Okay, gang, I just wanted to touch base here again this evening to let you know two things.
One is that those fan-made videos on Bad Seed TeeVee are unbelievably great, gang. They’re still streaming for several more hours, so get over there and watch some of them. You will be amazed by how talented these people are. And if you are a hardcore Nick Cave fan and are familiar with all of his records and videos, the creativity of some of these fan-videos will astound you.
I have been trying to log on & off of YouTube all day but I really want to get the editing done on The Guitar Hero Goes Home (100 more pages to go), so I can’t just hang out and endlessly watch the videos, unfortunately.
I can’t even pick an absolute favorite because I have just loved so many of them. But off the top of my head, I have to say I loved the puppet-reenactment of “The Weeping Song”, and the guy in the bathtub singing “No Pussy Blues”, the two women from the Netherlands singing “Henry Lee,” and then an animated version of “Get Ready for Love.”
Plus a whole bunch more. Anyway — go check it out! They’re so entertaining.
The other thing I wanted to say is that this week’s issue of PleaseKillMe.com (an online zine mainly about the history and culture of Punk music, but also art, poetry, fashion and music, in general, from the 1960s onward). Today’s issue has a never-before released 1983 interview with one of my heroes, the late Jim Carroll. He is backstage in Boston at the Paradise Theater, before a gig. (Jim Carroll was not only a poet and writer, but for many years, he also had a rock band that bordered on Punk). This was likely his biggest radio hit. Off of his album Catholic Boy, the song “People Who Died”:
It’s a great interview, although sometimes the sound is difficult because bands start playing in some other area of the club. But, overall, it was great. He talks mainly about his now- legendary book, his actual teenage diaries about growing up in NYC with a heroin habit while being a high school basketball star at the same time — The Basketball Diaries.
In the video interview, he talks a lot about heroin vs. a methadone habit and has some interesting insights to what that was like in NYC back in the late 60s, early 70s. Then he also talks a bit about how he got started in the music business (thanks to Patti Smith and also the Rolling Stones — Keith Richards, in particular).
The interview took place just months before he became my teacher (!!) — I studied songwriting in a class he taught on NYC’s Upper West Side at the West Side Y. (I was already a big fan of his, so to have him as my teacher twice a week in just a regular classroom environment, not some big lecture hall or anything — it blew me the fuck away!)
If you’d like to read the article at PleaseKillMe.com, which goes along with the video, it is here.
Below, is just the video interview by itself.
And now I gotta scoot!!! Have a wonderful evening, gang, wherever you are in the world!! I love you guys!! See ya.