Take note of Gary Lucas.
He is a guitarist who is
best known for playing
with Captain Beefheart in the 1980s,
and Jeff Buckley in the 1990s.
He has collaborated with everyone
from Leonard Bernstein to John Zorn.
He has done extensive work
in music publicity, which
although it doesn't quite seem
simpatico with all the other stuff
that I mentioned, it really works out.
And you'll learn how.
His contribution to that field
features one of my favorite bands ever.
This is The Music Is My Life
podcast presented by Berklee Online.
I'm your host, Pat Healy.
And on this edition, Gary
Lucas takes us right up
to the present from his humble
beginnings listening to his parents
Broadway soundtrack and
film soundtrack albums.
But as always, we'll let
him tell you about that.
I'm thinking My Fair Lady for the
Broadway soundtracks and Doctor Zhivago
for a film soundtrack.
And these things really
made an impression on me.
And I loved listening to music.
I mean, it warmed my soul I'd
say to just be bathed in this.
I then discovered top 40 radio of
my hometown of Syracuse, New York.
And I would spend hours
just out of nursery school
before I went to kindergarten even
listening to whatever they would play
in the afternoons in a rocking chair.
Just rock back and forth
and listen to the local DJs.
This is the late 50s into the early 60s.
My father, out of the
blue, came to me in 1961
and said, how would you like
to play a musical instrument?
And how about the guitar?
Up to that point, I'd never
even considered such a thing.
And I was like, gee dad, yeah
that sounds like a good idea.
Why not?
Yeah.
Simultaneously, the band leader
in my elementary school band,
he also led the band for the
junior high and the high school
in Syracuse that I was
geared up to be going
to, these are public schools, he
administered a music aptitude test to I
think my fifth or sixth grade class.
And I scored 100 or a perfect score.
Wow.
It was to test your musical aptitude
and abilities vis a vis pitch,
and rhythm recognition,
and stuff like that.
So based on my high
performing score on this test,
he assigned me the French horn to begin
studies, which if you know your band
instruments it maybe the most difficult.
Certainly the most difficult brass
instrument in the
arsenal of instruments.
But of all instruments I'd
say short of the violin,
it is certainly the most
difficult pitch wise to achieve
a good intonation on that instrument.
And actually, he didn't pay much
attention to my physical aptitude
to realize anything
significant on this instrument
because if you look at
a picture of me, you'll
see I have a very thin upper lip.
So I wasn't really born
with a good embouchure.
Or let's say the physiognomy
to be able to produce
a good embouchure on this instrument.
Nevertheless, I soldiered on and took
simultaneously to my guitar lessons.
Within about a week, I was
studying the French horn as well.
So I had this parallel track in
music going on at nine years old.
The bandleader threw me out
of the band some years later
for wearing sandals to the band room.
Oh.
Yep.
God forbid.
Yeah.
This is a true story.
I finally got the heave
ho out of the band
because he caught me
improvising on a march.
And so, yeah, I thought
I was making it better.
And I thought I was
jazzing it up as they say.
I was inspired to try again like
improvise a bit like dixieland.
But no, you couldn't.
Did you find different
people to play with after you
got booted out of the band?
Well, I think that was the
end of my French horn career
because at that point I realized I'm
never going to have a great embouchure.
It's really hard to produce
a beautiful mellifluous tone.
And I had some virtuosos.
I was like the second chair.
I had a girl next to me, Nancy Flynn,
who could really play that French horn.
So I sort of gave it up at that point.
Although, I resurrected the
French horn on the first album
I ever played on, which
was Captain Beefheart's Doc
At The Radar Station in 1980.
When I told him that I played
the French horn he said,
oh, you got to play some
of that on this album, man.
That's great.
Yeah.
So I have a short excerpt on a
song called "The Best Batch Yet,"
or just "Best Batch Yet" on side two.
I want to obviously ask you
about Beefheart a little bit.
But I want to go first like
just along the progression
a little bit of your life.
And with getting kicked
out of the band, did
you start playing pick up in any
bands with guitar with anybody?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or were on your own?
Oh.
I right away was in and out, and
tried to start several bands.
And yeah, at that point,
we called them the combo.
They weren't really
the word band was not
in common musical parlance
in Syracuse at that point.
So it was still the era-
That's interesting.
- The combo.
Yeah.
We played at some school
assemblies in the sixth grade.
And at that point, I borrowed
from my guitar teacher
a very, very basic
primitive electric guitar
that he owned to be
able to be amplified.
And I used my parents large FM
radio to plug into the speaker jack
in order to do this.
I don't know if kids know
this, but in the old days,
in lieu of having a
standalone amplifier,
you could use a good sized FM
radio to be able to play through.
I started that way.
You did?
OK.
So you know.
Yeah.
That was probably my first
public performance playing guitar
to the school assembly.
And, yeah, we got cheered.
And I think the repertoire
consisted of "A Swingin Safari"
by Bert Kaempfert, who was a German big
band leader who had several pop hits.
And we did the theme from Peter Gunn,
which I always loved by Henry Mancini.
One of my favorite pieces.
Also Donald Fagan's apparently.
