About the heading: Things are Bad, but this is just the Beginning; we haven't even truly started to get into The Bad Times yet - if you're not Hispanic, Palanstinian, a foreign student or a resident alien, you might find that statement slightly laughable & naive. Being an American, that's slightly permissible, since those who aren't MAGA or MAGA adjacent/sympathetic still believe that there is still a chance to turn things around - despite the fact that we've continually squandered every chance given so far.
While America (and specifically Whyte America - because nothing of note actually happens in this country until Pissed-Off Whyte People get involved) does its Hamlet-bit trying to convince itself it still has a soul), it feels like one is just Freefalling Thru The Fuckery until things coalesce into some definite action.
While that slowly happens - I watch movies. I write. At least until I can't do either one or the other. Or both.
I've always sort of looked down on Michael Mann's adaptation of THE KEEP despite liking a lot of the elements of the film. Mainly because I'm a fan of the novel and it was yet another lesson on Failed Hollywood Adaptations. It's comparable to Ridley Scott's LEGEND which came a few years after and sharing not only the same cinematographer, but the same primary problem - both are visually stunning but the mechanics of story & plot are sacrificed in execution and ultimately end up unsatisfying. Taking in account that the success rate wasn't very high, to be fair - though THE SHINING, BLADE RUNNER, THE THING and DUNE have been reassessed 30-40 years after initial release, that still leaves projects like the tv miniseries of THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, GHOST STORY... only CONAN THE BARBARIAN seems to have had the luck to had continued success from time of release to current day.
(One of many missed opportunites in The Era Of Streaming is the failure to attempt more faithful takes on GHOST STORY, which is an OK film - held aloft by the presence of Old Hollywood Greats classing things up, Dick Smith makeups and mainly by naked Alice Krige - but a tepid version of the Peter Straub story and THE KEEP, both which would've benefitted from having 8 - 10 episodes to play out, IMO.)
Many reasons have been kicked around for THE KEEP's failure; a troubled production, mortally wounded by the death of their special effects supervisor early in post-production and the inablility to complete things as planned and then cut down from close to 3 hours to about half of that time and released to theaters with very little fanfare all contributed. The main reason lies in the film's conception - in an interview with Film Comment magazine during the production, Mann states that his initial starting point came after making THIEF; wanting to do something along the lines of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" To quote from that interview, "The idea of making this film within the genre of horror films appealed to me not at all."
One can certainly admire the ambition behind that, but one also has to question the wisdom of hanging all of that on a story that is firmly set within the parameters of 'horror'. For all of the name-checking of Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" and stating that the film was 'a fairy tale for adults', Michael Mann couldn't accept the fact that he was making a horror movie and that more than anything else undermines the whole film. In more snide terms, I've referred to THE KEEP as Michael Mann proving to the world that he is NOT Stanley Kubrick - Kubrick, at some level, DID know he was making a 'horror film'.
Despite that, it's gained a solid cult following; mainly due to it being the outlier in Mann's filmography and to it not being readily available, save for VHS and a laserdisc release which has been the basis for DVD bootleg releases. That changed late last year with Vinegar Syndrome's UHD/Blu-ray 4K release (the limited edition w/slipcover & booklet selling out quickly).
So, what to think of THE KEEP now? Well, it's still a stunner visually, even more so with the restoration. This time around, I'm a bit more charitable towards the film and to Mann's intentions, having had more exposure to European Cinema since the last time I saw it. In fact, I think the film would play somewhat better if it were dubbed in an Eastern European language. But that doesn't alter the film's main flaw, which wasn't helped by the truncated runtime.
It holds up a lot better than LEGEND does, mainly due to having a solid narrative at its base. I don't know the history of LEGEND's script other than it started as an 'adult fairy tale' and got softened and narratively more nebulous over time, but the lack of a solid narrative just makes the (admittedly stunning) visuals vacuous. THE KEEP flirts with this in its current version, but that may be due to different rhythms; one can argue that Mann may be being 'pretentious', but realizing that he's doing an American version of European Arthouse makes a case that a longer version, if it still exists, could possibly qualify it as a 'masterpiece' that its fans have claimed it to be.
Maybe. I don't know if I'd go quite THAT far yet...
But I'd be pleased if that turned out. Despite some harsh remarks and Michael Mann CineBro Snark, there are elements that stay in the memory - the visuals, obviously and the Tangerine Dream score, both of which converge in a sequence near the end cutting between Scott Glen's character prepping for The Final Confrontation and Ian McKellar's removing a talisman and starting to exit The Keep, which is the thing that hooked me when I finally saw this years ago.
