WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 756 - Paul Major & Jesper Eklow (Endless Boogie)

Episode Date: November 2, 2016

Endless Boogie was never supposed to become a band. It was made up of some guys who worked at Matador Records, one in particular who loved to collect old vinyl. Frontman Paul Major and guitarist Jesper Eklow tell Marc what it took to put the mother of all jam bands together and how the band's style is influenced by Paul's nearly obsessive practice of collecting rare LPs. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life.

When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are ice yes we deliver those goaltenders no but chicken tenders yes

because those are groceries and we deliver those too along with your favorite restaurant food alcohol and other everyday essentials order uber eats now for alcohol you must be legal drinking age please enjoy responsibly product availability varies by region see app for details all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck dumpsters what's happening how you doing it's Maron. This is my show, WTF. Welcome to it. Interesting show today. Interesting because it's an outsider show. Outsiders! Yes. The dudes from Endless Boogie are here. Paul Major and Jesper Eklo. But Paul Major is not just a guy in a band. He's a guy that sort of defined the weird vinyl pursuit of the grails that are small runs of usually independently produced records from the 60s and 70s. As a long intro, but I'd been hearing about this guy i sort of knew him i'd seen pictures of him i came upon endless boogie i'll tell you about that in a minute but they're on

the show today it was a surprise to have uh to have jesper in as well but it worked out pretty good uh but there's other things going on i'm'm playing Carnegie Hall tomorrow night. I'm recording this on Tuesday because I got to shoot. It's just very busy. I'm feeling good about Carnegie, but I'm feeling a slight bleak cloud over me because my little baby, my little La Fonda cat is sick, and I don't know if she's going to make it. And I can't stand it. But I don't know what to do.

The last time I talked to you guys, I had recorded that on a couple days early too, but I had them both at the vet. Buster's got no balls. That went fine. He seems okay. Doesn't seem much different. Maybe he's a little a little more chill but not much monkey felt sick to me fonda was sick i brought her in but she

was the first one with the sickness and monkey seemed sick i brought him in so i go pick up monkey and they give him antibiotics he's okay but fond is not okay fonda you know it was a big ordeal fucking sad man 12 year old cat you know you hear about these cats that live forever these 16 year old 19 year old 22 year old cats and i don't know what's gonna happen i gotta go to new york tomorrow and i don't know if she's gonna make it until when i'm back and you know sarah's gonna drop by and i've got someone at the house who's gonna feed the cats as well and you know but i guess this is the way it is but you know even if you sit there and you kind of process it and accept it you know you live with these things these cats are the longest relationships i've had in my life really 12 years

and she's just fucking sick and there's nothing i can do i thought i was gonna have to put her down today but this guy gave me some hope and i guess you don't put a cat down if they still are kind of eating and not doesn't seem like she's in pain she just seems out of it so that's sort of hanging over me and um even with little buster i'm there's part of me that's like that evil little fuck he's he put the the bad mojo on the cats he fucking i don't know so now i'm looking at him like some sort of evil seed and i'm glad monkey's okay but how long's he got i i guess you know i'm okay but you know i feel like i've done everything i could for this cat and now it's just a waiting game and i got to go to new york with my cat you know sort of deathly ill and do carnegie hall

look i know it's not my girlfriend or my brother my parents or whatever but but in terms of being close to something i've been with this this female thing for a long time it's an odd little cat and i just hope she pulls through hope she pulls through but i'm not i'm not, but maybe I should be. Maybe I should put my brain in a good place, and maybe she'll pull out of it. I don't mean to be bleak, you guys. Carnegie Hall, I'm kind of nervous about that.

I was kind of full of dread and anxiety, but it's like, let's just make it exciting. I'm excited. I looked at my set. I've got a lot of good stuff I want to do. It should be exciting. I have no sense of the hall. But I know it's this place.

There's part of me that's thinking, I'm not a virtuoso. Even that joke, the sort of like, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. I'm like, ah, did I practice enough? How about persistence, persistence, persistence and talent? What about that? I got a little of that. Got a little of both of those.

I practiced. I'm excited and I'm excited. You know, we basically sold the place out. There's some single tickets left in the high seats. Got some friends coming. But I think I'm just going to hang low before the show. I might do a set over there at Housing Works Bookstore in Soho Thursday night. They're raising money for an AIDS charity.

I think I'm going to go on that show with Garofalo and Laurie Kilmartin. I think Andy Blitz is going to be there and my buddy Nate Bargetze. Do a little short warm-up in a bookstore for the Carnegie Hall show. There's some dates coming up I'd like to tell you about because I'm excited. I'm going to be heading to Nashville and Chicago soon.

I think those are the ones that are the closest to where we are at now. I'll be in Nashville on November 19th at the James K. Polk Theater. I'll be at the Vic Theater in Chicago December 3rd. And then we move into January. But those are the two gigs after Carnegie before the end of the year. Nice winter gigs in Nashville and in Chicago. Going to be chilly. But so we me and Brendan McDonald, the wizard behind the curtain of WTF, my producer and business partner, were down at the Now Hear This podcast festival.

And it was a pretty good time. We did something we never really did before live uh we did a a podcast that you'll be able to hear in time where the two of us talked about wtf and brendan put a lot of prep into it and i did what i do which might be the opposite of that but the way i look at it either you kind of like like put hands on prep in or you do something at enough times in your life where you're prepped down to the core for anything. So I went with that attitude. I'm prepped because I live it. He was prepped because he got it all down and structured it.

But the trick was he didn't tell me what he was going to bring up. There are all these emails, some outtakes, some stories. So I told him not to show any of it to me or tell me anything. There was bits and pieces of podcasts and it turned out to be pretty fun. I like thinking on my feet, reacting. Things came up, did a nice hour and a half show. We'll be playing that podcast for you soon. But it was fun, man. And I think me and Brendan are going to be a team on the road. I think that's going to happen. We're not going to do birthday parties or bar mitzvahs, but it was sort of this, you know, I've done a few of those sort of keynote things or

presentation type things myself, and they're okay but doing it with brendan would be uh great you know why because he prepped he got structure and everything and i just have to lean into it that's all i got to do i got choked up but then you don't want it to become a shtick you know like hey hey mark you're gonna cry at the end of that one? Got choked up because I was happy for us. I was happy for him. And as you know, I get choked up often. I'm trying to keep it together with the cat situation. All right.

So Paul Major and Jesper Eklo. The band Endless Boogie. I'd gotten a bunch of records at some point. I go through a lot of records. And I got this one record, Endless Boogie it had nothing on the cover had this weird profile of a mountain that looked like a thing a guy and uh and I put it on and like what is this man it's just a moving groove deep rock kind of blues boogie groove and I was like this is real and then it turned out to be this band Endless Boogie and I talked to my buddy matt sweeney who happens to be involved with endless boogie occasionally just

like matt sweeney is involved with fucking everything cool and hot and hip and music it's like this zeleg of uh art music but so he told me about paul major who i was curious about anyways because my buddy dan dan cook down at down at Gimme Gimme Records knows about Paul Major. Because Paul Major back in the day had this newsletter that was very important and very specific to record nerds about his finds. He just spent a lifetime searching for these small releases, rock records primarily in the 60s and 70s. rock records primarily in the 60s and 70s and uh he he he he invented this niche of vinyl collecting and since then he's become sort of a mythic uh person and he's defined this genre of collecting and now there's a lot of labels reissuing some of the records that he unearthed and are impossible to find because there's a limited number of them. So I was kind of curious about that because I've been kind of in the vinyl rabbit hole myself.

