I’m gonna need a red cape, and a leather diaper

Yeah, it’s been a while.

But when my son walked up behind me and uttered the above, I felt it absolutely necessary to take a trip to my dear old blog again.

‘Course, that’s all I got for the moment.  But I’ll be back.

The John Butler Trio–A Lollapalooza 2008 Interview

I almost missed out on my interview with John Butler of the John Butler trio. I blame the chaos of the media tent, and the nearly total inability of cell phones to work properly. But then I spotted him talking with another outlet, and hovered until he was free.

John Butler is a wiry thing–there’s an energy about him that makes the air in his vicinity feel charged with electricity. We wandered a bit until we found an empty corner and stood, me madly scribbling in my notebook as he talked.

I saw you earlier this afternoon on the Kidzapalooza stage with your daughter–that’s my most favorite area of Lollapalooza. How old is she?

She’s five, her name is Banjo.

She was great!

She made it, didn’t she?

So much character! I’m curious, how did your music life change when you had children?

They gave me hope, and a lot less anger. I was a really angry person for a while there. It’s surprising that I even had kids with that attitude. But something happens, they come out, this little hot bundle of love, and you’re changed.

During your “adult” set this afternoon, you introduced “Satisfied” by saying, “This song is about the state of music television. Every time you turn on a channel that’s supposed to play music, all you see is shite reality television.” I was a pre-teen when MTV first hit, and it changed everything about music for me…

It’s a funny thing.

Some channels should change their name. If they want to put brain-numbing shit on, fine. I mean, I love them, they play my music, but if it’s not music they’re playing…

You know, I love hip hop music, but when you see what it’s representing to young people these days. They’re advertising the same rocks and minerals their ancestors were enslaved to get out of the ground…

There’s some…Jedi Mind Trick, The Roots, Jurassic 5…

When MTV first came out, you had your skater thrash…that’s now pop music.

Avid watchers of MTV are missing out on a lot of good music–maybe I’m getting old, but I find myself saying “Turn that shit off!” when my kids are watching MTV.

It’s ’soul’ …it doesn’t matter if it’s Gillian Welch soul or Rage Against the Machine soul. The roots go so deep…you don’t see a lot of that soul in popular culture or music.

Feeling able or free to criticize the government, to say what you’re feeling or thinking…there’s not enough of that. That’s what’s so great about Eminem…he said what you were thinking…it was scary, but he was saying what you were thinking.

I think that’s what frightens people about Eminem–sometimes it’s scary to hear the thoughts you’ve learned to suppress said out loud.

When you introduced “Ocean,” you said “this is for everyone who wants to take this country back from all those motherfuckers…” It was a beautiful song. Inspiring, really.

Instrumental…

Yeah…what’s your take on US politics? The US’s standing in the eyes of the rest of the world? I think a lot of young people are so ethnocentric in a way…they don’t realize how the rest of the world sees this country.

You know, I think the best way to look at it is…capitalism is eating itself. Free enterprise has gone to the extreme. Democracy can be bought or sold to the highest bidder. That’s all happening in front of your listening audience. They don’t want to step out of line, but…

They need to, this country needs people who are going to step out of line, no?

The system is completely corrupt. People wonder why Hitler, or even my own country’s John Hawkins commanded such… I don’t like either one of them, don’t get me wrong, but there was that sense of leadership, Obama is capturing our imagination. You want a leader who gives you hope, who believes in something.

There’s such fear–mortgage, debt, the government–it’s a great tool and they’ve learned how to use it against people.

Obama represents some kind of hope of getting out from under that fear, I think.

What’s the difference, for you, between playing big festivals like this and playing ‘regular’ concerts?

The only thing that changes is the intention. You’re trying to touch people, inspire them, and be inspired by them.

There’s all that sonic competition and infinite open space.

You put in as much soul and truth as possible. It’s such a strong medium…it’s hard to ignore its power–it’s a tenuous responsibility. You can affect people.

My thanks to John for taking the time to speak with me.

Flogging Molly–A Lollapalooza 2008 Interview

I spoke with Dennis Casey, guitar and vocals for the band Flogging Molly, this weekend at Lollapalooza in Chicago.

Doing media work at Lollapalooza is absolute insanity. You set up all these interviews ahead of time with different bands–and though you might have some concept of what these people look like from photos and even having possibly seen them live either earlier in the weekend or earlier in life in general, seeing them up close, in the flesh, is an entirely different animal. Not to mention that the air above Grant Park is so filled with electronic interference–phone calls don’t go through, text messages pop up on one’s phone twelve hours after they’ve been sent. So, you either choose to stay put in one advantageous spot in order to try to spot the people you’re scheduled to interview, or you wander around in a daze attempting the same.