VS gives this an overdue respectable release with great extras - there's a really informative commentary by film historian Matthew Aspery Gear along with several featurettes - the best being an interview with author F. Paul Wilson talking about the genesis of the novel and his view of the finished product; interview with Johannes Schmolling who was part of Tangerine Dream at the time speaking about their work with Mann and some light finally shed on those KEEP bootleg soundtrack releases; interviews with fx makeup head Nick Maley and vfx artist Peter Kuran; an interview with actor Michael Csrter (Molasar) and a short interview with producer Gene Kirkwood.
As great as this is, there was some disappointment that deleted scenes that've surfaced over the years didn't get included or a more extensive documentary, namely the long-in-gestation A WORLD WAR II FAIRYTALE - which will show up on Imprint's edition coming later in the year.
I
guess a better comparison rather than LEGEND, would be to Lynch's DUNE -
which I like better even in it's truncated theatrical cut, and is much
better when longer (Spice Diver cut).
About the heading: Things are Bad, but this is just the Beginning; we haven't even truly started to get into The Bad Times yet - if you're not Hispanic, Palanstinian, a foreign student or a resident alien, you might find that statement slightly laughable & naive. Being an American, that's slightly permissible, since those who aren't MAGA or MAGA adjacent/sympathetic still believe that there is still a chance to turn things around - despite the fact that we've continually squandered every chance given so far.
While America (and specifically Whyte America - because nothing of note actually happens in this country until Pissed-Off Whyte People get involved) does its Hamlet-bit trying to convince itself it still has a soul), it feels like one is just Freefalling Thru The Fuckery until things coalesce into some definite action.
While that slowly happens - I watch movies. I write.
At least until I can't do either one or the other.
Or both.
Mondo Vision is a boutique label that has been solely dedicated to making the work of Polish director Andrzej Zulawski available on physical media since the late 2000s. Releasing packed Limited Editions (expanded booklet, card swag and an OST CD) and Special Editions (booklet only) starting with LA FEMME PUBLIQUE (The Public Woman), L' IMPORTANT C'EST D'AIMER (The Most Important Thing: Love), L' AMOUR BRAQUE (Limpet Love), SZAMANKA (She-Shaman), POSSESSION and LA NOTE BLEUE (The Blue Note), MV's releases were a true labor of love for Zulawski's work - early video releases were OOP (Anchor Bay's DVD) or were of dodgy quality (PolArt's DVDs of DIABEL and GLOBIE). MV did hi-def transfers, approved by Zulawski and had great extra features such as a Zulawski commentary and meaty featurettes, the pinnacle being their blu-ray edition of POSSESSION.
But excellence don't come easy; the periods between releases got longer and longer, the market changed with people wanting DVD, then blu-ray, then 4K discs. Hardest of all was Zulawski's death in 2016. After the release of LA NOTE BLEUE in 2017, MV went silent and rumors that the label was dead seemed to be turning out legit. By now, Zulawski's films were getting easier to find -new blu-rays from Kino-Lorber (L'AMOUR BRAQUE) and Film Movement (L' IMPORTANT...) not to mention POSSESSION releases on blu and 4K UHD, turning it into THE EVIL DEAD of boutique releases.
Just out of reach was The Polish Trilogy - TRZECIA CZESC NOCY (The Third Part of the Night), DIABEL (The Devil) and NA SEBRNYM GLOBIE (On The Silver Globe). The last two got DVDs, but the transfers weren't great; TRZECIA got a pretty good DVD from UK label Second Run. Complicating things further was the Polish Government's foot-dragging in restoring those films until nearly the end of Zulawski's life and then wanting a large amount from Western countries/labels to licence them. The first blu-ray release of the Trilogy was a Japanese set which had no English subtitles and nudity blurred on GLOBIE. The Eureka 'Masters of Cinema' release of the Trilogy just a couple of years ago set the quality bar high, with French and German releases soon to come. And if you had an all-region Blu-ray player, things were Good, since it seemed that there was NEVER going to be a Mondo Vision disc.
Until this March, when a very strong hint was dropped on the Bluray.com forums that MV would be making an announcement soon. Shortly after the Eureka release MV changed their heading to GLOBIE's head graphic and "Coming Soon" - but nothing since then. Then in April - Easter month, very appropriate - MV came back from the dead with the announcement of the Limited and Special Editions of GLOBIE, release date set for the end of May. So imagine my surprise when a package showed up just after the first May weekend! A good gesture on MV's part, if you ordered directly from them.
