So in the past few days I have managed to produce six of these little clips.

All the pictures are mine, and some were taken during the first three song rule that many venues allow photographers. Previously I was only able to squeeze a handful of shots out of these forays but a better camera (and perhaps a bit more skill) means that I can walk away with hundreds of shots.

You can still only squeeze out a handful of shots, but this format allows you to use everything available. If the shot is out of focus it’s gone soon enough.

There are two types here, those with an original soundtrack recorded on site and ones where I “borrowed” the recorded song for the soundtrack. These could get pulled down for copyright, which would be a bit stupid. Anyone willing to put one of these clips together does so out of affection for the artist. It’s good PR, and acts as the artist’s grass roots marketing arm, although not one they can control.

Richard Thompson’s “Wild Mountain Thyme” and Buddy Miller’s “All My Tears” were both recorded at Cayamo, the pictures are from the same afternoon but weren’t necessarily taken during those particular songs, as is the rule here.

Once I’d run out of Cayamo stuff I went to the archives and managed to create two more. The Roger Daltrey shots were taken during his 2009 solo tour while the Eric Burdon pictures were taken in 2011.

The last two use recorded versions. Miller’s “Worry Too Much” was my first try at this. Like any other technology, you learn pretty quickly about what works and what doesn’t and how to manipulate media, so I expect that each video I produce will be a bit better than the one before.

The last one, a rendering of Enter the Haggis’ “Down With The Ship,” changes the format by pairing the song with pictures of boats. It’s an obvious match, and a way for me to brag about where I live.
This has all been an accident, the results would have been quite different if I’d planned to use this format before the cruise. For one thing, I’d have captured the live version of “Worry Too Much,” which set the original (used here) on fire.

No telling whether this will become a serious hobby, or if I’ll only stay interested until the next squirrel rides by. This was a lot of fun for me and it goes both ways. Homemade videos offer fans an unvarnished, unofficial take on the objects of their attention.

Although most people won’t watch these videos (mine, yours or anyone else’s) more than once.

The presidential teleprompter went missing for a few hours last week, but reports that it was returned intact with no missing items or security breaches may have been premature. It now turns out that a jump drive containing several rough draft speeches and policy documents were lost, stolen or strayed with some items surfacing on random web sites.
Most of the documents are dry policy statements, except for a speech announcing a job switch between Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that by all indications is scheduled to be delivered by the end of the year.
The authenticity of this transcript is uncertain, it could be the work of some satirist. But if we don’t leak it someone else will.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening. When I assumed the presidency nearly three years ago I was convinced that we could solve our problems if everyone, from the richest to the poorest Americans, would work together. This hasn’t happened as I expected. We have not been able to recover from the stale economy and an unwillingness to compromise on key issues. It’s easy to blame the Republicans, or the Tea Party, but the truth is that Democrats have been as much to blame for the toxic political situation that is eating us alive today.
So as we enter the New Year, I am taking the occasion to reorganize my presidency with an eye toward facing our economic and social problems head on.
On January 1, Joe Biden will resign the office of the Vice President and I will appoint Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve out the remainder of his term.
At the same time, I will appoint Joe to the Secretary of State position, at which time he will channel his considerable experience both in the Senate and as Vice President to carry on the extraordinary work that Hillary has provided for the last three years.
I believe that with Hillary as Vice President we can better develop and articulate what is necessary to put the country back on its feet. She knows firsthand what it takes to run our great country, since leaving the White House she has served with distinction both in the Senate and as Secretary of State. She will be a key part of the team in the development of these new policies and then will take these messages to the people in a series of town hall meetings and listening sessions that will provide us a path toward understanding what we want and how we are going to get there. I expect she will become a powerful, influential Vice President, sort of a less malevolent, less controlling Dick Chaney. And her level headed approach will provide me with the adult supervision I often need when things get really intense.
It took many weeks of meetings between Joe, Hillary and myself to develop this plan. Hillary has no interest in becoming president and will retire from politics when I end my second term. She will always have my thanks for her support, and I am grateful that she doesn’t hold my snubbing her as a running mate in 2008 and not saying something like “you had your chance, Barry.”
Running for president has become a monumental task, especially when you are serving in the office. It is a full time job, evidenced by the fact that most of the Republican candidates can devote all their time to running a campaign. Joe Biden has indicated that he wants to be president, and has said he will resign as Secretary of State sometime in 2014 to begin his own full-time quest for the White House. He will spend those two years articulating his vision for America and acquainting himself with the American people.
He will have my support in his quest for the White House because Joe Biden will be a fine president unless he says or does something that makes me change my mind, or someone better comes along.
I expect that both these appointments will be approved immediately by the House and the Senate. There are several members of Congress who have outwardly pledged to oppose any of my policies on principle, with the sole purpose of removing me from office. You may not like my programs, policies or principles, if that’s the case you will have the opportunity to make those preferences known in November. In the meantime, give me my team.
I admit that I initially found the task of the presidency daunting and was unable to keep some of my promises. I had to set my sights a little lower which has disappointed some of my followers. I still aim to accomplish many of these things but now know my own limits. I know it would have been more helpful if I had known my own limits in 2006, when I had only spent two years in the Senate and people urged me to consider a run for the presidency. I could have waited another eight years and would have been fifteen years younger than Joe Biden is today.
So you have to admire Chris Christie. People were trying to push him into running for president and he said he wasn’t ready. Period, end of sentence.
My opponents will perceive this reorganization solely as a political move that is directly related to next year’s election, and that I will do anything to win.
I seek election to a second term, but not for myself. I believe in America, I believe we have the right stuff to recover our greatness and I want to be part of that effort. I believe in the same things as you—a fair day’s pay for an honest work, and pulling your fair share of the collective load. We have gotten off-track and the country is out of balance. I want to help regain our equilibrium, and I am streamlining my team to make the fourth quarter of my presidency a time when the country’s potential will re-emerge.
Everyone in America has a dog in this hunt, so I hope I can count on you to work together with us through the next year, past the election and into the future. And remember that I can’t do anything if you block me out of spite.
Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

