Greetings From The VMA Red Carpet
I’m holding down the fort at 1515 tonight, but I snuck over to Rockefeller Center an hour before the carpet opened. One word: chaos.
Thing about Rock Center — unlike Miami’s American Airlines Arena — is that it’s a functioning office complex with a tourist destination built in. It’s crawling with people on an average day. Throw in thre live broadcasts (MTV News’ Pre Show, The Video Musc Awards, Backstage Uncensored on MTV Overdrive), and you’ve got badge-wearing stage crew bumping into gown-wearing wannabes bumping into khaki-wearing Joe America on his way to Applebee’s.
It’s great.
The Pre Show begins in three minutes. I’m about to get swallowed up in all of it: news reports winners, red carpet photos, broadband video, podcasts, what have you. So If I don’t speak with you until sometime Friday afternoon (if at all), please, for the love of Pete, please, visit mtvnews.com, click on an article, launch a photo flipbook, and let that baby autoplay for a few hours. Seriously. My bonus is commensurate with the MTV’s success.
P.S. That’s totally Kurt Loder over there on the top left of the MTV News Home Base. M’ man rules.
Big Easy
There’s a lot going on: the day job (MTV News), the documentary (“Mister Rogers & Me”), the side project (Buckeye), the family (Bolsters, Wagners), and relationship (Abbi). Still, I can’t stop thinking about the next record.
Of course, the occasional email (like the one I got from Lee in London last night — thanks Lee!) notwithstanding, there’s not a ton of demand for a new record. Six records in three years may have fatigued whatever audience I have left. Maybe I’m a little too Ryan Adams for my own good (a danger Casey Shea and I have discussed ad nauseum). And since I barely tour (seven dates last year, ten the year before), and perform less and less in New York City (three shows this year, sixteen last, twenty-two the year before), well, it looks like I’m coming in for a landing. Which I sort of am. But still.
But still I have some songs. “Here She Comes” makes the cut. Likewise “So Hard,” “Runaway,” and “Promise.” “Chasing Something” will be great on the back side. I might dip into the unrecorded catalogue. I still like “The Matador” and “Wishes.” I wrote one yesterday morning called “Welcome To The Great Big Something” which will make a great opening track. Plus I have a few more that haven’t made The Morning Mix, including what is sure to be the title track.
And I have an idea how I want the next one to sound. I don’t want it to be all Pro Tooled. I want it to sound like a few musicians playing together in the same room at the same time. I want to here acoustic instruments, real instruments, like mandolins and banjos, harmonica and tack piano. I want it to sound organic, wooden, and full. I want it to sound like Uncle Tupelo’s “Sandusky” crossed with Bob Dylan’s “Things Have Changed” with a little bit of REM’s “Time After Time (Ann Elise)” thrown in.
Because, as much as I love it, I don’t want Heartland to be the period at the end of my recording career.
So I’ve been batting around a couple of ideas. I want the recording to be location-based, to absorb some local flavor. I’ve thought about taking my guitar and laptop to Nashville for a week and doing it myself. have talked with Jon Locker about recording at his new studio in Des Moines. And I owe Kevin Anthony a trip to Minneapolis.
The winning locale is likely to be New Orleans. And the winning producer is likely to be my cousin, Andrew Wagner. When last I saw Andy, he rcokin’ sunglasses in a rainstorm. He wears his year long tour with World Leader Pretend like a badge. And he wears it well. You know the look: oversized sunglasses, jeans frayed at the edges, that just-out-of bed thift shop vibe. More important than his look, though, is his aesthetic. Andrew had great taste, and a great ear. He always turns me onto something interesting. Like two years ago when we recorded Neil Young’s “Music Arcade” and Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain.” Plus, he loathes big, dumb studio albums. He once said to me, “We’re not on major labels. Why bother trying to sound like we are?” (Course, he joined WLP on Warner Bros. a year later, but… you get the idea.)
It’s not quite a plan, but it is an idea. One I think about often, like the small hours of morning when I can’t sleep, or a particularly difficult long run. Or right now, when I need something to look forward to.
I look forward to making music.
Fair Warning
Most days, it takes a special kind of nincompoop to brave the Fairway Supermarket on 75th & Broadway. At the end of a twelve hour day it takes an absolute masochist.