This is also their first 4K UHD release; most companies have been doing UHD/Blu combos for the past few years, but like the DVD/Blu combos that slowly phased out when Blu took a bigger share of the market, I suspect that more of the specialty labels will start going exclusively 4K in the near future. And what that means is at somepoint, the hardware will have to be upgraded. So it was finally time to pull the trigger to go 4K - especially before the tariff bullshit goes into effect. And it made sense to again, go all-region and have the ability to play Anything. I'm still pretty much a format slut.
Eureka's Zulawski set is still worth getting, if you're region-free but not 4K yet: the tranfers are great and extras are solid. But if you are 4K ready, then I'd say Mondo Vision's release will stand as the definitive release of the film.
It's an interesting artifact - it was originally planned for release in 2012 and most of the extras are from that time - the Zulawski commentary, obviously; that alone makes it definitive and Daniel Bird's featurette on the making of the film. The newest extra is the documentary ESCAPE TO THE SILVER GLOBE (2021), which was also part of the Eureka release. I sprung for the Limited Edition with an expanded booklet (more essays), card/poster swag and the OST CD - which more than justified getting this edition. The score by Andrzej Korynski, a long-time Zulawski associate is fabulous, and this is its first official release.
As to the film itself - it's an adaptation of Zulawski's great-uncle's (Jerzy Zulawski) science-fiction trilogy from the early 1900s THE LUNAR TRILOGY, comprised of On The Silver Globe, The Conqueror and The Old Earth, a work very influential on Stanislaw Lem (SOLARIS) and literary sci-fi in Europe. Not known at all in Western countries - it didn't get its first English translation and publication until 2021. In terms of epic science-fiction, this would be on the level of DUNE - which coincidentally, Alejandro Jodorowsky was attempting to adapt to film at roughly the same time, which never came to fruition. GLOBIE almost had that fate; that story of the film's production and near-death probably being more known than the actual film and which ESCAPE TO THE SILVER GLOBE gets into with much detail.
Epic SF in film didn't fully come into existence until the 60s - the George Pal productions of the 50s (WAR OF THE WORLDS, CONQUEST OF SPACE, etc.) were precursors visually, but Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is usually considered to be the first, although a good case could be made for the 1963 Czechoslovakian IKARIE XB-1 directed by Jindrich Polak. There were efforts like some of the East German DEFA films such as SIGNALS; Tarkovsky's SOLARIS continues in that vein and GLOBIE could've continued that path, had it not been hindered, uncompleted and unseen/unknown. STAR WARS usurped and supplanted the idea of Serious Epic SF; it was epic, but it was also pastiche based on the FLASH GORDON serials and not serious at all - that came later with the Prequel Trilogy and its offshoots which tried to infuse Seriousness and Meaning into what had become a franchise with varying results.
A quick factoid illustrating SF Film - STAR WARS, NA SEBRNYM GLOBIE and DAMNATION ALLEY were all in production roughly during the period 1975 - 1977 and of those three, GLOBIE was finally seen in 1987, which would drastically limit any potential influence it could've had. Its most direct descendant is Aleksei German's 2013 adaptation of HARD TO BE A GOD (though I personally find it to be a slog). But would seem to have put out a vibe; see Tarkovsky's STALKER (1979), Peter Fleischmann's 1989 adaptation of HARD TO BE A GOD, and of course, David Lynch's DUNE (1984) - although Fleischmann and Lynch are steered closer to the STAR WARS Epic SF aesthetic than Zulawski and Tarkovsky were.
A four-day celebration (well, technically three days, since a snowstorm killed the 18th - forcing a double-feature for the kick-off on the 19th) of Mr. Willmott, honoring his retirement from KU - but not his retirement from projects with a new film scheduled to shoot this Spring and various scripts in development. KU Film & Media Studies Department & Liberty Hall gave him a warm Farewell metaphorically, though the theatre itself was chilly due to the single-digit temperature outside.
The Kevin Willmott Film Festival consisted of four features - DESTINATION: PLANET NEGRO, THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN, JAYHAWKERS and C.S.A. - THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, with special guests in post-screening talks and on the last night, tribute videos sent in by many friends & colleagues who couldn't make it in person.
