November 12, 2025 • 64 mins
The Questlove Show kicks off with Academy Award–winning filmmaker and legendary music journalist Cameron Crowe in a captivating conversation that spans decades of music, movies, and cultural change in celebration of his new memoir, The Uncool. Crowe reflects on his early Rolling Stone interviews, his transition to Hollywood with classics such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Say Anything, and what it takes to tell an artist’s story both in print and on screen. Hear behind-the-scenes stories of working with icons like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, insights into crafting great biopics, and reflections on how live music has evolved. It is an intimate, wide-ranging exploration of creativity, memory, and the moments that shape our cultural history, only on The Questlove Show.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Quest Loft Show. What
can I Say? In nineteen seventy two, at the ripe
(00:22):
age of fifteen, our guest today took my dream job.
But being as though I was just a year old
and unable to read, or write or form sentences or thoughts,
I'm willing to forgive him this one time only thank you.
But I will say during this period he will have
(00:44):
conducted career defining both for him and the artist, career
defining interviews at Rolling Stone Magazine with the likes of
Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton, John Neil Young, Joni Mitchell,
led Zapplin, The Eagles, Fleetwood, Mac, The Who, and.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So on and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
As a filmmaker, I mean, he's pretty much, I believe,
given us the definitive movies of our day, be it
A Fast Times of Richmond, High Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire,
Vanilla Sky, and for Almost Famous, of which he is
an Academy Award recipient for Best Screenplay. I mean, the
(01:25):
list goes on and oning. He's currently right now working
on a film based on the life of Joni Mitchell.
Right now, he is promoting his memoir of his time
as a music critic called The Uncool. Please please welcome
to the Quest Left Show QLs. Cameron Crow, how you
(01:48):
doing right now?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I'm good. I'm psyched to be talking with you again.
It's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate this. So I
had a situation last week. I was hanging with John Mayer,
and I believe that there's the idea of questlove, and
then I also believe there's the actual quest love. So
one of the most disappointing true quirks about me, kind
(02:15):
of in a Larry David way, is that I normally
don't talk shop with my peers. Of course, on social
media and books and films everywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
My entire career is a.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Giant platform for me to spew out my unsolicited thoughts
about music.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But I noticed that I.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Tend to back off and talking about music. However, being
as though this is our second conversation with each other.
He gave me the honor of doing a live Q
and A with you some time ago, and when I
walked away, I was like, wow, Like okay, So maybe
I have to rewrite that narrative and say that I
(03:01):
enjoy talking shop with other musicians.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's just that sometimes, for instance.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Like I was at a party like three weeks ago,
and then someone just came up to me and said.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Coust love real quick.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
The most important line that Curtis Mayfield's Ever, you know, yeah, Ever.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Said, and I'm like eating shrimp.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I'm like, and I know that's my fault because I've
led people to believe that I'm open to all music discussion.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But in this particular case.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I would imagine had I been born a decade and
a half earlier, I would have probably wound up on
your path or at some sort of level to that.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
So it's the crime of you knowing so many different
corners of culture.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
It's like, yeah, they'll ask you about music. They probably
checked out what the gifts you were giving during COVID,
which was very music centric. But you're like a film
guy beyond many, if not most, So your knowledge of
film is so particular. And also why it's I don't know,
there are many avenues to take.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, I'll ask you because I'm using no format today,
no notes or whatever, so I'll just we're just having
a conversation. Yeah, yeah, How did you know that you
were a film guy?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Because I loved film always as a kid. They my
mom and sometimes my mom and dad would sneak me
into R rated movies just because Mike Nichols. I should
know about Mike Nichols. Stuff like that, you know, David
Lean and all kinds of stuff. It just seemed like
no man's land in terms of a dream, Like I
never went to film school obviously, maybe not obviously, but
(04:47):
I never thought that that was accessible to a guy
from San Diego who wasn't connected in it any way.
But for some reason I had no problem walking into
a dressing room and asking a band that I loved,
like the questions that I wanted answers to. Maybe it's
because rock was a little less huge then and film
(05:08):
was always huge and still is huge. But once I
got a taste of it, you know, it's like it is.
It's a rush like no other. And particularly when you
show something that's been in your head for a long
time and you've written it, you've edited it, you know
this well when you finally put it in front of people,
and the shit that they pick up on it's sometimes
(05:29):
it's the smallest thing and they're all over it. That's
a thrill. It's a different kind of thrill than writing
rock writing particularly, But I don't know. It's like collect
as many experiences as you can was kind of my thing.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
How long was it the lead up of you getting
the green light to do Fast Times? What was the
seed that was Plannet that said, you know what, after
this last article I turn in, Yeah, I'm going to
pursue film. Did you have any impostor syndrome or any
of those things? Like can I do this?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I started asking for film assignments from Rolling Stone towards
the end of like a big run that I had
from fifteen to twenty two. I started asking for film stories.
Richard Dreyfus was the first one that I did. And
Dreyfus fantastic and so different from the musicians, you know,
(06:24):
like just wondrously narcissistic and fun like he was at
the peak of his kind of like Close Encounters phase
and everything Jaws to Close Encounters, like Biggest Star going right,
And he he said, you know, if I do the
Rolling Stone interview, I'd like to do it differently, Like
what if you ask a lot of people who've worked
(06:46):
with me what they think of me, and then bring
that back to me.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
He wanted an oral history.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, but he was like, bring me the oral history
of what people have said about me, and I'll respond
to it, which was wild. And so I talked to
a whole bunch of people about Richard Dreyfuss and did
this interview where I basically threw stuff to him about
things people were about him, good or bad, and he
was fucking ferocious about it. It was amazing. And the
(07:14):
next assignment I got that was film centric was Sissy
Spasic and that lit a fire because for daughter, it
was it was before coal miner's daughter. She had done
Carrie and bad Lands and Three Women with Altman and
you'll love this. So they say, Annie Leebowitz is going
(07:38):
to come with you to Equipment Texas. You can see
Sissy Equipment Texas where she's visiting her hometown and her mother.
And so I get there with Annie, who was, you know,
a titan of photography. So that was a big deal
to be hanging with Annie in Texas and we show
up to see Sissy and Sissy goes. I got to
ask you to come with me. I got a little
(07:58):
adventure I have to go on. They're trying to get
me to play Loretta Lynn in this movie called Coal
Miner's Daughter, and I just I can't do it. You know,
I'm not gonna do it. It's just it doesn't feel
right to me. But can you come with me to
I think New Orleans maybe, And we're gonna go to
a Loretta Lynn concert. And it's gonna be a little
(08:18):
rough for me because I'm gonna have to, you know,
turn her down, but we'll go. We'll get one to
go with me. And so we all went to Loretta
show and Amir, I gotta tell you, Sissy boards the
bus where Loretta is with her husband du brings Annie
and me with her. I think Loretta Lynn closed Sissy's
(08:40):
basic in about twelve minutes. She was so classic and
big and a big character and so warm. And then
she goes on stage and starts doing this show and
Cissy is like already putting the performance together, and so
she left committing to the part that.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Night started back out of it and.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
So excited and that rhythm of how it worked, and
it was so hands on with material and discussing characters
and all that stuff. The fuse was lit. And then
I found somebody who I knew who was a rock manager,
Art Linson. I don't know if you ever met him.
He managed Nils Lofgren and Nils's group Grin and the
(09:24):
label was called Spin Dizzy that Art ran, so I
knew Art and Art started to be a presence in
the movie business producing Jonathan Demi and they Universal like
kind of picked up an option on Fast Times the
book and gave it to like their resident rock ish guy.
Art and Art loved the book and said, you know what,
(09:46):
I'm going to teach you how to write a screenplay.
You're the cheapest person we could find to do this,
and if we make it cheaply, we might be able
to sneak this movie through. And that was Fast Times. Wow,
I know. So it really was all because of rock
journalism in a way that Art said, I'm gonna teach you.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I will say that Coal Miner's daughters probably it made
an impression on me.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Like I didn't hear of Loretta Lynne.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
But since that moment that I became very familiar with
her and her music and all that stuff, and so
to hear that you were there at the impetus of
it then, I mean, you know, she was still at
the height of Kerry and all that stuff. But when
you saw the end result like to make an impression
on you as far as music films are concerned or
(10:35):
big time.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I loved it and I thought Sissy deserved the Academy Award.
She's amazing in it. She's not pushing, she's not trying,
she just is it. And I went back and checked
that movie out not too long ago, just kind of
wanting to look at the so called BIOPI biopic and
that was definitely top five and Buddy Holly story and stuff,
(11:00):
but check it out. Check out Coal Miner's Daughter Sometime.
It is the slowest, easiest wade into telling the story.
It just is character. It's time and place, which you
crush in the Sly Lives. Time and place is like
(11:21):
so important. And I saw it and I was just like,
you know, the whole drive to have, like, my Josh,
here's the person that you're gonna see the life of.
It's like, man, you don't need it with the right pace.
It's like an invisible gas that just pulls you in.
And that's Coal Miner's.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Daughter for you.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Though, with biopics and personally, I always thought there's a
danger and telling the soup to nuts story of a
life where it's hard to really cover it all. And
I always thought that, man, why doesn't someone just talk
about a very very specific time period, Like when they
(12:04):
were first talking about the James Brown biopic, I said, man,
you could probably get the essence of who James Brown
is if you talk about April fourth, nineteen sixty eight,
which I would thinks this is on the fourth, It
might be the fifth of the day after, but this
is right after Martin Luther King has assassinated James Brown.
(12:27):
Fans know that there was a concert schedule in Boston, Massachusetts,
and every city in America is in civil unrest and
there's riots everywhere, and the mayor of Boston's like, mister Brown,
if you give us permission to broadcast this on television,
I think this will keep people in the house and watching.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You instead of destroying Boston.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And sure enough, James Brown say Boston because there were
no riots that night, because everyone was in watching and
you know, he yeah, his concerns too, Like wait a minute,
so I got to give a twice as long performance.
You're broadcasting me, you're not paying me extra money, like
he's the business part of James Brown's at work, Like
(13:12):
I know, like what's in this for me? Like I'm
giving the the cow for free. But I always thought, man,
if you told the story, like very specific stories instead
of the entire biopick.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Right when it's a history lesson, you lose me. If
it's characters that are not cut out human type, people
that say things, you know, that are completely dealing with
the Wikipedia issues of the artists, it's like, you lose me.
(13:50):
I don't know. You can do soup to nuts if
you have a reason to do soup to nuts. As
soon as they tell you soup to nuts can't be done,
someone will pull it off. But yeah, most of the
time you at that sweet spot because it's filled with
story and you don't need to You're right, I mean,
James Brown in Boston, you get it all. You get
(14:11):
the music, you get time and place, you get it all.
I guess it's case by case. Citizen Kane is Soup
to Nuts? Is it a biopic? Kind of? But it
tells us a greater story than sit down. I'm going
to tell you about a life with Cepia toned glimpses
of my childhood, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
But that's also like a first of its kind, so
I could imagine I wanted to know, like if that
were to come out in the mid Ausin, it would
have just been the office, you know.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean that's funny.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Are you telling the entire story of Joni Mitchell? Is
this a very specific part of her life that you're
focusing on.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's chunks, it's not one slice, it's a couple, it's
some slices, and it's in a context that I think
it holds together for a bigger story. To be slightly vague,
but there's a way to tell her story, which is
why I called up her place and just said, like,
I have a take on this. You know, whenever you're
(15:29):
interested in anything like this, just come to me and
well I'll pitch it out and see what you think.
