PEL Presents NEM#259: Glenn Morrow (Bar/None): Songwriting Re-Emergence

Welcome to Nakedly Examined Music

0:00You are listening to Nakedly Examined Music, a podcast about songs and songwriters. My name is Mark Linsenmeyer. My guest for episode 259 is Glenn Morrow, best known as the founder and until very recently, the owner of Bar None Records, who signed Acts Like They Might Be Giants and Yola Tango. He is and always has been based in Hoboken, where he started in the late 70s, running a new wave band with the name A, that is lowercase a. He then released an album and an EP with another band, The Individuals, in the early 80s, and two albums as Rage to Live in the mid to late 80s.

0:48Then after a long time, not releasing his own records, he formed Glenn Morrow's Cry for Help, releasing their first record in 2017, and their second, entitled Two, in 2020. You are right now hearing the opening track from that album, Yellowed Pages. And they've just released their third album, Our Final Album, Volume 1. We'll be discussing sweater weather from that album, and looking back to his two 80s bands. The Individuals, with the song Our World from Fields, from 1982, and then Rage to Live, with the song Swimmer, originally released on their 1986 self-titled album.

1:27We will conclude by listening to one more track from the new album, That's That. You can learn more at glennmorrow'scryforhelp.bandcamp.com. The Individuals also have a Bandcamp page. Glenn's also done a lot of writing that you can find out about at glennmorrowbooks.com. Find out about this podcast at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, or get it ad-free at patreon.com slash nakedlyexaminedmusic.

Rediscovering the songwriting muse

1:50It's time to recite your Yellowed Pages.

1:58So while I have played a little of Yellowed Pages from your second album with the new group, Glenn Morrow's Cry for Help 2020, the album just being called Two, I guess I will have already sort of described the arc of your career, but let's just make sure we're clear on it, that you had a bunch of activity in the late 70s, 80s, then became a label guy, the head of Barnum Records. So at some point, what, 2017 at least was the first record that you rediscovered your muse. Can you say a little about that re-emergence before we hear something from the new album?

2:29I had been in bands in the 70s and 80s, and then started Barnum Records, and got married and had a couple of kids, and that takes up a lot of your bandwidth and, you know, that sort of self-involvement that you need to write songs, I think. I kept my chops up, and I would attempt writing songs, but I was kind of dissatisfied with what I came up with, or it didn't feel like it all connected. Then when the Club Maxwell's in Hoboken closed, and they wanted to do a bunch of celebratory shows,

3:01I kind of helped Todd Abramson, who was running the place at that time, you know, come up with some different ideas. And one was like, well, let's have my old band, A, that also had three members of the Bongos in it. That was the first band to play Maxwell's. Why don't we all get together? And we hadn't played since we broke up back in, like, 1977. So, you know, we kind of learned all these old songs again. And it was just, you know, sort of a cultural moment where all the history of Maxwell sort of coalesced,

3:34and there was a lot of media coverage. And I suddenly felt like, wow, I'm in the middle of, you know, I'm back in the middle of the media eye or something. I don't know. And it was a very heady experience. And my other band, the individuals that I started after the band, A, also played. So it was just sort of this incredible thing. And afterwards, I was like, now what do I do? You know, like, I don't want this to stop. And I didn't think A was going to continue to play shows or anything. And then suddenly, you know, I found my song started just coming to me, like ideas, you know, where you get that idea,

4:09like it just feels like big enough that you can pour a bunch of thought into it, chord changes and whatnot. And that just kept happening over and over again. And I had a body of work, and then I started finding various like-minded folks that were around it. I kind of used the, I remember when the replacements were looking for someone to replace Bob Stinson, they sat in a bar and just said the first guitar player that comes in. And it wasn't quite like that, but I just started asking people. I was like, the first four, three other people that are ready to do this, that's going to be the band.

4:41That was my feeling about it. We had a couple different drummers in the beginning, but eventually Ron Metz, who had been in the Human Switchboard and the Schramms and plays with Tammy Faye Starlight, he came on board along with the bass player Mike Rosenberg. Rick Sherman played lead guitar, and suddenly we had a band.

Discussing Sweater Weather

5:01All right. So within a decade later or so, you got your third album out. Can you say a little about Sweater Weather, the first single off that by Glenn Moro's Cry for Help from our final album, Volume 1, before we hear it in full? Yeah, that's our first single off the record, and it was inspired by the Richard Brodigan poem, In the Arms of Machines of Loving Grace, I believe is the title of it. A hippie poem about how nature and technology were going to kind of merge and save our souls. Not quite sure that happened or not, but it's a lovely thought, isn't it?

5:35Well, I've been thinking lately about the rings around the trees, how they set my spirit free. The trees around the factory, the buildings now are empty, and they're covered up with vines. Yeah, we used to work that line.

6:05Shining the machinery.

6:11And now it's sweater weather. I see that smile on your face. And things just getting better. We got machines of love and grace. Machines that keep working for us. Yeah, they never make a fuss. In them we put our trust. They don't need no factory.

6:44They clean themselves up nicely. While fulfilling all our needs. How I love to watch them breathe. In the woods behind the factory.

7:02Well, now it's sweater weather. I see that smile on your face. And we're getting it together. We got machines of love and grace. We got machines of love and grace. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Hello, now it's sweater weather.

