Interview with Glen Campbell
Category: Music

I went to Glen's place in Malibu on August 4, spoke with him in the living room for about 50 minutes. His very nice MILF wife, Kim, joined in for the latter part when we talked about religion, and then cut him off when he started to rag on Bill Clinton. Glen has a new album, Meet Glen Campbell, a bunch of covers of artists like Green Day, Foo Fighters, the Replacements. He didn't know much about the background of the project, so I had to call Julian Raymond, the producer who put it all together. He was contacted by Capitol to put it all together, it wasn't a random thing as Glen seems to think. They looked at songs like REM's Losing My Religion and the Cure's Lovesong, but they were not recorded. 

      HOW LONG HAS THIS PROJECT BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR? 

    About four months?  I was playing a casino down on the river, the Colorado River, and he (producer Julian Raymond) came down. He introduced himself, told me who he was. He said, "I'd like to do an album with you." I said, "Yeah, we can talk about it." I didn't know who he was. Turned out to be the real thing. I really appreciate what he's doing and how he's doing it. And the songs.
    
    WHAT WERE THE CRITERIA FOR THE SONGS?
    
    He brought me probably everything that's been written for the last 30 years. I just listened, listened, listened. Some of them that I knew, some I didn't want to do, naturally. The more I got into it, the more I liked the idea of doing the songs. "Times Like These." Finding the John Lennon song, what a find that was.
    
    WHAT SONGS DID YOU VETO?
    
    I really didn't veto any. I just picked the ones I liked. I told him to keep the sheet! I've looked at a lot of songs, most of these I had never heard. Some I had heard.
    
    YOU HAD HEARD THE U2 SONG ("ALL I WANT IS YOU"), I GUESS?
    
    Aha, yeah. And I had heard Green Day ("Good Riddance"), the Green Day stuff. But I didn't remember how it went.
    
    HAVE YOU HEARD FEEDBACK FROM ANYONE? I SEE TOM PETTY HAS 2 SONGS ON THE ALBUM ("WALLS, ""ANGEL DREAMS") 
    
    I haven't run into him yet, but I will. I'll get a number for him and call him up and thank him.
    
    SHOULDN'T HE BE THANKING YOU?
    
    Yeah! I'll call him up and say, "You wanna thank me for doing your song?" 
    
    THE ALBUM'S PRETTY SHORT, UNDER 34 MINUTES. WERE THERE SONGS THAT WERE RECORDED THAT DID NOT MAKE THE CUT?
    
    No, I don't think so. They want 10 songs on an album. That would be a Julian question. I told him, "You do it. I've been doing it for a long, long, long, long time." He brought all the songs, I had pages.
    
    DO YOU GO THROUGH A MENTAL PROCESS WHEN YOU INTERPRET THE LYRICS? GO THROUGH A METHOD PROCESS WHERE YOU TAKE ON THE PERSONA OF THE SONGWRITER?
    
    Actually, I kind of take on what the song is saying. It seems like it's always been that way. (sings) "Times like these, it's hard to love again." I really like the song. I just said, "Thank you, lord." I could do another one like this real easy, cos it would be the second ten. It's hard to sit there and pick 'em out. Boy, do I like this one? Do I like that one? I went straight with what it says. I'm a story kinda guy. That's why I really like Jimmy Webb stuff so much. His stories are always so great. I am so pleased with this album. I really am. I sat around and listened to these songs, listened to these songs, wondering how he was gonna do them. When we got to going on the sessions, I said, "Whoa boy! I was really pleased with it." I'm more enthused about this than I was with my first album. Because then, I was rushing to get into it because of the TV show ("The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour").
    
    YOU'RE GENERALLY FAITHFUL TO THE ORIGINALS. IT'S NOT LIKE YOU'VE DONE WHAT JOHNNY CASH DID, TAKE INDUSTRIAL ROCK SONGS AND MAKE THEM TOTALLY DIFFERENT?
    
    Cash, boy he was a great writer. (sings) "Because you're mine..." I miss Johnny Cash.
    
    DO YOU FEEL COMPETITIVE, LIKE YOU WANT TO DO A BETTER JOB THAN THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS?
    
    I've never really looked at it, if I could do it better than this or that, because I had the same problem with "Galveston" and stuff like that with Jimmy. I make a song mine. I'll change chord progressions, I'll change lines in a song, and do it like I wanna do it. But for this one, there's a couple of little things here and there, but they're basically the same way they were recorded.
    
    WERE THERE ANY SONGS THAT REQUIRED TAKE AFTER TAKE?
    
    I really didn't have any problem with them. My songs were usually more range-y than these, like the "Wichita Linemans," the "Galvestons," things like that. So this was a piece of cake. I had never really looked at the lyrics on the stuff like this.
    
    WERE YOU SINGING LIVE IN THE STUDIO WITH THE MUSICIANS?
    
    I did stuff live in the studio and then go back in and punch in things. If there was anything wrong with anything, I said, "OK, let's change it, do it this way."
    
    ARE YOU A PERFECTIONIST IN THAT REGARD?
    
    I got almost perfect pitch. If something's a little sharp or flat you get an ear jerk.
    
    THERE AREN'T ANY OUTWARDLY RELIGIOUS SONGS, APART FROM THE VELVET UNDERGROUND'S "JESUS." YOU WEREN'T TEMPTED TO DO STUFF THAT HAD A GOSPEL FEEL?
    
    I didn't take that into consideration when I did this. I just looked at the songs. I didn't care care if they were country, rock, gospel. It wouldn't have made any difference. I don't really look at that as a gospel song.
    
    I THINK IT'S MORE OF A PLEA
    
    Exactly. (sings) "Jeeesus!" Everytime I hear that I hear something else that I didn't hear, it seems like. (sings) "Help me find my special place" (dog outside joins in). That's a good song. It's a prayer.
    
    DO YOU AND KIM HAVE AN "OUR SONG"
    
    (laughs) Yeah, the John Lennon song ("Grow Old With Me"). (sings) "Grow old along with me." Isn't that a great song? What a writer he was! He wrote good melodies too.
    
    DO YOU SERENADE YOUR WIFE THAT SONG?
    
    Oh yeah! ... And late at night, I'll be singing Jerry Lewis' "C'mon baby, a whole lotta shakin' going on!"
    
    WERE YOU INSPIRED BY THE WORK THAT RICK RUBIN DID WITH THE LIKES OF JOHNNY CASH AND NEIL DIAMOND?
    
    Oh yes. You mentioned the best people. I played on his albums. Whatisname? Neil Diamond. The most enjoyable times, it was in the studio. You're in there with your peers, and the joking and the kidding. It was a lot of laughs, And we'd just sit down and do two takes on something, and bang! That was it. Sinatra came in. He did "Strangers in the Night." That was it, cut and dry. Naturally we were there a couple of hours. It was one of the most fun sessions. Frank was laughing it up, man! He just came in and did 3 takes of it, and Jimmy Bowen, I knew Jimmy from a long time ago, Jimmy was producing the date. He took some out of the first one and put it in the second one.
    
    AS MUCH AS YOU HAVE ENJOYED YOUR SOLO SUCCESS, YOU FEEL NOSTALGIC AND WISTFUL FOR YOUR DAYS WITH THE WRECKING CREW (THE CRACK L.A. SESSION MUSICIANS)?
    
    Oh yeah, I miss it. To go in and know that you're going to be playing with some of the best musicians on the planet. It had to contribute a lot to the songs because the players were so damn good.
    
    WOULD YOU HAVE PREFERRED TO BE A IN A BAND?
    
    Oh yeah, that was really the best time of my life, as far as comraderie. Now, it's just me and the band. God, I've had the same band since Hitler was a corporal! And they're great.
    
    AT LEAST YOU GET TO BE THE DICTATOR!
    
    Yeah! Musicians, they will joke and kid about a lot of things. Another musician can tell if a musician is insecure. That's when you can't joke with them. And there were some of those guys, I don't remember any of their names. They played great, but it wasn't as good as they wanted to do it. 
    
    IS THERE A TINGE OF JEALOUSY THAT YOU WENT ON TO BIGGER AD BETTER THINGS?
    
    Oh yeah, I got kidded. "Oh, the big star's in the studio!" and all that crap. They were kidding. I found out that musicians who were sure of themselves, there wasn't any jealousy or anything like that in the studios. If there was, it was quickly took out by not being quite as good. All the sessions, there never was any anger, or nobody would get ticked or anything.
    
    NOW THAT YOU'RE BACK IN L.A., DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT DO SOME MORE SESSION WORK?
    
    Yeah, if a friend called me up and wanted to play rhythm guitar or sing harmony with them, oh yeah, I'd do it. But I don't know very many guys here.
    
    YOU NEED TO MAKE SOME FRIENDS?
    
    Musician friends, yeah.
    
    DO YOU SEE THIS AS A SPRINGBOARD FOR A CAREER RENAISSANCE?
    
    Capitol wanted to do it so I said I would, and I'll honor that. But I don't miss it now. I don't miss not playing or singing now. But I go out and do it because the musicians would be out of a job. There's a lot of decisions to be made, but I am gonna quit. I'm 72 years old. What am I doing out here? Driving back from the big shindig yesterday. Where were we at? ... It was a big music festival in Oregon. It was out in the middle of nowhere. But those things sure are a lot of fun.
    
