Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Ah, yes, re the Taylor vs Graham confusion -- Well, Larry Taylor was
still more influential to me because he's the guy I copied a lot and I
still find myself warming up on those old boogie riffs, tho I could
never do much slap-bass technique, and the sounds on those Sly Stone
records are so strangely, though wonderfully, mashed together, I doubt
I was able to sort the riffs out. Like I said, I had a tin ear for a
long time. 

No, Ed, I don't have a deal on the Overton Gang book though I should
probably force myself to adopt a deadline. I've had a hard time writing
up a proposal to try to sell the book because 1., I'm not very good at
that sort of thing and 2., I've been busy promoting & finishing up the
biz on Never the Same Again, and also researching the Overtons. I want
to explore a lot of angles to the Overtons and the sixties, and I'm
not sure where it's going to end up, so it's hard for me to express
that in a proposal. 

I think I've exercised my demons by writing Never the Same Again,
though I don't think I've fully exorcised them. That is, I seem to have
let them really run free for a while, until they settled down a bit, I
got to know more about them than before, and now they're still around
but not quite as menacing at the moment. So I guess I've learned a
little more about how to live with them. 

I don't have quite as much of the contradictory feelings about the
death penalty, and I don't think I would've arrived at that place
without writing through my various psychic dilemmas. 

I think about the trauma I've lived with for the last 20-something
years and how it's affected me, then I see the daily headlines lately
-- beheadings, war, genocide, etc. -- and I wonder what all this mass
trauma and super-publicized trauma is doing to everybody out there. It
scares me a little. 

Another way in which this experience has affected the way I look at
life is that I have a renewed appreciation for those intense years
between your teens and thirties. For a long time, that part of my life
was either a blur or the memories were suppressed because of my grief
or it was just too close to full appreciate. Now that I've been able to
go back with less pain, and to gain a little objectivity, I can better
appreciate the drama, the risks, the stupidity, the depth of
experience, etc., that you go through during those years. 

I'm thinking of high school and college, and young love, the early
experimentation with drugs and sex and rock n roll. I'm also thinking
of the promise and tragedies of the late sixties and early seventies,
too. These days are pretty eventful, but I don't know that they compare
to the roller coaster we were riding between Vietnam, the
assassinations, riots, marches, Great Society changes, the new
freedoms, and all that.

When I became able to think about those times again without freaking
out, it was very nice because those were great times, exciting times to
be alive. That extends to the latter part of the seventies and early
eighties, too. I'm proud of the things we accomplished and I value the
experiences we had, just like the so-called Greatest Generation feels
proud of the way they saved the world during WW2.

I guess I wound up coming back to a riff I've used a lot, but that's
how I feel, and I don't mind repeating it.
  

    
Very well put. 
  

    
Thanks. Even though I feel singularly inarticulate lately, and I'm not
sure why. Hope things go well with the NPR dude this afternoon. When
you only get a few minutes under the spotlight (or the audio byte),
it's gotta count. I know the game, I know you've gotta get your pitch
in, but it's hard sometimes.

Had a funny call yesterday. Somehow, perhaps through an off-hand
remark by Billy (the Skunks' drummer) that it might be a cool idea, we
ended up on the bill of a show here in Austin on July 11th called
LEGENDS OF AUSTIN ROCK, featuring Krackerjack, Van Wilks Band, Too
Smooth, and in error, the Skunks.

Now, I have always wanted the Skunks to be considered as one of
Austin's true legends. Don't get me wrong. But nobody thought to
consult me about this gig! The timing is bad, since we will just be
getting back from Paris a couple of days before, and I haven't been
able to get in touch with Jon Dee for weeks. He was in Europe with the
Resentments, and solo tours, then touring with John Hiatt, solo I
presume. 

Anyway, the NPR dude is here so I gotta go. Keep rockin and if you get
that new Hives CD before I do, send it to me right away! 
  

    
For those of you in the Austin area, I'll be appearing on the KLRU
program AUSTIN NOW on Friday at 12 noon & 9 PM, repeating Sunday June
27 at 5 PM.

Host Tom Spencer does the interview and it will also feature visuals
from the book & photos from the grand Skunks/Jesse Sublett photo
archive.
  

    
I forgot to mention, earlier, when we were talking about Larry Taylor
in Canned Heat, that Mark Andes was the original bassist in that band.
You probably knew this already, Ed, but I did not until a year or two
back when I was at Mark's house and saw the records on his walls. Damn,
that guy has been around!  I remembered seeing him in Spirit, yes, but
that was later, and of course I knew he was in Heart (though I somehow
dodged that particular medicine ball), and I have seen him play with
Jon Dee many, many times. Nice guy and a great player, but it's hard to
visualize him playing in a boogie band.

On the other hand, folks who know me probably don't think of me as
having boogie roots, either. 
  