7:31We got machines of love and grace. I see that smile on your face And we're getting it together We got machines of love and grace Love and grace All the trees left in the shop And when you close your heart in the summertime And when you look at the smoke in the paper

8:04The smoke in my game Stronger shots in the roof And we blow the machine We blow the machine We blow the machine

8:30Any thought about this This intro here When you're writing these Are you writing these on acoustic guitar by yourself And then you bring them into the band What's the process for developing one of these with the new band? Actually that song was the last one to get recorded for the album I felt like we needed kind of a Probably I guess a single, right? Because it's the single Or turned into the single I actually had the verse was maybe 20 years old And it was a verse that I really liked But I didn't really know what the song was ever about The opening lyrics are actually from that old song

9:03But the song gave me this kind of feeling of well-being And it had that line Well, I've been thinking lately about the rings around the trees Which I'm still not 100% I know what that even means But somehow then I started sort of seeing this imagery of like Old abandoned factories in the woods And I remembered that Richard Brodigan poem Over the years I had tried to finish the song with different choruses And different lyrics It never quite felt right And so I tried again I came up with a new chorus

9:34And I guess the idea of sweater weather is that You know, if these machines and nature are gonna save us Then, you know, maybe the earth will cool a little bit And, you know, we won't have global warming And we'll have sweater weather Okay, so that's a really interesting Well, it's yeah, you're sticking three different ideas together That the Richard Brodigan poem wasn't even the beginning of it That it was the second thing I mean, it's funny that Well, I guess the rings around the trees You said only 20 years ago So you could have still been, you know, reflecting on aging and things

10:04It's not a 50-year-old song It is a... You know, I think about bands too I remember sitting I had lunch with Ira and Georgia from Yola Tanglewood Day And I said, it must be incredible for you You know, you go out on the road And there's people in bands that you probably knew in the 80s In these different towns that you played with And maybe they're not active anymore And then there's bands that, you know, the sort of grunge era Noisier bands of the 90s And, you know, more contemporary bands And all the bands that you've met over the years

10:34From your Hanukkah shows And that seemed like the rings around the tree too You know, just like all these layers of music That you have somehow attached themselves to Yola Tango in peripheral ways So I haven't read the original poem, of course But the merging of nature with technology So usually it's like I was thinking the Talking Heads tune This Must Be The Place, I think Or XCC's River of Orchids Where they picture, you know, technology has been suppressed Maybe there's been some global apocalypse or something

11:06And vines are coming across everything But then there's not machines of loving grace participating There are no machines, that's the whole point So what is that? There are machines that are mating in the backyard? Nature and machines kind of figure out a way to merge And I could read some of the poem Oh yeah, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace Is the name of the poem And actually it's a documentary too So a lot of people have over the years, I guess In fact now, you know, I've been seeing it a lot in articles about AI

11:39They quote this poem I like to think, and the sooner the better, of a cybernetic meadow Where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony Like pure water touching clear sky I like to think, right now please, of a cybernetic forest Filled with pines and electronics Where deer stroll peacefully past computers As if they were flowers with spinning blossoms I like to think, it has to be

12:11Of a cybernetic ecology Where we are free of our labors And joined back to nature Returned to our mammal brothers and sisters And all watched over by machines of loving grace What I've read marks recently The thing that people don't remember It's not, it's not revolution It's that we're going to get machines that are so good That we don't have to do anything And like that's actually now being You know, going to be forced upon us In pretty near future Whether, you know, we can actually take advantage of that

12:42And live in peace Yeah, it's kind of like that Woody Allen movie Sleeper Where there are the people Kind of in the forest That were the rebels And then the technological Futuristic people Kind of living underground But it's the idea, I guess That you can move past those two polarities To something that all works together Yeah, I don't think that's going to be an easy thing But it's a nice, it's a nice fantasy And who knows Who knows how it's all going to play out Alright, so you got this sentiment

13:13And then, do you know particularly what makes you Pair it with this particular mood, right? It's just kind of a cheery It's, you know, there's no There's no indication in the music that it's going to be About either an idyllic paradise, right? It's not sort of an extreme Light shining through the clouds kind of joy It's just a nice, choppy rock song that goes with this Any thought about how you pair the mood with that sentiment? Well, it does end with this sort of hypnotized Backup vocal

13:43Like, yeah We love the machines Well, yeah, and then the very ending With that synth that sort of comes out of nowhere Or had it been there in much of the rest of the song? But it just gets exposed? It's actually guitars, but Oh, okay Yeah, it's like a guitar break And then I sort of come up And it's like sort of The song shifts kind of Gets kind of dark and weird at the end And I actually just ranted a bunch of stuff Off the top of my head at the end Like I didn't really know what I was singing Something about porcupines and papers

14:15And I had to write the lyrics down later To see what I actually said Yeah, so let's play a little bit of that bridge I wanted to get that warm jets kind of feel with the guitars Yeah, so we're gonna end into this machine that's swirling you around a little bit

14:47Yeah, and then you had bells in there a little bit toward the end Or maybe I guess they'd been there already Yeah, I'm not quite sure Andy Burton, who's a fantastic keyboard player Added lots of bells and whistles to the record After we'd recorded it So I'm not quite sure what that even is Let me play that very end I swore this was a synth Maybe it's a guitar synth here Yeah, Andy Burton came up with that It's kind of like the machine is slowing down and dying Or something like that That was how I interpreted that

15:17He came up with that ending Alright, so a little bit of Devo kind of thrown in here Yeah, yeah So you've got throughout that The secondary guitarist doing a counter melody We got machines for loving grace

15:34Machines that keep working for us Yeah, they never make a fuss In fans So just… And that ends up becoming the instrumental Which… Suggested… Do you know what… Is there a particular song from the 90's that comes to mind?

