A very young Alejandro Escovedo, 1983, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission
Alejandro Escovedo - the headliner at the Vancouver Folk Festival this year - has a long history with Vancouver, and a lot of friends and fans in Canada, which meant that when he collapsed onstage in 2003 and was diagnosed with hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver, musicians here, as in the US, rallied to his support. There's a well-known tribute to his music that came out in the 'States to help raise money for his treatment, Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo, with songs by notables from Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, John Cale, the Cowboy Junkies, Calexico, even his niece Sheila E.
Escovedo 101 - the Canadian equivalent of that comp, with which this blogpiece will concern itself - served the same purpose, to help Escovedo lick hep C, which he successfully did. It would be a very Vancouver-friendly album for relative Escovedo noobs like myself to educate themselves on the man's songwriting, with interpretations of his songs - some quite daring - by a host of familiar characters from the Vancouver and Toronto scenes. For one thing, the New Modernettes - John Armstrong's revamped version of that band, more on which later, are on the album (I've talked to John Armstrong previously about his association with Escovedo and about the New Modernettes, but we'll go deeper into things towards the end of this piece). There's also the last song Ray Condo ever recorded, a cover of Escovedo's "Everybody Loves Me," featuring the unmistakable Stephen Nikleva on guitar; plus the Bughouse 5, Linda McRae, Herald Nix, Graham Brown, and even a few people I do not know at all and/or members of bands I do not follow (there's a dude from the Grapes of Wrath on it, apparently a standout track, but I never really did them; tho' my wife saw them at her high school once!). It's about as welcome and user-friendly an intro for a local music geek to Escovedo's music as you could want, but the catch is, it's actually a bit of a rarity. The only copy that appears to be on sale online is on Discogs, and priced at over $250 Canadian. It doesn't appear to be on Youtube (at least none of the songs on it that I looked up are). I couldn't find it being traded on the hush-hush. Can't find it on Amazon, US or Canada, can't find it on eBay, doesn't seem to be on Apple Music or Spotify. I lucked into it at Red Cat for $7 the other day, before I even realized it was scarce, and now have been sucked into a rabbithole of sizeable proportions, collecting the facts about the album, very few of which appear to be out there, even though the internet WAS around back in 2004...! (Hint: someone should put it on Bandcamp...).
Finding it at Red Cat was funny for a few of reasons. First off, Ford Pier of Red Cat is going to be hosting folk festival workshops with Escovedo and a delightful-sounding Winnipeg duo, Fortune Block. It's called "Heartworn Highways" on Sunday, East Stage, 3:45PM (Ford also will be doing an hour-long solo concert at the East Stage on Saturday at 5:00). He explains the workshops in an email to me thus:
Participants are handed a theme and they take turns playing songs of theirs which address this theme. You try and keep your ears open and listen for something to respond to in the song the person before you played, rather than just waiting your turn, and this can create a kind of conversation. Sometimes, if people are inclined that way as players, people will strum along with songs they're hearing for the first time. This workshop is titled Heartworn Highways. And what might that mean, one wonders? We'll find out.
In a brief exchange on Facebook, after I had posted about finding the comp and discovering how weirdly expensive and scarce it was, Pier and local musician Randy Carpenter traded a few comments. Pier observed that he suspected that "there's a storage locker in Richmond or New West where they are not rare." He later clarified that he wanted to make sure that
my little crack there wasn't taken to mean that somebody with a storage locker in Richmond or New West was deliberately and mendaciously gaming the market in Alejandro tribute CD's and sitting on a fortune. Like the DeBeers of Alejandroalia or something. I can tell you with a confidence that brings me no joy that there is a storage space in Richmond which contains many hundreds of Ford Pier CDs. I was responding to the fact that it was a regional release of primarily local appeal (*primarily,* not exclusively), and apart from those copies that made their way directly to Alejandro, most that sold sold in the GVRD, and that an inflated collectors' price online is like as not a hastily dissipated illusion.
