was what we see now yeah it was a schism yeah and and we see it now with this
Guest:thing happened after the election thing and we saw it and there it was there was a blueprint for it or it was a sign a message well yeah it was like oh that's there this is part of us this is part of America
Guest:Didn't say it then.
Guest:He said, well, what have we become?
Guest:What are we dealing with?
Guest:What is this death?
Guest:It's about death.
Guest:It's about Jesus.
Guest:It's about fire and destruction.
Marc:So when you get fire, but then is that part of the drive for you to continue in music?
Guest:I moved to L.A.
Guest:that summer.
Guest:This all came out while I was living in Los Angeles.
Marc:This is before the DJ job?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I kept thinking, I should move here.
Guest:This place is cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I stayed in L.A.
Guest:the summer of 66.
Guest:I was there to see this wonderful catastrophe happen as the result of a simple decision to put a couple of lights that had already been seen six months before in London.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:on the cover of a magazine to see all all hell explode which was so much fun and i decided i couldn't live here because this is i couldn't make it down stoned i mean i had to drive down laurel canyon boulevard stoned late at night and with people hating me yeah and the single behind me because they do it all the time and they could go fast and they may be stoned but they may not be yeah i am and
Guest:oh these curves here comes another one oh my god and i really because of that he left before uber i don't think i could live here right i'd like to be able to walk walk when you're high call a taxi or get in the subway okay so you go back and then you took the job as a dj
Guest:WFN, I had friends who, there was a, what was the station in San Francisco that went poof?
Guest:Oh, I don't remember.
Guest:Freeform KSFO or KSAN or something.
Guest:It was Freeform Radio.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, you played what you wanted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they decided it was unprofitable and a bunch of people...
Guest:were terminated.
Guest:And each went out and a spore of a species sort of found a place at another radio station, another market in America.
Guest:And one of the San Francisco people named Larry Yurden found a small college station in New Jersey called
Guest:WFMU yeah my buddy Tom Sharpling used to be on there for years recently yeah this is yeah yeah so do what you want yeah it was so great and I got to be a guest and I did so good as a guest because I have a thing for pretty music yeah I hate music but sometimes it can be pretty yeah and I got my own show eight hours a week two nights a week
Guest:While I worked for Elektra Records, imagine how unethical this is.
Marc:You were working for Elektra at the time?
Guest:Yes, I thought I might as well be Ivanka Trump.
Guest:I mean, I was really corrupt.
Guest:But what were you doing for Elektra?
Guest:I was their publicity, the director of publicity.
Guest:And that's when you were working at WFMU?
Guest:Yeah, at the same time.
Guest:And who were the bands?
Guest:Who were the bands?
Guest:For the Elektra.
Guest:Who were you?
Guest:Oh, this dude was in the MC5 bands.
Guest:I didn't sign to them.
Marc:But that was before you were, wait, you were at FMU when you signed those bands?
Guest:68, 69, yes.
Marc:So how'd you get the job with Elektra?
Guest:Okay, I got it because in the earlier magazine I had sensed the viability as a popular event creation of the Doors.
Guest:You sensed it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I, you know, I saw it happening.
Guest:Where, in L.A.?
Guest:I saw it in New York from, you know, girls who had gone to see them on their first New York appearance and came back, you know, in a vapors and faint.
Guest:And you told the lecturer these guys were the guys?
Guest:No.
Guest:Then I had a call from a friend of mine.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Whom I'd met that summer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ronnie Heron.
Guest:And she was a manager of the whiskey.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she also managed kind of the doors.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And she said, oh, do me a favor.
Guest:This band I work for is coming to New York.
Guest:And would you be a publicist for them?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Sort of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, sure.
Guest:I heard people see them.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And I went to see them.
Guest:And I called a lecturer the next day and said, hey, I'm the publicist for your band, The Doors, it seems.
Guest:I'm getting paid.
Guest:It's just I'm doing someone a favor, but you don't have to say that.
