No Introduction Necessary: Juliana Hatfield
For Alternative Press Magazine

Back in 1992, Juliana Hatfield was depressed: The Blake Babies, the band she'd started with Freda Boner and John Strohm in the late 1980s had split, and she was saying things like: "I was terrified because I had no band anymore." But she forged forward with a gritty-yet-jangly solo sound, a whisper-soft voice and a talent for sending lyrical kicks to the goolies, and became the darling of the easy-to-digest "grrrl" movement with 1992's Hey Babe. Atlantic Records swooped in, releasing 1993's Become What You Are and 1995's Only Everything in 1995, but lost interest when the musical (and financial) winds shifted. Hatfield clawed free and released 1997's low-key Bed. Today she's back on familiar ground, on an indie label, with a new Blake Babies record on the way, a release with a titular band, Juliana's Pony, and a solo record, Beautiful Creature. By 2000, Hatfield has become what she always has been.

AP: It's only been 3 years since your last record, Bed, but since it didn't have the major label (Atlantic) it seemed like it's been longer.
Juliana Hatfield: Bed was more for my benefit than anything else. My whole career up to that point seemed to be leading to a point, then all of a sudden it hit a brick wall. I got stalled for three years making a record, and it not coming out, and then trying to legally get out of my contract.

AP: But Bed wasn't the record you fought with Atlantic to get, right?
Hatfield: No, there's a whole other record that never came out, called Godfoot. It's sitting in their vault somewhere. I could buy it back, but I can't afford to. Music is the main thing in my life, and when it's hijacked like that, and when I'm made to feel completely powerless, it's really bad in an intense way.

AP: You started out with the Blake Babies on small labels like Chew-bud, UK Utility and Mammoth in the late '80s and early '90s, and here you are again, on Zoe/Rounder. It's full circle.
Hatfield: Now everyone's getting dropped, and the little labels are getting dropped. It's weird, it's horrible, but it's exciting working in the music industry right now and not being a really mainstream kind of artist. Everything's changing so fast and I wonder what's going to happen next.

AP: Did you not hope that by this point in your career you'd have at least some work security, though?
Hatfield: I'm sure that unconsciously I did. I never would have admitted it, even to myself. But now I know that you can't ever have security in this business. But I never thought I was the thing that was going to appeal to millions, so I never lived as if I was going to be a huge thing. I never had a lush lifestyle.

AP: Well, there is that secret fleet of Rolls Royces....
Hatfield: That's funny. If I think realistically, I think I could have a big hit song someday, but it would be a fluke. But I think it could happen, because I like my songs. And I like a lot of really commercial stuff.

AP: Such as?
Hatfield: The latest Verve Pipe album, the new Faith Hill record. I was really into the first Wilson Phillips album, back when grunge was really happening. My friend Evan Dando actually turned me on to Wilson Phillips. He and I totally loved it, but all of our friends laughed. They couldn't see past the outside of it, past the melodic, harmonic prettiness of it. I've always been a sucker for that kind of thing.

AP: It seems that as you get older, and hit a certain age, maybe you don't care as much what people think about your tastes, anyway.
Hatfield: Yeah, after a certain age you can't care as much about being cool any more. I know people who try so hard to have cool, hip tastes, and they think they're discerning, but they're really closed-minded. It takes nerve to have an opinion and express it. When you're 22, you don't have that. You have residual high school fear.

AP: With the new records - what's the difference your solo Beautiful Creature, and the Juliana's Pony record?
Hatfield: They're two different, distinct sides of my personality. The Beautiful Creature album is the sensitive, vulnerable side that keeps allowing itself to be hurt but yet can always find hope, optimism. And then the Pony is the misanthropic, cynical, unforgiving other side.

AP: And is the Pony a reference to your fleet of thoroughbreds, to go with the Rolls Royces?
Hatfield: [Laughs] It brings up feelings of ... fun and mischief to me. And there's the whole thing about a girl on a horse, and the sexual side of it. That just felt perverse to me. That's how the album felt: Fun, but also sick and twisted.

AP: So the Blake Babies album you made - have you all reunited permanently?
Hatfield: That can't be a full time thing now: Freda lives in Indiana with two kids, and John is in Alabama, so it would be hard for all of us to commit to it for a long period. Plus, we feel like we never actually broke up, we just took 8 or 9 years to make a next record.

AP: What's been the hardest thing about sticking it out in this business?
Hatfield: The hardest thing has been to not pay attention to what people say and write about me. I want to know what people say and think about me, but so many people have so many horrible things to say. I take it less and less personally every year.

AP: What's the one thing people misunderstand about you?
Hatfield: There are so many different things. If I was understood by everyone and accepted by everyone, it would definitely be depressing. I'd feel like I was doing something wrong if everyone loved me.

Records Of Choice

Blake Babies
Sunburn
Mammoth (1990)
It's too bad the Babies couldn't make it last: their last full-fledged release was a real eye-opener to where they could have gone. Spare, fresh and oh-so-young sounding, they mapped out a route by which indie pop bands could only approximate later on with songs like "Star," even when Hatfield didn't hit all of the high notes.

Juliana Hatfield
Hey Babe
Mammoth (1992)
For a first solo record, Hey Babe is truly transcendent, even in the cracked places (and there's an Evan Dando appearance, too). "Everybody Loves Me But You," and "I See You," though no one realized it, was as good as Hatfield had ever been. More produced that the Babies, more exuberant, more clever, Hatfield was more confident and ripe for plucking by the majors, which happened with....

Juliana Hatfield Three
Become What You Are
Mammoth/Atlantic (1993)
....her first major-label release, which still does her justice, although it teeters on borderline slickness thanks to too many fingers in the pot. Songs like "Feelin' Massachusetts" and "For The Birds," proved she still had plenty to say, and the additional prominence of Todd Phillips and Dean Fisher (and production by Scott Litt) leant a heavier bottom line that balanced Hatfield's sometimes strained vocals nicely. Still, the Hey Babe Hatfield would have kicked the ass of anyone who insisted this was her best work.

Air fans are going to just have to live without ever hearing the French electronic pop duo's latest composition played live. That is, unless they happened to recently attend the Sundance Film Festival or in Los Angeles's American Legion Hall. There, Air, (comprised of J.B. Dunckel and Nicolas Godin, and backed up by five other musicians) played their soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's new film, The Virgin Suicides in its entirety ... and after that, they say they'll never play it again. "We wanted to do a unique concert," says Godin. "After we played it, we forgot it. That's it." And with that, they're already on to their third album, the follow-up to the surprise success of 1998's Moon Safari. Godin says fans should expect something different there, too: "It'll be less shy, and more modern. Very different from our last record. Very high-tech." And very different from many of the records Godin chose as the ones that shaped his life....

First record you bought
David Bowie, Let's Dance
"It's not a good album, but it was the first one I bought because I loved "China Girl." Later, I discovered later that Iggy Pop did the original -- and I prefer the original. After this, I bought Bowie's early stuff, and that led to Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground.

Record that reminds you of school
The Buggles, "Video Killed The Radio Star."
It was a big hit in France, and one day we were in music lessons and we discovered the chords to the song. So it was very important to me to discover that pop music had melodies and chords and everything that classical music contains.

Song you fell in love to
Porque de Vas, interpreted by Janet (Jeanette?)
It was a big hit in France in the 70s, and it came from a soundtrack. It was a girl of 14 years old singing this classical love song with some horns, and it was fantastic, very sensual. I fell in love with her because of her voice.

