And yet, there is a familiarity to his Tweets. Consider this.

.@rupertmurdoch Great New Year’s party the other night. I think I left my LMFAO cd at your pad. Need that. Burn it & return it. #watsupdoch

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 3, 2012

Then oddly Dave tweets this

Great New Year’s party the other night.I think I left my LMFAO cd at your pad.Need that.Burn it & return it.

— Late Show (@Late_Show) January 3, 2012

I hope he keeps “jokingly” ripping off his fellow hosts.

Radoslav Lorkovic

What keeps me coming back to Cayamo is the opportunity to discover different musicians. This past year, one of the new musicians I discovered was Ellis Paul. Part of Paul’s band was an incredible piano and accordion player Radoslav Lorkovic. Over the next several days of the cruise, Lorkovic also turned up jamming with several other musicians. I meant to conduct this interview immediately after the cruise, but life events delayed my intentions. I was glad to finally conduct the email interview this week. Be sure to visit Lorkovic’s Facebook page, as he is indeed an impressive photographer (as we discuss) in addition to his musical prowess. This interview includes a new Talking with Tim milestone, a musician quoting NFL legendary coach Vince Lombardi.

Tim O’Shea: You are currently touring with Ellis Paul, what attracted you to working with Ellis?

Radoslav Lorkovic: Ellis has been a great friend through the years.  Music is just a natural part of what is really a great ‘hang’  Being on stage is little different than having a drink at three AM in some ridiculous club laughing.  The music, however, is quite serious and precise. It is presented without out the baggage of seriousness.  He also plays everything in C sharp–for me the most difficult piano key.  It’s a massive exercise in a way.

I had known Ellis for some time before he approached me about playing music.  It was a scene from a movie.  I was at some swanky brunch with my friend Jimmy Lafave. We were in Connecticut.  Music highbrows were helping themselves to brie and mimosas. Ellis and his longtime manager Ralph Jaccodine were there.  Ellis lurked shyly in the corner.  Ralph approached me slowly.  Quietly — yet assertively– he stated “Ellis would like you to play with him.”  I replied to Ralph “Tell Ellis I’m interested.”

O’Shea: I first became aware of your work after seeing you perform at Cayamo earlier this year. As amazing an experience it was to see you (and the other artists perform), I am curious if you can talk about how enjoyable it was for you?

Lorkovic: Cayamo was for me –and I imagine all the other musicians on board a true milestone.  The obvious grandeur of the experience provides one with that “I have finally arrived” feeling.  Being on the Caribbean in the lap of luxury — AND being at the music festival you always hoped to be a part of.  Yet again — the company, Ellis. Don Con and Ralph, notched it up considerably further.

O’Shea: Some musicians are reluctant to play live, while others relish the opportunity to perform live (I would put you in the latter category). What is it about jamming and playing live that so clearly appeals to you?

Lorkovic: Quoting Vince Lombardi –”Playing live isn’t everything, it’s the ONLY thing.”  Making great records is obviously significant –The Beatles proved that.  For me playing alone or having one person in the room is like night and day.  It is a 180 degree turn.  Instincts kick in that were completely dormant.  I also compare it to being a pilot.  You aren’t taken seriously untill you have thousands of hours under your belt.

Jamming to me cuts to the essence of those instincts.  Being onstage in front of thousands and being trusted to play a song you have never heard is precisely what I thrive on.  It is thrill of being suspended in air and instantaneously deciphering how to land on your feet.

O’Shea: After being classically trained, what was it about R&B that attracted you to exploring it?

Lorkovic: That blues scale my buddy played for me in the tenth grade was all it took.  A switch had been pulled in the railyard –I never looked back, until much later, when I revisited classical music from the eyes of a blues and rock ‘n’ roll player.

O’Shea: You have released five solo CDs to date, any plans to release a sixth CD in the near term?

Lorkovic: I’m still in the process of ‘releasing’ what actually is my sixth cd –Wastelands and Casinos,  I finished it a year ago.  It was a treat to record it with my dear friends in Austin at the amazing Cedar Creek Studios.

O’Shea: You recently joined Twitter and have been on Facebook for quite awhile. Have social media tools enabled you to market yourself more effectively?

Lorkovic: I’m actually quite amazed by Facebook. It is par for the course for promoting your shows or recordings –a logical extension of Myspace.  Facebook gave me –quite accidentally — a means of being recognised for a passion of mine comparable to music –photography.  I have quietly devoted comparable energy to photography as to music –it is just recently — thanks to Facebook –that that cat is out of the bag.  The opportunity to get instantaneous feedback on images — both from people I know and trust — and complete strangers is astonishing to me.

O’Shea: Creatively what’s on the horizon for you in the rest of 2011 and 2012?

Lorkovic: Another huge passion of mine is skiing — I did good last year — maybe fifty days — mostly at Mammoth Mountain –I hope to match that — then its festival season —buckle your seatbelts…

Birds of Paradise: A Novel

Article first published as Interview: Novelist Diana Abu-Jaber on Birds of Paradise: A Novel on Blogcritics.

