old charles douglas interview - september 1999

E-MAIL INTERVIEW (September, 1999)

Q:
I think "The Lives of Charles Douglas" is a very fine album. Summertime is a blast of an opener and what with you sounding so much like Lou Reed on that one, and Moe Tucker producing, people are going to mention the Velvet Underground. What did the VU mean to you? Do you have some favorite VU or Lou Reed songs?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
The VU are my favorite all time band! I remember when I was fifteen or sixteen I got a copy of the "Velvet Underground and Nico" album and thought it was the best record ever. It's still my favorite VU album, though my favorite VU song is probably "White Light/White Heat" because it sounds so deranged. I also like "Run Run Run" and "Sunday Morning" a lot. I'm also a big fan of Lou's solo work (well, most of it). I really love that song "NYC Man" off "Set the Twilight Reeling" along with all of Transformer, of course. My big wish is that I could have seen the VU live in the late sixties. Wouldn't that have been awesome, with the light show and Warhol and everything? I must have listened to the VU records about ten thousand times and I never get tired of them.

Q:
I'm curious to understand how Moe Tucker signed on to produce your album. What was she like in the studio? Does she still work checkout in Atlanta, GA? Last I wrote about her, that's what people said.

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
I was always a big fan of Moe and her unique drumming (as well as her solo record "Life in Exile After Abdication" which is a really great record). I saw her address in a magazine in 1995 (I think it was The Bigtakeover) and wrote her a letter and sent her a copy of my first band's record (Vegetarian Meat's "Let's Pet" CD). To my surprise, she wrote back and we spent several years just sending letters and records back and forth. Eventually when it came time for me to make the Charles Douglas album, Moe agreed to produce it and play drums. I don't think Moe has to work a crappy job anymore. I know she's been doing some other production work as well as continuing to release solo records. She is one of the nicest people I've met in the music world--she is so friendly and down to earth. Working with her on the record was the most fun I've probably had in the last five years. I hope I get to work with her more in the future. Her drumming is so different from everything else out there--it really helped make the songs sound good.

Q:
What's quite interesting about the record (apart from the great songs, more about them later) is the "quite famous" people who work on it. How did Kurt Ralske, Bill Whitten, Claudia Silver get involved? Did you have to pay 'em a lot of money?!?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
Well, Kurt got involved because we decided to record the album at his nifty NYC studio called Zabriskie Point. Claudia, who is actually married to Luna's Dean Wareham, ended up singing because Dean was hanging out in the studio with us for a while (I'm a big fan of Luna). Bill Whitten joined up as guitarist because he's done some records for No.6. Hey, have you heard Bill's Grand Mal record "Maledictions" on London Records? It's a cool rock and roll record (you'd really like it, I think).

Q:
Does Ralske really play flugel horn? Totally Wasted sounds fabulous with the horns!

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
Yes! Kurt is an awesome flugel horn player! His brother is actually in the New York Symphony or something, so I guess it's a musical family. Kurt is an extremely talented guy! Like Moe, he is also very friendly and fun to work with. He even let me stay at his place when I got kicked out of the Gramercy Park Hotel for causing "problems". His studio is really cool and he has a great collection of records, including an instructional 7" called "How To take Care of Your New Pet, Volume 6: The Hamster". I often call Kurt and leave crazy messages on his machine for no reason, or snippets of new songs. Kurt's band Ultra Vivid Scene is another of my favorites (esp. his record "Joy" on 4AD) so working with him was "groovy".

Q:
Tell me about the recording of the album. Did it take very long? Were there disasters, happy accidents, strange developments? Are there things you want to change if you had a chance?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
Many strange things happened (strange things seem to happen everywhere I go) but no real disasters. We did the record in two 5-day sessions in the summer, with a couple weeks in between for us to go back home and hang out. I'm really happy with how the record came out. I was kind of nervous about playing with someone as awesome as Moe, but I think it ended up working out really well. You know, Moe also played some cool keyboard parts (the spacey keyboard thing on "Bad Man" is her). Oh, and I got kicked out of the Gramercy Park Hotel for acting crazy and taunting another band (a humorless British band on Arista Records, I don't want to even say their name) that was staying there. I also set the fire alarm in my room off (twice in one night). Then there was the bar, where every night me and guitarist Manish and No.6 label manager Bobby would sit drinking and drinking and drinking and yelling and acting crazy.

