When you first went to San Francisco did you wear flowers in your hair?
Ah, no. No flowers in my hair but it was an escape from Detroit so I was looking for flowers I guess. There weren't any flowers growing in Michigan.

When you got to San Francisco did you do a tour of all the infamous rock n roll haunts?
Of course. Everytime I ride my bike by where Janis Joplin used to live or the Grateful Dead would hang out on their front porch I always acknowledge it. It's such a part of the history here. In my neighbourhood is where the Residents used to shoot all their movies - you can see the alley where they all used to live and record and do their strange videos and stuff.

I read an article that described you as having 'the look of a foxy English professor -- the one all the girls hoped would seduce them during office hours' - is that what you see when you look in the mirror?
Oh boy, I don't think I see a foxy English professor. I just see a guy who's losing a little more hair and getting chubbier in the cheeks. I don't know if it's professorial. I think it depends on if I'm sporting any tweed. I've made a conscious effort to avoid being bookish. I'm anti-bookish. There's a lot of bookish people who play music and I don't know if it makes for a very fun evening out.

How do you respond when people listen to the record and go 'Jewel of the Evening' = Nick Drake. 'My Silver Lining' = Skip Spence?
I guess everyone needs some kind of description to get an idea of what's happening. For me Skip Spence and Nick Drake are pretty lofty names but those names are bandied about so often in so many reviews. I read them where they've said 'this guy is Nick Drake-like or this is played like Richard Thompson' and then you listen to it and it's not really apparent where they get that idea. I think, unfortunately, it's like the word 'love' or something - it gets cheap sometimes. It's flattering to hear but I don't know if I trust it. But I guess I understand the need to describe something in a quick sound bite for people. Maybe if they're a fan of that they can go pick it up and hopefully those will appeal to somebody who likes that kind of stuff.

So do you feel 'My Shining Lining' is a Skip Spence-esque song?
I never thought about it that way. I guess I always thought of it as, well, it reminded me more of an Echo & the Bunnymen song more than anything. Some kind vocal like that. But if someone describes it that way I appreciate it - it makes me happy.

Have you bumped into the ghost of Skip Spence walking around San Francisco?
A friend of mine who owns this record store used to do all the lights and stuff for the Fillmore and everything and I go in and talk to him once a week or so about all the shows he saw and the people he was hanging around with. He says Skip Spence still owes him a scarf. He borrowed it one cold night and never gave it back.

You copped some heavy criticism for your first record ‘The Past is Faster’ – most notably the Pitchfork review which said it was ‘about as refined and likeable as a syphilitic chancre.’ What did you take from that criticism?

I just realised, years later, that a lot of what he said made sense to me because that first record was definitely me interpreting a lot of people and probably too closely at times. Like, for instance, I was purposely trying to make something that could’ve been a lost Captain Beefheart song. It was just pure fun for me and the beginning of recording experiments. But I just thought it was funny and it was inspirational to try and do something better and its like ‘well, there are some valid points here.’

Pitchfork charged that you 'wanted to be Bob Pollard so bad' - true or false?
I did like Guided by Voices a lot but no more than any of the other hundred bands that I listen to. I like them a lot. They were one of the few new bands that I actually listened to. I spent most of my time listening to older stuff. Listening to the Bunnymen and the Smiths or whoever I grew up with and then going and buying Television and going from there to the Velvet Underground. Guided by Voices were champions of a lot of the old stuff but brought it into a new context. And they were really successful at it so I did like them. But I don't think I ever really danced in front of the mirror trying to be Bob Pollard. I might be wrong.

You mentioned that the last record was trying to create songs that could be a lost Captain Beefheart track. Did you have different goals for the Antique Glow record?
This one I wanted to take things that I'd listened to and absorbed but make the transition from aping it to getting myself across. I got a lot better at that. I mean the first song on the record with the bass pedals and jingle bells is definitely like listening to the Beach Boys but I don't think it sounds like a Beach Boys song. I just think when I got to this record I was better at absorbing those things but not making them so apparent and putting myself across better.

