Questions by David Bonner | Answers by Owen Maercks

NEW! Owen Maercks blues LP! With Henry Kaiser!

Just click that KINDS OF BLUE button above. 

INTRODUCTION

Owen Maercks is a herpetoculturist and partner in the East Bay Vivarium in Berkeley, which bills itself as the nation’s largest and oldest retail herpetological store, specializing in the captive production of a wide selection of reptiles, amphibians, and arachnids, which it supplies to zoos, educational institutions and classrooms as well as individuals and families.

He is also a musician, with a scattering of obscure and unusual recordings to his credit.

As a dedicated thrifter, swap meeter, and flea marketer, Maercks has amassed a houseful of treasures from the cultural fringe, including a remarkable collection of LP records. Much of this eventually gets exhibited, ironically, on that mainstream mecca, Facebook -- an addiction which he justifies with pretty good arguments.

A few years ago, I bought a record on Ebay from a seller called Permanentrecords, and when it arrived in the mail, I noticed that the return address said Owen Maercks. I recognized the name because I happened to own an Owen Maercks LP called Free Mammals. Before long, I was regularly following his auctions of hard-to-find LPs with wonderfully entertaining item descriptions (“Kevin Ayers, here a bassist but soon to become the Dean Martin of progressive rock”) and record gradings (“Disc would look VG++ but for some marks on both sides that look like the previous owner dropped some hash resin on his turntable and spun it”).

He eventually talked me into getting on Facebook, where he sometimes posts tidbits about his musical past, which made me curious to learn more about it. When I mentioned the idea of doing this little webpage, he replied: “As it happens, there is a small record label (Feeding Tube Records) who will soon be issuing the Great Lost Owen Maercks LP! I would love to see this in conjunction with that.” 

The “lost” LP is called Teenage Sex Therapist. Recorded in 1978, it was never issued commercially. For the past 35 years, it has existed only as a promotional pressing of 300 copies, which were made in hopes of landing a record deal that never happened.

Our Q&A, however, begins with a previous recording called Monster Island.

MONSTER ISLAND

What's the story behind Monster Island? I seem to recall an interesting anecdote about you answering an ad posted by Henry Kaiser.

In about 1974-75, I was working at WCUW Worcester as music director, and playing guitar. A friend of mine noticed a sign on a musicians noteboard in Harvard Square by a guitarist looking for other musicians interested in Beefheart, Derek Bailey, etc. My friend thought it interesting enough to bring the number back to me; it of course was Henry.

Our first conversation on the phone consisted of three questions: Albert or BB? Bo or Chuck? Gojira or Gamera? I can’t remember who asked which, but we had the same opinion on all three. So we met. I came to his apartment in Boston for our first meeting. He saw me coming down the street and was very chagrined as he thought I might be a wino, as I was walking along with a guitar in one hand and imbibing something out of a brown paper bag in the other. Turned out it was a can of whipped cream; I was a junkie for the stuff!

Henry found the rhythm section; we played a few gigs and recorded the EP. ¡Hoh! is the sound that uniformed police make when they see Gamera coming over the hill. It was an attempt to write a rock song that functions as such but also allows all harmonic possiblities. I discovered about this time that if you write a series progression of rising minor thirds, each new one using the last as a tonic, and start to extend out the harmonies of the shifting tonics, you quickly hit all twelve tones. This song applies that theory, such that anything you play in a solo works! I will own up that it starts with an inadvertent lift from Captain Beefheart's Smithsonian Institute Blues, which I didn't realize till years later.

We rehearsed in a musicians' complex in Boston; the band next door to us was a horrible heavy metal band. We could hear each other through the wall and would sort of trade songs. I am sure they were as appalled at our version of Veteran's Day Poppy and Sister Ray as we were at their stuff. One day they came over, introduced themselves, and asked to listen directly. We ran through our set. They politely thanked us and left, shaking their heads in disbelief. That band, we later discovered, was Boston.

I love that story! But I wonder how you found out it was them. When you heard “More Than A Feeling” on the radio,  did you recognize it from their rehearsals, or what?

Henry figured it out; I am not sure how. He told me long afterwards. On reflection, I realized he was absolutely right!

Did Monster Island ever play any concerts?

We played live a handful of times. Our first gig was at a student film festival at Harvard. In order to get us on the line-up, Henry edited together 15 minutes of Kaiju fight scenes, over which we played ¡Hoh! We then played a full set of "dance" music to end the evening. We also played a few times at the Rat, and I think a few gigs in Worcester.

The Monster Island EP was on a label called Visible Records. You posted on Facebook an old concert poster from the late 1970s that says you have a "45 now out on Visible Records." Who was the proprietor of the record label, was that 45 ever released, and what was on that 45?

Visible was my label. There was no 45. The poster was referring -- wrongly -- to the Monster Island EP. The joke was that Visible was audible, but barely visible.

You're originally from Florida, right? Did college bring you to Boston, or were you already living there? Was WCUW after college?

I was born in North Carolina, moved to Florida at age 2 or 3, but left as soon as I had a chance. I lived in Worcester, which is about 50 miles west of Boston. I dropped out of Clark College after year one; my temperament is not suited to academia. WCUW was during and slightly after my college years.

Did you play in any bands before college?

My high school band had different names for every gig, but we referred to ourselves as "Furburger Alert" which is what our gym coach would say whenever girls of the female persuasion would walk onto campus. We jammed a lot, but we played out very rarely.

That makes the second gym coach who inspired the name of a band. Were you in any other bands when you were in the Boston area?

