ZINE: HECKLER MUSIC/SK8/SNOW 3.4.1
John Baccigaluppi
***********SNOW/SK8/MUSIC*************
******THE EASTER BUNNY ISSUE******
PART 3-MUSIC
Heckler is a free magazine about snowboarding, skateboarding &
music. We distribute mainly on the west coast of the USA, but have
scattered distribution in the rest of the US and a little bit overseas.
Following is the complete text of our latest issue.
To make reading it more manageable, I have split the magazine up
into 3 parts, 1 for each subject we cover. We are posting the
Snowboarding section of the mag on rec.skiing.snowboard, the
skateboard section on alt.skate-board, and the music section on
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Hope you like the mag...
************TABLE OF CONTENTS*********
1. 10 Foot Pole Interview
2. Bush Interview
3. Dick Dale Interview
4. Jale Interview
5. Punk Jazz Roundtable
6. Love Battery Interview
7. Mighty Mighty Bosstones Interview
8. Rhythm X Interview
9. Spearhead Interview
10. Tesla Interview
11. Ice Cube, Proposition 187 and Education:
It's Not Only Color.
12. Record Reviews
13. Story Contest Winner
************SNOW TABLE OF CONTENTS*********
(posted on rec.skiing.snowboard)
1. Amie Comeaux Interview
2. Jon North Profile
3. Kellie Wright Profile
4. Kevin McGuire Interview
5. Randy Walter & Michelle Yu Feature
6. Jeff Toland Feature
7. Video Reviews
8. Spaced Between Time: Fiction by Chris Carnel
9. Gossip
10. Letters
******SK8 TABLE OF CONTENTS*********
(posted on alt.skate-board)
1. Sasha Steinhorst Interview
2. Joe Sierro Interview
*************10 FOOT POLE INTERVIEW***************
SENSICHAT WITH
TEN FOOT POLE'S DENNIS JAGGED
Ten Foot Pole has a superb new album out now on Epitaph called
Rev. Every track is great punk rock. The following is my attempt to
get into Guitarist and Songwriter Dennis Jagged's head:
"How did Ten Foot Pole come about?"
"About 13 years ago Scott, Steve and I started playing in garages to
have some fun. We won a battle of the bands in a roller rink, which
was pretty exciting cause the guys in the other bands were about 25
and had long hair, the whole rocker thing, we were psyched.
"When we started our name was Scared Straight. People assumed we
were a Straight Edge Band....but we weren't. Also, Mystic Records
marketed us straight edge (without our consent). We got defined as a
Straight Edge Band because of the name so we decided to change the
name cause our philosophies are not 'Straight Edge' completely. We
have nothing against Straight Edge. We just don't want to be defined
as something we're not.
"In 1985 Scott started to sing. He used to play drums. We did a tour
with Some other 'nardcore' bands (from the Oxnard/Ventura area).
We had a great time till our stuff got stolen at a club in Pittsburg, PA
called 'The Electric Banana'..that ended that tour."
"What are y'all trying to get across with your music?"
"We don't have a particular platform. All the members are really
different. We have different perspectives but we all do it for fun. You
can be creative and meet a lot of people and travel. We've been to
Europe and stuff. People really help you out with food and places to
stay. To go out and connect and be part of a community effort feels
good."
"On the Rev album each of you have a symbol by your name. You
have a dollar sign by yours, why? Are you the band capitalist?"
"No, no, not at all. The artist who did it just happened to put it there.
Actually I think greed and corruption are inevitable in a competition
based society. Or is it the other way around? Maybe competition
based societies are inevitable when humans are innately greedy and
corrupt. Anyway, I guess money is necessary for survival in this
world but it is sad if it becomes the ultimate goal."
"Your song 'Closer to Grey' paints a picture of alcoholism. Have you
had some experience with that issue?"
"Well, I think everyone has been effected by alcoholic friends or
family. I went through a heavy drinking phase, rum and cokes were
fairly common. I've decided it's a waste of time. I puked in my sleep
and it really scared me, you know the asphyxiation thing....I didn't
even remember doing it! I started to forget things. One night I was
drunk and people told me I went into some rose bushes and was
jumping around. I didn't believe them, but I looked at my legs and
they were covered with scratches."
"You wrote a lot of lyrics but don't sing. How does that work out?"
"Very tricky. I have to write stuff Scott feels comfortable singing,
still when Scott sings his own lyrics he believes them more and he
puts more into it. He's got to believe it to sing it."
"Why don't you sing?"
