Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the Loud and Quiet
Speaker 2: Interview podcast. Sorry I went for some big energy there.
Speaker 2: I'm very self conscious about these introductions, and I always
Speaker 2: think I'm putting lots of energy into it, and it
Speaker 2: never is the case. When I listen back to it, it
Speaker 2: always sounds really dull. So I just I went for it.
Speaker 2: Then it didn't work. It didn't work at all. Thank
Speaker 2: you for joining us once again, if indeed you are
Speaker 2: a return customer. This is episode fifty eight of Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: If you're brand new to us, Midnight Chats is the
Speaker 2: podcast brought to you by Loud and Quiet Magazine. We
Speaker 2: interview a different musician each week and it's called Midnight
Speaker 2: Chats because we put it online at midnight and the
Speaker 2: whole vibe of the conversation, which you could say is
Speaker 2: under researched, you could also say is informal and has
Speaker 2: a late night phil That would be a more polite
Speaker 2: way of saying it, and that's what we choose to
Speaker 2: say about it. But hopefully you will enjoy this podcast.
Speaker 2: It's with Cat Power this week. Last week we had
Speaker 2: a live special one that Greg did with Josh T. Pearson.
Speaker 2: It was a loose chat. It was loose Josh I
Speaker 2: think was a little bit you know, he was having
Speaker 2: a good time. It had a good time the night before.
Speaker 2: Let's put it that way. Listen back if you've not
Speaker 2: checked that out. This week is a slightly different feel
Speaker 2: to that, and it's fresh off of the Factory line.
Speaker 2: I went and met Sean Marshall aka cap Power just
Speaker 2: two days ago. She was in town to play a
Speaker 2: couple of shows and staying in Marlabone in a very
Speaker 2: nice hotel, which she kindly invited me over to to
Speaker 2: record this so we could get some privacy. And I
Speaker 2: guess I didn't really know what to expect from meeting Shan.
Speaker 2: She's someone who's in the past had a reputation for
Speaker 2: being quite a volatile person, and a lot of that
Speaker 2: comes from live shows that she's done in the past
Speaker 2: that have not gone to plan, they have not ended well,
Speaker 2: and a lot of that is because of the extreme
Speaker 2: stage fright that she has suffered from for most of
Speaker 2: her career. And obviously people like to write about that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, you know, the drama of somebody not
Speaker 2: coping with being on stage very well as insensitive as
Speaker 2: that is. So with that, she has a certain reputation,
Speaker 2: but when I met her, she was couldn't have been
Speaker 2: further from any preconception like that. She was instantly very funny,
Speaker 2: very charming, very welcoming, and we had a really good
Speaker 2: laugh Before we even started recording this. We chose not
Speaker 2: to concentrate on Shan's hard upbringing in Atlanta, Georgia, or
Speaker 2: many of the other kind of really sad times that
Speaker 2: she has had to face in her life, including losing
Speaker 2: friends to drug addiction and just growing up very poor
Speaker 2: in America. We chose not to do that. That's what
Speaker 2: most of her interviews kind of inevitably end up landing on. Instead,
Speaker 2: we spoke about her love for karaoke, her son who
Speaker 2: is three years old. He's called Bo and he was
Speaker 2: with her on this trip, but he was on a
Speaker 2: sight seeing bus whilst we were doing this, and a
Speaker 2: little bit about New York, which I found really fascinating.
Speaker 2: What it was like to move to New York in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two. Sounds like it was a hell of
Speaker 2: a lot different to the New York that we now
Speaker 2: go and experience as tourists. And that was really interesting
Speaker 2: and actually that bit was sad. Still, there are plenty
Speaker 2: of laughs in this one, a lot more than you
Speaker 2: would probably think from a cat Power interview. How do
Speaker 2: you deal with the smoking situation on the plane? Are you?
Speaker 3: I'm not a crazy smoker, it's just if I haven't.
Speaker 3: When I'm working, I tend to smoke, you know. But
Speaker 3: when I'm not working, when I'm at home, I don't smoke.
Speaker 3: But I don't. It's not a problem. I actually enjoy
Speaker 3: not smoking. Okay, yeah, but I but I really love
Speaker 3: smoking too. If I'm you know, stressed out or.
Speaker 2: Do you do you do the vaping thing?
Speaker 3: I know you just showed me that I do that
Speaker 3: little thing that I just showed you when I'm working
Speaker 3: and I can't smoke inside and I need to just
Speaker 3: kind of take a breather a little fix.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Do you for having me?
Speaker 2: Do you listen to podcasts? Are you a podcast fan?
Speaker 3: I'm lucky if I get enough time to put a
Speaker 3: record on.
Speaker 2: So how what do you do when you're on a flight,
Speaker 2: When you're on a long, haole flight like you are yesterday,
Speaker 2: what do you use that time for that sacred airtime
Speaker 2: where you can't be bothered by people.
Speaker 3: Usually it's because I have a toddler, three and a
Speaker 3: half year old boy, So usually most of my flight is,
Speaker 3: you know, making sure he's sitting in a seat, that
Speaker 3: he's eating, that he's his you know, movie is working?
Speaker 3: Does he need to pee? Mainly I'm focused on him.
Speaker 2: Is he with you on this trip?
Speaker 3: He is? He's out. What do you call it? You
Speaker 3: know those London double duck, double decker.
Speaker 2: Tour sightseeing bus? Amazing? Has he been to London before?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is third fourth? I can't remember.
Speaker 3: Actually he's been to France a bit more, but I
Speaker 3: don't know why he hasn't been here more.
Speaker 2: Does he seem to like it?
Speaker 3: He love? He knows Harry Potters from here.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's all you need to know.