What's your heartbreak song?
Everybody's Got To Learn Sometimes, The Korgies
When we were young it was the favorite slow song for everybody. It was the song where girls were expected to invite boys to slow dance, and we called that moment the American moment.

Record for the greatest summer in your life
Pornography, The Cure
I remember one summer with some friends, we were in this big house in the south of France, and sometimes we were smoking pot, and listening to that kind of music, like Pornography. And I like the experimental way of this record.

Record that inspired you to form a band
Raw Power, The Stooges.
I love the look of Iggy Pop. When he's onstage, he likes to offer himself to the audience. You feel like he could commit suicide onstage for you. He gives everything of his mind and body to the audience.

Record that would be "your song" at your wedding
"Nearer To You My God," Johann Sebastian Bach
In the audience at my wedding there would be a lot of Catholic, traditional people, and I don't want dance music at my wedding, I want something that's very traditional.

What's your "guilty pleasure" record?
L'Homme A La Tete De Chou, by Serge Gainsbourg
It's because it's like a modern sex poetry, really, some sort of 70s work jam, and I like it a lot.

What's your favorite album cover?
Never Mind The Bollocks, The Sex Pistols
Because of the design. It's so simple. It's like the beginning of trashy art, so that's important.

Short Profiles of Robin Williams and Barry Levinson
For Comedy Special Issue, Hollywood Reporter

Robin Williams

When Robin Williams, as the story goes, auditioned before Happy Days producer Garry Marshall, he was asked to sit down. Williams stuck his head in the seat, and won the role of Mork from Ork because, as Marshall later noted, he was the only alien who auditioned.

There has always been a sense of otherworldlyness about Williams and his uniquely frenetic comedic sense of anarchy, a juiced-up improvisational leaning that led Entertainment Weekly to dub him the "Tasmanian devil of comedy." Few actors of this generation have demonstrated a wilder stream-of-consciousness imagination or versatility, whether playing a dowdy nanny in 1993's Mrs. Doubtfire or a cynical psychiatrist in 1997's Good Will Hunting. But Williams has always seemed most at home when let loose to play versions of himself, and the films which give him that room to breathe, such as 1992's animated Aladdin or 1987's Good Morning, Vietnam, have often proven to be his most enduring.

Born in Chicago in 1952, Williams studied acting under John Houseman at Julliard, but after Houseman told him he was wasting his time, Williams packed up his things and hit the stand-up circuit, where he honed his timing and style. The recurring role of Mork on Happy Days turned into a spin-off series that lasted four years - and gave Williams a chance to work with his self-proclaimed mentor, Jonathan Winters. "It was the most fun I ever had," recalls Winters, who became a fan of Williams'. "Robin is one of the brightest guys on the scene. I hadn't seen a guy like this in all the years I'd been in the business, with a mind like his and that rapier wit. I was convinced he'd go ahead."

Which he did. Never allowing himself to be permanently cast in the Orkan red suit, Williams hasn't stopped working in films since the early 80s. He's had his clunkers: the thankless Popeye from 1980, 1986's Club Paradise, but over the years has proven he can pick not only great comedies, but play subtler, less-frenetic roles in films like 1989's Dead Poets Society. And he keeps chugging along: 1999 brought no less than three movies, and he has both The Interpreter and Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot on the docket for this year. For now, he can claim four Grammy Awards, two Emmys, and a Golden Globe award, though after two nominations, he's still waiting for an elusive Oscar.

Not that it probably matters to an alien. Even Winters agrees there are things about Williams the average man just can't know: "I don't know what his battery unit is like, but he's wired to something that's way past Mars."

Philosopher Jacques Lacan once noted that the best image to sum up the unconscious is Baltimore in the early morning, but over the last two decades native son Barry Levinson has had more to do with America's conscious and unconscious images of the conflicted Maryland harbor city. Ever since his directorial debut in 1982 with Diner, through his collaboration with Tom Fontana on the Homicide: Life On The Streets, and including this year's Liberty Heights, Levinson has been largely responsible for explaining what made Charm City so charming in the first place.

Not, of course, that Levinson has never restricted himself to filmic commentary on his home town. He first got his feet wet in Los Angeles, studying acting, improv and general production at the Oxford Company, and in 1967 found his forte writing comedy, becoming a scribe for such TV shows as The Carol Burnett Show, where he won two Emmys. A stint with Mel Brooks resulted in scripting jobs for 1976's Silent Movie and 1977's High Anxiety. After co-writing 1979's ....And Justice For All with then-wife Valerie Curtin (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award; Diner and 1990's Avalon would also be nominated), however, he found a license to pursue the muse of his hometown when MGM bought his script for Diner. As writer, director and producer, Levinson wrapped the film for under $5 million. Ever since then, Levinson has mixed his duties behind the camera, generating a body of work from 1984's The Natural to 1988's Rain Man and 1997's almost shockingly prescient Wag The Dog that is at once highly-personal (even when not based in Baltimore), warmly funny and yet always about something. This year he has no less than four films in the works: The Perfect Storm, An Everlasting Piece, The Incredible Mr. Limpet and television's The Path to War. In February, Levinson and Fontana will again team up to produce another television police drama called The Beat.
In the end, Levinson may be one of Hollywood's last old-fashioned true filmmakers, willing to pursue his heart while still telling a sharp, witting, clever story. He's clearly touched some nerves, based on the way Homicide fans have reacted to the tragic cancellation of one of television's best dramas - they're still rallying to have it revived. Even 30 years after leaving Baltimore to go West, Levinson's still got a deft touch and eye for the collective unconscious of his home town. As he once said, "It gets harder and harder to make movies about human beings. These movies are like an endangered species." For Levinson, the only films worth making are the ones about the people in them.

Tracks Of My Years
Suicide Machines Interview with Jason Navarro
For Alternative Press Magazine
 

When asked to talk about the song he'd like played at his funeral, Jason Navarro gets a little, well, spooked. "I don't want to think about dying," he begs off. An interesting twist, since the speed-punk-meets-ska-and-metal combo he's lead singer or happens to be called Suicide Machines. (The rest of the quartet are rounded out by guitarist/vocalist Dan Lukacinsky, bassist/vocalist Royce Nunley, and newcomer drummer Ryan Vandeberghe.) But Navarro insists their name just comes from an affinity for the work Jack Kevorkian has been doing. Not that the songs on Suicide Machines' latest self-titled album (or the two which precede it) are much about death and destruction. They let the guitars emote that for them. "There is always that potential there, to be suicidal," says Navarro, "but most of our songs are very against it. We're more like, come on, hold on, hang in there, it's not worth it, things are going to turn out. There's that potential to be insane, but use that insanity towards driving you to succeed at things." With that in mind, here's a list of the albums that drove Navarro to the contained madness he harnesses today.

First record you can remember/first record you bought

Blondie's "AutoAmerican" and Rick James's "Fire It Up." I bought both of them the same day. There were in the "Best Buy" bin, so I could afford two.

Song you fell in love to

John Lee Hooker's "I'm In The Mood." It had to do with me and my wife. But ... to know more, you'd have to listen to the song. It's pretty intimate.

What's your heartbreak song?

Most of the stuff by The Cure pretty much depresses me. Anything off of Pornography is particularly depressing. I don't want to give any girl out there the satisfaction that she broke my heart. The only girl I'm worried about now is my wife.

Record for the greatest summer in your life

Judge, "Bringin' It Down." I listened to that record every day the year it came out. I had fond memories of going skating and then going to that show with one of my best friends, who is dead now, and having the best time and going skating after late at night.

Record for a night of debauchery

I'm not a criminal any more, nor do I drink or do drugs and I'm also married, so debauchery is definitely out of the question. If I were to go out and fuck shit up the soundtrack would probably be Slayer's "Reign In Blood."