I auditioned/rehearsed but never made it to play live with Human Sexual Response and the Girls. If you don't know the Girls, they are fantastic. Find their LP. For awhile I played together as a duet with my high school buddy, Bruce Kaplan, as The Intellectuals; at one point with a rhythm section. Henry and I did a few shows as a duet, and during that period I played a lot with Charlie Noyes [drummer].

TEENAGE SEX THERAPIST

When and why did you move to the west coast?

I moved out here [Berkeley] 6 months after I had come out to record the Teenage Sex Therapist LP. My time at the radio station was clearly done; it was either the West Coast for a stab at music or New York City and the record biz. I love New York, but I think I would have hated living there. The Bay Area is my home.

Tell me again about the thinking behind the title “Teenage Sex Therapist,” and why it appears on the inside of Kaiser's Aloha album as “Owen Marx's Teen-age Sex Party.”

The title was my idea of a great exploitation movie title, the movie I wish had actually existed. Being the son of an actual psychiatrist, that may have had some impact as well. Henry was just having a little fun with the title, and he is a fan of making the plain obscure.

So how exactly did the record come about?

Henry called me out here to record. I think he wanted me to move out here and thought that would be the best way to get me to experience the Bay Area. It worked. By the way, the studio we used was down in Monterey; we mixed and mastered it at Zoetrope Studios in SF, where the engineer let us listen to raw tapes of the Doors' “The End”!

When he called me about the project, I had maybe 20 songs written but never performed live. I wrote maybe another 10 and recorded them all in a little studio in Worcester and sent the tape out to Henry and Chris Muir, mentioning I would also like to record Little Black Egg. They chose the songs and assembled the band. I flew out and the songs were already well on their way to being arranged and rehearsed.

As for the band… You did all the singing, and you, Henry, and Chris Muir played guitars. The saxophones were Larry Ochs, John Oswald, and John Gruntfest. David Bolle was the drummer, and Fred Chalenor the bassist. Some of these names are familiar, and some are not.

Ochs is a founding member of Rova Sax Quartet. Oswald is the master of Plunderphonics -- he steals music and manipulates it -- and a great player. Gruntfest one of the purest free players I have ever heard. Muir is really a behind-the-scenes player but has appeared on a ton of Henry's projects. He does all the Fripp-style high-tech playing on the record. Fred Chalenor at that point was a dead ringer for Peter Frampton! Super nice guy who probably had more positive input on the arrangements than anyone else. David Bolle was, and is, something of a mystery.

Had you ever met any of those guys previously?

No. A high school buddy of mine actually auditioned for the bass role but didn’t make the cut. I was very very very lucky to walk into a situation with a group of musicians that strong.

Is the recording of ¡Hoh! that appears on Teenage Sex Therapist the same as the recording that appears on the Monster Island LP?

The version of ¡Hoh! is very different on the LP. I prefer the single version, truth be told, but both have things to offer.

So you shopped the Teenage Sex Therapist promo around trying to get a record deal. It obviously didn’t pan out.

I sent that LP out to every record company I could think of, to mostly zero response. I think it was a time where you were either New Wave or punk, and most everything that didn't fit either mold was tossed aside. Record companies had already been through the failures of Television, Skafish, Pere Ubu, etc. to have a significant market share. My stuff was maybe even less classifiable than them, plus I didn't have a stable working band.

I do know that the head of Blank hated my record, but I don't know why. I also know that some people at Elektra liked it, enough to play it for the Cars, who lifted my arrangement of "Little Black Egg" to a large extent. There are both demos of them doing it and Bebe Buell's version; I know they stole from me because I slightly altered the lyrics and they used my alteration! The fact that I didn't have a band they could go see doomed me in their case. I was really naive.

As much as I wish luck had favored me and things had fallen into place with a recording contract and subsequent career in music, I still feel incredibly lucky to have made some music that in fact I still generally like. As a songwriter, I think I made some pretty good songs and some music that holds up, but lots of people have done that. As a guitarist, I was blessed to have an individual voice that comes through, but I did not possess any kind of outstanding skill, and frankly there are thousands of guitarists every bit as interesting and technically much better than me. As a singer, well, there are hundreds of thousands of people who can sing rings around me. I freely admit that while I love music, and passionately, I have virtually no innate talent for it. I have ideas, sure, but none of it came easily to me. I think that is, in a perverse way, what I brought to the table. When an art form isn't easy, you have to think of strategies to keep in the game, and solutions to musical problems. So I had ideas where many other musicians would have fallen back on talent and perhaps not produced things as individual. My lack of talent is, I think, what kept me at it for so long. To this day, music remains largely mysterious to me. I am enthralled by it. 

I was also lucky to have, time and again, thrown in with people much much beyond my abilities who put up with my meager contributions. I owe a Thank You to everybody I ever played with, on record, on stage, or just in a room somewhere. 

MUSICAL INFLUENCES

You mentioned that the music on TST is a bit tough to classify, but what would you say are the main influences.

My influences number in the thousands. Of course Beefheart, Velvet Underground, and Roxy Music were all very high up, but there are odd moments on the record where the influences might not be so obvious. For instance, the guitar solo on Little Black Egg -- that's me, not Henry -- owes a big debt to Eric Dolphy, and Neil Innes’ solo on Canyons of Your Mind by the Bonzo Dog Band. Innes’ solo is supposed to sound bad, but I think it’s sublime, and not easy to play. I have always said that my guitar playing is the nexus between Lou Reed, John Lee Hooker, and Ornette Coleman. Lyrically, I really was liking at that point the ideas of Eno and the sort of anti-punk noir positivism of Television. Of course, Dylan and Lou Reed were an overriding marker. I have always preferred things that SEEM to make sense rather than things that make sense.

