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Squares, what the fuck buddies? What the fuck, Knicks?

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What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast.

1:00

I, uh, I ran off. I

1:03

ran off this last weekend, did something none of you

1:05

knew about, but it was

1:07

packed nonetheless. I, uh,

1:09

I, I was asked by

1:12

Larry David to moderate

1:14

a conversation with him in Washington DC

1:16

at the Anthem Theater last

1:18

weekend, last Friday, and,

1:20

uh, about 3000 people, I guess. And

1:24

it was kind of amazing. I will, I will tell you about

1:26

it, tell you why it was

1:28

amazing. There will be no

1:30

evidence of it available anywhere.

1:32

It was not recorded for any reason.

1:35

And it made me think about that kind of stuff

1:38

too, just about touring, about doing

1:40

live shows, about the fact

1:42

that we can make fairly high quality recordings, both

1:44

video and audio on our phones and stuff. Just

1:46

how much I don't do it and how much

1:48

of what I do, even

1:50

moments that will never come back, will

1:53

never repeat themselves, just go into the ether and

1:55

how that was once okay because it was

1:57

there for the audience. It was there for that

1:59

night. But now there's this whole other part of

2:01

your brain that thinks like, man, I should have got that. I

2:04

could have put that up on something. I could have

2:06

put that up on the thing and then other people could

2:08

see it as context and have that moment. Is

2:11

there something still to be said for

2:14

an experience shared by just the people

2:16

in the room and the people on

2:18

the stage? I think so.

2:20

I think that's where things really happen. But

2:23

then there's just that argument hanging over you,

2:25

like, why didn't anyone get that on tape?

2:28

I remember years ago, Lou Reed,

2:32

it was a recorded concert on

2:35

video of Lou Reed, Waypost Velvet Underground,

2:37

and they recorded the whole concert. I

2:39

don't remember what it was and what

2:42

album it was after. It

2:46

must have been sometime in the 80s. It

2:48

was just a Lou Reed concert. He

2:50

did the entire show and

2:52

Lou got off stage and

2:54

he was in the dressing room and he said, man, I

2:57

hope somebody recorded that on their cassette player. I

3:01

completely understand that. Speaking

3:03

of Lou Reed and speaking of heavy

3:06

hearted and brilliant musicians, today

3:08

on the show I talked to a

3:10

guy that a lot of you might not know. Those

3:13

that do know something. I'll

3:15

tell you that. Alejandro

3:17

Escovido is here. This

3:20

guy, I've really been trying to kind of talk to this

3:22

guy for a long time. He's

3:24

been around a long time. He's

3:26

an Austin musician. He was early on

3:29

in a punk rock group called the

3:31

Nuns in the Bay Area. He

3:34

did some work in New

3:36

York after that. This

3:38

is in the late 70s. Then

3:41

he was back in Austin. He

3:44

was in the band Rankin File, which lasted with

3:46

him about one record. He started The True Believers

3:48

with his brother. I'll

3:50

tell you, man, his

3:53

first solo album Gravity is

3:55

one of the best albums

3:58

ever. a

4:00

beautiful poetic heavy-heartedness to it. It's not

4:02

quite rock, but he's definitely a rock

4:05

and roll guy. But

4:07

there are rockers on there. But

4:09

there's something so unique and so

4:11

beautiful about the music

4:13

and the heavy-heartedness and the poetry of

4:15

the album Gravity that it really... A

4:19

Week doesn't go by where I

4:21

don't think about that album. And he's done like 15, 20

4:23

records. He's

4:25

one of these guys that just has been going

4:28

at it for a long time. And

4:30

one of the songs on

4:33

Gravity, Last to Know, it inspired

4:37

me to outline a movie that

4:40

never got made that I had done with my buddy

4:42

Jack Bulware. And I still think about it

4:44

all the time, the outline of

4:46

that movie. And

4:50

it was about a band, but

4:52

the phrase in the song that

4:55

always sticks with me, more miles

4:58

than money, more miles

5:00

than money, is one of

5:03

the most beautiful little poetic phrases that

5:05

I've ever heard. And it sticks

5:07

with me. Now, this story, whether you know

5:09

him or not, is a deeply human story

5:11

that we kind of go through on the

5:15

show here today. It's heavy, man.

5:17

It's a heavy life. It's a heavy

5:19

story. And this is a guy that

5:21

keeps going. And not only does he keep going, he

5:23

goes forward with his beautiful

5:27

and unique voice and sense

5:29

of writing and sense of music. And

5:32

there's nobody like him. But a lot

5:34

of people don't know who he is. But you know what? That's

5:37

really the same as me. I'm

5:39

not comparing myself to him creatively

5:41

because he far does

5:44

something beyond anything I can imagine doing

5:47

and I do whatever I do. But there's something

5:49

about living the life, working

5:51

your whole life, doing what you

5:53

do to the audience you have, but

5:55

knowing in your heart that most people have

5:58

no idea who the fuck you are. Even,

6:00

it was interesting at this Larry

6:02

David thing that I did the other night,

6:04

they built it as Larry David with special

6:06

guests. And I walk out there and I

6:09

guarantee you at least 2,000 of

6:11

those people were expecting someone else,

6:13

someone more high profile, someone who wasn't me, but

6:16

I'd say I had about 1,000 in there that

6:18

knew who I was and was happy I was

6:20

there. I'm not complaining, but there is something about

6:23

dedication to

6:25

your voice, to your art, to

6:27

a lack of compromise or maybe

6:29

an inability to compromise and

6:32

the life that you lead because of that.

6:34

Now I've had plenty of opportunities and I

6:37

am what I am. I am a, I've

6:39

begun referring to myself as an artisanal

6:42

comic because I craft what I craft

6:44

for the people that have

6:46

the acquired taste or the learned taste or

6:48

just the connection they have with me. And

6:51

I think that not unlike Alejandro

6:54

who has been churning out beautiful

6:56

music for decades, people

7:00

know who he is, he's respected, he has an

7:02

audience, but it's sort of a thrill for me

7:04

to introduce you to

7:06

him if you have never heard of him and

7:08

to get you on those, yeah, I would just

7:10

start with those first three records, Gravity, 13 Years,

7:14

With These Hands is a great one. It's

7:17

totally of its own and

7:19

it's amazing. But

7:22

I will warn you again, and not warn you, but give

7:24

you a heads up that even if you don't know this

7:26

guy, this is a hell of a story, it's a heavy

7:28

story and it

7:30

was a great conversation. And

7:33

he's got a new record out called Echo Dancing,

7:36

which is out now. I don't even know how you

7:38

characterize the music. I mean, he's

7:40

from Texas. He's a

7:42

Texas guy, but he's been

7:44

kind of lumped into roots rock, all

7:46

the country, punk at different times. In

7:49

essence, a rock and roller, a rock

7:51

and roll guy with a tremendously

7:53

heavy heart and a beautiful poetic

7:55

sensibility. So I'm in Madison,

7:57

Wisconsin at the Barrymore Theater this Wednesday, April,

8:00

3rd, Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Turner

8:02

Hall Ballroom on Thursday, April 4th,

8:04

Chicago at the Vic Theater on

8:06

Friday, April 5th, Minneapolis at the

8:08

Pantages Theater on Saturday, April 6th,

8:10

Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theater

8:12

on Thursday, April 18th as part

8:14

of the Moon Tower Comedy Festival,

8:16

Montclair, New Jersey on Thursday, May

8:18

2nd at the Wellmont Center, Glenside,

8:20

Pennsylvania in the Philadelphia area on

8:22

Friday, May 3rd at the Keswick

8:24

Center, Washington, DC on Saturday,

8:27

May 4th at the Warner Theater, Munhall,

8:29

Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh on May 9th at

8:31

the Carnegie Library Music Hall, Cleveland, Ohio

8:33

on May 10th at Playhouse

8:36

Square, Detroit, Michigan on May

8:38

11th at the Royal Oak Music

8:40

Theater. You can go to wtfpod.com

8:42

for all the dates and

8:44

links to tickets and there's more dates in the

8:46

future available there and those will all be performances

8:48

done just for you, done just

8:51

for you and we can all be there when

8:53

they dissipate into the ether and maybe some of

8:55

you will walk away with something new in your

8:57

mind and your heart. I guess

8:59

that's the nature of a lot of art, probably

9:01

most of it. If you're not compelled towards content,

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simply safe. So,

10:07

okay. Larry

10:12

David live in

10:16

Washington, D.C. So

10:18

I get this call weeks ago from

10:20

Larry, from Larry David, and we don't

10:22

talk. We're not pals.

10:25

You know, he knows who I am.

10:27

We've met a couple of times. He

10:30

says he wants me to moderate

10:32

a conversation with him, to basically

10:34

do an interview with him in

10:36

front of a live audience, a large audience

10:38

in Washington, D.C. And he lays it

10:40

all out, and I say, great. I said, maybe we could

10:42

record it, and I could release it as a podcast. And

10:45

he says, yeah, I was going to, that's what I was

10:47

going to pitch you. And you came up with yourself. I'm

10:49

like, awesome. Done deal. Let's make it

10:51

happen. And then a couple of days later,

10:53

he's like, we can't, we can't do the podcast. So no

10:55

recording it, because I guess they want to do it live

10:58

for a few times and not,

11:00

and not ruin it, I

11:02

guess. And so I'm like, okay. And

11:04

then I was kind of, I was a little disappointed

11:06

because again, that whole idea of just doing something like

11:09

that, that just goes out into the ether. It

11:11

doesn't, there's no, there's no,

11:13

it's not proof, but it's

11:16

not, there's no witness. There's no technological witness. Nothing

11:18

that can be played back. Nothing that can be

11:20

referred to or listened to again. It kind of

11:22

stuck with me that, you know, it was kind

11:25

of like, well, what's the point in a way?

11:27

And I

11:29

thought, well, maybe I won't do it. And then I

11:31

thought, well, but it's Larry, you know, and Larry, he

11:33

wants, he asked me to do it. It'd be nice

11:35

to do it. I love Larry. Let's, let's go ahead

11:38

and do it. So I

11:40

agreed to do it. And then he's like, do we

11:42

need to talk? Or do we talking there before? No.

