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New York Times
My sister Abby writes for the New York Times, she wrote an article about the BP oil spill that’s in today’s paper. You should check it out: http://nyti.ms/9CBNtl
Posted on 6.10.10
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RIP Alex Chilton
If you don’t know Alex Chilton by name you likely know at least some of his work, and would probably do well to know more. He died yesterday in New Orleans while thousands of indie kids were descending upon Austin owing the life of their band to him et al in some way or another . . . whether they know it or not. I think most of them do these days, thank god.
There is a lot of great music out there right now despite what sobbing record company execs and editors of once-irreverent-now-irrelevant music magazines say. Rejoice and thank Alex Chilton, but beware the wolf in sheep’s hairdo. Phonies yet abound.
Posted on 3.18.10
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Summer
Two important things I’ve realized in the last few days:
1. I’m not really into cold weather. Nothing against people who are, I’m just not. Became aware of it when my mom moved from Southern California to Northwest Colorado. My childhood friend Dan lived right near my mom in Steamboat Springs, married a girl from Steamboat. He loves it. Skiing, X-country, hunting, all kinds of outdoorsy stuff . . . he’s into all of it, and in all seasons.
I like warm weather, and don’t really discriminate among the various sub-genres of “warm”. Extreme heat, dry, humid, cloudy, you name it, I’m in. We have a divided walk schedule at our house because my wife will only walk in the morning or evening here in Asheville. It’s too hot/humid for her in the middle of the day. Makes no difference to me. I would kinda prefer that there be an ocean nearby — as it seems like having a swimable body of water does for heat tolerance what vicodin in the medicine cabinet does for pain tolerance — but in general I will choose any kind of heat over any kind of real cold (like snow cold) 100% of the time.
That’s the first thing . . . I like Summer. I grew up in Southern California. Didn’t like winters THERE. I would like to be able to surf without a wetsuit MOST of the year.
2. The second thing is that I am officially a zoo-only wild animals guy. Saw a black bear in the neighborhood across the lake the other day. Not particularly big. Didn’t charge me or even really notice me honestly. Doesn’t matter. Flagged down the first car that drove by, and got a ride a few blocks away. There’s a male wild turkey over there too who always chases me. Turkeys are protected here, so this guy acts like garribaldis do on the reefs around LJ. They KNOW they’re protected so they act like gangsters. All fine until they actually become aggressive. A note to any ill-mannered birds: I will choke the shit out of any turkey that chases me. I don’t care.
That’s all for now.
Posted on 6.29.09
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Record Store Day
From Vulture Magazine: “Was Record Store Day a Success?”
By: Matthew Perpetua
Record Store Day, an annual event designed to stimulate interest in brick-and-mortar independent music retailers, came and went this weekend, and though it’s impossible to know if the initiative will actually have any long-term benefit for the mom-and-pop shops in question, abundant anecdotal evidence suggests that it was, at the very least, pretty awesome. A large number of notable indie and major labels took part in the event by producing limited-edition exclusive releases for the day, most of which served as a draw for hard-core collectors and completist fans. As opposed to previous Record Store Days, this time around, most of the exclusives were not freebies, and they brought actual revenue to cash-strapped shops. Wise move!
Vulture visited Manhattan’s Other Music a little after noon on Saturday, and we were surprised to discover that we actually had to wait on line to get into the shop. By that time, much of the exclusive stock had already been snapped up by eager collectors, but we were able to snag one of the last copies of the Pavement live album, and the split single by Beck and Sonic Youth. (Full disclosure: If we had not gotten a copy of that Pavement record, we probably would’ve started sobbing in full view of the cute girl at the cash register. We’re big fans.) But wow, right? A line! To get into a record store! In 2009! Crazy, huh?
If there is any flaw in Record Store Day, it seems to be that it is very much targeted to people old enough to have a great deal of sentimentality for vinyl and record stores, and
it does not do much to reach out to younger music fans who are not inclined to pay for music or care about it as a physical product. Though there may be no shortage of young listeners who dig Sonic Youth, Bruce Springsteen, the Decemberists, and Green Day, we tend to doubt that very many kids got turned on to shelling out money for plastic discs on Saturday.Posted on 4.20.09
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RECORD STORE.
