INTERVIEWS-6

GIANT SAND's Howe Gelb:  Tucson's Dreaded Brown Recluse 
by Jud Cost and Fred Mills

    Your favorite Arizona/California tag-team, fresh from a  magazine-signing
tour in the wake of our fabulously successful collaboration on Pat Todd and
the Lazy Cowgirls a couple of issues back, have recently bottled up our
favorite Dreaded Brown Recluse - Howe Gelb of Giant Sand  - to see what makes
him tick.  No, not a tick, clown.  The Recluse, as all entomologists know, is
a spider found in the Western United States.  And also the title of Gelb's
solo album of a few years back.    
    Under the influence of just enough chloroform to loosen his tongue (but
not so much that he'd be ripe for pinning to your dad's shirt cardboard and
labeling), we've pried plenty out of the man we both consider one of the most
brilliant musicians this country's ever produced.  Period.  And as Mills was
heard to mutter admiringly afterwards, "the man is never at a loss for words."
    Mills handled the Howe update section recently via The Bob's Arizona
Bureau, while Cost visited Gelb at his home in the barrio district of Tucson
a couple of seasons ago to drag the lake for some first hand Giant Sand
history.  Gelb's discourses, like his music, can be many things to many
people.  Take what you like, and please leave some for the next person.   As
we begin, Gelb has just finished nailing boards across some of his windows
because killer bees have been reported headed towards Arizona.

The Bob:  So why return from the California outback, in Rimrock, (near Joshua
Tree National Monument) to Tucson?

Gelb:  Well, I was just trying to read the damn omens.  We had two horrible
earthquakes that we were right in the middle of, and we missed 'em both
(because Gelb was traveling at the time).  We had aftershocks for months. 
The place where we had breakfast every morning is gone.  The crack went right
underneath it.  It wasn't that the earthquakes were even bothersome; they're
kinda fun.  But having a kid makes you think.  The only fatality was a
fireplace falling on a little four-year-old kid.  Patsy (Gelb's daughter) had
to start school, and I just didn't know how volatile the ground was.  The
place was getting small, and the dog was going crazy.  It just seemed like
this was the place to come back to.  You live every day back there full of
nothingness, so happy just going down to Pie Town and hangin.'  It's kind of
like being in retirement denial.  Coming back into a city was kind of like
jumpin' in the river - a lot of shit to deal with.

The Bob:  Center Of The Universe had some pretty melodic moments for a Giant
Sand album.

Gelb:  Yeah, but it was accidental - incidental.  The contrast I found
wonderfully soothing, but I'm not a big fan of anything too melodic.  My body
rejects it.  And whatever happens, I'll make up reasons why it happens.  It
makes sense only in hindsight.

The Bob:  Do you plan what your albums will sound like, or do they just
evolve?

Gelb:  We don't go in thinking what we're gonna do.  You feel a hunch and
just make the stuff up as you go and see what you've got later.  More and
more that's what happens.  You walk into the fire, you walk through it, and
you're done with it.  I couldn't explain to you before-hand what we're gonna
do next.  I can only tell you what's on my mind, which will change tomorrow. 
Three days after we were through with Purge and Slouch we were down in New
Orleans, making this stuff up again, to start the next record.  It was really
weird.  By the time we got back here, I couldn't remember any of the songs
we'd recorded to play on tour, because I'd made 'em all up.  And now we had
to go back and learn our own songs for the road.  It was fuckin' with my
head. 

The Bob:  Wasn't Glum supposed to be the album where all hell breaks loose?

Gelb:  Glum really sounds like the place we cut it, in New Orleans at this
huge mansion, Kingsway.  We'd come down this huge staircase and record in
this huge living room, with no baffles or nothin'.   And it was this really
old recording equipment from the 60's, as if it were furniture in the dining
room.  It was dark, big and weirdly quiet - almost like a dream.

The Bob:  Of all the people I've interviewed from 80's guitar bands, I've
always thought you and Steve Wynn would be huge one day.

Gelb:  Yeah, but it's also logistical.  The more you don't want, as the years
go by, the more you disallow to happen.  And the trappings that come with it.
 It's not a self-righteous thing or an excuse for not acquiring, but it's a
matter of what you really don't want:  like livin' up at Rimrock because you
don't want to deal with a lot of stuff you don't want to deal with.  It's
like the idea of recording all night anymore (sessions with Chris Cacavas at
the Control Center in LA), I'm glad we did things that way, so many records
like that, but there's definitely an age factor to consider when you're
pushing forty.  Back then it was vital.  You needed it.  But now you've gotta
be a dad during the day.  There's other things that take you away.

The Bob:  What was the pivotal year for you as a music fan?

