Extra! Extra!

My recent contribution to Lumino Magazine was just published. Over the weekend, I attended Jeff Tweedy's charity shows at the Vic Theatre:

Lumino Magazine - Jeff Tweedy Review

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!

My latest contributions to Lumino Magazine are now available on the site. This past week I was able to catch the Soundtrack of Our Lives and Robyn Hitchcock:

Lumino Magazine - TSOOL Review

Lumino Magazine - Robyn Hitchcock Review

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!

On February 15, I had the opportunity to speak with 3 members of The Soundtrack of Our Lives. The feature recently was published by Lumino Magazine. Check out the link below for the complete article:

Lumino Magazine - The Soundtrack of Our Lives

A review of the band's show at Lincoln Hall in Chicago will be coming soon.

Enjoy!

Main Stage

Scott Lucas, the pride of Zion, Illinois, is deserving of the recognition as one of the great singer/songwriters of recent time, if not in the country then at least in the Midwest, along with the likes of Rick Nielsen, Jeff Tweedy and Robert Pollard.

His latest project, Scott Lucas and The Married Men, is evidence enough that behind the venomous screams of Local H lies a musician with the drive to constantly explore and dare to take the unpopular road.

To any true fan of Lucas, this musical move away from the thunderous pop of Local H comes as no surprise. With over twenty years experience making music, picking up an acoustic guitar is the most refreshing sound to hear from Lucas in a long time. The sextet’s debut, George Lassos the Moon, might peg Lucas has going soft as he approaches 40, but don’t bet against Lucas.

George Lassos the Moon (G&P Records)

Release Date: 2/16/10 

Scott Lucas and The Married Men - Official Site

Scott Lucas and The Married Men @ Schubas (2/20/10)

Scott Lucas and The Married Men @ Reckless Records/Milwaukee Store (2/20/10)

Photo By: Audrey Keller

Extra! Extra!

The February issue of Chicago Innerview in now published online. Click on the link below to read my feature piece on the band Editors.

Chicago Innerview FEB 2010 - Editors

*Please Note - As of January 2010, Chicago Innerview is no longer published in print form.

Extra! Extra!

My review of the 4th Annual Len & Bob Bash has been posted on Lumino Magazine. Please click on the link below:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2907/1

Enjoy!

A Conversation With...Scott McCaughey

I first met Scott McCaughey on June 2, 1995 when I was 14.

That's to say I first saw Scott McCaughey from across a stage with 18,000+ people around me for the first of three concerts at the Rosemont Horizon on R.E.M.'s Monster tour. It was the night before my 8th Grade graduation and my first concert.

Fast forward to April 5, 2002, I'm now 21 and for the first time meet Scott after a performance at Schubas in Chicago. Scott had just wrapped up a show with his (now) ex-wife Christy McWilson. In attendance were the new four-piece Wilco (Jeff Tweedy, Leroy Bach, John Stirratt and Glenn Kotche). This was also my first time meeting Kotche, who had just completed his first full year with the band (I had just started writing for my college newspaper and said to Kotche, "I'd love to interview you some time," to which he gleefully responded, "And I'd love to be interviewed by you!").

Missing from the evening was Peter Buck of R.E.M., who (like McCaughey) played on McWilson's 2002 album Bed of Roses and was scheduled to perform with the band that night. Thousands of miles across the Atlantic in London, Buck had just been acquitted of air-rage charges filed against him during a British Airways flight on April 21, 2001. The court ruling came on the 22nd anniversary of R.E.M.'s first ever performance as a band. Thinking back to that night, now, all I can say is...fuck...a lot sure happened!

I landed an interview with Scott--my first with him--in 2003 for DePaul's newspaper, The DePaulia, after he completed work with Wilco for the latest Minus 5 album, Down With Wilco. Whether it's been on a journalistic basis or just after a show, it's always a fun time to chat with Scott. As I did with my 2006 interview for Chicago Innerview, I am sharing my entire interview with Scott from 12/21/2009 here on Getting In Tune, highlighting the latest R.E.M. live album, Live At The Olympia, The Baseball Project and much more that didn't appear in my recent feature piece in Lumino Magazine. Scott and I began by discussing Live At The Olympia:

CC: Do you remember the earliest conversations of this idea (a live album) being proposed?

SM: I don’t remember exactly when. I guess we were working on the record (Accelerate) in Vancouver. I don’t know if it was planned all along. I think it might have been, even before we started the record; it might have been in everybody’s head to go out and play the songs before the record was actually finished so we could test run them and see if there were things we discovered about them by playing them live. That definitely happened. Some of them didn’t change at all after playing them for the five nights in Dublin. Some changed quite a bit, and, on other ones we were able to fine tune them; we were able to kind of figure out what wasn’t working, maybe, by playing those nights.

I think it was kind of in the plan all along when we were making that record. I could be wrong, but that’s the way I remember it.

CC: At the time Accelerate came out, a lot of the interviews that Mike (Mills), Peter (Buck) and Michael (Stipe) had done really gave me this impression that the post-thinking about Around the Sun was less than desirable. What was it like having gone through that recording process to now take a different turn, incorporate live performance and hit the refresh button?

SM: Since Bill (Berry) quit the band, we’ve made three records that were all real studio records, and that’s not a bad thing. We were having a really great time. Each one kind of got, maybe, a little more convoluted and a little more drawn out. By the time Around the Sun got finished, I think we were kind of done with that process for a while (laughs). Peter, especially, was like, “I never want to make a record that takes that long, again.” I think he felt like that record was better after we had just gone in and played the songs in the studio before they got as much window dressing as they got. Some of the guitars got lost in the process.

We were pretty much determined to make a record where there was no possibility that could happen. Really, that meant mostly just playing songs with two guitars, bass and drums; play them live in the studio and not do a whole lot of overdubbing. So, it fit in perfectly to go and play them live with that kind of material. A lot of the Around the Sun songs ended up sounding—when we played them live—probably a lot better; a little more direct, a little more guitar oriented and stuff. That tends to happen with some of the studio stuff, anyway. It gets simplified when you play it live. With the Minus 5 it’s always like that. Most of the songs that we record that are piano songs we end up playing on guitar, ya know? Two guitars, bass, drums and let it fall where it may.