Guest:And they were thrilled to have a publicist in their midst.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:so months later I was hired by Electra it was another magazine I got fired from called Hollow Blue which became Circus I always got fired I got fired from everything so you had to deal with Jim a lot
Marc:Jim Morrison.
Marc:Yes, I know.
Guest:Bird strikes thunder and lightning.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:He was really great the first time.
Guest:I said, hi, I'm your press agent.
Guest:They were rehearsing in the morning for their show at Undeeds that night.
Guest:And I said, I'm your press agent.
Guest:I would like to interview you one at a time.
Guest:Come and sit with me.
Guest:And he told me about who he was and what he did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:okay and went back to a lecture and i said oh i'm really glad to be working with these people and i think they have a hit with life my fire yes but guess what what it was seven minutes long that's recorded by paul rothschild and is on the first album and they said oh it's seven minutes long as i just said it can't be hit you know it can't be on the radio unless you're three minutes long and i said oh and they said besides we just released
Guest:i'll break on through yeah that light my fire what a song that is and i was not the first person to say that yeah but i was the first person outside the company who came in there and said hello i think you have a hit there but it's too long do something uh or not yeah you know what do i know yeah
Guest:And they remembered that I was the first person outside the company who came and said, hey, I'm a hit.
Guest:And would you like to start a publicity department for us?
Guest:Because it was a hit.
Guest:Yeah, the week I started there was number three headed to number one.
Marc:At seven minutes or did they trim it?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Oh, I'm sorry.
Guest:Oh, in the interim.
Guest:Of course, they responded to the pressure that was growing to, hey, that's what a catchy tune.
Guest:And cut it to three minutes, and then it started zooming up the charts.
Guest:Yeah, and was Jim mad about that?
Guest:I think who can get mad about having the number one.
Guest:He got mad when I started intruding.
Guest:Remembering who I had been as editor of a teeny bopper magazine.
Guest:Establishing, creating, promoting in the style of 16 Magazine and Gloria Stavers.
Guest:teen idols yeah there he was yeah it was oh there was a teen idol and that picture of him uh joel brodke picture sort of shirtless with a thin string of beads and we knew this was it and that went into the village voice and here's a new teen idol and we all worked on it from different directions the record went to number one yeah super group and
Guest:what is called a career single you know what we in those days right that was like more than just a hit right it was like a hit that made you yeah you know it was such a good hit such a good song and uh yeah what was the tension between you two wow okay i went to see them backstage in san francisco and and i thought i was such a
Guest:i thought oh these girls around jim morrison this will never do yeah for my new teenage idol yeah i must do something about this so uh i was in la staying at the tropicana rest in peace yeah and
Guest:Nico and Edie Sedgwick were staying at the castle at 2630 Glentower.
Guest:Do you know what that is?
Guest:Across the street from the Frank Lloyd Wright house.
Guest:It's where rock and ball band stayed.
Guest:And Nico said, oh, we are so afraid here.
Guest:Come and stay with us.
Guest:So I did.
Guest:And I said, oh, Jim, why don't you come up and visit my friends Nico and Edie Sedgwick, whom I knew of.
Guest:You know, there are different versions of this.
Guest:I saw the movie called The Doors by Oliver Stone.
Guest:I can only remember what I remember.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Am I looking for witnesses?
Guest:Do I need them?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, follow my car.
Guest:I'm going to drive up, you know, and you're so mean.
Guest:That's when I saw it.
Guest:It's hard to drive in Los Angeles for a New Yorker.
Guest:To begin with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's hard to drive when you have told Jim Morrison to follow my car into the hills.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Trust me.
Guest:I think he ducked between cars.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To confound me.
Guest:This guy was like sunset towards Vermont.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Drive, make a lift.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:and it was i was oh it was tormenting yeah he was tormenting me for interfering with his girl life his groupie life yeah by insisting but there i had set him up with glorious day was there i was
Guest:So I brought him up there.