15:59It's… What is that? son i was trying to i was racking my brain of like what that melody was it's not like i said i was thinking uh here come the warm jets oh yes of course and i didn't want to copy the melody of here come the warm jets but i was just singing something to the guitar player and then he started coming up with harmonies and sort of treated guitar so sort of a weird mutated thing we came up with together so you said none of these guys are people that were actually in

16:31your old bands right these were just people that you still were in you know i'd gotten in touch with over the years yeah pretty much yeah i played with mike rosenberg a little bit we had an office band called wonder bra at one point the bar none records okay and i think he played with wonder bra a little bit that fuzz tone that's doing that which you know i love that use of distortion that doesn't make it metal that just makes it a fuzzy chunky a little saxophone yeah any thought about why rick is choosing those particular tones i mean some of it i sang to him then i think he harmonized some of

17:07the things i sang and yeah a little bit of a frankenstein monster you know parts could have been flown in there i'm not quite sure how it all together in the mix your guitar sort of has a sort of keith richards kind of thing what are your guitar influences i'm mainly a songwriter and i still trying at age 70 to get better at guitar and i'm actually i just downloaded like a an app that takes you through the step of the cage system and yeah little parts that i mean i have a lot of knowledge but there's gaps so it's been interesting that something that's going to be very linear to

17:41follow and i'm learning to read music finally after all these years and yeah it's just fancier jazz chords that kind of stuff i don't think i answered your question though but yeah i love uh well alex chilton i love his guitar playing who doesn't love keith richards uh the velvet underground lou reed and sterling morrison neil young those folks all come to mind i'd say well and they provide a nice accessible route into a little more lead playing you know so that it's not all that you

18:12have your hired fast finger guy that you can do a little more of it yourself that you know you just get a nice chunky tone and you do melodies like the one you were talking about and rick is a massive stones fan so sometimes he's playing the keith richard riffs too so sure i thought you added a keyboard player throughout this album yeah that's uh andy burton who's actually played on all our records and who i've known since the barn and records started he played on like with in otis ball and the chains on the album i'm gonna love you till i don't that's when i first met him but he's played with

18:45ian hunter john mayer sydney lopper he's currently in steve van zant's band so he gets to play with springsteen sometimes and backed up deon warwick it's incredible i mean he just he's like a go-to guy in new york for all kinds of tribute shows and like i say he plays with some really big people but he had a little gap in his schedule and he really just hunkered down with this record and did all kinds of stuff and i'm just beyond grateful to him for all he did i even finally said you should

19:16write like an intro there's a song uh in love with love and i said you should write a little intro to this song make it kind of like a the way bob ezerman played piano at the beginning of the lou reed berlin album or david sanchos on uh broadway serenade on uh bruce springsteen's wild innocent new street shuffle album yeah he wrote a piece that an intro piece for that so took the record to some new places we hadn't gone before in the on the other records and it looks like you're touring seldom enough that he can actually join you for those or quite possible but yeah he's pretty busy we tried

19:50to get him a record release party and steve van zandt had him working a little too hard before we move to the old stuff yeah any thought about just the progression over these three albums as you said compelling songs right from the first one i felt like the second one was even more catchy than the first like there's more track by track i feel like it's a stronger album the third one i've only listened to a couple times so i don't have as strong an opinion about but it seems like it's a good direction i feel like we're kind of beating the odds sometimes i think it's delusional but when i hear

20:23you say that i say thank you because sometimes i listen to that second record and it's like damn that's good and but i can tell you that the first record i'd never really thought about the blues when i was writing songs and i went down to memphis and got really you know into the whole culture down there and just got into studying the blues and it's not a blues record but it's just one four five chord progressions which i hadn't really considered they show up a little bit more on that record and that was the first burst of songwriting after a number of years off so i think there was all kinds

20:59of pent-up stuff i'd learned to play millions of beetle songs since i'd last recorded years earlier and it was just i i had i guess a bunch of dormant stuff inside of me waiting to come out and then the second album was a little bit of an angrier record it was the beginning of the trump presidency you know i was kind of wrestling with some of that and the me too movement and uh so it's a little more political and angry i even wrote a song uh on it called forever in a day just something a little bit romantic just to try you know not make that album so just bile or something you know it's a

21:34it's a cranky kind of record i guess and then the third album i've been listening to a lot of jazz and it's not really i mean it's not a jazz record by any stretch but there's some fancier chords or things that i kind of tried to go a little further at the same time the actual chord progressions are a lot simpler than the other records there's a lot of just g to c kind of stuff and if you do that you better have really good stuff going on within those g to c you have to kind of plug the meat into the