And they're like, now get over here.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
How easy was it to convince her? Because right now,
the most frustrating, frustrating part of this whole process that
I'm in right now is conveying to my subjects or
my dream subjects. Yeah, the urgency of time running on
(15:58):
the clock right now. And for a lot of people
sharing their story, rappers especially, you know, this means that oh,
the second I start looking in the rear view mirror
that now, that means my career is over. This is
not just with film, like trying to get rappers to
(16:19):
do memoirs to keep a track a thing. It's almost
like there's this rule like if I look back, then
I'm dead already, which I don't believe in just what
I've learned and Slide and the Earth Wind and Fire
doc is memory fades, you know for a lot of these.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Things, yes, and turns into anecdotes with cute little punchlines.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Right and there's the whole kind of revisionist history thing,
like your version of how it happened. And it's such
a dangerous spot. And I can't convey to people enough
the importance of pictures, writing things down, saving posters.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yes, you can taste it when you have that stuff
from the day and it's souvenir from the day. It's important.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So this wasn't a hard pitch to convince her, like
now's the time to tell your story.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
No, because there are a lot of people that had
been coming before me with really bad ideas, and so
I had the benefit of their failures in probably not
knowing her well enough. So if a few of them,
I think came in not really knowing her history. It's
like the Barry Gordy thing. You know, if you send
me a letter and it's b A R R y.
(17:33):
You didn't take the time to know how my name
was spelled, and I can't take the time to know
what you want from me. Goodbye? You know, I love that.
This is what's interesting. Tell me if you've run across this.
Success creates eight different viewpoints and people raising their hands
and say it was me, it was me, it was me,
it was me, And the memory does morph into a
(17:55):
different thing, and it's everybody kind of disagrees because they're
trying to take credit for a success a failed project.
The memories are perfect because they're all about who to
blame for it. Memories are dead on you know, there's
not it's not Rashamon. It's like they pretty much figure
(18:16):
that it's one person and one decision, and they're really
clear about it. So success breeds all the conflicting accounts
unless you have the stuff from the day, like.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Do you know when you're being talked to by someone
well trained media that says the right things and whatnot,
and like, how do you know.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
You're getting the right story?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And was your young age a part of the dismantling
or the putting my guard down and revealing to you
because you know you're getting major stories out of these
acts and you know who otherwise would probably be guarded
with anyone else.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I never had the feeling that, like, oh, oh, it's
a plus that I'm fifteen or sixteen. I was always
kind of like hoping I didn't get asked how old
I was, and hoping that I could seem adult like
but not in a precocious way. Nobody really busted me
(19:17):
on my age, no once, but to me, I had
no choice in it. I just had to do it.
I just couldn't not do it. I loved some of
the stories that I'd read. I loved Ben Fong Torres
doing these interviews with Marvin Gay, with David Crosby, and
Joan Winner's interview with John Lennon. It's like, Wow, this
(19:40):
is really revealing and confessional, and that made me want
to collect stories like that, Like I just wanted to
be the person who could say the right thing and
get people to talk like Dick Cavin on TV was one.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Of my favorite.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
So I didn't have a choice. I just did it.
And it wasn't until later that I kind of hit
a wall and took on so many assignments that I
just felt like I was starting to take a long
time to turn stories in. I started Chuck Young at
Rolling Stone started doing these stories that I would have
done really well in a first person way that was
(20:18):
kind of gregarious and amazing, and he wrote about the
sex pistols, and I just felt like, I'm washed up,
you know, And that was when I went home and
decided to start writing this story that ended up being
Fast Times at Ridgemal hint.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
At the age of twenty, you already felt that you
were a veteran, A washed up veteran.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah. When I first came to Rolling Stone, there were
people that were at the end of their run, and
I remember what it looked like, I remember what it
sounded like. I remember there was one guy who had
written epic stories, and the thing that they whispered about
him behind his back was he's so fucked up on
writer's block now he can't be in a room with
(21:04):
a typewriter. He starts melting down with anxiety. I'm like,
that'll never be me. And then I never became that guy.
But I started to just freeze up about deadlines, which
was very scary, and so it was time to kind
of move on. I know, the exact moment had happened.
There were two things that happened in one day. There
(21:26):
was a Neil Young cover story, and I'd gone on
the bus with Neil Young and Joel Bernstein my Palle,
the photographer. We had toured with Neil and it was
great stuff. I mean, he canceled a three album set
that had already been printed up and pressed and stuff.
And the Warner Brothers guys came out and said, you
(21:46):
can't cancel decade and He's like, I can't. I got
new music that I'm doing with Emmy Lou Harris and stuff,
and it's just I've moved on. These guys are like
it's gonna cost us half a million dollars. He's like,
I can't help it, man. You know, it was like
it was the greatest story. And Elliott Roberts called up,
his manager called me up and said, you know what,
(22:08):
Neil doesn't want the story to come out. He's not
gonna pose for the cover. And Neil, he just got
into it. He does, He's moved on. It's like moved on.
It was ten days ago. You know. No, no, he's
a different guy.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Now wait, can you give it backstory? So this is
what year is this?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
It's seventy seven. I know it's exactly seventy seven. For
a couple different reasons. He had fallen in love with
the Sweet Home Alabama, the Leonard skinnerd song that was
kind of a call out supposedly, so it was anyway, amir,
it was a great story. He liked it, he loved it.
He gave me a cassette to give to them because
(22:46):
I had written about them of three songs, Powderfinger, Captain Kennedy,
and I forget the third one, but he gave me
a cassette, which I gave to Leonard Skinnyard.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
What was their response?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Fuck? Yeah was their response? They love to Neil, it
was it was like, I don't know, it's like one
of those kind of Jobiz feuds that was wasn't really true.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It was just it wasn't kids with Lamar.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I get it, Okay, it wasn't it wasn't like secretly
crushing out on each other. So I had that story
and it was kind of like I knew I was
gonna make that deadline and it would be good, and
though I'd been missing deadlines lately at Rolling Stone. So anyway, Elliott,
the manager calls me up and says, cancel the story.
Neil wants it canceled, won't post with the cover, doesn't
(23:31):
approve anything. It's canceled. And I'm like, I'm gonna get fired.
I'm gonna lose everything. I'm gonna lose everything in Elliott Roberts,
classic funny guy. He had a line that I will
never forget. He's like, yeah, I know, I got to
get rid of that kid. And I'm like, you're fucking
making jokes, and I was. And he called back two
(23:53):
days later and said, I talked to Neil, go ahead
and go with the story. He doesn't want you to
get in trouble, which was cool of him. But the
other thing that happened on that first day was John
Belushi called out of nowhere the Rolling Stone office and
asked to talk to me. And I had met him,
I think twice. Mitch Glazer took me to the blues bar,
and I had met him there. He told me an
(24:14):
amazing drummer joke. Who was It was like Buddy rib
about Buddy Rich And I don't know. He was very cool, right,
but I hardly knew him. And he said, look, hey man,
I'm just calling you because like they're gonna put me
on the cover of Rolling Stone. And I asked for
you to be the writer, and they said no, he
takes too long, and so they gave it to Chuck Young.
(24:39):
But I just wanted you to know like I asked
for you. I was like, I'm washed up. I'm washed up.
There they're telling artists that I'm not efficient with deadlines.
This is bad.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
How common was accessibility to artists in the seventies, Like
how often would you get unsolicited phone calls?
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You'd get a phone call or too before the article
was published, Like they would be up late staring at
the ceiling and going why did I say this and that?
So you'd get calls to clarify, like I just want
to can I redo my talk about Leonard Skinner? You know,
like you'd get that call, but then no calls after
(25:24):
the story came out. I mean, I think Sissy spacet
called and said I liked this story you wrote. But
that was the only time that happened. Sometimes you might
run into them later and get a comment, but mostly
that would happen only to like social calls from somebody
who's in the sphere, the actual entertainment sphere. I think
(25:46):
Jan Wenner would get those calls because I remember sitting
at the Rolling Stone office as a little guy, and
it'd be like fucking John Lennon on one Jan and
I'm like what And then you hear him going like John,
how you doing? Like what? Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
So you go okay.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Would you often wonder what they thought about it, or
even parts that you might have to keep in that
could be seen as a problem in the future or
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
It's a really good question. Sometimes you have to fight
for the thing that they made off the record, and
if you're on the road for a couple days at
least you know you're in these situations where you're not
always just a guy in a hotel room with a
pointing a microphone at them. You're or sometimes in the
back of a car or backstage and they're like, you
(26:35):
know that guy that just came in, let me tell
you about that guy, you know, and it's like an
amazing story. It's like, right, that's off the record. Of course,
you're like, of course, but then you could come back
later and say, you know what that story you told
me backstage. Here's why I think it works because it's
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and like eight
(26:56):
times out of ten they'd say, Okay, you gotta use it.
But that collaboration doesn't happen so much anymore because you
don't have the time with the person you do because
you have a creative experience with I would imagine quite
a few of your heroes. That's a different thing. This
is a negotiation sometimes.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
My obsession with Rolling Stone really stemmed from well one
we had a subscription to the house.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I lived in a Billboard cash box.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Rolling Stone cream subscription household, like any music magazine, always
came to my parents' crib.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
For the most part, I would be fascinated with the
lead review because I love the idea of like a
illustration and then seeing the star rating and stuff. And
so I started adorning the walls in my house with
those leeve reviews. And you know, by the time I'm fifteen. Yeah,
(28:11):
I mean that's pretty much like how I know, you know,
when you talk about past the original generation of Rolling Stone,
like I'll say that his name.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Is kN Tucker, Yeah, kN Tucker.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So I knew besides Stevie Wonder's songs in the Key
of Life, it was very rare to see a black
live review and it was the police issue of Rolling Stone.
I believe that this is when Zennata Mindata came out
and they had the cover. kN Tucker gave Prince's Dirty
(28:46):
Mind the Lee review in Rolling Stone, and at that time,
Prince was just one of the artists that would adorn
my older sister's walls. So I kind of had Prince
in the right on Team Beat thing. Not that I
knew the difference between like critical writing of music and fanzines,
(29:06):
but even I knew that Team Beat and Ride On
were like frothy articles and you weren't going to get
anything deep as opposed to Rolling Stone. And I remember, like,
wait a minute, they're tweeting this guy like he's a
real serious person.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
At the time, I only knew like the singles, and
it was because of the pun. The pun was someday
our prints will come Wow, which you know, even at nine,
I was like, Wow, that's that's a hell of a reference.
And I had never even heard Dirty Mine or anything
about it, but it made an impression on me, and
(29:44):
suddenly I started getting obsessed with leave reviews only Wow,
could you, at least during that time period, could you
tell me what the modus operandi was in terms of
how records were assigned to writers to review them, how
(30:06):
long they had to sit with it, who assigns the stars,
those things.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
That I did not know a lot about. There was
some mystery to it. I know that there were people
that had DIBs on upcoming records, there were regular reviewers
that would have DIBs on it, and features too, like
Bob Dylan. But when I first started, John Landau was
still the music editor, and John Landau would make a
(30:33):
lot of these decisions, and John Landau was a huge
force at Rolling Stone. When I was doing that on
my brother's story, they said, you need to talk to
the king because the King knows Phil Walden and Capricorn Records,
and the King will just help you a little bit,
knowing how the ropes go. And I was like, who's
(30:55):
the king? They're like, John Landau, that's the king. The
Duke is Dave Marsh. And I'm like, okay, a right, okay,
so the King is Landel, the Duke is Dave Marsh.
So the king is just like, here's the call the king,
here's his phone number.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So you weren't a you weren't a staff writer. You
were still freelancing.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I was freelancing, and I was coming into the feature division.
But John Landau even had you know, like even even
had to say in some of the features and everything.
So it was almost like it was somewhere between a
hazing and an education. Because I called Landau and he
was like, this is the king, Like okay, what do
you what do you? How does this work? And he
(31:39):
was like, well, you know, you got to dig deep
and you gotta do this, and you got to do that.
