INTERVIEWS-4

RETURN OF THE GIANT BLACK SAND THING starring Howe Gelb

Howe Gelb was recently in London, finishing up a lengthy Giant Sand tour with a gig at the Borderline.  On the afternoon of this, the final show of the band's European jaunt, I joined him for a swift pint or two in a comfortable hostelry around the corner from Paddington station, eager to hear about the latest developments in the convoluted sort of wayward rock'n'rollers, Giant Sand and country cousins, The Band Of Blacky Ranchette.

As background to the banter, I should mention that a new Blacky Ranchette record, "Sage Advice" is just out on Demon, that a new Giant Sand album (the follow-up to the January-released "Long Stem Rant") is already in the can, and that Demon taped the Sand's recent gig at London's Subterrania club for possible release as a live LP.  A glut of Giant Sandworms/Giant Sand/Blacky Ranchette historical info is contained in articles in back issues 18, 19 and 24.  For this tour Giant Sand have reverted to a three-piece format: Howe Gelb (gt/vcls) John Convertino (drums) with ex-Dream Syndicate bassist Mark Walton.

B.O.B.:  Why have you made a new Blacky Ranchette record, I thought you told me before that you were knocking Blacky on the head?

H.G.:  Yeah, the bastard came around again.

B.O.B.:  But why?  I thought the Giant Sand could do anything Blacky could do?

H.G.:  Alright, let me think....we do the records so quick, like "Long Stem Rant" should have been out in October but it got pushed back to January, and Homestead (US record co.) said they wouldn't put out another Giant Sand record until September.  That just seemed like a ludicrous amount of time, so I needed a hobby and I knocked on Blacky's grave.  I moved out to the Mojave desert, California - only about three hours east of L.A., but it's where the world drops off, it's in the middle of nowhere; hundreds of square miles of Joshua tree infested high desert - so we get snow.  So I'm up there and the itch for Blacky just came into play, so I called up Andy at Demon (UK record co.) and worked out the details but I said "I'm leaving to go on the road in 10 days, so this weekend's the only time".  He said OK, and we worked out a price.  I jumped in the Barracuda, and drove down to Tucson, an eight hour drive, trying to figure out what the hell I was gonna do for the Blacky record!  I recorded in Tucson with a total of 21 different people, eighty percent was done in Tucson.  Paco 'Wulftung' Paycheck (a thin disguise) is on a few tracks, you know his playing (dobro & slide), and Ned Sutton, who I played honky tonk piano for, for three months up in the Black Hills.  I hired on with his band, it was a gas.

B.O.B.:  Who were they?  Tell me a bit about them.

H.G.:  Ned Sutton & The Rabbits.  He's about 42, a great country singer, great cartoonist.  He made one record a long time ago, "Drug Store Cowboy", some German company put it out.  He's best either when he's alone with his acoustic guitar, with this deep, rich voice of his, or when he's got a whole band operating exactly the way he wants.  He's got really good ideas for rhythm and drum beats.  We got him to sing on three tracks: two different versions of "Loving Cup" and a remake of "3 6ies" called "Outside An Angel's Reach."

B.O.B.:  So when did you play with The Rabbits?

H.G.:  1981, when the Giant Sandworms were leaving New York and breaking up.  I hired on with Ned, went up to the Black Hills and played three, four, five sets a night - the only time I did that shit.  I didn't know the songs, he'd just shout out the key and I'd stop, take pictures of the audience and go back and play.  There will come a time when I'm able to do, like we did with Rainer (of Rainer & Das Combo, etc), and get some kinda record out.  He made that Blacky buckle on the cover of "Heartland" - which they coloured up, basically it's all brass - he did that in the Big House, y'know.  He's a real genius.

B.O.B.:  Right, so who else is on "Sage Advice"?

H.G.:  The bass player Ned always works with, Steve Graham, then there's this cool country cover band that Tommy Larkins plays with - he bought in his guitar player and bass player (Bob Soto & Steve Wendling) from that and we did a cover of a Waylon Jennings song, "Trouble Man" - we recorded the train outside, it's beautiful - Tommy's on there, and Neil Harry plays pedal steel.  So, yeah....we did the album really quick.  Now we do "Sage Advice" (the title track) with Giant Sand now, but it's a little bit more crunchy.

