Photo credit: Daniel Coston
Tell us about your tour vehicle.
My touring vehicle is usually a 737 or some variation thereof! I have string arrangements (for cello and either viola or violin) that I’ve written for most of the songs I currently play. So, I travel early in the am on some cheap airfare, coach of course, with an acoustic guitar, arrive, rehearse in the afternoon with some of my string-playing friends who live in the cities I’m appearing in, then play with them that same evening. For a while, I was opening a number of shows for Television (the band) this way, I think Tom likes that kind of sound. I also did a book tour this way, reading from my book A Spy in the House of Loud with underscoring and “musical examples” from a few string players. Including playing a chamber-music excerpt from “Little Johnny Jewel” that I need to record sometime (or pass over to Kronos maybe).
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
A lot of fish, nuts, salad. It’s easier now that Amazon/Whole Foods has invaded almost all the tony towns that are willing to entertain my services. Here at home I shop at the co-op instead, but Whole Foods is like a very deluxe, elitist McDonald’s, they are almost everywhere and very homogenous.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
I break around no strings a year on my acoustics. I change them when I notice that they sound dead to me, which is after maybe 10-15 hours? For some shows with Peter Holsapple, we have tuned down a halfstep because of having pitched the keys of some songs too high to sing when we were young and foolish–so for these gigs I’ll up the gauges one level, then change back when back in concert tuning to play without him. I’m playing so little electric guitar in concert now that stats on that don’t really apply. I have a lot of studio guitars but am guilty of letting the string changing get behind the curve on these, as I’m usually too eager to lay some idea down to stop and change strings.
Where do you rehearse?
I rehearse in hotel rooms with the string players, with no electricity and mutes on their instruments, which can be cramped but usually is not prone to craziness unless it’s so tight that we have to dodge flying, jabbing bows. Very civilized. For the Big Star Third shows, we usually rehearsed on large stages with a full crew and monitors, it was like being in a royal family!
When I need to rehearse with an electric band here at home, it’s usually with my friend Matt McMichaels on guitar. Matt has what would be a shotgun shack if it were a lot longer. It’s like a slingshot shack maybe. Rustic, in the woods outside of town, completely delightful space once you get into its clutches. We rehearse relatively quietly, although you have to crank it at least enough to be heard over the assault of sticks on the wooden tubs and pizza trays that the drummer seems to insist are musical instruments. (kidding of course, I love all the drummers I play with!)
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
Well, the first music I wrote was instrumental, on piano, and the titles were just numbers. The first song with words for a band that I remember was called “Fire Drill” and it rhymed “flames” and “dames,” but the rest is, thankfully, lost in the embers of history.
Describe your first gig.
I’m not sure that it was the first, but I played for a while at a roller-skating rink, as background music for the skaters. I think I’ve been disappointed in the reactions of audiences ever since–I’m always looking for them to get up and glide around the hall in time to the musicians on stage.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
I mix records for other people, at my studio in the woods, in Chapel Hill, called Modern Recording. Usually they send me multitracks over the internet and I send mixes back. I also do string and wind arranging, for both mixes I’m doing and for records being produced elsewhere, and this is my current favorite day job–so fun to put ink on paper and then hear it turn into sound. Total magic, in the hands of the right players.
I’ve also from time to time recorded audio books, which is a different kind of fun and discipline. Jon Wurster (drummer for Mountain Goats and Superchunk) has recently been in a lot, reading rock-related this and that.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
My income has shrunk in lockstep with the general decline in music revenues. Of course, it’s always somewhat feast or famine, as any freelancer will tell you. I can’t see that it will get any better. The rewards of a creative life in the arts have never been the kind you can fold into a wallet. I do think that the vast amounts spent on pop music creation between say 1965-2005 were the anomaly, if you look at the last 500-1000 years of popular music. The model for so many great composers and performers was a combination of patronage (from royal families and the wealthy) and either liturgical or university support, throughout history. It’s hard not to miss the glory days of big budgets, but it was, in the overall picture, just a strange blip, akin to winning the lottery. I can’t see that it will come back, frankly, any time soon.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
Not to eat wheat.