I read a book about his
formative influences.
It was a big--
you couldn't miss the like bluesy-
Learning guitar in the 80s, that
was one of the first songs I learned
was just that one one string.
And you just climb up.
Oh, yeah.
I didn't venture forth into
writing until much later.
And that would be about 1988.
I had some great professional gigs.
Like I played with the
Yale Symphony Orchestra
lead guitar and Leonard Bernstein's mass
for the European premier of his mass.
That was in '73.
I was already a junior at Yale.
My junior year I did this.
That was a big thrill.
That was my first performance in Europe.
Lenny, himself gave
me a huge compliment.
My hero.
If you had to say who was my
big hero in music at that point,
I would have said Leonard
Bernstein because I grew up
on his Young People's Concerts on CBS.
And learned a hell of a lot about
music from shows about Mahler.
He introduced the world
really to Mahler enmass,
and Charles Ives The
Unanswered Question.
He was great.
He was the single most influential
and engaging personality
to turn many, many people on to
music as a pursuit and a love.
And his books were great.
The Joy Of Music for instance.
So how did you get that gig?
How I got that gig was I was
just walking in the old camp
in the regular campus of Yale.
And I saw a sign that said singers,
dancers, players, electric guitarists
wanted to audition for European
premier of Leonard Bernstein's Mass
with the Yale Symphony Orchestra.
Please contact John Mauceri who was
the conductor of the Yale symphony
at that point.
And so, I saw that and I
said, oh, electric guitar.
I want to do that.
Let me go out for that.
So I contacted him, and
he gave me some music.
And actually, the first note
that is audible of this piece
is a shimmering electric
guitar chord arpeggiated.
A beautiful major key suspended
chord, which I probably
will someday recall how to play.
It opened the piece.
It was in the clear.
I just-- I don't know.
It's not on the tips of my fingers.
Yeah.
And I did that.
And I was like, I can figure this out.
I can still sight read.
I'm not a great sight
reader, but because
of my days in the school band with
the French horn in the orchestra,
I was able to study up on that score to
be able to play it and sight read it.
And that's how I got
to Europe with them.
And it was televised.
They filmed it for PBS.
It was shown in America.
And it was shown in Europe.
I found a copy in the archives
of the Austrian National TV ORF,
and recuperated it, as they say.
And have some copies
I gave to my friend.
I was just writing a woman who was
my friend who was one of the singers
and dancers in the production.
She's now the head of Undergraduate Film
Studies at Columbia, Annette Insdorf.
Dr. Annette Insdorf.
But she was hoofing it up and
singing in this CL production.
And so it was a great experience.
And it's a great piece.
And for whatever reason,
I don't know exactly why,
there's been a check that's
inhibited a release--
a proper release of a DVD of that show.
Oh, weird.
Yeah.
I don't know whose
copyright's being infringed.
Or maybe it's the wishes of the estate.
I don't know.
And you said-
But it's never come out.
Everything else Lenny was involved
in pretty much came out on DVD.
Right.
And you said he paid
you a great compliment.
But I don't think you
mentioned what it was.
Yeah.
Well, this is what he said.
The US ambassador had a party
for the participants and Lenny,
who came to supervise the production.
Or he came to make some comments
to Musari in the rehearsals.
And put his input on the show.
And so, he received us in the garden of
the ambassador from the United States.
And so I introduced myself to him.
And he looked at me over, and I was in
those days in full glam rock regalia.
We had crushed velvet
pants, and platform shoes,
and my hair was like Mark Bowen's.
And so he looked at me.
And he looked me up and down.
And he went, oh, the David Bowie look.
It was the first remark.
So I said, yeah, I like him.
And then he said, so what did you do?
I said, well, I was playing lead guitar.
And I really liked this piece
where you let me improvise,
or the score it calls for like
a wild blues improvisation.
And he went, man, I heard that.
You were really wailing.
Now that remark made my year.
Made a large chunk of my life.
I thought, man, to get a compliment
from Lenny on my playing, first of all
it's unusual because most of the
musicians you might complement they're
not allowed to improvise.
I was lucky enough to get a
passage I could soar over, and do
my blues rock thing.
So that's how I met him.
And then, how that led to
Beefheart-- well, it didn't directly.
But it gave me a taste.
It gave me a taste of
performing and being on a stage.
On a big stage.
And I liked it.
Even though I was in this--
it wasn't a pit orchestra.
It was off in the wings.
They had a lot of the orchestra onstage.
But the main action was the center
of the stage with these singers
and dancers.
Little play Tableau being acted out.
It's a great piece.
It's a theater piece for like--
yeah.
I just remember being inspired,
and wanting to do it more.
So I got an epiphone coronet
before I left for Yale.
And this became my workhorse guitar.
It was like a sort of a
mini stratocaster with one
pickup like a P90 type of a pickup.
And this was sufficient.
I went as a freshman down
to downtown New Haven,
and bought a real cheap ass guitar.
Amplifier for about 40 bucks.
A little too vamp tiny.
But I could get a great
distorted tone out of this thing.
And so there I'd sit in
my dorm room wailing along
with records with this great
distorted guitar sound.
Yeah.
