Heather Forecast
The latest non-John Prine release from Oh Boy Records is the long-awaited debut of New York singer-songwriter , Mascara Falls, which was produced in Nashville by hot local engineer Roger Moutenot, known for his work with Lou Reed, Yo La Tengo and Los Straitjackets. At last spring’s South by Southwest festival in Austin, Eatman won raves for her distinctively breathy delivery and cruelly precise wordplay. (“Goodbye Betty-Jean,” sings Eatman to a has-been actress sleepwalking through a touring show, “you left town another fat philistine.”) On Mascara Falls, she’s backed by an intriguing lineup of local musicians, ranging from session pros Kenny Greenberg, Pat Buchanan and Tom Spurlock to Lambchop keyboardist John Delworth. The record hits stores this month.
It hasn’t even been scheduled for release yet, and already advance listeners are calling the forthcoming Asylum Records LP by the most unusual and intriguing country album to come out of Nashville all year. How unusual is it? A music-magazine editor who works out of Nashville described the record as sounding “like Mazzy Star—only better.”
Produced by Daniel Lanois, the sonic wizard responsible for memorable albums by Peter Gabriel, U2 and Robbie Robertson, the record features the work of local tunesmiths Gillian Welch and Dave Olney (whose “Deeper Well” is said to undergo a startling transformation) alongside songs by Neil Young (“Wrecking Ball”), Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan.
If you’ve noticed a new byline in the Nashville BannerMichael Gray, an MTSU graduate student who also teaches a course in the history of the recording industry. As comanager of the Nolensville Road record store Phonoluxe since 1988, Gray has cultivated an extensive knowledge of music, and he wrote previously for the MTSU paper Sidelines.
Gray is filling the position formerly occupied by the Banner’s fine music journalist Calvin Gilbert, who left to join the staff of Radio & Records. Gray arrives just in time for the redesigned Banner’s new music-oriented tabloid insert , which takes the place of the old Weekender section starting Thursday, Sept. 7. Expect the team of Gray and respected music writer Jay Orr to continue the Banner’s unchallenged dominance of daily local music coverage.
Nashville’s newest music venue, at 909 Church St., opened over the Labor Day weekend with shows featuring , the renowned Nashville guitarist who has performed with greats ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Bobby “Blue” Bland. The new club is owned and operated by John Smith, Howard Owens and Kevin Robinson, some of whom have had a hand in such local clubs as the Castle. According to Smith, Club 909 will be a jazz/ R&B/blues club with no rap, and he says the owners will enforce a strict no-baseball-caps-no-tennis-shoes dress code. “We want to draw a mature, upscale audience,” he says. Future shows may include an appearance by the Dramatics; the club stays open Wednesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. Call 251-1613 for more information.
Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark headline a special benefit for the Interfaith Dental Clinic Sept. 13 at the Bluebird Cafe. If you haven’t gotten tickets already, too bad—they’re sold out. If you have, maybe you’ll get to hear some of the new songs off Earle’s upcoming full-band LP, which early listeners are calling an astonishing return to form. One of the standout cuts is said to be a duet between Earle and Lucinda Williams. The evening will also celebrate the release of a CD that accompanies Where Love Goes, the new book by novelist Joyce Maynard. More on that project soon.
Garry Tallent, the E Street Band bassist who has distinguished himself as a producer with fine records by the Delevantes, the Floating Men and Steve Forbert, has joined with engineer Tim Coates and Ron LaSalle’s Truth Management to form a new record label, D’Ville Record Group. Headquartered in Marathon Village, the label will focus on “the other side of Nashville” music, according to media relations director Jimmy Miller. D’Ville issues its first release, former Beausoleil member Steve Conn’s LP River of Madness, on Oct. 17; the album features appearances by the Subdudes, among others.
has a recently released CD, Roughly Speaking, available on the Skram Records label. Audiences here probably know Cooper best from his opening gigs for the popular Texas folk-jazz combo Trout Fishing in America. The 12 songs were written by Cooper with the exception of one track, “Fadeaway,” cowritten by Cooper and Marlin Greene; Cooper and Nick Carlson produced. For more information, contact Cooper at P.O. Box 121986, Nashville, TN 37212.
