Review as it appears in

The Aquarian

March 6, 2012/
By Doktor John

Montclair NJ

These founding forebears of alternative rock, Janes Addiction, icons for a quarter-century of some of the most original, transgressive and explicit performance art, made their stop in Montclair, fronted as always by the semi-demonic Perry Farrell, to a sold-out and mesmerized New Jersey crowd. The show was billed as Theater of the Escapists, referring to the name of the latest album, The Escape Artist. Indeed, before the actual concert, a costumed gent in a derby and handlebar mustache (steampunk is all the rage these days) went around chaining spectators to each other and marching them around the theater and on to the stage in irons. No word on how they escaped.

The openers were an exceptionally loud metal duo from Belgium, called Black Box Revelation, whose vocal whine, together with splashy guitar and stylish drumming, generated a sound like Smashing-Pumpkins-meets-The-White-Stripes.

When they finished their well-received set, the lights went down, and recordings of Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon filled the air as red searchlights began to scan the stage. During the fading strains of “Welcome to the Machine,” the eager audience began to stomp, whistle and call for the headliners. When the stage lit up—a dazzling, multi-colored display— it was exactly what one would expect from Jane’s Addiction: two colossal statues of naked women, back-to-back, obscenely lit from below; plus a 7-foot, standing, stuffed bear on stage; and, in addition to the musicians, two gorgeous brunettes swinging high above the stage in huge, tent-like skirts as the band poured out their first piece, “Underground” from the new album.

Most of the show consisted of their well-established repertoire. They proceeded directly into “Mountain Song” as three oversized screens projected depressing images of various druggies getting high. Farrell stopped to announce his long-time affection for NJ and the shore. He temporarily came down off the stage into the front row of the crowd denouncing his philosophical opposition to barriers, then launched into “Been Caught Stealing,” also accompanied by black &white footage from some vintage 1950s juvenile delinquency scare films.

He proceeded to “Ain’t No Right” which he claimed was his motto, then launched into an extended, laid-back and blues-tinged version the block buster hit, “Nothing’s Shocking,” title track from album of the same name, while the two brunettes, now attired in skimpy black lingerie and perched on a sofa high above the stage began to gyrate and unravel themselves from black ribbons with which they were wrapped together. While this song went into crescendo mode on Dave Navarro’s amazing guitar riffs, the video screen showed cheesy, vintage black & white, bondage and s &m videos, and the crowd got their kicks chanting along to the line, “sex is violence.”

A track from the new album followed, then the dreamy “Classic Girl” during which the screens showed peaceful beach and surf scenes interspersed with antique footage of a busty mid-20th century, blond bathing beauty. This was followed by a little patter about living out west in L.A. which caused Farrell to utter the nostalgic (to Jane’s fans) cry “Juana’s Adiccion,” leading into the next song, the iconic “Jane Says” from Nothing’s Shocking, complete with steel drums. At the conclusion of this song Dave Navarro joined two guest bass drummers to create a jungle-like percussion soundscape for the song “Trip Away,” with high speed, jumbled footage from Africa showing on the screens. This was followed by some ultra-deep bass electronica while the lights dimmed, only to become dazzling again during “End to Lies” from The Great Escape Artist.

It was unfortunate that the sound quality of the vocals came out horribly distorted during “Three Days,” which is arguably the group’s greatest opus. Navarro’s brilliant guitar solo didn’t suffer from any sound quality issues however, and salvaged the situation. The vocal distortions were rectified midway through the song and thus this complex and symphonic masterpiece was ultimately consummated very well in the end. The videos showed a jumble of historic, military and industrial scenes, the two hot brunettes returned to the swings high above the stage, and the concert reached an initial conclusion with “Stop” from “Ritual de lo Habitual”l before a brief break. For encores the band performed two more pieces, the first of these too noisy and chaotic for this writer to identify, and the finale was “Ocean Size.” As the lights went up, all the performers came out on stage to wave greetings and appreciation to the satisfied crowd.

