Last One Standing: Carolyn Cassady Interviewed

Once every so often something genuinely worthwhile graces these pages, and this is one of them.

Around two-and-a-half years ago I was sent a press release by publishers Black Spring Press, announcing that Carolyn Cassady was re-surfacing from rural Berkshire to promote the new edition of her memoirs, Off The Road: Twenty Years With Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg. I asked for an interview, got it, then could find no publications willing to take the feature, for lots of different reasons. In my chaotic life back then I subsequently seemed to lose the confounded interview transcript, only for it to turn up again recently. Here below, therefore, is an edited presentation of the interview.

Neal Cassady, of course, enjoyed a deeply profound friendship with Jack Kerouac, the latter basing the character of Dean Moriarty on him in On The Road. Carolyn married Neal in 1948 and the book is her account of their life together, up until 1963 when she filed for divorce, sick of his gallivanting, philandering, drug-taking and general self-destruction.

Subjective though it might be, Off The Road is arguably the truest glimpse of the intimate lives of Kerouac and Cassady yet to be published. Cassady writes candidly of her own long-term affair with Kerouac (one approved of by Neal), and the extra-marital activities of her husband, such as walking in on him and Allen Ginsberg in, shall we say, a state or pre-coital exploration in the marital bedroom. Still adhering at least in part to her traditional upbringing, Carolyn promptly kicked Ginsberg out of their house.

Carolyn was fictionalised herself, as 'Camille' in On The Road, though she refused to read the book out of fear of what she might discover about her husband's insatiable mores.

She was encouraged to write Off The Road in the early seventies by publishers keen to cash in on the recent death of Kerouac, yet the book wasn't published until 1990. Tell the story of the beats it certainly does, but Cassady also devotes much of the book to her and Neal's experimenting with spirituality, leading to her eventually being a founding member of the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine in the seventies. At times, her passion for advocating her 'answer to life' philosophy unbalances the book, but Cassady is never one to shirk from speaking her mind. For decades she has been a critic of the way Kerouac's estate and legacy has been mishandled, along with, if you'll forgive the pun, the misguided near-beatification of the trio of writers who are the subject of her book.

In turn, modern feminists have taken aim at Cassady, accusing her of perpetuating the myth of 'masculine artistic hero' and fulfilling stereotypical domestic roles. Her apparent kowtowing is perhaps made more unsettling when one considers that Carolyn was arguably the intellectual superior to both Jack and Neal.



Cassady refutes all this though, as we can see. She ended up staying in touch with the other women in Neal's life, and at the age of 86, lives near Bracknell having moved to the UK when she was 60.

She is a woman with a lot of stories to tell.

Was the book originally something to set the record straight about these men, who had become more mythical than human?
Yes, it was from the request by the editor at Doubleday that I wrote my memories, since when Kerouac died [in 1969] the media didn’t seem to know him. Just assumptions and myths.

What was you and Neal's initial reaction to the exalted character of his alter-ego, Dean Moriarty?
We thought the character of Dean Moriarty was too limited a portrait of Neal. He disliked having the side of him promoted he was trying to overcome.

The duality of Kerouac's nature is well known, but in your experience which side of him dominated, the sentimental romantic or the testosterone-driven braggart?
Well, both. His self-portraits are pretty true: there is a lot that is typical Kerouac;. I do flinch when I can tell when he’s being bombastic, playing to the gallery or just plain silly.

The photograph on the cover to your book is striking. What were the circumstances surrounding it?
I tell about the photos in my book. It was the day after they brought home the prostitute, and because I didn’t throw them out as before, Jack was so happy he said we had to go outside and take pictures. I used a whole role of film in my Brownie box camera.

How did you feel about the way Jack depicted you in On The Road and other books?
What little Jack wrote about me was fine. He didn’t tell of the times we were together in Denver, and he didn’t write about our affair. In the early books, written in the late forties and early fifties it 'wasn't done' to write about fancying your best friend’s fiance and later having an affair with his wife. But come the sixties, in Big Sur he was quite comfortable telling how Evelyn had two husbands at the same time.

Watching him at close quarters, how did Neal deal with his frustrated literary ambitions?
Neal was extremely restless.Then he said he had so many words bombard his brain, to choose le mot juste was agonising. He was aware this was to be 'literature'. He wrote hundreds of letters, however, without those problems.

How sympathetic were you to the political and social agenda of the sixties counter-culture, for whom Neal was such a hero?
I suppose the counter-culture is a cyclical thing. When societies become so smug, so hypocritical, so static, something comes along to shake it all up and bring in new ideas. I haven’t liked very many of them so far, but I hope the pendulum will swing again.

What about The Grateful Dead [who Cassady famously drove around in Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters' tour bus] ?
I liked the men in The Grateful Dead, I just don’t like amplified music nor that without a structure I understand.

How do you think Jack would feel about his fame and legacy as it stands today?
In some ways Jack would be gratified, in others not with everyone wanting to get in on his act for personal gain. He would be pleased he is now considered a great writer, but he would be bitter it came too late for him to benefit himself. And what the Sampas family have done would appall him [the family of Kerouac's third wife Stella, for information see here], beginning with the funeral and the grave. The memorial monument he would love.

