Calexico interview

For over a decade, Calexico has been a goodwill ambassador of good music, melding indie rock, Americana, latin flavor, movie scores, jazziness and south of the border folklorico into a gumbo that has delighted fans from their home of Tucson, Arizona to Tokyo. Despite massive changes in the music industry, the veteran band is always brave enough to try something new. For example? They are collaborating with the Louisville Orchestra on Saturday, January 30th, at the Kentucky Center's Whitney Hall. New L.A. buzzband The Airborne Toxic Event is also on the bill.
Velocity's resident pop culture guru, Peter Berkowitz, recently had a chance to ask Calexico's singer and guitarist, Joey Burns, a few questions:



Joey, thanks for doing this. I'm a first-time caller but a longtime fan!
Thanks for the opportunity to talk. Looking forward to the show.

How has the collapse of Touch and Go, your longtime label, affected Calexico? Do you know yet how your next record will be distributed?
It hasn't affected Calexico quite yet as we don't have a new release coming out this winter. I just spoke with (label owner) Corey (Rusk) and had a really good conversation about many things, music business stuff included. I think we both agreed to cross that bridge when we get to it. He's such a good friend and I really enjoy our connection. I suppose I am most sad about not having the whole staff at Touch and Go Records there anymore. They are such a great group of people and so helpful to bands like ours. They made it easy to be a self-managed indie rock band. They taught me that it's important to carry that creativity into the business side of releasing music and to always be surrounded by intelligent, like-minded people who have a strong work ethic and sense of humor.

Your music conveys a feeling of the Southwest more than probably anyone since Ennio Morricone was scoring Westerns. Additionally, yours is one of the most post-globally influenced American bands around still. Do you enjoy - or are you frustrated - that Calexico continues to stand out so much in a sea of more conventional, more simplistic and interchangeable rock bands?
We don't mind standing out at all. Our record collections and musical influences continue to get more diverse with each tour that takes us to far corners of the globe. With all of the influences, we strive to make it our own. It's important to make sounds with your voice and choice of aesthetics. We just received our first offer to play Mexico City yesterday at a rock festival called "Vive Latino" with a capacity of 55,000 people. Should be a lot of fun and good to play in unchartered waters, so to speak.

Many major acts, such as Bon Jovi and Hootie, have "gone country" in an attempt to broaden their fan base. As a versatile, roots-based American band, do you think you would ever make a so-called "country" record? It worked for Freddie Fender!
Sounds like you're a music producer. We've worked with Willie Nelson, Jerry Douglas, Joe Ely, and even the late, great Freddie Fender. I guess some of our recordings have touched on the more pure country motif. The song "Slowness" on the new album Carried To Dust definitely conjures up the Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris vibe. The song features singer songwriter Pieta Brown. These influences of genre and style weave in and out of live shows and recordings. The variety is key for us and our own unique vision of how we blend things.

You have collaborated with Louisville's own Jim James (of My Morning Jacket), amongst many collaborations. Do you feel any kinship with The Band, in that you are able to be the star or the supporting band depending on the situation? Or The Roots? Would you consider being the house band on a talk show?
Sure. You a TV producer as well? I'm liking where you're going. Love The Band, The Roots and the Duke Ellington orchestra. Our dream is a massive music hall filled with instruments from around the world and recording gear.

For the January 30th show, you're collaborating with the Louisville Orchestra. How often do you get a chance to do something like this? Are you more excited or afraid of what might happen?
This is the first time for us live. We've done some similar work in the studio, but this is going to be great. We are all so excited. What should we wear? Tuxedos?

Your band's lyrics are more literate than most. Instead of asking for a favorite records list, could you recommend 2 or 3 great books?
You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett. Short stories of melancholia. Perfect for long flights.
Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing by Charles Bowden. Good inspiration for late night journal spelunking and Sunday morning walks back into town.
The World That Made New Orleans together with Cuba and Its Music by Ned Sublett. Tracing back to what made Jazz and some of the best music in the world.

c. 2010 Velocity Weekly

Tom Green interview

Proudly Canadian Tom Green first achieved fame in the U.S in 1999 when his comedy show, The Tom Green Show, began airing on MTV. He had a quick rise, moving from TV stardom to movies, marrying Drew Barrymore, and hosting "Saturday Night Live" and appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone. But just as quickly, his career - and life - was in freefall.
At the height of his fame, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He ended his TV show. His marriage ended in mere months. A movie he directed, co-wrote and starred in, Freddy Got Fingered, was declared one of the worst movies in history.
Today, he has found a new path. Since 2006 he has hosted a new talk show, Tom Green's House Tonight, where guests visit him in his home. It is amongst the most popular regular programs on the web. Last year, after another health scare, he returned to stand-up comedy. His tour brings him to The Improv in Louisville on Wednesday, January 27th. Velocity's resident pop culture guru, Peter Berkowitz, recently spoke with him:



Have you been to Louisville before?
Yes, I have, actually. I've been to the Louisville Slugger Factory. I got one of those bats with my name personalized on it. I'm looking forward to being back there again, it's gonna be a great time.

How's the tour going so far?
It's going great. I'm touring around with my friend Sean, we're on a world tour. We started out in Edmonton, Canada, we're going to Atlanta and Marco Island and then Louisville, around the country and then on to Australia. I'm really lovin' it.

You did stand-up in your teens, but hadn't done it in many years. How did you get back into it?
Jordy (Fox) from MySpace's comedy site, he was up here at the house and he brought other comedians with him, guys like Russell Peters, Nick Swardson. Then they asked me to perform at the New York Comedy Festival. It was something I'd been wanting to do, I just needed somebody to ask me to do it. MySpace, on their comedy site, I did a secret standup show for that. They actually just put it up on their site, so you can check that out now.