If you are a regular listener to NPR, you likely have heard one of novelist Diana Abu-Jaber‘s frequent essays. Next week (September 6, to be exact) marks the release of the award-winning author’s newest novel, Birds of Paradise [Editor's note: Of course, the book is out as of this past Tuesday]. While I was already aware of Abu-Jaber, thanks to NPR, I did not realize she had finished her new book until an early July tweet by Bethanne Patrick (aka @thebookmaven). Soon after learning of the new novel, I reached out to Abu-Jaber for an email interview–and she was more than happy to entertain my queries. As described by her publisher (W. W. Norton & Company): “In the tropical paradise that is Miami, Avis and Brian Muir are still haunted by the disappearance of their ineffably beautiful daughter, Felice, who ran away when she was thirteen. Now, after five years of modeling tattoos, skateboarding, clubbing, and sleeping in a squat house or on the beach, Felice is about to turn eighteen. Her family—Avis, an exquisitely talented pastry chef; Brian, a corporate real estate attorney; and her brother, Stanley, the proprietor of Freshly Grown, a trendy food market—will each be forced to confront their anguish, loss, and sense of betrayal. Meanwhile, Felice must reckon with the guilty secret that drove her away, and must face her fear of losing her family and her sense of self forever.” In addition to the book, we also delve into her recent mention in a New York Times piece on email manners.

How early in the development of Birds of Paradise did you realize it had to be set in Miami–and what appealed to you in terms of setting it there?

Miami was present from the very first page. My husband and I moved to Miami eight years ago and I knew I wanted to use it as a setting. Ever since my second novel, Crescent, I’ve been very inspired by sunlight and water and I always like to use a strong setting for my stories– like the city of Syracuse and the blizzard that seems to keep blowing throughout Origin, my third novel. Birds of Paradise is a reflection of Miami’s many layers– its outward dazzling tropical colors and beauty, its racial and cultural collisions. I’m fascinated by that complexity and challenged by it. Setting my new novel here gave me a way to reflect on my adopted city and to push myself to learn more about it.

Structurally the story is broken down into chapters alternating their focus/perspective between varying characters–with the chapters labeled by character names. How challenging was it to structure the story in such a manner?

Actually, I found it easier to use the alternating perspectives than a single unified point of view because it gave me a way to break up the action and to tell the story from different vantage points. It did mean that I really had to become deeply familiar with each of those characters– more than, perhaps, with a novel governed by just one or two central characters. But I felt that this helped enrich the story, so that I couldn’t rely on “prop characters” to tell my story.

With the Muir family, was there any family member that you struggled to find the right voice for them in particular (or vice versa, any family member that was easier for you write and why)?

Brian, the father, was a real challenge for me, because he was of a species that I found very mysterious– the corporate executive. At first he was pretty ruthless and unsympathetic and the people who read my early drafts pointed out that they felt like I wasn’t being fair to him. Getting his character right became an important challenge for me– to push myself past my own preconceptions and to find his uniqueness and humanity.

One character, Brian, is a real estate lawyer–how much research did you undertake to get his work as accurate as possible?

As I mention in the earlier question, his profession was very new territory to me. Luckily, I have several good friends who are lawyers– they gave me lots of insights and more leads to other lawyers. I took many, many attorneys out to lunch, dinner, waylaid them in corridors, interviewed total strangers on the phone, through email, even on Facebook. I went to city commission meetings and zoning board meetings and talked to tons of developers. I also read books and articles about the lawyer’s experience, their training, their day to day struggles. It was a fascinating project because it was all so new, and the more I learned, the more interested I became.

This GoodReads review noted that “While not marketed to the YA [Young Adult] audience, this book will appeal to both adults and teens.”Are you hoping to garner some new YA readers with this new novel?

Wow, that’s interesting! It hadn’t crossed my mind that this might appeal to YA readers. There’s some heavy stuff in this book, so I’d hope they would be fairly mature teens.

How instrumental has Twitter and social media become in terms of drawing attention to your work?

That I really don’t know. My sense is that almost everyone on social media is advertising something, so at times there can be a bit of an echo chamber effect. But I enjoy the simple fun of meeting new people in this way– it’s especially nice for people who work from home and don’t get to carouse around much with a gang of co-workers.

I was fascinated to learn from this 2008 interview that you will write periodically during red lights, when did you first realize that you were capable of creativity while driving?

Ha! You know what, I started writing at red lights years ago when I worked as a film reviewer for the Oregonian newspaper. I found that my thoughts about a film were always clearest and freshest while I was driving home after the viewing, so I kept my pad out next to me in the car and eventually realized, hey! This actually isn’t a bad way to get thoughts down quickly….

Another non-novel related question. After your participation in this New York Times email manners story, did you start getting replies from emails you sent a long time ago?

That is too funny. I’ll tell you who I heard from — all sorts of people who thought they knew who the other writer was that I’d referred to in my story. All these people had had similar experiences with a friend who never followed up on their invitations, and they were CERTAIN they knew just who my story was about….only they’d all mentioned different names and none of them was the person I was talking about. Turns out, it’s just a really common experience!

When you write pieces like this one for NPR, do you ever find that you gain new readers of your novels, thanks to this exposure?

Wait! Isn’t that how I heard from you? All I can say with any authority is: I sure hope so. I’ve written commentary pieces for NPR and other media over the years and while there’s a big difference between an essay and a book, I’d like to think the short piece gives you a nice little window into what the larger works might hold.

Is there anything you’d like to discuss about Birds of Paradise that I neglected to ask you about?