I was only able to make it to two of the showings, T.O.G.I. & C.S.A. - though I'm fortunate enough to have his work within arms reach on the DVD shelves. And despite the winter climate, it proved to be well-timed as a healing tonic in the opening days of the Musk/Trump Regime.
As a public service, here's audio from both of those screenings:
THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN Aftertalk w/Willmott, actors Wes Studi & Laura Kirk and writer Tom Carmody, Moderated by Jancita Warrington, Executive Director on Native-American Affairs, State of KS.
Of note: it had recently been announced that Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence had come under the thumb of DOGE, with 30% of its staff being 'retired' At 22:08, you'll hear former Kickapoo Nation chairperson Steve Cadue referring to that.
C.S.A.'s screening kicked off with KU Film & Media Studies Interim Chairperson Anna Neill giving the audience a preview of proclamation from the City of Lawrence declaring March 4, 2025 Kevin Willmott Day!
Following that, Dr. Novotny Lawrence, KU alumnus & associate professor of Cinema and Media Studies and the Director of the Black Film Center & Archive, Indiana University - Bloomington, came to introduce the film...
Well, kinda 'new'; decided
it was the time to find out what was on those rolls of unprocessed
Super-8 that had been sitting around for years on end - early in the
2000s, I won a eBay auction of a lot of Ektachrome 160-G film cheap and
promptly discovered the reason for that was that it was expired film
(date on the boxes is 'DEC 79' and a type where one of the chemical
ingredients used for developing was becoming very scarce) - and expensive
to process, so 4 rolls sat in storage, along with a couple rolls of
Tri-X, having forgotten exactly when & what I shot on them.
After some research, I decided to use Negativeland, a lab in Ridgewood, NY that could process it (as B/W negative; best option to get an image) & scan it, along w/a print of my 16mm film-school project to be scanned.
THE RESULTS:
The Super-8 was questionable - but it turned out Good; only one roll had serious deterioration, and even managed to pull an image from that - has the feel of footage shot over a century ago...
Even better, it turns out that I shot these during production of THE
ONLY GOOD INDIAN (in Wichita and Cottonwood Falls, KS) and the Traci Lords family comedy AU, PAIR KS [aka THE
SOCCER NANNY] in Lindsborg, KS - I had completely forgotten that I brought
the Super-8 with me.
The 16mm [empty, try another] looks pretty good, a 2K scan of a print. My
interest in oblique metaphoring and love of musical minimalism probably
has roots here - literally done with no money, which is why the credits
were originally done orally (Director's Answer™® - "It's a Truffaut homage").
Thanks again to Ben Kufrin, Jon Knoll, Tracy Holliway-Wiggins, Jane Brockman and everyone else who lent a hand.
MEGALOPOLIS is a lot of things. It's a sprawling epic tale ('A Fable' as stated), audacious and very messy. Mainly, it's Francis Ford Coppola taking a big swing - again - and not giving a fuck at 85. Some of it may seem familiar and some of it will have people on their feet applauding the testicular fortitude, while some of it will have people walking out wondering if dementia has finally caught up with him.
'It Is What It Is - Deal With It, Motherfuckers!' is basically Coppola's response to criticism. And judging from recent recuts of earlier work to present them in definitive versions, Coppola has decided to cement his legacy as a cinema artist before leaving the stage."
The best way to describe the film is as a huge mashup of elements - plotwise, Coppola uses a historical incident from Ancient Rome referred to as 'The Catalline Conspiracy' as the framework for the allegorical aspects of the story (and yes, being a typical American, I had to look it up). The tone, look and feel is raided from well over the past 100 years of American culture; one of the big touchstones is the 1936 film THINGS TO COME and a myriad of references, allusions and homages.
Coppola was a guest programmer on Turner Classic Films the night before the screening stumping for MEGALOPOLIS and the two films he chose were screwball comedies, LIBELLED LADY and THE AWFUL TRUTH. As it turns out, those choices did have bearing, as MEGALOPOLIS does take aspects of the 30s-40s screwball comedy, but doesn't do full-on pastiche (it doesn't reach the velocity, but that doesn't seem to be Coppola's intent). Although in the first third, it seemed like we were getting FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'THE HUDSUCKER PROXY'.
