INTERVIEWS-3

HOWE GELB - THE SANDMAN NEVER SLEEPS
I had been huddled with my fellow DJ Big Myke Destiny outside the KFJC studios in Los Altos Hills, waiting for the Sandman, Howe Gelb, to arrive from Los Angeles to do an on-air interview for the "Big Guitar Show".  Eventually we sense it's not going to happen, and I point the battered old Puffmobile towards San Francisco and the I-Beam, site of tonight's Giant Sand gig.  At least the Bucketfull interview can be salvaged.

Greg Sage, halfway through his soundcheck, hasn't a clue where Howe is; in fact he's not real clear on who he is.  So I stake out a spot at the bar and contemplate an unsavoury life, while waiting, along with Howe's pal, expatriate Brit John Wesley Harding, for the man to appear.  At least, twenty minutes before Giant Sand are due to open the show, the club's manager in a dither, in wanders Howe, his Danish girlfriend, Sophia, bassist Joey Burns & drummer John Convertino.  Someone in LA has informed Howe he could make it up here in four hours, which he could easily have done by averaging one hundred miles per hour, without making any stops.  So much for dedication to one's art.

Howe and I immediately stride out to the van in search of a parking spot.  No sense in wasting this time, I think, so on goes the recorder, and we do half the interview while cruising around the Haight and hoofing it back to the club - all the while my tape deck jammed under Howe's nose.  Real man-in-the-street stuff.

It's by far the best set I've ever seen Giant Sand play, including brain-bending versions of "Thin Line Man" and "The Uneven Light Of Day", a personal fave.   We finish our pow-pow in the bar afterwards, with Howe, as tough to pin down as a grasshopper, periodically wiggling off the line to chat up a girl he's never met before, or trying to keep his head above water in a friendly game of pool with 'Wes' - near impossibility, I might add, for an American playing anyone trained in the cut-throat disciplines of snooker.  Howe takes his medicine like a man, and now I guess it's your turn.  An update ensues on Bucketfull's favourite resident mad-genius.

B.O.B.:  What's the story behind the German Howe Gelb album "Dreaded Brown Recluse"?

H.G.:  It had to be called something instead of Giant Sand.   At that point, on the last tour, Demon asked me if I would please not put out another record for another year, because three of 'em came out in 1990.  "Long Stem Rant" came out in January, "Blacky Ranchette" ("Sage Advice") came out with a sticker saying "This is Giant Sand"" in the spring, and then "Swerve" at the end of the year.  They got waylaid sometimes around the danger season.  I couldn't call it a "Blacky".  I needed some coin for the spring.  So this German label we wanted to work with (Houses in Motion) said they could handle the German market better than the English can, but maybe they would fail in the rest of Europe.  It was kind of an experiment.  So I borrowed a friend's DAT machine.   I was gonna record the whole thing for nothin' because I was broke, and just have a nice sweet little acoustic record.  Then we started getting jobs doing some film songs. When we'd be in there doing that, we'd use twenty minutes or so to come up with some other track for our own stuff.  Oh, and I lost the DAT tape that had the acoustic stuff on it, because they're so tiny.  Then I found the DAT tape so I ended up using parts of that, like the song "Brown Recluse".  Anyway they paid me enough coin to put it out and the entire record cost me about two gin and tonics for Eric Westfall to help mix a piece of it. So they put that puppy out.

B.O.B.: I take it it's named after the Dreaded Brown Recluse spider, which should go right over the heads of the European audience.

H.G.:  Yeah, God Bless'em.

B.O.B.:  Will "Ramp" the latest Giant Sand album be available in the US same as "Swerve" CD only through your own mail order ?

H.G.:  Yeah, through Big Julie in Tucson because even though we'd only sell a lot less than any other people we'd deal with, we'd see more return.  It's more like making lithographs than making records anymore.  The vinyl will only come out in Europe. The CD has two extra tracks, which is a shame because one of them is my daughter singing a beautiful little blues song she made up on the spot.

B.O.B.:  Chris Cacavas told me once he used to get wild calls from you at four in the morning to come on down and record at the Control Center.

H.G.:  It's always when you've got that last track to do.  There's always something more you need and want to do, and you don't know what the hell it is.  Then you start thinking, "who can I get down here ?" 

B.O.B.:  Steve Wynn says you and he used to fantasize about just going out on tour as guitarists so you could take lots of drugs and just stand in the shadows and play.

H.G.:  Yeah,  but I got to do that with Fruit Child, Large.  That was a severe pleasure.  Evan Dando from the Lemonheads, Juliana Hatfield from Blake Babies and me and John (Convertino).  I got to sing two or three songs and just be a guitar player and that was more fun than ever.

B.O.B.:  How did you link up with Evan Dando ?