This time it just made sense for us to make a record that was not going to be as labored over and can just be really fun, bash it out live and not get hung up in the process of making a record. By playing the songs live as part of the process of the record, it really helped fulfill that ambition.

CC: In listening to everything that you’re saying, it seems like Accelerate kind of tied back to, in some ways, how New Adventures In Hi-Fi was made. A little bit.

SM: Yeah, that’s true to a degree. The difference with New Adventures was mostly songs that were being developed as we were actually touring. There were a few things from Accelerate that had probably gotten developed on the tour before that, things we played at soundchecks and stuff. Yeah, there’s similarities to the approach.

CC: Now, looking over the track listing for Live At The Olympia, I wasn’t really disappointed, but I was kind surprised that there wasn’t very much information given as to what songs came from what nights, but, that’s just geeky me.

SM: Right. I have no idea either. There’s a couple things where Michael says, “This is our second night,” or whatever. Who knows! (laughs). I don’t have any idea which songs came from which night either. It was a couple years ago, so, I don’t have a clue. Probably the only people who know are Garret (Jacknife Lee) and Sam (Bell), the guys who mixed it.

CC: What were your feelings as you were walking out on stage for the first of the five nights? I assume Peter still does the setlist. So, once the setlist was written up and you guys were ready to go, what do you remember back then?

SM: It was kind of frantic. Besides the fact that we’re playing all these new songs that we never played before live, we kept adding, everyday during a two hour soundcheck, other songs to play. Most of those other ones that I played live I’d never really played before; we did a lot of really old songs, and I just never really played most of those. Neither had Bill (Rieflin)! We were learning songs for hours at soundcheck before each night, as well as going over the new stuff. Then we’d have about an hour or two off and then play the show. It was pretty hardcore. It was a full day’s work, everyday, and, after soundcheck, I’d be cramming and trying to remember how to play “Little America” or something like that that I’d never played before, so, it was actually really intense. Once we got on stage, they were super fun. I had a great time. I didn’t worry too much about playing everything perfectly. I tried, of course, but I’m sure I failed on occasion (laughs).

It’s kind amazing how great it sounds. I know that Jacknife didn’t fix a lot of stuff or anything. He just kind of found the best takes. You can tell there’s rough edges to it, but that’s cool.

CC: And it keeps in spirit of what the whole project was all about.

SM: Yeah. It’s kind of a great record though. I like the pacing and sequencing. It’s just such a bizarre huge grouping of songs. The focus of it is really early stuff and then the really new stuff. R.E.M.’s most famous and biggest songs are totally unrepresented. Their biggest records, Automatic for the People and Out of Time, aren’t there at all…I think “Drive” was played. It’s pretty cool. I like the selection of songs. We were just picking them each day. They were just coming out of nowhere. It wasn’t like we had this big masterplan. We didn’t (laughs).

CC: From the musician standpoint, I know most of these songs, the older material, have popped up here and there—not very often—since the Monster tour. Thinking about songs from Fables of the Reconstruction or Chronic Town, what did you appreciate about those songs and the work that was originally done on them once you got to play them? For how old some of those songs are, they still sound great…

SM: Because they’re really weird songs (laughs). Musically, stuff like “Little America,” “Wolves, Lower,” and “Carnival of Sorts,” I’m like, “What the hell were you guys doing? How do write songs like that?” You can tell they’re songs that are written by a band and not by one guy sitting around with a guitar. They’re not singer/songwriter songs, which is kind of what I’m used to. There’s a different logic to the way they’re constructed. They’re a little tricky for me to get my head around. Peter’s guitar playing is so individual and so precise. A lot of the songs, I just wanted to stay out of his way. I had to figure out things that I could play that wouldn’t muddle up the songs but add a little force to them. I think it worked out well. They sound really loud and trashy. It’s kind of cool to hear them sounding a little differently than they do on the original record. Peter’s got a heavier guitar sound, and you can actually hear the lyrics (laughs). You start realizing songs like “Second Guessing” have basically one verse sung over and over again (laughs). It works somehow. They’re very strange songs, and it was really interesting to play them, for me, because it’s a whole different style of songwriting than what I’m used to.

CC: Did you get any impression from Rieflin? I would have loved to ask Bill this, about taking on Berry’s early work. ’95 was the only time I ever saw Bill Berry with the band. But to hear Chronic Town songs and hear how much is going on with the drums, however direct, there’s still a lot of presence there. Did he (Rieflin) share any thoughts of what it was like to perform that work?

SM: I think there were times when he was definitely really, really impressed with how cool the drum parts were, and, other times, he was probably slightly amused because Bill’s (Berry) drum parts are really cool and really unusual. A lot of people don’t give him the credit that he should get. Bill Berry was a pretty amazing drummer, and he wasn’t really playing like anybody else back then. Rieflin did an amazing job at being faithful to those parts, not slavishly, but they kind of have to be there to make the songs work the way they did because they’re pretty intricate and precise kind of songs. I think Bill really appreciated Bill Berry’s drumming and really nailed it. The thing that I was most impressed about on the record was listening to Bill’s drumming. I just think he’s so awesome on this, and the drums sound really amazing, too. They’re super powerful and really rock. Hats off to Rieflin.

CC: It was definitely cool to hear him on songs like “Wolves, Lower” or “Circus Envy.” I remember e-mailing you the night after you guys performed that song, and I think I found a YouTube video that same night. I was just excited to hear the band fuzz it up, again.

SM: (Laughs). Yeah, I was pretty excited that we did “Circus Envy.” I’m always pushing for that one. It just got in there that day.

CC: Now, I never knew this, but, the Young Fresh Fellows did a cover of “Circus Envy”?

SM: We did. It’s on a record that came out in Spain in 1996 or 1997. It’s a pretty weird, little cool version of it (from 1999’s Tribute to Music, released only in Spain) . I like it a lot. It’s a little more Gang of Four or something. I love that song, and I think the lyrics are awesome.

CC: This is the second live album from the band that for many years said it was never interested in doing a live album. Oddly enough, both live albums are from the same city, two years apart. Do you have any sense of why in recent years there’s been more of a willingness to share more of a live document of the band’s stage performance? I was just thinking about this…the last U.S. related R.E.M. live release was the concert DVD Road Movie, filmed over the course of the final nights of the Monster tour in Atlanta. Since then, it’s been mostly European cities getting the luck of being displayed in full R.E.M. glory.

