Final mix this weekend

Anyone give a listen to 'Past Tense'?
Look, I know it's rough---we're hacks, not pros, folks---but I hope it gives you some idea of what the song is like.
In any event, we're doing final mix this weekend.  Item 1 on the agenda: Got to boost my drums! They're completely buried.

Gene Clark's 'Past Tense'...as covered by The Popweasels

Here's a rough mix of our cover of the song.
'Past Tense' was one of 8 songs included on the unbooted Gene Clark Sings for You demos from 1967.  We've tried to Byrdsify/popify it up a little bit, in an effort to manifest the potential I saw in it as a power pop song.
I'll post the final version once we've mixed it.

'Past Tense' by The Popweasels
pw: geneclark

The Kai Clark Band

Belated Happy New Year, everyone.

Recently, I received an email from Kai in which he provided a link to the brand new electronic press kit of The Kai Clark Band.  Check it out!

For the transcript of my interview with Kai from May 22, 2010, go here.

I'll be back very soon with a new entry (coinciding with the High Moon's release of Two Sides To Every Story), along with the waaaaa-aaaaay overdue recording of my band's interpretation of Gene's 'Past Tense' from the Sings for You sessions.  For personal reasons, we were forced to abandon work on it over a year ago, but we're determined to polish it off by the end of the month.

Backwoods Gothic

From City to Country to City:

No Other, the Silverados and Two Sides To Every Story

Following the commercial failure of 1974’s No Other, his sprawling and ambitious tour de force, it seems reasonable to assume Gene Clark suffered a crisis of confidence, possibly even a breakdown of sorts, in the three years prior to the release of Two Sides To Every Story in 1977.  

With No Other, he manifested the potential that everyone knew he had in him; that had been evident since his days in The Byrds: he produced A Great Work.  It is a daring, brash album, cinematic in its scope and vision, filled with Gene’s incomparable, idiosyncratic, if occasionally impenetrable, poetry, and some of the most soaring, dramatic music heard this side of an opera hall.  Bombastic?  Over the top?  Hell, yeah.  That was the whole point.

No Other is the single greatest achievement from a former member of The Byrds.

And Gene wrote or co-wrote every song on the album.

But Asylum’s refusal to widely promote the album or sponsor a major tour – especially after Gene’s notorious confrontation with David Geffen in Dan Tana’s – effectively sealed the fate of Gene’s Grand Artistic Statement, and cast it headlong into the ignominy of the cutout bins.

A brief aside…

Imagine this fantasy scenario.

It’s 1975, and the title track from No Other has become a surprise midsummer hit, prompting a multi-legged stadium tour of North America and the U.K.   A handpicked assemblage of L.A’s best musicians and background singers backs Gene.   The album is lauded by critics and fans as Clark’s long-awaited masterpiece, heralded by everyone from old Byrds devotees to prog-rock aficionados.  Gene Clark signs a lucrative contract with Asylum and becomes a major star through the ‘70s and ‘80s.

As we all know, what actually transpired bears no resemblance to this (But if the idea of witnessing ‘Lady of the North’ wafting heavenward in the open air doesn’t give you goose bumps, you’re best advised to stop reading this blog right now).  In reality, Gene hooked up with two journeymen musicians, Duke Bardwell and Roger White, and, musically speaking, retreated from the glitz of the city to the comfort of bluegrass hill country.

There is something very heartbreaking (ah, but isn’t there always with Gene?) about the idea Gene Clark touring his masterpiece – not in limos and private jets, but in the back of a van, playing small dinner clubs.

And yet the Silverados period, notwithstanding his escalating intake of booze and drugs that marred some of the performances, was the moment at which Gene created a truly unique, if entirely non-commercial, sound.  From Byrds pop to the stark balladry of the White Light period and the glam-prog of the then recent No Other, Gene and the Silverados reconciled differences between ostensibly disparate musical styles.  To paraphrase Van Morrison, Gene, Duke and Roger got down to the real soul inside the very bones of the songs. 

This was an abrupt change in the direction of Gene’s music.  Spectorian bombast had transformed into bucolic simplicity; the alienation of city life led back to the earthy, mystical country of his childhood.  With this in mind, Gene’s then brand new composition, ‘The Daylight Line,’ spells out the story of his post-No Other disillusionment as clearly as a leaked diary entry:

I'd be home in the city but really that is not my place                              

I could go down in pity or leave and take a look at my face

Gene’s performances with the Silverados were anathema to No Other.  Think of how ridiculous it sounds on paper.  How could three guys reproduce what took $100,000.00 and a small army of L.A.’s session elite to capture in the studio?  This was tantamount to Springsteen touring Born to Run accompanied by kazoo and toy piano.