Q:
Your songs pack a dollop of wry humor. Would you ever describe yourself as a humorous kinda guy?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
My sense of humor is very different from most people's. People probably just think I'm weird (which I am, but...) Manish and I found a horrible "Mexican Murder Magazine" thing and we showed people all these pictures of corpses in it and everyone got frightened.

Q:
Who is Ganapathee? She sounds like a Hindu goddess to me.

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
Yay! You're right! Ganapathee is a Hindu God, of good luck, among other things. Ganapathee is also known as Lord Ganesh. Ganapathee has the head of an elephant, but the body of a human (Ganapathee's head was cut off by an angry Lord Shiva, I think). I spent some time in an ashram in the Pocono Mountains trying to become sane (it didn't really work) and I learned about Ganesh there.

Q:
Which song was the hardest to write on the album?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
The hardest to write was actually "Baby Come On." I couldn't think up lyrics to it. I remember writing down a bunch of words in my hotel room about an hour before we went to the studio to record it. I think some of it I just ended up babbling on the spur of the moment and it ended up on the record. The hardest song to sing was "earlybird school" because i kept getting the verses mixed up.

Q:
What did you study at Brown University?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
I went to Brown to study pre-med with the eventual goal of going on to medical school. Guitarist Manish Kalvakota went to Boston University to study pre-med too. But then Vegetarian Meat started and that was the end of school and studying for both of us. I also took some film classes when I was at Brown. In fact, one of the last things I did there was direct a video for a Vegetarian Meat song (it's a horrible, crappy video but it's funny to see us running around, out of our minds)

Q:
I'm sorry I missed Vegetarian Meat totally. Who was the only person in Vegetarian Meat? How many records did VM make?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
Vegetarian Meat was me and Manish Kalvakota. We made two seven inch singles for No.6 Records along with a full length CD for No.6 called "Let's Pet" (produced by Wharton Tiers). We also did some recordings with Kramer that were never released. We used a drum machine, so it sounded really low-fi and crazy. We went on a disasterous tour in 1995, as well as playing a bunch of shows in NYC between 1993 and 1996.

Q:
Your press bio mentions you had a nervous breakdown. If you'd rather not talk about this, I understand, but what really happened? Hope you're well now.

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
I'm doing okay. On the sanity-meter I am no longer in Syd Barrett/Skip Spence territory. Having mental problems is really hard. All the medications they try to give you don't really work and they just make you feel crazier. I did demo versions of some of the songs when I was on all these drugs (The Day You Went Away, which was originally a tribute to slain rapper Biggie Smalls) and they sound absolutely insane. I also wrote that song "Ganapathee" when I was in a pretty crazy state.

Q:
Are your touring at the moment?

CHARLES DOUGLAS:
No, although I have been playing acoustic shows around Chapel Hill. I played one a few months ago that was really fun where I wore a Burger King crown and made the crowd sing along to all the songs. Because the band is scattered right now (me in Chapel Hill, Moe in GA, others in NYC) we haven't really been playing much.

>I am really glad I heard your album cos I think it's been a long while >since I heard a bunch of unpretentious solid songs that rock and make me >smile! Thanks for the time, Charles. >--Chung

THANK YOU! I'm so glad you liked the record! Definitely keep in touch & I'll send you that Veg. Meat record soon! Take care, Charles

Patrick Cleandenim can be seen supporting The Drums on some of their European shows. Dates are venues here

charles douglas - the lives of charles douglas - reviews

The first (& great) reviews of the album are now in:

Folk Radio UK

"If there’s a more perfect essence of no-wave geek-rock cool than “The Lives Of Charles Douglas” by the Californian outpatient of the same name then I’ve yet to hear it. It’s like a mythical secret treasure in audio form that has been lost for over a decade & now is finally ready to reveal itself to anyone that should still be looking for it."