It just continued to progress.
Didn't do that much playing out.
But was seeing a lot of concerts.
Loving.
Seeing things like John McLaughlin,
and the Mahavishnu Orchestra,
and Miles Davis came
up to Yale and played.
Then I went down and saw
Beefheart's first show.
That was what really changed my life.
I discovered the music.
I bought Trout Mask in
high school because it said
produced by Frank Zappa on the back.
I'd seen the Mothers.
I was a big fan.
And then after seeing him him I
said, if I ever do anything in music,
I'm going to play with this guy.
I told my friends.
I went down there with two friends.
And it's ironic because these
same friends Steve Handel and Bob
Rubin, are involved you know
in the release of the record I
do with Nona Hendrix, The
World Of Captain Beefheart.
Isn't that kind of
how you end up playing
with Beefheart, that you just
went up and introduced yourself
or something right?
Yeah.
Basically, that was it.
I mean, it was a little
bit more circuitous.
What happened is that
concert blew my mind
to the degree I was telling my friends
I'm going to play with this guy.
I've sort of made a vow.
And I'm very strong willed person
often when I get obsessed by stuff.
And I went back up to Yale, where
I was also the music director
at WYBC, Yale's radio
stationm and I said
this is the greatest concert
I've ever seen in my life.
And this band is it.
And so I was known up there as
his biggest fan and proselytiser.
So six months later, he came back
up to the east coast on a tour
that Warner Brothers Records put him on.
And they contacted WYBC
and said, he's actually
going to play up here at
Woolsey Hall in New Haven,
do you have someone
who can interview him?
So I got the gig just by default because
I was the Beefheart go to guy at Yale
and at that point.
And I have a tape in my collection
somewhere in the basement of me
on the receiving end of
a phone call from him.
He was based in Boston.
Well, he was really nice.
But I was a little scared.
You could hear it and my voice.
I'm trembling a little bit.
Like, oh my god, my
idol is about to call.
And I was still a fan boy a bit.
And he was supposed to have
ESP and magical powers.
We did events.
A little that of this over the years
to me to also, which is another story.
But yeah, I mean I wouldn't
say magical and supernatural.
But he had a gifted
intuitive, and let's say
he was certainly in sync
in a synchronistic way
with a lot of things
other people missed.
Going on, I just think
really all of the things
that people say there
are extra paranormal.
I'm sure there are scientific
explanations for them.
But some people are more sensitive
than others to pick up stuff.
Give me an example of
something you witnessed.
Well, the night that
John Lennon was shot,
he was doing an interview
in my apartment.
And during this interview, there
was some kind of disturbance.
Psychically, did I hear anything?
I might have heard a car backfire.
Did I heard a gun going
off up at the Dakota?
I'm not sure.
But he stopped the interview, and
said, "Listen man, something really
have just went down, and you're going
to read about it on the front page
of the paper tomorrow morning.
Now, you skeptics out there could
say, well, that's just coincidence.
But what are the odds?
It would seem fairly
certain and portentious.
And then in lieu of
what happened later, it
seemed like he was tuned into something.
Probably that event.
And what happened is we
just sort of ignored it.
And then OK, go back to the interview.
And then, the second interviewer came.
The first guy left.
And an hour or so later, the
first guy called up and said,
Gary, man, did you hear
John Lennon was just shot?
And I'm playing the tape back of Don.
And then, I asked him about it.
And he just looked and said,
like didn't I tell you?
Wow.
That's remarkable.
So he was not phased by it.
Yeah.
So anyway, I saw some instances of this
where he'd recall people's names out
of 20 years.
I mean, just a guy with a phenomenal
pattern recognition for certain events.
And sometimes, the phone's going to
ring and then the phone would ring.
Now, maybe there's
little vibrations that
occur a few milliseconds before a
phone actually rings he picked up on.
I don't know.
But he did it a few times enough.
And then with people who were around him
a lot corroborating some of this to me,
I just would say I think he had a
certain gifts that not everybody were
tuned into now.
Right.
Well, it seems like you enjoyed
your time with him based
on the anecdotes I've heard already.
And just talking to you.
But I feel like not everybody
has the same recollection.
Yes.
Look it's well documented
that Don could be, shall
we say a bit authoritarian if not heavy
handed as far as being a bandleader.
And made sometimes situations very
uncomfortable for band members
who were trying to just do
their job the best they could.
And I mean it's pretty well documented.
I'm not going to nay say it.
But I do want to say this.
I sometimes was on the brunt
of this as were other band
members in the band I
was in with him, which
was the last version of the Magic Band.
I think he had mellowed
a bit at that point.
And I put up with it, as did the
other guys, and because we knew a,
it was historically very significant.
It was a world historical ensemble.
So we were lucky and
thrilled to be part of it.
Honored that he tapped us to be in it.
So you can hear tapes
of Buddy Rich going off
on this band he picked up in Australia.
So this kind of egregious
tyrannical outbursts,
it's part of the territory folks in
music, and in showbiz, and in business,
and in human relationships.
I don't excuse it.
And I'm at an age now I could never
put up with it from anybody in my life.
And I wouldn't put myself
in such a situation.