And yet somehow, in spite of Gene’s drinking, money woes and disinterested audiences, Gene and the Silverados gelled as a unit.  As the surviving recorded evidence attests, they recast every discrete period of Gene’s music into a unified, ebullient, yet haunting whole, to create what can only be described as backwoods gothic.

No small achievement that.

Neil Young built his career on sudden changes in style, but there was one big difference – he could afford to.  By 1975 Young had achieved considerable commercial success, both as a solo artist and as part of CSN&Y, and therefore had the luxury of screwing with bandwagon-jumpers by releasing Tonight’s the Night while they pined for another ‘Old Man’.  When you’re Gene Clark, a guy who hadn’t hitched his wagon to a mega-unit-shifting project for ten years, such a volte-face was another in a series of career-killing decisions.   The intended audience for Gene’s fusion of Appalachia and (for lack of a better term) “rock,” with its plaintive, at times wild, yodeling, tasty guitar pickin’ and folksy three-part harmony, did not buy records destined for the top 40.

Doubtless these very thoughts factored into Tommy Kaye’s fateful decision to unceremoniously turf the Silverados, and repeat the No Other formula by hiring slick studio pros. 

But listen to ‘Home Run King’ as performed by the Silverados.   Then play the studio cut.  Which one has more personality? It is as simple as that.  Studio sheen and faultless musicianship cannot compete with the kinetic energy achieved by three guys who had rehearsed together, travelled in a van together, eaten lousy road food together, and had, as a solid unit, played a series of low-paying, low profile gigs in smoky clubs.

Kaye’s firing of the Silverados was the country-rock equivalent of Chris Thomas suddenly bringing in Brian May, John Entwistle and Phil Collins to back up John Lydon on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.  It was a decision that effectively sabotaged Gene’s backwoods gothic statement.  For whatever reason, perhaps due to his plummeting sense of self-confidence, Gene let it happen.

In the end, the studio pros made no difference.  Upon its initial release in 1977, Two Sides To Every Story was eviscerated in Rolling Stone, courtesy of this notorious review:

To those who admire Gene Clark, Two Sides to Every Story is a heartbreaker—in the worst way. ("Is this the dullest album ever made?" was my original opening sentence. "Probably" would have been the second.) Lugubrious to the point of laughableness, the once-classy Clark creeps through a series of Gibranian ballads that is so Antonioni-slow the songs actually seem to stop. Dead. Like this. Bereft of either interest or ideas, this plodding work can only be described as California-liturgidical.

Interlarded among the endlessness are some lame bluegrass ("Home Run King," "In the Pines"), listless rock & roll ("Marylou") and the worst train song ever ("Kansas City Southern"). Producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye is a great help, offering an interminable supply of nothing but the moldiest clichés.

Actually, there is one clever phrase: "You're either/Just the newspaper boy/Or you're either Babe Ruth." How much for a late city edition, Gene? (RS 239)

PAUL NELSON

In terms of Gene’s post-1977 career, I have often referred to this review as delivery of the coup de grâce.  Never again would he be signed to a major label as a solo artist.

Tommy Kaye bears a certain amount of blame, for sure.  Whether hampered by cocaine burnout or late-‘70s L.A. ennui (or both), Kaye was unable to coax anything resembling spirited performances from the musicians.  Nelson was partially right: some of the tracks are plodding, but others, like ‘Hear the Wind’ or ‘Past Addresses,’ simply required a more muscular approach; more oomph from the players – more backwoods soul.  In some cases, a less morose, slightly quicker tempo, would have worked wonders.  The bones of a great album are there, but some combination of crucial decisions – involving everything from musicians to song selection – had a deleterious effect on the results.

But it was Gene’s inability to get past the failure of No Other that also contributed his undoing.  His obvious doubt in his own skills as a composer led him to record three covers, plus an ill-advised remake of one past glory (which presages the formula later employed on 1984’s Firebyrd: ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’).

Another brief aside…

Imagine a confident Clark entering the studio with the Silverados (augmented by keyboard player and drummer) in late 1976, early 1977.  Consider the attractiveness of this particular line-up, recording an album with this running order:

Side 1

Home Run King

Lonely Saturday

The Daylight Line

What is Meant Will Be

The Wheel of Time

Side 2

Sister Moon

Hear the Wind

Past Addresses

Silent Crusade

Glib summation: Once a home run king himself, the failure of Two Sides To Every Story sent Gene packing to the minors posthaste.