Leeds Guide

''Created in fraught circumstances – too much drink and drugs, and the odd threat with a gun – it’s a real record of its time, and a must for people who remember the last time plaid shirts were in fashion.''

charles douglas - track by track # 5 good luck

GOOD LUCK:

“Good Luck” I think came out pretty well. I knew when I wrote the line “Big money, big prizes, fame comes in different sizes” that it would be my epitaph. I stole some lines from an old videogame called “Smash TV” in which an animated figure pops out before each level and says, “Good luck… you’ll need it! Big money! Big prizes!” To me, those always sounded like amazing lyrics instead of inane videogame banter. I was trying to write a song that sounded just like Prince, but of course this sounds nothing like Prince. I think some good luck is what everyone needs. When I was recording this, I kept looking over at Moe Tucker, because I was thinking, “Yeah, she’s really famous to people who care about good music, but to everyone else she’s just some random middle-aged woman who smokes a lot.” The nature of fame is so confounding. When I was 21 in New York City, I really craved and wanted fame—not so I could bask in it, but so I could throw it away like it was meaningless. The people I admire most are like Scott Walker or Lindsay Lohan, who have all this fame and talent, and then they throw it in the trash bin to prove they don’t need it. I do sometimes sit and daydream about Lindsay Lohan making an album produced by Scott Walker. She can’t sing at all, but I bet he could come up with some interesting arrangements for her. Michael Haneke should make a movie starring those two, with Scott Walker as her father. And the plot could involve heavy incest. Scott still looks good. Very youthful, I think. Although I feel that much of his looks came from his head of hair, which he no longer has. Perhaps Steve Albini could engineer Scott Walker & Lindsay Lohan’s album, and they could cover Serge Gainsbourg tunes. If I ran a major record label, this is the kind of endeavor that I’d pursue, instead of trying to sign new bands.

charles douglas - track by track # 4 slowly wasted

SLOWLY WASTED:

“Slowly Wasted” is the only song on the record that I played almost all the instruments on. I recorded it early in the morning. Moe Tucker hadn’t turned up yet, but the song was ready to be recorded. So I think I used a drum loop and later Moe added some percussion. I wrote the song when I was 16. In fact, a very primitive version turns up on a 7” single I recorded in high school. It’s about being at a party and seeing a hot girl and then being too scared to talk to her, so then you just go and get drunk and get high. At some point between recording and mixing, Kurt Ralske added a lot of horns and keyboards to it, which made it sound nice and smooth. Siobhan Duffy from God is my Co-Pilot sang on it too. Siobhan was quite attractive and she was dating Gira from the Swans. I showed Siobhan a drawing I’d done of Grimace from McDonalds in the bathtub with her. To her credit, she thought it was so insane that it was funny. I know that my guitarist Manish Kalvakota thought she was attractive too, and so did Kurt Ralske. And so did Bobby McCain and Terry Tolkin from No.6 and Elektra Records, who funded the album. In hindsight, Siobhan reminds me of Greta Gerwig, the American actress. Again, if I ran a film studio, I’d cast Siobhan and Greta as feuding sisters who have to run a fast food restaurant together. They could fight over the franchise, and Siobhan would have a secret nervous breakdown and start spicing the meat with LSD. The movie could have lots of cat fights in it, perhaps. With a score by Glenn Branca and Justin Bieber.

chales douglas - moe tucker, before the tea party

Charles Douglas talks about the legendary Moe Tucker in light of the Tea Party furore here

charles douglas - track by track # 3 under the command

UNDER THE COMMAND:

“Under the Command” was about listening to Chan Marshall AKA Cat Power’s music on the radio, from a future perspective—like from the year 2010 or something. When I first saw Cat Power play, it was at a dive in Philadelphia and there weren’t many people there. The place didn’t even have a stage. So she just stood there and looked at the floor and strummed her guitar. I thought it was really good, but I was too shy to talk to her, and she didn’t really look like she wanted anyone to talk to her. It was 1995 probably, and at that time I still weighed 233 pounds due to the Burger King meals, so I think it would have been upsetting to her if I’d said anything. I should have given her a tape of my music, but that probably would have been even more upsetting! Then she started to get some measure of fame, so I wrote the song about her. I was trying to imagine what would happen if she became really famous like En Vogue. And how younger kids would look up to her, probably. But it would be really awkward, because she was clearly unsuited to fame and all messed-up. But mainstream kids would listen to her music as they drove around and they’d daydream about her. They would have glamour posters of her on their bedroom walls, etc. She would star in a movie with Vanilla Ice. But now I know that in 2010 this won’t be the case! I haven’t heard her music in years. She never became famous like En Vogue, which was a personal disappointment, but I guess she probably has quite a bit of money now. I heard she’s still crazy even though she’s supposed to be normal again. I did write another song about her called “Chan” in 2001, but I don’t remember why I did that. Beyonce really filled the void that I thought Chan Marshall might occupy.