Is your stand-up going to be like what we've seen you do on your web channel or TV shows?
It's a hybrid. I'm excited about using the internet, letting the fans see what's going on on the road. We were throwin' snowballs in Edmonton.

Is the web channel your main focus? Is that your full-time job these days?
It's like a completely independent hobby that's gone out of control. I do it whenever I can. Sometimes I can do shows, sometimes I can't do a regular show. I don't look at it like that. I don't look at it like a job. But yeah, I'm putting my focus on the channel. We're working with an ad agency in L.A., to bring it in a bigger way. I want to have other shows on the channel, I want to be able to get on the road but still have a chunk of shows up at a time. The fun thing is getting a sponsor. You need somebody to run it, y'know? We've had various sponsors over the years, like Budweiser.

Tell me more about putting your stand-up act together.
It's always evolving. I don't ever do the same thing, every night. I have jokes, there's things I talk about. Y'know, you do five hour-long shows in a row, you figure out what works. A little music, too. We've got some high energy crowds, people yelling stuff out. It's exciting. People have conversations with me. People yell out stuff: 'Do "The Bum Bum Song"! Slutmobile!' It's being loose, it's fun to go with it. It's exciting, a good time for everyone.

So you hope to keep doing this for a while.
I basically quit drinking for this tour. Well, not liquids - just not drinking booze. I'll have a drink after the show, maybe. It's not good for my endurance. I just lived in the West Edmonton mall for five days. The club was in a mall, where the hotel was, and the restaurant, and it was snowing, y'know? I just went back and forth, back and forth. It's pretty cool. It was like Biodome. I hope people will come see the live show, and also start following it on the web. This is what I want to be doing for the next few years - going on the road making videos. What's cool is that other people are making videos of the show and posting them. I'm a video nerd. Anything to do with making videos, editing, experimentation, etc. I find it mind-blowing still what people are able to do with it. It's exciting to me - new cameras. Growing up, wanting to make videos, I had to volunteer at the local community TV station - now I can edit with Final Cut Pro in an edit bay on a laptop in the hotel room, and then post stuff immediately. I've been filming the audience with a flip cam. I've also been playing a game with the audience: passing the camera around, having them film themselves, passing it around and then hopefully passing it back to me.

And you're healthy again, so this is a good time for you.
It's very therapeutic, doing this show. There's a lot of problems that I'm dealing with - the world, me... It's therapeutic and it's funny, too. I just want everyone to realize, 'Wow! Damn! We're lucky to be here.' I'm just trying to remind everybody.

c. 2010 Velocity Weekly

Column #9: We snobs need to stand our (superior) ground

I am a snob. Or, at least that's something I have heard... umm, let's just say more than twice in my life so far. But what is a "snob", exactly? My copy of Wobster's Dictionary defines the term as meaning, "One who enjoys the very best in every walk of life. One who does not settle for whatever is easiest or most convenient, or most understandable to the person in the next cubicle." You may be saying, "Wobster's Dictionary? You think your so smart but you can't even spell!" No, actually, I was trying to be funny. Also, I know the difference between "your" and "you're", and I’m dang diggity tired of people like you telling me that I’M a snob just because I learned at some point in my life what the difference is between "your" and "you're"!

Still with me? I promise, I'll calm down for a moment. OK, but seriously, people, I see you all "becoming a fan" of "Knowing the difference between your and you're" on Facebook all the time, and yet a third of you still do it. Also, at the risk of sounding like a "snob," I feel fairly confident that my social networking circle is amongst the top percentile of smarty mcfarties in the greater Louisville Metro Facebook world - yet, still, I see this mistake inflicted on the literate public several times a week. Maybe you folks aren't as smart as I want to believe. After all, I see many of the same educated, cultured people also "becoming a fan" (yes, I need the quotation marks; you don't really expect me to use the phrase with a straight face, do you?) of the concept that "The dislike button is here! Add it now! LOL OMG YMCA!" No, friend, the dislike button is not here.

I have not sat down or drove through to eat a meal at the majority of the fast food chains that are ruining the health, wealth and moral fiber of this country since 1996. I haven't even read a single book by Michael Pollan, and yet I realized that all of the junk is just that, junk. I'm tired of having to defend myself against other educated, insightful adults who call me a "snob" for eating the best tasting, healthiest, localest food that I can find instead of shoving two corporate death burgers down my throat and calling it dinner. I love meat! I love hamburgers! I will gladly pay $10 for the burger at Bourbons Bistro on Frankfort Avenue any time, because it is huge and crazy delicious.

Two of my favorite records this year were by the bands Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective. My own editor wrote that people like me "pretend to like them to feed your own superiority complex". I also think that Slayer is still awesome, and that Lady Gaga is the greatest thing to happen in way too long. I also referenced a 25-year-old punk rock song in the previous paragraph; I don't really say things like
"corporate death burger" in conversation, but I love my old punk and will not apologize for puking every time Rolling Stone hails Green Day as the saviors of rock 'n' roll.

I might have digressed away, at points, from my "snob" rant, but I think the points I made above were valuable and will make this world a better place. In fact, I can prove very quickly that solving all of this world's problems starts with you, beloved reader. How? The people who read columns in arts and culture free weeklies are the very people who get pegged as "snobs" by people who probably should be doing some more reading in the first place. (Don't tell them that I said that, they're very big and like to punch people). If you, the ones who are supposed to be good at spelling and retaining knowledge can't perform certain basic functions, then what chance do we have?

c. 2010 Velocity Weekly