Salad Days At The Ski Lodge
“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.”― Gloria Steinem
This past week I attended the 60th birthday party of record producer Rob Cavallo. Rob was the first person I befriended at the Warner Bros. Records A&R department when I started my internship. When I first arrived at the ski lodge in June of 1988, nineteen years old, Rob immediately made me feel at home. Despite a seven-year age difference, he welcomed me into his office to listen to demos, had me over to his house to hang out in his insanely set-up music room (gave me a candy apple red Gibson guitar that I still have)…went with me to see shows and showcases, introduced me around. His father Bob was a big-time band manager. Rob grew up as his dad managed The Lovin’ Spoonful, Earth Wind and Fire…Prince…and had the music industry running through his veins. Summer after summer as college went on, I went down to live in Los Angeles…on floors, in vacant houses of vacationing relatives I barely knew…doing my internship under the guidance of the great Roberta Petersen. And during those summers, Rob and I formed a pretty tight friendship.
By the time I started working at Warners as a legit A&R man in 1991, we were a team—Rob’s dad even took us out to lunch at our go-to Italian joint in Burbank, talking about the benefits of partnership. Rob had signed a few bands that he was making records with, and he let me tag along to studio dates, like with Jimi Hendrix’s producer Eddie Kramer, who was working with one of Rob’s bands, Power Trio From Hell. He exposed me to life in the recording studio…to the magic that can be made when the red button is turned on. Most days, we would just sit around listening to music, musing about what bands coming our way might be the next big thing, talking about the records we loved, finding killer places to eat around Burbank and talking even more about music over lunch. Two music fanatics from different musical backgrounds digging deep into music history and the history of the business: it was hard to think of a better way to spend the day.
I was hitting the clubs hard every night, bringing in tapes into the office that we would listen to together and critique. When I got excited about Celebrity Skin, a local LA glam/trash rock band that featured Don Bolles of The Germs on drums, Rob grabbed a mike and a tape recorder, and we hustled across town to Dave Nazworthy’s practice studio in Beverly Hills to record every song in their set…to see if they might be the signing we were looking for (we both agreed that Celebrity Skin was great, but not for Warner Bros.).
By the time I was 22, I had two bands who I was working with, The Flaming Lips and Mudhoney. One night at the Coconut Teaser1 I saw a band that I instantly fell in love with, The Muffs. Led by songwriter/guitarist Kim Shattuck, formerly of the Pandoras, with an also-ex-Pandora Melanie Vammen on guitar, Ronnie Barnett on Bass and veteran Seattle punk Criss Crass on drums, The Muffs played the greatest melodic songs through the sonic blast of a punk rock band. The next day, I told Rob all about it, and within a week the two of us went back to Dave Nazworthy’s practice studio (Naz was famous for allowing his favorite bands, including Redd Kross, to practice in the back of his mom’s house) to record their set. Taking the tape back to the office, we listened to it over and over again, loving the melodies…the harmonies between Kim and Criss…the overall vibe of the band. We signed the band to a demo tape deal while making a deal between each other as well: we would split the signing, if it worked out, and co-produce the resultant record (I was excited to learn from Rob about the whole record making process). We signed the band and recorded a record that became the standard for what would become the next wave of punk (we even appear together in the band’s first video, Lucky Guy, sitting in the Warner conference room where we would hold our A&R meetings…ending up slam dancing at the end).
The Muffs record came out thirty years ago this year, which seems so crazy to me.
Rob left Warner Bros. Records before I did, and our partnership faded away as our individual careers developed (Rob went on to produce some of the biggest rock acts of the day!). While driving to Rob’s 60th birthday party last Sunday, all I could think about were those early years together, just starting out. Often a band will say that the best years were the early ones, when there was nothing to lose, when the members were all together with a united vision of becoming a great, successful band while having a fun time; that was us. Looking back on those early years at Warner Bros, remembering all the hours I had my feet up on Rob’s desk in his office, as we played tape after tape after tape, talking hits talking shit talking dreams: those were the salad days that I was lucky enough to have, that helped me transition from being a music enthusiast to a record man. And I am not even sure we appreciated them as we lived them.
Maureen Loughran Named Director and Curator of Smithsonian Folkways
“Loughran becomes just the fourth director and curator of Smithsonian Folkways since it was established in 1987, when the Smithsonian acquired the legendary Folkways Records from the family of its founder, Moses Asch…Loughran’s experience includes work in archives, both internationally at the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin, Ireland, and nationally at the Archive of Folk Culture at the Library of Congress.”
‘It’s been a wild ride’: funk legend Sly Stone announces memoir
My friend Ben Greenman co-wrote what looks to be an incredible, revealing portrait of the crazed musical genius. I wonder if he goes into the time he put a hit out on his bass player…or told the cops he was his brother after getting into an auto accident…
“What did you do at work today honey”
“Oh…um…I accidentally destroyed a major artwork.”
“Was it to fight climate change”
“um….errr…..no……”
Ethan Hawke to Direct Daughter Maya Hawke in Flannery O’Connor Biopic ‘Wildcat’
“‘Wildcat’ will follow O’Connor as she struggles to publish her first novel. A devout Catholic from Georgia, O’Connor was invited to the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop”
World’s Most Expensive Gold Coin, Minted by Brutus to Honor Caesar’s Murder, Returned to Greece
I love the words in the headline: “To Honor Caesar’s Murder.”
YOU DON’T KNOW TEXAS MUSIC IF YOU DON’T KNOW FLACO JIMÉNEZ
This is a great article…and in Flaco’s words! For anyone interested in tejano/cajunto history….Doug Sahm…and the greatness of Flaco Jiménez.
Woah.
The Rainy Day
By: Henry W. Longfellow
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
Ronnie Barnett reminded me I was there to see Trash Can School. I was probably drinking a Jack and Coke, eating one of the free hot dogs they always offered at the club…