INTERVIEWS-7

Giant Sand for Magnet 45
by Fred Mills
---------------------------------------

Intro:

The article below is an unedited, long version of a feature I wrote for US
rock magazine Magnet (issue #45). Of neccessity the editing process whittled
it down considerably, and frequently quotes had to hit the cutting-room floor
in order to provide an ongoing narrative and tell the whole story. But a lot
of those quotes from Gelb, Burns and Convertino were, I thought, worth
reviving. Always let the artist(s)' voices be heard whenever possible! I
encourage you, however, to purchase the original publication and, indeed,
subscribe -- I'm proud to write for Magnet, and your support will help keep
my paychecks coming along! Contact Magnet at 1218 Chestnut Street, Suite 808,
Philadelphia PA 19107, or via the web at www.magnetmagazine.com.
--Fred Mills

By most standards, Giant Sand's Howe Gelb should have thrown in the towel in
1999. That was the year when, coming on the heels the death of Gelb's best
friend, an unexpected clash within his band and a lingering bout with
writer's block and artistic self-doubt, his record label delivered the mortal
blow in the way of dropping him from the roster -- right after he'd turned in
what is arguably the most enticing and fully-realized record of his 20-year
career. Same old "independent artist slams into the major label brick wall"
story? Not quite. In the Giant Sand world, things tend to turn upon their own
idiosyncrasies, and those whims rarely align themselves with the goings-on of
the mainstream music biz.

Or, as Gelb himself characterizes his band, "It's been a training grounds for
an attitude and healthy perspectives. It dealt with the not clinging to most
of the things that other bands cling to. It didn't have a great ambition or a
great description of what it was -- it tried to sidestep all of that."

***

Even to the outsider, Giant Sand has tended to appear more familial, almost
communal in nature, than
marked by the usual get-in-the-van boys'-club rock band mentality. Things did
start off traditionally enough for Gelb: Arriving in Arizona from
Pennsylvania in the late '70s, he soon formed a new waveish garage band,
Giant Sandworms, with three talented Tucson musicians, including one Rainer
Ptacek, who would come to figure heavily in his personal and professional
life. But that group turned into, by Gelb's own admission, a "four-headed
beast" that quickly saw Ptacek depart following the release of an EP in 1980
and a decision by the others to temporarily relocate to New York. The move
turned out disastrously (the twin specters of heroin and financial
destitution reared up within the band), and upon returning to Tucson, the
Sandworms, through happenstance, would initiate a revolving-door membership
policy which would extend beyond the group's four-year lifespan and pick up
steam in Gelb's subsequent musical incarnation.

The Giant Sand story proper picks up in '84 when Gelb, during another
temporary exodus from the Old Pueblo -- interestingly, every record has
maintained the same Tucson address, a mail drop on North Campbell Boulevard
-- landed in L.A. in order to live in closer proximity to both his favorite
recording studio and Enigma Records, to which he'd recently signed and was
set to release the first Giant Sand album, Valley Of Rain. Recalling his
first night in L.A., Gelb says, "In the van I had the tapes of both that
record and the The Band Of Blacky Ranchette album [a country-rock side
project he'd initiated a few months earlier with his old chum from the
Sandworms, Ptacek], and I had a feeling it was gonna get ripped off so I'd
taken everything out of the van but I forgot the tapes! We had the pre-mix
and the rough-mix of each session, and we got back and sure enough, they'd
ripped off the van -- they'd somehow stolen one reel of each, leaving me with
the rough mix of Blacky and the pre-mix masters of Valley Of Rain. Those
tapes became the two albums. The next day we went down to this ghetto area
and suddenly Scott Garber [Giant Sand bassist] goes, 'Did you see the shit
that guy was wearing?' And it was a Giant Sandworms shirt that he must have
stolen!"

Undeterred, Gelb soldiered on, and with the 1985 release of Valley Of Rain
the Giant Sand star quickly rose among aficianados -- including some
extremely rabid fans overseas, such as England's venerable Bucketful Of Brains
 magazine -- of the then-burgeoning American guitar-band scene. Subsequent
albums throughout the '80s and on into the early '90s solidified the group's
reputation even as Gelb was diversifying his position. Giant Sand could veer
from an introspective folk tune to a full-on Neil Youngian skronk-fest to a
sweet, acoustic guitar/pedal-steel country number in less time it took to
flip an album over on the turntable, and this unpredictability comprised a
major portion of the outfit's appeal. Gelb clearly relished the options
afforded by letting go of preconceived notions of what constituted a core
"sound." At one point in late '86 he even took his own Rolling Thunder-styled
revue to Europe, a morphing six-piece that might start out a set as Giant
Sand, become Blacky Ranchette midway through, and by show's end turn into The
Band of Giant Blacky or some such imprecise apellation. A few years later,
readying a new Giant Sand release, he consented to issue the record as a Howe
Gelb solo album because his label complained there was too much recent Sand
product to market and promote already! (Gelb: "We'd been putting them out
every six to eight months and they were saying, 'Please, can you wait longer
between releases!'")

At any rate, this is old history that's been recounted in fine detail many
times in the past. (Consult the official Giant Sand website at
www.giantsand.com or its U.K. counterpart at www.sa-wa-ro.com/
for Sandage in bulk.) And we'll let Gelb himself touch on selected aspects of
his tenure in a few pages [see below]. What's important is where Giant Sand
stands today.