You got to know that, like southern music is born
and like this and otis Redding, and so that's what
you're waiting into. And Dwayne Almond, you know Dwayne, Dwayne
worked with Blah blah blah, and so he was he
was amazing and uh, you know this is pre Bruce
(32:00):
and stuff. So he was the King. So he's still
the King. I think Bruce probably calls him John, but
you know, maybe he calls him the king. I just
think Klubby. And to answer your question is like John
Landau protected the club that was the music reviews got it.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
So I'm leaving this up to the old guards. Disdain
for led Zeppelin. Yeah, clearly you were a fan of
these guys, definitely, And of course I guess their hesitancy
was like, well, you know, they're still in the blues
from black artists and reserving it and washing it down and.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
There's no integrity behind that.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Let me ask you, do you believe in the theory
that fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
No?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I think I mean, does take still matter?
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Of course they can be wrong. You know, it's like
it's such a fluid thing. Everything changes. Like as you
were talking about led Zeppelin, I wish it ran as
deep as you know, misappropriation and all that stuff that
all came later. The big thing that they were against
led Zeppelin for, I think was that they came out
(33:21):
of a fad which was supergroups. Blind Faith was a supergroup.
You know, it had Clapton and Stevie Winwood and stuff
that had some integrity, but I think there was some cheesy,
superficial supergroups, so called supergroups, that were around, and then
(33:41):
here comes led Zeppelin, which is the guy from the
Yardbirds and the other guys weren't that well known, but
it was perceived as a supergroup and not taking that seriously.
I think it was the fans that said, no, this
is a real group. This is a real, real group.
By the time led Zeppelin two came out, it was
(34:02):
you didn't hear that anymore. It's a strange thing that
I remember at the time. And then it became about
you know, the Lemon song and all that stuff, and
like stealing a little bit and that they came after it,
but mostly they just didn't take them seriously. At the beginning,
it was felt like a commercial venture by somebody who
had done you know, more legit work elsewhere, like with
(34:25):
the Yardbirds. So you know, it's that caddy really and.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So we're supergroup seen as cheating if you will.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Or yeah, yeah, totally totally, like too easy. It's like
this is not born, you know, out of out of passion,
heart and soul. This is born out of a Petri
dish for success.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Man, Come on, well, If that's the case, then did
they take Band of Gypsies seriously?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Kind of not?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Is that why the Band of Gypsy's album really isn't
considered in the Hendrix canon of.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Kind of is now but at the time less than
now for sure. For sure, it's like, oh, well, you
missed the white hot cannonball. That's over now. It's like
he's gonna go play jazz with Buddy Miles and this
is not going to go anywhere. Great. It was kind
of live of it. Wow, I know, but it's like
all of that stuff changes, people reinvent and all that stuff,
(35:23):
and it's just fun to watch it all happen. But
when there were that many people focused on one of
the few music outlets out there, you know, there's a
lot of serious you're in, you're out of the club
stuff going on. They don't have a lot of power.
Cream even had a lot of power. I love that
you had a subscription to Cream. Cream was fun. Cream
(35:47):
took fun into the sphere of music journalism much more
than Rolling Stone. Doesn't get enough credit. Lisa Robinson was
talking about, you know, el Agonza and making fun and
you know, she was all, He's running around with these
pink little notebooks that she got from the Beverly Hills Hotel.
She would only take notes on this pink Beverly Hills
Hotel notebook. And she was friends with all of these guys.
(36:10):
I remember she would, you know, George Harrison would show
up at a led Zeppelin show and she'd be like, honey,
can you believe Look? Can we just dish? And she
was amazing. She kind of brought fun into it, but
it was all kind of getting a candy store for
me because the byelines were coming to life all around
(36:30):
me and it was the coolest, Like you, I mean,
I was studying the byelines. I love those byelines?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Was Lester Bangs the epicenter of critical writing for music?
Because I also believe there's writers that write for each
other as well. Yeah, you know there's certain Pitchfork writers
now that when they're going to roast an album, it's
almost like, hey, I'll check what I'm about to do
(36:59):
and they'll just and I could tell it's just almost
like their version of the Aristocrats for community.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, totally totally, but it is is. He was a
court jester, Okay. He was kind of the guy. Lester
was a little bit more of a heckler. Then he
became more he became more of an oracle, but he
was kind of the heckler he'd gotten fired from Rolling Stone.
(37:26):
He was a big character. And then the offshoot of
Lester was Richard Meltzer, who was not as talented and
kind of more of a legitimate pretender to the crown.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Did he truly love music or did he love the
art of the takedown, the art of the snark.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Lester legitimately cared about the music. And I know this
because I read the unpublished stuff that he wrote on
the back of record company bios and sent to my
little underground newsp The Door, and much more. Never had
any assignments. He just had written for The Door a
little bit and wrote so much that he would just
(38:08):
send them reviews and they didn't know what to do
with it. They just put it in this green file cabinet.
And when I first had a meeting at The Door,
I was like Lester Banks. I love Lester Banks. He
wrote for you guys, because the cartoonist guy who has
looked like an R. Crumb comic, I remember, oh my god,
he won't stop writing for us. He keeps sending all
this stuff and it's like, we can't it's long, we
(38:30):
can't publish it. It's over in that green file cabinet.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
And I was like, so you own his original writings.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
I didn't take them foolishly. I bet they got thrown
away because I don't think they were even fully read.
But Amir, you would get like, I don't know, I
don't have a bioish thing around here, but like it
was coffee stained and beer stained, and it was single
draft like xxx. He would just do like backspace on
the typewriter and it say XXXXX. You could see what
(38:58):
he didn't want us to publish. Yeah, it was beautiful writing,
and I don't know what happened to it, but it
was this idea that like there's a guy in Birmingham, Michigan,
kind of expelled from California and the rolling Stone culture,
but he's like a vesuvious out there like writing about music,
(39:23):
because he couldn't not write about music.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
What was his outlet?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
If there's not substack, cream, the cream would just take everything.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I think he wrote for the Village Voice too. He
wrote the thing about Elvis at the Village Voice dying.
That was amazing, so there he had outlets were starting
to come up, maybe trouser press and stuff, but Lester's
main thing was cream and a lot of his great
stuff was in cream. But a lot of his great
stuff is nowhere now sadly. And that was a real
(39:52):
lesson to me. That's like, you don't have to write
to be published. You can actually write to write, which
I tried to emulate doing this book The un cool
that was like that was for me. That was my
version of beer stained writing on the back of a bio.
(40:14):
It was just stuff for me, just because I loved
writing and I was I felt kind of after the
almost famous musical, I was like, God, I wasn't directing,
I wasn't writing in my first language. Like I got
to go back to that thing that I love, which
was you know, this stuff, yellow legal tablet stuff, and
that was the lesser vibe to me. Super Analog. Then
(40:38):
they invented the display writer, and they also did the
IBM Selectric, which you could automatically backspace on, which is
really good. But then the display writer, John Hughes, got
a display writer and he was working in the building
where I was working, and so I saw like what
he wrote on right, which was like, you know, the
(40:59):
the NASA. To me, that looked like the NASA stage
at you know, right Houston. He fucking doesn't write. He
like beams in a script from somewhere. I don't know,
as they're all beat up typewriter work. Though you could tell.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
What was your first musical memory.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
It was my mom taken us to see Bob Dylan
in nineteen sixty four, my sister and me in a
gymnasium in Riverside, California. And there was a long time
before we were ever going to concerts, or that I
was ever allowed to go to a concert. But that
was a protest movement thing for her. It was like,
there's a protest singer. I'm going to take you to
(41:53):
him because Republic they're going to burn down everything, and
we liked the protest singers. That was her thing. The
other thing was Elvis. I wont tickets two things I'm
going to over answer your question. I figured I would
win concert tickets and the thrill of victory would cause
(42:13):
my parents to let me go to the shows. So
I won. I had a trick way of winning be
the third caller type contests on the radio, so I
won those, Yeah, they were real, But I had two phones.
I would work it. I'd be on the phone already
dialing them, and then i'd have another phone all but one,
you know, visit pressed. It would be like they got
(42:35):
would be like you're the first caller, and I'd be like,
you're the second caller, You're the third callar, and I'm
like hey, And I'd win these tickets, and I want
tickets to go see the Buffalo Springfield and Iron Butterfly
at the Coachella at what is now the Coachella Festival Fairgrounds.
It was actually the Indio Date Festival Fairgrounds, where nothing
(42:58):
ever happened except once a year there was a you know,
like a fair But anyway, I want tickets. I went
to see the Iron Butterfly they were headlining and Buffalo
Springfield that was opening up. And Buffalo Springfield were terrible
because they'd already broken up. Neil Young and Steven Still's
were not the band. It was the drummer and four
(43:18):
other guys that hadn't even rehearsed. It was terrible, but
Iron Butterfly were coming on next and I was standing
by the soundboard. The guy at the soundboard who playing
like the walk in or pre pre performance music puts
on in a Gotta Davida before Iron Butterfly comes on,
And this is my first taste of like a rock manager.
Some guy comes screaming down the aisle and comes to
(43:41):
the guys like, take that fucking thing off. You think
they're gonna come on and they're gonna they're gonna duplicate
that on stage. That's never gonna happen. Take that fucking
thing off, you.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Idiot, and it'd be like, didn't even know, just.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Got fucking tripped off. And then they came on and
they were really great. I thought they were great Iron Butterfly.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Sonically speaking, did you really get a satisfaction when you're
going to these concerts?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Like when you're seeing Zeppelin in seventy three? Does it
sound like a.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Sports stadium sound where it's like the worst speakers ever?
And like James Brown when when I watched these nineteen
sixty seven shows or whatever, it sounds like he's singing
from a megaphone, almost like Yeah, have you ever witnessed
a concert in the sixties and the seventies from the nosebleed?
(44:36):
Did the sound reach up there?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Not?
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Well, a lot of it was born in like gymnasiums
with no sound systems and a few amps and stuff,
so like concerts, they were really tinny and didn't actually
feel They felt like souvenirs more than performances like you
get to breathe the air of Bobby Sherman or even
(45:00):
the Jackson Five at the Forum. I mean that record
sounds much better than they founded live.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, So I was gonna say, like even when watching
the Jackson's before him in the seventies and I'm like,
wait with Ronnie and Johnny as their band and Tito
and Jermaine, it sounds when I listen to live records
like it sounds so sonically fool like. Another example is
James Brown live at the Apollo one, two and three
(45:28):
on record, It's like wow, but somehow get the feeling
that in concert they're not using like maybe the first
twelve rods can really feel it.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
And then I saw James Brown in the middle seventies
and it was not that as the Apollo records.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
It was not.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
It was basically a tiny fan, you know, like a
half gift.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
So sound is coming from like the actual guitar amp, yes, yes,
and not from the house speakers.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
No, not that I remember.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Drums are coming live from the stage and not from absolutely.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yes, yes, it's the answer to that. And you know what,
because there weren't a million concerts in San Diego, you're
good with that. You're breathing the same air. It's like
you're in the room with James Brown or BB King
or Fleetwood Mac, you know, like the one of the
early Fleetwood Macs, and it just incrementally got better. So
(46:29):
you mentioned Zeppelin. Yeah, Zeppelin improved the sound.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, I was gonna say, what was the what was
the first paradigm shift of concerts in which like it's like, whoa,
it's loud in here.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
And I think I've seen an article or two about
them being so.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Loud that it caused a riot or something.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I barely remember it, but.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, that was one of my first concerts too, The Who,
and I got nosebleed seats and like wandered down close
to the floor from the bleachers, and then the lights
came down when the Who were coming on, and I
raced onto the floor and got sucked into like what
(47:10):
would be twelve row type distance from the band. But yes,
the volume was immediately so loud, and they had those
marshal stacks and stuff that everybody, you're right, that sound
was a call to like recklessness and abandon and I
got sucked into being almost pressed against the barrier when
(47:35):
the Who came on, and I thought I was gonna
get stampeded. I couldn't breathe, and it was there like
six feet away looking up and it was amazing. And
then I got pulled down and like spit out to
the side. But for like I can't explain, they were
right in front of me and Keith Moon and just
(47:55):
like I'll never forget it. It was Townsend in a silver
jumpsuit and he had a crown on his head and
he said, what a pleasure it is to be here
playing in your trash can, because the San Diego Sports
Arena is like a trash can, you know, so like
so he knows where he is right ripping on our arena,
(48:16):
and they're fucking amazing. And that was when I felt like, Okay,
this is beyond sitting in a gymnasium and listening to
like a tinny stereo.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Great question, do you miss the danger element of rock
and roll or what it's supposed to represent?
