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coastline
> Teenager of the Year <

USA
3111 Posts

Posted - 08/04/2006 : 05:15:38

Here's an interview with FB from today's Salt Lake Tribune -- http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_4133550. The cool part is that they prepared a transcript of the interview itself, which I've pasted below.

A conversation with Frank Black

Salt Lake Tribune music writer Dan Nailen had a phone interview with the former Pixies frontman. Here is a transcript:

Salt Lake Tribune: How's living in Eugene [Oregon]?
Frank Black: I've been here for four years or so and I really like it. I sort of miss the big urban experience. I have fantasies of living in, you know, the south of France or Manhattan or other scenarios, but for the moment it works just great.
SLT: How did you land there?
FB: I met a woman here. Here she had two kids and we hooked up. I moved to Portland and then eventually down here, and then we had two more kids so now we're a family of four, or six I guess.
SLT: It's good living up there.
FB: Yeah, it's a good vibe. And I have family in Portland.
SLT: And it's nice to have a city that size in range.
FB: Yeah, it's 100 miles away and I wish it was like 45 miles away. I like Salt Lake City, too. I actually have a lot of fond memories of Salt Lake.
SLT: Yeah, I know Utah has popped up in songs here and there. Tell me about your experiences here over the years.
FB: My uncle lived there for a while with his then-wife, my aunt, who still lives there I believe. I'm sure the first time I went through Utah would of course have been on a cross-country drive, which I started to do when I was very young. When you're coming from the east, of course, and you're doing that stretch across Wyoming, then you reach that pass that comes down to Park City, then the famous view of the lake below and Salt Lake City. That whole driving through the pass 9 I've done it so many times in my life now, it's almost ritualistic at this point. I went there for Christmas one year where my uncle lived. Then I started to, as I grew into adulthood, I started going there on tour, driving through. And if you didn't stop there on tour, you still had to drive through there. So, often through Salt Lake, and sometimes through Zion National Park area. And there's something like the longest stretch of highway without a gas station out there. There's big warning signs saying things like "No gas for 250 miles."
SLT: That might be the world's loneliest highway?
FB: That's another Utah experience that I've done more than once. Had interesting little weird experiences there, stopping in little towns for a bowl of soup or something like that. Just funny little moments. Going out to the lake.
SLT: The Saltair?
FB: Oh, sure, been out there more than once. I found a book once with all this crazy stuff about the lake, and I think that really cemented my interest in the place. Reading about people being banished out to Antelope Island and things like that. Utah, it's a scenic area, and it's got the whole mystique of the church. I've taken the tour a couple of times. And there's the whole vibe of the backsliders who live in the area. I forget what they're called.
SLT: Jack Mormons?
FB: Yeah, there's the whole Jack Mormons and the whole liquor law thing. My cousin is a lesbian in Salt Lake who takes me to her favorite gay bar or dyke bar or lesbian bar. It's a really strong [gay] and lesbian culture. And there's, like, the church, and all the people with the church, then there's this strong group of "We are NOT of the church." It's a whole crowd. It's interesting. But of course, if you have a big, powerful church like there, you're going to have a whole group of people against that who grew up there.
And it's on the main interstate from Las Vegas and L.A., so there's a strong Mexican-American community there. I like the mix of the conservative with the nonconservative, the religious with the nonreligious, the white with the nonwhite. You're all there, by the lake. Isolated essentially. Its kind of a long drive to anywhere.
SLT: Why are you starting a tour in Salt Lake City?
FB: The Foo Fighters offered me some shows to open up in August, so I said, "Yeah, sure, I'd love to do that. Sounds good." Then I realized the shows were kind of spaced out with chunks of time between dates. So I thought I could do my own little tour. It would be good practice for me because I haven't done any acoustic shows in a while. Also, I'm doing a real tour with a band in the fall, so it was kind of a good way to start, acoustic, and then build up to electric.
Also, my family and I really wanted to see if we were a showbiz family. We rented a family bus to do the tour. The family lives in Eugene, and the bus is going to pick us up here. And the Foo Fighters dates are in the Northeast, and we have to get there. There's not a lot between Eugene and, say, somewhere in the Midwest. So I said to my agent, "Put in Salt Lake or something." Boise's a little too close. Salt Lake is long enough that we can do a nice long drive and get some hours on the road. It's a very natural stop.