With Gelb, it seems, a working combo or stylistic vision is only as fixed as
the chemistry churning within. And over the years -- sixteen and counting for
Giant Sand, which boasts more alumni than Menudo and is now on its 15th album
(24th if you include compilations and side projects) -- the Giant Sand
chemistry has yielded some volatile products indeed, the results of a
catching-lightning-in-a-bottle creative aesthetic and a deeply-felt
appreciation for how different combinations of personalities can offer new,
challenging, artistic possibilities. Gelb, as the founding member, songwriter
and proud patriarch of Giant Sand, provides the kind of easygoing, guiding
hand -- he calls it a "lack of ambition" -- which paradoxially allows a
flexible structure to grow and flourish while still maintaining a necessary
philosophical consistency. Members of the Giant Sand extended family have
been known to wander off and busy themselves elsewhere on other projects; but
they've always been welcomed with open arms upon return. The very nature of
the beast means that it can twist around and bite itself on the leg, and, in
fact, that's precisely what happened without warning in the last few years.
Still, to cite Gelb quoting that paragon of paradox, Buddha, "If you know you
are walking on a trap, it will be pure joy."


***

It's a sunny, beautiful March day in Tucson, and today, at Gelb's bright blue
adobe digs located squarely in the middle of Tucson's colorful Barrio Viejo
district, "family" is the operative word. I'm here to probe Gelb about Chore
Of Enchantment, the latest Giant Sand album which has just been released by
Chicago's Thrill Jockey label. As I wander in the front door I'm warmly
greeted by his wife Sofie, who introduces me to her mother, currently very
far away from home (Denmark) and visiting her daughter and son-in-law for a
spell. Accepting an offer of fresh coffee, I sit down at the kitchen table,
which is already occupied by a pair of visitors with whom I'm already
acquainted, Patti and Lili Keating, widow and daughter of Rainer Ptacek.
Sofie ducks into the bedroom to check on the baby, emerging in a few minutes
holding son Luka, who'll turn one in a matter of weeks.  Brushing sleep from
his eyes, Luka reaches for his juice bottle and, after a few cursory sucks,
glances around the room and smiles winningly for mom, grandmother and
journalist.

By now family pooch Rosa  has also sauntered into the kitchen. Rosa sniffs
suspiciously at the intruder, examines the other occupants of the room for
any potential food handouts, then darts out the door into the back yard where
Papa Howe is finishing up trenching out irrigation basins for the trees and
shrubs. Soon enough filmmaker Bill Carter (of Miss Sarajevo fame and
currently assembling a Giant Sand documentary) drops by, as does Giant
Sand/Calexico drummer John Convertino and young daughter Mia, who wants to
watch "Teletubbies" with Luka and Lili. Numerous times over the course of the
afternoon the Gelb phone will ring: Thrill Jockey label maven Bettina
Richards, reminding Gelb of an interview slated for the following afternoon;
guitarist Nick Luca, recently added to the Giant Sand touring lineup,
inquiring about details regarding an upcoming appearance at South By
Southwest.

So it's no wonder that what started out to be a simple updating of the Giant
Sand file for MAGNET -- sharp-minded readers will recall our profile on Gelb
& Co. way back in 1994 for issue 14 plus a '98 feature on drummer Convertino
and bassist Joey Burns' other group, Calexico, in issue 36 -- winds up
turning into a rambling six-hour session with numerous interruptions. None
are unwelcome, however, and an impromptu father-son jam session (on upright
piano and cardboard box drums -- you may figure who played what) is
particularly touching. Gelb clearly dotes on the kid. He's neither upset nor
fazed when Luka, crawling furiously across the floor of Gelb's music room,
almost knocks over a hi-tech-looking guitar effects box.  Gelb scoops up his
son, smiles, and says, 'That's okay. If he breaks it, he'll just redefine it."

***

"My ultimate goal was to have, for the first time, a universal release with a
company with good distribution," explains Gelb of his decision to sign with
upstart major label V2 some 3 1/2 years earlier. "We took months, considering
certain things like 'is the deal applicable and how so is it?'; I'd met
people in four or five offices in different countries and liked 99.9% of
those people. It was a brand new company, they had high ideals, really
free-minded, and they were good about paying us health insurance. Everything
about it was healthy."

Or so it seemed. In a sense, you'd think that Gelb would have been gunshy
about hooking up with V2; his last experience with a major label ended in
disaster when Imago, which issued 1994's Glum, collapsed prior to the release
of the album in Europe, traditionally a Giant Sand stronghold and a solid
source of touring income for the band. During the next couple of years a
handful of Giant Sand one-offs, mostly comprising live material, appeared on
indie labels. But Gelb, who freely admits to being fascinated with the way
the music business works, still hungered for that increased exposure for his
band that a worldwide release would bring. Says Gelb with a laugh, "Even if
we eventually got dropped, even the smallest percentage that would still seek
us out would be larger than anything we'd done before -- and then we could
use our website to reach them."

Prior to signing with V2 there had already been an upswing of activity in the
Giant Sand camp: Burns and Convertino's side project Calexico (nee Spoke);
the Sand-Lisa Germano collaboration OP8, which yielded the
critically-acclaimed Slush album; a Rainer Ptacek tribute-benefit album, The
Inner Flame, which Gelb and Robert Plant initiated to help out their ailing
friend Ptacek, who was recovering from a brain tumor; and the beginnings of a
Gelb solo album recorded in his living room, primarily acoustic, with
contributions from assorted friends such as Germano, Grandaddy, Winston
Watson, and of course Burns and Convertino (this would eventually be released
on V2 in '98 as Hisser). Then, right as a creative nexus seemed to be just
over the horizon for Giant Sand, tragedy struck. Ptacek's cancer had returned
with a vengeance, and was deemed untreatable. Gelb, who was in the midst of a
European tour with Burns, Convertino and Germano, raced home to Tucson to
help care for his dying friend.

At a memorial for Ptacek, held a week or so after his death in November of
'97, Gelb and Burns got up in front of an overflow crowd of mourners crammed
into Tucson's San Pedro Chapel and performed a gentle, moving song in the
late guitarist's honor. Afterwards, walking up to Gelb to offer my
condolences, I noticed his hands were shaking as they gripped mine. His
voice, too, seemed to have an uncharacteristic shakiness to it.

