dammit damian!!

Dammit Damian is:

*A Concert Promoter  in Napa Valley & Sonoma County & MUSIC VENUE VETERAN of 25+ years!
*a Freelance music / pop culture writer
*The Host of Mostly Harmless Podcast
* an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped up in a piece of bacon. 

 

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This will be the home of Dammit Damian Burford’s writing, interviews & other projects!

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Blog!

An ode to Alissa Rogers (1982 – 2016) Shreveport / Denver

From Alissa: “sorry you are in that, its retardation not blooming. think about birth and also how much the sun hates us, and how fucking special it is to be able to feel a past. smell it. converse with it. have it. but to have the benefit of a future, its our internal health plan. chew on bits of ice as well, very uplifting and constructive-but socially annoying. i enjoy it during large group meetings, and dealing with the homeless. i miss our high school car rides.” -Alissa Rogers Today would have been my friend Alissa’s 40th birthday. I’m sitting in Hawaii looking at the water and my face is wet as I think about Alissa and my thoughts drift to my sister Brittany, gone now 13 years herself. I think about my friends who recently lost siblings. I think about how I wouldn’t be sitting here in fucking Hawaii had it not been for these folks who helped shape me into the pear shaped individual I am today. Here’s something I wrote when Alissa passed some years back. I miss her and think of her often. This was written in grief, and a first draft was posted. It desperately needs to be edited, but I just can’t stop crying when I read this to make the fixes…. So please forgive all the grammatical errors and such… —– Alissa Rogers was the first woman who let me touch her boobs. She was wearing these fake silicon pads you put into your bra and wanted me to feel them too see if they were real. Years later she told me that was the night she wanted to take my virginity, but I was too dumb to make a move. Alissa Rogers is the reason I am the man I am today. Alissa Rogers passed away today. I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to write about that wild, wonderful and obnoxious woman. I’ve been sitting here in silence for the last 15 minutes trying to find the right words when it dawns on me, had she been here she would have said something wildly inappropriate to break the tension. She would have made me and every one else laugh. She was fierce. She was hilarious. She was my friend. I went to Byrd High school in Shreveport, Louisiana with Alissa and I fucking hated her. She was everything I wasn’t. She was loud, obnoxious and loved attention. Of course I would fall in love with her. It happened in a dream. I had seen her out and about at places like the Karma Cup coffee house or St Vincent Mall, but I didn’t know her. Then she showed up in a dream of mine. More like invaded it. That was more her style. It wasn’t a sexual dream, it was just a dream where this larger than life girl played a part in. Somewhere a switch in my head turned my hatred into adoration. I was shy and awkward. I didn’t know how to approach her or become her friend, but fate intervened as during those late nights loitering at the Karma Cup, my best friend Michael Burnley ended up dating Alissa’s friend Jessica. As Michael and Jessica grew closer, so did Alissa and I. All these years later, I’m pretty sure the only reason we hung out in High School was because I had a car. She knew I loved her, and I would drive her anywhere. I did it gladly, just to be next to and a part of that thing that she was. She became my partner in Crime. I’d drive her to school everyday. I’d drive her around Shreveport. We’d drive to Dallas, Houston, Longview, or Tyler, Texas to see Punk Rock bands play. It was one of those days where I was driving Alissa around. We were going to go hang out with her new boyfriend Joe. I was jealous, but I was blindly in love and would do anything for her. It was on this day, my life changed for the better. We drove across the bridge into Bossier City, to a magical place called Books A Millions. It was big box book store with a gigantic parking lot, just blocks away from the mall. All the cool kids hung out in that parking lot of weekend nights. There at Books a Million, on that faithful day, We sat down at a patio table and I met Joe Upton and his friends. I remember sitting down at the table not knowing a single person at the table. I was shy. I was quiet. I was nervous and scared. Normally I would not have said a god damned thing, but something happened that day, because I reached out my hand to the person sitting on my right. I introduced myself to the guy sitting next to me. That person was Matt Crowson. Matt has become someone I’ll never be able to get rid of. Also sitting at that table were two other very important people in my adolescence, Joe & Ivy Woods It was through that group of Alissa, Matt, Joe, Ivy and later on Jason Gay; that I would find my courage. I would find my inspiration. I would find the beginnings of the path that has led me here. I had always wanted to start an underground fanzine, and guess what? Joe and Jason had one. I started interviewing bands for Joe and Jason’s KGB magazine. Alissa was a big part of pushing me to becoming more comfortable with myself. She used her powers of persuasiveness to help push me down the road I needed to be on. Fast forward a few years later and it was New Years Eve of 2001. Alissa had just returned to Shreveport after living in Denver for years. It was the first time in my entire life that it had snowed in Shreveport. I spent that evening hanging out with Alissa driving in the ice and

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Blog!