One of the privileges of my generation is the opportunity to watch the once-mighty play small clubs, but seeing someone of Roger Daltrey’s stature didn’t seem possible. But it’s happening. In preparation for a flurry of activity by the Who in 2010, Daltrey is participating in a two-month jaunt where he promises to mine his own catalog for rare gems, and pull out Who songs that have not seen the light of day for some time. If the purpose is to get ready to grease the tracks for the big Who train, the most dedicated fans will have a chance to hang around the station for awhile.
After a long static period Daltrey and the Who are hardly over the hill. Three years ago they released Endless Wire, the rare occurrence of an old band making new music that actually matches the strength of their earlier efforts. On the side Daltrey has continued acting, such as an episode of CSI where he played a character that assumes four different disguises. And last year, The Who was honored at a Presidential ceremony at the Kennedy Center.
Not so long ago we didn’t really expect much more from The Who, aside from another victory lap. So it is nice to know there are still some surprises left.

Sonic Boomers: How are you preparing for the tour?

Roger Daltrey: I’m just sorting through material that I can represent, old solo stuff that I have never done live, and songs that the Who haven’t played for years. The idea is to get out there and sing, have some fun, and give people a good time during these miserable economic times. 


SB: Do you need to play certain songs that you don’t like, or that people will be disappointed to not hear? 

RD: There will always be people who will be disappointed, with a catalog like the Who. I want to do songs that the Who haven’t done in the last ten years, or if I do them it will be totally different, my version of what they should be. There is a lot that I haven’t done live, like from my last solo album (1992′s Rocks in the Head), which has four good rock songs that I want to play. With all this material it’s more like: “what do I leave out?” People will be disappointed that I won’t be doing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and I won’t. Or “My Generation.” If they shout loud enough it will be easy enough to slip them in, but artistically I want to do stuff that is more of a challenge. 


SB: What about playing in small clubs?

RD: I’m looking forward to the intimacy and talking to the audience, which is something that I don’t really do with the Who. There will be a change in the amount of energy, and ability to reach out and touch the back wall, if you like.

SB: What are you usually thinking onstage?
RD: When I’m onstage with the Who I am always trying to get my brain together for the next song. You live all these words, and play the song as if it were the first time. It takes me to a space where things come naturally and subconsciously, which is much better than having something planned out. I don’t think in a real sense. If I start thinking too much about it I lose my way. I forget the words. 


SB: Do you use teleprompters?

RD: No.


SB: You’ve played more guitar with the Who lately. Does that take away from your singing?

RD: No, it’s easier for the phrasing and the rhythm, if I am playing guitar. There are a lot of acoustic guitars on Who records, so it’s nice to put some of it back. I don’t swing the microphone as much, but the old eye and the old shoulder aren’t good for that kind of thing anymore. I’m a bit worried about missing it, and whacking someone.

SB: You and Pete were honored last year at the Kennedy Center, where George Bush read a tribute. What were you thinking, then?
RD: I was thinking “what the fuck am I doing here?” It was not a political event, and it was a not a place to drive in your politics. It was totally surreal. Everyone was very gracious. I just went for the party. It was great to have two days of people entertaining me rather than me having to entertain them. It was a wonderful event, especially with the history of the band over the last ten years, with John going. It’s been a hell of a roller coaster.

SB: But when he introduced you Bush didn’t seem to know who you were.
RD: It didn’t matter. That’s all personalities and politics. I don’t give a shit about that. It was nice to be honored by America, which I have a great affection for. With all those other people, Morgan Freeman, Barbara Streisand, Twyla Tharp, all who are at the top of their professions, I wondered, how did I end up here?
So we accepted it, graciously. I didn’t ever do anything great to deserve this, it’s just what I do. I was wonderful to be honored by your country, and I was really proud of Pete. He is one of the great popular music writers of the twentieth century. He’s made his mark, that’s for sure. And I had the good luck to be the voice for that. And I have never forgotten how lucky I have been. During that time have I added something to the mix? Yes, there’s no doubt. The two of us together have always had a lot more strength than either one of us individually.