Speaker 3: The thing worth he knows Austin Powers is from He
Speaker 3: knows who's the other one. There's one very important one
Speaker 3: and I can't think of who it is.
Speaker 2: I think Powers is the important one, isn't it?
Speaker 3: There's one that he what is it? Harry Potter, Austin Powers,
Speaker 3: Come on? One more?
Speaker 2: Is it something Shrek? Shrek? Okay? One more pepper Pig.
Speaker 3: He knows Pepper's British. Yeah, I forgot the other one.
Speaker 2: Pepper Pig is like crack to children, isn't it. I've
Speaker 2: never great, I've never met a child who is not
Speaker 2: obsessed with it, like really really into it.
Speaker 3: It's so relaxed, I think, because it's not like it
Speaker 3: looks like cutouts cutouts, So that's really one dimensional, so
Speaker 3: easy to you know, to lay on, to lay your
Speaker 3: brain on, because it's so simple. Colors are.
Speaker 2: They've got like two eyes on the same side of
Speaker 2: that face. Kids quiet, They don't have.
Speaker 3: To ever move, No, they move left and right or
Speaker 3: up or down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you don't do if I.
Speaker 3: Can read, I have a new mirror, Kami Haruku Murakami,
Speaker 3: which I'm trying to read. So I get like a
Speaker 3: couple of pages into that, and then on on this
Speaker 3: flight and actually and then I fall asleep. But I
Speaker 3: made the big, very enormous mistake of I don't watch
Speaker 3: scary films anymore. When I was a kid, of course,
Speaker 3: that's all I watched. But when I was pregnant, I
Speaker 3: just couldn't like, no more, no more scary movies, no
Speaker 3: more scary nightmares. Blah blah blah. But I made the
Speaker 3: very stupid mistake of watching. I could not. I could not.
Speaker 3: I cannot recommend it, not more than never, not ever.
Speaker 3: You should never see it. It's called hereditary. Hereditary.
Speaker 2: That's a horror film. Yeah, it's I'm not good with
Speaker 2: any type of horror film. I'm not even good with,
Speaker 2: like you know, Blair Witch this.
Speaker 3: I just was telling f Effie, this is if you
Speaker 3: could see what's going on?
Speaker 2: Right, Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you shouldn't see it. You can't unsee it, you know.
Speaker 2: Is it gory? No, No, it's not gory, kind of
Speaker 2: psychological in your head.
Speaker 3: It's in your head because it's a mother relationship with
Speaker 3: the children, so that's psychological anyway. And she's losing, you know,
Speaker 3: you know, life is just sucking all around her. Life
Speaker 3: is really sucking, right, and you know she puts together
Speaker 3: that has some bad, really bad stuff going on.
Speaker 2: So when did you see this film on the plane? Oh?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: You saw? Okay?
Speaker 3: Right? Mistake rather than once you fell asleep, my son,
Speaker 3: rather than just like getting in my book, which I
Speaker 3: was really excited.
Speaker 2: For, watch a really horrible film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's really good because it's it's that damaging.
Speaker 3: There's things at the end. You just had to turn
Speaker 3: it off.
Speaker 2: So what have you been watching that otherwise? Yeah, that's notch.
Speaker 3: We just got off tour the first like a tour,
Speaker 3: so just like you know, I haven't really been watching
Speaker 3: anything at all. It's basically just you know, like Black
Speaker 3: Stallion for him and different things e T and different
Speaker 3: things for him. Really stand by me, he really likes to.
Speaker 2: See that's cool. He's only three.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. So last night so he fell asleep,
Speaker 3: I couldn't sleep and he woke up. So I found
Speaker 3: really quickly he likes Lord of the Rings, which is
Speaker 3: very bad. Right. I have to have a lot of
Speaker 3: conversations about that, you know, the Dark Rider and all
Speaker 3: that stuff. But the end, it was the number three.
Speaker 3: It was on you know BBC some it was on
Speaker 3: TV last night and it was the very last scene
Speaker 3: where Gandalf takes Frodo into the boat leaving. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: you know, I lost a dog of hours. You know,
Speaker 3: I have had three one of them best away in
Speaker 3: April and my son Bo was with me when that happened,
Speaker 3: and you know, had to explain that he had to
Speaker 3: go away forever. You know and someone else had to
Speaker 3: go away forever. Since Bo's been around two, so he
Speaker 3: knows about going away forever. And it was the last
Speaker 3: scene in that movie. And he already knows Lord of
Speaker 3: the Rings, you know, he already knows the relationship Gandalf
Speaker 3: and Sam Wise, he knows all the relationships there. And
Speaker 3: he hadn't seen this because others are so violent or whatever.
Speaker 3: But this one was the last scene where they're saying
Speaker 3: goodbye and Frodo has to say goodbye. It's when Gandalf
Speaker 3: is hugging the other Hobbits and they realized they're not
Speaker 3: going to see him again. And Bo realized just without
Speaker 3: without them uttering like I'm going away forever, because they
Speaker 3: don't say it, but Bo could tell that he was
Speaker 3: really going away forever. He lost it, screaming. It was
Speaker 3: so heartbroken, you know, like collapsed, you know, we're on
Speaker 3: the bend. He kind of hunched over and he was
Speaker 3: just just really letting loose, and I just hugged him
Speaker 3: and I was like, are you sad, sweetie? Because Gandalf
Speaker 3: has to go away forever? And I said, don't worry,
Speaker 3: because he's going away with Frodo. Watch they're going together,
Speaker 3: and the elves are going together.
Speaker 2: Okay he was, okay, just putting him back in front
Speaker 2: of Peppa Pig. I know you know where you are
Speaker 2: with that, don't you?
Speaker 3: Moving on?