The way that it happens a lot of the time with releases like this on Discogs is that an online seller comes into possession of one, usually from a bulk buy of unmarked Tupperware tubs of CD's or whatever, looks to post it for sale, sees no other ones available, and puts it up ("Well, why the fuck not?") for a couple hundred Or Best Offer. Occasionally this creates a collector's frenzy for the title in question; more often, six or seven other people post their copies for a half, a third, a tenth of what he wants, and the item finds its level. You can see in Discogs listings the last time an item sold and what it sold for, and it looks in this case as though one sold once for fifty bucks. That seems about right to me.
Carpenter, for his part, "was most amused to see someone offering to sell a copy of E 101 for a mere $200. Good luck with that!" But he was doubtful that there was a neglected cache of CDs hidden somewhere in the lower mainland. "I co-produced the album and I only have one copy. Oh, and a t-shirt. No storage space hoard that I know about," though seeing my post of the Discogs listing, he mused, with the benefit of hindsight, "I wish I had hoarded a few." According to Carpenter, "all the unsold copies were shipped to Alejandro's then-management at Texas Music Group. What happened to them after that, I haven't a clue."
Ford Pier by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
The other reason it was fun finding it at Red Cat is that the Minimalist Jug Band, under his other name, Al Mader, can often be found just a few doors down from Red Cat at Carson Books and Records, a store I myself frequent. It was on one such visit to a previous incarnation of Carson Books and Records that Al told me of his involvement on this comp, back in 2004, which was actually the first I'd heard of Escovedo (I'd had some Rank and File before then but primarily associated that band with Chip and Tony Kinman, even though a young Escovedo co-wrote their theme song). Mader - whose eyebrows raised to discover I did not know Escovedo's music back then; he expected better of me! - covers the song "13 Years," though that's the Escovedo version I've linked; his own is not online. Mader can be a divisive figure - either you're a fan or you aren't - and he doesn't turn up too often on officially-recorded, factory-pressed albums, tho' he literally phoned in a vocal introduction from Carson Books for his song "I Don't Have to Go to High School" on a Petunia record, once, and has three solo CDs of his own - For Crying Out Loud, Thrift Stories, and Naive Ville - all of which you pretty much have to buy direct off him. (Someone has Thrift Stories on Discogs for a mere $20, if you're desperate, housebound, or don't live locally. Best place to hear his music otherwise is Youtube).
Al's involvement is the surprise of the record, for me, and its main draw - I mean, I'm friendly with Stephen Nikleva and John Armstrong and a couple other people on the comp, but I know Al a bit better than I do them - so I asked Randy Carpenter about Al's inclusion. Carpenter is maybe best known these days as Billy Clyde Frink of the Frank Frink Five, but he has a long history with music locally, including playing in Mud Bay (AKA the Mud Bay Blues Band, also on the comp) as well as Art Bergmann's Poisoned, Magnetic West, the Melody Pimps, Hunting Party, and others (also including "stints with the Modernettes, Herald Nix, and a few other bands I can't remember at the moment.") Carpenter is living in Gloucestershire, England, at present, where he performs as a solo singer/ songwriter. He co-produced the comp, along with Gord Nicholl of the Pointed Sticks.
Of Mader's involvement, Carpenter tells me:
The inclusion of the Minimalist Jug Band on the album was a no-brainer. I was already a fan, having seen him perform numerous times before ever getting to know him personally. Al Mader is one of the most unique and entertaining performers I've ever seen. And a very fine fellow as well. When he expressed interest in being included, I was all for it. I thought he would give the album an added dimension that no other artist could provide. And I believe I was right about that.
Some reviewers disagreed. Fair enough. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. However wrong it might be, ha ha.
From the outset, our guiding concept was to feature artists interpreting Alejandro's songs rather than just doing an album of straight up cover versions. And I think we were successful in that. Many of the interpretations are very different from the source recordings and I know Alejandro loved that about the album.
18 years on, I see it as an interesting document of a specific era of the Canadian alternative music scene and a testament to the generosity of the folks who comprised it. We raised some much-needed money for a friend in distress and made a pretty damn good album in the process.