SB: There has been some friction, though.
RD: There is still a tension between us. We respect each other, but we don’t always agree. We have the courage to challenge each other all the time. It’s a fiery mix. When Pete and I hit the stage together it’s like, “fuck me, there’s something dangerous going on here.” We just know if one of us makes a mistake the other will jump right in. There aren’t so many arguments anymore, they’re just differences of opinion. We don’t have the same drive to argue as we did when we were younger, but in some ways we will always be tied to our past.

SB: What about this rumor that Charlie Watts has left the Rolling Stones?
RD: If Charlie leaves the Stones, the Stones are all over. I hope that they do another tour, where they strip down and be like when they started. For me, that would be magic. They’re a great band. I hope that Keith can still move his fingers enough to play the way he plays. Mick is singing better than ever. But he should stop running around on those big stages. They don’t need the circus anymore. They are great musicians.

SB: What is the future of the Who?
RD: It’s very bright, which is the reason why I am doing this tour. We are going to be demoing stuff for a new album in December and I want to be in top voice for that. When we recorded the last one we hadn’t been out for three years. But the Who will be gigging next year, we have some big events lined up. We could play Quadrophenia, or Tommy, or go with the show we have now, which is greatest hits with some more obscure ones put in. My dream would be go on the road and do Tommy for a week, Quadrophenia for a week and then the hits show the week after. With the Who we are never short of material.

SB: You could go on tour but not tell the fans what they are getting at a particular show.
RD: That’s worth a try, isn’t it?

SB: What is Zak Starkey’s role in the Who? Is he is an official member?
RD: He’s not a full member, but he is our drummer of choice. He fits so well into the Who. It’s one thing to have someone who musically fits, but Zak’s personality fits totally into the band. We have a very cohesive family on the road.

SB: Your CSI appearance was quite a showcase.
RD: I‘ve never seen it, although it was great fun. It was a most extraordinary week. I got to sing Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” which is a great song. I got the script and had some notion what to do with the characters, but had no clear idea until after they put on all the prosthetics. If you don’t know what the character looks like it’s hard to give them a body language and mannerisms. Then they put in the colored contact lenses, you look at yourself, and you are a complete stranger. I’m not sure that I’ve ever even seen CSI all the way through. It’s not that I am not a fan of CSI. I’m just not a fan of TV.
—

The best 1960s bands always sounded so original, when in fact they filtered existing musical idioms such as folk and blues to gain a unique sound. While the Lovin’ Spoonful made some great pop singles (“Rain on the Roof” and “She is Still a Mystery” immediately come to mind), they used an infusion of acoustic blues known as “jug band music” as its calling card.
After the Spoonful, principal member John Sebastian parlayed a last minute appearance at the Woodstock Festival into an active solo career. When the Woodstock buzz had worn down he scored again with “Welcome Back,” a catchy tune written especially for the TV show that gave another New York John–Travolta–his first break.
After slipping out of the public eye, Sebastian has moved back toward his roots through an excursion with the J-Band in the 1990s and a recent partnership with mandolin player David Grisman. His solo act has some unique qualities, since he faces the audience armed with an electric guitar and a small amp, rather than the acoustic setup that everyone else uses. His act is a little like Roger McGuinn where he mixes up performances and stories that, taken together, are a bit of a history lesson. Perhaps that’s why they both play in a lot of high school auditoriums.
He plays a baritone guitar to accommodate a lower vocal range, and mixes it up between old blues songs and Lovin’ Spoonful staples. The former are well-served by his vocal growl, while the latter becomes a bit of a shock. You hear the familiar intro, but the voice doesn’t come in at the same pitch. It’s similar to the adjustment of Bob Dylan’s voice over the same period, but not quite as drastic.
Sebastian shared some of his recollections in a call from his home in (where else?) Woodstock, NY.

Sonic Boomers: Who comes to see you these days?
John Sebastian: I get people in their 60s, my contemporaries, who want to hear as many Spoonful songs as possible. There are a lot of people who came to me as a result of the album I made with David, and want to hear a lot of acoustic guitars. In the Northwest there is another faction, fans of jug band music. I discovered that audience in the 1990s, while I was playing with the J-Band. These people would come to the shows, to hear whatever renditions we would do of the songs they loved.
I provide a pen and ink approach to the songs, providing a guitar-only version of what was on the record. I give a pretty close approximation even with one guitar. I know all of the layers, and what licks are needed. When I play electric I use a baritone guitar, which has a lower pitch and a larger sound.

SB: How did the Spoonful sound develop?
JS: Adding elements of jug band music to the Spoonful came out of the need to fill stage time, when we were playing eight sets a night. So we’d do whatever we knew, which were electric versions of songs that we knew from before the band got started. These songs started as filler on the albums, and then became the best parts of the albums. We had a silent mission statement: we did so many singles that we tried to make the next single sound completely different from the last one. Although there was some continuity. “Do You Believe in Magic” and “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” were both shuffles and both used the autoharp. But the songs themselves were very different.
We realized that albums deserved more thought, so we decided to make sure that everything we put on the albums was worthwhile, and different from what we had done. We would do our best to introduce new musical styles whenever possible. (Guitarist) Zal Yanovsky was a wonderful mimic and could play all kinds of things. He would suddenly say “hey, I want to play like (C&W pianist) Floyd Cramer,” and come up with a solo that sounded just like him. We spent a lot of time trying to do different styles of American music.