"I don't like the sound of my voice, it's too mid-rangy, it just doesn't
sound appealing."
"What stuff do you guys like to eat?"
"I'm trying to convince the guys to go vegetarian. On tour it was
catching on....the others are starting to order their hamburgers
without meat. We're pretty big Mexican food fans. It was hard in
Germany last January because they don't have Taco Bells or anything
cheap, just expensive Mexican food."
"'World's Greatest Dad' sounds like a warning to the naive and a
critique of contemporary society. Pretty darn political."
"For me, the songs are personal and the personal is political. One of
these personal/political things involves a sense of betrayal that has
been annoying me. I was raised with a really rosy view of life and
society...I was constantly told that there was a loving God that would
provide justice, peace eternal life and love (eventually). The
government represents our needs, police are here to protect us and
the military is a heroic force. As I faced different realities while
growing up (for example being beat up by police), I picked up some
healthy skepticism. The hardest thing about accepting a less
optimistic philosophy is that it is such a let down from the
expectations I had before. For example, it wouldn't be so lonely and
depressing to be agnostic if I wasn't told every single day that I had
a cool friend in heaven.
"The decline in my optimism can be seen in my favorite career
choices at different ages. I went from wanting to be a policeman,
then fireman, soldier, congressman, attorney, professor, and finally
now I am a live sound engineer....basically an unpolitical job....I do
sound for whoever pays me regardless of political affiliations. I used
to think that I would make some major difference in the world....now
I just try to write cool songs and make bands sound good.
"What to y'all do besides TFP?"
"Steve owns a small carpet cleaning company...he sucks rugs. Pete
works in an animal hospital taking x-rays of chipmunks who've
choked on their nuts (really!). Tony used to be a mailman and now
does odd jobs and stuff. He wishes we were a full time, year round
band. Like I said, I do the sound company. We did sound for a speech
Al Gore gave, we did the Santa Barbara International Jazz
Festival. I own a coffee house called the Vampire Lounge - it's
about to close though...the rent was too high. Scott plays professional
baseball for the White Sox."
"What do you admire in people?"
"Basically the traditional old movie hero type thing. The quiet guy
with integrity who rides off into the sunset after helping people out
and not even asking for thanks. The Punk Rock thing - not trying to
get famous. Have fun. Anti-Mainstream - Anti Fashion"
"Tell me a weird gig story."
"Welllllll, OK. We had some trouble with our shuttle bus in Toledo, so
we left our bus at this auto repair place and got another ride to our
show. We sold all the T-shirts and stuff we brought so we had to go
back to the bus to get some more. Well, the place was closed. It was
Sunday I think and we heard they'd have rottweilers there. So we
got some pepper spray and hopped the fence. We got our stuff and
were getting ready to leave and this longhaired guy came screaming
up in a Corvette and tried to grab us through the fence. Then the
police came and arrested him! It turns out he was the owner and
somebody called him about us and he drove over there at 100 Mph.
So we are standing there wearing black leather gloves and jackets
(insulation from the dog teeth), and there are 5 police cars around us,
one with a flat tire from the chase. But our friend John Stain, a
punk rock legend from Toledo, did the old "Jedi mind trick", telling
the police that it was just a misunderstanding and it wasn't worth
arresting us or doing paperwork. After a few suspicious glances they
let us go."
"What would you like to do besides music?"
"I'd like to get into the film industry. Film is our culture's intelligent
medium for social normalization. Film is the only big scale art form
that says anything about society....the only social dialog. Books,
novels use to be the medium but few people read any more."
"What concerns you most right now?"
"I'm worried about the innate sense of good and evil in people. The
whole world is collectively based on a need for growth. Human
nature seems to say we can't live in harmony. Someone will always
screw you over to get ahead."
"Last question. Why are roosters so important to TFP?"
"The artist put them on the cover so we put them on the album. They
don't really mean anything though....we don't have a big social
statement in mind for them. Oddly some people have commented
that they really like that number.
-Ed Slack
*************BUSH INTERVIEW***************
It's hard to tell if a lame interview is the result of the people you are
interviewing (in this case the band Bush) or your own inability to do
a good interview.
The first time I heard Everything Zen by Bush on the radio, I
thought it was a brilliant lost Nirvana out-take from the Nevermind
sessions. Then I saw the artsy, moody video directed by
photographer/artist Matt Mahurin and thought these guys were
pretty concise for a debut band. I got a copy of the record and was
additionally intrigued by the album art by David Carson of Raygun
and Beach Culture fame. The record was produced by Clive
Langer and Alan Winstanley who've also produced acts like Elvis
Costello and David Byrne.