All in all, it was a worthwhile project. A ton of work, yes. But I'm glad we did it.
Mader's own route to the project was facilitated via "Surfin' on Heroin" co-author Chris Houston, whom he got to know quite well when Mader - who grew up here - was living and performing in Toronto. Reached on the phone at, uh, Carson Books and Records, Mader provides some backstory about him and Chris, not all of which is germane to Escovedo 101, but paints a portrait of both men, so why not?:
Chris Houston got me involved in a lot of things! He was one of the original guys when I first started performing in Toronto. William New had this semi-open-mic called Elvis Mondays, and Chris sort of took that over. I can't remember where Chris originally held that, but it is still ongoing in Toronto [Al performed at both the Toronto and Vancouver chapters]. Chris was always a mentor to a lot of people starting out. He took me on tour for the first time; he was coming out to Vancouver, so I did a show with him in Sault Ste. Marie, and a few days in Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, and went back to Vancouver. I'd told him I could only go so far, because I was working in a Canadian Tire and had to take a few days off...
And then I did a show with him and Steve Flunkie, the drummer from the Flunkees [note: that's a wayback-machine clip, recorded to VHS from Soundproof!]. They were a Monkees cover band, but they went way over the top. I remember he had a drum set made out of garbage cans, and I had my washtub bass, and the bus driver didn't want to let us on, and Chris had to debate with him for quite awhile....
But anyway, Chris was always phoning me up and saying, "Oh, be part of this" and "be part of that." He did a series with Art Bergmann that was also kind of an open mic, and he made sure I always went down to that. And he had a night at the Marine Club - I forget what it was called. I went down one night but he couldn't stay, because he had to do some recording with a couple of guys who have since passed away, Robbie King, the pianist, and the guitar player from Marianne Faithful's band, Joe Mavety [more on them later; they are also on the Escovedo 101 comp]. He said, "I'll be back," so I was the only person there, which was kind of a highlight for me; I thought, I'll never have a smaller audience. I played about 45 minutes. I did a whole set with nobody else in the room, no soundman, no audience. There was a bartender, but I was in the back - I don't know if you remember how the Marine Club was set up, but you came in and there was a bar and an area up front, and a stage in back, and every now and then he would come into the area with the stage and give me kind of a disgusted look: What's that guy doing? I dunno if he was hoping he could go home, or if he was committed to stay. Anyways, that's kind of off-the-topic, but Chris has helped me out tons of times.
Some of them were gone, but I had that CD, and the more I liked at the song, the more I liked the way certain lines followed from the other, subtly. I would have to look at the lyrics, but there would be lines that would be in one place and a reference in another. I thought, "That's an interesting angle," so I tried to emphasize the wordplay in what he was doing. And I liked it - it's got a certain emotional intensity. I got the impression through Chris that he thought [my cover] was all right. I never did speak to him directly. I saw him at a show afterwards, but then I felt self-conscious, so...
Did Al have any memories of seeing Escovedo in concert, favourite albums, or such?
He's someone who just writes consistently good songs, and he's very easy to watch in performance. He has an engaging style of performance. I saw him at Pat's Pub, the last time, which was not a good venue at the time. I'm not sure if it's improved, but what I did appreciate was that he moved around the venue, got off the stage where the sound wasn't really working and made the best of it, as opposed to plugging a long in a bad situation. There were pillars blocking the view which he overcame. I'd seen a few bands there before, and it was nice to see that, "Oh, you're not necessarily stuck with what you're given.
Paramount Recorders (Gord Nicholl and John Armstrong) offered use of their studio to record a benefit album and got me involved as co-producer. Gord engineered and recorded the tracks while I ran the sessions, worked with the talent. John Armstrong did a lot of the scheduling work and kept things running smoothly - or as smoothly as they were likely to run, given the multitude of folks involved in this project. Chris Houston was an unofficial co-producer (though I think he did get a producer credit for at least one of the tracks), did heaps of organizing and was our liaison with the eastern Canada artists who contributed tracks.I can't recall exactly how much money was raised. I think that between the album sales, benefit gigs, t-shirt sales and album release event at the Wise Hall, etc., the grand total was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $4000 - $5000. But my memory is hazy so I'm not really sure. I probably have paperwork with the numbers somewhere in my files. But they're all in storage in Vancouver and I'm currently in England so getting that info would be a bit difficult, ha ha. Anyway, it wasn't a fortune. But it was certainly appreciated by Alejandro, who was deeply moved by this outpouring of love and support by his Canadian friends.And I know he loved the album.