22:08simple chord pattern as opposed to just like i'm gonna have this you know a bridge that's different from the chorus and you know all these different chords and a coda and by simplifying the chord structures almost and again let i think of the velvet underground the way their songs you know they just would have a couple chords but the textures that they put on top were just so fantastic and that's what i think this record's about a little more sophisticated melody thinking because of listening to a lot of jazz 60s you know coltrane and miles and felonious monk that kind of stuff

22:41again not like this record sounds like any of that but just when you listen to a lot of jazz the places your melodic head can go to it's a lot richer in a way than just melodies over 145 or

Looking back at The Individuals

22:53something all right let's let's shift gear to young glenn that we're gonna hear both of your old bands well not a a the ungoogleable band i mean discogs doesn't have anything was there anything released for that the band a no but there is a documentary coming out about maxwell's and they've got some of our material that's going to be in there there's about an album and a half worth of stuff that we put together well yeah you have actually had a set that you then relearned for this recent thing so yeah yeah and that as well all that we that's all recorded so it's all out there and it's just sort of

23:30like what form should it take and sure i never could quite figure it out maybe i was too close to it or something well so i feel and try to understand your early self that there's a significant missing piece there but from the individuals you had picked the single version of our world from the full album fields 1982 or was that with the ep aquamarine it actually was a b-side to a single although when we reissued the album we discovered that there was an album version on the master tape and i'd remember that when we mastered it for some reason i think the band got demo itis or at the very last

24:06minute we were literally mastering the record and some of the other folks in the band were like we don't want that on the record and i'm like what that's the catchiest song on the record okay i've got kind of outvoted and we were a democracy and it got chopped out and then gene holder was the producer of the record from the dbs and he took the recordings and got peter holzap i think will rigby both all added some keyboards and some stuff to it and that version came out as a single which is i guess what you'll hear okay and it's like a tambourine or something at the beginning they added

24:38that which was kind of a so in a way it came out probably a little bit catchier than the album version walk me out in the technical field just to see how my baby feels got these wires got them in my hand i'm gonna stretch them out across the land it'll be it'll be our world

25:16and it'll be it'll be our world ever since i met you i could never tell you the things i know but i built a world around you were there counting houses in the frozen snow we were busy working on our world on our world don't tell me that don't tell me that don't tell me that

26:01just walk me in those technical fields see how my baby feels got these wires got them in my hand i'm stretch them out stretch them out well it may not be loving but it might be magic so girl don't you act so tragic can you feel it in your heart can you feel it in your heart hold a jump jump jump and do a brand new part so

26:40so so so so so And it'll be, it'll be our world

27:20And it'll be, it'll be our world And it'll be, it'll be our world Yeah, so I'll link folks to the album version of this too, but it sounds like it's not a different recording. Right, as you said, it's just a few things overdubbed.

27:50Like the whole really interesting end of it was already like that. And the main riffs and things, and there was even keyboard on it the first time, right? It's just a little brighter or a couple of extra things. Yeah. So you said you were not in touch with the blues back at this time. Yeah, it definitely comes out of like a Dwight Twilley power pop kind of vibe. Uh-huh. But also like talking heads, a big country. I was thinking one side of Hoboken, there's the Palisades on the backside of Hoboken.

28:21And then if you go further, there's the Meadowlands. And oddly, in a way, this book ends with sweater weather because I talked about the technical fields. The Meadowlands was like the technical fields. And it was, you know, giant generators and truck depots, but also nature at its most raw. And they were butting up against each other and kind of coexisting on some level. So I guess that idea, in a way, I am still chewing on that all these years later.

28:51It just seemed like a mythic place. And we'd go out there and take photographs and stuff and write graffiti on the bridges under the New Jersey Turnpike. And sort of this wide open space in New Jersey that let your imagination run wild, I guess. All right. Well, that's good to know that the technical field is referring to an actual place because it just was mystifying to me. Yeah, a little pine at the same time. Although, you know, you run with the metaphor, got these wires, going to stretch them out.

29:22Like, is that referring to anything in particular or just this is just imagery here? This is sort of embarrassing to say, but I sometimes do feel like, you know, I pull these things up out of my subconscious. And they sometimes they feel sort of prophetic or something. I think other songwriters have said this. But back then we were trying to create this whole indie ecosystem that would take sort of the aesthetic of CBGBs and stretch it out across the land. And I worked at New York Rocker and started having columnists in San Francisco, like Howie Klein and L.A. and Boston.

29:58And getting all these DIY scenes hooked up with each other, bringing REM to New York, that kind of thing. And Mission of Burma out of Boston, the Liars out of Boston kind of built this whole ecosystem. And I think it's hinting at that. So was there the feeling at the time? Like, what was the shape of this band in terms of your level or aspirations for fame versus when you broke up? Was it, you know, you're on your way up and personalities or no, actually, this is not going to go anywhere. So then people lose interest and do different things.

30:29Or, you know, what was the story here? Well, that's sort of, I think, how it works when you look at bands late in life or from the vantage point of time. Yeah, there's a very small window to get, you know, if you're actually really going for it. And we toured all over America. We played with David Johansson and Lena Lovitch and X and all kinds of people around the country. Yeah, we were going for it. We wanted to get signed to a major. We got pretty close. Then it just kind of got, you know, some of the fun started to go out of it.

