Ray Davies, Photos, Charlotte, NC, 11.2.2011

All photos 2011 Daniel Coston

I Love This Freakin' Band - Steeleye Span

I Love This Freakin’ Band!
Steeleye Span


After years of a steady diet of indie rock and garage rock, I’ve become what some would consider hieracy. Over the last two years, I’ve become a full-fledged English folk/rock fan. Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, Trees, Heron, and many more that you can readily find on Youtube. But none captured my attention than the legendary British band Steeleye Span.

I heard about Steeleye Span through friends, and Fleet Foxes leader Robin Pecknold, who mentioned them to me after a show, and in a Mojo Magazine article. Sounds cool, I thought, but what does it sound like? Last spring, I was driving home, and the band’s “Parcel Of Rogues” came on XM’s folk channel. It’s lyrics were written in 1707 as an anti-English song of rebellion and lement. It is all a capella group vocals, save for a mournful bass drum, and an amazing double-tracked violin solo that brings it all home. I sat in my car, unable to turn it off. Soon after, I found “Parcel Of Rogues” on the 1972 album of the same name, and I was hooked.

Steeleye Span formed in 1969, after its founder Ashley Hutchings left Fairport Convention, fresh off of that band’s classic album Liege and Lief. Pairing with the duo of Maddy Prior and Tim Hart, the band was a true experiment, marrying English and Irish folk music to a more electric rock sound. Several members of the band have come and gone over the years, including Hutchings, who left after three albums to form the heralded Albion Band. But Steeleye has always seemed resiliant, even scoring a top ten hit in 1975 with the folk/rock hybird “All Around My Hat.” But it’s their more traditional, harmony based songs that always draw me back, like a voice that I have heard all of my life.

What is it about any creative endeavor that draws you in? What makes you like something that you used to be afraid of at renaissance festivals? Sometimes you can’t question it, you can only go with what you like. I drove six and a half hours to see the current lineup play last year, and to have the band sign my copy of “Parcel Of Rogues.” While I personally would’ve liked to have heard the band play more of the songs I knew from the early 70s, the band has continued on making music, evolving from the ideas that originally drove their ideas, which is something that all should hope to do after forty years of anything.

The signed copy of “Parcel Of Rogues” sits proudly on my desk, next to my autographed Sonics album, and my signed Rutles CD. See, all of this music can live together, in harmony.

-Daniel Coston
April 7, 2010

I Love This Freakin' Band - The Sonics

I Love This Freakin’ Band!
The Sonics

It’s September of 1999, and I’m finally getting to listening to a garage rock compilation CD that a friend has made for me. Some songs are good, some are catchy, all in all a good lesson. And then song 25, “He’s Waitin’” by the Sonics comes on the stereo, and blows away everything else in sight. It is simply the most intense slab of garage/rock/protopunk I have ever heard in my life, catchy and furious. Singer Gerry Roslie, who also wrote the song, yells and screams at a girl for cheating, telling her that Satan’s knows what she’s done, and he’s waitin’ on her ass. It’s full-on, loud and played for keeps, and then done in just two minutes. The wake of silence after the song’s completion is just breathtaking. “I don’t know what that was,” I thought to myself, “but I want more.”

The Sonics is the sound of throwing all of the doors wide open, and Niagara Falls comes gushing out at full force. There are many that have played at garage-punk, but the Sonics were, and are the real damn thing. Overarmed guitars, a drummer that sounds like he’s destroying his kit in one sitting, and a singer that can outscream Little Richard on the best of days. Throw in a fine songwriter in Roslie, with lyrics about Strychnine, witches, psychos, the devil, hustlers, and whatever else they wanted to talk about.

The roots of the Sonics began in Tacoma, Washington in the early 1960s, as brothers Larry and Andy Parypa formed an instrumental group. Over a couple of years, the additions of saxophonist Rob Lind, drummer Bob Bennett and singer/keyboardist Gerry Roslie forms a powerful lineup. After two records (Here Are The Sonics in 1965, and Boom in 1966), and with a loyal regional following, the band goes to California with a different label, trying to break into the national market. But while Introducing the Sonics features another set of great songs, the breakout doesn’t happen, and the band is done by the middle of 1968.

For years, the band seemed intent on not reforming, despite countless offers. “We want to do this right,” Gerry Roslie would later tell me. “Its got to live up to what we did before.” Finally, late in 2007, the band announces their first ever reunion shows in New York City. I buy tickets, and spend much of my honeymoon on the phone with the promoter, lining up a photo pass. But the week before the show, the promoters get greedy, demanding a $500 fee for photographing the shows. Heartbroken, I beg off, and put the tickets in my desk, wondering if I’ll ever see the band.

