The Beatles vs. Jesus

It’s pretty hard to evade controversy when you’re in the most popular rock and roll band in the history of the world. Especially when you’re its most outspoken member. That band is of course, The Beatles, and the aforementioned extrovert is none other than John Lennon. Pegged “the smart one”, Lennon and band members Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr would go onto achieve massive success throughout their eight-year partnership and emerged as musical innovators and arguably, the greatest influence on popular culture of the 1960s. In 1963, The Beatles achieved unprecedented popularity in their homeland, the UK, with a string of chart toppers that included Please, Please Me, Twist and Shout and She Loves You. It wasn’t until the release of I Want to Hold Your Hand that they finally broke through to American audiences and by February 1964, following their landmark performance on the Ed Sullivan Show, “Beatlemania” had officially taken over the world. Upon arrival on US soil, those lovable lads from Liverpool instantly charmed American audiences with their witty sense of humor, their unusual accents and perhaps inadvertently delivered a much needed diversion to a nation still reeling from the recent, horrific, assassination of its beloved President. But, it wasn’t before long that The Beatles grew weary of the harsh glare of the limelight. Their exhausting tour schedules often kept them confined to hotel rooms to avoid the screaming hordes, the unbearable assault on their privacy and to an extent, their sanity. Yet nothing seemed to compromise the band’s superb songwriting, which, in the span of less than two years, exhibited a growing departure, both lyrically and stylistically, from the cute, love songs that launched their careers. By 1965, the band but most notably, John, explored themes of introspection and alienation in songs like Help! , Nowhere Man, and In My Life, that resonated with youth living in a turbulent era marked by civil disobedience, a raging war in Southeast Asia and a burgeoning counterculture that declined to uphold the social mores and values of the “Establishment.” During their first US tour, the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, prohibited the band from expressing their opinions of the Vietnam War, so as to not upset tour promoters and potentially lose their financial backing. Epstein finally relented, at Lennon’s urging, which John explained during a 1966 press conference “it seems a bit silly to be in America and for none of them to mention Vietnam as if nothing was happening…you can’t keep quiet about anything that’s going on in the world.” The band even had a provision in their contract, which stated that The Beatles would not perform for segregated audiences, resulting in either cancelled shows in some southern American cities or a temporary suspension of Jim Crow laws for the duration of the gig.

In March 1966, The Daily Standard featured an interview by journalist Maureen Cleave entitled ‘How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This.’ The article gave an intimate portrait of Lennon’s quiet suburban home life in Weybridge-Esher, a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of swinging London. During the interview, Cleave asked John about his views on religion to which Lennon answered: “Christianity will go,' he said. 'It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now...I don’t know which will go first – rock’n’roll or Christianity.' The comment was barely noticed in England but a few months later, the article appeared in the August issue of Datebook, an American Teen magazine, and the quote regarding Christianity made the front cover. The inevitable uproar caught on like wildfire, particularly in the Jim Crow Bible belt, leading to cancelled tour dates as well as death threats against the band. Radio stations organized ‘Beatles boycotts’ and ‘Beatles bonfires’, urging teens to renounce those blasphemous heathens and burn whatever Beatles records and memorabilia they owned. Even the cross-burning Klan got involved, a likely ally in this holy war, as the terror organization perhaps felt inherently obligated to partake in any event involving fire, all in the name of the Great White Jesus that cured lepers, walked on water, fed the hungry and preached the eradication of Blacks. But threatening the wildly popular, Anti-Christ Beatles was certainly a worthy endeavor. In response to the furor, Brian Epstein immediately organized a press conference for the band, where John issued an apology and explained the context under which his comments were made: “Originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this". That explanation clearly wasn’t enough as the ‘Great Beatles-ban’ raged on with full-force. The Memphis chapter of the KKK vowed to disrupt their August 19th performance at the Mid-South Coliseum, which called for heightened security at the venue as well as a carefully planned exit strategy for the band after the show. Luckily, they safely left Memphis but the event solidified the Beatles’ disinterest in touring and their final performance at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on August 29th marked the end of the Beatles as a touring band. Years later, John Lennon reflected on the incident, humorously expressing his gratitude to Jesus for putting an end to touring: “I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn't said that The Beatles were 'bigger than Jesus' and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus."

Way Out Sounds: Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. and the Synths that Defined the Seventies

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter Roger Joseph Manning Jr., is renowned for the melody-rich, intricately arranged compositions that his fans have latched onto throughout his nearly 25-year musical career. In each of his diverse band projects (Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, The Moog Cookbook, Malibu, and TV Eyes), his ongoing collaborations with Beck as well as his stellar solo efforts, (2006’s The Land of Pure Imagination and 2008’s Catnip Dynamite) what remains constant is Manning’s unshakeable ability to create very complex yet highly enjoyable music that is punctuated by his keyboard wizardry. His indelible mark in the world of keyboards is embodied by his innovative use of vintage, analog synthesizers and his vast collection of those instruments over the years has cultivated a greater proficiency, intimacy and almost encyclopedic knowledge of his primary instrument of choice. “ I did a lot of treasure hunting”, explains Manning. “I spent a lot of time in the early nineties looking for stuff. I was quite the addict for those antique keyboards.” Roger has made guest appearances on countless records, offering his songwriting, production, and keyboard playing skills to artists of various musical genres and is always on the lookout for new and emerging talents with whom he can collaborate. He has most recently appeared on Glen Campbell’s Ghost on the Canvas where he composed the incidental music between the album’s songs. He is currently working with Harper James Simon (Son of Paul Simon) and Roger likens Simon’s upcoming debut album to “the best of Elvis Costello and The Smiths”.

