WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 764 - The Handsome Family / Sam Pollard

Episode Date: December 1, 2016

Gothic folk duo The Handsome Family meet up with Marc while he's in Albuquerque to talk about American roots music, carnival sideshows, meeting your heroes, and dealing with bipolarity. But first, documentary filmmaker Sam Pollard joins Marc in the garage to talk about his new film Two Trains Runnin', a look at the summer of 1964, as history converged in unexpected ways. 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.

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Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf how's it going i am uh enjoying the winter here in la. The winter takes the temperature down to the sometimes low 50s. Maybe even high 40s. And we're all bundled up here. It is chilly and I welcome it because I miss the eastern seaboard fall weather.

I miss it. I'm just out here in the sun. Today's show is interesting there is a theme there may not seem to be one initially when i lay it out but there there is sort of a connecting tissue today we have um sam pollard he's a documentary uh film director also a film editor worked with spike lee for years but he's got a documentary film called two trains running it's opening at the metrograph in new york city tomorrow december 2nd and i hope that the interest in the film will get it a wider release so everyone listening

to this can eventually see it but it the way i heard about it was kind of uh interesting heard about it was kind of uh interesting my neighbor um adam hawkey is a i believe he works in a coloring uh colorist i think he does something in post-production with film and he hit me to this documentary so i'm working on this thing i think you'd be interested in this guy sam pollard it's about uh it's about it's it's about the civil rights movement but it's also about blues music and so I was like really and I did a little research and then I tracked down Sam Pollard and had him out here to talk about this documentary I got a uh a sort of um a cut of it not a final cut but I got to watch the film and it was uh it was a it was an interesting fusion of two very distinctly different but in but similar not i mean how can i explain it

the movie two trains running i'll explain that minute but i do want to give a little a little bit of lip service before we get into it to uh to my next set of guests is a double header the handsome family are musicians now you probably know their work if uh if you listened if you watched um true detective uh it was a i believe it was the the theme song far from any road it was a handsome family song now they the handsome family are brett and renny sparks they're a married couple and they live in albuquerque where i grew up and occasionally go to hang out see my dad touch base with the roots of my life now their music is very haunting. It's very sort of gothic folk music, very kind of fueled by the ancient folk themes and stylings. And it's beautiful. And I had had several of their records that I listened to.

And I was sort of fascinated with because the packaging of the records is beautiful because Rennie does all the artwork, all the painting, all the putting together of the packaging of the covers. And it's just it's a whole thing. The Handsome Family is the music and the artwork is a whole world. And it's a beautiful world. So when I was in Albuquerque, I got in touch with them. I invited them over to where I was staying uh Brett and Rennie and uh and we we talked so that's the second part of today's WTF um but this getting back to the blues music and getting back to Sam Pollard I'm uh like I I am I don't know when I

first heard blues music you know the old style but it is definitely part of my heart and mind, and it's deep down in there. And there were certain moments in my life with blues music that, even as an older person where you find new stuff, I remember the first time I listened to those Robert Johnson recordings, and I was like, I don't get it. You can barely hear it, and then it sort of grows with you. on some recordings and I was like, I don't get it. You can barely hear it. And then it sort of grows with you. If you, if you have the template in your heart for, um, for old traditional blues music, uh, it, it kind of evolves as you get older and it, and it, and it sort of becomes more enriched as you get older and you find more in it and you, you know, you, you kind of go to a place with it, but not, not long ago in my in my life, I read a biography of Skip James.

I'm going someplace with this, people. And I started getting into Skip James music, which is really one of the most sort of unique and haunting, again, I'm going to use that word, blues that you can find. You know, he did the original I'm So Glad, which I think Cream covered. And it's just his voice was something beyond almost human understanding.

And the tone that he got with his songs was something completely unique in blues. Now, this movie, Two Trains Running, tracks, it's very interesting. It's 1964, and it tracks the migration of civil rights workers and college students down to Mississippi for the civil rights movement, for the Freedom Summer, it was called. And that's one trajectory of the film. And the other trajectory are these two sets of dudes who had no real concept of what was necessarily going on in mississippi at the time but coincidentally went down there from two different places one from the bay area that include john fahey the guitar player and the other one

from uh the boston area which included dick waterman and they were just coincidentally going down to find these old blues musicians because Cause at the time there were these, just these record freaks that had these old 78s of this old music that seemed to disappear. So in 1964, no one really knew, you know, in the collective mind about Skip James or, or,

or Sun House, but these, these musicians and, and blues freaks did. And they, there was this constant sort of like curiosity as to whether they were still alive and whether they could find some of these guys and fahey and his crew you know coincidentally with the uh went down looking for for um for skip james and and

waterman and his crew uh you know went looking for sun house from different parts of the country in the same basic area you know country in the same basic area, you know, and in the same basic area of the civil rights movement, of the Freedom Summer and the voting rights movement. You move through these, you know, this search for these two blues musicians and the sort of fight for civil rights and voting rights, and it all culminates in, obviously, voting rights legislation and awareness of what was going on in the

segregated south but then uh it also moves towards on the other trajectory the newport folk festival where they they brought all these musicians that had not been heard from in in decades you know down up from the south and wherever they were skip james included and he performed for the first time they found him in a hospital and they gave him a guitar. It's sort of a beautiful story. And to see and hear Skip James at Newport that year was just mind blowing. And obviously, all this stuff that happened from the activism in the civil rights movement sort of all happened at the same time. But I'd never seen these two things put together. And that's what this film does. And it was, I loved it. And the deal is, is that these films, this film in particular, look, you know, if you want to see it, it's sort of hard

to see it. And I liked the movie and I'd love to help find it a wider audience. So if you're a film distributor out there, you should definitely pick there, you should definitely pick this film up because it's worth seeing, and it's a great sort of bringing together of two very important narratives in the cultural history. So right now, I'd like to let you listen to me and Sam Pollard, the director of Two Trains Running. So let's do that now. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

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Ow. You've been an editor for how long? I've been editing since 1975, so that's almost 40, 41 years. All the time in New York? I spent some time here in L.A. cutting a couple of feature films and some time in Boston and D.C., but primarily in New York City. Really? Now, when you started, where'd you grow up? Where'd you come from? I grew up in East Harlem.

Yeah? In New York City. Yeah? In the 50s and the early 60s. Really? Yeah. So you've seen a lot of changes in your lifetime. You'll be surprised, Mark, how much I've seen.

Sometimes it amazes me all the things I've seen in my lifetime. Well, I mean, how old are you? You're a little older than me? I'm 66. Oh, yeah. So you're alive and awake. Yeah, I'm 66. During the 50s and 60s. Yep.

Dr. King, Malcolm X, Black Panthers. Well, how were... So if you were 60, so you're born... So you're like a teenager. I was a teenager. When Malcolm and all that was happening. I was, yep, I was. Down the street.

That's right. Up in Harlem. Right. And how old, like 15, 14? 14, 15 years old. And what events do you remember? The tone of what was happening. You know what I remember?

I remember 1964 when there were some riots in Harlem. Yeah. Being on the bus, going uptown, remember 1964 when there were some rides in Harlem. Yeah. Being on the bus, going uptown, ducking when people were saying they're throwing missiles at the bus. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That I remember. You know, I remember, you know, when Malcolm was killed, you know, and the tension I felt in the city and when Dr. King was assassinated. All those things, you know, I remember growing up in Harlem. I mean, also, I grew up in a community where I grew up loving Latin music and jazz and soul and all these things. So it's a lot of things going on. Well, in Harlem, yeah, always, right? Because there was

definitely a big mixture of ethnic forces, musically and otherwise. Oh, yeah. You know, there was growing up listening to Tito puente and eddie palmeri and charlie parker yeah yeah lesby and marvin gay and the temptations of a lot of music yeah and when do you where'd you uh where'd you how like was it big family you come from not in not my immediate family i had two siblings but my extended, which goes all the way to Mississippi. My father's from Mississippi. And he was one of nine children. And then his siblings had lots of children.

So I have like hundreds of cousins. Hundreds of cousins. So when you were director of a documentary, how does the relationship with the guy who – the story. How does it how does he evolve because the story to me was it was very it's beautiful balance like this sort of like naive you know compulsive nerdy journey of these guitar nerds and blues nerds to go find these guys you know alongside of a very brutal of the, you know, of the freedom, the summer project in 64, was a very interesting balance that that lended a, you know, like it could have been very, you know, brutal.

But it was it had a balance to it. Well, you know, one of the things that I have to tip my hat off to Ben Hedin about it. Yeah, it was it was his idea. Yeah. You know, he really came to me about three and a half years ago with this idea. He wanted to do a documentary that looked at John Fahey and Dick Waterman and Nick Pearls searching for a sun house and Skip James. But at the same time, he wanted to tell the story of the young white kids who went down for Freedom Summer. Now, initially, I thought, you know, as a film editor and a filmmaker, I said, Ben, that's a lot to chew off to try to make those two stories work. Right, right, yeah. Really intense, really difficult.

But he was pretty tenacious about wanting to do it, so I finally got on board and I started to think, I think we can make it happen. One of the things that can help make this film come to life and to help that balance would be to find contemporary musicians to play the music of Son and Skip. So, Lucinda Williams, Gary Clark Jr. Yeah. would be to find contemporary musicians to play the music of Sun and Skip. So,

Resenda Williams, Gary Clark Jr. Yeah. You know, and then find the people from both the aspect of understanding who Dick and Nick and John Fahey was and then finding people

who were also down for the Freedom Summer. Right. So, we can have these parallel stories. And the really important thing to remember that Ben made us aware of

was that the day that Sun and Skip were found was the same day that Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were killed. Disappeared. Disappeared. So there's this confluence of things coming together. I think what's fascinating about it is that the ignorance of white people at that time was deep and cultural and had no idea. And these kids, and they were all kids. Like, if I really think about what it takes to motivate, you know, white college kids to do anything, it's obsession and feeling like they got to be part of something.

