Nov

Shy Dog

Hey, you’re a shy dog, but I can see
You feel the very same as me
You don’t think like people do
Anyone can see I’m the same way too

When it comes to relationships, I’ve never been much of a stand-up-and-fight kind of guy. When it’s over, it’s over, and it’s time to move on. A few times, though, moving on has been easier said than done — and with one relationship in particular, I took that difficulty as a sign that I should do something different. Instead of letting things fade away silently, I hung around; I dedicated myself to being as open as I could with this woman, and tried to find some way around or through whatever obstacles lay between us.

And that’s okay
Sometimes things just work that way

It wasn’t easy. In fact, it drove me a little crazy, a little at a time, over a period of years. I was lonely, and upset, and always putting myself through unnecessary misery in the name of what I thought was love. I thought I was being brave by refusing to give up on this person, but I was really just ignoring the obvious. In the process, I let a lot of things slip through my fingers — time and opportunities that would never return. I was unfair to myself, and unfair to her. I allowed myself to be used. In fact, I just about insisted on it.

And spinning ’round these memories go
And making sense, well, I just don’t know
Yeah, you could say I’m missing you
Lost and alone, I’m just making do

I didn’t really expect it to work. I just wanted to try instead of accepting the only real choice. Sometimes it really is noble to fight for the ones you love — but you have to know how to choose your battles, and you have to understand the difference between love and sick symbiosis, and I was in way over my head on both counts. I cost myself so much senseless anger and resentment, and when it started to spin out of control, I only leaned into it, grinding myself down until the only thing I could see through the smoke was the worst of both of us.

Standing here, I should understand
Why you left me alone
And this small world just ain’t big enough
And the purest souls, they always go too soon

On one level, I was proud of my self-destructive behavior — it seemed manly, somehow. But the deeper part of me, thankfully, started to get tired after awhile, and once I relaxed my senseless grip on this impossible, toxic fantasy I’d been holding onto, I started to realize what I’d been missing. And I felt something I didn’t expect: a warm sort of relief. I surveyed the wreckage and ruin I’d created and I knew I couldn’t undo any of it — I finally understood I’d been at a crossroads when I decided to fight for that relationship, and I knew I’d made choices that had led my life down a path I couldn’t retreat from.

But I didn’t feel regret. Maybe it was because I’d already devoted so many unproductive emotions to the situation, or maybe it was because I understood, on some level, that the lessons I took from all that destruction were as valuable, in their way, as what I’d lost. All I know is that I wasn’t angry anymore. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace.

So you go on, ’cause now I know
You belong with the beautiful
And I’ll stay here until golden fades
I’ll see you again on another day

It seems a little strange to me, but on beautiful, unseasonably warm fall days like this one, that’s the feeling that often comes back to me — one of acceptance, of absolution. One of loss, sure, and a little sadness — but a sadness that feels earned, somehow, and more than a little bittersweet. Our stories don’t always have the happy endings we want them to, but we still have to find the strength to let them end. Sometimes that’s harder than it should be.

And that’s okay
Sometimes things just work that way
And that’s okay
Sometimes things just hurt that way

I got a lot of mileage out of Kurt Neumann’s Shy Dog that summer and fall, particularly the title track:

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For Kurt, who was stepping out from the BoDeans as a solo artist for the first time, the song was really about a dog — his longtime companion, who (if I’m remembering correctly) was killed by a snake while exploring. I thought it was an incredibly brave choice to be so open about the sadness that a pet’s death can bring, and although I knew he wasn’t talking about romantic loss, I still took comfort from the graceful acceptance in his words, and the dignified resignation in his vocals. When he sighed, “Sometimes things just hurt that way,” it killed me — still does. Because sometimes they do. And that’s okay.

564 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Memories/Music

Nov

Many Rivers to Cross

RCA Records and Tapes

I love a good rock ‘n’ roll loser.

There’s nothing quite like the ragged glory of a rock song that’s almost there — the time’s a little off, the vocals are straining to hit the melody without quite getting there, maybe there are a few bum notes from the band in the mix. Rock is uniquely suited for this kind of stuff, particularly when it comes to conveying a refusal to give up in the face of failure. I think a yearning for redemption has always been a key component of music’s appeal to humanity, but rock made it more visceral — and also struck a burning spark in the tension between the beauty of that redemptive promise and the guttural howl of the far more unpleasant truth.

There’s something painfully noble about this to me — about beauty that persists in the face of hopeless odds. I recently got a rise out of Matthew Ryan when I compared his music to Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, and man, I just love that spirit, that struggle, that vulnerability. It’s one of the things I think our Pro Tools addiction is costing us as listeners, but that’s a conversation for another day. I’m here to talk about Harry Nilsson.

1974′s Pussy Cats is my favorite Nilsson record, because it so gorgeously sums up everything I wrote about in those first two paragraphs. Of course, Nilsson was born a flawless technical singer, and he had more than enough craft to write songs of stunning beauty, but he was also a self-destructive madman, and as time wore on, that dichotomy drove his music away from songs like “One” and “Don’t Leave Me” and into darker, stranger, and — for my money — far more interesting places.

Nilsson wasn’t content to be beautiful. He had the urge to fail — partly, I think, because it was fun, and partly because he knew he could count on his prodigious gifts to carry him through when he wasn’t otherwise up to the task. And that’s Pussy Cats in a nutshell: an album that captures an amazing talent struggling between finding his muse and pissing it away.