Could you elaborate on the Reed/Hooker/Coleman axis?

I first picked up the guitar as a result of hearing “I Heard Her Call My Name” [from the Velvet Underground album White Light / White Heat]. I admire prodigious technique, I don't aspire to it. I like the rough players. My early interests also extended to blues and avant jazz. Ornette was the first free player I heard, and I can also remember diligently sitting in my bedroom while I was supposed to be doing homework and working out the lines to Fifth of Beethoven! And John Lee, especially on the solo LP from the Hooker and Heat set -- that killed me. I could write a phone book of players I like, but those three pretty much set my course.

Speaking of early influences, as a teenager didn’t you see the Mothers of Invention at a jazz festival in Florida?

There was a two day jazz fest in Florida; it was 1969 I think. Tull headlined one day and the Mothers the other. It was one of two times I asked my father to take me to a concert as a Xmas present; the other was Woody Allen. I opted for the Mothers' bill, which also included acts like Young/Holt and a few other forgettables. Great sets by Ellington (wish in retrospect I had paid more attention to that, what did I know?) and Hugh Masekela.

But two acts were not forgettable: Gary Burton with the band that recorded Throb (guitarist Jerry Hahn slayed me) and Roland Kirk. The Mothers were fantastic as well; this was the Burnt Weenie Sandwich band. They did King Kong and Pound for a Brown on the Bus (my father particularly disliked Zappa's explanation of the title) and brought out both Burton and Kirk to jam. I have seen many shows that good throughout the years, but I have not seen one better.

How about naming a few more shows that would make me envious?

Roxy Music’s second gig in the US, at a Florida all-day festival where they were the opening act. I was on stage directly behind Eno. Had heard of them, but not heard them at that point. Life changing, jaw-dropping show.

Bo Diddley backed by Brownsville Station.

Howlin’ Wolf, where I got to sit 2 feet from Hubert Sumlin.

Front row for Mahavishnu Orchestra on their first tour.

New York Dolls’ last performance, in Florida.

Talking Heads the first time playing with Jerry Harrison, to an audience of 12.

Evan Parker, solo in a church with acoustics such that all his harmonics swirled around the room like there was mescaline in the air.

Triple bill of the New York Dolls, Larry Coryell, and Captain Beefheart. Was I the ONLY person in the room who liked all three acts? Probably.

Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, and Otis Rush, all on seperate occasions, but all three playing to audiences of less than 20 and just letting loose as a result.

I once saw Country Joe and the Fish rehearse and improvise in a little building adjacent to a three day outdoor pop festival. There were maybe 30 of us watching. It was magical.

I could go on...

FREE IMPROVISATION

When you played with Charles Noyes back east, was that free improvisation?

Yeah, except live I would also play piano and alto. After one show, a guy walked up and asked me for piano lessons! I once sat in on alto with a prog band that were friends of Henry and they were utterly convinced I could actually play! I loved playing with Charlie; it was like being 5 years old and playing on an infinite jungle gym with your best friend. I think I also did a few improv shows out here [Bay Area], but, truth be told, I have always been more interested in how to apply improv techniques to written material than pure improv unto itself.

Your playing as a free improvisor is documented on two LPs: Guitar Trios (1977), with Kaiser and Eugene Chadbourne, and Free Mammals (1979), which is mostly duets with Noyes, plus one long track as a quartet with Kaiser and Greg Goodman. Considering what you just said about free improv, how do you see your place as a guitarist in that idiom?

I think I was tangential at best. When Henry and I first met, I was aware of Derek Bailey through records but could not translate that into technique. I have actually always had that problem with all styles; hearing it leaves me clueless as to how to play it. I did know how to play rock and roll, at least as Lou Reed played it; I did the screwiest version of Chuck Berry imaginable, as I had never seen it done and had to invent my own style, and had a basic understanding of blues. I could pretty much do Lightnin' spot on, though I don't know why; it just came to me. So Henry and I had an unspoken trade-off: I showed him what I knew, and vice versa. Some of my free playing is original, but mostly it's dimestore Bailey, if I get critical with myself. In my heart I was always a rocker, and was happiest playing in a band and bringing that material to other contexts. 

Henry Kaiser, Eugene Chadbourne, and Owen Maercks at the Guitar Trios session, 1977. (Photo: Peter Sohn)

I always felt like an interloper playing those free sessions. I loved doing it but felt like I had relatively little to add to the dialogue and that Eugene, Henry and Charlie, as well as so many others were being nice and maybe a bit indulgent letting me into their ranks.

When was the first time you heard Derek Bailey?

The Music Improvisation Company on ECM. First heard that in maybe 1972. I was just finding my way around American free jazz improvisors, and here's this thing that just seemed to be on a different plane altogether. More rarified, more abstract, more precise than anything I had heard. I was fascinated, but at that point, there was nothing in the US market to go to. It was for Americans a singular event. Only when I first wandered into the Harvard Coop Record Store were there hints of other stuff. That, and our jazz master at WCUW, an amazing guy named Al West, and I started going hog wild. Bruce Kaplan was uncovering stuff too; I first heard Gunter Hampel, Karl Berger, and more through him. Al got ahold of the FMP catalogue and we went wild ordering stuff. Those records at that point were about $5 a piece, and I bought maybe 40 of them over the course of a few years.

Back to Free Mammals for a minute. Side One was recorded live at Woody Woodman’s Finger Palace. I’ve often wondered if the Finger Palace is actually just Greg Goodman’s house.