Happy New Year folks!!
First of all, I want to send huge thanks to everyone who came out for the Tuesdays at the Hotel shows in Hollywood in November and December. Really can’t express how good it felt to be back there with so many old and new friends. To those who drove a long way only to have to listen to the show from the alley — wasn’t it awesome? I’m sorry that you couldn’t get in, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you, and I know that the alley hang was a blast. Funny, that even all these years later with the Hotel Cafe so legit now, there are still these funny little quirks that make it the same little joint it was when we started.
Ups to Dizzy D who outfitted everyone in Bird. stickers, pins, temporary tattoos, and, of course, CAKE.
Special ups to Marko, Max, Tera, Ricky, and the rest of the folks at the Hotel who were so cool to us, and who have done an insane job at blowing the place up. Man! It’s so swank in there now. Not sure how they afford JB’s bar tab, but there you go.
Super special uppity ups to the latest version of the Group Rules: Al Sgro, Holly Conlan, Ben Peeler, Fil Krohnengold, Lucas Cheadle, and Aaron Redfield — greatest band ever. Forever gratitude for such a vibe, and a great run of shows, despite the inevitable chaos and bad backs.
Since I got back to North Carolina we’ve gotten a bunch of emails (as usual) from folks asking:
“Hey! I heard your song _____ on _______, and I’d like to buy your albums. Why aren’t Bird. and the rest of your albums in stores?
If I could give three hour lectures on Tues. and Thurs. from 10am to 1pm, and if you all promise to show up for smaller proctored study groups for at least two hours a week, come early 2011 we might have all of the necessary information to begin approaching that question (though by then, the answer will have changed several more times). To save us all a lot of time, boredom, and soul scars, I’ll cut it down to the bare minimum . . .
“They just aren’t . . . yet.”
That’s right, “yet”. I have made two very important decisions in the last few weeks. First, I’m going to get my band . . . yes, the WHOLE band, on the road this year. Not exactly sure how yet, but I’m going to. Secondly, I am going to get all 4 of my albums, Greetings From the Side, Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets, Gary Jules (Airplane), and GJGR Bird. into record stores by the end of April. I have rearranged my understanding of the immediate purpose of “albums”, and intend to use my new exegesis of traditional industry scripture to the advantage of all involved, to wit: listeners, record store owners, and me.
I had a conversation with a record store owner here in Asheville the other day. I explained some of my frustrations about physical distribution (getting actual CD’s in stores) to him, and he was nice enough to school me on HIS side of the ever-changing story — which is that folks come in and ask for certain CD’s, he goes online only to find that he can’t get it . . . and then has to tell his customers that there’s nothing he can do.
Let me pause here to say that I LOVE RECORD STORES!! I grew up going to record stores, and still love to find cool mom and pop shops anywhere I am in the world. The classic record store is SO much more than just a retail outlet for record companies, it’s a community center, a library, a museum. What a shame that they’ve become such an endangered species. I have watched my friend Andy who owns Albums on the Hill in Boulder Colorado roll with the punches like a champ in the 12 years that I’ve known him, and he’s still rolling. Luckily, as we march on through history, and thanks in no small part to people like Andy who continue to believe in it, the Record Store has evolved both physically and conceptually, and may in the end be the sole survivor of the industry/technology revolution.
Take, for instance, The Record Exchange in Boise Idaho. They’ve been there for more than 30 years, imagine what they’ve seen! Vinyl to cassette, cassette to CD, and then back to vinyl (kinda). Less than ethical dealings by “The Industry” meant ridiculously high prices for CD’s in the late 90’s when Joe the Plumber was finally forced to replace his weathered copies of Frampton Comes Alive and Cheap Trick at Budokon with their smaller, boring, shiny, soulless counterparts. Joe was pissed when he found out that he was being gouged. He was even more pissed when he discovered that he’d rather re-buy the album AGAIN to have it on his iPod instead of taking the time to load his whole CD collection into his computer, and then onto an iPod, and then onto an external hard drive.
