No, I don't look at the mail — only the stuff our webmaster sends me.

I have read a T. C. Boyle short story collection and liked it a lot. I forget the title — maybe it's the one you mention. As for "outlandish, and fiendishly surreal," it won't come close to David Foster Wallace's short story collection. "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men." That reflects all the words you use and more. Haven't read "Budding Prospects" but it sounds fascinating. Just plowed thru Boyle's "East Is East" and found it "pleasantly diverting," as book reviewers might have it.
Someone mentioned Paul Auster (this just popped into my head) a couple of Q & A's ago and I just read "Timbukto." Quite a feat of observation, not to mention (okay, to mention) funny and sad at the same time.

I know what you mean regarding "The Stranger."

You are right, it's "walks within us and spares the rod." Who thinks it's the other dodgy version? Is this written somewhere and passing for gospel? The other takes you have are wrong, but that's okay — enjoy yourself.

Don't know the Levelers work.

GP and the R supported Roy Buchanan, at the old Armadillo club in Austin, I believe. This would be in '76 I reckon. My voice was shot, the audience were sitting cross-legged on the floor totally mystified by our performance, and I was too bummed out to pay attention to Roy. After our show, members of the Rumour berated me for having such a lackluster stage presence (they had a point here: this was before my guitar strap broke at that gig in Croydon and I put the bugger down and started jabbing my finger in the air everytime I hit the chorus of "Don't Ask Me Questions." That's when my stage presence began). and I screamed at them (with barely any vocal chords working at all, adding insult to injury) for not utilizing the awesome dynamics of my tunes. (I had a point here.)
I did get fed some incredible giant nachos though. I still make 'em just like it myself, 24 years later, so the experience wasn't a total bust.

If such an idea were to appear organically, I don't see anything wrong with it, but to self-consciously (substitute cynically, if you will) concoct these things falls into the quaint but still relevant area we used to call "selling out." And Santana's record is designed purely for sales, no question. (Having said that, it's probably a better record than he could make with his own guitar noodlings.) I just haven't got the energy to get into the desperation game. I don't think my compositions need artificial bolstering by spurious outside elements. And I'm just not impressed when I see a guest list on other artists' records. It's more likely to put me off than draw me in. You may have a point — perhaps it could work for me. But I really don't give a shit.

Whoa! Someone who dares to criticize The Boss? You mean you don't think he's made anything compelling since the brooding, claustrophobic, almost guilt-tinged and quietly weird "Tunnel Of Love" (even Clearmountain's over-glistening mixing didn't manage to ruin it)? Watch your back, Art. Millions of people can't seem to face that idea.
But yes, you are getting older and crankier. The '90's are much better than the '80's. When I turn on the radio now, I might hear Fastball, Beck, Third Eye Blind, Jimmy's Chicken Shack, Travis, Supergrass, Sloane (okay, I only heard the latter a few times, but some track from their first release was dead sparky) and lots of other stuff that isn't too bad (at least containing an approximation of cool with a sense of humour), whereas in the '80's the radio was stuffed with leaden, humourless old fashioned tosh like Cinderella or Warrant or Winger or the Scorpions or..........I shudder at the thought.

Nick? Well, if I had a song placed on a dodgy soundtrack that sold 29 million, you'd never hear from me again.

I don't and have never (okay, somewhere in the early '70's I did and still have nightmares about it) jammed with anyone. I cannot "jam."

Warren's done some fun stuff. I don't see similarities though, unless you mean we both stick pretty true to our way of doing things, musically speaking.

Cheers Art.

I'm in touch with a bloke who does this kind of at-home show but haven't had the nerve to go for it yet. Christ, this could be the wave of the future. Again, I shudder...........

Did my first two videos for '79's "Squeezing Out Sparks," "Local Girls" and "Protection." Done tons more; even real obscurities like "Break Them Down" and "Live! Alone In America"'s "Durban Poison" filmed in London's Albert Hall. There's a few decent ones, like "Temporary Beauty" which is in fact the one with the ice 'n' blow torch, and the "Start A Fire" one is cool also, mainly because no matter how hard the director tried to convince me, I stuck to my guns and refused to let him populate the clip with superfluous characters like nuns, etc., as was the wholly egregious craze at the time (superfluous characters, not nuns per se). "Release Me" is quite fun but you'll never get to see it (did it at home for 5 grand after MTV told Capital Records not to bother doing a GP video to promote "Burning Questions" because they said no matter how good it was they'd still never play it because I don't appear anywhere on their demographics so I made it myself and handed it to Capitol without telling them I was making it cos I was so incensed. Wore a handmade button in it in one scene that said: "Ignore MTV!").

At the very beginning of my career, I was daft enough to believe that televised music — particularly videos — was going to be the future of rock music. (Well, not daft enough to think that, just daft enough to believe that this would be a desirable development. Twit.) As soon as I made contact with someone with the appropriate gear, in this case a guy named Chuck Statler, I took the plunge, making the two aforementioned clips for SOS tunes.
Unfortunately, I was right about the televised future of the genre — MTV followed in the early '80's and coerced a whole generation into saying stupid things like: "I saw their new song on MTV." Ouch.
Nowadays, I feel that the term "Great Video" is an oxymoron. I dislike video clips in general and in fact avoid televised music events like the proverbial plague.

Yeah, I think attempting to put my clips altogether as a salable release would be too trying.

Please refer to my answer to Chuck Astor in Part 17 in the Q & A section regarding next record release.