Back in the present and listening to Gelb recount his friend's ordeal, I
again detect that same quiver in his voice, at least momentarily, as he nods
at a portrait of Ptacek hanging on the wall next to his piano. "That
motherfucker!" he exclaims, then allows a wry smile. "That's the taint of it
all. He provided a balance. We could toy with each other's sensibilities and
get tickled by it. Then, when he was gone, I was spinning out of balance. It
was just too weird. Things didn't have worth any more. I couldn't have
imagined it beforehand. Once it happened...[trailing off] ... I just didn't
have that 'juice' and confidence: 'I don't have it in me now -- why is that?'"

Sessions began for the V2 album began in January of '98 when John Parish (of
P.J. Harvey fame) arrived in Tucson. By all accounts the relationship clicked
-- Parish would even wind up choosing the desert on the outskirts of Tucson
as the site for his wedding -- but from a recording standpoint, somehow the
old Giant Sand magic proved elusive, something Gelb freely admits. "I didn't
have the conviction to say, 'I'm behind this 100 percent.' I was still
fucked-up from Rainer's death, and the recording was in the same place where
I'd recorded Rainer's last things just days before he died. So I was hearing
stuff in the music, or maybe too aware of my own participation. And the
camaraderie in the band was low because there were different agendas. I
didn't know for sure what we came up with."

Indeed, while it was purely happenstance that Gelb's low ebb coincided with
Calexico's rising star, one unfortunate result of the confluence was tension
that would remain unresolved for some time to come. Burns and Convertino's
increasing commitment to their side project, not to mention their sometimes
hectic schedule recording with Victoria Williams, Richard Buckner, Bill
Janovitz, Michael Hurley, etc., meant that Giant Sand duties had to be
slotted into that schedule. Whereas previously Gelb would take his band out
on tour, work up new material on the road, then return home and hit the
studio, he now had to contend with an unintended by-product of the
free-wheeling Giant Sand modus operandi.

And while Gelb now jokes that "it was the damndest thing -- the enemy came
from within!", it's clear from talking to him that the paternal pride he
genuinely took in seeing his friends growing as musicians and artists was
tempered by the realization that he was now having to compete with 2/3 of his
own band. "The thing about Giant Sand," says Gelb, "was that it was a haven
or sanctuary away from competition. Didn't matter what any other band was
doing. We could do anything we wanted and we became our own flavor. And I love
d that! 'If you want these tones, this attitude, you can only get it here.'
So it began to aggravate me. The upside of this competition: the quality of
the material, the playmanship and the aesthetics got better. The downside of
course: it fucked with the sanctuary of certain things I held dear, the
removal of all things that had a non-competitive nature, the
non-descriptiveness."


----------Interlude 1:  Burns & Convertino--------------

MAGNET: Giant Sand always seemed flexible enough for each player to enjoy
ample space, both within the group and without. Why, then, do you think your
recording and touring with other artists and doing Calexico messed with the
equation?

Convertino: In a way, I think it was a relief for Howe, knowing that we were
doing music and making a living while he was still working through Rainer's
death. But then, for so long it was like, 'What's up? Are we gonna go on
tour?' It was causing him trouble with us being gone so much. That trouble
being, 'not together'. We weren't playing as much as Giant Sand, and you lose
that consistency of what it feels like to play.

Burns: The pressure might have been on him in another way too: "They don't
need me." OP8 was on tour, then we got the call about Rainer, so he leaves
the tour. We didn't know what we should do, so we carried on and finished the
tour, and it was good. So maybe that OP8 thing started that whole self-doubt
thought process, about how much he was needed. I've gone through this myself,
carrying a whole ball of low self-esteem around. You always doubt what you do.

MAGNET: Yet at the same time, the V2 deal should have been a source of
challenge: time to get on with life, look forward to this new album. Did the
label ever fully understand what Giant Sand was about?

Burns: Hell no. Kate Hyman [Giant Sand's A&R person at V2] did to an extent;
she had the experience of working with the band for Glum, which is a great
record. But at the same time, maybe she had ideas as far as what she wanted
out of the band but couldn't verbalize it for Howe. The ideas weren't being
met.

Convertino: Doing this record, there was a lot of outside influence from V2
and from the producers. For example, we'd do a take and I'd think I'd like to
try it again, but the producer would say, "No, it's great." And it seemed
like the record company was having such a struggle with the band, this
dialogue about needing a radio single and stuff that was going down.

Burns: Howe was trying to get them to like what he was doing and figure out
how we could meet them somewhere in the middle. It began to feel more like
the major label  ideas were being thought out in New York and paid for in New
York. That seemde to be the furthest extension of what V2 or major label land
is all about: "Whatever it takes." Well, then you're crossing state lines as
far where the band is coming from and what the band is all about.

MAGNET: How did you feel when you heard V2 had dropped the band?

Convertino: I figured as much. The label, which had been going three years by
then, hadn't had a big hit and it would have to downsize. So that was the
timing. Our record had taken long enough to finish that we'd crossed that
deadline when they had to downsize. And we were one of those bands.

Burns: I felt bad, mainly for Howe, because I knew he'd sunk his heart into
it. On the other hand, I was like -- "Great! Now let's do something from the
heart. Let's come back to something really good." I didn't know if anything
could be salvaged from the sessions or not; I figured we'd just go back in
and re-record everything.