Right.
Right.
It's kind of like my brother.
There's nine years between
he and I. And he always
says like you know a different
version of dad than I do.
During his time, they
were struggling trying
to get this business off the ground.
And it was just more intense.
And he mellowed within the nine years.
And I'm guessing Don did the same.
Yeah, I was lucky to
see a more mellow Van
Vliet than a lot of the
original Magic Band members.
And a lot of them are still
angry about the treatment.
They felt abused at his hands.
But I don't want to go there because
I'd rather celebrate the positive stuff.
And there was so much positive energy.
And my memories of one on ones
anyway with Don are really magical.
I mean, I never met anybody like him.
He could be supremely entertaining as
a companion and conversationalist. .
And a delight to be able to follow
his associative leaps and bounds.
He was big on wordplay.
And in a Joycean sense in his
conversation and also in his lyrics,
he's not really given
the credit he should get
as being an incredibly great lyricist.
And it's frustrating to
me because I saw and I
transcribed for him many great
images, and poems, poems fragments.
And he has notebooks,
or he had notebooks
filled with these great observations.
And also drawings.
I mean, great visual artist.
Great all around completely
sweet, generous, to me artist.
Really standing alone as this kind of
visionary in the canon of American arts
and letters.
And in the world in general.
There was nobody really
like Beefheart ever.
And then Don Van Vliet.
And it's unfortunate that due
to the nature of the business,
and also the fact that a lot of it was
operating at such a high frequency,
only dogs could hear it.
No, but only people who were
so inclined who maybe we're
bored with the status quo.
Like I'm pretty bored with most
music and art contemporaries.
Music and art that I perceive.
So it was really for a
cognosenti who got it.
People who got it, really got it.
Mostly, they'd stick with it.
And they become rabid fans.
For most people, they didn't get it.
Or they were puzzled by it.
You don't hear many people
saying, yeah, Captain Beefheart
he's OK with his Magic Band.
No.
No.
No.
The only one I ever
heard Philip Glass once
in bringing up Beefheart to Phillip
Glass he said, I can stand him.
I said, so what you think
of Beefheart's stuff?
That was funny.
But then I think he was offended
because Don sometimes would say and do
stuff in his interviews that could be
very dismissive of contemporary artists
and musicians.
And, yeah, I think he was
reacting to some interview.
And I'm not even sure Don had
ever even heard his stuff.
That was Don's-- one
of his faux pas there.
But generally speaking-
At what point what do you credit Don
or your time with Leonard Bernstein?
What point did you decide to
branch out in your own playing?
And when did you change there?
The thing is, I was inspired working
with Leonard Bernstein and then
with Don.
And I really wanted to do
music full time as a living.
And write it and play it.
And I was inhibited to
attempt this for a few years.
Or inhibited myself just
out of a sense of shyness
really if you can believe it.
I do have very shy side.
Although, I have tried to overcome it.
And other people don't
see this at all, and think
I'm much too brash and outspoken.
But I was then.
And that was one factor.
The other factor was
probably because I was
working within the biggest record
company in the world for 13
years as a copywriter.
This is at CBS Records.
That was my day job.
I was writing ads for Michael
Jackson, The Clash, REO Speedwagon.
Anything they handed me,
I could produce some copy.
You weren't the one who called The
Clash the only band that mattered?
Yes, I was.
Yes I was.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I was.
You came up with that?
I sure did.
And I'll tell you something else.
At the point that I came up with that
line, I actually believed it was true.
Yeah, I always believed it.
I believed it.
I love that band.
Thought they were really saying
something profound and revolutionary.
And then, I only got
second thoughts about it
once I joined Don and the Magic Band.
I thought, well, there's
only one band that matters.
[INAUDIBLE] band.
I mean, I became like mono maniac
about Beefheart at that point.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Tell me about turning in that copy.
Were the people at CBS
like, yep, that's great.
That works.
Yeah.
No.
What happened was again,
they knew I was a big fan.
Because of my enthusiasm
for various musics,
I used to generate a kind of interest.
Let's get this guy to work
on it because he's a big fan.
So I got a hold of
the first Clash album.
The top execs at CBS
in '77 went to London
for the Annual CBS Records Convention.
And there, two punk bands
were announced to be signed.
One was The Clash and the
other was The Vibrators.
Somebody flipped a coin, and
The Clash wound up on Epic.
Whereas, like in the UK,
they were on Columbia.
And then, The Vibrators who were on the
Epic in the UK became a Columbia band.
They didn't last very long--
The Vibrators.
But The Clash did.
And I got a hold of
that first Clash album.
And I played it to death summer of '77.
And this is great.
These songs like you know "Janie
Jones," and man, it was killing me.
Plus, I had seen the Ramones.
I was like in the early punk scene
in a big way as something fresh.
And I also heard how a lot of it was
influenced by Beefheart in a way.
And certainly, all the avatars
of the first wave of punk--
this is Johnny Rotten, and Joe Strummer,
David Byrne, Deevo, they all of them
cited Beefheart as a seminal influence.
I didn't think he was
getting his due honestly.
But anyway, I worked
at that corporation.