Just over a years later, the band announces that they’re playing SXSW. Another magazine I contribute to says that they’ve gotten an interview with the Sonics. Can I get photos? On a whim, I contact the band’s manager, Buck Ormsby, who was their manager the first time around, as well as bassplayer for the legendary Wailers, another legendary Washington garage band. To my surprise, Buck writes me back immediately. “Sure, let’s line up some posed shots while we’re down there.”

We do the photos at the band’s hotel, late in the morning. The band are very nice to me, and we have a great time talking. The photos come out pretty well, although it’s hard to have one’s expectations live up to the idea of a photo shoot with the Sonics. When I tell the band about what was going on with the promoters at the 2007 shows, guitarist Andy Parypa tells me, “You did the right thing. We’re much better now, anyway.” Absolution from the band themselves. How awesome is that?

The band played a forty-minute set that night at Emo’s, an old stage with a very low ceiling. The place was packed, and the band just tore it up. Forget how old they are now, it’s the Sonics! One of the best 40-minute sets I have ever seen, period. The band comes out for autographs afterwards, and we talk for a while, as I’m just enjoying it all. After the band leaves, I head back to where I was staying. Sure, there was another five hours worth of music all over Austin, Texas that night, but I had seen the Sonics. Need I say more?
-Daniel Coston
April 8, 2010

I Love This Freakin' Band - The Left Banke

I Love This Freakin’ Band!
The Left Banke

It’s June of 1999, and I’m driving my car down one of those endlessly humid highways. I haven’t had the best of days, and I’m missing a girl that I’m no longer seeing. I have the local oldies station for its noon show, and the dj announces a song that “a lost 45 by the Left Banke.” Having heard their biggest hit, “Walk Away Renee” for years, I turn the radio up. The song is “Pretty Ballerina,” the band’s second single, released in early 1967, and the one that should’ve been bigger than “Renee.” Everything about the song, it’s instrumentation, its piano melody based only on the white keys, and Steve Martin Caro’s amazing vocal, hits my lonely soul all at once. My world stops, and I think to myself, “What is THIS?”

A few months later, I’m at a local record shop, and somebody has turned in a CD copy of all of the Left Banke’s recordings. I happily give them $6 for the CD, and immediately fall in love with every song on the collection. The amazing three-part harmonies, and the use of strings combine for a sound that comes off like the Zombies’ younger, more melancholic American cousins, and I’m hooked.

The band’s story began in New York City in late 1965, as the city is filled with teenagers hoping to be rock stars. Four teenagers meet up, and talk about forming a band. One of them, Michael Brown is the 15 year old songwriting son of famed violinist Harry Lookofsky, and has access to his dad’s studio. The other three, singers and musicians Steve Martin (later to revert to his given name, Steve Martin Caro), Tom Finn and George Cameron, all of whom are a year or two older that Brown, join in, and start learning to play together.

From the beginning, they are a youthful, volatile lot, with numerous arguments. Brown at one point flies to California, and his father has him sent back home. Amongst all of this, the band has recorded a few songs to sell to record labels, and one of them, “Walk Away Renee,” finds the band at home at Smash/Mercury. By the end of 1966, “Renee” is a top five hit, and the band learns to play together as they hit the touring circuit.

“Ballerina” goes to number 14 in early 1967, and the band releases their first album. But as often proves to be the case, nothing stays calm with the Left Banke for long. Brown decides to break away from the rest of the band, and put out his own single under the Left Banke name. That single “Ivy Ivy,” gets to number 40 before the rest of the band files an injunction to stop the single. The band settles everything soon after, but the injunction makes radio stations afraid to play new singles from the band, for fear of further legal action. The band will release some of their best work in the coming year, including a second album, but it will largely fall on deaf ears.

After officially breaking up in 1969, its bandmembers have spent much of the last forty years trying to refom the band, only to let the same arguments split them apart again. Despite all of this, the work that comes out of these occasional recordings are still good, down to the demos that Brown, Caro and the band put together in 2001 and 2002. My collection is filled with CDRs of the band’s demos and singles that fans and collaborators have traded with me, and I really do believe that there is a fantastic record in there that may never see an official release.