SM: I don’t know. It’s not like we went and said, “Hey, we’re going to record a live album.” We never really did that. You do all these shows that people want to record or film, say, for MTV Europe or management will say, “You’re doing two nights in Dublin. It might be a good time to film the band and record it just in case we might want to use it sometime.” You record these things for posterity and occasionally you say, “Hey, that’s really good. Let’s release it.” That’s really all it is…I think. The reason we were recording those shows is because we thought there might be the chance we play one of the songs from the album better than the studio version. So, that’s kind of why we were recording them. Maybe “Living Well Is The Best Revenge” live will be better than the version we record in the studio. As it stands, they’re basically almost the same because we had that song so down. Probably listening to the songs and going through it, everybody thought, “This is really cool. We should put this out.” I think it’s that more than anything. It’s not like a contractual obligation or that they wanted to make a live record. It’s just that we recorded something really cool.

It’s always weird when you plan on making a live record. The Fellows have done that. In Spain, they say, “We’re going to record the good show and release that as a live record.” And that always ends up being the worst show of the tour. We did that with R.E.M. They said, “We’re going to film one show of the tour to release as a DVD.” That was Wiesbaden, Germany (show date 7/19/03, as seen on the Perfect Square DVD). Everybody thought, in the band, that was the worst show of the tour. The audience thought it was great. You watch the DVD, and it’s really good. But we knew that we played better other nights. So, the reason you play better is because you’re not thinking about being on camera. That’s just kind of typical the way that goes. I don’t know if The Who would say that Live at Leeds was the worst show of that tour. I’d like to think it wasn’t, but did they record twenty shows and that was the best one? Or did they kind of get lucky and record one that happen to be fucking amazing? Or did they all think that they did other nights of the tour that were better than that but that was the one that was recorded and, so, that’s the one they released? Who knows (laughs).

My experience, often, has been when you know you’re recording something you end up not having the best show. With this “This Is Not A Show” thing…we knew we were doing five nights, we knew we were kind of messing around and experimenting—it wasn’t supposed to be a live record—we were all really loose and having fun. We were working and trying hard, pushing ourselves by playing so many different songs over the five nights. We didn’t have the pressure of thinking each night would be released as a live album. That wasn’t in our heads at all, which is probably why it’s so fucking good.

CC: I guess I just wish there were more U.S. shows getting the live album treatment.

SM: Well, the thing is, that tour in ’95 was sort of our peak in America, and we’ve probably gotten down in America since then, and, yet that was when is started really picking up in Europe. We’ve just gotten more and more popular in Europe. I think it was ’95 or ’99 and we played Dublin at Lansdowne Road stadium (show date 7/16/99); it was like 40,000 people there. The crowd was just insane. We just started realizing that we’ve really got it going here in Ireland. People really liked us a lot (laughs). Certainly that’s part of the reason we ended up doing these five nights in Dublin. We were going to record at Grouse Lodge (Studios) directly following the shows. And we all like Dublin a lot. It just made perfect sense.

It’s one of the only places where if I’m walking around in the streets of Dublin, people recognize me from R.E.M., not from the Fellows or the Minus 5. If I walk around in Portland or Seattle, I might get occasionally recognized for that. If I walk around Dublin, people recognize me as being a guy from R.E.M., and they know my name. They even know how to say it, even though it’s pronounced differently in Ireland.

CC: And then it’s followed by the offer of a beer.

SM: Yes (laughs). That does occasionally happen.

CC: So, what’s currently happening in R.E.M. land? You guys were down in New Orleans doing some recording.

SM: We did three weeks of work and tracked a bunch of new songs. Michael sang on about half of them, probably. So, we got a really good start on the next record.

CC: Are there other locales in mind for recording, like Vancouver?

SM: We’re not going to Vancouver. We’ve got a couple more stops in mind. I don’t think they’re exactly nailed down, yet. We’ll do two more three week stays, but the next one probably isn’t going to be until April into May. So, there’s a lot of time right now to sit around and ruminate on the songs or come up with new stuff; mostly for Michael to work on lyrics, melody and stuff. He’ll probably end up doing something before the rest of us get back. He might just go somewhere with Jacknife and record some more vocals. He’s got some great stuff. We got a really good start. The tracks all sound amazing, and the stuff that Michael has come up with are super cool, too. I’m pretty excited about it.

Right now, I’m not thinking about it for a little while. I’m going to let it go a bit and then get back to it, but I’m really happy with the stuff we did in New Orleans.

CC: And that was pretty much the first session?

SM: Yes. This was the first real session where we started getting ideas for the record.

CC: This next record will be Rieflin’s third with R.E.M., and it will be your sixth since New Adventures In Hi-Fi. How do you feel your role and Bill’s role has developed with the recording process?

SM: Now, it feels like we’re a regular rock band. The last record and most of the next record are going to tend to be two guitars, bass and drums songs. We’re all really comfortable with our roles. Bill came in on Around the Sun, and that was the first thing he did with the band. He just came into the studio and just tried to play along to see how it went. Obviously, Peter and I knew that we played great with Bill because we had been playing with him for four-five years at that point. We knew it was going to be great, but we had to see how it would work with everybody, which they all liked him immediately. All his first work was really just studio stuff. So, that’s different when you go out touring, but, of course, Bill is awesome every night on tour. We’ve played together now for years with this group. It just feels really normal.

My role has probably changed a little bit. Whereas I used to filled in stuff off the records, keyboards, bass or whatever that needed to be fleshed out live—I was kind of more a jack-of-all trades—but now I’m sort of the second guitarist. Peter plays his super distinctive stuff, and then it’s my job to play something that’s really different from what he’s playing. So, I don’t get in his way, but I don’t really play rhythm guitar. I kind of come up with parts that will compliment what Peter’s doing and what Mike’s doing. It’s fun for me to really concentrate on playing guitar because I don’t get to do that that much. I don’t even think about playing guitar when I’m singing, and it probably shows (laughs).