The remainder of this article will be a phone interview with John Armstrong, conducted via phone July 11th, and I'm going to stop this pattern of indenting the interview subject (which works well with blocks of text) and revert to my usual pattern of having my questions in italics and John's answers not (which works better with conversation). John was unaware of my tongue surgery and newfound speech impediment, but after reassuring him that this was in fact me and not some harelipped imposter, the conversation went pretty smoothly!
Allan: So I'm writing about the history of Escovedo 101, but not much is online. Were you involved from the outset? I know you have a history with Alejandro...
John: Gord Nicholl and I owned and operated the former studio called Paramount Recorders, on East Cordova, in a big ol' house. When Al was sick with Hep C, of course, being an American, he didn't have any kind of medical insurance, and he needed some pricy treatment. There were fundraising tribute records done in the US and a number of of other countries - I can't remember what-all. And we thought, Al's one of our best friends, one of our favourite people, ever since the Nuns days [Escovedo's first punk band, whose debut album came out in 1980]. When we [the original Modernettes] were touring down the coast, we played with the Nuns and I knew Al then; and then I got to know him much better when he was in Rank and File - and they played up here a lot. We were really close to the Kinman brothers. So we thought, "Let's get everybody who wants to to record a song here, and we'll put it out and send all the money to Al.
I gather that you got up and sang "The Rebel Kind" with him onstage at the Railway, once, right? (Modernettes' original here, Alejandro Escovedo cover here).
At the Town Pump and I think at the Railway, yeah! If I remember, we did "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Rebel Kind." And "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was a medley that went into "Sway" by the Rolling Stones. That was a riot - that was a really good night.
Do you have a favourite album by him?
I think maybe Por Vida. It's just such a beautifully heartfelt, honest collection of songs. Or the first one.
Right. Actually, Gravity is my favourite, and then Por Vida. That's the one with "Pyramid of Tears" and "By Eleven."
The funny thing is, when Al was in Rank and File, we were eating breakfast in some little hole in the wall on Hastings Street, and we were talking about music and bands. He was sort of choking under the yoke of the Kinmans; he liked Tony a lot, but he didn't get along with Chip. And he said, "Fuck, what am I gonna do, I can't sing and I don't write songs; where am I gonna go?" And a few years later, he started doing solo stuff, and I was like, "So it looks like you learned to sing and write songs, huh? Did you take lessons, or...?"
And he's a fuckin' amazing songwriter. He's one of the most acclaimed and respected non-mainstream songwriters I think maybe in the world - certainly in North America! So [speaking of Gravity], I have a lot of emotion about that record, because it's the first record he had done solo. And this guy had doubts about himself?! The best artists in any genre always have doubts about themselves. It's the ones who can't wait to play you their new song or read you their new poem where it's usually dreadful. Try to stop them from singing it to you! But Al never played me any of the songs, me or anyone else: "here's something I'm working on." He just came out with it, and we were just gobsmacked.
Was there a particular reason you picked "By Eleven" as the song the New Modernettes covered on Escovedo 101?