SB: Are there unresolved issues with the Spoonful?
JS: The Spoonful had a fun reunion when Paul Simon asked us to be in his movie One Trick Pony. I couldn’t turn that down, but after it was done a door was closed. At one time the other guys offered Zally a chance to join without me and he turned them down. Then they asked me to join without Zally and I turned them down. It seemed like they were trying to cut Zally out, which was unfortunate.
About twice a year I get calls from places like casinos, where they offer to pay three times the normal fee if I bring in a band. For a while I got the guys from NRBQ. They’re wonderful, but they are dispersed through different bands. The three members of the Spoonful are playing together, and I don’t have problem with that. They do the material well, with the right energy. The fact that they are playing the old songs has freed me to do what I want.

SB: You can tell that a lot of the Spoonful clips are lip synced. What was going through your head at the time?
JS: By the time the Spoonful went on these shows to lip sync we had seen enough other groups do it, so we knew what we needed do to perform the songs without actually singing. When we did the high visibility shows, like Ed Sullivan, we did what we were supposed to do. Even on those shows the camera would move by Zally, and you could see him mouthing “I’m not really singing.”
Sometimes we would do local TV shows where the DJ didn’t know anything about us, and was just trying to get another group to fill up air time. For those shows we would come up with stuff to do, like we would change instruments, and just pantomime. This was kind of a wink to the real fans, who knew how it was supposed to be. It became a way for us to differentiate ourselves from the Serendipity Singers, or whoever came next.

SB: You are famous for tripping while onstage at Woodstock. How important were the drugs, really?
JS: We were all smoking pot. After a while Zally became more of a drinker, because he was Canadian. When he and (bassist) Steven (Boone) got busted and were forced to name their source it ruined the whole mood of the Spoonful. Which was ironic, because I was the big pot smoker. By the time I got to Woodstock I remained a pot smoker, but there was a natural high there. In an interview it is the easy thing to say “yeah, I was really high,” but it was actually a very small part of the event. In fact, I had a small part of some pill that someone gave me before I went onstage, but it wasn’t a real acid feeling.
What is harder to explain is the experience of being uplifted by the audience. So if someone says “you must have been really high” I say yeah, but I was high because a million people were watching me.

SB: You’ve done a few instructional tapes for Homespun, which is run by Happy Traum. Is this a way to keep the folk tradition going in the digital age?
JS: I used to think instructional tapes were kind of corny, so the first few times that Happy asked me to do one I turned him down. But after a while I gave in. Happy has a real understanding of the information that we are passing along. It has to do with both our backgrounds, when we started out we were idolizing those 70-year-old guys from the south who played the blues. It can be very hard to understand these guitar parts. So I decided to give something back while my knuckles are still working, so people can see the mysteries of some of these guitar techniques.

SB: “Younger Generation” contained some real wisdom that fit any time. Did writing that song give you an edge in your own child-rearing experience?
JS: I don’t think that it made it any easier for me. I didn’t have any articulate insights. It was the same road traveled by many of my contemporaries who were having children at the same time, where we were finding out that the fun and laughter is usually in retrospect, especially if you are raising a pair of intelligent, inquisitive boys.

(Originally Published: 09/17/1987, Toronto Globe and Mail, full transcript unpublished)

How did you pick this time to re-emerge?
I wanted to have a little break away from away it. I still continued writing and putting songs on tape I never really stopped doing that, I never put out a record, I had a chance to get away from it for a bit, then I felt much better about the idea of doing it, and then it was a question of finding someone I could work with. I’m the past. It’s handy to have someone to bounce ideas off of, I really miss that part of being in a group, where you can come up with all of your own ideas, and you have other people’s ideas and they all mix together and they become even a different idea. Here, the whole burden isn’t on just myself. I decided it was time to make a new album, but this time I was going to make it with some other producer.

Are they intimidated by you?
No, I just don’t really know that many record producers. So I thought who will be good? Someone I really admire and someone who would respect me and my past and not try to turn me into something I’m not. I thought of Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra, he’d be fun, If I only knew him…

You’d never met?
I’d never met him. He’s a very private person, Jeff, he’s one person who I don’t think has done interviews or television, or anything, he’s just very private. Anyway I got a message to him through Dave Edmunds, that I’d like to meet him. And I met Jeff, and over period of 18 months I got to know him and suggested that I’m going to make a record and just sounded him out. And he said he’d help, he never committed himself. So last November I finally said that’s it, I’m going to make a record, at least get some musicians over, and so he said OK, and we worked from January, straight through until August.