11:44

And I'm like, I don't think so. And

11:46

then as we get closer, he calls me up. He's like,

11:48

I don't want any Barbara Walters moments. You know, I don't

11:50

want to, he doesn't want me, you

11:52

know, he doesn't want any touching moments. He doesn't want any emotion, which

11:55

makes perfect sense for his character. But then I'm like, sort

11:57

of like, well, what are we going to do? Am I

11:59

just going to? Throw you bits,

12:01

you know the things which is on

12:04

some level an interviewer's job, but I was a

12:06

little discouraged You know and

12:08

I remember he before he told me that I'd been

12:10

on the phone with Brendan my producer for an hour

12:12

talking about how we can structure

12:14

this thing so we can get a lot of this

12:16

stuff that I like to do with my guests in

12:18

and we spent about an

12:20

hour talking and then and I

12:22

swear to God Larry called me right after that and And

12:26

I go I was just talking about you for an hour and

12:28

he goes what about I got just figuring out how

12:30

to get out of this He

12:35

laughed it was a funny moment and

12:37

that was one of the things that maybe want to

12:39

do it over the few conversations I've had with Larry

12:41

I can you know, I can get him laughing But

12:44

you know, he was concerned about certain things. You didn't

12:46

want emotional moments. He didn't want this he didn't want

12:48

that and I'm like Fine.

12:51

I'll make it work And then like

12:53

and I was anxious now because now it's like a

12:55

totally different thing from what I do But

12:58

then the day before I get a message from him He says

13:00

I called you I think you're gonna like this call and I

13:02

called him he goes do whatever the fuck you want Just

13:04

do whatever the fuck you want. I'm sorry. I I

13:07

tried to micromanage you just do whatever the fuck you

13:09

want I don't give a fuck And

13:14

I'm like, all right man, but

13:16

anyway I get to DC and You

13:21

Know I'm worried, you know, I'm watching

13:23

the I'm refreshing my memory on curbs

13:25

on on Seinfeld's on

13:27

you know his history and how I'm

13:29

doing what I do usually to prep

13:32

knowing that you know, I've got to avoid

13:35

Certain areas so he doesn't you know

13:37

get caught off guard

13:39

or in discomfort Outside

13:41

of the discomfort he's used to living with on

13:43

stage and it's a whole different.

13:45

It's a whole different Muscle

13:48

to work, you know here whether you

13:50

like it or not You

13:52

know, I can infuse myself into the

13:54

conversations and and and and really have

13:57

a back-and-forth and and not yeah I'm

13:59

certainly gracious and I'm certainly concerned with

14:02

the guests, how they're coming off.

14:05

But it's different. It's intimate and you

14:07

don't know what's going to happen, which is

14:09

the same with anything. But

14:12

it's just different because I don't

14:14

have parameters and I can feel them out and it's

14:17

a back and forth. I'm as much part

14:19

of the conversation as my guest is usually. And

14:22

the live things, especially one of these things where you

14:24

really have thousands of diehard

14:27

Larry David fans coming. And

14:30

ultimately all he said to me was I want him to

14:32

be entertained. I want to be funny. I want it to

14:34

be funny. And I'm like we can do it. But

14:37

it's a different way of thinking. Like it's

14:39

not about me at all. I almost remove

14:42

myself from the equation other than to sort

14:45

of symbiotically engage with

14:47

him and stay connected to

14:49

him with little concern for the audience. He

14:51

can play to the audience. But

14:53

I just am very acutely sensitive to when he's

14:55

done, to when something is not

14:57

an area he wants to go

14:59

into. And I'll tell you, this is

15:02

something that came out during the conversation. We

15:04

both have this thing where the first thing

15:07

that we think when we have to do something

15:09

is I don't want to do it. It doesn't matter what it is. I

15:11

don't think that's petulant or childish. It's just

15:14

sort of like, oh, God, then I got to do it. But

15:17

ultimately what happened on stage

15:20

was something pretty amazing. Certainly

15:23

for me and for him and for the

15:25

people there, I mean, they were so excited

15:28

to see Larry. And

15:30

we covered a lot of stuff. We covered

15:33

his old standup stuff. And he acted out.

15:35

There's this myth a lot, this mythic story

15:38

about him just getting on stage,

15:40

a Catcher Rising Star in New York and looking at

15:42

the audience and just saying, like, no, I don't think

15:44

so. And walking off.

15:47

And it's just one of these great pieces

15:50

of Larry David history that I've heard about my

15:52

whole life about him as a standup and how

15:54

much he didn't like doing it. And

15:57

when we were in D.C., I asked him

15:59

about it. really happen. And he goes, I'll do

16:01

it. And he gets up and he walks to the stage

16:03

left and he goes, bring me up. And I

16:05

go, ladies and gentlemen, he just flew in from

16:08

Los Angeles, please walk, clubs and colleges all over,

16:10

whatever. Larry David, and he goes up and he

16:12

does that. He does it as a stand up.

16:14

And it was pretty spectacular. And

16:16

there was a couple of things. He was very animated.

16:18

And we talked about, you know, his whole journey as

16:21

a comic and then into Seinfeld and, you know, stuff,

16:23

some stuff he's told before, but that's all right. I

16:25

mean, that's why you kind of want to hear the

16:27

old guys tell the stories. I mean,

16:29

that's what people want. And

16:31

all in all, and we did some Q and A, but

16:33

it was just a great

16:35

night. Very entertaining

16:38

night. He was happy. I was happy.

16:40

I think the audience loved it. It

16:42

wasn't too long. It wasn't too short. It just,

16:45

and we really kind of worked off each other

16:47

very well. And, you

16:50

know, as a condition of this, he said he would

16:52

do the podcast, but after spending time with him and

16:54

knowing what he likes to talk about, what he doesn't

16:56

like to talk about on and off stage

17:00

or camera, I'm not holding my

17:02

breath. I don't, I, and

17:04

I, I would ask you not to as well. I

17:07

don't, I don't think he's going to do the podcast

17:09

just because I don't think he sees any point to

17:12

talk about certain things in his life. And that's sort

17:14

of what we do here. So I had the best

17:16

experience I could have in conversation

17:18

with Larry David live in Washington,

17:20

DC, that no one will ever

17:22

hear unless you were

17:24

there. And if you were there, I

17:26

hope he had a good time because I definitely

17:29

did. There might be more

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18:36

Alejandro Escovedo, as I told you before, is

18:38

a master, a veteran musician, a

18:41

guy who's been

18:46

out there a long time doing

18:49

exactly what he does. He

18:52

has a new album out called Echo Dancing. You can

18:54

get it wherever you get your music. I

18:56

would start with that first album, Gravity. Hear

18:59

me out, listen to me. Anyway,

19:01

it was a real pleasure and an honor

19:03

for me to talk to Alejandro

19:06

Escovedo. Here we go. Let's

19:21

talk about that new record first

19:23

because I'm curious about it. I

19:27

listened to it and there's a lot of great

19:30

songs from the old days. I

19:34

notice sometimes when guys become

19:37

older, as I am as well, that there is this

19:39

desire to

19:44

reinterpret the songs

19:47

that still have resonance

19:49

for whatever reason, but they

19:52

become more haunted. When

19:56

you were doing this one, which

19:58

is Echo Dancing, What was the idea?

20:01

Well, initially I went to Italy to

20:03

record this record. I recorded it in

20:05

Italy. As we

20:07

were getting on the plane, my idea was that I

20:09

was going to create an album totally

20:12

improvised. Oh, okay. So I

20:14

just had sketches of lyrics and sketches of

20:16

chords and melodies and blah, blah, blah. But

20:20

then, so I started listening to older

20:22

stuff to kind of get inspired.

20:26

And I came across this version of

20:28

Wave, which is on Man

20:30

of the Influence, you know? Yeah, yeah.

20:32

And it was done by Collexico. They had

20:35

done it for a tribute record when I

20:37

was ill with Hep C, right? Yeah, yeah,

20:39

yeah. And I

20:41

love the way they did that version,

20:43

man. It was just beautiful. And

20:46

so I thought, you know, this is really cool. What

20:49

about this and this? So I started checking

20:51

out different versions of my songs by other

20:54

people. Oh, really? Yeah.

20:56

And I thought, you know, I can really get into

20:58

this. You know, it'd be fun. So

21:01

fortunately, the people that I work

21:03

with, Antonio Gramantieri, who's known as

21:05

Don Antonio, and

21:08

Nicola Peruc, who's a

21:10

wonderful keyboardist, brilliant

21:12

musician, both of them. And

21:15

we recorded in this beautiful studio in

21:17

Italy outside of Modigliana. And

21:21

it's on a hilltop overlooking vineyards

21:23

and olive orchards. Sure,

21:26

yeah. And it's an

21:28

old stone mill that was built in

21:30

the 15th century, you know? But how

21:32

did that happen? How

21:35

do you decide to do that? So when

21:37

I got there, well, I

21:39

knew that initially I only wanted to make the record

21:41

with those two guys. Oh, so it was them. So

21:44

you were fans of theirs. You're going to go to Italy

21:46

to do a record. Well, we've actually made a record before

21:48

crossing. Which one? Okay, okay. I knew

21:50

them. Yeah, I knew them very well.

21:52

And did you record that in Italy? Yes, I did.

21:54

Oh, okay. Yeah. It's

21:56

interesting how that... it's about

21:59

the environment. There's something

22:01

about, you know, especially the crossing,

22:03

which had kind of a, not political,

22:05

but kind of social bent to it. It's

22:09

a story about two young boys, one

22:11

from Italy, one from Mexico. They meet in

22:14

Galveston, Texas, where they're working in the kitchen.

22:17

They begin to talk about all the things

22:19

they love about America, which

22:21

is American punk rock music, the

22:24

beat poets, and some pick pecking

22:26

pot. Right. The important

22:28

thing. Yes. The essential

22:30

American things. Right. And they

22:32

go looking for this America. And

22:34

at that time, you know, of course, Trump was

22:36

running and the

22:38

world was a different place and... On fire,

22:41

dude. Yeah. Yeah. So,

22:44

you know, that was the gist of that

22:46

album. And it was a beautiful

22:48

album to make. And when I got to Italy, I had

22:51

no lyrics. I knew the story in my head,

22:54

but I didn't have any song lyrics at all.

22:57

Right. And I wrote them all in Italy. Wow.

23:00

So, did you do two versions of the crossing?

23:02

Yes. There was a Spanish

23:05

version. A Spanish version. La Cruzada. Yeah. And

23:08

how did that land? I mean, did you know if

23:10

people picked that up? I always felt like

23:12

that story needed to be told in Spanish.