Guest:And there were some drugs going around in those days that people had.
Guest:And I think he got really stoned.
Guest:And he met Nico.
Guest:And they didn't say a word to each other.
Guest:They stood and stared at the same place on the floor.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Can you imagine for a really long time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Someone goes, Jesus Christ, I'm going to go do something else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to play solitaire.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And they had a tumultuous night of fighting and shrieking and tearing of hair and naked walks around the parapets and help, he's going to kill me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was, I learned.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he hated me from then on.
Guest:And also what I did was, now look, I was working with his record company.
Guest:They were paying for me to be there.
Guest:He was so high.
Guest:He consumed, I don't think I'm the first person in the world who said that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He had an astonishing capacity for anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That the hand and that gesture that says more.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He looks at the bottle and consumes more.
Yeah.
Guest:what if he got killed driving at fucking Glendower?
Guest:I'd lose my job.
Guest:So I took the keys out of his ignition and parked in the driveway, his little car that he lived in.
Guest:And he put them under the floor mat.
Guest:I didn't steal his car or anything.
Guest:This made it kind of difficult for him to get away in his condition.
Guest:And there were no phones there.
Guest:We're lucky there was electricity and running water.
Guest:And so, in effect, he was kidnapped.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Prevented from leaving until things got better.
Guest:And, of course, he never forgave me for that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's enough, isn't it?
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:One night, yeah.
Guest:To a store?
Guest:Jim Morrison?
Guest:What?
Guest:I took his...
Guest:You set him up with Nico and then hid his car keys?
Guest:Yeah, and it's Los Angeles.
Guest:You hide someone's car keys?
Guest:Come on, what is the... Sure, you deserve it.
Guest:That's a sin.
Marc:It's bad.
Marc:But the doors really got you in tight with the record company.
Marc:You were the guy.
Marc:For a little while for a little while so what now the way that I understand it what you did for rock and roll outside of You know make teenage girls like Jim Morrison was bring us the MC5 and the stooges Yeah, well you have to do more than one thing at once.
Guest:It's like you should have more than one job
Marc:But that to me is like the greatest story, though, like this idea that you get a two-for-one in Detroit or wherever the hell you went.
Guest:I know, in one weekend.
Guest:Isn't that wonderful?
Guest:Well, how did you get hip to them?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:The people who, okay, they had played, this is July, it's a 68, and they had played at the extremely riotous Democratic convention in Chicago.
Marc:Both of them?
Marc:Or just the MC5?
Guest:The MC5, yeah, I'm sorry.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, they were the White Panther Party, and there was a lot of political thing behind them.
Guest:Yeah, but at first, I knew of them through Dennis Frohley and Bob Rudnick, who had brought me to WFMU, who had cocaine karma, and were politically active.
Guest:As, of course, we all were politically active to our own individual degrees.
Guest:So I went out to see the MC5, and...
Guest:But first, I started to receive, they put me on their list.
Guest:I was impressed.
Guest:Everything was printed and in color, and there was a lot of propaganda and a lot of promotion.
Guest:They had a mission.
Guest:A mission.
Guest:They had a printing press in the basement that not only had a mission, they had a printing press.
Marc:And that was, what's his name?
Marc:John Sinclair?
Guest:John Sinclair.
Marc:His influence.
Guest:Lenny Sinclair.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Were conscious of...
Guest:expansive, confrontational, political, they worshiped the Black Panthers.
Guest:They called themselves the White Panthers.
Guest:And they had their own band.
Guest:It was like Andy having a band.
Guest:We're a political party and we need a band.
Guest:Everyone needs a band.
Guest:Well, it was the late 60s, too.
Guest:It was the late 60s.
Guest:Music meant something.
Guest:Music meant something, and politics meant something.
Guest:It was all, until now, it was the only thing that ever got everybody together was that war.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That hated, hated, hated war in Vietnam.
Guest:And so one participated in all, anything that attacked.
Guest:the fact that this country was a part of that.
