The Wire

[Gary Sisco]

My number one music pal, Michael Hurley, is in the current Wire. I'm wondering if someone who lives where it's sold could pick up a copy for me. I'd gladly repay you on Tuesday.

[Jon Abbey]

yeah, I meant to tell you this. you can order it from FE if you want:

http://www.forcedexposure.com/new/20...html#THEWIREUK

or I can photocopy those pages and fax them to you even if you want, let me know.

[Gary Sisco]

Thanks, Jon. I'll order one, for the archives. I've been wondering when Wire or STN would ever get around to covering a real American original. He's only been recording since 1964.

[Paul B]

The Wire—named, one shouldn't forget, after a Steve Lacy tune—has long strayed from its original mission and ethos, which made it such a compelling read in the old days. I pick it up now and again when something looks interesting, as in the issue you're looking for with the Hurley story; John Butcher is on the cover, but sadly the piece on him didn't dig terribly deep.

[me wag]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I've been wondering when Wire or STN would ever get around to covering a real American original. He's only been recording since 1964.

Heck, I'm wondering when the whole world will catch up.

[Gary Sisco]

It's caught up a lot more the past decade or so. Strangely, however, obscure as he's been on the radar, wherever we've played, no matter how obscure the location, even, there's always been Hurley fans already there. I never saw it fail. We'd get to East Cupcake, somewhere, and there'd be people there who knew the records, the lyrics, and each one a tale to tell of how they got tuned in. Thus it's always been.

[me wag]

In the mid-80s or so, I took a Walt Whitman class at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota and there was a guy who did an oral report about Walt and shamanism and brought up Michael Hurley within that speech. I asked him afterwards, "who is this Michael Hurley"? Turns out he was rather a Hurley fanatic. First time I had ever heard of him and I consider myself pretty hip to just about everything. I figured he'd probably suck but it was about a year later that Watertower was released and I found out that I was thankfully wrong. But I agree that the word has gotten out a lot more in the past decade or so.

[Gary Sisco]

Me Wag -- I'm on "Watertower." I'd been out of music for a few years and was living in Burlington, VT. One day I was sitting on a bench on the main drag street, reading a newspaper, when I heard Michael's familiar voice, "Crispo." Hey, Elwood. Whatcha doing here? "I want you to sing on my new record." Sure, man. When? "Right now."

I hadn't known that a mutual old buddy had made a studio across the street, in an old dance school, loft kind of place. So, next thing I knew, I was singing harmonies on songs I'd heard only once, right there on the spot.

I have a virgin lp of "Watertower," still in the cellophane.

[Gary Sisco]

Just ordered it from FE and look forward to it. Poor Michael, though. I read the blurb about contents and the old, worn and familiar linkage of Hurley and The Holy Modal Rounders comes up yet again. For decades, he's tried to patiently explain that he was never in HMR. Friends and buddies, compatriots, cohorts, and so on, sure, way true. He and Weber, Robin Remaily and others go back all the way to teen years in the 50s, but Michael was never a Rounder in any of the bands formations. On the other hand, the guys who made the HMR documentary, "Bound To Lose" (flawed but interesting), tried to get him to say on film "I am not now nor have I ever been a Holy Modal Rounder" and he refused. Michael's a lot of things but silly isn't one of them. Funny, sure. Silly, never.

One of my favorite Christgau reviews, early 90s, said that when he wants to turn to music that takes on the big issues like life and death, he'd rather turn to Michael Hurley than Michael Snipes.

"He's our daddy,
our hero."

[me wag]

Wow, cool. I had no idea that you were on it. Watertower is easily one of my favorite albums ever. The Revenant, I Paint A Design, Uncle Bob's Corner. It's practically all great but Lush Green Trees may be the best lazy day song ever.

You're just like
a summer breeze
that's blowing
through lush
greeeen trees.

My best friend borrowed it so often that I eventually just let him have it. He and the lp are both, btw, gone now.

[Gary Sisco]

The Wire article has some errors in it, the jungledrums say. I haven't seen it yet of course but one huge error is that a photo of our late old pal Harry Hubcaps (immortalized in "Sweet Lucy") is said to be Michael on the road. It ain't. I don't know how they managed that. Hubcaps looked nothing like Michael.

[Richard Pinnell]

Damn, sorry for reading this thread late Gary, I have a spare copy of that issue lying about here, could have sent you it...

There's a "special remix" of a Hurley track available as a free Mp3 from The Wire's website right now in case you hadn't seen it:

http://www.thewire.co.uk/

[Captain Hate]

Originally Posted by Paul B

The Wire—named, one shouldn't forget, after a Steve Lacy tune—has long strayed from its original mission and ethos, which made it such a compelling read in the old days.

When I went to the '98 Knitfest, I was at an outdoor venue to see Zorn & Milford Graves and a pleasant chap from the UK sat down beside me. We started talking and had a nice conversation (he'd picked up a lot of discs here; I remember quite a few Mingus ones that I'd have thought he'd have already snagged bwtfdik). I jokingly asked him if he was covering it for The Wire and he pulled out a copy from his knapsack and pointed to the founder in the masthead (Chris Wood seems to stick out in my mind; somebody here will know it for sure) and said that was him. He said the mag was moving in directions he didn't particularly like but since he was out of the picture, that was that. Very nice guy.

[Jon Abbey]

"The Wire is a British avant garde music magazine, founded in 1982 by jazz promoter Anthony Wood and journalist Chrissie Murray."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire_%28magazine%29

never heard of either of them, FWIW. I thought that the Penguin guys founded it, but evidently Richard Cook took over later.

