John was recently interviewed by Ryan Quinn and Mike Kelley of After Hours Radio from Rice Lake, Wisconsin. They talked about the economics of touring, tips for bands just starting out touring and the new album Don’t Let Me Stay.
If anyone ever asks me what makes this newest record different from the EP I’ll say that this “solo record” is more than anything a collaboration among some amazing musicians. From the first drum tracks Go Go Ray played on to the bass and guitar parts Chris and Mike added to the horns and strings, every one of these songs benefitted from these people who play on this record. Even Scott Born brought a sweet little counter melody to mind; always a trusted set of ears.
When I wrote these songs they were in a nutshell. On a cassette tape here, a voicemail message there, chords, words, melodies. Demoing them amounted to a basic 4/4 beat and singing and playing into a mic. A couple were never demo’d at all, instead committed from head to mic on the fly. (something I swear to stop doing, do, regret, and end up sticking with thanks to the feedback of some great friends) Each of the folks who played on these songs added something to it; like a kilner, stillman, and a blender.
I purposely went into this recording process without a finished product in my head. A dicey proposition, but I’ve gotten to the point that I know “the thing” when I hear it. Besides, going into a studio with full faith in the people you are playing with makes it a lot easier to stand or fall by the outcome.
So we’re here. The tracking board has only a few empty boxes where the Xs go. Mics have been aimed, Vox tubes blown, compressor knees flexed, mic ribbons tickled, cigarettes smoked, and spirits consumed. 15 songs in and there are some amazing parts committed to sine waves assembled from 1′s and 0′s.
We’ll complete tracking next week. Then the songs will get rough mixed and will sit, like a good rye whiskey.
Mixing will happen in late September. From there, it’s up to the drinkers of this little world to take it all in, put their woozy heads to bed and dream the dreams we hoped they would.
I’m honored to be nominated for a Pitch Music Award in the Singer-Songwriter Category. There are a lot of great folks nominated in the category including Jenny Carr, Kirstin Paluden and Patrick Deveny. You can see the ballot and vote by going here:
http://polls.pitch.com/polls/kcp/musicshowcase/vote/
There are great artists nominated in each category and my nomination would never had been possible if it weren’t for the work of the Prodigal Sons: Chris Wagner, Mike Alexander, Dan Dumit, Michael Walker, Sam Hughes and (newest Prodigal Son) Go Go Ray (on the drum kit).
Every nominee affirms that the term “local act” is about as far from a pejorative as it gets when you live in Kansas City. I’ve been lucky enough to tour and play with a lot of local acts in other cities; KC is nurturing more talent than most other places. I’m really excited about what this city is putting on the stage night after night.
CoverMe Songs.com named our version of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” one of their ten best covers of 2010. If you follow the site, you know they hear a LOT of covers. They did a list of the 50 Best Covers of 2010. Given all the material they listen to (hundreds of songs this past year) I was surprised and honored to be named one of the Ten Best.
Besides being named, the real honor was in the fact that Ray Padgett and Company truly took the time to listen and embraced the place I tried to come from in recording this version of Iggy’s song. Iggy Pop is, for me, more than a legendary rock performer, more than the swagger and brashness he’s known for. You can’t write songs like Iggy did without a tremendous amount of sensitivity and honesty.
So to the folks at Cover Me, not only do I say thanks for the acknowledgement, but thank you so much for appreciating where Iggy was coming from.
What they said:
10. I Wanna Be Your Dog (The Stooges cover)
John Velghe
Download MP3
There are few phrases in the English language less romantic than “I wanna be your dog.” John Velghe and duet partner Abigail Henderson turn Iggy’s grimey assault on its head, though, discovering unlikely beauty in lines like “So messed up, I want you here / In my room, I want you here.” If Velghe sang this to you, you’d let him be any animal he wanted.
Michael Byars closes out his latest radio show “The Mailbox” with John Velghe’s cover of “I Wanna be Your Dog.”
Michael also talks a bit about this Friday’s Apocalypse Meow 3 benefit show for the Midwestern Music Foundation.
Give The Mailbox a listen. There are some great songs on this week’s show including Lana Mir’s gorgeous cover of The Stone Roses song “I Wanna Be Adored”
Michael’s theme this week appears to be “I Wanna Be. . . ” and let’s your imagination take it from there.
Below is a feature from Present Magazine on the upcoming Apocalypse Meow Three benefit show.
Please come to both nights if you can, one if you can’t or donate to the Midwest Music Foundation if you can’t make either.
In 2008, local Musician Abigail Henderson was diagnosed with stage III inflammatory breast cancer. The music community rallied to help her holding a series of benefits called “Apocalypse Meow”. Two years later she’s alive and still singing.