CC: In your Roger Daltrey mode…

SM: Yeah (laughs). But we’re a pretty solid rock band that’s played a lot of shows together and done a lot of recording together with this lineup. It feels great.

CC: So, what’s currently on deck—no pun intended—with the Baseball Project?

SM: We started recording a new record. We had a couple days off on our last tour with the Baseball Project, Minus 5 and Steve Wynn. In Portland for two days, we tracked twelve songs, all live. Peter was there for the session this time, which was great, because he just did overdubs on the last record. So, we had the full on four-piece going to track all these songs, which was great.

We were going to try and get it out for the next baseball season, but it seems like it would have been a little bit of too much of a push. We want to try and do some different things with this record. I think we’re going to take our time and finish it over the first half of 2010 and probably not release it until just before spring training 2011. So, it’ll be over a year old by the time it actually comes out, but that gives us time to work on it. We have a few more songs we want to record, and we haven’t done any overdubs on it. We’ll get other people to play on it, too. We’re going to take our time. That’s ok. Steve, Peter and I are all usually bash something out-release it. I think Yep Roc wants to really make something happen with the record. So, if it’s good for them to have more set up time, then we can deal with it.

I’m going to have R.E.M. duty in 2010. I haven’t really thought much about the Fellows or the Minus 5. I should probably think about that, too. There’s a Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 record coming out (titled Propellor Time) in March (3/22/10 - U.S. Release 4/6/10). Hopefully, we’ll do some dates on that. I don’t know how much time we’ll have. Hopefully Bill, Peter and I will be able to devote a little time to that as well. I’d like to get the Minus 5/Baseball Project/Steve Wynn thing over to Europe, too, but it’s all a matter of timing if we can do it.

CC: Now, at least tell me there’s some consideration within the Baseball Project that there will be a song based on Nolan Ryan (Texas Rangers) beating the shit out of Robin Ventura (Chicago White Sox) on the mound (8/4/93).

SM: (Laughs) Yeah, I don’t know if there’s going to be a song about that, but I certainly enjoy watching footage of that. It’s pretty awesome. I saw his last game ever pitched at the Kingdome in Seattle (9/22/93). He pitched to four batters. The first two batters got on and the fourth batter hit a grand slam, then he walked off the mound. His arm just totally went. It was sad because he’d been great up to then. He never pitched again…of course he was 90 years old (laughs). Nah..he was 46 or something. He was so good.

R.E.M. – Live At The Olympia (Warner Bros.)
Released October 27, 2009 (U.S.)
Recorded at Olympia Theatre (Dublin, Ireland) on 6/30, 7/1, 7/3-5, 2007

Disc One
Living Well Is The Best Revenge (7/4/07)
Second Guessing (6/30/07)
Letter Never Sent (6/30/07)
Staring Down The Barrel of the Middle Distance (7/5/07)
Disturbance at the Heron House (7/1/07)
Mr. Richards (7/4/07)
Houston (7/5/07)
New Test Leper (6/30/07)
Cuyahoga (7/5/07)
Electrolite (6/30/07)
Man-Sized Wreath (7/4/07)
So. Central Rain (7/3/07)
On The Fly (7/5/07)
Maps and Legends (6/30/07)
Sitting Still (7/1/07)
Driver 8 (7/3/07)
Horse to Water (7/4/07)
I'm Gonna DJ (7/1/07)
Circus Envy (7/4/07)
These Days (7/1/07)

Disc Two
Drive (7/1/07)
Feeling Gravitys Pull (7/3/07)
Until The Day Is Done (7/1/07)
Accelerate (7/4/07)
Auctioneer (Another Engine) (7/5/07)
Little America (6/30/07)
1,000,000 (7/4/07)
Disguised (aka Supernatural Superserious) (7/5/07)
The Worst Joke Ever (7/5/07)
Welcome to the Occupation (7/5/07)
Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars) (7/4/07)
Harborcoat (7/4/07)
Wolves, Lower (7/4/07)
I've Been High (7/1/07)
Kohoutek (7/3/07)
West of the Fields (7/4/07)
Pretty Persuasion (7/5/07)
Romance (7/5/07)
Gardening at Night (7/5/07)

*Special thanks to Jill Hollywood at Big Life Management, Darryl White's fantastic site, The R.E.M. Timeline - The Complete R.E.M. Concert Chronology, and engineer Sam Bell for helping fill in the gaps of source information on songs appearing on Live At The Olympia.

Darryl White's site can be found at:
http://www.remtimeline.com/

Photo By: Marty Perez at House of Blues (Chicago) on 1/14/10

Extra! Extra!

About three weeks ago, I had the chance to speak with Scott McCaughey (R.E.M., The Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows, The Baseball Project). This was the first time since November 8, 2006 that I had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Scott, the night Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 performed at Metro in Chicago. I should dig that interview out sometime!

A feature article was published today on Lumino Magazine of my recent interview with Scott as a spotlight on the upcoming performance by The Baseball Project at the 4th Annual Len & Bob Bash for Chicago Cubs Charities. The event takes place tomorrow night at the House of Blues. The Baseball Project are the openers.

The complete interview with Scott will be posted on Friday. For now, enjoy this piece:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2904/1

A Conversation With...Rivers Cuomo of Weezer

In this month's issue of Chicago Innerview, I had the chance to speak with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer. Due to the word space I had to work with, I had to cut down my Q&A with Cuomo in order to fit the assigned space I had.

The following conversation is my complete interview with Cuomo, which took place on November 19, 2009. This posting is dedicated in the memory of Jerry Ayre.

Chris Castaneda: As being the principal songwriter for the band now, nearly twenty years, what would you say best describes a Weezer song? Musically and lyrically?

Rivers Cuomo: Great melody, funky guitar, some kind of twisted lyrical perspective…I think it’s usually in a major key or at least a diatonic mode, if that’s not too technical. I think if you’ve got all those things, you’ve got a Weezer song.

CC: If you had to choose just 1 song from each album that you felt strongly about and that best captured the essence of Weezer at that time of the album, what would they be?

RC: Weezer (The Blue Album) – “Buddy Holly.” Pinkerton – “Across The Sea.” Weezer (The Green Album) – “Island In The Sun.” Maladroit – “Dope Nose.” Make Believe – “Beverly Hills.” Weezer (The Red Album) – “Pork and Beans.” Raditude – “Can’t Stop Partying.”