And Jesper is in the band. But apparently when Paul used to live down the village, I believe it was back in the day, he was a sort of wizard of vinyl and music. back in the day he was a sort of wizard of vinyl and and music and there were dudes used to hang out like you know steve malchmus was involved in one of the early on with endless boogie and they used to hang out and play records at his place and look to his wisdom of music and weird off the grid type of sounds man and jesper was was one of the dudes and they decided to start this band because paul always wanted to be in a band. And he'd been in bands. And that's where Endless Boogie came from.

But they got a new album coming out early next year called Vibe Killer. You can check them out at Endless Boogie on Facebook or go to noquarter.net. That's the label. And so this is sort of an interesting off the beaten path episode of this show this type of interview i hope you enjoy it this is me paul major and jesper death is in our air this year's most anticipated series fx's shogun only on disney plus we live and we die we control nothing beyond that an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by james clavelle to show your true heart is to risk your

life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. And it's with this pedigree that bright minds and future thinking problem solvers are tackling some of the world's greatest challenges from right here in Calgary. From cleaner energy, safe and secure food, efficient movement of goods and people, and

better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com. Hello. It's a very weird thing. Like, I didn't really know exactly who you were. And here's what happened. I get sent records a few years ago. I get sent a lot of records by just people.

And a lot of them stink. And I put on... I didn't know what it was, but I put it... Because the cover's menacing and it's nondescript. And I put on Endless Boogie, Long Island island and i go through a lot of records man and i'm just listening to this thinking like what the fuck is this and then all of a sudden i'm like holy shit this is real this is deep where the fuck is this from so then i gotta go track you down and figure out what you're about and then i find a picture of you with holding a morgan record there's not a lot of pictures of you but you're

holding that Morgan record. And I'm like, that's something that Dan Cook sold me over a gimme gimme. And then like, like I just started doing the vinyl thing a few years ago. And then I started researching a little bit of what you do. And I'm like, it's this guy's fault. He's the guy that made us want these records. You are sort of responsible, aren't you? i certainly had my hand in it yeah it wasn't intentional but uh i am to blame for a lot of this yeah because like now i'm starting to learn more about these like these records that were uh

you know these small releases or or or sort of um artist release records that are now being reissued because vinyl's all of a sudden the shit and now i'm learning about bands that no one has ever heard of what was it like let's go back you know to where this starts because i love you know i love endless boogie i just got the uh i got the second record so i've got full uh full what is it full house full house head and i've got long island i'll have the new one when's that coming out it's uh still gonna be a little while we got a lot of it done yeah broke my arm that pushed us back how'd you break your arm man carrying an amplifier not paying attention to where i was putting my feet injured in battle yeah the rock and roll battle so where did the um the the reputation or which

was earned to of of finding these records i mean where does that start the one thing i learned from from your lead is that how mind fucked we are by mainstream music and that like you know listening to some of the stuff that's been reissued that you have you know discovered in certain ways or brought to the public's attention like morgan is like i i start to realize like there's so much great fucking music out there that's just lost forever is that what compelled you initially seemed to be lost uh forever of course now speaking of morgan as a kid when i had that album when i was a little kid yeah it was blowing my mind in isolation in louisville kentucky you know saying i want to be part of this world right the only way i'm getting it is through these sort of records like a lifeline to the right

it is kind of a mind blower to me that you can look on youtube and see that like 250 300 000 people have listened to love off that album right when i was a kid in Kentucky and of course I'm saying maybe 200 people you know by the time I'm dead will have been into this record but it started for me really at the end of 1966 when I was 12 years old yeah I was a math nerd and this and that totally oblivious to music even though I sure I must have heard satisfaction on the radio of course yeah yeah and then towards the end of 1966 in Louisville Kentucky I heard psychotic reaction on the radio right and it was like all bets are off you know everything's up for grabs it's like life changes you know the fuzz guitars the you know no equation for this

yeah so yeah it's like the next day I'm mowing the lawns to get enough change together to go wander off down the sort of hippie district of Louisville, Kentucky, Hartstown Road. Right. Look for all the used, through all the used records. And, you know, ones that have that, like Morgan. Wow. You know, it was before I had any access to Pot or LSD or stuff. And I'm looking at the track saying, hmm, this is that long one. Maybe this is one of those tracks that's like tri tripping yeah yeah yeah right right that was something you heard about from the from the

magazines or whatever yeah i get some tip yeah tips from the magazines there was a magazine i guess uh available to me uh right before i tuned into other rock magazines there was this one hit parader that was yeah i remember that and didn't that have is that the one did that have some lyrics right yeah yeah yeah yeah they would have the lyrics to all the hits right and uh they would have some good interviews and they sort of got on to the underground thing in a mainstream way and in the back there would always review five albums and some of those issues at the time when it came out there'd be a review of 50 foot hoes or something amazing I don't even know what you're talking about now but that's why well whose record was that that was the name of a band was the name of a band from san francisco that uh mixed uh sort

of underground rock uh with experimental music lots of uh made by himself the leader of the band yeah electronic instruments and oscillators and right right things like that so it was like a science fiction adventure or something right and so you just started like by just by looking at the the portal that the cover enabled you it was is you're mostly reacting to psychedelic artwork initially yeah psychedelic artwork or anything that just looks strange or anything that looked like oh it's coming from that angle of the twilight zone right right yeah yeah yeah and when did you finally try drugs? That would have been towards the end of high school. I was isolated. Finally, I met up with a couple of friends that were into that, and then we'd play music and that.

I remember the first time I ever smoked pot was when I had my first job when I was 16 at a pizza place. My father set it up for me. The job, not the pot. No, no, no. set it up for me. The job, not the pot. No, no, no. And I remember then when I'm working there the very first day,

I'm the bus boy in this place, which turned out to be a crazy place, as it turns out. Like why? Walking out the first day and the guy's in the back in the kitchen rolling a joint. Yeah. My mother is sitting outside in the car waiting to pick me up. Yeah. And I'm there like, you know, I want to get in on this.

Right. And she's waiting outside. And you did it and then got in the car with your mom got in the car you know can you tell can they tell can she tell and that's the whole that's the only thing you experience that first high is like can they tell you're not you can't you know you don't even put yourself in a position where you could enjoy it well yeah it's true it's all like that except i knew when i got to the house the first thing i wanted to do was go up to my bedroom and start looking at my album covers.