Harry was coming off A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, an ill-advised (although quite lovely) collection of standards that derailed all the commercial momentum he’d built up with his best-selling Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson LPs. Again, he was a study in contrasts; he knew he needed a hit, and he was convinced he’d help his case by drafting his famous pal John Lennon to produce it — but he didn’t want one badly enough to safeguard against the boozy disaster the sessions eventually became. But then, on the other other hand, Nilsson valued the mercurial Lennon’s involvement so greatly that he kept going even after he ruptured a vocal cord, hiding his deteriorating condition as long as he could (but not terribly well — listening to the Pussy Cats sessions in chronological order is a study in raspy decline).

Recorded during Lennon’s infamous lost weekend, Pussy Cats came at a low artistic ebb for Nilsson the songwriter — but as singular as he was as a composer, he was also a terrifically gifted interpreter, and that bailed him out on a few of the album’s tracks, including his take on Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross.” In technical terms, it’s really a boozy wreck of a recording — the drums sound like they were tracked in taffy, the lead guitar smells like a Brandy Alexander, and Nilsson’s heartwrenching vocals are almost painful to hear. But put them all together, and oh, what a song:

Harry Nilsson, “Many Rivers to Cross”

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Plenty of artists have covered this track, and Cliff was certainly no slouch himself, but this is the definitive version of the song for me. I found it at the best possible moment, reeling from the messy end of an unreasonably intense relationship in my early 20s, and just as RCA was remastering and reissuing a batch of his albums. I devoured them all, as well as the two-disc Personal Best anthology, but it was Pussy Cats that really called to me. “Many Rivers to Cross” just said it all, and when Harry buckles down and wails, willing his bleeding throat to scale notes he knew he wouldn’t hit, it takes me right back to the fall of ’95 — more than 20 years after it was recorded, and over a year after his untimely death, but still packed with that timeless blend of longing, regret, and — yes — hope for redemption.

Pussy Cats killed Nilsson’s career and damaged his voice for years, but he went on to create music of unparalleled beauty, too — and I don’t know if later works like Knnillssonn would have had as much depth if he hadn’t been willing to stumble into the boozy darkness on records like this. He knew if he followed the rules and connected all the dots, he could make a perfect pop song, but there was something in Nilsson that drew him away from the straight and narrow — and for me, anyway, that’s always made all the difference. Nothing is hopeless when you listen to an album like Pussy Cats – it’s heartbreaking proof that we all possess the potential for acts of staggering beauty, even in spite of our deepest flaws.

569 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

Memories/Music

Harry Nilsson

Nov

Minnesota

I made Minnesota my home tonight
It’s not like the picture in my mind
‘Cause I was so alone it killed tonight
I’d tell any soul…if I could find one
–the Push Stars, “Minnesota”

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For someone who has often been ruinously, stupidly impulsive, I’m actually a pretty deliberate guy. I think about doing a lot of things — calling friends, emailing contacts, writing heartfelt posts — and then before I know what’s happening, the moment has passed, and I’ve talked myself out of following through. I am a fool, I am a fool, I am a fool.

But in the spring of 1999, I followed through on one of the best impulses I’ve ever had: to round up three of my closest friends, put them on a plane to New Jersey, stuff them in a rental car, and spend a week driving across the country. I was nursing a broken heart, of course, and that’s why this song called to me at the time — like the best of Chris Trapper‘s songs, it conveys the wounded grin of a freshly bruised romantic.

‘Cause I want to believe her
I want to believe
I want to believe her
I want to believe
I want to believe her
I want to believe

I did want to believe — in her, much to my detriment, but also in my friends, and in the reliable comfort of pure childishness. I wanted to surround myself with easy laughter. I didn’t want to think too hard, and those guys made it easy. We were young, stupid dudes, and that was exactly what I needed. We got soaking wet on the freezing upper deck of the Maid of the Mist; we ordered horrible hotel porn in Chicago; we covered the rental car in dirt and filled it with junk food. We left fake poop on top of a hotel toilet seat in Montana.

It was a boondoggle, in the very best sense of the word, and although I know there were moments of tension, frustration and annoyance, I can’t remember any of those feelings when I look back on the trip now. It just feels like one long golden moment — a time when we knew we had an opportunity to do something special, and we didn’t let it slip away.

I feel all right, it’s a Minnesota night
You’ve got nothing left to show me but your smile
Stars so bright on this Minnesota night
Can we cut the conversation for a little while?

I don’t know what it meant to the other guys, but that week saved me from going a little crazy at the time, and although my days of dropping everything and rounding up a posse for high adventure on the open road are over for the foreseeable future, I think there’s still a lesson in it for me now — if I can only remember it — as a writer and as a person.

I feel like writing used to be a lot easier for me — a lot more instinctive, and a lot less deliberate — and I know I did a better job of maintaining my friendships back then. Of course, I’m writing a lot more now, and doing it in different places; I understand that the creative muscle tends to get numb and/or fatigued when it’s used this way. And I know marriages, kids, and migration have a naturally atrophying effect on friendships that thrived on free time and youthful angst.

But I don’t think it’s impossible to get around all that. I don’t think it’s too late to try and get better at deciding when to make those impulsive leaps — in fact, if I had it all to do over again, I think I’d probably make a lot more of them. I’m still trying. I still believe.

571 days ago Short URL Comments

Memories/Music

Apr

Old Interview: Peter Cetera, October 1, 1992

Here’s one from the archives — one of my first major interviews, conducted with erstwhile Chicago frontman Peter Cetera while he was out promoting his fourth solo album, World Falling Down. This is kind of like looking at a dorky old photograph for me, but it was a thrill at the time, and I think Cetera said some interesting things…

Having been there “in the beginning,” do you think that rock has become more style than substance?

I think if you were to look only at videos, you would definitely
think so. But I think it’s probably always been that way. I think
there are things that are tremendous hits where you go, “What’s
that?” and then there are things that aren’t hits where you
say, “Well now, I wonder why that wasn’t a hit. It’s a lovely song.”
I think it’s all the same. I just think it’s probably more of all the
same now.