CC: In the past two years, you’ve opened up your vault of demos on the Alone CDs, I and II. What prompted the idea of returning to those demos and sharing them with the public?

RC: Over the years, fans have heard about these songs. They’ve always been requesting and pressuring me to release some of them, but, most importantly, I have so much strong emotions for these demos. They were recorded just as I was writing the songs and just as I was in the heat of the moment or situation that inspired the song. I recognize that these are not broadly commercial recordings, but they have the depth and feeling that I really love. I wanted to share with those hardcore fans out there who can also appreciate that feeling.

CC: Will there be more home recordings released in the future?

RC: I do have more music that I’d like to release; at least another hour. Well…maybe two or three hours more of home demos that I’d like to release. It seems to me that the compact disc or the full length album is becoming a thing of the past. I’m not exactly sure that my home demos will come out in that format.

CC: What was your earliest approach to songwriting when you first began writing? How has it changed or developed over the years?

RC: When I was a teenager I was trying to play harmonic minded scales as quickly as I could. Then I got into songwriting around age 20. My values at that time came to be melody and straightforward lyrics that have a little twist on it…the chunky guitars. Those are the kind of values that you hear on Weezer’s first album. I still hear that on our latest record, Ratitude, and on every record in between. It just feels like who I am as a songwriter.

Now, recently, I’ve been very excited about collaborating with other people, especially people from different backgrounds; learning different approaches to songwriting. Not only that, but, I’m just making new friends and learning about all different kinds of things, like production techniques or where to send your kids to school, how to set up your home studio…getting exposed to all different kinds of ideas, which is really great.

CC: There’s a lot of collaboration with other songwriters on Ratitude. How has it been for you to have that added input from other people and to have Pat (Wilson), Scott (Shriner) and Brian (Bell) present songs on recent albums?

RC: It’s challenging, but that’s what I love about it. Someone else will put an idea on the table that’s different from something that I would have come up with, and it takes me a minute to figure out how to work with it. I have to think outside my usual routine, and that, to me, is very invigorating.

An example is that song “Can’t Stop Partying” on Ratitude. I was writing with Jermaine Dupri, who’s from a hip-pop/R&B background. His idea was to write a song that’s purely about partying and drinking. It was really fun, but it’s not 100% who I am. So, I struggled with that for a while and eventually realized that I could change the music, put it into a minor key and give the music a very sad feeling which undercut the party vibe of the lyrics. It turned into a song that neither one of us could have written on our own. I’m very proud of it.

CC: As you near 40 years old, how do you stay connected to the songs that you wrote in your early 20’s?

RC: Well, for one thing, I don’t feel like my musical values have changed all that much. I still love those early songs. It’s some of my favorite music of all time. Playing live is so much fun to play those songs to the audience because for a lot of the people in the room they’ve never seen us play before, and they’re just so excited. I just enjoy connecting to them.

CC: All rock critics are different. I have my own opinion about the new album. Everyone else has opinions, and I’m sure you’re well aware of most of the opinions out there. And I say with all due respect: do you feel, at all, that Weezer has in any way become a one dimensional band?

RC: What do you mean, specifically? I’m not sure what “one dimensional” means.

CC: I guess…if anything, the one criticism that will come to mind is this “We’ve heard this before” thinking. From The Blue Album up to now…over time a band will develop its own sound, and there will be elements of that band and its sound that will forever drape whatever work it presents. I guess what I’m trying to ask is: are you vigilant to make sure the band doesn’t fall into a routine? I know some bands are very adamant about making sure they never fall into certain ruts, and other bands are happy to keep kind of going along the same path. I was just interested in what your thoughts were in terms of the band.

RC: I do feel, by nature, I’m an adventurer, an explorer. Looking back on our career it seems obvious that I constantly have to be doing some crazy new experiment because I like the feeling of being excited and trying new things. I think that’s what has kept Weezer vital. We’re not stuck in a rut. We’re taking chances and risking losing some fans by trying new things. It’s more fun than ever to be in this band.

CC: Well, I appreciate the response. I hope I clarified it, too. I might have stumbled a little bit.

RC: I don’t know if we got to the question you really wanted to ask, but I answered what I understood to be the question. I hear that you’re trying to be tactful, too, and I appreciate that.

[End]

Actually, on the day of the interview, I was almost thrown out of bed by the latest Weezer single, "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To." I didn't remember how loud I set my clock radio, so, when the alarm went off, Cuomo's vocals (at the very moment of the chorus) blasted and freaked me out. He got a laugh out of the story.

Asking my final question was a last minute toss up. I wrote the question down that morning and debated asking it. That question could have easily been interpreted the wrong way (i.e. So, how come your band turned sucky?). I think it was mutually appreciated that there was some room given to expand on my question. In listening back to how nervous and sensitive I was about clarifying myself, I think what I was going for was to highlight how Weezer songs, in terms of sound, have become repetitive.

When speaking to Cuomo it was clear that the Weezer sound we've all come to love (or grow tired of) is the sound he is most in love with, and I can't fault him for that. Afterall, he's the one in the studio doing exactly what he wants and getting paid to do it...I'm not.

Being a frustrated Oasis fan, I was going to draw a connection between Weezer and Oasis during my interview. The day after I spoke with Cuomo, I bought Alone II - The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. The liner notes by Cuomo are great! I'm always a fan of good liner notes. In those notes, my Oasis connection was given some validation by Cuomo's diary entry of July 31, 1997, "Not melody, not lyrics but STRUCTURE, like Noel Gallagher's songs. / Learn all the Oasis songs."

Gallagher may have figured out the best qualities of song structures by the Beatles and Neil Young (and in the process re-writing classics to build his own songbook), but he could never quite hold onto the hook, which is such a strong component to Cuomo's work. In some ways, Cuomo is the Rick Nielsen of my generation (which is to say I hope most of my peers have appreciated the glory that is Cheap Trick).

I believed Cuomo when he said Weezer is still taking chances, but, if Weezer is really taking musical risks, it's certainly hard to hear.