    YOU DON'T HAVE THE THEATER IN BRANSON ANYMORE?
    
    Nooo. That was a guy who wanted to put my name on it. I said, OK. The price of gas is really ... nobody hardly goes to Branson. It's amazing. It's less than half.
    
    WILL THIS BE THE LAST RECORD THAT YOU MAKE?
    
    I don't know. I didn't do an album for how long? 15 years? I did an inspirational album (contemporary Christian) ... I always liked to sing in church. I went to the Church of Christ. They didn't have music. They had a pitch pipe. It didn't make any difference. They all started in the wrong key anyway. Twenty-five, 30 (people), that's about all we had in that little church where I lived down in Arkansas. And they'd all start singing, and everyone of them was in a different key, I think. I used to laugh at that ... We used to go the black church. When they did a Sunday-evening sing, we'd go over there and they'd let us look in through the window. They were incredible. I really miss that. In fact, when I was back home, I went around to see, but you hardly see a black person down there anymore ... I started going here to a Messianic church.
    
    MASONIC?
    
    Messianic. It's Jews who believe that Christ is the risen savior.
    
    LIKE JEWS FOR JESUS?
    
    Well, same thing, yeah ... Jewish people teaching the teachings of Christ. I think it will all come around to that, I really do.
    
    WOULD IT ALMOST BE AN UNFORTUNATE TWIST OF FATE IF THIS RECORD WERE QUITE BIG AND YOU WERE FORCED TO DELAY RETIREMENT?
    
    Yeah, that's right. I ain't gonna ... Well ... I like playing with symphonies. I do quite a bit of them. Oh my gosh, New Zealand has the most incredible symphony I've ever heard in my life. It was like jazz strings, if you could call it that. They played the charts like, Wow! I felt like I was just lifting off of the stage. I love a string section, and they had the whole symphony. That was the best symphony I ever played with, good gracious me.
    
    IF THIS RECORD DOES CATCH FIRE, YOU WOULDN'T BE INCLINED TO HIT THE ROAD 6 OUT OF 7 DAYS A WEEK?
    
    I would do some shows, but not 7 days a week, or 6 days. I'd rather play golf! 
    
    THEY HAVE GOLF COURSES AROUND THE COUNTRY
    
    Yeah, but then you've gotta drag your clubs. My clubs are a certain weight, a certain stiffness in the shaft. Everybody's is. 
    
    WHEN YOU WERE IN PHOENIX, DID YOU PLAY A LOT WITH ALICE COOPER?
    
    Oh yeah, Cooper and I played a lot down in Phoenix.
    
    DO YOU HAVE ANY GOLFING BUDDIES HERE?
    
    Oh yeah, lawyers, doctors. We're at Malibu Country Club. You ever been over there?
    
    NO, I HAVEN'T BEEN INVITED
    
    I wasn't either. It's not a country club. It's for the public. You can show up and play golf. It's not that crowded, and it's probably as good a golf course as I've played on.
    
    HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU GO A DAY?
    
    Just once! ... This morning, we have an 8 o'clock tee time. There's probably 12-15 guys.
    
    WHAT'S YOUR HANDICAP?
    
    I'm a white Protestant! ... No, my handicap is 7.
    
    IS THAT GOOD?
    
    Mmmm, it could be better. I've been as low as 3, I think.
    
    DO YOU WORK OUT OTHERWISE?
    
    No. I never run unless there's something chasing me. Then you know if you can do it or not! But I work out a little. I'm doing to start working out more. I've got weights in the house, but there's a gym that's a block down off of PCH (Pacific Coast Highway).
    
    YOU'RE IN PRETTY GOOD SHAPE
    
    Thank you. I used to work out a lot. When I started I was in Albuquerque, about 15 years old. I'd run to the gym, just work out like a fiend. It doesn't take much to keep a guy in shape, really. I should start going back.
    
    SO THIS IS YOUR PERMANENT HOME, YOU'RE NOT GOING BACK TO PHOENIX?
    
    Yeah, probably. My wife really likes it, and our daughter's in Pepperdine ... We go to synagogue on Saturdays. The comraderie's really good there. I just take life as God gives it out.
    
    DO YOU WEAR A YARMULKE?
    
    Yep, sometimes I do, put the thing on my head. I joined it because Messianic Jews, they believe in the risen Christ. I don't think Jews do that. They don't believe that Jesus ever came?
    
    I THINK THEY'RE STILL WAITING?
    
    They're waiting for the Messiah? Well, the Messiah's already been, according to all the writing! I looked into that myself! Take God as your creator and that's it.
    
    HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED?
    
    I grew up with the Church of Christ, and they didn't allow music in the church. It was a guy, he started the church. That's why there're so many different churches. No musical instruments. "Hey, look there. There he is. He's playing the harp!" Oh, no, and they don't go any farther than the New Testament. They don't go into any of the Old Testament. That's the way I was raised. God, you can see through that in two seconds. It's a false religion. If you wanna come down to the synagogue, man, it's cool. 
    
    WHAT SONGS DO THEY SING, JEWISH SONGS OR CHRISTIAN SONGS?
    
    Whatever. It's good. And they sing it in Yiddish!
    
    HOW'S YOUR YIDDISH THESE DAYS?
    
    Oh, it's terrible!! I am terrible.
    
    DO YOU CELEBRATE HANUKKAH AND PASSOVER?
    
    Aha.
    
    AND CHRISTMAS. SO YOU GET ALL THE FESTIVALS?
    
    Oh yeah, we get both sides of it that way ... And everybody wears a yarmulke. But the guy who teaches. I don't really like going to the preaching that much because I don't like to be preached to. But the guy that does the thing after ... bible study. This guy, Dima (sp?), he's a genius. He knows everything there is in the Bible. Obviously he does. He just comes out and he can explain anything, doesn't matter what it is. Just awesome. I like to hear a good teacher, a scholar, like this guy. 
    
    DID YOU GUYS EVER CHECK OUT KABBALAH?
    
    What's Kabbalah? (His wife explained it for him) ... Are you Jewish?
    
    I'M AN ATHEIST.
    
    Atheist!! That's a good religion!!
    
    IT'S EASY. I DON'T HAVE TO BOTHER WITH CHRISTMAS GIFTS ... SO HAS THIS INFLUENCED YOU TO MAKE LIFESTYLE CHANGES?
    
    No. I don't lie. I don't cheat ... It changed my life from being real. I don't think about cursing, or anything like that. I accept the scriptures for what they are. 
    
    KIM CAMPBELL: We do all the biblical festivals. We do Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur.
    
    THIS IS ALL SINCE YOU CAME TO L.A.?
    
    KIM: No, we've been Messianic for a long time. Christianity started as a sect of Judaism, so it's a return back to an authentic expression of faith in Yeshua as the Messiah, Jesus as the Messiah. Because Jews and non-Jews can both attend a Messianic synagogue.
    
    WHAT DO THE REGULAR JEWS THINK OF THESE JEWS?
    
    KIM: There's a lot more openness and acceptance of it today, even in Israel. In fact, they're allowing them to make aliyah now, to go back to the land. At first, there was a lot of resistance to it. There's been a lack of understanding for almost 2,000 years.
    
    SO YOU HAVE PASSOVER HERE? DO YOU DO ALL THE COOKING?
    
    KIM: Absolutely ... I have not made a matzo ball soup yet. I make a brisket.
    
    GLEN: She scorched water when we first got married! And she turned out to be the best cook.
    
    KIM: We were Baptists in the early part of our marriage, and when we came across Messianic Judaism, it just totally did a paradigm shift for us. It was so exciting, and so enriching. It was more than we ever had before.
    
    GLEN: It made you want to find out more
    
    HOW MANY YEARS HAVE YOU BEEN DOING IT FOR?
    
    KIM: Probably 15 years. It's been a blessing.
    
    GLEN: Yeah, I finally got my act straight. It's been amazing.
    
    YEAH, SO YOU DON'T DRINK AT ALL, AND EVERYTHING'S COOL?
    
    Oh, I had a problem with drinking. Good wine. But I didn't know when to stop.
    
    SO YOU HAVE NONALCOHOLIC MANISCHEWITZ?
    
    KIM: We have grape juice.
    
    GLEN: It's close enough, right? Grape juice is great. We get used to habits in our life. Drinking is a habit ... I never really liked beer, and I couldn't take whisky at all. But I did get into the wine.
    
    RED OR WHITE
    
    Red. White's ... ugh!
    
    IT STAINS THE TEETH THOUGH!
    
    Oh, mine are capped. 
    
    SO YOU'RE LIVING A VIRTUOUS LIFE?
    
    We've all got bad habits ... I like the cigars. But I'm from Arkansas, so I don't inhale (NOTE: I totally missed this joke initially)
    
    DO YOU HAVE CUBANS?
    
    No, these are Dominicans. (Cubans) are too strong for me.
    
    WERE YOU CONFLICTED BY THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY? PROUD THAT HE HAILED FROM ARKANSAS, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, HE WAS A BIT OF A RATBAG?
    
