Music Smarts

Ah, let me lift this heavy oak lid on my treasure chest, the Bonzai Vault. What have we here? An interview with Leonard Cohen at his LA home in 1988. This photo was taken on my second visit, when I interviewed his engineer Leann Ungar in his adjacent private studio in 2002.

Always the gentleman, Leonard prepared an excellent pot of coffee for our conversation.

Here is a bit of the intro:

Let’s set the record straight, once and for all, about this Leonard Cohen. Seems to me that most folks think of him as a dark, brooding, melancholic, depressing fella. Actually, he’s a very funny guy. True, it ain’t the light humor of Sam Kineson or Don Rickles, but if you’re willing to follow him deeply down Dante’s staircase you’ll find the chuckles that echo through the nuthouses and whorehouses of antiquity.

How many characters like Leonard Cohen exist? He’s a songwriter, a poet, a novelist, a painter, and a sharp dresser, too. Onstage, backed by superb musicians both modern and ethnic, with sultry sirens accompanying him like loving ex-lovers, Leonard hangs loose in film noir duds and sings his hard-boiled narratives, sketching underworld scenes with shady undertones and witty asides.

for the full interview in PDF form, click Cohen_Leonard_1988MrB.

We dip once again into the Bonzai Vaults for this 1989 interview with trumpeter and record company executive Herb Alpert. Alpert reflects on his humble beginnings, his lucky breaks, his work as a musician, the artists he helped to develop, and the evolution of an incredibly successful record company in an era that will never return. Shortly after the interview, Alpert and A&M partner Jerry Moss sold their company to Polygram Records for a reported sum of approximately $500 million.

Herb Alpert at Bernie Grundman Mastering in 1999. Photo by Mr. Bonzai.

©1989 by David Goggin, all rights reserved
no reproduction without written permission from mrbonzai@mrbonzai.com

In 1962, Herb Alpert emerged from his little garage studio with a moody blend of melancholy trumpet, bullfight cheers, and dreamy ahh-ahh girls. “The Lonely Bull” launched a career that has racked up 72 million records to date, seven Grammy Awards, and five Number One albums.

If we listen back to his Greatest Hits we find that sound effects and graphic instrumentation were trademarks of many tunes: from the oogah horn of “Tijuana Taxi” to the clapping, whistling and party animals of “America.” “A Taste of Honey” features drummer Hal Blaine’s solitary “bomp, bomp, bomp” and that brassy “boowah” — what a sample! In the Summer of ‘65, not everyone was acting “Like a Rolling Stone” — a lot of folks did the funky chicken and frugged carelessly to “Whipped Cream.” The records are straightforward — we’ve got concept here with sonic imagery and impeccable musicianship.

A&M Records, co-owned by Herb and partner Jerry Moss, has been home to a rather diversified group of chartbusters over the past three decades: Cat Stevens, The Carpenters, Peter Frampton, Supertramp, The Go-Go’s, The Police, Bryan Adams, Janet Jackson, Joan Baez, Quincy Jones, Joe Cocker, the Captain and Tennille, Billy Preston, Suzanne Vega and more than enough gold records to rock a trade balance.

When we arrive at A&M, we pass through the gates of an old movie studio where Charlie Chaplin once called it home. The guard politely directs us down a tree-lined pathway to a rustic little bungalow. If we’re lucky, the softspoken Mr. Alpert might open up.

To read the entire interview, click Alpert_Herb_1989.

In this new installment from the Mr. Bonzai vaults, we step back in time to 1991 for a comprehensive interview with Graham Nash. He is an artist who has been true to his words throughout his career, and it is certainly intriguing to read these words from the perspective of the two decades that have passed.

Graham Nash listening to a playback at Record Plant, 1991. Photo by Mr. Bonzai.

Sessions at the top can be pretty serious, what with the big meter running and careers forging on, but the mood today is relaxed, upbeat, and friendly as Graham Nash steps out of the control room and joins me in the Record Plant studio canteen. The pinball machine fires off a synth riff as the room fills with the aroma of freshly microwaved gourmet popcorn.

