Tag: Interview

Tom Waits Interview

Q: What’s heaven for you?
A: Me and my wife on Rte. 66 with a pot of coffee, a cheap guitar, pawnshop tape recorder in a Motel 6, and a car that runs good parked right by the door.

Q: What’s hard for you?
A: Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane. Math is hard. Reading a map. Following orders. Carpentry. Electronics. Plumbing. Remembering things correctly. Straight lines. Sheet rock. Finding a safety pin. Patience with others. Ordering in Chinese. Stereo instructions in German.

Q: What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?
A:
1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.
2. Shoe shine stands that looked like thrones in Brazil made of scrap wood.
3. False teeth in pawnshop windows- Reno, NV.
4. Great acoustics: in jail.
5. Best food: Airport in Tulsa Oklahoma.
6. Most gift shops: Fatima, Portugal.
8. Most unlikely location for a Chicano crowd: A Morrissey concert.
9. Most poverty: Washington D.C.
10. A homeless man with a beautiful operatic voice singing the word “Bacteria” in an empty dumpster in Chinatown.
11. A Chinese man with a Texan accent in Scotland.
12. Best nights sleep-in a dry riverbed in Arizona.
13. Most people who wear red pants- St. Louis.
14. Most beautiful horses, N.Y.C.
15. A judge in Baltimore MD1890 presided over a trial where a man who was accused of murder and was guilty, and convicted by a jury of his peers… and was let go- when the judge said to him at the end of the trial “You are guilty sir… but I cannot put in jail an innocent man.” You see – the murderer was a Siamese twin.

http://www.tomwaits.com/press/read/15/TOM_WAITS_TRUE_CONFESSIONS/

It’s All Drag – David Johansen Interview

TERRI GROSS:
The New York Dolls were so into a sort of pre-punk sensibility. Very raw, high energy. Buster Poindexter is much more lounge, Vegas persona. Buster Poindexter is in a tuxedo…

DAVID JOHANSEN:
It’s all drag Terri. Birkenstocks are drag. I mean everyone is saying something with their clothes.

New York Dolls Frontman David Johansen
Johansen was a founding member and frontman for the early ’70s glam band The New York Dolls – the band that helped set the stage for the punk movement. Later, Johansen created the lounge-lizard persona Buster Poindexter. He’s the subject of the new documentary Personality Crisis: One Night Only, co-directed by Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi. Johansen spoke with Terry Gross in 2004.

NOTE – quote is my rough transcription.

Interior Voice – What Does it Sound Like

GROSS: By the way, I noticed that when you do your inner voice, when you’re impersonating yourself in telling a story, it’s not your voice. It sounds more like it would be the voice of your father or grandfather.

GRAY: When you listen to yourself on tape – not that you do or should – does it sound like you think you sound?

GROSS: Well, I’ve listened to myself enough that, you know, I’ve learned that that is how I sound. But the first few times I heard myself, I was really just totally embarrassed and thought like that can’t be true.

GRAY: That’s right. So what I’m doing for you is the idiot that I think that I actually am to you. That’s – I’m trying to apply – you know, the opening of “Mean Streets” where Harvey Keitel…

GROSS: In the church?

GRAY: No, it’s when Harvey Keitel sits up in bed. It’s the very beginning of the film.

GROSS: Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

GRAY: Right before that, you hear a voice sing you do it in the streets. And it’s this little bit kind of this pre-film, maybe two- or three-sentence monologue that you hear. And it is supposed to be Harvey Keitel’s inner voice, but it’s voiced by maestro Scorsese. And Scorsese says it’s because you hear your inner voice differently than others hear you. Your inner voice is different. So I thought it was so beautiful. And so maybe that’s part of the reason the inner voice that I have is kind of this idiot voice, you know?

GROSS: James Gray, it’s been so great to talk with you. Thank you so much.

GRAY: Great to talk with you.