Here, Roger discusses his favorite synthesizers of the 1970s, an era in music that Manning often heralds as a source of inspiration for his career. He also identifies the albums that best showcase the sonic prowess of each of those synthesizers, citing prominent musicians that have pushed the boundaries of modular sound.

The Clavinet:
Although it’s not a synthesizer per se, it is an instrument that was designed to imitate a harpsichord. It’s an electronic instrument that became this whole other entity and was used a lot in the 70s. Not only in a lot of the classic, funk recordings made famous by Stevie Wonder but I particularly enjoy when the clavinet was used in a more rock and roll context. One of my favorite records -- actually it’s one of my favorite keyboard records -- is the Rolling Stones’ Goat’s Head Soup (1973). Billy Preston is the main keyboard player on that record and he primarily plays the clavinet and the RMI Roxichord electric piano (also used extensively by Ron Mael of Sparks, namely in the single This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, from 1974’s Kimono My House.) But he uses them in such a way that he actually becomes almost the third guitar player. That album was very influential and inspiring to me.

The Mighty Moogs: Moog Modular, Minimoog and Polymoog
There have been very few models that the Moog Company has made that weren’t useful in some way or another but I definitely had favorites over the years. I’m definitely a fan of the Moog filter sound, which has a very distinct sound. The best sounding versions they’ve ever made, in my opinion, are the vintage modular systems (1965-1972). Unfortunately, they were so expensive, that very few people could ever own them. I’ve never owned any myself but I’ve had the privilege to be able to play and record using them. But they are just notably the most brilliant sounding and just the most…extreme. Some of the recordings that showcase the sonic abilities of the Moog synthesizers are Wendy Carlos’ A Clockwork Orange Soundtrack as well as the recordings that Dick Hyman did where he took a lot of popular songs and turned them into funky, rock and roll synthesizer arrangements. And there are lots and lots of incredible soundtrack and musique concrète stuff, where the Moog Modular has been used.

But for a lot of my friends and I, the Minimoog (1970) was certainly a workhorse, one that was used quite frequently because it was very simple and straightforward but you could get a lot of mileage out of it. I’m a big fan of a lot of the recordings that Rick Wakeman did with the band Yes in the early 70s, particularly on the albums Fragile (1971) and Closer to the Edge (1972). And on the other side of that, you had a guy like Jan Hammer who made tremendous contributions to the fusion rock/jazz world as a keyboardist with Mahavishnu Orchestra and certainly on his own. His whole objective was to get the Minimoog to compete sonically and have a presence equal to that of the electric guitar, which I really think he achieved not only sonically but with his note choices. So, those were very influential artists and the Minimoog was definitely a part of my palette when I could finally get my hands on one, which wasn’t until long after college when they became not very sought after, second hand instruments I was able to finally afford some.

The Polymoog (1976) is fantastic! Gary Numan relied heavily on the Polymoog for his solo albums and his work with Tubeway Army to create the sounds that made his music so distinctive. The Pleasure Principle, (1979) which includes the hit song Cars, is like a demonstration record for the Polymoog and he uses it on almost every song on the album. He really pushed that synth to the limit. He used sounds that were very out of tune, very wobbly, to create that space-age, futuristic atmosphere for his music which I find very inviting. It’s a very seductive sound and I am very much a fan of it!

Oberheim Four-Voice
My favorite synthesizer is the Oberheim four-voice, which came out in 1975. It’s really just a personal preference. It couldn’t necessarily do any more or less than its competitors of the day but I’ve always found its basic tone to be the heaviest…the richest among the synthesizers. You’ll hear a lot of people throw the word ‘analog’ around because they prefer the way the sonics hit their ears and their body, how they are affected internally by an analog synth’s sound waves versus how digital sounds affect the human body. Of all the analog synths, for some reason, I prefer the Oberheim’s tone and sound generating qualities above all the others… to this day. They’re just fantastic! You can hear the Oberheim on Pat Metheny’s records with Lyle Mays, most notably on The Pat Metheny Group’s self-titled debut album. I know Supertramp used the Oberheim four-voice on the album Breakfast in America, Patrick Moraz of the band Yes also used the Oberheim as did [jazz artist] Chick Corea. In the Doobie Brothers’ What a Fool Believes, the Oberheim four-voice is the primary synthesizer in that song.

The ARP 2600
ARP was another unique version of what was going on at the time. They were one of the first companies to have a miniaturized modular system. The benefits of the modular system are you have more options to create sound. It can be a little more confusing, you have to be more studied in sound construction and just basic synthesis but once you have the basics, you could do some extraordinary things! The ARP 2600 was the model that a lot of people used in progressive rock, in jazz and even in film scores because it could generate sound effects very easily. It was very fun to create non-musical sounds on them. But, you know Joe Zawinul of the group Weather Report, he used two of them at the same time and made beautiful lyrical, musical sounds with the ARP 2600. Stevie Wonder used the ARP 2600 a lot especially on the album Music of My Mind (1972). However, one of the most popular rock/pop pieces to use the ARP so extensively is the intro to Elton John’s Love Lies Bleeding performed by David Henschel; it’s all ARP 2600.