Record that inspired you to form a band

Operation Ivy "Energy" and most of the Bad Brains records. Operation Ivy and Bad Brains were fresh when I heard them. A band like Operation Ivy -- who have their fair share of silly songs -- also address personal and social issues. That was pretty cool, they had both sides to everything. I was really into the Bad Brains because back in the early 80s, in Detroit there was a lot of Nazis. I hated it. So it was really nice to see a band of all black guys. And they were totally accepted, it was beautiful.

Record guaranteed to clear the tour bus

I just got Atari Teenage Riot, Burn Burn Burn and I can't wait to test that out on the guys in the van - we tour in a van -- and see what happens.

Midnight on New Year's Eve, 1999 -- what was on the HiFi?

My wife and I made a tape compilation that had Janis Joplin, Beatles, Doors, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Grand Funk, CCR, Cat Stevens, John Denver and a whole bunch of other oldies classics.

Record that was "your song" at your wedding

We played Sam Cooke's "You Send Me" for our first dance, and my wife played Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" for me.

What's your "guilty pleasure" record?

The Meatmen's "Blood Sausage" and "We're The Meatmen, You Suck" LP. I'm pretty -- not into the whole offend-you music type stuff, and I usually speak out against stuff like that. But this record is so homophobic, it's just gross, but I love it.

What's your favorite album cover?

I have two picks for this question. Sad to say, both bands are now defunct. The first one is the band Dead and Gone "God Loves Everyone But You" and the second is a band from Michigan called Current and the title is "Current is Four." The cover was embossed. It was pretty excellent, how they did that.

Q&A with bassist and vocalist Mick Quinn from Supergrass
(Other Supergrass members include: guitarist/vocalist Gaz Coombes, drummer Danny Goffey)
Used to introduce a review of the band's third album for Alternative Press

Why choose "Pumping On Your Stereo" for the first single?
That's the one that jumps out and says "single" on it. It doesn't really represent the mood of the album, which we always really like -- putting out stuff that is misleading in a way. It keeps people on their toes. It's an airhead song, but it's worthwhile to let yourself do that occasionally, just so you can enjoy yourself. We really enjoy playing it live, because you don't have to put a hell of a lot of thought into it, you can just enjoy it.

Aren't you a little sick of it? The single and album both came out in England around this time last year!
Well, things tend to get released in the states later for us so that we've got time to tour Europe and other places, but it's just been longer because of the record company switch [from Capitol to Island/DefJam]. We weren't getting along with the record company we were on before, and Island/Def Jam are a bit more vibrant.

How did you try to make Supergrass different from your other two records, Maybe I Should Coco (1995) and In It For The Money (1997)?
It was a lot easier to make this record, having had the experience of the other two. We just spent longer writing songs this time, and had the album pretty much finished before we went in to record it, which made a big difference in terms of it being relaxed.

You've got a harder guitar sound and seem to be playing up the retro/glam melodies here. Were you trying to make it sound less "British" than your other records?
I don't really understand it when people put a nationality on to records. I never listen to a record and think, That sounds French.

Of course, if they're singing in French....
Yeah, if you're listening to the accent of the lead vocalist. I don't think there's an inherent British sound or an inherent American sound. I don't think guitars have accents.

Why self-title your third release?
We just ran out of stupid titles. We always put ourselves under this ridiculous pressure for an album title, and we never have one until ten minutes before it's going for manufacture. But it's not a definitive album, and it's not really supposed to be titled at all -- it's supposed to have no title, but the record company said they wouldn't be allowed to do it for legal reasons.

How do you try to avoid not getting lost in the shuffle of all the new bands who try to make it big in America?
I really don't know. Most of the time we don't compare ourselves to other bands. For us, music isn't a competition, it should be about expressing yourself. Everybody is pretty much an individual, so if you're honest with yourself and express yourself, then you are going to stand out. We never went looking for it -- we just went out and played gigs and saw what happened. If we hadn't had huge success we'd still have stuck together and played little gigs here and there and just did it for the sheer hell of it.

Tahiti 80 Interview
For Alternative Press

Tahiti 80 have a lot going for them: They're French; they've got a debut album, Puzzle, with snazzy anime-inspired cover art; and, oh, yeah, they're not a Stereolab or Air rip-off. "I hope we will prove that France is not only good at making electronic music," asserts the lead singer for the foursome, Xavier Boyer. (Tahiti 80 may also have the unique distinction of proving that someone named 'Xavier' can front a pop band.) Boyer's breathy vocals (a la Ian Brown of the Stone Roses) infuse pop-psychedelic songs about shallow show biz types ("Mr. Davies"), self-empowerment (the Beatles-nod "Revolution 80") and swoony love ("Yellow Butterfly") that are so light and airy you expect the CD to go floating off your table. They've also got a nice pedigree for a band who got their name from a T-shirt: thanks are given on Puzzle are the talents of Fountains of Wayne's/Ivy's Adam Schlessinger, songwriter Eric Matthews and indie legend Lloyd Cole. The band, who also include guitarist Mederic Gontier, drummer Sylvain Marchand and bassist Pedro Resende got together in the mid 1990s ("the love of pop music brought us together," says Boyer), following the template not of famous French pop singers, but English and American 1960s bands like the Byrds and Zombies and The Left Banke. "That was the best period for pop music," asserts Boyer. "Those bands wrote incredible tunes and were at the same time trying to make really advanced sounding records." Isolated in France, Boyer says they aren't too aware of the buzz surrounding their debut, but popularity isn't what drives them, in the end. "I don't know precisely why we're still playing music," he admits, "it's stupid. But I guess we're still having fun."

What does it mean to have an album with your name on it finally out there?
It's going to be exciting walking in the store and seeing my CD there. I've dreamt about it for so long, and never knew when it was going to happen. That's going to be exciting, walking in and getting my CD. We worked so hard on this album, for so long -- a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into putting this album together. It's definitely one of my goals. I'm looking forward to the next one, and hope to have a bunch of them. To me, it means expression -- it's fun to have a CD on someone's coffee table or in their CD player. Because that's real, people buying your Cd and listening to it is the real outcome of making music, more so than being on TV or in magazines -- having someone buy your CD is what it all comes down to. It's like being on stage. It's real.

Have you toured?
About 25 dates, about 20 of them in the states, a bunch of cities. It's been awesome. I've got 8 people on stage, including me. Touring is something I really love. That's really the dream for me, almost more than having a CD in stores. There are 12 people on the bus with me, and as soon as I got on the bus and sat down, I thought, this is my dream come true. My dream was always to be on a bus, reading a book, heading to the next city. And it's as good as I thought it was going to be. I love being on the road. That's what I wanted to do, more than even making CDs. I'm a total nomad, I'm such a wanderer.

Where are you based now?
I'm based in Canada, in Toronto, where my parents are from. I'm not home that much any more, but I have lived in Toronto for the last 3 years. I'm in Toronto right now.

For people who don't know how your Portuguese roots affect your music, how do you explain it?
It's always affected me, since I was little. Even at age 4, I was singing in Portuguese even before I was singing in English. So when I was little, I was hearing the songs, and the festivals at church, so you're already open to music sung in a different language, and different sounds and instrumentation. So my ears were already open. And listening to mainstream music also affected me. Growing up in Canada I was friends with a lot of other first generation Canadians, I grew up being in tune to Indian music and Latin music, so I always had my ears wide open. Also going on trips to Portugal as a kid, very open minded and all the rock and hip hop and influences from when I was 12 and listening to all the urban stuff. But my record, I think, is very affected by the Brazilian music I discovered about three years ago.