I interviewed several of the bandmembers throughout that 2001-2002 period. I helped find all of the existing film footage of the band, including rare film of the band on a New Jersey TV show in early 1966 that no one seemed to know about. I’ve touted their praises to any and all that would listen. I may never get to meet the guys in the Left Banke, see them live or see them release one more great album. But there is something endearing in their dysfunctional contrariness. They will never wear bad clothes on one of those 1960s reunion package tours. They will never have to be seen on a PBS “My Music” special, trying to recreate something that they put together as young men. You will never have to see them, and say, “Wow, look at them now. They look so different.” By their absence, the band has created an aura of mystery that is sadly lacking in our modern-day music scene, and left the music to stand on its own. Which is what it should be about. The MUSIC.

Sadly, the sole reissue of the band’s music on CD, the one I picked up for $6 over ten years ago, is now out of print, and CD copies go from $60-$80 on ebay. Thankfully, their music is now available on ITunes, and loyal Left Banke have kept the music going, even when the band and their record label couldn’t provide it. Be it in a car, or on a website such as www.leftbanke.nu, the music is always there, waiting for the next moment of discovery.

-Daniel Coston
April 7, 2010

P.S. What I said above about the Left Banke never reuniting? Scratch that. I saw and photographed them in New York in March of 2011, and it was beyond amazing. Their albums are now also remastered, and available through Sundazed Records. This band still defies my own expectations, which is something that all good music can do.
-Daniel, October 2011

New Jayhawks pics, and a Peter Yarrow pic

Jayhawks photos, Charlotte, NC, Oct. 29, 2011
Peter Yarrow photo, Charlotte, NC, Oct. 30, 2011
All photos copyright 2011 Daniel Coston

Baseball

Some of my older friends will remember that in my youth, I was a raging baseball fan. Growing up in upstate New York, we got New York Yankees games on the NBC affiliate out of Syracuse, most often on the weekends. My mom’s parents lived in Phelps, New York, and their TV could pick up WPIX, which was the Yankees’ main affiliate at the time. Soon, I could spout the names, dates and figures of all the great Yankee teams, as well as others. 

From the start, I was as interested in baseball of the past, as I was in the present. There was something more interesting to me about that time. Some of it probably came from my grandfather’s stories of playing semi-pro ball in the 1930s. I have this fantastic pic of my grandfather’s high school baseball team, and my grandfather has three buttons undone on his jersey, his cap sideways, and a grin that looks like he loves what he’s doing.

I played sandlot ball for years, but I only played Little League baseball for two years, and that was in New York. The team that I was with, sponsored by the local Manhill Vending company, were 10-2 the first year I played with them, and were probably the best sports team I ever played with. We lost in the semi-finals of the regional tournament, to an all-star Rotary team from Geneva. I got a walk in the final inning, when our team needed a baseruner (I'm still proud of that), but we lost 6-5. And I still want a rematch. 

When my parents and I moved to North Carolina in October of 1983, I soon discovered that there was a fledgling scene for baseball card collecting in Charlotte. For the next few years, I started going to card shows, and began to meet some of the older players that were doing signings on the circuit.

I met and hung out with Bob Feller at least twice. He was a bit ornery occasionally, but generally nice to me. He reminded me of my grandparents’ friends, so I was used to it. Just about everyone I met was very nice. Gaylord Perry, Enos Slaughter, Mickey Mantle (somewhere I have a Polaroid of me with Mantle that my mom took), and many others. This was in my mostly BC (Before Camera) days, and I wish I had some photos of these people. 

Back then, you could also write to baseball players, and ask for their autograph. Somehow, I got a copy of a book with many players’ addresses, and I wrote away. Several did write back, including Bill Terry (last national leaguer to hit .400), Phil Rizzuto, Earl Averill and a few others. At the same time, I was also collecting baseball cards from 1920s to 1970s. Why did I want a Dwight Gooden card? I could get a Ty Cobb tobacco card for $20. This was all before the big boom (and bust) of card collecting, and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve been to a few ballparks. My parents took me to opening day of the Atlanta Braves season in 1985, where I met Steve Garvey, Tony Gwynn (who were playing for the San Diego Padres, at the time), and others, and got them to sign my program. I also was interviewed for local TV, and I got to see it air that night in our hotel room. I also went to Yankee Stadium in 1998, sitting way up in the bleachers. I also saw the then-World Champion Baltimore Orioles play against, and lose to the Charlotte O’s in the old Crockett Park (a minor league stadium I really miss) in 1984. Somewhere, I do have photos of that game. I also visited Wrigley Field in 2001, but did not get to go in. 

