Interstellar Overdriver (The Fire This Time)

Gary, Chris Cornell, and producer Steve Lillywhite while Gary was working on Chris' new solo album in LA

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That was the week, that was, time-shifting wildly now under daylight's savings, dunno where to begin except at the beginning jetted west out of the ice age descending over Manhattan last sunday and suddenly everything opened up under bloody red sun of fantastic LA's shimmering dreamscape, to find myself there once again in an eternal ricorso this time in the excellent company of my friend Chris Cornell...Chris is one of the most gifted and totally gracious souls I've ever encountered and bonded with in this busyness of music, and he's blessed with one of THE best voices in rock (actually, why not just say it, guy's a damn good soul singer)...and with the great Steve Lillywhite at the production helm how the heck could I not have played my heart out for these gentlemen, on the occasion of Chris' new solo album for A&M/Interscope...

NRG Studios in Burbank is where Chris' album was 'aborning and hey they threw me right into the epicenter of the whirlwind (as in, stone cold--I'd never heard these tracks before)--and I rode with it, and then some, audio-slaving over a hot amplifier for 3 days, vibes were so warm there & music so fresh and piping hot inspired some of my best playing ever, no lie :-)...studio was just about the sweetest most comfortable recording facility you could imagine/ask for, drove up there to Burbank monday monday, bright and early, quite near where some 24 years ago at Amigo Studios down the road apiece I had made tracks with Beefheart and the boys for the "Ice Cream for Crow" album, so the landscape was subtly familiar (specially that fearsome excavation on Magnolia Boulevard)...

three days passed so quickly with such intense bursts of playing/recording/creative catching of wave, was up to my ears in music pretty much 24/7 with time out for but a few hours sleep each night. Which left me very very happy, and pleasantly exhausted (I dig working hard on things I love)-- had one evening off only, which I spent with my old pal "Mr. LA Law", Harry Hamlin, who treated me to dinner at Katsuya (Howie Klein's favorite sushi joint on Ventura Blvd.--btw, Harry's coming east soon with his wife Lisa Rinna to take up as the 2 new principal leads in the musical "Chicago" which is still running strong here on Broadway)...

3 amazing days playing on all 12 of Chris' tracks and the music is still whirling around my head, want to say thank you thank you thank you also to studio crew guys Todd Parker and Dave Colvin whose engineering skills really helped make the sessions go smoothly...there was one tense moment only really, when Chris arrived at the studio on Tuesday quite shaken and stirred (okay, couldn't resist that one as Chris is singing the theme song in the upcoming new Bond film "Casino Royale"), having just avoided a near fatal collision with an obdurate truck that morning-- but mirabile dictu, the guy's okay (though his chopper was apparently totalled)...the rest of the days I recall like a dream...

Kismet time again... at the airport as I was walking to my gate, I heard a strangely familiar voice sing out "Gaaaaaaaaary!"--and lo and behold it was my old pal and former Yale partner in exhibition du filmes cinefantastique actor magnifi-cat Bill Moseley, who was there to catch another flight east with the dude who played Buffy the Vampire Slayer's malefic nemesis on that show (name escapes me now, sorry), both of 'em way out and on the way to work the crowds at the Chiller Theater Horror Convention held annually right about now (ie Halloween) in the Jersey Meadowlands (Chiller's really a great horror/sci-fi confab--met the fabulous Barbara Steele there in '94 holding court with her amanuensis Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog magazine--hi Tim--but that's another story)--this chance meeting with Bill at the airport was a real surprise as I had actually spoken to him on the phone shortly after I arrived in LA, where he now lives, but didnt think we would be able to hook up ...somehow, it got arranged!...

Recovered, sort of, back in NYC on Thursday, and then, after a fiery rehearsal with Gods and Monsters on Friday headed up to the partially renovated, impressive and imposing Bohemian National Home on East 73rd Street (I am of Bohemian ancestry on my father's side) for a party celebrating Czech National Day, where I hung with my good friend Ambassador Martin Palous and his lovely wife Pavla, and was totally honored to meet and speak with the former Czech president/brilliant playwright and essayist Vaclav Havel, who is now resident in Manhattan for the next several months as a guest professor at Columbia University...this party was a glittering assemblage of foreign diplomats and dignitaries and Czech Cultural Office folks, with excellent champagne and sumptuous buffet, the guests eventually repaired to inspect the upstairs main gallery/theater space with balcony and original proscenium arch dating to the late 19th century, which looks amazing by candlelight... the entire building should be fully functional by next year as a great new NYC cultural oasis...