-------------------------

If things didn't go immediately from bad to worse for Giant Sand, the group's
orbit was definitely in the decaying stages.  Gelb, Burns and Convertino
wanted to do a West Coast tour then immediately hole up in Seattle to record
new material; instead, V2 sent them to Memphis in August to record with
legendary producer Jim Dickinson. While Gelb is quick to point out that he
was tickled by the opportunity to study at the feet of an acknowledged master
of his craft ("Just his history, his vibe -- he's part snake-oil salesman,
but that's okay!"), the sessions were frustrating for the three musicians.
Part of the problem was that Gelb had given the record company a list of six
songs he wanted to concentrate on in Memphis. When Giant Sand arrived, those
were the six songs Dickinson was intent on nailing; Gelb, by contrast, as he
grief had begun to subside somewhat, was emerging from his funk and coming up
with new material. As a consequence, both communication and focus suffered, 
and for a second time, Giant Sand left the studio with the unsettling feeling
that something crucial was missing. The record company, which had been hoping
for at least one song it could pitch to radio and didn't hear any, was
getting nervous. "We didn't come up with the goods," is how Gelb succintly
summarizes.

Enter Kevin Salem. At the suggestion of V2's Kate Hyman, the noted New York
singer-songwriter and producer rang up Gelb one night. Recalls Gelb, "So
Kevin is talking to me about the record, and out of the blue he said, 'I want
to send you something. I've rerecorded three songs.' Now the thing that got
me, aside from the fact that some guy I don't even know has rerecorded my
songs, was that he had picked these three new songs I'd written that I really
liked: 'Blue Marble Girl,' 'X-tra Wide' and 'Shiver.' I'd started 'Shiver' in
Tucson but in my despair I couldn't get the track; we'd tried doing all three
in Memphis but it had no magic.

  "So the DAT from Kevin showed up in the mail; he'd added some guys, some
bass, guitar, extra drums. I took the DAT up to the studio, put down new
vocals, and it was so great to do something brand new -- I could waltz in
there like Elvis and just sing because the song was done. I guess I got a
thrill out of it because, as a songwriter, I used to come up with material so
we'd have an excuse to play something, but there would be times where I'd
come up with a good song that I didn't think we 'realized.'"

Tweaked by Salem's audacity and inspired by his enthusiasm, Gelb traveled
northward to Woodstock over Christmas where he and Salem hunkered down in
Robbie Robertson's old cabin studio and put the finishing touches of the
album. For Gelb, this third and final round of sessions went quickly, "just
the way it used to be in the old days, just one other person there pushing
the button and capturing it. It was kind of like we'd been evolving this way
and then I took a deep plunge for other reasons, and now I was back to where
it would have been if we'd continued on. With Parish and Dickinson, I was
inspired by both of them, but I never thought I brought to the table as much
as I could have. But with Kevin, it was long enough after Rainer's death, and
I was healed enough, more ready for something -- and Kevin was right there to
catch it. The juice."

Call it tragic fate or simply -- as Convertino pointed out above -- the
financial vicissitudes wrought by the record industry, it is nonetheless
darkly ironic that once Gelb had an album he could live with and be proud of,
V2 decided to cut the tether. The label had already issued Gelb's Hisser CD
and had invested time and money into a two-album Giant Sand deal -- to the
point of pressing up advance promos of Chore Of Enchantment. Yet literally,
on the day before Gelb was supposed to fly to New York and start hatching out
release plans with V2, he received a phone call from his A&R person: the band
had decided to drop the band from its roster. "They had brought over a
British guy to ride shotgun over the proceedings in New York," recalls Gelb
with a grimace. "That was our demise, ultimately. The record was 'too
indie-sounding.'"

***

Well, as any good family story should have a happy ending, I'm glad to report
that this one does. (Funny: just as Gelb is getting to the post-V2 portion of
our interview, a small rubber ball rolls from under the door and into the
room. Looking down, I spot a tiny hand reaching under the door as well,
accompanied by a loud burst of giggling. When I glance over at Gelb, he's
giggling too, and sticking his fingers back under the door. Like father like
son...)

Following a period of denial during which Gelb was inclined to simply walk
away from the whole project ("It was enough to be happy about the final
delivery of the thing. I did the work and got through it. I can move on.")
and let V2 buy the band out of its two-album contract, he eventually decided
he wanted to see the release of  Chore Of Enchantment through after all.
Demand for the record was already exceeding his supply of advance promos,
which V2 had given Gelb and he was selling via the Giant Sand website. And
while obtaining the rights to the master tapes would mean accepting less
money from V2 in the contract buyout -- this at a point in time when a child
was on the way, some much-needed home repairs were looming and Gelb basically
had no steady source of income other than a Tuesday night solo gig playing
piano at a local pub -- he would be free and clear to shop Chore.

At one stage, Atlantic Records expressed interest in Chore; Yves Beauvais,
who'd A&R'd the Ptacek The Inner Flame project, was very eager to work with
Gelb again. But ultimately a deal was struck with Thrill Jockey, whose owner,
Bettina Richards, had been friends with the members of Giant Sand for years.
"They've got a good sensibility, a good aesthetic and the good energy to keep
the label going," says Gelb of Thrill Jockey. "They've are a true team who
know what's going on. With Atlantic, you had a lot more money, and Yves, I
love him because he made life so wonderful for Rainer. But he pointed out how
in reality, the people in the Atlantic marketing department, there's all this
political nonsense. You know how it is at a major label: when they talk to
the artist they have to 'rephrase things.' With Thrill Jockey, there's no
agenda crunch, and there's no backpedaling."