Guest:And they certainly were, but they were primarily a rock and roll band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People who went to hear them went to hear rock and roll and went to see people in set and spinning around and Wayne Kramer being fabulous and Robin Tyner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then the Prelude, Brothers and Sisters.
Guest:It was kind of like a prayer meeting.
Guest:Sonic Smith.
Guest:Yeah, Fred Smith.
Guest:Darn Dennis Thompson.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:Raw rock and roll.
Guest:It was real Midwestern rock and roll.
Marc:From the tradition of Mitch Ryder.
Guest:Yeah, and Grand Funk Railroad.
Guest:And it was going to become stadium rock in the hands of Grand Funk Railroad, especially.
Guest:But it was.
Marc:Leader Bob Seger.
Guest:It was.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was there.
Guest:Ted Nugent would be sitting on the floor of the, you know.
Guest:Of the MC5.
Guest:No, on the floor of the garage of the MC5.
Guest:They would all be hanging out.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We're all hanging out together.
Guest:And the Stooges, too.
Guest:And the Stooges, okay, the Stooges came about because they come about.
Guest:I mean, they existed.
Guest:Wayne Kramer said to me, say, if you liked us on one weekend, September in 1968, if you liked us, you're really going to love our little brother band.
Guest:Something he knew about my taste was kind of weird and offbeat.
Guest:It's Wayne Kramer.
Guest:How could he not know smarter things than most of us know?
Guest:And so I said, well, I'd love to see them.
Guest:I have to go back to New York tomorrow.
Guest:He said, oh, they're playing across the street at the Student Union of the University of Michigan.
Guest:uh-huh in ann arbor yeah and so i went across the street and then heard first heard because i heard them filling the halls of the uh this the building yeah then i saw iggy and then i went oh and and the next morning i and i said i said iggy walked past me and i said well do you have a manager i'm from electro records he said he's back there at point they kept walking
Guest:yeah he said he thought i was some dirty old man who was hitting on yeah because no one from a record company could sure possibly what were you doing there yeah yeah uh being interested in them so i called jack holtzman the president of electra that morning i said yeah i just saw two great bands this weekend you gotta sign them they were feeling very expansive and expanding
Guest:It was more like it in the wake of the Great Doors hits.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, they had become a rock and roll company.
Guest:They used to be a folk company?
Guest:They were folk rock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, they were classic and inventive and songs of Bulgaria.
Guest:You know, they weren't happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, hmm...
Guest:I said, oh, the big one is MC5, and they draw a lot of people.
Guest:They're really successful.
Guest:And I said, well, the little one is kind of starting, and they're a little farther out.
Guest:He said, hmm, and you really like them.
Guest:He's on the phone, and John Sinclair, the manager of the MC5, and Jimmy Silver, the manager of the Stooges, are in the kitchen of the MC5 house in Ann Arbor.
Guest:And Jack said, hmm, see if the big band will take $20,000 to sign.
Guest:see if the little one will take five yeah i put my hand over the mouthpiece remember there were phones yeah and it's 11 o'clock in the morning yeah and when you take 20 000 it was first of all it was a lot more than yeah sure it's a lot yeah um but they'd never heard and then 5 000 for the stewardess and yes and they were signed boom
Guest:And then just, wow, and then it got so hard as the 70s moved along, you know, doing the legal and financial aspects of a record deal.
Guest:Anyhow, I soon got fired.
Guest:The MC5 got fired.
Guest:The studios got fired.
Guest:We made a little history there.
Marc:But you did the first two records.
Marc:I mean, they each did their first record.
Marc:They each did their first record.
Marc:The Stooges did their first two records.
Marc:Which fell on deaf ears for the most part, or no?
Guest:Well, it didn't fall on massive ears, but it fell on Lenny.
Guest:The Stooges fell on Lenny K.
Guest:'s ears, for example, who wrote an incredible review in, I think, Fusion.
Guest:So when someone said, oh, there's that Lenny K., I said, oh, oh, you're the greatest person who ever lived.