Other references: THE FOUNTAINHEAD/ATLAS SHRUGGED (without the neurotic over-the-top sexual tension; there's a bit of Ayn Rand in the mix since it's about utopias, but not so much as to poison the entire enterprise - along with the THINGS TO COME, it could also be called FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'TOMORROWLAND'. Not such a reach, since Brad Bird gets a mention in the 'Special Thanks' credits); thrillers of the 1940s such as NIGHTMARE ALLEY; some direct refrences to THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. The epics of the 1950s set in Rome, of course (the great score has some homage to Miklos Rozsa and Dimitri Tiomkin - and there's even a chariot race!); silent films (which become more apparent in the last third of the film when the referencing moves more into the background and the film becomes its own thing). I'll even go out on a limb and say there's even a little bit of BATMAN (Tim Burton's Keaton) there.
That also goes to the actors: high praise for everyone involved from Coppola veterans Giancarlo Esposito, Lawrence Fishbourne, Jason Schwartzman (who I was mistaking for Stanley Tucci at first, then did the math on the age) to 'newbies' Adam Driver (whose character could be seen as an extremely benign version of a creative genius than what he portrayed in ANNETTE), Aubrey Plaza ('Wow Platinum' has a touch of Ida Lupino/Audrey Totter), Shia LeBoeuf, Jon Voight (playing a slightly more benign version of NYC character Trump). Grace VanderWaal makes an impression as a Taylor Swiftish type character; Nathalie Emmanuel isn't bad, but at times appears to be slightly overwhelmed and Dustin Hoffman's character is in and out quickly before making an impression (which may be due to post-production concerns, possibly).
I deliberately haven't gotten into the plot/story of the film for the reason that it doesn't ultimately matter - if you come into MEGALOPOLIS expecting a three-act story structure hitting all the beats that you read about in articles & books about screenwriting, you're not going to be happy from the start. As stated before, part of MEGALOPOLIS' title is 'A Fable', reinforced by the first scene of the film, shown in a teaser trailer of Adam Driver's Caesar preparing to step off a building. If you don't accept the outcome of that scene at the start, nothing after that is gonna make you like it better.
Another snide title that could be applied to MEGALOPOLIS could be FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'SOUTHLAND TALES' which is not that far off the mark. I did do a re-watch of ST before Monday's screening to get into a proper frame of mind, and it turns out it was a good choice. SOUTHLAND TALES is an overstuffed commentary (in either version) of America in the early 00's, coming out of the 90s with the Book of Revelation taking place in Los Angeles and what was considered to be at the time absurd satire that was ridiculous has turned out to be more coherent than our current nightmare reality.
MEGALOPOLIS is an overstuffed commentary by a veteran filmmaker of America (NYC as an alternate version of Rome) using a historical incident as a center for a sprawling spewing visual essay around the statement, "We Need To Talk About The Future". It's the work of a director not at all concerned of 'weekend box-office success'. Like ST, it's designed to be watched repeatedly and being able to find things you may have missed the last time you saw it and to have a life well beyond the 1 to 2 week window of theatrical release (if the film gets a theatrical release at all).
It's an Event Experience - if you're lucky and savvy enough to be near and attend an 'Ultimate IMAX Experience' with its William Castle-ish interactive scene (which is something Coppola apparently wanted to do for sometime; TWIXT had an interactive element for a screening or two, but it didn't work out ultimately). It's unwieldy; some of it is clunky and eye-rolling but that is balanced out by great performances, visual artistry and callbacks to previous work. It's the sum of a career that spans some 60 years and Good or Bad, it's MEMORABLE.
Reaching the age where you start to discover that people who were a significant part of your past start Exiting, Stage Left...
It's been over a month since learning of Ray's death - I can't say that I was a close friend; the last time I saw him in person was in 2019 at a Buckets reunion show in San Francisco. We were Facebook friends, but aside from the occasional comment, I didn't keep close tabs on him. But he - or more accurately stated - his work has been a consistent part of my life since going to my first Buckets show at Hotel Utah back in the early 90s. My main contact with him was at shows, aside from running into him at a Michael Nyman Band concert in 1994 - and the music, of course.
Most of what I can say about Ray I put in a Facebook post, right after learning of his death - and even that was repurposed from what I had written about him and the band, reprinting an interview I did for my first zine... Again, I wasn't a close friend. But I felt like I knew an aspect of him through his music, and that aspect I kept - and will keep - alive for quite sometime, if that makes any sense to anyone.
Death has been a part of most of my thinking over the past 5 years for obvious reasons; Covid of course. But once you get past 55, it gets harder to push it back into the recesses of your mind and you start noticing things more and more when the realization finally hits, "Oh, yeah - I'm 'Old' now." And you notice familiar faces and names disappearing, family and friends. But they're not totally gone; you have memories. It's difficult to put most of those memories across in speech and word, at least the thoughts and feelings, which are more vivid (at least for me) than the actual actions are in detail.