Make no mistake, both the band and its new label came out ahead with the
deal; Chore Of Enchantment is, in a word, enchanting. Seductive. Lush and
meditative, sonically fulsome yet with just enough of the band's trademark
wobble 'n' whine to indelibly stamp it "Giant Sand." From the slinky barrio
noir of "(well) Dusted (for the millennium)" and the darkly ominous, Tom
Waitish "Wolfy" to the funky soul of "Temptation Of Egg" and the sweet '50s
waltz of "No Reply," Chore is every bit as satisfying as Giant Sand's
previous classic, 1994's Glum. Lyrically, too; while Gelb steadfastly
sidesteps attempts on the part of the interviewer to pin him down about any
overriding theme to the album, it's hard not to see it, at least partly, as a
chronicle of the group's ordeal. After all, it begins with a guy who's been
"Dumped by what he thought he knew/ Now he sits slumped and don't know what
to do" (from "Dusted") and ends with the narrator reflecting, "When I woke it
was a new morning/ I was only sick from the night before." (The record is
dedicated to Rainer Jaromir Ptacek; touchingly, samples taken from a tape of
Ptacek's favorite operas are woven into a couple of the songs, and a snippet
of Ptacek playing slide guitar closes the album.)

Another stroke of irony, this time good irony, arrived in the Old Pueblo the
very day Gelb got the call from V2. Bill Carter, the maverick filmmaker of Mis
s Sarajevo fame who served as U2's European war correspondent on the Zooropa
tour, landed at Tucson International Airport intending to shoot a video with
the band for "Shiver." Undaunted, Carter proposed turning the project into a
Giant Sand documentary.

Gelb: "So I said, 'If you want to just capture this matter that's going on
around here, figure out what to do with it later...' It was an omen, him
getting on the plane the same hour we were dropped. And I needed his energy
and take on life in general. He is all amped-up with energy; me, I've always
been a low blood-pressure kind of guy."

Carter, who wound up moving to Tucson permanently, shot footage of Gelb,
Burns and Convertino under numerous conditions, from candid at-home scenes to
live clips; he also interviewed numerous Tucson locals -- detractors included
-- as well as such notables in the Giant Sand sphere as Evan Dando, Victoria
Williams, Emmylou Harris, Richard Buckner, Vic Chesnutt and producers who
worked on Chore and previous records. As Gelb puts it, the film is to be
"entertaining, but in a nonspecific say. I don't want people who see this to
have to already know anything about the band." And as Carter was on hand to
capture the band during an admittedly tense period in its evolution, the film
promises to have its own dramatic arc for those who are familiar with the
Giant Sand saga to date.



---------Interlude 2: Burns & Convertino---------------------

MAGNET: What holds this band together? Do the members have to invest
themselves emotionally to work together?

Burns: That's a tricky thing because -- how much do a person's emotions
factor in to creativity? Quite a bit, really. I have a lot of respect and
admiration for Howe, and if there is any tension from time to time, it does
help with the creativity and the energy.

Convertino: You know, Howe and I did a tour of the States and Europe as a
two-piece in '89. It was a kind of bash-it-out energy, let's see how much
noise we can make sort of thing. Now, with Joey, through all these different
kinds of music we've been playing, especially the Latin influence, it's about
being able to tone it down and play the space more. I think the melody is
sometimes the anchor; when Howe goes off, I'll go off with him, but keeping
the melody in my head so I'll know where we're going. And Joey will throw in
little splashes of the melody wo we'll know where we are! There's a lot of
concentration, a lot of listening.

Burns: One thing we've learned [from working outside Giant Sand] is
perspective. You see how different people work -- Victoria Williams, Richard
Buckner, Bill Janovitz, Vic Chesnutt, Michael Hurley... Then we come back
around Howe and it's great because he's giving us signs with his guitar
almost like a conductor, and we've learned them because we've worked with him
so long. You learn someone's language and someone's cues, and it just gives
you a better perspective, not only on where Howe's coming from, it makes you
appreciate what he does and how he does it.

Convertino: Giant Sand is so much what Howe is, you know? We just try to tap
into the spontaneity of it. I know that for people who have seen the band,
the shows are really different from night to night. For me, that's the fun of
playing in the band. You make the best out of whatever's coming out of Howe
at the moment. Just try to jump in there.


-----------------------------------------


***

What's next for the band? Following this year's South By Southwest appearance
-- make that "appearances," as both Giant Sand and Calexico performed -- the
band embarked upon a West Coast and Canadian tour. Then in May, a new
Calexico album entitled Hot Rail was released, accompanied by a Calexico
tour. While Burns and Convertino were off promoting their record, Gelb used
the break to do a series of solo shows in England and Europe.

In the meantime, Gelb has several projects in store, not the least of which
is the release of  the second volume of the Giant Sand official bootleg
series, entitled The Rock Opera Years, on his Ow Om label and available about
the time you read this. The 13-song CD includes alternate versions of songs
that appear on Chore (the Thrill Jockey vinyl edition of Chore also includes
a few of these) and material recorded in Tucson -- including a cover of Neil
Young's "Music Arcade" -- prior to the V2 deal. Then there's a forthcoming
Gelb solo album initially indended as two separate sets, one of piano music
and another of songs, but now housed under the inclusive title Confluence. A
previously scrapped second OP8 project, this one recorded a couple of years
ago with Juliana Hatfield instead of Lisa Germano, may eventually see the
light of day. And judging by the number of tapes littering Gelb's office and
spilling out of boxes stacked up in a backyard storage room, as well as the
unreleased material he previewed for me during the interview, he's got enough
backlog to keep any aspiring, detail-minded archivist busy for a long time.

For now, though, Gelb is clearly relieved to have lived through his ordeal --
this is a man who once characterized his work to me as being of the "that
which doesn't kill you makes you stronger" nature -- and eager to reestablish
his group's equilibrium.

"We're always looking to capture that lightning in a bottle," says Gelb.
"When it works, it's invaluable. So that right there is the crux -- and it's
why we suck sometimes, too. We know it's out there and it can happen. When it
does, we're not even that conscious it just occurred; that comes way later,
so we're just aware that something feels pretty damn good at the time.