Then, as Joe stewed, came the boy bands, and the girl bands, and the Disney bands, and punk rock for toddlers. When I first went there in 2004, The Record Exchange had just (fairly recently) opened a coffee counter and curios section of the store. The same sorts of changes were happening in shops all over — owners started selling DVD’s and posters and merch and tshirts and sunglasses and all sorts of fun stuff to make the Record Store a fun hang in general. Some people saw these changes as a perversion of the sanctity of the ideal, but it was about survival.
The way I see it is — obviously, selling CD’s is no longer a lucrative enough business to keep mom and pop’s doors open in this day and age. Blame it on file sharing, iTunes, Britney, Best Buy, or Jimmy Iovine — that’s the reality of the situation. I mean, when was the last time you went to a store that sells ONLY garbage bags? Everyone needs garbage bags, but not enough for there to be a Garbage Bags Emporium. That doesn’t mean that you have to buy your music at Walmart either though. It’s about time that the idea of sustainability become part of the shopping canon around here, sustainability and grey area.
The way I see it, if CD’s go directly from me to a distributor to the Record Store, then there should be plenty of grain to sow to feed everyone involved. Enough mixed metaphor for you?
Alright already, you get the picture. I want all my records to be in record stores. I want to tour around and play at record stores. I want to meet people and buy coffee in record stores, I want you to shop for music at Lou’s Records in San Diego, The Record Exchange in Boise, Amoeba Records in Hollywood, San Francisco and Berkeley, Bleecker Bob’s in NYC, Karmasonic in Asheville North Carolina, Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, Waterloo in Austin. And yes, I’m going to keep calling them “record stores” and I’m going to keep calling my records “records” or at least “albums”, even though I’ve never actually made a vinyl LP of my music (note to self). And why? Because it’s COOL, that’s why. Saying, “My new CD comes out in April” doesn’t sound cool. “Beautiful is the first song on my new record” does sound cool.
I believe in the radio. I believe in music blood. I believe in record stores. If you haven’t been recently, go. You won’t regret it. PS — while you’re there buy Mason Jennings’ In the Ever or Use Your Voice. You won’t regret that either. G
Posted on 1.15.09
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A little bird . . .
Hey Folks . . .
Just wanted to let you know that I’m going to put out a new album in November called “BIRD.“.
Some of the songs are already spinning on Radio Free Hollywood — KCRW that is, ushered spaceward by Nic Harcourt and Ariana Morgenstern, five star generals of of the airwaves in the blood-pumping heart of the Los Angeles underground. Call in to request your fave (track list below, and yes, there are radio edits if the song has cuss words in it).Bird will be the first release for Gary Jules and the Group Rules — Al Sgro, Heather Brown-Dodge, Adam Grace, Ben Peeler, Ed Maxwell, and Will Golden — with appearances by Pedestrian’s Joel Shearer, Jason “Pip” Pipkin, and Gabriel Mann. There will also be a duet, “Been A Long Time“, with my good friend and long suffering tour partner Jim Bianco.
Most of the songs come from the early days of the Hotel Cafe where the band and I played every Tuesday Night (and hung out every other night) . . . we even rehearsed there at the time. The current track list looks like this, for those of you who are into that kind of thing:
Beautiful
Familiar
The Road Beside the Highway
Over Water Underground
Ghosts in the Cotton
Goodnight Billie
Been A Long Time (w/ the Great J Bizzle)
Bird/ Little Greenie
The Old Days Are Gone
(??????????)I’ll be coming to LA soon to get the band together and do radio (KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic), TV, and hopefully a series of weekly live shows (old school style) somewhere in H-wood, with little jaunts to SF, SD, and maybe other west coast cities. Will probably tour the east coast early in the new year — probably right after Valentine’s Day.
I’d love to have the whole band out on the road nationally . . . but not sure if we’ll be able to swing it, what with the cost of breathing these days. Also, since the coup, it may not be safe to risk the highways and byways of the new military state with all that free-world music equipment in the trailer . . . we’ve already been got once. He he.