Review: BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999 Dir. Martin Scorsese)

When I was working at a Mom and Pop video store in 2000, the trailer for BRINGING OUT THE DEAD would come on at least once an hour on the trailer tape. The soundtrack for the trailer was “Janie Jones” by The Clash. I was a burgeoning punk rock fan, and it was that trailer that turned me into a CLASH fan. I remember finally taking the VHS home with me to watch, thinking the whole movie must be some kind of punk rock ambulance driver masterpiece! Scorsese and Schrader back again! I loved Taxi Driver! But it’s not Taxi Driver. My 18 year old brain didn’t know enough about film and the movies that inspired this film to get it. I just didn’t think it was that great and thought Ebert, who gave it 4 stars, was a fool. I hit play on it this evening, inspired by Cage’s admission that he thinks this is one of his top 3 films he’s made. It’s always held a special place in my heart thanks to its association with THE CLASH. It looks cool as hell. Maybe, just maybe I’ll like it this time. And damn! It was rad. It’s about Nic Cage, an EMT who hasn’t had a win in months. He’s lost every call he’s taken, and with his his sleep has gone with him. He needs a win desperately, but with each call he goes deeper and darker into the depths of madness in the boroughs of a very stylized NYC. DEAD is a film that rides the shimmer between reality and dream. The film is jarring compared to todays hyper realistic films. The film is often overexposed, or blurry. Nothing feels real. It creates this world that feels very much like those early morning moments, when you’re not quite awake yet. Things still feel like a dream. Instead in Cage’s place, a nightmare. As I watched, I tried to think of the films I could compare this one too, for those who might want to watch it. For some damned reason, I thought of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth first! quickly making the connection that DEAD feels much more like a “modern day” retelling of Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 masterpiece THE SEVENTH SEAL! The Seventh Seal already has a most excellent re-imagining with Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, which was my honest to goodness introduction to the work of Bergmen! The tale of the Seventh Seal finds Max Von Sydnow as a knight in the times of the plague, who is running from Death. Literally. To slow Death down, the Knight challenges Death to a game of Chess. The game takes days, weeks, months, minutes or maybe seconds. The knight tries to stump and outwit Death at every turn… And as they journey through the countryside and see the ravages of the Plague, we meet those people most need saving. Bringing Out the Dead covers similar ground, but instead of Death taking on physical form, it’s very much alive in the work that Cage does as an EMT in the film. In the Seventh Seal, it’s made ambiguous if the Knight is even alive as he begins his journey and it made for a more enjoyable viewing experience to watch and wonder if this was all just the DMT being released in Cage’s characters brain and him trying to put to rest those he could not save. Really cool movie. Not great, but a lot of really cool ideas and shapes put to real honest to goodness film (this was 99 so that makes sense, but it’s nice to see in the days of over saturated digitalness. The film feels photographed. If you’re into out of your mind psychedelic rides that take on the meaning of life and death, I think you should check out, or at least re-check out Bringing out the Dead soon. It’s currently streaming on HBO Max.

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Interviews

Interview // Mikey Erg! On The Ergs Return, working with Steve Albini & more!