Not really– just to tell people that Birds of Paradise is now available for pre-order from places like Indiebound.com and Amazon.com, that I’ll be traveling on a book tour this September and October, and they can learn more about me and my event schedule at my website www.DianaAbuJaber.com.

Mike Doughty (be sure to click the pic for a closer look at the Clayton Moore portrait behind him)

My appreciation of Mike Doughty‘s music started much later than most fans, as I first became aware of his work with his 2005 album, Haughty Melodic. When I found he had a new album, Yes and Also Yes, set for release on August 30, I immediately set up an email interview to find out what was in store for fans of his work. If you’ve never seen Doughty live, take a spin around YouTube for a bit and you quickly will realize that you should see him live as soon as possible. To best frame the album in proper context, I quote Doughty himself: “I recorded it in a studio in Koreatown, Manhattan, from July ’10 to April ’11. Produced by Pat Dillett. Notable musicians included my trusty factotum Andrew ‘Scrap’ Livingston on bass, and the pianist Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, who basically plays with everybody who’s groovy (Justin Bond, Antony and the Johnsons, Glen Hansard, The National, David Byrne, Yoko Ono). I’m releasing it on my own label, Snack Bar, through Megaforce. I split with Dave Matthews’ label ATO so I could run my own shop and have more control, business-wise.”

I had a chance to listen to the album in preparation for this interview, and I was pleased to find there’s not a bad cut among any of the 14 songs. One song that I hope will garner a lot of attention is “Holiday”, a Christmas duet with singer/songwriter great Rosanne Cash. About Cash, Doughty said: “ I did a show with her, and she said, onstage, ‘I feel nervous playing my new songs, because Mike Doughty is here, and he’s such a great songwriter.’ That blew my mind.” Honestly, to borrow a phrase from Doughty, their duet blows my mind. I am the kind of person that hates hearing Christmas music anytime other than December. But this song has such an amazing hook (as most of Doughty’s songs do), I ended up playing it seven times in a row the first time I heard it. The whole album pulled me in just as much and it was a pleasure to interview Doughty. We also get to discuss another recent Doughty musical project, Dubious Luxury, released earlier this month. My thanks to Doughty for his time and thoughts, as well as Rob Moore for facilitating the interview.

You’re an artist who clearly loves to play live. In developing Yes and Also Yes, how much did you play some of these songs before an audience prior to entering the studio? And did any of the cuts change drastically from how it was initially conceived compared to the final version?

I’ve been playing a lot of comedy shows, around Brooklyn and Manhattan, as a musical guest, and I played “Na Na Nothing”, and “Day By Day By” at nearly every one of them, plus, maybe, “27 Jennifers”. If I play something a lot, before or after recording it, the phrasing will change ever so slightly, so there’ll be a cumulative evolution that I barely notice, unless I listen to a five-year-old version, and then it’s kind of startling. So, I don’t really know.

Are you feeling more or less pressure to succeed, now that you run your own label again?

“Succeed” is a tricky word. I live on music, and I don’t have to work another job, so that’s success to me. I’ve had richer and poorer years, relatively, since I started making solo albums. But I have to say, as a solo guy I’ve made a lot more money than I did in Soul Coughing, though that band sold a lot more records. My only extravagance is flying business class, which I’d probably do even if it was straining my finances, because flying is so wretched. That said, there’s more pressure to generate cash from the album, because, since it’s my label, I did it all on my dime.

Now that you’ve done a song in German (“Makelloser Mann”), any desire to musically explore through other foreign languages?

Well, “Makelloser Man” is a bunch of random, peculiar phrases. I hope to write a real song in German some day. Always wanted to learn Spanish, to read Borges, Octavio Paz, and Pablo Neruda in the original.

Given that you answer only to yourself (owning your own record company) was it less problematic to arrange to have Rosanne Cash (who last I checked was still with Manhattan Records)?

It wasn’t problematic in the least. I don’t think anybody on the planet has the brass to tell Rosanne what not to do.

What are the common elements that prompted you to create two “Telegenic Exes” cuts (as opposed to a song called “Hapless Dance” and another called “Astoria”)?

I wrote them separately, and afterwards realized they were based on the same riff. There’s a slender narrative connection, too. The connection isn’t accidental, but it is pretty mysterious.

How did it happen that you are releasing two new projects close together, given that Dubious Luxury is also coming out in August?

I just wanted to get Dubious Luxury out, and fast. It’s an all-electronic record, cut-up samples and sound effects over large, weird beats. I don’t sing on it–I got vocals from Todd Colby, Joanne Kyger, Young Jean Lee, and some other people, and sliced and diced them. Rachel Benbow Murdy’s also on there–she’s the ghostly voice on Soul Coughing’s “Janine”.

When you write a piece about music like this (in response to a New Yorker piece) are you hoping to inform, foster discussion, or merely looking to voice your displeasure (or none of the above)? Have you talked to Sasha Frere-Jones since writing your response?

I just want to be a part of the public discourse about music. I know Sasha from way back, was a fan of his band Ui. In fact, his bandmate Wilbo Wright played bass in Soul Coughing for a minute. I’m sure Sasha rolls my eyes at my screeds.

Is “The Huffer and The Cutter” a song about addiction on some level, or am I misinterpreting the meaning of the song title?