I still have my baseball card and autograph collection. I’ve toyed with selling it a few times, but it’s hard to sell something that is so close to one’s heart, and childhood. I still follow the major leagues, and still follow the Yankees. I even forgave them (sort of) for tearing down Yankee Stadium. There have not been a lot of constants in my life, but the seasons, and baseball have always been there, waiting for me to re-discover it all again.

-Daniel Coston

October 27, 2011

Tobin Sprout interview, 1997

Tobin Sprout: Carnival Boy
by Daniel Coston and Benjamin Robinson
Originally posted on Tangents Magazine website, 1997

Guided by Voices fans will note that the "new GBV record" that Tobin is talking about is Mag Earwhig, which was eventually released in 1997 after GBV singer and leader Robert Pollard scrapped most of the album done by the band's best-known lineup (which included Sprout), and re-recorded it with another band. I have another interview with GBV drummer Kevin Fennell, done on the same day as this interview, where he also talks about the album in progress. An interesting glimpse into where everything stood, at that time.

I also like the end of this interview, for reasons you will soon realize.
-Daniel



With the recent release of his first solo album, Carnival Boy, Guided by Voices guitarist Tobin Sprout has stepped into the spotlight role for the first time since the demise of his pre-GbV band Fig. 4 ten years ago. But any GbV fan can tell you how important his guitar work and falsetto voice, plus his occasional compositions, have been to the group’s sound.

On August 8 of 1996, Tobin granted us this phone interview while he was home caring for his fifteen month-old son, Turner. Sprout, who has a surprisingly deeper speaking voice than his singing voice, is very modest and gracious, and talked with us about his solo album and several other GbV-related topics.

Tangents: Did you do the whole solo album in your basement?

Sprout: There’s 14 songs on the album, and half of them I did everything on four-track and the other seven were done at Cro-Magnon [Studios], and [GbV drummer] Kevin Fennell played the drums on them.

Tangents: Was this something that you had been planning to do, or did Matador ask you to do a solo project?

Sprout: I kind of had been thinking about it for awhile, and Bob [Pollard’s] been doing one for a long time, and it just came to a point where we were done with the Guided by Voices album, and we had a long time before we had to work on the next one, so it seemed like a good time to put out a solo album during the break.

Tangents: Are you kind of surprised that they’re putting out both records on the same day?

Sprout: No, not really. They agreed to put ‘em out together. They wanted to do a single where it showed us boxing on the cover, like it was some big challenge, but we said, "No, I don’t think so."

Tangents: Are you gonna make a video for Carnival Boy?

Sprout: No, I kind of doubt it. It’s gonna be kind of low-profile, we’re just gonna put it out there. They’re gonna advertise a little bit, but we can’t tour for it. So it’s kind of, here they are, and we’ll move on to the next Guided by Voices album.

Tangents: Would you even want to do a video? Is that something that would interest you?

Sprout: Yeah, it kind of does. I’d like to do it myself. But videos can be so expensive to do ‘em, and then not to have ‘em played, so it seems like it is a waste of time unless you’re really gonna push to have it played. I wouldn’t mind doing one for myself. Do it myself and see how it turns out, and if Matador wants to use it for something, that’ll be fine. They haven’t said anything about it yet. I don’t even know if there’s even gonna be a single from the album.

Tangents: We heard that you guys did a John Peel session when you were in England this summer.
Sprout: Yes, we did.

Tangents: How did those turn out?

Sprout: I thought they turned out great.

Tangents: Did you get to do any of your songs?

Sprout: We did "Atom Eyes," and I co-wrote "Wondering Boy Poet," which was on Vampire On Titus, we kind of redid that with a piano version. It turned out really nice.

Tangents: What else did you do during those sessions?

Sprout: "Your Name Is Wild." I can’t really remember which songs. I think we did six songs.

Tangents: Do you know if there’s any plans to release that?

Sprout: Well, we pretty much have to license them from Peel. We’d thought about using "Wondering Boy Poet" for something, but right now we really don’t have any place to use it. It’d be easier to just re-record it than to license it from Peel.

Tangents: Do you know if they any plans to air it anytime soon?

Sprout: I don’t know what the plan is. They’ll definitely air it, but it’s pretty much you record it, and when they can arrange to have it played, they’ll put it on.

Tangents: Did you do any musical stuff when you were living in Florida for those three years, after you left Dayton? Did you play in any bands?