Is there a difference between Portugal and Brazilian music?
Certainly. There's a different style, but they're all intertwined and connect in one way or the other. There's the language, certainly, but there's a sense of melancholy you get from Brazilian music -- it's a romantic sense. Brazilian I discovered when I was in England visiting a friend when I was 18, and I heard a bossanova mix. And right away I knew I was connected to it -- it was Portuguese, and the instrumentation was so heavy, so diverse. And that's what I love, and what you hear on my record, everything from a Portuguese guitarra, to vibraphone and percussion -- it's very diverse. I'm always exploring new instruments. I don't like the typical stuff. I like searching for different stuff.

Do you play instruments yourself?
I play guitar on one song, I write a lot of songs on guitar, but one of my producers, Brian is a guitar player so I leave those duties up to him or we hire a session musician. My album is a very musical album, and I'm not about to play the instruments just because I want to. The music comes first, and I want to get the best person to play on the record. I play keyboards, I programmed some of the stuff.

Favorite song?
Shit on the Radio. That's the actual name, we had to censor it. Because it's kind of like my independent, empowering song. It's about individualism, and I wrote it and it came like out of the sky, just came all in one thought. It's kind of a symbol of what I'm doing -- it's about making pop music and what that means, putting yourself out on a limb. When you don't fit into one cool genre -- I used to be in a trip hop group, so that was one thing, and you knew what it was, and now I'm just Nelly. And it's like having the confidence to do that. I also like Party, because that's another one of those moments where everything came together all at once.

Who is the one musician you're hoping eventually gets to hear of what you're making? Would you like to work with them?
I just found out that David Byrne showed up at my New York show. He must have found out about me somehow! I thought that was really exciting. I already know right away I'm going to get a lot of listeners who listen to world music, and jazz, because it's such a musical record. I've always wanted to do something with Noel Gallagher, write a song with him or do a duet. Oasis were one of the first rockin’ bands I really listened to when I was growing up, and I love his style of songwriting.

Contributions to The Hollywood Reporter's Anniversary Issue
"A Day In The Life of Entertainment"

The Adobe Theater Company Rehearsal of "Orpheus & Eurydice"
6:00pm - 6:47pm
64 Wooster Street, New York, NY

Trudge up six flights of steep steps (the elevator's busted) and head through a door marked "SoHo Think Tank: Research & Development," and several questions come to mind: Why is that man on the floor pushing a box? Why is that other man flailing away on a bar stool? And why is that other man laughing his head off? But answers come fast enough – the spare space (a sink, some stray furniture and a table) is home to The Adobe Theater Company's rehearsal of their 23rd production, the comedy Orpheus & Eurydice. And they're putting their back into it. Literally. Director, scriptwriter and founding Adobian Jeremy Dobrish stops laughing long enough to call out direction from behind a dinner-and-paper-littered table, while Adam Smith (Tantalus) "swims" atop a bar stool and Jeremy Brisiel (Sisyphus) hunches over and groans behind a cardboard box, pushing for all he's worth. He is Sisyphus, after all. True to form, the Adobe players are mixing the surreal with the sublime, classical forms with absurdist humor — such as when Vin Knight's Homelessius (clearly a lesser-known Greek god) shuffles in, looking for spare change, then shouts in anguish to the gods because he never has enough drachmas. Just watching them is exhausting. They work through Scene 9 several times, turning up the volume (and the sweat, on Brisiel's part) with every run through — as Tantalus swims along, desperate for a drink, Sisyphus is rolling his "rock" up the infernal hill and promises him that in a minute, he'll help his buddy something to quench his thirst. After a second or third run-through, Dobrish and Brisiel discuss the finer points of how slowly that "rock" is supposed to be moving ("one inch every hour," Dobrish advises), then the director takes a minute to work with Knight on the ideal way in which Homelessius should hold his begging cup. Actors and directors satisfied, it's time for yet another run through — number four, five and six in an evening that will last four hours. With opening night just eight days away, trying to hone all the details into a sharp, witty production, is a lot like the challenge of Sisyphus — they just keep pushing the rock up the hill one more time.
 

The Who/The Wallflowers/UnAmerican 2000 Tour
7:30pm - 12:02am
Madison Square Garden, 2 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY

So, man, it's the Who concert – the Who, man! – and guess what raucous good time is being had in the backstage of Madison Square Garden while first opening act UnAmerican (British guitar boys doing a clever imitation of American roots rock) blast through a Neil Young cover? Yeah, that's right, man – in the hospitality suite, backstage at the Who concert there's a gaggle of beautiful young people swilling bottled water, tossing down cheese Goldfish and ... watching the first Presidential debates. Whoa. It's rock and/or roll in the year 2000, and the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be. In the new millennium, she's all about marketing, which is why just before UnAmerican depart the stage for the groupies and Goldfish which no doubt await them, they have one message for the partially-filled venue of potential fans: "We'll be selling and signing our CDs over at Gate 65 ten minutes after the show." Party on, dude! Meanwhile, a brisk twenty minutes later the unabashedly clever marketing scheme continues as The Wallflowers slouch on the stage – here he is, kids, Bob Dylan's son Jakob covering David Bowie's "Heroes." Dylan The Younger has a serious, intent stare and barely says a word to the crowd during his band's brief set, but they cover the expected hit ("6th Avenue Heartache") to the screams of twenty-somethings: "JakobYou'reSoGorgeous!" Which, it's probably safe to say, is a sentiment Papa didn't have to contend with much. With the appetizers done, it's time for the main course. But before that, a word from our sponsor: To keep the audience in that "classic" rock vibe, the Garden cheerfully pumps out Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In the Wall, Part II" and Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower." (It's not a good Dylan night all around.) The lights dim at precisely 9:40 and the front row crowd surges forward against the barrier, two 16-year old girls from New Jersey throwing their arms up for a band whose last top 40 hit charted before they were born but whose presence has to be an ego trip of sorts for the band, and, then hey, man, it's the Who, bursting into "I Can't Explain" as through over 30 years haven't passed. With no new CDs to sign at Gate 65 afterwards, and no comparisons to anybody's father (hell, they're the daddies here, and they've brought along Ringo Starr's kid Zak Starkey to hit the double-bass skins a la Keith Moon), the Who are a hit machine, running through "Won't Get Fooled Again" "Squeeze Box" and "You Better You Bet" with an unceasing enthusiasm brought on by decades of doing what they do best. For over two-and-a-half hours, they swing microphones (Roger Daltrey, not looking a day over 40); reminisce and windmill (Pete Townshend, giving the crowd exactly what they want); and make magic (bassist John Entwistle spends ten electrifying minutes on a virtuoso bass solo, his fingers doing impossibly-light wizardry over the frets). In the process, they make a hell of a lot of noise – and as the old day turns into the new one, prove that rock and roll's old gray hairs are pretty goddamn close to what they used to be.

Everlast (Erik Schrody)
For Alternative Press

You're a guy named Erik Schrody but you call yourself Everlast; your first solo record after leaving your white boy hip-hop band House of Pain (Whitey Ford Sings The Blues) sold 3 million copies and got you a Grammy nom for "What It's Like" after it came out in 1998; you nearly shuffled off your mortal coil that same year due to a heart attack – so how do you feel about having your follow up (Eat At Whitey's) on the verge of release?

Tense as hell. "I want the first week over with," says Schrody. "I'm not about the first week." And no surprise there – Whitey Ford sold a bare 3,000 copies its first week and took six months to get into the top ten. "If I can repeat that, that's fine," he agrees. "We went out and toured our asses off, and I went to school in front of everybody – learning how to put together a band, and how to play in a band."