Addendum

One further note is worth stating. The “Theater of the Escapists,” billed on the website as “The Underground Orgy,” promised spectators a “unique blend of alternative rock, art and immersive theater.” The promotions on their website went on to claim that “barbers, photographers, poets, actors, etc.” would be set up in the lobbies of the theater.

If there was any truth to that claim, it wasn’t evident to the ticket holders who were hustled through the lobby in the usual, brusque fashion. Nor was there any validity to the claim that VIP status existed or was worth paying for. Sure, a very nice (if somewhat risque) poster was given. But anyone with VIP status who asked to sit in the stadium seating in the balcony was told that those seats wee already “sold out.” To whom? When? Furthermore, those with so-called VIP tickets stood and watched from ordinary locations while dozens of presumably even more Very Important Persons were escorted into truly advantaged viewing platforms, barricaded off from the rest of us.

Finally, there was a lack of any valid reference to the theme of “escapism.” No escape artist hung suspended in a straight-jacket from which to extricate himself. No one was shackled and immersed into a coffin-like tank of water. Nothing of that sort occurred. Instead, it was the same, generic and predictable stuff that was deemed roguish 20 years ago. Concert-goers to this music scene have again and again seen similar grainy black and white footage mainly from the 1950s, many times by now. The hype accorded to “Theater of the Escapists” constituted nothing short of false advertising.

Perry Farrell, great composer and musician that he is, has come to think of himself as the mastermind of alternative entertainment since his creation of the immensely successful Lolapalooza series. He has, however overreached in failing to create something unique or even thematically appropriate with this tour labeled “Theater of the Escapists—The Underground Orgy” which proved to be more an orgy of overstatement.

The Birthday Massacre/Mexicali Live/Dec. 11, 2011

By Doktor John

Teaneck, NJ

Mexicali Live is an excellent venue for an event featuring an audio-visual performance group like The Birthday Massacre. Besides an exceptional sound system, it features a wide-open standing room, with dinner-table seating along one side-wall and in a loft-like second level at the far end of the room. All of these provide a reasonably good view of the elevated stage which is situated against the front wall facing backward into the auditorium. TBM were the headliners on this, the tenth stop on their nation-wide tour. Earlier stops were spent opening for another band, Dir En Grey, but this night the openers were old-school grrl punk rockers Verbal Equinox, and hard-core-metal quartet P T Grimm, featuring a politically agitated, potty-mouth male vocalist supported by a pair of theatrically slutty, faux cheerleaders.

As for TBM, they pleased the sold-out crowd of die-hard fans as well as new-comers with their over-the-top, thunderous, yet melodious metal as well as with creepy costumes and make-up. The visual style of this black-clad, black-tressed band was Tim Burton-esque and gory. Theatrical blood oozed from the chin of one performer and out of the ears of another. There was the customary element of innocence-defiled in the lyrics and the actions of the cutesy female lead vocalist.

The hour-plus set drew from TBM’s half dozen albums with emphasis on the 2010 Pin and Needles and the 2011 EP Imaginary Monsters. “Red Stars” from Walking With Strangers, “Horror Show” from Violet and “In the Dark” from Pins and Needles show-cased their synth-goth style. Every song is richly hook-laden and catchy. Power chord bursts of rhythm left just enough time in between for the forcedly sweet, 70s style vocals of female lead Chibi. The overall effect was somewhat like listening to Smashing Pumpkins at their most explosive accompanying Madonna at her most child-like.

After a brief goodnight, they returned with a pair of encore pieces, “Sleep Walking” and “Midnight,” both from the Pins and Needles. The crowd was ecstatic and cried for more.

Skinny Puppy/ hanDover/SPV
By Doktor John

This is the 11th complete album by the preeminent electro-industrial group, Skinny Puppy, and is comes across as an unfortunate mellowing-down of the style of this usually boisterous, eccentric band. SP has a tradition of naming their songs with puns and neologisms. Thus we find tracks with names such as like Ovirt and Cullorblind, but I wouldnt suggest you try to find the hidden meanings.