Gelb:  Almost anything that was released in 1972:  Hellbound Train by Savoy
Brown, Smoking by Humble Pie, anything Neil Young did, anything by Mott The
Hoople and Exile On Main Street.  I was into Bowie and Ziggy Stardust.  I
remember when Queen opened up for Mott The Hoople, and they were monstrous. 
Edgar Winter had that big hit, "Frankenstein," and they came out with big
heels and star-shaped guitars and stacks of Moog synthesizers.  Oh, and Todd
Rundgren.  That was entertainment.

The Bob:  When did you first come out to Tucson from Pennsylvania?

Gelb:  I came out first in 1972, but I didn't move here until three years
later.  We lost everything in this huge flood in Pennsylvania in '72.  We
were in Wilkes-Barre, and it was six feet over the roof.  My dad had
re-married out here that year, so I would come out here every year until I
got acquainted with the summers.  I ended up movin' out here a few years
later.  It's just finding a corner you can deal with on the planet.  I went
to Vancouver for the first time recently, and that seemed really nice. 
Rimrock seemed like I'd been there forever.  This (Tucson) is like city
livin' compared to that. 
    It's the allowance of re-invention.  Re-invention is the removal of
conditioning.  If you could realize that your environment is all an accident,
all a lottery.  You didn't ask to be born any color, or any place.  So if you
quit basing your ideals on lottery and go out and make up your own mind. 
Then you have a chance of dying peaceful, whenever that happens, without
being too totally fucked up.  That's what's crazy about tribes killing other
tribes in Rwanda, or the Bosnian situation - or any neo-Nazi movement.  What
is it that makes you base your whole life on lottery?  You're the lucky one,
and they're the unlucky ones?  It's really creepy.

The Bob:  Where did you first bump into Rainer Ptacek?

Gelb:  Here, back in 1976.  He was playing dobro in a little cafe called
Helen Street.  This girl took me down here to see him, and I was trippin' for
three days.  He called me up to play piano with him.  I was nineteen and had
just been playin' for a couple of years.  We started playing in G, and I
faced the wall because I coudn't deal with anybody sitting behind me and
their reaction.  So we played for forty five minutes until the place closed. 
He was my re-invented older brother.  I leaned on him as my pathfinder, 
because he was five or six years older. 

The Bob:  How long before you formed the Giant Sandworms?

Gelb:  I'd moved back to Pennsylvania to work in the soda factory, saving my
money and trying to get back (to Tucson).  I had a little place, sixty bucks
a month, in the middle of nowhere.  I had a blind dog.  Next to the big
river, the Susquehanna.  I was gonna build this cattle boat with this old guy
there and just go up the river.  We kept goin' over the plans.  By then I was
twenty two.  I'd talk to Rainer on the phone:  "If I can get up enough money,
I'm comin' back out.  But let's get a band together, because I've been slowly
writing songs out here, and I've got a bunch of 'em.  They've let me record
'em at this free place."  I kept tryin' to win some money at the local race
track for a new set of tires for the van - and I would lose.  It took
forever.  Right before I came out, Rainer found a drummer, Billy Sedlmayer,
and he brought along (bass player) David Seger, and that was the Sandworms. 
I'd just left this punk band in Pennsylvania called the Stains.  It was so
maniacal.  First time we played out there was this big fight.  That neck of
the Pennsylvania woods wasn't ready for this schizophrenic crap.

The Bob:  You didn't actually front the Sandworms at first. 

Gelb:  At that time, Rainer was mostly the front guy.  Then the drummer
(David Seger) ended up being the front guy, and Rainer split shortly
afterward.  Then I had to become more of a front guy, which was really
bothersome.  Me and Dave would switch off playing bass, depending whose song
we were singing.

The Bob:  Why did you keep returning to Wilkes-Barre?

Gelb:  I would keep going  back only because there was a family connection to
this little tiny soda factory.  I'd go back and work for three months and
make a few thousand bucks loadin' trucks.  Or takin' in the empty bottles,
before they had throwaways.  And you'd sort out bottles, which was completely
maddening.  I did everything.  I worked in the bottle line.  When you weren't
working in the winter, it was nothing but darkness.  It was easy to sleep the
day away when it got dark at three in the afternoon.  It was like livin' in
Alaska.  Then coming out to Arizona, it'd be completely the opposite. 
Extremes are the way to go.  They balance you out

The Bob:  So what's next on the agenda?

Gelb: I'm working on a solo record here in my living room.

The Bob:  Will it be anything like Dreaded Brown Recluse?