Eat At Whitey's promises more of the same success, although there's no immediate "What It's Like," which took everybody by surprise. There is, however, "Black Jesus," which tinkers with the semantics of how society labels individuals, and overall the record is bluesier, more aggressive, yet also more rhythmic and cerebral. "Rap can be confining," admits Schrody, who sings a fair amount this time around. "There are people who can get in there and give it emotional context. But most of the time it's just about pussy and money and getting high. I got nothing against any of those things ... but writing for songs the subject matter can vary a lot more. There are deeper things to talk about."

Recorded in the same location where Whitey Ford was primarily laid down – the basement studio of Manhattan's Westbeth Theater with Dante Ross producing and John Gamble engineering. "We've got our own little potion going on down there," says Schrody. "There's no couches or color TVs or Nintendo or vending machines – you don't wanna be down there if you're not going to work." Not that they were isolated or anything: Most of the 13 tracks on Eat At Whitey's have guests dropping in to lend a voice, including Carlos Santana (last year the two had recorded "Turn Your Lights On," the third single from Santana's Supernatural, and Schrody says he plays with Carlos frequently), classic soulster Merry Clayton and Cypress Hill's B-Real. "Some songs are more fun when you're doing them with somebody," shrugs Schrody.

And there's no question that Schrody is having the time of his life. He just turned 30, and there's no age crisis there for him: "Hell no!" he laughs. "This is cool. I'm ready for my 30s. I managed to survive this long, and I've got a pretty decent job. I can just feel things out and get them done right. I go to places, play my guitar, and go back to the hotel. For real."

But there is one small bone of contention in his otherwise pleasant setup, in which he will no doubt rack up a few million more sales. His record label forgot to ask permission to use House of Pain's "Jump Around" in a recent potato-chip TV ad, and Schrody was not happy with the sell-out. So, Everlast, is there anything else you want to say to your fans? "Yeah," he laughs. "Fuck Pringles."

Clearly, this is one item that won't be sold at Whitey's.

Coldplay
For Alternative Press

What's in a name? For Coldplay, an new earnest four piece from London, maybe not much. “Our friends band were called Coldplay for about a week,” explains guitarist Jonny Buckland (other Players include singer/pianist Chris Martin; bassist Guy Berryman; and drummer Will Champion -- all of whom are just about legal drinking age). “His band went through names every week, and we had a gig coming up in three days. We decided our name -- Starfish -- was rubbish, and told us we could have it.”

Speaking of names, here's another that often comes up when discussing Coldplay, whose first full-length album, Parachutes, sold 70,000 copies in its first week of release in England this summer: Radiohead. “We get that a lot,” sighs Buckland, who admits they love the band, but don't necessarily think the album sounds like the Kid A-ers. But it does, from Chris's oft-used falsetto to the melancholic, meandering, gentle tunes -- and doesn't: Radiohead were never this accessible or, well, pleasantly mellow. “It's just what were into,” explains Buckland. “We do like some punk records, but they tend to be the more melodic ones. Sometimes it's a bit too easy to stick on distortion or power chords. There are ways to be subtle.”

Fortunately, their career has so far been anything but subtle. The quartet (who hail from all over England, Wales and Scotland) formed while attending college in 1996, went through a series of names (re: Starfish) and released two EPs, Safety and The Blue Room in 1998 and 1999. The first got them signed; the second was a little more problematic. “The session didn't go very well,” admits Buckland. “It takes us a long time to find out how long a song should sound. And we go through a lot of different ways of doing things, so that always takes ages.”

Then, along came the inevitable first release -- and since Parachute, Coldplay have hardly looked back. They're big enough at home that when Buckland was struck down with a bad throat infection, it made the news (he's since recovered). They're slated to come to America to tour next Spring, but for now their goals are small. “We're hoping we just do something good,” says Buckland. “Make some good music. Doing something better than we've done before.”

Catherine Wheel
For Alternative Press

For the record, Catherine Wheel have officially not fallen off the face of the earth. Their cultish following knows this already – but dilettantes may need to be informed that the British foursome – now a trio – who first hit big in 1991 with "Black Metallic" are still very much alive and kicking. As proof, they now present their latest album, Wishville – the fifth studio concoction in a continuing series that lead singer/songwriter Rob Dickinson describes like this: "Ferment was our shoegazing record, Chrome was our reaction to being a shoegazing band, Happy Days was our heavy metal record, Adam and Eve was our concept record, and this is a reaction to all that."

It's certainly a reaction to something. At nine songs (none of which scrape much beyond four minutes), it's their shortest album to date, and has a genuine pop-friendly compactness that hearkens back to the pre-CD era of double-digit tracks, which Dickinson readily admits he misses. "My favorite albums only had eight or nine songs," he notes. "That was the discipline in the days of vinyl."

Length wasn't the only reaction – this time around, they tweaked their usual writing process, and used an enforced concept where, instead of penning their tunes as a band, they wrote independently, then came together with producer Tim Friese-Greene (who worked with the band on their first album in 1992) every three months and "have a brutal jukebox session," explains Dickinson The situation didn't work for original band member, bassist Dave Hawes, who departed. "He felt it was an odd way to be employed in making a record, and I could fully understand that."

But the band's biggest reaction to their past musical career came before they even went into the studio for Wishville – when their fourth record, Adam and Eve, was (as the band saw it) barely promoted by their longtime label Mercury, they knew it was time to make a break. "They were not there to support the album, and we made the ultimatum that if they didn't spend some much-needed money, we would leave," says Dickinson. "They said, 'Okay, go then.' And they thought they'd called our bluff – but we had a number of strategic alternatives!" Which eventually led them to Columbia, and the full support of that staff for Wishville. "Adam and Eve became very much our 'lost record' in America," says Dickinson. "I like that people can still discover it."

Meanwhile, Dickinson asserts, Wishville is also very much worth checking out. "We were very much of the opinion that the more records you make, the harder it gets to make records. There are certain things you can't do again, because it's going over old ground. Tim had all these ideas about how to make this record lean, and how to encourage a new vitality in it. I think we've done a damn good job."

And they didn't even have to fall off the edge of the earth to do it.
 

It's a little hard to know who's more eccentric: Jerri Blank in Comedy Central’s cult hit Strangers With Candy, or the woman who portrays her, Amy Sedaris. For those who haven't seen the show (and  this should be on your ‘To Do’ list, like, yesterday), Amy plays Jerri, a 40-something former druggie, prostitute, and general all-around trashy wench who's decided to finally attend the high school she ran away from as a teenager. To do that, Amy dons a “fatty” suit (which just gives her some extra pudge; Jerry's not fat), creates an overbite that would give a doctor heart palpitations, and wears clothes combinations only a 40-something could think were worthy of the ravages of high-school hipdom.

“Jerri was just a character I created with Paul [Dinello] and Stephen [Colbert],” explains Sedaris. Paul and Stephen appear on Strangers, too (and fans of The Daily Show know Colbert as a correspondent), but as more straight-up characters. Jerry's ... well, different. “I wanted her to have the hair of a female golfer and dress like I owned a snake,” she continues. “We all pitched in to create a monster.”

Monster or no, Jerri is often the most “normal” character on the show, which takes an “Afterschool Special” approach to teaching moral lessons. Jerri takes those lessons to heart (they're usually imparted by fellow teachers who always tell her to lock the door on her way out) -- and always gets them wrong. In the first episode, when one teacher told her to “go with what she knows” in order to make friends, Jerri whipped up a batch of drugs -- which the most popular gal in school promptly O.D.’ed on. It's a skewed, sick sense of humor that could only survive on cable, which makes Sedaris happy. “I don't see a network wanting an unattractive person to be the lead of a show,” she says. “Comedy Central lets you keep developing, the way old TV used to do.”