[Paul B]

The masthead on the first issue is as follows:

Editor: Anthony Wood
Editorial Assistants: Linden Thorp, Adele Jones
Production: Chrissie Murray
Design Terry Coleman

Stories are by Andrew Turner, Brian Case, Barry McRae, Val Wilmer, Kevin Henriques, Steven Burgen, Charles Fox, Jak Kilby, Skip Laszio, and Chrissie Murray.

[gonzo]

season finales gonna be good....

[Dr Dave]

Yo, Gary, you could be big in the UK!

Hey, it can be a living: I know a woman here in town, Laura Boosinger, who sings beautifully in a genre nobody gives a shit about, but you know what? She's Big In Scotland.

Hell, my band is supposedly Big In Oslo, we have zip to show for it so far, but it's nice to know somebody likes us.

[Gary Sisco]

Hi, Doc. Yeah, Michael's large in Ireland, especially, and Germany. He crosses the pond now and then. I have home duties of course that limit my mobility, but Michael's long had the intrepid Dave Reisch.

I haven't received my copy from Forced Exposure, yet, so I haven't seen the article. It will be good to have a photo of Harry Hubcaps, even if wrongly captioned, as I don't have one.

There's a zine, Blue Navigator, that comes out of Dublin, centered on Michael but also excursions to cohorts. There's a review of my CD and an article about the Sensitivos in #9.

[Gary Sisco]

I got my copy yesterday, and while I'm happy to see Michael get some overdue attention and perhaps be exposed to new fans via The Wire, the article is ok but could have and should have been a lot better. It's a very personalized view of his recorded history, for one. There are errors of fact and quotes that I know from my own history are out of context or misremembered. But, it's a long story, going back to the 50s, and there's a tribe of musicians involved. It would really take a whole book to tell the story coherently. He also plays up the "weird" part of Michael, which becomes less weird the more you are familiar with the American music tradition. He's more traditional than most realize, and he's firmly, permanently an aspect of that history, and in some ways, the last real American troubador.

The black and white photo of the guy standing behind the car door, holding a beer, is wrongly captioned as a picture of Hurley. It's not. It's a photo -- and a good one, too -- of our old pal Thorny Huber aka Harry Hubcaps, who, with Jack The Fluke, both dead now, is immortalized in Michael's song "Sweet Lucy." I'm glad to have it because I don't have a photo of Thorny in my collection. Both were great pals, legendary hipsters and very much a part of the Hurley/Clamtones/Rounder tribe.

"Old Harry Hubcaps and Jack The Fluke
they bought a bottle of Old Duke
they was buddies but they had a fight
they broke the jukebox
they broke the light
big old Fluke he weighed 300 pounds
he fell on Harry when Harry fell down ...."

Michael and the rest of that tribe of musicians, Kenny Weir said best, have occupied an alternative universe in American music for more than 40 years. It's a long and convuluted history that is way more than article length to tell. It was (and still is) a counterculture of its own and has been since the early 60s.

Given the volatility of Steve Weber and Peter Stampfel's (Holy Modal Rounders) relationship, especially today when it's beyond the childlike feuding of decades past, I wanted to correct one error in the article that's bound to cause more trouble and resentment. Jeffrey Frederick did not, as the article said, move to Portland to "replace Weber." He moved to Portland for a change of scene and to make some music in new territory (and to flee various incidents involving state police in Vermont and New Hampshire .....). His arrival in Portland made possible the "two bands in one" phenomenon, where, when Jeffrey was fronting the band, it was The Clamtones and when Weber was fronting it, it was The Holy Modal Rounders. In the 70s, they ruled the Pac NW and northern Nevada, where we were often encamped, 70s and 80s. But Portland was the city that fully embraced the whole wazoo, including Michael. In any case, he didn't go there to replace Weber. This is an example of how careless attention to detail can unnecessarily fuel animosities. Jeffrey and Weber were pals and loved each other. There wasn't any "replacing." Jeffrey's gone now, eleven years come St Jeffrey's Day on March 17. He was a great pal, musical mentor, and drinking/hell-raising buddy of mine. I loved him. On the nights when the stars were all properly aligned, Jeffrey was the best barroom rocker and crooner I've ever heard, anywhere. And Weber, too, was a tsunami of his own, also great when the gas was cooking on high. I consider him to have been the best guitarist and arguably the best singer to emerge from the oldtime Village folk scene.

The guy also gives I thought too short shrift to "Long Journey" and "Snockgrass," recorded for Rounder in the 70s. Being a certain kind of music snob, the writer comes down on them a little for having too much fi in the hi fi. But, while we couldn't control the finished product and weren't altogether happy with Rounder's choice of mixer-masterer, they are both fine albums. The tracks that feature The Sensitivos on "Snockgrass," for example ("Voice Of A Pork Chop," "I'm Getting Ready To Go," "Jole Blon," and "I Think I'll Move") were recorded live in the studio, boom, boom, boom. The engineer later added some reverb, one of the curses of the 70s that was nearly inescapable, but otherwise, that's what the band sounded like when playing live. If it had too much "fi," it wasn't for any lack of authenticity. We played a lot that year so when the tape rolled, we just played. The day we recorded those, actually, immediately followed a three-day, night and day, wake where the whole damn tribe, nearly, was encamped in Vermont. I was pretty sure by the third day, I remember, that we were going to have some other wakes before it was over. But anyway, we played a lot that three days, too. So when we arrived in the studio, we were ready to go and we went.

And the intrepid Dave Reisch's longtime slogan isn't "I'm not in control." It's "I'm not in charge." A nuanced difference perhaps but a difference nevertheless. Dave is the real keeper of the memory and an eminence gris of the tribal music.