So with his music, he's still around - just in a different form.
I put the following together in tribute - "Breakdown Lane" is one of his best songs, although it's done by a different Buckets lineup than the one I knew.
Here's the rest of that FB post, which has that interview with Ray back in '93.
Here's some of what I wrote about Ray Halliday (AKA Earl Butter) and his band, The Buckets for my zine in the late 90s, which is probably the closest I can come to saying anything meaningful at the moment.
That, and performance footage of the band that I shot in the early 90s when I went to their shows. Look for their album on Bandcamp and some of Ray's other work (The Verms, etc.) on Soundcloud, YouTube if you're inclined to dig. But enjoy this playlist and the words in the meantime.
From MIMEZINE #4 - The Music Issue (late 90's started - early '00 when finished)
One of the law librarians in the firm that I used to work at in SF - Andrea Ebner was her name - was acquainted with some of the local musicians; I think what got us talking was an offhand mention of American Music Club. Well, one time she invited me to the Hotel Utah to hear a band that a friend of hers was playing in. Since she'd already proven she had good taste in music, I took her up on it, which is how I ended up seeing The Buckets in their first SF show. Her friend was Noah Chasin, who was then in HARM FARM, another band whose shows I caught at every available opportunity, on guitar.
I had no idea that it was a country band - I would have said, at the time that I hated country music (now I can amend that to I hate what's considered country music nowadays) [still - 2024, RH]. Noah was the only one I recognized; the others were unfamiliar - a tall, rather good-looking girl with a violin, another woman on bass, a guy with a ukelele, the drummer and the singer. I remember laughing throughout the set - the members of The Buckets all used stage names; "Earl Butter", "Wanda Taters", "Charlie Bucket" (which was Noah's name), so I didn't entirely think that they were being serious.
The other reason was the songs, which were pretty funny in a very clever fashion - they started the set with "Things Go Wrong" and from that moment on, I was hooked.
If I hadn't gone to see The Buckets, I would have not have discovered Ed's Redeeming Qualities -- I attended shows by these two bands religiously - so when I decided to do my first issue, I wanted to feature both of them.
Here's the original interview with The Buckets from Issue #1.
THE BUCKETS - 1993 Post-show, Larry Blake's, Berkeley, CA
Earl: Hard to say. Utica, NY is where we’re from, but I would say we originally started playing in Boston. We’re from all parts of the U.S
.
Wanda: We were born & raised there...
Earl: Or near there, as Wanda was.
Q: How long have you all been playing together?
Earl: I’d say 2 years. Wanda & I have been together most our lives.
Wanda: We’ve been together for a long time; coming up on half a decade, aren’t we 'Ray'?
Q: What started you down this road of broken relationships & wanderlust?
Earl: Broken relationships & wanderlust, mainly. It’s absolutely true. Wanda & I moved from one part of the country to the other every couple of years & we’ve seen each other through a lot of broken relationships - one right after the other after the other & the songs come out of that. Every relationship is a different song - sometimes several.
Wanda: Ray did a whole album’s worth out of 1 relationship.
Earl: You can milk a whole album or 2 out of 1 relationship & if you don’t mind stretchin’ the truth a little, you can get a lot more - do double albums.
Wanda: “12 SONGS -- 12 BROKEN HEARTS”.
Earl: The 1st country-rock opera. “12 SONGS - 1 BROKEN HEART”. That’s what we’ll call our greatest hits album.
Q: A silly question -- why, specifically, country?
Earl: I’ll field that one...
Wanda: Please.
Earl: I don’t know -- I started out playing in rock bands pretty much & I found writing rock songs... Looking back at it, I had too many influences & too many things were trying to sound like something else and I felt like, there was no way I’d found anything that sounded original. When I wrote something, it sounded old; it sounded used. And also, the thing with R&R, you have to be, it seems to me, extremely clever all the time.
Q: But most of the Buckets songs are extremely clever...
Earl: I’ll get to that. There’s so many people doing R&R & so many good people doing it & for me, I just couldn’t find a way to make it feel comfortable. And when I first started writing country songs, I wrote them for this band I had in my head called The Buckets, & I wrote 1 song, "Postmarked VA", and within a week to 2 weeks, I had enough songs for a set. It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
Q: How many other bands were you in before you decided to strike out on your own?