I saw Dennis from afar, looking a little lost, but purposeful. Tall, lanky, dressed all in black but for a red cross on his shirt jacket, on a 90 degree, humid Chicago afternoon, bald head topped with a hat. Though I was intrigued by this guy, I really had no idea he was, in fact, the man for whom I’d been waiting to speak to about Flogging Molly. Then, improbably, a phone call came through from Flogging Molly’s press contact, telling me to look for a tall, lanky guy dressed in black, and bald. It was a bad connection, and I thought he said, “He’s Italian.” I’m from Chicago. I AM Italian. You tell me someone is Italian, and bald, and all I’m going to picture is a tubby guy in an untucked silk shirt and fantastic shoes, eating pasta and sipping chianti. I will not, under any circumstances, picture anyone who looks anything like Dennis.

But I, as usual, digress.

According to their bio on their official site,

“We’re not a traditional band,” explains Dublin born singer/songwriter, Dave King. “We are influenced by traditional music and inspired by it, and we put our own little twist on it.”

“If it didn’t have mandolin, accordion, fiddle and whistle, it would be punk rock, and if it didn’t have guitar, bass and drums, it would be traditional Irish music,” King admits, adding, “You can’t be bothered being labeled.”

Flogging Molly has been around since 1997, and has since held true to that refusal to be labeled with one particular sound description.

St. Patrick’s Tour, how did that come about?

Every year, we have to play somewhere on St. Patrick’s Day. Fans always want us in their city. We’d play in a different place every year, until we thought it’d be better just to make a tour of it. We do it every year now, we call it Green 17.

How do you choose where to play on the 17th?

It’s funny–it depends–the venue, the promoters–people think NY, Boston, Chicago, but there’s always other big bands playing in those cities then. Lately, we’ve been playing in Phoenix. That city has really taken to us–we get played on the radio all the time like any other big, huge band. It’s hard to play an outside venue on the east coast in March. Phoenix has a great outdoor facility. It’s such a big day, so many people want to come–you don’t want to play some small club. You want to have as much room for as many as possible.

What was it like playing Coachella this year?

It was an honor to do it. I’ll tell you, it was something else. You know, I had dreams my whole life–but I never imagined we’d ever be playing something like Coachella. It’s huge–it’s such an honor to play there.

When you’re playing festivals, do you check out other bands? What does that do for you?

Hell yeah! Europe does these all the time–we were over in Europe for two months. You’ll be backstage with System of a Down, Radiohead, it’s amazing. You go to the smaller stages, check out new bands…aside from the performance itself, that’s the best part.

Do you sense a difference in the audiences at festivals vs. club shows? How do you address that?

We don’t change anything. People are there to have a good time. Promoters will put us on–we’ve played first thing some times and there’s 30-40,000 people there going crazy. Our band gets people going–there’s something that really works between the band and the audience.

You’re based in LA but you’ve recorded in Ireland. What led you to decide to do that?

Nobody lives in LA anymore, actually. Dave, our singer, moved to Ireland–we write where Dave lives. We followed him there, wrote in a little garage in the Irish countryside–it was a fantastic experience. We recorded at this little studio called the Grouse Lodge–in the middle of nowhere, with this little pub attached to it.

Dave really spearheaded the whole thing.

What are you working on now? Float was just released in March, so I assume you’re touring.

Touring. That’s it.

I’ve read that you, as a band, don’t want to be labeled. What does that do for you? Are you freed in a way?

I never considered myself as an artist. That’s for like Da Vinci…

Labeling…it’s like asking someone what kind of person you are. Music is deeper than that. The lyrics and what they’re saying. If you label yourself, that’s what you are. Life changes you. Music is the same. To label is so limiting.

So, you’re at a smaller, more independent label then?

We’re with Side One. We started with them when they were first starting out–it was just two guys, Joe and Bill. We’ve grown together, we’ve built a relationship after 10 years. It’s a personal relationship–I can call up and I don’t have to go through some secretary or something–I just call them up–I have their cell phone numbers, their direct numbers . With major labels–there’s more pressure. We don’t have that. We do what we want. You trust each other–things are working, why change it? It’s perfect.

*****************************

Flogging Molly plays the kind of music that leads one to let loose–the passion with which they play, the passion they feel for their music, is evident, and it’s that kind of give-and-take between performers and audience–the feeding of one another–that makes them work so well, especially as a live band. Their energy and that of their audience is one of those pleasant and powerful vicious circles that are so rare.