But you used pretty much the same musicians.
When I think of who I want to play drums on a track I think of Jim Keltner, I know Jim so well, he’s such a great drummer, and at the same time Ringo, because Ringo, I don’t have to tell him what I want, he’ll just listen to the tune and he’ll play like Ringo. So same goes for guitar solos, that should be Eric on that one. So there’s a lot of my same old friends. The added influence of Jeff helping to produce worked well indeed, has a good structural sense of songs, he’s a composer and a guitarist himself, a lot of similarities.

Were you talking to other producers at the same time?
No, I was just trying to think of who if I had my choice of the people I could think of, and he was the one person I came up with.

You haven’t been idle, musically. How did you pick these songs?
I had a lot of demos, I played them to Jeff, he picked them out. I asked him to write me a song too. Since I’ve been not making albums I’ve done a lot of other people’s songs. Just as demos, some old tunes, I do a quick version. I like the idea of singing somebody else’s songs.

Such as?
Dylan’s ‘Every Grain of Sand’. A great song, I did a version of that, a couple of other Dylan songs, writing other crazy songs. He wrote me a song, we wrote a couple together, and the song that they’re putting out as a single is one that neither of us wrote, from the very early 1960s called ‘I’ve Got My Mind Set on You’.

Which sounds like nothing you’ve ever done.
It’s true, that came about because Jim Keltner just started playing that drum pattern and the song seemed to fit right on there. Does this bother you?

I’m just surprised you’re still smoking.
Well, off and on. You know, something like this, it’s, ah, on.

You’ve recently been a filmmaker, and now you’re making your first video. What can we expect?
We haven’t made the video, we’re not making it until next Wednesday.

What do you have in mind?
We’re still just talking about it, it’s a bit early for that.

Next week?
That’s it. It’s silly, isn’t it. We’ll finalize what’s going to happen. It’s difficult to make a video that doesn’t look like all of the other videos. Occasionally there’s a really nice one. Like that Dire Straits or Peter Gabriel. But you can’t say ‘oh I’m going to make one like Peter Gabriel’ because he’s already done that. This video isn’t going to be me making a movie. Maybe later when we start doing different singles off of the album then maybe I’ll work more along those lines. I’ve just finished the record, mixing it, all the art work and mastering it and then it’s like “make a video… so this video. Gary Weis is making the video. I knew him from The Rutles.” Gary has a real good sense of humor, he’s done the Saturday Night Live stuff as well. It’s how to present it so it’s funny but at the same time the song isn’t particularly a comedy song. Neither was ‘You Can Call Me Al’ but they gave it a comical flavor.

So you want to make people laugh.
Well. I’d like it to not look like the same old videos that just keep coming. At the same time, with the limited time span I’m pretty much in the hands of Gary. It’s up to him to do it really good.

What makes you laugh?
A lot of things. I’ve always liked comedy, back when I was a kid I liked The Goon Show, I was a big fan of Peter Sellers, and later on I was a good friend of his. I liked Peter a lot. I loved Monty Python, I couldn’t explain how much I liked it. The rut that television gets into, and people lives, Python just blew all that away by making fun of everything. Right down to the style of television we’ve been watching. The result is that I got to know some of them and we made The Life of Brian and Time Bandits and a couple of films with Michael Palin, so that kind of stuff makes me laugh.

The Rutles is probably the best Beatles movie.
I think so.

The Compleat Beatles was horrible.
The Compleat Beatles is like taking all the footage they can scrounge and then trying to do a serious thing. The great thing about The Rutles is that even though it was a parody it was the nicest thing about the Beatles. It was done with love, even though it was a send-up. And because of Eric Idle being a friend of mine, it gave him access to things that any other potential Beatle filmmaker wouldn’t have. I showed him footage that was obscure, like when we first came into NYC, in the back of a limousine and Paul’s listening to a radio and a guy is saying “the Beatles are going to be here at the station to read their poetry”. And that isn’t a famous bit of footage. So in The Rutles you see them, and he’s listening to the radio, and the disk jockey‘and the Rutles are coming to talk about their trousers. And also, just the detail, where they got exactly what sort of suits we were wearing on that day, even at Shea Stadium, little marshal’s badges, The Rutles even had the psychedelic guitars, it had a good eye for detail. At the same time, it sent up documentaries, the style and those boring questions that they ask.

If I had read every Beatles book and seen every documentary, in a general sense what would I have missed?
Do you want me to tell you something nobody else knows?
No.
A lot of the stuff in the books are wrong. A lot of them are written out of malice, or from people with axes to grind for one reason or another. And they’ve perverted certain things for their own gain. Not many are actually factual and honest. There is a saying in the old house that I have, it’s in Latin, translated it says “those who tell all they have to tell, tells more than they know”. So you probably know more about the Beatles, from reading those books, than there actually was.

What would those people who look so closely miss?
Well, there’s that expression, you don’t see the forest for the trees. Basically the Beatles phenomena was bigger than life. The reality was that we were just four people as much caught up in what was happening at that period of time as anybody else.

Have you listened to the Beatles CDs?
I did buy a CD player when they issued them, yeah. I listened to some of them. I still prefer the old versions, how I remember them on vinyl. There’s a lot of stuff that you can hear now that’s good. In some cases, there’s a lot of stuff that you shouldn’t hear so loudly, that’s somehow come out in the mix. On Sgt. Pepper I keep hearing this horrible sounding tambourine that leaps out of the right speaker. It was obviously in the original mix, but it was never that loud.