Yeah, Greg Goodman converted his living room and dining room into a performance space, and that is the Finger Palace.

ROCK BANDS

Out west I played with my band Science Patrol [1979-80], The Appliances [ca.1981], MX80 Sound [ca.1981], Lizard Music [1982-3] and a few Kaiser projects -- including Strange Angels [ca.1982], a big blues band with the bass player from Creedence, Rova guys on brass, and four guitarists! And also Crazy Fingers [ca.1983], a Dead cover band with David Gans in which I did the Pigpen stuff!

About the Glam jacket: "That was a two sided leather jacket. One side was chrome and the other was blue suede. I bought that and a pair of platform shoes, blue  and chrome, the highest platforms in Massachusetts I was told. I also used to wear a fur-lined velvet cape and blue glitter nail polish. I was quite the dandy. Notorious on the Clark U. campus."

I'd like to hear more about the MX80 gig. Was Bruce Anderson in the band when you joined?

The version I was in was Bruce, Dale, me and the drummer from the Units, Richard Driskel, who had an astonishingly beautiful sound. We played locally quite a bit. Once we had some music together, we invited the Residents to hear the new stuff, as the band's contract with them was up. They opted out, so we contacted the band's producer in New York to do an LP on spec and then undertook a tour through the midwest and northeast. Just the four of us in a van, no management, no roadies. I really loved Bruce's playing and we lived in the same neighborhood, so when Rich Stim and the original drummer opted out, they recruited Richard and me. I think Bruce is a genius and this was my ticket to a legit career band, but the tour sort of did us in in a number of ways.

First, I was still pretty wet behind the ears, and acted a bit, well, juvenile. They were older, seasoned, and frankly stoners without a lot of ambition. I wanted to go for a slightly more conventional sound, if you can believe that. Too, when we got to New York, where we were slated to record a new LP, I wanted to party a bit (they did not) and I had player's block in the studio and froze up on some of what should have been my solos.

Still, I thought the LP turned out really good, but by the time we got home they fired me.  I freely admit this was 90% my fault, but I would also say that on their own they had little driving force to succeed, and while they continued to make records and play around, they never went anywhere near as big as Bruce's talent deserved. I wish they had worked a little with me; we could have done great things.

Was that recording ever issued?

No, and I think they claim to longer even have the tapes.

"One of my first live performances, from 1978. I covered the Ramones as though they were folkies. Later dueted there with Kaiser."

How many Strange Angels and Crazy Fingers gigs did you play?

Both bands did just a few gigs; Henry loses interest in projects really fast. The Crazy Fingers thing was mainly him and David Gans. Frankly I can't even remember who else was in the band. I just sort of stepped in to do the PigPen stuff. For me it was a lark; my feelings about the Dead are mixed at best and it appealed to my sense of irony to do the project. Strange Angels was an idea Henry and I had to do a blues band (the band name was an Elmore James song title, my idea for a name). We had floating membership; the horn section had guys from Rova and I think Ben Bossi from Romeo Void (my memory here is a bit fuzzy), bass was Stu Cook from CCR and sometimes Steve Ashman who I knew from the Berkeley punk scene but got some local fame with his Zazu Pitts Memorial Orchestra, a Motown style revue. In typical Kaiser fashion, he invited two other guitarists in, making a four guitar wall of sound. Len Pattersen was one; a guy named Kent was the other. We played maybe 3 or 4 gigs, and it was meant to just be a fun thing, and it sounded great. I did some really cool rhythm guitar arrangements that imitated piano triplets for the comping, and we really managed to meld free playing with blues, which had always been a dream of mine. Unfortunately, Kent decided to book  more gigs for the band, purposefully neglecting to tell me or Henry, and not mentioning to our friends in the group that he was leaving us out. We found out after they had done a few shows. Henry didn't care, but for me it was a kick in the nuts that I never forgot or forgave. It was pretty much the last time that I was in a band.

What did Science Patrol sound like?

That band came together to play the material from Teenage Sex Therapist but I was writing songs at a such a pace that most of the material we performed was new. It all sounded like the LP though.

Awhile ago you posted on Facebook a picture of your rarest Sun Ra LP -- the soundtrack to the LeRoi Jones play, A Black Mass, on the Jihad label! And you mentioned that you once played in a band with his daughter, Minni DiPrima. Which band was that?

That was The Appliances, and they did an EP shortly after I left. Interesting band that I asked to join when I saw them play on a night that just happened to be the last for their original guitar player. At that point they were pretty much a new wave band with some avant tendencies. I joined suggesting that they had the basis to play a kind of modified funk, by which I meant somewhere between James Chance and Miles, but they took the suggestion to heart in a slightly different way, opting for something closer to the Isley Brothers and then-nascent rap! I thought that was interesting even though it wasn't my intent, and I thought the discipline of trying to play that would be good for me, so I stuck with it. The drummer is Argentinian and he lives there now and is a successful drummer/ singer/band leader. The other lead instrument was a guy named Rocket who played various modified Toys 'R Us devices. I left them for the opportunity of playing in MX80.

Was Minni the vocalist?

She was the vocalist/rapper.

So The Appliances played a gig with "U-2"? (See poster above.)