And then when I got busy with
Don's stuff, and a chance
to get in that band, I
kept the day job because I
saw how other artists got chewed up
and spit out of the corporate maw.
Welcome to the machine.
I was like this music
biz really sucks as far
as how creative artists get treated.
I saw it up close.
And I was like I'm going
to dip my toe into that.
I don't want to leave.
Unless I do it as a hobby,
which is what I did.
I mean they would give
me leaves of absence
to record with Beefheart, which I took.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
So I sort of had the best
of both worlds for a while.
Up until the point--
well, they just were proud of me.
Because if I didn't do a good job
there, they wouldn't have allowed it.
But because I was like
their star copywriter
in this division called
creative services,
they were actually proud of it.
Like we got this guy not only is
he right in these great ads for us,
but he's off with this avant
garde rock act, Captain Beefheart.
And it was something they
thought was cool to have
a guy within the corporation.
So I was in the corporation
as a freelancer.
And then became a staff writer.
They normalized the situation.
And hung on to that gig for 13 years.
Wow.
Probably far past my sell by date.
But like I say, I was afraid
to go out and just see
if I could do music full time because
I saw what was going on there.
And I was like most of these bands
don't have much of a shelf life, right?
All this like CBGB stuff, how much
of it is really going to stick?
Some of it really stuck like
David Byrne and Talking Heads.
But mainly, most of it
was fairly ephemeral.
And I had a wife to support, so
I thought I better keep this job.
And then I began this
communication with Beefheart.
And that was an extension
of when I'd met him at Yale.
We kept it up.
And I was still I want to play with you.
I want to play.
I had already auditioned
for him up in Boston.
And I went up there, actually
that's not a good story.
But when I was about to leave for Taiwan
after graduation, I had a lost year.
My parents said you got to go.
We recommend you work
for your dad in Asia.
I don't really want to get
into details right now.
A lost year is sufficient.
That's about it.
OK.
That's perfectly sufficient.
Well, there was--
It'll be in my next book.
The fact is I saw in the
newspaper in Syracuse
that Frank Zappa's appearing
with special guest Beefheart.
I'm like what?
I got to see this, man.
Don was ragging on Frank in a big way
before this when I knew him first.
Now they're friends again.
This is strange.
So I met him after the show in Syracuse.
I hung out with him.
Took him for barbecued
spare ribs at midnight.
Then I told him, you know,
if you ever need a guitarist,
you put the band back together,
because he had no band then,
I'd like to audition.
And he was like, you
play the guitar, man?
Why didn't you tell me?
I said, well, I didn't
think I was good enough.
And I was a little scared.
But I'm ready to try it now.
So he said, bring your guitar up
to Boston at the end of the week.
Come up there.
I brought it up there.
Played for him after the show--
Frank's show.
I went back to his hotel,
and he said, yeah, great.
We're going to do it.
And he was vague though.
I said, when?
If he had made a firm offer, but there
was nothing to offer at this point.
Yeah.
But I had a ticket to go to Taiwan.
So when I got back two years later,
I called him up and we resumed.
And then I moved to New York.
Got this job.
So that's where we are at this point.
And I start calling him up, OK,
what about playing with you?
Man I want to do it.
Well, I already put this band together.
But come and see me when
I'm going to be in New York.
He came twice.
Played the bottom line.
I hung out with him both
times after the show.
And eventually in '80, he
said I'm ready to now use you.
I'm going to send you a piece.
Learn this.
That's how I got in there.
Yeah, that's an '80 on an album called
Doc At The Radar Station on Virgin.
That's the one with that really
nice instrumental that what in it.
Cool title too.
A carrot is-
That's "A Carrot Is As Close
As A Rabbit Gets To a Diamond."
That's a keyboard
instrumental with a band.
That is?
I always though that was guitar.
Well, it's keyboards, bass and guitar.
No.
It's a keyboard based--
maybe there is some guitar in it.
I think it's a duet of
guitar and keyboard.
Maybe bass.
I have to check it.
But I have the instrumental
on the B side or the side two.
Now, it's all on CD.
So there are no sides.
And this one is called
"Flavor Bud Living."
It took me a hell of a long
time to learn on the guitar.
I learned it off a tape
of John French playing it
on guitar who had learned
it for an album that had
been quashed called Bad Chain Puller.
This album never came out
officially till many years later.
And it was caught up
in a lawsuit Frank had
going against his first
manager, Herbie Cohen.
Anyway, so I learned that.
And then, Don said, no, you got to
use my exploding note theory, man.
French played it all wrong.
I said, what do you mean?
He said you got to play
like bombs bursting in air.
Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
Play each note like it had no
relation to the previous note
or subsequent note.
OK.
I went out to the
desert to where he lived
in Lancaster with my first wife, Ling.
A Chinese woman I had married.
And I got instruction right from
the master as to how to play it.
So then I went and recorded
it a couple of months later
on the first or second take in LA.
And then toured with the guy all
through Europe in November of that year.
I came back and did some dates in
the US with them through January '81.
And that was his last
tour as it turned out.
He didn't want to go back on the road.
But that turned me on so much to
wanting to be a touring musician.
That's what really convinced me.