Sprout: No. Actually, I barely picked up a guitar the whole time while I was down there. That’s where I got started painting. I’d come home from work, and paint. So I got that career started, and when I moved back, I started playing again.

Tangents: What made you move back to Dayton?

Sprout: Just because getting art work was much easier up here. I came back for about three weeks to see what it would be like, and I was just getting tons of work. I just wanted to move back anyway because, I don’t know if you’ve ever lived down there, but I didn’t really care for it. It was too hot, and I just got back here and decided to stay.

Tangents: So you came back for the art stuff, and ended up playing music again.

Sprout: Yeah. I had stayed in touch with Bob the whole time I was gone, and when I got back, he had just finished Same Place The Fly Got Smashed and was ready to go in and do Propeller. So he asked me to come in on that, and I’ve been with it ever since.

Tangents: How many songs do you bring in to the sessions? Do you write three or four, or do you bring in more?

Sprout: It depends. The longer I’ve been with them, the more songs I’ve been bringing in. For the next record, I’ve already got two, and there’s about five or six that Bob and I co-wrote where we did all the instruments on four-track, kind of the way we did "Hot Freaks." By the time we’re finished, I may have another one on there.

Tangents: What do you think you guys would’ve done if you hadn’t been picked up after Propeller? What you have continued producing your own stuff?

Sprout: Yeah, I think we would’ve just kept putting our own albums out. Even with Propeller, we kept saying that was the last album, and then we did Vampire On Titus and we would’ve done it anyways, whether Scat put it out or not. But every time that we say that this was the last album, we just keep putting them out. In order for us to feel that the songs are finished, we have to have them on vinyl, or they’d just get lost, and we really don’t want them to be lost, so I think we would’ve kept putting out albums.

Tangents: When you guys did Bee Thousand, did Scat do a small pressing, and then Matador picked upon it, or were they in it from the beginning? Because I know a lot of it got distributed by Matador.

Sprout: I think [Scat] distributed in Europe, and they might have done some distribution a little bit over here. I think Scat tried to handle most of that, and whatever the overload was, Matador had it. They had a deal going, I’m not sure how it worked. It still belongs to Scat.

Tangents: Are you guys happy on Matador?

Sprout: I’m happy, yeah. They kind of push us to tour a little bit more, but they understand that we can’t. They’re real reasonable, and when we really want to push an album, they’ve got Capitol [Records] with them now. I think it’s an ideal situation. We’re still on an independent label, but they can push it if they need to.

Tangents: So all you guys have pretty much quit the day jobs, right?

Sprout: Yeah. I still paint.

Tangents: Yeah, I was gonna mention that. So you just paint and make music?

Sprout: Yeah. My wife works in the morning, so I get to watch my son, and then she comes home, and I can get stuff done.

Tangents: Has "power pop," as "athemic rock," as Mitch called it, always something that appealed to you?

Sprout: Yeah, I always liked the pop, the Genesis and Big Star, and the Beatles and stuff like that. But I also like the big Pink Floyd shows, the David Gilmour stuff.

Tangents: Is singing your stuff live something that you don’t do very much?

Sprout: Occasionally, we do. "Atom Eyes," we’ve been playing on the last tour, and "Awful Bliss" was one I used to do. A lot of times, it has to do with the flow of the show, ‘cause I’ll usually play that, "14 Cheerleader Coldfront" or "Atom Eyes," at least one of them. It just depends on how the show’s going, or whether we have a certain number of songs we have to get done in an allotted time, or we get encores. It just depends on the feel of the show.

Tangents: When are you gonna be laying down tracks for the next Guided by Voices record?

Sprout: We have been. It’s pretty much almost finished. We’re gonna go in next week. I just finished a song yesterday, and Bob’s got a couple more that he wants to do, and then we’re gonna put it together. It will be finished, but we’ve got so long until it comes out, I’m sure it’ll be tinkered with.

Tangents: When is it coming out?

Sprout: Probably not until next spring.

Tangents: Where did you this one?

Sprout: Half of it was done in my basement, and half of it was done at Cro-Magnon.

Tangents: And who produced it?

Sprout: John Crosland from Spoon. He did some of the songs, he didn’t do all of them. We produced some of the stuff at Cro-Mag, and some of the stuff in the basement.

Tangents: How does it sound?

Sprout: I think it sounds great. It seems like another step ahead. I think it’s going to be a great album.

Tangents: Any working titles yet?