But it’s only with benefit of hindsight that we may propound these theories about what happened to Gene, or second-guess what he should have done.  It’s likely he did not analyze matters as much as I have herein, and was simply trying to do the best he could to survive.  He might even laugh at a term like “backwoods gothic” (then again, he might have appreciated someone taking his music this seriously).  And who are we to judge?  Two Sides, even with all its flaws, still has moments of brilliance.  In places it is as moving as anything he ever wrote.  We ought to be thankful it’s being re-released.

In a world where you’re either just reporting the accomplishments of others (like a newspaper boy) or you’re the heroic achiever himself (like Babe Ruth), Nelson got it wrong in the vicious kiss-off line in which he compared Gene to the former. 

After the failure of his masterpiece, Gene’s punch-drunk ego was almost certainly near collapse.  But what Nelson failed to grasp is that even if one is no longer a home run king, it is a designation that cannot be taken away.  Even if the Babe strikes out at the bottom of the ninth, run one behind, two out, with a man on third, he can still claim to have achieved what others can only fantasize about.  In the end, he’s still remembered as a home run king.

From here on in, there would be no more home runs, no signing bonuses or lucrative 

commercial endorsements.  But for those who followed his career as it slid into the minors, there was still a series of doubles and triples yet to be heard from Gene Clark.

Interview with Kai Clark, May 22, 2011

Oftentimes musicians who happen to be the children of famous rock stars, try to avoid direct association with their parent's material (one doesn't see Jakob Dylan firing up 'Absolutely Sweet Marie' in concert).  Presumably, this arises out of a (fully understandable) desire to be taken seriously in their own right.  But attempting to disassociate and distance themselves from their parents' accomplishments asks for a willing suspension of disbelief, wherein the listener is expected to forget who that person's father is, regardless of similarities of look, mannerism or stage presence. 

Not so with Kai Clark, one of Gene Clark's two sons. As evidenced in his band's April 29th, 2011 performance at L.A.'s Roxy to promote High Moon's re-release of his father's misunderstood 1977 album, Two Sides to Every Story, Kai openly embraces his father's music.  On that night, Kai and his band, along with some special guests, performed the album from start to finish.  Kai also dug into a selection of songs either written by, or closely associated with, his father.  And with a giant photograph of Gene Clark in his '60's prime literally watching over him, Kai performed his father's music with palpable exuberance and pride.

And it didn't stop there.  Adding to the bittersweet nature of the evening, Kai was joined onstage by the members of the Gene Clark Group [Joel Larson, Bill Rinehart, Chip Douglas], who had last played together some 44 years ago.  

As you will see, for Kai the Roxy gig became more than an album release party.  It became a celebration of his dad's life, music and legacy.  It also served to inculcate within him a deeper appreciation and understanding of his dad's extraordinary gifts.  Full circle indeed.

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Q.  I just wanted to talk a bit about the reissue of Two Sides to Every Story. How did that get kick started?

A.  Well, a young man named of George Wallace, who started a label called High Moon Records -- they were doing the Love album, and I think they were looking for another one.  So they released the Love Black Beauty album, as you probably know, as well as the Two Sides to Every Story album.  So they’re releasing stuff from around similar eras.

Q.  The recent show at the Roxy, how did that go?  I’ve watched some of the clips on YouTube.  It looked like a lot of fun.

A.  It was actually a really good show.  It was wonderful.  We had a full house.  I had some special guests.  I had a guy named Tim Bluhm from the Mother Hips, a northern California band, come up and did some stuff.  And then we also had the Gene Clark Group reunion, which was the original guys from the Gene Clark Group.  That was really cool to have them come up.  That was kind of a last-minute thing.  So that was pretty interesting.  The show went really, really good.

Q.   Did you have a chance to sit around and chat with Chip, Joel and Bill that much?

A.  Yes, I – well, Chip was around quite a bit.  Joel and them were there off and on.

Q.   I’ve spoken to all of them, because I was going to write a piece on the Gene Clark Group.  Had you met them prior to this?

A.  No, I hadn’t.  And Bill was quite a unique character as well...

Q.  [Laughs].

A. They’re some cool guys.  It was fun for them.  It was kind of last minute.  They came over and we put it all together.

Q.  How many songs did you perform?

A.  We did four songs.  We did ‘Tried So Hard,’ ‘Keep on Pushin,’’ ‘Elevator Operator,’ and one more.  I’m trying to remember which one that was.