I asked the band (guitarist/singer/songwriter Gavin Rossdale and
drummer Robin Goodridge) how they managed to hook up with
such big name talent their first time out.
Gavin replied, łDave Carson to us is the best at design. I love Raygun
magazine. I love Bikini (see Heckler's Alternative issue for an
interview with Bikini designer Scott Clum). He had the look and
understood that whole thing. Matt Mahurin is so much better than
anyone else. He's a painter, he likes the same painters that I do. So
we had a whole history of stuff that we got on together about. And
he really loved the record most importantly. All these people, they
really wanted to be involved. They're all the first people we asked.˛
Robin added, łWe just sent them the album, and they called back and
said Ślet's get on with it.ą˛
Gavin went on to say, łCounter culture is to me the most interesting
part of the youth culture. That's where it's all at. Fanzines and stuff,
that's all the street level stuff and that's what Dave Carson's like.˛
I'm not sure how street level Raygun is and I'm not sure how street
level Bush is either. But I can say this with certainty: They are the
most polite band I've ever met with a Top-10 hit single. Both Robin
and Gavin repeatedly offered to make me tea or did I want a beer. I
can also say that they're having fun too. When I arrived at the Cattle
Club, I thought Gavin was a tourist as he was wandering around the
club wearing Arnet's and shooting hi-8 video. And they do rock.
Their live show sounded just like their record. They really are a
band, not just a bunch of studio musicians.
I wasn't sure if I even wanted to finish this story because nothing
really exciting happened the evening I saw and interviewed the
band. But, I had asked a lot of people for help setting up the
interview (Mike Jerrick and Lucinda at WEA, Jerry & Troy at
the Cattle Club) and Curtis shot a whole roll of film, so I figured I
might as well finish what I started. Besides, my wife, Maria, says
Bush rocks her world. And after hearing Everything Zen again last
night, I must say that it is one of the best songs to hit the rather
weary alternative top 10 chart in the last year. Before Bush, the band
all painted houses together in London, which is a salt of the earth
kind of thing to do. In the end, maybe that's all that matters. The
guys in Bush are true gentlemen and hard workers with a hit single
that does not suck.
-John Baccigaluppi
************DICK DALE INTERVIEW************
"Dick Dale don't surf no more, and that's that pal." Dick Dale is
one of those guys that can comfortably fit into the role of a
legend. His guitar playing is so signature that it can be easily
picked out from the rest of the pack and his music is usually
synonymous with the surf culture of the 60's. I was
actually surprised that he no longer surfs but after he told
me why I didn't blame him. A few years back his leg became
infected while surfing. After coming within twelve hours of
having his leg hacked off, he found out that it was due to
mercury and other poisons that are beginning to dominate
our oceans. Instead of surfing, Dick Dale and his wife Jill are
committed to snowboard as much as they possibly can. Due
to a hook up with Nitro, (he wrote a song with the same
name in honor of his wife's board) he should have no
problems this winter.
Dale lives at his ranch in Twenty Nine Palms, CA where
he also maintains his own landing strip for his airplane and
takes care of his wide assortment of animals which include
horses to African lions and Bengalese tigers. His philosophy
on life ties in very closely with his relationship to his
animals, especially in regards to respect for nature and the
power that it can generate. Dale's training in the martial
arts injects an eastern philosophical bend on things which is
probably the reason why he left me with this nugget 'O'
knowledge and discipline;
" to experience is to know,
to know is to understand,
to understand is to tolerate,
to tolerate is to have peace."
As Kung Fu as this may sound, if a lot more people could
experience different things they would understand and
tolerate others in a peaceful manner. Unfortunately this is
not the case. But that is a whole different can of worms...
To see Dick Dale live is a different experience. I had no idea
what to expect when I went. As I waited outside in the rain
there were all kinds of people trudging into the warm
theater. I saw the white picket fence families with the kids in
tow to the downtown types (I guess this acts as a label to
avoid using labels). Anyway, the show was fucking killer.