Finally, on a personal note, I mentioned at the start of this posting that this was dedicated in the memory of Jerry Ayre. Jerry was an old grammar school classmate from St. Victor School in Calumet City, IL (yes, where the Blues Brothers are from). He was a really good guy that I was lucky to grow up with him between those years of 1st and 8th grade. We were in Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and on the basketball team in 7th and 8th grade. In our last year, he and I shared the lead role in the school play in which he played a 1950s high school nerd. I was his alter ego in the form a rocking and rolling werewolf (you had to be there).

I thought of myself back then as a shy guy, but, compared to Jerry, I must have been considered more laid back. He wasn't really part of my core group of friends growing up then, but he was never thought of as not good enough to associate with...he wasn't in the "cool" crowd just as I wasn't. Therefore, it was easy to connect.

When the opportunity was finalized to interview Rivers Cuomo, I instantly thought about Jerry. One of my memories of him was wearing a blue Weezer t-shirt around school when we had a "dress down" day, taking a break from the Catholic school conformity of dress code appropriate uniforms. The Blue Album was released near the end of our 7th grade year. Jerry was probably the first Weezer fan I knew around school.

In 1995, Jerry moved to Florida after we graduated 8th grade. I never saw him, again, after the graduation parties quieted down that summer. To me, he was a good grammar school friend that if I ever ran into down the road would have stopped and caught up on all the latest life news. In the summer of 1999, after graduating high school, the news was dispatched throughout my old grammar school connections that he died of meningitis.

At 18, it didn't register with me that this cool guy, whose biggest music favorites were Weezer and Green Day, was simply gone. I still remember the service held at the school's church and playing my acoustic guitar with the small assembled choir. It's never the way you want to be reunited with people from your childhood past, but there most of us were from that graduating class. If anything, it spoke volumes of how we all felt about Jerry. I don't know the kind of guy he became during his high school years, but I can't imagine the good qualities that made him easy to get along with changing a whole lot. And I don't know if he ever got to see Weezer in concert (I hope he did)..but he would have been the first person I would have shared the news with about my interview. "Hey, man. I'm going to talk to Rivers!"

Thanks, Jerry.

Photo Courtesy of Weezer (MySpace)

Extra! Extra!

The December issue of Chicago Innerview is now available online and print. In this month's issue, I interviewed Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, Brian Berkowitz of local band Oh My God and contributed a write-up on local band Soft Speaker.

Please click on the links below to be directed to the pages for:

Weezer
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/dec09_weezer.htm

Oh My God (available online ONLY)
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/dec09_ohmygod.htm

Soft Speaker
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/dec09_previewB.htm

Also, I recently interviewed John Wesley Harding for Lumino Magazine before his upcoming show at Schubas tomorrow night. That Q&A feature was just added to the magazine site yesterday. Follow the link below:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2876/1

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!

My review of Poi Dog Pondering's show at the Vic Theatre on 11/20 has been posted on Lumino Magazine. Please click on the link below to be directed to the review:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2869/1

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!

My review of Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard at Lincoln Hall on October 26 has been posted on Lumino Magazine.

There was a minor delay with the review getting posted, but now it's seen the light of the computer screen. Please click on the link below to be directed to the review:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2849/1

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!

My review of Wilco's 2 nights at the UIC Pavilion has been posted on Lumino Magazine. Please click on the link below to be directed to the review:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2845/1

Enjoy!

Extra! Extra!

The October issue of Chicago Innerview is now available online. In this month's issue, I have contributed write-ups on Bob Mould and Califone.

Please click on the links below to be directed to the pages for:

Bob Mould
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/oct09_previewC.htm

Califone
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/oct09_previewB.htm

Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

News

After a brief hiatus from the writing scene, I'm jumping back into the game.

I'm pleased to announce that in addition to my monthly contributions to Chicago Innerview (starting with the October issue), I will also begin to contribute to Lumino Magazine, an online publication.

My recent piece for Lumino Magazine is a review of Pearl Jam's performance on Monday night at the United Center. This is just my second contribution to the website; my first piece was a review of Neil Young at Allstate Arena last December.

I'm looking forward to resuming my work that I've often had to place on hold. Thanks for continuing to stop by Getting In Tune to check out my latest work. For now, feel free to click the link below to be directed to my review of Pearl Jam's show:

http://www.luminomagazine.com/mw/content/view/2822/1

Due to the short notice, a photographer couldn't be assigned to the show I attended in order to include photos with my review. The photo you see here were taken from my seat, which I surprisingly landed the day before the show on Ticketmaster (oh, the irony).

Photo By: Chris Castaneda

Extra! Extra!

I just realized that this post marks a year, almost to the day, that I last posted an update on Getting In Tune. Wow. Bye-bye life sucking evil day job.

In any case, the July issue of Chicago Innerview is now available online. This month's issue (as it did last year) focuses on the Pitchfork Music Festival. I contributed write-ups on the Flaming Lips, Built to Spill and Grizzly Bear.

Please click on the links below to be directed to the pages for:

The Flaming Lips & Grizzly Bear
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/july09_previewI.htm

Built to Spill
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/july09_previewA.htm

Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

Extra! Extra!

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I last posted on Getting In Tune. Time certainly flies by when your life is wasted away by a job that grows even more meaningless than the day before and then suddenly you're thrown into the absolute BEST time to hunt for new employment.

That said...it's great to be back! The new day gig situation has greatly improved beyond even my expectations, and I'm once again contributing to Chicago Innerview. In my grand return to the magazine, I contributed a feature article on Sonic Youth and a write-up on Here We Go Magic for the June issue.

Please click on the links below to be directed to the pages for:

Sonic Youth
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/june09_sonicyouth.htm

Here We Go Magic
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/june09_previewA.htm

Enjoy...and many thanks!

Extra! Extra!

The July issue of Chicago Innerview is now available online. This month's issue offers a preview to the upcoming Pitchfork Music Festival. I contributed write-ups on Mission of Burma, Jarvis Cocker, and Elf Power.

Please click on the links below to be directed to the pages for:

Mission of Burma
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/july08_previewA.htm

Jarvis Cocker
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/july08_previewE.htm

Elf Power
http://www.chicagoinnerview.com/archives/july08_previewD.htm

Enjoy.

Thank you, Tim Russert. Thank you.

A Conversation With...Mike Mills of R.E.M.