Like millions around the world I’ve been touched by this man’s music for many, many years. He was a founding father of The Hollies, the only group in England to score more hits than The Beatles. Perhaps the most enduring soldier of the British Invasion, he pulled up his roots and changed his life at the Woodstock debut of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

It’s appropriate that CSN is three names, three distinct musical personalities. What’s remarkable is the harmonious blend that became a three-headed chimera, and sometimes four-headed. But this group has never been a “group” in the traditional musical sense.

“The individualism became a dominant part of what it was that we wanted to say,” Nash explains. “We wanted to let people know that we were no longer going to be in a group; that we would be individuals that came together to make music and could make music with whomever and in whatever form we wanted. Consequently, when people say, ‘They broke up, they reformed, they re-broke up, they re-formed,’ it’s all bullshit.”

Nash has had great success as a solo artist, as a member of a group, and as a member of a non-group. He’s the living proof of strong individuality working in harmony with others. When we look at the social activism, we might note that his first memories are of air raid sirens and the bombing of England in the final days of WWII.

To read the entire interview, click Nash_Graham_1991_MrB.

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Here is another interview from my vaults, previously published in 1989 in Mix magazine and in Japan’s Sound & Recording. Clocking in at 4000 words, much of this interview has never been seen. This year Herbie celebrates his 70th Birthday, and is still going strong.

Herbie Hancock in his studio. Photo by Mr. Bonzai.

©1989, all rights reserved
no reproduction without written permission from mrbonzai (at) mrbonzai.com

Both Picasso and Hancock mastered traditional forms and styles at an early age, gained critical acclaim, and went on to shock their followers with innovation and abstraction. Picasso used found objects in his collage and sculpture; Hancock uses concrete sounds and found samples in his music. The rules were broken as the rebels drew from international sources and freely mixed. Both artists make us rethink our ideas of reality and open our doors of perception, yet they both make us feel comfortable in the twilight zone between art and life.

Barely out of his teens, Herbie Hancock became a leading force in the heyday of 60’s jazz. The jazz crowd is a tough audience and he won them over, in his work with Donald Byrd, Miles Davis, and the cream of the serious contenders. Compositions such as “Watermelon Man” became worldwide standards. His first film score was for Antonioni’s 1967 breakthrough Blow-Up. Herbie came on strong, then took jazz to new levels of cool fusion. In 1973, his Headhunters album defined jazz funk, and in following years he has swung easily with his old fans and new. The Eighties earned a best original score Oscar for his ‘Round Midnight music and a best concept video MTV award for “Rockit”. A master with many forms, he has consistently taken the newest technology and made it his own.

If you would like to learn more about the incredible ascent of Berklee scholarship honoree Herbie Hancock, click Hancock, Herbie_MrB_1989 for the PDF.

This New Year 2010, I am going to open up my vaults of pre-Internet material, heretofore only available in non-digital hard paper magazines packed away in attics and garages. This remarkable conversation with Mose Allison appeared in 1992, in both Mix magazine and Japan’s Sound & Recording. But here you get the complete and unedited version for the very first time. It is an education in the structures of music, and the structure of a lifetime career. At 83, Mose is still performing. Check out his website and ketchup: http://www.moseallison.net

Mose Allison at Yamashiro, 1992, © by Mr. Bonzai

As a tribute to this unique character in American music, a surprising range of major artists have recorded his songs, including The Who, Bonnie Raitt, The Clash, The Yardbirds, Van Morrison and Robert Palmer. Allison himself is recognized for such unforgettable originals as “Your Mind Is On Vacation” and “Parchman Farm,” as well as renditions he has made his own, such as Willie Dixon’s “Seventh Son” and “I Love The Life I Live.”

For the whole magilla: Click Allison_Mose_1992.

JACK WHITE, JIMMY PAGE, THE EDGE

“OK, it might get loud for a second,” says The Edge as he turns some knobs and cranks up his guitar and processing rig. That moment midway in the film provides the title of this film that profiles three giants of the guitar: Jimmy Page and his Gibson Les Paul, The Edge with his Explorer, and Jack White with some very funky modified guitars. From grainy archival footage to present day HD, the images are accompanied by a superb and powerful soundtrack, a tour de force in musical filmmaking.