You know what I mean? Exactly. So the naivete of the music nerds, you know, versus the righteousness and sort of, you know, the democratic thinking of the people that went down to Marshall. Because I know these people. It's not that they're ignorant. They're just kind of isolated. That's right.

So these guys had no idea. No idea what they were driving into. They're just going, we're going to go find these guitar players. Yeah, they just were on a musical mission. Yeah. Based on nothing. Didn't know anything. The one kid, they got something from Bucka White.

Who knows what he was even talking about? That's right. They go down there. But it was like a seed that made them say, wow, we can go on this journey. And that kind of naivete is what helped them find these people. And they weren't the only ones who were able to find people. Mississippi John Hurt was found like this. Yeah, a couple years before, right?

Yeah, to bring back these iconic musicians who had done such phenomenal music. Right, and I had no idea about that. And I like Sun House, and I like Skip James. I've read biographies of Skip James. But just culturally what was happening, it was very interesting to me the detail about uh how most of that that that folk resurgence was was irish folk music and and british folk music and stuff that comes from that part of the world and these guys had not even been recognized as as being part of american folk music no i had not at all it's crazy yeah like And now I'm just getting all excited.

And the fact that there was actually a time where the guys who had these 78s were just sort of like, no one has these. This is magic. Yeah. They were jewels. Right.

They were jewels. You don't even think about that. No. These acts, these guys went to compulsive, and we find, defined rock and roll, they define jazz, they define everything. Oh, yeah. that oh these acts these guys that these guys went to compose we find you know defined you know rock and roll they define jazz they define everything oh yeah and it was just these nerds and it just

happened simultaneously but i thought the balance of the respect for for that art form and then the actual legislation that you know that happened within the two years of those kids being killed like what like when when you come to this and and, you know, I know you work with Spike a lot, and you obviously have a history. And sort of, like, integrating these sort of separate, you know, actions of, you know, kind of, you know, privileged white people being pivotal, you know, in moving things forward. How do you, you know how do you you balance that i mean you because there were guys that like that you talked to in the movie that were like we got to get the we got to get the rich kid the white kids yeah i know they're going to be father for for the things happening right i know i know you know it's a it's an interesting kind of challenge as a filmmaker

and as an african-american filmmaker to tell these stories into you know you're basically putting these young white kids at the forefront of the stories. But the thing to remember is that they didn't do it out of kind of any sort of feeling like they were trying to make a name for themselves. They were trying to, you know, say, well, we can do this better than black people. Right. They did it because there was a lot of emotional and psychological sincerity.

You know, it was sincere. Yeah. You know, when you have Dick and Nick Pearls and Phil Spiro and you have John Fahey and Henry Vestine, you know, and these guys searching for Skip and Son, it's sincere. When you have these other young white kids going down to be on the front lines, to be on the front lines, to know that their heads could be beaten in, you know, their arms could be broken, they could be killed, but they were still going down there because they believed they had to fight for these rights. It's the sincerity that's important to make sure this comes across, you know.

Yeah, and it's fascinating that, like, just in you talking about what you lived through, is that this is before the late 60s, where everything blows open. It's the early 60s. Right. So, yeah, these are kind of real. All these characters and the people that you talk about are real heroes of democracy in a way. Exactly. And it was not fashionable.

It was not like, you know, we're going to grow our hair out. It was like, you know, this is a problem in our country. Yeah, and we want to do something about it. We want to do something about it, which is an important thing to remember. That kind of enthusiasm, that kind of naivete, you know, is what's galvanized people to support Bernie. Right. The same kind of attitude. Yep.

And that's so important for a democracy like America, and particularly in these very turbulent political times. Yeah. Where do you, like, because I, you know, where do you see, you know, the one thing a candidacy like Trump sort of reveals is just how much hostility and racial, you know, racist-driven anger there still is in this country. And they're willing to stand up and be identified if given the right, you know, platform. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, listen, you know, as a person who's 66 years old, I've seen a lot. Yeah. You would like to think that some of this stuff that you hear coming out of the Trump camp, you know, doesn't exist. But I knew it exists. I know it exists. You know, I'm not naive. Right. It just sort of saddens me that here we are 50 years later still going through this same kind of stuff.

You know, it's just like, my God. Yeah. I thought it was going to change in the 60s and the 70s, but it hasn't, you know. Yeah. Because there's, you know, but that's what makes human beings human beings. There's certain things, there's certain things that people emotionally feel, you know, angry about. Yeah.

And they've found a way to vent that anger now. They found the person who can help them voice that anger. No, I get that. And it's broad-based anger. It's not all specific. It's just sort of like, yeah, I'm fucked, so fuck everything. That's right. Oh, my God.

That's right. So when you direct a documentary, because you've done producing and done directing and you've done a lot of editing what so the primary the primary element is organizing right there's two primary primary elements when you're doing a documentary particularly like this one yeah first is basically understanding what the concept is which we knew as we developed it and then the deep dive is what i call importance in terms of historical documentaries, the research. Right. Really researching the subject that you're going to do. Right. In this case, what was going on in 64 in Mississippi? Who should we talk to?

You know, who were these musicians? Now, me and Ben and David happen to know. We were familiar with Ten House and Step. So we had that handle, but we needed to understand what was going on in the civil rights movement. Right. Who should we talk to? You know, Bob Moses. Right. Yeah, movement. Who should we talk to? Bob Moses. Who should we talk to?

Dave Dennis. Who are those people we should talk to to give us the inside story about what was happening down there? So understand your concept, doing your research, and then deciding who you need to interview to help tell the story, and then what kind of material, archivally in terms of photos, footage, newspaper headlines, do you need to gather to help make that story visually come to life? And the other thing that's important,

particularly for this documentary, a lot of times now people are thinking about, do we create reenactments? How do we make some stuff that we don't have, like the guy searching for his son in Skip, how do we make it come to life? Now, one of the things that came up, and I think David was the one who thought about this, is that instead of doing reenactments, let's create animation.

Yeah, yep. Let's do animation. Sure. Which, you know, we found a company in Europe that had done phenomenal animation. They did, Mark, they did a great job. Oh, no, it's beautiful. And it's almost got like a- It comes to life.

Yeah. It makes the film come to life. Because we didn't have anything else yeah you know yeah how do you do it so animation was the key well yeah your only other option is just a montage of stills that's right yeah over and over again different pictures of john fahey that's been done or else you can do that thing where the the guy comes out of this still and floats for a minute and then you put that that's been done to death. Yeah. But I thought the animation was, it worked.

It almost had an underground comic feel. That's right. Like almost an R. Crumb vibe to it. Exactly. And I didn't realize that these stories, they're so tight. They're so close together. It transcends coincidence. I mean, when Ben was laying this story out to you and you were hesitant, when you saw the dates, were you like, that's some sort of kismet. That's like some sort of weird, magical coincidence. I mean, when Ben was laying this story out to you and you were hesitant, when you saw the dates, were you like, that's some sort of kismet? That's like some sort of weird, magical

coincidence. It amazed me. And I kept saying, we need to make sure and double check that it's correct. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Because it's crazy that it would happen. It's crazy. And then like, you know, when they found those kids, when they found Cheney Goodman and Schwimmer, that, you know, that was within what uh you know days of the legislation passing that's right after they found the bodies it was a few weeks after they passed the uh the civil rights civil rights act yeah next year there was voting right now right but it took that and and then like that was the other thing that i think people forget and that i that i always forget because I live in my own fucking world, is that, you know, there were people fighting

hard against those acts and those bills. They were like, this is not the way the South is good. They had it in their head. Oh, yeah. See, because I don't, like, obviously I'm not African American, and, you know, in order for me to experience the proper amount of empathy, I have to watch a movie like this because it's not my history. But you know what's interesting, though, is that there's always these forces that are at play trying to untie the things that are happening. I mean, specifically, look at North Carolina.

Right. Oh, yeah. Horrible. Look at it. The government is trying to say you can't be a transgender person and go into a men's bathroom if you think you're a man. There's always been these forces that are constantly saying we want the status quo. We want to stay the same. We want things to not change. That's why people are so grabbed onto Trump's we want to make America great again. It's already great.

You know. It's already great. Yeah. And he forgets what's great about it. It's actually progress. Right.? It's already great. Yeah, and he forgets what's great about it. It's actually progress. Right. You know, moving forward. Yeah, so it's always these forces, as you know, that are trying to undermine progress.

Right. Constantly, constantly, constantly. Right, but it's like, I guess it's just based on, it's ignorance, but it seems deeper than ignorance because, like I've been talking about this on stage a bit, that it seems that Americans fundamentally are relatively decent people because once change happens, even if they were furious about that happening, within a couple weeks, maybe a year, they're like, ah, I guess that's the way it is now. Yeah.

And they settle into it. They adjust. Right. They can adjust. Yeah, because it didn't really have that much to do with their life anyways. That's right. Yeah. And they, you know, they settle into it. They adjust. Right. They can adjust. Yeah, because it didn't really have that much to do with their life anyways. That's right. Ugh. You know, but you got to want to, you got to be able to say, okay, let's adjust.