That Jerri is so odd looking, yet is the show's ostensible heroine, can take some getting used to, to Sedaris’s surprise. “She thinks she's pretty, and she dresses presentable. I like to see unattractive things try to be pretty.” Sedaris, in fact, bought the fatty suit even before the show was invented, and would wear it around for the fun of it. “I can be more sexual with a body like that,” she explains. “There are enough people who can play themselves and have great bodies -- I don't have what it takes to do that. But put me in a fatty suit, and I can get in any position.”

Which she certainly has. And in her off hours, when the show isn't taping, what does Amy Sedaris do to pass the time? She waitresses. “What else am I going to do at night?” she wonders. “People leave bigger tips when they recognize me.” She also makes cheese balls and cupcakes, which she sells to friends, reporters and the occasional fan. Really. And people eat them, despite the fact that Amy plays a woman who concocts killer drugs in a kitchen bowl. “So far, nobody's asked about that!” she laughs. “‘Oh, yeah, that's a rabbit hair.’ Nope, none of that.”

Independent Directors in NYC
For The Hollywood Reporter

Just as for residents New York City has never been just another place to live, for directors it has never been just another place to film. "You get the greatest set in the world when you film in New York," enthuses director Gary Winick (Molly Gunn), co-founder of Independent Film Channel-financed digital film company Independent Digital Entertainment (InDigEnt). That's twice as true for independent and guerrilla directors, who by selecting the landscape of New York to lend texture to their films, are finding better access to the streets, friendlier guilds and unions and a burgeoning infrastructure that's making the creation indie film features – and its up-and-coming sibling, digital video – easier and more attractive than ever before.

"You have access to incredible resources in New York," says Darren Aronofsky (Requiem For A Dream). "Anything you want is not an issue here. Personally, I'm a hometown boy, so it's exciting for me to go back to my neighborhoods. But come on, you're shooting in the Big Apple, and the place where your filming is also your lifestyle. When you finish for the day, you go home and you're still in New York City."

New York has that appeal to directors, who routinely rhapsodize about the pure energy of the place, the variegated colors and attitudes of the locals and who seem to appreciate more than anything else that New York is not L.A. "There's something about the lack of room here that is inspiring," says director Nancy Savoca (24 Hour Woman). "It spills out on to the street. In New York, you can get on a subway and you'll meet people who have nothing to do with you, and you have to coexist with that. Driving in your car and parking in a lot and talking to people about film is another life, and it's not terrible, but I like that most people could care less about what I'm doing."

Although enthusiasm for filming in New York has never truly died, insiders are noting that over the past decade, the toehold the independent scene got during the boom of low-budget success stories in the early 1990s has become a more firm foothold. "It's not the same city it was ten years ago," explains director Marc Levin (Brooklyn Babylon). "Indie houses like Shooting Gallery, Good Machine, Killer Films, us at Offline [Entertainment Group] – we've all grown up a little in terms of how you run a business, and now we're a more permanent part of the scene."

Part of what may be feeding that sense of permanence may be that although the independent film splash has faded to mere ripples these days, indie directors of documentaries and digital film are seeing growing attention being paid to their end of the business. "New York really supports and loves documentary filmmaking," says Lauren Lazin, Vice President of MTV News and Documentaries. "Whereas in L.A., you're always taking a back seat to fiction filmmaking. Plus, a lot of the cable companies are based here, and they house people who support documentary filmmaking. We refer pitches to one another, so if a project isn't right for us, I may call another VP at another station and suggest it to them."

And, Lazin points out, professional trade organizations such as the Association Of Independent Video and Filmmakers have existed since the early 1970s to help up and coming directors – and have as their base New York, not Los Angeles, and whose resources include a library of around 800 publications on independent film for new directors to reference. "L.A. is incredibly industry-driven, and it's this kind of machine that absorbs everyone," points out Elizabeth Peters, Executive Director of AIVF. "In New York there is more of a peer-to-peer network, where you can operate independently, with less monolithic resources to draw on. There's more of a viable low-budget, yet still commercially orientated infrastructure here."

The digital video element of the scene is still in its infancy, but as Winick explains, the medium is perfect for indie directors who have gotten their starts (like Aronofsky) working on the fly, without permits. "The creative advantages of digital filmmaking are many, and one of which is the spontaneity and flexibility to go into locations and change locations depending on the creative mood of the scene. In New York, those benefits are more obvious – the films I've made in 35 mm, you sneak into the subway, that's the best you can get. [With DV] you can sneak into Penn Station, restaurants, hotels ... and you look like a tourist, so nobody pays much attention to you."

Those new digital directors are precisely the people the Directors Guild is hoping to corral, and thanks to new program incentives like tiered pricing structures, they may just get their wish. "Over the past five years, the Director's Guild has made a very strong emphasis on extending low-budget contracts so that independent films may be done DGA," says DGA Eastern Executive Director Christina Lomolino. "The directors experimenting with digital films are small, but important."

And the efforts of the DGA to reach out aren't going without notice. "Our craft unions and guilds now see indies as collaborators, not obstacles," says Levin. "They realize they have an investment in this, too." Savoca concurs. "It was a lot harder a couple of years ago; now it's gotten better. All of that stuff is important, because when you're taking the alternate road, you're really looking for people to support you."

All of that said, Aronofsky, who has gone from guerrilla filmmaking with Pi, to a real budget on Requiem, to all out mega blockbuster with Batman: Year One, still recommends that if you want to make a film in New York city, none of the rules have to apply. "There's so much freaky stuff going on in New York that no one will notice you're making a movie," he offers. "But don't forget to bring your NYU sweatshirt ... so you can always tell anyone who might ask you're just a film student. Don't have any fear whatsoever, and you'll get what you want."

Stand Up New York
For The Hollywood Reporter

 Didja hear the one about the New York comedian? He went to what some consider the main breeding grounds of the American comedy scenes to make a splash, worked the underground scene, got himself a manager, had a hard time getting gigs in clubs his manager didn't own, tossed aside the experimental stuff and traded in stand-up for a developmental deal — and moved to Los Angeles.

It didn't happen, but then again, maybe it did. Depending on who you speak to in the business of making funny, however, New York's comedy scene is: vibrant, yet in a lull; taxed by the number of short-term comedians who only want a TV deal, yet miles better than what's happening on the Left Coast; suffering because club owners have gotten into the managing game, yet surviving because club owners are cultivating their own talent. The main players disagree — but nearly everyone acknowledges that New York is the land of opportunity. “In New York, there are eight full-time comedy clubs,” notes manager Barry Katz. “They're all in varying degree of levels, but those rooms are like swimming pools. You're getting your laps in; it doesn't matter where you're swimming.”

Getting a lap in at one of New York's pools can take some finessing, however. “There is no place on Earth like New York City,” says manager Peter Principato. “You can find anything from family to dark, edgy comedy. But you can't just get up on stage at one of the hottest clubs in prime time without earning your way to doing that. Club owners have very specific visions of what they want for their clubs.”

A new recruit to the scene isn't likely to first dive in at major venues like Caroline's, The Gotham Comedy Club or The Comedy Strip, venues which on a given night can host anyone from little-known local names to drop-ins like Jerry Seinfeld or George Carlin, so they work up routines on the “underground” circuit of places like Luna Lounge. “It's where people start out,” says Principato, “but the problem with those places is you don't get the feeling of playing in front of real audience, because you're performing in front of 20 other comics.”