Mikey is most famously known as the Drummer/Front-man for New Jersey’s own Power-Pop Punk Rock Group extraordinaire, THE ERGS! Not to mention Mikey plays in way too many bands to list, and we tried! Some of those groups include: WORRIERS, Jon Snodgrass, All Away Lou and oh so many more! In this late night call, we sit back and sip IPA’s and chat the night away. We cover a lot of ground. We talk about SPARKS, Growing as a songwriter, Working with Steve Albini, Descedents and oh so much more! But most importantly we talk about one of the BEST pop-punk bands of all-time, THE ERGS, and how they came to start (occasionally) playing/recording together again! THIS INTERVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT MOSTLYHARMLESSPODCAST.COM. I fell in love with Mikey Erg in 2005, and my life has been better for it ever since.  The Ergs were touring through Southern Colorado with the “nerdcore” hip hop superstar, MC CHRIS. I went to the show that night, at the Black Sheep with the purpose of interviewing MC Chris for my then, Mostly Harmless Magazine!  I liked Chris. He was goofy and weird and wrote rap songs about Star Wars, Robotussin and Blizzards! He even worked on two of my favorite cartoons, SEALAB 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force!  MC Chris was burnt out on interviews and we did not want to chat. Instead of letting it get me down, I took my tape recorder over to the merch table for The Ergs and introduced myself, asking if I could interview them after their set. Thankfully I had listened a little, and written a few notes. We gathered outside the Black Sheep and I fell in love with the three loveable boys that were Joe, Jeff and Mikey. It was also the start of a lifelong obsession with THE ERGS! I’ve gotten to spend time with Mikey all over the country. Whether in Chicago, Gainesville, New York City or Colorado Springs… Anytime I see Mikey out on the road, he greets me with a hug.  As I was gearing up to restart Mostly Harmless for a third or fourth time, I was having a crisis of confidence. I wanted to do this thing that I’ve loved since I was 16, but at 40 years old.. I’m too old right? But here was Mikey, still out there living his dreams. I had wanted to learn more about the Who and Why behind the man who has written so many of my favorite records, and inspired so many wonderful adventures! Thankfully Mikey was once again on board and we jumped on a late night zoom call,  sipped on a couple of delicious IPA’s and shot the shit and called it an interview. I’m so god damned lucky to be able to call this Saint of a human being a friend of mine. He makes my life, and my music collection oh so much better by being a part of it. He inspires and encourages a number of my dumb ideas and my late night record purchases. I hope this chat teaches you a thing or two about songwriting, or what you can learn by working with a pro like Steve Albini. Maybe you’ll even decide to check out a SPARKS record or two, but we both agree, you should definitely check out SPARKS BROS, the killer documentary directed by Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz fame. It’s streaming now on Netflix, and we both have the Blu ray on our Christmas list.  If you would like to listen or read the original Ergs interview, conducted in 2005 outside the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs, you can read that interview here: Or listen at: http://mostlyharmlesspodcast.com/flashback-episode-1-w-a-wilhelm-scream-the-ergs/ This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Hey, buddy, what’s going on? So good to see your face! It has been a very long time! What is it 18 years since I last was interviewed by you? What was that? That was the MC Chris tour, So, 2005!? I was I was fortunate enough to see The Ergs twice in Colorado Springs of all fucking places. Once with MC Chris and another time with Hunchback at JJ Nobody’s Triple Nickel Tavern. You were at the Triple Nickel! That was a night. There’s a famous among us- It’s not a famous photo or anything- There’s a famous photo of all of us cheersing Whiskey River, Willie Nelson’s whiskey at the Triple Nickel. We stayed at JJ’s that night. We got to see the infamous collection. I’ll say no more. I mean, yeah, if you know, JJ, Nobody… then you know…. [Laughter] The other day I was watching the Sparks documentary [The most excellent film directed by Shaun of The Dead/ Baby Driver director Edgar Wright] and I assume you are a Sparks fan? Oh, not only am I a Sparks fan, but you probably know this about me: I am a consumer of music and also of rock documentaries of musicians that I love… And I think that the Sparks documentary is the best rock and roll documentary that I’ve ever seen! They did it so right, where they didn’t skimp. It’s two and a half hours long. They don’t skip over even a millisecond of their career, but it’s concise enough where the average person can get into it. There’s been a lot of talk about GET BACK [the Peter Jackson directed, 9 hour long Beatles Documentary]… If you’re a casual Beatles fan. It’s probably not the movie for you. But as a massive Beatles fan, I’m so glad that they left all that shit in. But no one wants that from the Sparks documentary. Even as a massive Sparks fan, there was stuff that could have been talked about, but this is the perfect documentary. It’s got everything and it’s got some stuff that maybe massive fans didn’t know. Have you been a Sparks fan for a long time? I got into them…not a long time ago. I

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Interviews

Interview Hutch Harris // The Thermals. Creative Life, New Records and The End Of The Thermals! (Dec 2021)