Gary and the new Czech ambassador to the UN, Martin Palous, backstage at the Museum of Jewish Heritage before Gary performed "The Golem", 9/13/06

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the next day I was invited to play guitar fanfares at 1pm for many of the same Czech party people on the lake in Central Park off east 72nd Street where they were christening a replica sailboat named the Masaryk, after the father of Czech Independence, I brought my National steel guitar with me and played my solo arrangements of Dvorak's "Largo" from the "New World Symphony", and Smetena's "The Moldau" from "Ma Vlast" (arrangements that were originally commissioned by Martin Palous several years ago for a concert I gave at the Czech Embassy in DC on this same Czech National Day)...suddenly the heavens opened up and I managed to get my steel guitar back in its leather carrying case pretty quick and we took refuge in the interior of the boathouse until the rainy season subsided and the sun shone forth again and we were sailing, sailing ....

Eventually managed to get back downtown relatively dry and unscathed, thankfully, and then it was bam out to Brooklyn to play this hot new club in Williamsburg called Brooklyn Sugar (on the site of the old Domino Sugar complex) with Gods and Monsters--the joint looks fabulous, massive warehouse multi-tiered space, lovely carpeted stage, good lights and sound, they have mounted what is essentially an update on the old UFO Club in London (and the 60's UK Arts Lab scene in general) albeit on a much grander scale, and the joint was a' rocking all night with avant-fashion show, aerial ballet, various performance art tableaux intermingled with djs, raga mandolin/tabla duets, etc. etc., it was really all too much (and apparently all too much for the NYFD, who threatened to shut the joint down repeatedly all night for--what? They turned people away, I had to sneak Caroline and other friends in through a side door, really hope they resolve these issues soon as this club is too good to suppress vis a vis what look suspiciously like a good old-fashioned shake-down by the powers that be/nighted)... thanks to Charlie Blass and Colin for hooking the gig UP...after a smoking set from Greg Tate and Jared Nickerson's cool ensemble Burnt Sugar I improvised solo guitar soundtracks to a montage of clips I had assembled from some of my favorite horror and science fiction films straight from my vault, including Peter Jackson's b&w recreated spider pit sequence from the original "King Kong", my pal Ray Harryhausen's fabulous Dance of Kali sequence from "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad", an eerie window onto Herk Harvey's "Carnival of Souls" starring the preternatural Candace Hilligoss--a Yale Art and Architecture School grad!- (incidentally, when Moseley and I showed this film there as part of our Things That Go Bump In the Night horror film series in '72 Candace sent us autographed stills from the flick, one of which is reprinted in the booklet for my "Level the Playing Field" album)--I also included a teaser, a snippet, a soupcon from one of Roy Stuart's "Glimpse" erotica vids--just some of the jeux d'artifice on display...but first up, I had them project a 5 minute clip from Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (Mia Farrow's impregnation sequence) while I played the haunting theme/lullaby from the film by the great Kyrzystof Komeda, in the company of the beautiful Polish actress and singer Anna Podolak...

Gods and Monsters took the stage around 1am after an exhilirating set by Marshall Allen leading the Sun Ra Arkestra, totally resplendent in their coats of many colours...

we set-up, we tuned, we hit, and we had lift-off...ascension...and then-- "on the dodgy subject of are there, or are there not, flying saucers--or-- UFO's", Ernie Billy and Jason and I were joined by the legendary Paul Carusoe of Radio Station EXP on harp during "Let's Go Swimming" ...what a fine night...didn't get home till 3am (actually 4, but the clock ran backwards at 2)...and wotta week...capped off this very Sunday afternoon by running into another old friend/collaborator, legendary singer/songwriter/Dylan&Patti pal Bob Neuwirth on 5th Ave, who was on the ave there with the lovely Paula Batson, who used to do PR at Columbia, Paula took us both to Pink Berry's on 32nd, a wonderful new Korean frozen yogurt and fruit franchise=Kismet again...

oops, monday monday now, too much burning of the midnight lamp here, Caroline's calling and now must bank the fires for the nonce (put your camel to bed...)


xxLove

Gary

Eldritch Street/Keep On the Sunnyside!