30:59The guitar player quit and started doing his own thing. And we revamped it and kept going. But at some point, it just ran its course. And Jenna Weigel, who was in the band, kind of, when I left, the other members of the band were like her sister. Her brother was the drummer. Okay. Her boyfriend was a guitar player. And her sister was in the band. So it was kind of this family band. And then they became the Weigels. And she ultimately had a band, Splendora, that recorded the song. I think it's called You're Standing on My Neck, which was the theme for Daria, the MTV TV show.

31:34So she got some mileage out of that as well. And then she's got a new band now called Weigelator. I'm hoping to do some shows with her. All right. Well, I have to track her down for one of these things. I didn't realize she had continued with that intensity throughout the years. Yeah, for quite a while. The bass is very prominent in this band. We needed a bass player. And when she answered an ad that I had, she hadn't really played bass. She played it like acoustic guitar up to that point, I think. But she was like, oh, I'm game.

32:04And she kind of came up with these kind of wild parts. Like, I've had many, many people come up to me and go, what are those bass parts? Like, they're just sort of unorthodox. And she wasn't playing root chords necessarily. Right. Well, if you're a melodic person and you write, I mean, those are my favorite bass players, Colin Moulding. And so, you know, where they write with their brains instead of their hands. Certainly adding the tambo at the beginning, which is actually kind of distracting. Like, I'm kind of glad when it goes away, you know, would have made this the giant hit.

32:38But I see where this could be, you know, something of the Simple Minds kind of a theme song to something. The funny thing was, it wasn't on the album, but a number of bands covered it. A band called Blog made a recording of it for a single. Yola Tango have played it. Okay. That's where I had heard this before, I think. Is it on one of their albums? It's not on one of their albums, but they played it like on FMU. And actually, they played it with us when Maxwell's was ending. All right. Well, it could be a hallucination because it does have a very Yola Tango feel.

33:10I mean, your voice, even at the time, is sort of in the same neighborhood. Let me play 106, The Bridge, here. You've got like, the verse is like three different phrasings. And then you have this thing, which I would call The Bridge, but then it comes back at the end. Like, how did you even think of structure here?

33:41It's not clear, you know, verse, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. It's A section, B section, D section. When you're a young songwriter, you don't really understand the rules. And you just kind of are making it up unless you're really savvy. You know, you're just kind of like, oh, this sounds okay here. And yeah, somehow that it all sort of coagulates together. And the part you just played, too, that sort of where I'm singing, don't tell me that. Don't tell me that. Yeah. You know, it's a heartfelt song, almost anthemic, you know, like Born to Run or something.

34:11Sure. We're going to go out there and we're going to stretch these. We're going to do it. You know, we're going to make something of this world and there will be our world. And then just have this other voice going, don't tell me that. Don't tell me that. You know, just undercutting it or. And that's also one of the places where the bass is particularly talking headsy in that it's so staccato. Like, if you're trying to just like bring the energy up, that's not the choice one would make. I mean, that's, you'd start playing faster, not slow it down.

34:42I have to say, I like your approach. You're obviously, yeah. You obviously got, you know, you're like, you sound like a producer or something in your approach. Like you're thinking about song structures and choices that a writer would make. There's a lot of interesting, unexpected stuff in here. Let me play from 146. The dual guitar break is, or it sounds like a sitar, the second one, or, you know, suddenly your television here. There might actually, Mitch Easter did have a sitar. So. All right. I know. So I think you're right.

35:15That was Mitch overdubbing with you or, or Gene or somebody? I think, I think John Clay just probably played it, the guitar player, but he, yeah, he had a, an electric sitar kind of like the one that was played on a hooked on a feeling by a BJ Thomas might've even been that guitar for all I know.

35:48I remember there was some discussion around that time about that. So that repeats for a while and grows a little bit. You add some more keyboards and then just, uh, I want to play the transition to get out of there.

36:09Just like you've been building, building, building. And then it just does this thing. You know, we're not going to, we're not going to, were you thinking about sort of how dramatic are we going to get, I guess, at any given point? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what my thinking was exactly. I mean, obviously we love the band television and early jangle rock-ish type stuff. And then we sort of end with a little bit of our world, our world, actually not terribly dissimilar to the kind of vortex that we had at the end of the first song, Sweater Weather,

36:40that ends in this, yeah, let me play just the very end. Cause it's a pretty interesting where the C-Tar comes back.

36:54Yeah. Just the stereo shift that he's doing this, walking up the scale. And then what finishes it is, is your guitar is doing the, the bong. Yeah. I assume that's the live ending too, or was this a recording? Did that? I don't remember if we did in the studio first and then it became the ending, or if we came up with it, like in pre-production. Yeah. That kind of climb is that scale climb. It's kind of like a television thing.

Exploring Rage to Live

37:20Let's fast forward a little bit to Rage to Live. So this is 1989, Blame the Victims. The song you'd picked was Swimmer. Both these bands, I feel like there's a really pretty broad stylistic range on them. Swimmer is one of the coolest songs on there. It seems like the rest of the album sounds a little more like the cry for help stuff. You know, this, this big, yeah. What's the story in terms of, you said that band broke up and Janet was, you know, continued doing her own things. I guess you were starting your label still.