It’s about a dude who gets high by sniffing glue loving a girl who compulsively slices her skin with a razor blade. A huffer and a cutter. I wouldn’t say it’s about addiction, because that kind of implies I’m making a moral judgment on the characters’ drug use. I’m an addict, totally, it’s in my bones. But, addict-hood is a condition of being, not necessarily a consequence of getting high.

Which came first (in your head) on the song “Vegetable”, the rhythm or the title? (I love both is why I ask)

I’m not sure if you mean the groove of the tune, or the groove of the word “vegetable”. The latter came first, the word had the rhythm buried inside it.

How did the album benefit by being produced by Pat Dillett?

Excellent sounds, incisive opinions about arrangements, cogent in terms of who to record, and how. And a smart and interesting guy.

Is it safe to say you are the first person to use an antidepressant as a musical instrument? What prompted you to give that a try?

I take crazy pills to stay level. I was about to pop a duloxtine, which is marketed as Cymbalta, and I noticed that the tiny particles in it made a shck-shck-shck sound inside the capsule. I held it up to my ear and shook it, and it was a pretty great shaker sound. So, we put up an extremely sensitive microphone, I shook the capsule in rhythm, and presto, a percussion instrument.

How much has social media made the job of marketing your work more manageable?

I don’t know that it has. It’s really just something I like doing, tweeting and tumblr-ing and that stuff. I think I have an audience that digs reading stuff like that, so in that sense it’s been good for me. I definitely tweet about gigs and new albums and stuff, so it’s not like I don’t use it to mack my music out there, but I suspect that, despite the hype, being all over social media isn’t a superhuge boon. Like I said, I dig doing it, and, as far as I’ve seen my audience digs reading it.

Anything we should discuss that I neglected to ask you about?

I have a memoir called The Book of Drugs coming out in January 2012. About drugs, music, debauchery, redemption. You know, one of those books that there’s already ten thousand of. But, I think it’s pretty alright.

And then I found this gem, thanks to the Huff Post.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go yell at my Tivo for not randomly snagging this episode for me.

Tim O’Shea: How far along are you in the production of this documentary? While you have met your Kickstarter goal, can you estimate how much more you hope to raise to help cover “Editing, sound design, music and footage rights, animation, graphics and titles” expenses?

Beth Harrington: The Kickstarter funds will allow us to film our last several days of interviews and performances if we’re careful. Beyond that we need to raise several hundred thousand more to do all the other things I mentioned. But that sounds daunting and has been counterproductive until now, so we’re trying to deal with the film in chunks. 1) Finish shooting. 2) Refine the edit. 3) Complete the graphics, animation and titles. 4) Deal with the rights issues. 5) Finish sound design and other post production. We’re waiting to hear on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. We’re also looking for one or more corporate underwriters (sponsors) who would want to be associated with the film. And then there are a couple of possible distribution deals we could access when we get close to being finished. But meanwhile we’re mostly relying on crowdfunding – individual donations – to get us to the next steps.

O’Shea: With the Kickstarter preview video, I was wondering how did you happen upon the shot of the kitten along the railroad tracks?

Harrington: It was as you say, we just happened upon a cat on the railroad tracks. And a minute later the train came by. Tom Shrider, the cameraman got it on tape.

O’Shea: You already knew Rosanne Cash from her narration of your previous music documentary, Welcome to the Club – The Women of Rockabilly. How early in the development of this new documentary did you enlist her input?

Harrington: Rosanne was the first person I spoke to about the project, though to be more accurate I’d been thinking about doing this film and simultaneously she mentioned to me that she had been to the Carter Fold in Virginia with her father and June and it struck her that I should make a documentary about the Carters. Just a happy coincidence that we were thinking along the same lines! But hers was the first interview I did for the film. She’s been a real supporter of the project and I’m so grateful to her for that.

O’Shea: I love Rosanne’s likening the Carter family to the Beatles–in terms of their lasting influence on music. Had you heard her make that comparison before or was that a comparison you heard first when taping her?

Harrington: She made that comparison for the first time to me on camera. But I know she (like me) is a huge Beatles fan so it didn’t surprise me that she used that analogy. And I think for a certain generation of popular music lovers, that analogy is the most accessible one. Of course the Carters are influential in the same way that many of us feel the Beatles are influential. It just makes sense to look at it that way!

O’Shea: How did you track down the archival black and white footage (shown while John Prine sings Bear Creek Blues)?

Harrington: Archival research is just one of those things documentarians do. There are many sources for this sort of thing — the Library of Congress, the National Archives and many libraries and private footage houses – and over time you just sorta know who to go to. And it’s easier than ever now to find new sources of footage because of the internet. This particular footage our editor Greg Snider uncovered.

O’Shea: Joe Ely strikes me as a great interview, particularly judging by his “People should know who they [the Carter family] are, just like they should know who the first president of the United States is?” When you interview musicians (who are typically great storytellers), how hard is it to decide what to leave out for time, given the number of great stories they provide?

Harrington: It varies but in the case of these opening quotes from musicians I went into the interviews knowing that I wanted to develop a montage where musicians make the case for the importance of the Carters. So I knew we wanted great one-liners or short thoughts about them. Joe’s is particularly good because it really places the Carters in the pantheon of important Americans – not just important musicians! But essentially a filmmaker goes into an interview having a sense of what she might need. Then she goes for that with her line of questioning and awaits the happy accident of other bites that inform the story.