And speaking of les maisons de musique spirituelle/houses of the holy (see my last blog concerning playing "The Golem" in the Eglise de Saint Jean-Baptiste up in mon mon mon, mon Montreal): as a performer you really get a lot of extra texture, that certain frisson caught in the moment poised between two worlds (waking life and dreamtime) playing in old churches, synagogues, burial grounds (consecrated and otherwise)--the Paradiso in Amsterdam is a primo example, a stately old church back in the day that morphed in the 60's into THE premiere Dutch showcase for the cream of contemporary Gesang der Junglings (music for children of all ages, i.e., everybody, given half a chance to throw off their curmudgeonly psychic armor)--the Velvets did their Amsterdam reunion gig their, Stones played their too a few years ago, I've played there about 20 times beginning in 1980 with Captain Beefheart, and never fail to get an intense spiritual lift (like, way over yonder, to quote James Brown) performing there...played a wonderful old church in Hamburg around '98 doing a solo guitar concert that was dedicated as spiritual explorations into the realm of the sacred (a hip young female pastor booked this gig), acoustics are usually awesome in such venues and this was no exception...played a synagogue in Miami a couple years ago right across from Jackie Gleason's old auditorium that had similar marvelous sound...St. Ann's in Brooklyn was of course a fantastic place to play for some years for avant-garde musicians/singer-songwriters thanks to the tireless efforts of artistic directors Susan Feldman and Janine Nichols, Susan has since dome a wonderful job developing the Arts at St. Ann's Warehouse under the Manhattan Bridge ( St. Ann's is where I first met the miracle of 24 year old Jeff Buckley)... played in the cemetery in Jedwabne Poland in July 2001 after an official apology ceremony in a field nearby presided over by the president of Poland who dedicated a memorial to the slain Jewish community decimated in July 1941 (among whom I number my family on my mother's side)...

Gary performs at the "Wine Cellar Cabaret", Eldridge Street Synagogue, NYC, 10/18/06

Shelley Hirsch, Bob Holman and Gary at the Eldridge Street Synagogue "Wine Cellar Cabaret" event, NYC, 10/18/06

photos by Rachel Rabhan | Click to enlarge

and just played the magnificent crumbling 19th century Eldridge Street Synagogue in the heart of Chinatown, in the company of vocal alchemist Shelley Hirsch and word magician Bob Holman...the place fell into desuetude some years ago and is now a designated landmarked NYC historical site, and I'm embarrassed to say I had never visited there before in after almost 30 years of living here until I get asked to perform there by Hannah Griff (thank you Hannah!), who is doing a fantastic job bringing new cultural events/artists in to reconsecrate the space, which still retains its Moorish decor on the walls over the bimeh (they are working to reconstruct the interior fully now)...Bob and I took a stroll into Chinatown before our performance and wandered into an incredible hole in the wall named Prosperity Dumplings (hear hear) where you could get 5 decidedly non-kosher fried pork or veggie dumplings for a buck fifty...such a deal! Afterwards Shelley and Bob made with the words, Shelley with her amazing vocalese skills is a real speaker-in- tongues, and is one of the pioneers on the Downtown scene (I first caught her at a Sunday Brunch in '82 with Denman Maroney), Bob of course is the renowned poet/proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club/professor up at Columbia and is a joy to know and work with...I played steel guitar improvs while the pair riffed, bent, twisted, and recombined some of Bob's word jazz texts and the sounds floated up to the heavens and rang out in the rafters of this ancient Jewish tabernacle...audience was a gratifying mix of young and old folks and I look forward to returning there to play as it felt like home, you opened the door and walked into another world, I can't really describe the sensation, but the place retains the smell, the musty atmosphere, spirits of times you'd think were long gone are still hovering there watching over the place..

saw a magnificent concert at Carnegie Hall last night on the occasion of Steve Reich's 70th birthday, I've loved his music ever since purchasing the budget priced Odyssey album in the 60's of new electronic music that had Reich's great spoken word loop piece "Come Out" on it (a phrase from which, "Come Out to Show Them", was quoted by Don Van Vliet/Captain Beefheart at the end of his "Moonlight on Vermont" composition from his "Trout Mask Replica" album, which DVV admitted to me on first meeting him)...I sat next to Steve Reich at one of Michael Dorf's Downtown Seders at the Museum of Jewish Heritage a couple years ago which also had Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Daniel Liebeskind, Jerry Stiller, Janis Siegel from Manhattan Transfer, Basya Schecter, Yale Evelev, and a host of other luminaries attending/performing, he was exceedingly friendly to me, said he'd heard about Beefheart's appropriation but had never actually heard it, anyway last night's performance of his "Music for 18 Musicians" literally had me and my friend Tim Powell and Jody Breslau catching our breath at the finis it was that powerful, hypnotic, transcendental...some of his music played by the great Kronos Quartet and Pat Metheny in the first half of the concert brought tears to my eyes...ran into Bob Hurwitz from Nonesuch in the interval and he was beaming at all the good vibes and great music resounding all around that evening (it was absolutely sold-out)--best concert I've ever seen at Carnegie Hall since I saw my original musical mentor Leonard Bernstein ("Music's Monarch" is how the Times described him upon his death, in a banner headline) conduct the NYPO (he was by then their Conductor Emeritus) in Mahler's First Symphony during in the late 70's...