Elliptical dispatches: Val Haynes, the acclaimed New York folk-rock performer better known as Lonesome Val, is apparently considering a move to Nashville. A spokesperson for New Jersey’s Bar/None Records, which just issued her CD NYC, said that the singer-songwriter is looking for a change of scenery—which is understandable, since she formerly resided in Hell’s Kitchen before moving to upstate New York. While house-hunting in Nashville, she’ll play some gigs at the Sutler, Guido’s and the Bluebird Sept. 12-14, respectively. “Do you have some property you want to sell?” the woman at Bar/None asked....
Congratulations to Bonepony guitarist Bryan Ward and his wife Lori, who have a new baby boy, Mason Tyler Ward. The 9-pound, 2-ounce young’un was born July 22 here in town....
The morning mail brought “Getting in Toon,” the newsletter from hardworking local rockers , the band that shares its name with the ill-fated high-diver in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon. The newsletter contains a tour itinerary, cool clip art of the Archies and Charlie’s Angels, and a special band endorsement of the twisted Saturday morning cartoon The Tick. Fearless Freap’s CD, Sucking the Existence, is available for $8 (checks only, please) from Rob Robinson, 2612 Lishwood Drive, Nashville, TN 37214.
Repackaged and Ready to Go
When K-tel International—that ubiquitous repackager of hit records—came looking for a Nashville representative last year, the company discovered and hired the equally ubiquitous Hazel Smith. So far, it’s been a dream match. A music columnist, radio commentator, talent manager and indefatigable partygoer, Smith has camped at the wellsprings of country music for the past 25 years. Few people know the music as thoroughly as she, and no one has a fiercer affection for it. If the Ryman Auditorium is the mother church of country music, then surely Hazel Smith is the mother hen.
As K-tel’s director of A&R and licensing for Nashville, Smith conceives themes around which to build albums, finds records to fit the themes, secures permission to use the music, sequences the cuts for each album, and writes the label copy and liner notes. More broadly, she is empowered to represent K-tel in all its country music-related business ventures.
Among the album projects Smith has either coordinated or designed from the ground up during her 14 months with the company are The 101 Greatest Country Hits, a massive package officially sponsored by the Academy of Country Music; Country Cousins, a compilation of Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley hits; Best of Bluegrass; Bluegrass Gospel; Today’s Best Country Gospel; Songs for Mama; a Dr. Hook country album; and Desperadoes, a collection of reissued cuts by trailblazing “Outlaws” Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser and Jessi Colter.
Smith says her “first claim to fame” was originating the term “outlaw music,” back in 1973 when she was working for Tompall Glaser. Three years later, when RCA Records released its trend-setting album, the term ballooned to cover an entire sub-genre of country music. “I wanted to do an Outlaws II album [for K-tel],” Smith says, “but we couldn’t call it that. So we called it .... It’s not like [Wanted! The Outlaws]. It’s an entirely new concept, and I’m very proud of it.”
K-tel likes to be as current with its hits packages as possible, Smith explains, but it occasionally rereleases important archival material as well. The label also does a limited amount of original recording. Recently, it took Lee Greenwood into the studio to rerecord an album of his early country hits and an album of gospel music.
Smith estimates that she originates about one project a month. “We do everything that the major labels do,” she says, “except we do not break or record new acts—except under certain special circumstances.” K-tel sells most of its albums through regular record stores. However, it elected to direct-market The 101 Greatest Country Hits. Available by an 800-number, the package is being advertised via a 30-minute infomercial narrated by Eddie Rabbitt.
The major country labels have been “extremely cooperative” in licensing their tracks to K-tel, Smith reports: “They realize it’s like gravy money. They know that when we put a song on one of these compilations they’re going to get money they otherwise wouldn’t have made.... What we do is count pennies rather than dollars. We can afford to do this. The other labels are trying to break new acts and hopefully to have major, major money coming in from those acts. We can take older acts and sell a smaller amount and still make a profit.”