O’Shea: Your Johnny Cash interview was three weeks before his death. How challenging was it to interview him, while being sensitive to not tax him too much given his fragility in his final months?

Harrington: We’d arrived in Nashville on a Wednesday and planned to stay until Friday and one of those days was going to be when we’d do the interview with Johnny Cash. I was all too aware of the state of his health even before I left Portland, Oregon where I live now. When we arrived in Nashville, Rosanne – who was there at the time – informed me he was in the hospital. I knew this was a possibility and was prepared to walk away from the trip without having spoken to him. There was no question in my mind that his health was the most important thing. But on Friday morning, his son John Carter Cash called me to tell me his father was home and very much wanted to do the interview. So going in, I knew that I needed to be extremely careful of his needs. I asked John Carter to stand off to one side and signal me when he thought his father was getting tired, which he did. As soon as I got the sign I wrapped up the interview. But the 40 minutes we had with him were wonderful and I was very grateful for the time he devoted to this. And I felt we did right by him. He was also just very gracious and funny and warm.

O’Shea: Who are some of the most essential interviews (other than Rosanne and Johnny) that you were able to gain in getting the story of the Carter family?

Harrington: Most of the essential ones we have now – Johnny Cash, Janette and Joe Carter (A.P and Sara’s children), Dale Jett and Rita Forrester (A.P and Sara’s grandchildren), Rosanne Cash, Lorrie Bennett (Anita Carter’s daughter), John Carter Cash and other relatives. We also interviewed Charles Wolfe who was one of the foremost Carter experts around. I still need to interview Carlene Carter and there are some other interviews with family friends that would be nice. But mostly we have the nuts and bolts of the story.

O’Shea: What aspects of The Winding Stream proved most challenging to research?

Harrington: The research never seems hard to me because it’s so much fun. But I guess it’s always a challenge trying to figure out who knows what piece of the story. Especially in a family story, finding the right person to illuminate a certain part of the film is tricky. And there isn’t all that much written about the Carters relative to their importance. But that’s changing.

O’Shea: I know you are still in the midst of The Winding Stream, but have you ever considered doing a documentary on Jonathan Richman, or does that not interest you?

Harrington: People have asked me this before. I have considered this but it’s not just up to me. One issue is would Jonathan be willing to do it and how would that unfold for him and for me. Since I am a former member of the Modern Lovers, I feel like my take on the band would need to be part of the film and I’m not exactly sure how that would work. And there is the issue of how I would fund such a film. These sorts of documentaries are very expensive and I’m very weary of fundraising quite honestly. I’d love to do a creative project where I didn’t have to come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars. But if Jonathan wanted to do the film and I could frame it in an interesting way and I could pay everyone involved to work on it, then I’d be very happy to make a film about the Modern Lovers.

O’Shea: In the struggle to garner funding for the project, when you apply for a grant that you do not get, how do you keep a positive attitude? I imagine it can be quite depressing at time, trying to gain the funds needed to tell the story you want.

Harrington: Not finishing a film to me is not an option. If you lose heart during filmmaking you’re doomed. I have never not finished a film and I will get this one done somehow, too. I have been very depressed about this film at times but it’s been a long time since I felt that way. in recent years, social media has actually helped a lot in that regard because people through Facebook, Twitter and our Winding Stream website have urged me on, giving lots of encouragement. I also must say that the people I’ve been working with on the film have been great in that regard. So I don’t feel alone on it.

“Must not let big rock roll over me! Must keep pushing up hill!”

O’Shea: Where can folks find the project on the web?

Harrington: Please let people know to visit our website and friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Tom DeSavia

“Notable Music loves you very, very much.” It’s not everyday that you run across a company with a motto like that. But do a search for Notable Music Co. and that’s a phrase that the company communicates fairly consistently. A music publishing company founded by composer/songwriter Cy Coleman in the early 1960s, Notable Music has been expanding in recent years. Even though Coleman died in 2004, with his widow Shelby Coleman serving as president with Damon Booth as VP/GM and Tom DeSavia as VP/Creative, Notable Music is “as committed to representing new and developing talent as it is in promoting the legacy of what we believe is one of the great independent music publishing catalogs of our time.” DeSavia was kind enough to recently answer a few questions. My thanks to him for his time. Given the shifting landscape of the music industry, after talking to DeSavia, I’m intrigued at the opportunities and successes that Notable Music have achieved and the upcoming projects it has planned (anytime someone mentions a new Sam Phillips project, I’m a happy man). Before jumping into the interview, however, please consider this paragraph from Notable Music: “A few of the artists who have recorded & performed the Notable Music & Portable Music repertoire include: Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, Sarah Vaughan, James Brown, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Isaac Hayes, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, Shirley Horn, Sammy Davis Jr., The Jackson 5, Michael Buble, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Queen, Fiona Apple, Wilson Pickett, Shirley Bassey, Nancy Wilson, Dusty Springfield, Sam Phillips, Patty Griffin, Madeleine Peyroux, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss.”

Tim O’Shea: Last year when you and Notable Music VP/GM Damon Booth were interviewed at RM64, Booth said: “One of my goals for Notable when I started was for it to be a full-fledged music company. We’re publishers primarily, but if our songwriters need to make a record, then let’s get a record made and find a home for it.” The music industry seems to be changing drastically on a regular basis. How hard is it to expand your opportunities in such a climate?