No, but you know how sometimes a song just hits you, and it's stuck in your head and you find yourself playing it again? And it's such a great version. And then I thought, "Fuck, I can't do it like Al does it." So then we just kind of thought - let's do it like "Tomorrow Never Knows," distorted guitars and that great drumbeat. Kurt Dahle played drums on it - I think it's just me, Gord on bass, and Kurt on drums. [Note: according to the album credits, Gord's on organ and melodica and Bob "Beaudine" Petterson is on bass. Bob's on a lot of tracks on this comp, actually...] Actually, Zippy [Pinhead, RIP] was going to play drums on it, but he showed up still goin' from the night before; and he had, like, a Safeway plastic bag with beer and a bunch of pot, and he sat down in the kitchen of the house, which was the social area. The rest was for recording, with the live room and then a control room. And he started poundin' beer. And you know what Zippy was like, right? [John imitates Zippy's booming laugh: HAW HAW HAW HAW!]. And chainsmokin' joints, pounding beers, and then it was like, "I think we need to get some more beer!" I said, "I don't think you need more beer, Zip; why don't you wait til we record?" And then he tried to play, and he couldn't play. I said, "Don't worry, I'll get you another six pack. You just sit here and party on!"
So I went across the street and knocked on Kurt's door and said, "Hey, have you got, like, an hour? We're doing this song for the Escovedo record, and Zippy can't play." And he just came over, and I threw four mikes up: two overheads, one in front of the kit and one room mike, the Glyn Johns method, y'know, like the way he recorded the Faces and the Stones and everything. I always loved that drum sound. And he started playing it, and it just was perfect. "Okay, I'll play guitar and you play drums, and then I'll do a keeper guitar afterwards" - but I think we ended up keeping the guide track guitar, and we just put a lead on it. And Gord played ocarina and bass.
I don't know if you are aware, but the album has become quite collectible. It's quite rare now, and seems to be running the risk of being forgotten...
It was one of those things, I was really proud of the album, and everybody that's on it; everbody did a great job. John Wood - Herald Nix - just did a smokin' version of his song ["Nickel and Spoon," original version here]. Everybody that was on it just really stepped up. I was really proud of it when we got it finished, but it just didn't get much attention. We sent it out, I wrote a letter about how much Al meant to us and and why, and sent it out looking for reviews. I think Exclaim! totally ignored it; I don't even think Discorder did anything.
There's almost nothing written about it online now, which is sad, because as far as I know, it's also the last thing Ray Condo ever recorded. [Alejandro's original of "Everybody Loves Me" is here, but again, Ray's version is not online].
That's right! ...because I hadn't seen him in a few years, and he came there and we just kinda struck up our friendship from the last time we spoke, y'know? He was one of those guys, you might not see him for five years, and then when you did, it was like he had just gone to the corner and come back. And we were saying "Oh yeah, well, let's get together and have a couple of beers and write a few songs." I thought, "This is going to be great!" And the next thing I knew, he was dead.
What killed him, again?
He just had a heart attack. He didn't so much burn the candle at both ends as he lit it with a blowtorch. I think he just wore himself out.
Are there other standout tracks for you, ones you love or remember or have a story about...?
Who did "Pyramid of Tears?"
Solemn Fist. I don't know them!
That's a young metal band that Wimpy [Subhumans vocalist/ DOA bassist Brian Goble, RIP] was managing [Wimpy takes the lead vocal!]. Solemn Fist. I haven't thought of them in years...
Who are "The Goods, the Baz, & Stumpy Joe?" There are a few people I don't know, like Mike Webster...
The Goods is Dallas and Travis Good, and Baz is the bass player for Blue Rodeo. He was hanging around a lot, for some reason, and played bass on some of my demos [for the unreleased New Modernettes album, which has been in the works for a very long time, more on which later]. Fucking wicked bass player. I recall his song ["Crooked Frame"] being really good. Mike Webster ["I Was Drunk"] is also very, very good; he just plugged away for a number of years, and put out self-released records; he just didn't get enough attention and I think eventually just packed it in. Which happens a lot, right?
Yeah. So what else do we have...? [John and I walk down the tracklist]. There's you doing "By Eleven," "Rhapsody" by the Bughouse Five, Bob Egan doing "Wave'... Joe Mavety, Kevin Kane...
Kevin Kane's was really good, too ["Follow You Down"]. And Joe Mavety is the guy who was Marianne Faithfull's music conductor. He's primarily a jazz player, but also a wicked guitar player, an absolute beast, in any genre, but his preference was jazz; like a lot of guys who can really play, he just found it more interesting. But he did a lot of stuff that Chris Houston was producing, with Robbie King. Do you remember Robbie King?