THIS INTERVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT MOSTLYHARMLESSPODCAST.COM. I’m moving away from Denver with the love of my life Claire and her Dick, the tabby cat. I am quitting a job that I thought was going to be my dream job. I am on a healthy medication and meditation routine. I am creating more than I have ever before. What does this have to do with Hutch Harris or The Thermals? You’ll see. I almost made a very stupid decision to stay here in Denver and run this little restaurant, while the love of my life moved away without me. Claire wanted to move away and explore her passions, but I wanted to stay here in Denver and explore where this path had taken me. I wanted to BUILD SOMETHING. I feel like I have been on a path to this place for so long. This path brought me to the front doors of the little restaurant that I help run. I thought this was the end of the path and the place I had always been working toward. I thought this was it. I thought I had made it. And it was there on that path that I found myself night after night cleaning out the grease traps on our industrial fried chicken fryers. Cleaning out those fryers, I would often sing to myself and that’s when when the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, “Here’s Your Future,” from The Thermals popped into my head. “god reached his hand down from the sky, he flooded the land, then he set it a fire, he said, “fear me again. know i’m your father. remember that no one can breathe underwater.” so bend your knees and bow your heads, save your babies, here’s your future, yeah here’s your future!” That night, Claire was out of town and I knew I’d be going home to a quiet and lonely apartment. I had nothing to really look forward, and soon this was going to be my future if I let Claire move away. Those lyrics staying in my head for weeks… “Here’s Your Future…” I’m not the smartest cookie, but elbow deep in old fryer grease, I realized I had already been building something with this woman I love. I was a dope! I had building a pretty GREAT life! I didn’t want her to go without me. I wanted to be with her, no matter where. I can find another job. I can run another restaurant, but I can never find another woman like her. So I sat and thought about what I really wanted to build. I thought about the things that really bring me joy. Cuddles with Claire and the kitty, writing about art, Interviewing people and just living a simple life. I just want a happy, creative, easy life and I wasn’t going to get that if I stayed here in Denver, cleaning out the fryers. Later than very night, I was sitting here enjoying one too many beers and a few too many tokes off the peace pipe and a Facebook ad scrolled across my screen from THE THERMALS page, announcing that Hutch Harris had just put out a new solo record, SUCK UP ALL THE OXYGEN. A manic idea took hold that I could maybe, just maybe, interview Hutch Harris! We could talk about quitting things and compare our creative processes, but really I just wanted to tell him how much that damned song meant to me in these moments of my life! How this song helped me decide that the path that lead me here to this place, was also leading me away from this place! So I fired off a rambling message to Hutch and to my surprise, he said YES! He would be on the show. That morning I was nervous for a whole lot of reasons. Right before we had our chat, I fired off an email to my bosses at the restaurant and let them know my last day would be January 15th and I would be moving to parts unknown with the love of my life. It felt like some kind of destiny taking over and taking me along for an adventure. The chat went well, I was a rambling mess. My diarrhea of mouth is worse than ever, but as I listened and edited this interview together… I could hear that under the rambling looney nonsense I was spouting off and calling questions, I could see that I do actually have a talent for this kind of stuff. I just need to calm down, relax and maybe drink a lot less coffee. It’s all part of the creative process. For those who may not know, do you mind catching us up on what happened to The Thermals? It’s been three or four years, I think. The last record we did was in 2016 and then we toured, but not as much as we usually did for the other records. We toured most of that year, I think. And then a year or so later, I was like, “I think that’s good enough for me.” I wanted to leave.. it. I wanted to stop doing it because I felt if I didn’t stop doing it, it was just going to be the same for the next 30 years, or until we stop doing it. And I thought about that, my life and my creative life. They were just going to be kind of a flat line for the rest of my life, If I didn’t stop doing the band and do something different. So I just told the band that. They weren’t thrilled but they understood, I felt like it had a good run and I just kind of needed to do something else at the end. How scary was it ending this project, that had been such a big part of your life? It was fine. I knew what it was going to be like. I just knew I