    (Laughs) I really like that "ratbag," I never heard that before! Ratbag!! ... Gosh, Clinton lied so much he had to hire somebody to call his dog (His wife anxiously interrupted the tirade with what I assume was a fake excuse)
    
    DO YOU THINK THIS RECORD MIGHT BE MISPERCEIVED
 AS A BID BY AN OLDER MAN TO PANDER TO A YOUNG AUDIENCE?

    I feel like I did when I was 20. Age is a number.
    
    BUT FOR YOU TO BE SINGING FOO FIGHTERS SONGS AND GREEN DAY SONGS, IT SEEMS A BIT INCONGROUS?
    
    All of them are good. I like what they're (the Foo Fighters) saying. "It's times like these" -- he's talking about life, they're singing about life.
    
    DO YOU THINK MCCAIN WILL BRING IN THE CHRISTIAN VOTE?
    
    I don't know. I would like to see McCain get it (the presidency) because I've known him for 25 years. He was my neighbor in Phoenix, and he's a great guy. I'd rather see him at that post than anybody that I know of. John McCain is a straightshooter. He's kinda shy.
    
    WILL YOU CAMPAIGN FOR HIM?
    
    Not unless he asks me. I talk about politics sometimes. Politics is politics. After hearing Obama's church, that guy down there saying "God damn the USA" ... That's his church, that's the guy that's be teaching Obama. He's been teaching Obama all that crap, probably. I'd like to see somebody with more experience than Obama ... I don't think it really makes a helluva lot of difference who's the president.
    
    SO FINALLY, IF YOU'RE NOT TOURING AND YOU'RE NOT SONGWRITING, HOW DO YOU PAY THE BILLS?
    
    I have a great accountant. I have apartment houses, stuff like that. Solid stuff. I don't mess with the markets. It's too up and down.
    
    DO YOU GET MUCH ROYALTY INCOME?
    
    Oh yeah, it's amazing. I make enough to feed the family.
    
    PUBLICIST: HE's got a great business manager, Stan Schneider (sp?).
    
    GLEN: Yeah, Stan ... 1961. He did my first $32 tax bill.

C. Dean Goodman 2008

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Interview with Mark Spitz
Category: Sports

Before the Beatles and the Stones, there was Mark Spitz - my primary role model, when I was 4 or 5. Swimming lessons in unheated pools in freezing weather didn't seem bad at the time, because everyone wanted to be like him, grow a mustache, win 7 gold medals in one Games, and become the most famous Olympian that ever lived. Well, I never reached those levels, but even today when I swim with my team 4 times a week in Sherman Oaks, he's never too far from my mind. Anyway, he and I sat down by the pool at the W Hotel in Westwood last Friday for an hourlong chat, and then he delivered his stump corporate motivational speech, saving me thousands of dollars in the process, as well as a ton of financial advice -- short gold, buy T-Bills, etc. Nice fellow, still quite handsome, and his thighs were monstrous.

    HOW HAVE YOU KEPT YOUR NAME ASSOCIATED WITH SWIMMING AND THE OLYMPICS?

    I haven't had that much to do to actually have to associate my name with swimming because there's a guy named Michael Phelps who's trying to break my record, so it seems like I'm attached to him at the hip. So every move that he makes left or right they come and ask me, "Is he doing the right thing?" Of course, I don't really have an opinion about what he's doing because what he's doing has been fantastic. He's breaking world records and he's swimming in the same events that he swam in four years ago when he got six gold medals. It looks like he may even get eight gold medals now.
    
    DO YOU THINK PEOPLE EXPECT ATHLETES TO REMAIN IN PRIME PHYSICAL CONDITION, DECADES AFTER THEY HAVE RETIRED?
    
    I've been training almost all my life, even since I retired from swimming. Not to the extreme because I had no purpose to go the Olympic Games or I'm not professional so I didn't need to maintain a lifestyle athletically to earn a living that way. With exercise that a lot of people do and with nutrition -- I hate the word diet -- but with the proper nutrition, which becomes a lifestyle habit or change that you might need to make, you can actually feel really good about yourself and your self-esteem is positive. If that's the case, everybody that you come in contact with during the course of the day gets that vibration of being positive, and it's kind of a contagious emotion. So I think it's really important to get the message across that you need to stay healthy and you need to do something about it. There's too many people that are sedentary that are playing videogames these days.
    
    HOW HAVE YOU MANAGED TO POSTPONE SIGNS OF AGEING SUCH AS INCREASED BLOOD PRESSURE, DECREASED MUSCLE MASS AND LUNG FUNCTION BECAUSE OF ALL YOUR SWIMMING?
    
    I think that I'm fortunate that at an early age I had an ability to be able to focus in on obviously the proper training -- and you don't think about that when you're 10 years for example, or when you're 14 or 15 or 20, because you think you're invincible and those things happen to everybody else other than yourself. Pretty soon, time marches on and I've had a healthy lifestyle. I have good oxidation of my blood, and bringing in every breath that I take it doesn't seem like I'm getting tired. That's because I've maintained this exercise program. By the way, I work out sometimes as little as 3 times a week for an hour. People watch TV a lot more than that. You don't have to go swimming like I do, but you can at least do something. If you're going to stand there and watch TV, pick up a small little 5-pound weight and start swinging it, do something, than just laying in bed.
    
    HOW HAS SWIMMING BEEN INFLUENCED BY TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES OVER THE YEARS?
    
    The big change is that there's been a tremendous amount of equipment that's developed at the health club. In the sport of swimming, you can actually go to a health club now and do cross-training and jump on a piece of exercise equipment that wasn't around 30 years ago and develop a muscle group so that you can be specifically, let's say, a hundred meter freestyle swimmer. Because of that, athletes have gotten stronger and also faster and not only have they gotten stronger but the taller guys -- even taller women -- have muscle masses now capable of pulling their larger bodies through the water, and longer boats go faster than shorter boats. Well, guess what? Longer swimmers go faster than shorter swimmers and those swimmers today are like 6 feet 6, and I'm only 6 foot 1. So there's been a tremendous leap forward. If you statistically now want to be a great swimmer and you're a male, if you're not 6-4, 6-5, you might as well just forget it.
    
    WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE SPEEDO LZR BODYSUIT THAT'S BREAKING ALL THESE WORLD RECORDS?
    
    I had long hair, I didn't wear goggles, I had a little suit that was nylon that wasn't even clingy  and yet I broke world records. If you really thought that that swimsuit really made you faster then I'm buying Tiger Woods' golf clubs because I think I can be competitive. The reality is, it's not the swimsuit that's taking the swimmer across the pool fast, it's the guy in the swimsuit stroking that suit fast. What they don't tell you is that you need to go about 6 miles per hour to break the actual drag co-efficient and that means you have to swim a 50 freestyle. Those are the only people that can actually swim fast enough to get anything out of that suit. Any thing more than that in distance, the suit starts to become smaller. If you look at Michael Phelps when he swam the 400 individual medley, he basically wore a suit from his waist to his knees. So he's not wearing that full-length bodysuit in some of those events because of the drag factor. So it's a marketing tool. At about $700 a copy -- and they basically give them away and they only last for about 2 hours and I think you rip about one out of every 4 you're trying to get on -- it's not something that I think an age group swimmer's parents are going to be too happy about buying ... It's a psych. If everybody was wearing those suits, I'd want one too ... It's all psychological at that point.
    
    DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A COMPETITIVE GUY?
    
    I'm swimming in an organized coached workout which technically speaking from a masters point of view I could use that as a springboard to compete in the masters competitions, but I don't do it for that. I just do it to stay somewhat in shape, and also socially I've got somebody to talk about this, sharing the same misery that I'm involved in for an hour a day!
    
    HAVE YOU TALKED TO MICHAEL PHELPS ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES?
    
    I've only talked to him, just small chit-chat. I was giving him an award at the Golden Goggle Awards where he got athlete of the year and things like that, that U.S. Swimming has. It's kinda like the Academy Awards of swimming for the year. He knows exactly the program that he's in. There's nothing really that I could say to him that would help him. I think the first time I met him, I whispered in his ear, and then the press asked me what it was, and I promised not to say until after he competed in the Olympics in Athens. And then finally I came out and I said what I said: "Listen, do whatever you have to do, you know what you're doing. Just devote enough time to yourself so that you become selfish to the press. Give 'em what they need but then you've got to close it off." And that's exactly what I'd recommend now. And he already knows that anyway.
    
    DO YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT POSSIBLY LOSING YOUR SINGLE-OLYMPICS RECORD TO PHELPS?
    
    Not really. I would have never thought that 36 years later I would be sitting here talking about a record that theoretically I had. My record is really not a contested event. It just happens to be that I have swum in 7 events and won 7 of those medals. Michael has a program of 8 events and he's not even swimming the same combination. So in one sense it's almost irrelevant to make a comparison that way, but a gold medal's a gold medal and I feel honored. Somebody once told me that when somebody is great, then that greatness is a matter of measure which others judge themselves by. So obviously he's judged himself by the measure and standard that I created. And to me that's just a compliment. It can't be anything negative. I'm taken aback that he thought enough to say, "Listen I wanna challenge myself." It's great for him, it's great swimming, it's great for the Olympic movement, and it's certainly great for television because he's their meal ticket for the first week.