Tom DeSavia: It’s actually one of the fun parts of the job. I’m always saying it’s 1956 all over again… meaning it’s like the dawn of rock and roll… ‘pop’ music sales, for lack of a better term, is not the massive business it was, so a lot of the financial muscle behind it has lost/is losing interest in music as an ‘industry’… so it’s moving back to a ‘small business’ mentality, and the canvas is blank… the business is being reinvented on what it’s going to be for the next 40 years. You have to do everything – and half the fun of it is making it up as you go along, because most of the old rules no longer apply.

O’Shea: How important is it for Notable Music to maintain a family-run business while at the same time looking to expand the company’s scope?

DeSavia: We happily always say we’re not for sale, nor are we building it up for sale. Cy Coleman started this company in 1962, and there is a reason his widow Shelby (our company’s President) has not sold it yet. This is the family store. It’s an honor to be here. We’re really just continuing on the path Cy set before us, as corny as that sounds…

O’Shea: A quick look at Notable Music’s Facebook page lists its members, I was curious how Wax Poetics and Adrian Younge became associated with Notable?

DeSavia: We were actually introduced to the Wax Poetics guys by Pierce Stacy of IODA, as he thought we would hit it off. We all hung out a few times, and the Wax guys were laying on us some of the best, and most interesting, new music we’ve heard in ages. At one point we just looked at them and said, “you guys should be publishers” – and the joint venture was born out of that. That organically, if you will. In addition to Adrian, Wax brought in Aja West/The Mackrosoft, and Chico Mann. Our roster may look funny on paper at times, but it matches our record collections perfectly, which is kind of our mantra.

O’Shea: Do you think we’ll see more artists, some of them associated with Notable, experimenting with some form of the subscription-based business model that Sam Phillips did?

DeSavia: I do. Sam – though she will never admit it – is really one of the visionaries when it comes to new music delivery models. She started the Long Play, her subscription service, as a labor of love – a way to deliver music to her fans and experiment in ways a label model may have restricted. But in the process she managed to do what big business constantly tries to: give the people what they want. All the credit here goes to Sam and her creative partner, Eric Gorfain, for conceptualizing and executing the Long Play. There are other exciting models out there – Kickstarter, etc – allowing artists to really be small business people. A lot of artists have been developing ‘business plans’ to deliver their music – Ani DeFranco is really one of the contemporary pioneers, I guess – as are artists like Jill Sobule – finding their audience and running really beautiful ‘small businesses’. It’s really inspiring.

O’Shea: Looking at an artist like Rosanne Cash, who has a substantial number of Twitter followers, are you trying to stress to the acts working with Notable how important it is to market themselves through Twitter and other social media outlets?

DeSavia: The acts are showing us! When we got together with Rosanne she was already crowned a queen of Twitter. Rosanne is a brilliant author – and I love her best when she’s writing in 140 characters or less. And she is the undisputed gold medalist of hash tags. We only got involved with Twitter recently (@NotableMusicCo) – it was after watching Rose and her ‘audience’, and finally really understanding what a great an fun tool this was. Again, to answer your question – the art world is definitely leading the charge here, the business side is following suit.

O’Shea: Am I correct in thinking that Notable Music wants to be associated with artists that work in vastly different musical genres?

DeSavia: Back to the aforementioned “If it fits in our record collection, it fits at Notable”. If Damon, Shelby and I all love something, and we know we can go out and pound the pavement with it, we want it on the roster. And as ‘eclectic’ as our roster is, there are so many connections – Rosanne and Sam have shared a mutual admiration/friendship for years, Sam and Chico Mann have used some of the same musicians over the years on vastly different recordings, and there is a love of Cy’s work among the whole lot. Cy’s independent vision when he started the company in 1962 is what we strive to continue… an era when this hugely successful Broadway Composer signed unknown R&B writers/performers like Bobby Hebb (“Sunny”) and Clifton Davis (“Never Can Say Goodbye”). Sam has been long-threatening to cut Cy’s “Hey Big Spender” (her idea) and it looks like that may be happening soon!

O’Shea: Last year Notable formed a partnership with IODA, what has resulted from the association so far? Is Notable looking to form more associations like that in the near to long-term?

DeSavia: We love IODA. Not only do they have a great future business model that’s not only working, it’s thriving… but they are also huge music fans. Everyone we’ve met over there is a huge record geek. We love that.

O’Shea: What projects are on the horizon for Notable Music in the near to long term?

DeSavia: Sam is just finishing a new record that is brilliant. The way she keeps evolving as a writer and performer is amazing to behold… she really keeps getting better and better, if that’s possible.

Rosanne is going to make a ‘duo’ record with Billy Bragg that Joe Henry will be producing – I cannot wait until that gets underway. Rosanne and Billy together is so inspired. They’re still writing the songs, but already I can’t wait to own it.

We’ll be seeing new discs from the Wax Poetics lot – Adrian, Aja, and Chico Mann – in the coming months. And some more new signings that are under this partnership… too early to say, but the gents at Wax have some great ideas up their sleeve.

There are also talks of some exciting New York and London revivals of a couple of Cy’s plays. ‘Sweet Charity‘ has been running on London’s West End this year and is a bonafide hit. There is also a possible film adaptation of one of Cy’s shows – we’re keeping fingers crossed that that comes to fruition.