All these characters are often depicted in fiction as wild-living libertines on the fringes of society, yet your book suggests a part of them all yearned for the structure of the conventional family at one stage or another.
Yes, Jack, Neal and even Allen all aspired to a traditional family life. I think that’s why they liked our home. In Jack’s case it was lack of sufficient income from his writing. Neal had it for 10 years, but he craved adventure and challenges as well, so it wasn’t enough for his nature. He never wanted to leave it as long as he had some freedom, too. I made the mistake of divorcing him, in the erroneous thinking he would prefer his other life. He wanted both, alas.

Has the rise of the Dean Moriarty/Neal Cassady myth and brand been something you've watched with bitterness?
No one gave Neal any more adoration than I did. I was always glad if anyone admired or respected him for the right reasons. Unfortunately, that is seldom the case.

What made you leave America and come and live in Britain at the age of 60?
I became thoroughly disgusted with the establishment and corruption I witnessed. I was raised with the ideas that those institutions could do no wrong. My father even told me banks never make mistakes. I don’t see how anyone could have been more naïve and un-streetwise than I. I left that country.

Do you keep up with what's going on back in the States?
I don’t get involved in politics. I don’t believe any politician’s words. I am pleased with Obama’s victory - so far. I hope he can achieve his desires, like a decent health system and so on.

You deal with all of Neal's transgressions with other women and with Allen with admirable restraint. Do you ever regret your passivity?
Neal taught me a great many valuable lessons. One of them was jealousy is counterproductive. I am still close friends with his first wife and long-time mistress. We do have him in common. I knew nothing about homosexuality until much later. Now I would not have asked Allen to leave.

The Beat Generation writers are often criticised for their lack of respect towards the women in the lives, especially their creative endeavours. Was that something you experienced?
In my experience the men I knew respected women. They were always perfect gentlemen with me and in mixed company. They were very appreciative of me. I gather women who tried to compete in writing were overlooked, but I had no personal experience with that phenomenon. All my art and theatre work was successful and praised.

What do you say to feminists who criticise the beats' treatment of women?
I don’t agree with feminists; I don’t think they understand male and female functions. Yang and Yin. The Yin is far more powerful when not in active roles. Well... deep subject not appropriate here. I have written about it in Van Gogh’s Ear.

To what extent is it true, as hinted at in your book, that Neal was not the sexual superman he is often remembered as, but a little clumsy and awkward?
Neal was interested in any woman sexually, but he didn’t 'make love' or understand a woman’s needs, except highly sexually sensitive ones. I had been abused by both my elder brothers as a child, so I needed a different sort of approach than Neal’s. Jack’s was better, but I was handicapped. One of my deep regrets is that in those days we couldn’t talk about sex. I’m sure Neal would have understood and been compassionate, but I never told him.

Have you held to the spiritual teachings you detail in your book since then?
I still live by the spiritual principals I learned from studying so much metaphysics and ancient scriptures, because I think they are true and make sense - and they work. I test new ideas.

Did Jack's not accepting your new beliefs hinder your relationship with him?
Of course, we were disappointed that our best friend couldn’t understand what we felt to be the answer to life. But as time went on, we could appreciate the other’s beliefs. We felt his Buddhism was a step toward our faith in Jesus; we had studied it deeply. Still, we also understood we had logical minds and Jack did not. He was far more of a visionary, a dreamer, impressionable and so on. It didn’t harm our friendship with one another.

How do you feel about reports of a film version of On The Road, directed by Walter Salles and produced by Francis Ford Coppola?
So far any films that weren’t careful documentaries in regard to us were all dreadful. I have been consulting with Walter Salles often on the On The Road film. Also in the past, Francis Coppola consulted me and gave me copies of all the screenplays so far written. His son, Roman, and I wrote one together at his request which I still like. Every word in it is Jack’s. I’ve not seen the new script... Walter says he never follows the script exactly, or he enhances it as he goes along, so the written word is not what the film will be. I think if Walter had been allowed by financiers to follow his and Coppola’s original ideas, this film would be very good. Alas, for some reason they insist on Hollywood stars, Technicolor, all the usual stuff. No insights. No vision, no understanding this film will make millions whether it is good, bad or indifferent. So why not let him do it right?

And you didn't actually read On The Road until this time?
I didn’t want to know what Neal was doing on his road trip with Jack and LuAnne. I didn’t read the book thoroughly and objectively until working with Roman Coppola.

What makes up your life today?
Now I just read, watch DVDs and TV and listen to classical music. I have arranged my funeral and try not to be impatient. I get to see great friends from time to time - I have made so many from knowing these men in the past. I have occasional visitors from afar and answer a lot of emails.

Too Hot to Heave

And so it is that the Super 14 is suddenly upon us. In February, when cricketers are still gasping in the hot and humid air. Rugby weather it is not (he says, looking at the foot of snow outside and a game of rugger coming up in a few weeks).

I remember when I was a young boy, and the Super 14 was the Super Six and included Fiji. Fiji! In those heady days Queensland were actually a good side, winning the tournament when it was Super 10 in 1994 and 1995. I read in a book once (I think by Greg Crowden) that when Queensland are good, Australia are good. This is interesting; when Australia won the World Cup in 1991 the balance between NSW and Queensland players in the national side was pretty much even, though I do own that in 1999, the core of the team - and by that I mean Tim Horan and John Eales - were from the Sunshine State.