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Yeah, the sound was a call to violence. The sound
was a cault that said, you're with us, it's us,
it's us now, it's just us now. And that was like, fuck, yeah,
that that feeling. I haven't felt felt it in Seattle
when everything was firing with Pearl Jam and I didn't
(48:57):
see Nirvana ever live, but like Alison Chains and some
of those bands like that had that feeling which had
disappeared in La. So being in Seattle, I was really
excited about it, but that I haven't seen it a well,
like I saw the Stones on the last tour. It
was super loud and it sounded really great, but it
wasn't a call to It was a call to luxury
(49:21):
really because it was the you know, the big stadium
and the sound was great, and you know, it was
a lifestyle experience and so but it was way different.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
So I have a general theory, especially with music, that
often when something arrives in hindsight, it's really the end
of the sentence. I would imagine that for those that
had the Woodstock experience, that that was an arrival of
our generation, our voices, and it turned out to be
(49:52):
the end of it. Some could say the mass success
of Saturday Night Fever was all right, this is the
truth flag planning, arrival of Disco, and it wound up
being the end of it. Right now, I probably am
the only human being on earth that might have Thriller regrets.
(50:14):
You know, at the time, it seemed like, oh my god,
this is the rival of Michael Jackson. All the exciting
things that my eleven year old self got to witness
during that time period. But now I could probably name
forty things that Thriller has caused, including the end of
Michael Jackson, that would make me if asked, did Thriller
(50:36):
do more harm than good?
Speaker 2 (50:37):
I might have some notes for you.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
That's Elton John's theory the Thriller.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Ki At the end of the day, if there's one
thing I can say about Thriller when we talked about
Off the Wall, it was quality. Yes, how great this
record sounds. Now there's a new Q word, quantity. How
many words did it do? How much money he made,
how many records he broke? That's right, And when you
start chasing that dragon, there's no place to go but leave,
(51:05):
you know.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Because a lot of times the person who establishes who
finds that kind of success that they sought for a
long time, freezes at that moment. And that's why the
album after, which usually is huge because of the album
that came before, and it's not the album for so
they get a claim on the album that is not
(51:26):
as good. Michael was able to fucking really top off
the wall. Yeah. Many artists would just do like a fucking.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
A record of a record or what do you call it,
departure album?
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then and it would be huge,
but it wouldn't be their best. So that was an
interesting thing that happened. And yes it did. It brought
a lot of rain. This is the best thing, I mean,
to have a conversation like, this is the best. That's
the fan experience that you care enough to do it
to have it.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Well, let me ask you, at the time when Runge
is really planning its flag and making itself known and
you know, all the groups, like everything that's happening in Seattle,
did you at the time feel like, okay, like integrities,
integrities back in rock and.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Roll and now we're here only to realize that.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Oh not only it wound up being the end of
rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
In my opinion, that's.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
A really valid theory when it gets to a certain size
thriller size, or Vogue calls because they're going to do
a grunge cover and stuff. That's you know, that's the end.
You know that the end, And I think very few
people are able to step back seeing that coming. I
(52:54):
really admire Harry Styles because Harry Styles reached a certain
point and then pulled back. You know, you don't hear
about him so much, right mart He didn't over do
the brew. You know, it was like he was like, Okay,
I'm gonna step back and try and keep it contained
to a certain degree. I think. So I admire that,
(53:16):
but that doesn't happen very often. And yeah, it floats
up into this like high end of the mainstream where
everybody is a carnivore kind of for that thing, and
then it's it's terrible. Worse than terrible, it's over. It's
exactly what you're saying. But it felt like an integrity
flag had been planted for sure in Seattle at that time.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
So what were your real time thoughts of the eighties,
You know, what was it like to hear Neil Young's
trans record. Were you breathing a sigh of relief when
Infidels came out after the Christian period, did you feel
like a a stranger in a lost lane?
Speaker 3 (54:00):
And I was excited. I remember when when Don Kirshner's
Rock Concert came out and a lot of bands were
on that you could see bands playing. That was the
beginning of MTV. Was really exciting because that's like one
or eighty two, something like that, maybe eighty three, So
that defines the eighties and it was really all of
(54:23):
a sudden you couldn't just be Tom Petty making those
great records. You had to have like that incredible don't
come around here, no more video, So you needed to
add another superpower. And that was interesting to see who
failed and who made it, And I mean it's a
point to be debated, like who was able to survive
(54:44):
and who wasn't and how Craven was the MTV thing.
But for a long time I loved having that kind
of access. Then of course the hair bands kind of
started to take over, and that seemed really cheesy in
La To and that kind of spun me up to Seattle,
where I loved hearing like the radio station up there
(55:08):
that would combine like all kinds of genres and everything
and yes, I did love Infidels. That Pivot was really
sweet and a great album cover. But I didn't hate
the eighties until the eighties started to hate itself, and
then I was kind of ready to move on. I mean,
(55:29):
I liked Peter Gabriel, and I thought he used the
Forum really well. He was a great visual artist too,
you could say David Byrne maybe too.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
Speaking of Gabriel, of course, you know, it's impossible to
you know, hear the Sow record or In Your Eyes
without thinking of say anything. But is it true that
initially you guys were using a Fishbone song in place of.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
The Yeah, I think it was in the boneyard, was
like what he was playing when we yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's wearing the shirt he's wearing a Fishbone shirt in
the movie. Yeah and yeah. But when you look at
that in the editing room, it truly does look like
he's you know, stalking and heckling her with you know,
(56:17):
and she doesn't look too entranced by it all either.
With the wrong music, it looks like she's just annoyed.
But In Your Eyes was the only song where you
got like all the texture. And then it was a
quest to get you know that song, which was not easy.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
So you had him play it live from that boombox.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
He's playing Bonen in the boneyard when we film.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Oh, I thought you would have just done it and
post and added the song later, but.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
We we did add the song later, but he's actually
we used music for music live and I always have
music playing in the takes and stuff that I don't know.
I mean, Cusack really loved Fishbone and I believed that
maybe that worked. That's who he was, that's wh who
he is, but it really didn't. But Gabriel did. And
(57:05):
the problem was he didn't want to give anybody that song,
so they were really oh man, there was a whole
thing about He didn't even want to take the phone
call and so he got talked to having a phone
call with me by David Geffen. And then when I
talked to him, they said, you're going to get a
phone call, like you're going to call him in Germany
(57:26):
at such and such an hour early in the morning,
and he's going to talk to you. And so I
talked to him and he in this really small voice,
he told me the song was too personal, couldn't let
us have it? And we'd send him a video, you know,
VHS to the movie, and I asked Tevi ray Vaughan
to score say anything too. I was really on a
(57:46):
quest to get really good music in there. But Gabriel
said no.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
How did you bend him?
Speaker 3 (57:53):
Well, I was putting the phone down, and I was
so heartbroken that I went fully junior high and I
pulled the phone back up, not even knowing if he'd
be on the phone still. And I just said, but
why and and he said, well, you know, I just
didn't think it worked when he took the overdose. And
(58:14):
I'm like, took the overdose. He goes, this isn't the
John Belushi movie. And I go, oh, my god, no no,
and he goes, oh, this is the teenage movie. And
I go yeah, and he goes, I haven't watched that yet.
You're envisioning the John Belushi movie within your eyes playing
when he od's he too? For like thirty years, I've
been haven't have.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
Been weird, But okay, I'm dealing with a So I
got my first major rejection like a week ago, and
I don't know how to take it. Like I'm taking
it so personal, man, because this is a denial from
a hero and.
Speaker 3 (58:55):
It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, may not.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
Be a dude on the real You and I are
really a podcast, but maybe we should discuss that in
the future, like do our conversations like Frost and Nixon
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
We both have to be Frost right right, we Frost.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
And Frost right in closing, And I know this is
a tired question, but I'll ask your five non box set,
non greatest hits, non live, five albums that you stand
by as just definitive master works. I'm not even giving
(59:40):
you the Desert Island disc or this is all you
can listen to the rest of your life for house
is on Fire and this is all you can save.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
Five records?
Speaker 3 (59:49):
Okay, I'm gonna give you four, and then the fifth
one is fluid. I would say, what's going on? Marvin, Joni, Mitchell, Hejira,
Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, who Live It Leads and no
Live but oyeah, okay, no live, no life, Okay, fuck, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I'll let that go. It's a it's a great album.
Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Okay, thanks for that. This week. Like I told you
when I saw you, I'm on such a tom Bell
Spinners thing. I would say, the first Spinner's album right now,
really yeah, I just love that record with only Don't
let the Green Grass Fool You is not a perfect
song on that album, so it's not totally perfect, but
(01:00:33):
it's really speaking to me now.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
And that's the one you choose as the redheaded stepchild.
Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Red headed Stepchild, which always leaves you know that that
chair gets occupied by many.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
It gets played so much though like I wouldn't, I.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Would all hangs together.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I love it, I got it, okay.
Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
I can't get you out of my mind. I'm like,
I'm owned. It's I have it. It's like I don't know,
it's the happy sad thing.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
For what's going on.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Do you see that as a total, a complete work
from start to finish. Like for me, though, Side one
is song one, absolutely holy holy side song too, and
I consider that a four song record. I'm with you,
and so for me there's side one the same with
slies Fresh. I consider that all of side one just
(01:01:23):
one song. And so but really, Hijeira more than hissing
of the summer lawns.
Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Oh yeah. His era is a journey. His era takes
you on the ride. That was Prince's favorite. Jony album too.
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
He put me on a hissing of the summer.
Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
The summer LUNs.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, But for you, like, what is
it about Hijira that speaks to you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
I like the story behind it. I like how the
package suits the music. I like that it was she
blew off a tour, took a journey on her own,
and wrote those songs mostly those songs on that journey,
and I just I love the whole adventure of it,
and it's and it's present in the music.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
So the backstory really does mean something like without the
backstory of Nebraska, would you feel the.
Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Same way about it?
Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Or even a vonni Ver's album of him nursing a
broken Heart with chicken Soup in Northern Exposure box setting.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Come on, I love that. I love the whole story.
That's why kind of went out and did all these interviews,
I think is to like, what's the story behind the story?
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
I love it, got it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
That's why you, you know, put those reviews on your wall.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
It's like got it, liked.
Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Having it there. The process of taking it and putting
it on your wall, it's like all part of the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I will wait till the Joni pick comes out to
nerd out on you some more humble that someone that
I admire and respects so much much, from your writing
as a journalist to your film.
Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Work and just your love of music.
Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Like you are one of my north stars in terms
of having it both, like I love creating music, but
I love absorbing it more and telling about it. And
I really owe that to you, And I thank you
for everything, and.
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
I can say so much of that right back to you,
and I will thank you so much, Thank you soon.
Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Quest Love Show is hosted by me Amir Quest Love Thompson.
The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me.
Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart
by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conroyd. iHeart Video support
(01:03:52):
by Mark Canton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Aloe.
Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Brown,
Special thanks to Sugar Steve Manzel. Please subscribe, rate, review,
and share The Quest Love Show. Wherever you stream your podcast,
(01:04:14):
make sure you follow us on socials That's at QLs.
Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including The
Quest Love Supreme shows and our podcast archives. Quest Love
Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio.