23:15

Sure. You know?

23:17

Yeah. And I got my friend,

23:19

Alex Ruiz, because my Spanish is... Not

23:21

great. ... horrible. Yeah.

23:24

And he sang it for me. You know, we sang

23:26

together. And on some of the

23:29

songs, we had Patricia Vaughan come

23:31

in and sing, and some other people.

23:34

Yeah. It was beautiful. I

23:36

love it. I love it. Well, so the

23:38

Italy thing, though. I mean, that's... Because,

23:40

you know, I know a lot of people

23:42

record certain places because of certain magic. You

23:45

know, usually it's around here. Yeah. Muscle

23:48

Shoals or something like that. Right. Yeah.

23:50

But you found this place that has Italian

23:53

magic. It does. Especially

23:55

in riding the crossing, I think it was

23:57

important that I wasn't here in America. Well,

24:00

yeah, you would have gotten toxic. Yeah,

24:03

it gave me a great perspective on

24:05

everything. And also because

24:07

the Italian boys that I knew there, I

24:10

call them boys, they're young men. But

24:13

they had made a journey from Modliana,

24:15

which is this little village

24:18

really in Romania, and

24:21

full of musicians. It's like

24:23

the Austin, what Austin used to be like,

24:25

you know. But anyway, they

24:27

made a journey, a truck pilgrimage

24:30

to Austin to meet Jimmy

24:32

Vaughn. Jimmy! That was their

24:34

favorite guitar player and artist. He's a good

24:37

one. He's great. Oh, yeah. I'm

24:39

a big Jimmy Vaughn guy, and I got to play

24:41

with him with the Vivino in New York one. Oh,

24:43

you did? Which is kind of a big

24:45

deal. Yeah. I mean, like, because you know, everyone talks

24:48

about his brother, but I'm a big Jimmy guy. I

24:50

love Jimmy's playing. The best man.

24:52

I just did a show with

24:54

Jimmy, actually. Were it Continental or?

24:56

No, it was at the Bullock

24:58

Museum. It was at Bruce Springsteen

25:01

exhibit that's traveling around the country.

25:05

And so Jimmy's band backed me

25:07

up. Lyle

25:09

Lovett did it, and

25:11

I did it. Was Bruce there? No, Bruce

25:13

wasn't there. He met him, though. He definitely

25:16

played with him, haven't he? Yeah, yeah. Do

25:18

you have the same manager still? No, we

25:20

did. Landau. Yeah.

25:23

Well, it's been a long road, huh? A

25:26

lot of stories. But I mean, because

25:29

like, Last to Know is

25:31

like one of my favorite songs of all time. I

25:34

sort of outlined a screenplay based on Last

25:39

to Know in a way. Interesting. Well,

25:41

it was this idea about a guy

25:43

who was in a band

25:45

that had like one hit in the 80s, and

25:49

he had some other job. And I think

25:51

the idea was he was like delivering. It

25:54

doesn't really matter. What had happened was they all

25:56

found out the band, which had all separated, had

25:58

found out that there were singer who

26:00

was out of his mind and you

26:02

know lived longer than they thought he

26:04

would have died. Oh no. Yeah and

26:06

they all kind of reunited at this

26:09

funeral with all the interesting tensions you

26:11

know and they didn't know what to

26:13

do with the bodies so two of

26:15

them you know we're gonna you know

26:17

they were gonna get cremated

26:19

and take them out to Joshua

26:21

Tree. Oh wow. But when they

26:23

got there there was another band

26:25

emptying ashes so they thought... That's

26:28

great. I love that. That's

26:30

cool. They should do it man. I don't

26:32

know. It's a long-lost thing but there were

26:34

some funny beats in it you know just

26:36

kind of going through you know

26:39

the life of a band in retrospect and

26:41

stopping in you know these towns where there

26:43

was one groupie there who's now

26:45

an older lady and you know still kind of

26:47

it was it was sweet maybe I should do

26:49

it. You know that's kind of the... I

26:52

wrote that with Buick McCain and

26:54

Buick McCain was more of a party than

26:56

a band really. Oh yeah. Yeah we were

26:58

just harkups with guitar. Right. You know and

27:03

we were we used to play in Oxford,

27:05

Mississippi was one of the few gigs that

27:07

we could get outside of Austin. Yeah. So

27:09

we were in Oxford and

27:12

the guy Chesley was a promoter. He paid

27:14

us in a case of vodka and a

27:16

case of cranberry juice. Cape

27:19

Cod's were our favorite drink. Yeah. So

27:21

we were on our way home somewhere

27:24

outside of Oxford. We were

27:26

about two Cape Cod's outside

27:29

of Oxford let's say and the

27:31

drive shaft fell off the van. Oh

27:33

yeah. And the drummer gets out and says throw

27:36

me the duct tape. Any duct

27:38

tape the drive shaft back to the van.

27:40

Oh back on the van. We made it

27:42

like another mile maybe. Yeah. And then just

27:44

sat there laughing and drinking Cape Cod's until

27:46

someone came to rest. But I wrote that

27:48

song while we were just hanging out there.

27:50

Well the line more miles than money is

27:52

like that that was the whole window

27:55

in to the idea. Yeah. Yeah.

27:58

Because that becomes a real... thing

28:00

as you get older, no matter what you do,

28:02

you start to realize,

28:04

you know, how do you

28:06

judge what you've done. Yeah,

28:09

yeah. Do you find yourself in that

28:11

zone? Or you don't

28:13

think that way? You know, it's funny, no, I don't

28:15

think that way because I'm still real active, you know,

28:17

I'm still performing a lot. Sure, yeah.

28:19

Touring a lot, making records, so... Yeah, a

28:21

lot always. I really haven't had the chance

28:23

to sit back and just take it all

28:25

in. Yeah, I don't know if it's like,

28:27

it's not nostalgic, you know. But there's that

28:29

song on which record is

28:31

it, Burn Something Beautiful. Yeah,

28:35

I don't want to play my guitar anymore. Yeah. That

28:37

feeling. Yeah. Where

28:39

you feel, because, you know, I'm 60 and

28:41

that feeling of like, you know, have I

28:44

said everything I need to say? And

28:47

it's kind of a weird place to be. It's not terrible.

28:50

It is. Pete Buck

28:52

came up with that line and those lyrics, you

28:55

know, that song. Oh, you did? Yeah.

28:58

So we wrote that album, Scott McCoy and Peter

29:00

Buck. That makes sense

29:02

because I was listening to stuff again and

29:04

I love that record. Yeah, that's a good

29:06

record. Because of that fucking guitar. It's just

29:08

like. Yeah. Yeah. And

29:11

that's Kurt Block, who was in a

29:13

band called The Fastbacks. Oh, yeah. They were

29:15

a punk band out of Seattle. Yeah, yeah,

29:17

yeah. Yeah. Really early on, he's a great

29:19

guitar player. Are those P90s? Oh, yeah.

29:22

Yeah. He was using Les ball, yeah. Yeah?

29:25

Yeah, it's cool. I was just kind of

29:27

going over the whole thing, you

29:29

know, and that album, Gravity,

29:31

has always held a

29:34

big place in my mind and my heart. And

29:36

for somehow or another, I don't know who or

29:38

what labels you've been at over the years, but

29:40

I always seem to get the records, you

29:42

know, here and there, your records. They come. CDs.

29:46

I don't know who sends them, but they've always been coming. Wonderful.

29:48

Yeah. And I've been kind

29:50

of talking about you for years, but when you

29:52

like do a song like, you know, Sacramento and

29:54

Polk, like that song, does

29:57

that go back to your San Francisco days? It

29:59

does. Yes. You

30:01

know, when I first got to San Francisco... Where did

30:03

you grow up? Well, I was

30:05

born in San Antonio. All right. But

30:08

my parents took us... It's

30:10

a funny story. My parents told us we were

30:12

going on a vacation to California. How many kids

30:14

is this? This is five kids

30:16

at the time. And you're... But

30:19

there's 12 kids. There's 12 kids, yeah. There's

30:21

a lot of kids. How old's

30:23

the oldest sibling? You know, he's

30:27

in his 90s. And he's still

30:29

around? But he's in hospice right now. Oh, okay. Well,

30:31

that's a good run. Yeah, yeah. It's

30:33

an excellent run. He was a great, wonderful man. So,

30:38

my parents told us... What

30:40

was happening was my dad drank a lot, right?

30:43

And so he'd be gone for periods

30:45

of time. My mother got sick of

30:47

it. She hired a man

30:49

to drive us to California to get away from him. My

30:52

dad got wind of it. He comes and

30:54

says, no man has taken my family to California

30:57

but me. He

30:59

tells us to pack lightly and

31:01

we're going to California to go on

31:03

vacation. Yeah. To visit his cousin in

31:05

Orange, California. Sure. So,

31:08

we all get in the car, you know,

31:11

and we drove and it was a wonderful trip.

31:13

We're all excited. We're young. I

31:15

was about seven years old. Yeah. Gonna

31:17

go see Disneyland and all that stuff.

31:19

California. We got to California. We

31:22

spent quite a bit of time in dad's

31:25

cousin's home in Orange. One

31:28

day he shook hands with a man and suddenly we

31:30

owned this old railroad shack

31:32

of a house in Orange, California. We

31:34

never went back to Texas. That was it. That

31:36

was it. I never went back until

31:39

1980. The siblings were

31:41

still in Texas? No, most of my

31:43

siblings, see my dad had two

31:45

wives. His first wife was

31:48

Pete and Coke and all the, you know,

31:50

all my brothers that played Latin Chas and

31:53

stuff. Oh yeah, those are the... The Escueville brother,

31:55

you know? Yeah, yeah.

31:57

And then he married my mother. met

32:00

her in Oakland and married my

32:03

mom and had me in San Antonio. Okay.

32:05

Yeah. And how many in that crew? Five.

32:07

Okay. All right. So now you're all in

32:09

a shack in orange. Yeah, we're in this

32:11

shack in orange and... How

32:13

long do you live? And you know, it was

32:15

beautiful in a sense because California was beautiful in

32:17

1957. It was gorgeous,

32:20

you know. Sure. But

32:23

it was a culture shock, you know, because San

32:25

Antonio was so comfortable

32:27

in that it was very Mexican. Totally, yeah.