It’s not just that Fairway attracts septuagenarians like tornados to trailer parks. Worse, Fairway exerts some kind of stupidity tractor beam. Not only are patrons apparently drunk on the sheer volume of green beans, olive oil, and kosher deli meats, they’re absolutely without bearing. Imagine a compass needle in a room full of magnets, strap a shopping cart to it, and you’ve got some idea what shopping there is like.
Fortunately, I have the inside scoop: it’s all about the second floor. Sure, traversing the city block between the entrance and the stairs is tantamount to solving a Rubic’s Cube while biking through Times Square traffic at rush hour. But once you’re there on the second floor, surrounded by boomers with brown rice, yuppies with organic muesli, and yippies with yoga mats, my friends, you have arrived. Heck, old folks can’t even m ake it up the stairs.
Based on the premise that one’s grocery basket reveals something about one’s self, then, here is a list of tonight’s acquisitions:
Amy’s Mexican Bowl
Amy’s Brown Rice Bowl
Amy’s Combination Veggie Pizza
Organic Peanut Butter
Cascade Organic Strawberry Fruit Spread
Organic Valley Extra Large Brown Eggs
Organic Green Grapes
Vermont Organic Multi Grain Bread
Dole Very Veggie Sald Mix
Organic String Beans
Happy Herbert Oat Bran Pretzels
The grand total was $41.64, though I stopped off for a six pack of Harp Lager that ran me another twelve bucks. A couple of beers’ll turn this nincompoop into a blissful savant.
In The Queue For The Lifeboat
“Priorities change,” she said.
My father and his wife flew in from Indianapolis yesterday. They tallied exactly six and a half hours on the island Manhattan, six of which were spent in the company of their newest grandson, Edward, and his big brother, Ethan.
One gets used to playing second fiddle to the grandkids. It is, after all, completely understandable that everyone wants a moment of their great shine. Sometimes, though, it’s a little disappointing.
“Priorities change,” she said.
Abbi and my weekend was all about the New York City Half Marathon. The distance (13.1M), given our current training schedule, was actually something of a break. That it precluded running on Saturday, and mandated recovery on Sunday, though, was a blessing.
Used to be one was walking out the door at eleven. Now, in an effort to get up at five or six o’clock (depending on distance), I’m going to sleep at eleven.
Priorities.
Used to be Saturday nights were Arlene Grocery, pleather pants, and distorted guitars. Now, in an effort to save myself for the thirteen or eighteen miles in the morning, it’s dinner at seven, then “The Hunt For Red October” on HBO.
Priorities.
Used to be the best pace was (as my old friend Derek Thomas used to say) “flat out to ‘Frisco.”
Or, as Steve Prefontaine used to say, “The best pace is a suicide pace.”
Not so much any more. Now it’s a build to a well-timed, explosive finish.
So, we rose before dawn, stretched over coffee and the New York Times, then jogged off towards Central Park’s Engineer’s Gate where we joined ten thousand runners in the queue. Miraculously, my brother spotted us. The first seven miles around the park’s loop were plodding, crowded, and boring. I was short and sharp. As we turned towards Seventh Avenue, though, the gray sky opened up and rained huge, cold drops on us. On the PA system at the edge of the park, Bono’s voice gave me chills.
I hit an iceberg in my life
You know I’m still afloat
You lose your balance, lose your wife
In the queue for the lifeboat
The remaining miles through Times Square and down the West Side Highway were exhilarating. Our 9:15 pace gave way to 8:30s. The city passed like a diorama from our new perspective, there on the empty highway. The Empire State Building and Javitz Center gave way to Chelsea Piers and Gansevoort Market. Soho yielded to Battery Park City, where, in a full-on sprint, Abbi and I crossed the finish mats in 1:55:49.
Back home on the Upper East, Abbi’s sister and boyfriend had scarcely stirred from sleep.
Priorities.
“Whaddya wanna do?” she asked.
“Is sitting around in our pajamas watching bad television a terrible waste of a day?” I followed.
“Nah,” she said, tossing off the adage like a scratchy, old sweater on a muggy summer night, “priorities change.”