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to the Quest Loft Show. What
can I Say? In nineteen seventy two, at the ripe
(00:22):
age of fifteen, our guest today took my dream job.
But being as though I was just a year old
and unable to read, or write or form sentences or thoughts,
I'm willing to forgive him this one time only thank you.
But I will say during this period he will have
(00:44):
conducted career defining both for him and the artist, career
defining interviews at Rolling Stone Magazine with the likes of
Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton, John Neil Young, Joni Mitchell,
led Zapplin, The Eagles, Fleetwood, Mac, The Who, and.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So on and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
As a filmmaker, I mean, he's pretty much, I believe,
given us the definitive movies of our day, be it
A Fast Times of Richmond, High Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire,
Vanilla Sky, and for Almost Famous, of which he is
an Academy Award recipient for Best Screenplay. I mean, the
(01:25):
list goes on and oning. He's currently right now working
on a film based on the life of Joni Mitchell.
Right now, he is promoting his memoir of his time
as a music critic called The Uncool. Please please welcome
to the Quest Left Show QLs. Cameron Crow, how you
(01:48):
doing right now?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I'm good. I'm psyched to be talking with you again.
It's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate this. So I
had a situation last week. I was hanging with John Mayer,
and I believe that there's the idea of questlove, and
then I also believe there's the actual quest love. So
one of the most disappointing true quirks about me, kind
(02:15):
of in a Larry David way, is that I normally
don't talk shop with my peers. Of course, on social
media and books and films everywhere.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
My entire career is a.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Giant platform for me to spew out my unsolicited thoughts
about music.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
But I noticed that I.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Tend to back off and talking about music. However, being
as though this is our second conversation with each other.
He gave me the honor of doing a live Q
and A with you some time ago, and when I
walked away, I was like, wow, Like okay, So maybe
I have to rewrite that narrative and say that I
(03:01):
enjoy talking shop with other musicians.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's just that sometimes, for instance.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Like I was at a party like three weeks ago,
and then someone just came up to me and said.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Coust love real quick.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
The most important line that Curtis Mayfield's Ever, you know, yeah, Ever.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Said, and I'm like eating shrimp.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
I'm like, and I know that's my fault because I've
led people to believe that I'm open to all music discussion.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But in this particular case.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
I would imagine had I been born a decade and
a half earlier, I would have probably wound up on
your path or at some sort of level to that.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
So it's the crime of you knowing so many different
corners of culture.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You know.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
It's like, yeah, they'll ask you about music. They probably
checked out what the gifts you were giving during COVID,
which was very music centric. But you're like a film
guy beyond many, if not most, So your knowledge of
film is so particular. And also why it's I don't know,
there are many avenues to take.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, I'll ask you because I'm using no format today,
no notes or whatever, so I'll just we're just having
a conversation. Yeah, yeah, How did you know that you
were a film guy?
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Because I loved film always as a kid. They my
mom and sometimes my mom and dad would sneak me
into R rated movies just because Mike Nichols. I should
know about Mike Nichols. Stuff like that, you know, David
Lean and all kinds of stuff. It just seemed like
no man's land in terms of a dream, Like I
never went to film school obviously, maybe not obviously, but
(04:47):
I never thought that that was accessible to a guy
from San Diego who wasn't connected in it any way.
But for some reason I had no problem walking into
a dressing room and asking a band that I loved,
like the questions that I wanted answers to. Maybe it's
because rock was a little less huge then and film
(05:08):
was always huge and still is huge. But once I
got a taste of it, you know, it's like it is.
It's a rush like no other. And particularly when you
show something that's been in your head for a long
time and you've written it, you've edited it, you know
this well when you finally put it in front of people,
and the shit that they pick up on it's sometimes
(05:29):
it's the smallest thing and they're all over it. That's
a thrill. It's a different kind of thrill than writing
rock writing particularly, But I don't know. It's like collect
as many experiences as you can was kind of my thing.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
How long was it the lead up of you getting
the green light to do Fast Times? What was the
seed that was Plannet that said, you know what, after
this last article I turn in, Yeah, I'm going to
pursue film. Did you have any impostor syndrome or any
of those things? Like can I do this?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
I started asking for film assignments from Rolling Stone towards
the end of like a big run that I had
from fifteen to twenty two. I started asking for film stories.
Richard Dreyfus was the first one that I did. And
Dreyfus fantastic and so different from the musicians, you know,
(06:24):
like just wondrously narcissistic and fun like he was at
the peak of his kind of like Close Encounters phase
and everything Jaws to Close Encounters, like Biggest Star going right,
And he he said, you know, if I do the
Rolling Stone interview, I'd like to do it differently, Like
what if you ask a lot of people who've worked
(06:46):
with me what they think of me, and then bring
that back to me.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
He wanted an oral history.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, but he was like, bring me the oral history
of what people have said about me, and I'll respond
to it, which was wild. And so I talked to
a whole bunch of people about Richard Dreyfuss and did
this interview where I basically threw stuff to him about
things people were about him, good or bad, and he
was fucking ferocious about it. It was amazing. And the
(07:14):
next assignment I got that was film centric was Sissy
Spasic and that lit a fire because for daughter, it
was it was before coal miner's daughter. She had done
Carrie and bad Lands and Three Women with Altman and
you'll love this. So they say, Annie Leebowitz is going
(07:38):
to come with you to Equipment Texas. You can see
Sissy Equipment Texas where she's visiting her hometown and her mother.
And so I get there with Annie, who was, you know,
a titan of photography. So that was a big deal
to be hanging with Annie in Texas and we show
up to see Sissy and Sissy goes. I got to
ask you to come with me. I got a little
(07:58):
adventure I have to go on. They're trying to get
me to play Loretta Lynn in this movie called Coal
Miner's Daughter, and I just I can't do it. You know,
I'm not gonna do it. It's just it doesn't feel
right to me. But can you come with me to
I think New Orleans maybe, And we're gonna go to
a Loretta Lynn concert. And it's gonna be a little
(08:18):
rough for me because I'm gonna have to, you know,
turn her down, but we'll go. We'll get one to
go with me. And so we all went to Loretta
show and Amir, I gotta tell you, Sissy boards the
bus where Loretta is with her husband du brings Annie
and me with her. I think Loretta Lynn closed Sissy's
(08:40):
basic in about twelve minutes. She was so classic and
big and a big character and so warm. And then
she goes on stage and starts doing this show and
Cissy is like already putting the performance together, and so
she left committing to the part that.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Night started back out of it and.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
So excited and that rhythm of how it worked, and
it was so hands on with material and discussing characters
and all that stuff. The fuse was lit. And then
I found somebody who I knew who was a rock manager,
Art Linson. I don't know if you ever met him.
He managed Nils Lofgren and Nils's group Grin and the
(09:24):
label was called Spin Dizzy that Art ran, so I
knew Art and Art started to be a presence in
the movie business producing Jonathan Demi and they Universal like
kind of picked up an option on Fast Times the
book and gave it to like their resident rock ish guy.
Art and Art loved the book and said, you know what,
(09:46):
I'm going to teach you how to write a screenplay.
You're the cheapest person we could find to do this,
and if we make it cheaply, we might be able
to sneak this movie through. And that was Fast Times. Wow,
I know. So it really was all because of rock
journalism in a way that Art said, I'm gonna teach you.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
I will say that Coal Miner's daughters probably it made
an impression on me.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Like I didn't hear of Loretta Lynne.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
But since that moment that I became very familiar with
her and her music and all that stuff, and so
to hear that you were there at the impetus of
it then, I mean, you know, she was still at
the height of Kerry and all that stuff. But when
you saw the end result like to make an impression
on you as far as music films are concerned or
(10:35):
big time.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I loved it and I thought Sissy deserved the Academy Award.
She's amazing in it. She's not pushing, she's not trying,
she just is it. And I went back and checked
that movie out not too long ago, just kind of
wanting to look at the so called BIOPI biopic and
that was definitely top five and Buddy Holly story and stuff,
(11:00):
but check it out. Check out Coal Miner's Daughter Sometime.
It is the slowest, easiest wade into telling the story.
It just is character. It's time and place, which you
crush in the Sly Lives. Time and place is like
(11:21):
so important. And I saw it and I was just like,
you know, the whole drive to have, like, my Josh,
here's the person that you're gonna see the life of.
It's like, man, you don't need it with the right pace.
It's like an invisible gas that just pulls you in.
And that's Coal Miner's.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Daughter for you.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Though, with biopics and personally, I always thought there's a
danger and telling the soup to nuts story of a
life where it's hard to really cover it all. And
I always thought that, man, why doesn't someone just talk
about a very very specific time period, Like when they
(12:04):
were first talking about the James Brown biopic, I said, man,
you could probably get the essence of who James Brown
is if you talk about April fourth, nineteen sixty eight,
which I would thinks this is on the fourth, It
might be the fifth of the day after, but this
is right after Martin Luther King has assassinated James Brown.
(12:27):
Fans know that there was a concert schedule in Boston, Massachusetts,
and every city in America is in civil unrest and
there's riots everywhere, and the mayor of Boston's like, mister Brown,
if you give us permission to broadcast this on television,
I think this will keep people in the house and watching.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You instead of destroying Boston.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
And sure enough, James Brown say Boston because there were
no riots that night, because everyone was in watching and
you know, he yeah, his concerns too, Like wait a minute,
so I got to give a twice as long performance.
You're broadcasting me, you're not paying me extra money, like
he's the business part of James Brown's at work, Like
(13:12):
I know, like what's in this for me? Like I'm
giving the the cow for free. But I always thought, man,
if you told the story, like very specific stories instead
of the entire biopick.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Right when it's a history lesson, you lose me. If
it's characters that are not cut out human type, people
that say things, you know, that are completely dealing with
the Wikipedia issues of the artists, it's like, you lose me.
(13:50):
I don't know. You can do soup to nuts if
you have a reason to do soup to nuts. As
soon as they tell you soup to nuts can't be done,
someone will pull it off. But yeah, most of the
time you at that sweet spot because it's filled with
story and you don't need to You're right, I mean,
James Brown in Boston, you get it all. You get
(14:11):
the music, you get time and place, you get it all.
I guess it's case by case. Citizen Kane is Soup
to Nuts? Is it a biopic? Kind of? But it
tells us a greater story than sit down. I'm going
to tell you about a life with Cepia toned glimpses
of my childhood, you know.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
But that's also like a first of its kind, so
I could imagine I wanted to know, like if that
were to come out in the mid Ausin, it would
have just been the office, you know.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, I mean that's funny.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Are you telling the entire story of Joni Mitchell? Is
this a very specific part of her life that you're
focusing on.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's chunks, it's not one slice, it's a couple, it's
some slices, and it's in a context that I think
it holds together for a bigger story. To be slightly vague,
but there's a way to tell her story, which is
why I called up her place and just said, like,
I have a take on this. You know, whenever you're
(15:29):
interested in anything like this, just come to me and
well I'll pitch it out and see what you think.
And they're like, now get over here.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
How easy was it to convince her? Because right now,
the most frustrating, frustrating part of this whole process that
I'm in right now is conveying to my subjects or
my dream subjects. Yeah, the urgency of time running on
(15:58):
the clock right now. And for a lot of people
sharing their story, rappers especially, you know, this means that oh,
the second I start looking in the rear view mirror
that now, that means my career is over. This is
not just with film, like trying to get rappers to
(16:19):
do memoirs to keep a track a thing. It's almost
like there's this rule like if I look back, then
I'm dead already, which I don't believe in just what
I've learned and Slide and the Earth Wind and Fire
doc is memory fades, you know for a lot of these.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Things, yes, and turns into anecdotes with cute little punchlines.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Right and there's the whole kind of revisionist history thing,
like your version of how it happened. And it's such
a dangerous spot. And I can't convey to people enough
the importance of pictures, writing things down, saving posters.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yes, you can taste it when you have that stuff
from the day and it's souvenir from the day. It's important.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So this wasn't a hard pitch to convince her, like
now's the time to tell your story.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
No, because there are a lot of people that had
been coming before me with really bad ideas, and so
I had the benefit of their failures in probably not
knowing her well enough. So if a few of them,
I think came in not really knowing her history. It's
like the Barry Gordy thing. You know, if you send
me a letter and it's b A R R y.