Overall the album is a languid collection of plodding, mournful tracks with reduced rhythm complexity, slowed cadences and toned-down lyrics when compared with the established SP oeuvre. There is conspicuous absence of the delightful and puzzling sound-samples from movies and TV that used to add an element of uniqueness and artistry to SP’s prior albums.

Most of the songs tend to trip along never approaching a climax. Tracks three and four would actually make great backgrounds for falling asleep. Occasionally the rhythm breaks into a light gallop or even a rapid-fire pace. Beats in the track“Point” take the form of recurring electronica derived from video games or perhaps Star Wars weaponry, the effect of which is sadly cheesy.

Dont get me wrong. Theres much in hanDover that has SP’s signature sound. Vyrisus, by far the best track on the album, revives a familiar SP musical device, starting with an eerie, high-pitched note that hangs, drone-like, suspended over a complex and hypnotic rhythm, then is laced with Ogre’s vocals which alternate between a growl and a harsh whisper. But the next track, “Village” morphs into a clone of something by My Life With the Thrill Kill Cult with its driving drum-machine beat. HanDover concludes with “NoiseX” over seven tedious minutes of chaotic sounds having neither a rhythm nor a melody. Many of SP’s better albums traditionally include just such a wastebasket track with leftover noise.

The formula for the album seems to have been to put Ogre’s (Ohgr’s) solo work into a blender with the recent album Mythmaker. This album unfortunately has no breakout special hit single, no powerful or explosive track. There is no delicious melody worked into an industrial soundscape as can to be heard in bygone masterpieces such as “Warlock,” “Addiction” or “Killing Game.” But it is good, serviceable if somewhat mediocre industrial music still bearing the SP flavor, and it is, at the very least, acceptable to the fan base. I have no idea, however, why they would go to the trouble of producing hanDover.

In a word: Uninspired
Rating: B-
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The following review was published in the paper edition as well as the online edition of The Aquarian

Mark Sinnis – The Undertaker In My Rearview Mirror

Frontman for Cemetery & Western band Ninth House, Mark Sinnis has released a new album that contains some updated, acoustic and mellow versions of previously recorded Ninth House favorites, countrified even further with honkey tonk piano and acoustic and slide guitars. Sinnis continues expounding obsession with the many ways that the concept of death informs and shapes our viewpoints and our lives.

The title track is new, melodious narrative, partly spoken, partly sung in old-school country style, relates the morbid ruminations of someone who spends a lot of time behind the wheel and features a slide guitar that creates an eerie feeling to accompany his thoughts. Included are covers like “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and re-interpretations of other artists’ works as well as of his own previously recorded songs. A fabulous example is “Fifty Odd Hours,” which is a re-write of the great antique “Sixteen Tons,” a 50s classic by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Both “Death Song” —borrowed from the repertoire of Sinnis’ first band, the Apostates—- and the newly composed sequel, “Departed” are performed as duets featuring the exquisitely sweet voice of frequent collaborator Randi Russo who has the effect of emotionally charging Sinnis’s rich, deep vocals to previously unattained heights.

Sinnis never fails to bring up the traditional theme of the ill consequences as well as the consolations derived from booze, so the thirteenth track closes the album with “I’ll Have Another Drink of Whiskey,” a bar-room style sing-along.
Mark Sinnis has once again released an polished and highly listenable collection of new, old and re-interpreted folk rock featuring his polished dark baritone, fine arrangements, delicious melodies and thoughtful lyrics reflecting his profound love of American roots music.

The following is an album review that appears in the current issue of The Aquarian

Peter Murphy/ Ninth

On Nettwerk Records
By Doktor John

When the seminal Gothic rock band Bauhaus broke up in 1983, the founding members went off in different directions. Frontman Peter Murphy went solo and produced three albums, Deep, Holy Smoke and Cascade that, while more melodious, represented a continuation of the dark tradition on which the original band was founded. Numerous singles from those albums went on to become mainstays of gothic-industrial and underground clubs. But it has been sixteen years since Cascade, he has relocated to Turkey, and all he has produced musically have been the forgettable Unshattered; Dust, an incongruous probe into Near Eastern mysticism; some greatest hits collections; and a reunion album with Bauhaus. Now with Ninth, however, he has at last resurrected the richly vocal, emotionally moving style that renders his supporters delirious with enthusiasm.