And then I'm frustrated because
he only wants to do painting.
OK.
You're not you're not just
out of college there either.
No.
I'm now 30.
So and then I finally got my dream.
We did one more record
called "Ice Cream For Crow."
He didn't want to tour.
I said, well, we've got to do a video.
He goes, what's that?
I said, oh, MTV.
Oh. yeah.
That stuff.
All right.
So we did a beautiful video.
Then MTV refused to play it.
But I got it in the Museum of
Modern Arts permanent collection.
And I got the last deal
happening with Virgin Epic.
So I did a lot for this guy.
I hooked him up on the first
painting career with Julian Schnabel.
Who was the number one young
abstract expressionist painter
based in New York.
Who had deep connections.
And then I resigned.
Basically, after five years, I felt
like I'd taken it as far as I could go.
He wasn't happy I was leaving.
But I said, look, I've set you up with
the biggest art gallery in New York.
If you want to make another
album, I'm there to play.
I got involved for playing,
not to be your art pimp.
And good luck with it.
And then he wasn't happy I was leaving.
But I had to really make a break
because I felt I'd be effaced.
He didn't like it when I was talking
about my own music or doing something.
But I was dreaming of it at that point.
So then I had a couple
years I stayed at CBS.
I wasn't talking to Don.
He went off and had some shows.
I was watching it from afar.
What happened was, I got
invited to do some sessions
for a few artists I liked.
A guy named Arthur Russell.
My protege.
Yeah.
So you know all about Arthur.
Well, at the point I
hooked up with Arthur,
I met him on co-producing
Peter Gordon's Innocence album.
I brought in a few artist for CBS.
One for CBS Masterworks.
That was Peter.
And with Peter came
Arthur, who I thought
was the most creative person
that I'd met since Beefheart.
And I hooked Arthur up with Rough
Trade Records and Blanco y Negro.
And was a huge supporter.
And that's another story.
And then, I played with
a few other people.
Adrian Sherwood.
I did a session for Adrian.
And Adrian was great.
I did something for Matthew Sweet.
And all this led me to believe I should
be doing my own music at this point.
It's insane.
And I got a little encouragement
from a few people whose word counted.
And then, somebody dared
me to do my own show.
I mean, what happened is a club
opened in New York called The Knitting
Factory.
Yep.
And I met Michael Dorf who was the
major Domo of The Knitting Factory.
He came up to my office
at CBS, and he said.
I'm a punk.
I should have my own label.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm
a punk too working here
in this stupid corporation.
I was a rebel.
So he said, listen, if you want to
do a show, we'd give you a show.
Beefheart's guitarist, no problem.
That could be cool.
So finally, I got up my gumption.
And I put some music together.
I worked really hard for some
months to assemble a solo show.
And in June 1988, June of '88, I
did the show on a Tuesday night.
Think it was June 11th.
Everything that could go wrong more
or less did in the run up to the show.
They left my name out of
the ad in the Village Voice.
Oh, no.
Oh, yeah.
I persevered.
I put up some flyers.
I wasn't going to be defeated.
And low and behold, they
had a line snaking out
the door around the block
for my very first solo show.
I got several encores.
I felt like I was in a trance.
They handed me $600 off the door.
That was good news.
And I came back, and I said, to my
lovely wife, who's sitting next to me,
I'm going to hit music
as hard as I can now.
I just proved to myself.
I was an idiot.
I can really move the
crowd just solo guitar.
And I'm going to really try
and make up for lost time.
I'm going to play my
way out of my day job.
And I did.
Yeah.
That's how it got going.
In the next year, I put Gods
And Monsters Mark One together.
It was jazz, rock, with two bassists.
All instrumental.
I did my first film score for The
Golem with my childhood composer
friend, Walter Horn.
I have a history improvising
music with Walter.
He's a great player and composer.
And I started making
demos, and recording stuff.
I put my first album out in '90.
I did as much as I could.
And I continue to do as much as I could.
And now, I have 30 plus albums out.
And 12 live film scores.
And played on about 60, 70
of other people's albums.
And written about 350
registered compositions.
Some of which are very well-known
songs like "Grace" and "Mojo Pin"
for Jeff Buckley.
And I had some success with it.
I know a little bit about
that collaboration--
how that came about Tim Buckley tribute.
Right.
And then how did it come to
pass that you guys composed
those few numbers together?
But then was it just kind of a music
industry thing where they were like,
well, no, no.
He's a solo artist.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's sort of what happened.
Although, I would say Jeff
had a little complicity
in the rending of the relationship
after about a year for those reasons.
But anyway, what happened
was Hal Wilner and my friend,
who did these multi artists tributes,
put together a tribute to Tim Buckley.
And yeah, I was asked to participate.
He said, well, Jeff
Buckley has come forward.
I said, I didn't know
he had a son named Jeff.
Well, neither did I or anybody.
But he has.
And I think you'd be a good
person for him to work with.
Jeff, I think, might have asked to work
with me really if he saw the roster.
Because he was a big Beefheart fan.
Jeff and I had a great year.
And we knew we could write
together from the first day we
started making music together.