I have a hunch that this year the Waratahs and Brumbies might both makes the semi-finals, as I am continuing to believe the next two years will be great ones for Australian rugby generally. And with Crowden's (or whoever it was) comments in mind, let us wish Queensland well too, if only for the fact that in Will Genia they have one of the most charismatic and articulate players to come out of Australia in quite some time. He will supply Quade Cooper with ball, a contrast in brains if ever there was one... Genia is Arthur Miller to Cooper's Marilyn Monroe.

Here is my best Waratahs team from since the Super tournament concept began, back in 1992.

15. Matt Burke
14. Peter Hewat
13. Nathan Grey
12. Scott Staniforth
11.Lote Tuqiri
10.Berrick Barnes
9. Chris Whitaker
8. Wycliff Palu
7. Phil Waugh
6. Michael Brial
5. Dan Vickerman
4. Tom Bowman
3. Ewan McKenzie
2.Phil Kearns
1. Benn Robinson

The Nashing of Teeth

This appeared on the letters page in the October issue of R2 (Rock N Reel) magazine. I won't garnish it with any unnecessary commentary, suffice to say that letters of complaint are of course the Holy Grail for most critics. I've had a few in the past, and I very much enjoyed this one even if it is a bit too easily shot down for me to bask in it properly. The offending article can be found here.

Dear Sean,

I am a big fan of R2/Rock N Reel and have been for some time. I especially enjoy the reviews of new album releases, which I find to be both informative and interesting. What I like is the fact that the majority of reviews are written by critics who either like the music of the artist and are therefore aware of their history, or in the case of new artists, by critics who enjoy that particular genre of music.

It is because of the above that I felt compelled to write and express my disappointment with regard to the review of the Crosby, Stills and Nash album Demos, as written by Barnaby Smith. For a start Barnaby Smith does not like the music of CSN, or at least a third of their music, as he refers to the 'monstrous compositions' of Graham Nash that 'forever blight' their legacy - a bit harsh!

The review starts with a rather negative tone when Barnaby compares the band's latest tour to a 'depressing monolith', which 'chugs' across the world. Whilst I can see that the individual members may 'chug' around on stage, they are hardly depressing. I watched the clips of the band on BBC2 from Glastonbury and felt that, like most acts, they did not come across on TV as they do live on stage. I was fortunate to see them at Manchester MEN and they were excellent - including Graham Nash, whose 'monstrous compositions' have the audience singing along.

I carefully searched the review section of R2 for another contribution from Barnaby - I could only find one, the album by Emma Tricca. I followed this up by listening to some of her songs on MySpace and as a result I felt that the review was a fair one. Maybe Barnaby prefers new artists rather than old ones?

I am aware that music is subjective and one person's music is another person's noise; further, I note that David Crosby is a big David Crosby fan - although I would have loved to have read his review of Thousand Roads, with its synthesisers and contributions from Phil Collins. However, I do hope that this is not a trend for future reviews. I would encourage you to invite critics who like a band or genre to review new material.

If I want to read reviews that give vent to personal dislikes then I could always return to reading a magazine I used to buy - no names but its title was one letter!

David Jones, St Helens

PS The album Demos contains exactly what it says on the tine - DEMOS!

I have considered posting my response to this here, but I won't. It is good to know that at least somewhere Web 2.0 hasn't conquered all. Life is too short for the menial back and forths that many critics have to go through now on blogs and forums. So I will leave the final word to Mr Jones.

Three songs: 'Mingus and Pike' by The Ruby Suns, 'Things Fall Apart' by Built To Spill and 'In The Morning' by Wolfmother.

That Pioneer Spirit

I have just finished David N.Meyer's biography of Gram Parsons, a passionate, freakishly well researched thesis on he who was born Ingram Cecil Connor III, even if at times Mr Meyer's tone is just that: very thesis-like (repeat that holy formula: argument-quote-conclusion) . He is also guilty of some clunky philosophising and even offers his own psychological take on Gram's inner demons and musical evolution. Meyer is very keen indeed to interpret Gram in certain way and ensures his research fits into his own boxes. Nevertheless, a fine read.

He comes to some odd conclusions though, does Meyer. Writing of the continuing gossip and melodrama surrounding whether Gram and Emmylou Harris had any sort of affair while they were recording and touring in 1972-3, Meyer writes with marked cynicism that "the great-love-but-never-lovers trope is a cornerstone of the Emmylou Harris brand."

Is it really? Maybe in America, but sheesh, I think her brand is more to do with the fact she has made three or four genuinely superb albums, and to many remains the silver-haired goddess of country. For no one (neither the goddess herself or any witnesses) to confirm an affair, Meyer reckons, is to both preserve Emmylou's dignity (and retain that necessary mystery, of course) and avoid the humiliation of Gram's then-wife, Gretchen. "Gram and Emmylou remaining chaste serves both Gretchen and Emmylou's agenda," he writes. The evidence points to a them having a platonic time of it.