Marc:And that had power then.
Marc:Yeah, one good.
Guest:Yeah, but it wasn't just the one.
Marc:It was a few, but let's just say Lenny K. Because I didn't get hip to this dude just until years later.
Marc:And it was like, you know, when you listen to him, you realize that if it weren't for them, so many things wouldn't have happened.
Guest:yeah but then i mean they were so my god they were so unformed yeah and so pure yeah energy yeah nuclear thing that you can't find you haven't found something with enough lead yeah to hold it in yeah it's really it's hot yeah and yeah and i'm glad you think so it just seemed to set the stage for what became the next phase of your you know musical interest
Guest:Yes, but not with a big label.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What happened is what always happens.
Guest:There are talented people gathering around...
Guest:a nexus of more than a movement.
Guest:It's a place where it is permissible to be creative.
Guest:And there was such a scene in New York in the wake of the Velvet Underground.
Guest:And of course, the New York Dolls were hugely, greatly, wonderfully important then in the early 70s.
Guest:And it was a way of being expressive and wonderful and creative and smart and glamorous and good records and good songs.
Marc:Always good songs.
Marc:You know, like you said that, you know, the Velvet Underground had set the stage for stuff and, you know, Andy had and the Stooges had come to New York a couple of times and Bowie had come.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, and there was this crew of bands and musicians centered around the Lower East Side.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That we're all doing unique and interesting stuff, interesting takes on rock and roll.
Guest:It had not much to do.
Guest:One didn't come because there was another, which the implication there would be it sounded like something that was part of something.
Guest:It did not.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, that's the good thing.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:It sounded what these people called the talking heads.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, these people called...
Guest:The New York Dolls.
Guest:The Heartbreakers.
Guest:The Ramones.
Guest:The Heartbreakers, yes.
Guest:You said the Heartbreakers.
Guest:Yeah, I said the Heartbreakers.
Guest:And Blondie was having commercial success, very unlike what others were doing.
Guest:But it became a big sloppy old family.
Guest:Television.
Guest:And at its heart is CBGBs, which is a room that God has blessed with the greatest acoustics that anyone had ever heard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:anything sounds great there if you're great to begin with you sound cosmic cubed yeah so when you so when you were there and you were saw you were you know um you were at a table
Marc:Where were the tables?
Guest:At Max's and at CB's?
Guest:Yeah, tables downstairs at Max's.
Guest:That was a universe unto itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Upstairs, bands played.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a different universe.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was more people who come to hear a band.
Guest:And downstairs were people who came to hear and see each other.
Marc:Well, and at that time who were at the tables like Lou and Patti Smith?
Guest:Yeah, but just this morning I was watching the news and there was this real star looking newscaster and I said to Brandon, Brandon told him, my director, who's that?
Guest:I think Shriver.
Guest:I said, fuck, he's a Kennedy.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:He's like a news star.
Guest:He's a star.
Guest:He's the son of Sergeant Shriver.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And this story has a punchline.
Guest:And Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who was his sister of Bobby and Jack.
Guest:And one night, he came into Max's, I think, with Jermaine Greer.
Guest:And I was with Jackie Curtis, who was a...
Guest:trans, such a new, neo-sexual creation of her very own.
Guest:It's her very own.
Guest:And I could say, ah, Sergeant Driver, this is Jackie Curtis.
Guest:This is the president's, Kennedy's brother-in-law who started the Peace Corps.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And you could do that.
Guest:That would be a table at Max's.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So it definitely...
Guest:I mean, they had Kennedy's.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:Drag queen.
Guest:They had Germaine Greer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And drag queens.
Guest:And the Warhols, of course.
Guest:And bands.
Guest:And then it'd be a long table.
Guest:And then it would be Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janice.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Max is downstairs.
Guest:Upstairs, bands play.
Marc:Well, it's interesting because at that time in the early 70s, so all these bands from the 60s were still around and there was the new thing.