Tracing your career, your emergence as a star was pretty gradual.
You slowly assumed more and more of the vocal responsibilities in
Chicago, and became the voice of their first two Number One hits, and
yet your first solo album was not a commercial success. Did that
discourage you at all from attempting a solo career?

No, it didn’t discourage me because I knew the politics behind it. The record company didn’t want it to become a hit, because they didn’t want me to leave Chicago, so they made sure that it wasn’t a hit. Even though I had a Top Ten — which was bizarre for Chicago at the time — AOR hit called “Livin’ In The Limelight” off that album, they just let it die, because they didn’t want me to have a hit.

The personal problems that went into the making of World Falling Down have been getting a lot of press. After so many years of
relative anonymity, does this bother you?

No, I don’t think so. I think it’s kind of refreshing, after all of the years with Chicago, not being able to voice my opinion about anything. You couldn’t talk about the group–you couldn’t really talk about anything that was happening with the group, because you’d get “Hey, what’d you say that about me for?” [Laughs] So, now that I’m solo, I can talk about whatever I want to talk about, and this happened to be the album where I wasn’t happy talking about anything else, so I decided to get it out of my system.

Did having your daughter around help you through that period?

Oh, yeah. Without her…[Laughs] It wouldn’t have been a nice thing at all. She’s just the greatest.

Now, how do you balance taking care of your career and taking care of your daughter? And given the nature of much of today’s music, do you find that you have to set guidelines as to what’s musically acceptable?

Yeah. I mean, she’s nine years old, I want her to be nine years old. I don’t condone watching any kind of video TV, I don’t allow that–I don’t allow her to watch a lot of TV. I don’t think it’s really cute for a nine-year-old to be dressing up like Madonna. They get old when they get old. So yeah, in a way I censor it, but she’s a wise enough person that she’s into the normal things
that nine-year-olds should be into.

Did having a child make you more aware of what you yourself write?

Uh…no, no. I was never the kind of person who would ever write anything particularly…devilish [laughs]. It made me probably look inside myself a lot more.

For a long time, your group got nothing but bad press or ignored by the press. How has this affected you career-wise now that you’re solo?

Well, I think that people — especially the press — tend to not change. Chicago got ignored…first of all, we got great press, and then we started making it, and we got bad press for selling out, and then we got ignored, and rightly so. Some of the things we did weren’t to the top of our capabilities, but a lot of people have that problem.

I don’t think we were controversial, and that’s sort of what happens when you have a group full of guys who all think they have an opinion. Everybody kind of counteracts everyone else, and nothing ever gets out. Being a solo artist, I just have to leave it up to the people. I’m definitely not going to get reviewed in Rolling Stone and People Magazine.

So it doesn’t frustrate you to run into the same problem as a solo artist?

Well, it frustrates me, but I also realize that I can’t do anything about it. So I stop thinking about it.

Do you feel any pressure to cater to MTV?

I would love to, but they’re just not gonna play it. They just have a set thing in they’re head of what they’re gonna play, and they’re definitely not going to play Peter Cetera. So I stay on VH1, and that’s fine with me, because our best critics have always been the fans, and as far as myself, I love what I’m doing, so that makes me happy.

What was the initial impetus behind your decision to go solo? I think you were recording for something like 13 years before your first solo LP.

I had always wanted to the solo thing, and then after the first album, Chicago kinda promised me that I could do the solo thing, and then they sort of reneged on it, and never gave me the opportunity to do it. They wanted to go one way, and I wanted to go another way, so we decided on a mutual parting. I did not, in fact, quit the group. If anything, I was fired for not going along with what they wanted to do.

I’ve heard many accounts of the band being jealous of all the attention you were getting.

Yeah, they were getting jealous, and I said, “Well, come on, if you’re jealous, then start doing something about it,” but they weren’t in the frame of mind to write songs, and I was the one that was in the studio most of the time,
and…I don’t listen to the new stuff. I’ve heard it a couple of times, but it’s certainly not what I want to listen to.

Let’s talk about each of your four solo albums, beginning with the first one. How did Peter Cetera end up getting released before Chicago 16?

Actually, we were out of a record contract at that point, and we were going along with the new record company, Warner Bros., and they sort of threw it out there while waiting for Chicago 16 to be released. It was nothing more than cannon fodder as far as they were concerned.

Did the fact that Solitude/Solitaire was released so close to Chicago 18 cause you to feel any pressure at all?

I didn’t really feel the pressure. I was so sure that “Glory Of Love” was going to be a hit, and “The Next Time I Fall” was going to be a hit. Really, the only pressure I felt then, and that I always felt, is to have hits with things other than ballads. I fight the record company every time they want to release another ballad off the album. That was really my only concern at the time. It was like, “Okay, do I take the hit or do I go with something fast?” [laughs]

Yeah, I noticed that earlier in your career, you were more apt to record songs like “Skin Tight” and “You Get It Up”…in your solo career, you haven’t done a whole lot of that.

[Deep breath] Well…you happened to mention two songs…

…That you didn’t write.

…That I didn’t write, and that I didn’t think were very good songs. [Laughter] Especially “Skin Tight,” I didn’t think that was a good song. Kind of a D-rated song. I just…thought it was a piece of garbage, but as the lead singer, I had to sing a lot of stuff I didn’t like to sing.

Also on Solitude/Solitaire, you did a duet with Amy Grant that predated her pop crossover success by about five years. Who set that up?

Actually, it was the record company. I was looking for a duet partner, and they called me up and said, “Amy Grant.” I had thought she only did religious music, but they told me that she really wanted to cross over, and she thought it was perfect, so I said “Sure.” The record company gets credit for that one.