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Interviews

Off With Their Heads Interview // Ryan Young on In Desolation (New Noise Magazine Issue #1 – March 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. You’ve got a new record, HOME, coming out into the world in March. After all the hard work and effort, how does it feel to be putting this thing out into the world? Good. It’s been finished since the end of July. I honestly thought it would be released in the fall, but I guess their deadline was too close to Xmas. I was told it’s a bad idea to release records around that time. I was pretty bummed at first (knowing we would have to wait so long), but I realize that the label certainly knows more than I do about putting out records. It’s a deeper, darker and ever more personal record than the already incredibly personal records that preceded it. Yet, you do it so effortlessly and fearlessly. Do you get nervous putting so much of yourself out there? I wouldn’t say it’s effortless or fearless at all. I hate going in to make records. I know that the only way to make it powerful and meaningful to myself is to dig way into all the shit that I put off dealing with since the last record. I was always afraid that I would run out of things to write about as I got older. It turns out that there seems to be an entirely new set of worries and problems that come with getting older. Back when we did Hospitals, I felt like I could do whatever I wanted and there were no consequences. There weren’t, really. I was 24 and couldn’t die (believe me, we tried!). Now I’m 31 and a full grown man. The problem is that I don’t feel like one or even want to be one! I’m watching all of my friends and old band mates get married and have children, and I just want to get back to 24, you know? I think that’s been my new problem, and that’s obviously not going away. The actual making of the records is stressful in the lyric sense because I’m writing until the minute I record vocals. I might have something, but I usually change it to the most pressing thoughts I have right before they hit record. It’s also pretty embarrassing singing some of the shit I write to an engineer for the first time. I still haven’t gotten over that. It’s the ability of a true artist to make work look effortless!Then I must be a true artist, because that shit is hard! I’m 31 too and I’m in the same boat. I don’t want to grow up, I don’t want to have kids. I want to go out 5 nights a week and go see bands play each and every night. I don’t want to stop. I’m afraid to stop. What I really like and what really grabs me about HOME, is many of the themes hit home for me and hit home hard. I might have made this idea up, but the ideas of feeling alone in a room full of people. The ideas and feelings that I’m in a hole I’ll never get out of. And here’s another guy with the same shit going on in his head, but he can kind of play guitar and can sing. The honesty hits home. How important is honesty, or am I making that up in my head? haha It’s super important. That’s why it takes me so long to write. I procrastinate because to be perfectly honest about it, I’m not a very honest person publicly. If I go out to a show, or hang out at a show that I’m playing, I don’t want to talk about this shit. I want to have fun. The switch flips when I get home though. It’s kinda like that episode of It’s Always Sunny where Charlie is explaining that they have to huff glue and eat the cat food to fall asleep as fast as possible. I have a similar routine. I think Home is kind of a deeper explanation of why I feel the way I do all the time, and less about the specific shittiness like the previous records. So when someone like me comes up to you at a show and tells you that they understand how you feel and feel that way too, that maybe your honesty has helped them through some dark times as well, Does that freak you out? Not at all. I think it’s cool when people say stuff like that. It happens more often these days than it used to. It just depends how that conversation goes down. I think you should use music like this as therapy or an escape. Same goes for the show. People just have to keep in mind that I am not a therapist. I can’t help anyone on a personal level. I can give you some music, but I have no good advice. That’s where the title for the song “Seek Advice Elsewhere” comes into play. When you are at an OWTH show and are having a good time, roll with it. Don’t dwell on whatever problem you have while there, and please don’t put me in the position of feeling bad about it. I’m there doing the same thing! Let’s move in and talk more about that album, entitled HOME. It’s a simple, but loaded title for a loaded album. What does HOME mean to you? I never really have an idea for a theme when doing a record. I think this one stemmed from us touring for 5 years straight. It’s about all the different places that I’ve called home over the years, and why each of them has never clicked and felt right. I still don’t feel like I’ve found the “home” that everyone who is content with their lives has. I guess right now, my