Marc:So it was that second wave of rock mythology all coming together and then creating that third wave, which is the Ramones and that crew.
Guest:yeah but i'm inventing waves yes i know and but communal in the sense that we came from each other the members of the band that would become the ramones would come to new york to manhattan from forest hills a simple subway ride to see the new york dolls we're getting all this publicity and drawing all these audiences are getting a record deal and we're supposed to be so good
Guest:And they said, wow, what are we worried about?
Guest:Why do we have to worry about being good?
Guest:Because they're just great.
Guest:They went to great without bothering to be good.
Guest:And we see why there's stars.
Guest:Look at that guy's hair.
Guest:Look at that audience.
Guest:That's the coolest kids ever.
Guest:Listen to that song.
Marc:So, okay, so the Dolls were the center of it.
Guest:Yeah, the center, and it was the scene.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The coolest people would go to one place one night a week, one night a month, and this was all New York.
Guest:Early middle 70s, the Dolls broke up in 74, and Seabees started to be a place where the owner said, oh, sure, you can play here.
Guest:Yes, Hilly Crystal.
Guest:Only original material.
Guest:no copy bands and he was a country western singer at one point and a very great and wonderful person with a room with the best acoustics in the world anyone ever heard and of course bands wanted to play there and then it became a mecca and all that but back then with the core bands it was just everyone sounded good and
Guest:Do you know, but apropos of what you said, there were record company people who would say, oh, that neighborhood, the Bowery, I can't go there.
Guest:It's not safe.
Guest:I just told you I could walk there from where I live.
Guest:And you could walk anywhere.
Guest:But if they said that,
Guest:you're right here is a fear cowardice that's going to keep you back and it's going to those guys look what they're missing they could have signed all these bands seymour stein wasn't afraid to go yeah you know a lot of people weren't afraid but a lot of people were
Guest:Seymour was Sire.
Guest:Television.
Guest:Was Sire?
Guest:Yes, Sire.
Guest:And how could we... Yeah, Tom Verlaine, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Of course, which was Richard Hill.
Guest:I mean, okay.
Guest:Oh, and Richard Hill, Boyd Oates, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, Richard Lloyd.
Guest:I mean, the original television and Billy Fickle.
Guest:They were, what a great band.
Guest:Oh, my God, yeah.
Guest:Oh, they're great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were just there all the time.
Guest:I'm so different.
Guest:I'm there.
Guest:And the people, yes.
Guest:And you became a voracious fan of great geniuses who were forming a very, very different musical conglomeration.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when was the first time you saw the Ramones?
Guest:The first time I saw the Ramones was in 75 years.
Guest:at their annoying insistence and behest and leave me alone.
Guest:Who's on the phone?
Guest:It's one of them again.
Guest:They want you to come and see them.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:I had a column there and I wrote a Weekly Rocket Roll column.
Guest:The Soho Weekly News was kind of an alternative.
Guest:Everything was alternative.
Guest:And I was writing about television and Patti Smith.
Guest:Come and see them.
Guest:And the Ramones wanted to be included in those columns.
Guest:And they were really after me.
Guest:I was also the editor of 16 Magazine.
Guest:Still?
Guest:So I mean, I recycled.
Guest:Now I'm back.
Guest:I went back and picked up that part of my life on another level and became the co-editor-in-chief of it.
Guest:We were doing the Bay City Rollers then.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So during the day, I was Bay City Rollers.
Guest:And at night.
Guest:You were with Patti Smith.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I went to see the Ramones.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:I want to see you.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Just don't have to stop calling.
Guest:I'll go see them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were so great.
Guest:I mean, 10 seconds into the first thing and I said, they're perfect.
Guest:They look perfect.
Guest:The songs are perfect.
Guest:They're loud and fast and they're strong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the first song I heard was, I don't want to go down to the basement.
Guest:And I thought, that's a song?
Guest:That's a song.
Guest:What a sentiment.