Apocalypse Meow 3 grew out of that initial benefit and the Midwest Music Foundation has taken up the cause. Apocalypse Meow 3 is the annual event held by the Midwest Music Foundation to help raise money for a Musician’s Health Care Fund for artists living and working in Kansas City and the surrounding areas. The MMF aims to create mechanisms where the collective musical community can gain affordable access to health care.
Music is a job, not something one does instead of getting one. Music—making it, producing it, recording it, showcasing it, selling it—is an important part of the cultural make-up of Kansas City and the surrounding areas. It is a rare thing to be truly moved by a song, a piece of music, or a performance. On any stage in this fair town of ours, any night of the week, someone is moving someone. Music does that. Something new is created. Something old is reborn. Be it the rock show or the jazz club, the music in this town stands toe-to-toe with New York, LA, and Austin. The people who make up its community should have the mechanisms in place to take care of themselves in order to continue to pursue their art.
Friday night’s pre-party at the Midwestern Musical Co. features John Velghe & His Prodigal Sons andAtlantic Fadeout. Rock posters from Hammerpress, Peregrine Honig, Eric Lindquist, Tyson Schroeder, Jud Kite & many more will be up for sale. We will also have an original piece of artwork from Peregrine Honig up on display that will be auctioned off at Saturday night’s main event at The Riot Room. Saturday night includes performances from McMilian/Easterday, Walkenhorst & Porter, Vi Tran Band, Adam Lee & The Dead Horse Sound Co., Mark Lowrey v. Hip Hop, Sons of Great Dane, Cherokee Rock Rifle and The Roman Numerals. Robert Moore & DJ Rockwell will also be spinning all night long between sets. Festivities also include a raffle with amazing prizes including an Epiphone guitar, and auction items from local businesses like Midwestern Musical Co., Peregrine Honig and more. There will be a bake sale, because what would a rock-n-roll Saturday night be without cookies?
EVENT DETAILS
Apocalypse Meow 3 Pre-Party
Friday, November 5, 7 PMCome out Friday night to Midwestern Musical Company to the Apocalypse Meow 3 Pre-Party with John Velghe & His Prodigal Sons and Atlantic Fadeout. This annual event, sponsored by the Midwest Music Foundation, will be raising money for the Musician’s Health Care Fund. Rock posters from Hammerpress, Peregrine Honig, Eric Lindquist, Tyson Schroeder, Jud Kite & many more will be up for sale. We will also have an original piece of artwork from Peregrine Honig up on display that will be auctioned off at Saturday night’s main event at The Riot Room.
Midwestern Musical Co.
1830 Locust KCMO 64108
816.931.6962
www.midwesternmusic.com
www.apocalypsemeow.netApocalypse Meow 3
Saturday, November 6, 6 PMApocalypse Meow 3 is the annual event held by the Midwest Music Foundation to help raise money for a Musician’s health care fund for artists living and working in Kansas City and the surrounding areas. The MMF aims to create mechanisms where the collective musical community can gain affordable access to health care. Saturday night includes performances from McMilian/Easterday, Walkenhorst & Porter, Vi Tran Band, Adam Lee & The Dead Horse Sound Co., Mark Lowrey v. Hip Hop, Sons of Great Dane, Cherokee Rock Rifle and The Roman Numerals. Robert Moore & DJ Rockwell will also be spinning all night long between sets. Festivities also include lots of raffles including an Epiphone guitar, and auction items from local businesses like Midwestern Musical Co., Peregrine Honig and more. There will be a bake sale, because what would a rock-n-roll Saturday night be without cookies?
The Riot Room
4048 Broadway, Kansas City, MO 64111
816.442.8177
www.theriotroom.com
www.apocalypsemeow.net
I might never have written a note were it not for the bands Jim Dickinson worked with – Big Star, The Replacements, The Stones. I know I never would have learned to record myself if it weren’t for him.
I never had a nice couch, but I’ve spent hundreds of hours listening back in the control room, head back, exhausted, wondering, listening, hoping. Jim Dickinson’s ideas, arrangements, and outright theft of so many great records probably inspired me more than Michael Jackson or Les Paul combined. RIP Jim. You’ll be missed.
Someone actually asked me my reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. I don’t know why I’m even taking this on, but hey, I’m a musician, I never learned the fine art of avoiding lost causes. (I named one of my rock bands “Saint Jude” for chrissake).