Yeah. But you know, and I know is, one of the things that's difficult for human beings to deal with change. Yeah. You know. It is. On all levels. Change is, even me sometimes.

Sure. Certain kinds of change in my personal life. I say, whoa. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to deal with that. Yeah, I know to deal with that. Don't take that away from me. That makes me happy, that thing. That's right. It was interesting too, at the end, to see that Robert Moses and David Dennis continue to fight the fight. That's important. It is important. That's an important thing to understand that they didn't stop in 64.

They understood that the mission, the journey is a long one. It's a road that you got to keep constantly stay on. Yeah. And you got to, and these guys have my tremendous respect for being able to continue their fight. Yeah. I mean, here these two men are in their early, late 60s, early 70s, and they're still fighting the good fight. Yep.

You know, and that's important. And it was funny that the guys who, you know, the guys who are still alive, or that historically who the musicians and the music nerds, they went on to create a music label, one of them managed Sun House and Dick James. Dick. Dick became, I mean, listen, I don't know if you remember in the film where Sun House mentions Dick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dick is very important to keeping Sun's legacy alive.

Still. You know, today. Yeah. If you go to his house, he has a table full of pictures, and a lot of them of Sun House that he took himself. You know? Yeah. He is really a man who's kept that man alive. When I did this

blues documentary years ago with Scorsese as executive producer, that's when I first went down to Mississippi and met Dick. Which one was that?

It was called The Blues Series. It was a seven part series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I watched some of that. Yeah, the first one I did was Scorsese directed and we went down

to Mississippi to sort of follow the journey of the Mississippi music and where it came from. Right. And I mali mali mali west africa yeah west africa yeah right so you you track that the rhythms all the way back to mali yeah you know and so that's when i first met dick you know i spent a whole day at dick talk with dick talking about son and how he met son isn't so you know this was really great for me to go back almost 12, 13 years later and spend more time with Dick.

Sure. It's always good when people are still around. I think Dick has something in common with you. He loves cats, man. Does he? I got a few. He has a lot of, he loves cats. Yeah.

Well, it's, you know, the blues is like, you know, I talked to another guy about that, that the thing about watching Sun House and even in the footage that you had you had in the movie which i think i had those on videotape those were yazoo uh didn't they release some videos of fuka white and and uh lightning and those guys in hopkins yeah i think i had them but like that these you know these were not the dialogue was not about race really was it's about love. Love and lost, man. Right, but also God. And God. Like that thing about where, I don't know if it was Dick who said that,

no, it was the other guy. He said that Son had a hard time bringing together the God part and the blues part. So there's this struggle. That little key to Son House, when you see him just singing acapella or with the guitar, that he's doing something that he's not sure God would approve of. That's right, because he's struggling inside with the

forces of good and evil. Right! Constantly. Really? Good and evil. Right! And he's not figuring it out. You know, it's interesting. Here's a man at that time in his 50s and his 60s, still struggling. Yeah. Tap right back into it. That's right. That's why he had to use that booze all the time. That's right.

Oh, my God. Who am I? Who am I? And he was like, on some level, when you realize that these guys hadn't played in 20 years, that they got tired of the struggle. They were probably relieved. Like, all right, I'm just going to let this shit go. It might haunt them.

But when these guys show up and say, let's bring you back to that. Yeah. You know, because I assume that when Son got sick at Newport, it was nerves, right? It was both nerves, but he had some intestinal problems. Oh, yeah, yeah. He had some intestinal problems. That Newport footage, man, it made me cry. You know, the Skip James thing, he got Goralnik there.

And I've talked to him in here you know peter yeah yeah yeah and uh you know he's like he was like he's seeing all these stars then skip james gets on stage erases everything everything because you know his sound haunting vocal sound is so haunting oh so unique and so special he's so special i mean he really he really is one of the great, great blues musicians. Oh, no, it's amazing. So he must have been young when those guys. He was young, you know, and after he did those recordings, you know.

I think for him spiritually it was just too taxing and too emotional. Yeah. That's why he walked away from it. Yeah, because he's doing something more than just playing music. It's not like, you know, let's sit and dance music. Well, that's the thing you got to remember about these blues musicians. It's always more than just playing music. It's living. It's not like, you know, let's sit and dance music. Well, that's the thing you gotta remember about these blues musicians. It's always more than just playing music. It's living.

It's living and feeling, you know, internalizing the music. That's why these guys still are so iconic and so precious today. You know, and for me growing up, you know, in New York City, it took me a while to really start to listen to the blues, you know.

After I went through Soul and R&B and Charlie Parker, then I came back to listening to the blues and said, whoa, you know. Yeah, back to the source. Yeah, I came back to, went right back to the source. When I first heard Charlie Patton, I said, whoa. Oh, man, like Bo Evil blues and like, does that, that, that, really? No. It's crazy, man.

And the amazing thing about it is what you have to mentally kind of put aside just to hear the intensity of those performances still comes through those shitty records. That's right. Because even the best recordings sound like shit. But, you know, that's what's so special about those analog records. Yeah. You're getting everything. Yeah. You're getting the hiss.

Yeah. You're getting the noise. I know. I'm back in it. Yeah. That's what makes it so special yeah yeah you know I mean

we got the digital stuff now but in some ways the digital stuff has homogenized the music no no definitely cleaned it up in such a way that it just feels so you know

you know clean yeah yeah but you go back you hear the hiss oh yeah you hear the hiss you say whoa

yeah yeah it's the real thing so when did your relationship with Spike start? It started in 1988. I was producing on a series called Eyes on the Prize about the civil rights movement up in Boston. And one day I was in my apartment and I got a phone call. My son, who was 10 at the time, picked up the phone.

And he said, Dad, it's Spike Lee on the phone. And I thought he was pulling my leg. And I said, Jason, don't pull my leg. And I said, Dad, seriously dad it's Spike Lee on the phone and I thought he was pulling my leg right Jason don't don't pull my leg you know I said dad seriously it's Spike and Spike on the phone he had just finished Do The Right Thing and he's getting ready to do a film about jazz musicians with Denzel and Wesley Snipes called Mo which became Mo Better Blues and he had known that I was into the music from a production manager friend of mine that worked with him. He asked me if I would edit Mo' Better Blues. And why do you think it was, what did you bring to it by knowing about the music that he couldn't get to?

I don't, you know, he's pretty good at the music. His father's a jazz musician. Right. Bill Lee is a great jazz musician. So Spike knew the music. He's a jazz musician. Right. You know, Bill Lee is a great jazz musician. So Spike knew the music.

I think what I brought to it basically was an ally, a musical ally. Oh, okay. So when he said to one section of the film, he said, I want to use, and I said, Mingus is good by Pork Pie Hat. And he said, yeah. Or all blues, Miles is all blues. And then at the end when we used Love Supreme by Coltrane, I was just in sync because I play an instrument too.

What do you play? I play a little saxophone, a little flute. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and I studied music, so I know a little about music. So we were just in sync on the music. Yeah. We were just in sync because he's not a talkative man. Is he Spike?

No, he's not a talkative man, but he has very strong, visceral ideas that he knows how to get across. Oh, definitely. Yeah, because he's got a very unique way of working a camera. Oh, he's learned to be, to me, one of the great film stylists. Oh, definitely. You know, he's got a great visual sense. And his politics is so strong throughout all of his films, you know. You don't even have to agree with it, but it's there.

It's in your face. Yeah. And that's what makes him so special and so unique. Now, how many, you did a few movies. You did Jungle Fever with Spike. I did Jungle Fever, Clockers, Girl 6. Bamboozled. Bamboozled.

That thing, you know. That doesn't get enough credit, that Bamboozled. Bamboozled. That thing, you know, that doesn't get enough credit, that Bamboozled. Well, you know, it's one of those films that I think as it ages, it's going to become more and more relevant every day. You know why I think that is? Why? Because the attention taken and put into the production value and the execution of the minstrel shows. Oh, they were fantastic. Unbelievable.

Yeah, they were fantastic. Like, because, you you know you literally had to battle yourself yeah while you were watching it to not be entertained that's right that's right it's it's walking a very thin line right very thin line because think about it i mean you just saw shuffle along it was choreographed by saviour yeah and he choreographed all those dance scenes in bamboozled. Elevated. And they're fantastic. Elevated. They're fantastic. So part of you wants to say, wow.

That's great. And part of you wants to say, ooh. Right. I think that, to me, that blew my mind. Yeah. But that's what Spike's all about, though. He never is going to give it to you to say, oh, it's terrible. He's going to make it ambiguous.

So you as an audience say, hmm. Confronted. How should I deal with this? Yeah. That's how he is. Well, that's the, he lets you do the thinking. That's right. And wrestle with yourself.

He does. Every time. And it's weird because, you know, people, like you said, like his politics are defined and they're, you know, they're hard hitting, but he's still going to, and I think that's what a documentary should do in general, right? That's what they should do. Right. Yeah.

They should force you as a viewer to think about where do you stand on this particular issue. Right. They shouldn't say, this is how you should feel. This is what it should be. They shouldn't be agitprop. Right. They should give you the perspective from different angles.

So you walk away as a viewer saying, hmm. I don't know if that guy was a bad guy. That's right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He seemed like a bad guy. Exactly. Yeah.

But he'd maybe not be 100% a bad guy. Right. So what do you think about this kind of explosion of docs? Like, which is, you know, like it just seems to be the new thing. It's like you talk to anybody, like, I'm working on a doc. Are you? I think it's wonderful. Yeah?