Did that work? It worked. Yeah, I bet. So when did you start playing guitar? When I was 13, it would be my parents to be real nice because I was obsessed with it. Then they bought me a plastic toy guitar for Christmas. At 13 know at 13 maybe i don't know not like a k not too big a little long a little shorter than that yeah yeah probably a two-third size yeah yeah plastic and i instantly took my crayons out and put psychedelic designs on it and of course started playing along and then

i realized that you know it's nylon strings it's not getting the sound and then i realized if i tape a pencil under the bridge it would make the strings buzz on the toy guitar so it goes you needed the buzz gotta get that toy guitar buzzing so like i uh so when did you start um what was the the process of life where you started kind of amassing these records and then like where did you how did your musical journey start so you're stuck in louisville so you when did your mind blow and you had to get out or how how long of a process was that where did it was a while uh for several years i was pretty isolated just buying all these obscure records and uh not knowing anything just because you wanted to listen to yeah just because i wanted to listen to them and you know what are some of the other names you know like uh bands like silver apples and uh then uh ultra obscure in louisville kentucky the velvet underground and

bands and the detroit bands emc5 right right stooges and so forth but those were relatively mainstream uh releases right you could yeah they they were around not not a lot but all right they were around so there was lot but oh right they were around so there was still private pressings and the homemade records sort of came later later uh but but this sort of like the punk thing because when i talked to guys who started in punk the only way to get those records was to have somebody send them over to you or like there was a network of people that would move these records around but i guess when you're in a town like louisville and there's a local record store why they wouldn't necessarily carry the velvet underground or the studio no they're there

when it first came out there'd be a few places and i first got white light white heat was in a k-mart at the in the cutout bins they're like you know 33 cents each deletions which seemed to hit those bins not long after the records came out well that's that was the amazing thing about being in an area that isn't hip is that like all the hip shit just gets you know trashed like you're staying with clothes and shit if you want to get good deal at nordstrom rack and on an overcoat go buy it in arizona yeah no it was a good time definitely because uh and when i did start going to use record stores and look and i always knew the first place to look is wherever they put all the stuff they thought was garbage the cheap stuff because that's where all this good stuff's going to be because to be like you know the frank zappo record will be on the wall for a lot of money and then

the local band uh fraction or or one of the heavy local psychedelic bands would be like who wants that you know they're locals they didn't get anywhere you know here so you you started buying like uh you know kentucky rock bands yeah yeah i stumbled across a few of those there weren't that many yes by the time i left but there were a few local ones a band called crystal was one of them and yeah i started buying those and i was just packed you know packing them away and living in st louis for a while was buying some more there and You moved to St. Louis? Yeah. From Louisville? From Louisville. What would compel you? Well, college.

Oh, yeah? So you're still keeping up your grades and doing the math? That didn't last too long once I got to college. I did keep my grades up. I did, you know, good at all that, but it switched to music pretty quickly. I met another friend then.

In St. Louis? Was into the same stuff, and we started a i guess what we call a pre-punk band now in st louis in the mid 70s called the moldy dogs how did you release any records no no i think you just jammed just made tapes and then played uh kind of strange local shows and so forth we started as a duo acoustic guitar and i would play fuzz guitar and we would do a gimme danger sure do i'm waiting for the man and things like that and started writing our own songs and play around town at like pizza joints and places like that

did people come yeah yeah not a whole lot but we did connect within the other in the st louis area the other couple of pockets of people that were also into that kind of stuff through that and enough people did come to one place i remember called the pastrami joint we used to play at enough barefoot teenage or started showing up each time we play there that they say you can't play here anymore you know these people come in they don't buy any uh any pastrami they just come in and like clutter the place up with no shoes and their stinky feet so the so you survived so you were like 13 or 14 during the the late 60s right yeah yeah and then so now like yeah in the 70s you're like you know

later teens yeah so actually yeah i was born in 1954 so let's see 13 and 67 right turned 13. so you were like you know you were prime headspace for that whole mind oh yeah yeah the timing couldn't have been better to you know hear that song and hear fuzz guitars for the first time right so the it was like i can't imagine what that would be like to hear that shit for reals for the first time without any context right when it's happening it did seem like it was something leaking from this amazing mysterious other world. San Francisco? It's like you could feel the vibration of that. Yeah, I would be looking at Life magazine, at the pictures in there, and I think there's a famous picture in there

where there's a picture of a guy sitting in a corner who believes he's an orange. And I'm thinking, I want to understand, like, you know, I want to be an orange too. Jesper. Yeah. Where'd you meet Paul? Oh, I met Paul maybe early 90s i moved to new york

from sweden and uh he's he'd already been legendary in the record collecting circuit were you a record collector yeah i worked in a record store um yeah i was into strange music but um paul used to publish this catalog every now and then this is how paul made his all his money since he last quit his last day job in 1980 or whatever. Yeah. He used to amass all his records and make these incredible catalogs that have the best descriptions

you've ever read about the records. So that was... And most, you know, 99% of the records you read about you'd never heard of before. So that was... So you go from... And then you guys... And you play guitar as well.

Yeah, the thing was, like, we really loved hanging out with Paul because we'd go up to his magical apartment on the Upper West Side. Full of records. And he would just play the weirdest music you ever heard. And that room he had was kind of like a cathedral to us. Where was that? In New York City?

Yeah, Upper West Side, right by Columbia University, basically. So you were like one of those guys where guys who you let into the inner circle would come to your house, and they'd be like, oh, this is Paul's house. This is where it all happened. Yeah, no, it felt like you were allowed into a magical universe,

and it was an honor to be there. You built a magical universe. Yeah. But it was a very small one, but it was so special, and we really loved those moments. And the way the band started, I guess, we just tried to hang out with Paul more and get him out of the house because he was just

sitting up there all right let's move up to that so from st louis you're doing them you're doing music there and then uh and then where do you go next that was uh so january 1977 yeah i remember we had the first st. Louis Punk Rock Festival. Who was there? Who came? About 300 or 400 people turned out, and it was local bands, the Moldy Dogs, a 14-year-old girl group called the Welders who were crazily into the Ramones as soon as the first album came out, and a group called the Cigarette Butts,

I guess, that was another punk group of St. Louis. So it's January 1977, and a blizzard hits right the night of the show. And then we said, well, we've got to go to L.A. or New York. And while the blizzard was raging outside, it seemed like L.A. was the smart place, you know, beaches and getting warm. And it was a little before the punk scene had started happening in L.A., I guess. But at that very beginning we spent half a year i guess basically here and then decided oh we should went to new york we went back to st louis

wait so you went to l.a yeah yeah and he just hit the wall quicker no we went around with our demo to record companies and stuff stuff like that who was in the band with you extremely no uh no interest uh was it named wolf rocks on just Yeah, two of us that came out. The other guys in the band stayed in St. Louis at the time. We just came out figuring, oh, we'll come out. Was it a short trip, or you planned to move? Sort of, yeah, planned to move. But after being here for a while,

we realized we should have went to New York. Why? Because it just wasn't happening out here, the expanse of it. It was before it was happening. The germs hadn't formed yet and so forth early bands and there were just a few shows like happening the weirdos and some some bands were playing in that but it was just like when the ball was getting rolling on right right there wasn't a scene yet right and in new york there had been a scene for a while right and uh since what 73 yeah yeah yeah and

early on i guess extending you know all the way back you know like it blew my mind i saw uh a poster for suicide playing a show in 1971 so it goes so that was which has the line punk music by suicide on it is that where that came from i don't know but they were one of the very first bands to use it in that context because like i talked to mike watt they all consider themselves punk rock and it was just whatever didn't fit in that was what that was you know whatever you you were inventing in that moment when did you go to new york did it finally that was uh fall of 77 okay so we drove up we had a house to use free in new jersey for a little bit so we went there and uh how's that work were you

working how were you making money at that point? One of the amazing things is when we were in L.A., we had an apartment, I mean a dinky little apartment on Sunset and Vine, but it was $125 a month split between two guys. So it's like we need $60-odd a month. You can pull that. And New York, when I got there,

there was an apartment near the corner of Bleeker and McDougal that was $198 a month. Get the fuck out of here. So we had to each come up with $99. I mean, New York, people saying, yeah, New York is going to eat you up. You got a stroke. I'm thinking, fuck, I don't really need a job or whatever. So pretty soon on, I guess it was mostly time to do the bands and be a wild kid and all that stuff in the city.