In the June 2008 issue of Chicago Innerview, I had the opportunity to speak with bassist Mike Mills of R.E.M. for the cover story ("House In Order"). The phone interview took place on May 12, 2008, two weeks before R.E.M. would launch its world tour in support of its latest album Accelerate. Here is the complete 20 minute conversation I had with Mills that afternoon. Check back soon for a complete review (and photos) of R.E.M.'s recent performance at the United Center on June 6, 2008. Until then, enjoy a conversation with Mike Mills.

Chris Castaneda: Is it scary to say that the tour begins next week Friday?

Mike Mills: The tour begins, I guess, next Friday or Saturday.

CC: Yeah, Friday, the 23rd.

MM: Sounds right.

CC: Has it caught up on you really fast?

MM: No, I’ve had a little time to get ready for it.

CC: Is the band still doing rehearsals or are you pretty much done by now?

MM: No, we’ll start rehearsals next week.

CC: How many songs are you practicing for the rotation?

MM: We don’t know yet. I’m putting together a list of some old ones we might play, and I’m sure others are doing the same. We’ll just get together and see what everybody feels like doing. A lot of times you find that there are just some songs that somebody really doesn’t want to do. So, you’ve got to cross that out.

CC: Hence the veto process.

MM: Exactly.

CC: Well, congratulations on the album.

MM: Thank you.

CC: I’ve been enjoying it a lot. Personally, I was a little miffed that it was beat out by George Strait on the charts by a couple thousand.

MM: Well, he’s got that deal with Wal-Mart. That’s pretty tough to top him.

CC: You’ve had some time since it was released. How does Accelerate make a statement about R.E.M. in 2008?

MM: Well, I think you just said it. Accelerate is R.E.M. in 2008. Really, I couldn’t put it any better than that. People have been trying to say, “Is it a return?” or “Are you looking backwards?” I say, “No.” We don’t look backwards and wouldn’t know how to if we wanted to. So, this is strictly us in this year, in this moment.

CC: I’ve sort of disagreed with a lot of the press and their angle on the album. They’ve been treating it like the band has been on life support the last 5 years, and then suddenly the band came out of its coma. To me, it’s kind of unfair and missing the point of the album itself.

MM: Well, it’s really lazy journalism, to me, because this theme has sort of been broached and everybody’s been really quick to jump on it because it’s an easy angle. Those records were not universally despised when they came out, and I’m very proud of those records. I just think people have seized that as their theme for their reviews and that has just been self-perpetuating. But I’m very pleased with our career, in general, and with this record in particular.

CC: So, this time around, the band became a 5 piece without Ken Stringfellow. What is the dynamic of the band like now with just Scott McCaughey and Bill Rieflin?

MM: The dynamic is great. I love Ken, I love his music, but the fact was we were going with less keyboards this time. Ken’s job was to either to play the keyboards or to play something else so I could play keyboards. We just didn’t need the extra person around. The dynamic feels good. He’s got his own new band called The Disciplines that he’s playing with. We did a few promo shows on our promo tour that we did, and they all felt great.

CC: There’s one thing I wanted to get your perspective on as the representative of the rhythm section. You did some work with Barrett Martin and Joey Waronker around the time R.E.M. was making Up (1998). How has Bill Rieflin been with the band the past couple of years? What is it about his style, his approach, which has made him the proper fit for R.E.M.?

MM: Well said. He has such a mastery over the drums. In other words, he can play just like Bill Berry on the songs where he needs to, but we can also give him his head and say, “Play what you hear,” and it’s invariably fantastic. He’s just so accomplished as a musician.

I think Barrett Martin is a fantastic musician, and I love him as a person. But we didn’t really gel as a rhythm section. Joey Waronker, we gelled just fine, but he had other things he wanted to do. With Bill Rieflin…we were doing our first record with him, which I guess was Reveal, and we were wondering whether we were going to use him on the tour. And I said, “We have to play live to find out.” So, we opened for a local band in Vancouver called The Dirtmitts*. About half way through the first song I said, “You know, I think I can play with this guy.” So, it was pretty clear at that point that I thought it was going to work out just fine and it has.

CC: Definitely. I guess the '03 was his coming out party with the band. I could hear a comfort that was there with all the musicians…not that it wasn’t there with Joey, but there was something a little more extra that resonated.

MM: He’s a powerful drummer. He hits it harder than you would think from looking at him, and that helps a lot. And the other helpful thing was…with every tour we started to feel better about being a three piece. That transition has been very difficult, but that’s one reason this album sounds like it does because we’ve felt so comfortable as a band again that we wanted to make a rock record.

(*The show that Mike Mills is referring to took place on December 15, 2002 at a venue called Richard’s On Richards. As background information to clarify Mills’ recollection, I asked Scott McCaughey via email to help out. This was McCaughey’s response sent on May 15, 2008. According to McCaughey, “It was a Minus 5 gig in Vancouver, and the Dirtmitts were the local opening band. However, I did the Minus 5 gig because Bill (Rieflin) and Peter (Buck) and I were up there (Vancouver) recording with R.E.M. It was Bill’s first session with R.E.M., sort of trying out as a studio drummer. Joey wasn’t there then; I think his term had basically ended at that point. Then at the end of the Minus 5 set, R.E.M. came up and we played 3 songs in the encore as R.E.M. So, that was Bill’s first time doing a live thing with R.E.M.”)

CC: What was the initial idea behind the “Working Rehearsal” shows in Dublin last summer? Was it going to be specifically 5 shows? What was being mulled around at the time?

MM: What I realized that back in the day when we were touring constantly we would write songs and work them out on the road. So, when we went to the studio they were fully formed. On the last few records, I’d realize when we’d play something off of Reveal or Up or even Around The Sun, I would play a bass line or sing a background vocal and go, “Man, I wish I’d done that on the record.”

There’s something about the live show that really focusing you on your parts. So, I said, look, let’s do a residency somewhere, just a little brief residency, where we could play these songs and just get that feeling that you get from a live audience, and it will help us tighten everything up…or, it will help me (Laughs). I don’t know if it would help the rest of the band, but I knew it would help me (Laughs). It turned out to be not only very helpful but a lot of fun as well.