Anyway, in tribute to Meyer's effort, here are some interesting things about Gram Parsons I have learnt from his book:

* Gram wrote the song 'Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man' while he was in The Byrds in response to a horrible redneck DJ they ran into while in Nashville. Now, of course, a pregnant Joan Baez picked up this song and performed it at Woodstock as a heartfelt protest song, with her backing musician Jeffrey Shurtleff dedicating it to Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, while Baez herself invoked the plight of her husband, in jail for draft dodging.

This is interesting, what with Gram being famously apathetic towards causes and anything remotely political (his refusal to tour South Africa with The Byrds being notoriously due to a wish to get baked with Keith Richards than genuine moral zeal). That his song is now recognisable as a protest tune because of Baez marks it as an anomaly in his body of work. Baez also played Gram's 'Hickory Wind' at Woodstock.

* Gram Parsons and Neil Young crossed paths in a taxi in Houston in 1973, an incident I first read about in Jimmy McDonough's biography of Young, Shakey. Producer Jack Nitzsche was with Young and was shocked by Parsons' drug-addled squalor. "You look like Danny... and Danny's dead," he portentously said, referring to Young's friend and bandmate Danny Whitten (enigmatic singer and guitarist with Crazy Horse) who had overdosed on heroin the previous year.

* Roger McGuinn. According to Meyer, not such a nice bloke.

* Gram's authenticity. Despite the wealth and privilege, the Harvard, the trust fund and his general sickening affluence, Meyer makes it clear that the sound he arrived at was the result of a childhood and adolescence of more or less constant, self-motivated music scholarship, from early rock 'n' roll to Greenwich village folk to Bakersfield and Nashville country. He was not a tourist riding the coattails of any fad, or trying to use country music as some kind of Hollywood fashion accessory to grab attention in the rock world. He came to the form as a true trouper with the appropriate background and sensibilities to pull off what he did. Let's not forget either, how deeply uncool it was to be country in the mid-sixties.

In short, he achieved what he did not because of his riches, but in spite of them. Even though his family's millions might ostensibly have made his musical dabblings the mere toy of a spoilt kid, he somehow achieved authenticity in the face of it.

* Just how rich his mother's family, the Snivelys, were. Gram's grandfather made the fortune that Gram was born into from Florida citrus groves, but even before him the Snivelys were old money, stretching way back. Apparently ancestors loaned George Washington $450,000 to help finance the war against the English. The debt still stands and descendents are trying to recoup the money to this day. With interest they are owed over a billion dollars.

* Gram met William S. Burroughs whilst hanging with the Stones in London.

* It was odd that Parsons and his wider circle of friends and hangers-on didn't come across Tim Buckley at all (at least as far as I know). In the late 60s/early 70s Buckley was recording in Los Angeles just when Parsons was with The Byrds, The Flying Burritos and afterwards. Meyer paints this time in LA as extremely incestuous, with a wide circle of musicians collaborating and working together. Buckley, with his more avant garde tendencies, probably kept well away from what was a hipster scene. The closest Gram ever came to avant garde was when Frank Zappa threw him out of session he was producing.

* Gram's family's curse is comparable with the Kennedys. He was an orphan by 18 after his father shot himself and his mother died of alcoholism (allegedly her new husband, Bob Parsons, giving her her last drink). Then Gram himself died in 1973, of course, followed by his stepfather a couple of years later, also from alcoholism. Gram's little sister Avis and her daughter were killed in a boat accident in 1991. Last one standing seems to be Polly Parsons, his daughter, who went through her own addiction hell in her youth.

* Finally, Gram Parsons avidly loathed The Eagles. Impressively, he called them a 'plastic dry-fuck'. This was because of, as Meyer puts it, a music that was "soulless, over-rehearsed, antiseptic, schematic, insincere and sentimental", going on to proclaim them "the most consistently contemptible stadium band in rock." Amen.

Three songs: 'Dear Undecided' by Captain Nemo and The Sundowners, 'Lights Up' by Field Music and 'Amber' by Kevin Barker'.

Another joyless list that is definitely worthwhile

Some weeks ago, NME published its carefully considered and logically thought-out best 50 albums from the past decade. The roll of honour can be found here.

It goes without saying that it got ripped to pieces, which is both the function and the fate of any list like this. But it must be remembered when directing any extreme, rage-filled criticism at the much-maligned, continuingly failing publication, that NME is a populist magazine aimed at people consuming music through a relatively blinkered lens, choosing to whittle their experience down to limited styles from a specific point in time and a often a specific place. And that’s fine: the magazine is still relevant in catering to that.

That however, doesn’t excuse this list of apparent 'innovators' set to pave the way for the future, published in May 2009. There is so much, so wrong, most of which is covered in the comments beneath.

Anyway, that most recent NME list put me in mind of an interesting exercise the Guardian undertook in 1999. They decided to put together the best 100 albums of the millennium, but deliberately discounted a whole bunch of ‘classic’ albums that always get wheeled out when such debates emerge.

Studying best album lists from a host of publications, they named 150 albums that could not be considered by the critics who arranged this new list. So it was that half a dozen albums each by The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, Dylan and others were rendered ineligible, along with Radiohead, The Smiths, Joy Division, Oasis and more.

Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter came top (an album that if a similar list paying tribute to less celebrated artists was made today, would surely warrant exclusion), and the full list can be perused here.