In a meeting of three generations, we learn how each distinctive guitarist was influenced by the musicians who came before, but also by their competitive contemporaries. In conversation and brilliant performance clips, we begin to understand how they discovered and developed their signature sounds, and what drives them to this day with such relentless passion.

Would there be Jimmy Page without Link Wray? Would there be Jack White without Jimmy Page? Would there be The Edge without the angry punk sound of The Jam?

If you’d like to read the entire review, click LoudMrB.pdf.

We’re thrilled that Mr. Bonzai’s MUSIC SMARTS from Berklee Press made the cover of Music Connection for the feature “Why Books Still Matter.”

(From the Book) A GRACE NOTE BY GRAHAM NASH “This world is powered by images and energy. What the Mr. Bonzai did here was to present a small slice of our musical heritage — a slice that includes many of my personal heroes. Look into these faces, seek out their stories and enjoy this wonderful, insightful journey.”

Preface “My musical odyssey began on September 29, 1967, when I walked into Abbey Road recording studios as a guest of John Lennon, who introduced me to George, Paul, Ringo, George Martin, Neil Aspinall, Peter Brown, and Mal Evans. It was the night the finishing touches were being recorded for “I Am the Walrus.” As the lone outsider, I heard snippets of other songs, too, all of which I knew were predestined to become part of our eventual consciousness. I witnessed a musical powerhouse, yet one which was as low-key as your grandma’s kitchen.

You might say I spied a signpost. The road led to over 500 formal interviews, clandestine meetings, outrageous lunchings, startling conversations on the hoof and happenstance encounters to collect what lies before you. Herein are spur of the moment ejaculations, witty nuggets, and solemn judgments, cherry-picked from over a million words, not to mention some provocative photo sessions.

Step into this gallery of the musical life, lined with intriguing reflections on heroes, influences, artistic integrity, improvisation, collaboration, performance, recording, power, money, fame, and rejection—all in one bountiful obento box stocked with hard-won wisdom, surprising pratfalls, stark realizations, and not what you might expect.

I hope you enjoy and are enriched by these crystal quotations. I am continuously inspired when fellow humans show me their faces and tell me their stories.”

– Mr. Bonzai

The Godfather of Modern Music  (from my 1985 interview)

Les Paul — what a guy! What a musician, what an inventor, and what a card.  Imagine what a kick it must have been listening to a new Les Paul record on the radio and hearing recording tricks like multitracking and slap echo for the very first time.  It was the equivalent of Sgt. Pepper for an earlier generation.

PAUL: When I got into multitracking and overdubbing, I took the guitar and deliberately began to change its sound — to get the sound of playing underwater, in a phone booth, upside down and crosswise.  Bob Moog once said to me if I hadn’t been clowning around with all those sounds, he never would have come up with the synthesizer, which is one of the great compliments.

BONZAI: Let’s pick one of those sounds — how did you get the underwater sound?

PAUL: Tape loop — well, it was a disk loop at the time.  I had been working on the idea for two years and was sitting one day with Laird Rich, a friend of mine, arm wrestling in a beer joint at Santa Monica and Western in Hollywood.  He pulled me right down and says, “How come you’re not concentrating?” I told him I was still thinking about that echo and how I didn’t want a long time delay, like from an echo chamber.  I wasn’t after that “hey, hey, hey” like you’re in the Alps.  He says, “Do you mean by any chance like you take a playback head and place it behind the record head?” 

My goodness, we jumped out of our chairs, left the women to pay the bill and find their own way home.  We jumped into my Model A Ford and went home and within 20 minutes we ripped off that tone arm and held it behind the record head and as soon as we got that slap-back on the disk we got the answer.

