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(fwd) To all, from Linford
Since I seem to be the only on on the announcement list as well as the
discussion list (and the digest list too, but I won't go into that), and on
account of all the requests I've been bombarded with since I mentioned it, I'm
forwarding this to the discussion list.
Enjoy.
Chris
*** begin forward ***
On Mon, 15 Mar 1999 11:18:00 -0500 (EST), OTRhine at aol_com wrote:
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment
you know, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We
guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes De Mille
I remember the first stroke: cobalt blue, a diagonal stroke on a rectangular
three-by-four-foot canvas. I burst into tears when I made it.
Pia Stern
Now if you asked me where I'd rather be, I'd say nowhere.
Karin Bergquist
12 March 1999
Hello friends and,
It's obvious I don't know where to begin or you would have heard from
me long
before now.
I lived for a long time on the top floor of an old brick building on
Main
Street downtown, and now in this old house I do most of my work here in the
attic. I'm assuming all of these words would be different if I was hunkered
down in the corner of the basement. But up here I look out and see the tops of
the houses and chimneys and parts of trees high up, bare branches interlaced
like bloodvessels, veins very still against the face of the sky as if the
world was holding its breath, waiting for something to make the first move.
For some reason there are a lot of cardinals in this neighborhood and they sit
there like the tip of God's paintbrush, smug in their uselessness. What are we
supposed to do with all this red?
How have you all been? When I think of you I remember that I know you
and
that I don't. Many of us will never meet but somehow I miss you anyway.
Somehow I know that when you brush up against some obscure joy, I feel it a
little bit too. And when you come to grips with the phantom pangs that are
part of this free ride - this free ride that ends up giving us more than we
can ever repay, more than we know how to handle - this free ride for which we
bought no ticket - I mean we sloshed around in our Mothers' womb and laid
there in our cribs and we didn't even know we were riding yet - well, somehow
when you ache in that inside place for which we have no name, I feel it a
little bit too. I guess I took the long way to say, Fine I hope. ( Why do I
hope you're fine? Because when you do something good, that makes it easier for
me.)
I'm assuming that some of you are still regularly talking to each
other. I
don't know if it's a relief to you to know that I haven't checked in on your
conversations for a long, long time. But I have a dilemma that I would like
you to discuss and then after y'all express yourselves, I think I'm going to
get somebody to print out your words to see if you can shed any new light on
the subject at hand.
The dilemma is this. I have come to a place in my life where writing
and
recording music is the most tangible or physical way that I give a little
something to the world and I learn a little something in the meanwhile. For
years I have thought of what I do as running a vegetable stand. It's sort of a
family-run business (we're not a chain or a franchise) and people have to go a
bit out of their way to come and get what we offer. Because we're a vegetable
stand and not a hypermarket, we try to put a little extra care into what we
give people, keep things fresh, organic, and the scenery is arguably a little
richer out here.
From time to time people have come in and assured us that they can
take this
vegetable stand and turn it into a multi-national success story. Running the
vegetable stand is a lot of work, and some years get a little lean - you know,
maybe there's an early frost or whatever and the roof of the barn needs
repaired. So it's always interesting to hear what these people have to say,
and we try to listen. But inevitably, while people sit around conference
tables brainstorming about how Over the Rhine's next record could sell three
million copies, weeks and months go by, and we begin to think, gee, we could
have put out a couple of records of our own just in the time it took for this
famous label to decide O.K. we are now officially interested in talking about
the possibility of definitely working together as soon as we get through this
merger that frankly might mean we're all out of a job in a few months so
that's great news lets go spend $800 on dinner and have a good time.
The short version is this. If you were me and you were at a point that
you
knew you could make a record with a big budget and a producer that would get
released in the next 18 months or so, and then you would promote that record
for a few years and if you were successful, do it all over again and maybe
make a lot of money and have a couple songs on the radio et cetera, et cetera,
or you could take care of the vegetable stand, put out two or three records a
year that sounded unmistakably like your own records and could make a
comfortable but modest living, what would you do? I'm curious. Remember, the
vegetable stand means no significant media exposure, no grammy, no "Florida
girls with fluorescent tits" listening to your song on the modern rock station
coming out of the boom box by the sand volleyball net. (Sorry, I'm quoting
Karin again.)
I'll be eavesdropping.
Oh those crazy Canadians are trying to lure Karin and I out for
another seven
weeks this summer. I don't know. Touring with Cowboy Junkies was a great
experience for us. So many firsts. Life on a tour bus, poking around
Letterman's cold studio, touring from Whistler, British Columbia to Perth,
Australia. From London, England to Montreal, Quebec to Santa Fe, New Mexico
and all over North America really. We're definitely still adjusting to
civilian life. But will we take that tunnel to Canada one more time?
Rhinelanders,
I promised myself I would hold off on sending out the final Northern
Spy et
cetera, until we had finalized plans for the next few years. Perhaps it was
another gloriously ill-fated decision which contributes yet again to the
thorny path you all have traveled hoping for your twenty bucks worth. But
within the next few months we'll be deciding whether to go with a Capitol-
Records-type-deal or whether to continue with our own imprint with
distribution, or? I'll inform you all of rumours of movie soundtracks and
other sizzling industry tidbits in that Northern Spy.
Meanwhile, in the next few weeks we'll be performing three different
times as
a trio (Karin, Linford and Jack Henderson). We opened for the Junkies with
this line-up at a sold-out show at Royal Festival Hall in London and enjoyed
ourselves. And we got to meet Elvis Costello in New Zealand who was touring as
a duo with Steve Nieve. We were inspired to try something a little more naked
musically. It wasn't possible for all the musicians we've been playing with as
a six-piece to join us for these three shows, so we're going to let you peer
in this different window with us. The full band should be playing later this
year and we'll let you know more details soon.
P.S. We've had a problem keeping up with orders for Good Dog Bad Dog.
We ran
out of stock at the end of December and we're expecting a large shipment in
the next few weeks. Just thought you might like to know.
Can't Wait
Linford for Over the Rhine
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NP: Chris Isaak - _Baja Sessions_
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