    
Wow, I had no idea that Mark Andes had been in those other bands. I 
figured Spirit was it - and though it was one of my favorite bands 
recordingwise, I never saw Spirit play. 

Jesse, I'm wondering if you remember a band called The Water Brothers from 
the Vulcan daze?  They were a favorite of mine, had a lead singer with a 
large head and massive TEETH.

I'm also wondering if you have had a chance to play with Ike Ritter. I met
Ike through my buddy Sam Garrett; they had both played with the Bizarros,
and later played some gigs together as The Papaloti Brothers. Ike was in
dang near every Austin band back then... Shiva's, Hub City Movers, Ramon
Ramon and the Four Daddyos, El Molino, the Bizarros... and later he played
with Lucinda when she was here, and with Calvin Russell. He was also
incredibly funny.

Otherwise, I'm all out of serious questions. What I really want to do is 
direct...
  

    
Yes I liked the Water Brothers a lot, though I can't remember a thing
about them. Hip name for the time.

Never played with Ike Ritter, but I did see him in all those bands,
except for Lucinda & Calvin.

I wouldn't mind directing, but they gotta let me write the script,
too. I think I'm outta serious answers, too.
  

    
I take that back. I may have plenty of serious answers tomorrow.
Tonight, however, I'm probably done for. 

You knew, I assume, that Mark Andes plays with Barbara K, the female
1/2 of Timbuk3?
  

    
Didn't know that. Is she still in Austin?
  

    
Yup, but I believe Jesse, Lois, and Dashiell are on their way to
London for the first times in their lives. Bon voyage, y'all!
  

    
We're back. The trip was super-fine. Actually, Lois lived in London
for some months in 1977, but it was the first time across the pond for
Dashiell and I. Edinburgh was unreal. I kept thinking Avalon, as in
Bryan Ferry... It didn't hurt that I'd watched Quest for Arthur on
History Channel a couple of weeks ago. I could've spent another couple
of hours in Edinburgh Castle, but Lois & Dashiell have a much lower
tolerance for historical immersion than I do. We climbed Arthur's Seat,
the vocanic outcropping in the shape of a resting lion that is visible
from most of the city, as is the castle itself. And we walked and
walked, for 2 and half days, around the city, taking it in. They have
some nice coffee shops there, and some good pubs. London was swell. We
hit some of the main highlights, including Buckingham Palace, the
London Eye, Hampton Court Palace, Tower of London, and two Indian
restaurants in tiny Twickenham (out of 13) that served us the best
Indian food by far we've ever had. We had a pint of Guiness in the
White Swan with Nick Lowe, and drove down to Portsmouth to crawl around
the historic ships HMS Victory & Warrior, and saw the preserved hulk
of Mary Rose, then drove out to Petworth to the Bryan Ferry concert
only to learn at the gate that he had cancelled due to laryngitis!
Bummer. Paris was grand. We tried to balance Lois' need for shopping
with an attempt to hit some of the big historical sites -- Eiffel
Tower, a boat trip down the Seine, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and
Musee Picasso -- which was almost worth the trip by itself. 

I'm speechless, really. Maybe it'll all filter out and make sense in a
few weeks. Now we're back in SUV-land and it's hot and we're
jet-lagged. The cats missed us. Class of 78 is rehearsing for a gig at
Hole in the Wall on July 16, prior to my signing at Barnes & Noble
Arboretum on July 18.

While we were gone, there was an NPR show called Day to Day that ran a
pretty good story on me & the book by Steven Cuevas. You can download
the audiofile at

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3160007

cheers,
jesse
  

    
Sounds like a great trip. What's Nick Lowe up to?
  

    
Sheesh, Jesse, you took in a LOT in a short time. No wonder you're
speechless!
  

    
Nick has a new CD coming out and will tour in the fall. Fortunately
he'll play Austin at the Parish, formerly the Mercury, one of the
better sites on 6th street.  He's looking good, has a steady girl, and
seems quite happy. 

Another friend of Jake's we met at White Swan was Neil Purvis, who
wrote the last couple of James Bond films, and the upcoming one as
well. That was a thrill, meeting a James Bond connection. I'm not being
facetious, either. 

We were at Musee Picasso when Ed called to say he didn't think he'd be
able to make it for dinner. Regrets!  

Didn't have a lot of money left over to throw around on purchases, but
I did manage to find my number one item, a copy of the French
translation of James Ellroy's The Cold Six Thousand, which is retitled
American Death Trip. Pretty neat. The French always change the titles
-- well, almost always, it seems --  and some of their choices do seem
odd, though I do like ADT. Mike Connelly's Chasing the DIme was changed
to Darling Lili, but my favorite is one of Pelecanos' recent book,
published as THE FUNKY GUNS. !!! Shoulda got that one.
  

    
So many books, so little time!