Speaker 2: So what are your sorry that's what are your interests
Speaker 2: outside of music? What your Do you have any hobbies?
Speaker 3: I used to I still would like to do that again.
Speaker 3: I really love like sketching and painting and writing, like
Speaker 3: on a typewriter, just like writing, writing whatever it is, story, truth, whatever,
Speaker 3: Turkish coffee, some cigarettes, closed door, open window. And I
Speaker 3: really missed doing that, and I miss I miss like
Speaker 3: you know, charcoals and painting and mixing colors and you know,
Speaker 3: back oning it on and painting it up and this
Speaker 3: sort of they're both very trancelike feelings. Usually, you know,
Speaker 3: I'll play whatever music, turning the record play or over
Speaker 3: and over and over. Your consciousness takes kind of like
Speaker 3: a timeless position. I feel like people that do that
Speaker 3: in their life, you know, people that also meditate. Perhaps
Speaker 3: when they do that, when they go when they set
Speaker 3: some sort of limitless bounds of an hour, three hours,
Speaker 3: I ain't got nothing to do today. I'll just do
Speaker 3: this for eight hours or twelve hours or twenty four
Speaker 3: hours or two hours or whatever it is. You really
Speaker 3: kind of enter into this part of your consciousness, subconsciousness
Speaker 3: that isn't related at the time. You're set free in
Speaker 3: this strange way.
Speaker 2: Do you find a similar thing when you're going Catok?
Speaker 2: That's funny because I know you're a big karaoke fan.
Speaker 3: Well, I love. The reason I'm a karaoke fan is
Speaker 3: because my whole life I grew up, you know, loving
Speaker 3: a bunch of music, a bunch of songs that as
Speaker 3: a little kid. And and when I discovered karaoke in ninety.
Speaker 2: Six, where did you use? Discover it?
Speaker 3: At this place that now you can't even go in.
Speaker 3: It's like frat kids stuff. It was this Korean place
Speaker 3: I met with Tim Foleyon because I just met Tim
Speaker 3: foley On at a show in New York that I
Speaker 3: opened up for Liz Fair or whatever. Anyway, I won't
Speaker 3: get into all this, but and we met for lunch
Speaker 3: and around the corner was this bar called Winnies, and
Speaker 3: it was Korean bar and they had karaoke. I just
Speaker 3: wanted to get a drink and went in and it
Speaker 3: was like all Korean, you know, very serious, you know,
Speaker 3: very serious, these people having a drink waiting for their
Speaker 3: turn to sing classic.
Speaker 2: Was it one of those situations where that's singing to
Speaker 2: an open room. Oh yeah, it's like it's not a booth.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no no. I hadn't been to one of
Speaker 3: those years after that, sure, but it informed me. I
Speaker 3: don't want to say professionalism, but the seriousness they were
Speaker 3: singing these traditional these extremely valuable. Their time was valuable
Speaker 3: with this this these songs. Yeah, and I was like, okay, cool.
Speaker 3: So I asked if they had an English menu, you know,
Speaker 3: for the songs, and that was my first time.
Speaker 2: Like, what did you sing?
Speaker 3: Otis read the same shit? I always sing the same shit,
Speaker 3: Patsy Cline, otis writing ANDK Williams, Willie Nelson, Billie Holliday,
Speaker 3: Nina Simone, and read the Franklin Johnny Cash, the same shit.
Speaker 3: I always been singing since I was a kid. So
Speaker 3: it's the same material. Well, when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: you know, my dad, I think it was five. I
Speaker 3: met my parents when I was around four and a half,
Speaker 3: so my grandma took me and then when I was born,
Speaker 3: but uh, being raised by her formative years, you know,
Speaker 3: she was a farmer, so we bought our food at
Speaker 3: the farmer's market. We didn't go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3: And in Georgia, and so a lot of our day
Speaker 3: or evening afternoon was spent like cleaning the vegetables, you know,
Speaker 3: cleaning the meat, cleaning the you know, the chicken. Not cleaning,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying, like preparing, preparing, cracking the beans, doing
Speaker 3: the whole thing. And so in that time we would
Speaker 3: she always sing, right, So whatever songs she would sing,
Speaker 3: I would learn through her singing.
Speaker 2: Sure, okay.
Speaker 3: So and then on Sundays, you know, or Wednesdays, whatever
Speaker 3: we to, we'd go to church. So I was always
Speaker 3: singing as a little kid with her. Also because the
Speaker 3: way I grown up, different different schools, different homes, different people.
Speaker 3: I was living with, different family members, different things. Always
Speaker 3: traveling around as a kid, very unsettled child life or whatever.
Speaker 3: Never you know, one place, it was always moving around.
Speaker 3: So a lot of times being the new kid. I
Speaker 3: changed my name when I was twelve because it was
Speaker 3: just easier for everybody, because Charlene is my name, but
Speaker 3: I changed it when I was twelve, took letters out
Speaker 3: to make it easier for people. But when I go
Speaker 3: to these new schools, you know around pubescent era area,
Speaker 3: like twelve eleven, twelve, thirteen eleven, twelve thirty fourteen. There
Speaker 3: was a physical education, so you were going to the gym,
Speaker 3: you had to take a shower. Some schools you had
Speaker 3: to take a shower. Some girls had bras, some didn't.
Speaker 3: And I didn't know anybody, and I was always the stranger,
Speaker 3: very poor, so I got made fun of because of
Speaker 3: my clothes and things like this. So I was internalized everything.