I'm off to LA now to work in the studio with Chris Cornell on his new solo album in the company of the great producer Steve Lillywhite (U2, among others). Chris was the Voice of Soundgarden, and currently Audioslave--and he is one of the best singers I've ever heard, bar none...and I'm really honored to be working with him.

xxLove

Gary

Canadian Sunrise

"Canadian Sunset" was one of my favorite tunes growing up a wee sprout in Syracuse, the number two track side one of Ferrante and Teicher's UA LP "Golden Piano Hits", which leads off with the theme from "Exodus'" (said theme an AM radio hit single in my neck of the woods, direct from these north of the border double piano pumpers...and the first theme I aspired to play on guitar at age nine...a theme I finally nailed on my 'Busy Being Born' album, thanks to John "Genius Award! Genius Award!" Zorn, on a track which ends-- ominously, appropriately-- with the sound of sirens--police? ambulance?-- faintly bleeding right on cue through the walls of Jake 'Dazed and Confused' Holmes' midtown jingle studio where/when I cut this here version, sirens a' bleeding right through the studio walls and onto the master tape...listen closely...God is a shout in the street, indeed)...

...and "Canadian Sunset" was on my mind as I pulled out of la citee fantastique Montreal Saturday night in the light of a blazing Canadian sunset (quick, go to Itunes store immediatement and purchase snowbird Anne Murray's smooth as piste rendition--a duet with Glenn Campbell yet-- of this wonderful pop perennial...even better, check out the Elsie Bianchi Trio's version, also available at the good old Itunes store, from their now much sought after "Atlantis Blues" album, the aforementioned Elsie sounding herein like a lobotomized Sabina Sciubba)...

all this is preamble to saying that I had a GREAT FUCKING GIG opening Pop Montreal last Wednesday with "The Golem", was possibly my favorite Golem gig of all time (all 200 or so of 'em I've executed since 1989's debut with fellow co-conspirator Walter Horn), best I ever played it for sure, certainly best setting for it ever inside the huge lovely awe-inspiring old cathedral Eglise de St. Jean Baptiste, where my "dressing room"/antechamber was festooned with framed vivid depictions of the 12 Stations of the Cross (a setting which concentrated the mind wonderfully)..hey I could happily live inside that church...the sound inside there was 4th dimensional, E. Power Biggs-like (another Great White Northerner), every time I bore down on my guitars in response to some frenzied bit of business onscreen the sound went caromming out of my twin song 'o Roland JC-120's (some cruciformed symbolisme here), ricocheting off the High Windows of stained glass and swirling around and around the domed cupola, had about 1000 folks going berserko at the end, 50 of which I have it on very good authority were on "chocolate mushrooms" (une delicace des tetes Canadienne apparently, recipe courtesy the cookbook/confiserie de L'Internationale Hallucinex--one part essence du psilocybe folded into yummy chocolate apparently)--was proferred some of this sacre bleu sacrament beforehand which apparently rendered one rubbery-- but no thanks! I was working! Anyway my gig was written up as an early festival highlight in the Montreal Gazette the day after the show (see my homepage for the text) and was cited as a highlight again this week in the same paper as part of their Festival wrap-up...and as this was my debut in Montreal, I was, uh--pretty damn chuffed, as they say! :-)))

And that was but the kickoff to a wonderful couple days spent in what is well on the way to becoming my favorite city in the immediate biosphere--such a beautiful locale! Great feng-shui. And what fantastic vibes from such friendly folks abounding, starting off with Pop Montreal mainman Dan Seligman and his co-directorice Noelle, and lovely new friends the very pre-Raphaelite looking sisters Vanya and Carina Rose (Vanya's a film maker who had a premiere of her new film Saturday night which I very reluctantly had to miss, but heard there were lines round the block for it)...also homegirl Candace (a dead-ringer for Shane from "The L-Word") and her killer femme posse who took me dancing one night to the hippity hoppity sounds of Vice Magazine's fave rave Spank Rock...ran into Jerry Leibowitz, one of the original Knit Fac space cowboys who set up shop on Houston Street in 1986, 15 years since last I scoped him and now he's a honcho handing out bourses/twoneys to deserving artists of the Canadian persuasion...and let us not forget the guy who hooked the whole thing up for me, legendary Blue Oyster Cult/Clash/Dictators producer/rockcrit/lyricist/intellectual punk Sandy Pearlman, currently teaching at McGill University, and his cohorts Professor's Don McLean, Dan Levitin and a bunch more hipsters du musique some of whom I was on a panel with called "What's Wrong with Music?" (lots, methinks, but that's another story... got to shpritz on cue about this in an interview/soundbite Thursday for the CBC who were covering the adjunct Future of Music Conference taking place up there during the day)...