O’Shea: Is there anything you’d like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about?

DeSavia: Just remind everyone to support music and artists. If you love the arts, support them! Buy the record, see the show, support your local NPR station. Oh, and follow us on Twitter (@NotableMusicCo) and Facebook – we’ll try our best to keep you entertained…

Kevin Byrne, a writer I’ve met through Twitter, recently made me aware of a poorly constructed essay by Jane Gilvary. Gilvary rubs me the wrong way by clarifying what she views a real man to be and how she thinks pop culture is diluting what a real man is or means. Let me clarify, even if her theory was built supporting liberal values I’d disagree with her.

Byrne dissects her essay far better than I could. I’m not in total agreement with all of Byrne’s rebuttal (nor do I think he expected anyone to agree completely with him), but I enjoyed his perspective, which ran recently in Jack Move Magazine.

Actually my favorite part of his essay is when Byrne writes about his role models (his father-in-law [Stu] as well as Byrne’s own father), like with this paragraph:

“I admire Stu. He’s very much a guy, like my father was, although my dad was not nearly as handy. My father was born in Brooklyn, NY; my father-in-law in the wooded Watchung reservation in the hills of Mountainside, NJ. Notwithstanding geographical origins, both had been raised via old school rules, where hard knocks were the common turf. As a result, each matured into adulthood as men of few words, not the sort to complain, and the kind you could always count on. I emulate them both. Even the clothes I wear now for comfort are based on the sort of stuff I saw men like my father and Stu wear around the house: worn-out T-shirts, flannels, old Levis and boots. They both liked beer, barbeque, fishing and Clint Eastwood films and I did too. These were real men. These were my role models.”

Jennifer Haase

My musical realm of knowledge continually grows thanks to social networking. Singer/songwriter Jennifer Haase is the latest example, having been introduced to her music via her Twitter account. This September will mark the release of Haase’s latest album, No More Invitations. It was interesting to talk to an artist like Haase, given that she recently walked away from Corporate America to commit fully to her musical career. We discuss that transition, as well as the fundraising effort for her upcoming release and her overall approach to her music.

Tim O’Shea: How long has your upcoming album been in the works?

Jennifer Haase: It was spring 2006 when my record producer Mike Leslie and I shook hands with a plan to start this record together. If we’d known then what we know now, ha! It’s been 4 amazing, enlightening, tumultuous music-making years with him and my recording engineer Robert L. Smith. I told Mike recently that I feel like this project has weaved itself into the fabric of our lives.

O’Shea: Which has been harder, raising the funds to make the album or recording the album itself?

Haase: Making the album has been much harder on me than the fundraiser. The Boys (Mike & Robert) can confirm that I’m sometimes prone to impatience and bouts of self-doubt. With perhaps a teensy hair-thin sliver of perfectionism when it comes to my singing voice. Barely detectable beneath my joyous song-recording rapture, of course. A-hem.

O’Shea: You became a full-time musician this past January, quitting your day job. Were you more happy or scared that first post-Corporate America morning?

Haase: Very much both. I was deeply excited about taking this leap of faith and knew it was the right time for me to go. But I had no idea what I was doing and still don’t. I was full of fear and still am.

O’Shea: How much advanced planning/streamlining your life expenses/setting money aside did you have to do before quitting?

Haase: Ha! None. Absolutely none. Oh, I’d been thinking about leaving the day job for awhile, but I was socking every dime I could spare into this album so I had no savings to speak of. Things started happening with my singer/songwriter pursuits that made it clear I couldn’t continue to do both jobs. I needed flexible recording and writing time. I needed to travel for gigs and sessions on short notice. I took a breath. I closed my eyes. I jumped. Right now I pay my bills writing custom songs for special occasions and just started working with a NYC-based music publisher to co-write some songs with/for their roster.

O’Shea: Guests on the album include Rosanne Cash and Stephen Kellogg–how did you decide to utilize their talents most effectively on the album? What other musicians are working with you on this new release?

Haase: I was driving to therapy one afternoon, listening to the demo of my song “Oneonta” and had one of those “Aha!” epiphanies that make it hard to keep the car on the road. I knew I wanted Rosanne to sing with me on one of the songs, but suddenly this was the one. I called Mike, all breathless and rattling this idea into his voice mail, and then sat through therapy thinking about nothing but how I was going to con Mrs. Leventhal [Cash's husband is musician/producer John Leventhal]  to do it.  I wasn’t trying to utilize her talent effectively, I was just working from instinct and acting from the heart. I adore Rosanne, who’s been an amazing mentor to me, and wanted her guest vocal to be very sisterly. I think we nailed that and hearing her voice with mine still makes me weep with joy. Don’t tell her I said that. Very embarrassing.

With Stephen, it was a similar flash of clarity while listening to the demo, but I knew I wanted Stephen’s voice on “3,000 Miles” pretty much from moment one. Stephen & I co-wrote a song together called “Another Midas Story” back when we met in Rosanne’s songwriting workshop at The Omega Institute in 1997. So I already knew how wonderful Stephen’s voice would work with mine. When we were finally ready for his vocals, Robert sent the song file to Stephen’s recording engineer pal John Shyloski. One April day in CT when I couldn’t be there, John, Stephen and Kit Karlson (from Stephen’s band The Sixers) all knocked out Stephen’s guest vocal with Kit adding a surprise and ultra-lovely part on keys. What they sent back to us still stuns me. So beautiful.