Speaker 3: So because I love to sing all the time, it's
Speaker 3: just what I love to do growing up, I would
Speaker 3: wait until all the girls were done. I'd hide in
Speaker 3: the bathroom and pretend I was peeing, and when I
Speaker 3: could hear their voices kind of leave. I did this
Speaker 3: in all the schools, and I'd wait until I could
Speaker 3: hear them all gone. And I would never shower, but
Speaker 3: I would just change out of my gym and I
Speaker 3: would sing alone. Because it's all in the old fifties
Speaker 3: and sixties schools in America, they'd never been rebuilt. The
Speaker 3: fancy white people's schools are like totally fancy, but all
Speaker 3: the public schools when the olden times are still there
Speaker 3: rotting away, but they were all tiled.
Speaker 2: So the reaver acoustics are amazing.
Speaker 3: Yes. So so for singing karaoke, it was like, oh,
Speaker 3: like it was like that. It was like going to
Speaker 3: the Yeah, there's other people there, but I didn't mind
Speaker 3: because everyone's there to sing there. They got their song,
Speaker 3: they put their their song in the box and they're
Speaker 3: going to go next. So this is my time and.
Speaker 2: The yeah, taking it so seriously.
Speaker 3: So this time the first time, yes, yeah, whereas now
Speaker 3: slowly slowly, Well, the funny thing is for the next
Speaker 3: two years, I started, you know, inviting different friends when
Speaker 3: I was touring them, inviting different friends to meet me
Speaker 3: at this place whennies to have karaoke part, you know,
Speaker 3: just to say hey. Because I had to be on
Speaker 3: tour all the time because my life changed. I was
Speaker 3: always touring, and it was always like different friends meeting,
Speaker 3: you know, some would come someone and wouldn't shop at
Speaker 3: different times. I'd arrive in New York back home. One
Speaker 3: friend took an idea to MTV because she'd always come,
Speaker 3: and she created MTV Karaoke Show with Michael Stipe and
Speaker 3: different people, and then it hit America and then America
Speaker 3: knew what karaoke was.
Speaker 2: So it's your fault. I know you've ruined karaoke.
Speaker 3: But then it was great because more karaoke spots like
Speaker 3: in these village started opening, and then there was one
Speaker 3: around the corner from my house. It was five bucks
Speaker 3: an hour in a private room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you prefer that? Do you prefer it to
Speaker 2: be in private?
Speaker 3: Well? This, well, I'd love to go back to Whinnies,
Speaker 3: but I can't. Like it's just like I said, filled
Speaker 3: with frat guys, singing guns and roses poison Neil Diamond.
Speaker 3: Just that's it and which is great, but no, I
Speaker 3: don't want to do that. And so around the corner
Speaker 3: from my house for my apartment, they opened up one
Speaker 3: in the basement of this place five dollars an hour.
Speaker 3: And I go for happy hours, so for two hours
Speaker 3: four to six. You could get four hours for two sessions,
Speaker 3: so timbug So yeah, I would go there.
Speaker 2: You go for a four hour session? Wow or not?
Speaker 3: Sometimes it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: It's just cheap.
Speaker 3: It just got really cheap because at the bar, you
Speaker 3: have to pay for that for this drink, that drink,
Speaker 3: this drink, that drink. If you want to wait for
Speaker 3: your name to come up. So it's like a total blessing.
Speaker 3: And then I got taken to this place called Japus,
Speaker 3: which is a Japanese karaoke place on same works, closed down,
Speaker 3: had a camera, can only fit about maybe fifteen people
Speaker 3: in there, very really really good like Japanese food small.
Speaker 3: Oh my, what do you call it? Maybe maybe I
Speaker 3: got small Japanese foods but not sushi. Anyway, I got
Speaker 3: invited there life forever because you bring the buzzer. If
Speaker 3: they don't want you to come in, you don't come in. Ah,
Speaker 3: the camera the thing.
Speaker 2: Oh and so they kind of look at you on
Speaker 2: the cover and think this person looks.
Speaker 3: Like they can't sing.
Speaker 2: They sing this because a frat guy. This guy's only
Speaker 2: going to sing guns and roses.
Speaker 3: He's not in the interesting. I love that place.
Speaker 2: Do you always get in? They mustn't and they know
Speaker 2: you know, I guess so well.
Speaker 3: I also knew to go early on. I mean sometimes
Speaker 3: Fridays and Saturdays it'd be pretty packed. They'd let you in,
Speaker 3: but you never sing. You never get a chance to sing, right,
Speaker 3: But their selection of music was really great. They always
Speaker 3: had everything. Yeah, I love karaoke. Also, my dad started
Speaker 3: doing covers. I think I'm not sure if I was
Speaker 3: in junior high. I think I was in junior high
Speaker 3: at the Holiday Inn. It's a hotel chain in America,
Speaker 3: and he started doing covers as a job, singing covers
Speaker 3: as a job, and that's what he still.
Speaker 2: Does, because you do sing covers and you record covers
Speaker 2: and release them as well.
Speaker 3: Well. It used to be very normal, you know that
Speaker 3: that was the of the past. In the past, contemporaries
Speaker 3: covered each other's songs, whether it was there's where they
Speaker 3: wrote it or not. You know, even back from Gershwin,
Speaker 3: even standards and things, everybody always sang a tune the
Speaker 3: same tune. It was different people's take on that tune.
Speaker 3: That's gone. I think that when MTV hit, I think
Speaker 3: that the corporations understood the cash value of new song,
Speaker 3: new song, new hit, new hit. Yeah, and the tradition
Speaker 3: of you know, songwriting kind of diminished and it became
Speaker 3: hip maker USA, MTV.
Speaker 2: You know, sure, what was New York like back then?
Speaker 2: When you moved, you mad that.
Speaker 3: Around too, Yeah, So it was it was still still
Speaker 3: my same. I live in my same It's kind of
Speaker 3: like a squad. I still live in my same room
Speaker 3: that I've had since I'm twenty only forty seven in January.