I mean, listen. Yeah. It takes a lot of these doc filmmakers who are basically working with very little money. It takes them years to get these things done. Yeah. But you have to applaud the stories they're tackling, the issues they're tackling, the fact that people, the general public,

is understanding what a documentary does and is all about, and they're engaging in it, you know, both on the small screen and in the big screen. I think it's great. I mean, I come up in a time when docs were just on PBS. Right, that was it.

That was it. Now you got them on Netflix. You got them on Amazon. You got them in the theaters. They're just coming out of everywhere. I think it's fantastic. Now, the reality is doc filmmakers don't make money. Right, and some are better than others. you got them in the theaters they're just coming out of everywhere and I think it's fantastic now the reality is

doc filmmakers don't make money right and some are better than others and some are better than others but the fact that

they're out there I think it's great for the for the for docs and you're a documentary filmmaker I mean that's what

you do you're an editor but primarily I'm a doc filmmaker and I love documentaries now you know you think about

you know talking about growing up in the 50s and the 60s yeah I grew up watching Hollywood movies. I grew up watching Bird Lancaster and, you know, Kirk Douglas and Joan Crawford, you know? So when I got into the business, initially I thought I want to just make feature films. I want to edit feature films. Did you? At the beginning, did you? I worked as an apprentice on a low budget feature film, but then the editor on that film introduced me to the world of documentaries. Through what?

Through whose work? Like, what did you see first? Well, the films that we were working on together. But then when I started to explore documentaries, I went to the work of Al Maisel's, the Maisel brothers, Salesman, Gimme Shelter, you know, Penny Baker, you know, baker yeah you know robert drew who did primary about the kennedy family right you know did you ever see that friedkin doc about the the the death rope in prisoner that he like william freaking i haven't seen it either he's his first experience

was doing a doc for tv i thought he was in chicago yeah, yeah. I don't think I've ever seen him. I haven't either. But then Michael Aptett's 7-Up series. Oh, yeah, yeah. So when I started in my early 20s, when I got introduced to Doc, I just fell in love with him. Well, when you first got introduced to it, did you find that, was the alignment that you could educate and that you could further the dialogue about civil rights specifically or just that you like docs? Specifically, it was the fact that as an editor, as an editor, I felt more empowered editing the doc

than the feature film. Why? Because when you get a feature film, they give you a script. Right. They give you the scenes with the actors. Yeah. And unless you're really a knucklehead,

you know how to put it together. Yeah. You know, with a doc, nine times out of ten, a director or a producer would come in and say, I have this great idea. I shot all this footage. I'm not sure how it should go together. I'm going to go away. I'm going to let you wrestle with it.

Yeah. And I love that challenge. Yeah. At first, I was terrified of that challenge. Oh, my God. What if I fail? What if I fail? Right.

But then I started to embrace it. Yeah. And the idea of being sort of the director in absentia. Yeah. You know, being able to sit there and shape and mold the footage and give it rhyme or reason. Yeah. Became such an exhilarating feeling, even when I failed. Right.

You know, it was like, wow, I helped make a film. Yeah. Right. And I know David must have felt like that when she was doing this film because she was a force in helping shape the direction of the story. The editors are, they're almost all of it. All of them. All of them.

But I mean, like, you know, it all happens with you guys. Always. Always. The truth of it, always. Yeah, because like all you got, you're just hoping you got coverage. And then you go to a guy like you and you go like, I think I got all the coverage. Put it, put a rough cut together and then let's see what we got. See what we can make of it.

Yeah, yeah. And then it's sort of like, you got that other thing? I do. That's right. So when you started, you were just, you were cutting film. I was cutting film. Oh my, I can't even imagine how long it would take. It didn't take long.

No? No, it didn't really take long. It just took, it took a certain amount of patience to know when not to make a cut. Because you didn't want to have a lot of little pieces. Yeah. So you had to be able to say when you were going to make a cut. It's sort of like, you know, Bresson, the photographer, is talking about the decisive moment. That moment, yeah.

Yeah. You had to have the same attitude when you used to edit film. Right. When was the moment to make the cut? Yeah, yeah. You got to find it. Yeah. At first, in the beginning, you would be sort of like, you know, should I make it here?

It would take you 10 or 12 minutes to make a cut. Right, right. If you got more experience, you could do it faster. Right. Oh, right. And I guess it's just like anything else. You adapt to the technology available. That's right.

Now, like when you do like, when Spike does a documentary, right, did he do Four Little Girls? He did Four Little Girls and When the Levees Broke. Oh, that's when the levees broke. You did that one too with him? Yeah, and the sequel of God is Willing and the Creek Don't Rise, yeah.

Who did the Emmett Till documentary? Oh, that was Stanley Nelson. That was a hell of a documentary. Yeah, great filmmaker. Great filmmaker. But when you do a documentary like Four Little Girls, which is a story that should be retold over and over again, that when Spike does something like that

as opposed to a scripted feature, what's the dynamic between you guys? The dynamic is a great one. In that one, he said to to me i want you to be really engaged in this not only as an editor but as a co-producer so when we went through the whole research process and finding the archival material i went down with him on the first shoots the first interviews and stuff you know we would spend we would have a he would have a particular strategy like after we shot all these interviews we would go into the editing room for like two or three weeks straight, like seven in the morning from seven to 12 and just watch the interviews together and talk about what we liked, what I liked, what he liked, you know?

And we would do that through all the interviews. And then we would talk about how do we see the film unfolding? One of the first questions Spike asked me when we were shaping the film, should there be narration? And I said, I didn't think so. I thought that the people of Birmingham can tell their own story.

So the challenge was how to make sure we told the story. And it was, again, sort of like what we did with Two Trains. It was to tell a story of these four little girls at the same time as we gave the audience

the bigger context of what was happening in the civil rights movement at that time. Right. And to bring it together with that church bombing. Again, the confluence of ideas coming to the church bombing. The horror. Yeah. And we were in sync with that. Yeah.

So it was always this give and take with Spike and I on that and on when the levees broke. And, you know, I guess he's coming to you in that situation and the relationship you built as the guy with the experience. Yeah, I've done a lot of docs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did a lot of docs. Did he like doing it? He loved docs. He loves them.

Yeah? He loves all kinds of films. Yeah, yeah. He loves making films. to sort of like, you know, really kind of isolate that narrative that, you know, through negligence or whatever, this is, you know, going to change the composition of that city and push, you know, the people that live there and built the history of it out. And they're going to let that happen. Yeah.

So that was what had to be shown. That's had to be shown. Yeah. And, you know, again, he's not afraid to uncover and dig into every aspect of an issue. Yeah. And that's what makes those films work. That's what makes what Levy is when Levy spoke such a great film. So what do you do with this movie now? What's the life of a documentary? These films need exposure. You know, they need exposure. They need to go to festivals. They need to go to the markets. They need to go any place where people can have an opportunity to see it.

We also want to not only get distribution in the United States, but around the world. Any place that may feel a connection to this music, we hope that someone will want to buy it and show it. Well, I love the movie, and I wish you the best of luck with it. What does it take to get it on Netflix? It takes somebody from Netflix watching that film and picking up the phone and calling Ben. People need to not only rediscover or discover for the first time that music, but also to remain freshly aware of the struggle that is ongoing. It's like the Jewish thing.

I'm a Jewish guy, and I'm not religious or anything, but the never forget thing applies across the board never forget never forget so I hope that Two Trains Running gets distribution

so everyone can see it hopefully it'll let I hope it it maybe ends up on Netflix or somewhere where you can watch it it's

it's good. It's very good. Roots Music is definitely something at the foundation of the Handsome Family sound. It was very exciting for me to talk to Brett and Rennie in Albuquerque at the Los Poblanos farm and ranch there where I stay. And I love their records. Their most recent album is called Unseen. It's available now. And this is me and Brett and Rennie Sparks,

the handsome family, talking about music and depression and art and New York and stuff. All right, So listen. When I knew you lived here, I'm like, if I could go to their house, I pictured a, like, it's a little, I pictured a gloomy place with a lot of things, maybe some carnival relics. It's like that room that Van Gogh made from Gauguin with the enormous sunflowers all around it yeah she's done that before how'd you end up in Albuquerque I'm from here you are yeah I grew up in the

southwest I was born in Texas and grew up around that's not that close well panhandle right Dust Bowl Dust Bowl. Perryton. Little tiny oil town. My father worked in the oil field. Really? I grew up in Odessa. Really? No kidding. So that's sparse. Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs.

Last picture show territory. It's a wonder I got out. I spent every summer in a town right next to where the last picture show was shot in McInerney, Texas. How close to reality was that? Very. Too close. It's hard to watch.

So there was literally, like, what, 150, 200 people in the town or more? Oh, the town my mother grew up in, where my mother and father met, had a population of about 70. Oh, my God. They had a Baptist church and a Methodist church, a post office, and a bank. And that was it? And that was it. But I thought the old men played checkers in the bank. There wasn't any commerce going on in there.

No, they just played dominoes because the banks failed during the Depression. So it was just a shattered, burnt-out building where these old men just played dominoes. Oh, my gosh. This is real. So when you were a kid, what was the dream? Just to get out? I mean, what the hell do you do?

I know that those towns existed in America, and I've driven past them, but I have no sense of what do you do with the space in your mind? I can hear it in your music now that you bring it up yeah it's there and it's where i learn how to sing i mean in the baptist church i mean i don't cling to those values sure anymore well that's probably good um yeah i mean i i just you know it's, all these weird accidents happen to you. And I just kind of stumbled on classical music.