B.O.B.:  I hear the next Giant Sand album is already done too, but you said you might change some of it?

H.G.:  Yeah....if tomorrow was the deadline, it'd be done; Steve Wynn came down one night with Chris Cacavas and played three or four songs.  But we've got these new songs from on the road....

B.O.B.:  Of all your records "Long Stem Rant"  (issued in January) sounds the most like you just went in the studio, turned on the tape and did it, with few preconceived ideas.

H.G.:  Oh yeah, except for three songs.

B.O.B.:  So is that the closest to your ideal, where you go in, do it, and it goes out, then you go straight on to the next?

H.G.:  That's the way I wanted to do THAT record.  The main objective is to simply get it done.  Period, when you only have a few grand, or a few hundred to work with you figure out how to do it for that, how to throw the artwork together.  By 1991, we'll have the rock opera done, that's next.

B.O.B.:  Oh yeah?  What's your theme?

H.G.:  These two planets co-existing dangerously close to each other, so when you look up in the sky you can see streets and cities.  As near as they can figure out, there was one planet that existed millions of years prior, which was probably earth.  Then through, rebirth and regeneration there was a split, one planet came apart and they started orbiting around each other.  There's all this great mythology about when the mountains from both planets got too close and they scraped each other and canyons would form and crazy stuff, with all this wonderful weather....

B.O.B.:  It hasn't got a blind kid who plays pinball in it, by any chance?

H.G.:  No, I haven't roped in that yet.  But there's no prejudice, and less patriotism so things happened a lot smoother.

B.O.B.:  Sounds like a double album to me!

H.G.:  Triple!! (laughs).  I would simply worry about me being able to make any of this imagery clear; but then it would probably turn into something else anyway, maybe I have to make a graphic novel out of it, which would be nicer.

B.O.B.:  Do you think your popularity is picking up now.  Like at the Subterrania show there were maybe 450 people, whereas whenever I've seen you before there were like....

H.G.:  Twenty eight!  Germany was scary, there were over 500 in Frankfurt, 600 in Vienna, and other shows with three or four hundred.  It was a little embarrassing.  We established this credo within the band, y'know, we're not a Pop band, so we're gonna do what we wanna do; so when all these people show up, it's like.......we don't have a set list, sometimes the time in-between songs gets monotonous, some nights we just bang through it - when it's angry it's better, actually.  Some nights you get chocolate, some nights you get Tabasco - every night is different, because we get bored.  We are the professional audience that we carry with us to every show, we have to be tantalized!

B.O.B.:  So how do you think Mark Walton found playing with you as opposed to the Dream Syndicate?

H.G.:  I think he's had a lot more freedom, and a ton of fun.  He's got totally the right attitude, but he's in another band called Laughing Sam's Dice, in L.A.  They're good, kinda like a "Sticky Fingers" sounding band.  I like John (Convertino) as a partner, but I love playing with Mark, Chris Cacavas, Paula and all the people in Blacky.  There are still other people that I haven't been able to play with yet....

B.O.B.:  You obviously have someone in particular in mind?

H.G.:  Duane Jarvis and Dusty Wakeman.  Dusty is a bass player and comes from a Motown background and Duane played with the Divinyls and Lucinda Williams (who also sings on "Sage Advice"), a nice blend of slide guitar and mandolin.  There's people out there, there's all kind of possibilities.

B.O.B.:  Do you think you might do gigs with a big band again (like Giant Sand/Rainer/Blacky Ranchette revue of a few years back)?

H.G.:  It depends on the logistics.  We were trying to get Chris Cacavas to come over (on the latest tour), but we needed help from his record company.  Mark played on his album, John knew the songs and I knew some, so we were going to do a set of his stuff in-between our stuff, like we did with Rainer.  The record company was into it but at the last minute said no.  They're going to bring him over with Jack Waterson.

With that Howe headed off to finish up the Giant Sand Euro tour, ending up amidst a stage full of dancing girls trying to get some impromptu backing vocals and failing totally amidst general lunacy.  As the man says "every night is different", but from my experience the odds are on for a great evenings entertainment when Howe Gelb is your host.  Go on, take the risk.

JON STOREY.