    I VAGUELY RECALL THAT WITH THE 100M BUTTERFLY AT THE LAST OLYMPICS, IAN CROCKER WON IT EXCEPT FOR THE LAST INCH-
    
    -Listen I have a picture, from sitting in the stands, with 15 meters to go and Phelps was in 3rd place, and he won by a hundredth. At the world swimming championships, he beat Crocker by three one-hundredths of a second. The problem with Crocker, and it's not his problem because he didn't have anything to do with it, is that the 100 fly comes as one of the last events. It's the first and only event for him. It's the last event as an individual event for Phelps. So if he comes into that event with all these gold medals, that works for him in two ways. It works for him in one way that's positive: Hey, he's having a great meet. But the negative part of that is: 'I've been swimming already 15, 16 times and I'm getting a little tired.' Crocker definitely has speed on everybody in the world for 80 meters, but he's always had a problem with the last 5 strokes. Or 4 strokes. It used to be the last 3 strokes. At the Olympic trials, it was the last 7 strokes. But it was enough to make the team. The $64,000 question is, is Crocker gonna finally get it together since it's the last time he'll ever swim that event? Or is the same thing gonna happen and repeat itself, that Phelps wins? It's not that easy for Phelps to do what he needs to do, but he has the capacity to do it because you just look at the track record. If you want to handicap the possibilities, I wouldn't bet against this guy.
    
    PHELPS IS A FREAK OF NATURE WITH HIS LONG TORSO, LOW WAIST, DOUBLE JOINTS-
    
    -I have a very long torso and short legs, the same as his. As a matter of fact when I'm standing next to him my inseam, my legs, are about as his. So he's got a torso that's about 3 and a half inches longer. That's all strength. And his wingspan, with his arms, that just helps him immensely.
    
    WHAT OTHER PHYSIOLOGICAL ATTRIBUTES DO YOU BRING TO THE TABLE? DO YOU HAVE A SUPER-LOW HEART RATE?
    
    I had a tremendous lung capacity based on what we knew of at the time, in testing against my competitors. For every breath I took, I took in more oxygen, and therefore I had the least likelihood of getting lactic acid buildup, which meant that my muscles tied up maybe with only one meter to go, instead of five meters to go.
    
    WHAT IS THE EXTENT OF YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE SWIMMING AND OLYMPIC BUREAUCRACIES? 
     
    The funny thing is, they've got the same people sitting in FINA, which is our organizing body, as when I was in the Olympics 30 years ago. So those guys are quite old. The 'flickering , fluttering, flustering, floundering badge-wearers' (quoting Jim McKay)... are still there. But you need (them) to really pull off an Olympic Games and they come from all walks of life, and they come from the different (sporting) federations. Without those people we wouldn't be able to conduct and have a sporting event. The bottom line is you've gotta die to get a job there, and it's non-paying.
    
    I THINK YOU DIFFER WITH THE IOC ON THE WAY THE ISRAELI ATHLETES FROM '72 ARE REMEMBERED?
    
    I can sit there and talk in hyperbole, but at the end of the day I personally, and it's my responsibility to say this, and you can take it anyway you want, but had the terrorists attacked somebody else and they weren't Jews, I'm just curious as to how they would have their representation in future Olympic Games being depicted. I highly doubt it would be as void as what has been done.
    
    The Olympics is always what's happening today, not so much about what took place in the past. If they were stuck on what took place in the past then I would probably be included in some of the pomp and circumstance and celebration. Certainly, I'm not out there campaigning for that because it's not something that I can campaign (for).
    
    Somebody interviewed me just the other day from the Belgian press, and the question came up: Why hasn't anybody thought about you giving Michael Phelps the 7th or 8th gold medal. I looked at him in surprise and I said, Y'know, since I know that's probably not gonna happen, that'd be sort of a neat thing to do. For a variety of reasons. Number 1: It's been 36 years since I did that. As far as the network is concerned it's all about Michael Phelps and seeing if he can break my record. What better thing to do? ... I don't know who is responsible for this but when Mark McGwire was trying to break Roger Maris' home run record (in 1998), somebody either through baseball or TV kept moving the Roger Maris family from one ballpark to the next until that happened. And the first thing that McGwire did was basically break down and cry and hand them the ball. I thought that was a beautiful moment. If they thought that much of me, then somebody who is in the capacity to be able to make that happen certainly hasn't decided to do so. And that's their prerogative, and I have no hard feelings for that. But I think that passing the baton ... would have been a phenomenal idea to go do that. Up until the day that he breaks that and does that, which I suspect he is, they still have an opportunity to do something about it, and if they miss that opportunity I have no hard feelings.
    
    WERE THE MUNICH GAMES INFLUENTIAL ON YOUR VIEWS ON SPIRITUALITY AND ISRAEL?

    Not really. Being Jewish has a lot of different permutations of what you need to do, and you can set your own pace as how 'religious' you may or may not wanna be. I never thought about this at the time, nor would I have suspected that by winning gold medals that I was then thrust in the forefront of being a 'spokesperson' for the Jewish causes, whatever they might be. I wasn't able to hide under a veil of denial of who I was or wasn't religiously, and never was I going to do that in the first place. But that took on an interesting set of responsibilities, and I think I've weathered it pretty well. I can't even satisfy sometimes pleasing my Mom so how can I please a whole religious sector! I'm just always trying to be a good guy to my Mom, and be nice! ... 
    
    DO YOU HAVE QUALMS ABOUT BEIJING HOSTING THE GAMES?

    The IOC announced this seven years ago that they got to be host city and everybody sat around and didn't pay attention to it until maybe when the torch relay started to happen about a couple of months ago, and all of a sudden everybody woke up and said, "Hey there's civil liberties and differences there." The bottom line is this, if you cut to the chase and look all through that, the Olympics is supposed to transcend way beyond that. The fact is that it's the coming together of the youth of the world to compete in friendly competition for the good of sport. And, on top of that, these athletes come from countries, and if it so be that countries want to attach themselves jingoistically to the fact that "My countryman got a gold medal!" and then the networks go, "Yeah! And the United States this week now has a total of x number of gold medals, and that country has that number ...' That makes for good television. The fact that there's political differences that occur within a country have to do with the country itself, with their own people. It's not the obligation, in my opinion, for the United States to be talking about what China should be doing with their people. Just like I don't think we would tolerate them if they were talking about what we should be doing. The athletes have at least been attempted to be used as pawns for the inabilities of the politicians to come to the collective bargaining table and being able to talk these sort of indifferences out that at the end of the day have nothing to do with the athletic performances whatsoever. Those guys are training and doing their thing and not paying attention to what's going on politically, The (1980) boycott that happened with Carter: Hey! Afghanistan's still messed up, and that didn't solve the problem, and the poor athletes that trained were denied an opportunity from the countries that basically contributed to honoring the boycott. 
    
   WHAT IS YOUR EATING REGIMEN?
    
    I try to stay off a lot of the flour products like carbs and pasta. But my problem is I never met a meal I didn't like!
    
    WHEN I COME BACK FROM THE WORKOUT, I EMPTY THE FRIDGE
    
    Y'know, when I really have a hard workout, I do a lot of drinking (!) and eat some fruit a little bit, and I actually have the opposite effect. I have that effect when I first start swimming, but when I'm on a regular basis swimming hard, I don't have those cravings in that way.
    
    WHAT'S YOUR SWIM WORKOUT?
    
    We do about 3,500 meters. You warm up about 400 and then we get into some kind of a set, whatever that might be. It might be 8 x 100s on a certain interval and then another 8 x 100s on a shorter interval, might go into a kick set, get up and dive set, whatever. By then an hour's up. If it's an hour and 15 minutes which I like because it takes me about 40 minutes to really get my act together just because of my age, I only get about 20 minutes of hard workout out. But the workouts that are an hour and a half or an hour and 15 minutes, I really excel in.
    
    WHAT'S YOUR INTERVAL?
    
    We leave on the 1:30. We might shorten it up to 1:20. Remember we're masters, so we're embracing a lot of different age groups.
    
    DO YOU USE FINS?
    
    Oh yeah, we use fins. A lot of times I use fins actually in the warmup for the first 30 minutes because it puts less stress on my shoulder so that I can warm up a lot looser.
    
    I USE THE ZOOMERS BUT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT GETTING ADDICTED
    
    I actually don't use the Zoomers, I use some other brand. But I think the concept's nice. It makes me feel fast!
    
    WHAT'S A WEEK LIKE IN THE LIFE OF MARK SPITZ? I KNOW YOU DO A LOT OF TRAVEL. IS THIS A FREAK TIME BECAUSE OF THE OLYMPICS?
    
    It's an increased time of my participation. My book just came out for an example ... I'm in the water business with a guy named Rick Barry, the famous basketball player. I'm not short for time.
    
    AND WHAT ABOUT THE CORPORATE SPEECHES?
    
    I do about 25 of those a year, also. I've got those sprinkled. the sprinkling is like pelting rain, right now. This month, I think I'm home six days.
    