So you didn't have jobs? I did work in a Village Oldies legendary store in New York that was on the corner of Bleecker and Sullivan Street as a day sort of job thing for a couple of years, really. But it was more of a hangout place. I kind of remember that place. Yeah, it had started. I do remember that place because I used to go there.

My grandmother lived in Jersey, and I'd go visit her and go into the city and walk around. I remember Bleeker Bob's. Right. So was it before that a little bit? Actually, it was the guy that ran Village Oldies was named Al Tromers. And originally, him and Bleeker Bob were partners and had a shop further to the east on bleaker street coming off the 60s and that and then they sort of fell out or whatever each had their own store and bleaker bobs and broadway out then he decided since bleaker bobs bleaker bob i'm going to be broadway out oh that was it and i

remember bleaker bob when i first went in there all the 45s on the wall were like like beatles and shit and then like i remember going back there years later, it was all punk rock. It just shifted focus completely. And in the back, they had all those great T-shirts and shit, right? And posters and stuff. Am I remembering it properly? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it did happen when those waves of punk started happening

at the end of 76 and 77. Then those shops grabbed onto those things. All of a sudden, the pair of Ubu singles were available. Right. And the Beatles started to move a little off a little off yeah so when you were working in village oldies what was the scene who was coming in what was it it was kind of it was a crazy scene that store was uh half of it was a record store and half of it was a head shop store run by junkies so it was really crazy my first exposure to lots of junkie

insanity going on and uh and that was still like that was still like big cbgb's time you know yeah yeah it's still all pretty vital right so vital happening there i guess mainly cbgb's and max's right and a few other places to play uh uh sort of between the two was one called great gildersleeves that was more like when tom petty was in town before he got famous he would play there was like the old school rock and roll bar but some of the regular rock started leaking in there but at that point it was really centered around those places they were still happening and I felt like oh I'm here a little late because a lot of the bands were off gone or that but the scene it did continue you felt like you were a little late yeah like okay now the Ramones and

bands like that they're never playing there much anymore because they're out touring and stuff. They haven't had enough success. But there was a second wave, so I remember one of the first bills we played on at Max's was with a band called Red Transistor, which is a guy named Von Elmo, who's an intensely crazy, way-out-there person,

made one of the biggest walls of sound I ever heard. I remember walking in there, and my band band at the time uh my partner in the band was wanting to go power pop and i'm hearing all this incredible crazy noise that's flashing me back to those first fuzz guitars and right like i feel like a kid like i you know i got a bunch of records in there and i had no idea about anything like i was going down this list of like i just got turned on to that growers of mushrooms record i didn't know nothing about them how the fuck but that that's probably mainstream to you right sort of yeah we found we found yeah wait i guess it was and uh help yourself is another one actually on a real label some of those some of those records uh right are you anti-real label

no you know i didn't make much of a distinction until I started getting some private pressings and started thinking, well, these are less filtered than even the crazier real ones. So when did that realization happen? When you were at Village Oldies? A little before. Actually, it was in New Jersey, I guess, when we were there, just before we came to the city. We had a little recording studio in the basement of the house. And one day, in the mail comes a package with three copies of a homemade record, Kenneth higney attic demonstration how'd you get it i mean he saw a little ad we had for the studio in the basement of the house and he said well here i'm promoting myself here's three

copies of my album you know i hope you can you know you wanted to record more or no he just wanted us to help him he was just firing him off to people to try to further his recording career and he was basically trying to make sort people to try to further his recording career uh-huh and he was basically trying to make sort of demos for country artists or something doing something kind of straight but it came out completely i don't want to say deranged not condescending it came out brilliantly wrong like like a work of genius yeah yeah and you were able to identify that and yeah i did it and i sort of linked it to some other things I had, and then I became more aware, oh, okay, yeah, people make their own records,

and it's a good bet a lot of these people made their own records are going to come up with something that's unlike anything you ever heard before. So it was like that leaking in a window of another dimension, right inside this person's head and their life, and where some of the things that they think are the things that went wrong are the things that make it brilliant because nobody edited all the good stuff out. No know-it-all or guy with an angle. So that got me going on the private pressings.

I really shifted gears from the punk and the psychedelic and a lot of things into checking out every homemade record and some of those can be almost loungy not necessarily you know genre based just there's an honesty to it yeah there's an honesty and there are lounge ones that they still satisfy like okay it's some broken down lounge act you know the whatever's live at the rooster tail lounge or something and something will happen on that record that is also like right got their own personality right something will go crazy they'll have an idea to do some song some weird way and it'll just be outrageous so where what what were some of the other uh names

that you were picking up then so what's his name the guy's name kenneth higney did you go seek these guys out and develop relationships yeah a little later i did uh when i got to new york and realized okay i can wander from one record store buy some records take them over to another store and double the price and pay my rent kind of quick right and spend all my time looking for records uh and what were you doing to know about how what these records are worth it was just your sense there was nothing there yeah just my sensibility uh or something hearing these are special to me and i was aware at that point oh there's a thing called record collecting besides the Beatles and Elvis or something.

Right. And the whole other world out there. Yeah. So I started running into and getting correspondence with people into a similar thing in cities all around the world, I guess, after I started putting little ads in collector magazines. Uh-huh. What was the ad?

Just sort of like... Just interesting records that i had found and gotten copies uh and a little later i started tracking the bands down to see if they had copies in the attic somewhere or something so a little network developed around the world it was very secretive and mysterious this is before he started seeing the reviews though right yeah i didn't see them until maybe 1986 or seven or so you've been going several years you developed this secret society. Sort of, yeah.

Around the world, there were certain guys in different countries, like South America. That's how I got turned on to all South American things and stuff that you wouldn't even hardly ever run across in U.S. records, and certainly not in the Midwest at the time. Sure. I would be in touch with people and say, what do you want from the U.S.?

What kind of stuff do you want? I'll send you a box. And since I don't know anything about your music, you know what I'm into. Send me the stuff you think is the stuff. And I would get these boxes of records from around the world and this sort of network of people in every local location filtering their local records. Like the Netherlands, South America, Germany? Yeah, Netherlands, South America, Germany. Yeah, and places like that.