CC: What do you remember about how you felt going into the first night?

MM: I felt great. We were in Ireland, where we’ve always done well. I was loving the new songs, even in their unfinished form. It was kind of thrilling to—pardon the phrase—expose ourselves to the fans like that. Normally as an artist—I don’t like the term artist, but, for lack of a better word—you don’t want to show people unfinished things. The two things you don’t want to watch being made are laws and sausages. Well, sometimes, I would add records to that. It was exciting to go out there and know that you were going to show people things that weren’t finished. We really enjoyed it. I think it’s very brave, not to toot our own horn, but I think it’s quite brave to go out there and show your warts and what not to people. That doesn’t happen very often.

CC: Would R.E.M. consider trying that process again or would it just be repeating a process that had already been done?

MM: Who knows. We are a band of being in the moment as much as possible. We’re just really focused on getting the tour done. For our next record, if we feel that’s something that might be useful, then we might do something like that, again. But you have to be careful because sometimes repeating things takes the newness away, and it might not be as effective a tool.

CC: What I thought was really interesting were the “olive branches” that the band extended to the audience. The band went pretty far back in the catalog. What pointed everyone in the direction of picking songs from Chronic Town (1982) and Fables Of The Reconstruction (1985) as albums you wanted to revisit?

MM: Well, the idea was that they were not shows. So, we didn’t want to trout out the same things that we play in shows. I think it was all a part of establishing the informality of the occurrence. Plus, it was fun for us.

CC: Especially with Scott and Bill who had never really touched a majority of the songs that were played…

MM: I can’t speak for Bill or Scott, but they’re fans. I’m sure they enjoyed it. For us, it’s exciting just to look back and know that you have that much good stuff that that’s old. It’s weird when you play them because you say, “Man, those were different people playing those songs back then. Those kids were playing really fast” (Laughs).

CC: What’s all that distortion on the E minor? What’s up with that?

MM: Yeah (Laughs).

CC: Those shows were all over YouTube. Fans were trading the shows among themselves as sort of getting the word out on what the band was up to…creating a word-of-mouth buzz; to use your phrase, an “old school” sort of way. Michael (Stipe) kept joking that “Man-Sized Wreath” was a song that probably wasn’t going to make the album. But a song that didn’t make the album was “Staring Down The Barrel of The Middle Distance.” Were there a lot of songs that didn’t make the final cut?

MM: We tried not to have too many extras this time. “Staring Down The Barrel of The Middle Distance”…that could have easily been on the record, but our whole point of this record was concise, short. We were taking out verses and choruses right up to the very end of the mixing process. We were just shortening everything. It’s really fun to let things go like that. It’s something that I’m sure any psychologist would tell you that letting go is a useful tool. There were only, really, three…maybe four others that got close to being finished that we left off. So, if you count “Staring Down The Barrel,” there were probably four songs that could have made the record but for some reason did not.

CC: Will those songs possibly turn up as B-sides?

MM: You never know. They could end up on movies, TV shows, b-sides, they could be on the next record. They’re just there for whatever purpose they may serve.

CC: Speaking of songs that didn’t make the initial album but were used later down the line: “I’m Gonna DJ” was the talked about song on the '04 tour that I remember hearing a lot about before seeing R.E.M. at the Auditorium Theatre. After hearing it live, I understood why it didn’t make it onto Around The Sun, but it found a home on Accelerate. Was that maybe the earliest seed of what Accelerate grew into?

MM: I think more than that. When we started doing the earliest versions of other songs, such as “Living Well Is The Best Revenge” and “Horse To Water,” that’s when we realized, “I think ‘DJ’ will fit on this record.” Rather than using “DJ” as a starting point and going from there, I think it was, sort of, we started with “Living Well” and “Horse To Water” and then realized “DJ” would fit on this record; whereas it would not have fit on Around The Sun.

CC: Yeah, that would have been quite the sore thumb.

MM: I would have stuck right out. Yes.

CC: I really liked the version of “I’m Gonna DJ” from the 6 Days documentary about the making of Accelerate where Michael’s vocals are left off and just the backing vocals are playing along to the music. I thought, “Well, if there’s not a dance club that wouldn’t be all over that…” (Laughs).

MM: (Laughs) That’s a good thought. When Peter and I write songs, we try to make them interesting before we ever hear any vocals on them. I think that’s one of the strengths of R.E.M. Peter and I have to be satisfied with our songs, instrumentally, before we even show them to Michael, and I think that really gives us a head start. Rather than just having some generic piece of music that Michael can write lyrics and melody to, we try to have a worthwhile piece of music before the singer ever gets a hold of it.

CC: I had the chance to interview Joe Shanahan, owner of Metro, for the January ’08 issue of Chicago Innerview as a feature on the club’s 25th anniversary. I wanted to get your quick thoughts on what he had to say about booking R.E.M. as the first band to play at the Cabaret Metro (July 22, 1982). According to Joe, “They had lost a club show; a promoter had pulled out on them. I had met them at the Danceteria in New York. I went backstage and introduced myself to Mike (Mills), Michael (Stipe), Peter (Buck), Bill (Berry), and Jefferson (Holt). I said, ‘If you ever come through Chicago, I’m going to be opening a club someday and you’re the kind of band I’d love to have play for me.’ And they were like, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’”

MM: (Laughs)

CC: Do you have any memories of that show?

MM: The Metro? Absolutely, I loved the Cabaret Metro. Did we play the Cabaret upstairs or the Metro itself? It kept moving. There was the Metro, itself, which was the big room. And then there was the Cabaret which used to be upstairs and then they moved it downstairs. They kept changing the other parts of that venue. I think our first shows there were in the smaller room, which was the Cabaret. I remember they were great. We love Chicago. It’s always been one of our best towns. The crowd was great, even then. We were relatively, or, completely unknown. Yet, we felt very, very loved when we were there. And Joe was always great to us.

CC: He told me that he played you the soundboard recording of your first show, and you were embarrassed by how the band sounded. He tried reassuring you that you guys sounded great and loose.

MM: We might have been embarrassed, but I think it was more Bill (Berry) more than anybody. Bill always hates listening back to the shows. I don’t know why, but he never felt comfortable about our shows.

Photo Courtesy Of RollingStone.com