    WHAT DO YOU DO TO UNWIND?
    
    Swim in a pool at 5:45 in the morning!
    
    DO YOU HAVE A POOL AT HOME?
    
    Yeah, but I don't get in that pool. It's too short. 
    
    DO YOU DO CROSS-TRAINING?
    
    I have a machine that's in my house that's a pulley system that's phenomenal, and I jump on that about 3 times a day, but for about 5 or 6 minutes.
    
    IN AUSTRALIA, PEOPLE LIKE IAN THORPE AND SHANE GOULD ARE GODS, AND SWIMMING IS LIKE A RELIGION, HOW CAN WE ELEVATE IT THOSE LEVELS HERE?
    
    Swimming and Australian Rules football are equivalent to baseball, football and the NBA here. Ask me why, I have no idea. It just was a tradition that was brought forth a hundred years ago. You see people out on the beach in Speedos, but you don't see people out in Santa Monica Bay with Speedos. It's just a way of life there. When I think back, what was on TV in the 50s? Or even early 60s? There wasn't the NBA on television, there wasn't even baseball on television except for the World Series, and the World Series was always a day game in the middle of the week. So our options were limited and our exploitation of sport was limited to how it influenced the viewer. Today, I have kids and they watch MTV and they watch Sesame Street and they watch things that are composed of 3-minute soundbites. If you can't get your message across in 3 minutes, you've lost this generation that we're looking at. And they've got the X-Games, extreme sports, and things that are just waaaaay cooler than going into a swimming pool, or even going to a basketball court. Some of these types of activities invoke the greater masses, and their degree of success is not determined by any form of competition other than the fact I'm wearing the clothes and now I'm part of the game. That's where kids' interests are today. That's why Olympic sports to speak of have been put on the backburner for anybody to be interested in. Except the die-hards.
    
    ARE WE LOSING THE THREAD?
    
    Yeah, and then of course we have this thing in America called Title IX (a 1972 law outlawing sex discrimination in any education program), which is women's sports, which ironically at the time was a great idea for women to have equality in getting scholarships and have equal representation and whatever. But we didn't realize it, it was at the expense of men's nonrevenue sports in college. So swimming programs and men's gymnastics programs and men's volleyball programs basically flew by the wayside so that they could bring back into order this percentage of 2% of the undergraduate female student body must be on scholarship. The brain trust that figured this out, made it a federal law, failed to realize that the NCAA has limitations on participants. So then they came up with this slush sport called women's canoeing. I believe at UCLA they've got about 450 kids in women's canoeing and they've only got 4 canoes.
    
    THAT'S A LOT OF PEOPLE TO SQUEEZE INTO A CANOE!
    
    There you go. I don't know if my numbers are accurate. Part of that is tongue-in-cheek, but the reality is that's what's happening. 
    
    AFTER PHELPS RETIRES IN 2012, DO YOU WORRY THAT THERE WILL BE A VACUUM SIMILAR TO WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU RETIRED?
    
    I finished swimming in 1972 and 16 years later in 1988 there was a guy named Matt Biondi that fell short and got 5 gold medals. Twenty years later, you've got Michael Phelps. Actually, 16 years after Biondi was the first time we really saw Phelps, and that was the 2004 Olympics. So maybe the cycle is 16 years. So if in fact we're gonna see somebody and it's 2008, 16 years from now will be ... 2024. I'll be 74 years old, 10 years past the Beatles song "When I'm 64."
    
    HOW DO WE SHORTEN THE CYCLE?
    
    You got me. More drugs? Who knows?
    
    YOU'LL BE AT BEIJING?
    
    Not as we speak. I'll be in Hong Kong a couple of days before the opening ceremonies, from the 7th, coming back to California on the 11th. So unless I get that invite, I'll be watching on TV.
    
    I THOUGHT THEY'D ROLL THE RED CARPET OUT FOR YOU?
    
    You know something? I don't think it's gonna happen. It'd be nice if it did. It would seem like the right thing to do.
    
    DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER GOALS?
    
    I have business goals. In swimming I'm not going to be recognized in any extent to the adulation that happened with me at the Olympic Games. And Michael Phelps the same thing ... He'll be a household name for a while. It's hard to come off of that, and be successful at the level like that. Even if he goes to London in 2012, the odds are he'll swim maybe not as many events. But he'll probably still be as good in some of those events. Who knows? I predict that what'll happen when he gets finished with his career is that he'll have more medals at the end. Right now I think it's held by some Russian gymnast who has 15 medals or something, over about 4 Olympics (Actually, Larissa Latynina, 18 medals in the '60, '64 games).
    
    THE '70S STARTED OFF GREAT FOR YOU, BUT WAS THE REST OF THE DECADE TOUGH?
    
    Not really. I had such a satisfying career. I won every thing that I held a world record in. I left no stone unturned, and I broke world records in everything. So I couldn't complain about I thought I could have gone faster. Even in my mind, I think I could have gone faster if I was only swimming one event for example. But under that program, what the heck? What was there left? I don't know a lot of people that you could count on one hand that go out on top and had this phenomenal career, that they went out when they were super on top. The tendency is to hang on a little bit, like this Brett Favre ... 
    
    THERE WAS NEVER ANY THOUGHT OF YOU DOING 1 OR 2 EVENTS IN '76?
    
    I couldn't, because as soon as I took money for that picture I took with the gold medals I was a pro, and there was no going back. The rules were different then. Had the rules been the same then as they are now, I would have been encouraged by my sponsors, because I would have been able to make money to compete for another 4 years. 
    
    I think that's probably one of the underlying problems with drugs in sport today. Back in my day, you couldn't do it (take money). If you did it covertly under the table, you weren't making a whole helluva lot, certainly not to support yourself. So there wasn't this compulsion other than on a personal note to wanna continue to be in your winning ways. Now of course if you can make money, you've got this thing about performing for your sponsors. It's not driven by the sponsors, this is self-initiated by the athletes, but they're not stupid. If I, if I was one of these athletes, didn't perform to the level that I think I needed to to impress my sponsor, then whoever superseded me is going to get that next contract and I won't get the renewal. Because there's only room for one or two people. If you go to Johnny Lunchbucket on the street and ask him name an Olympian in the last Olympics that won a gold medal. Michael Phelps' name wouldn't even come up. So if you think about it here, 36 years later, I'm synonymous with the Olympics, and somebody might mention my name. But that wasn't the question. Name a famous Olympian, and my name will come up. Name an Olympian that won a gold medal last time, forget it. There's 10,000 people that go to the Olympics. There's about 260 or 270 contested events. So that does that mean there's 9,750 losers? Well, in theory, yeah. And out of all the winners, you can't even remember one from 4 years ago. The reality is that it's such an exclusive fraternity of people that really can make money from this. Phelps is obviously one of those, there's a couple of others in track and field, there's a couple of gymnasts. But there's probably 4 or 5 in the 3 or 4 most important sports -- that get more television time anyway. I don't say that they're really more important.
    
    WHAT DID YOU THINK OF AMANDA BEARD POSING IN PLAYBOY (JULY 2007)?
    
    I know Amanda and she's a great gal. That is not something that mentally can be handled by a lot of people. But for her, I think this was something that she obviously wanted to do. She's beautiful, I thought it was classy  ... Did that help her career in swimming? No, it has nothing to do with swimming. It didn't help her work out. She made bucks, I'm sure, off of it. But she didn't need to do that, I don't believe. They didn't need to do any charities for her. I think this was a decision that she made solely on her philosophy and her personality.
    
    WHO ARE YOU VOTING FOR IN THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?
    
    You know, 15-20 years ago, there was a difference between a Democrat and a Republican, but now they're all homogenized. They say whatever they want to say, blowing in the wind. It's a very interesting time in politics in America. I'm a Republican that's registered but only because Ronald Reagan was governor when I did my Olympics and he took me under his wing, and was kind to me, and invited me when he was president to the White House, to his ranch in Santa Barbara. I saw him on many occasions. He just lived right behind me up in Bel Air, would come down and walk in the neighborhood, would see him all the time. Nice guy. I don't know who I would vote for, right now. But I would have to say that regardless of what we listen to in the press and the spin on all these guys, especially Obama, that the Democrats have very wise people, and sharp people. And he has a lot to choose from that will support him, for example, like in his cabinet. Today, we see cabinets that reach across the party line, so it's possible that if he won the election that there would be Republicans in the cabinet. These guys aren't slouches, y'know, in Congress, in their intellect, on foreign policy, what have you. I don't buy into the notion 'Well he doesn't have as much experience as, let's say, Hillary, or he doesn't have as much experience as, let's say, McCain.' I knew people that worked out for 12 years and they were still running a mire in the pool, and unnoticed. Because you were in the Senate for x number of years, it's not the volume and the tenure, it's what you accomplish in the time and the influence that you have on what you did with the time that you did it in. In that regard, intellectually Obama's unbelievable. He was an attorney, he was at the top of his class. He's just got a lot of charisma. He speaks well, and I think that you need to speak well. We saw that Clinton was a great person that could speak well. He was a great communicator. That's what got him out of his problems. He might be a good candidate. On the same token, a guy who was prisoner of war, going along waving the flag. That doesn't make you a good president. But the fact is that he's been in Congress and he knows all the people, and he knows how to work the factory workers, so to speak. He could be a good president too. Politically, I'm not ready to make a commitment.
    