Sandusky
My memory of the 452 miles of interstate between Toledo, Ohio, and Syracuse, New York, is desaturated and brushed with a Gaussian blur: gray concrete, barren trees, and generic hillsides.
I drove that stretch dozens of times in college; my father lived in Toledo, my brother lived in Cleveland, and I lived in Syracuse.
My Chevy Celebrity Eurosport (which we called the “New York-o-Sport due, presumably, to its complete lack of even one stitch of European design) came standard with a four-speaker, AM/FM stereo and cassette deck (remember auto reverse!). The compact disc, after all, had not penetrated the mainstream. And so, when I climbed into those cloth, bucket seats for that long drive, I armed myself with a small suitcase full of cassettes.
In the late twentieth century, magazines — Rolling Stone, Spin, Raygun — were still the primary means of record reviews and artist information. I read Rolling Stone religiously, searching — like so many other college music fans — for something new, something cool, and something still below the mainstream radar.
I picked up a lot of good stuff based on the recommendations of reviewers like David Fricke, Tom Moon and Jim Derogatis, essential albums from bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. (Years later, while interning for Men’s Journal, and prior to writing for Rolling Stone Online, I would ask RS founder and published Jann Wenner if he bore any responsibility for the affects of his positive/negative reviews. “Well, we have no evidence to suggest that our reviews have any affect on sales.” Whatever.)
I also picked up tips from the members of my favorite band, R.E.M. I had a manila folder full of photos and articles on the band (remember, these are the early nineties: they had just signed to Warner Bros, Bill Berry was still playing drums, and Peter Buck was still playing guitar). Those clippings provided all sort of clues on influences (Wire, Television), inspirations (Pylon, Love Tractor), current favorites (Chris Isaac, KRS-One), and collaborators (see below).
Uncle Tupelo was a perfect storm. I read a review of the band’s “March 16-20, 1992″ in the back of Rolling Stone. Peter Buck produced the record. Uncle Tupelo, of course, sparked the “alt country” revolution, later splitting into Son Volt and Wilco. At the time, the record — ” a triumph of austere, delicately embroidered acoustic atmospheres that put the emphasis on the narrative” — seemed right in my wheelhouse. So I picked up a copy.
“March 16-20, 1992″ is a far more challenging listen than the review suggested. The sounds are familiar: crisp, strumming acoustic guitar, mandolin, and banjo. But Farrar’s songs are steeped in dusty miners, and union protesters. They’re more Woody Guthrie than Toad The Wet Sprocket. And Jeff Tweedy’s songs — fewer and further between than Farrar’s — lack the intimacy and lyricism of his later work.
One song, though, struck me then, and has stayed with me since.
“Sandusky,” a sweet but substantive 3:43 instrumental, is the last song on “March 16-20, 1992.” It begins with an open-tuned strum, and then is quickly joined by a mandolin, and then a bent-string acoustic hook. Verse by verse, the song builds to its multi-instrumental climax at 1:38 when it’s all hands on deck: acoustic guitars, mandolin, banjo, bass and drums. Just as quickly, though, the bass and drums recede for a verse, then rejoin for the rousing conclusion.
Sandusky, Ohio, as it ends up, lies on the shores of Lake Erie just west of Cleveland on one of the best-protected harbors on the Great Lakes. The one-time hunting and fishing outpost was transformed to a resort town in 1870, when local businessperson Louis Zistel opened a small beer garden, bathhouse and dance floor. In 1929, the classic Cedar Point Cyclone roller coaster — “Scientifically Built for Speed, Thrills and Safety” — opened along the beach. Seventy-seven summers later, Cedar Point amusement park boasts a world-record-breaking collection of 16 roller coasters. The town’s 22-miles of shoreline hosts nearly four million visitors a year.
Chris often regaled me with stories of speedboats and Budweiser. Pictures showed he and his bikini-clad girlfriends leaned back in vinyl seats, cold beers tucked into their coozies. The sun, it seemed, was always setting in Sandusky.
I’m not one for roller coasters, resort towns, or pleasure boating, and I never pulled off Interstate 90 to have a look for myself. Somehow, though, the song and the place and the time fit well together. Every time I hear the song — and I heard it four times on my commute this morning — I am elsewhere. I am gathered up in the arms of great, billowing clouds, and whisked off to an empty beach with a fire pit, a group of friends, and a warm, Indian summer sunset.