Taking a cue from the Guardian, here is an alternative list of the best 50 albums from the past decade. An NME enemy list, if you will. The only conditions were that no album from the NME list could be included, and there could be no more than three albums by one artist. Albums from the NME list that might have earned a place in this one include those by Wilco, Brendan Benson, PJ Harvey, Bright Eyes, Sufjan Stevens, LCD Soundsystem, Grandaddy and The Shins.

Here we have 10 albums from 2008, eight from 2004, seven from 2007, six from 2006, six from 2005, four from 2009, three from 2001, three from 2000, two from 2003 and one from 2002.

There are 30 American artists involved, four from the UK, three from Canada (counting the Wainwrights as Canadians), three from Australia and New Zealand (Neil Finn and Crowded House not being regarded as separate artists) and one from France.

I make no claims of originality.

1. From A Basement On A Hill – Elliott Smith (2004)

2. Poses – Rufus Wainwright (2001)

3. To Find Me Gone – Vetiver (2006)

4. Cold Roses – Ryan Adams (2005)

5. A Ghost Is Born – Wilco (2004)

6. Dropping The Writ – Cass McCombs (2008)

7. Want One – Rufus Wainwright (2003)

8. 29 – Ryan Adams (2005)

9. Digital Ash In A Digital Urn – Bright Eyes (2005)

10. One Nil – Neil Finn (2001)

11. Ash Wednesday – Elvis Perkins (2007)

12. Figure 8 – Elliott Smith (2000)

13. Abbattoir Blues / Lyre of Orpheus – Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (2004)

14. Heartbreaker – Ryan Adams (2000)

15. Want Two – Rufus Wainwright (2004)

16. Oh, Inverted World – The Shins (2001)

17. Time On Earth – Crowded House (2007)

18. Directions To See A Ghost – The Black Angels (2008)

19. Merriweather Post Pavilion – Animal Collective (2009)

20. Personality… One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird – The Sleepy Jackson (2006)

21. Food & Liquor – Lupe Fiasco (2006)

22. Fly Or Die – N.E.R.D (2004)

23. II – Espers (2007)

24. Andorra – Caribou (2007)

25. Dos – Wooden Shjips (2009)

26. The Trials of Van Occupanther – Midlake (2006)

27. Fort Nightly – White Rabbits (2007)

28. Spoils – Alasdair Roberts (2009)

29. Ys – Joanna Newsom (2006)

30. Phrenology – The Roots (2002)

31. Smile – Brian Wilson (2004)

32. The Letting Go – Bonnie Prince Billy (2006)

33. De Stijl – The White Stripes (2000)

34. I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling – Kelley Polar (2008)

35. Old Growth – Dead Meadow (2008)

36. Consolers Of The Lonely – The Raconteurs (2008)

37. Satanic Panic In The Attic – Of Montreal (2004)

38. Martha Wainwright – Martha Wainwright (2005)

39. The Week That Was – The Week That Was (2008)

40. Lookaftering – Vashti Bunyan (2005)

41. Motion To Rejoin – Brightblack Morning Light (2008)

42. Cassadaga – Bright Eyes (2007)

43. Sky Blue Sky – Wilco (2007)

44. Saturdays = Youth – M83 (2008)

45. Waiting For The Sunrise – David Vandervelde (2008)

46. Limbo, Panto – Wild Beasts (2008)

47. Fits – White Denim (2009)

48. Z – My Morning Jacket (2005)

49. Strays – Jane’s Addiction (2003)

50. Confessions – Usher (2004)

Three songs: 'Rolling Home' by John Martyn, 'Step Away From The Cliff' by Blue Eyed Son and the fantastic 'Intergalactic Solitude' by Bachelorette.

The Law of Abstraction: Sufjan Stevens' Urban Legend

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Wallace Stevens - 'Peter Quince at the Clavier'

I recently had what turned out to be the strange and insightful pleasure of interviewing Sufjan Stevens. The interview was for a feature in a major UK music paper, for whom I had to take a certain angle due to readability and word-count. This meant that about three-quarters of the interview had to be discarded. Because a lot of what he said was surely very interesting indeed, I offer an edited transcript of the interview, below.

He has three new albums out. Starting with the least good, there is Music For Insomniacs, a record he made with his step-father that is deliberate in its deathly boringness, as it is designed as a sleeping aid. For real. He also has out Run Rabbit Run, a re-imagining of his 2001 electronica record Enjoy Your Rabbit as performed by the New York string quartet Osso under the guidance of he who had the original idea for the new interpretation, The National's Bryce Dessner. That is a pretty interesting listen, but best of all is The BQE, his epic celebration of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in New York that is also a film and a 40-page comic book. He mixes conceptual, often abstruse soundscapes with his usual method of using simple melodic themes to run through an entire album, with quite wonderful results. It is one of the best things he has ever done and he appears to be very proud of it, but there is other baggage weighing upon Sufjan right now.

That stuff can be outlined briefly here. It's not that big a deal, and he seems to have gotten over it, but it nevertheless exposes an issue facing genuinely important artists like him. It is most likely that by talking about his apparent 'existential crisis' in so many interviews he isn't really purging himself of his inner torment (he is far too measured for that), but rather trying to start a debate about distinguishing the substantial from the worthless in the crowded chaos that is recorded music nowadays. He is as focussed as ever, and has even come to terms with the rather silly 50 states project. A polymath and an intellectual he remains...