(17:33):
You didn't take the time to know how my name
was spelled, and I can't take the time to know
what you want from me. Goodbye? You know, I love that.
This is what's interesting. Tell me if you've run across this.
Success creates eight different viewpoints and people raising their hands
and say it was me, it was me, it was me,
it was me, And the memory does morph into a
(17:55):
different thing, and it's everybody kind of disagrees because they're
trying to take credit for a success a failed project.
The memories are perfect because they're all about who to
blame for it. Memories are dead on you know, there's
not it's not Rashamon. It's like they pretty much figure
(18:16):
that it's one person and one decision, and they're really
clear about it. So success breeds all the conflicting accounts
unless you have the stuff from the day, like.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Do you know when you're being talked to by someone
well trained media that says the right things and whatnot,
and like, how do you know.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
You're getting the right story?
Speaker 1 (18:39):
And was your young age a part of the dismantling
or the putting my guard down and revealing to you
because you know you're getting major stories out of these
acts and you know who otherwise would probably be guarded
with anyone else.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
I never had the feeling that, like, oh, oh, it's
a plus that I'm fifteen or sixteen. I was always
kind of like hoping I didn't get asked how old
I was, and hoping that I could seem adult like
but not in a precocious way. Nobody really busted me
(19:17):
on my age, no once, but to me, I had
no choice in it. I just had to do it.
I just couldn't not do it. I loved some of
the stories that I'd read. I loved Ben Fong Torres
doing these interviews with Marvin Gay, with David Crosby, and
Joan Winner's interview with John Lennon. It's like, Wow, this
(19:40):
is really revealing and confessional, and that made me want
to collect stories like that, Like I just wanted to
be the person who could say the right thing and
get people to talk like Dick Cavin on TV was one.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Of my favorite.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
So I didn't have a choice. I just did it.
And it wasn't until later that I kind of hit
a wall and took on so many assignments that I
just felt like I was starting to take a long
time to turn stories in. I started Chuck Young at
Rolling Stone started doing these stories that I would have
done really well in a first person way that was
(20:18):
kind of gregarious and amazing, and he wrote about the
sex pistols, and I just felt like, I'm washed up,
you know, And that was when I went home and
decided to start writing this story that ended up being
Fast Times at Ridgemal hint.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
At the age of twenty, you already felt that you
were a veteran, A washed up veteran.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah. When I first came to Rolling Stone, there were
people that were at the end of their run, and
I remember what it looked like, I remember what it
sounded like. I remember there was one guy who had
written epic stories, and the thing that they whispered about
him behind his back was he's so fucked up on
writer's block now he can't be in a room with
(21:04):
a typewriter. He starts melting down with anxiety. I'm like,
that'll never be me. And then I never became that guy.
But I started to just freeze up about deadlines, which
was very scary, and so it was time to kind
of move on. I know, the exact moment had happened.
There were two things that happened in one day. There
(21:26):
was a Neil Young cover story, and I'd gone on
the bus with Neil Young and Joel Bernstein my Palle,
the photographer. We had toured with Neil and it was
great stuff. I mean, he canceled a three album set
that had already been printed up and pressed and stuff.
And the Warner Brothers guys came out and said, you
(21:46):
can't cancel decade and He's like, I can't. I got
new music that I'm doing with Emmy Lou Harris and stuff,
and it's just I've moved on. These guys are like
it's gonna cost us half a million dollars. He's like,
I can't help it, man. You know, it was like
it was the greatest story. And Elliott Roberts called up,
his manager called me up and said, you know what,
(22:08):
Neil doesn't want the story to come out. He's not
gonna pose for the cover. And Neil, he just got
into it. He does, He's moved on. It's like moved on.
It was ten days ago. You know. No, no, he's
a different guy.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Now wait, can you give it backstory? So this is
what year is this?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
It's seventy seven. I know it's exactly seventy seven. For
a couple different reasons. He had fallen in love with
the Sweet Home Alabama, the Leonard skinnerd song that was
kind of a call out supposedly, so it was anyway, amir,
it was a great story. He liked it, he loved it.
He gave me a cassette to give to them because
(22:46):
I had written about them of three songs, Powderfinger, Captain Kennedy,
and I forget the third one, but he gave me
a cassette, which I gave to Leonard Skinnyard.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
What was their response?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Fuck? Yeah was their response? They love to Neil, it
was it was like, I don't know, it's like one
of those kind of Jobiz feuds that was wasn't really true.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It was just it wasn't kids with Lamar.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I get it, Okay, it wasn't it wasn't like secretly
crushing out on each other. So I had that story
and it was kind of like I knew I was
gonna make that deadline and it would be good, and
though I'd been missing deadlines lately at Rolling Stone. So anyway, Elliott,
the manager calls me up and says, cancel the story.
Neil wants it canceled, won't post with the cover, doesn't
(23:31):
approve anything. It's canceled. And I'm like, I'm gonna get fired.
I'm gonna lose everything. I'm gonna lose everything in Elliott Roberts,
classic funny guy. He had a line that I will
never forget. He's like, yeah, I know, I got to
get rid of that kid. And I'm like, you're fucking
making jokes, and I was. And he called back two
(23:53):
days later and said, I talked to Neil, go ahead
and go with the story. He doesn't want you to
get in trouble, which was cool of him. But the
other thing that happened on that first day was John
Belushi called out of nowhere the Rolling Stone office and
asked to talk to me. And I had met him,
I think twice. Mitch Glazer took me to the blues bar,
and I had met him there. He told me an
(24:14):
amazing drummer joke. Who was It was like Buddy rib
about Buddy Rich And I don't know. He was very cool, right,
but I hardly knew him. And he said, look, hey man,
I'm just calling you because like they're gonna put me
on the cover of Rolling Stone. And I asked for
you to be the writer, and they said no, he
takes too long, and so they gave it to Chuck Young.
(24:39):
But I just wanted you to know like I asked
for you. I was like, I'm washed up. I'm washed up.
There they're telling artists that I'm not efficient with deadlines.
This is bad.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
How common was accessibility to artists in the seventies, Like
how often would you get unsolicited phone calls?
Speaker 3 (25:03):
You'd get a phone call or too before the article
was published, Like they would be up late staring at
the ceiling and going why did I say this and that?
So you'd get calls to clarify, like I just want
to can I redo my talk about Leonard Skinner? You know,
like you'd get that call, but then no calls after
(25:24):
the story came out. I mean, I think Sissy spacet
called and said I liked this story you wrote. But
that was the only time that happened. Sometimes you might
run into them later and get a comment, but mostly
that would happen only to like social calls from somebody
who's in the sphere, the actual entertainment sphere. I think
(25:46):
Jan Wenner would get those calls because I remember sitting
at the Rolling Stone office as a little guy, and
it'd be like fucking John Lennon on one Jan and
I'm like what And then you hear him going like John,
how you doing? Like what? Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:00):
So you go okay.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Would you often wonder what they thought about it, or
even parts that you might have to keep in that
could be seen as a problem in the future or
anything like that.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
It's a really good question. Sometimes you have to fight
for the thing that they made off the record, and
if you're on the road for a couple days at
least you know you're in these situations where you're not
always just a guy in a hotel room with a
pointing a microphone at them. You're or sometimes in the
back of a car or backstage and they're like, you
(26:35):
know that guy that just came in, let me tell
you about that guy, you know, and it's like an
amazing story. It's like, right, that's off the record. Of course,
you're like, of course, but then you could come back
later and say, you know what that story you told
me backstage. Here's why I think it works because it's
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and like eight
(26:56):
times out of ten they'd say, Okay, you gotta use it.
But that collaboration doesn't happen so much anymore because you
don't have the time with the person you do because
you have a creative experience with I would imagine quite
a few of your heroes. That's a different thing. This
is a negotiation sometimes.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
My obsession with Rolling Stone really stemmed from well one
we had a subscription to the house.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I lived in a Billboard cash box.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Rolling Stone cream subscription household, like any music magazine, always
came to my parents' crib.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
For the most part, I would be fascinated with the
lead review because I love the idea of like a
illustration and then seeing the star rating and stuff. And
so I started adorning the walls in my house with
those leeve reviews. And you know, by the time I'm fifteen. Yeah,
(28:11):
I mean that's pretty much like how I know, you know,
when you talk about past the original generation of Rolling Stone,
like I'll say that his name.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Is kN Tucker, Yeah, kN Tucker.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So I knew besides Stevie Wonder's songs in the Key
of Life, it was very rare to see a black
live review and it was the police issue of Rolling Stone.
I believe that this is when Zennata Mindata came out
and they had the cover. kN Tucker gave Prince's Dirty
(28:46):
Mind the Lee review in Rolling Stone, and at that time,
Prince was just one of the artists that would adorn
my older sister's walls. So I kind of had Prince
in the right on Team Beat thing. Not that I
knew the difference between like critical writing of music and fanzines,
(29:06):
but even I knew that Team Beat and Ride On
were like frothy articles and you weren't going to get
anything deep as opposed to Rolling Stone. And I remember, like,
wait a minute, they're tweeting this guy like he's a
real serious person.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
At the time, I only knew like the singles, and
it was because of the pun. The pun was someday
our prints will come Wow, which you know, even at nine,
I was like, Wow, that's that's a hell of a reference.
And I had never even heard Dirty Mine or anything
about it, but it made an impression on me, and
(29:44):
suddenly I started getting obsessed with leave reviews only Wow,
could you, at least during that time period, could you
tell me what the modus operandi was in terms of
how records were assigned to writers to review them, how
(30:06):
long they had to sit with it, who assigns the stars,
those things.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
That I did not know a lot about. There was
some mystery to it. I know that there were people
that had DIBs on upcoming records, there were regular reviewers
that would have DIBs on it, and features too, like
Bob Dylan. But when I first started, John Landau was
still the music editor, and John Landau would make a
(30:33):
lot of these decisions, and John Landau was a huge
force at Rolling Stone. When I was doing that on
my brother's story, they said, you need to talk to
the king because the King knows Phil Walden and Capricorn Records,
and the King will just help you a little bit,
knowing how the ropes go. And I was like, who's
(30:55):
the king? They're like, John Landau, that's the king. The
Duke is Dave Marsh. And I'm like, okay, a right, okay,
so the King is Landel, the Duke is Dave Marsh.
So the king is just like, here's the call the king,
here's his phone number.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So you weren't a you weren't a staff writer. You
were still freelancing.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
I was freelancing, and I was coming into the feature division.
But John Landau even had you know, like even even
had to say in some of the features and everything.
So it was almost like it was somewhere between a
hazing and an education. Because I called Landau and he
was like, this is the king, Like okay, what do
you what do you? How does this work? And he
(31:39):
was like, well, you know, you got to dig deep
and you gotta do this, and you got to do that.
You got to know that, like southern music is born
and like this and otis Redding, and so that's what
you're waiting into. And Dwayne Almond, you know Dwayne, Dwayne
worked with Blah blah blah, and so he was he
was amazing and uh, you know this is pre Bruce
(32:00):
and stuff. So he was the King. So he's still
the King. I think Bruce probably calls him John, but
you know, maybe he calls him the king. I just
think Klubby. And to answer your question is like John
Landau protected the club that was the music reviews got it.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
So I'm leaving this up to the old guards. Disdain
for led Zeppelin. Yeah, clearly you were a fan of
these guys, definitely, And of course I guess their hesitancy
was like, well, you know, they're still in the blues
from black artists and reserving it and washing it down and.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
There's no integrity behind that.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Let me ask you, do you believe in the theory
that fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
No?