It was their first US tour. We had played the Old Waldorf (a Bill Graham club) many times, but this was different. We were told that we couldn't have a dressing room (U2 needed ours as well as theirs), no other bands were allowed a sound check -- even though we were there at 4:30 and U2 didn't show till something like 8PM -- and we were not allowed to talk to them! We had to change in the public bathroom. Now, in their defense, I will say that our drummer remembers their drummer actually being quite nice and helping our drummer set up his kit. Nonetheless, the rest of us were incredibly put off, though intrigued. I, at least, had not actually heard them, and I figured they must be hot shit. So I stuck around to hear their set. My impression was that they were first year students on their instruments with a lot of money for effects. They were terrible. Terrible. I was dumbstruck at how they thought they could be such a-holes and get over -- and yet, of course, they did. I have never heard anything by them since I thought had even a shred of musical value, and of course their pomposity is legendary. I loathe them.

Weren't you also in a band called Lizard Music?

Lizard Music, named for the Daniel Pinkwater book -- I am a huge Pinkwater fan -- was me and Mik Dow from the Jars, with a rhythm section. Three of the demo tracks we recorded should be on the download that is slated to come out with the Teenage Sex Party reissue. My attempt at a more straightforward rock band. Some of it was pretty good and some of the best songwriting I had done.

GUEST APPEARANCES

You provided the spoken vocals on a short piece by Hector Zazou. How did you get that gig?

Henry introduced me and said he liked the quality of my voice. We recorded a bunch of stuff with me just "acting" his written monologues. He didn't want me to know what any of it actually meant; I was to recite without context. I was a little peeved he never credited me. I have no idea if I am on any of his other records or not.

On Facebook, you posted a picture of a weird-looking record by something called 2.3 Children. What was your contribution to that?

2.3 Children was the recording/songwriting project of my friend Bryce Maritano. The songs are mostly humorous and I am still fond of most of them. The band is mostly guys from the East Bay punk scene of the early 80s, though, frankly, I can barely remember who does what. I play some noisy free guitar solos over the pop tunes “Venereal Pongo” and “Other People's LPs,” an acoustic slide version of "Baby Please Don't Go" superimposed over the end of "Drunk in the Afternoon," and pseudo-heavy metal rhythm guitar toward the end of "Grandmarnier." Bryce wrote the songs. I helped on a lot of the arrangements.

There’s also a 2.3 Children single: “Santa’s Just an Anagram for Satan.” What about that one?

I played the bass and arranged the body of the song. The coda, arranged by two other guys, was supposed to be a catalogue of traditional Christmas songs superimposed; I think the results are mixed. The lead guitar is by none other than Peter Miller, aka Big Boy Pete, who recorded the session in his studio! The B-side is a pretty forgettable song called Christmas in the City. I played on it but it's no great shakes. The other 2.3 Children record I'm on is the good one. 

THE MUSIC CRITIC

You've referred to Bo Diddley as a "primitive." What do you mean by that?

My thoughts on Bo emerged out of a long-standing debate with a friend over Chuck versus Bo. Chuck is a master craftsman, genius level for sure, but I never bought him as an artist. Showman, yes, or maybe an artist in the modern commercial sense. But Chuck for me does not run deep. Bo, on the other hand, is a capital-A Artist. And a modern primitive at that. His music runs deep to the roots of Black American culture that just happened to resonate with white audiences too, whereas Chuck aimed his music at a cross-cultural crowd. Chuck's stuff is clean, non-threatening. Bo is dangerous. It's like the difference between the Beatles and the Stones. Chuck is fancy lyrically. He is verbose  and very calculated. Bo is more gritty, more adult. Could you imagine Chuck ever writing "I got a Cobra snake for a necktie"? No. "A chimney made out of human skulls"? Chuck just wee'd his pants a little when he heard that. Chuck was elaborate; Bo never played two chords when one would do. Chuck was Leroy Neiman; Bo was Jackson Pollack. Chuck's guitar was all notes and melody; Bo was rage and pure sound, his guitar talking, screaming, roaring, but rarely just playing a ditty. Chuck was clever; Bo was funny. Bo's music makes sense now, today. Chuck will sound forever like a point in the past. I am a Bo man.

What makes Porter Wagoner so weird?

One of the great things about country music is that it was so flexible. Major stars could be as odd as all git-out and still be major stars. Wagoner is a prime example, but there are many of them. One of my favorites is Tex Carman, who alternated between being a cowboy and an indian, and whose sense of time was every bit as regular as that of Hooker!

Defend your passion for Joan Jett and her music.

I will readily admit that part of it is pure lust; same with Linda Ronstadt. Musically I love Joan in the same way I love the Ramones; her clarity and reductionism is just charming. It's lack of pretention cuts through most of the thicker and fancier stuff I also love. 

Do you have anything to add to the typical critical praise for the Velvet Underground?

At this point, I think their influence supercedes that of the Beatles. And the ratio of good music that they inspired far outweighs the bad, which is incredibly rare for such a huge source point.

I'll quote from an obit I wrote about Lou Reed. Tip of the iceberg as to my feelings regarding the band, but something few others talk about: his musicianship.

“Here’s the thing: before the Velvets, nothing -- nothing -- sounded remotely like that. They were singular; they were a four person revolution; they were a total rewrite of all  the rules. Not only had nothing sounded like that before...nothing sounded like that during. In an age of bucolic psychedelia, they were anti-psychedelic. In a time of harmony, they were studied dissonance. In an era of political message, they WERE political message. And sexual message. And moral/amoral message. And gender message. They didn’t talk it, they didn’t even walk it, they just WERE it…. Anything good, anything provocative, anything interesting in pop music in the past almost five decades wears the influence of Lou Reed. I am serious. Anything. I will leave it to others to talk about Lou, the songwriter. I will leave it to others to talk about Lou, the lyricist. I want to speak a little to Lou, the musician. “I Heard Her Call My Name” is the greatest and most outrageous five minutes of dirty nasty vulgar rock and roll guitar ever layed down. Out of nowhere, Lou literally redefined the guitar solo, eschewing all but the most oblique references to blues licks, seemingly coming up with a soloist’s language never heard before. He did other solos like that at unexpected moments throughout his career, but that one, that bit of in-your-face terrorist distortion -- that was the shit.”