And I would be trading the U.S. ones and sending them. Were you like on fire with it? Like obsessed, possessed? Yeah, I was. Yeah. I was completely on fire with it. I couldn't. I became a complete addict to the thrill of discovery.

It's sort of like back in those days, since everything was so unknown, it was like every day or two, some record would come my way that would just fry my brain. I think it seemed endless, you know, but nowadays I guess it's from that sort of vintage, especially nowadays, it's sort of like, oh, a couple of records will come along in a year that deserve to be up with all, all those. And also at that time though though, in the 70s, and I imagine some of the stuff you were drawing from was probably a decade old as well.

So you're drawing all the way back to the mid-60s probably with some of the stuff that was coming through, right? Yeah, yeah. So that was the time where everything was changing anyway. So there was shit that never existed ever anywhere before. It's a little harder to find that now, to find stuff that like this never existed before this thing right right yeah like nate to name to name a band now that's doing something that

seems unprecedented as a tall order it is because like what the hell it's all been tapped in a way so so like um when you were getting south american records and that kind of stuff i mean what what was that stuff it was pretty amazing when the first box came i remember was about 40 or 50 albums and it was a box uh wrapped with cloth around it and a big green inspected by u.s customs yeah sticker on it wondering what kind of stuff was in there i pulled it out the album covers looked crazy and it was like uh it was hard rock and things like that but it seemed to have a more a little bit more of an unhinged wild sort of yeah yeah and with maybe a little latin texture to it a little

uh beat or anything like was it what did it seem of its place yeah it seemed of its place you could see who these bands were turning into tuning into right right hendrix and so forth and that yeah yeah it had their own local flavor so when did you know that you had like you know you were dealing with uh like a living like you were dealing with like you know like when did it sort of expand into where you probably had to buy a new apartment or a storage bin fairly soon after the first couple years in new york uh-huh uh i started realizing i should put all my time into into this. And so that'd be like maybe 1981 or two. And it was a pretty easy process, wasn't it?

This kind of unfolded organically, right? Yeah, it sort of did. Yeah. I remember the very first time that got me going thinking, oh, this, you know, I should get out of this crazy store I'm in. That was just village old. You never worked at Weaker Bob's? No, no, no. He tried to get me to work for him

because somehow people thought I was responsible back then or something. But they probably also saw you had this weird talent for picking records, right? Well, I don't think that had quite developed like where it translated into the store or something like that. It was more meeting the people. And what sparked it, two German guys it translated into the store right or something like that right it was more meeting the people and what sparked it two German guys came in yeah the store and they were buying village oldies yeah village oldies and they were buying some of the like records like uh chocolate watch bands or whatever type records from the store I got that they're saying can you tell me where else right yeah they just reissued it not long ago chocolate watch band there's two

records right three yeah yeah yeah but uh so these german guys they came in and then they were saying can you tell us where else can we go to get more records like this and i thought oh you know you should come over to my apartment you know so i did a deal you know they left a stack about that high record saying you know just send them to us when you get a chance you know total trust and the whole deal and they and they bought them off bought a bunch of them and then then i started going into it and realizing okay i should advertise in the record collector magazines and oh right but at that time were those magazines mostly geared towards like 78s and like really old shit or how there was yeah lots of the 60s stuff was going going by then is that how you determined

what you would price shit at it would be sort of instinct 60s stuff was going by then. Is that how you determined what you would price shit at? It would be sort of instinct. Yeah, if something was around, I'd get an idea what's going for then. Right. Or however that. But I guess a lot of the things would just be how much it got me off, you know, affected it. Oh, right. And is it, you know, are there a zillion copies of this out there?

Am I going to be able to get this drug back? Always could back then was another good thing, too. It could be talked out of records that I only took me a long time to get it or something. Because back then, before the internet and so forth, with all the best records in the cheapest sections of the stores, it seemed like unending supply. You know, I go back to Kentucky once a year and hit all the hippie head shops and used stores and the records that i passed up the from a year before right because i ran out of money yeah would still be sitting in the stores a year later and i don't want them yeah oh my god it's it's exciting i wish we lived in that world i wish i knew enough back then to do

that now when you're a village oldies like were were there any of those sort of punk dudes around that were coming in sort of trying to use you as a resource to kind of you know break their brain open like who was around then did you like were were some of the junkie punks still around yeah yeah junkie punks were around a lot of british bands were berlain and thunders and and richard hell were they there yeah yeah they were around. Did you know that I didn't collect, I didn't connect with them

through record connecting. It was more that I had a band called The Sorcerers sort of a hard rock influenced by Hawkwind and Motorhead type. Hawkwind,

are you responsible for me knowing about Hawkwind? No, no, no. Because that's recent for me.

Like I just got turned on to the Groundhogs just like within the last two years. How the fuck did I not know about that? This is great though. Like it's really good to have amazing stuff still ahead of you in life there's so much yeah it's awesome this this is beautiful were you always a record nerd kind

of but i mean like you know i grew up later you know since i was born in the late 60s but there was before the internet so you just had to know older people that will turn you on to need the older brother the guide yeah just like i mean all my friends were older because like they had some wisdom to give you you know but just before you could just type it into google you know they're necessary like you you were shocked to learn that developed underground had more than two albums you know right because you'd only ever seen two right it's like oh shit there's a third one yeah it's like oh my god and even in the 70s or uh i had i knew a guy who worked at a record store next door

to where I work at a bagel place, and the record store was R&B driven, but this guy was like an art rock guy. He turned me on to The Residents, to Eno, to Fred Frith, to Robert Fripp, to all that shit, and I would have never known that if it wasn't there, and it blows your mind. Yeah, I used to love Fred Frith and Residents too,

and I think from knowing that kind of stuff, that's how I got into other weird stuff you know and then one thing leads to another and like finally you end up with this magical catalog

that Paul used to put out which is just it was just such a mind blower to read because everything's mysterious and the descriptions were incredible like what do you remember

first seeing in that catalog I just I mean this is bands you never heard of but I mean you would have like unforgettable lines like this band has that going behind the bar and take a leak type vibe and you knew you just had to hear it you know so did the sorcerers ever make a record no no i just played some shows

around the city at the time and it was a wild enough time or something there was no organization to even right get that far. The only time somebody wanted to pump some money into the band, we made the wrong idea of deciding, well, we'll put on a big show instead of making a record, which would have been the smart thing. Were you on bills with the Heartbreakers and those guys? Not with Heartbreakers, but some other ones of the time, like the Corpse Grinders. I remember being on a bill with, which had Arthur Cain. And then we used to rehearse

at a place called Sunset, as I remember something. It was a heartbreaker sort of clubhouse place. So you see them around there. A lot of nodding off. A lot of sweaty guys. Yeah, there was a lot of nodding off. There were some jams with Johnny and stuff.

I remember three times over a period of a couple weeks bumping into him. He said, what's the name of your band again? What's the name of your band again? Nice guy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear all kinds of stories or something, but the impression I got, I said, well, this guy doesn't seem dangerous or something to me. Oh, yeah.