The Dawn (And All Its Honesty)
“I think we’re going to be friends,” Tim said, looking up from his signature.
“I think we are,” I replied.
He rose from the small, walnut-laminate desk tucked in the back of Barnes & Noble, and smiled.
“Time for that hug shot,” I said?
“Time for that hug shot.”
Camera and all, Chris got a big bear hug too.
* * *
I left the office at 4:20. Under false pretenses, no less. “I’m Proud Of You” author Tim Madigan (and his Gotham Books publicist, Beth Parker) was due for his “Mister Rogers & Me” interview at Christofer’s apartment at five o’clock. I had to cover forty blocks in forty minutes. And I hadn’t so much as eaten lunch. The 2/3 couldn’t move fast enough. The woman at H&H couldn’t hand me a cinnamon raisin bagel (my poor substitute for lunch) quickly enough. Pedestrians couldn’t get out of my way speedily enough. Steam was rising from my ears. I tried deep breathing, and counting. I looked at my watch…
Tim’s eyes are like sapphires. They twinkle like bright stars. His handshake is firm. His hug, solid. His vulnerability, his sheer sense of submission to that which is greater than him — the Loving Mystery of the Universe — is as apparent as the nose on his face. Here’s a Midwestern-born, Texas-based newspaperman that embodies all that I hope to: humble, honest, expressive, courageous.
We sat together in Chris’ apartment (recast in full-on film lighting — so much so that Chris was worried we’d blow a fuse, and conveniently located one block from the Barnes & Noble at which Tim was reading) for well over an hour. And though I had ripped voraciously through his book, and prepared a notepad full of questions, and though I was playing The Journalist (interviewing, ironically, a journalist), and we were on camera, we had a wonderful, meaningful, candid conversation about (literally) truth, beauty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Tim’s book chronicles his friendship with Mister Rogers within the context of his own personal trials. Mister Rogers unconditional love provided the foundation upon which Tim found himself able to manage life’s great challenges: difficulties in his marriage, with his father, and with the loss of his younger brother.
What I loved most about my time with Tim, perhaps, was his absolute concession that the whole thing — why Mr. Rogers had befriended him, why he had a deep and meaningful friendship with one of history’s great men — was a complete mystery. Likewise that Mister Rogers had brought us together as if by some great design. Here we were, two journalists from the Midwest with ten years and two-thousand miles between us, brought together by the shared friendship of a great man.
“Fred loved bringing people together,” Tim said.
Bo Lozoff might call it a glimpse of the Divine. Amy might call it one of those “impossible to explain away things.” It was just another Great Mystery.
Tim and I covered a wide spectrum of subjects, all of which were deep, simple, and meaningful. Three anecdotes stand out.
In one of their first conversations, Mister Rogers said to Tim, “Do you know what the most important thing in the world is to me right now? Talking with Tim Madigan.”
Presence.
Tim and Mister Rogers were at church together. The congregation had a sharing time at the end of mass. After a few short announcements, an elderly woman stood and began speaking about The Gulf War, hammering away at the current administrations, military hierarchy, soldiers, and the supportive populace. People were rolling their eyes, shifting in their seats, and whispering amongst themselves. But Mister Rogers leaned towards Tim and said, “You can be sure that at some point in her past, she suffered a great personal loss because of war.”
Empathy.
Tim and Mister Rogers corresponded frequently. At one point, Tim decided that he needed to be completely honest with Mister Rogers, to bare his darkest secrets, and deepest doubts. He wrote Mister Rogers a letter explaining that his insides were a mess. He was filled with self-doubt, self-loathing and shame. He asked Mister Rogers if he could still love someone who was so messed up inside. Mister Rogers responded, “I will never forsake you.”
Unconditional love.
What is a friendship, then? How can we be our best? How can we best serve one another?
We can be present with whoever is before us at any given moment. We can practice empathy. And we can love them no matter what.
No small thing.
Towards the end of our conversation, Tim said something about Mister Rogers’ legacy and how it was bearing out in these chaotic times. For an instant, I wasn’t sure whether he thought that virtue, kindness, and empathy were losing the battle with amorality, insensitivity, and narcissism, or that hope, love, and intimacy would prevail over despair, hate, and isolation.