It appears that Australia has had a bit to do with this record? How did that come about?
It was all through a guy here Chuck Prophet (ex-Green on Red). We played a show together - an odd show at this neighbourhood gay biker bar which has started having a lot of good punk rock and rock 'n' roll shows here on a weekly basis here in San Francisco. After the show he talked to me and at that point I'd only had vinyl pressed of the record so I was looking for someone to put it out on cd. I'd been mailing it around and hadn't had much luck. I got some feedback from labels that said 'it's really good but it's a bad time for the industry right now or mp3's or yadda yadda yadda' so there didn't seem to be money to do it anywhere but Chuck told me he knew these fellows over in Australia called Corduroy and he'd done some deals with them and it was a very simple, trusting, easy handshake kind of a deal. And it was just the perfect thing and the guys at Corduroy really came through for me because it was at a time when I'd felt like I'd put a lot of heart and soul into the record and it was something that I felt more than comfortable about trying to get out to people. Much more so than the first record. So it was getting to the point where it was just about to be disappointing. I'd spent money on vinyl and I felt good in my heart but I wanted to go a little further with it. I thought it was good enough to be a cd on a small label somewhere. So they came through and I was able to sell stuff at shows and putting money into getting another vinyl issue. So if there was ever a place that kind of gave me a chance it was those guys down there.

How does it feel to be sitting in San Francisco - a very celebrated rock 'n' roll city - and it's Melbourne that's giving you the leg up?
It's crazy. I can't believe it happened like that.

You did a vinyl release of Antique Glow where you personally painted 200 copies using old album covers as your canvas - what was the thinking behind that?
It was a cost cutting thing. I like records and I always have. I wanted to have my own record out and it was twice the price for getting a proper album cover made and I thought there has to be some other way. I used to go to the thrift stores a lot and look for old vinyl to keep or to sell to make a little money. So I would just start getting these record covers and this lady that I would always see in the thrift store, we would always kind of elbow each other for records for the first few months and then we started to become friendly, she turned out to be a painter and she was working on this project for this jazz guy - Steve Lacy - who's this famous jazz player and she was painting every cover individually for him. And I thought that's a way to get around this and I took my thrift store shopping for vinyl a little further and started buying stuff if it had an interesting cover and then I would paint over them. That way it was more like a personal involvement in the whole process. So it was a way of keeping with the process, enjoying the fruits of my labour and also making it kind of interesting for people and save money. In some philosophical way in made sense along with the record of using old source material and personalising it and making it my own. In the same way with music - it might be a Skip Spence kind of sound but it's my own song and it's channeled in my own way. And it was the same with those covers 'oh this is kind of cool I can buy this Frank Sinatra cover and put antennas on his head and give him a strange looking face'. I've taken that piece of art and made it my own. All of which weren't apparent at the time but now that I think about it it makes a lot of sense.

You were saying that you made a living buying and re-selling records. What was the biggest find that you made - the payday record?
Man, probably like a Stan Getz 10" from the 50s - an old jazz 10" record. I actually bought it on a day when everything was on sale so the record was 25c and I got two 10", different issues, different songs and a Lord Buckley 10". I paid 75c for the three and sold them for around $140 bucks. And then I felt bad about selling them, as I usually do, cos they'd be cool to have. Sometimes food is more important.

You worked for Jeff Buckley. What was the story there?
That's was pretty cool. That was when I moved out to New York for a while. I was just a fan of his stuff and somewhere in there before his record came out I just wrote a letter to the manager - the address was on a postcard or something that I'd picked up and nothing happened till five or six months later they called and said 'hey, we need an intern to come help out - but it's very low paying' and I just really liked his music at the time. I was pretty inspired by someone doing the solo stuff he was doing on his Telecaster. That was in the middle of a lot of grungey stuff, heavy music and I liked the fact that he could sing a Leonard Cohen song or a Nina Simone song and sing it really well. Also I was young and too kind of scared to try and commit my own music to tape so I thought in a round about way I could be around the music business without having to put my own self out. I could trick myself into seeing what it's like, live vicariously. So it was interesting and fun and neat to go see shows, Paul McCartney came to a show and I saw him up close so that was fun but I realised I'd rather be writing. I liked music to write music and create stuff rather than try to promote someone else or work in office dealing with how many units have sold and 'what time the flight to Tokyo is?' and how much fan mail there is. After a while it was like that's not what I'm interested in.

As a confirmed anglophile when were you last proud to be an American?
(laughs) Oh, boy. (Sings) 'Proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free...' I don't know. I guess I'm proud every day and I'm ashamed every day. It's a real give and take. San Francisco is a very critical, Liberal town so you're more aware of the sort comings of your government and the way things are going than I would be if I was living in the mid-West or with my parents or whoever that just have different ideas what's right and wrong. I can't say the last time I was really proud of it but I know I can say I'm not happy with the way things are going and our role in the world. I'm not a big supporter of the people in office right now. Hopefully I'll be proud when they get them the hell out of office - I'll be proud again.

¡Tarantula!
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©2003 Christopher Hollow