The opening track, “I Spit Roses,” has the enigmatic poetry and complex, layered rhythms that characterized all of his best works. “Seesaw Sway” is one of the best cuts on the album and restores Murphy to the top tier of dark rock, utilizing his broad vocal range. All Murphy’s albums have at least one tender-hearted ballad, and on Ninth that would be “Crème de la Crème” which begins with velvety vocals and a simplified one-hand piano accompaniment but surges to a passionate, symphonic crescendo.

“Velocity Bird” is in true rock’n’roll style and Murphy’s lyrics pose a poetic riddle of the kind that only he concocts. “Uneven & Brittle” features power chord guitar riffs and menacing vocals, but contains a soft-spoken narrative in its middle. “Peace to Each” sounds like vintage Bauhaus with discordant singing over a driving rhythm.

One of the absolute gems of the album is “The Prince & Old Lady Shade” that will find its place among the best and most beloved songs he has ever sung for its mesmerizing beat, layered arrangement and virtuoso vocals.

“Memory Go” and “Never Fall Out” are fine, listenable and danceable without being standouts on their own merits. “Secret Silk Society” is the pitch-black, atonal and creepy finale in the early Bauhaus spirit that Peter Murphy carries on.

Ninth is vintage Peter Murphy and will more than satisfy his ardent fans who have been waiting for an album of this quality.

Rating: A
In a word: Consummate

Peter Gabriel / Susquehanna Bank Center / Jun. 25, 2011

by Doktor John

Camden, NJ

The renowned father of World Beat, singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel appeared at this 25,000-seat venue which serves the greater Philadelphia area on his New Blood Tour, accompanied by a 40 piece orchestra. Apparently Gabriel, who in decades past founded the prog-rock Genesis, has abandoned rock music, at least for the moment, employing arranger John Metcalf to transform his songs into the modern classical style resembling the orchestral works of Leonard Bernstein and others 20th Century composers. Always a social activist for progressive causes, Gabriel has intensified his discussion of political issues, using the stage as a pulpit from which to preach his vision of third-world justice and liberation philosophy.

Norwegian songstress, and vocally delicate, blond beauty Ane Brun opened with two of her own folk-rock songs, accompanying herself on a classical guitar.

A dazzling, brilliant, ever changing and spectacularly-lit electronic screen served as a curtain which slowly lifted away during Gabriel’s heavy, melancholy version of Bowie’s “Heroes,” with video images of third world strife shown on a pair of twenty-foot high screens that straddled the stage.

Aside from his morose rendition of Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is a Cage,” and “Diggin’ In the Dirt,” I wasn’t familiar with many other songs in the first half of the show. Perhaps I didn’t recognize them in the symphonic style in which they were played, featuring relentless, often-discordant, full string section accompaniment and with no semblance of a rock beat. Guitars were absent, and the only drums seemed to be the tympani. Between songs, Gabriel, who remained heavy-hearted for most of the show, praised the triumph of legalization of same sex marriage in New York.

A coincidental fireworks display over the Delaware drew the attention of many during the half-hour break. Gabriel lamented that he had hoped to sing his mantra-like encomium to South African martyr “Biko” accompanied by the sounds of the nearby explosions, but that didn’t work out. Most spectators returned to their seats during “San Jacinto” which was the first number after the intermission. The ultra-close-up face of a wild animal, perhaps a wolf, blended with his own countenance on the video display, and we knew that it had something to do with animal rights or ecology.

The first really upbeat song of the night was “Secret World,” and it came as a welcome relief from all the somber topics and sounds. Gabriel soon continued with his liturgy of liberal causes invoking the names of poets and psychoanalysts, often in the context of encounters with noble, indigenous cultures. He showed a touching, grainy black and white video of himself with his now-99 year-old dad during a heart-breaking rendition of “Father Son.”