I think he was a hustler, but he was like, because I watched a doc on him, and he seemed like a pretty sweet guy somewhere in there but that sound yeah good fucking sound i'm getting my punk rock credentials on now because i am sort of meeting some people like that yeah then one night uh he's like you know you want to do something with me yeah yeah oh i'm getting invited to shoot some dope shoot some dope with johnny thunders but but fortunately i had a lifelong fear of needles. Oh, you are fortunate.

Because when I was three years old, I got bit by a dog that ran away. So I'd have these humongous rabies shots in my belly. So there was like no needles going in, which worked out good. Because when I went back to New York and those circles of friends from there, after about six or seven years, most of them were dead. Yeah. No, no. You dodged a bullet, buddy.

You know what? That's a relationship you don't want to have to fucking start good for you god damn it man that that drug wiped out all those fucking guys fucking insane yeah so all right so when did you left new york though that that was later yeah yeah i left new york moved to new hampshire where were you putting all these records dude they were all in the apartment, but did when did you have to get another space to they were in the apartment? But by the time I had left, you know, there was still plenty of room but also it's a great thing What but Paul is yes, you know, he's a tastemaker and you know, he's never really been a collector It's more like it was every single record that you covet has been through his fingers, but it comes to him Then he sent it out again

like what's some records that changed your life that you wouldn't have known about except like that morgan album for example which i heard you know it's a good one to mention because it came out on a major label but it's still you know one of the best and unsung albums right right and and like uh it has an intriguing story and pa Paul actually tracked him down and interviewed him. And is he still around? Yeah, I don't know where. This is going back some ways, as far as I know. What about that one that's really rare that Dan was telling me about?

The Dark? Is it called The Dark? The Dark, yeah. What's the story on that thing, man? That was in the early, I guess about 83, 84, 85. I would spend a couple weeks or three weeks each summer in England. And of course, I'd be looking around for all the records. I'd see these interesting records.

Like if I would have seen that Leafhound record, I'd say, oh, that's on a real label. I'm going to buy this one they made themselves first unless I had enough money for both. So I walked into a collector shop, you know, with all the stuff on the walls. It's like, this is the Italy-only version of the cover picture of a Searchers album or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's trying to, you know, hype me on this.

Look at this stuff. Yeah, yeah. I look through and I pull out a few private pressings, including The Dark, which was in the bin for 10 pounds. Nothing. I was looking at it thinking, you know, this looks like one of those records. And I had been walking around, so I'd already spent, I only had 30 pounds left. And I found another album that I knew I had to buy for 20 pounds because I knew it was worth a couple hundred bucks.

Which one was that? It was, I think, a group called The Black Orchids. Nothing that significant. But it was like, oh, okay, can't pass that up or something. And I took a little stack of the private pressings and said, yeah, can you play these for me? And, you know, put aside some of them and I'll come back and get them or whatever. And he put the dark on.

And I'm going, oh, no, he's going to do that thing. Like, whoops, that was a mistake. That did not belong in the bins or whatever. But instead he says, you really like this shit? I'm going, yeah shit okay yeah yeah kind of maybe yeah maybe i'll give it a try that played it cool yeah yeah sort of played it cool and i was real excited yeah and did you know about that record no no no i was just looking at it isn't that worth totally unknown thousands of dollars yeah yeah many yeah they only made 99 copies as as it turns out. And they were a British band.

And they were a British band, yeah. And it was one of those homemade private pressings. And I got to reissue that because of you. That someone realized it was worth something because you found that thing. So what are some other bands like that that you sort of salvaged and and changed their lives I mean I imagine that because of you know him reading the the newsletter and other people reading the newsletter that these bands who some of them like

weren't even bands anymore almost like the old blues guys they're they're working at a restaurant and all of a sudden they get word that like their albums on fire again who were were some of those bands? It would be bands like Fraction would be one. Yeah. A band called The New Dawn. There's lots of them. Marcus from the House of Tracks. A good number of them.

Sometimes when I would find them, after we got past that, you're one of my friends playing a practical joke on me. You don't really want the record. Right, right, right. Oh, right. I would, yeah. After I got past that and the paranoia or the craziness of this guy raving back to ohio blues album which is one of the craziest hard rock records ever i remember calling him up and you know uh the phone goes and just goodbye and it slams down so i just

kept calling back he wouldn't even answer his phone. Finally, he got his girlfriend on the phone. So yeah, he's kind of out of it or whatever. Oh, yeah. You know, he thought you were a bill collector. Oh, really? Yeah. Or this. But were these guys able to make money when they were reissued and that kind of stuff?

Sometimes. Yeah. But for the most part, back in that day, there would be bootleg reissues out of Europe or here or there. And there were some labels like Rockadel and some other ones that started up that did track them down and try to work a deal. What kind of person, when you deal with people like that, and it sounds like a lot of the records

were bordering on, some of them were maybe not necessarily stable people but had enough belief in their art to try to get a record made. Who are the people that make their own records generally? I'd say they come from all stripes. There's definitely the angle of the guy

that's trying to really break into the mainstream music business and comes up with his totally bizarre take on life. And they intrigue me the most. But I'd say one of the best and most important discoveries in my life, besides the Kenneth Higney album, there's a guy named Peter Grudzian from New York. Grudzian? Grudzian, yeah.

Who made an album called The Unicorn. And he was a guy who had started in the late 50s with a Johnny Cash-type rockabilly-type trio. And he was trying to break into country music. And he was a Twilight Zone-type figure. So when his record comes out, it's got early country on it and stuff. But it also has mixed-in choral tapes and music concret and crazy, crazy words from another world. So it sounded like somebody had said, when I turned them on, this is the

hillbilly from the Twilight Zone or something. So he made this incredible record that's totally homemade, pretty much plays everything in isolation. He's making it, and it's not just a record where you think, oh, wow, that's cool or interesting. It's a deep work of art that addresses life, death, sex, everything, like in his own sort of, you know,

his own fragmented take on it, but it's real and soulful. And is that record available did they yeah yeah there have been a number of uh reissues what's his name david great peter yeah and then uh g r u yeah d z yeah i e n oh yeah yeah yeah that's a i gotta get that one certainly it it it's it's you know it was you know a shattering one of those shattering experiences to me, what you were talking about with these people. This is like, by that time, I was through the gates of coming out of like, do I need to hear another version of Gloria with a snarly garage broker? Or do I want to enter this new world, which seemed like, well, I'm one of the first guys in the door here.

It's a candy store. Yeah, but also you were, you got, it affected you emotionally and mentally. You know, it wasn't like a business necessarily. You were craving the experience of having your mind blown by music and you had worn out, you know, the shit that everybody knows and like I you know that's what I learned from you when I first got hip to you and I started because I know like I get a lot

of these records now dude a lot of people send me their records and there's a couple of records that I've held on to because of that because like I don't know what it is one of it was one of them was this I have to find it it was this woman who who just played guitar and I think her boyfriend sent me this record that he produced and and and the the cover picture she looks so sad and it looks so clearly look like somebody said

all right we're doing a record cover almost like she was being yelled at and i listened to the record it was just heartbreaking and it wasn't that complicated but you could feel it i got it maybe i'll find it for you if i can figure out what it is so well there it wasn't that complicated but you could feel it i got it maybe i'll find it for you if i can figure out what it is so well there is hope for that like because i know you probably get asked that a lot like well can this still happen of course it still can happen because i think probably more than ever people are making their own records don't you think yeah there are more bands than ever right more records being released never it's easier to to do yeah back in the day somebody had to be really driven to actually get a record out made and recorded

because it was still it was not in their hands unless they built their own little home studio right a lot of places so yeah i think the thing now is uh there is so much of everything coming out and so many things you know zillions of things people will be posting on the internet right it's like the needle in the haystack. You know there are these things that are happening right now. They're going to be really interesting, but it might take 10 or 20 years before the right ears come across them and single them out because there's just so much. There is.