    BUSH'S SHARE OF THE JEWISH VOTE WENT UP TO 24% FROM 19%. TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU'RE THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE JEWISH COMMUNITY, ARE THE REPUBLICANS MAKING HEADWAY IN THAT DEMO?
    
    This is really kind of an interesting story. Time magazine published, when the Nixon tapes were available to go to public after 25 years, they had the 10 most perplexing problems of what he was deliberating over during his last couple of years in office. Do you know that I was one of those? He was discussing with (White House chief of staff H.R.) Haldeman whether it was going to be proper to contact Mark Spitz after winning all those gold medals, and "it was determined that it wasn't necessary." That's because he assumed because I was a Jew I was a Democrat. But you know what's funny? I wasn't. And he should have been to able to know that I wasn't because I was registered and I voted for the guy. So that was a piss-poor excuse. At the end of the day, do you think that he thought about that when he picked up the phone to call Neil Armstrong, whether or not he was a Republican or Democrat or an Independent when he stepped on the moon? I think that his performance on the moon and what I did in the Olympics transcends whether or not I was anything.
    
    IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME THAT YOU WERE JEWISH OR ANYTHING ELSE
    
    Frankly, to be honest with you, until I went to the Olympics, nobody was paying attention, and they still don't need to, because it wasn't a function of why I was good and why I was bad. That's another one of these attachment phenomena.

C. Dean Goodman. 2008. All rights reserved.

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The Who’s private gig at an L.A. theater
Category: Music

I saw my second Who show in 5 days on Wednesday, but they were a completely different band. On Saturday, taping the VH1 Honors at the Pauley Pavilion, Pete and Roger seemed detached from each other, their bandmates and the crowd. The hourlong gig was a fairly joyless affair, likely brought on by nerves at not having played in more than 9 months.

What a difference a few days of lazing at the Four Seasons makes. Wednesday's gig at the historic, 2,000-seat Orpheum Theatre in downtown L.A. was a corporate affair put on for the male-centric attendees of the big E3 confab by MTV Games and Harmonix, the firms behind the Rock Band videogame.

I was expecting a quick-and-dirty, perfunctory 30-minute set of the greatest hits, but they ended up playing for about 100 minutes, and chatted at length throughout the concert. They also bothered to slot in some different songs from Saturday, including I Can't Explain, 5:15 from Quadrophenia, the newish song Fragments, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, Pinball Wizard and The Kids Are Alright.

I was lucky to get a seat in the fourth row, right in front of Pete, a perfect vantage point to take in one of the best rock concerts ever. Both were dressed all in black, and Pete wore his big sunglasses. He spent much of the show airborne, chopping away at his guitars. Roger, in robust voice, twirled his microphone cord incessantly, boosting the lackluster air-conditioning. Zak Starkey played monstrous drums, mouthing the words like Keith Moon did.

At the outset, Pete marveled at the "wonderful theater," expressed gratitude at being invited to play "your party," and joked that his band was actually a Who covers group that played just as well as the others.

He frequently referenced "Rock Band," recalling that he tried unsuccessfully to play "Won't Get Fooled Again" on the game that his son got for Christmas. He also said he wanted to meet the person responsible for the colors used in the game. "Bad choice," he deadpanned. "When (MTV/Harmonix parent) Viacom can buy some other colors, it'll be good."

Clearly, Pete is enthralled by technology and the people who make it. "I love software," he said. "If Bach had software, he would have used it." He later told the crowd, "I'm really pleased with what you're doing." On other occasions, he joked about the upcoming Aerosmith Guitar Hero game, and grimly talked about Ronnie Wood coughing up blood. (This was after Roger had complained that the L.A. pollution was making him awfully phlegmy and pointed to the evidence on the stage.)

Pete and Roger said a lot, in fact, but they frequently spoke at the same time, so much of the banter was unclear. Or the context, like when Pete said: "As to the future of rock 'n 'roll, who gives a fuck?" The declaration succeeded in getting everyone excited though.

The hits included Baba O'Riley, Won't Get Fooled Again and Who Are You. Also: Behind Blue Eyes, The Seeker, and a tune Pete said was from 1971, so likely from "Who's Next." My Generation was fierce, degenerating into a jam session.

I wasn't expecting an encore, but they quickly came back to do The Kids Are Alright. Pete's string broke at the end of Pinball Wizard, when he was losing the plot anyway. He joked about it, they finished the song and moved onto the other "Tommy" songs - Amazing Journey, Sparks and See Me Feel Me/Listening To You. A second encore wrapped things about 10:45, just Pete and Rog on Tea and Threatre, from the new record "Endless Wire," which I confess is still in cellophane wrapping in my CD room.

It takes a lot to get me to concerts these days, and I'm usually looking at my watch after 30 minutes plotting an early escape, but this show was simply stunning. Long live rock! Given the heavy nerd factor, hopefully bootleg footage will proliferate soon.

2:11 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Midnight Oil: The story behind 2 of their greatest songs
Category: Music

I'm always fascinated by the songwriting process, who contributed what to the song in terms of the verse, chorus, riffs, lyrics, bridge, etc. When a song is attributed to the band, rather than to an individual, it becomes a challenge to get to the bottom of it all. Thankfully Midnight Oil guitarist Jim Moginie helped me out with the band's international hit "Beds Are Burning"as well as with "The Dead Heart," two tunes from their 1987 worldwide smash "Diesel and Dust," which has just been reissued with a documentary DVD recounting their tour of the Australian outback.

The cool thing with the Oils is that everyone helped out the songs. Moginie and drummer Rob Hirst were perhaps the brains behind the operation, with singer Peter Garrett coming up with some (but not all) lyrical ideas.

BEDS ARE BURNING

The actual making of the song was very interesting, if you want to get into the clockwork. Rob brought in the chrorus ("How can we dance when our earth is turning, how do we sleep while our beds are burning?"), which we all liked, and I had this riff which was the verse riff. Pete just walked in with the lyrics, "The time has come to say fair's fair, to pay the rent, to pay our share ... a fact's a fact, it belongs to them, let's give it back." He said, "Just put this in the song," and then he walked out! So then I came up with the bridge, and I think I might have come up with the brass tabs. Rob had some great verse lyrics. Like a lot of Oils material it was very much a collaboration with everyone in the room. Even Martin (Rotsey, the guitarist), who doesn't always get his name on the songwritings, he was very much a player in terms of an editor, an honest broker and sounding board for ideas. That sort of person in a band is just invaluable. Even to this day, he's great that way. Our songwriting was never really one guy driving the thing, like Sting. It was more whoever had the best stuff is what we ended up doing. There was bloodletting and things on the cutting room floor, but that's inevitable. I don't think we were all that precious about it. I think we all understood that they're the best things and that's the end of it. Things that didn't make the grade, you could recycle them and use them again next time, or whatever. We had a pretty healthy attitude toward songwriting, and the attrition rate that happens with songwriting too because you can't always put everything on there. 
     
THE DEAD HEART 
     
That was interesting. That was commissioned by the community out at Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Mitijula people ... We were all sitting around the room. Rob had some lyrics ("We don't serve your country, don't serve your king..."). I had this beat and this doo-doo chanting bit. Rob had the chorus, "We carry in our hearts the true country and that cannot be broken..." Those great lines. We just wanted to summon up the feeling of being on a road that just goes literally into infinity, sitting in some 4-wheel drive, smashing along the road, bumping up and down on the road, this hypnotic repetitive rhythm, which is very much an Australian experience. If you want to go from Sydney to Melbourne, you get that feeling, let alone go out in the outback. We wanted to put something to that end to the music. Pete came in at the end with the improvised rave ("Mining companies, pastoral companies..."). So he's always very direct in his lyrics. So we had a nice balance. We had melodic stuff in the choruses, and then Pete would come up with a lot of raps and stuff that were very memorable. "The Power and the Passion" (from "10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1") had those spoken-word sections. It was a good combination of people. Even to this day, Rob, myself and Martin work still write together and have vague ideas about doing something in the future.

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Former Midnight Oil member now makes tiny bikinis
Category: Music

No, not Peter Garrett: He's a government minister in Australia ... Peter Gifford's aggressive bass playing was an integral part of the Midnight Oil sound on their big records such as "10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1" and their international breakthrough "Diesel and Dust," which has just been reissued with a DVD. Anyway, he quit the band in 1987, and ended up in the lingerie business. He makes the world's skimpiest bikinis -- see 'em at http://www.wickedweasel.com

I interviewed Oils guitarist Jim Moginie about his former bandmate...

    DO YOU KEEP IN TOUCH WITH PETER GIFFORD?
    
    Peter Gifford's up in Byron Bay (about 470 miles north of Sydney). I do a little bit. He makes very skimpy swimsuits.
    
    YEAH, I'M JUST ON THE WEB SITE RIGHT NOW!
    