And my mother started me playing piano when I was real young. So there was a piano teacher. Yeah. There was a really good piano teacher in Odessa. That can be a lifesaver, just one person in town. That's right, right? It's true. Started really getting into Beethoven and Chopin.

Really? Bach and all that stuff, and I started playing music. You started getting beat up regularly. Yeah, I started getting my ass kicked like every day in Odessa, Texas. By the rigors. By the jocks. Rigger kids. Well, I'm Odessa, Texas.

That's Friday Night Live's territory. Right. That's Mojo, Permian High School. So you were sort of the nerdy music kid? I was beyond ner territory. Right. That's Mojo, Permian High School. So you were sort of the nerdy music kid? I was beyond nerdy. Yeah. There's an album title.

I was the object of derision. You were the one. Totally. There was no other. There was no crew. There was no support. You were it. There was no crew.

There was Darren and there was some other dorks. You know, big, tall, like lanky guy, red hair. And then where'd you grow up? I grew up on Long Island, so yeah. The chances of our meeting were pretty slim. Which town? From Smithtown on Long Island on the East Shore.

Yeah. On the North Shore, sorry. I haven't been there in a while. But yeah, I'm a New York Jew. No connection to Texas or Mexico whatsoever. Couldn't understand a word he said when he showed up in New York. It was like he spoke another kind of English. That was probably the attraction.

My daddy is like, you know, hello, you know. And her father is just like, I can't understand a word. Forget it. So you went to New York and you met her there. When did you start in the music?

Well, this is so sad. He went to Long Island, to SUNY Stony Brook, where I was going to college, thinking, because it's 60 miles from New York, but it's Long Island, which is a long 60 miles from Manhattan. It's another world. So he went there thinking, well, 60 miles in Texas isn't very far, so he'd be right outside of the city. It's true. But it was a dust bowl. So you went there thinking, well, 60 miles in Texas isn't very far, so he'd be right outside of the city. It's true.

But it was a dust bowl. So you went there for college? Yes, graduate school. In what? Music history. Really? Yeah. Did you finish?

Not even applied. Yeah, I have a master's degree. You have a master's degree in music history? Yeah. Well, that's impressive. It's okay. Oh, yeah. It's like gravy train.

Well, it's like, yeah, I spent whatever, like seven years just not even, it's not even playing music. It's thinking about music. Right. And writing music and looking at the way it, you know, unrolls over time. But that informs something. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to do it. Yeah.

You didn't have any plans. form something yeah well i just wanted to do it yeah i didn't have any plans i was when i went to unm yeah where i graduated from you know they were always trying to encourage people oh you'll never get a job doing this yeah so you should go into music education right i don't want to be a fucking band teacher the drunky kind of like angry dude trying to get a bunch of freshman degree music. Now we're going to learn right of spring. That's right. One, two, three, four.

What's that song? The Baby Elephant Walk. The Baby Elephant Walk. Right, right, right. That's zany. Yeah, right, exactly. It's a marching, it's like always

a stage band number. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah, that's it. So you're, but you're not making music or you are when you go to graduate school you went to unm oh yeah i started um i went to unm and i did all kinds of music most of it kind of weird avant-garde what year uh i graduated from there in 85 from unm so i went to to New York in 86. Really? Yeah.

So you were doing like noise music? Yeah, it was also in a new wave band that I wrote all the songs for. It was a real new wave band. What band? Just you? It was a band called Sleep. There's a band called Sleep, strangely enough, from Albuquerque that's actually very popular.

They tour internationally. But that was your band in the 80s, your art band? It had nothing to do with me, but that was the name of my band, yeah. Right. They took it later. It was probably just some weird sidegeist or something. I knew a guy who did experimental music that, when I was in high school, changed my life. This guy, Steve LaRue.

And he had a band called Jungle Red that played twice a year. This sounds kind of familiar. It's just him and another dude who I think has since passed. And it involved, there was guitars that were taped with duct tape and hit during the show. There was pottery breaking, a fiesta ware destroying. Oh, so this is an avant-garde situation. Very much so.

People like that can change your life. They do, man. They really do. So who sort of, and what was your musical background? The Ramones. The Ramones. They were just a local band I saw every weekend. Did you go?

You were part of it? Yeah, so I had no concept that there was a punk rock movement. It was just, we all liked the Ramones and the New York Dolls. She went to the Ramones when they were like, you know, their audience was like girls. And before, there was a mosh pit. Like in the mid York Dolls. She went to the Ramones when they were like, you know, their audience was like girls and before there was a mosh pit. Like in the mid-70s? Yeah, and then I remember

going to London in like the early 80s and seeing somebody with the Ramones, like the Ramones, one of their albums painted on the back of their jacket

and I was like, oh my God, it's somebody from Long Island. Never occurred to me. No, they're like heroes over here. Someone else might have heard of the Ramones. So it's like, you from the island? Uh-huh. No, no.

Well, it's interesting how that whole time, like how much the American thing did inform the British thing. Like I've only put that together recently. I just talked to Legs McNeil a couple weeks ago because they reissued a new, they did another, a new issue edition of please kill me, which is the greatest book ever written.

And, but like I talked to Chrissy Hine, I taught, I've talked to people about that, that when the heartbreakers showed up in London, it was like a huge game changer when Johnny thunders and those, that's great. Oh yeah.

But you were watching them when you were a kid, basically? Yeah, you know, it was just local music. You go into the city. Yeah, you go to, you know, take the train into the city and then, you know, you get the 5 a.m. train back and you say you slept over your friend's house and here you are. You used to see them on Long Island. Yeah, there was a lot of

clubs all over Long Island. Just weird little cheap clubs. Yeah, it was really a sad moment when suddenly these guys with skinheads showed up and pushed us girls to the back of the room. But these were our boyfriends for a long time. These were people we just loved. It was because it was just rock and roll at that time. But Joe Ramone, I mean, he did some really, really pop, beautiful, sweet songs. We were all in love with him.

And he's so, like, I just watched some stuff. I just watched a documentary on danny fields and they had a lot of footage of joey dancing and stuff and he was so sweet it's pretty lovable yeah it is it's i once saw him and his father at this at viselka eating soup opposite each other and it was just so cute because they were just having lunch but the profile was the same, just a little Joey DeVoe dad. Amazing. So did you play in rock bands then? I played bassoon. What?

I don't know why. I think I wanted the oboe, but I said the wrong name, and then I wasn't too embarrassed to take it back. But this is starting to make sense, though, with his education, and then you played bassoon, and it's sort of like kind of weird, dense, almost atmospheric music you do now. It kind of lends itself towards both your skill sets. Maybe so. Come on.

Maybe there's some sense to it. But no, I just wanted to have a boyfriend who was in a band. Maybe that was like the height of dreams I had. When we met in college, we definitely had record collections that had a Venn diagram. It's like, oh, you got the Meat Puppets, cool. You got the Minutemen. Up on the Sun. Meat Puppets 2,

of course. I talked to Kirk. We toured with Kirk. That was interesting. They are interesting. They're amazing. They don't commit to any sound. They just do what they want. Yeah. A lot of people do that. They just do what they want. Yeah. Not a lot of people do that.

No. They're kind of fearless. They're kind of into it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. Trippy shit. Yeah.

It is trippy shit. When I was in his presence, we were in another dimension. That was Kirk's dimension. That was beautiful. He's definitely one of those guys. Yeah. Guy's own time zone. Yeah.

You know? Well, he's one of those guys. Yeah. This guy's on Time Zone. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Well, he's seen it all. Well, what other stuff were you guys going to see? Like, what other records? Butthole Surfers. We used to go see Butthole Surfers. And we used to go to CBGBs.

Really? You like those guys, huh? Yeah. But then I think you maybe played me one of your dad's eight tracks of Patsy Cline, and I was sort of, that was it.

I was ruined. Well, there was that time when everything kind of collapsed, like before the whole indie rock explosion, like before Nirvana. Yeah. And after punk was definitely dead, and post-punk was even dead, there was this period that really sucked, and everyone was kind of casting around for something to listen to and then yeah you start listening to your dad's old

hank williams and patsy cline stuff and you're like this is the shit right this is the same thing yeah you know and i know that's a cliche and everybody says it but i don't know but it's a road that leads backwards forever right so it's it's a cliche and everybody says it, but the first time I heard Hank Williams, I was like, But it's a road that leads backwards forever. Right. It's only a cliche to this small community of people that would consider it a cliche. To most normal people, or not normal people, mainstream people, it's like, you listen to who?

Yeah, yeah. Hank, you mean Bo Sevis? Right. I think there's generations of people over and over again who find Hank Williams, who find the Harry Smith anthology of American folkk Music. Things that are these gateposts that open up worlds to people. But over and over again, people find them and think they're the only ones who've ever heard this.

But we all end up just on this time travel backwards and backwards. It's never ending. I'm just now starting to get into... I listen... I'm back buying vinyl. You got vinyl? Yeah, of course. And those Tammy Wynette records,

the George Jones records, and the Patsy Cline records, and these folk records. That guy Hurley, is his name Mike Hurley? Do you know that guy? Yeah, he's a guitar player. Yeah, that first album on Folkways, he's like destroying me.