My dear friends Patty Ocfemia and Gretchen Witt added some b-vox on “As the Record Spins.” This album also features Denny McDermott on drums/percussion. Some keys & string tracks from Gary Schreiner. David M. Patterson on a few songs for lead guitar and mandolin. And our own Mike Leslie on bass, lead guitar, backing vocals and some pretty pings on the glockenspiel, too.

O’Shea: You’re the child of musical parents, do they make an appearance on any of your new songs? How much did your parents shape your knowledge/appreciation of music?

Haase: I didn’t work with either of my parents on this album, but I would love to add their talents to my recordings someday. Mine was a very musical house growing up and my parents had a tremendous influence on the shaping my musical self. My dad was the lead guitarist for a Nebraska country-western band for many years. Dad’s in his 70′s now and still can’t walk buy a music store without wanting a new guitar. He was always shushing us to hear a great guitar lick on the radio. My mother is a singer/songwriter and plays more gigs than I do with her singer/musician husband, Gene, in Colorado. Mom shaped my songwriter heart. She is very much the love of lyrics side of me.

O’Shea: Here’s a recent tweet of yours: “I need this today RT  @psjoneswritesbest way 2 cure #writersblock is 2 leave whatever you’re trying 2 write alone & go write something else”  How much do you use Twitter to bolster your confidence in yourself as well as in challenges you may face?

Haase: I do a lot of networking on twitter and the way that’s paying off certainly does bolster my confidence. A web radio show host found me there and now regularly spins my songs (The Wrecking Ball Radio Show with @mystic23). You found me there, thank you! I’ve raised making-of-the-album funds from some of my generous twitter followers. And I’ve become part of a really fun indie singer/songwriter community there, too.

O’Shea: No More Invitations is your second independent release–how has your music changed since that first album?

Haase: ‘No More Invitations’ is a bit more grown-up and bold in theme, overall. It’s a bit sexier, a bit darker and comes from such deeply-felt stuff. I ended up writing a handful of these songs in the middle of recording this album. I’d just moved to the country from NYC and was purging some heartache and depression right into the sound hole of my 6-string. But thankfully there was a lot of lightness and twinkle-eyed spark rising out of me, too. From the pile of songs I was writing then, “Oneonta”, “Rescue Dreams”, “New Pink Sweater” and “Beautiful Man” made the album cut. Maybe a year later I wrote “As the Record Spins” and added that song to the new mix, too. The first album was simply the first songs I’d written. This 2nd album has been writing itself along the way.

O’Shea: You recently wrote “This room in Norwich was teaching me a very valuable lesson as I finished my set with some of the best and most appreciated applause I’ve ever received. Never judge a small town UK pub by its cover. And never underestimate anyone’s ability–no matter their age or location–to enthusiastically cross a musical bridge.” How much do you find touring helps you to tighten your material and/or gain greater confidence in your performance abilities?

Haase: Performing is challenging for the mediocre musician side of me, but it brings out my entertainer side in a fun way when I allow myself to relax and enjoy it. I love to tell stories and crack jokes and connect in-between songs. And, yes, performing always points out where a song needs polish, definitely.

O’Shea: [As we already discussed] you also write wedding/special occasions songs upon request (as documented here “In addition to writing songs for my own albums, I love writing songs for other people to  give as gifts and use for special occasions.”), do you think those efforts is another indirect way to make potential listeners aware of your recording career?

Haase: Yes, I ask custom song clients to listen to my own album songs as more samples of my writing style. They often say “I want my song just like THAT one, only–you know–happier.”

O’Shea: How did you decide to have Mike Leslie produce your album, what made you want to collaborate with him?

Haase: I met Mike through a mutual drummer friend, Blake Hepburn, at a gig he played with their rock band Citizens of Contrary Knowledge. Excuse my French, but Mike is a fuckin’ awesome player and I was really impressed. Months later, I hired him to play one of my own gigs in Brooklyn and for some reason I kept going to Mike for advice during the planning of it. What songs, what rehearsal studio, etc. He directed me so naturally and comfortably. He complimented my writing and my voice and showed such a deep passion for great songs that was wonderful to be around. Again, no formal assessment of how to utilize his many talents, I just knew instinctively that here was the record producer I’d been looking for. Mike is really creative and hilarious and loves nothing more than “playing with tape recorders.” He’s the calm to my storm in that studio, in spite of the fact that he sometimes forgets who’s the boss of this thing. She being me, Mr. Leslie, thank you very much.

Blue Star Museums

Many folks may have already heard about the Blue Star Museums concept, given it has been in effect since Memorial Day, but I just found out about it myself, thanks to a tweet from MOMA.

As noted at its site, the Blue Star Museums is  ”a partnership among Blue Star Families, the National Endowment for the Arts, and more than 850 museums in all 50 states to offer free admission to military personnel and their families from Memorial Day, May 31, 2010, through Labor Day, September 6, 2010.”

In addition to the initiative’s main site (which features an interactive map allowing folks to see which museums in the 50 states are participating), there is a blog providing even more in-depth information and museum advice.

In these tight economic times, I’m glad to see folks coming up with ways to support the families of the military in such a positive as well as culturally enriching manner.