Earl: I was pretty much only in 2 other bands -- 3, if you count a small stint with a more famous band. I was in 2 bands with 1 guy who wrote all the songs & sort of was the director of the band. Got a lot of influence from him, I guess, just in mostly writing songs. He gave me confidence to just go out & do it. He’d just sit down & write songs. I’d been trying for so long & had written so many terrible songs & this guy sorta gave me the idea that you could write songs -- if you just relaxed, you could do it.
Wanda: You’d actually been trying to write songs before you met me?
Earl: Yeah. When I was 18, I just wrote all sorts of terrible songs. I’d always tried & just gave up on it all during undergrad. During grad school with this one guy, I started writing -- nothing very good. And you?
Wanda: Never occurred to me for a second that I could write a song.
Earl: Until --
Wanda: Until I met you guys.
Earl: There was a group of us that met at school & everyone was writing stories; the most amazing, well-fit group of people I’d ever met in my life. It was the biggest community of people that belonged together. It’ll never happen again, I don’t think.
Wanda: It was an amazing coincidence of kindred spirits.
Earl: And the material that came out of it; there were so many stories, so many songs, so many pieces of art & so many bands -- it was really something & it all had to do with the compatibility of the group. That’s where all these little offshoots got started.
Q: You were living in North Carolina for awhile.
Earl: I lived there for about a year, when these guys moved out here. We all decided to leave Boston & New England. These guys came here & I went to NC ‘cause I just wanted to be -- quiet. I didn’t want to go to another city, I guess.
Q: Where in NC did you live?
Earl: I was in a place called Lexington, which is famous for being the B-B-Q capital of the world, which it probably is.
Wanda: The B-B-Q is amazing.
Earl: Yeah. It’s a town of about 3 - 5,000 to, I think, about 100,000 coming there once a year for B-B-Q Fest; somethin’ to see. I went down there; didn’t do much. Just sort of hung out for a year.
Wanda: He had free rent in a cool house with, like, 10 cats.
Earl: I had 6 cats, 6 wild cats; 40 acres & a house I didn’t have to pay rent on. It was pretty nice - good for a year. Got a little lonely after that. And I got 12-15 songs out of it.
Wanda: He was working by himself with a 4-track, writing songs. They sounded more acoustic & minimal; THE BUTTER BROS.
Earl: We do some of those songs.
Wanda: Some, yeah. There’s still a lot in the wings.
Earl: They were demos for The Buckets. I thought I would try to get them going in NC, but there was nothing . The big town I was nearest was Winston-Salem & there was just nothing going on near there. There’s a lot of great towns in NC; Winston-Salem , at that time, didn’t have much happening & I couldn’t generate much interest. Also, down there, country music was sorta -- out. And I was just coming into it. When I started, the most I’d heard of country was Hank Williams & Dwight Yoakum, who got kinda big on the college charts.
Wanda: Hank Williams, Jr.?
Earl: No! I hate Hank Williams, Jr.
Wanda: Hank Williams was having a run on the college charts?
Earl: No; Dwight Yoakum was.
Wanda: Oh.
Earl: I was saying, all I had heard of country was those 2 -- and 'Hee Haw' which I watched all the time when I was a kid. (laughter) Oh God, we watched 'Hee Haw' every Sunday night.
Q: The 1st Buckets show I saw was at the Hotel Utah.
Earl: Was that the whole Buckets? Yeah, that was. Was there a girl bassist? [Tynan Northrop, Little My]
Q: Yeah, and one of the guys from Harm Farm -- T. Hallenbeck?
Earl: No, we had Noah Chasin, playing guitar. There were a lot of little things before the band got started; that was the 1st show as a full band. Then that broke to pieces, came back together & really got a semi-solid lineup.
Q: How did the other members -- Long John Gonzales, Kid Coyote & JoJo Hoot -- come in?
Earl: Long John came out of a drummer we used for a little while.
Wanda: Who was on drums at Hotel Utah -- was it Adam?
Earl: Adam.
Wanda: There was a time when we had this guy, Ross [Inden], on drums. And John was a friend of his from LA; they’d known each other for years. John was in a band that was in Mexico & he moved to LA to play bass. He moved up here & was looking for work, so Ross set us up with him.
Earl: Actually, he was the 1st permanent guy, besides me & her. Everyone else we knew or sorta knew & we didn’t know him at all. We knew we wanted him when we saw him; he’s been there ever since.