Speaker 3: To give your perspective, So in the old days, I
Speaker 3: mean still that now. Yeah, I still have. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: not my place. I've rented it from my roommate. He's
Speaker 3: been there since the seventies. Wow, so yeah, he Basically
Speaker 3: I would have been on the street if I hadn't
Speaker 3: met him, but hun with NYU students. The first time
Speaker 3: I moved up there with my friend from Tennessee, Lily Hawes,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't going to make it, and so thankfully
Speaker 3: he let me, let me, took me in, let me
Speaker 3: live in his spare bedroom. Anyway it was, I got chased,
Speaker 3: I got ran after several times, never being caught up
Speaker 3: to you. You know, there was always human feces on
Speaker 3: the sidewalk, a lot of street lights were out, potholes everywhere,
Speaker 3: Rats everywhere. Rats in my room. For about probably ten years,
Speaker 3: I lived with rats because you couldn't keep him out.
Speaker 3: Someone come up through the toilet, Someone coming through the
Speaker 3: bathroom literally coming through the bathroom tile like chew their
Speaker 3: way through the yeah, through the grout, old grout, make
Speaker 3: their way through bash through where.
Speaker 2: You could be sat in the toilet and suddenly they'd
Speaker 2: be like that.
Speaker 3: I never experienced the toilet. No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: You just knew that's where they were getting in because
Speaker 3: you like, well, there's a hole there, and then you'd
Speaker 3: notice like where the piping was. You'd see like, oh,
Speaker 3: the tile has been chewed off.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 3: You had to get because our our flat, our apartment
Speaker 3: is above the boiler room, so it's really hot. So
Speaker 3: in the winter, they would, I guess, find themselves where
Speaker 3: it's warm. Right, it's freezing cold outside, so they would
Speaker 3: if they can't get in the boiler room, they're going
Speaker 3: to go through the through the walls to get into
Speaker 3: the building somehow.
Speaker 4: But anyway, what part of town is this east village?
Speaker 3: And it's a city. I think it's cool.
Speaker 2: I've been tough about city. There was an ice cream
Speaker 2: shop Alphabet Scoop, and.
Speaker 3: I've never called it that in my entire life. Alphabet
Speaker 3: called Lower east Side Village. I've never called it that before.
Speaker 2: Why is it? Why is it called Alphabet.
Speaker 3: Avenue a avenue?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, it's that bit got yeah, And because it
Speaker 2: started to clean.
Speaker 3: Up around Giuliani.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's like two Thynne.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ninety eight, Yeah, that's when he passed. Basically, my
Speaker 3: neighborhood when I was there was Dominicano, Dominican. And there
Speaker 3: still are, you know, families that have been able to
Speaker 3: stay in the neighborhood, like the car service De Lancey
Speaker 3: d Lancy, car Service d Lanci de Lancy, they're still there.
Speaker 3: But Avenue B. Clinton Street was the sung by Leonard Cohen,
Speaker 3: the music on Clinton's Yo through the evening. So the
Speaker 3: music was Dominicano. So if you lived in that neighborhood
Speaker 3: and you hear Leonard Cohen sing that lyric, it's magic
Speaker 3: because in the summer, you know, you know, you hear
Speaker 3: like this beautiful festive music all through the evening. You know,
Speaker 3: dudes on bicycles at the AM radio with the Dominicano whatever. Awesome.
Speaker 3: Just real family, family, family, family like Grandma's and grandpas
Speaker 3: born in these in these tenement houses, these buildings, you know.
Speaker 3: And then Juliana came in and basically few were affiliated
Speaker 3: with anyone who I guess had been incarcerated for possession
Speaker 3: or sale of drugs or whatever. They just did raids
Speaker 3: every night. There was like maybe a few raids. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they just started. You know, I don't know if they're planning.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they just basically just tried to
Speaker 3: get rid of an entire community of people. And it
Speaker 3: was brutal. There were there were these little boys that
Speaker 3: used to hang on the you know, and on the street,
Speaker 3: little little boys, and you know, as they got older,
Speaker 3: they got older, they got older. One of them, a
Speaker 3: few years ago, I ran into him. He was a
Speaker 3: waiter at a restaurant on Avenue B and I couldn't
Speaker 3: believe it, you know, and I asked about his other
Speaker 3: friend in jail, and then their other friend. I remember
Speaker 3: when because they were like five and six when I
Speaker 3: met them, or four four four six when I met them,
Speaker 3: and then you know, i'd seen them like ten, eleven, twelve.
Speaker 3: And I remember when the ten year old got shot
Speaker 3: by the cops in the back, like multiple times. Wasn't
Speaker 3: you know, he wasn't armed, he was just running. And
Speaker 3: that happened on my street. And that was right around that, Julia, that.
Speaker 2: Was probably ninety nine, and he was ten.
Speaker 3: He was ten nine or ten, I think he was ten, Okay,
Speaker 3: So when that's when you that's because you'd hear my
Speaker 3: friend's on Ludlow like, what it was doing was creating
Speaker 3: a lot of tension within the community in general, because
Speaker 3: you know when they're doing that, when they're putting pressure
Speaker 3: on these families, you know, you know, it's your family,
Speaker 3: and they're putting pressure on you to give a name
Speaker 3: or to rat someone out, you know, or to get
Speaker 3: more arrests made so that you can then pass the
Speaker 3: law for rent control to be abolished, right, which is
Speaker 3: what he did. Right.
Speaker 2: So, okay, you.