We are trying to work it out so that Holly Conlan (www.hollyconlan.com, www.myspace.com/hollyconlan), a fabulous new-blood singer-songwriter from the Hotel Cafe tribe (and the brand new wife of our Al Sgro) can open the shows on the east coast tour at least — as Holly has been indoctrinated as the newest touring member of the Group Rules. You know, family affair, yada yada.
One last thing, my friend Dominique is organizing a Gary Jules Street Team for the album release. Free records, posters, tickets, etc. in exchange for helping to to get the word out. Word of mouth, word of myspace, word of facebook, word of BBC 1 — however you work it, we’re down. D’s email is dzzydzzyd@aol.com. Thanks so much in advance. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate the support.
Hope to see you all soon . . . more news to follow. Questions welcome.
best, gj
Posted on 11.10.08
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02.03.08
The weekend after I got home from last summer’s tour with Jim Bianco I smashed the big knuckle of my left index finger when a bungy cord interacted poorly with a pile of wood that I was trying to pull out of the back of my car. My father-in-law thought it was hilarious, but tried to act concerned. I tore the skin open pretty good and bled all over myself, so I wasn’t surprised when it kept hurting for a week after the “accident”. Also, I had a bunch of projects around the house that needed to get done, mostly involving some sort of fence building . . . so I just kept going along as planned even though my finger was really sore.
A few weeks later when the skin was totally healed, but I could still barely bend my finger, I went to the drugstore and bought a splint for it. For those of you who may have rocked the popsicle stick and first-aid tape splint at some point, you would definitely be pleasantly surprised (as I was) at the evolution of the finger splint. They’re mostly made from some sort of aluminum-type alloy and foam, and they’re in JUST the right shape. You can get them in different sizes, and they have both one-side and wrap-around models depending on how much protection you think you’re going to need. You don’t really want a perfectly straight splint (a la popsicle stick), because that’s not really how your fingers want to sit naturally. Also, no matter what you did to avoid it, the stick always dug into your hand at the bottom of your finger — and you know what happens when filthy two-day-old popsicle-stick-on-boy-finger gets under the skin? Yep, hand infection. And getting a bandaid to stay on that part of a kid’s hand is impossible. OK, you get the picture.
So I put the splint on my finger and finally started admitting that I thought maybe I’d really hurt it, as in, REALLY hurt it. I’m really not a fan of the long-lasting injury vibe, although they’re inevitable. My friend Mike hurt his back lifting my mom’s coffee table at band practice in 1985, and he still calls me every time he throws it out to remind me that my mom’s stupid concrete coffee table has ruined his life. I don’t like to have any hovering debts, which is what a lingering injury is to me. When I buy something on eBay I always pay for it immediately. It makes accounting easier. I don’t want to spend all the money in my checking account and then have someone say “hey, you owe me for the ukulele strings”. Probably a popular syndrome of people who’ve spent extended periods of time generating very little cash flow. Injuries are kinda like that. My neck gets really stiff sometimes, and those “sometimes” always seem to coincide with a bad review, my son getting sick, and me getting ready to leave for three weeks of driving 10 hours a day. See what I mean? Those long-term injuries are just wild cards out there in the ether waiting to come back and visit you at the most inopportune moment possible. More on that later I’m afraid.
So after I finally told everyone that I was concerned about my finger being broken or something, they started predictably conspiring to make me go to a doctor. I don’t like going to the doctor, so I thought about it for two more weeks, and when finally the worrying became worse than ANY news that the doctor could possibly have given me, I went. My wife’s aunt made me an appointment with a hand and finger specialist in their hometown (we were visiting the in-laws at the time). Yikes. Small town doctor in Albemarle North Carolina, hometown of Kellie Pickler of American Idol fame. She went to my son’s birthday right before she first tried out because she’s good friends with my wife’s cousin — but again, that’s another story.