What elements would you take from each of those synthesizers to create the quintessential, Roger Manning Jr. synth?
That’s a good question! I would take the general oscillators, the tone generators from the Oberheims and I’d put them through the Moog filters and then I would make them all very easily patchable with cables and simplified in the way the ARP did with their 2600 modular. And then ofcourse I’d have MIDI on it so I could program and store sounds. I’d definitely go with that formula!

Goode Intentions: Brendan Benson takes on a pair of very creepy but very talented protégés

Power-pop rocker Brendan Benson is a very busy man. When he’s not touring the world, or in the studio recording another infectious solo album or working with the Grammy-nominated blues-rock quartet, the Raconteurs, that he co-founded, Brendan is graciously lending his prolific songwriting talents to artists far and wide. Following the release of his fourth solo LP, My Old Familiar Friend, in August of 2009, he embarked on a six-month tour of Europe and the United States. Between the US tour dates, he co-wrote and recorded songs with country singer Ashley Monroe, got married, welcomed the birth of his son in April, performed at a tribute concert in Memphis honoring the late Alex Chilton, followed by a performance in Central Park, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Summerstage, where Benson was among several artists invited to perform selections from Simon and Garfunkel’s songbook. He recently co-wrote, produced and appeared on the hilarious Baby, I’m with the Band, a track from Margaret Cho’s latest rock comedy album, Cho Dependent.

He went back on the road this past September, for a month-long tour of Ireland with his new family and new touring band. While in Ireland, Brendan came into contact with two very dedicated yet mentally disturbed fans (who, coincidentally, are also a singing duo) named Midas Well and Upton O. Goode. According to sources that wish to remain unnamed, the duo first met at a cold yoga retreat in Antarctica. Goode, who hails from Ireland, departed his homeland after receiving the devastating news of a nationwide Guinness drought. Distraught and disoriented from the imminent reality of a life without his beloved brew, Upton navigated seas and trekked through continents for a years long journey that led him to the South Pole. His arrival, or rather, face forward collapse, was welcomed by a group of cold yoga enthusiasts who carried his severely frostbitten and unconscious body to the retreat where they were practicing this very challenging and very deadly form of Yoga. Midas Well, a native of Manitoba, Canada and soon-to-be immigrant of Ireland, was also at the retreat. He managed to revive Upton, whose advancing hypothermia had rendered him delirious, screaming for “a pint of plain”, followed by prayers to St. Patrick to end the Irish Guinness drought. Realizing Upton’s confusion, Midas explained the difference between “drought” and “draught” and assured him that his country was in no way experiencing a shortage of the ale. Instantly revitalized and determined to return home, Upton requested the company of Midas for his journey back to Ireland and casually mentioned something about the two of them becoming world famous pub singers. Both men fled the retreat, realizing that, in their mind, there was no higher state of consciousness than the inebriating effects of a Guinness stout. The two have been inseparable ever since.

Their desperate attempts at contacting Brendan Benson (twenty-six emails, eleven text messages, three life-threatening voicemails and two suicide notes, over a 24-hour period) to produce, or better yet, ghost-write a two-song EP, would have at the very least resulted in a restraining order, if not land them in jail. Instead, they lucked out because Brendan didn’t press any charges. He miraculously agreed to not only work with them but sign them onto his new record label, Readymade, provided there was a substantial geographical distance between Mr. Benson and Well and Goode. Multi-instrumentalist and touring bandmate, Mark Watrous (The Raconteurs, Loudermilk, Gosling) was also invited by Brendan to co-produce the EP. Watrous reluctantly agreed to share production duties on the condition that he could carry a concealed weapon at all times, in the event that Well and Goode don’t hold up their end of the bargain and suddenly show up in the studio unannounced.

If the story of Well and Goode sounds preposterous, it is. Midas Well and Upton O. Goode are none other than Brendan Benson and Mark Watrous. Despite the tall tale, Well and Goode’s debut EP makes for great listening. The featured songs, Spray Tan and Two Birds showcase brash, gyration-inducing rhythms and clever lyrics. The opening track, Spray Tan, is a decadent, groove-filled concoction with somber lyrics pertaining to the fleeting happiness of material wealth and the privileges it once provided the song’s protagonist. Two Birds is an earthy, guitar-driven ballad, which humorously delivers the universal message of ‘do unto others as you would have done to you.’ These are well crafted pop gems; no frills or grand overtures to wait for – Well and Goode cut to the chase and sustain the listener from beginning to end with highly entertaining pop.

Available now on iTunes and at brendanbenson.com

Brendan Benson - My Old Familiar Friend

Brendan Benson On Tour
Ayan Farah

Brendan Benson has been churning out introspective and timelessly melodic songs that fans, critics and musicians alike have latched onto since the release of his debut album, One Mississippi, in 1996. Subsequent records Lapalco and Alternative to Love charted his growth as an artist and broadened his appeal to a wider audience. As a member of the Raconteurs, he and fellow bandmates Jack White, Patrick Keeler and Jack Lawrence sculpted a sound that embraced the full glory of rock’s golden age while imbuing a distinct and modern interpretation. The endless comparisons to rock’s pantheon of legendary artists seem unnecessary – just listen to a couple of Brendan’s songs and you’ll understand that he is an artist in his own right with a compelling musical message to convey. Returning to solo work as the Raconteurs take a break, Benson is back with a new album entitled My Old Familiar Friend (ATO) that showcases his unshakeable instinct for crafting powerpop gems. Glide Magazine briefly caught up with Brendan, who’s currently on tour, to discuss his latest release.