THE COLLECTOR

Partial view of the record room at "Trader O's"

In addition to having one of the biggest and coolest LP collections I've ever seen, you also collect all sorts of other odd stuff. I'm not sure exactly how to ask you about it, but I guess it boils down to this: When you look for records, what do you look for? When you look for other stuff, what do you look for?

My main focus is certainly records, but I don't shop at all online (used to but it got to obsessive and crazy) and very little in record stores (most of them are a waste of time, with rare exceptions; I like little specialty boutique stores and hate the giant warehouse type operations). I find most of my best things in thrift stores, flea markets, record shows and, oddly, antique stores. Thrift stores turn up very little, but when they do, they are cheap and you really get the thrill of discovery. Antique stores tend to price Elvis, Sinatra, and the Beatles at otherworldly prices but let everything else go for a song. Flea markets are a fun mad scramble and a crap shoot, but, like thrifting, the adventure of the hunt is a kick. With all three of those sources you constantly run into cool ancillary stuff. My interests are broad: Natural history, exploitation movies, funeral home equipment, Jack Webb, outsider art, pro wrestling, and on and on. So I end up finding all kinds of coolness I can't turn down. Except: I am now out of space for a lot of stuff. I have in the past couple of years twice had to turn down antique gyno tables that were priced for a song!!! Just could not conceive of where to put them.

You wrote somewhere about reptiles: "Their very non-humanness appeals to people with adventurous minds." That makes me wonder if you perceive a connection between your interest in reptiles and your cultural tastes.

I just sent a package of T-Shirts from my store to my old radio station with the note: From the greatest alternative pet store in the world to the greatest alternative station in the world. There is absolutely a lot of connection! I have always, and in all ways, been a supporter of the underdog. Reptiles are in human consciousness and culture the underdogs of the animal world. I like cute animals sure, but bugs and snakes and eels and salamanders are in my eyes also cute. And yeah, the  animals are portals to another way of living, another planet within ours. I like that a lot. I like going outside the standard structures, I like the alien landscapes. I like adventure.

But here's the other thing: Some people have one interest, one passion, one thing that defines them and separates them from the herd. That's fine; certainly better than none. For them it gives their life meaning and individuality. But I can't help but be a little sad when people have only one thing. As you know, I have lots of passions. To my detriment, if I had that singular focus, I might have been more of a success. But the world, the entire thing, is so damn interesting. Food, film, politics, sex, wildlife, music, art, writing…there is so much to explore, so much weirdness, so much amazing stuff.

That's the real adventure.

APPENDIX 

Owen Maercks, “Music As a Physical Object: The LP”

(Delivered on WCUW, Worcester MA, 19 October 2013.)

It was a good run. It lasted a little more than a hundred years. We should all be so lucky! It was a good run, but all good things must come to an end, and, kids, the party is over. I am speaking of course of the era of music as a physical object. The immortal Eric Dolphy said "When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone in the air. You can never capture it again." And it's a great line, but it's not exactly true. Music can be around forever, it really is not always gone.

The first recorded cylinders appeared around the turn of the century, and 78s emerged soon after and became popularized in the 20s.But the apex of the era of music as object was the LP, with its confidently luxurious but not excessive length, it's size allowing for creative and exciting visual art, its accompanying and often enlightening essays. It was The Best.

In the 1980s, as the CD attempted to upend the LP market, it all went to hell. Digital recording, with its flat, surgically precise and brittle sound, supplanted the warmth of the LP. And as Matt Groening said, they were called compact discs because because they were disc shaped and because record companies had made a compact with the devil. That reduction of sound quality paved the way for where we are today: music is now the province of the computer, with a further reduction in sound quality and today's generation of consumer none the wiser. And it is no longer a thing, it's just a resource.

Kids, when music was an object, it meant you could collect it, and collecting meant you could curate it, and curating meant you could arrive at a layered and complex understanding of and relationship with it. At its worst, music was disposable. But now, it is hardly even that; you truly can't miss what you never had. So, no history, no layered depth of understanding, no awe, no mystery. Let us all hail King long Player! The king is dead! Long live the king!

The Golden Era

Just as the apex of the era of the recorded object was the LP, the great peak of that era of the LP was from 1965 through 1980. The cultural revolution of the 1960s was a revolution of ideas, styles, politics and social dynamics, and it saw a flowering of concepts and styles. Experimentalism entered the mainstream, with truly radical music finding its way onto the pop charts of the day. By the time we went on the air, capitalism had once more reared its very ugly head to restrict, define and constrict that surge of creativity and codify and quantify the music. It became the era of stadium rock, major labels, countrypolitan, and disco. The first great wave was done, but the second one was in its incubatory stages, ready to burst forth. Things were bifurcating; as mainstream pop became wholesome and consumer friendly once again, the good stuff was happening only slightly underground. This was the era of glam rock. The Canterbury sound. Krautrock. Outlaw country. They were the worst if times; they were the best of times...