37:51Actually, there's two Rage to Live albums. The first one was self-titled. Okay. And in fact, the summer is actually on the first album. And we added a bunch of bonus tracks on the CD. By the time the second record came out, I thought, well, that's just, we got 72 minutes or whatever it is for a CD. Why don't we just put as much of the first record on it as we can? Because I didn't think we'd ever re-release the first record. And as I said, I was like starting a family and whatever. Okay. So it's originally from the first album there.

38:22Yeah. What was the story just in terms of the, so it's all different personnel, right? From the individuals. None of those same people. All different personnel, Ed Tomney, who was in a band called The Necessaries, who just recently, finally reissued all their back material. And it's absolutely fantastic. And they had a deal with Sire Records and the recordings that came out. Sometimes I think the wrong mixes were used. It was just a sort of a disaster. Omnivore, they cleaned up the, I don't know if it's in the mastering or if some of it was

38:52remixed or what, but it's just a fantastic early 80s guitar. Hard driven, also keyboards, you know, it's like a great lost bunch of music. That's Tomnian. The first time I went to Max's Kansas City, I saw him on a bill with, he was in a band called Harry Toledo and he was just the guitar player in the band, but he did actually do a lot of the writing for Harry Toledo. Harry was an actual person and they were opening for Perubu and I was just completely knocked

39:22out by him. And then when I started working and writing it at New York Rocker and found out about that he had a band called The Necessaries, I was like, I want to write about them. They're, you know, that's Ed Tomney's band. Great guitar player. And he went on to just do all kinds of interesting musical stuff over the years and a lot of film work and discover channels, science shows, and just all kinds of really cool stuff. Also, he's a painter, but I'm glad he finally got The Necessaries was, you know, he put his

39:52heart and soul into that and just one of the great rhythm guitar players out there. Wait, so he's doing the rhythm guitar on Swimmer and not all the crazy stuff that we're about to hear? Well, he's doing a lot of everything. You know, I would like probably be recording one guitar and he would do everything else. But yeah, he does all the kind of shimmery stuff. I'm not quite sure what, you know, I haven't listened to that in a while. But I remember I was thinking I wanted to write a song sort of based on Neil Young's Last Trip to Tulsa, not based on it, but, you know, the idea of this sort of long, musing

40:24kind of story type song that if you've ever heard that song, Last Trip to Tulsa, it's his first solo record and it's very surreal. And that song is the true story of me learning to become a swimmer. Also, yeah, I was inspired by the Burt Lancaster movie, The Swimmer. Well, and a little metaphor thrown in there as well. Yeah. In little places. And it's a metaphor, yeah, for life, I guess, going in and dive in and go for it. All right. So this is the longest one over five minutes.

40:54Let's hear it. I am a swimmer since the age of 10.

41:09Scared me half to death, but if I had to do it, I'd do it again.

41:16Started in beginners, minnow one and two. And I swam, I swam, I swam, straight to you. My daddy never swam, so he swore he'd make me swim.

41:49Swam, I let the darkness in.

42:01First time I went under, I sank just like a stone.

42:08I swear I never, ever felt so alone. I wanted to swim I wanted to dive right in So let's begin I will swim It's what I'll do I will swim Straight to you

42:39I took swimming lessons After pool Once a week Standing in the showers With the other boys Cheek to cheek to cheek

43:09I remember the test You had to swim Four lengths of the pool I hid from my mama That day after school I wanted to swim I wanted to dive right in So let's begin I will swim It's what I'll do

43:41I will swim Straight to you So I dove right in I started to swim Swam one lap end to end Swam another Swam it again

44:13Swam till I had nothing left And I laughed Oh my daddy Won't you take me down there Won't you I laughed cause I knew I could float that last lap On my back And I looked up at the ceiling And I floated that last lap Now I'm a swimmer

44:46Keeping my head above water All my life Come Swim with me My wife When the waves hit me I just kick back and breathe And I swim Yeah I swim So let's begin Hey I will swim

45:18It's what I'll do I will swim Straight to you I will swim It's what I'll do I will swim Straight to you Go! Go! Go!

45:59Well this sounds like You're experimenting With the bare bones The simplified chord structure That you were talking about Is something you Sort of discovered Later in life But you know There's a lot of tricks To the arrangement here Yeah The chorus itself Right I don't even know What's going on With the chord progression Or versus what Ed is adding to that Yeah I remember

46:29Being inspired by Mission of Burma On the chorus And I couldn't tell you Why or what Mission of Burma Did that reminded me of it Something I think about The chant vocals Maybe I recall in my Early writing You know Because I always felt like I have to have something Weird with the chord progression But if you have A weird chorus Then like Well the verse Could be very nice And accessible Right right right So that you know This is a We're focusing on the lyrics This is just you know A very simple Walk Da da da da Do you recall

47:01How you worked With the band You know In this group Versus the individuals In terms of Was this less Less democratic I assume Less democratic Definitely I mean The individuals Was very democratic And I felt like Ed Tomney Bob Riley The drummer Were both Like pro session Type guys You know They did a lot of work They play on the second Luca Bloom record I managed the artist Luca Bloom And you can hear them On Acoustic Motorbike The second