Newcomer Sharon Jensen, who moved on from sketch and improv to stand-up nine months ago, adds that amateur night isn't much better. “Anyone can do amateur night, you just have to bring four to six people,” she explains. “And eventually you run out of friends!”

The next step, playing the bigger houses, involves a whole new set of obstacles. The boom of the early 1990s in comedy trickled off in the new decade, so club owners looked for other sources of income — and began managing comics. “Club owners have seen, over the years, major people pass through their doors who they helped develop,” explains agent Tom Ingegno. “And they never had a piece of it. So they said, 'I should get into management.' “

An understandable emotion, but one which screams conflict of interest. Even Katz, who has managed comics for as long as he's owned the Boston Comedy Club (in New York) — 12 years —agrees that the situation has gotten out of hand. “There are club owners where if someone has a great set and the owner offers to represent them — if you say you're already represented, you don't get on [stage] again. I tell my clients not to tell anyone I'm representing them.”

Gotham Comedy Club owner Chris Mazzilli is a rare owner who doesn't manage comics, and has made a point not to muddy the waters. “You start to compromise the stage,” he explains. “People will say 'Since you manage those acts, you give me two acts, I'll put them in my room and I'll give you two acts to put in your room.' You start to whore out the room with acts.”
 Not necessarily a uniquely-New York problem, but the end result is that the homegrown talent who fueled the last boom is simply interested in using stand-up as a launching pad for a TV or film career. “They all are [looking for development deals],” insists Paula Davis, who books for Late Night With Conan O'Brien. The negative? “Comics get 'invented' before they're ready. They don't have anything more than a good solid few minute set, because they were all trying to be the new Seinfeld.”

According to one veteran of New York's stand-up circuit, “The TV aspect [of the scene] inhibits people who are taking chances and favors cute comics over someone who's actually doing something interesting that might need a little development before they become a powerhouse act. The climate today would never support an Andy Kaufman.”
 If getting noticed in general is difficult, getting noticed as a female comedian is often twice as hard. “At least once a month I have to talk to each female comedian I have and remind them to be patient,” says agent Renee Glicker. “Men generally don't think women are funny. It's frustrating.” With television in the picture, that bias is even greater - since, as industry sources note, women have to be funny and visually appealing, while men just have to be funny.

The industry is slowly responding to the glut of new aspiring television comedians, as with NBC’s showcase setup in PSNBC, which opened this past January. After a performer or group pitches an idea to producer Lou Viola, the network provides the space and equipment for the performance — in front of network heads and others. “We book anything the network might want to consider for either casting or development. Mostly, it's comedy,” explains Viola. NBC retains the right to solely negotiate for 30 days, then to match any deal offered for 30 days after that. Adds Viola, “The shows that are the most successful on television are very centered around writers, and some of the most exciting new writers are coming from the New York stage.”

And stand-up is hardly the be-all and end-all of New York comedy, as other organizations attempt to engage the local comedy zeitgeist. Festivals don't make much of a dent in New York — even the Toyota Comedy Festival, which books unusual combinations of events but can't match up to Montreal or Aspen. “Every night in New York is a festival,” shrugs manager Dave Becky. “In other cities, the city all but shuts down, but in New York something really big has to happen before people suddenly stop and say, 'Can you feel it?' “

Against those odds, however, the New York Comedy Film Festival has entered its third year thanks to the support of honorary chairpersons like Ben Stiller, Nathan Lane and Janeane Garofalo. “It's a great surprise that the comedy community has rallied behind it,” grins executive producer Marc Isaacman. Additionally, new Internet comedy site Z.com has just opened offices in New York, where content producer Jeff Singer (who also books talent at the Luna Lounge) plans on opening up the alternative comedy vein on the web. “Anyone can become a star on this new medium,” he explains. “And the New York alternative scene has a very strong crop of writing talent.”

And not to be forgotten, Chicago transplant Upright Citizens Brigade have had a show on Comedy Central for three seasons, and currently run a Manhattan theater devoted to improv comedy, doing two to three shows per night, 7 days a week. “There's more opportunity here,” says UCB member Matt Besser of the choice to relocate. “But, there's also the chance that if you fail, someone important is going to write you off.”

So is the joke on New York's comedy scene? Can it be both rising to new heights and sinking to new depths all at the same time? There's no question that it is in a period of flux. And there's also no question that at least these days, pretty much everyone's in it for the money. “I don't think anyone wants to be doing this, night after night, for 20 years,” admits Besser. “Without question, people want to be on TV and the movies -  the stage is not their final destination. Zero comedians and improvisers make a living from just doing shows on stage.”

A truth that doesn't bother Gotham's Mazzilli, who just rolls with the punches - and adapts: He says he's currently finding crowds love theme shows, so he's introduced variety nights specifically geared to Latinos and Italians. “Purists say, 'I only want to do comedy,' “ he says. “And then there are those who say, 'Once I get a deal, I'm not doing comedy any more.' The bottom line is, so what? If that's what it takes, I don't have a problem with that. Stuff is still pretty much status quo.”
 

Denny: I’m a subscriber [to AP], and I just got the new one in the mail yesterday, and I saw a picture of us in an ad, and I was stoked! I started subscribing on the Warped tour, I signed up. That’s the weirdest thing, to open up a popular magazine, and
you’re in it.

AP: Tell me about the album.
Denny: Well, this was a band that started out as a more punk type band, Epitaph, 200 beats per minute was our kind of vibe, and
we hooked up with a producer, Jim Pratt, who thought that we sounded like a lot of other punk bands, and said, you know, I
think you’re a really strong songwriter and you’re trying so hard to be a punk, but your strengths lie in writing these really
catchy songs and cool riffs, and he just convinced me to try and make the song slower. He said, try writing a song at 120 bpm
and keep all the punk energy in it and keep that intensity, and everything and see what happens. And I did, and Jimmy Crack
Rock was the first song we did like that. He thought it was really good so we recorded it, and gave it to KROQ the station here
for the local show, and they made it pick of the month and the next day three record companies called us. And we’d been hitting
our head against the wall for three years doing the other stuff. So we just took the blinders off, stopped thinking we have to
write songs people can mosh to, and he just kind of said you’re more talented doing this, and if you want to make a living doing
music, do something different. So we started writing and started emphasizing my strengths and the strengths of Hadji Haynes,
who was an original member, and the sound came out of that. So it’s a mixture of rock and punk. I write the harmonies in the
band, and before I was afraid to have too much harmony in the same thing, and the producer took the blinders off, and he’s like
Dude, there’s nothing wrong with some harmony, as long as the songs are rocking. Nobody’s saying you’re jellyfish, you’re
cool.

AP: Major label?
Denny: Nah, not at all. Immortal’s like the coolest label you could possibly want to be on. They’ve been so supportive of their
bands, and Korn and Incubus weren’t really radio bands when they first signed, or in the mainstream of what they were doing. I
was wondering why Immortal would want to sign us, because we weren’t like their other bands, and they told me they were
looking for a band that was radio accessible.

AP: If you had a dream for this record, what would you want to have happen?
Denny: I would like it to recoup. I guess that’s not my dream. My dream is it would do well, and that we would do well at radio
and that we would be able to make a living at music and make a few more records. I don’t want to overstate it. If it does better
than that, great. I figure it has the potential to do very well, because we’re the first record in the Immortal/Virgin system, and
everyone at Immortal is trying to prove to everyone at Virgin how well they can do. And we’ve got a pretty good start at radio
with the first single, Bleed. A lot of bands get lost in the shuffle because their label doesn’t pay attention, but we have total
focus from Immortal and Virgin. We’re going out on tour with Goldfinger, leaving tomorrow.
 