    You and there's probably about 20 million other people! He's got quite a thing for him up there. He drives a Lamborghini with BIKINI on the number plate. He's quite the ex-rock star actually, much more than the rest of us. We're still chipping away at the coal face, whereas Giffo's, "Nah, nah. I'm finished with that. I'll just become a bikini millionaire."
    
    THE PROFIT MARGINS MUST BE OUTRAGEOUS.HE'S SELLING THESE TINY PIECES OF MATERIAL FOR US$76.66-
    
    -It's all about the marketing, I think, with him.
    
    I HOPE YOU GET A DISCOUNT!
    
    I couldn't see a 50-year-old man wearing one of his things. It would make Borat look quite modest.

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Mick Jones, Clash rocker a big softie
Category: Music

Mick received the Inspiration Award on Wednesday at the inaugural NME Awards in Los Angeles -- a rather silly affair, and I hope there won't be a second show. For starters, the open bar offered low-grade spirits. Anyway, Mick was the coolest. We chatted outside beforehand briefly. He remembered me from our interview at the Troubadour last November. Then he got up on stage to get the award, and played 2 songs with Carbon/Silicon, the post-punk band he leads with Tony James. Afterwards, Mick and I chatted at length about the American political scene, which he follows intensely. His mother is a naturalized citizen who lives in Michigan. He even took a few swigs of my indeterminate cocktail. I started to transcribe it, but we were both a bit incoherent by that stage. Anyway, here's part of his acceptance speech from the ceremony:

    On inspiration. I saw this amazing thing on the television this morning. There was a dog from Illinois. I'm telling you this now because I hope you might share this by seeing this on the television, on the news, later. There's a dog from Illinois called Lucy who had given birth to six puppies, and was a beautiful thing. And then after that, a cat mother died, and they had six kittens. And what they did was they thought, 'Let's try and put the kittens with the dog.' And so they did. And would the dog take them? And she did. It's the most amazing thing I've ever, ever seen. And that's what inspires me. I know we're in Hollywood, and you can make a movie about it. Maybe you can call it the Dogmother. Anyway, thanks a lot. Love you all, bye.

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Billy Corgan is a weird dude
Category: Music

His speech at the Smashing Pumpkins' RockWalk induction in Hollywood today. It's a stupid ritual where musicians place their hands in cement. Only about a hundred fans turned up, outnumbered by press and band hangers-on (no celebs).

    I'm so used to bad vibes, people hating our band and throwing things at us. So it's strange to be honored. I had to think about it. I had to really lay in bed and think, 'Is this a good thing? Is this a silly thing?' I'm really honored. I'm really touched. Music's a weird thing. I've said many times that I didn't necessarily want to be in this band because I thought I would be in Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, or something like that. So it's a strange thing to be in this band, because it represents a lot of what I feel, but I don't always understand me. So I look at the band as an existential extension of myself, but I don't understand. So thank you for understanding that part of me that I don't understand.

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Interview with Don Letts
Category: Music

Documentary filmmaker Don Letts moved in the same circles as the Clash, and helped introduce London's punk-rock crowd to reggae. He shot a lot of footage, which appears on such films as "Westway to the World," Julien Temple's recent Joe Strummer documentary, and now the new release, "Revolution Rock," which features 24 live clips, as well as two NBC interviews from 1981. He and Mick Jones later teamed up for Big Audio Dynamite, which I probably dug a bit more than the Clash, so I was happy to speak with him about Revolution Rock, B.A.D. and his views on the failed punk-rock revolution.

    HOW LONG HAS THE DVD BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR?
    
    In a weird way ever since I made (the Grammy-winning 2000 documentary) "Westway to the World." When I made that, one thing that always bothered me about it was that there wasn't that much music, and that was due to budgets and things back in the day. So it was something I was always hoping that the record company would get around to. About six months, I guess, to take it around, to find all the things, do all the rights, and all the rest of it.
    
    WERE THERE PROBLEMS GETTING CERTAIN PIECES OF FOOTAGE BECAUSE OF LICENSING ISSUES?
    
    When you're making archive-based programs, there are always ... locating stuff, and pricing and boring stuff like that. But these are the crosses a filmmaker has to bear. And the record company, sometimes!
    
    WHAT WAS THE PRICIEST PIECE OF FOOTAGE?
    
    Oooh, I don't know if I'm allowed to disclose that. I think the US Festival ("Know Your Rights") was a bit pricey, if I remember rightly. I tell you what, what usually's the most pricey is things that have been aired on big TV programs.
    
    THE NBC, TOM SNYDER STUFF...
    
    Yeah, they weren't cheap. Let's put it that way.
    
    THE SUE SIMMONS INTERVIEW IS PRETTY BIZARRE
    
    Yeah, but you've gotta understand what these guys appeared like back in the day. They were pretty alien to what was going on in America. It was part of the attraction to the younger people, but to the old established guard it must have been quite shocking. Maybe the same as when Elvis first shook his hips on TV, that kind of cultural effect ... I don't know if it's happened at all these days. The culture's got pretty soft and conservative these days, I think. To me, it feels like punk rock never happened, man. That's why it's great to be able to do stuff like this, to show people, Well there was another way.
    
    BUT THE PUNK REVOLUTION IN THE '70S WAS ONLY ABOUT A HUNDRED DAYS, WASN'T IT?
    
    Well, people make a big deal out of that late-70s incarnation of punk rock. But what we're really talking about here is an attitude that predates that '70s experience. I'd argue that the birth of the hippie movement was a punk rock moment, as was the birth of rock 'n' roll itself. So what we're talking about here is an ongoing dynamic that really is about counter-culture. And it is a living thing. The birth of hip-hop was a punk rock moment. Where it is right now, that's another question. But I think it is a birthright of young people that are brave enough and have a good idea to make their mark.
    
    IS IT DEPRESSING FOR YOU THAT IT SOMETIMES APPEARS THE PUNK ROCK REVOLUTION NEVER HAPPENED?
    
    It is depressing .... It's all about the cult of celebrity and bling, and I don't think individuality is really celebrated anymore. So yes it is disturbing. For me, it does feel like punk never happened. But I do have faith. This attitude is like The Force in "Star Wars," man. You can't stop it. It's out there somewhere. Maybe you've got to look in new places. Maybe the Top 40 and MTV isn't the place to find the true spirit of what I call 'punk.' And I ain't talking about guitars and hairdos here. I'm talking about an attitude that's bigger than that.
    
    I THOUGHT THE IRAQ WAR WOULD HAVE INSPIRED MORE OF A '60S-STYLE CULTURAL REVOLUTION
    
    Tell me about it! At the end of the '60s, '70s, even at the end of the '80s to an extent there were kinda quite big cultural upheavals. And at the end of the '90s, into the noughties, it didn't really seem to happen, and I don't know what that's about. I'm not sure. People tell you that young people have so much more at their disposal these days. The birth of punk rock, the birth of the hippie movement, the birth of hip-hop itself were all informed by the social and cultural and political climate of the times. Like you just rightly point out, you look around the world today, man, you'd think that those things that we said back then still need to be said, if not more so. But for whatever reason, I don't know. Everyone's on the dance floor, I guess.
    
    I THINK WE ALL GOT FAT AND RICH AND APATHETIC
    
    Yeah it's funny. In the punk rock days we used to say, 'Never trust anybody over 30.' And sometimes when I look around I think maybe I shouldn't trust anybody under 30! Having said that, I do have faith. Like I say, it is like The Force in "Star Wars." You can't stop it, And just when you think things are going really bad, it will erupt somewhere, I hope.
    
    WHAT WAS THE CONTRIBUTION FROM YOUR OWN ARCHIVE TO "REVOLUTION ROCK"
    
    The things that I physically directed, "Train in Vain," "Clampdown," "Should I Stay or Should I Go," "Career Opportunities." The "London Calling" thing from Bonds (International Casino), that's mine. I think that's it, of things I physically directed myself. It wasn't about me putting in my archive. It was about finding great performances that really charted the career of a really charismatic live band.
    
    IS THERE PARTICULAR FOOTAGE THAT YOU KNOW EXISTS, BUT HAS DISAPPEARED OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH? 
    
    Yeah, but I shot it! Famously, I covered the whole Clash on Broadway, the Bonds fiasco. And when Topper got kicked out of the band, the negatives went into the vaults, and they were left there because then soon after Mick left. And basically what happened is the bill wasn't paid for at the lab, and they destroyed the negs.
    
    UGH! SICKENING
    
    Now, that kinda hurt. But other than that there wasn't anything that's out there that I was aware of that we didn't get for this DVD.
    
    HOW MUCH FOOTAGE DO YOU PERSONALLY HAVE? YOU HAVE BARRELS SITTING AROUND?
    
    Not really. A lot of bits and pieces I have appeared in glimpses in "Westway to the World." I do have a fair amount of punk rock archive. That's how I trained myself. Back when the punk thing exploded in '77 -- again -- there was this whole DIY thing going on, do it yourself. So when the Clash guys are picking up guitars and the Pistols are picking up guitars, the energy was kinda such that you really wanted to get involved in things. So I picked up a Super 8 camera and started documenting the bands that I thought were cool. And time would prove me right -- Clash, Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc.
    