So, it ended in the early 80s. The great second wave was over. There were things happening, sure, but they were grey things, dull, moribund, sad things. There was the second wave of hair bands, pale heavy metal made palatable by taking out any venom  that genre might have once had and replacing it with puerile spittle. Then there was grunge, hard rock whose sole innovation was the notion of quiet verse/loud chorus/quiet verse. Ho hum. There was the Divas. Young women who never sang one note when they could sing thirty, and thus losing any semblance of a song that might have once existed. There was so-called modern rock, which offered little more than the stance of glam with an ironic detachment that ended up just seeming silly. There were the many subdivisions of electronic dance music, and frankly, I don't even know where to start on how empty and wincingly without merit that stuff is. Sharp as a river rock, really the zombification of instrumental music. And then there's rap. They say its all about the rhythm, until you point out at it's one rhythm, and usually done by machine at that. Then they say it's all in the lyrics. Puh-leeze! If this is as confrontational and challenging as you can get, you might as well just join the tea party and be done with it. And by the way, making music by slicing and dicing other people's music is not called sampling. It's called stealing.

To be clear: there were, there are, there always have been good and great bands and good and great music around. That I hope will never change. But those artists have now been driven so far underground as to have very little hope of any kind of actual career. There is not a great, or even good, scene left to follow. On top of that, most of the music these best bands are producing is, when dissected critically, really just a mash-up and reduction sauce of the great music of the golden era. Rock and roll is alive, sure, but rock and roll is also dead.

Where did it all go wrong? The great fault of capitalism is that it is the Blob, a creature driven to absorb anything and everything in its path. Creative music of any genre relies on being produced unfettered by the rigors of industry, but by the early 80s, popular music was corporatized. No longer could 4 kids in a garage play some songs and imagine they could have a hit. Now, you would need 4 kids in a garage with $100,000 for the video and a million dollar management and recording deal. Not solely the problem, but certainly emblematic of it, were three very nasty letters: M.T.V.

One more thing, and this is for the young people out there. Good luck to you. I do not envy you your youth, as so many generations have before mine. You live in a world of diminished expectations, and you get what you expect to get, no more. In terms of music, you need to start expecting more, and better. And, as Sun Ra rightly said, that is Beta Music for a Beta People for a Beta world. And since that is not easy, you need to not expect the established avenues to just hand it to you. You need to make it happen.

OWEN MAERCKS DISCOGRAPHY

Monster Island, Monster Island (Visible V-7771), 1976. 7-inch EP: “¡Hoh!” / “Alice in Blunderland” / “The Rebel”

Owen Maercks, Teenage Sex Therapist (private issue, promo only), 1978. LP

Owen Maercks, Henry Kaiser, Eugene Chadbourne, Guitar Trios (Parachute P003), 1977. LP

Owen Maercks and Charles K. Noyes, Free Mammals (Visible VS6791) 1979. LP. With Henry Kaiser and Greg Goodman

Various Artists, Miniatures (PIPE 2), 1980. LP. Anonymous recitation on Hector Zazou track “Do Tell Us”

2.3 Children (Penguin 2302), 1982. 7-inch EP. “Venereal Pongo” / “Grandmarnier” / “Drunk in the Afternoon” / “Other People's LPs”

2.3 Children (Penguin 2303), 1982. 7-inch single. “Santa's Just an Anagram for Satan” / “Christmas in the City”

Lizard Music, The Man Who Had No Idea (very private issue), CD.

Name (Spooky Pooch 2), 1985. LP. Co-producer (with Bryce Maritano) on “Shoeless Paisley.”

Teenage Sex Therapist Lyrics

SLEEPING WITH GREAT WORKS OF ART

Hey! Let’s pop!

You said you wanted a different ambience

But then you ordered up an ambulance.

Accidental, incidental, major dental all the same to me.

I’ve been sleeping with great works of art.

Against interpretation/ awareness of form/ reexamination/spectacle of norm

Imagination of disaster/destiny in lower case/ a new sensibility/ ineffable face

I’ve been sleeping with great works of art.

I’ve been sleeping with art.

Process and product, process and product, process and product.

Oliver and Lisa, keeping acres on Terra: photo booth photo!!

Wow~!

Pictures for the visa, Gappa and Gamera: Photosynthephoto.

Process and product/ process and product/ process and product. 

Pantonality/ athematic/ reverse polarity/ polyrhythmatic

Formal operations/ execution and device/ the movement of sensations/ license and price...

I’ve been sleeping with great works of art.

I’ve been sleeping with art.

You said you wanted to try a life with Negroes; 

I had to remind you: In Brooklyn a tree grows!

Oriental, Occidental, incidentally it’s the same to me.

I’ve been sleeping with great works of art.

Darlin’ I love you, but give me Park Avenue!

LITTLE BLACK EGG

(words by Chuck Conlon, revised by Owen Maercks)

I don’t care what they say. 

I’m gonna keep it anyway.

And I won’t let them stretch their necks

To see my little black egg with the little white specks.

I found it in a tree just the other day

And now it’s mine all mine.

They can’t take it away.

Here comes Mary, here comes Lee.

I got what they want to see.

But I won’t let them stretch their necks 

To see my little black egg with the little white specks.

I found it the other day in the midst of a dream.

Now they want to take it away. They can’t take it from me.

Oh, now, Father, what can I do? The little black egg’s gonna tell on you!

The little black egg/ My boyfriend’s back…

HEART TRANSPLANT (Park and Lock It)

Bobby ambulating down the sidewalk. Bobby looking just like a Goya.

Bobby searching for a briefcase. Bobby opinionating like a lawyer.

She’s gonna find it. She’s gonna park and lock it. She gonna...

LOCK IT!

Candy careening down the sidewall. Candy peering into every foyer.

Candy bouncing like a silly baseball. Candy dreaming of Charles Boyer.

She’s gonna find it. She’s gonna park and lock it. She’s gonna...

LOCK IT!