I think I last played Connecticut in '92 in support of the Rhino collection. I played the venerable Toad's Place in New Haven and only pulled about 100 people, minus about 50. I think the joint holds 4 or 5 hundred, so no one was impressed. Since then, Connecticut has been absent from my touring schedules (you're only as good as your last ticket sales), despite the fact that I always push the State at my booking agent and have in fact occasionally suggested actual venues to him that fans have recommended. It's a drag to do Jersey and New York and then have to fly to Pittsburgh or Cleveland or whatever cos I can't get booked in that particular tri-State. If anyone there can push this gripe toward any Connecticut club owners/promoters who might be interested, they can drop me an E here and I'll pass the info on to my agency.

See my answer to Art Wright above for a speckle (by no means definite) of my thoughts on the state of popular music.

I am planless, my dear. But I did have a good show at the Talkhouse and hope it comes up on my schedule again sometime; it's a tough gig to do though, seeing as you need about a week free in front of it to make the hideous drive out there. And what a ruthlessly commercial joint it is! After my show, I hung out at the bar talking to an old friend. A zydeco-type outfit appeared, fresh from the horrific drive from the city, and a whole new crowd came in. They were younger than my audience (actually, some of them weren't so young — just desperate) and obviously obsessed with the idea of mating. I was chatting to a chick at the bar (who seemed aware of my music — she was one of the ones over 30 mixed in with the younger set) who had just been plied with drinks by some bloke who had a sort of Andre Agassi look happening. He disappeared for about half an hour, then suddenly reappeared and claimed the gal, and then they scooted out to the back — presumably to the parking lot. About ten minutes later, back they came looking all flushed. This seemed to be happening on a regular basis that night, and I wondered why, seeing as the management there are not above booking two entirely different shows a night, thus ensuring maximum profit from the available demographics, why they (the club) couldn't also find some way to impose a levy on the parking lot scene, too. This could easily be arranged by having a person outback, asking any couple who headed toward a vehicle, if they were planning to leave, or if they were merely visiting a doubtless testosteronic 4-wheel drive mountain vehicle to perhaps tune into public radio to catch the end of the third repeat of the day of the Garrison Keiler show. If they did in fact agree that that was indeed their intention, then a fee could be charged accredited to some nonexistent Long Island law pertaining to parking lot rights and public loitering — that kind of thing. Sorry, but I can't stand to see a potential profit not capitalized on.

Back to your point: check the tour page regularly.

Those cheap bastards at Arista presented me with a bottle of something methode champenois called "Kriter." A foul beverage, to be sure, which I duly poured down the sink. The Ritz, I'll have you know, fulfilled my rider in a similarly niggardly fashion with white Boucheron, a ragged brand of vino that actually has a twist-off top!

Hey: getting to your question: I'm still there, too.

Whatever the brute does, I hope it is done well and with a modicum of dignity. It is a disturbing fact, but the sons and daughters of excellent pop singer/songwriters are always inferior to their talented parent, often to the point of embarrassment. Names will not be named: you know them all.

Well, I don't know if "comical songs" is quite the right term — although you did preface it with the word "more" — but there are certainly plenty of comic turns that make an appearance in my work. Jeez........I dunno. This stuff just seems to be there, inherent in so many lyrical ideas. You just.......let your mind go and get a little silly. I try to amuse myself, is all.

Thanks for seeing the humour, it's important that some people do.

I had a bunch of quirky, rather slight little things that I was not sure were going to be strong enough to build an album around, so I hit upon the "Abbey Road" idea and had a blast with it. All I had to do was shorten a few of the numbers (or merely not finish writing them) and figure out exactly where I wanted each one to end and how I wanted the next one to come out of it. It all worked rather well, I thought.

Hmm...."Macaw," eh? Not my fave by a long shot, but perhaps more for production values than anything else. Funnily enough, Mike Gent from the Figgs told me that he likes this record a lot, which seemed strange coming from him, knowing what a Stonesy rocker he is. But he pointed out that no other record he owns — and I'll assume he has a fair size collection — sounds anything like it.
It is unique — I'll give it that.

Perhaps one day, when I'm really old and demented, I should pop a really serious barbiturate and check the old thing out.

Boy, I've played a couple of the places you mention scads of times since the Clapton tour. Have you been up on Mir or something?

Thanks for digging me and Tom. I thought it worked great, too.

Yeah, I went to a bookfinder and copped the complete Orton's plays, plus "Up Against It," his screenplay for the aborted Beatles film. Very funny.

I've seen a lot of good and serious theater, but I think that what I mean is that it's my least favourite medium. I didn't used to know that because I was younger and couldn't analyze the minute prickles of impatience/ennui/dissatisfaction that rifled thru my blood when stuck in a theater seat listening to people shout very loudly at me. As you get older, what you really feel about something hits you with great clarity and you can identify more easily what you don't want to waste your time on. It's like when you realize that you don't need to hang with certain people anymore for the sake of it. You're past them; you've moved on. But you must remember to take your bran regularly, though.

Did the movie bit in the last Q & A.

So you're raving about "Burning Questions" one minute then slagging off "Long Stem Rose" the next?
And then now what's this about being "outshine"(d)? Oh, don't be such a silly prat, Greg.

"Sinking Low" is an obscure song by an obscure duo (I think there were two of them) called the Knight Brothers. I discovered it long ago on a cheap compilation on Marble Arch records called "Blues And Soul," which is still one of my all time favourite records. I never officially recorded the tune, but I have a live cassette from the Reading Festival from around that era which features Brinsley on guitar and Andrew on bass. I don't think this tape ever circulated, but it's an awesome version, one of the best live performances of my entire career.
Sorry, but I guess you'll never be able to get hold of it.

Thanks for the offer and glad you discovered my stuff.