So, okay. So now you guys, so you moved to New Hampshire and what goes on up there? That's when I really got going with the catalogs. I was basically in isolation for up there for five years. The catalogs that Jesper saw. So I would be basically doing all that for five years. And how many records were you amassing up there? Like, did you have a...

At that point, I had a room full of them and then an attic with, like, the stuff that wouldn't fit in the room. So not, you know, a humongous amount, but a lot of obscure records, a good select, a large pile of select things. What was the most expensive record you ever moved? That would be The Dark.

It would be. I made some money. I got like $7,500 for that, and that was a long time ago. Who bought it? A friend from New York who's was a fanatic for British bands and he'd heard it so you know finally. Are there still dudes that'll pay that for a record? Yeah certain ones certain ones the this band Stonewall which is one of the best hard rock records ever that was put out on a

label Tiger Lily that was the label that was owned by Morris Levy of Genovese Family Connections and so forth. Yeah. And he owned Roulette Records, the famous Roulette Records. And so, yeah, he was a legendary shady figure. And he had this label called Tiger Lily that was a tax-loss label where he would put out demos people had sent to Roulette and put out records. Without them knowing it? Without, yeah, sometimes without sometimes without them knowing and they never tried to sell them they

would just manufacture so you don't even know them out and dump them yeah where most of them went you don't know and this one stonewall which uh i had found like way back in in the 80s somebody had sent it to me i thought it was. And I didn't know the story then. I think to this day, you could still count on your hand how many copies have turned up. A copy of Stonewall. Yeah, a copy of that sold for over $14,000 last year. So there are certain records. And this was on the East Coast.

Were they all found regionally? Because if they weren't shipped. No, they were just scattered. The first one I had was found in Los Angeles and sent to me. No shit. The one that sold for $14,000, maybe the fourth or fifth known copy in the world, was found in New Hampshire in a barn. Really?

It's weird because some of those records could have just been crated up and dumped. And then somebody's got to find them. Yeah, yeah. There was a legend going around that somewhere there's a warehouse on Long Island. They got a wall of Tiger Lily label albums, all the big ones and that. But, you know, that was somebody's imagination.

Nobody ever, you know, walked into that, you know, Holy Grail scene. Record collector mythology. Yeah. Yeah. So what's your stock like now? Do you still have a lot of records? No, I channel them, you channel them through the whole time. And when the internet did get going, the whole thing,

the source thing dried up. Even all the other countries got hip to their own records. And then basically the demand exceeded the supply or something. So now it's really hard to find one. And with the internet, you're not going to. If find one and with the internet you're not gonna if somebody has it yeah they know they're not into it yeah they're gonna like see oh whoa that's a thousand dollar record whether it really is or not right they'll take that information there so you don't walk into a record store and go to the cheapest section to find the best stuff anymore because everyone knows what they have right all they gotta do is go online and look

on ebay to see what or discogs and see what it's going for. Sad. Are you sad about that? Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. I'm glad that I got in when it was all wide open and free or something. And now because of you, thousands and thousands of people can experience and hear music they've never heard before. I like that. It seems like another alternate universe or something sure morgan thinking now you know hundreds of thousands of people are really into

morgan yeah it's great so now notice when young kids and sometimes bands were playing with and other people only start talking that kind of stuff they have uh when they're exposed to the good good shit yeah they tend to have an innate ability to detect it. Right. Oh, yeah. Right. I think part of it sort of being like the Stooges and Velvet Underground and Black Sabbath and bands like that.

Teens now are still into those bands, and they're not really listening to Genesis much anymore. Thank God. Or Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, or things like that. I never listened to that. You just named two bands that I could never process. I just don't know why. But it's really like,

it's almost like mystical what you just did. Because I just never could, and I can get hold of most shit, but I can't get hold of Genesis. They're incredible bands compared to Paul Simon's Graceland. Okay.

Yeah. You've got to be positive about things. What do you, you don't like Paul Simon's Graceland? I don't know. It's just sinister, disturbing music. All right. So now we, like, you come back from New Hampshire and New York.

Right. And where do you live now? Where are you living now? Up near Columbia University. Still? Yeah. The same place that he went to as a youngster. And so you were corresponding with Paul.

Yeah, we have some mutual friends. Okay. We'll go there. We would go up to his apartment and hang out and be blown. And you just moved to New York. Yeah, I moved, yeah, early 90s. How old were you? I was like 23 or something like that.

So this was like this mystical wizard in a way. Yeah, but I was used to having older people that were guiding through this maze because there was not even books on this stuff. People had to know. And the only way for me to find out is to have people teach you. But you were a collector when you met him. Well, a little bit. I mean, not extreme.

I never had money or anything. The universe is so intriguing, and Paul was the person that kind of unlocked the whole thing you know and so how did the music start well we're just kind of we realize we're all into the same stuff right paul had this he's kind of a recluse he just sits up there and drinks beer and listens to all these records and we just wanted him to get out of the house and come hang out so So we started this kind of ritual where, like, let's get together every Tuesday at 7. We'll have a rehearsal space, drink some beer,

and maybe we'll make some noise, you know? And had you been playing at the time much? No, not much since leaving New York and coming back. I was still heavy doing the records. So like eight years? But I hadn't played. Right. I'd pick up the guitar once in a eight years but i hadn't played right you know i'd pick up

the guitar once a while but i hadn't played and never thought i'd be in a you know playing in a band again or something so that so but that was the original dream for you to play yeah as a kid yeah it was as soon as that happened it was a real but this band that we started endless boogie was kind of almost like a joke or something it was not it was just for us you just wanted to jam we sit in our garage and we jam and we hang out

whatever and we did that long and also you know there was no delusions or illusions of grandeur we never wanted to

play any shows we just wanted to hang out and the music we played was just kind of like I loved like Kraut Rock but I also love Canned Heat

so can we pretend that Canned Heat were a Kraut Rock band you know is kind of like, I love like kraut rock, but I also love canned heat. So can we pretend that canned heat were a kraut rock band, you know, that kind of vibe, you know, that is sort of what it sounds like. And like, you know what you can't do with skill you do with volume, you know, like, but also, but also commitment to a groove. I mean, that's like that, that is like lately, that's one thing that I've been respecting more than anything else. Cause even when I was listening to Full House Head, when I was listening to Endless Boogie out of nowhere,

it was exactly the experience that you were having with these other records. Because it came to me, I didn't know what it was. It had no context for it. And I started listening to it, and I lock into the groove immediately. Because I do like Can't Heat he i do like john lee hooker i like crop rock as well but but that the thing was is that the groove held up like it's hard to do long ass songs you know that that don't move around that much and have it be you know satisfying and that was happening i guess it's kind of in that regard it's kind of an art rock project too

because where you kind of want that repetition and that becomes something else once we lock into that groove you know sometimes it takes us six minutes to get there but once we do we'll stay there you know yeah for how long what it depends on i mean sometimes we played shows that we just played one song oh really yeah yeah if it's happening we just keep going with it and you can kind of feel if you're in it. Right. Like it clicks, you know. Uh-huh.