"I do have to contend with being a decade older than the boys, and also being
'hampered' by the things I love. These chores of enchantment. I've collected
this house, and now that I have it all, it stops me from going out and doing
as much as I used to do. I kind of miss my instinct, knowing this is good and
trying to maintain it instead of going off with my instinct like I did so
many times before."

Standing up and motioning at the walls, and, by implication, what lies in the
other rooms, Gelb grins broadly and adds, "But you know what? When I think
about all this, it's astonishingly great."

***

My conversation with Gelb is starting to wind down when Sofie Gelb knocks
softly on the office door and tells her husband that Patsy, Gelb's
almost-teenage daughter from his first marriage called and needs a ride. Talk
about extended family -- young Patsy's vocal dexterity was often heard on
Giant Sand records in the late '80s and early '90s, while her mother, Paula
Jean Brown, served an extended stint as the Sands' bassist and continues to
this day as a frequent guest on the group's records.

 This seems a fitting enough juncture to signal the end of the interview so I
thank Gelb for his time, the ladies for the fish tacos, and Luka for the
floor show. Leaving the house, I glance back over my shoulder. Sofie is
handing Howe his son, who clutches daddy with that soft determination
peculiar only to babies. And maybe it's just the angle of the soon-to-set
sun's rays, but from my vantage point, it looks like everyone in the house --
father, mother, son, grandmother -- is aglow.

--end--

Giant Sand Autodiscography
by Howe Gelb, as told to Fred Mills

-------------------------

Giant Sandworms: Giant Sandworms EP (1980, Boneless)
It's really a bad sounding record. I'm totally embarrassed by this whole sort
of David Byrne style of singing that I was latching onto. It was 1980, and in
Tucson, that kind of erratic crap was big. But at the time it was a process
of elimination, getting rid of the .38 Special and stuff. Rainer and I had
started Giant Sandworms and got the two other guys [David Seger, Billy Sed]
and it became a four-headed beast.


Valley Of Rain (1985, Enigma)
'Desert rock'... that was an accident of geographics. I like the contrast:
'valley of rain,' there in the desert with no water, but that one time of
year -- the summer monsoons -- when things seem to pour. First records are
always so important because you have all this 'stuff.' That took 28 years to
make; it was recorded in '84. But the next one only took eight months to a
year! The greatest compliment is that if you can still put it on and it's not
embarrassing, it has good sounds, and the energy still comes through -- how
many years after the fact, sixteen?

The Band Of Blacky Ranchette (1985, New Rose, France)
Dan Stuart's girlfriend had moved out to L.A. and was going to put together a
real country-punk record. [The Don't Shoot compilation featuring John Doe,
Divine Horsemen, the Giant Sand side project Blacky Ranchette and various
members of Green On Red and the Long Ryders, on Zippo, 1986.] She turned us
on to this studio and and we went out there and did this in a day and a half
for 400 dollars. This French guy offered me a thousand dollars for it and
that's what began the formula: to record for half of whatever the front money
was gonna be and split up the difference. I took Rainer out there and did his
Barefoot Rock album the same way! At any rate, Rainer had quit Giant
Sandworms but I had wanted to get back playing with him. I had started doing
this thing with Van Christian, but he eventually wanted to do his thing with
Naked Prey, so I got Rainer and this great, straight-ahead rhythm section.
This was in '84. I moved out to L.A., and the first night out there, I had
the tapes of both Blacky and Valley Of Rain in the van and I had a feeling it
was gonna get ripped off so I'd taken everything out of the van but I forgot
the tapes! We had the pre-mix and the rough-mix of each session, and we got
back and sure enough, they'd ripped off the van -- they'd somehow stolen one
reel of each, leaving me with the rough mix of Blacky and the pre-mix masters
of Valley Of Rain. Those tapes became the two albums. The next day we went
down to this ghetto area and suddenly Scott Garber [G..S. bassist] goes, "Did
you see the shit that guy was wearing?" And it was a Giant Sandworms shirt
that he must have stolen.

Ballad Of A Thin Line Man (1986, Enigma) and Heartland by Blacky Ranchette
(1986, Zippo, England)
These came out the same day. Thin Line was recorded in L.A. and Heartland was
done in Venice and in Reno. At that time, back in the '80s, I was so free
that I wanted to have five or six different bands all playing different
music. Then when I started getting acclaim for any one of them, I started to
feel the weight of each, and it began to make less sense to go off starting
something new. Why not just do Giant Sand since they know this name now, so
with the following record I just combined both.

Storm (1988, What Goes On)
We've got Paula [Paula Jean Brown, ex-Go Gos, and Gelb's first wife] on bass
-- she was pregnant there -- and Neil Harry on pedal steel. It made sense
just to combine the attitudes, of the country stuff as well, and just call it
Giant Sand. I was trying to get Tom [Tom Larkins, drummer, now with Jonathan
Richman] to play with brushes then.