    SO NO ONE TAUGHT YOU?
    
    No, school of punk rock. See, it works, folks! I'm living proof. It does work, believe me.
    
    HOW WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CLASH? YOU WERE LIKE THEIR BOSWELL OR ALICE B. TOKLAS? THE FAITHFUL SIDEKICK?
    
    Faithful sidekick? You make me sound like a dog! No, I'd like to think of it as a period where we both kinda turned each other on through our respective cultures. I was getting off on their whole punk rock DIY ant-establishment thing. But don't forget, I'm coming from a reggae background and it was Jamaican punk rock. So I've got my heavy bass lines. Joe particularly picked up on the musical reportage aspect of the songs, the fact that you could sing about things that affected your daily life -- like, How are we gonna live? And how we gonna do it together? Those are really things that Joe picked up on from reggae. Paul loved the bass lines. There was the obvious anti-establishment stance of both musics, and they didn't mind the marijuana either. It has to be said. But joking aside, what was beautiful about all that stuff was it was through understanding our differences that kinda made us closer, not by trying to be the same. And that was a beautiful thing to see happen. Culture has that power, y'know.
    
    WE CAN ATTRIBUTE THE REGGAE SOUND OF THE CLASH TO YOU?
    
    I mean, well, history books would have it that I started Punky Reggae Party (his DJ sets at the Roxy). In London back in those days there were a lot of West Indian communities, and some people were aware of that. Strummer, Simonon, John Lydon, they were really tapped into that vibe already before Don Letts came on the scene. But then there were all those other white people that didn't live next door to black people that would be coming down to the Roxy, and it was really those people that I turned on to reggae and created this so-called Punky Reggae Party.
    
    PEOPLE LIKE CHRISSIE HYNDE, SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES?
    
    Chrissie, absolutely. Chrissie actually lived in my house for a while ... I was like the cultural gatekeeper, man. Whatever names you got, I'll wear 'em.
    
    WHAT'S THE EXTENT OF YOUR COMMUNICATION WITH THE GUYS NOW?
    
    It never stops. Obviously Joe obviously stopped for obvious reasons. We grew up at a very seminal point in our lives. What are we 30 years later, and this punk rock thing has left an indelible mark on pop culture, I don't think any other movement has had a lasting legacy. Even rock 'n' roll has become an embarrassment that a lot of people want to disassociate themselves from because of the whole corporate association, and I think that's why people still in a way hang on to the idea of punk as the antithesis of all of that, corporate rock 'n' roll. I'm losing my train of thought here. But me and the guys grew up on music that helps you to be all you can be, and I think we're all very much still of that school. None of us are working for the man yet. Yet! Joe went on to do the Mescaleros and all that stuff. Mick and I actually ended up in a band together called Big Audio Dynamite that I'm immensely proud of because a lot of the cultural experiments that were happening in that band are now part of the fabric of pop music, of pop culture.
    
    THAT'S PART OF THE REASON I'M DOING THIS INTERVIEW. I WAS SUCH A HUGE, HUGE FAN OF B.A.D.-
    
    -Me too, man. I ain't joking. I really am. That marriage of rock 'n' roll with Jamaican bass lines and pop beats. The whole sampling thing. That's all basic ingredients of interesting music these days. Something like Beck seems to have tapped into the fact that it's all there to be used, man.
    
    SO WHEN YOU DID "C'MON EVERY BEATBOX" OR "E=MC2," IN WHICH YOU SAMPLED THE MOVIE "PERFORMANCE," THAT HAD NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE?
    
    Not to my knowledge. As far as I know we were the first group to have hits with samples and dialogue. In "Medicine Show" there's almost 60 seconds out of "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly." It was all so new. Nobody touched us. We weren't approached by any record companies, any lawyers. But then as the years progressed, obviously it became more and more difficult to do that.
    
    YOU COULDN'T DO THAT FIRST RECORD NOW, COULD YOU?
    
    No, it's impossible. It's impossible. As people like De La Soul would later find out (when the Turtles successfully sued them for unauthorized sampling "You Showed Me," setting a legal precedent).
    
    I KNOW YOU WEREN'T A MUSICIAN, BUT YOUR MAIN CONTRIBUTION TO B.A.D. WAS FINDING THE CINEMATIC REFERENCES?
    
    Yeah, when the boys were in there laying down all their musical parts, I famously couldn't play anything. In fact, when I was on stage I had colored stickers on my keyboard. And when I was really getting excited, I'd hold up my keyboard and show people, 'Look, punk rock in action!' But joking aside, I was responsible primarily for the samples and dialogue. But if you look at the credits of that stuff, all those songs you mention, I actually co-wrote them with Mick. And that's not as a favor. I wrote lyrics, and I approached them in the same way as writing little treatments for films. That's why the songs, to me, have a cinematic quality. But ain't I supposed to be selling the Clash DVD?
    
    THAT'S TRUE! ARE THERE PARTICULAR VIDEOS THAT STAND OUT AS CINEMATIC TIMEPIECES?
    
    If you saw a Clash gig it was like somebody lit a match and threw it in a box of fireworks. When they started, they started off at a hundred miles an hour and then just kept going. I think I've managed to capture that same vibe with the "Revolution Rock" DVD. To separate it out, man, they all have special moments for me. Speaking on a personal level, "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," one of the Clash's most famous songs, I actually took Joe Strummer to that reggae show that night, the night he was inspired to write that song. That's a special moment for me. It's funny because I have such a close relationship with not only the band, but actually with a lot of these performances. I physically remember being in Shea Stadium the night I directed "Should I Stay or Should I Go," with the Who backstage and Andy Warhol and things like that. So I'm the wrong person to ask because obviously I'm going to say, 'Yeah, this thing is great.' But it is great because it does capture a moment in time, which I think all good music films should do. It definitely does that. It's all good, man, from top to bottom.
    
    WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH SHEA STADIUM? DID YOU HAVE A CAMERA CREW WITH YOU?
    
    Yeah, I brought in 4 cameras or something. I can't remember. I do remember having grief with the unions. I remember being locked in a room and them not letting me out until they'd been sorted out, if you know what I mean. That was amusing.
    
    AND THAT TOM SNYDER INTERVIEW-
    
    -Yeah, again, we're talking about two opposite ends of the cultural spectrum. Tom Snyder and that stuff was kinda old guard.
    
    HE WAS TRYING-
    
    -He was trying to be hip. And the guys, let face it, they weren't too comfortable with that either. And I think that's painfully obvious. They're trying to be cool and funny and that. But they'd never been put in the limelight in that way, in America. America is such a vast country, man, when you think how many people are watching Snyder or whatever. They were much more comfortable doing their thing on stage. 
    
    WILL THERE BE A COMPILATION OF CLASH MUSIC VIDEOS?
    
    I think the record company have done that one (The Essential Clash, 2003). Not many tricks left up our sleeve! But I have to say - and again I ain't trying to sell anything to anybody -- I think this "Revolution Rock" is a perfect accompaniment to "Westway" in that for budgetary reasons back in the day "Westway" didn't have as music in as I would have liked. For most people, seeing the Clash live was the first time they connected with the Clash, and that was really what drew you in. The Clash live, man, were intense. Ask anybody from the time, they'll tell you. I think a little bit of that comes through on this.
    
    YEAH, FOR THOSE OF US WHO MISSED THE BOAT, THIS IS THE NEXT BEST THING
    
    It shows you what the fuss was about. It wasn't a myth. This was very much a reality. There's a million bands out there that are big in the world now that will cite seeing the Clash or the Clash's first few albums as a major inspiration, and that continues with or without "Revolution Rock."
    
    BEING THE JADED PUNK GODFATHER THAT YOU ARE, WHEN YOU DO SEE BANDS LIKE GREEN DAY, DO YOU YAWN AND SHRUG?
    
    No, I think it's all valid, man. Look, that kid's (Billie Joe Armstrong) got a massive, new audience. Let's face it, there's kids now that are in their 30s that were sperm when the Clash were playing. I think my man's undoubtedly got a platform, and he obviously uses it. That last album ("American Idiot"), he didn't have to do that. He could have trod water and avoided all those issues. And I know that to do stuff like that in America takes a lot of balls. He's talking to a new audience that needs to be told these things, and there aren't many other people that would really use that platform that they have to stick their necks out like that. It's all valid. The things that the Clash were saying back then still need to be said. Even more so when you look at what's going on around the world.
    
    HAVE YOU PRETTY MUCH EMPTIED OUT THE CLASH VAULTS?
    
    I try not to look back too much because I see it as a way of actually trying to push things forward. Like I say, when you look at the cultural climate now, it's almost like people need a reminder that there was a time when you did make music that was art, that brought debate to the table, that inspired or informed you, and entertained you at the same time. It is possible to do all these things. And make some money! I ain't naive here, man. I don't think there's anything wrong with getting paid for a good idea. "Westway to the World" and "Revolution Rock," they're like a blueprint for rock'n'roll. For those that want to know and want to try and do something that can have genuine impact on people's lives. And that is a fact. I'm here as a living testament to that, and I know there's millions of other people that would say the same thing. Music has that power, and when you look at popular culture right now, you tend to forget that.