I’ve read great stuff about the tour -- do you plan on including any more dates?

For sure! We’re really just kind of taking baby steps right now. We’re a new band and we’re still working out the bugs.

You can hear so many different pop references in the new album– there are elements of Nick Drake and Elton John in the song ‘You Make a Fool Out of Me’, McCartney in ‘Gonowhere’, a little Todd Rundgren in ‘Eyes on the Horizon’ and The Smiths & Elvis Costello in ‘Poised and Ready’. The album’s called ‘My old Familiar Friend’ – is powerpop or pop music in general, the “old familiar friend” you’re referring to?

Well, I hate to disappoint but there’s no direct reference in particular; it’s a line from one of the songs on the album -- the song Eyes on the Horizon. I was having a tough time coming up with an album title, so one day, I sat down and listened to the record in its entirety and sure enough once I heard that line, I thought it’d be a great name for the record. I know that’s not a very exciting answer, but that’s really how the album title came about. You know, I also like the open-endedness of the title and for it to remain ambiguous and open to interpretation.

Musicians always talk about there being more autonomy with releasing a solo record – what were you able to explore with this record than say, with a Raconteurs record?

I don’t know – I mean the music is really different – but the songwriting process is still kind of similar. I don’t think there was anything I couldn’t do on a Raconteurs record that I could on a solo album and vice versa. But I think that being in a band like the Raconteurs, maybe I was able to get more direct and sort of instantaneous feedback on a musical direction I may have been heading versus working on my own. You know, collaborating with the other people in the Raconteurs provided me ideas that I might not have had or would have even thought of.

What were you looking for in a producer for your current album and what was it like working with Gil Norton?

I wanted someone who was gonna kick my ass [laughs]. I didn’t want to make another record by myself and be marooned in my home studio -- I really enjoy playing with other people and being in the Raconteurs totally reaffirmed that desire to collaborate with other musicians. So I said to myself ‘okay --- I’m gonna work with a producer and play with a new band and make a proper record’. And he was great! I mean I got what I wanted. He’s got lots of ideas and he’s very opinionated and kind of demanding – he cracks the whip a little bit. But I enjoyed working with him and again, I got what I wanted. Whether or not it was the perfect recipe sort of remains to be seen….

What are your plans following the tour?

Well, I made a record with Ashley Monroe who’s a singer/songwriter from Nashville. We’ve recorded a record and it’s about to be mixed so…I want to put that out and go on tour with her. I’m really proud of the record we made.

Great Album, Bad Art: The Cars, Candy-O

Great Album – Bad Album Art: The Cars’ Candy-O

I’m always embarrassed to admit that I’m a huge fan of the Cars’ 1979 album, Candy-O. Don’t get me wrong; the songs on that record were nothing short of pop perfection. Band members Rick Ocasek, the late Benjamin Orr, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes and David Robinson cultivated a distinct sound combining elements of rockabilly, new wave and hard rock that set them apart from the countless other emerging bands vying for the spotlight. Following their wildly popular, self-titled debut album released the previous year, Candy-O smashed any speculation that this band was merely a flash-in the pan, 15-minute sensation. I distinctly remember the day one of my brothers brought home a copy; from that moment on, the entire album would be played at full-blast practically every hour of every day for the duration of my childhood. As a result, I learned every song by heart and was known to break into spirited renditions of "Dangerous Type" and "Let’s Go" in mid-conversation. That’s how infectious the songs were. I once even managed to sneak the record in to school one day (unbeknownst to my brother, ofcourse) in hopes of introducing my fellow second-graders to songs way cooler than Miss Mary Mack. Even though I had no idea what The Cars were singing about at the time, (She’s winding them down on her clock machine; and she won’t give up ‘cause she’s seventeen) I sang along anyway and couldn’t wait to share those songs with my classmates during lunch when our teacher would allow us to play records from home.

Thirty years later, I know for sure that I wouldn’t be caught dead walking out of a record store with Candy-O in hand. Did I mention that I got into heaps of trouble for bringing ‘that record with the naughty album’ cover to class? Oh yes. For a so-called progressive elementary school where teachers were addressed by their first-names, even they had to draw the line somewhere and the depiction of a see-through-leotard-wearing female swooning atop the hood of a car was simply unacceptable, particularly for us seven year-olds growing up in a post-ERA era. Never mind that the band was called ‘The Cars’ -- perhaps to secure an image of unquestionable masculinity while many of the new wave artists du jour opted for an androgynous appeal -- they definitely took it one step further by completing their ‘chicks and cars as the ultimate objects of desire’ theme with such cringe-worthy album art. According to lore, Drummer David Robinson commissioned famed pin-up artist Alberto Vargas, (not to be confused with Antonio Fargas of ‘Huggybear’ fame) to create the now legendary cover art which would adorn the band’s upcoming album. A Beverly Hills Ferrari dealership was the locale of choice for the imminent photo shoot, while the crew at Elektra Records’ art department scoured the streets for ‘a hot blonde with a killer bod’. The selected photo was shot in what I imagine called for several takes (you know, they had to all agree on the RIGHT picture). Vargas completed his painting and sadly, the rest is rock-n-roll history.

Catching up with Roger Joseph Manning, Jr.

Multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer and arranger Roger Joseph Manning Jr. will have to add ‘Guru’ to his list of titles. While discussing the release of his latest album, Catnip Dynamite (Oglio), Manning waxes philosophical on the virtues of self-reliance and individuality, themes that have more or less defined his career and have equipped him with a razor-sharp focus in articulating his profound musical message time and again. He is unyieldingly dedicated to his craft, irrespective of the trends in the music industry, and remains committed to charting his own course – exploring different genres and sub-genres within the realm of pop music, as embodied in such diverse band projects as Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, The Moog Cookbook, TV Eyes and Malibu. There is a distinctly innovative quality to the multi-layered and melody-rich music for which he is renowned. With Catnip Dynamite, Manning pulls all the stops, showcasing his prolific musical talents to create a thoroughly dynamic collection of songs. The album’s current single, Down In Front, is an infectious fusion of British glam rock and power pop -- Alvin Stardust-meets-Cheap Trick -- but the sound is quintessentially Manning. Glide magazine recently spoke with the artist to talk about his new record.

I’ve got to ask you about the album title. I know that you and your girlfriend have adopted/rescued several cats. What’s behind this unusual name?

She has all these random toys for the cats and most of them have been destroyed and thrown in the trash, but one that she had bought in the last year was this fuzzy cylindrical stick – it’s basically a fake stick of dynamite, like something you might see from a Road Runner cartoon. But it’s all fuzzy and cuddly and apparently, it’s loaded with catnip. I always thought that combination of words ‘Catnip Dynamite’ was so funny. I didn’t want to name the album after one of the songs. I didn’t think any of the songs had a good punch or were sort of like an attention grabber. And a lot of the aesthetics on the record is kind of 70’s, kind of heralding British glitter rock and I thought ‘Catnip Dynamite’, just the words, fell into that vibe, that genre, really well. It just worked.

You’ve mentioned in your website that many of the songs on Catnip Dynamite date back to over twenty years ago. What was the impetus for you to “resurrect” these songs in particular?

Frankly, they wouldn’t leave me alone and what I decided was that, certain ones, usually the ones that were the catchiest, you know, I felt were my best achievement. They would pop up in my head in the middle of the night, or they’d pop up in my mind when I was driving the car or sitting in traffic. About six years ago, I found myself with some time in between projects where I wanted to practice working on the computer and doing home recording and these were the perfect vehicles to experiment on and the more I got into it, the more the song begged to be finished. And the more I finished each song, more songs wanted to be completed. I started remembering all of these old ideas. Basically, the idea of assembling enough of these songs to give out to friends and family seemed wonderful. By the time I had eight tracks, I thought ‘I should just try to do a record! It’s almost done here. I’ve got 80 percent of it.’ So, I just kept going on between the tracks. That’s why for the first album [The Land of Pure Imagination], I worked on it on and off for four years and, you know, from that time all the way back to my college days when I first started trying to write songs seriously, which had been about fifteen years at that point, there was a ton of material. And for all of the projects I was in, like Imperial Drag and all of those other bands, you know, there were a bunch of song ideas sitting around that I loved that I never brought to the table for a variety of reasons, or when I did, my partners didn’t feel, for one reason or another, like pursuing them with me. So we’d move on to the next idea that we both agreed on. [These ideas] just accumulated over time.


The album is very polished and the songs flow seamlessly. There is an equal balance between lyrics and music; one isn’t compromised for the sake of the other. Do you have a songwriting process that you employ?

Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up. Let me start by saying, that I have been very lucky to work with incredible lyricists over the years and I let them take care of that because not only were they going to be singing the song for the most part, but because I hate the process of writing lyrics…it is so challenging, it is so time-consuming and it is just so difficult for me.

Now, that is hard to believe!

Well, here’s what’s even funnier -- I don’t particularly care for my lyrics. Now, let me qualify that. When I finish a lyric and when I see it going somewhere and heading in a direction that I believe in, I am very happy about it. I’m like, ‘Oh this is great! I really believe in this. I really stand by it.’ But even when it’s finished and I look at it and I’m proud of it, I kind of go ‘big deal – I like what I did with the music more’. The music always fulfills me. If there were somebody else I could call to write the lyrics and I knew they’d be good, I would totally have that person do it because it’s so arduous a process for me. I was telling someone the other day that I’ve written and very often will write a solid song idea – verse, bridge, chorus – no lyric, of course –in anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. That’s really all it takes. And some of my best ideas I’ve written that fast. The lyric can take me as much as a week! Of eight hours a day, sitting down in front of blank sheets of paper with a pencil – and this isn’t necessarily odd…there are many lyricists who take this much time…and some lyricists only take five minutes. The lyrics for songs like the Quickening [off of the new album Catnip Dynamite], that took four or five days of working all day long, going “This is just hell! This is never going to come together!’ Just getting stuck and then not knowing what to do for four hours – and I had to do that for the twelve songs on the album [laughs]. So, that’s my deal with lyrics. Very often when I write a song, I will sing gibberish and the melody will sit on that gibberish. So, I believe in the melody…a lot! I won’t stop until I believe in the melody and the chords. And then, I’ll put something down on a cassette deck and I may not come back to it for a while. You know, the song the Quickening was almost totally written in 1995…that’s how old that song is. The song Too Late for Us Now [from the album The Land of Pure Imagination] I wrote that entire song as well as Haunted Henry [from Catnip Dynamite] my junior year of college in 1986! That’s how old those [songs] are. All the music that you hear, aside from the physical recording of it, all the chords and melody, I pretty much didn’t change them, they’re as they were from when I was a college student in 1986. The lyric, I didn’t write until 2007! That’s 21 years! [laughs] But the idea stayed fresh in my mind and it stayed vital. And as I was working on it, I would literally flash on college experiences and I would totally be back in my dorm room with my friends, remembering when I came up with those chords and melody, hoping someday that I would still be as excited about the songs and people would get to hear them.