Gelb:  No, it's going to be a lot quieter.  It's all acoustic and a lot of
piano.  Usually just me and the piano, or me and the guitar.  Literally
recorded here in the living room - a friend of mine who lives out in the
desert had a big reel to reel in storage, and he came over and set up this
huge four-track, a couple of big mics and some old tube pre-amps. So far I've
had the occasion of two friends stopping by, Rosie Flores and John Wesley
Harding, and they sang some.  But I don't know what tracks I'm gonna use.  I
don't know if the songs were actually done when they sang on them, or if the
material is there.

The Bob:  Do you often have material left over when you finish a project? 
The new Giant Sand on Epiphany is an odds 'n' sods thing, live and studio
bits edited together.  The label said it was going to be called Loud Guitars,
and that it might be mail order only.

Gelb:  No, it was supposed to be called No-Name Guitars.  But I think we'll
just call it Official Bootleg Volume 1.  Epiphany will sell it in their
stores (Zia Records, in Phoenix and Tucson), and we're just gonna sell our
portion of it at live shows or to the fan base.  The first track is a live
show in New York last year with Chris Kirkwood (Meat Puppets) on drums -
which nobody knows, because I opted for the luxury of not putting any credits
on there.  There's something really satisfying about not putting any credits
on it.

The Bob:  Some of the lyrics really come out of nowhere.  What's the song
that begins, "Joe Bob got his haircut in my back yard"?

Gelb:  Yeah, that really happened, a true story.  I was trying to record the
washing machine, you know, how folks will have it in the back yard?  So Joey
was over and my girlfriend at the time, Sofie, gave him a haircut, and they
split to the store.  This beautiful neighbor came over, and she was kind of
flirting, but I just wanted to stay and record the washing machine.  Not to
mention that I had a girlfriend.  But she was real sweet, so I let my
imagination  run wild a little bit:  what if she picked the hair up off the
ground, thinking it was mine, and went home to do some voodoo or something,
but instead she would have done it to Joey - to like her and entice him! - I
think women can do that if they concentrate hard enough.
 
The Bob:  So most of the studio stuff would be several years old?

Gelb:  Yeah.  And there's one thing from Vancouver, "T.W.'s Forgotten
Chorus," that's about five years old.  I was in an old record shop and wanted
to do something hillbilly like, and... (Gelb interrupts himself to speak to
daughter Patsy: "Hey Pats, don't leave that stuff there!  Almost anywhere
else would be a good idea.  Not in the kitchen.  Maybe in your room.  Do the
right thing.  Atta-girl.")  I'm pretty sure there are some more recent pieces
there, some outtakes from Barbecue and Goods And Services. 

The Bob:  Both of those were a lot of fun.  Backyard Barbecue  as a radio
session thing, and Goods And Services  was a damn brilliant live document.

Gelb:  Well, you know, I've wondered if I should release that in the States
or not.  The guys who remixed it added a couple of extra songs.  So I can add
remixes of the songs that are a little bit more guitar heavy, and I can add
one or two extra tracks.  Or they also recorded us this year 
(January/February European tour) as a three- piece, which sounds really good.
 "Occupied" was  straight, rocking, T. Rex-like and all that, but this new
one, we kinda segue it with a kind of Deep Purple thing going down.  It
sounds really good.
I'd like to release it in the States, but I want to change it somehow.

The Bob:  Deep Purple, huh?  In the middle of "Warm Storm" you shift into a
Thin Lizzy segment!

Gelb:  Yeah, that was amazing!  Like an opus or something.  See, I tried to
make that record accessible to the uninitiated ear.  But I don't know. 
Originally I had those pieces from the radio session, and I ended up
eliminating them altogether and we were able to do that whole second record,
because the segues were really important for that radio record.  I let Nick
Hill put it together.  It was his puppy.

The Bob:  I assume that the deal with Koch was a one-off?

Gelb:  Yeah, they're all one-offs.

The Bob:  How do you find homes for all these kids?  Do they just call you up
and say, "Man, I'd love to do a record with you"?

Gelb:  Yeah, but mostly I like to go the quickest route, deal with people
I've dealt with before.  We've had this standing offer since October to do
one with Zero Hour.  Decent money, but I could never get an answer on the
phone ever.  I found it extremely frustrating.  As far as Giant Sand's
concerned, it's on hold, just in a natural spot.  Joey (Burns) and John
(Convertino) are getting more and more work as Sly & Robbie, and they have
the thing with the Friends Of Dean Martinez too.  Giant Sand is supposed to
be very much an equal-split type of organization.  I don't mean "trouble in
paradise."  It's more like there's other stuff they want to do first, and
it's the order of things happening that's instigated this "lack of jumping on
things that are Giant Sand."  They kind of leave it up to me to set that up,
but I'm kinda not!