Wanda: Real comfortable fit -- Cory, we knew already. We knew his other band (Pupcage) & their mutual friends.
Earl: We actually picked him out. We were at a party one night & saw his old band. And we sat & watched him, ‘cause we knew that Noah was leaving. We approached him that night; I remember asking her, “Whaddaya think? Whaddaya think? I think that’s the guy I want.”
Wanda: We picked him for his rock style. Both of us really like guitar players that play strong leads.
Earl: Yeah. He was real precise.
Wanda: We had no idea that he really had a lot of county in him. He had all the licks & knew all the tricks. And, he had cowboy boots & has been known to wear cowboy hats.
Q: So it all fit perfectly. You currently play as a 5 piece band, since Jesse “Boots” Daniels left.
Wanda: 6 bodies is a lot of people onstage. Especially with all the small stages around here. 5 bodies feels really comfortable.
Earl: And also, the more people you have, the harder it is to get people together --
Wanda: -- and to agree on something. I really miss the banjo sound.
Earl: Definitely. I’ll tell you something, I miss him onstage. He’s a big crowd draw. Right now, we’re not thinking of replacing him. I listen to recordings & I think, “It’s amazing”, but also, we’re looking to be a little harder. Not so much R&R, but harder imagery, I guess. So hopefully, our sound is gonna change a little bit.
Wanda: Country-metal.
Earl: Yeah. We want to be right in-between Garth Brooks & Nirvana. An equal amount of both.
Q: You’ve got 2 tapes out; INTERSTATE DEMO & BARN DEMO. How is the reaction to them?
Earl: We don’t know. Our friends think it’s great.
Wanda: By word-of-mouth, it seems people really love it. But because they’re cassettes, we haven’t done anything with radio stations, so we don’t know how radio will feel about it. We’ve just submitted to labels & that’s always ...
Earl: The 1st tape; we didn’t send out that many & we sent it to sort of the wrong places. We’re just now sending out the 2nd tape to record companies, so nothing’s really gone on. The 1st tape, there were 6 companies I got responses from, but nothing more than “We like it.”
We’re hoping to put out a 2 single set -- 2 7" records. It’d be like a double album, but with singles... like FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE. We’re going to go in & record next month; that’ll be our 1st real test-the-water, see-what-people-think, get-some-radio-play deal.
Wanda: We could have one big continuous photo... me on a chaise lounge -- in a halter top.
Q: Go for the Donna Fargo look.
Earl: Exactly.
Q: With everyone’s schedule, how do plans for touring look?
Earl: We’ve finally got a band that agrees that we all can tour now. We’ve got a new drummer coming in -- Melanie from SF Seals, Harm Farm. Her name will be BeaDonna Potts.
Q: What happened with JoJo Hoot?
Earl: He had too much stuff going on.
Wanda: And he lives far away.
Earl: He’s actually gonna be our 2nd, when Melanie’s busy. He lives way out of town; scheduling problems. He’s doing his own record & writing songs; He was just over-committed. We think he’s great; we’re also excited about Melanie -- it’s a pretty big deal. It’s like getting the 1st draft pick.
[Kid Coyote, saunters in.]
Q: It’s Kid Coyote at the table!
Earl: Kid, you have an interesting guitar style. What’re your influences?
Kid: Too many; too many to name. Anybody that’s pretty crazy & wild enough to take a little chance & shoot it over the edge.
Earl: That’ll be a pull-quote.
Kid: Jeff Beck -- he’s my numero uno favorite guitarist.
Earl: Are you kidding me?
Kid: No, I would kid you not.
Earl: Be serious. Don’t say “Jeff Beck” in this -- try somethin’ else.
Kid: David Gilmour...
Earl: Oh stop it! Go back downstairs.
Wanda: Doc Watson...
Kid: Clarence White. That’s about it.
Q: Thank you, Kid.
Earl: Yeah, thanks... Can we go back & erase that?
The double 7" set never materialized (facetious as it probably was, it sounded like a great idea), but they did put out a single of "Cowgirls" b/w "Western Star", and they did release a CD on Slow River Records, THE BUCKETS in 1996. After this interview, when Melanie joined the band, John Pike left the band and was replaced by Steve Silbert in 1994. The "small stint in a more famous band" reference that Ray alludes to is in regard to The Breeders - if you check the credits for the songs "Glorious" and "Doe" on the first album, POD, he's co-credited with Kim Deal.
).