On One More Story, you took a much more organic approach than you did on the previous album, and many of the songs are depressing – “Heaven Help This Lonely Man,” “You Never Listen To Me.” Is that when
you started writing about the problems in your marriage?

Yeah, I would say. Definitely. Some of it was reflected in the album, it was just starting to creep out.

The thing about One More Story that would have helped the album considerably was that I had been hired to write the theme song for the movie Big, and so I wrote “One Good Woman.” That was going to be the title song for Big, so if you listen to that song you’ll hear things about the fortune teller and all that. Right towards the end, when it was supposed to be in the movie, we got into some contractual difficulties, and I just kind of pulled the song. Had that song been in the movie, which was a smash hit, it would have helped the album considerably.

There were some really great songs on that album that were never released as singles, like “Peace Of Mind”…

Yeah. I agree, too.

…Which they passed over in favor of “Best Of Times,” which I never really understood…

I don’t have any idea what the record company…you know, you get kind of frustrated.

And that brings us to World Falling Down, which is almost a song cycle. In the beginning, the singer is saying “Don’t leave me,” and then she’s left, and there is depression, and then towards the end of the album it lifts back up again, and the singer is in love.

Well, “Have You Ever Been In Love”…that doesn’t mean I’m in love. It’s a universal thing, and I think it kind of wraps up the whole album. But yeah, I did plan that, yeah.

Your creative output was greatly reduced on this album. After years of writing seven or eight songs on an album, on this one you only wrote four.

Well, I just wasn’t capable of writing more than four or five songs on this album. It wasn’t a time in my life when I felt comfortable writing.

Did you find that what you were writing came out the same each time?

Yeah, that basically had a lot to do with it. After four or five songs, I said, “Okay, enough’s enough.” But I had found a lot of other good songs, so I thought it was time to do it. Just about the only thing I didn’t do was put in an old hit or an old standard.

You started out as a singer, not a songwriter; and in fact, I remember you saying at one point that the world was divided into singers and songwriters, and that you were a singer. How do you feel now?

Well, that was at the beginning. I don’t think you ever realize that you can write a song until you do, and then you’re constantly worried about ever writing another one. I really enjoy the songwriting thing, and I enjoy the singing thing. I’ll keep ‘em both.

What made you decide on Andy Hill as a producer, and what made you decide to record in England?

Well, first of all, Andy and I co-produced, which makes a big difference. I just didn’t feel that anyone could produce me, and I was always giving away credit to people where I was doing as much decision-making as they were, so from now on it’s going to be co-productions. I had known Andy through songwriting, and discovered that we got along melodically and over the phone and stuff, and so I decided to go there and write with him, and when I got there and saw a studio in his house, I decided that maybe it would be nice if we could co-produce some things.

On Solitude/Solitaire, there was no bass at all; just sequencing and synthesizers. On One More Story, you had other people play the bass. But on this album, you picked it up again for a few songs.

Yeah, this was a kind of…I had Pino Palladino play, and Jimmy Johnson, and I got in on a couple of songs. I figured it was time to get a bass back on there, and I personally hadn’t played in such a long time that I just kind of wet my beak, so to speak, on a couple of these songs.

You’ve been unhappy with the way that some of your earlier work was recorded, especially “Song For You.”

Yeah, and actually, that’s one song that I’d love to re-record. I’d like to get with somebody and kind of rework that.

Most people wouldn’t even know it was a reworking. It was a pretty minor hit.

Yeah, I don’t think it was even hardly out. That was a turning point for me. I figured I either had to get out or bring the group back to the top. We were just not functioning. It was one or two cylinders or something.

Are you proud of your older work? Do you still listen to any of it?

No, I don’t listen to any of it. It’s so painful to me to listen to anything before Chicago 16, when David Foster came into the picture and he and I kind of put that album together. Anything before that, I just never felt all that secure about, because there were always too many opinions. Too many people didn’t butt out. Some of the stuff is great. I think some of the earlier stuff is probably better, because…you know, “Saturday In The Park,” and “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?,” and “Beginnings”… stuff that Bobby did when he was doing most of the writing and most of the decision-making. Once everybody started feeling that it was equal opportunity, things started heading downhill. I’m proud of the old stuff, but I certainly don’t sit around listening to it.

Do you miss the interplay of being part of a band?

Yeah, I do. I’ll probably put together a band to go on the road here shortly. That’s kind of the one thing I miss about Chicago, is we had loads of yuks.

So you do plan to tour to support the album?

Well, yeah, we’ll see what happens. If the record company supports me, I’ll help support the album.

What do you hope to accomplish as an artist in the next few years?

You always hope you have some kind of effect on people. When somebody comes up to me and says, “We’re getting married to your song,” or “God, that’s a great song”…that’s what makes it all worthwile. If I can keep doing that, then that’s what it’s all about.

Do you plan to keep taking more time off between albums?

It’s hard to tell. This one happened because of the circumstances. I just couldn’t do it. But, no, I’m starting to get ready to plan the next one.

I’ve been trying to find this out for about a year now. I was wondering if you could tell me why Danny Seraphine left Chicago.

Danny Seraphine got fired. The group decided that he no longer fit in the stage presentation, so they fired him.

[Incredulously] In the stage presentation?

Mmm-hmm.

Well, they have been spending more time on stage than in the studio during the past couple of years. Do you plan on working with him at all?

No. Not really. When it’s over, it’s over.

I just wrapped up a profile on the group, and it’s my feeling that they’ve been heading downhill. Buying songs from outside writers, and using more Scheff and Champlin material than anything from the original members…

I would agree with you on that, but the only thing I could say in defense of that is that if the original members aren’t writing stuff that’s worth putting on an album, then you gotta go with other things. Believe me, I haven’t heard anything that the original members have been writing, but if it’s not on the album, then it leads me to believe that it’s either not happening or there’s some personality conflict.