No. Al Mader was talking about him.
Okay, so Robbie King was a white guy from Vancouver played sessions for Motown in the 1960's. You know the beginning of "Stop! In the Name of Love," that big organ swell? (Sings):"brrnnnnNNNNN Stop!" That's Robbie! And we had a [Hammond] B-3 with a Leslie [speaker], so Robbie played with Joe Mavety like a jazz trio. They did all these instrumental improvisations, and Chris would program a beatbox. Sometimes he'd program a couple and get this weird syncopated loop going [An album of this material, recorded at Paramount Recorders, exists: Blue Cordova, which repeats the song they do on Escovedo 101, "About This Love," as its opening cut; unusually for songs on Escovedo 101, a version of Mavety performing the song - tho' not the version on the comp - can be found online].
I used to be in awe of Joe and Robbie - Robbie could play anything. And so could Joe! And they would just kinda have the briefest conversation about, "What's this gonna be?" and they'd use this musical shorthand, then Joe would count it and away they'd go, for, like, ten minutes. And [it was] not actually my kinda thing, but to watch two guys doing it was pretty humbling.
Okay, here's another one I don't know. "Last to Know," by... Captain McDonald?
Captain McDonald, was it? That was the name of the guy that built my house on East Cordova that the studio was in. It was actually two houses. The one in back was built then; it was 110 years ago, and it was this tiny little house. And then, ten years later - he must have gotten married or something, which was how this usually happened, a historian told me; somebody built a house and then they got married and were going to have kids, so they would built a bigger one on the same lot in front of it. So this was a big old house and it was 100 years old. And there was a two-bedroom suite in the basement. We had the recording studio on the main floor. And then there were two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs..So we used that for, like, five years as a recording studio.
John Mackie, I think, he's, like a real big Vancouver historian, and he sent me this thing saying, "Ah, here's the history of your house. Eh!" And it was like... Captain McDonald was a sea captain. Captain McDonald I think was Randy Carpenter and Bob Beaudine and, y'know, the usual suspects. [This being the Pointed Sticks with Bob Petterson in place of Tony Bardach, and Frink R.T. Carpenter, so it's the Sticks meet the Frinks, with violin by Nicole Scoffield. At this point in the conversation, I had not read the red-on-black, crap-design liner notes (seriously the worst part of the whole comp, no offense. I gotta put on my glasses every time I look at 'em].
Ah, so Captain McDonald is named for this guy, but he is not in the band.
No, he was not in the band. He was a little too dead.
Ha. A little too dead I get it [...in my defense, note that I had just correcting my previous impression, here, affirming that there was no actual artist named Captain McDonald, ala Country Joe or Doc Chad or so forth... but the question must have seemed staggeringly dense to John. I can see why!]:
If he was still breathing, I'm sure he would have played spoons or something. Randy lived in the back house, Randy Carpenter. And he was convinced that Captain McDonald was present in the house. So I think that's what spurred him into calling this ad hoc group "Captain McDonald."
It was a good time! I think we recorded it all and mixed it in about two weeks.
People came in, they were all rehearsed, knew what they were gonna do, laid it down. And it was great to see all these people. Because I very seldom see some of these people. Like, Kevin Kane, I love, but we rarely run into each other. And then they left and the next band came in!
John and I continued our conversation, but more on that later, maybe... meantime, there are still tickets for the Alejandro Escovedo night at the Vancouver International Folk Festival. Frazey Ford, Ford Pier, Taj Mahal... many others...
And hey, why doesn't someone throw this comp online in some official way?
allan, al mader here .enjoyed the run down memory lane. my rambling narrative may have suggested i came to vancouver with chris houston and steve flunkie but i doubled back to toronto, mid tour. greyhound let me on without further pleading and i went back to unloading trailers. great article as usual. nice to hear from some of the classy, creative, characters still lurking in local scenery. keep up good work al. al
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