Needless to say, the lyrics are just as intricate as the music to which they’re sung. It is interesting to note, however, that your current album is darker (although it certainly has it’s lighter moments) in subject matter. You deal with topics ranging from the apocalypse (albeit cheerfully) in the song Living in End Times to the horrors of war, hauntingly depicted in Survival Machine. Could you talk a bit more about the latter?

I prefer a writing style, lyrically, that’s fairly open-ended that the listener can read into it what they want. Obviously there’s a loose theme, story or message being put forth but lots of the words, lots of the phrases can have two or three meanings. Where I was coming from with the song ‘Survival Machine’ was from the perspective of a lot of the people who were involved in designing the weaponry, specifically the first nuclear and atomic bomb. And then, all the different outside pressures and coercion as well as their own personal beliefs that got them to harness their brilliant minds for basically creating killing machines. The whole end of the song is about one of those scientists trying to reconcile in his dreams what he felt almost forced to do in his real life and work through the horror of it all, knowing that he had a hand in the deaths of so many people. I can only imagine what that must have felt like for those men and women. Whether you’re behind a desk pushing papers, or you’re out on the battlefield shooting at somebody, you have a hand in killing your fellow man. And never having been put in that situation myself, thankfully, I was trying to fathom what a psyche must go through for that. But, [the song] generally deals with the whole war machine, not just specifically WWII, but the different power circles that manipulate and propagandize and get essentially loving, spiritual people, which is what we are at our core, to deny our humanism and to get so in the head and removed from the heart that we can basically be manipulated to do any kind of horrific deed. As long as detachment is achieved, we can surprise the hell out of even ourselves.


The album’s opening track, The Quickening, is also lyrically impressive – could you tell us the inspiration behind that song?

With the song ‘The Quickening’, I actually borrowed the term from a writer who coined it. Basically, whether you’re referring to how time appears to speed up as we get into our adult years, or, more globally, there are those that argue that as a whole world populace, we are watching time speed up cosmically -- within the cosmos, our solar systems etc. – that’s a twenty book discussion in and of itself. But, I was so fascinated by the term and my girlfriend Charlotte and I constantly joke, especially after being together for 17 years, that time is totally speeding up. The last ten years of our relationship has gone four or five times as fast as the first seven years – we don’t know why, we don’t have the time to analyze the reasons and pontificate such trivialities but when I heard the term ‘the quickening’ I said ‘that’s what we’re always talking about’ so I decided to use that as the thematic point of that lyric.

Do you see Catnip Dynamite as a continuation of your solo debut, the Land of Pure Imagination? You’ve explained that the songs comprising both your previous record and Catnip Dynamite are basically culled from the same vault, so to speak, but there appears to be a theme that threads the two albums – was this intentional?

I could see how somebody could come to that conclusion. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened that way and ended up being an interesting coincidence. Since writing the lyrics of the first record and the current one, I’ve been exploring other avenues of thought, initially as a hobby and then I began to make some really deep, intense, spiritual searching and investigation. This is the beginning of the second half of my life so to speak, if I’m meant to exist in this body for another 40 years as I have up to this point. So, in a way, there are the beginnings -- the rumblings and the narratives of thoughts going through somebody having a typical mid-life crisis. And I wouldn’t even call it a crisis; it’s just a changing-over, a re-evaluation, and a reassessment. But, yes, the two albums are essentially parts 1 and 2. Any of those songs could have been mixed or matched, they just happened to be the ones that I grabbed in no particular order that I decided to record next. As far as the timeline, again, some of the songs would have been three or four years old and others are 13 or 14 years old [laughs], and on and on. So, there’s no deliberate [organization] to the songs. You’re basically getting my straightforward pop sound and obviously, I like to genre-hop for different styles, different feels and grooves. If I actually make it to a record three or four with the pop songs, they probably won’t be too far removed from the Land of Pure Imagination and Catnip.

So, we shouldn’t expect a hip-hop album from you…

[Laughs] No. Although, I’d love to have the time to do one.

Well, that’s not exactly unfamiliar territory for you. You’ve released an electronica album in 2008 entitled Robo-Sapiens using your Beck-given nickname, Malibu. You’ve worked with not only hip-hop influenced artists such as Beck for a number of years as part of his band, but with Jay-Z and Talib Kweli, to name a few. You’ve done a lot of remixes for several artists. Do you see yourself revisiting either of those genres [electronica, hip-hop] in the future?

Again, if I had the time, you’d see me do it a lot more. I enjoy exploring those genres of electronic and groove-oriented stuff… everything from adventurous hip-hop and acid jazz all the way to full-on techno. But there’s just not enough time. So, if I have limited time I’m going to stay in the pop realm. That’s what just flies out of me the easiest. It’s the most related to my essence, I guess.

Many people recognize you for your keyboard wizardry. You’ve got a prolific collection of vintage and modern synthesizers in your home studio. What do you look for in a synthesizer? What is your signature synth?