47:31Luca Bloom record And then Rich Grula Who was the bass player Actually had a radio show Out of NYC WNYC And played The individuals A mutual friend Said I was Trying to figure out What to do After the individuals And he called me up And just I want to be in your band And just a real motivator You know He was very like Positive and upbeat And knew his way around Music theory A little bit better Than I did So he was a great Collaborator You know So this was the bass player Who Yeah Rich Grula

48:01Ended up having a band Called Big Happy Crowd Later And was sort of Part of a whole Folk scene In Hoboken In the 90s And now Actually I think He's been a professor In Orlando I believe it is When you're Constructing this story How are you Typically writing lyrics Is it It just flows You just sit down And there it is Once Or are you Picking and adding bits And taking bits out And there are three Extra verses Somewhere on the floor In a garbage can We tore songs apart

48:31And rebuilt them And we're always Trying to be You know Kind of Artie I guess you would say Like we're gonna Reinvent the wheel And make A new kind of music And I think we succeeded You know Occasionally Like the song Walk by your house Sounds almost like Pavement or something Years before pavement And swimming in the streets That's another one That I think of Whenever we collaborated It really Gelled I was more of the songwriter In Rage to Live But Rich would sometimes go Hey you should go to

49:02You know A D on the chorus there Or You know Add different things And then And Ed again Just a fantastic You know He just was like A hook machine Like everything he played Just sounded so Sort of compelling And catchy And Bob again You know He ended up Doing some programming On it Some Brian Wilson Records later on And had a band Called Grace Pool With his wife Ellie Brown Who also played In Rage to Live But they got signed To Warner Brothers I think it was I was trying to write Songs that were A little bit more

49:33Straight ahead And not trying You know Like I wasn't trying To reinvent the wheel Quite as much With Rage to Live It was more like I just want to write Good songs That people can get And they'll find Compelling And very well arranged Yes That the Bob Riley If he was just Playing straight Through the whole thing Right We would not have This epic That is traveling We got a lot of Good energy levels Going up and down here You know Where he's really Doing some sort of Freak out Things in the symbols Of the beginning And let's see

50:03Where there was A particularly The end of the first chorus Yeah Actually let's just Listen to the pre-chorus And the chorus And how he gets out of it Because that was the I thought really interesting part So here's the pre-chorus 229 So if you were to Recreate that You wouldn't even know

50:33How to It wouldn't sound Even remotely like this Is this one you've Revived for playing Live at all? No No And I have People saying I heard that song The Swimmer On a radio station In California You know This was a number Of years ago But way after The record came out Do you recall With the harmonies Right Because you've got The funny Nice Three part harmony And even just And even just the first When the chorus Comes in I would think Grant Hart Is singing Behind you Or something It's really Yeah it's got

51:03A little bit of that Yeah we were into Husker Du Back then too Like I said Husker Du Mission of Burma I'm a big Brian Wilson fan So you know Without really Knowing musically What I was doing I absorbed a lot Of Beach Boys Harmony Stuff You know It just I could hear A sixth Or something Right When the chorus Starts What the guitars Are doing It almost sounds Like an Indian Raga This kind of Thrumming Repetitious thing That again The drums Are selling that Which it almost

51:35Sounds like You must have Homed that at him Right You said you were Sort of directing The lead guitarist Sometimes Are you doing that With the drums As well Or are you Really just I don't understand Drums Drums do what Drums do I'm definitely A guy that doesn't Really understand Drums too well But yeah There was something What I wrote Originally Kind of almost Like a birds You know A little bit of A circular Feel to it And I think Everybody latched On to that And just

52:06Created like Kind of a cool Swimming groove You know Just sort of We're all Swimming along Together All right Then let's hear The rest of the chorus Getting out of the chorus Into this weird Solo here Yeah so that's the drum riff I was talking about Just that Really takes up

52:37A lot of It's got the Big star thing I guess that's That is Sort of a Chilton I do remember Bob After the record Was done Like he was Dissatisfied with His drumming On this track And I think It was maybe A little looser For him You know He was kind of Just improvising And maybe Thought Sometimes I didn't quite Nail it Or something I mean I never felt That way about it But you know He was a good In the pocket drummer Do you recall Who the producer Was on this Or were you guys Producing yourselves Basically Yeah it was Kind of us Producing

53:07An engineer Named Chris Irwin At Calliope Records Calliope Studios Who helped out He brought up Alex Chilton That I recall Talking to You know About the Reformed Big Star Album And he would Just insist Like One of the other Guys be like I completely Messed up Like I played The whole second Verse right And he's like No no no It captured the Moment It was beautiful Like that For the first Attempt You know That's the only Time Do you recall Had you guys Been playing live Quite a bit

53:38Before this record Or was this a In the studio Creation No we definitely Did a bunch of Shows I think we Played the Swimmer At those shows Often And we went In and we Cut it You know We cut the Stuff pretty Fast in One or two Sessions I think There are many Many fine Guitar riffs At the end Of individual Lines right You got Sort of little Surf things And birdsy Things and Somehow it's Sometimes it Sounds like Oh that must Been you know Ed is doing That one and You're doing The next one But then it Sort of focuses