I’m not sure what he said, or how he said it — maybe it was the hug. By the time Chris finished shooting, and we all finally tumbled out of the bookstore — these disparate lives brought together by the one, great, loving man — I knew where Tim stood on the whole thing. And I know where I stand.
Chris and I initially discussed shooting Tim and me strolling up 82d Street towards Barnes & Noble. Filmmakers call it the “walk and talk.” But I decided it was too contrived. Though Tim, Chris and I were likely to make a connection, and develop repoire, feigning a deep friendship within the first hour of meeting one another might be a bit much. Which I told Tim. “So you don’t want the hug shot at the end?” he joked.
“Only if it’s real,” I said.
See Where Lookin’ Pretty Good’ll Getcha?
I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t sure we could pull it off.
Sure, we were rehearsed. We knew our roles. We knew the songs. And yeah, Chris is finally clean and sober. Ryan’s kicked his Advil addiction. And Tony’s back from his six-year exploration of Wicka. But it’s been a long, long time since Buckeye performed. I mean, up until last week, it’d been a long time since the members Buckeye were even in the same room together, let alone making beautiful, awe-inspiring music. So that fact that last night’s reunion show came off at all was, well, nothing short of a miracle.
Try as we might, none of us will ever forget Sunday, June 30, 1996. Chumbawamba had just finished its set on Roskilde’s Yellow Stage. We’d had an amazing time up to that point. Chris had finally met his hero, Mark McGrath, who band, Sugar Ray, was playing the Blue Stage later that afternoon. (They compared hair care products.) Ryan had just turned twenty-one. Heather Nova bought him his first pint. Tony was sitting around smoking Marlboro Reds and drinking Budweiser with Bush bassist Dave Parsons. They were super wasted, chanting, “USA! USA! USA!” And me? Well, I was just trying to get everyone onstage on time. (Per usual.)
The set began well enough. We’d just released our cover of The Smiths “Girlfriend In A Coma” (you know, the melancholy one with really excellent harmonies that makes everyone weep instantly). It was blowing up in the Netherlands, and there were a lot of Dutch there. (In fact, I’ve since come to learn that Roskilde ’96 was Undisputed Heavyweight guitarist Wes Vehoeve’s fist show, and our performance was the reason he first picked up a guitar). There was tension in the air, but it was the good kind, the explosive kind, the kind where the audience is with you, rabidly anticipating your Big Finish.
So we’re totally crushing “Go Let It Out.” Sweat is flying from my spiky mane. Chris kills the solo. Tony’s holding it down. Ryan remembers everything perfectly. Then I notice Grant Lee Buffalo front man Grant Phillips standing in the wings flipping us the bird. Like, he’s just standing there, all straight-faced, silently telling us all to fuck off. I’m not sure why, exactly. I guess because our cover of The Gin Blossom’s “Hey Jealousy” had just bumped his cover of “Boys Don’t Cry” from the Top of the Pops. Whatever.
For some reason (I blame Heather Nova) Ryan lost his shit. He stops dead in the middle of the tune, and starts chucking sticks at him. He nails him square in the solar plexus with a huge marching mallet, the again in the forehead with some brushes. Which was pretty cool. Except then he picks up his snare (I’m sure you’ve seen it all on “Behind The Music,” but still). Which was pretty rock ‘n roll. I wasn’t about to dissuade him. Nor were the 26, 423 fans watching on the JumboTron monitors. Problem is, he takes out, like, half a dozen music execs with his floor tom. I’m talking heavy hitters here: David Geffen, Danny Goldberg, Kevin Lyman, Albert Grossman, and Clive Davis — in one fell swoop.
We never finished the set. We were immediately blackballed, and kicked off the festival grounds. Ryan wandered off with Heather Nova’s guitar tech. Chris disappeared on The Jesus Lizard’s tour bus. Frank Black offered me a ride in his helicopter. And Tony just walked off into the Danish country side with nothing but a backpack and a fist full of quarters.
Ten years later, there we were in front of a sold out crowd at New York City’s Rockwood Music Hall. We were smiling, and playing all the faves like it was 1996 all over again, but thousands of miles later.