Ever topical, he introduced a ponderous version of “Signal to Noise” with a jocular commentary about the pervasiveness of cell phones in this day and age. But then the gloomy “Mercy Street”, with its mysterious beach-sand and aquatic video continued to bring people down to a contemplative state. Joy returned to the audience during the inappropriately exuberant “Red Rain,” which was played while the video showed scary, primitively-drawn cartoons of red droplets coming from clouds, from eyes and from the sky. He ended the second set skipping his thick frame across the stage to the “boom boom boom” of “Solsbury Hill.”

An encore set included the relatively cheerful “In Your Eyes” followed by a doleful “Don’t Give Up,” which he explained was dedicated to the suffering of the “Great Depression,” which he added was to be blamed on “the magnificent work of the banks.” Ane Brun, who served as one of the backup vocalists during the whole concert, took on the role sung by Kate Bush in the original.

Drawing to a close, he struck an optimistic chord by bringing up what he perceives to be the realistic possibility of endless clean energy through fusion, something he was promised was due to go online with a year.
His final number, “The Nest that Sailed the Skies,” was purely instrumental, showing a video of a child curled in fetal position in a straw bird’s nest, spinning gently as an obvious metaphor for the Earth that Gabriel so badly wants us to revere as precious.

Saturday May 14 saw the Social Distortion tour land at NJ’s historic Stone Pony Summerstage in support of their latest album, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes. (Scroll down to see the review of the album or click on the link at right: “Recorded Music,” under “Reviews”) There were two opening bands, the first less noteworthy, and the second, a Celtic-style country band with a virtuoso fiddler, was more fun to listen to, although we never learned their name.
A slight drizzle passed through and night fell. Around 8:30 PM Social Distortion blew onto the stage with Mike Ness sporting a fedora complete with a feather in the hatband and wearing a long, black raincoat. The raincoat came off revealing retro-style suspenders over a white shirt and dark pants. They were immediately into a charged-up version of the instrumental “Road Zombie,” opening track off Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, then went straight into “So Far Away,” off the 1990 eponymous album, Social Distortion.


Ness’s recurring theme is self-recrimination, so well propounded in the next three pieces, “King of Fools,” “Bad Luck” and “Mommy’s Little Monster.”

He then announced and the band performed a 1982 obscurity, whose title we never caught before launching into the favorite radio hit “Machine Gun Blues” from the new album. This was followed by what may be the best known and loved of all their oeuvre, “Ball and Chain” which charged the crowd both musically and emotionally.

Mike Ness took time to warm to his audience with some affectionate patter, then launched into “Don’t Drag Me Down” from White Light White Heat and the slow-dance ballad “Bakersfield.” Something at that point made Ness observe how crazy-looking certain members of the crowd appeared to be as a segue into “Gimme the Sweet and Lowdown.”

Once again he picked up the negative self-image theme with “Down Here With the Rest of Us,” but sang a song of ambivalent redemption in “Reach for the Sky” off the 2004 Sex, Love and Rock’n’Roll.
Then it was back to songs of remorse with “Prison Bound.”

He stopped to talk and to cajole the audience with the back-handed compliment that their lives were every bit a messed up as his and that they were, as much as Ness himself, the subjects of his narratives, thus introducing the much beloved “Story of My Life.”With that, they thanked us and bid us good night signifying that the main performance.

Within a few minutes they stormed back out, Ness spoke a little about NJ and the East Coast sound, making reference to Bruce Springsteen, but there was no Springsteen cover. Instead, after summoning a pair of female back-up vocalists they proceeded into “California Hustle and Flow” and the execrable “Can’t Take It With You.” Neither Mike Ness solo nor Social D as a group are shy about paying tribute, which is exactly how they ended, namely with Merle Kilgore’s and June Carter’s anthemic “Ring of Fire,” made into an American musical classic by her husband, the great Johnny Cash. This left the crowd totally satisfied.