The Love Songs and Long Stem Rant (1988 and 1989, Homestead)
This is when John came in. We were living in the same building, which is how
we met him, and when we went down to record Love Songs he was playing in the
Insect Surfers and was really, really good in that. He only had 45 minutes so
we hurried through the songs, sometimes playing faster than normal so we
could get them done! Paula and I were living in Hollywood and had just had
our baby, Patsy; she'd had a hit with "Mad About You" with Belinda Carlisle
and that was paying our bills. I was barely making anything and had to get
side jobs. I was trying to get this job at RCA working the phones. At that
time Paula and I weren't getting along, Chris Cacavas who's on the album was
going off to do his solo thing, and in the meantime Craig Marks at Homestead
was setting up this tour, and I asked John if he wanted to go on the road. It
came down to whether or not the RCA job came through; I was gonna piss off
Homestead and say, "That's it, I'm gonna get a steady gig and not make
records!" If that job didn't come through I was gonna hit the road. That
Friday it didn't, and by the weekend we were on a plane. Craig picks us up,
bought us a $2000 '81 Honda Accord with his credit card, bought me that amp
[points at amplifier in the room], and that was our tour support. We would
show up everywhere as a two-piece five minutes before we were supposed to
play and they'd give us hell because they were expecting a band! But they'd
see how little gear we had and the soundmen loved us -- I just said, "Make it
sound like Hendrix!" It was great; that was some of the happiest times.
   It was on that tour that we first went to South By Southwest and we met
this guy Dusty Wakeman and his partner Michael Dumas. They invited us up to
this little place near Joshua Tree where they were gonna build a studio. When
we got there they hadn't gotten it finished, so our friend Eric Westfall, who
has worked with us on most of our records, dragged an eight-track up there to
that barn [pictured on the sleeve]. It was after that when Dusty called me
and said he needed a caretaker to live there, in one of the four little
cabins nearby. It was very, very remote and I loved it. I was fresh from a
divorce, and I'd had enough of Hollywood.

Giant Sandwich (1989, Homestead); Giant Songs: The Best Of Giant Sand (1989,
Demon); Giant Songs Two (1995, Demon)
Sandwich was an excuse to put out some unreleased stuff and some remixes. The
others are "sort of" best of's, not chronological in order. With compilations
it's all about flavor; anything that has to do with lists on paper is
probably the last thing you should do.


The Band Of Blacky Ranchette: Sage Advice (1990, Demon, UK; reissued 1993,
Restless)
I had the notion to drive back to Tucson and hang out. So I thought I would
record while I was there. I didn't have any songs at the time for it, so I
wrote a few on the drive down from Rimrock. Not so hard when you're alone on
a 7 hour drive in a '66 'cuda. You kind of need that sort of exercise to eat
a few miles. And in that car, you felt every one of them. It was fun finding
folks to record, some of the same people that did the first 2 Blacky records.
Rainer of course,  Neil Harry on steel, Tom Larkins [now with Jonathan
Richman] on drums, Bridget Keating on violin... Later when I got back to
California, I added Lucinda Williams to one of the tracks for a duet thing.

Swerve (1990, Amazing Black Sand)
That was also written up in Joshua Tree. There are a lot of people on it
[Steve Wynn, Chris Cacavas, Mark Walton, Falling James, Juliana Hatfield, Poi
Dog Pondering, etc.] because while we were on the two-piece tour we met Poi
Dog Pondering and another band whose singer I became totally enamoured of.
That was Juliana Hatfield and the Blake Babies. We recorded some in Boston
and she came in, then again later in L.A. when she had come into town to do
something with Susanna Hoffs. And Steve had become a friend, met him in
Europe, and it was fun just to come in and cut something fast. Falling James
was nothing but great. I had put it out in Europe, which is where I got the
financing to have it done, and then I put it out in the States myself.
(Later, Restless picked it up.) It was a cottage industry we had in our
one-room cabin. Me and John would do it and would answer the phones as "Big
Julie." That was great. Big Julie would talk about the band like we were
assholes! The reason the records have a Tucson address on them is because I
hadn't stayed in one place for more than two years so having that mail drop
seemed as good an address as any.

Dreaded Brown Recluse (Gelb solo album, 1991, Houses In Motion, Germany;
reissued '93, Restless)
I ended up hating the art on that, stupid pink-purple cover. Part of the
problem with dealing with Europe and get things done quick. When Restless
picked it up I was able to do the cover beter. Ultimately a solo record was
only an excuse not to do a Giant Sand record because we'd been putting them
out every six to eight months and they were saying, "Please, can you wait
longer between releases!" It could just as well be a Giant Sand record. By
then we had Joey... John's on there, Paula, Rainer, Victoria Williams...

Ramp (1992, Amazing Black Sand; reissued '92 on Restless)
I was splitting my time between New Mexico and Rimrock, near Joshua Tree.
Victoria and Pappy [Allen} are both on there.  Eric Westfall was engineering
and producing our records, and he would get the keys to the studio that would
allow us to sneak in and do an all-night session. We'd have maybe 24 hours, a
day or two, to get these things done. On used tape for 50 bucks. So a few
years before Eric took me to meet Victoria; he'd met her and had fallen in
love with her, but she'd fallen in love with Peter Case. A couple of years
later I drove my Barracuda down to McCabe's in Hollywood where Steve Wynn was
doing a gig and had asked me to come down. Pappy had a bar in Rimrock and I'd
been helping him do stuff, fix his urinals, and I invited him to go with me
and sing. When we got there the first person we saw was Victoria, and I said
if she ever wanted to come out and all that...
   A mutual friend of ours recommended Joey to us. The idea of finding
someone who could play -- and had! -- an upright bass was part of the job
description. It was time to expand the format even more, and he didn't seem
to mind at all the hide and seek turns the songs would take. This would
really take its toll on bass players. Drive them nuts! But Joe hung in there
real well. He was the first bass player we ever had that never complained
when we didn't rehearse. He enjoyed the game of us trying to lose each other.
John and I had this telepathy thing going, and then Joey, of course, was
allowed in the triangle. He figured it out.


Center Of The Universe (1992, Restless)
I think that's the best one. The songs are short, a lot of them are realized.
The sounds aren't great but I like 'em because they aren't great. There are
no deep tones on that record, for example. I had gotten into this method of
working. Most of the distortion is done with an acoustic guitar. With the
pickup on it, I got one of these pedals with an A-B switch so I could throw
it to the amp when I wanted to. In effect it allowed me to get the recordings
done even faster because I didn't have to overdub two guitars. I'd be playing
acoustic, step on the pedal, kick in the distortion, then turn it off and
come back down to acoustic.