Thanks to Dennis for taking the time to speak with me–it was a pleasure.

Viki will be babbling from the Democratic National Convention

Yes, it’s true:

Newsviners to Cover National Conventions

This is, by far, one of the most amazing opportunities I have ever been presented with.  I am, in a word, ecstatic.

I will be posting my coverage here on VikiBabbles, but more importantly, my coverage will be featured on Newsvine and at msnbc.com.

It’s a thrill of a lifetime.  Armed with notebook and pen, laptop, digital still and video cameras, and an obscene amount of coffee and liquor, I am going to bring you my experience of the Democratic National Convention.

I don’t even know what else to say about it!  Watch for updates on coverage plans, as well as pre-Convention articles.

And wish me luck.

Three weeks have passed…

and I still haven’t written anything new, at least not here.  I’ve been busy, damnit!  I have this life thing to deal with.  I’ve got eighteen frickin’ jobs, the total pay of which doesn’t really add up to a living wage.  I have kids, I have to make time for my required weekly alcohol consumption.

A couple small announcements:  I got a press pass for Lollapalooza again this year, so look forward to random drunken postings about musicians I’ve interviewed and after-shows I’ve gone to!

And the other thing?  Well, I can’t really announce it officially yet, but it does involve me traveling to another state round about the end of August to do something really goddamn exciting.  As soon as I can, I’ll tell all, but I’ll leave you to guess for now.

I’ve been helping host a podcast about Newsvine called VineCast.  Click to go to the VineCast site to listen to me talk while spilling wine into my surge protector and talk out of my ass about various subjects.  It’s a weekly deal, and you can subscribe to the feed there on the site.  Let me know what you think!

On that note, I have been toying with the idea of doing my own little BabbleCast, but that’s still on the lower end of the project list.

A New-ish Direction

First off, I finally got around to updating to Wordpress 2.5.1, and it’s very pretty and elegant on the inside.  I love it.

Secondly, I’ve been long puzzling out what to do with this blog, and I believe I’ve hit on an idea.  I just picked up Natalie Goldberg’s latest book, Old Friend From Far Away:  The Practice of Writing Memoir, and I think what I’m going to do is to kill two birds with one stone and publish what I write as practice while reading the book here on the ole blog.

How does that sound to you?

Then, what’s going to happen is, an editor is going to happen upon this one day, become enthralled, and publish the whole shebang after giving me a million dollars.  Does that sound like a plan or what?  I love it!

So, I’ll be back.  After I’ve written something.

If anyone would like to pick up the book themselves, and do the practices as assigned, feel free to leave a link to your posts in the comments!

Um, yeah. Hi.

Next month, I will have had this blog for four years.  That might sound somewhat impressive, but no.  I haven’t posted much in a while.  I’ve been somewhat neglectful for a while now.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to…it’s not that I haven’t had anything to say…

I’ve just not been saying it.

I’m not making any promises here.  I’m not going to claim that this post is the beginning of a new slew of posts.  I’ve absolutely no idea if I’ll even remember tomorrow that I posted tonight.  All I know is that Cat Stevens is coming out of my speakers and that’s sending me back in time a bit.

Not that I’m going to tell you about it.

What’s happening right now, at this very moment, is me, drinking some inexpensive yet very tasty wine, and being a bit sad still about my friend Frank Crist being dead for some eight months now.  Maybe it’s the wine.  Maybe it’s the dead thing.  Maybe it’s my birthday coming up.  I had no problem with thirty.  But I was a wreck at 29.  I’m hoping 40 won’t be a problem, but, well, DAMNIT.  I’m about to turn 39!

No.  Really.  39.

I don’t feel 39.  Though, what is 39 supposed to feel like?  I mean, my parents have a good quarter-century on me, and they’re having the time of their fucking lives, at least it certainly seems like they are.  So that’s something to look forward to, right?

This all sounds strange.  Because the thing is, I’m really loving my life right now.  I like everything I am doing.  I like all of my five-odd jobs, and I don’t even mind that together, they don’t create a living wage.  I feel free and clear and happy.  Yes, HAPPY.  Say the word ‘happy’ six or seven times really quick. It kinda loses meaning, doesn’t it?  Weird, huh?  I’m HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!

It looks like I spelled it wrong, doesn’t it?

Here’s this thing:  I really miss Frank.  A fair bunch of people have died in my lifetime, people who meant something to me in one way or another, but none like Frank Crist.  There’s even a handful of people still in my life whose death, if it happened tomorrow, might likely devastate me more, I don’t know.  But right now, at this moment, it’s Frank’s death that’s got me all wrapped up in madness.