32:29

Yeah. You know? Yeah. And orange was not

32:31

at that time. And now I'm in a

32:33

place where I'm being

32:35

called wetback and speck and, you know...

32:37

Oh, really? ...beaner and blah, blah, blah.

32:41

And I'd never been called those names before. It was

32:43

hard to understand. Yeah, I grew up

32:45

in New Mexico. It was probably 70, 80 percent Latino.

32:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just the way it was.

32:50

Yeah, it's the way it was. And so, you

32:53

know, even the school system

32:56

eventually refused

32:58

to pronounce my name Alejandro. And

33:00

they called me Alex, you know. Oh, my

33:02

God. They branded me Alex. Yeah. And

33:04

it was horrible. I lived with

33:07

that until kind of like

33:09

the 60s, you know. We started to kind of be

33:12

more aware of our culture. Yeah, so you were

33:14

born in 50? You

33:18

were like alive, awake, and engaged

33:21

when everything started to change culturally.

33:23

Absolutely, yeah. And Mexican

33:25

identity started to change? Yeah,

33:28

it did for us. Yeah. Yeah.

33:30

How so? Chicano power, you know. Oh, yeah,

33:32

yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad would make fun of us and

33:35

call us Chicano powder. Yeah, yeah. You know,

33:37

but yeah, you know, so everything was changing. The

33:40

world was changing. When did you start

33:42

playing? I didn't start playing until I was 24. You

33:45

didn't pick up guitar until 24? I

33:47

played, you know, my dad had a guitar.

33:50

He played very rough guitar and sing songs

33:52

with my mom. And you knew your

33:54

brothers were musicians. But they were like

33:56

incredible musicians, you know. They were gifted

33:59

musicians, yeah. What kind of

34:01

stuff were they doing? Latin jazz, they

34:03

were playing with Mongo Santo Maria, Cal

34:05

Jeter, Willie Bobo. They were in

34:07

Santana. They had a band in the 70s

34:09

called Azteca. They

34:11

were great. Just wonderful musicians. But

34:14

you never aspired to that. Because

34:18

with so many kids, my parents adored

34:20

my older brothers. And

34:22

so I was like the seventh kid in the whole thing.

34:26

And

34:28

you just kind of get lost. That thing

34:31

was very different. My parents didn't really

34:33

understand what I was going through. But

34:36

it's also interesting though, at some point, I

34:38

imagine it's because of the Velvet Underground

34:42

influence that you did start to do...

34:45

There were sort of like kind

34:47

of jazz elements happening throughout some of

34:49

the records with the string. Yeah. And

34:51

I grew up in that great era

34:53

where in Huntington Beach, where

34:56

we eventually moved, there was

34:58

a great club called the Golden Bear. Now

35:00

everybody from Jimmy Reed to Hugh Masakayla,

35:04

Yousaf Latif, Miriam

35:06

Miquiba, I saw Paul

35:08

Butterfield Blues Band, he's the best drummer.

35:11

I saw Big Brother and the

35:13

Holding Company, Love, Buffalo Springfield, played

35:16

a teen club. So I would see all

35:18

these bands. And you were like, what? How

35:20

old? I was in a high school age.

35:23

Oh my God. Yeah. So

35:25

that must have been mind blowing. It was,

35:27

yeah. I mean, I loved records and I

35:29

always loved records. Yeah. And

35:32

so I was a kid. And I can

35:34

remember concerts that made an impact on me.

35:36

I mean, was there one where you

35:38

were like, holy fuck, this

35:41

is it? Well, I saw one

35:43

night at the Shrine Auditorium, it was

35:45

The Who, Big Mama

35:47

Thornton and Dr. John. What a wild

35:50

fucking wine. Yeah, it was crazy. And

35:52

the Belvits I saw at Shrine.

35:56

It's so weird that in the sixties, like, cause I

35:58

think Bill Graham did that where he... This

36:00

game he'd had. these are blue guys around and

36:02

they were out of it would? They were just

36:04

being introduced to the world on rise and he

36:06

put him on his bills like I can imagine

36:09

Big Mama Thornton or was a with one who

36:11

who smoke was the order those are the who

36:13

had lots of course and by a woodsy they

36:15

said are Doctor John. The moment came on first.

36:18

Oh yeah yeah because I saw like he was

36:20

weird thing I saw the stones and eighty one

36:22

a Madison Square Garden Abby idea was I think

36:24

that's James Brown was supposed to open. This is

36:27

years after what you're experiencing and I don't know

36:29

why he fell. Out but some are. They

36:31

found Screaming J Hawkins and it was the

36:33

weirdest fucking thing. Dude, it was like year

36:35

he just came out with is due to

36:37

steaks or I don't remember if there were

36:39

some bail out of the class and and

36:41

as a boy aged half the yeah yeah

36:43

but it was just so bizarre and he

36:45

was screaming just here. So when he saw

36:47

the velvet what year was a thing. Sixty.

36:50

Seven so that they made him an

36:52

impact is a mere or town because

36:55

you know it's weird because in Huntington

36:57

Beach is a go to parties. On.

36:59

Any given night when that first velvet some

37:02

from Yeah came out and that record was

37:04

playing some some time throughout the night. really

37:06

pretty groovy. Be guys like you know you

37:08

would have thought it would have been more

37:11

the west coast thing you know, these as

37:13

if we didn't did that stuff so much.

37:15

Ah, we weren't hippies where I live. There

37:17

was definitely the anti hippie. Psychedelic is a

37:20

different different approach that drugs. and it's so

37:22

funny because. I've

37:24

always had more of and. Kind

37:27

of connection to the New York than like

37:29

when we went to New York and. And

37:32

we see was seventy eight. The. Non swim

37:34

so you are okay. So you start playing

37:36

when you're twenty four am Alameda take you

37:38

to get it up to speed to go

37:40

to Sf and be with the nuns. Know

37:43

that's when it happened it only has because

37:45

of the nuns it will get it was

37:47

my friend. Just see at the down the

37:49

nuncio and you're like how of. Twenty.

37:52

Fourth, So right when you just. should

37:55

us secretary said a good dude the

37:57

i had good tone yeah man You

38:00

always have good tone. I had good,

38:02

you know, we used 250 watt Marshall

38:05

heads through a 100 watt Galen

38:07

Krueger and then we used two four twelve

38:10

Univox cabinets and with the Les Paul

38:12

Junior it was just a crunch. Yeah,

38:15

huge. So what, so okay, but I'm

38:17

curious about the whole arc here. So

38:20

you're down here, you're in Huntington Beach, you're taking

38:22

it all in and at what point do you

38:24

just pack your guitar and shit up and go

38:26

to San Francisco of all places? Well what happened?

38:29

I guess it was in like around 70, 74. Yeah.

38:33

There was a gig at the

38:35

Hollywood Palladium which was the

38:38

Stooges with Ray Manzarek, the GTO,

38:40

Zolar X, Hollywood Stars and the

38:42

New York Dolls. Wow. And some

38:44

other people I can't remember but

38:47

they called it the Trash Dance,

38:49

the Death of Glitter Rock, right?

38:51

Right. So right after that I

38:54

was living right at Highland and Franklin.

38:57

Yeah. And I was on

38:59

the Hays Market and this

39:02

young lady that I had known from Huntington

39:04

Beach, I was living with her ex-husband, right?

39:08

And that night we got

39:10

together and decided that we would just

39:14

leave LA and we

39:16

hitchhiked at night from Hollywood all

39:18

the way to San Francisco and

39:21

made it to San Francisco. My friend was

39:23

living in Marin. Yeah. And went

39:25

to San Rafael and that's when it all started really.

39:28

Wow. What was going on in San Francisco though?

39:31

It seems like, what, did you say 74? Yeah.

39:34

So the whole 60s had crashed. The

39:36

place was probably a fucking speed

39:38

freak disaster. My

39:41

friend Jeff was working at a place called the

39:44

Lion's Share in San Rafael. And

39:48

great pants. I saw Roy Buchanan

39:50

there, man. Oh my gosh. Amazing.

39:53

Just unbelievable. That guy was possessed. It

39:56

was incredible. He did a Hendrix medley.

39:58

Oh, his hey Joe is fucking... But I mean, with just like

40:00

a guitar, a telly,

40:03

a chord, and a champ or whatever he

40:05

was using. And that was

40:07

it. No pedals or nothing. He told all

40:09

of those volume knobs. He was pulling those

40:11

switches. We also played a gig with him

40:13

later towards the end. And he wasn't

40:15

as good. But he

40:17

was a bipolar alcoholic, right? Yeah, I

40:20

think so. And chunky too, I

40:22

think. Oh, really? Yeah. So

40:24

you saw that stuff. And what's going on there when you

40:26

start the nuns? Like with

40:28

the scene? There was nothing. We walked, you

40:31

know, there was no place to play for bands

40:33

that were like ours. Right. So

40:35

this is kind of 75. So

40:38

it's just happening in New York. So it wasn't

40:40

even happening there yet. Like that? Not really. But

40:42

you picked up that sound from that show in

40:44

LA. Yeah, we walked. And the records. And the

40:46

records. And just growing up with, I loved garage

40:49

bands. I used to love the Count

40:51

Five and, you know, all

40:54

the Limey and the Yanks bands like that,

40:56

you know, to garage bands. All

40:58

of the Nuggets bands. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:00

Lenny K. Yeah. So

41:02

anyway, that was kind of the

41:04

inspiration. The Stooges always were like

41:07

Godhead for us. Too much, right? It's so

41:09

good. Yeah, because I listened to Nuns yesterday.

41:11

And it's like it holds up pretty good.

41:14

It still rocks pretty hard, dude. That's funny that you

41:16

say that. Why? Because

41:18

every time I mention the nuns, some

41:21

people will clap, you know. And I say, if you're

41:23

clapping for the nuns, you never heard the nuns. You

41:26

never heard the nuns. It

41:28

was of a time, but the guitar sounds good. Yeah,

41:30

the guitar sounds good. You know,

41:32

I mean, you can't, you know, that's how you made your

41:34

bones. I think it was my first band. I

41:37

mean, look, the nuns took me

41:39

around the world, you know, pretty much. Did they? Well,

41:42

I mean, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have

41:44

gone to New York, lived in the Chelsea, played with

41:46

Judy Nylon. Well, so 78, like New York,

41:48

I just talked to Thurston Moore a few days ago.