H.G.:  In Boston. His manager tried to manage us.  He found us unmanageable, and then he stopped managing him as well.  But in the interim we had met him and Syd Straw (all in one clump).  I love Syd.  Syd was great - and her boyfriend, Mark Ribeaux, a great guitar player.  But I didn't have my pants on at the time.  'Cause I sat in tar in New York, so Evan said, "come on get your pants off man and wash off the seat."  So I did it and Mark comes in.  "I'm Howe", I tell him, "I met you before with Elvis Costello".  That was back when I insulted Elvis' wife.  She was cool.  We went to see "Fantasia" together with my little girl.  But Vicki (Victoria Williams" told me she was pregnant.  And I'm really into people having babies.  I want to bond with them, because I had a baby, and I never thought I would.  I wanted to tell her, "yeah, yeah, it's good having a kid and all."  So I asked her, and she said no she wasn't.  So not only did I put both feet in my mouth, but Elvis owns the record label I was on (Demon).  But we're on Rough Trade now.

B.O.B.:  Cacavas also told me, "I wish I had a Dad like Howe".

H.G.:  Aww, that breaks my heart.  This is when I bring out a picture of Indiosa.  I'm waiting 'til she's twelve.  I figure it this way.  Right now I'm into having grandkids, so if she gets into trouble, I'm gonna be cool.  You remember when you were there.  We all remember the first one.  It's a powerful entity.  It's a powerful club.  It's salmon - the salmon in us all.

B.O.B.:  Why did you move out from LA to the desert in Rimrock ?

H.G.:  Because life was good.  Every day felt like I had a stupid smile on my face.  Hey, here's a bit of trivia for ya.  I wake up one morning and Russ Tolman is not only in cabin number 2, but Gene Parsons (ex Byrds drummer) comes up and knocks on the door.  So we had a little jamboree with him.  I didn't know who he was.  He was a great guy and played excellent banjo.

B.O.B.:  Isn't Rimrock pretty close to Joshua Tree National Monument, where Gram Parsons died ?

H.G.:  Yeah, yeah and when Gram OD'ed there they ran the picture of Gene in the local paper, because Gene was from there.  But Gram was from Georgia.  And Gene's Dad who'd been homesteading there since the 30's sees it and calls his son up and says "Gene, are you dead ?"  And Gene goes, "not yet".  One other thing: when Clarence White (ex Byrds guitarist) died, the last thing he said was, "let's get out of here; somebody's gonna get killed."  He was out loading his truck, and there were all these drunk people leaving a bar, and an old lady hit him (with her vehicle). 

B.O.B.:  Have you ever thought about doing a concept album, something like Steve Wynn's baseball album idea ?

H.G.:  I can't understand that.  Well, as of right now, no.  I think we did 'em all in pieces.  If you were to assemble a song from hither and a song from tither, from all different albums, and put them together, you'd get some type of concept album, like the 'Dance' record or the 'Blues' record, I guess.

B.O.B.:  Did you ever see the Serfers (pre Green On Red) play back in your early Tucson days ?

H.G.:  Yeah, and I was actually like friendly with Danny (Stuart), but ever since then have not been friendly with Danny.  Danny's difficult.  Any time I read anything he's said in an interview, I enjoy reading it.  But when I'm with him, it's fun to fuck with him for a while.  Then after a while you just want to leave.  He drops name that you know he doesn't even know - like Barry Goldwater (laughs).

B.O.B.:  How would you characterize your vocal style ?

H.G.:  I'm the spewer.  I collect spittle all over the microphone, just like Henry Rollins.  He's on a talking tour right now and it's really great.  He's kinda turning into a comedian.  But he always had that in him.  Part of what makes him funny is what makes Robert De Niro funny in "Cape Fear".  At the end, when he's holding the gun, the sound of his head when it moves going, "swish, swish".  I love that.  Ever since I've turned 30 I've understood the whole manipulative trend of the woman and the universe and how stupid men are.  In my twenties I was severely stupid.  But I've managed to make it this far with no sexual diseases at all.  You too ? (Affirmative).  Yeah, very few people can say that.  We're here to replenish the earth with healthy specimens.

B.O.B.:  Do you get asked about Neil Young often ?

H.G.:  Yeah, I get asked that a lot.  I love Neil Young.  I never want to meet him, because that would be like talking to one of your dreams.  His guitar playing was my inspiration - his electric playing, like the way he made the wrong notes work.  I don't like everything he does, and I love it even more that he can do that.  He's my ideal . . . like if there was a neighbourhood to live in, it's Neil's neighbourhood.

B.O.B.:  How would you spend the rest of your life if music was impossible ?

H.G.:  I know exactly what I would do.  I'd be an aerial photographer.  There's something that I love about being in a helicopter, and I love cameras.  Cities, the countryside, the entire planet.  That would be my fantasy - too eventually collect squares of the planet at 30,000 feet.

B.O.B.:  That might be one hell of a big book.

H.G.:  Would it ?  Ok, 50,000 feet.  Everything makes so much more sense.

It's plain to these ears that Howe already has a view of the world most people never see.  No less an authority than Steve Wynn called him "one of the few geniuses in rock and roll".

I broached the idea of visiting Howe in Rimrock someday, to soak up a bit of his daily existence, and he seemed agreeable.  It's just one more example of the in depth coverage that Bucketfull readers demand.  In the meantime, don't fail to score a copy of Giant Sand's latest album "Ramp".  You'll be turned away at the gates of Heaven one day if they find out you haven't heard Pappy Allen sing "Welcome To My World".  I wouldn't chance it. 

JUD COST.