And it happened many, many months ago.  Damnit, I miss him.  I miss him because he would have been so happy for me right now.  He’d be cheering me on and encouraging me in my dark moments and dragging me, kicking and whining and moaning, out of my self-pitying moments, and he’d do it all without saying a goddamn word.

It is wrong for Frank to not be alive in this world.

It’s just wrong.  Excuse me while I go sit on the couch and drink cheap-but-tasty wine and smoke cigarettes and be mad and feel sorry for myself.

Barack Obama. I can’t help it. I really like this guy, and I really want him to be the next president.

Hey look! I have a blog!

Alright, so I completely forgot that I have a blog.  I haven’t posted since LAST YEAR.  Yeah, it was December, tail end of the year, but still.  Last year.  It’s mid-April now.  I haven’t touched this site in more than five months.

That’s just sad.

Life just kinda does this shit to you, you know?  Where you get busy and there’s priorities and you have to let some things go in order to remain sane?  Do you know what I’m saying?  The good side is that I’m sane.  The bad side is that I had to let this space go for a while.

Anyway, I have a story to share with you all.  Whoever is still out there who hasn’t cleaned house on their RSS feeds, anyway.

Earlier, I stopped at the grocery store.  I’ve got almost no edible food in my kitchen, and I’m thinking–it would probably be a good idea to pick up some stuff.  I don’t even have anything to drink aside from some skunky beer, vodka, and french-vanilla creamer.  Coffee and tea, yeah.  But that requires effort and a wait.  That’s the way things have been around here lately.

Anyhoo, I’m in the tiny liquor section of our grocery store, coming out of the big-ole walk-in refrigerator with an 18-pack of Bud Light, and a woman and her young son were making their way around my cart, which I’d left outside the entrance to the fridge.  She muttered “Sorry,” as if she really needed to apologize for moving my cart, which I’d left, selfishly, in a spot completely inconvenient to anyone else wanting to make their way around the little liquor section.

I flopped the beer into my cart and took a quick look at her and her child.

Quickly, the thought flashed through my mind, though not in these words, just more of an impression:  “They don’t belong here.”

I pushed my cart down the little aisle and I considered turning right to the next, where the vodka is located, to see if Ketel One was on sale.  But something stopped me.  The thought was very clear in my mind–

“The woman who moved my cart to get by, and her child, are in the vodka aisle, and she doesn’t want me to see what she’s doing.”

As I turned left, I thought, “She’s going to try to steal a bunch of booze,” only again, it wasn’t in words, it was a feeling.

By the time I’d made it to the check-out, she’d apparently been accosted by the manager and had run out the door and to her car, with her young son.  The manager was near the customer service desk, asking her to call 911, and his hand rested on the handle of a cart filled with bottles of Absolut.

And one, lone, little-boy’s hiking boot.

I overheard phrases–”She was shoving the bottles in his jacket.”  “What kind of example is that for a child?”  “She should be ashamed.”

You think she’s not?  You think that woman doesn’t walk in shame every moment of her life?  She’s so desperate for whatever it is she’s desperate for that she has to try to steal booze from a grocery store and use her five-year-old son as an accomplice?

This level of desperation is easy to hide from in my little town.  But it’s coming, isn’t it?

I’ve felt, for several years now, a sense of foreboding; shaky footing; desperation in this country.  And it just keeps growing.

A large part of me, the vocal part of me, is terrified.

But there’s a part of me that’s somewhat excited.  I know, that sounds weird.  But I’m a little excited to see the parts of this country which have been, historically, untouched by everyday desperation, feel the effects.  See desperation.  Feel desperation.

I’m excited to see the eventual outcome.  Maybe I won’t survive it…maybe it’ll take so long to see what’s happening right now with any sense of distance or relativity that it’ll be my grandchildren talking about it in history class.  Or my great-grandchildren.

I just don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.  And for the first time in my life, I’m absolutely giddy about it.

I am now a columnist!

Click the post title to get to the link.  Something’s wonky with this template.

Rule number one: Don’t talk about Western Springs

The fun never ends with me, does it?  That is a link to the first in hopefully a long, long line of columns I’m writing for my local paper.  In the paper version, there’s a picture of me!  A random kid recognized me when I was walking down the street!  It was crazy!  And no, I don’t use this many exclamation points when I’m writing the column.  That’d be silly!  And really annoying!

The funny thing is that a day or so after I turned the column in to my editor, Business Week named my town the second-best place in the country to raise children.  Obviously, they didn’t get the memo.