I really don’t know what’s going on, but I think your observation is correct.

Does that sadden you at all?

Well, that’s what’s been happening all along. There was a stage in Bobby Lamm’s life where he was one of the greatest songwriters in America. I don’t know what happened. James Pankow, even though I never really enjoyed his type of music, certainly a lot of people did, I mean, he had “Color My World” and “Make Me Smile,” and things that I didn’t personally like, but they were big hits for us and people loved them, but I don’t think he’s come close to writing anything like that in years.

So, yeah, I think it’s been going downhill. I don’t know if it’s complacency or what, but…

That about wraps up my questions for you.

Well, listen man, it’s been great talking to you. You did a great
job. I’d like to do a longer one someday.

JD: Having been there “in the beginning,” do you think that rock has
become more style than substance?

PC: I think if you were to look only at videos, you would definitely
think so. But I think it’s probably always been that way. I think
there are things that are tremendous hits where you go, “What’s
THAT?” and then there are things that aren’t hits where you
say, “Well now, I wonder why that wasn’t a hit. It’s a lovely song.”
I think it’s all the same. I just think it’s probably more of all the
same now.

JD: Tracing your career, your emergence as a star was pretty gradual.
You slowly assumed more and more of the vocal responsibilities in
Chicago, and became the voice of their first two Number One hits, and
yet your first solo album was not a commercial success. Did that
discourage you at all from attempting a solo career?

PC: No, it didn’t discourage me because I knew the politics behind
it. The record company didn’t want it to become a hit, because they
didn’t want me to leave Chicago, so they made sure that it wasn’t a
hit. Even though I had a Top Ten–which was bizarre for Chicago at
the time–AOR hit called “Livin’ In The Limelight” off that album,
they just let it die, because they didn’t want me to have a hit.

JD: The personal problems that went into the making of WORLD FALLING
DOWN have been getting a lot of press. After so many years of
relative anonymity, does this bother you?

PC: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s kind of refreshing, after all
of the years with Chicago, not being able to voice my opinion about
anything. You couldn’t talk about the group–you couldn’t REALLY talk
about anything that was happening with the group, because you’d
get “Hey, what’d you say that about me for?” [laughs] So, now that
I’m solo, I can talk about whatever I want to talk about, and this
happened to be the album where I wasn’t happy talking about anything
else, so I decided to get it out of my system.

JD: Did having your daughter around help you through that period?

PC: Oh, yeah. Without her…[laughs] It wouldn’t have been a nice
thing at all. She’s just the greatest.

JD: Now, how do you balance taking care of your career and taking
care of your daughter? And given the nature of much of today’s music,
do you find that you have to set guidelines as to what’s musically
acceptable?

PC: For me?

JD: For her.

PC: For her, yeah. I mean, she’s nine years old, I want her to be
nine years old. I don’t condone watching any kind of video TV, I
don’t allow that–I don’t allow her to watch a lot of TV. I don’t
think it’s really cute for a nine-year-old to be dressing up like
Madonna. They get old when they get old. So yeah, in a way I censor
it, but she’s a wise enough person that she’s into the normal things
that nine-year-olds should be into.

JD: Did having a child make you more aware of what you yourself write?

PC: Uh…no, no. I was never the kind of person who would ever write
anything particularly…devilish [laughs]. It made me probably look
inside myself a lot more.

JD: For a long time, your group got nothing but bad press or ignored
by the press. How has this affected you career-wise now that you’re
solo?

PC: Well, I think that people–especially the press–tend to not
change. Chicago got ignored…first of all, we got great press, and
then we started making it, and we got bad press for selling out, and
then we got ignored, and rightly so. Some of the things we did
weren’t to the top of our capabilities, but a lot of people have that
problem. I don’t think we were controversial, and that’s sort of what
happens when you have a group full of guys who all think they have an
opinion. Everybody kind of counteracts everyone else, and nothing
ever gets out. Being a solo artist, I just have to leave it up to the
people. I’m definitely not going to get reviewed in Rolling Stone and
People Magazine.

JD: So it doesn’t frustrate you to run into the same problem as a
solo artist?

PC: Well, it frustrates me, but I also realize that I can’t do
anything about it. So I stop thinking about it.

JD: Do you feel any pressure to cater to MTV?

PC: I would love to, but they’re just not gonna play it. They just
have a set thing in they’re head of what they’re gonna play, and
they’re definitely not going to play Peter Cetera. So I stay on VH-1,
and that’s fine with me, because our best critics have always been
the fans, and as far as myself, I love what I’m doing, so that makes
me happy.

JD: What was the initial impetus behind your decision to go solo? I
think you were performing for something like thirteen years before
your first solo LP.

PC: I had always wanted to the solo thing, and then after the first
album, Chicago kinda promised me that I could do the solo thing, and
then they sort of reneged on it, and never gave me the opportunity to
do it. They wanted to go one way, and I wanted to go another way, so
we decided on a mutual parting. I did not, in fact, quit the group.
If anything, I was fired for not going along with what they wanted to
do.

JD: Off the record, I’ve heard many accounts of the band being
jealous of all the attention you were getting.

PC: Yeah, that’s ON the record! [laughs] They were getting jealous,
and I said, “Well, come on, if you’re jealous, then start doing
something about it,” but they weren’t in the frame of mind to write
songs, and I was the one that was in the studio most of the time,
and…I don’t listen to the new stuff. I’ve heard it a couple of
times, but it’s certainly not what I want to listen to.

JD: Let’s talk about each of your four solo albums, beginning with
the first one. How did PETER CETERA end up getting released before 16?