Armageddon Time’ director explores how the world is ruined by ‘well-meaning people’
FRESH AIR
NPR

RIP – Loretta Lynn – Fresh Air Interview With


‘Fresh Air’ remembers country superstar Loretta Lynn

Lynn, who died Oct. 4, grew up in poverty in eastern Kentucky and went on to have 16 No. 1 hits. Her life story was portrayed in the 1980 film Coal Miner’s Daughter. Originally broadcast in 2010.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. Loretta Lynn, one of America’s most beloved and influential country music stars, died yesterday at her home in Tennessee. She was 90. Lynn was famous for her singing, her songwriting and her life story, told in the 1980 film “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” The film was adapted from Lynn’s memoir, which described how she grew up in poverty in eastern Kentucky, became a wife at age 15 and, after having four children, started writing songs and performing. She made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry in 1960. Lynn became the first woman to be named entertainer of the year by the Country Music Association in 1972, and in 1988, she was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame. Sixteen of her songs reached No. 1 on the country charts. In her New York Times obituary, Bill Friskics-Warren wrote, quote, “Ms. Lynn built her stardom not only on her music but also on her image as a symbol of rural pride and determination. Her music was rooted in the verities of honky tonk country and the Appalachian songs she had grown up singing.”

Terry interviewed Loretta Lynn in 2010. A tribute CD had been released, which featured her songs recorded by The White Stripes, Steve Earle, Miranda Lambert and others. They started with Loretta’s first recording, “Honky Tonk Girl,” followed by the version on the tribute album performed by Lee Ann Womack.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I’M A HONKY TONK GIRL”)

LORETTA LYNN: (Singing) Ever since you left me, I’ve done nothing but wrong. Many nights, I’ve laid awake and cried. We once were happy. My heart was in a whirl. But now I’m a honky tonk girl. So turn…

Disney Ushers Don’t Point – Michael R. Jackson Fresh Air Interview

GROSS: Since you worked as an usher at “The Lion King” when you started the process of writing “A Strange Loop” and the main character in “A Strange Loop” is an usher at “The Lion King,” now that you have a hit show, do you talk to the ushers? And do you try to hire ushers for whom this will be a good theater experience, a good opportunity for them to kind of almost be an apprentice?

JACKSON: Well, I don’t have anything to do with hiring the ushers. They’re – they belong to a union, Local 306. They place them in the theaters they work at. But I do. When I go to the show, I do often talk to them. They’re very nice people, but they also have a different situation than I had when I ushered because when you’re a Disney usher, you have this long employee handbook, and you’re considered a cast member. And you’re – and the people who come to see the shows are guests. And they are – and it’s almost like you’re working at a theme park. Like, they want to create, like, an experience for the people coming to see the shows. And so they’re just very strict about everything from grooming to how you can gesture to the restroom and all that sort of stuff. It’s – like, it’s pretty intense.

GROSS: How are you supposed to gesture to the restroom? What’s the proper call?

JACKSON: Open-handed. You’re never supposed to point.

‘A Strange Loop’ writer and composer started out on Broadway as an usher
Michael R. Jackson’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical is about a young Black gay musical theater writer named Usher, who works as an usher at a Broadway show — just like Jackson once did.

Harvey Fierstein Interview – Village Voice

FP: After downtown celeb Harry Koutoukas’s apartment caught fire, in 1972, you authored In Search of the Cobra Jewels, a show about his attempt to help clean up the mess. You played Koutoukas. Your memoir recounts that Village Voice culture writer Arthur Bell “was arrested for holding another man’s hand as they crossed the street” from the theater. Progress has been made, but with record-breaking trans deaths and a Conservative backlash, are we moving backward on queer issues?

HF: I don’t believe it’s possible to move backward. We must allow each generation to find its way. What we see happening now with MAGA is the death throes of a generation that can’t stop progress. Conservatives want to move back to a time when they felt more comfortable. But that time is coming to an end.

FP: But there’s such a strident push to recreate the past.

HF: There’s a saying in the antique business—“You can’t go broke by selling people their childhood.” Hucksters are selling back to MAGA a picture of America that no longer exists. Think of it as the difference between weather and climate. The weather changes (MAGA arises) but not the overall (political) climate of ongoing, unstoppable change. That makes them all nervous.

FP: Hyperbole abounds while critical thinking skills evaporate.

HF: My “eBay theory” helps to explain. A postage stamp for sale is displayed in a 3-by-4-inch screen image. A Rolls Royce is presented in the same image size. Over time, Internet and social media technologies have us believing all things are equal.

FP: As in, my opinion is as legitimate as your evidence-proven fact?

HF: Yes. The idiot next door is a COVID expert because he says he is. If everything is equal, then what are critical thinking skills for? As the COVID pandemic progressed, we learned new ways to treat, what/what not to do regarding transmission. It’s a constantly moving target. What was true last month may not be true today, so we adjust our perceptions. We evaluate with critical thinking skills. Many have lost the ability to do that.