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Interviews

Tim Barry interview on 20 years of train hopping, how his daughter changed his world and more! (New Noise Magazine Issue 01 – March 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. In the year since TIM BARRY has released 40 Miler on Chunksaah Records, he has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first train ride. He has also become a new father to his daughter Lela Jane Barry. We join Tim and talk about his early train ride memories, battling diabetes and how having a daughter may or may not change his song writing. I’ve read that as of March, it has been 20 years since your first train ride.  That is correct! It was actually right about this time of the month, too.  It was about mid March. I can’t remember the exact date, but my buddy Ronnie [Lee Graham] took me on this first trip. We debated the date a whole bunch. I kept saying it was 1994 and he kept saying 1993. I decided it would sound cooler if it was ’93. So that is the year I went west. He was probably right. So 20 years ago, right about this time of the month, I took my first freight train trip from Richmond, Virginia down to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. We hitchhiked down to Raleigh and rode some more trains around North Carolina. I don’t even remember how we got back, but it was the first of those wanderings that I did.  What was that experience like? The guy I was riding with, Ronnie Graham. He grew up in a trailer park in Salisbury, Maryland. He didn’t come from a family of wealth. He didn’t come from a family of wealth and like a lot of those families, they had chronic health problems. A lot of his family died young. Others were in prison. His dad was in prison for a long time. He had a transient uncle who rode trains and he sort of turned Ronnie onto it. Ronnie had ridden trains a bunch, just out of necessity. I was sort of obsessed with Woody Guthrie and a lot of the early folk singers, back then 20 years ago. I had instructions. I had a person with me who had experienced so much, so my nerves weren’t as shot as if I had done it on my own. He did most of the footwork. He went into the train yards and talked to the workers and found out which train we wanted. We found an open box car and just drank beer waiting for the train to leave. I was more fatigued by the time the train rolled out at six in the morning heading south out of the CSX ACCA Yard. I was more fatigued at that moment than anything else. It was a hell of an experience. Do you think you would be the person you are today, if it had not been for that first ride? I think I probably would have found another obsession. That’s just the kind of person I am. I just have an instinct to keep moving. I don’t want to sit down. I’m always making plans. I rarely think about things that I have done. I generally focus on things that I want to do. I do many things that are considered normal or abnormal: Music, gardening, camping, canoeing, and riding trains. It never ends. I guess you are where you come from. So yeah, I would be a different person if I didn’t start riding trains all those years ago. What I like about trains is not just the fulfillment of my wanderlust. It is that they are a parallel for life. When I think I have a specific train route in time and the crew change points down, they change. It starts all over again. It becomes another mystery that I feel the need to conquer. Is it track maintenance? Has there been a derailment? Was there a bridge collapse that forced a reroute? I just start ticking and ticking. Again, it’s a parallel for life. Once you think you feel pretty scheduled with routine and with things falling in place, it is thrown for a loop. You have to start all over again, and learn it all over again. I think that’s what quelled my interest. A lot of the people who are obsessed with trains, like myself, are also obsessed with illegal forms of art on the trains. They’re also obsessed with things like birding, tree identification, and hiking every trail in the state. It might even be a neurosis because I find myself interested in all those things as well. It’s very strange the way the brain functions. [Laughter] Train Riding was such a large part of the cultural landscape of the depression era. Many of your songs have a depression era quality to them. Do you ever feel that maybe you were born in the wrong time? Nah! [Laughs] Josh Small is my right hand man and plays music with me. The first time I met his father, Rev. Bobby Joe Small; he is from the first generation of a gypsy family that settled down. Mr Small said to me, after seeing Josh and I play music together for the very first time, “Tim, you old timey in a modern way!” I’ll take it.  I don’t mind being old timey in 2013. I think we have a lot more conveniences than the dust bowl era. In the year since TIM BARRY has released 40 Miler on Chunksaah Records, he has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first train ride. He has also become a new father, to his daughter Lela Jane Barry. We join Tim and talk about his early train ride memories, battling diabetes and how having a daughter may or may not change his song writing. Congratulations on your baby daughter!  She’s about fifteen pounds and in my left arm as we talk right now, while juggling her and the telephone

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Interviews

Me First and The Gimme Gimmes // Fat Mike interview about DIVAS. (New Noise Magazine Cover Story #09 – April 2014)

  Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. A Diva is a force to be reckoned with. A powerhouse singer with an overwhelming, powerful  attitude to match. A Diva is likely to get their own way, no matter what the cost. Regardless,  a true diva can shape significant portions of the cultural landscape of popular music.  It’s a fitting theme for the Avengers-esque  punk rock powerhouse of Me First and The Gimme Gimmes. The band is known  for its general infighting and party time attitude, while taking popular songs and crafting them into their own songs.  Those powerhouses who  form Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have always been Joey Cape (Lagwagon) mixed with the might of Chris Shiflet (Foo Fighters/No Use For A Name) with the added prowess of drummer, Dave Raun (Lagwagon/RKL) and the almighty Fat Mike Burkett (NoFx/Fat Wreck Chords) on the bass centered around the majesty of singer, Spike Slawson. Each generation has their own Diva to look up to and call their own. In the punk rock world we have Fat Mike.  Hours before he heads to Japan for a week-long Gimmes tour, we speak with Mike from his San Francisco home. Mike sounds tired when he picks up the phone and explains that he had spent the day at the beach riding bikes with his daughters. What we get is a Fat Mike who is very open and honest about his feelings towards the project, the newest album and his past feeling about Divas.  In my head I associate Divas with the 70’s. You grew up in the 70’s, and do you have any memories of the then Divas scene? Well, My mom and my dad divorced when I was four. They only had two records. They weren’t music listeners. They just had a stereo and when they had people over, they would put on a couple of records. They only had two. One was Barbara Streisand. I grew up with very little music in the house. I knew Second Hand Rose by Streisand for sure. That’s not why we did Divas. We like to come up with a theme and this way we could play popular songs of the past five decades.  What I like about Divas is that you guys cover a little from every decade with this record. Is there something about these songs you choose? We just listen to a bunch of the songs, and it’s surprisingly hard to do a Gimmes album. With the country album we went through about a hundred songs to get twelve good ones. People don’t really think about that.  People are all the fucking time [telling me], “Hey Mike, Why don’t you do this cover? That would be a really good one!” I’m just like, “Shut up. You have no idea how hard it is to do a song that sounds good in punk rock style.” We went through every Britney Spear song. We couldn’t find one. We couldn’t find one that was good. There is nothing for chord progressions. They are all dance songs. We tried it with Beyonce and Pink. The only Pink song we liked was the Tim Armstrong one and it’s kind of lame to do that. [Editor’s note: Rancid’s Tim Armstrong co-wrote and produced songs for Pink’s 2003 Try This album. The song “Trouble,” a Rancid outtake was reworked for Pink and won a Grammy. The song was later recorded by Tim Timebomb And Friends in 2012] It’s really hard to find good songs.    When you go in to make a record like this, do you think to yourself anything along the lines of, “What would Celine Dion do?” Yeah, we don’t take it that seriously. We just try to get through it. What’s cool about the Gimmes now, we get to record at the Foo Fighters studio for free. They have a HUGE awesome studio now, the 606. It’s with the board from that movie, Sound City, came from. So we go there, hang out and go over songs. We just try to knock them out. So we’re not really thinking. I was wasted the whole time. Joey [Cape from Lagwagon] wasn’t there. We don’t really like recording with Joey. We argue too much. He comes in and does his parts, but he is on his own.  What are the tours like? All you guys have such big personalities, how do those personalities fit on the same bus?We have a good time. We are all interchangeable, which is kind of cool. We’ve done tours without everybody, well everybody except for Spike. Spike is the only person that we really need. It’s just easier that way. Chris [Shiflet] is in the Foo Fighters. He only plays three or four shows with us a year. His brother [Scott Shiflet, also of Face To Face] plays with us too. Brian Baker [Minor Threat & Bad Religion] has been in the Gimmes and Warren [Fitzgerald] from The Vandals has been in the Gimmes. Some people from  RKL [Rich Kids on LSD] and some people from Screw 32. Nowadays if we are going to replace any of us, we have to replace them with somebody who is kind of popular.  Do you get jealous when these people are out on the road in place of you?Oh no, not at all. I’m busy doing other stuff. I was kind of bummed that this last European tour was our most successful tour ever. So that was kind of a bummer. It’s nice to know that after twenty or so years,  our tours are bigger than they ever have been before.  Are the tours bigger thanks to the internet making you guys more accessible?I don’t know if it’s the internet. The internet doesn’t help some bands, and it hurts other bands. The Gimme Gimmes are one of those bands that nobody loves, but

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Blog!

Dear Diary, Today I met Sona Movsesian. Today I met a friend.