54:08On 450 Right near the End of this Song we're Going to do Something that's Not quite a Solo it's Just mostly Rhythmic let Me play it So we're just Going to do Like big Spazzy power Chords I guess It's like the Radio on you Know the Jonathan Richmond thing Yeah it's A little bit Almost like Satisfaction or Something but You know kind Of a mutation

54:39On that riff Or something Maybe Yes well a Nice way to Cap off the Journey here

Closing out with That's That

54:45Well we're Going to close Out by playing One more off The new album Just to say Goodbye here I guess Looking forward Are you committed To our final Album volume Two to Having it Being heavy For that one Being called That I've got About six Things that I Like that I've Put together at This point and We'll see you Know we're kind Of trying to Promote this one Right now so We haven't really Spent a lot of Time has been Working on those Tracks but we've Gone this far Down the road Thirteen years I Think twelve or Thirteen years I Mean I think That's longer than

55:16The Beatles Actually you know Yeah well a Little lower Output than That the the Fires of youth That make you do These I'm not Comparing my Ourselves to the Beatles exactly But uh Being so cheeky In the album Naming that you Know the second One is just two And the third Was our final Album volume One there are a Lot of bands That named their Fourth album just Four so you could Just you know have The name of your Album just be Right Foreigner Toto Zeppelin or Something like You know Yeah yeah I'm sure there Are probably other Ones Chicago approach

55:47Yeah well you Can't include Chicago in that Because they Actually I don't Even know if There is a Chicago four I Think that's live I think it's a I think it's not Called that If I remember Correctly it goes From three and The giant live Like it had Yes Yes that thing That thing you Know what I'm Talking about all Right are you Doing more than One show there's One on your Website I see for August and then Yeah we have two There's one coming Up I think next Week at the pet Shop in Jersey City all right and Then we have one In the park

56:18Church Square Park in Hoboken End of August That at least Will be after This comes out So I'll direct Folks in the Area to go to Check out where You're playing Next great to Hear your Catalog the Last one we Want to play We're just going To introduce and Say goodbye is That's that also From the new Album do you Have any Introductory Words for That it's Basically a Guy is racing Down a highway But he's only Going 87 but He's kind of Feels like he's You know really Burning rubber and

56:49He's got some Jacked up car but He doesn't totally Understand and he's Out on the road in The second verse his Life flashes in front Of his eyes and at The end of the song He really he's Standing in front of The pearly gates with Every chicken he ever Ate in his life and They're they're kind of Pissed all right here's That's that thanks so Much for chatting Glenn thank you

57:19A two in 87 Out on 95 It feels like heaven But I'm still alive Leg pipes roar Now I'm on the brink So you're law Thrown into the drink Fuel injected engine Mag wheels on fire I feel like a Flexible flyer Everything thrown into A gun is sack

57:50Once you leave You can't go back That's that That's that That's that That's that I love you baby It's a matter of fact That's that That's that That's that That's that Set them up Shut them down Lay them out flat I was 25 With so far to go I felt alive And my fire glowed But time was ticking Like an old time bomb The road it just went On and on

58:20I made it on up To the top of the hill Saw the slow decline And it gave me a chill Out on the horizon Where the road went flat I realized That is that That's that That's that That's that That's that I love you baby As a matter of fact That's that That's that That's that That's that Set them up Shut them down Lay them out flat Dead up in the morning Got nothing to do

58:51At the end of the day I'm only halfway through What do you do When your race is run You pick another pony For another one Well are you a dream Or something I ate Standing with the chickens At the pearly gate Yeah watch the feathers Flyin' round the Brook of Matt Oh well I love you all I know I know Mi spin I know I know It's it Well I love you It's it I know The

59:22Yes You You You You You samples Yeah You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You That's that, that's that Like a picture coming up too bad

59:56That's that, that's that Like Ronnie on the old high hat That's that, that's that Everything I own in a gun in a sack That's that, that's that Sit them up, shut them down Thanks so much to Glenn Learn more at glenn-morrow.com I posted some clips to live performances by Glenn Morrow's Cry for Help

1:00:27and even the individuals back in the day at the blog post associated with this at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com or perhaps you are getting this from the ad-free feed at patreon.com slash nakedlyexaminedmusic which would also get you access to my extensive notes on the lyrics and arrangements and all that You should check that out Like all my most favorite guests Glenn was interested in hearing some of my tunes so I sent him a custom playlist No label offer yet though that is of course the secret purpose of this entire podcast

1:00:58If you're a user of Spotify you may want to look up one of my playlists either Mark Lint songs which brings together everything I've put out under whatever band name or look up the Nakedly Examined Music Spotify playlist which contains all the songs for all the episodes I've ever done insofar as they are available on Spotify and I'm updating this constantly so you can see who I'm preparing to interview next you can see which songs are catching my attention even before I firm up

1:01:29the final list of songs to be covered Speaking of upcoming episodes I have talked to Jackie Hunt best known as the singer for the band Single Gun Theory and I'm about to tomorrow talk to Joan Wasser aka Joan as Police Woman and lots of good stuff on the horizon my calendar is basically full up through November which should not stop you from recommending guests to me or recommending yourself as a guest reach out mark at nakedlyexaminedmusic.com Until next time

1:02:00keep on musicing this is Mark Vincent Meyer signing off