It’d be hard to narrow it down to just one keyboard. Let’s see…. Well, I can say one of my favorite keyboards that I’ve used for a very long time because it’s so expressive –it’s called a clavinet. It’s basically an electric harpsichord. The person who designed it wanted to make an electric harpsichord but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really sound like a harpsichord. It sounds more like a guitar that is not picked but hammered. For instance, when guitar players take their fingers and press onto the fret board as opposed to picking the strings. It sounds like that. Like a giant fret board that you’re hammering and the hammers are the keys and you can get very, very percussive with that instrument; it was very natural for the funk and dance community to enjoy this percussiveness. People like Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder are among the foremost clavinet players. But I like using the clavinet not only that way – it’s very natural for me, I love playing very percussive and rhythmic pieces on that instrument – but I also use it as a fake guitar. You can play it lightly and get “arpeggiated” guitar textures or you can put it through amplifiers and make it all distorted to get a very dense, very heavy sound. You can make it very light and put lots of lush effects on it to make it dreamy. But at the end of the day – you know, I started out as a drummer – that rhythmic part of me gets to pound down on the keys! It’s such an incredibly expressive keyboard! It’s one of my favorites! I would sell all kinds of gear before I’d get rid of the clavinet.

As an independent artist, what were the greatest challenges in getting your music made and how were you able to defy those challenges with your current album?

The greatest challenge to getting the music made was just me. Making the time, cutting enough time into a schedule, to allow for these long hours that are needed when you make records like mine, with this kind of production level which is very…I don’t have to tell you, you don’t have to be a musician or an engineer…my music is very thick with instrumentation, with ‘ear candy’ and that ear candy is time consuming, at least when I do it. So, the biggest challenge then is if you find the time, then have the energy, effort, and desire to get in there day after day with the long hours to do it. I mean it’s still a chore. I love having a great album I can hold in my hand and go ‘Wow! I did this! And people are enjoying it and it makes me happy and proud and I get to share!’ Well, you’ve still got to go in and put in the effort. And that’s the biggest challenge, hands down. It’s not the record making community; the different tides of that are going to be what they’re going to be. I’ve really left that in the hands of the record companies and the people who put my stuff out. I can have opinions of the business side of it – it just starts getting overwhelming and depressing because the whole monetization of music is a troubling notion anyway. It should all be free; it should all be exchanged. Ideally, we should all be on a barter system. “Here’s my music if it’ll make you happy -- Oh, you know how to work on car engines? Hey, come and look at my spark plugs and tell me what I need to do and we won’t charge eachother’.


In this age of ‘bling’ and obscene displays of wealth and materialism, you’ve just presented an unusually austere approach to making a living off of your music.

You’re absolutely right – there’s a lot of disgusting materialism out here [Los Angeles] --people worshipping at the altar of capitalism. But it’s like going to Vegas. You can have fun in Vegas if you understand what you’re in for. You cannot take so much of the materialism and the worship of money and the lack of substance and content of that city, that that community provides. You can actually go and have fun and laugh at it and still enjoy the wonderful parts of it. But if you don’t go to Las Vegas with the right attitude, and I’ve been there before in this way, it will depress the hell out of you and I will start a downward spiral into disgust for mankind, specifically Americans and the pit of hell we’ve created for ourselves. I heard someone say the other day, ‘There’s only one country that can bring America down -- it’s not China, it’s not Russia -- it’s America.’ And that just clobbered me because it’s so obvious and so true. It’s like anything else whether on a macro or micro level, there are so many things that make this country great and so many things that we believe in and that we’ve stuck with, so many things that we’ve persevered through and we’ve come close to our heart’s intellect. But there is always the danger of going overboard and being out of balance -- and specifically, falling prey to vapid materialism.


You’ve mentioned that you’ve been exploring different schools of thought and have been reading a lot of books on spirituality.

Not as many as I’d like to have the time for but certainly, especially in the last three to four years, I’ve been studying it pretty hardcore. Just as 10, 12, 13 years ago I was really starting to get heavily into exploring health and diet and balance of the physical, now I’m exploring balance in the emotional and spiritual as it pertains to having this human existence. The more I dig, the more fascinating it becomes the more I want to understand myself, know about myself -- and it feeds itself. Like I said, the more you learn the more you want to grow and experience and you realize, well, personally speaking, what a minimal and fractional and compartmentalized life I have been living up to this point thinking I was living a full life, believing that this was what life had to offer. Because all of the adults and well-meaning authority figures around me, that’s what they were doing. So that’s what life is. But what I keep finding out is I’ve only scratched the surface of human potential for myself. I’ve scratched the surface as far as the depths and heights of love, the depths and heights of….everything! I discovered that with diet too [Roger adheres to a fruit-based raw food diet]. What we all think we are condemned to and destined to and doomed to in this body, You know, ‘we turn a certain age and it’s time for our hair to go grey’ ‘we turn a certain age and it’s time for our liver to fall out and our kidneys to harden’. The only reason we don’t ever question that is because we see it happening to all of the adults ahead of us. So, you start to believe it’s your fate, your destiny. And it’s anything but! There’s so much infinite potential, and I know it sounds so cliché and new-age corny, but it’s not just a bumper sticker. I’ve really started to taste that and it’s both challenging and can be scary and overwhelming to realize that in many, many ways I, personally, and a lot of the people I see around me are literally living some kind of lie. It’s a façade. And it’s only because we don’t know any better. If we were more informed, more educated, more in touch with our essence…oh my God! So many things would be different for not only the individual’s life but the community, for Americans, for Westerners, for all the supposed segregations of men/women, of black/white, young and old, it would just all go out the window.