Purge & Slouch (1993, Restless)
We had a good relationship with Restless; I think they used us to attract
other bands but that was okay. We had a verbal deal, nothing on paper, but
they claimed we owed them another record when they knew we were gonna sign to
Imago. But I liked the idea and wanted to make a Metal Machine Music record
like Lou Reed. They got nervous with that: "But wasn't that a 'fuck-you' from
Lou to RCA?" "Yeah, but I'm gonna have fun with it! I just wanted to walk in
with no ideas and see what happens." And that became Purge & Slouch with Al
Perry, Rainer, all those other guitarists.

Stromausfall (1993, Return To Sender, Germany)
Limited edition, outtakes from Purge & Slouch, recorded at Harvey Moltz's in
Tucson, kept acoustical. That will probably be rereleased in our bootleg
series. Bonus tracks, and I might take one or two that bugged me off of that.

Glum (1994, Imago)
All these records were done in a few days; Center might have been a week.
That record, it's a major label record, and we had four weeks total time put
in. You can hear the difference in the sounds. The low end is just beautiful,
and John was totally possessed. We were in New Orleans and I'd never heard
him play drums as magnificently.  That was the record that we learned about
editing. Trina Shoemaker did the editing and she would chop the songs to make
them more concise, and Malcolm [Burn, producer] would tell us how John Lennon
would edit here and here, how War would jam for a half hour and make a 3 1/2
minute song. What I'd done previously was just leave the song long, or make
these really, really weird edits. Which I loved! I've got this cassette of
the pre-edit rough mixes for the album. I've also got these outtakes with
Lisa Germano, who was going out with Malcolm. She ended up sitting in on
three songs that didn't make it onto the record. The idea is to re-release
that in the bootleg series as the hissy cassette mixes and then thow on the
Lisa Germano tracks too.

Goods And Services (Brake Out/Enemy), Backyard Barbecue Broadcast (Koch), Volu
me One Official Bootleg Series (Epiphany) (all 1995)
Each one is made up from DATs; none involved us going into the studio to do a
new record. They're all one-offs. Goods came out in Germany; I've wondered if
I should release that in the states. The guys who did it recorded us live,
mostly in Europe, both as a three-piece in Europe and as a six-piece [Gelb,
Burns and Convertino, plus Paula Jean Brown on bass, Bill Elm on steel and
Mike Semple on guitar]. They remixed it, and I could add remixes and one or
two extra tracks. Barbecue, I let Nick Hill, of WMFU-FM, put it together. It
was recorded at WMFU in '94 and '95 and it was his puppy. And the bootleg
thing, it had some outtakes from Barbecue and Goods, some bits and pieces
that we wanted to take and make a semi-ambient sounding album. The first
track is a live show in New York with Chris Kirkwood -- which nobody knows,
because I opted for the luxury of not putting any credits on there.


Slush (as OP8, 1997, Thirsty Ear)
The Lisa Germano sessions. Something smoother, almost like the sound of when
we play in the lobby of Hotel Congress here on Friday nights. That's really
the only studio Giant Sand between Glum and Chore -- and it's not really
Giant Sand, it's OP8. We had actually started working on some of the songs
that would become Chore, and about that same time we started working on The
Inner Flame [Rainer Ptacek tribute/benefit album that Gelb and Robert Plant
spearheaded]. Then Lisa came to town.

Hisser (Gelb solo album, 1998, V2)
A different methodology. Culminating crap in the living room, just acoustic
guitar and piano, and friends who drop by. It wasn't like going in and
working. 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 and a couple of
big mikes, some old tube pre-amps, literally right here in the living room.

Upside-Down Home (Gelb, 1999, Ow Om)
That was just a quick CD-R release I made, mostly outtakes from Hisser. It's
when I was first beginning to stand on my feet again, go out and play some
shows, see what's out there, if anybody gives a shit, whatever. I made up a
few with cheap covers. Maybe only 20 or 30 copies altogether. And I ended up
using a few of the tracks for the European edition of Hisser, but I dunno,
that was probably long enough!

Chore Of Enchantment (2000, Thrill Jockey)
I couldn't be happier. The beauty, I guess, of working on it for so long was
that I got to consider it and say, "No, we don't need that..." or, "Yeah,
it'd be good to use this..." I got to live with it for a long time --which we
never get to! And the other thing was that I wanted to make it more concise.
We had gotten to the point where we were playing 2 1/2 hour, 3 hour sets,
then that wasn't appealing any more. I felt we were wasting people's lives:
it's better to be a pharmacist and dole out the proper dosage, so we then
were doing 45 minute sets that were really good instead. And I thought for
the actual studio records I wanted it to be thick enough for those who have
waited for so long, but short enough so it doesn't become too exhausting. So
I thought, "I've gotta keep it under an hour," which is why it's 59 minutes
and 59 seconds.

The Rock Opera Years (forthcoming in 2000, Ow Om)
It's the second volume in the Bootleg Series, available on the website
[www.giantsand.com] and at live shows. It's a companion piece to Chore; four
songs are the same titles but very different versions. "Dusted (In Tucson)",
for example, was recorded the same day in '96 we did "The Inner Flame" for
the Rainer tribute. I added a little electric, some steel, some pump organ.
"Punishing Sun (In Tucson)" is a relentless pulse of dance fever compared
with the acoustic, almost solo ballad on Chore. Also included is the title
track "Chore Of Enchantment" that isn't on Chore at all. Evan Dando sang on a
couple tracks when he'd come out for a visit. Victoria Williams did the same
when we went to visit her, and then ended up doing "Music Arcade," a  Neil
Young cover up there. All this stuff was done just prior to beginning the
deal with V2, and this is how the record would have been if we'd never signed
to V2.

I'd like to thank Fred for his generosity in sending me this article, and hope you all
enjoy reading it as much as I have.