There are still thirty or so songs not on CD. How would you make them available?
Well, it’s none of our business anymore, when our contract expired we lost any control we had over the Beatles’ product.

How would you like to see it done?
I suppose if you took all the songs you could put them order in sequence of years as they were recorded, then as the technology advanced and our technique progressed, then you’d hear them in proper order. Or, you could put all the singles on one, or the B-sides on another.

Does Michael Jackson own your songs as well?
He owns some of mine, up to the White Album.

How did ‘Revolution’ end up on a sneaker commercial?
From what I understand, they were just going to use the song, re-record it with Julian Lennon, but Yoko got really pissed off at that idea because I don’t think she likes Julian, and she insisted that it be the Beatles version. She has no right to insist that because there’s a conflict of interest, it’s in the Beatles and Apple’s interest not to have our records touted about on TV commercials, otherwise all the songs we made could be advertising everything from hot dogs to ladies’ brassieres. We never took advertising. We could have done our Coca-Cola commercials, just like everybody else. We tried to have a little discretion, keep a little taste, that’s what we felt. The four of us tried to keep our songs in running orders on the records, we tried to make good records, we tried to do something as quality, and something to be proud of. When it’s out of our hands, it’s like we’re made into prostitutes.

Capitol’s new tapes ruin the running order of your old albums.
This is the problem of not having any control anymore, It’s unfortunate. We should have been able to retain the control. That’s the way it all went.

Derek Taylor said you crave your own space and have a long memory.
Most people need your own space, I still have it, even though occasions like this when I do an album I come out and say hello to people. I couldn’t live in a house full of journalist and have them ask me questions all the time, what was the other question?

Memory.
Ah, the memory. Sort of more in the past, a lot of brain cells are missing now. Sometimes you don’t want to remember things, sometimes you can’t and sometimes they just pop out there.

Is there any unreleased Beatles stuff aside from the Sessions album?
Not that I know of. When we made records, everything we made came out. The only things that didn’t come out were things that weren’t supposed to be recorded. Like if we were rehearsing and they were just rolling the tape. But people want to scrape the bottom of the barrel for anything.

What’s next for you?
It’ll be pretty much the same. My film company is jogging along, we have a lot of projects. It’s the sort of company that doesn’t seem to make a lot of blockbuster movies, they seem to be the sort of films that nobody else wants to make. But it still doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be made. The only thing that I would like to accomplish is perfect peace in a spiritual sense to be able to consciously leave my body at will.

Garth, Mark, Maud (from rear) virtual Garth and a restless audience.

In a previous life you went to several concerts a month, when those who are now rock and roll dinosaurs walked the earth. Today you live in a rural area and don’t get out as much, but in August the music made a house call.
The month began with a spirited performance by Taj Mahal headlining a local blues festival, and ended with something that promised to be extraordinary: A rare performance by Garth Hudson, the remarkable multi-instrumentalist who was one-fifth of The Band. He was touring with his wife Maud, about whom you knew nothing apart from the fact that she sings and is in a wheelchair.
You are working for the local paper as a news reporter, where one of the perks is to interview Garth. This is eagerly anticipated but becomes one of the most difficult and challenging interviews you have ever done. He talks slowly (which makes transcription a lot easier) and provides detailed answers that border on college musicology lectures. Any attempt to talk about Bob Dylan, or fame, or anything concrete is rebuffed in favor of historical tales about how Bach walked 200 miles to learn from one of his idols.
“This is amazing when you consider what they wore on their feet in those days,” he says wryly. He later repeats the line onstage.
“This is great information and a lot of fun,” you want to say. “But what I really need is a quote.”
You ask one question, he answers another. The interaction is more like a history lesson, since the facts are obscure and detailed and you have no real control over the conversation. 
You talk to him through a Bluetooth system in your car and tape the conversation with a device on the passenger seat. When it is over you hang up and start the car and the radio blares out “Ophelia,” The Band’s last big single, and you interpret this as a good sign.

You would not think to look at him but Garth was famous long ago as the musical colorist for The Band, a group that rivaled The Beatles or anyone else for their songwriting, performance and all-around aura.
These days they are reduced on radio to a handful of famous tracks, but their potency cannot be overstated. They first performed “The Weight,” now a modern hymn, and a partnership with Bob Dylan offered a peaceful musical refuge amid what could be (not always negatively)described as overwhelming artistic chaos.
The Band made it clear from the beginning that it was not like everybody else. The first notes of the first song of their first album, “Tears of Rage” sounded mournful and dissonant to the average pop fan, and many of us had to listen to the record several times before we were able to “get it.”
Not at all like today, where kids listen to a few notes of one song before skipping to the next. The Band would never have survived such a lack of scrutiny.
There are other similarities between The Band and The Beatles. They both had an eight-year recording career and went out as the crowd called out for more. And they were a unit, where success resulted from an equally configured blend of voices and instruments. Taking one away was akin to removing a car wheel or a table leg.
As a result many fans welcomed Garth to town even though he was the functional equivalent of Ringo.