When did you come to this realization?

This is what’s interesting -- ever since, I would say, somewhere around junior high

That young?

Well, no, not to this degree. But what I started realizing was, ‘I’m having a harder and harder time going along with the crowd because more and more of what they’re doing is no longer feeling fun and exciting and comfortable, it’s feeling adverse. And at first, it was very simple and little things that bothered me. And because they were simple and little, I just blew them off because I wanted to belong like everybody else so I continued to go along with the crowd without much friction. But this feeling never went away and it got magnified in high school it got magnified even more in college. But in college, see, you were then able to find your ‘weirdo’ click or your ‘off-the-beaten-path’ click or your ‘we’re not the popular kids’ group to hang out with. You still had a support structure. But what happens there is you still have another group of like-minded people who also aren’t really thinking for themselves. Although they’re not following what the popular kids are doing or what the God-fearing Christian Republicans are doing, they’re still following another kind of dogma, a belief system that they’ve all silently agreed upon. They’re either mostly on the same political page or they’re mostly on the same atheistic page but it’s just another environment that prevents you from going within and discovering what you’re really all about and cherishing your own individuality. I’m not saying this isn’t a potentially lonely journey, I’m just saying that if one can discover the joy of standing alone in love of self, and cherishing the very, very ultra unique expression of god-spark --- of divine-spark that each of us are, and understanding that none of us are superior or inferior to one another. But, we are all super unique expressions of this god-source that through each of us, through each of our actions is having a different experience. And this is where the notion of ‘we’re all one’ comes into play because, whether I’m talking about President Obama, or I’m talking about my brother Christopher or I’m talking about my former collaborator Andy Sturmer – none of us are better or lesser than the other, none of us have more worth than the other. We are all here expressing in a super unique way our own divinity. We’re all experiencing life in a very different way. The way that you see the world is built entirely upon your circumstances. The lenses through which you view the world, the stories you concoct to provide context, comes mostly from your childhood and the well-meaning, loving adults that you were brought into the world with, whether it was your parents, your grandparents -- that whole network -- and then you set forth and you experience the world in a certain way. Those influences shape our perceptions, for better or for worse. For example, the warnings we receive pretty much throughout our lives that ‘the world is a scary place and at any moment, you’ve got to be on your best guard because anything can happen and you’ve got to be ready for it’ -- that’s how 99% of us are raised, including myself and this is what can be over-simplified as a fear-based mentality, a fear of scarcity in particular, where you’re always on the defensive and always looking out for number one. This is the very mind-set that instills separation --the illusion that we’re all separate that somehow we don’t all want the same essentials out of life that we don’t all come from a place of love. This isn’t entirely new information but the whole point of some of the things I’ve been exploring, both musically and intellectually, is to challenge and to question all of these deeply rooted stories that you’re not given a choice in. The trick is having the courage, the awareness of what’s really going on and then putting forth the energy -- making the effort -- to see the inherent foolishness of some of these belief systems.


For more information about this artist, please refer to:
www.rogerjosephmanningjr.com
or
www.oglio.com/webs/pages/artists/RogerJosephManningJr-CatnipDynamite.shtml

Dynamite is Outta Sight!

For those of you who have been searching fruitlessly for new, well-crafted pop music, do yourself a favor and get Roger Joseph Manning Jr.’s Catnip Dynamite (Oglio/Fontana). From start to finish, fans and newcomers alike will be amazed with this veteran artist’s uncanny ability to compose songs that linger in your head and beckon you to sing along, sobering lyrics notwithstanding. Following his epic solo debut, The Land of Pure Imagination, Catnip Dynamite is an addictive concoction of hook-laden melodies, soaring harmonies and complex arrangements that would astound the likes of Brian Wilson and even Prince. In fact, Manning has “out-Princed” Prince and truly takes the title of “solo artist” to new heights, as all songwriting, vocal, instrumentation, and production duties are fulfilled exclusively by him. While he may not be a chart-topping dynamo like the throngs of manufactured popsters that dominate the airwaves, Manning continually enlists devotees with his refreshingly original music.

The album features 11 original compositions and three live bonus tracks from his 2006 performance at Japan’s Fuji Rock festival. Songs like The Quickening, Down In Front, and Living in End Times, are arena rocking, guitar-driven anthems that raise a fist of fury to the meaningless yet self-absorbed existence we humans pursue to our own apocalyptic demise. Love’s Never Half as Good showcases Roger’s knack for beautifully arranged harmonies while offering a disparaging, cynical view on that crazy little thing called love. Imaginary Friend is an upbeat, psych-rocking number replete with dizzying organs, fuzzy guitars and reverb. The haunting Survival Machine highlights Manning’s vocal range while the accompanying harpsichord and pipe organ add to the song’s somber anti-war message.

With a career that spans over twenty years and a reputation as a masterful songwriter and keyboardist, (his vast collection of new and old school synthesizers appear throughout the album) Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is perhaps most recognized as cofounder of the early nineties powerpop band Jellyfish. Despite its brief history, the band yielded two albums that are “must-haves” for any pop aficionado. After Jellyfish, Manning founded the hard-rocking Imperial Drag while simultaneously being one half of the whimsical, space helmet-clad duo known as The Moog Cookbook. He was also a keyboard player for Beck and has appeared on countless records contributing his extraordinary talents as composer, keyboardist and arranger.

Avaialable now at iTunes, amazon.com and all other music retailers!