Speaker 2 (32:58):
I think I mean, does take still matter?
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Of course they can be wrong. You know, it's like
it's such a fluid thing. Everything changes. Like as you
were talking about led Zeppelin, I wish it ran as
deep as you know, misappropriation and all that stuff that
all came later. The big thing that they were against
led Zeppelin for, I think was that they came out
(33:21):
of a fad which was supergroups. Blind Faith was a supergroup.
You know, it had Clapton and Stevie Winwood and stuff
that had some integrity, but I think there was some cheesy,
superficial supergroups, so called supergroups, that were around, and then
(33:41):
here comes led Zeppelin, which is the guy from the
Yardbirds and the other guys weren't that well known, but
it was perceived as a supergroup and not taking that seriously.
I think it was the fans that said, no, this
is a real group. This is a real, real group.
By the time led Zeppelin two came out, it was
(34:02):
you didn't hear that anymore. It's a strange thing that
I remember at the time. And then it became about
you know, the Lemon song and all that stuff, and
like stealing a little bit and that they came after it,
but mostly they just didn't take them seriously. At the beginning,
it was felt like a commercial venture by somebody who
had done you know, more legit work elsewhere, like with
(34:25):
the Yardbirds. So you know, it's that caddy really and.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So we're supergroup seen as cheating if you will.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Or yeah, yeah, totally totally, like too easy. It's like
this is not born, you know, out of out of passion,
heart and soul. This is born out of a Petri
dish for success.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Man, Come on, well, If that's the case, then did
they take Band of Gypsies seriously?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Kind of not?
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Is that why the Band of Gypsy's album really isn't
considered in the Hendrix canon of.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Kind of is now but at the time less than
now for sure. For sure, it's like, oh, well, you
missed the white hot cannonball. That's over now. It's like
he's gonna go play jazz with Buddy Miles and this
is not going to go anywhere. Great. It was kind
of live of it. Wow, I know, but it's like
all of that stuff changes, people reinvent and all that stuff,
(35:23):
and it's just fun to watch it all happen. But
when there were that many people focused on one of
the few music outlets out there, you know, there's a
lot of serious you're in, you're out of the club
stuff going on. They don't have a lot of power.
Cream even had a lot of power. I love that
you had a subscription to Cream. Cream was fun. Cream
(35:47):
took fun into the sphere of music journalism much more
than Rolling Stone. Doesn't get enough credit. Lisa Robinson was
talking about, you know, el Agonza and making fun and
you know, she was all, He's running around with these
pink little notebooks that she got from the Beverly Hills Hotel.
She would only take notes on this pink Beverly Hills
Hotel notebook. And she was friends with all of these guys.
(36:10):
I remember she would, you know, George Harrison would show
up at a led Zeppelin show and she'd be like, honey,
can you believe Look? Can we just dish? And she
was amazing. She kind of brought fun into it, but
it was all kind of getting a candy store for
me because the byelines were coming to life all around
(36:30):
me and it was the coolest, Like you, I mean,
I was studying the byelines. I love those byelines?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Was Lester Bangs the epicenter of critical writing for music?
Because I also believe there's writers that write for each
other as well. Yeah, you know there's certain Pitchfork writers
now that when they're going to roast an album, it's
almost like, hey, I'll check what I'm about to do
(36:59):
and they'll just and I could tell it's just almost
like their version of the Aristocrats for community.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, totally totally, but it is is. He was a
court jester, Okay. He was kind of the guy. Lester
was a little bit more of a heckler. Then he
became more he became more of an oracle, but he
was kind of the heckler he'd gotten fired from Rolling Stone.
(37:26):
He was a big character. And then the offshoot of
Lester was Richard Meltzer, who was not as talented and
kind of more of a legitimate pretender to the crown.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Did he truly love music or did he love the
art of the takedown, the art of the snark.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Lester legitimately cared about the music. And I know this
because I read the unpublished stuff that he wrote on
the back of record company bios and sent to my
little underground newsp The Door, and much more. Never had
any assignments. He just had written for The Door a
little bit and wrote so much that he would just
(38:08):
send them reviews and they didn't know what to do
with it. They just put it in this green file cabinet.
And when I first had a meeting at The Door,
I was like Lester Banks. I love Lester Banks. He
wrote for you guys, because the cartoonist guy who has
looked like an R. Crumb comic, I remember, oh my god,
he won't stop writing for us. He keeps sending all
this stuff and it's like, we can't it's long, we
(38:30):
can't publish it. It's over in that green file cabinet.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
And I was like, so you own his original writings.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
I didn't take them foolishly. I bet they got thrown
away because I don't think they were even fully read.
But Amir, you would get like, I don't know, I
don't have a bioish thing around here, but like it
was coffee stained and beer stained, and it was single
draft like xxx. He would just do like backspace on
the typewriter and it say XXXXX. You could see what
(38:58):
he didn't want us to publish. Yeah, it was beautiful writing,
and I don't know what happened to it, but it
was this idea that like there's a guy in Birmingham, Michigan,
kind of expelled from California and the rolling Stone culture,
but he's like a vesuvious out there like writing about music,
(39:23):
because he couldn't not write about music.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
What was his outlet?
Speaker 1 (39:27):
If there's not substack, cream, the cream would just take everything.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I think he wrote for the Village Voice too. He
wrote the thing about Elvis at the Village Voice dying.
That was amazing, so there he had outlets were starting
to come up, maybe trouser press and stuff, but Lester's
main thing was cream and a lot of his great
stuff was in cream. But a lot of his great
stuff is nowhere now sadly. And that was a real
(39:52):
lesson to me. That's like, you don't have to write
to be published. You can actually write to write, which
I tried to emulate doing this book The un cool
that was like that was for me. That was my
version of beer stained writing on the back of a bio.
(40:14):
It was just stuff for me, just because I loved
writing and I was I felt kind of after the
almost famous musical, I was like, God, I wasn't directing,
I wasn't writing in my first language. Like I got
to go back to that thing that I love, which
was you know, this stuff, yellow legal tablet stuff, and
that was the lesser vibe to me. Super Analog. Then
(40:38):
they invented the display writer, and they also did the
IBM Selectric, which you could automatically backspace on, which is
really good. But then the display writer, John Hughes, got
a display writer and he was working in the building
where I was working, and so I saw like what
he wrote on right, which was like, you know, the
(40:59):
the NASA. To me, that looked like the NASA stage
at you know, right Houston. He fucking doesn't write. He
like beams in a script from somewhere. I don't know,
as they're all beat up typewriter work. Though you could tell.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
What was your first musical memory.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
It was my mom taken us to see Bob Dylan
in nineteen sixty four, my sister and me in a
gymnasium in Riverside, California. And there was a long time
before we were ever going to concerts, or that I
was ever allowed to go to a concert. But that
was a protest movement thing for her. It was like,
there's a protest singer. I'm going to take you to
(41:53):
him because Republic they're going to burn down everything, and
we liked the protest singers. That was her thing. The
other thing was Elvis. I wont tickets two things I'm
going to over answer your question. I figured I would
win concert tickets and the thrill of victory would cause
(42:13):
my parents to let me go to the shows. So
I won. I had a trick way of winning be
the third caller type contests on the radio, so I
won those, Yeah, they were real, But I had two phones.
I would work it. I'd be on the phone already
dialing them, and then i'd have another phone all but one,
you know, visit pressed. It would be like they got
(42:35):
would be like you're the first caller, and I'd be like,
you're the second caller, You're the third callar, and I'm
like hey, And I'd win these tickets, and I want
tickets to go see the Buffalo Springfield and Iron Butterfly
at the Coachella at what is now the Coachella Festival Fairgrounds.
It was actually the Indio Date Festival Fairgrounds, where nothing
(42:58):
ever happened except once a year there was a you know,
like a fair But anyway, I want tickets. I went
to see the Iron Butterfly they were headlining and Buffalo
Springfield that was opening up. And Buffalo Springfield were terrible
because they'd already broken up. Neil Young and Steven Still's
were not the band. It was the drummer and four
(43:18):
other guys that hadn't even rehearsed. It was terrible, but
Iron Butterfly were coming on next and I was standing
by the soundboard. The guy at the soundboard who playing
like the walk in or pre pre performance music puts
on in a Gotta Davida before Iron Butterfly comes on,
And this is my first taste of like a rock manager.
Some guy comes screaming down the aisle and comes to
(43:41):
the guys like, take that fucking thing off. You think
they're gonna come on and they're gonna they're gonna duplicate
that on stage. That's never gonna happen. Take that fucking
thing off, you.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Idiot, and it'd be like, didn't even know, just.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
Got fucking tripped off. And then they came on and
they were really great. I thought they were great Iron Butterfly.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Sonically speaking, did you really get a satisfaction when you're
going to these concerts?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Like when you're seeing Zeppelin in seventy three? Does it
sound like a.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Sports stadium sound where it's like the worst speakers ever?
And like James Brown when when I watched these nineteen
sixty seven shows or whatever, it sounds like he's singing
from a megaphone, almost like Yeah, have you ever witnessed
a concert in the sixties and the seventies from the nosebleed?
(44:36):
Did the sound reach up there?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Not?
Speaker 3 (44:39):
Well, a lot of it was born in like gymnasiums
with no sound systems and a few amps and stuff,
so like concerts, they were really tinny and didn't actually
feel They felt like souvenirs more than performances like you
get to breathe the air of Bobby Sherman or even
(45:00):
the Jackson Five at the Forum. I mean that record
sounds much better than they founded live.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah, So I was gonna say, like even when watching
the Jackson's before him in the seventies and I'm like,
wait with Ronnie and Johnny as their band and Tito
and Jermaine, it sounds when I listen to live records
like it sounds so sonically fool like. Another example is
James Brown live at the Apollo one, two and three
(45:28):
on record, It's like wow, but somehow get the feeling
that in concert they're not using like maybe the first
twelve rods can really feel it.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
And then I saw James Brown in the middle seventies
and it was not that as the Apollo records.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
It was not.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
It was basically a tiny fan, you know, like a
half gift.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
So sound is coming from like the actual guitar amp, yes, yes,
and not from the house speakers.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
No, not that I remember.
Speaker 1 (46:01):
Drums are coming live from the stage and not from absolutely.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Yes, yes, it's the answer to that. And you know what,
because there weren't a million concerts in San Diego, you're
good with that. You're breathing the same air. It's like
you're in the room with James Brown or BB King
or Fleetwood Mac, you know, like the one of the
early Fleetwood Macs, and it just incrementally got better. So
(46:29):
you mentioned Zeppelin. Yeah, Zeppelin improved the sound.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Yeah, I was gonna say, what was the what was
the first paradigm shift of concerts in which like it's like, whoa,
it's loud in here.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
And I think I've seen an article or two about
them being so.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Loud that it caused a riot or something.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I barely remember it, but.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, that was one of my first concerts too, The Who,
and I got nosebleed seats and like wandered down close
to the floor from the bleachers, and then the lights
came down when the Who were coming on, and I
raced onto the floor and got sucked into like what
(47:10):
would be twelve row type distance from the band. But yes,
the volume was immediately so loud, and they had those
marshal stacks and stuff that everybody, you're right, that sound
was a call to like recklessness and abandon and I
got sucked into being almost pressed against the barrier when
(47:35):
the Who came on, and I thought I was gonna
get stampeded. I couldn't breathe, and it was there like
six feet away looking up and it was amazing. And
then I got pulled down and like spit out to
the side. But for like I can't explain, they were
right in front of me and Keith Moon and just
(47:55):
like I'll never forget it. It was Townsend in a silver
jumpsuit and he had a crown on his head and
he said, what a pleasure it is to be here
playing in your trash can, because the San Diego Sports
Arena is like a trash can, you know, so like
so he knows where he is right ripping on our arena,
(48:16):
and they're fucking amazing. And that was when I felt like, Okay,
this is beyond sitting in a gymnasium and listening to
like a tinny stereo.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Great question, do you miss the danger element of rock
and roll or what it's supposed to represent?