41:52

And we were going over that time. I mean, 78

41:54

was peak shit there. Yeah, yeah. And you were living

41:56

in the Chelsea? Yeah, we moved to the Chelsea. What

42:00

was the guy at the front? Stanley. Stanley,

42:03

yeah. Stanley was great. And

42:05

you know, it was weird because Stanley was

42:07

there, Charles James, the great designer was there.

42:12

And then Sid and Nancy came to live there

42:14

while I was there. You remember? Oh,

42:17

yeah. Yeah. Because Sid came

42:19

over our house, the nuns' house

42:21

after the last sex-wistles gig

42:23

at Winter and went. And

42:26

Sid came to hang out with us before he

42:28

wandered off and got lost with, you know,

42:30

Nancy, with whoever. I

42:33

don't know. Yeah, yeah. But,

42:35

you know. Wait, in San Francisco? Yeah. Oh,

42:38

really? Yeah. So like, I

42:40

have no sense of what he might have been like as a person. He

42:43

was a kid who loved rock and roll. Yeah. Loved

42:46

the records, but they were pushing them

42:48

to be that character, you know. Oh, they were.

42:51

Yeah. And sadly enough, it overcame

42:53

him. Killed him. Yeah. How

42:56

long were you in the Chelsea? Almost a year. Yeah? Yeah.

43:00

Were you strung out? Never strung out, but I did

43:02

do heroin. Yeah. Yeah. I

43:05

guess everyone was. Yeah. Yeah, it

43:07

was that kind of place at the time. Yeah. And

43:10

what were you seeing there? Were you seeing like Patti Smith

43:12

and everybody? Well, I saw Patti, you know, the first time

43:14

I saw Patti was at the Whiskey. Oh,

43:16

here, yeah. And it was

43:18

when she just played with D&D on keyboards

43:20

and Lenny on guitar. Oh, okay. And the

43:22

only people in the audience were my

43:25

group of friends, the Stooges, Fats

43:27

Freddy and some other people. And, you

43:30

know, that was it. That was it? Yeah.

43:33

Are you friends with Iggy? Yeah, somewhat.

43:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's

43:37

so funny. Like, who was it Rollins told me? Like, there's a

43:39

difference between Iggy and Jim. Yeah, there is. Yeah. And,

43:42

you know, Jim is very sophisticated. Well-read,

43:44

Jimmy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wild when

43:46

I had him over here. Well, he

43:49

came over to the old house and, you

43:52

know, he comes out on the deck. He's got a little bunch

43:54

of people with him. And

43:56

we're about to go in to do the interview and he just

43:58

starts stretching on the deck. like the shirt

44:00

comes off. I

44:05

got to sit there with him in the garage with

44:07

his shirt off. He's wonderful, man. Yeah, he's a vet.

44:09

And then he really kind

44:11

of like there was no one like him. Oh,

44:14

yeah. And I

44:16

would watch. I remember one time I went

44:18

to see the Stooges and

44:20

it was Chaka Khan, Rufus

44:23

Chaka Khan, and a Stooges double pill. How

44:25

does that happen? I don't know, but it

44:27

was so cool. Wow. One

44:30

time we drove from. The Stooges opened? They

44:32

switched. It was like a three-night thing. They

44:35

would switch billing. That's interesting because like that

44:37

was a time where like there was so

44:39

much music and there were not necessarily these

44:41

camps. I mean, music was music because that

44:44

double billing would never happen now, really. Well,

44:46

that was a beautiful thing about the 60s

44:48

and 70s, you know? Yeah.

44:50

And that's why we, you know,

44:53

like DJs used to educate us about

44:55

what they were playing. Right. Yeah. Why

44:57

that Sun Ra record was what it

44:59

was, you know, and that

45:01

led to seeking out all kinds of other

45:03

things. Yeah, it doesn't have anymore. No. It's been

45:05

a long time. It's all programmed. Yeah. I mean,

45:07

I like I just settled the score the other

45:10

day that I swear to God in the late

45:12

70s, I saw ACDC open up for Journey. Wow.

45:14

And I talked to the bass player of Journey

45:16

at some point at some event when I lived

45:18

in San Francisco briefly, and he said, no, we

45:20

opened for them. And I'm like, no. And

45:23

it was how I remembered it. Yeah. And I always

45:25

say the sad thing was I was there to see

45:28

Journey. I

45:31

saw ACDC at the old Waldorf in San

45:33

Francisco in a club. Like in the 70s? Wait,

45:35

70s with Bon? When we were in

45:37

the nuns, yeah, Bon. Oh my God. And they

45:39

were unbelievable. Fucking crazy. Talk

45:41

about tone. I mean, that's crazy. I know.

45:43

It's crazy. Yeah. So when do you feel

45:46

like you're starting to, you know, what were

45:48

you recording in New York, if anything? I

45:50

was playing with Judy Nylon. Okay. And Judy

45:52

had a band called Snatch with Pat Pallidan

45:54

in London. Okay. And she was in New

45:56

York now. And I played

46:00

played with her, Paolo

46:02

Rowe, and Pat Place, who was in

46:04

the Bush Tetras. And we

46:06

were kind of put into that no-wave. Right.

46:09

Okay. So that, yeah, that's what I was talking

46:11

to Thurston about. Yeah. Like that

46:13

whole Artie crew. Yeah. Art

46:15

Olenzi and those guys. Yeah. Yeah. So you were

46:17

kind of here on- John Lurie, all those guys.

46:19

Yeah, the Lounge Wizards and James Chance. So

46:22

we did, you know, I played with her for

46:24

a couple years, and then I

46:27

really learned a lot from her. The first time I

46:29

played with her was at Max's. And

46:31

we rehearsed one night in her hotel room and

46:34

played the next night. And then the front row

46:36

and the front table

46:38

pretty much was Sean Cale, Brian

46:40

Eno, and Chris Spedding. Wow. They

46:43

were all friends of hers. Yeah. But

46:45

it scared the hell out of me. It must have. But

46:48

I guess what you, I, well, I can hear

46:50

that, like, you know, what you must have learned

46:52

is like, you know, letting those, you know, getting

46:54

into that space with those guitars, you know, it

46:56

just seems like the no way thing that there

46:58

was a, it wasn't

47:00

like noise, but there was definitely a

47:03

different space to it that was not

47:05

regular rock and roll. No, it

47:07

was a totally different bit. A lot of that was

47:10

very kind of like Gang of

47:12

Four-ish, you know, like, sharp,

47:15

edgy guitars. Right. Yeah.

47:18

And so like my tone really didn't fit into it.

47:20

I had to learn how to kind of- Right. To

47:23

let the shit ring a little bit. Yeah.

47:26

You know, instead of like that. Gang, gang,

47:28

gang, gang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mid, you know,

47:30

that midi kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Because

47:32

a lot of that no way stuff, it's

47:35

just, it's right on the edge of being

47:37

horrible. Well,

47:39

I won't say that. But

47:42

yeah, you know. No, I know. It's abrasive. It's

47:44

abrasive, you know. Well, no, I think it created

47:46

a space. But I, you know, if I'm sitting

47:48

around, I'm not going to be like throwing that

47:51

on necessarily. Yeah. Do you

47:53

know what I mean? Yeah, sure. So

47:55

you leave New York after a year and then you what, go

47:57

back to Texas? No, I stayed in New

47:59

York. New York from 78 to

48:02

80. That's like prime time, dude.

48:04

That was like, you know, the way Thurston

48:06

put it was that everything was happening so

48:08

fast. So that original bunch

48:10

of punk bands, you

48:13

know, very quickly became almost in the eyes

48:15

of the new kids, which was No Wave,

48:17

and some of the more, the

48:20

punks that were doing different things, like almost bar

48:22

bands. And a whole new thing was

48:25

trying to happen. You

48:27

know, it was amazing because we

48:29

played gigs with Kale a lot. We

48:31

had the same manager, Jane Friedman, you

48:33

know. Well, he did. He produced which

48:35

one? The Boxing Mirror for you? The

48:37

Boxing Mirror, yeah. Years later. Years later.

48:40

Well, I mean, I can hear Kale in some of your

48:42

stuff with the strings, right? Oh, I love Kale. Yeah. The

48:45

reason, you know, I kind of,

48:47

the template for strings for me was

48:49

Streethouse, all this song. Yes.

48:53

Exactly. And then Kale's Paris,

48:55

1919. Yeah. So like

48:57

those two albums were just so

48:59

important to me, you know. And

49:01

when I started to do my

49:03

thing, finally, it wasn't until 91

49:06

that I went solo. Wow.

49:08

So now, did you know

49:10

Lou? No.

49:14

No, me neither. We asked him for directions

49:16

once, and he ignored us, but that was

49:18

it. He's a little harsh. Yeah, a little.

49:20

I talked to Laurie Anderson, you know, recently

49:22

about the books she put out, the Tai

49:24

Chi book, which is this whole other Lou,

49:26

where you're like, oh my God. Yeah. This

49:29

guy had all other things going. Complex dude.

49:31

Yeah, complex. And, you know, Tony

49:33

Visconti and him shared the same master,

49:35

Tai Chi master, you know. Oh, right. Yeah,

49:38

yeah. And you did two records with

49:40

Tony? Three. That must have been a treat.

49:42

I love Tony. Was it be,

49:44

what connected you to Tony? Was it Bowie? Well,

49:47

T-Rex. I mean, the sound,

49:49

of course, T-Rex, you know. But

49:53

what was happening was I'd

49:55

just been signed to EMI,

49:57

and in which, as a solo act. Yeah,

50:00

uh-huh and Chuck prophet and

50:02

I had written a record called real

50:05

animal. Yeah, that's good record And when I

50:07

took it to the label

50:09

all the A&R guys said we

50:11

didn't have any songs, right? All right, so

50:14

I Went

50:16

to Ian Hunter and called Ian. I

50:18

said can I come out and hang out with you for

50:20

a while? I went out in England. No

50:23

here. Oh here. Yeah. Oh, he's

50:25

not British He is British,

50:27

but he lives out in Connecticut. Okay Um

50:30

Cuz I went on hung out with him for about a

50:33

week. We went through all the songs says you

50:35

got a great album Just tell him to fuck off. Yeah,

50:37

and Then

50:40

went to we were gonna have Glyn

50:42

Johns produce. Yeah the record Chuck

50:45

and I went out to where he lives out at

50:48

the Provence, I

50:50

believe it's pronounced in front. Yeah and

50:53

hung out with him for a while Didn't

50:55

really get a lot done. It was really kind of

50:58

strange and came back

51:00

and we had this kind

51:02

of Horrible

51:04

phone call lasted too long and

51:07

a lot of name, you know name calling

51:09

and blah blah blah Yeah, so I told

51:12

Ian Ralphini the president of

51:14

the label that I couldn't work with him He

51:18

calls him tells we're not gonna work together. Okay, so who

51:21

we're gonna get I said What

51:23

about Tony viscon? He goes I'll call him

51:26

and Tony came out to Chicago Really

51:29

cool beautiful man. Love

51:32

that. We were playing harder rock at that. Yeah. Yeah

51:34

and Wanted to make

51:36

a rock and roll record, you know, and we did

51:38

it and with every song that we had written that

51:40

Chuck and I Written Wow So

51:42

that must have been like a big day.