Ryan had disappeared completely — no solo records, no clothing line, no acting cameos, no nothing. Tony fell into binge drinking while running a small tarot card shop in Amsterdam. Chris was found drumming on a hollow stump wearing a loin clothe in the deep Amazon. Me? I was running a Mainecke muffler franchise in East Lansing, Michigan.
If it weren’t for our label, Flaming Cochlea, dispatching their young intern, Casey Shea, to the edges of God’s Green Earth to bring us back together again (not to mention our terrific band band therapist, Phil Towl), it never would have happened. But it did, and it was good. Heck, it was great. Epic, even. And I think I speak for the four of us when I say thanks to you, the fans, who held out hope that we’d get back together, who attended all of our fan conferences (“Buck-a-thons”), and kept buying the albums in every new format (vinyl, eight track, cassette, cd, mp3, ringtone).
It’s all about the songs, man. (Well, and the hair.)
Go Let It Out
“Are you with the orchestra?”
I’m waiting in line at Andy’s Deli on the corner of 80th & Columbus, a slice of broccoli and chicken pizza in one hand, a Newcastle Pale Ale in the other. My guitar is slung over my shoulder. The deli is unusually busy for midnight, on accouont, I deduce, of Shakespeare In The Park.
“No, ma’am,” I say. “I’m just in from rehearsal.”
“What’s the name of your band?” she asks as I step out of the door.
For an instant, I consider explaining that the band is a one-off, a super-group comprised of two singer/songwriters.
“Buckeye.”
“We’ll keep an ear out,” her male companion says.
“Cool,” I say, stepping towards my apartment, finally smiling.
I was fifteen minutes late to Buckeye rehearsal tonight due to an extended bout with familial drama. By the time I strapped on my guitar and plugged in, I was bitter and sullen. Miraculously, though, just two hours later, I was beaming.
Buckeye.
Sunday night. Rockwood Music Hall. Free.
You’ll be beaming.
Trust me on this.
Strangeways, Here We Come
I have one of the strangest jobs ever.
Today, New Found Glory stumbled by. Later, American Idol Fantasia Barrino passed by (lookin into my office, they always look into my office), followed just a few seconds later by Chris Brown.
In the last few weeks, I’ve seen Kate Bosworth, Ashanti, Kevin Smith, and Tom Morello just outside my door.
My strangest (and coolest) sighting has to have been Willie Nelson, who looked into my office, tipped his hat and said, “Hello.”
Typically, in the one second it takes whomever it is to cross the three feet of space outside my office, I can get a little nod in, maybe a smile. I’m the square lookin’ white guy sittin’ in the square lookin’ office updating Excel documents and shit.
Strange.
Run From The Darkness
Chris and I were in the middle of a fifteen mile training run a few weeks ago when he turned to me and asked, “Do you think this is the human version of the hamster wheel?”
Abbi and I are knee deep into New York City Marathon training. This week, for example, looks like this:
MON 8/14 – 4M
TUE 8/15 – 6M
WED 8/16 – 5M
THU 8/17 – 5M
FRI 8/18 – 3M
SAT 8/19 – 18M
SUN 8/20 – 3M
It’s not an inordinate amount of mileage, but it adds up. Here’s where I’m feeling it:
Plantar Fasciitis (left): Tension/soreness in my arch
Achilles Tendonitis (right): Tension/soreness behind ankle
Patella Syndrome (right): Burning pain on downhill
Metatarsalgia (right): Soreness on the ball of the foot
IT (right): Soreness in the band that connects hip to ankle
Plus I have injury-induced arthritis in my left ankle (from falling off the stage at CBGB’s — swear to God!). And I’m tired, hungry, and cranky most of the time (especially in the morning — sorry, Abbi).
But before you go dispensing good advices, you should know that I stretch for twenty minutes after every run, and have been doing some core conditioning, and cross training. What I haven’t yet done is a) give up beer (unrelated, but not a bad idea) b) added weight training or c) taken up pilates. All of which are probably requisite prior to November 3.
So, is all of this running around Central Park (and Riverside Park, and the East Side Promenade) just some kind of modern urban hamster wheel? And if so (or not), why bother? Is anything worth this sort of pain and sacrafice?
I don’t know (though my hunch is yes, and yes). I’ll get back to you in 350 miles.