PC: Actually, we were out of a record contract at that point, and we
were going along with the new record company, Warner Bros., and they
sort of threw it out there while waiting for CHICAGO 16 to be
released. It was nothing more than cannon fodder as far as they were
concerned.

JD: Did the fact that SOLITUDE/SOLITAIRE was released so close to
CHICAGO 18 cause you to feel any pressure at all?

PC: I didn’t really feel the pressure. I was so sure that “Glory Of
Love” was going to be a hit, and “The Next Time I Fall” was going to
be a hit. Really, the only pressure I felt then, and that I always
felt, is to have hits with things other than ballads. I fight the
record company every time they want to release another ballad off the
album. That was really my only concern at the time. It was
like, “Okay, do I take the hit or do I go with something fast?”
[laughs]

JD: Yeah, I noticed that earlier in your career, you were more apt to
record songs like “Skin Tight” and “You Get It Up”…in your solo
career, you haven’t done a whole lot of that.

PC: [deep breath] Well…you happened to mention two songs…

JD: …That you didn’t write.

PC: …That I didn’t write, and that I didn’t think were very good
songs. [JD bursts into laughter] Especially “Skin Tight,” I didn’t
think that was a good song. Kind of a D-rated song. I just…thought
it was a piece of garbage, but as the lead singer, I had to sing a
lot of stuff I didn’t like to sing.

JD: Also on SOLITUDE/SOLITAIRE, you did a duet with Amy Grant that
predated her solo success by about five years. Who set that up?

PC: Actually, it was the record company. I was looking for a duet
partner, and they called me up and said, “Amy Grant.” I had thought
she only did religious music, but they told me that she really wanted
to cross over, and she thought it was perfect, so I said “Sure.” The
record company gets credit for that one.

JD: On ONE MORE STORY, you took a much more organic approach than you
did on the previous album, and many of the songs are depressing–
“Heaven Help This Lonely Man,” “You Never Listen To Me.” Is that when
your problems started?

PC: Yeah, I would say. Definitely. Some of it was reflected in the
album, it was just starting to creep out. The thing about ONE MORE
STORY that would have helped the album considerably was that I had
been hired to write the theme song for the movie BIG, and so I
wrote “One Good Woman.” That was going to be the title song for BIG,
so if you listen to that song you’ll hear things about the fortune
teller and all that. Right towards the end, when it was supposed to
be in the movie, we got into some contractual difficulties, and I
just kind of pulled the song. Had that song been in the movie, which
was a smash hit, it would have helped the album considerably.

JD: There were some really great songs on that album that were never
released, like “Peace Of Mind”…

PC: Yeah. I agree, too.

JD: …Which they passed over in favor of “Best Of Times,” which I
never really understood…

PC: I don’t have any idea what the record company…you know, you get
kind of frustrated.

JD: And that brings us to WORLD FALLING DOWN, which is almost a song
cycle. In the beginning, the singer is saying “Don’t leave me,” and
then she’s left, and there is depression, and then towards the end of
the album it lifts back up again, and the singer is in love.

PC: Well, “Have You Ever Been In Love”…that doesn’t mean I’m in
love. It’s a universal thing, and I think it kind of wraps up the
whole album. But yeah, I did plan that, yeah.

JD: Your creative output was greatly reduced on this album. After
years of writing seven or eight songs on an album, on this one you
only wrote four.

PC: Well, I just wasn’t capable of writing more than four or five
songs on this album. It wasn’t a time in my life when I felt
comfortable writing.

JD: Did you find that what you were writing came out the same each
time?

PC: Yeah, that basically had a lot to do with it. After four or five
songs, I said, “Okay, enough’s enough.” But I had found a lot of
other good songs, so I thought it was time to do it. Just about the
only thing I didn’t do was put in an old hit or an old standard.

JD: You started out as a singer, not a songwriter; and in fact, I
remember you saying at one point that the world was divided into
singers and songwriters, and that you were a singer. How do you feel
now?

PC: Well, that was at the beginning. I don’t think you ever realize
that you can write a song until you do, and then you’re constantly
worried about ever writing another one. I really enjoy the
songwriting thing, and I enjoy the singing thing. I’ll keep ‘em both.

JD: What made you decide on Andy Hill as a producer, and what made
you decide to record in England?

PC: Well, first of all, Andy and I co-produced, which makes a big
difference. I just didn’t feel that anyone could co-produce me, and I
was always giving away credit to people where I was doing as much
decision-making as they were, so from now on it’s going to be co-
productions. I had known Andy through songwriting, and discovered
that we got along melodically and over the phone and stuff, and so I
decided to go there and write with him, and when I got there and saw
a studio in his house, I decided that maybe it would be nice if we
could co-produce some things.

JD: On SOLITUDE/SOLITAIRE, there was no bass at all; just sequencing
and synthesizers. On ONE MORE STORY, you had other people play the
bass. But on this album, you picked it up again for a few songs.

PC: Yeah, this was a kind of…I had Pino Palladino play, and Jimmy
Johnson, and I got in on a couple of songs. I figured it was time to
get a bass back on there, and I personally hadn’t played in such a
long time that I just kind of ‘wet my beak,’ so to speak, on a couple
of these songs.

JD: You’ve been unhappy with the way that some of your earlier work
was recorded, especially “Song For You.”

PC: Yeah, and actually, that’s one song that I’d love to re-record.
I’d like to get with somebody and kind of rework that.

JD: Most people wouldn’t even know it was a reworking. It was a
pretty minor hit.

PC: Yeah, I don’t think it was even hardly out. That was a turning
point for me. I figured I either had to get out or bring the group
back to the top. We were just not functioning. It was one or two
cylinders or something.