For more of this interview, visit MrBonzai.com

 THIS JUST IN: new “Internet Leak” from Al, a White Stripes spoof called CNR: http://tinyurl.com/kno97q

Coinciding with my interview with “Weird Al” Yankovic appearing in RELIX magazine, now on the newstands, I have just posted my new BonzFire Film of the conversation (scroll down for the links).   Here is an excerpt from the text interview:

There is a great tradition of musical parody in the history of American culture.  Such stars as Spike Jones and Stan Freberg achieved huge success through their talent for mocking the classic pop songs of the day.  “Weird Al” Yankovic is today’s reigning king of pop parody, gifted as a comedian, recording artist, concert performer and video director.

“Weird Al” Yankovic began his career in 1979.  He recorded his version of The Knack’s “My Sharona,” titled “My Bologna,” with just vocal and accordion.  The song was popular enough in limited radio play to be released as a single.  His next hit was “Another One Rides The Bus,” which was based on “Another One Bites The Dust” by Queen.  Other early Yankovic comedy classics include “Like A Surgeon” (based on Madonna’s “Like A Virgin”), “Eat It” and “Fat” (based on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and “Bad”), “Smells Like Nirvana” (based on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”) and “Amish Paradise” (based on Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”).

BONZAI: Is there a single out now that will be on the album?
YANKOVIC: The way I am doing it now, every song I put out is a single by definition.  I put out my parody of TI, “Whatever You Like,” back in October of 2008 and it did quite well.  I am doing these four originals now which are coming out individually over the course of the summer.  Traditionally, they wouldn’t be considered singles, per se, but they are being released individually, so I guess you would have to call them singles.
At some point down the line, when I have enough tracks, probably next year, a full album will come out.  I am going three and four years between albums these days, and the fans get anxious, and I like to feed the pipeline and show them what I have been doing.

Click to view the filmed interview in HD on YouTube and at MIX magazine.

To see more of the text interview visit MrBonzai.com

In 1996,  I interviewed Walter Cronkite, who for many years was the host of the New Year’s concert in Vienna, a program that introduced billions of people to classical music.  He had just completed a new CD-ROM entitled “American Presidents — The Most Powerful Man on Earth.” His views on education and the interactive possibilities of learning were both profound and prophetic.  Here is an excerpt from that interview, and a photograph he graciously autographed for me.

Born on November 4, 1916, Walter Cronkite started out as a correspondent at the Houston Post, later became a radio sports announcer and in 1937, joined United Press where he remained for 11 years.  During World War II he witnessed the devastation, was among the first newsmen to participate in the B-17 raids over Germany, and joined the 101st Airborne in Holland.

Cronkite joined CBS in 1950 and began his long tenure with the Evening News in 1962, which in 1963 became network television’s first half-hour weeknight news broadcast.  The debut featured Cronkite’s historic interview with President John F. Kennedy.

The career of Walter Cronkite parallels the evolution of modern media — from newspapers and radio to TV and the emergence of digital news gathering and distribution.  Perhaps the most respected and identifiable newsman of the 20th Century, Cronkite embodied credibility when many of today’s newscasters are personalities rather than reporters.

BONZAI: Do you think that the interactive format, this new form of education, perhaps deepens or accelerates the study of history?
CRONKITE:  Oh, it should both deepen and accelerate.  It is certainly one of the subjects that lends itself most profitably to the interactive presentation.  We can do all these wonderful things, motion pictures of dramatizations, and still keep them perfectly honest — not docudramas but true documentary representations through entertaining performances.  Of course, here in modern times we can hear the actual voices, see old newsreels, and bits of history that will bring the current events of the time and the people involved alive in a way that no other medium can.
BONZAI:  When you went to Holland with the 101st Airborne during WWII, did you actually parachute in?
CRONKITE: No, I glided in –  a far worse way to go.  I almost refused the assignment when I got up to the 101st Headquarters that evening before the drop the next day and they told me I was going by glider instead of parachute.  I just about turned around and went home.  I’d seen what happened to the gliders in Normandy and it was pretty terrible.  The same thing happened in Holland.  Parachutes are a much better way to drop.

You can view more of this interview at  http://www.mrbonzai.com.