The first inkling that something could go awry comes with a late night call from Eric, the musician who is managing the tour. He is driving into town and wondering where they can go to eat at that hour and you remind him that all restaurants aside from McDonald’s close by 10. You hear Maud in the background asking for “a steak to go that we can heat up later,” which you are not inclined to supply because you have already loaned them money for a hotel.
You check them in. Later you are chatting with Eric in the parking lot when Garth comes out of the hotel and tells you that Maud is “dreadfully allergic” to mosquitoes and we should go to the front desk to get a vacuum cleaner so we can suck the insects off of the ceiling.
The front desk closed hours before Garth arrived, so that isn’t an option. So you lend them your vacuum cleaner and hope you get it back in working order.

The next night Eric’s band opens the show and plays until the Hudsons arrive. Eric introduces them and the audience hoots with pleasure and then watches respectfully as Garth wheels Maud into the club and down a ramp to the stage.
After a while the crowd’s mood shifts from starstruck fascination to irritation and impatience. Garth putters around the stage setting up as if the audience doesn’t exist. No one strikes up a conversation because the man is working, but he’s not moving very quickly.
Just when you are about to lose patience and go home they start playing, and you have to admit they sound pretty good. Eric’s band is crisp, although Maud’s vocals are all over the map. She kills on a version of “Don’t Do It,” and her reading of “The Weight” gives the standard its due. You enjoy the experience, but several people stop you on the street telling you of their disappointment in the show, and with you for recommending it.
To you, the music sounds great because it almost didn’t happen. Eric sent a friend to pick up Garth and Maud but the guy got his signals crossed and used a key to enter the room. This caused the musicians to barricade themselves in their room for a while, finally agreeing to appear for the show after you arrive at the hotel along with Mark, the club owner.
Both of you sit patiently in the hall as the Hudsons prepare for the stage, where the audience is waiting. Mark, who has a lot to lose if it all goes south, isn’t especially nervous about the situation. But you are.
The next evening you are once again roped into picking them up at the hotel. This time you wait an hour before they finally emerge, and Maud is luminous. They have just worked out a new arrangement for “This Wheel’s on Fire,” a Band song they rarely perform.
Once at the club it all starts over. Garth takes his time wheeling Maud in and starts tinkering again. You decide to cut your losses, go home, play with your cat and catch up on your correspondence.

The idea came to you the day before, how you could use this proximity to Garth to write something exclusive and special. You decide to take him to an antique pipe organ that was reconstructed in a local church. If you could get Garth to the church you would have an exclusive video, a rare taped performance and then be able to write a compelling news story about a unique event.
It should be simple enough. You call Stan, the guy who rebuilt the organ, and explain the situation. Mr. Hudson can’t be rushed. Stan is accommodating, agreeing on our time range while only requiring an hour’s notice to  get things started. Garth is a little harder to convince, but he seems to agree after he talks to Barney, who promises to bring along a tape recorder.
Mindful of Garth’s slowness you work backwards: The church building closes at 6 p.m. and Stan says we need an hour, so Garth needs to commit by around 4:30. At 5:30 Eric calls and says Garth is ready. Right now you have more respect for Stan’s time than Garth’s so you pull the plug, telling Eric “ that ship has sunk.”
It docks in another harbor. Eric takes Garth and Maud to an organ site two towns away and well out of your newspaper’s circulation area, where they spent several hours making music and discussing history. The event was unrecorded, aside from some pictures and a few moments of video Eric managed to snag for himself.
You are disappointed you were not there, and wonder if a great musician plays an antique organ in an empty house with three people listening and nothing ends up on YouTube, if that makes a sound anymore.

Soon enough the thrill is gone and you are more concerned about getting Garth and Maud out of the hotel in time than attempting to gather more material for any future story. While observing their slow departure it’s clear that Garth doesn’t recognize anyone else’s authority, so you can either play along or not. But if you play along you’ll end up pitching in.
A few days later you run into a local musician who had worked the sound board for Garth’s second night, and witnessed the procrastination firsthand. He does not say what you would expect. He tells you that Garth is a true musical genius and follows his own path which has nothing to do with others expect of him.
Later you talk to Mark, whom you would also expect to have a bitter taste, but his strongest impression of Garth has to do with his devotion to Maud. “Whatever he does has to do with taking care of her,” he said. Which explains the grand entrance of Garth pushing Maud up to the stage, as he is showing us his priorities.  And his insistence to acquire a vacuum cleaner at midnight to suck the mosquitoes off the ceiling evolves into a romantic act.