Speaker 3: Got to get rid of everybody first, round them up,
Speaker 3: and then the developers developers began to creep in. But
Speaker 3: first they had to start with infrastructure. They had to
Speaker 3: start with infrastructure first. So they did the lamp posts,
Speaker 3: the streets, you know, sewer, all this stuff. They had
Speaker 3: to make it, you know, developer friendly.
Speaker 2: Is he loved by New Yorkers or hated by New Yorkers?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Is he considered a hero or a villain?
Speaker 3: I think he's pretty much hand in hand with with
Speaker 3: those which do not deserve to be spoken name of. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's pretty much.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I didn't like that because we don't really overhear,
Speaker 2: We don't know that much about that, you know.
Speaker 3: We just like I was he became this like, you know,
Speaker 3: he was perfectly strategically inserted during the twin hours.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Golden I won't even get into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what is that when you left New York?
Speaker 2: The first time when you went to Portland?
Speaker 3: Was that I went to Portland. No, that was when earlier.
Speaker 3: That was when I had just I left New York,
Speaker 3: took my my friend from Atlanta and sold me his
Speaker 3: Volkswagen bus. And he was living up in Brooklyn. It
Speaker 3: was actually a late friend of mine who had sold
Speaker 3: it to him. The drummer from Dirt, drummer from Seersucker,
Speaker 3: the drummer from Opa Fox Quartet. His name was Alan Page. Anyway,
Speaker 3: I had bought that Volkswagen bus because I was going
Speaker 3: to go I was going to go down to Tennessee
Speaker 3: to record what would the community think, and then go
Speaker 3: down and start my first tour of the West Coast.
Speaker 3: And then when I got to Portland, because I had
Speaker 3: a friend who was going to be their roommate, I
Speaker 3: was going to sell that butt, that Volkswagen bus, and
Speaker 3: I was going to have rent money so I could live, survive,
Speaker 3: and the bus. You know Peewe's big adventure that Dinosaur. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the right head gasket. Blue. Problems were happening around I'd
Speaker 3: say Louisiana's when the problems started happening. The oil eek
Speaker 3: happened in the bus. Made it to Peter Hermann's Dinosaur
Speaker 3: and there was a lady in an old Lincoln, like
Speaker 3: maybe eighty two Lincoln brown. She had all her shit
Speaker 3: in there. Little kid with all a you know, dirt
Speaker 3: on his face, she had a black eye. We're in
Speaker 3: a tank top. She was had her hands on the
Speaker 3: wheel and she was crying. And I said, look because
Speaker 3: somebody from LA came to pick me up.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It took a while, and I said, look the titles
Speaker 3: in here, here's the keys. I'm sorry I got a run,
Speaker 3: but if you want to try to do something with that.
Speaker 3: And I should have done more for her, but I
Speaker 3: just had to go. But made it to my show
Speaker 3: at this whatever it's Silver Lake called the Baseland. That's
Speaker 3: her first show in LA. There's a picture on what
Speaker 3: the community think of me holding the beer the dance floor.
Speaker 3: That was either after I played or right before I played.
Speaker 3: I made it to the venue with my friend from
Speaker 3: France and Lore who's in her musical group is called
Speaker 3: Appalooza from Paris, and she was on that trip with
Speaker 3: me from New York. She said she could drive. What
Speaker 3: she meant was sure, I could drive, but she's never
Speaker 3: driven a car in her line. She's especially not a sick.
Speaker 2: She just figured I will be able to do that.
Speaker 3: I'll drive.
Speaker 2: I'll do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, I'll I can drive.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's different, isn't It says I can drive, rather.
Speaker 3: Than I do not know how. But she did not
Speaker 3: know how.
Speaker 2: I'll do that. I'll make you a sick.
Speaker 3: I can drive, yeah right. I can make you a suit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, make you a suit. Surely that's not the tone,
Speaker 2: but you're after. But it's amazing that you made it
Speaker 2: to the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah that was great. I made it the show, made
Speaker 3: it to Portland. That was the last show. And then, yeah,
Speaker 3: I didn't have any money, didn't have it, went on
Speaker 3: a million you know, job interview type things, didn't have
Speaker 3: great a tenth grade education. So that's why it was
Speaker 3: difficult in New York.
Speaker 2: Have you had any really bad jobs?
Speaker 3: Every job I've had have been That's why I don't
Speaker 3: understand people who just can't be bothered to work. I
Speaker 3: just I can't be bothered to hear that. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: just you know, I have always been doesn't matter if
Speaker 3: I'm cleaning houses or nanny or whatever I'm doing. I've
Speaker 3: always had moppy floors whatever it is that I've had
Speaker 3: to do, you know, without taking my clothes off. I
Speaker 3: I've been so like, you know, so thankful, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: to take care of myself.
Speaker 2: Do you live in Miami now?
Speaker 3: I do. I moved there in two thousand and two,
Speaker 3: two thousand and two or two thousand.
Speaker 2: And three, okay, quite a while ago.
Speaker 3: Have my little room in New York, right, but I
Speaker 3: uh my best frien from high school in Atlanta, she
Speaker 3: moved to Miami to go to university. I moved to
Speaker 3: New York to get away from the Droit, the Heroin
Speaker 3: in Atlanta at the time. Little did I know, like
Speaker 3: the best place.
Speaker 2: You got you can get it there as well, exactly for.
Speaker 3: Like a tenth of the price and like full potency
Speaker 3: because I haven't been chopped up yet and sit down south.
Speaker 3: But little did I know that it like was even
Speaker 3: more gruesome in New York. But yeah, Miami, I left
Speaker 3: so I'd visit her all the time when she had
Speaker 3: her She has three kids, but her eldest is about
Speaker 3: to graduate college. So when the baby, when she was
Speaker 3: a baby, my goddaughter, I would go visit her Miami.