And basically, what happened
was when I left CBS,
I had a deal with Columbia
Records with a female vocalist
who was in Gods and Monsters.
And I won't mention her here.
But it wasn't going very well after
a couple years under contract.
And I'd left my day job.
I was kind of way out on a limb.
But I had a lot of faith
that it would work.
And what happened was, the guy who
signed me and this female vocalist
left the company to go to Polydoor
or Polygram at that point.
So I was thrown to the wolves.
And it coincided with my
first solo album Skeleton
At The Feast on Enemy
Records to come out.
That was getting four and five star
reviews in places like Q Magazine.
And pretty much anything I put
out I would get stellar reviews.
But it seems to not be a
correlation between that and sales.
There never is really.
Is it?
Yeah, probably not.
But anyway, it kept me
going and kept me running.
So at that point though when I came
back from a tour, and tell them this,
and was all gung ho, they said
we've dropped your project.
They put the junior A
and R guy on the phone
to inform me that there was no deal.
I was like, how can you do that?
We have a contract.
And they said-- this guy said to me,
one of the coldest expressions I ever
heard of the music biz,
you can afford to sue us.
Damn.
I always tell that to the classes as
some cautionary just watch out folks.
It's not all a garden-
How do you respond to
something like that?
I don't know what to say.
And then the guy said, very
quickly, maybe we can have lunch.
I've got to go.
See you.
My response to it was to try and
allay my wife's gasps of terror.
Like we don't have health insurance.
What are we going to do?
You left your day job.
I said I'm going in music
because I know I'm good.
And I have Jeff Buckley
waiting in the wings.
And he's expressed an
interest in working with me.
And I rang him up shortly thereafter.
And he said I'll be your singer.
So that was a comforting thought.
So I went to bed feeling
a little bit of security.
Like I'm going to refashion
Gods And Monsters.
That was the name of my band begun
in 1989 with Jeff as the lead singer
because he was one of the
best musicians I ever met.
So then I had to get busy.
Now I have to write some music for us.
So the very next day, I just sat
with my guitar, and over a few days
emerged the music that became
"Grace" and "Mojo Pin,"
which later became the first
two songs on Jeff's two million
selling Grace album.
They were a guitar instrumentals.
One of them I had already begun.
And then the other one just
sort of occurred to me.
You know how I compose?
I just turned my mind
off, pass my fingers
over the strings of my guitar, which
happened to be in a drab deturning
because of the last thing I'd played in
Europe before I'd come back to America
on the tour.
When I got this bad
news was actually folks
"Evening Bell," which is a Beefheart
tour de for solo piece on Ice Cream
For Crow.
Which took me six weeks to learn.
That's in drop D. So I had that
tuning already up on the guitar.
So that's ironic that three of my best
known pieces are in the [INAUDIBLE] D.
Wow.
That is weird.
Well, maybe it's nice too.
Maybe it's the synchronistic thing.
I definitely always love
writing in that key.
So that's how it would work.
I would write finished instrumentals
with all the motifs, and riffs,
and harmonic structure.
Send them to Jeff on cassette.
He'd come back with perfect melodies
and lyrics to fit them like a glove.
He rarely modified anything
beyond please double the section.
I have some more words here.
I feel a verse.
And that was his fantastic gift.
And working with him was a gift.
He was the best
collaborator I've ever had.
I miss him dearly.
And he was a fantastic guy
also for the most part.
I mean, we did have our
ego issues, and eventually
a rupture with a relationship.
But he resumed it when he realized
yeah, those were good songs.
And he wasn't very
prolific at that point.
And the label was saying, well,
what do you got besides covers?
We signed a guy doing wall to
wall coverage pretty much a Chene
where he was playing.
So then I got a call from
him a couple years later.
Hey, remember those great songs?
I'd like to record them on this
record I'm going to record for Sony.
I was like sure.
That's great.
So he was kind of like the creative
relationship, then a falling out,
and then-
Yes.
You presumed it.
That's great.
Yeah.
And like when he died, he had asked me
for more music for a follow up album,
which he was having difficulty writing.
And the label seemed to be
rejecting everything he turned in.
So I was really sad and
really overwhelmed to hear
of his tragic passing.
And not just because I had lost a
great friend and a wonderful person,
but as a collaborator, I just thought
think of all those great songs
we could have written together still.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But then you kept going.
I kept going, man.
Here we are.
And here I am.
I just keep putting one
foot in front of the other.
And marching along to wherever.
I have some more albums for sure in me.
I mean, many.
I love making music.
It's my life.
I tour as much as possible.
I played in 40 countries.
Just came back from Paris.
I sold out the French Cinematheque
Francaise with a live film score
for a Lon Chaney film the Unholy Three.
And sold out at the Sunset
Jazz Club with a solo concert.
I played in Amsterdam a tribute to
Jeff with a great Dutch vocalist,
Jolene Grunberg, I'd met a few
years ago on a tribute to Jeff.
I do as much as I can as
frequently as possible everywhere.
It's my life.
It's my living.
It's harder than ever though.
I'll tell you not the playing of
it or the composing of new music,
but the whole landscape of
the music business changed.
Especially with recording and
getting paid on your copyrights.