Guest:What on earth?
Guest:Beyond comics and that arch sensibility, I don't want to go down to the basement, and that's a song.
Guest:Boom.
Guest:And the whole set was 14 minutes long, and I thought, hooray.
Guest:This is so good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I met them afterwards.
Guest:They said, so will you write about us in your column?
Guest:And I said, I think I'm going to manage you guys.
Guest:Something came over me.
Guest:And Johnny looked at me.
Guest:He was so smart.
Guest:We need $3,000 for drums.
Guest:Can you come up with $3,000?
Guest:Then maybe we can be our manager.
Guest:So, okay.
Guest:I flew to Florida to see my widowed mother and said, Ma, I need $3,000.
Guest:It's just sort of the best band I ever saw.
Guest:So thanks to my mother, my mom's got their set.
Guest:That's a lot of money for a set of drums in 1975.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:$3,000.
Guest:I don't either.
Guest:It seems like a lot.
Guest:But who cares?
Guest:And we were off and running.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:And how long were you with them?
Guest:Five years.
Guest:It was a contract.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you hooked them up with Sire?
Marc:Or who did it for a stiff?
Guest:They were kind of known to Sire.
Guest:And then my best friend had become Linda Stein, who was married to Seymour Stein.
Guest:From Sire.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I brought her to see them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's a real rock and roll person.
Guest:A real rock and roll gal.
Guest:Seymour knew it.
Guest:We all knew it.
Guest:And she's raving about this.
Guest:So we did...
Guest:and audition for Seymour Stein.
Guest:And he signed them on the spot.
Guest:I want to audition.
Guest:That's all it took.
Guest:And the first album for $6,400.
Guest:Okay, and
Guest:The rest is history.
Guest:You know, as I'm finding out, as I keep going back to London now, it's the 40th anniversary of that happening.
Guest:Going to England, and it meant so much to people.
Guest:They did something, they changed a great deal.
Guest:I think even 40 years is not long enough to know what it was they did.
Guest:They changed music.
Guest:They changed the music.
Guest:They changed so much.
Marc:And the Heartbreakers, too.
Marc:The Heartbreakers tour to London, I heard, was a powerful shift.
Guest:Yes, it was, but I wasn't there for that, so you'll have to have Johnny Thunders.
Marc:Sure, we'll get a Ouija board and get them right down.
Marc:So wonderful.
Marc:But yeah, so when the Ramones went to England, it was like, what the...
Marc:This is it.
Guest:Yeah, and they did something that was commercially very significant.
Guest:Many bands were forming then.
Guest:It was kind of a, what do you say, a plasma of extremely gifted people in this stew in London.
Guest:And they had their own concerns, and they had their own politics, and they were very strong, and the people were very strongly powerful and talented.
Guest:But no one would hire them.
Guest:And then these four people from New York came for three days.
Guest:And there was such a word of mouth sensation.
Guest:I think New York had an exotic, oh, it's an interesting place.
Guest:It's full of poets and it's very sexy.
Guest:It's Linda saying that.
Guest:But we can't get jobs.
Guest:Because... Were you talking about like the clash?
Marc:Yeah, especially the clash.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:And the Ramones played and thousands of people came to see them on July 4th, 1976.
Guest:200 years.
Guest:Ironically, the Revolution 8th War that America would get us out of this England thing.
Guest:And here we are back in England and beginning what, in retrospect, turns out to have been a revolutionary...
Guest:period and one of the things that would make this kind of music if one would call it that sort of do-it-yourself music um became commercially viable people said oh they i'm one of these bands can be at my club or we can have a little festival leads or something yeah
Guest:And that can be seen as a watershed moment.
Guest:I mean, also, Grant, it was the pistols, of course, and their greatness, of course.
Guest:Let's call it a one-two punch.
Guest:I don't want to get into where it needed to belong.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:Well, you changed it.
Marc:You facilitated the big shift.
Guest:Yeah, but you didn't know you were doing it then because I went back this past summer, 2016.