Toad the Wet Sprocket Interview

By Doktor John

Modern rock. Alternative rock. Indie Rock. No band epitomizes those terms or is a better representative of the breakaway style of music that spanned the two decades which straddle the year 2000.
Starting out in the 80s as a high school garage band in the Santa Barbara area, Toad the Wet Sprocket was aiming for nothing more than “open-mic” success. Yet in the early 90s, Toad climbed from the obscure college music scene into the mainstream.
Independent and aided by ASCAP (The American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers) they produced two albums, Bread and Circus and Pale. Eventually signing with Columbia, Toad reached an early pinnacle, scoring two platinum albums, Fear and Dulcinea and placed songs on such notable movie soundtracks as “So I Married an Axe-Murderer” and onto the TV soundtracks of “Friends” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
Splashy guitars, letter-perfect arrangements and Glen Phillips’ plaintive vocals impart a unique, melancholy sound that is somewhere between heavy and soft-rock, driving such unforgettable singles as “Walk on the Ocean” and “Fall Down.”
Oh, and the wildly incongruous name, Toad the Wet Sprocket, was chosen from an absurdist Monty Python skit.

I caught Glen Phillips on the phone this March and found him a thoughtful person, mild-mannered and intellectual, but with understandably unsettled feelings about the future prospects for musicians.

It’s my understanding that you established Toad in 1986

Right around that time, although Todd and I had been playing and writing songs, together maybe from 1985

When you were only—how old were you?

We were in high school. I was a freshman, they were seniors, in a regular public high school.

Now the other members of the group, Todd, Dean and Randy, how were the four of you acquainted?

They all knew each other growing up. Some of the guys, they went to the same church. Todd had the guitar.

You studied music in school?

Apart from being in choirs, no. I got fired by my guitar teacher because I wasn’t any good at following directions. It was just your average band formed by high-schoolers who got together to play, practicing in garages and we called it a band.

How did it transform into a serious music group?

This was one club around town, called “The Shack”, close to where we lived, which helped, because my dad would drive me there
The guy who ran it didn’t want to pay any performance rights to ASCAP, so you weren’t allowed to play covers there. At every other club you had to do covers, but we were at the one club where you had to do originals. So we started writing a lot early on and so developed those skills just out of necessity. In that sense we were very lucky.

Who actually writes Toad’s songs?

It depends. I write some of the songs. Todd and I write some together. He might come in with music and I might add a part. Since we broke up Todd and Dean have kind of become a writing team. Sometimes I just kind of finish things up after they’ve written a song.

While on the subject of creativity, what were your influences? Where does your unique sound come from?

I have no idea. In those days we were listening to everything, including, certainly, the Beatles. In high school I was really into Rush. Before that, in grade school I was into disco. When we started Toad I’d gotten into metal and into punk.

Can you name any other artists or groups that you were listening to when it dawned on you that you had the wherewithal to create your own stuff?

Todd really turned me on to post-punk bands like Husker Du and the Replacements, a little of Elvis Costello. Basically a lot of stuff with that punk energy but with a much more literate bent.

In those days there was a genre that preceded the term “alternative rock” and it was “College Radio.” How did you and the group relate to that genre, if you recognize it as such?

At that time, Nirvana, and with it the term “alternative,” had not yet broken onto the scene, but what had been college radio was starting to enter the mainstream. I could see that my private stash of music had suddenly become public.

You guys really hit it big in the 90s. Were you shooting for that level of success and recognition in the music world?

No. I kind of knew early on what I wanted and it was not to get into anything competitive, into self-promotion or selling myself in any sense. I had a drama teacher and I saw that he became a teacher because he loved teaching and the theater. He didn’t want to be a salesman for himself and summon all that ego and the drive of pursuing whatever it is that pushes people.

You used him as a role model?

Yeah, so I just was playing music for whatever, but I just wanted to go to school, go to college and then become a teacher.

In what? Music?

Yeah, that or even social sciences. I thought I might go into cultural anthropology. That side of things really moved me.
And so, we had the band, and the first two records were made completely independently, and we put them out in town, and we had a lot of fun playing and we assumed that like a summer it would end I was moving up to San Francisco to go to college and the band was going to break up.
But what happened was there was this friend of a friend, Nick, from ASCAP who liked our tapes. I didn’t even know him at the time. He was dubbing copies of our tapes in his office and sending them off to record companies. And then I got signed when I was 18.