How do you feel about the fact these new releases are regarded by many as not ‘proper’ follow-ups to Illinois?

What do you mean ‘proper’? Because it doesn’t have songs? I feel like it’s a pretty orthodox sequence of events to go from epic song cycles or conceptual song cycles to conceptual film. It doesn’t seem like such a stretch. It was definitely a self-conscious decision to divest myself of the 'song' itself so I could just focus on music and arrangement and other forms like visuals. I think that it’s still working with the same principles as some of my previous records, though.

What did you do in the way of research for the project? Did you look for artistic precedent or spend a lot of time on the expressway itself?

Most of my time was spent on the actual expressway, it was an experience of retrieving information through observation and developing a visceral response to the expressway, due in part to the amount of time we had to spend filming, which was a lot. I didn’t do that much research, I read a few books, like the biography of Robert Moses, which is mostly about urban planning in New York in the fifties, and I read Jane Jacobs’ book which is a rebuttal of the modernist urban renewal movement. But that seemed meandering and heavy and didn’t relate to what I was doing. I wanted to relinquish anything too literal or historical and to invest myself in the sheer pleasure of experience through the senses. It’s extremely visceral, there’s no narrative and it’s completely impersonal, which I like. It’s kind of satisfying because I often try to render my self in a song and try and impose my own autobiography. That can be kind of exhausting - it can be a release to eliminate myself from the creative process. At least that was my intention, I’m not sure if that’s really what happened.

So The BQE is about feeling rather than, say, stories.

I think so, yeah. I think it’s about collecting information. It’s basically a film and a series of photographs. It’s very concrete in a way; photographs of this physical monument, this short expressway, but it’s assembled in a way that makes it abstract as well. It’s just colours, shapes and designs, movements and sounds. To me it’s very physical, in the way that experience is physical. You see and you taste and you touch. I kind of like that it’s reduced to primitive, sensory experience.



For a non-New Yorker, what is the significance of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway?

The expressway itself is really an anomaly as it is imposed on a pre-existing city, Brooklyn being a weird network of disparate neighbourhoods that grew together. In the forties and fifties when the government was funnelling money into rebuilding the infrastructure they conceived of this plan to join all the boroughs with bridges and highways, and demolish slums and eliminate bad neighbourhoods, to restore and revitalise the Great American City through the automobile. That was the trend in most cities around the country in the fifties. The BQE is just one small, inconsequential example of that. But it doesn’t work on such a ridiculous level, it’s such a failed attempt at arterial traffic movement. It seems absurd and illogical now. And it's become something else: an eyesore and an object of scorn, but at the same time this strange and endearing monument that’s fussed about in the papers every week. But it’s really only 12 miles long and very small compared with other highways.

Were you ever tempted to address those shortcomings of the expressway in any way?

Not intentionally, but it was the elephant in the room. They were the obvious issues that reside in a project about the BQE. It was about slum removal, which is a euphemism for eliminating lower social class people and immigrants. There’s all this manipulative politics that explains the direction of the highway - there were certain neighbourhoods that were cut off and neighbourhoods that were saved because of money and power. Those are all obvious issues, but the piece itself is not really about that. It’s a celebration of colour and shape and form. Just a painting in a way.

What was your first reaction when the Run Rabbit Run project was floated?

Bryce Dessner came to me with the original idea and I thought it could definitely work, even though I hadn’t thought of that material in so many years. I think it sounds better than the original record – it feels more human, and it's definitely more musical and the fact it was translated through several other arrangers apart from me and my own perspective makes it that much more interesting. I like it a lot.

Was there ever any temptation when it was being produced to step and say ‘don’t do it like that, do it like this’?

Oh yeah, I was pretty heavy handed. Over the course of a year they were workshopping and arranging, and I sat in on a few reheasals and had pretty strong opinions about things. The final outcome of the pieces are drastically different from the original arrangements, but all this was hopefully understood from the outset so I didn’t offend too many people. The quartet themselves also played a large part in shaping the pieces. It was definitely a co-operative, communal process. I think we were all extremely satisfied with the outcomes. There were details that I would make clear weren’t the best idea, but it wasn’t about who was right or wrong, it was a collaborative workshop.

What kinds of music have you been exposing yourself to since Illinois?

I’ve been doing a lot more programming and sequencing and working with beats, trying to get away from some of the tools of folk song like acoustic instruments, and working with synthesised sounds. I bought a really expensive analogue synthesiser, and have just been messing around and creating sounds. I have a fetish for these alien sounds, these otherworldy sounds that don’t seem to have any context. You can shape them or manipulate them with different oscillators, and it feels kind of weird, some of it is very amusing more than anything else. I really like synthesised music.

Is that a direction that a new album might take?

I'm kind of all over the place. Because I haven’t released a record of songs in so long I’ve been writing for a couple of years and amassed so much material. It kind of goes in all directions, and I need to step back and figure out how to organise it and find out what’s possible and feasible to shape into a record.

Your songs have always evoked a very literary America to me, something emphasised by your educational background [Sufjan did a Creative Writing MA and some of his stories can be found here]. Are you conscious of being part of any tradition in that way? There are certain moods and ideas that maybe hark back to the transcendentalists or Melville, for example.

