{"id":21486,"date":"2021-09-08T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T09:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21486"},"modified":"2026-06-10T08:57:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:57:52","slug":"wind-up-happening-musoscribe-meets-lmnop-part-3-of-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/08\/wind-up-happening-musoscribe-meets-lmnop-part-3-of-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind Up Happening: Musoscribe Meets LMNOP (Part 3 of 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Continued from <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/07\/wind-up-happening-musoscribe-meets-lmnop-part-2-of-5\/\">Part Two<\/a>&#8230;<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-21471\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_elpee.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_elpee.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_elpee-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_elpee-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>So, then you don&#8217;t record everything you write, or do you?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Well, yes and no. I record what I call song snippets. I have a little digital recorder where I just come up with ideas, and I just stick them on this thing constantly. There are hundreds and hundreds of these little snippets. I have so much of that that I could never record all the stuff from it, but the process of actually doing finished recordings takes so much more time. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s very, very time-consuming. It may not sound like it, because it sounds like it&#8217;s all slapped together real quick!<\/p>\n<p><b>Ira Robbins from<i> Trouser Press<\/i> famously described you, many years ago, as a \u201cone man pop auteur.\u201d How did you feel about that when you first heard it or read it? <\/b><\/p>\n<p>Well, I will tell you: of all the things that happened in the early stages of doing this, when I got positive endorsements or positive reactions from him, I couldn&#8217;t believe it. Because as a teenager, I pretty much worshiped <i>Trouser Press<\/i>, and everything that he wrote about turned out to be the greatest stuff. So, when it turned out that he liked what I was doing, I really couldn&#8217;t believe it. I was in total disbelief. I still am!<\/p>\n<p><b>It&#8217;s one of those things where it&#8217;s sort of a trademark of quality: if he likes it then, for me, it&#8217;s like, \u201cOkay, well, it&#8217;s at least worth checking out.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I found out about Big Star through Ira Robbins.<\/p>\n<p><b>I bought those Big Star records in the \u201880s when I found them at Fantasyland Records in Buckhead as \u201cnew old stock.\u201d I still have them. I still have nearly every record I&#8217;ve ever bought; I got rid of the Stones&#8217; <i>Love You Live<\/i> and a couple other shitty records. I even have <i>this<\/i>! [Holds up copy of LMNOP\u2019s <i>Pony<\/i> album.]<\/b><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re one of the very few that have that, because I pulled it and destroyed most of them, because I screwed up with the pressing. One of the songs is really distorted.<\/p>\n<p><b>And the first one [<i>elemen opee elpee<\/i>] I bought at 688 at the merch table.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>If we&#8217;d been in touch at the time, I could&#8217;ve given you several hundred for free!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTapes\u201d from <i>elemen opee elpee<\/i><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LMNOP- Tapes\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3po6yQsWel8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><b>I noticed on the website that you&#8217;re still selling them! How many do you have? <\/b><\/p>\n<p>I think I have one box left. I really don&#8217;t like charging much for music, but it&#8217;s a little bit more expensive than my other cheap items, because I am running out of them. Amongst some people, they really like it. But amongst a lot of people, they really didn&#8217;t care for it.<\/p>\n<p><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-21468\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_inner.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_inner.jpg 550w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_inner-300x193.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/>The fidelity is better than the cassettes just because it&#8217;s on vinyl instead of tape, but I like it. The early albums: were they recorded just on a cassette-based PortaStudio, or were you using something more sophisticated?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I was using a Teac 8-channel\/8-track recorder. It was a real recorder, but it was really limiting as far as what you could do with it.<\/p>\n<p><b>Lots of us were working with four channels back then, so with eight, at least you could do some bouncing of tracks. Is everything digital now for you? I&#8217;m assuming.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It is. I had a hard time getting into the digital world, but I&#8217;ll tell you what got me through it and how I overcame my aversion to it. I kept thinking I had to understand what I was doing and, every time I&#8217;d start to get into it, I was like, \u201cThis is so complicated. I hate this.\u201d What happened is I finally told myself that, when I was doing analog, I didn&#8217;t know what the hell I was doing, and I enjoyed it. So, I thought, \u201cJust start doing it and don&#8217;t worry about understanding it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So now, I don&#8217;t think about what I&#8217;m doing. I just push things and twist things and, most of the time, I really honestly don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m doing. But when it seems like it sounds right, I hit \u201crecord.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>The newest album has just the right amount of polish. I wouldn&#8217;t call it <i>slick<\/i>, but it&#8217;s not homespun.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>I appreciate you saying that for feedback, because that&#8217;s kind of what I was trying to do. I wanted it to be more like a studio recorded album, but I didn&#8217;t want it to come across like 21st Century processed cheese.<\/p>\n<p><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-21470\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_booklet.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_booklet.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/lmnop_booklet-282x300.jpg 282w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>You kind of flirted with what I would call the outer fringes of mainstream success when you released that first LP in &#8217;86. Was scoring a deal with a label \u2013 indie or even a major \u2013 something to which you aspired?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Oh yeah, yeah. Then, I was so stupid. That&#8217;s what I wanted! I didn&#8217;t realize at the time what it entailed to try to be a career musician. But no label in this country was ever interested, so I didn&#8217;t have to worry about it anyway. Over time, I finally realized that wasn&#8217;t really what I wanted to do with my life, because I don&#8217;t like being recognized, and I don&#8217;t want to be out retreading the same songs over and over for the rest of my life. So, I veered or changed my path, because after I got into it, I started realizing a lot of aspects of it weren&#8217;t so much fun.<\/p>\n<p><b>There was the period, in the mid \u201880s, when you had a band. Do you miss that, or do the negatives outweigh the positives?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Well, I don&#8217;t think I was meant to play in a band, Bill. In fact, when I first started out, I was trying to emulate Todd Rundgren and Roy Wood and Emitt Rhodes and people like that. When I started playing with other musicians, I wasn&#8217;t doing it because that was what I really wanted or intended to do. But other people were telling me that \u2013 in order to be successful, which is what I thought I wanted at the time \u2013 I had to have a live band to be able to promote what I was doing. So, that&#8217;s why I went that direction. And it was only, again, after doing it that I realized I wasn&#8217;t good at it, because I was a dictator. I was very closed-minded, and I really just wanted three or four more of <i>me<\/i> backing me up.<\/p>\n<p><i><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/09\/wind-up-happening-musoscribe-meets-lmnop-part-4-of-5\/\">Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Continued from Part Two&#8230; So, then you don&#8217;t record everything you write, or do you? Well, yes and no. I record what I call song snippets. I have a little [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,49,51],"tags":[4626,4625,4627],"class_list":["post-21486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","tag-babysue","tag-lmnop","tag-stephen-fievet","cat-39-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21486"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31675,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21486\/revisions\/31675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}