AP: What should people anticipate for the record?
Guy (who is driving with his mother in the car during the conversation): It’s just going to be a fun party record for teenagers to put on the turntable when they’re having a party when their parents are out of town. It’s the kind of record I’d want to have on for a party. Like any Kiss record, any AC/DC record we used to put on the turntable and rock out all night to.

AP: Is that the spirit of the Toilet Boys -- fun, but loud rocking sound?
Guy: Yeah, basically we all don’t have any message to promote except to have fun. No political agenda. I’m actually sick of that, I’m sick of bands having really heavy political messages, because I think it should be entertainment. That’s fine, too, I don’t care one way or the other what a band wants to do, but for us it’s about having a fun time.

AP: Favorite song on the record?
Guy: A song called "Hollywood," and "Another Day In The Life." I like "Hollywood" because it’s one of our mellower songs, and I like the whole idea of Hollywood. It’s not like praising Hollywood, it’s more like talking about missing home. It’s like our prettiest song.

AP: Where are you from?
Guy: New York’s our home. Being from New York definitely gives you a harder edge than LA, because LA is so laid back and comfortable. The standard of living is so comfortable in Los Angeles.
 

AP: Wasn’t Tonight And The Rest Of My Life supposed to come out last August?
Nina Gordon: It was, and I finished it, and it was ready to come out, but then the whole Interscope merger thing got in the way of getting me a release date. My release date was pushed back and pushed back and I got really frustrated, so I asked to be let go and Warner Bros asked to have me. Warner Bros were so cool, it was exactly what I needed to hear: We love your record, and we need your record. So I’m very happy there. I was really afraid of the whole merger thing.

AP: What's it like, having your first solo record?
Gordon: It was really really gratifying. First of all, I was used to being in a band which was supposed to be a democracy, because it was two of us fronting the band and basically we made most of the decisions, and a lot of times we saw eye to eye and a lot of times we didn’t. And when we didn’t, we each had to compromise. And it works, but ultimately you’re diluting what your vision was to accommodate other people. So in a solo project you really get to fulfill your vision, which is a pretty satisfying feeling. Not that it was all me -- there were musicians playing, and I worked with bob Rock who had produced the last VS album with us, and I knew he and I did see eye-to-eye about things musical, so it really was in a lot of ways a collaboration. Not so much in terms of the songs, but in terms of the sounds. And he really did have a lot to do with the way the record sounds.

AP: Who did you work with?
Gordon: Mike from Letters to Cleo, Jon Brion who produced Fiona Apple’s records, and Aimee Mann’s record. He was amazing, we let him loose in the studio and he did a lot of amazing things (lists other people in the band who played). It was an opportunity to pick my favorite musicians, people I knew were great, great players. Just thinking Who would be the best person to play this part was incredible.

AP: Any particular songs you like?
Gordon: My personal favorite is a song called “Fade to Black.” Not a cover of the Metallica song -- it is an original! But it is just one of those songs that, as a songwriter, feels really good to me. When I sing it, it feels really good in my throat, it feels really good to sing it. I love the whole album, I love the way it turned out, and I want people to hear the whole album.

AP: Veruca Salt is over and done with, yes?
Gordon: Yes. That is a thing of the past.

AP: Any other thoughts?
Gordon: I’m so glad it’s coming out. It’s hard, it’s hard to give birth to a bunch of songs and keep them under wraps. It’s like not being able to go out and parade your baby around in a beautiful carriage. Having your child in quarantine or something. It’s really frustrating. So I’m excited to let loose.

The Sound of Money: When it comes to game show music, the more nerve-wracking the better
For The Hollywood Reporter

 It's there, but you might not even notice it at first. It's insidious, invisible and makes a viewer feel as anxious as the contestant in the hot seat who’s trying to win a stack of money. It's game show music, and on shows like Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, Greed and Twenty-One, literally, it is everywhere.

 “There are over 90 pieces of music that are used in the show,” declares Millionaire composer Keith Strachan, who wrote them all with son Matthew. By comparison, Twenty-One features a little over 30 individual pieces of music for as many cues, while Greed uses 8 separate pieces of music for 50 cues. “We had the idea that it should be really big and filmic in style, and that the music should be there almost all of the time, to create an atmosphere.”

 Game show music featured on today's most popular prime-time programs is a far cry from previous accompaniment, both in style and sheer content. “Very much like the sets themselves, the music reflects the times in game shows,” notes Jake Tauber, Executive Vice President of cable’s Game Show Network. “There's more music in movies and television today, so why should game shows be any different?”

 They aren't: Music is an omnipresent, dramatic force in the game shows of today, unlike the sporadic, carnival-like atmosphere of years past. “The minute you come up with a show where you're not just raising the game a little bit,” notes Millionaire's Matthew Strachan, “and you're changing everything to where someone could win a million dollars, the music has to change, too.”

 “Millionaire set the tone for the whole current game show thing,” says Greed composer Edgar Struebel. “Fox came to me and said, 'Look what they've done, it works, let's see if we can capture something similar to that.' The music had to be dramatic, edgy and over the top. The show is bigger than life, and the music has to reflect that.”

 When Twenty-One re-launched on NBC this year, it did so with a full orchestra, as the original program once had, but the expense forced the show to revert to pre-recorded musical cues. “The theatricality of having an orchestra would be a nice twist, we thought,” says Philip Gurin, who with Fred Silverman executive produces Twenty-One. “But part of the reason for doing a game show in prime time is to make sure your costs are low.” The replacement sound, said Gurin, had to be “phat,” so they asked  composer Scooter Pietsch to write the cues. “In prime time, you have to make something sound different,” says Gurin. “Between the music and the lights, we think we've given it more 'event theatricality.'"

 Game show music has come a long way. In TV broadcasting's youth, says Game Show Network's Tauber, “Game shows came out of radio. Music was not what it was all about.” Programs like Beat The Clock had merely a pre-recorded opening and closing theme, with no interior music. After that came the domination of organs, then full orchestras on shows like the original Twenty-One and You Bet Your Life. By the 1960s, Robert Israel and his company Score Productions had pioneered the use of “cue packages” which served as templates for then-modern versions of What's My Line and To Tell The Truth. A decade later, Moog synthesizers and electronic textures had added yet another layer to game show music, and by the 1980s, the pre-recorded music had settled in as the easiest, most versatile and cheapest method of music-making. Millionaire and its peers are merely the next step in the chain, creating a show where the absence of music is rare.

 But Millionaire nearly took a different path in its evolution — the theme song. “[Millionaire's creators at Celador] wanted a tune they could release as a single,” reveals Keith Strachan, “so they hired a pop songwriter to do it. But it didn't work. So they rang us up in a panic and said, 'Can you come rearrange this music, so it's more dramatic?' We had a week.” And no, Strachan won't reveal the name of the songwriter who didn't pass muster. “It's somebody fairly well known!”

 Regardless of its omnipresence, however, game show music is meant to be absorbed subconsciously. “Game show music is notoriously forgettable,” says Tauber. “When you hear the music from classic game shows, people recognize it immediately. But they can't hum it.”

 And for Greed's Struebel, the indicator of success comes not when he hears someone tell him he wrote a classic musical riff that played on the show, but when he hears about the physical reaction it generated. “When I hear people say, 'Boy, that music really puts you on the edge of your seat,' that's my litmus test. That's when I know I've done a good job.”

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