And also, everybody wants to play live.
And there are not so many
situations, even in Europe anymore,
where it used to be easier for
non-mainstream musicians, particularly
jazz musicians, to find employment.
A lot of those gigs were
government sponsored gigs.
And a lot of the right
wing governments that
have come in to power in
Europe, one of the first things
that they slash in their budgets
is subsidies to the arts.
Particularly subsidizing
bringing in foreign musicians.
It's always let's build
up the local music scene.
So yeah, I'm not complaining.
I mean I'm doing all right.
I'm doing better than most people
who attempt to do this for a living.
I've managed by hook or by crook
to sustain myself since 1990
when I left my day job doing this.
I'm 28 years out doing this full time.
My only regret is I hadn't
really applied myself earlier.
But like I said, I had a lot
of fear about that and anxiety.
Right.
It was only when I hit a
certain age and somebody said,
oh, there's this club you
could play a show here,
did I get ambitious to take that step
into doing my own thing in music.
Before that-
It's an interesting thing.
Like heeding the call.
And it's probably the
trickiest industry to heed
the call in because great talent could
be washed away and overlooked given
the wrong place and the wrong time.
This is true.
A lot of it just depends on
the hands that are dealt you.
Situations often are
out of one's control.
And sometimes paradoxically, the
more you push to try and get gigs
the further they seem to
recede off in the distance.
And then there's all sorts of advice.
Oh, well, you don't have a manager.
The manager should be--
you try and find a competent
manager in the music biz
who actually has
connections to do anything.
And you'll find the
guy who wants to make
sure he's going to
make x amount of money
every year from the amount of
time invested, or he might invest,
or one of his associates might
invest in your career is not easy.
All right.
So you have done this
all without a manager?
I've had managers come in
there on and off, and yeah.
But pretty much, yes.
The answer is yes.
I've had to be on the front of
my career because nobody else
would know it as well as I what
needed to be done number one.
And what it consisted of.
And part of the reason I've
had longevity in my career
is because I'm very diversified
in the projects that I do.
Maybe to the point I've
confused a lot of people now.
Most people who sort of have a big name
in music do one thing specifically.
And various iterations of
that thing over the years.
Once they make that thing pay, they
specialize and they don't confuse.
Because I like a lot
of different musics,
I don't know if you
give this any credence,
but I am a double Gemini as far
as like my astrological sign.
Meaning there's a lot of different
voices and personalities within me
as a person, as an artist.
To me, it was natural
to play 30s Chinese pop
and segue from that into Vogner or
whatever else I was going to do next.
Write original songs, put together
a tribute to Beefheart, or whatever.
So because I was so
diversified, it may have
enabled me to work more because if
one thing was going to slow down then
I'd sort of segue into the next thing.
But it may have confused
the general public.
It blurred my identity.
Like what kind of artist is this?
What are we dealing with here?
We heard he was avant garde.
Yeah.
I'll accept that coming out
of the downtown music scene
or whatever they called
it here, and yet I'm
probably the only downtown
alumni who wrote hit songs
for Jeff Buckley or some big artists.
So I like pop music.
I got a foot in pop music.
I'm not going to deny.
That that was my roots growing up.
When you're thinking about
the overview of your career,
what do you think is the song
that will be your legacy?
I say "Grace."
And I used to make a joke in a
morbid kind of way in the old days.
They stickered my first album--
Enemy Records did-- ex Captain
Beefheart, the very first album
Skeleton At The Feast,
which was all instrumental,
and live, and has really
some fierce devotees.
I think it's one of my best records.
Mainly recorded in Holland
in my early solo tours.
So they stickered that
said ex Captain Beefheart.
And I was taken to task by
somebody in the Wire Magazine
like he's using Beefheart's name.
And it was like, really?
That's absurd.
I'm not to tell people that
I've played with this guy.
It wasn't my idea.
But I'll just say, if that's a
way to get people to pay attention
to this record who they might not know
me, why would that be a bad thing?
And how is that using Beefheart?
Because it's true.
Yeah.
I'm an ex Captain Beefheart alumni.
But then the joke became,
all right, when I die,
my tombstone will say
ex Captain Beefheart.
Then a few years later, I'd say and then
maybe it'll say also and Jeff Buckley.
And may that tombstone not have to
be engraved for a long, long time.
Gary Lucas is currently
on tour in the UK.
And his latest album is the World Of
Captain Beefheart with Nona Hendrix.
Special thanks to Gabriel Ryford-Cohen
and Andrew Walls for their assistance
on this episode.
Additionally, I would like to
extend a very, very special thanks
and congratulations to Chancellor
Martin, Juan Camillo Serasa.
And Nora Terrell.
These are three students
from Berklee College of Music
who are also works studies
for Berklee Online.
And this month they are graduating.
Congratulations.
Without your help, this broadcast
wouldn't be what it is today.
Thank you so much Chandler, Juan, Nora.
And thank you very much for listening.
The new serialize crowdfunding
podcast from Berklee Online
is coming this summer.
So stay tuned.
And visit us online.
berklee.edu/takenote to sign up
for our digest.
I will talk to you soon.