Thriller
I’ve read a lot about Michael Jackson lately. It seems to me people can’t help but fall into one of two camps, the camp that looks at Michael Jackson in terms of his art, and the camp that looks at Michael Jackson the man. It seems that how deeply they are entrenched in their camp determines the degree to which a person can overlook the opposite facet of the man’s existence. If you’re dug into Michael Jackson the Man, it becomes very hard to see Michael Jackson the Artist. If you’re dug deeply into Michael Jackson the Artist, it can be hard to see the man.
And in that way, Michael Jackson really must be the King of Pop.
I’ve always had this deep and abiding ambivalence towards musical artists. (Maybe that’s because I aspire to be a musical artist and I have a deep and abiding ambivalence towards myself?) People tell me Paul Westerberg is a dick (he did fire Bob Stinson for being a drunk and doing too many drugs). Right now I’m listening to Oasis, tell me it’s not hard to see those guys strictly through the prism of their art.
It really is the essence of popular music that its creators are human, they exist and in fact subsist on frailties. If they’re doing their job well, those frailties and that humanity not only fuels their work, but it infuses it. The indians say that when you hunt and kill a deer you eat the tip of the deer’s heart so that his strength is passed on to you. Well, for an artist, frailty and weakness are your strength, they’re your heart; and goddamned if true, aspiring artists don’t spend every waking moment trying to create a work that the world can eat the heart out of.
And as consumers of this art, we do it willingly.
In the case of Michael Jackson, more people ate the heart out of his work than any other artists in history (No, I DO NOT count the fucking travesty known as The Eagles Greatest Hits, bleck!).
So, is it any wonder that there’s so much ambivalence about Michael Jackson? Millions of people consumed his frailties, weaknesses, and humanity. Now, many of these same people are adults and they refuse to see him as anything other than a pedophile. I wonder about this inability to separate artist from man, to see that one’s consumption and worship and fandom becomes part of the essence of the man we deride today.
None of this serves as an attempt to deny the wrongs of the man. Some people see only the man, some only the artist. Whichever camp your trench is in is your gig and I don’t begrudge you that. I don’t blame anyone for keeping their head down. When we’re talking about these kinds of things – art and molestation – it’s not easy to stick your head up.
So, back to the question at hand: my reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. Very well, my reaction to the death of Michael Jackson is as follows:
May each of us create a body of work capable of overshadowing all the times we’ve been a punchline.
I was starting a new band and a drummer musician friend from Kansas City by the name of Bill Belzer came over to talk about playing together and recording his new solo project. Bill brought over Wilco’s new record, Summer Teeth. We played a few songs and I was blown away. I’d always liked Wilco, but in that alt-country way. This album was different. It was just more. I looked at the liner notes and saw a name I recognized; Jay Bennett.
Jay Bennett in the studio
I knew Jay from Titanic Love Affair, a band I loved because they were so Replacementsesque. I’d met Jay in Lawrence after a TLA show and really liked the guy. He was part of that mid-90s alternative millieu but avoided all the pose and bullshit so many of that crop of indie-rock guys put on. So little pretense, it was obvious music was no “shot” for him. It was his thing, it was what he immersed himself in. Music clearly made Jay Bennett enjoy life.
Jay’s work on the Wilco stuff was remarkable for what he brought to a band that had previously made pretty good songs, clever lyrics, but the arrangements and instrumentation wasn’t there yet. Jay Bennett changed all that. He made Wilco into the band I grew to love, immitate, admire, and emulate. Summer Teeth continues to be a record I go to whenever I start a new recording project. Jeff Tweedy’s clearly a great songwriter, but what Jay brought to the band in terms of instrumentation, arrangement, is what really made Wilco the amazing band they are today.
Jay died last week while I was on a motorcycle trip and incommunicado. I came back to town and found a message from a freind mourning the death of Jay. We don’t know the cause of his death, and clearly Jay was much too young to leave us. I’d been really enjoying his solo work of late and following a legal fight over the royalties to some music from his Wilco days. Jay Bennett was a loving man, the night I met him he was so kind and I half-wonder if the idea of suing his old friend and collaborator Jeff Tweedy didn’t really crush him in ways few of us will ever understand.
In the end, Jay Bennett was one of my musical heroes. He met his end in his studio, Pieholden Suites. Fitting, I suppose.
We’ll miss you, Jay.
Love, John
This weekend I wrote and submitted a theme song for the new Amy Poehler series “Parks and Recreation.” It’s from the producers of “The Office.” I think the end result is a mix between the theme from “The Kids in the Hall” and “King of the Hill” and The Office.” So maybe it should be named “The Kids in the Hill Office.” Anyway…
We’ll see what happens, but until then you can check out my theme here:
http://johnvelghe.com/2009/music/Evans_DrumsHeSaid.mp3