...and rockin' on till the break of dawn, some highlights were catching Joanna Newsom's deliquescent, incandescent, nay superhuman set (girl is not of this earth--really); the amazing return to form and then some of the fabulous legendary Roky Erickson in the company of a tough bunch of blues-rock greasers called The Explosions, after the showing of possibly the most harrowing music documentary I've ever witnessed concerning Roky's descent into the maelstrom and amazing comeback, titled (after the 13th Floor Elevators' anthem) "You're Gonna Miss Me"...and memorably, a late night hang in a smoky loft--I was back jamming there the next night at 2am--a packed rehearsal studio that was the domain of a wonderful ethereal-voiced singer/songwriter/pianist named Patrick Watson who writes unbelievably haunting tunes, also very much appreciating the tough ragamuffin charms of young singer/songwriter/waif Jesse Jackson (his real name)...

there was a whole lot more music to catch, and people to discover, and vibes to luxuriate in...but I heard on Saturday that my Uncle Charles had died after a long illness...and so I bid a sad adieu for the moment to magnificent mother Montreal and caught a plane back home Saturday night, and then flew up to Auburn Monday with my sister Bonnie for Charles' funeral...

and now am regrouping for a slew of upcoming Gods and Monsters gigs here in NYC--we got some brilliant press out of the box for our new album "Coming Clean", including a 4 star review in the new MOJO (see home page) and this just in, a rave review in the French magazine Crossroads...

Have to split right now for a sitdown with Uncle Bob Strano, more soon later keep watching the (Canadian and otherwise) skies...

xxLove

Gary

Heaven Up in Haarlem

Patronaat show in Haarlem 10/1/06

photos by Miranda Termaat

Yesterday was a dream, a seeming seminal culmination of 16 years obsessively plowing the furrowed lowlands of Holland on tour, must have played at least, oh, 60 times here since 1990--averaging 3-4 times a year...which doesn't count the many many occasions I would make Amsterdam the base, the hub of myriad European solo tours--check my liner notes to "The Universe of Absence"-- whence I would seek refuge in the convivial Dutch corages on offer with many splendid comings and goings in and out of this most beautiful city over the course of a single tour, lightning forays into Belgium Switzerland Germany France etc. etc. so after a week spent under unbelievably balmy weather here I was gifted with a Sunday morning broadcast over the Dutch National tv channel VPRO on their program "Free Sounds" with a good half hour's interview and performance in the company of my estimable friend and collaborator lutist "Big Joe" Van Wissem...enjoy for yourself here, I think it is some of our best playing ever captured for all time...plus it was nice they referenced that "Ice Cream for Crow" clip--and Jeff Buckley's sublime recording of our song "Grace", which choked me up upon hearing it again...

Needless to say, there was much recognition afterwards as we were feted on the street, in the railway station, walking the blue fields o'er the canals, by the warmest of warmest Dutch fans...I would remind you that this was the first country to take my guitar and my music to their massive collective bosom in a big way, a fact driven home once again last night as we faced an adoring overspill crowd in Haarlem last night on the outskirts of Amsterdam in the re-jiggered remodeled Patronaat, famous rock club on the order of Amsterdam's Paradiso (hey, shambolic shaman gathering Moss Pete Doherty and Babyshambles are due there in a couple weeks) where I've performed many times solo, and with Gods and Monsters...and what a cross-section of attentive listeners!

"Well the old folks boogie/'n the young folks too..." ("You Ain't Too Old", Slim Green and the Cats from Fresno, one of Don Van Vliet's favorite sides)...and man it was packed in the Patronaat...

So I'm buzzed buzzed buzzed this morning, just waking up and getting ready to split back to NYC for a day before heading up to Montreal--and just want to say that

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE HOLLAND...

and hey Cosmo just called from London to say that BBC One played an advance white label of our forthcoming 12" "Music Blaze Up" last night on Rob Da Bank's radio show--it's coming out under our nom de groupe Wild Rumpus (myself, DJ Cosmo, and guest toaster Brother Culture) on Colleen's Bitches Brew label later this year--check it out here.

xxLove

Gary