51:44

It was beautiful. Yeah, I mean we recorded

51:46

in the studio out in Lexington, Kentucky Is

51:48

that he liked? That's

51:51

why the studio thing man They

51:53

get Lexington Tony viscon D likes the

51:55

studio in Lexington. He said it

51:57

was one of his five favorite studios in the world

52:00

It's no longer there. Yeah, but it

52:02

was a horse farm. So

52:04

you're out there. We're out there. You stayed there

52:07

You live there. Yeah, we had a coke. Wow.

52:09

It was really like doing a residency Yeah, it

52:11

was it was we got treated very well now

52:13

Do you think for your sound and for who

52:15

you were that you have in terms

52:18

of the big shift in kind

52:20

of Defining part of your direction was that

52:22

rank and file stuff? In

52:25

that it showed me what I didn't want to

52:27

do Interesting. Yeah,

52:29

how's that? It's

52:32

probably the worst experience I've had in a band Quite

52:37

honestly But it

52:39

seemed to be of a type that was

52:41

there was only a few people doing that

52:43

I guess it became well It was definitely

52:45

ahead of its time. Yeah, there's no doubt

52:47

that we were out of its time And

52:49

I always feel like rank never got its

52:51

due Credit for where what

52:53

it did. I have the record. Yeah. Yeah.

52:55

Yeah and Tony

52:58

and chip wrote great songs. They

53:00

were the songwriters, you know,

53:02

Tony especially wrote some really yeah songs

53:04

and But it

53:06

was a really kind of like difficult

53:11

Atmosphere to be amongst, you know

53:14

brothers. Oh, yeah, and I

53:17

was kind of the man out there was kind of wanted me to

53:19

be country guitar player which I

53:21

was and I still had a Les Paul jr.

53:23

And a Marshall right and It

53:27

just didn't work out and I left

53:30

I left after the first album and

53:32

they went on they went on Oh,

53:34

I mean cuz what was that other band

53:37

with that woman? I'm spacing her name and

53:39

I'm spacing the band loan. Just loan justice.

53:41

Yeah, Maria McKee. Oh my god Yeah, they

53:43

were great What a singer she was and

53:45

that was kind of the deal too because

53:47

we were touring with them Oh you were

53:49

okay, and we had the same

53:51

management I think okay, and

53:53

we played a gig in Sacramento Remember

53:56

and it didn't go well for us. So

53:59

I was escaped So like they

54:01

come to me and again it's

54:03

my guitar playing and blah blah blah.

54:06

And I just said, you know what, fuck this,

54:08

I'm done. And I

54:10

called my mate Bobby in Austin and said

54:13

I'm leaving. And she said

54:15

fine, just leave. So I

54:17

left and I remember all the way home I played

54:21

Foggin' Ocean by the Velvet.

54:24

And I said this is what I want my new band to

54:26

sound like. Oh yeah, and then what was

54:28

the new band? The True Believers

54:30

with your brother. That's a

54:32

good record man. You guys cover Train Comin' Around the

54:34

Bend? Yeah, yeah, we do. Yeah man. But

54:37

that's funny though because whatever you hated

54:40

about Rankin' File, I mean

54:42

you made that

54:46

song, the country rock song that could beat.

54:49

Yeah, it's funny because we put that

54:52

lap still in there. Yeah, yeah. I

54:54

mean like it's a totally reasonable interpretation

54:56

because it's in there, it's in the

54:58

Velvet's version. It implies it but

55:00

it doesn't really get that way. Exactly, right? So

55:03

what was it like playing with your brother? You

55:10

know I thought it was going to be a

55:13

dream rant and we were a great band. It

55:15

was a great band. I think it sort of

55:17

defines like the Austin sound at that time, right?

55:19

We were a great band. It must have been

55:22

great live, right? Amazing. Yeah. I

55:24

mean I remember there was John DeGram, my

55:26

brother and myself, good rhythm section, you know

55:29

it was wrong. Yeah.

55:31

But you know it just didn't work

55:33

with my brother and I, you know.

55:36

It was kind of like Dave and

55:39

Ray Davies of Chicano Rock or

55:41

something. He's older, he's younger. Oh

55:43

he's younger? Yeah, he's great though

55:45

man. And what was he playing?

55:47

Guitar? He's very into, you know

55:49

his band the Zeros were great. Oh I remember

55:51

that. And I don't know if I know the

55:53

songs but I remember the name. They had a

55:55

great song called Wimp. Oh okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

55:58

Yeah. You're just a wimp. you

56:00

back to Texas was after Rankin File? Rankin

56:03

File moved to Texas. They were there. Yeah. And

56:05

then you were there. We met up in New

56:08

York. Yeah. Chip came to New York. Yeah. We got

56:11

Kevin Foley, who was the drummer for Judy Nylon.

56:14

The bass player was Barry

56:16

Myers, who's Barry Scratchy Myers.

56:18

He was the Clash DJ. Okay. On

56:20

tour. Yeah. He's in Rude Boy, that

56:22

movie Rude Boy. But he

56:25

was our bass player. We booked a tour.

56:27

It was seven weeks long with seven gigs

56:29

in seven weeks. Took us from New York

56:31

City all the way to Vancouver, B.C.

56:34

And one of the gigs was in Austin. And

56:37

we fell in love with Austin. I fell in love with Austin.

56:39

They did too. Oh, so it was

56:41

like that was when it was really Austin or

56:43

just becoming the Austin that it became, right? Yeah.

56:46

It was still like, you know,

56:48

the remnants of the progressive cowboy

56:50

thing. Yeah. So there was really, I mean,

56:53

songwriters like I'd never heard before, you know,

56:56

and a great scene. Yeah. What was

56:58

that one guy's name? That three names,

57:00

that country songwriter. Townes Mountain. Not Townes,

57:03

later. Gilmour.

57:05

Oh, Jimmy Dale. Yeah. Jimmy Dale.

57:07

He's amazing, man. And

57:09

Townes, yeah. Joey Lee, who's amazing.

57:12

But Chankoff. They were all there.

57:14

They were all there. And

57:17

really cool, you know, and it was really cool because- What

57:19

is it, mid 80s? It was the

57:21

beginning of the 80s. Okay. 81, you know. So

57:23

Townes was still around? Townes was still around.

57:26

Played in backyards. Heavy cat though. Oh, wow. I

57:28

mean, I can't, it's hard for me to listen.

57:30

I can hear the- You know, I'll

57:32

tell you something real quick. When

57:35

my wife died, you know, she committed

57:37

suicide. My wife bothered. When was that?

57:39

That was in 92. Oh,

57:42

God. Sorry, man. No, 91. Yeah. I went to

57:46

go see Townes after that.

57:49

And I couldn't stay for the show. It was just

57:51

too heavy. Yeah, man. And

57:54

that's the effect he had on me though, you know. And

57:57

I got to tour with Townes, you know. We toured in- in

58:00

Italy together with Joey Lee. Towards

58:02

the end? Yeah. And

58:05

then we toured in California up

58:07

and down the west coast from

58:09

Seattle all the way down to

58:11

San Diego. I can't, sometimes it's

58:13

the weight of him emotionally,

58:17

it's hard for me to listen to. It's

58:19

deep, man. Yeah. And deep and heavy

58:21

hearted, you know? When

58:24

we were leaving Italy, we had just done this

58:26

great tour. And they had

58:28

this big dinner, you know, like

58:30

in a restaurant, a promoter, Carlo Carlini.

58:34

And the tables were set up kind of like the

58:36

Last Supper, you know, there was a

58:38

long table at the top. Family style. Family

58:40

style, you know, we were down here, right?

58:42

Yeah, yeah. But all the,

58:44

the, the immortal gods were

58:46

up here. So it was Townes, Rick

58:50

Danko. Oh my God. Jonas

58:52

Feld, Eric Anderson, Joey

58:55

Lee. They were all up

58:57

there. And then we were

58:59

down here, but I was sitting closest to all

59:01

these guys. Yeah. We had

59:03

this amazing meal, nine courses, wine

59:05

everywhere. It was beautiful. Suddenly,

59:08

the promoter goes to get a guitar. He

59:11

brings it out and he hands it to

59:13

whoever was sitting, maybe Eric Anderson. Yeah. And

59:16

then Towne sang a song, Joe

59:18

sang a song, you know, Jonas sang

59:20

a song. And it's starting to come

59:22

to us. Danko sang a song.

59:25

Right there at this dinner. And

59:29

the guitar is starting to come to me. I'm

59:31

going, I got to get out of here. I don't want to

59:33

play in front of these guys. And

59:38

it came to me and, and

59:42

I played a song called Wishing

59:44

Well. And

59:47

I could hear Danko lean over

59:49

to town. I could just close my eyes, you know,

59:51

start singing a song. And I

59:53

could hear Danko lean over to Towne's

59:56

and say, that's a great fucking

59:58

song. And

1:00:00

I could have died right then, you know, that was

1:00:02

it, you know, what was it? Those

1:00:04

are my heroes. Is that when

1:00:06

you were coronated in your mind as a

1:00:08

songwriter? Somewhat. It gave me a little more

1:00:10

confidence, yeah. Danko is a fucking angel, dude.