Sprout: No. I’m sure Bob has some. It seems like the working titles are usually the first one that seems to stick, and we then go through all the other ones, and we go back to the first one.

Tangents: I didn’t recognize that Under The Bushes came from the lyric of a song until I heard that the album was coming out.

Sprout: Yeah, it’s a lyric from a song, and it’s title of a song that we kind of lost. We were in Refraze the other day, and we couldn’t find it. Hopefully, it’ll turn up someplace.

Tangents: Yeah, it was a lyric from a song that was on the "I Am A Scientist" EP. That’s what I like about the songs. The music references itself so much. Because like "Buzzards And Dreadful Crows," that guitar hook from that song was on two other records. Plus, when I got the [GbV] box set, hearing all the little song fragments become real songs, it was a very neat experience. I can’t talk about Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand and make tapes out of them, because the whole album seems to be one song the way it’s put together.

Sprout: Well, we try to put the albums together that way. You go from the beginning to the end, and you need all the parts in-between.

Tangents: How many songs do you guys bring in for an entire album? Because it seems like with the album, and then all the singles, it just seems like you have an innumerable amount of songs.

Sprout: I think for the last record we had like 60 songs, and we took if not the best, or if not the best, the ones that seem to fit for that particular album. And then a lot of times, the songs that don’t make get on that album will get on another album, or an EP. It just depends on where they seem to fit better.

Tangents: Do you have plans to release any more singles from Under The Bushes?

Sprout: They were talking about "Your Name Is Wild," but I don’t know if Matador’s gonna do it. Last time I heard, they were.

Tangents: I think "It’s Like Soul, Man" would make a great single.

Sprout: Actually, I wasn’t really happy with that version. I redid it on my solo album, and I think it sounds much better.

Tangents: Does the solo album kind of jump around, musically?

Sprout: It kind of jumps around. There’s an acoustic one on there, and there’s some pretty good rock stuff on there, some anthem stuff. And then there’s some melodic pop tunes on there, too.

Tangents: So how do you want to be remembered as in Guided by Voices? George Harrison, John Oates or Art Garfunkel?

Sprout: John Entwhistle. [all laugh] I would’ve rather been referred to as Entwhistle than George Harrison in that [Magnet] article. But what could you do?

Tangents: And then calling you the "Dark Horse," too. I thought it was terrible.

Sprout: Yeah. The whole thing made me sound like I was moping around...

Tangents: I know, and I had a feeling you weren’t cranky about it, or anything like that...

Sprout: Yeah, I wasn’t. I was kind of glad that Eric wanted to do the side[bar] on me. I think he felt bad that he was just doing it on Bob. I don’t know. Maybe it was just the way I looked at it, but it just seemed like I was whining or something.

Tangents: It was also a very kind of reflective picture they had in there of you, too.

Sprout: Uh-huh. I remember when they set that up. They were like, "Put that one hand there, and look to the side, look down and keep your eyes straight." It was kind of posed.

Tangents: You can always send it in as your head shot for a guest appearance on "Melrose Place."

Sprout: Yeah, the soft focus and everything. The new teen idol.

Tangents: Is there any musical direction that GbV is going in now, with your album or albums? Robert said in one interview that the stuff he was writing now was more off-the-wall.

Sprout: I don’t think we really look that far ahead. We usually just let the writing dictates which we we’re going, and a lot of times, that’s why it ends up being a little bit of this and a little bit of that. ‘Cause we’re never in the same vein for a long time, so there’s still some of the real weird stuff, and there’s some of the straighter pop songs on it.

Tangents: How do you feel about a lot of the press you have gotten? Have you generally liked what they’ve written about you guys, or do they get it at all?

Sprout: I think it’s about half-and-half. Some of them, and some get it even better than I thought they would. Than there’s other people that just don’t get it at all, and then there’s a lot in-between. I read some of it, and it seems like if it starts off right away by going into the lo-fi thing, the "ex-schoolteacher," then I just put it away.

Tangents: That’s like what Mitch said word for word! [all laugh]

Sprout: Some of the stuff’s the same, but occasionally you do get some people that get it.

Tangents: Do you see Guided by Voices doing a reunion tour twenty, thirty years from now?

Sprout: [laughs] I don’t know. We’d all be seventy by then.

Tangents: I know. That’s why it’d be a beautiful thing.

Sprout: We’d come out in our wheelchairs.

Tangents: Hey, the Rolling Stones do that every year!

Sprout: Yeah, that’s true. They’re still out there. Maybe...