JD: Are you proud of your older work? Do you still listen to any of
it?

PC: No, I don’t listen to any of it. It’s so painful to me to listen
to anything before CHICAGO 16, when David Foster came into the
picture and he and I kind of put that album together. Anything before
that, I just never felt all that secure about, because there were
always too many opinions. Too many people didn’t butt out. Some of
the stuff is great. I think some of the earlier stuff is probably
better, because…you know, “Saturday In The Park,” and “Does Anybody
Really Know What Time It Is?,” and “Beginnings”… stuff that Bobby
did when he was doing most of the writing and most of the decision-
making. Once everybody started feeling that it was equal opportunity,
things started heading downhill. I’m proud of the old stuff, but I
certainly don’t sit around listening to it.

JD: Do you miss the interplay of being part of a band?

PC: Yeah, I do. I’ll probably put together a band to go on the road
here shortly. That’s kind of the one thing I miss about Chicago, is
we had loads of yuks.

JD: So you do plan to tour to support the album?

PC: Well, yeah, we’ll see what happens. If the record company
supports me, I’ll help support the album.

JD: What do you hope to accomplish as an artist in the next few years?

PC: You always hope you have some kind of effect on people. When
somebody comes up to me and says, “We’re getting married to your
song,” or “God, that’s a great song”…that’s what makes it all
worthwile. If I can keep doing that, then that’s what it’s all about.

JD: Do you plan to keep taking more time off between albums?

PC: It’s hard to tell. This one happened because of the
circumstances. I just couldn’t do it. But, no, I’m starting to get
ready to plan the next one.

JD: I’ve been trying to find this out for about a year now. I was
wondering if you could tell me why Danny Seraphine left Chicago.

PC: Danny Seraphine got fired. The group decided that he no longer
fit in the stage presentation, so they fired him.

JD: [Incredulously]: In the stage presentation?

PC: Mmm-hmm.

JD: Well, they HAVE been spending more time on the stage than in the
studio during the past couple of years. Do you plan on working with
him at all?

PC: No. Not really. When it’s over, it’s over.

JD: I just wrapped up a profile on the group, and it’s my feeling
that they’ve been heading downhill. Buying songs from outside
writers, and using more Scheff and Champlin material than anything
from the original members…

PC: I would agree with you on that, but the only thing I could say in
defense of that is that if the original members aren’t writing stuff
that’s worth putting on an album, then you gotta go with other
things. Believe me, I haven’t heard anything that the original
members have been writing, but if it’s not on the album, then it
leads me to believe that it’s either not happening or there’s some
personality conflict. I really don’t know what’s going on, but I
think your observation is correct.

JD: Does that sadden you at all?

PC: Well, that’s what’s been happening all along. There was a stage
in Bobby Lamm’s life where he was one of the greatest songwriters in
America. I don’t know what happened. James Pankow, even though I
never really enjoyed his type of music, certainly a lot of people
did, I mean, he had “Color My World” and “Make Me Smile,” and things
that I didn’t personally like, but they were big hits for us and
people loved them, but I don’t think he’s come close to writing
anything like that in years. So, yeah, I think it’s been going
downhill. I don’t know if it’s complacency or what, but…

JD: That about wraps up my questions for you.

PC: Well, listen man, it’s been great talking to you. You did a great
job. I’d like to do a longer one someday.

756 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

Interviews/Music

Chicago/Peter Cetera

Mar

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Lost Causes, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” (play)

This is the opening track on my first album, and I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard it on one of the real, honest-to-goodness manufactured CDs I printed up. It’s a memory that’s lingered not only because listening to your first “real” album is usually a pretty significant personal milestone, but because the emotions it triggered were so seemingly incongruous that it confused me for a long time.

I was miserable.

I had no idea why this should be. It should have been a shining moment: After years of writing and recording, the album was finally finished, I was listening to it on a nice stereo in my brand new car, and I was driving on a last-minute errand before an album release party at a nice hotel that would culminate with me and the band playing for a room full of people. The local paper’s rock critic was even there. This was the moment I’d dreamed of…but it didn’t feel the way I thought it would. Why not? Continue reading →

789 days ago Short URL 6 Comments

Memories/Meta

Mar

Largo’s Dream

Like a lot of people, I think, the romantic entanglements of my teenage years and early 20s were colored by a lot of unexpressed, misunderstood, or just plain repressed emotions — guilt over feelings that weren’t supposed to exist, or relationships that ended badly, or simple longing for what (and who) I couldn’t have. I walked around in denial a lot of the time, and every so often my subconscious rewarded me for it with a dream that would force me to confront my feelings. The damn things stuck like cobwebs — they’d linger for days. I hated it.

This is the state I was in throughout the spring of 1998, when I first heard Largo, the all-star (sort of) Dvorak tribute (kind of) assembled by once-and-future Hooters Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman. (If you’re curious, I’ve written more about the album here.) There were a number of songs that stood out for me, but the one that really resonated was “Largo’s Dream”:

I’m sleeping at the moment
I’m dreaming and you’re in it
Running down the Little Bighorn
In your platform shoes

I was on the wrong end of a surprise breakup at the time — no closure, no real goodbyes, the kind of thing that can really mess you up if you aren’t ready for it. It would put me under a shadow for years, but I didn’t know that yet; I was still just trying to make my way back to the surface. I made a cross-country drive with a friend while all this was going on, and I have no doubt I was unbearable to be around; hearing “Largo’s Dream” always takes me back to the sunny skies and dark emotions we traveled under in Colorado. Not really Little Bighorn territory, but close enough for a memory. And then there’s this:

Are you trying to get to me now
Like I’m trying to get to you?