The doctor’s name was “Mack”, which I figured would make him a classic southern small town doctor type. Not sure what that is, but figured I was about to find out. The waiting room was pretty much exactly what you would expect. There was a guy in there who’d busted his leg really badly on a job site a year or so earlier, still had pins sticking in him, the whole deal. He seemed really uncomfortable, not really present, and looked like he was probably younger than he looked. Does that make sense? Anyway, I decided that he’d probably been a really hard-working construction guy who had some bad luck and found himself unable to work and having an affair with vicodin, or oxycontin, or some such horror, along with daytime TV. Of course self-pitying depression of this type doesn’t come naturally to the burly construction worker dude type, but is part and parcel for drug addicts — which I figured was probably making it even more confusing for him, and making him more depressed, which would make him want to take more drugs, which would make him feel more sorry for himself, etc. It really is like a spiral. Oops, I did it again. Back to the point . . .
The good doctor turned out to be a Seikh, complete with turban and all. I was surprised that no one had mentioned it. After all, this is a small southern town where a lot of kids go into the military after high school. I’m not saying that everyone there would immediately think that anyone wearing a turban is the enemy . . . but I was surprised that it wasn’t even mentioned.
We talked for a while. I lied about how long ago I’d hurt my finger, since I thought he’d think I was an idiot for waiting six weeks to check on an injury that could have such a very negative impact on my professional and personal life. He sent me for an x-ray, looked at it, and told me that it wasn’t broken but that I’d “smashed the daylights out of it” and that it could be another couple of weeks before the pain started to ease and I started to get flexibility back. In the meantime, he told me not to wear the splint unless I needed the added protection for a specific reason. I asked him what I could do for the pain, which I guess he took as me soliciting a prescription, because he told me that I didn’t need a prescription. “I meant ‘ice or heat’” I said. “Oh, heat” he said, somewhat embarrassed I think. At this point I figured he’d taken one look at me and decided that I was there for pills. I didn’t care though, my finger was going to get better.
And it did get better, finally. Went to another doctor several weeks later and got a second opinion, which matched the first opinion only with a longer recovery time. Also, the second doctor offered me something for pain, which I refused. In mid-December I started writing a song for a movie. The finger was still hurting quite a bit, which probably worked in my favor because it forced me to keep the song really simple — which is what movie folks often like. But that was the first time I’ve been able to play the guitar in any real way since August, almost four months total. Scary. And it’s still not all the way better. My grandmother told me that after a certain age things don’t heal completely, they just organize themselves in such a way that you only really notice the very top of the list.
On the flipside of being terrified, I learned to play with three fingers . . . and started buying ukuleles on eBay because they’re much easier on the fretting hand. How all of this plays into the bigger picture I don’t know, other than that there will probably be more ukulele on future projects . . . and it looks like some of the future projects are going to be really cool:
My brother got a grant from PBS to finish the documentary that he’s been working on for the last 5 or 6 years, “Next Year Country”. Check out www.nextyearcountry.com to see the trailer and read about it. I did the music for the trailer with my friend Ben Peeler, who plays lapsteel guitar in my band — and we’re going to do all of the score music for the movie in my new studio here in Asheville this summer. My brother and I have been talking about me doing a “music inspired by the film” album to put out at the same time that movie starts to go to festivals and stuff. I think it’s a great idea. He thought that my song “The Crossing” would be a good place to start, for those of you who’ve heard that song live.
I’m also starting to write for my friend Stephen Adly Guirgis’ new play “The Little Flower of East Orange” — look him up online if you’re interested. We went to see his last play, which was directed by his friend Phillip Seymour Hoffman, at Union Square in New York. It was amazing. I’d known Guirgis for years from the Hotel Cafe days in Hollywood, and always knew that he was a talented dude, but it’s so amazing when you find out that a person you know is one of THOSE dudes. Anyway, super humbled and excited at the prospect of working with him . . . especially in a real live theater setting. So cool.
Aside from that . . . getting ready to release the most recent album “Gary Jules” (the airplane record) in Australia, Canada, and then the UK and Europe — so I will hope to be seeing all of my long lost old country friends sometime this year. I’ll try and keep you updated on that stuff, now that I can type again. Wink.
Hope you are all well.
Much love GJ
Posted on 2.03.08