1:00:13

I loved him. Oh my God. You know,

1:00:15

we all went to my room that night

1:00:18

and gambled and drank wine. He was calling

1:00:20

Woodstock on the phone and he

1:00:22

was just such a joy to be around. It

1:00:24

seems like it, you know, I was in Boston

1:00:27

and I went to see the Jerry Garcia band when

1:00:29

I was in college and he wasn't even on the

1:00:31

bill. And he came out

1:00:33

with an acoustic guitar and he did

1:00:35

Mystery Train and he did Stage Fright

1:00:37

and left. Just

1:00:40

him on that guitar. And it was like, it

1:00:42

was crazy. I'll never forget it. Yeah. I

1:00:45

mean, and I watch him now, like what an

1:00:47

amazing voice and presence and all of it.

1:00:50

It must have been a beautiful person. Yeah.

1:00:52

I really loved him. Yeah. So,

1:00:55

so is, so by the time, like after that

1:00:57

happens, that's where you kind of lock into your

1:00:59

zone. Yeah. That's when I

1:01:01

made the record with, so my wife passed

1:01:04

away. That's so hard, dude. I'm so

1:01:06

sorry. I had a, thank you. I

1:01:10

had a seven year old

1:01:12

daughter and she just had a baby.

1:01:14

So I had a six month old baby. Oh

1:01:17

my God. Was it postpartum you think? I think

1:01:19

I have something to do. Yeah.

1:01:23

Yeah. I was working on Waterloo Records, right?

1:01:25

Yeah. Where's that?

1:01:27

In Austin. You

1:01:29

haven't been to Waterloo? I haven't. Oh, you got

1:01:31

to go, man. Okay. Anyway,

1:01:34

so. It's a record store? Yeah. Okay.

1:01:38

All right. I don't even know about it. It's a

1:01:40

weird killer store. Oh, okay. So

1:01:42

anyway, I'm working at the store. Now

1:01:44

I can't work and, you

1:01:47

know, there was a gentleman by the name

1:01:49

of Steven Bruton. Steven

1:01:51

had played guitar with Chris Kristofferson for about

1:01:54

15 years. Oh, he's your guy. He produced

1:01:56

those first couple of records, right? Oh my

1:01:58

God. All right. And then he

1:02:00

played with Bonnie Ray. So

1:02:05

he really took me under his wing and I

1:02:07

was damaged goods. I

1:02:10

was crippled pretty much. And

1:02:13

I didn't know what I was going to do and I

1:02:17

had something called the Alejandro Escavello Orchestra

1:02:19

at the time, which could be up

1:02:21

to 15 pieces, horn section,

1:02:24

keyboard, backup vocals. And that was just something

1:02:26

you were doing? It was just in town.

1:02:31

And then he

1:02:33

said, you know, we can't record this band. You

1:02:35

know, it's too big. You can't take it out

1:02:37

on the road. So

1:02:40

we worked on Gravity, you know, and he says, I want

1:02:42

to make a record. We got all

1:02:44

his guys, Terry Wilson on bass. We

1:02:47

had Billy Ginn, Tom Kenny on

1:02:50

keyboards. We had

1:02:52

Dennis Kenmore and Frosty. You

1:02:54

know, Frosty the Drone from Lee Michaels band.

1:02:57

Lee Michaels. He played drums and

1:03:00

Stephen on guitar. Charlie played

1:03:02

on some songs. You know, Charlie

1:03:04

Sexton and my friend Terry Lacaze

1:03:06

too. But anyway, we

1:03:09

made this album. It took nine days from

1:03:11

the very first rehearsal to the final

1:03:13

mix and we made Gravity. So

1:03:16

that's what you were bringing. You brought it all. A

1:03:19

lot of grief. Yeah, grief. Yeah. I

1:03:22

mean, because that record is one of the best

1:03:24

records ever. Oh, thank you. I mean, Jesus Christ.

1:03:27

That record. You

1:03:30

know, I was working at the record store

1:03:32

and suddenly reviews are coming in on the

1:03:34

record, you know, like from all over, everywhere.

1:03:36

Great reviews. And I'm selling

1:03:38

my own record to the customers. Rock

1:03:43

and roll, man. Yeah. So, you

1:03:45

know, but that began. And then I started the tour. I

1:03:48

wonder how to do. Did you know Jason Molina?

1:03:51

I didn't know Jason. I ran across him though.

1:03:53

I bet you have big influence on that guy.

1:03:55

I don't know. He was. But

1:03:58

anyway, yeah, that began. I

1:04:00

started a tour and you know we

1:04:03

did a tour and I was kind of rusty you

1:04:05

know hadn't been out in a while and

1:04:08

really had to learn how to front a band again

1:04:10

wait what four piece yeah it was

1:04:12

a four piece yeah great

1:04:14

players we did a live record of

1:04:16

mostly gravity didn't you

1:04:18

I don't know oh yeah I think

1:04:21

yeah I mean there's definitely a couple

1:04:23

live record yeah and I

1:04:25

know there's a there's one word more miles of money

1:04:27

that's a lot of gravity on it oh yeah yeah

1:04:30

so yeah that began now that then

1:04:33

I made 13 years which was another

1:04:35

record about and he brought the strings

1:04:37

in then I brought the strings in

1:04:39

I had cello I had John Hagan

1:04:41

from Lyle Lovett's band on the first

1:04:44

record but we really didn't work

1:04:46

on it like I wanted to the second record we

1:04:48

really honed in on strings and that was

1:04:51

right it was a concept record really wasn't

1:04:53

it well it was about coming

1:04:56

out of this grief you know trying to

1:04:58

rise above the grief yeah dude

1:05:00

it's rough I don't think it ever

1:05:02

goes away man I know I lost my

1:05:05

girlfriend in in 2020 and sorry

1:05:10

yeah she just got

1:05:12

sick and died and yeah I

1:05:15

don't know it kind of the immediacy

1:05:17

of it and the shattering nature

1:05:20

of it is very there's nothing

1:05:22

you can do to control it but

1:05:24

then it just kind of becomes part

1:05:26

of something in you and it

1:05:29

definitely changes your perception of everything once you

1:05:31

I wouldn't say get out of

1:05:33

it but you know move through

1:05:35

it yeah it

1:05:37

was weird man you know like I even had

1:05:40

moments where I thought I'd see her again do

1:05:42

you know what I mean like I'd be walking

1:05:44

a crowd or sometimes I you know I have

1:05:46

your dreams man I had dream last week yeah

1:05:49

where and then you're in the dream and you're like

1:05:51

oh thank God yeah and then you wake up and

1:05:53

you're like and you just got to

1:05:55

look at it as a visit and you know we have

1:05:57

two daughters my youngest Paloma.

1:06:00

Yeah, she looks just like her. She doesn't

1:06:02

like her, you know, so how they doing?

1:06:04

They're great. I think it's wonderful That's

1:06:07

good. But then like that that

1:06:09

sort of starts the run for you though.

1:06:11

You just keep plowing away Yeah, all different

1:06:13

kinds of stuff Pretty

1:06:15

amazing because a lot of the records are very different

1:06:19

I fucking love that that I like

1:06:21

boxing mirror a lot, but I and I I just

1:06:23

love that one that You

1:06:25

know burn something beautiful because of that guitar.

1:06:27

That was so much fun to make. Yeah

1:06:30

Yeah, cuz it was just loud and you

1:06:32

know and I wanted that from them, you

1:06:34

know Yeah, cuz you know up in Portland

1:06:36

the Northwest things are a

1:06:38

little fuzzy or musically, you know, yeah Kind

1:06:41

of more distorted but it felt it fit

1:06:43

your fun your voice. Yeah, yeah, we were

1:06:46

yeah of the when does the

1:06:48

hip kick in? Well,

1:06:50

it actually kicked in the late 90s,

1:06:53

right? Yeah, and at that time they didn't

1:06:55

know a whole lot about it You

1:06:58

know so when I was going to a doctor what happened

1:07:00

was I was just terribly ill

1:07:02

and started to turn yellow and oh my

1:07:04

God, you know, it was it was bad

1:07:07

and The doctor

1:07:09

that I went to who had treated

1:07:11

a lot of AIDS patients, you know,

1:07:13

yeah said I wasn't a good Candidate

1:07:16

for interferon which was the treatment

1:07:18

and kill you can kill you.

1:07:20

Yeah So she said just

1:07:22

go out and live the best life you can

1:07:24

for as long as you can that was her

1:07:27

final words to me Right. Holy shit. No health

1:07:29

there. So I stopped

1:07:31

drinking for a while. I tried

1:07:34

to be pretty straight edge about everything

1:07:37

Started touring again with Sun volt. I

1:07:39

remember and You

1:07:42

know traveling through the Midwest

1:07:44

where I'm on a diet of

1:07:46

like apple juice That when

1:07:48

you're writing a bourbon itis blues, yeah,

1:07:50

yeah, yeah and Were

1:07:54

you weak very weak? Yeah,

1:07:56

and then 2003

1:07:59

I think it was I was doing a play that I

1:08:01

had been part of called

1:08:03

By the Hand of the Father. Right, that's a good

1:08:05

record. And we

1:08:09

were recording, not recording,

1:08:11

but a performance in Tempe,

1:08:14

Arizona at the university. And

1:08:18

that day I began to vomit

1:08:20

blood, like a lot

1:08:22

of blood. All day long.

1:08:25

Then I felt better and I went to the sound

1:08:27

check, but they started to, you

1:08:29

know, I told them what was happening, so they started

1:08:31

to kind of mark places where they

1:08:34

could blacken the stage, so

1:08:36

I could split. And

1:08:39

then I threw up just before I went on stage.

1:08:41

I made it through the show. Fortunately,

1:08:44

my sister, Dolly, was there.

1:08:47

And I passed out at the end of

1:08:49

the show and got taken to emergency room. And

1:08:52

I was in a hospital in Arizona and

1:08:55

they told me I had a year to live if I

1:08:58

didn't get a liver transplant. And

1:09:02

I was beat up because I had varices

1:09:04

in the esophagus, advanced

1:09:06

cirrhosis of the liver, and tumor

1:09:09

in my stomach, you know. Holy

1:09:11

shit. So I was a mess. How'd

1:09:15

you get treated, dude? I mean, like, how were

1:09:17

you alive? You

1:09:21

know, there was times when I just kind of

1:09:24

was ready to give up, honestly, where

1:09:26

it was kind of seductive. I was kind of laid

1:09:28

down and just go, I'm just

1:09:30

going to let it take me, you know.

1:09:32

Yeah. But then I always, my children kind of

1:09:34

always kind of were the thing, you know, brought

1:09:37

me back. And

1:09:40

I made it through one treatment.