Q.  ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’?

A.  No, we did ‘Feel a Whole Lot Better’ with my group, which came out really good.  The whole set was we did the album, front to back, Two Sides to Every Story, then we had the Gene Clark Group come up and do four songs.  And then our finishing set we had ‘So You Say You Lost Your Baby,’ ‘Polly Come Home,’ ‘Eight Miles High,’ ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,’ and a couple of other ones that we really liked.  And that was just a blast.  At the end we had everybody come up onstage for ‘Eight Miles High,’ our finale song.  It was really fun.

Q.  In terms of the Two Sides to Every Story album, what songs do you think were the hardest to pull off?

A.  We worked pretty hard on all the stuff; it all came along pretty good.  As far as the hardest to pull off, I would say it would have to be ‘Past Addresses’ -- or ‘Sister Moon’ has a real high vocal part in it [chuckles], so for me it was …  It was all pretty good.  I mean, they’re unique songs; they have a lot of parts to them.  Those were probably the tougher of them.

We had Steve Ehret come up for ‘Sister Moon’ and ‘Give My Love to Marie.’  ‘Give My Love to Marie’ is a real slow ballad.  I think he started singing it in a different key, so… [laughs]  But you know, some of them were prepared more than others and that’s just normal when you’re having some people come up like that and join you onstage.  We had a great time.

I was onstage for three hours, so I didn’t get to get out and mingle as much as I would have liked to, but that’s part of being up there in front and playing a show.

Q.  Do you know the exact release date of the Two Sides reissue?

A.  You know, there was a small holdup somewhere in Holland, so I think they just have one little piece of paper that’s floating around somewhere that they’re waiting to – it’s just somebody’s got to put a stamp on it and send it back.

I know they’re trying to do it sometime in June.  It could go as late as July.  They’re just – it’s had a little holdup with that, with some sort of release – because it’s a worldwide release, so I know there was a little bit of a holdup with something in Holland and I’m not quite sure what.  But I think that’s getting taken care of, and then it should be out, I figure, by the end of July at the very latest.

Q.  Have the bonus tracks been finalized yet?

A.  You know, they haven’t.  George is working on that and he’s got a lot of great ideas.  He has some interview stuff that he might be interested in putting on there, so I’m really not sure of what he’s got as far as the bonus tracks ready to go.

Q.  I gave George my wish list...

A.  You know, he found some really cool stuff, so I’m sure it’ll be a good little collector’s thing for people out there when they get a hold of it.

Q.  I’m going to apologize for this question ahead of time because I know it’s a stupid one, but it’s one of those questions you have to ask.  Are you a fan of your dad’s work?

A.  Yeah, you know, I wasn’t as much as I have as I got older.  I think as a kid, I grew up in a whole different era, and I wasn’t even born until he had already done so much.  So, for me, I become more of a fan every day, and especially after doing this album and having to go through every song and learn it just the way it was on the album, it really opened my eyes into how unique his music is.  You know, as an adult and as a musician because I write a lot myself.  So I had so much of my own material, I had never delved that far into my dad’s material.  But now that I’m older, and I’ve gone through this album and stuff, I really have this great respect for my dad’s writing ability and his singing -- and the whole package together was quite unique.  I think when people listen to more of his stuff, it’s hard not to be a fan.  It grows on you, and you really become enveloped in his emotions in the song.  It’s quite unique, I think.

As a kid it was kind of hard to understand it.  I think most kids listen to catchy pop and this kind of thing, especially in this day and age.  I mean, I’ve always been a fan, but I think now that I’m an adult and I’ve been through more with his music, I’m really a big fan of my dad’s stuff now.

Q.  What other musicians do you respect and admire?

A. Boy, there’s a long list of them.  You know, growing up, of course Jimi Hendrix -- being a pioneer.  Definitely I love country music, so Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, on those sides.  A great blues musician, Taj Mahal, Keb Mo, these kind of people as well, definitely have a place in my listening – Bonnie Raitt, all these great musicians that I grew up listening to as well.  I mean, the list goes on and on.  I really like bluegrass and stuff like that.  I could go on and on.

Q.  What are your goals musically, for your own career?

A.  I have a son now and a wife, and we’re getting our own place up here in northern California, so my goals musically are just to be happy.  I don’t need to make a million dollars, I don’t want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.  It would be nice but I don’t have these too high of expectations.  I definitely would love to tour and play and make a living at playing music would be comfortable for me.  Something where I could tour part of the year and make a living and be at home part of the year with my family and raising my son.  I think that’s important.  I missed a lot of that growing up with my father because he was always – always gone, you know?