SLT: I'm picturing "The Partridge Family" bus or something.
FB: When we're not driving, we'll be playing Pok�mon or something. It will be their first "rock tour."
SLT: Obviously your two babies are too young to realize what they're embarking on, but what about your wife's kids?
FB: They're still young.; they're 8 and 6. The 8-year-old has actually gone on a couple of bus rides in Texas, so he kind of has some sense of it. I think little Annabelle has crawled in a tour bus, but I don't think she quite understands what we're going to do. They've traveled by plane to a couple different places, but I don't know that their sense of geography has quite crystallized yet. So I think they're going to get a sense of that the first drive to Salt Lake City. We'll show them a little of the landscape and tell them, "This is how long it takes to get from here to here."
SLT: I love the idea of you hooking up with these classic Stax Records and Memphis and Nashville players on the new albums ["Honeycomb" and "Fast Man Raider Man"]. How did that old music introduce itself in your life?
FB: I don't know that I'm an expert in any of that music, but certainly the big hits of those genres I've known since I was a kid. They've always been there. The first rock song I ever sang in front of a crowd was "In the Midnight Hour." So, to me, �60s rock music is just part of the fabric of rock music ever since I started listening to rock music. I was born in the �60s and really started listening to rock music in the �70s as a kid, so the music of the �60s is what I turned to. You get hand-me-down records or records you found in a rented house you lived in, or going to the library or used record shop, records my baseball coach gave me to try to get me to play on the team because all his players were flunking out. So you get records from all these weird sources, and they're not new records. They're records that have been around for a few years.
And of course there's The Beatles, and The Beatles are where a lot of kids start learning about pop music, and from there you start researching. "What are The Beatles about? Oh, England. Oh, here's the �50s." But the �50s is a little more removed. A different thing. I know a lot of the songs just because they're classics.
SLT: When you get into a room, knowing you're stretching into a new area, was it at all intimidating to have these savvy veterans around?
FB: It was the first time. The first day, when I recorded "Honeycomb." But, of course, they're all really nice guys. They're not jaded. The jaded guys aren't doing it anymore. They're sitting in a bar somewhere bitching. But the guys that are still doing it, they're in love with music and it really shows. From the second Steve Cropper walks through the door carrying his own amp, with his Hawaiian shirt on, he's like a big kid. He loves it. He absolutely loves it. A lot of these guys like Spooner OIdham and Steve Cropper and Reggie Young, they're older guys in their 60s or whatever, but they're not old. They have a lot of prowess and a lot of experience, but they're not all, "I played with Elvis, and I played with whoever."
They know that music is mysterious. They understand that. Magic can be coming from anywhere. It may be coming from them, it may be coming from some little kid, it may be coming from some other dude. You just never know where the magic is going to happen or when it's going to happen and they know that. So I think they have a humility and they just like playing. They're that much happier if it's a good song.
SLT: Were many of them familiar with your work?
FB: I don't know. I think some of them may have asked their sons or Googled me. I don't know. They're professionals, so they don't know if I'm some weirdo or what. I've gotten to know these guys now, and we sit around and shoot the sh-- now. They're very, very nice people. They're very polite and friendly and warm, and they almost have a spiritual presence when it comes to the music.

Frank Black plays a solo acoustic show Wednesday at 9 p.m. at the Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $15, available at 24tix.com, Smith's Tix outlets and the door.

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Look, a pony!

vilainde
>> Denizen of the Citizens Band <<

Niue
7441 Posts

Posted - 08/04/2006 : 05:37:22

quote:
Originally posted by coastline
FB: The Foo Fighters offered me some shows to open up in August, so I said, "Yeah, sure, I'd love to do that. Sounds good." Then I realized the shows were kind of spaced out with chunks of time between dates. So I thought I could do my own little tour. It would be good practice for me because I haven't done any acoustic shows in a while. Also, I'm doing a real tour with a band in the fall, so it was kind of a good way to start, acoustic, and then build up to electric.

I guess that means the Oct. 19th date in Philadelphia is a full-band one then. I wonder who's gonna be in the band. Probably Dave Philips. And EDF (hopefully)

Denis