1:09:43

I remember they put me on Interferon

1:09:45

again. Yeah. So you did do

1:09:47

it eventually. It almost killed me. So

1:09:49

I only lasted three months on that, told

1:09:52

the doctor I couldn't take it anymore. It

1:09:56

was eating away my bone marrow, you know. Yeah.

1:10:01

I just stopped and I

1:10:05

found a Tibetan doctor, Dr.

1:10:08

Deakey, she's out here in the West Coast. And

1:10:11

I went to see her and she

1:10:13

kept me alive for until

1:10:16

about, let me see,

1:10:18

about six years ago when they

1:10:20

finally came up with a combination of drugs

1:10:23

that totally kicked it out of my system I no

1:10:25

longer have it. What about the tumor? Gone,

1:10:28

everything's gone. Holy shit.

1:10:30

I mean I still have varices, so

1:10:33

I have to take

1:10:35

a medicine for that beta blocker. And

1:10:38

I take a Mepprazole because...

1:10:40

Is that steroid? It's

1:10:44

for acid reflux. So

1:10:47

I have to get banded every now and

1:10:49

then, my esophagus. But

1:10:52

as far as the hep C, I no longer have

1:10:54

it. I know my buddy Jerry got in on that.

1:10:58

They can kick that thing now. Now they have a

1:11:00

pill, I think you take one and it's gone in

1:11:02

months. That's amazing. Yeah. He

1:11:04

got lucky on that. He was in the trials and he

1:11:06

got the goods, not the placebo. And he kicked it. That's

1:11:09

wonderful. Good for him. He'd been fighting

1:11:11

him for years. You know Jerry Stahl? No. He's

1:11:14

a writer, great guy. But you know, it

1:11:19

was really one of the most frightening things I've

1:11:21

ever been through. And I've had a lot of

1:11:24

close calls. Oh yeah, sounds horrendous. Yeah.

1:11:26

You had close calls before the disease? Yeah,

1:11:28

you know like surfing. Yeah. Boos,

1:11:31

whatever. I was drowned, you know.

1:11:35

Kids doing drugs with people. Oh

1:11:37

yeah. You don't know what you're going to

1:11:39

get. Just do it for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But

1:11:42

like all the records after that, I mean you must

1:11:44

have, you know, between the grief of losing

1:11:48

your wife and then getting a new lease on

1:11:50

life, I mean it must have changed your perspective

1:11:52

quite a bit. You know that's when I really

1:11:54

started to look back when

1:11:56

I was sick. And that's when I wrote

1:11:58

Real Life. animal with

1:12:00

Chuck. You know Chuck and

1:12:02

I wrote Real Animal. But it was about

1:12:04

the nuns, you know. That story's about the

1:12:06

nuns, right? Yeah. A little bit about Rankin

1:12:09

File, but just being in bands

1:12:11

that, you know, I loved being in those

1:12:13

bands, but they fell short, you

1:12:15

know. Yeah. But they really weren't

1:12:18

meant to be that type of band. Yeah.

1:12:20

Yeah. That was never part of our, you

1:12:23

know, we didn't have a career plan or

1:12:25

anything like that. Right. We're just playing. Yeah.

1:12:28

But then like you go on to make these

1:12:30

other records where, you know, like the crossing

1:12:32

is a meaningful record. You

1:12:34

know, it had purpose and I have

1:12:36

to assume that, you know, your perspective,

1:12:39

you know, shifted to the bigger world anyways.

1:12:41

Yeah, totally. Right. You know. And,

1:12:44

you know, the story is my father's story

1:12:46

too because he came from Mexico. Yeah. From

1:12:48

São Paulo and he crossed when

1:12:51

he was 12 years old, you know, on

1:12:53

his own. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, I

1:12:55

have a history of that. It's part of

1:12:57

my lineage. Yeah. I think

1:12:59

in my family, there's so many great, great

1:13:01

musicians, you know. Sheila Eads, my

1:13:03

niece, you know. Really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

1:13:05

yeah. Juan and Peter Michael and my

1:13:08

brother Javier and my brother Mario had a

1:13:10

great band called the Dragons out of San

1:13:12

Diego. Yeah. And, but

1:13:15

I guess I'm kind of the storyteller. Yeah.

1:13:18

And the archivist. Yeah, yeah,

1:13:20

the archivist, exactly. The poet. Yeah. Someone's

1:13:23

got to do it. Yeah, yeah, it's a good

1:13:25

gig. Yeah. Now, when you,

1:13:27

what'd you figure out, like, coming up

1:13:29

on this new record, which is a

1:13:31

great record, now, when you played, like,

1:13:34

you know, the last to know

1:13:36

or wave on the new record,

1:13:41

did it have a new meaning for you? Were you able

1:13:43

to, you know, or were you just

1:13:45

kind of just doing it a new way? You

1:13:47

know, like, I've always

1:13:49

loved the idea that, like,

1:13:52

movie music songs are like small

1:13:54

movies, right? Yeah. Like little movies.

1:13:56

When they're done well. Right. Yeah.

1:13:58

When they're great. Yeah. And

1:14:02

I felt like with Wave, I could

1:14:05

see the big picture. You

1:14:08

know, it became clearer to me. Right. With

1:14:10

that interpretation that we did. Yeah. And

1:14:13

it became more like a soundtrack. Yeah.

1:14:16

And I love that. That's great. I also love your

1:14:18

version of Pale Blue Eyes. That's a good cover. Oh,

1:14:20

thanks. I don't remember what record that's on, but that's

1:14:23

a hell of a song. Yeah, I've been doing that

1:14:25

one forever. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

1:14:28

It was great talking to you, pal. It was wonderful. Yeah.

1:14:30

Such a pleasure. Thank you. I'm

1:14:32

glad we finally did it. I'll see you in Austin. I'll be there

1:14:34

in April, I think, if everything works out. I'm sorry, but we're gonna

1:14:37

be on tour this time. Oh, are you gonna tour

1:14:39

this record, or just a jet ride? Yeah,

1:14:41

this record, yeah. Yeah, it's, I

1:14:43

got, do you ever hear of

1:14:45

Centralmatic? Do you know that band? No. You

1:14:48

need to check them out. Great. They're no longer,

1:14:50

yeah, but they were an amazing band out of Texas.

1:14:52

Yeah. And the keyboard player,

1:14:54

Scott Damboms, my keyboard player, Mark

1:14:57

Kenny's on drums. He played with Placho

1:14:59

Lewis, you know, drummer. And

1:15:02

then James Mastro, who was in the

1:15:04

bongos, plays with Patti Smith. Yeah. A

1:15:06

bunch of people. He's our fourth member. Yeah. He'll

1:15:09

be opening the shows, too. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

1:15:12

Yeah, you feel strong, too. You seem good.

1:15:14

I feel great, man. All right. Well, have

1:15:16

a good tour. Yeah. And have a

1:15:18

good time in Austin. Thanks, man. Alonzo

1:15:25

Escavido. What a

1:15:27

fucking story. What

1:15:29

a great talk. His new album, Echo Dancing, is

1:15:32

available now. Go get it. Hang

1:15:34

out for a minute. Hey,

1:15:41

folks, it's time to discover what's now playing

1:15:43

in Los Angeles. Let's start with food. I

1:15:46

just had Chef Michael Simon tell me that

1:15:48

Los Angeles is home to the best food

1:15:50

in the country right now. And of course

1:15:52

it is when you have so many cultures

1:15:54

and diverse backgrounds cooking up anything you can

1:15:57

think of, how could it not be? go

1:16:00

to Scaffs in Glendale. Sometimes they go

1:16:02

to Joy in Highland Park for Chinese

1:16:04

food, but you know that's just me.

1:16:06

Los Angeles is synonymous with show business

1:16:09

but arts and culture are more vibrant

1:16:11

here than ever before. From museums to

1:16:13

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location tours of some of your favorite

1:16:24

movie sites or head on over to

1:16:26

the Comedy Store on Sunset where you'll

1:16:28

see me most nights. And while you're

1:16:30

here in LA, don't forget

1:16:32

to look up and soak

1:16:34

in the legendary blue sky.

1:16:36

That's the light that inspires

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directors around the world. Your

1:16:41

favorite day in LA is

1:16:43

waiting for you. Start here

1:16:45

at discoverla.com. That's discoverla.com. Hey

1:16:48

folks, today is the 20th anniversary

1:16:50

of my first day on the radio. My

1:16:52

old Air America radio show Morning Sedition premiered

1:16:54

this day in 2004. Over on the full

1:16:57

marin we've been looking

1:17:00

back at some of that old radio stuff like when I

1:17:02

would call my dad to review

1:17:04

movies without him knowing it. Hello.

1:17:10

Hey dad, what are you doing? You sweeping? Yeah,

1:17:12

I was hanging out in bed. Come on, come

1:17:14

on, it's time to get up. You want to

1:17:16

talk about movies? We've only seen a

1:17:18

couple. But what about the Oscars? Have

1:17:20

you seen any all the Oscar movies? We

1:17:22

saw Million Dollar Baby

1:17:24

and I saw Sideways for the

1:17:26

second time. Yeah, do you

1:17:28

like it the second time? Yeah. What'd you think

1:17:30

of that? You think that deserves like the best

1:17:33

the best writing? That's a hard call, you know.

1:17:35

I don't know what they're criteria

1:17:37

are, what they're looking for. You

1:17:39

never do, but you know, it's

1:17:42

a politics or whatever, but that,

1:17:44

G.M. Cento, I guess is

1:17:46

his name. Jamadi, Paul Jamadi. Paul

1:17:48

Jamadi, yeah. He sort of helped the

1:17:50

picture. He was a great sort of

1:17:53

constant straight man and the picture was good.

1:17:55

We're pretty selfish guys ourselves and something we

1:17:57

could identify with, I think. Yeah. For

1:18:00

married, subscribers can hear the recent

1:18:02

Wtf Origins bonus episodes where we

1:18:04

talk about those old radio days.

1:18:07

To sign up, go to the

1:18:09

link the episode description or to

1:18:11

Wtf pod.com and click on Wtf

1:18:13

Plus and just a reminder before

1:18:15

we go. This podcast is hosted

1:18:17

by a cast. Umrah

1:21:54

lives, monkey and LaFonda, cat

1:21:57

angles everywhere. you