In a previous life you went to several concerts a month. One high point was in 1971, when Taj Mahal opened for The Band. That night Taj strolled onstage alone in front of 10,000 people and played a casual set of acoustic blues and was followed by a strong set by The Band which was at the height of its powers.
Forty years on, Garth, 74, is the casual one. He is only five years older than Taj but the difference is startling. Taj is kinetic throughout; breezing into town in the early afternoon, meeting a group of students, playing a crisp, professional show at night and getting back on the bus.
Garth is deliberate, taking one slow step at a time. Commitments are only suggestions, whether they are to begin playing at the advertised start time, or leave the hotel by check-out. It happens when it happens, or it might not happen at all. We must accept this, since he brings the gift of music that arrives on its own terms.
The Band shone so brightly that a powerful magic stuck to everyone who was around, and Garth is still carrying around his share. There are some who don’t see the glow, like the people who wanted to charge extra for their being two and a half hours late getting out of their hotel room. Usually Garth says they need to stay later and they don’t want to pay any more money. Usually that works, because the one time we see Garth show any real emotion is when the routine fails to convince.
After a few weeks and a certain perspective sets in you get it, that Garth ignores the rules because he can. His talent must be a blessing and a burden; he comes to town and people cater to his whims, in return attempting to project their impression of what he should be.
So you feel a bit churlish as you recall Garth’s last words to you as he left town.
“I hope we meet again,” he said in a slow drawl, “When everything will be perfect.”

By Charlie Bermant
Peninsula Daily News

PORT TOWNSEND WA, August 28, 2011— Several weeks ago Upstage Restaurant and Bistro owner Mark Cole found a used copy of “Cahoots,” The Band’s 1971 album on a courtyard table and set it behind the bar for the owner to claim.
No one took responsibility, but early last week Cole received a call from guitarist Eric Fridrich, executive director of Savor the Sound, asking whether he could carve out a date for The Band’s Garth Hudson to perform as part of a benefit meant to subsidize musical education in schools.
It was, according to Cole, “uncanny.”
Hudson is scheduled to perform at 8 p.m. on Wednesday at the Upstage, 923 Washington St.
Tickets are $25 and are available by phoning 360-385-2216.
Multi-instrumentalist Hudson, 74, was a co-founder of The Band and was a principal architect of its unique sound, playing the organ, saxophone, accordion and other instruments that were the antithesis of the guitar-based psychedelia that ruled the airwaves when The Band released its first album.
Once they stopped touring eight years later, the five member group had changed the course of popular music, eventually creating the popular style now known as “Americana.”
For this week’s appearance, Hudson’s vast store of instruments will be accompanied by Fridrich and his wife, Maud Hudson, on vocals.
“Maud and I will play what is probably not anywhere near the standard Band repertoire, although we do tributes to [deceased Band members] Richard [Manuel] and Rick [Danko],” Hudson said from his home in Woodstock, N.Y., just before getting on the plane to Seattle earlier this week.
“We are taking part in a program which encourages children to care, and hopefully can do it in a manner that can encourage young people to follow music a little more closely.”
Savor the Sound raises money to pay for instruments and musical instruction in public schools to replace programs that have been cut back because of decreasing education budgets, Fridrich said.
The money raised by Hudson’s performance most likely will support programs in other counties, but the appearance is being used to introduce the program to Jefferson County residents with the hope of establishing it locally, he said.
Aside from its own eight-year career at the top of the charts and a second chapter (without guitarist/composer Robbie Robertson) between 1983 and 1999, The Band is most known for its accompaniment of Bob Dylan, both live and in the studio.
Hudson acknowledges what he calls Dylan’s “mythopoetic power.”
“He was a mystery, he was a singer, he was here, he was gone, and I don’t know anyone else who kept that mystery as consistently as he did,” Hudson said.
“As The Band, we were fortunate to work with a top-notch player and one of the greatest popular songwriters of that era.”
Many musicians from that era continue to play their songs in a revival format, but Hudson is different and is unique, according to Fridrich, who calls Hudson “an inspiration.
“He’s in his 70s, but he’s still developing and playing new stuff,” Fridrich said.
Hudson said it doesn’t come easy.
“Some artists show their talents at age 4 or 5, but some of us have to work at this, and it becomes a lifelong pursuit,” he said.
“There is a competitive aspect to what we are doing as musicians. We are always recognizing and appropriating little snippets from here and there.
“We are all composers and we are all songwriters.”
To understand a musician, understand what influences him, Hudson said.
“If you want to understand Dylan, you shouldn’t just listen to him. You need to find out who he was listening to, what he was reading at the time and what people were singing from the balconies when he was young,” he said.
“Right now I am talking with people about jazz metal, and its incredible reiterative patterns,” he continued.
Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi “has some masterful guitar fills and great sequences where his grip on the guitar does not cease until the very last note.”
Hudson often answers questions about the 1960s and 1970s with comments about the 1940s and the swing era before guitars took over, a time he finds more interesting.
And the “showbiz” story that most interests Hudson happened more than 300 years ago.
“Bach was so fascinated with [composer Dieterich] Buxtehude that he walked 200 miles from Germany to Denmark just to see how he played his music,” Hudson said.
“That was amazing, walking all that way, especially when you think about what they wore on their feet in those days.”
At the end of the interview with Hudson, the radio coincidentally blared the Band’s last big hit single, “Ophelia.”
It was, to use Cole’s description, “uncanny.”

Photo: Charlie Bermant, 8-3-2011, Port Townsend WA