That’s pretty dense American literature. Those people were philosophers and scholars, I’m just a songwriter. I have more of a pop sensibility and I don’t think I dig that deep. I wouldn’t take myself that seriously.

Is ‘classic’ American literature an influence though?

Hmm, only in so much that it’s required reading at high school and university. Everyone reads Thoreau and Walden and all that stuff, Emerson and the transcendentalists. But it seems like such an archaic philosophy. I’m not sure how much it influenced me, I definitely have an awe for the natural world that is overwhelming and I think that’s communicated in a lot of my music - almost a fear at the wonders of the natural world. But at the same time I’m very civic-minded and very urban and prefer to live in communities and society. I know there’s a bit of tension with the transcendentalists, because Whitman was a naturalist and a romantic but he was also very urban and lived in Brooklyn and felt an affinity to the city.

It’s a pretty common kind of tension in America, this urban-versus-rural combat that’s going on all the time, whether it’s in politics or in aesthetics or in a way of life, and it’s becoming more and more extreme now as people are moving back to the city with all the urban renewal, and the suburbs are considered this odd, problematic, purgatorial thing that is completely outdated now. There’s a conviction now to either move to the country or move to the city. It’s not happening on a massive scale but it’s definitely in our consciousness.

David Byrne once described your music as ‘transcendental nostalgia’. I know you dislike being labelled nostalgic, but what’s your reply when people describe you in that way?

I do feel that my music doesn’t feel very contemporary. There is something very Romantic and old world about it in the sound and shape of it. Even in the aesthetics and packaging of the records, there’s something mid-century about it. I don’t mind that, but I don’t have much respect for nostalgia or sentimentality. I like to look forward and I like the idea of existing in the here and the now. I like present tense philosophy. I think my music is a compression of nostalgia and modernism and this kind of neo-futuristic, apocalyptic religious sense.

What is your stance these days on whether music can be or is a necessary expression of faith, or can you divorce the two?

I think music is mystical, in that it’s invisible and it’s physical. It’s not seen by the eye but felt by the body and spirit. That’s an indication of its spiritual value. It’s an ecstatic form. It’s spiritual and religious but it’s also more pointedly mystical and mysterious and I think that’s what makes it infinitely accessible and interesting, and that’s what makes it so relevant. Even in a very concrete, physical, material world, we still feel these spiritual impulses from music, art and poetry.

Is that belief a product of your upbringing and childhood or is it something anyone can experience?

I think it’s just in me. I don’t think it has anything to do with my conditioning or upbringing or any kind of personal religious experience. I think it’s just inherent in the human psyche. We’re socialised and we’re educated, and over time there’s a philosophy of logic that has shaped the way we see the world, and that’s integral and physical. It’s experienced and it's learned. I believe you can socialise a man but he will always be a spiritual being. As long as we’re finite, as long as there’s an expiration date… man is wholly spiritual.

Would you call yourself a patriot, in any way?

No, not at all. I hate that term because it’s just so dogmatic. I loathe this mindless allegiance to the principles of a nation, whether it’s a doctrine or a flag or government. I don’t believe in any of that.

But is it possible for the definition of patriotism to be manipulated to not mean the jingoism you hint at, and celebrate other aspects of America?

Yeah. Man, we’d have to come up with a new term. Patriotism and nationalism are just too loaded. I’d rather just say I’m an American and have an unavoidable allegiance to that identity. It’s not a decision one makes, it’s just a matter of fact, of place.

I’m so preoccupied with identity, like most human beings are, especially as an American because we lack a concrete history. My obsession with identity leads to a discursive inquiry into the subject of Americanism and patriotism, but I don’t think that I necessarily am bound by an allegiance to this country at all. I can take it or leave it. But at the same time, it’s just a matter of fact. It’s who I am and it’s where I live.

Have far have you become disillusioned at how convoluted music has become thanks to technology and the so-called democratisation of music-making? You referred once to the futility of ‘contributing to the white noise’. Are you able to overcome that?

There is an excess that’s seems unending and impervious to understanding, because of the availability of music through the internet. It can be overwhelming, but it’s important for people like me to not get anguished for too long on the cosmic, greater process. I tend to despair sometimes over meaning. What’s the meaning of a song? Of an album? What does it mean that I’m on stage in front of people? What is this dynamic? What is this relationship? I tend to question all these things and I don't go into them thoughtlessly. Sometimes I need to just relax and get over it. Generally I like that there are so many resources available for musicians, and that the major market music industry has been collapsing for the past decade is really extroadinary because it opens up so many possibilities for creative inquiry, because making music is accessible and affordable now. It’s nice to have restrictions though, I think that in the previous decade it was more challenging to make a record and release it. Now everything is possible, but not everything is permissible or plausible.

Are you still unreservedly motivated to share your music with the world?

Well I just did a tour for three weeks and shared my music with the unsuspecting public, and a lot of it was new material. You always have to wrestle with the motivation behind motivation. Am I creating for myself? For a public? For God? For nothing? Is there just a void? Are all the sounds we create consumed by a vacuum? These are probably juvenile existential qualms, but I can’t help it.