I don't have that record, yeah. Bert Jansch, I just started listening to. Oh, he's great. Oh, yeah. Yeah, then you get into all that Scottish, British Isles kind of stuff. destroy I don't have that record yeah Bert Jansch I just started listening to oh he's great oh yeah yeah then you get into all that Scottish British Isles kind of stuff

that stuff's awesome next thing you know you'll be looking at 16th century broadsides trying to read the music going back to stage band we've gone down I got it

ready now we've gone down that rabbit hole you know with the whole English folk yeah yeah

Martin Carthy trying to trace some of these folk songs backwards it goes forever and it folk songs backwards it it goes forever and it goes across you know it goes into other countries and then it comes here through appalachia yeah right right appalachia yeah and it must be here from the revolution i mean scott's irish yeah and you can hear it all through the country music yeah yep it's wild man you know

what else fascinates me is the is the the accordion in Mexican music coming from the Germans and Polish why were the Germans in Texas they were because

oh this is good not a very nice story but the Mexican government paid Germans Western Europeans to come you can come have some land

if you agree to kill some Indians so basically they were like kill some Apaches you agreed to kill some Indians. So basically they were like, kill some Apaches, you can have a farm. Yeah, so these Germans and Poles and a lot of Europeans came and were Mexican citizens and then they decided,

well, we've killed all the Apaches, now let's kill the Mexicans and become our own country. And that's kind of why Texas wanted its independence, but they became part of America. And so that was what the Alamo was kind of about too. Oh my God. See, like, I'm glad you're teaching me history.

She's a voracious reader. A lot of people in Texas will tell you, oh, yeah, my family used to be Mexican citizens. And they think that maybe they have some kind of Spanish roots. But really, it's just that their families agreed to come over and kill Indians. Sure. And, you know, there was money for scalps, too. That was when the Mexican government was giving money for any dark-haired scalp. So that was kind of a bad thing.

Even Mexican indigenous people. Yeah, if you found a long-haired, dark, black-haired scalp, you could get money for it. Wow. That wolf pelts were pretty good commerce back then. Right. Because there's that bit in, is it, which Peckinpah movie is it? The Wild Bunch? Maybe.

Where the Germans bring the cannons? Yes. Right. But that's where all the polka came from. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. The Mexicans did some good stuff with that music.

Great. Amazing. So, all right. So you're not in bands. You're playing bassoon. Yeah. She was writing. I was always wanting to be a writer,

which, you know, another worthless pursuit in a lot of ways but come on now didn't know what to do with it but you do write now

you have books yeah I do well she writes all the lyrics yeah all the I don't write any lyrics

no you're the music guy I come from a long history of I think you know dark storytellers so well that's the thing

about like because I think most of, at least a few records I listen to, I don't know, I don't go back to the 90s with you guys, but they seem to be concept records in that they're whole pieces. I hope so. They're records instead of albums.

Right. And they, you know, the last one was, is that the one in the box? Yeah, with the animals, yeah. Oh, my God. People kept asking me if it was a children's record, though, so it got a little confusing, but it is not a children's record it would be one of those children's records that's a life changer yeah she wanted it to be like a medieval bestiary but one of the things everybody's like oh it's a it's a kid's record one of the things that

informed my childhood was my parents um they had all two sets of records we had either um jewish comedy records alan sherman alan sherman tom lara or we had folk music like from the 50s in greenwich village so they had they had peter paul and mary and they had the kingston trio and they had burl ives and they put those records for me to go to sleep to thinking of them as very calming records but if you listen to the lyrics to those songs they're usually quite terrifying songs yeah i made the mistake burl burl's a little haunting yeah burl is like i kind of remember him from variety shows when i was a kid that voice is quite quite otherworldly and and those songs that he's saying were always about you know little things happened in the woods but swimming in the water

but uh and then he you know the whole story of Burl Ives is even scarier because he was the one who testified before like some senate committee that Pete Seeger was a communist he was a

yeah he's a name a namer of names so then he became a sort of persona non grata in the book yeah so he kind of

got swept to the side but and then Pete Seeger but that so that's really the difference between sort of uh populist you know music about issues and then Pete Seeger but that so that's really the difference between sort of populist

you know music about issues and then fairytale music yeah it is like Burl I was saying a lot of fairytale music is what I would say

and I think I think I you know you say you fuck your mind up well I feel like I've kind of found Burl Ives again in my life so I was looking for him

oh thanks a lot no in a beautiful way he's everything to me that was when I shaped everything about my life was late at night listening to those Burl Ives records I was looking for him. Oh, thanks a lot. No, in a beautiful way. He's everything to me. That was when I shaped everything about my life, was late at night listening to those Burl Ives records and just frozen in fear. You know, the kind of terror you can only have when you're a little kid and you can't move.

You're so terrified of the songs. Oh, so they really hit you like that. Because that's what fairy tales were. Yeah. They were these portals into the dark, morally slippery universe of humans. Yeah, they can open up doors that maybe you don't expect. Do you remember a song that just made you go like, oh, shit?

What's the Little Black Bug? Little Black Bug. Yeah, the Little Black Bug swimming in the water. That one's quite terrifying. But even like on top of Old Smokey, the ones that, you know, My Darling Clementine, those songs are really terrifying. Horrible, people die in them. And like My Darling Clementine, not only is she drowning,

but her father's watching her going, sorry, dreadful sorry, but I ain't coming in there to get you. You look so pretty when you're drowning. Those songs have become muted over time and don't have that. I know. You really look at them, it's like, whoa. But they've got to connect with you on that level. And they did you.

I mean, I know those songs kind of, but I don't register them in that same way. We're not supposed to anymore. We're supposed to just enjoy the pretty melody, but I made the mistake of listening. I think that was always the point on some level. I don't think they were made to terrify children. No, certainly not.

My parents wanted me to go to sleep. They didn't want me up in their room screaming at night about things under the bed. They wanted... I wonder what the intent was. Why those stories? I think that must come from the the sort of like english and gaelic tradition of yeah living a hard life some of them were no like newspaper stories they were about actual events uh-huh i mean there may have been commemorate an event i

feel like there may have been a theory that if you terrify the child enough they'll be too scared to get out of the bed so that could have worked as as well. Or maybe it's more like buying a pet so the kid will learn about death. Like buy the kid a gerbil. I'm not telling my kid about death, but listen to this record and I'll come back in an hour and see how you're doing. Exactly. Life is hard. Here's a fun way to learn that. We need that now, you know. Yeah.

And it is important. I think kids need to. Do you feel like you're on a mission? Yeah, well, I mean mean I wouldn't say that But I do think that We have a strange reluctance To discuss mortality In America

As if we If we just don't say it It won't happen Oh yeah we hide old people It's not the case Yeah and you know We're very Yeah we're

Not even death But old age We're afraid to even Exactly Say anything about So Yeah well there was a time Where you know

where people grandma used to die in the living room with everybody around her yeah in a bed that the hospital bed right do you did you have that in your life no no that must have been small town though i mean that like how did people die in odessa texas well odessa was bigger but yeah playing dominoes in the bank and just keel over? You'd go look at them in the church, you know, and then you'd carry them to the graveyard, which is 200 yards away, and you'd put them in the ground. When did you start making music together? We were married for five years before we ever wrote a song together. And you were playing your avant-garde music?

I was always doing my thing. Oh, I was playing pop bands in Chicago. You had a-garde music? I was always doing my thing. Oh, I was playing pop bands in Chicago. You had a good heavy metal band? I played rockabilly bands. When did you get to Chicago? We moved to Chicago.

She went to graduate school in Ann Arbor for creative writing. Oh, that's a good town. Cha-ching. It was a good town. And it's good for that. It's a good program for that.

It's good music history there. Yeah. And it's a nice college town. There used to be a pretty good comedy club there. Yeah. It was a nice town. There used to be a pretty good comedy club there. It was a nice town. It was an easy town to be a kid in. Only so much trouble you could get into. Yeah, it's a college town.

We wanted to live somewhere a little realer, and Chicago was as real as it got back then. I like Chicago. Yeah, I love Chicago. It's my second home. It's a great place to try to be an artist. It really is an encouraging place. How so? Because I talk to a lot of people from the comedy world but i haven't talked to anybody really about the music world of chicago when we lived there in late 80s early 90s it was just sort of deserted so you could you could get

your own uh huge warehouse space and open a theater you could you know have a band practice there you could do whatever you wanted nobody really cared so it was great sort of um a lot of raw space yeah we would just go to people's people everyone had a loft space and everyone was just doing their thing there and it was really really exciting so you had one of those sort of like uh you know home slash loft slash performance environments it was a dump it was five it was 3 000 square feet and it was 500 a month. And you didn't have shows, you had parties where people were... There were parties and shows.

They were happenings. Yeah. They were parties. Just leave the door open and see if people come. They were parties. And who were some of the people

on the scene there? Anybody that kind of transcended? Hey, look, Liz Phair's here. Yeah. Well, when all that stuff was coming up,

it was like Liz Phair smashing pumpkin and Serge Overkill and Lounge Axe was like in full effect with the Club Tweety's. Oh, yeah? Great bands from Drag City. Oh, yeah. Everybody in Drag City played there. Palace played there on a regular basis.