There was no big stage thing going on and there was
definitely no Hawaiian Punch flower shirt thing going on
either, just a four piece band (including his three year old
son Jimmy "Stix" Dale on a small drum set) that rocked
with heavy reverb. Seeing him play was so rad because his
style is so unorthodox. He plays left handed and keeps his
strings (BIG FAT ONES) strung as if it were still for a right
hander. Fuck, he plays them upside down. While he was
playing I noticed that he kept giving his picks out to the
audience but I also noticed that the picks were about
shredded in half, sometimes within one song. As I looked
down at his feet I saw pieces of ground plastic on the floor. I
swear to god this guy was burning through picks like
fucking cord wood. When I asked him about this curious
phenomenon he told me that because his strings are so
large (14 gauge high E to 60 gauge low E) and his style of
playing is so hammering that it is not uncommon for pick
meltage. "Yeah, sometimes I'll look down at my strings and
they have a black and blue tint to them from heating up."
Pretty crazy shit.
Dick Dale is a guy with a lot to say, definitely enough to fill
up a few pages which is why he also writes a column called
Pissed Off and Pissed On in a music rag called Music
Confidential. If you get a chance to see Dick Dale, check it
out, it might be a chance to see someone who can carry a
some music history and still dust off a lot of the younger
acts out there today.
-Story & Photos by Curtis Franklin
************JALE INTERVIEW************
Well, interviewing Jale was easy enough. Heard they were cominą to
town, made the appropriate phone calls, and they were waiting for
me when I showed up at the Press Club one chilly friday night in
January. Writing a story on the all-female quartet has turned out to
be, well... another story. As I write this I am locked out of my
apartment, sitting outside of a łhip˛ suburban cafeą with my deadline
looming large. On my right is an obnoxious group of łgoth˛ kids
casually smoking their clove cigarettes and making sure everyone
present notices. The token effeminate male is making an extra effort
by making a helluva lot of noise with the dog chain that I am
presuming goes around his neck. On my left, an RX-7 is spewing
exhaust into my cup of mamaąs boy coffee. Not the stuff great
literary inspirations are made from, but itąs not like I have a choice
at this point.
For most bands, it usually takes a few years and a few records to
land a home at even a decent indy label. For Jale, it took all of three
months. Thatąs three months after they picked up instruments, not
three months after they started playing together. They literally just
decided to start a band, figured out who would play what, and
started writing songs.
łWe made Alyson play drums, which was a really good idea
(laughter)...and Laura used to play keyboards, which is really funny
because there was another woman in the band at first, we were Tag
for a couple months and then she left and so Laura went from
keyboards to bass which is what we wanted in the first place˛
explains guitarist Eve Hartling.
łWe (Alyson and Laura) went over to their (Eve and guitarist
Jennifer Pierce) living room with corn shakers and stuff, anything
you could bang on. And then these friends of ours, this band called
Sloan, were like ŚYou guys can open for us in two weeks if you can
get it together. You can come into our space and use our instrumentsą.
We have a video of it , Eve had a guitar on and she wasnąt even
playing it! It was sooo funny!˛
Sound familiar? Yeah, right.
Jale is a rarity among all-female bands these days because they belie
the inclination to sound like a variation on the Go-Goąs or L-7 (not
that sounding like either of those bands is a bad thing). These Halifax
(Nova Scotia, Canada) girls, er...women, write songs that are sweet,
but not sickening, moody or morose. Their debut, Dreamcake
(SubPop), is proof positive of this. From the opening cut łNot Happy˛
to łThe Unseen Guest˛ to łEmma˛, the women of Jale carve their
initials deep into the tree of female rock (speaking of initials, can
anyone guess how they got their name?). If you're into chick rock
like I am, you gotta check out Jale. And I gotta go, the łgoth˛ kids
have split and that can only mean one thing - this place is closed.
-Sean Schroeder
************PUNK JAZZ ROUNDTABLE************
When I heard about the 3rd Annual Airwaves Jazz Festival, It
seemed like a perfect opportunity for an interview of sorts. The bill
was a veritable encyclopedia on the state of progressive jazz today,
and I don't mean Kenny G. The show was put together by seminal
Sacramento jazzman, Tony Passarell. Besides founding Sacto's
longest running avant-bop funk jazz group Bub, almost 5 years ago,
Tony was also a founding member in the bands Hunting Game and
The Borman 6. Both groups were way before their time (think
Morphine with a female vocalist and you're close to where Hunting
Game was a decade ago. No immediate comparison comes to mind
with the Borman 6 who were experimenting with a rap/hip-
hop/rock/funk fusion almost 8 years ago.) and enjoyed a devoted
following, particularly in the Bay Area.