Speaker 3: And after years of visiting her Miami, I was like this,
Speaker 3: I should just move here, like cost good money to
Speaker 3: take take a flight home from tour or drive home
Speaker 3: from tour, and the sagavite in Miami when I just
Speaker 3: make a choice. And she turned out she wanted to
Speaker 3: sell her apartment.
Speaker 2: So what is Miami like. I've got two preconceptions. One
Speaker 2: is it's I've a full of retired people, but I
Speaker 2: might be with Florida.
Speaker 3: It was in general because of the tax situation, a
Speaker 3: lot of elderly moved to Florida. The difference between Miami
Speaker 3: and the rest of Florida is that Miami is completely
Speaker 3: one hundred percent like Manhattan after nuclear war. It's minimized
Speaker 3: in size and length.
Speaker 2: Okay, you got water on both.
Speaker 3: Sides, you know, like Manhattan Island. You know, you get
Speaker 3: every demographic, every nationality.
Speaker 2: So it's really liberal. It's like a really liberal place.
Speaker 3: Say liberal, okay, I'd say that it's you got a
Speaker 3: lot of like you know posts, you got a lot
Speaker 3: of post Cold War Cubans you know, turned Republican, you
Speaker 3: know Anti, you know, not into not into castor. You've
Speaker 3: got a lot of like so it's it's Miami's blue
Speaker 3: blue city, like you know, liberal, but you've got a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, Florida is like as red as
Speaker 3: they come. Like it's tricky.
Speaker 2: My other preconception about Florida always lies.
Speaker 3: Basically, I could put it to you that way, Like
Speaker 3: Bush never won either of those elections because Florida said
Speaker 3: they did. He did. Yes, Yeah, it's like lie life central.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, is that that must be? Is that a
Speaker 2: weird place to live?
Speaker 3: Well, you think about all those retired people, people that retire,
Speaker 3: can retire, you know, they're part of a system. People
Speaker 3: that are ingrained in the system. You know, they tend
Speaker 3: to they want to keep that system together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, you.
Speaker 3: Know, so they all live in that state, sorry, everywhere Arizona.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, my other, my other kind of thought
Speaker 2: when I think of Miami, it's the complete opposite and
Speaker 2: the quiet party town right.
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's the commercial aspect of if anywhere in Florida, Right,
Speaker 3: anywhere in Florida has the hotels, the palm trees, the
Speaker 3: beautiful beaches, the nature, the you know, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's just part of like the package of Florida.
Speaker 3: But because Miami has maybe that so close to South America,
Speaker 3: you know, International Airport, You've got people from all over
Speaker 3: the place, I think that it has like this, it's
Speaker 3: not attached to the rest of America by if you
Speaker 3: go and I think maybe it's changed since I moved there,
Speaker 3: But I feel like if you go forty five minutes north,
Speaker 3: you know, you really leave South America. You leave you
Speaker 3: leave Manhattan. If you go north, like if you go
Speaker 3: to you know, Rochester, right, if you leave Manhattan, you
Speaker 3: you're back in America. You leave Manhattan, you're back in America.
Speaker 3: If you leave Miami, you're back in America. Right. So
Speaker 3: that's why I love Miami, because it's like Manhattan after
Speaker 3: nucleue War. It's like it's it's blasted out all the
Speaker 3: dirty Hudson and the you know, the river and the
Speaker 3: East River made it all clean. It's like this ocean,
Speaker 3: ocean negative you know, negative ions wind. You know, it's
Speaker 3: and it's subtropical. So you've got like in my apartment,
Speaker 3: in my conda, in the you know, the common area,
Speaker 3: there's mangoes growing on the tree, there's bananas growing on
Speaker 3: the tree, orchids growing like it's just birds of paradise
Speaker 3: growing all kinds of beautiful jasmine bugin villa. So it's
Speaker 3: really like a it has like a paradise. You know,
Speaker 3: you got the wildlife. You got the lizards and the
Speaker 3: the parakeets, those green parakeets, you got the egrids, all
Speaker 3: the wildlife, the manatee. Like every day you can see
Speaker 3: all this stuff. You're riding your bike on the on
Speaker 3: the boardwalk and around by the marina, you can see
Speaker 3: all this wildlife every day. Whereas the rest of floor
Speaker 3: you can too, and there's really beautiful parts. But it's
Speaker 3: the multicultural aspect that I feel most comfortable. And I
Speaker 3: don't feel comfortable when everybody is white. I feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: I feel exactly the same. Sorry, it's the thing with.
Speaker 3: Because you've got to that you know something, there's gonna
Speaker 3: be something wrong with me in five minutes of talking
Speaker 3: to these people.
Speaker 2: Yeah she's a weirdo. Yeah, you know, I feel that
Speaker 2: with being in London because I'm starting to get a
Speaker 2: bit beaten down by London the pace of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hurry, hurry, hurry. Yeah you got to hurry too,
Speaker 3: but you're on your bike and flip flops.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Stressed out man in the whole foods. But it's just
Speaker 3: like she's hot. Yeah, you just really there's nothing to
Speaker 3: complain about there.
Speaker 2: But the problem is when you live in a big city,
Speaker 2: it's like, where would you move to?
Speaker 3: Hitting there? So it's getting worse and worse like it
Speaker 3: is everywhere. So where would I move? Like? I love?
Speaker 3: I love Africa in general. I've only been to the
Speaker 3: north in the south, but I love Australia in in
Speaker 3: outside of big cities. I love the nature. I love
Speaker 3: expansive nature, places that have like a sort of a
Speaker 3: dry or tropical climate. I love. I have no idea
Speaker 3: where i'd move.
Speaker 2: You've got a very good British accent.