Sandy searching for ignition. Sandy looking for the key.

Sandy hoping for a major decision. Candy political, wait for me!

She’s gonna find it. She’s gonna park and lock it. She’s gonna, she’s a goner, 

She’s gonna, heart’s in a 

LOCKET!

INFORMATION 

Here she comes. She’s a razor back. She's got a razor on her back. Thinking of her last vacation. There’s formica in the doorway. She’s sitting in the subway. She’s got to jump her sister.

She’s like a guitar.

Now I’m happy. I feel much better. She’s got to cut off a cyst. She’s got to shave her eggs. She’s got to shave... She’s shifting, riding sideways.

Right there.

China sees: she is sitting on the subway, looking through examinations. She is, she is 

Shiftng.

60 CYCLE HUM

All the kids want to dance; they say they’ve got the rhythm.

I say “No chance!” I don’t know what’s with them.

I’m living in a 60 cycle hum.

Do my dancing in a 60 cycle hum, I make my romance in a 60 cycle hum, I say my mantras in a 60 cycle hum.

Inoshira Honda he keeps director rhythm, Mysterians take over with him.

(I’m living in a 60 cycle hum.)

Annette Haven she keeps a deep rhythm. She’s in control, orificial with them.

(I’m living in a 60 cycle hum.)

Superstar Graham, he flexes out a rhythm. He keeps in shape but he can’t keep with them.

(I’m living in a 60 cycle hum.)

Hey! Nic Tesla knows: He’s going to the beach party!

ASLEEP AND AWAKE

All the villages are breaking down. The brooks run red with contempt. The burgomeister is closing shop, his hair is like a grill, unkempt.

The two of us have beaten our way to the car, with our heads and our hearts we confer, Goodnight! We are armed in our fortitude; fortitude, phlegm and fur.

And all night, diners and walkers, all night, signers and stalkers, all night, asleep and awake.

All the lovers are breaking down. Their eyes run red in contempt. The burly master is closing up, and her, she’s like a girl, unkempt.

The two of us have eaten our way to the bar. With our heads and our hearts, we concur: Goodnight! We’re charmed by the multitudes, multitudes, men and her. 

And all night, diners and walkers, all night, signers and stalkers, all night, asleep and awake.

I’ve got my head in my chest, I’ve got no room to breathe, I’ve got my heart in my hand and my hand on my sleeve.

All the sufferers are breaking down. The blind walk dead in contempt, the burdened muster a clasping hope; they hurt like a pearl, they’re cramped.

The two of us have eaten our way thus far, with dread in our hearts, we’re unsure. We are harmed by our substitutes, substitutes, sin and cure. 

All night diners and walkers, all night signers and stalkers all night asleep and awake.

All night. Asleep and awake.  

NANCY CALLS COLLECT

Hello?

Nancy calls collect! I don't accept.

Oh no! Nancy calls collect! I can't accept.

It was a one night affair; you went back to Ohio.

Why don't you keep it there? You keep saying "Hello."

Hello!

Operator, I've insisted, all these calls coming from my closet...

If she asks tell her I'm unlisted; if she insists, tell her you've lost.

Here she comes!

When we first kissed, you thought you heard bells ringing.

But the bells you missed were the ones on my phone and they're singing "Hello!"

Tell her I'm off the hook; tell her I'm disconnected;

Tell her I'm not in the book, tell her that I've defected!

Hirohito Hello!

INTENSE YOUNG MAN

If I could feel any more, I wouldn't know what I was feeling.

If I could see any more, I wouldn't know my perspective.

If I could touch any more, I wouldn't know what I was touching.

If I could hope any more, I wouldn't have reason for vision for you.

I'm in touch with these feelings. I 'm in touch with sensations.

I'm in love with these feelings...right now!

It's just no good any more; I can't handle these sensations.

If I could feel any more, I wouldn't know alienation.

I couldn't be aware of more; I couldn't absorb a moment.

If I could touch once more, I would be in touch with you.

I am in touch with these feelings. I am in touch with sensations. 

I am in love with these feelings...RIGHT NOW!

HANDS AND EYES

I get so nervous when you're in my arms; I don't know the reason why.

There's an outside and an inside. This must be something inside.

My hearts beats down through my stomach. It beats irregularly. There are certain problems with my body. It works unusually, but

Sandy, cut the wires tonight. I need your company tonight. A certain energy tonight-

I know that you've got your problems; I certainly have my problems. Everybody has their problems but 

Hold me, hold me, hold me tonight.

I'm alone when I'm in the room. She always seems to be there. I see eyes in peripheral vision. They never look but they always stare at me.

Sandy, close the door tonight. I need your company tonight. A certain poignancy...

A lower genus follows me on the street. It smells my heart dripping from my hands. My hands are tied together. Children teethe, but they don't understand.

Just suppose I strengthen my grip. I'm disconcerted by the words I hear. Juxtaposed elements stripped, expose my arms, gears stripped bare, but-

Sandy, break the set tonight. I need your company tonight.  A sense of finality tonight.

These feelings are coursing through. I can't concentrate on plans. I feel preoccupied in your presence. I feel occupied in your hands.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER
My book Revolutionizing Children's Records (Scarecrow Press, 2008) won a Best History award from the Association of Recorded Sound Collections, and is currently ranked #5,751,983 on Amazon's Best Seller list. I also co-authored a coffee table book called Selling Folk Music (University Press of Mississippi, 2018) with the dean of folk music historians, Ronald D. Cohen. It is currently the 3,298,577th Best Seller on Amazon. You can email me here: newbonner@gmail.com

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