And then you just get, why leave it? Right. It's awesome. You want to be there. Yeah, yeah. You want to, yeah. You're there and then all of a sudden you want to poke around and see where else you can go. Yeah.

Yeah, but not go crazy or get too ego about it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Try to keep it locked into that into that place but but it does honor a certain like you know i know the name of the band is endless boogie and obviously canned heat we're huge john lee hooker fans like that that hooker and heat records one of the best records ever it's one just when he says like i don't know how you're keeping up with me you know that moment with the harmonica players he must have listened to everything i ever made because i don't know how you're keeping up with me. So, like, what was there?

Are you? Because it doesn't strike me as, like, it doesn't read as psych rock, per se. It's definitely. No, no, no. It's definitely a blues-driven operation, right? Yeah, I was never into stoner rock or whatever. Like, sometimes we'd get put in that pocket. But I always hated metal guitar sounds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even the metal band that I liked, I was like, I wish they had, like, more just normal guitar sounds yeah yeah yeah even the metal band that i liked i was like i wish they had like more just normal guitar sounds like it's cool right i mean i love the slayers like to me a free jazz band and now you're incredible i thought yeah yeah yeah back in the late 80s or whatever but i just wish they sounded a little different right right like it seems to me that that what's most important is the groove right yeah for sure i mean even you know i think the most important thing is the thing that you do and not what you do it with agreed there's a lot of people who are

like oh we're recorded in the same studio as led zeppelin therefore we are as good or something or like and zeppelin is in our music i don't know like those people go to berlin to record in the hero studio yeah exactly yeah we did that U2 for Octoon Baby. Yeah, we just sucked up all that Bowie juice, and we made this thing. Take it in. But lyrics and stuff, I mean, you sing mostly, right? Yeah, a lot of it comes from stream of consciousness or something. And we're doing the jams, and something will sort of start, and we'll do it again.

And don't sit down and like much and try to make a statement. It's just sort of like, okay. I think Sterling Morrison once said, because they used to ask, you know, every time they would interview Sterling Morrison, they would ask about lyrics, Louis Reed's lyrics, and he just didn't like that so much. He's like, if you want poetry, read the fucking New York Times.

Right. So what are the different configurations of the band? How did you find a bass player and a drummer? Who were those guys? Well, the band started, there was me and Paul and this guy Johan Kugelberg, who is actually right now putting together a book on Paul, where most of these catalog descriptions will be in.

Oh, really? A collection of the catalog? It'll be like a coffee table book on Paul Major and why he's important. Oh, that's great. And why we all need to listen to him. Yeah. Because he's a man with no ego, so we need to help him out. You're the ego fortification unit.

And me and Johan had this idea. We need to start jamming. We wanted a crude rock and roll band. Yeah, yeah. We worked in the music business. This was full of indie rock we thought was really annoying. We worked in the music business, which was full of indie rock, which we thought was really annoying. You were in the music business?

Yeah. Doing what? I worked for Matador Records. Oh, that was a big, big label for the indie rock thing. Yeah. So we were kind of not- Were you A&R guy? No.

I did like production and- Oh, okay. International licensing and stuff like that. Who were the big Matador bands? I can't- Well, there's Pavement. Oh. There was Liz Phair. Oh, yeah. You know, know those were like i've had malchus in here yeah he's good he

turns out to be a pretty good guy oh he's genius he's also um brilliant brilliant guitar player and you guys work with him yeah we know him well he's actually the reason why we ever played live because pavement had ended we were friends or whatever and he would like come hang out sometimes when we rehearsed and he was doing his first solo album that's like 2001. and he's playing his first new york show and he's like okay i want you guys to open yeah so we're like no but we don't really play live shows right well no but you're gonna open it's like okay and that was the first time we've ever played and then we decided we'll play anytime someone asks us to play. That was the deal?

Yeah. And however stupid the situation would be, we would say yes. Luckily these days, we can actually say no to some things now, but we still have the same idea. We don't really plan many tours or anything. People contact us, hey, do you want to come to Australia, where we just were? I hear you've got a big following in

australia yeah we channel a lot of the uh early 70s australian rock heroes like lobby lloyd and the colored balls oh the colored balls they reissued that dan turned me on to that's a good record we've been fans of of his genius for many years and it's one of the reasons why the band started really how so because we're just obsessing over that those records and no one else had heard of them outside australia i think it's true like no one and no one cared because they're a little too rock not psychedelic or whatever right but i kind of like the heavy rock angle yeah i got one record of theirs i think ball power yeah ball power yeah yeah yeah we used to play that that's's what Mama said, like, in 1996. We tried to figure it out, but we couldn't.

We weren't good enough. You don't do any covers? Well, we do sometimes. Which ones? Well, we do Mama, Billy Thorpe. Oh, yeah? The Aztecs. We do do some covers.

We do Rollin' and Tumblin'. You do? Yeah. So, like, when you play now, what do you draw? Like, do people know you now? Like you play now, what do you draw? Do people know you now? Is it like last night? How'd it go?

Yeah, in Australia, it was good. It's not like huge numbers of people. We played at a couple of festivals, have a crowd, and familiar faces turning up, and diehard rock fans. We have a little bit of a vibe over there, too, because we've been championing Australian rock over here. In fact, back in the old days of my catalogs, I had put a Color Balls ball power in there a couple times because I was in touch with guys swapping records here. And at two of our shows, independent of each other, two guys came up and said to me,

oh, thank you for turning me on to Color Balls. Yeah. They got turned on to Color Balls by me halfway around the world or something. so we've been championing that what's the new record gonna be called i think it's gonna be called vibe killer yeah because it might be yeah i don't know we're not yeah it might be it might be we're not working title is vibe killer we'll see what happens uh-huh right we aren't trying to make it a vibe killer or not, whatever happens. But, you know, in case it is the one that brings everybody down and say, oh, fuck, you know, did I really like these guys?

Wait a minute. Well, I like you, man, and I was happy to talk to you, and I like the spirit of it all, and I hope I didn't seem like too much of an idiot. Jesper Eklo. That's me. Thank God. Well, thank you, my man. I wanted to to make sure i got it i didn't mean to be insulting and paul major is honored to meet you and thanks for coming by likewise there you go now no no set forth go forth and try to find Freaky Rare Vinyl.

It's time. It's time. Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTF pod needs. Check my tour dates. Do that shit. And I'll play guitar. I kind of like that thing I was doing the other day. Maybe I'll do more of that just for a second. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you. Boomer lives!

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