Three songs: 'You Muses Assist' by Alasdair Roberts, 'Ned Ludd's Rant' by Alasdair Roberts, and 'Hazel Forks' by Alasdair Roberts. Spoils is a great great great great great album.

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym. And those who can't teach gym, become rock writers.

It is my opinion that music criticism is a dead art. Or at least several bits of it are. Note I refer to ‘criticism’ rather than ‘journalism’ there, as it is the practice of judging the artistic credentials of albums, gigs and so forth that has become redundant, not actual reportage or story-telling. The editor of one publication I contribute to recently said to me “I just want a good story, that’s all” and another has eschewed completely that ultimate obsolete form, the live review, preferring to only write up an account of a gig if, again, there is a ‘story’ to tell from it, rather than the directionless fripperies and cliches of some half-baked critic.

The live review and to a lesser extent the album review are on the way out as the medium comes full circle and concentrates on facts and narratives rather than opinions. This is a good thing, because otherwise you end up with such annoying things as the unseemly and petty kafuffle below this, and an astonishingly awful live review I recently wrote that I had to rescind, retract and generally undergo a chastening soul-search to discover what the hell I was thinking when I invoked subjective nonsense and irrelevant anecdote. Even I’m not interested in my own opinions anymore. Hopefully it was just a full moon on the night I wrote it.

Music writing is most interesting these days when analysis of music is supporting some other wider social theme. Kind of like using music as a lens to observe something else, to the extent that it is almost a peripheral presence. For example, this excellent article came up during research for a recent feature. Obviously not being a music magazine, The Believer doesn’t fall into horrible and hackneyed music critic tropes, because its priority is not to describe or exhort, but to take an issue in the proper world and assess how it is treated in the realm of pop (by someone with expertise in that alternative field), which despite everything, remains articulate and profound in the right places.

In short, the article is looking in at music from outside it, and therefore has enough perspective for it not to be nauseatingly descriptive or a vanity-induced failed attempt at charismatic, personality-heavy nonsense. The best thing Judy Berman can do is not to even contemplate writing about music ever again, lest she be ensnared in its miserable, passé clutches (guilty).

When music is written about without the music itself being the point of departure is when music writing is most relevant I think is what I’m so clumsily pointing out. Andrew Mueller’s book is kind of along these lines. I look forward to National Geographic’s next spread on the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

But don’t get me started on travel writing. The unbelievable vapidness of what appears here, a paper I read daily, is sad.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The Wallabies arrive in Europe this week for a Grand Slam tour. They do, of course, have no chance and they will most likely crumble like little girls at Twickenham this weekend. It wasn’t so long ago we could at least get close to the All Blacks, but a 4-0 series whitewash in 2009 is a new low. It is painful to admit, but it simply looks like the Wallabies don’t care. In fact, complacency has been a theme of Australian sport recently, what with the ridiculous Ashes loss and sloppy performances from the rugby league team that go back to the miserable World Cup final last October.

The last Grand Slam tour, in 1984, sowed the seeds for Australian rugby’s first modern renaissance in the early nineties, which was really the last time international rugby was satisfactory. To mark the fact here is the best Wallabies team from over the years that I have been following their plight, that is, since that golden era. Bias aside, there are three players here that are genuinely the best in their position who have ever taken to the paddock.

15. Chris Latham - Impossible to ignore Matt Burke, but Latham always had the task of inspiring a lesser team than World Cup-winning Burke. A responsibility Latham stepped up to.

14. Joe Roff – One of the great wingers of the nineties and a blueprint for the modern professional player.

13. Stirling Mortlock – Best centre of 2003 World Cup, another who carried a relatively limited team.

12. Tim Horan – The best centre three-quarter ever. No doubt.

11. David Campese – The best winger ever. No doubt.

10. Michael Lynagh – Dead heat with Stephen Larkham, but while Larkham was the superior runner and passer, Lynagh was once the world’s record point scorer in tests and, also, wasn’t injured every five minutes.

9. George Gregan – Faded in his later career, but in the 1998-2001 period, his quickdraw distribution fired the Australian backline in a way that can only be dreamed of nowadays.

8. Toutai Kefu – Tricky, because Tim Gavin had a good innings too. But Toutai Kefu was a hugely dynamic ball carrier. Also, unlike Gavin, he has a Wikipedia entry, so he must be more important.

7. David Wilson – The foundation of the brilliant 1998-2001 teams. A true Wallaby great.

6. George Smith – It seems sacrilege to name current players, because they are mostly a shocking team. But George Smith would probably walk into any other international team of the past decade.

5. Nathan Sharpe – Not a strong position for Australia over the years (apart from the obvious, at No.4), Sharpe edges it over David Giffin and Rod McCall.

4. John Eales – The best second-rower ever. No doubt.

3. Ewen Mackenzie – Australia have never really had a world-beating front row. So it’s the best of a mediocre bunch.

2. Phil Kearns – Won two World Cups, supreme all-round forward.

1. Richard Harry – Perfectly functional prop. Benn Robinson may be in his place in a year or two though.

Reserves: Matt Giteau, Matt Burke, Tim Gavin, Michael Foley, Andrew Blades


Three songs: ‘Seer’ by Witch, ‘Cold Rain’ by MV & EE and ‘Light Of Day’ by Daniel Johnstone (surprisingly excellent).