Guest:I actually spoke at the British Library, you know, and was interviewed by Barney Hoskins, who was so brilliant, who does Rock's Back Pages, which you must know about and will, everybody.
Guest:And in front of an audience, the British Library, this is the one that's like...
Guest:libraries of the great libraries in the world, wanting to talk about 40 years ago in London.
Guest:And the more you talked about it, the more I talked about it, the more I asked about it, the more perspective I was adding to it.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:Like most of a lifetime had gone.
Guest:And it just shows that sometimes you have to get so far from something to look and see what it was and what happened.
Guest:Most people said to me, what was London like when you got there?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:We got there.
Guest:We were there for three days.
Guest:And what happened after you left?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:People tell me.
Guest:I have to ask what happened in the wake of this ignition.
Guest:that the Ramones sparked in London.
Guest:And so they made history and they changed the world.
Guest:And after five years, they fired me because they weren't selling records.
Guest:And I kind of knew they weren't going to sell records, but they were millionaires at the time.
Guest:They were all gone.
Marc:They did all right.
Marc:they did quite well yeah i remember one time uh i saw joey and his father eating soup at vaselka you know like face to face at a two at a two top table yeah and i just saw the profiles it was so cute you knew that was his real biological father it looked just like him wow
Marc:Maybe it was you.
Marc:Didn't he hang out with his father ever?
Guest:I think I met him in passing.
Guest:His mother was a great friend of everyone.
Guest:She was very wonderful.
Guest:Maybe I'm projecting.
Guest:It could have been you.
Guest:Did you ever have soup with Joey at Viselka?
Guest:Joey?
Guest:I was kind of shy of Joey.
Guest:He was so smart and sarcastic and shrewd and I was kind of afraid of being left alone with Joey.
Guest:But Johnny and Dee Dee and Tommy
Guest:but no problem oh yeah but joey was ethereal and so smart um and here's the irony so they lived they lived for they changed the world now there's a book there's a fiction book called ramon ramon as if as if they had been brothers as if they were a family yeah which i'm giving you a copy yeah i'm excited
Guest:is unbelievably brilliant this is the conceit that they really were a family of brothers and that there was an oldest brother who was a classical composer and the ramones stole his great innovative symphonies and to be avid made their historic first four albums which we are so also proud of yeah and also you got to get me the photo book
Guest:And I'll get you the photo book, and you got to read.
Guest:Jamon Ramon is not published.
Guest:I mean, can I say the word Amazon?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:It's like nothing.
Guest:And it's a book.
Guest:It's a book of words.
Guest:It's not a song.
Guest:It's not a haircut.
Guest:It's not leather.
Guest:It's just a book that lies there, and the words come and just strike you hard.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I'm in.
Guest:I'm sold.
Guest:Exploding.
Guest:I'm excited about it.
Guest:Damone Ramone.
Guest:That's his name.
Guest:They were drug smugglers in the book.
Guest:I'm first made on their ship called the Havana Banana.
Guest:I was smuggling drugs between Rockaway Beach and the coast of South America.
Marc:Oh, that sounds funny.
Marc:I know.
Guest:It's very funny and wonderful.
Guest:Do you listen to any music?
Guest:Beethoven.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He was good.
Guest:I can't say he said it all, but he said more than I will ever be able to comprehend in this lifetime.
Guest:I would say that without sounding pretentious, but yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Thank you for talking.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:This was funny.
Marc:Okay, that's it.
Marc:We did it.
Marc:We pulled through.
Marc:We got it.
Marc:Find your key.
Marc:I can't play guitar right now because my fingers hurt because I played a bunch yesterday when I was playing acoustic, and the tips of my fingers actually hurt.
Marc:I know a lot of you are disappointed, and you're like, hey, man, you've got to push through.
Marc:Next time.
Marc:Next time.
Marc:I have to go, you know, try to exercise so I don't die.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Boomer Lives!
Boomer Lives!