He apparently had good musical taste. He knew that it was good stuff!

Yeah and that’s the great thing about ASCAP. It’s a great organization and they really help. We would never have had the drive or ambition on our own without them.
Just as an aside, when we broke up, I had to suddenly manifest that drive, and I’ve been really bad at it!

So who in the band is then responsible for pushing the success of Toad?

We all have an artistic drive, or ambition for our music, and we’ve been lucky that it has gotten us as far as it has, because none of us is very good at the business part of it.

That attitude of “take us as we are” is evident in the music.

Sometimes our sound is embarrassingly earnest. (laughs)
In a way that’s why we have our audience, because when we came out people were competing so hard to be “heavy.” When we first started to get play on the radio it would be next to Hole or Green Day or Henry Rollins. It’s like we were making music for nerds when it wasn’t fashionable to be a nerd.

Toad has a couple of platinum albums and is featured on movie and TV soundtracks but somehow remains just below the mainstream radar. What’s that like?

I suppose it’s nice that way. On the other hand, everybody would like to be a little more successful. But when we were more recognizable, it used to make me nervous. But a little notoriety goes with success. When I went independent and solo—and so I was less well known— I felt like I had to always audition for my job.

What form of success would you really like?

Stability. Like having the same management for more than just one album. I’m not counting on labels anymore, because that’s to a large degree gone. And I no, I won’t waste my time being bitter. I guess I just want to be able to make a living making music I’m proud of. I’m not young and I’m not without responsibilities anymore.

Doesn’t everybody want to be a rock star?

I think wanting to be a rock a star is one of the lamest, lowest desires in the world. I really don’t get kids wanting to be famous for fame itself. There are people— nobodies, really, like the Kardashians—who are famous just for being famous.

You mentioned responsibilities. You have kids?

Yes, three.

And based on your knowledge of the field, would you advise them— if they have the aptitude—to go into music?

I would advise them to follow their passion. But, no, I wouldn’t advise them to go into music as a career. They work at gymnastics, my kids—on the trapeze and such—and they learn from it that you need to work harder at whatever you want to excel at.

What’s your take on the future of the recording industry?

Humans been making music longer than we’ve been talking, and record companies are based on very recent technology when you look at it in terms of human history. I just feel that the recording industry is just a weird technological blip. People made music and people listened to music long before there was a music industry. At this point musicians can’t be monetized in the same way that they have been.

It’s a different world.

People will still make music. People will still want to hear music. We need to figure out new ways of how we distribute it and how make a living out of it.

So what’s the solution as you see it?

People are going to have to go back to seeing themselves as patrons of the arts. It’s not about album sales anymore. You can’t make a living selling records.
Maybe fans with a sense of stewardship will form collectives. There’s this concept of a “home concert community.”
Some are coming to realize that people nowadays are basically stealing music. Musicians have still got to eat. Maybe artists are going to have to live on the proceeds of live performances. We’ve done our share, sometimes performing at a hundred live shows in a year. Keep in mind that this isn’t Canada or Scandinavia where the government issues grants to performing artists.

Finally, let’s talk about more mundane and imminent issues. When will Toad the Wet Sprocket go on tour?

We’re just about to start a nationwide tour. We’ll be in New York at Irving Plaza on April 7.

What’s going to be on the playlist?

There will be a lot of the familiar stuff that is known and that people want to hear, but since last year we started writing again as a band. There’ll be a couple of new songs, and a couple of songs off of the solo records.

Is the new material intended to go into a new album? Is an album in the works?

We’re really early in the writing process and won’t likely even start recording for a new album until next year.

Who do you like that’s out there now?

There’re still great artists out there in the mainstream. I think of Mumford & Son, Death Cab for Cutie, Arcade Fire and MGMT.

And the future for Toad the Wet Sprocket?

Creatively, at this time, we’re at a high point.

It’s been great catching your insights on these things.

Thanks.