Also on the bill was TJ Kirk who claims guitarist Charlie Hunter as
one of their members. You can hardly pick-up an article on Jazz
music today without reading about Charlie Hunter. One of the original
members of the Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy, the Charlie
Hunter Trio released an album on Les Claypool's (Primus)
Prawn Song label and his since signed to Blue Note Records. TJ
Kirk (the T is for Thelonius Monk, the J for James Brown and
Kirk, Rashaan Roland) also features guitarist Will Bernard who
is a member of the SF based Hieroglyphics Ensemble. Every
member of TJ Kirk is a stellar musician which explains why they
have been signed to Warner Bros.
SST recording artists Bazooka were also on the bill but couldn't
make it up from LA because of weather. Despite attempts to procure
a tape from their label, I still haven't heard the band, so I can't say
much about them except that they supposedly fuck shit up on the
saxophone like TJ Kirk does on guitars.
Rounding out the bill was veteran saxman and composer John
Tchicai. Emigrated to the USA from Holland, Tchicai brought an air
of respectability to the show. The elder statesman who can more
than hold his own with the young turks. I recently had the great
pleasure of recording an album with John and his group the
Archetypes, so I can safely say that, besides being a talented
musician who has played with artists as diverse as John Lennon
and John Coltrane, John is a good and soulful human being. John
Tchicai and The Archetypes are releasing a record on B & W
Records titled Love Is Touching.
While eating dinner before the show, my wife Maria along with
Heckler Publisher Sonny and his friend Lynn and myself came up
with the following six questions that I asked Tony, John, Charlie and
TJ Kirk drummer Scott Amendola. Scott's reputation might not
proceed him as much as the others, but it does in Jazz circles, and
based on seeing him play, it's only a matter of time.
-John Baccigaluppi
1. Who is in your band?
Tony Passarell, Bub: Chuck Ellis on Bass, Dan Panasenko and
Steve Passarell on Guitar, Vince Difiore on Trumpet. (Vince also
plays in Sacto favorites, Cake who recently released a record on
Capricorn Records), Christian Heilman on Drums and me, Tony,
on saxophone.
Scott Amendola-TJ Kirk: Myself on Drums, Charlie Hunter on the 8
string wonder guitar, and Will Bernard and John Schott on guitar.
John Tchicai: Tonight is my trio with Mark Oi and Michael Grandi
on guitar and myself on saxophone.
2. Tony calls his music Punk Jazz, do you agree with this term?
Tony: I'll still agree with that because punk has always meant a kind
of trashing of the status quo because it gets pretty stuffy and formal
sometimes and a lot of times it's pretty reactionary, but out of the
reactionaryness comes some great ideas. It's still amazing to me how
many great bands came out of the original punk scene. A lot of it is
putting the energy back into jazz that got lost in the late 70's and
early 80's.
Scott: I agree with everything Tony says, but we're doing more funk,
a lot more grooves. You could mosh to our music. Charlie played
Lollapalooza.
John: That fit's Tony's earlier groups, but I don't know what category
he's in now. I'd say we are afro-jazz-fusion-blues-rock.
Charlie: I don't know about terms, but whatever. That's fine.
3. Describe your music without using the terms jazz, avant-garde or
eclectic.
Tony: Noisy, rhythmic, a lot of improvising and very few song titles.
Scott: Funky, improvisational, you can dance to it and it grooves.
Charlie: House shakin bootie music.
John: Spiritual, inventive and energetic.
4. If you were a hip-hop artist, who would you sample?
Tony: Schoenberg, Miles Davis. Be discrete about it. But I don't
own a sampler, I would never use a sampler.
Scott: Stravinski maybe. Farting sounds, Harry Partch, Alex
Harvey.
Charlie: Tribe Called Quest.
John: Stravinsky, Irakere, Thelonius Monk.
5. What role will jazz play in the future of pop music (if any)?
John: Some jazz will become much more popular. Not mainstream
jazz, but the kind of fusion jazz that we're doing. World influenced
jazz.
Charlie: Hopefully revitalize it a little bit. Get some more songwriting
with integrity in it. Those are good questions.
Tony: It's already changing the face of pop music. The hip hop people
got bored and got stagnant so they looked to jazz because jazz
encompasses more music than any other style.
Scott: It depends on what your definition of what jazz is. By industry
standards we'll be filed under jazz because we have to be.
Tony: It's about swing. The reason that jazz works so well with hip
hop is because hip hop swings in a lot of the same ways that jazz
swings. A lot of the accents are in the same place.
Scott: But country swings, I listen to Nirvana and I think that
swings. John LaPorta once told me everything swings. You can label
it if you want, but if you like the music, that's what counts.