Harvey Fierstein Cleaned Off His Desk During COVID
The actor, playwright, and screenwriter talks about his memoir, sobriety, women in politics, and what’s next
by FRANK PIZZOLI

Art – Making Order out of Chaos – Sondheim Quote

GROSS: You know, that actually really fits into what you were talking about wanting rules and structure in music.

SONDHEIM: Yeah. Order out of chaos. Order out of chaos. That’s why I like crossword puzzles – order out of chaos.

GROSS: Right. Right. Right.

SONDHEIM: I think that’s what art’s about anyway. I think that’s why people make art.

GROSS: To create order in…

SONDHEIM: To – out of chaos. Yeah.

GROSS: …In a world that’s chaotic? (Laughter).

SONDHEIM: The whole – the world has always been chaotic. Life is unpredictable. It is – there is no form. And making forms gives you solidity. I think that’s why people paint paintings and take photographs and write music and tell stories and – that have beginning, middles and ends, even when the middle is at the beginning and the beginning is at the end.

‘Fresh Air’ remembers Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim (Part 1)

Paul McCartney Interview – Fresh Air

On why they chose to go with a persona on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

“We’d been The Beatles for quite a while. And when you made a record, you knew you were making a Beatles record, and so you imposed certain parameters on it. So we can’t get too far out because people just go, ‘What the hell’s going on? They’ve gone mad!’ So you had certain standards for Beatles records [and] you were always trying to advance those standards, but there were limits that you felt. And also when you stepped up to a microphone, you were conscious of all that background of, ‘I’m Beatle Paul, and I’m going to do a Beatle Paul song.’

“I don’t think it really was terrifying or even boring, but I had this idea to just change our identity and make ourselves think that we were kind of another band. So it meant now anything goes, we don’t have to sing like The Beatles. We can sing like whoever they saw the band is. In the end, the name came out of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. So the idea was so that when you stepped up to a microphone, it was not now John Lennon Beatle doing his song. It was a guy out of this strange band, and in some way, it was just liberating.”

Paul McCartney knew he’d never top The Beatles — and that’s just fine with him
Fresh Air

Fresh Air Interview – Desus and Mero

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. My guests Desus and Mero host the Showtime comedy series “Desus & Mero” Sunday and Thursday nights at 11. Their third season resumed after a monthlong hiatus last night. It was their first show back in the studio since the pandemic. At the heart of the show is Desus and Mero talking to each other, making each other and the audience laugh about everything from politics to viral videos, sports, pop culture and the Bronx, where they each grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s. The show also has sketches, and in each show, Desus and Mero do an interview. They get high-profile guests like Barack Obama, Anthony Fauci, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chadwick Boseman, Seth Meyers and Chris Hayes, who went to school with Desus.


NPR

Michael Apted Interview – Fresh Air

Every seven years since 1964, in what’s known as the Up series, Granada Television has caught us up on the lives of 14 everyday people. The subjects of the documentary series were 7 years old when it began; in the latest installment, 56 Up, they are well into middle age.

Apted on what this experience has been like for him

“What can I say? I mean, it’s the favorite thing I’ve ever done, the thing I’m most proud of. It’s nerve-wracking, because you think you’re always going to blow it and you’ll wreck the whole thing. It seems fragile, and I’ve learned a lot of lessons about it. I’ve made mistakes on it and had to correct those mistakes. You know, particularly I got into a situation, I think, early on where I became judgmental about people — that if they didn’t agree with my standards of success, failure, happiness, whatever, then I would feel they were the lesser for it. And also I try to play God. I try to predict what might happen to people, and sort of set it all up for that. And I did that, and that was an embarrassing mistake. And I think what I’ve learned all the way through is the less I do, the better.”

Fresh Air

Bob Gruen Photographed The Spirit Of Rock ‘N’ Roll – Fresh Air Interview

Photographer Bob Gruen spent decades capturing the lives and performances of rock stars of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, including John Lennon, the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Tina Turner — and many more.

Gruen put in many hours backstage, in studios and on the road, sometimes doing drugs and drinking until dawn with his subjects.

“I carried a little flask of cognac in my camera case. It was part of my equipment. That’s the way it was in the ’70s,” he says. “I don’t know how I survived, because I crave peace and quiet — but I actually thrive in chaos.”

Gruen approached his subjects collaboratively, often soliciting their opinion about a photograph instead of trying to catch them off guard. He describes his work as an effort to capture the feeling and passion of music — not just the facts.