Speaker 3 (48:37):
Yeah, the sound was a call to violence. The sound
was a cault that said, you're with us, it's us,
it's us now, it's just us now. And that was like, fuck, yeah,
that that feeling. I haven't felt felt it in Seattle
when everything was firing with Pearl Jam and I didn't
(48:57):
see Nirvana ever live, but like Alison Chains and some
of those bands like that had that feeling which had
disappeared in La. So being in Seattle, I was really
excited about it, but that I haven't seen it a well,
like I saw the Stones on the last tour. It
was super loud and it sounded really great, but it
wasn't a call to It was a call to luxury
(49:21):
really because it was the you know, the big stadium
and the sound was great, and you know, it was
a lifestyle experience and so but it was way different.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
So I have a general theory, especially with music, that
often when something arrives in hindsight, it's really the end
of the sentence. I would imagine that for those that
had the Woodstock experience, that that was an arrival of
our generation, our voices, and it turned out to be
(49:52):
the end of it. Some could say the mass success
of Saturday Night Fever was all right, this is the
truth flag planning, arrival of Disco, and it wound up
being the end of it. Right now, I probably am
the only human being on earth that might have Thriller regrets.
(50:14):
You know, at the time, it seemed like, oh my god,
this is the rival of Michael Jackson. All the exciting
things that my eleven year old self got to witness
during that time period. But now I could probably name
forty things that Thriller has caused, including the end of
Michael Jackson, that would make me if asked, did Thriller
(50:36):
do more harm than good?
Speaker 2 (50:37):
I might have some notes for you.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
That's Elton John's theory the Thriller.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Ki At the end of the day, if there's one
thing I can say about Thriller when we talked about
Off the Wall, it was quality. Yes, how great this
record sounds. Now there's a new Q word, quantity. How
many words did it do? How much money he made,
how many records he broke? That's right, And when you
start chasing that dragon, there's no place to go but leave,
(51:05):
you know.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Because a lot of times the person who establishes who
finds that kind of success that they sought for a
long time, freezes at that moment. And that's why the
album after, which usually is huge because of the album
that came before, and it's not the album for so
they get a claim on the album that is not
(51:26):
as good. Michael was able to fucking really top off
the wall. Yeah. Many artists would just do like a fucking.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
A record of a record or what do you call it,
departure album?
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then and it would be huge,
but it wouldn't be their best. So that was an
interesting thing that happened. And yes it did. It brought
a lot of rain. This is the best thing, I mean,
to have a conversation like, this is the best. That's
the fan experience that you care enough to do it
to have it.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Well, let me ask you, at the time when Runge
is really planning its flag and making itself known and
you know, all the groups, like everything that's happening in Seattle,
did you at the time feel like, okay, like integrities,
integrities back in rock and.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
Roll and now we're here only to realize that.
Speaker 1 (52:26):
Oh not only it wound up being the end of
rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
In my opinion, that's.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
A really valid theory when it gets to a certain size
thriller size, or Vogue calls because they're going to do
a grunge cover and stuff. That's you know, that's the end.
You know that the end, And I think very few
people are able to step back seeing that coming. I
(52:54):
really admire Harry Styles because Harry Styles reached a certain
point and then pulled back. You know, you don't hear
about him so much, right mart He didn't over do
the brew. You know, it was like he was like, Okay,
I'm gonna step back and try and keep it contained
to a certain degree. I think. So I admire that,
(53:16):
but that doesn't happen very often. And yeah, it floats
up into this like high end of the mainstream where
everybody is a carnivore kind of for that thing, and
then it's it's terrible. Worse than terrible, it's over. It's
exactly what you're saying. But it felt like an integrity
flag had been planted for sure in Seattle at that time.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
So what were your real time thoughts of the eighties,
You know, what was it like to hear Neil Young's
trans record. Were you breathing a sigh of relief when
Infidels came out after the Christian period, did you feel
like a a stranger in a lost lane?
Speaker 3 (54:00):
And I was excited. I remember when when Don Kirshner's
Rock Concert came out and a lot of bands were
on that you could see bands playing. That was the
beginning of MTV. Was really exciting because that's like one
or eighty two, something like that, maybe eighty three, So
that defines the eighties and it was really all of
(54:23):
a sudden you couldn't just be Tom Petty making those
great records. You had to have like that incredible don't
come around here, no more video, So you needed to
add another superpower. And that was interesting to see who
failed and who made it, And I mean it's a
point to be debated, like who was able to survive
(54:44):
and who wasn't and how Craven was the MTV thing.
But for a long time I loved having that kind
of access. Then of course the hair bands kind of
started to take over, and that seemed really cheesy in
La To and that kind of spun me up to Seattle,
where I loved hearing like the radio station up there
(55:08):
that would combine like all kinds of genres and everything
and yes, I did love Infidels. That Pivot was really
sweet and a great album cover. But I didn't hate
the eighties until the eighties started to hate itself, and
then I was kind of ready to move on. I mean,
(55:29):
I liked Peter Gabriel, and I thought he used the
Forum really well. He was a great visual artist too,
you could say David Byrne maybe too.
Speaker 1 (55:39):
Speaking of Gabriel, of course, you know, it's impossible to
you know, hear the Sow record or In Your Eyes
without thinking of say anything. But is it true that
initially you guys were using a Fishbone song in place of.
Speaker 3 (55:55):
The Yeah, I think it was in the boneyard, was
like what he was playing when we yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's wearing the shirt he's wearing a Fishbone shirt in
the movie. Yeah and yeah. But when you look at
that in the editing room, it truly does look like
he's you know, stalking and heckling her with you know,
(56:17):
and she doesn't look too entranced by it all either.
With the wrong music, it looks like she's just annoyed.
But In Your Eyes was the only song where you
got like all the texture. And then it was a
quest to get you know that song, which was not easy.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
So you had him play it live from that boombox.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
He's playing Bonen in the boneyard when we film.
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Oh, I thought you would have just done it and
post and added the song later, but.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
We we did add the song later, but he's actually
we used music for music live and I always have
music playing in the takes and stuff that I don't know.
I mean, Cusack really loved Fishbone and I believed that
maybe that worked. That's who he was, that's wh who
he is, but it really didn't. But Gabriel did. And
(57:05):
the problem was he didn't want to give anybody that song,
so they were really oh man, there was a whole
thing about He didn't even want to take the phone
call and so he got talked to having a phone
call with me by David Geffen. And then when I
talked to him, they said, you're going to get a
phone call, like you're going to call him in Germany
(57:26):
at such and such an hour early in the morning,
and he's going to talk to you. And so I
talked to him and he in this really small voice,
he told me the song was too personal, couldn't let
us have it? And we'd send him a video, you know,
VHS to the movie, and I asked Tevi ray Vaughan
to score say anything too. I was really on a
(57:46):
quest to get really good music in there. But Gabriel
said no.
Speaker 2 (57:52):
How did you bend him?
Speaker 3 (57:53):
Well, I was putting the phone down, and I was
so heartbroken that I went fully junior high and I
pulled the phone back up, not even knowing if he'd
be on the phone still. And I just said, but
why and and he said, well, you know, I just
didn't think it worked when he took the overdose. And
(58:14):
I'm like, took the overdose. He goes, this isn't the
John Belushi movie. And I go, oh, my god, no no,
and he goes, oh, this is the teenage movie. And
I go yeah, and he goes, I haven't watched that yet.
You're envisioning the John Belushi movie within your eyes playing
when he od's he too? For like thirty years, I've
been haven't have.
Speaker 1 (58:35):
Been weird, But okay, I'm dealing with a So I
got my first major rejection like a week ago, and
I don't know how to take it. Like I'm taking
it so personal, man, because this is a denial from
a hero and.
Speaker 3 (58:55):
It hurts, It hurts, It hurts, may not.
Speaker 1 (58:59):
Be a dude on the real You and I are
really a podcast, but maybe we should discuss that in
the future, like do our conversations like Frost and Nixon
or whatever.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
We both have to be Frost right right, we Frost.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
And Frost right in closing, And I know this is
a tired question, but I'll ask your five non box set,
non greatest hits, non live, five albums that you stand
by as just definitive master works. I'm not even giving
(59:40):
you the Desert Island disc or this is all you
can listen to the rest of your life for house
is on Fire and this is all you can save.
Speaker 2 (59:48):
Five records?
Speaker 3 (59:49):
Okay, I'm gonna give you four, and then the fifth
one is fluid. I would say, what's going on? Marvin, Joni, Mitchell, Hejira,
Beach Boys, Pet Sounds, who Live It Leads and no
Live but oyeah, okay, no live, no life, Okay, fuck, Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I'll let that go. It's a it's a great album.
Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
Okay, thanks for that. This week. Like I told you
when I saw you, I'm on such a tom Bell
Spinners thing. I would say, the first Spinner's album right now,
really yeah, I just love that record with only Don't
let the Green Grass Fool You is not a perfect
song on that album, so it's not totally perfect, but
(01:00:33):
it's really speaking to me now.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
And that's the one you choose as the redheaded stepchild.
Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Red headed Stepchild, which always leaves you know that that
chair gets occupied by many.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
It gets played so much though like I wouldn't, I.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Would all hangs together.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
I love it, I got it, okay.
Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
I can't get you out of my mind. I'm like,
I'm owned. It's I have it. It's like I don't know,
it's the happy sad thing.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
For what's going on.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Do you see that as a total, a complete work
from start to finish. Like for me, though, Side one
is song one, absolutely holy holy side song too, and
I consider that a four song record. I'm with you,
and so for me there's side one the same with
slies Fresh. I consider that all of side one just
(01:01:23):
one song. And so but really, Hijeira more than hissing
of the summer lawns.
Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Oh yeah. His era is a journey. His era takes
you on the ride. That was Prince's favorite. Jony album too.
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
He put me on a hissing of the summer.
Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
The summer LUNs.
Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, But for you, like, what is
it about Hijira that speaks to you?
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
I like the story behind it. I like how the
package suits the music. I like that it was she
blew off a tour, took a journey on her own,
and wrote those songs mostly those songs on that journey,
and I just I love the whole adventure of it,
and it's and it's present in the music.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
So the backstory really does mean something like without the
backstory of Nebraska, would you feel the.
Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Same way about it?
Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Or even a vonni Ver's album of him nursing a
broken Heart with chicken Soup in Northern Exposure box setting.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Come on, I love that. I love the whole story.
That's why kind of went out and did all these interviews,
I think is to like, what's the story behind the story?
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
I love it, got it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
That's why you, you know, put those reviews on your wall.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
It's like got it, liked.
Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Having it there. The process of taking it and putting
it on your wall, it's like all part of the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
I will wait till the Joni pick comes out to
nerd out on you some more humble that someone that
I admire and respects so much much, from your writing
as a journalist to your film.
Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Work and just your love of music.
Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Like you are one of my north stars in terms
of having it both, like I love creating music, but
I love absorbing it more and telling about it. And
I really owe that to you, And I thank you
for everything, and.
Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
I can say so much of that right back to you,
and I will thank you so much, Thank you soon.
Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Quest Love Show is hosted by me Amir Quest Love Thompson.
The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me.
Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart
by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conroyd. iHeart Video support
(01:03:52):
by Mark Canton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nick Aloe.
Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Brown,
Special thanks to Sugar Steve Manzel. Please subscribe, rate, review,
and share The Quest Love Show. Wherever you stream your podcast,
(01:04:14):
make sure you follow us on socials That's at QLs.
Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including The
Quest Love Supreme shows and our podcast archives. Quest Love
Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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