It’s a perfectly simple, perfectly pure question, and it made me ache just to hear it. The song’s subject is really pretty specific, and it has nothing to do with my particular situation — like the rest of Largo, it references the families and promises broken by American slavery — but with David Forman’s yearning vocals set against a lovely, plangent piano figure and some typically bewitching synth shenanigans from Garth Hudson, it feels both universal and intimate. “Largo’s Dream” was a source of comfort for me, countless times.

Like the song’s melody, I moved in circles; my feelings, like that piano, came and went in waves, in a destructive cycle I willfully repeated until it had claimed a cost it still shames me to contemplate. And yet I still love this song unreservedly — although it reminds me of a very difficult time, it leaves behind a surge of bittersweet, almost nostalgic warmth.

Sort of like a dream.

David Forman, “Largo’s Dream” (play)

796 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Music

Mar

Within Your Reach

Had a terrific chat this morning with Gorman Bechard, the director/author/photographer/all-around creative whirlwind whose latest film, Color Me Obsessed, is currently making the rounds at the festival circuit. It’s a documentary about the experience of being a hardcore fan, as viewed through the prism of the Replacements’ music; the interview was recorded with Dave Lifton as a segment for the next episode of the Popdose podcast, so listen for it soon.

Our discussion, naturally, included a lot of talk about the Replacements and what made them special. It was an interesting experience for me, because although I love the band’s music, I’m not as passionate about it as Dave or Gorman (who contends they’re the best band ever). I wasn’t old enough to really be aware of the ‘Mats during their heyday; by the time I was into my teens and buying music, they were in their final stages of collapse. The first Replacements album I bought was All Shook Down, which is just about the worst introduction I could have picked — a resigned sigh from a band that once made an art form out of making everything sound like it mattered.

Without getting too precious about it, I think the Replacements worked so well because their music was all tension. At first, they perpetually teetered between melody and chaos; later, as they graduated to the majors, their songs were the center of a tug of war between untrammeled emotion and pop songcraft. At any given moment, a ‘Mats song could shock you with its beauty and insight — or punch you in the gut with ragged, willful discordance. Kind of like…life, right?

After we ended the call with Gorman, I remembered one of my earliest crystallizing experiences with the Replacements: Driving through San Francisco early on a sunny spring morning, with my girlfriend in the passenger seat and a couple of her girlfriends sitting in back. I don’t remember where we were driving, but I do know we were headed for a breakup, because I was still tied up in knots over my last relationship. That breakup was only a couple of months old, and I’d stupidly soothed it by staggering out of the house on a Saturday night to go to a party, and in walked this girl with high boots and a short skirt. It was a mistake, but it felt fine for awhile — for as long as I could keep it moving, anyway.

And then I’m in the car on this beautiful day, and “Within Your Reach” comes on, and suddenly I can’t turn it up loud enough, and it feels like my heart is going to explode, and I want to scream along until my throat disappears in a ball of flame. I want to cry, I want to rage, I want to dive into everything I’m feeling, I want to run away from it as fast as my legs will carry me.

That’s the Replacements. That’s what you can do with a few chords and a commitment to the truth. And they channeled it through such a delicious dichotomy — with “Within Your Reach” in particular. How many songs are this beautiful while sounding like such complete shit? It’s a mess, but it has so much power — I’m sure there was plenty of thought involved, but it sounds like the kind of thing that just emerges, fully formed, and can never be replicated again, no matter how hard anyone tries to recapture it.

It’s the kind of perfect intensity that’s difficult to attain and impossible to maintain indefinitely. I broke up with that girl, and the Replacements broke up with each other, and the odd reunion aside, I’m sure everyone agrees it was all for the best anyway. I mean, I’m glad I’m not on that car ride anymore. But I still love playing this song loud and feeling that bittersweet swell.

798 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Music

Mar

New Interview: Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall Jazz Band

What follows is the full transcript from my interview with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Ben Jaffe, conducted for an article published in the March 2011 issue of the Hilton Head Monthly.

While preparing for our talk, I read a few of your interviews, and one thing that really stands out is how often you talk about the need to respect the traditions of your music.

I was raised with a sense of tradition, and I was also surrounded by it. Being around Preservation Hall and so many of its musicians, I developed a respect for them — almost the same way other people feel about their grandparents. It’s from the heart — it’s that kind of love. I also think it’s incredibly important, because of the nature of what we do, to have a respect for those traditions and know where we came from.

What struck a chord with me was that even though you’re very aware of those traditions, the band has spent the last several years expanding its audience in relatively non-traditional ways — with the Preservation album, for instance, which found you working with an eyebrow-raising list of guest stars, or with last year’s single, “It Ain’t My Fault,” which came together more organically — and was released a lot more quickly — than most music.

I think at the end of the day, I see what we do as being a continuation of what bands have been doing in New Orleans for over 100 years. If you look back to the very early days of New Orleans jazz, I mean, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bunk Johnson, Pops Ellstein, Buddy Boldin, Jelly Roll Morton…there were no bigger names in music. These guys were the hip-hop artists of their day — wearing thousand-dollar suits, $10,000 tie pins, bragging about their womanizing and drinking. That’s something that I think it’s hard for people today to understand, because jazz is presented in such a different way. Continue reading →

815 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Interviews/Music

Ben Jaffe/New Orleans/Preservation Hall/Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Feb

Drip Drop Drip Drop

You know whose music sounds perfect to me on a cold and rainy afternoon? Mary Chapin Carpenter’s.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, “4 June 1989″

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How about you?

817 days ago Short URL 5 Comments

Music

Feb

Oh Good

I know what’s in store for me today.

Katie Herzig, “Shovel”

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Ornette Coleman, “Snowflakes and Sunshine”

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819 days ago Short URL Comments