The Bob:  Well, it opens the window for you to do the solo thing too.

Gelb:  Yeah, and it's something I flirted with before but I never thought I
should do because - what would the other guys do?  Now that their time is
being taken up, I gotta remember, "Oh yeah! Gotta check this out!"  So
whenever Giant Sand rears its head again...  And it's kinda weird, because
Giant Sand will never be anything more than it is.  There are times when it's
great what it is, and other times when it's damn peculiar, and it keeps it in
a certain spot.

The Bob:  That's the appeal, wondering where the band will rear its head
next. Trio, four-piece, five-piece, Rolling Thunder revue...

Gelb:  Right, and we've done all those things.  We've got these other
projects too, like this Lisa Germano project, which is pretty good. That will
be called something else.  It might be called "O.P.8." with the letters. 
That's something smoother, almost like the sound of when we play in the lobby
of Club Congress on Friday nights. That will be on Thirsty Ear.

The Bob:  Another side project for you:  author.  I read your two essays in 
the Alt-Rock-A-Rama book and found myself laughing out loud, especially
during "Fuck Songs, Sucker." Are there many Gelb journals that should be put
under one cover someday?

Gelb:  Well, there's been talk (laughs).   Then I could hang out with Luis
and Greg (local authors) down at the Cup Cafe, with all the writers.  It's
very much organization - which is no mystery.  A lot of songs and a lot of
papers get written, and I put them away some place and move on before I even
remember what I was doing.  If I had a laptop I might be more organized. 
Maybe.

The Bob:  Would you ever be inclined to work on a Giant Sand biography? 
There are so many bad rock and roll books that I think a Giant Sand story
could be damn entertaining.  Lots of characters appearing and disappearing.

Gelb:  Maybe.  It would depend on the integrity of the writer.  I don't know
if it's all that interesting.   I mean, I wouldn't say no to it.  I think
that's the whole premise of this record on Epiphany.  Here it is, it's just
what it is, no information, and see if it stands up and you enjoy it without
knowing anything about it.

The Bob:  It should have old bootleg style graphics.  Nowadays boots are so
slick you can hardly tell them from the official product.

Gelb:  I know.  In fact I saw my car on one!  There's this Chris Isaak
bootleg with a photo of my 'cuda there on the front cover - an outtake from
the Love Songs photo sessions, without any of us standing around the
Barracuda.

The Bob:  Have you ever spotted any Giant Sand bootlegs out there?

Gelb:  I've seen bootleg teeshirts.  And this guy sent me a sheet of paper
with a shitload of Giant Sand titles on it, people trading tapes of us, like
the Grateful Dead.  Really incredible, the amount there, and where they're
from, some studio sessions and stuff. 

The Bob:  Okay, what else is coming up?  You suggested the band's in a
holding pattern right now.

Gelb:  We actually have half a Giant Sand record recorded.  But all these
other things came down the pike for John and Joe, and rather than force the
issue - and I had my hands full with other shit too, the Rainer stuff.  It's
been a year of weird shit.  It's always a process of elimination, so I'm
trying to see what opportunities are being eliminated instead of forcing
them. 
 
The Bob:  Would there ever be an actual Patsy record, or is that too early to
predict?

Gelb:  It would be up to her.  It was cool for me to include her until she
was five or six.  But she's gotta want to do it now.  She's gotta figure out,
"Wow, this would be cool."  And she's written some songs with her mom
(sometimes GS bassist Paula Jean Brown) that are pretty good!

The Bob:  Your gut feeling, will Giant Sand reappear some day soon?

Gelb:  When it becomes necessary again, it will just manifest itself for the
parties involved.  Like, Joey's 29 now, and he's the age I was when I was
just making my first record.  That fever was ferocious. It's more important
than anything.  The dude is branching out and peaking, and John is becoming
versed in more instruments now: accordion, like his dad used to play, some
great piano, even some vibraphone, which he'd never played before a year ago.
 
    For me, it's like the grand old man.  I see what's going on down there,
and in a way an era is over, and in a way another is beginning.  It's like a
lesson, like turning 40 this year.  It's kind of bittersweet. You're kind of
sad, but it's a happy feeling too.  Change is just the way it is, like your
kid leaving home and going off on his own.  You really want the kid to get
out there so you don't have to be responsible all the time, but you're really
gonna miss him being around the house.  The Giant Sand thing rests in each of
our hearts, as important as it's ever been, and equally as disposable as it
wants to be.  When the time comes that everybody feels they need a fix of it,
it'll handle itself.  I think it's better that it enters into this other
state now, that you don't know when or where it's gonna come down and land.

Hey Fred - thanks a lot for sending this.