But I love playing live.  That’s one of my favourite things, travelling and doing shows.

Q.  It just occurred to me that in two days it will be the 20^th anniversary of your dad’s passing ---

A.  Yes – yeah.

Q.  I can say without hesitation that that had a huge impact on my life.  I can’t even begin to imagine how it would have affected you.  How did you process something like that; how did you deal with that kind of grief? 

A.  Well, when he passed away I was 17, it was my graduating year of high school.  My mom was going through rough times with drugs and addictions and stuff, so I had to be pretty independent at a young age.  [My dad’s death] was a pretty big kicker, on top of everything else I was going through at the time.

So, dealing with the grief, it was tough. I think I was angry for a while when I was young.  Now that I’m older you know, it really doesn’t affect me that much.  I mean, I get emotional, especially with the release [of Two Sides to Every Story], and being on stage and playing my dad’s songs and stuff.  It’s hard to say how it affects me.  Sometimes it’s tough.  He pops into my head all the time.  I thought of him as dad, where millions of people thought of him as Gene Clark of the Byrds or whatnot.

Q.  Has the anger passed?

A.  Yeah, that was just when I was young, you know, I was kind of angry.  It was just part of being young and not understanding it all.  It’s hard to take when you’re a kid – and, you know, so much else was going on too.  I got over the anger and then it just turned into love and admiration of my father, regardless of what things I went through.  Because I can’t imagine what him and my mom must have gone through. you know, with the fame and the money and the people and who do you trust and where do you go.  I think that was why they raised us away from all that up in Mendocino.

Q.  Do you have a favourite song by your dad?

A.  The one I really like, which we did at the show, it’s one of my all-time favourites, is ‘So You Say You Lost Your Baby.’  ‘Polly Come Home’ is a great song too.

Q.  That must have made you very proud when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss covered those two songs [‘Polly’ and ‘Through the Morning, Through the Night’] on Raising Sand?

A.  Yes, and I got to meet Robert and Alison in 2007 and that was a great experience.  They were really great people.

Q.  That would have exposed your dad’s music to a whole new generation of people.

A.  Yes, it did.  T-Bone Burnett, what a great guy -- and that’s someone I would really like to work with in the future.  I may have the opportunity to work with him pretty soon.  We got some stuff in the works.  Just trying to finish up some recordings. 

T-Bone did a great, great job of producing that album.  He actually found those songs in a play on Broadway.  An Irish fellow, I can’t remember his name, had those in his production and T-Bone saw them and said “These would be great” – because I think he was in the works of doing that album with Robert and Alison.  So, pretty cool story how it came about, behind those two songs.  And what a great job they did.

Q.  Are there any plans for future archival releases?

A.  You know, it’s hard to say.  We always try and do things with respect.  There’s a lot of stuff out there that’s not in respect to my father’s name.  There’s a bit of stuff out there that is not of the quality we would like to portray of my dad.  Of course there’s bootlegs and this and that.  We actually just recently found some bootlegs being out there.  You can’t catch them all.  Me and my brother [Kelly], we incorporated father’s name, and we try and do very respectful stuff of dad’s.  I would love to do an archival release at some point.  There’s been a couple that have touched on it, but I think there’s so much more ---

Q.  Oh yeah.

A.  … and I think that it’s gaining more attention.  I would like to see more current artists doing dad’s music and kind of touch the younger generation.  There’s so much out there that’s a possibility.  Dad had so much music.  The older I get the more I discover and find, “Wow, this is great!”

Actually, because of this release there’s been a lot of stuff coming out.  People are seeing this release and they’re bringing out the stuff they have, which is great because we’re finding some unique gems.
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SPECIAL THANKS TO KAI CLARK

Also from the Two Sides to Every Story release party at the Roxy:

Home Run King

Lonely Saturday

In the Pines

Kansas City Southern

MaryLou

Coming Soon...an interview with KAI CLARK

This past weekend I had the great pleasure of chatting with Kai Clark, Gene's son.  We discussed, among other things, the 20th anniversary of Gene's death (then 2 days away), the forthcoming reissue of Two Sides to Every Story, his recent performance of the album -- in its entirety -- at the Roxy, and his impromptu gig with The Gene Clark Group, Joel Larson, Bill Rinehart and Chip Douglas.

Thanks for the comments!

Hello, I just wanted to say thanks to all the people who have left messages over the last couple of months. I truly appreciate each one.