Speaker 3: I do, thank you? Are you sure? Have I gone
Speaker 3: to Australia?
Speaker 2: I think you're You're going to Australia.
Speaker 4: Australia, but is it that I want to do that?
Speaker 4: There no no back from Australia going into London.
Speaker 2: So I'm saying in a British accent, raspberry ripple, why
Speaker 2: did you come up with that word? Of all words?
Speaker 2: That's a great word.
Speaker 3: Is a good one? Good word?
Speaker 4: Raspberry ripple, bloody, how oh my god, I love fly
Speaker 4: lovely in it darling.
Speaker 3: Oh. I heard an expression the other day. Let's go
Speaker 3: from Atlanta said see more meat on the end of
Speaker 3: a butcher's pencil.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's a British thing.
Speaker 3: Love.
Speaker 2: It was this guy, a British guy, who said.
Speaker 3: Excuse meat, you've seen more meat on a butcher's pencil. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's right. Yeah, it's not saying in England. It's an
Speaker 3: English saying. It's an English saying. Does that mean someone's
Speaker 3: fat or skinny? It means skinny, right, yeah. Yeah. Basically
Speaker 3: say more meat on a butcher's pencil, on the tip
Speaker 3: of a butcher's or just on a butcher.
Speaker 2: On on the tip of it. It might be tip
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah it is, yeah, yeah, yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 3: It keeps calling. Do you hear her ringing the doorb
Speaker 3: Is that our time? Yeah? She's done it like four times.
Speaker 2: That does that mean you stop before we stop? I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you, yeah, some very quick you're like
Speaker 2: thirteen questions. I've just literally only got twenty five more things.
Speaker 2: We used to a thing in the magazine, our magazine,
Speaker 2: which we don't do anymore. But it was cool. It
Speaker 2: was like a quick fire questionnaire, right I want to
Speaker 2: ask you a few questions off it. That's okay? Who
Speaker 2: would play you in a film of your life? Who
Speaker 2: would like to do that?
Speaker 3: Stelish Nobyl Julian Schnabel's daughter.
Speaker 2: Okay, Nope, we'll just move on. We've not got time
Speaker 2: for this.
Speaker 3: Or or the girl from One Food to Kill a
Speaker 3: marking Bird.
Speaker 2: If you could only eat one food for the rest
Speaker 2: of your life, what would it be?
Speaker 3: My gosh, oh man, that's that's a bummer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ship, isn't it's a ship.
Speaker 3: I think of corn because you can make ship out
Speaker 3: of it, you know. I think of potatoes. You can
Speaker 3: make shit out of it. Bread you can make shit
Speaker 3: out of it. But you can't have anything else to eat.
Speaker 2: No, no, you've just got this one thing.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, my gosh, oh my gosh, give me
Speaker 3: one moment. I guess avocado, long time. I guess. I
Speaker 3: want to see that every for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: It's very fashionable right now.
Speaker 3: I mean, well, thank goodness.
Speaker 2: Super Food the film you can quote the most.
Speaker 3: Of rais in Arizona.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a good one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I asked Matt de Marco that question.
Speaker 3: It was is funny. Yeah, sorry, Yeah, bring that taller hat.
Speaker 3: They got more Ning Candle. I love him so much.
Speaker 3: I'll be taking these huggies.
Speaker 2: Okay. What do you think is that people's biggest misconception
Speaker 2: about you? That's quite a serious one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just that I'm crazy, That's like the biggest one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think is crazy to me?
Speaker 3: Well, when I was younger and internalized a lot, and
Speaker 3: I think people who are shy did internalize a lot.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: The problem is for a reason.
Speaker 3: For good reason, they've learned that they can't trust people.
Speaker 3: I think that there's a reason that, you know, my
Speaker 3: behavior didn't suit us, because most people have always been
Speaker 3: part of a clique or you know, a group of
Speaker 3: a neighborhood or a family unit. So they they they
Speaker 3: assure themselves with their type of behavior they hang out with.
Speaker 2: So and the problem is if you're especially if you're
Speaker 2: on your own, if you're shy, a lot of time
Speaker 2: people think that's considered rude. Some people think that mistake
Speaker 2: shyness for rude.
Speaker 3: Sometimes in America, you're a target, right, especially if you're
Speaker 3: a female musician by yourself.
Speaker 2: Okay, final one. The doorbell just rang again. Well it's
Speaker 2: your hidden talent?
Speaker 3: Which one.
Speaker 2: Have you got? Multiple?
Speaker 3: It used to be really good at like embroidery. You
Speaker 3: know what do you call it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like cross stitching, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Cross stitching and knitting and basketball. You can check out
Speaker 3: on Manhattan Video. There's a part where you'll see that
Speaker 3: I do alley oop from behind you know what, it
Speaker 3: goes in. But that was the second shot because the
Speaker 3: first one he didn't get so he did two shots
Speaker 3: of it. I got in both. But he still loved basketball.
Speaker 3: But I'm not very good anymore. After I had a baby.
Speaker 3: My body like is like it's I'm not connected together anymore. Okay,
Speaker 3: but uh, what's another talent? Hidden talent? I can imitate
Speaker 3: most anybody at.
Speaker 2: A lot of people great British accents.
Speaker 3: Well, if you if I have five more minutes or something,
Speaker 3: I can imitate you, even with like songs and stuff. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's not hidden from my friends, my friends. No, I
Speaker 3: can make really good meals out of leftovers. And you'll
Speaker 3: think that like it's from like a recipe. It's a
Speaker 3: good talent. And then what else, what else? What else?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that's all hidden talent.
Speaker 2: That gonna kick the door and.
Speaker 3: Don't I would love to see that, all right, Thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you, goodbye guys.
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