Bloodshot Records, all those bands. All the Insurgent Country stuff was coming up at the time, too. Bloodshot just got founded. I mean, it was a really fun... I get a lot of records from Bloodshot Records. There's definitely a context there. Yeah. The Americana

kind of. Yeah. We're all friends and we contribute usually to their compilations. Oh, you do? And Jeff really seemed like he was really inspiring to so many people. He was sort of helping a lot of people. Jeff was in our lives he was then yeah so that was how we met him oh really it was in chicago yeah and did he did you work with him yeah and he loaned us a lot of

equipment his wife ran lounge acts which was the great club in town and so um yeah through her we met him and a lot of bands met him and he just was so helpful to everybody anybody he could help he did and he gave a lot of people great support slots and he gave us

all the equipment we used for our third record he lent us to use for like six months we got all this equipment we could have never afforded

but initially where was where was Wilco at that time what year are we talking about this was the beginning yeah but he already

said well actually we've supported Uncle Tupelo so we knew him back then yeah I just met Jeff

for the first time yeah he's a great smart guy and yeah so right after Uncle Tupelo when they'd broken up he was kind of I think he was sort of

like we knew he'd formed another band but nobody had heard it yet and you know and then Sunville came out and they were really

doing well and we thought oh poor Jeff I hope he's gonna be okay but he landed on his feet he did alright he sure did he's okay

you don't have to worry about him he's got enough people following him and Jay kind of kept doing his thing and you know and he kept doing it

and he kind of stayed in that place but yeah that's what happens it's weird and that's what happens. It's weird. And that's cool. I mean, on every record, there's some stellar songs. Like, I don't really understand people that stay in a groove if it's not working,

and they're not being forced to stay in that groove by a record company to be redundant. Like, you know, that... I mean, I understand. I guess if that's the music you play, there's a dedication to it. People do what they do. Exactly. I think you can't... You don't really... It takes a lot of guts to go all over the place. there's a dedication to it. People do what they do. Exactly. You can't. You don't really. It takes a lot of guts to go all over the place.

Well, I think a lot of people do what they think they're expected to do, too, which is kind of a bugaboo. Yeah, but who's expecting you to? Yeah, I don't know. Your audience. Right. It's like, I need more up-tempo songs on this record. I don't know.

Because it's going to be boring. I don't think anybody thinks about that anymore. I'm going to lose my alternative country fans if there's not enough honky-tonk numbers I guess that's true I don't do that anymore but I used to

yeah you don't do it anymore I don't think about that anymore record sales aren't important anymore why no well that's it that's very true the people you're playing to you're inventing them

first of all they're in your head usually that's true if there is guys that are thinking like you who the fuck needs them like you know those four people like sold out huh there is no selling out anymore i mean well yeah but that's like if you have a certain type of brain that's insecure

or dark that you know instead of going like we're doing new things and this is great you're going to be like no that one dude stew is going be upset he's gonna be pissed if i don't have the dang dang dang you know no that's just no i mean this this any kind of creative life is so hard to navigate and survive in that you might as well do what you what gives you joy because there's no other reason you know it's like you find your voice over time though you do stop worrying about shit like that you do and so this is what i'm doing now yeah i'm so you make a decision and you carry on yeah i i'm surprised that that there are definitely waves of insecurity that continue to come oh yeah my god i don't think that ever ends it's crazy i mean they just

just give it yeah they say everyone i've ever been jealous of and when i've met them and talked to them they're always just as trembly as i am never ends they're all fucking nuts and they hate themselves and they're having a hard time it as I am. It never ends. They're all fucking nuts and they hate themselves and they're having a hard time. It's sort of like this disappointing, it's a disappointing moment when you realize

you wasted all that energy assuming things were so amazing. This person is having an amazing life and you meet them and they're like, I'm at the end of my rope. Yeah.

It kind of made me love all my idols even more realizing that we're all just doing this because this is what we want to do there is no which idols though did you get to meet

where you were sort of Lou Reed I think was one especially that you know he was somebody yeah I thought well if I was ever Lou Reed everything would be okay

but he had problems obviously just like anybody else and you know we played some big shows with him we did some Leonard Cohen shows with him where we were all doing Leonard Cohen songs

so we spent a lot of time backstage because we were all doing like one or two songs. So talking to him and just. Just talking about nothing. Just a sweet. Yeah. Generous.

Because you don't go to Lou Reed's. Gentle man. Was he? Man. I'm your biggest fan. Because when somebody comes up to you. Yeah. I mean, it's nice and you appreciate it.

Yeah. But when people come up to you and say, oh, I love you, man. I love blah, blah, blah. It's like. Yeah. There's a little spark in you that says, well, cool i'm this shit yeah yeah but you know you've heard it and it's like this just doesn't no yeah it doesn't solve all your problems really advance the plan right and then you got a gracious you go from like i'm this cool man thanks yeah yeah

so yeah when i did the same thing i asked him about a question about, what are those bells on Let Love In? And he's like, oh, yeah, we had this big thing in the studio. He's excited. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, people, something, you know. So Nick Cave and Lou Reed, now we're getting into the area. That's the idol area. Now we're getting into the tone.

There's like a transcendent grace in this music that isn't in the person when you sit down and talk to them in everyday life. They're not shining. They're not glowing. They're the vessel. They might be an asshole. They might just be a racist.

Yeah, regular guys. Right? Yeah, I remember hearing recently, I heard Loretta Lynn on a show for a record she had just put out, and they started talking to her about politics, and I was like, don't do it. Well, because of course she's going to be who she's going to be she comes from where she comes from and it didn't necessarily even taint her for me you know like i i would have assumed as much sure it makes it more mysterious though i think if you don't talk

about it no i think i'm saying when i hear the person and i realize they're just a person that isn't extraordinary in any way shape or form except when they do this one thing where suddenly the world takes on another dimension. I use music as a drug in a way. It's taken me just getting older to get into the depth of even listening to lyrics. I like a hook. You like a more visceral thing. I do.

So Leonard Cohen's a lot more intellectual maybe. I'm getting there maybe I'm getting there I'm getting there with some of these folk singers now but I still have to pay attention you want to feel it in your gut first I definitely do

I want to feel it in my heart first so maybe it's like the emotion comes from me in words first well sometimes I'm going top down and you're going bottom up

yeah I guess so but we can meet in the middle occasionally sure that's what's kind of interesting definitely it but like what

when did you make the first record the late 90s early 90s early 90s 93, 94 and that wasn't like the records

you're doing now though that was kind of yeah watering around in the forest oh yeah but not defining the forest

the seeds were definitely there of what we were going to do later, but there was a lot of, well, shit on there too. It's an interesting document, but it's kind of like, and it was recorded well, but it's like, we were under the influence of a lot of Seattle kind of bands.

And you were like mentally different. Yeah, there's definitely a pre-medication, post-medication. Yeah, pre-medication, post-medication. Pre-bipolar experience. You were bipolar your whole life and you didn't know it or did it get worse? That's when I... It gets worse. That's when it... I know.

I'm my old man. It came to a head. You get caught when it gets worse. The year after that, 1995, was when it reared its head. Oh, really? Yeah. Where it was tangible? Where I...

It was untenable he got locked up where i couldn't function basically they came out with the big where i was a danger to myself and others really was it a mania or was it a depression oh you don't get arrested for depression yeah the mania is what gets you yeah and and what uh yeah. And how grand was it? Well, I was committed to a state facility. For what action? What did you decide that made people go, maybe he needs help? It was a combo.

It was combo number five. Yeah. It started out when you drew that little i was real i kind of assaulted a big security guard kind of person oh yeah in the mag mile oh yeah this is in chicago yeah i was driving around my car drinking champagne and eating cat food totally i don't know why you didn't have to eat cat food. It was easy. It was convenient. You didn't have time to make a sandwich. And I was at a place

where I thought feeding my body obviously I've gotten over that that was a nuisance and a distraction that I could no longer deal with. So you had a good manic system. I was going to consume only what I needed to stay afloat. Enough for a small kitten Yeah, I was going to consume only what I needed to, to stay clothed.

Enough for a small kitten. And I was drinking that black champagne that comes in the black bottle. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That cheap shit. Fresh Annette, they sell it wide open. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is that? So I was at Fresh Annette.

And you were building a portable recording studio in the car. Your sponsor, Fresh Annette. A portable recording studio in the car. In the car, yeah. So I think you were not planning. You had big plans. Yeah, the car. He had big plans. Yeah, I had a lot of big plans. He had a lot of diagrams around the house with electricity

and pyramids. He had pyramids and electricity. Schematic diagrams. Yeah, he had some things figured out. A beautiful mind. I was working on another level. Some kind of psychic battery. It was weird because every now and then I would hit on something that would be

pretty interesting. Dolphins and pillows and various strange connections. But most of the time it's just gibberish. And then you get to this place where, you know, like you just talked about. And you guys are married at this time. Yeah. And you're dealing with this. Yeah.

Yeah. You thought maybe he does have something. Well, I mean, the pyramid could be a battery. How am I? I can't argue with that. This thing about teepees and reverse cones and vortexes. And also crucifixes were electrical. Crucifixes, positive and negatives.

There was some physics involved that wasn't completely crazy. Yeah, he created a personal Kabbalah. Yeah, he created a personal Kabbalah. On top of everything, I was drinking a lot and doing drugs that were misprescribed. I think you were prescribed antidepressants and that wasn't helping. They were giving me antidepressants. They don't take you down. That was just taking me over the edge. Yeah, it may have been a mistake.

So I was fucked up. Yeah. Were you making any music? That's the thing. I mean, people have this. You don't get a lot of work done in that phase of life. You got diagrams. Since I made this public, you always get this thing.

Oh, you must get a lot done when you're. You don't get anything done. You don't. And it's like you mentioned Byron. It's like this whole fiery genius, crazy diva. That's a dangerous ideology to me. It is. My advice is take your meds.