Conan O’Brien is one of my biggest comedy influences. He inspires me to keep it weird and goofy. His podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend is my favorite podcast, and was a huge influence on me bringing my dead horse back from the grave. Whether it be his Late Night shows, his classic episodes of The Simpsons or his podcast, I’ve listened or watched thousands of hours of entertainment Conan has provided. In the last few years, his trusty assistant Sona Movsesian has become one of my favorite parts of any of his shows or projects. Sona is one of the co-hosts of Conan’s podcast. Listening to her feels like listening to an old friend. She’s fast on her feet with the smart ass comments. She doesn’t take any shit from her infamous boss, but also takes it all. It’s a fine line and they’ve become one of the best comedy duo’s, ever. Sorry Andy! Sona did a signing tonight for her new memoir/humor book, WORLD’S WORST ASSISTANT, all about her life and times with Conan O’Brien. I twisted the chain on the old ball enough to agree to venture down to the city tonight to go see Sona do a reading/signing in an old grocery store turned Sporting Goods store/Event Space.  The reading was great and at one point she asked the audience if any of us had seen the Showtime Original TV program, GIGOLOS. I enthusiastically raised my hand, because of course I have. An instant friendship with Conan’s assistant was born.  I had been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to chat with Sona about in our few short minutes. I didn’t need to worry thanks to the venue/event assistant who remembered my hand jumping out of its socket during the reading.  I could have asked about smoking weed (She’s a pothead), or ask her what it’s like to have the spotlight that’s been so near her, now on herself? Or who knows!  Instead, Here I am standing in front of Sona, thinking about all these damned things to ask her about and we stand there and chat about GIGOLOS. God damned GIGOLOS, a terrible softcore porn disguised as a reality tv show!  While I don’t recommend the show, I’m forever grateful for that night when I was scrolling through a Showtime free trial and asked, “what the hell is this?”  Conan O’Brien might be on the hunt for a friend, but tonight I think I made a new best one. And the great thing? I bet there’s not a single person who didn’t encounter Sona on her tour this week that doesn’t feel the same way.  I wish her great success with this book and beyond. I really hope I get to interview her one day.

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Interviews

Dwayne – Chris Fogal on his new project with Andy Tanner (New Noise Magazine #14 -Dec 2014)

  Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors. Chris Fogal must not like his haircut, because this is a man of many hats. He’s the lead guitarist and vocalist for the vastly underrated pop-punk band The Gamits, and the lead guitarist for TaunTaun, now a Denver metal institution. On top of those two bands, Fogal owns and operates one of Denver’s premier recording studios, Black And Bluhm. It’s there that we chat with Fogal about his newest project, Dwayne with Andy Tanner from Laymen Terms, Andy Thomas from Tin Horn Prayer and Switzerland’s Michael Marti from Goodbye Fairbanks.   Fogal, you already have The Gamits and TaunTaun. What do you get out of starting another band? Well, TaunTaun doesn’t do much anymore and the Gamits had just finished a bunch of touring overseas so it seemed like the perfect time to do the Dwayne thing. I really needed to write some stuff that had nothing to do with either of the other bands. I also have a new band from Switzerland called Midrake in which I play the drums so I’m up to 4! In January it looks like I might be in 5 bands!    You’ve known both Andy’s for years with Tanner being from Laymen Terms and Thomas from Only Thunder and Tin Horn Prayer, how did Michael Marti come into the mix of things?Michael is our Swiss friend that I have been touring with for about 13 years on and off. We are super tight and even go on vacations together and stuff. We always talked about doing a band together so it was him and I that started Dwayne. Originally it was gonna be the two of us with acoustics so we could just have an excuse to get in a car and drive all over Europe eating food and partying. It became a whole band later when the songs started coming together. That’s when I called on the Andy’s to join the party.    Recording technology has advanced so far and so drastically over the last few years, you can do almost anything without being in the same room. You own your own studio with Denver’s Black in Bluhm, What stops you from having more Frankenstein projects such as this one?Well nothing really. Right now I’m beginning collaboration with a couple buddies. I shouldn’t spill the beans until it actually happens but one of them is in the middle east and one is in California so yeah, there are no limits these days!   With your other bands having such exciting and memorable names, why did you drop the ball with Dwayne? I never thought the Gamits was a very good name but at the time we came up with Dwayne I was pretty drunk and I wanted a name that raised no expectations and was not serious in any way. I asked my friend Dan something like ” what’s a stupid name from the 70’s or 80’s?” and the first thing he said was Dwayne! I don’t know why but I thought it was super funny and out of the whole list of potential names it just stuck.    What are the future plans for Dwayne? How are you going to pull off double duty on a Gamits/Dwayne tour? We just got some great news on the label front and the tour front so in November we do a short midwest tour with both bands, then it looks like the album won’t be out until January so we will do some more USA shows after that. Then we head to Europe for Greotzrock and at least three weeks of tour over there. That’s not until May so there are no plans past that. I’d like to record more soon. Oh, we will also have a flexi vinyl record in November with a B side not on the album and a couple downloads that are on the album so there’s that. 

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