You're right, especially if you're the only one that thinks that. Right. Because when you're- Mental hospitals are not full of artists. No, they're full of really tortured people. Yeah. And it's hard to get work done when your brain is totally disconnected. Do you remember the elation of it?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so you were in the hospital for a while? Two weeks, yeah. And they got you level? Yeah. Well, he kept saying to me, he seems like he's pretty rational, but he was talking about that he's going to tour Europe with his band.

I was like, no, that one's actually true the rest about the the batteries and the pyramids i've got to get out of here doc i'm supposed to tour i'm supposed to go to a tour of germany and it was like he's clearly still delusional that was the real part so so i mean yeah it's that's catch 22 situation so now you have a new record coming out? We do, yeah, September 16th. It's going to be in a big pretty box? Yes, I hope so. Yeah, the LPs are on their way. I would have brought you one, but we will send you one.

Vinyl's getting hard to do lately. We got a transparent green vinyl on the way, but it's very slow. Those vinyl factories are way back up. Yeah, see-through green vinyl. Yeah, it's pretty. I like it. Yeah, I'll get one. I'll get one.

So how many records did it take so the the first record was post you being properly two before two two pre-medication records yeah and then after you leveled off was that when you sort of found the groove that you kind of built on i think medication without it we wouldn't have a band we wouldn't have a marriage. We wouldn't have a marriage. For both of us, I'm on medication too, so it's not just him. Well, that's nice. You can have something to do together in the morning. We shop for pill cases together. That's right.

You can buy pill boxes. I prefer a small one. I think it's important to realize that medication can save people's lives. No, absolutely. There's some really amazing drugs out there not all of it is necessary but for us it's been well the difference between life and death and you can function and if you don't romanticize the madness yeah well that's the hardest thing i think for the bipolar thing is like you like the manic yeah yeah but kind of

miss it nostalgia but he got far enough into it where it wasn't fun anymore. It's scary. You were on fire. You know, it's like the waves are like this. Small waves. The roller coaster wasn't fun anymore. Instead of like this. Right, right. I get it. It's a few days.

I mean, I still have mood swings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're always going to be bipolar. Essentially, it's about the work, too. I mean, when you make a record, it's not... I mean, and I record every... I write the music. I record it. I the work, too. I mean, when you make a record, it's not... I mean, and I record every... I write the music. I record it.

I basically play almost everything. So it's like, this is work. This is not some... Right. No, you've got to... Nonsense, you know? And you've got fans now. And you've got people that enjoy the records.

So you've got to do the work. It's your job. Yeah. But now... We enjoy doing the work of course well you're artists so that you know i'm not saying i enjoy being sane is what i'm saying it's it's not like yeah but then you can at least manage it and you know your limitations and you know the the con you know what you like to work within so like on this record the last record

as you said was sort of a animal record yeah yeah because i i and i like i had the songbook like it's weird because i don't know you guys that well but when like i was very obsessed when i i couldn't find my handsome family songbook i was like that thing's a real thing i need where is it where did i put it like i have like because like there's certain records where i'm like i i don't i'll listen to it but then i'm like that's a precious item is it like the blue the little blue yeah yeah i don't know where it came from was it in the box i probably yeah we probably sent you a bunch of things yeah yeah and i was like this is important yeah it's cool it took forever to do that because it was before like pro tools oh really yeah so i had to use this it was a mess it's not i just feel like our songs the way we

write songs and the way we want our songs to be perceived i want them to be things that other people can sing that they should they're not about us they're just about about songs that should live on be bigger than us but also they're they they are simple to to a point but but the the sound is kind of there that you do whatever is left from the darkness. There is a haunting quality to the music and in it, not in a bad way in an atmosphere. How can haunting be bad? Well, I mean,

you know, they're not, they're not burrow. I've scary, but no, we got work to do then. No, they are.

No, I like classic rock and classic country. Yeah. Those are probably my biggest songs. Right. But there is a tone that you guys seem to share. Sure. And you're aware of that. No what you do you know i think that's really all you it's probably pretty deliberate so how how are you working you record all over your house and you have a studio set up is it are you an analog freak or what do you do

um i get a lot of analog outboard gear but it it all goes in the box. You have to, right? I can't do tape. It's too expensive. It's too hard to maintain. I do appreciate the importance of warming the signal up before you go in. But in this day and age, it's like... It's silly not to pretend computers don't exist. Everything's going to get dithered down eventually to digital anyway. Because that digital anyway because that's how everyone's listening on earbuds from youtube on their phone it's gonna be listening to to the record on spotify at like you know yeah 128k right like mp3 quality so right

yeah to do ever to spend that kind of money to do an analog is kind of crazy. Although I appreciate the fetishistic aspect of that. Yeah, I wouldn't take that away from somebody if that's their thing. It's cool. Well, it's funny because Jack White will make those direct to acetate records, but there's always buzzes and fucked up things on them. But that's part of what he's looking for. I don't mind it, but you do notice it, and you're sort of like, oh, that's just a live performance.

I guess that buzz is going to be all the way through this record. It's kind of cool. Yeah. So what's the new record? Is it a whole piece? Yeah, it's about, well, it's mostly about colors. It was my basic theme. But yeah, it's stories about things that aren't easily seen,

things that are just on the edge of visibility. So, hold on, see. For instance, the title says it all. Well, maybe, I don't know if you remember. Have you been to the state fair here when you were a kid did you remember seeing this world's smallest horse yeah tiny tina well every year i went there's a song about tiny tina so 75 cents for a few years a dollar they went up to a dollar and i still didn't go and then one year i said this is the year i'm going to go

see tiny tina and then she wasn't there oh no, no. So I never saw Tiny Tina. I was obsessed with human oddities. So when I was a kid, when Ronnie and Donnie were still touring, the Siamese Twins. Oh, really? I saw Ronnie and Donnie. I saw the world's smallest man there. I saw the guy with the elephant feet.

I saw, like in human oddities, they're not easy to come by. It was sort of the end of it. I saw the wild woman. That was sort of a sad moment because it was just a little woman who was in a box. It's a job.

Well, that was it. That was the funny thing. The box is the killer. Like no one was going to see her. They just weren't interested in her, but I went. So I had tickets and I walked up the ramp to look in

and she was just like doing some organizing stuff over in the corner. And then she looked, turned around and she saw me and she kind of went like, all right. She picked up a snake. Thanks for the show. I appreciate it. But the Ronnie and Donnie,

that was trippy, man. Cause they, they would just sit in their trailer. They had a fully furnished trailer and they were living siamese twins and they were just sitting there watching television and you would just go like what and they'd have it fairly visible where they were connected but they wouldn't look at you or nothing they just sit there and watch tv and the world's smallest man was like about the size of a slightly large basketball

but he had that weird crippling ailment i don't know what it was and he went sit and talk to him and you'd ask questions and then the guy with the feet, you know, he had these huge deformed elephantiasis feet and the toes were all mangled and weird. This was the only job he was going to get them. Right. And he was wearing like a loincloth and he'd walk in.

He goes, you can touch him. And I'm like, it's five bucks extra. I'm good. Yeah. And then the babies in the jar exhibit, that kind of stuff. Wow.

Yeah, I remember that at White City down by Carlsbad Caverns. Or like The Thing. There are places like that all the time. The Thing, right? The roadside attractions. These things are disappearing. I mean, they're getting cleaned up and people are like, oh, you can't do that. Well, they rarely took care of them, too, because you go to those roadside museums and

a lot of times they're all dusty and rough. Oh, it's nonsense. I'm often afraid that my garage is going to start looking like that if i don't just this weird distraction that used to be relevant oh well so we got uh the the tina so yeah but did you see tiny tina i didn't i did no i did sorry i saw tiny tina yeah compared to the world's smallest man i mean would the smallest man be able to ride her how what size are we talking yeah he would have but it would have been awkward because he wasn't like he wasn't like tom thumb he wasn't a dwarf or he didn't have dwarfism he had something else

so he wasn't a horse rider but i didn't look like a horse rider no i regret seeing her but i don't regret seeing her you know that's about that's like so much in life Diffidence And what's it going to be called the album? It's called Unseen There's some historical stuff about William Crooks was one of my favorite scientists Who basically Designed a vacuum tube Late 1800s

In Victorian England To try to capture ghosts It was a ghost cage That's the origin of the vacuum tube. Really? All guitar amps are really ghost trappers. He put a filament inside a vacuum tube and was trying,

we moved it around the room and when he became excited, he was like, oh, there's a spirit. But what he was really detecting were like ions in the air or other kind of RF. So he wasn't really wrong.

No, he wasn't wrong. Not really. But that turned into the tube, ions in the air or other kind of rf but so he wasn't really wrong no he wasn't wrong not really no i mean that turned into the tube which that to me is that we all just bought again we're back to ghosts in the glass get a kickback from it so they're making money on the other side well thank god thank god i knew there had to be a conspiracy to the return to analog is that the ghost needed money. Well, it was great talking to you guys. Yeah, it was a real treat. That's your doubleheader WTF. All right.

Go to WTFpod.com for all your WTF pod needs. I'll be in Chicago this Saturday, day after tomorrow, if you're listening to this on Thursday. I think there's still tickets available for the second show. I'll be in Chicago this Saturday day after tomorrow. If you're listening to this on Thursday, I think there's still tickets available for the second show. I believe there is. You can go to WTF pod.com slash tour to get a link to those tickets. Um, I'm not going to play guitar today cause I got to go do some painting.

I'm going to help, uh, my buddy paint my, uh, bedroom. All right? Okay. Boomer lives! We'll see you next time. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats.

But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. Thank you. licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.