Like most other Music Row survivors, Smith has always held down several jobs at once. “I have never done just one thing,” she says. “I can’t. I don’t know how.” The daughter of a Caswell County, N.C., tobacco farmer, she moved to Nashville in the late ’60s with her two young sons, Billy and Terry. Her aim was to be a songwriter. “I came here with them young’uns and didn’t have but $300 in my pocket,” she recalls. “Nobody told me I couldn’t do it, and I didn’t know not to do it, so I done it. But if I hadn’t had some faith I would have gone back home.” (Billy and Terry Smith are now songwriters for Major Bob Music.)
Smith worked for Tompall Glaser when his studio was one of the most creative gathering places on Music Row. After that, she played a major role in the Dr. Hook organization for eight years. In 1976, Dr. Hook’s Ray Sawyer recorded Smith’s “(One More Year of) Daddy’s Little Girl.” It became a Top 30 country single. Early in her tenure on the Row, Smith became a columnist for Country Music magazine, a post she continues to hold. She was personal assistant to Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White for six years. And for the past five years, she was a partner in Hazel & Heller, a talent management company.
These days, in addition to her K-tel chores, Smith does a live five-minute radio show for WFMS in Indianapolis called “Hazel’s Hotline.” “I just flap my mouth about what’s going on on Music Row,” she says. Whatever Smith’s deficiencies may be, a lack of strong opinions isn’t one of them. “I tell you what I am pissed off about now,” she offers, “and that’s that ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN didn’t mention the word ‘bluegrass’ when they covered Jerry Garcia’s death. They absolutely refused to say the word. But that was his favorite music, and Bill Monroe was Garcia’s hero.”
Increasingly, Smith worries about country music’s soul. “I know people in the business today are not as crazy—and that there’s not as much abuse going on now as there was back during [the early ’70s],” she says. “But I’m just wondering about the hearts. Are their hearts as true and honest now as they were then? And do they love the music as much? It really concerns me today that you’ve got people in the A&R departments who don’t know the first verse and chorus of ‘The Great Speckled Bird.’ I feel like we’ve lost a lot along the way because they don’t go back to find out what we’re all about.”
Smith suggests a remedy: “I think for someone to have a job in the music business, it should be a requirement for them to go through the Country Music Hall of Fame to see everybody that’s in the Hall of Fame and learn why they’re there. Secondly, I think they should go out to the Grand Ole Opry and see what that is about. Then, they could come back and do their gig.”
Hollywood loves technology. Gaffes can be erased with relative ease, thanks to new digital editing techniques, and special effects, once reserved exclusively for sci-fi thrillers, are popping up in all sorts of movies—including dramas like Forrest Gump. Technology even makes for good script copy. At least, that’s what this summer’s release of The Net and Virtuosity seems to be telling us—though the actual scripts for both of these movies are less than perfect.
Now it’s MGM’s turn to push out its high-tech vehicle for a test-drive. The movie is called simply enough, and already it has ruffled a few feathers. It follows the lives of a teen hacker as he is thrust, along with his friends, into the middle of an international corporate conspiracy. (Does this plot sound familiar? It should—it’s the basis for The Net as well.)
Billed by the studio as a “fast-paced cyberpunk thriller,” Hackers is being aimed at the general teenage audience with a rudimentary knowledge of computers and a love for action films. Unfortunately, it seems the studio also assumed that hackers themselves would love this movie. MGM was expecting a boom business at the box office. Instead, it got an attack from a group of hackers on the Internet.
Most studios are promoting their movies on the Internet’s World Wide Web. At these sites, a user can typically download pictures and clips and play sound bites from the movie. They’re full-color, full-motion video propaganda machines, but they’ve been a popular attraction in the past.
The Hackers Web site was just like most of the other promotional sites on the Web. It was merely an extended movie poster—a clickable marquee. And just as marquee posters are prone to vandalism, that’s exactly what happened to the Hackers Web site. A full-color picture of the movie’s two heroes, Dade and Kate, was painted over so that the protagonists had pink-and-green fade hairdos and greenish skin. The copy was also subtly altered: Looking remarkably similar to the original page, it instead contained a plea to the Internet audience to boycott the movie.
“They tried to keep us out,” says MGM’s official site. “They lied about us.”
“But they can’t keep us out,” adds the hacker-altered copy. Remarkably, this bold act of computer vandalism wasn’t exactly kept a secret. The hackers responsible for the prank even left a picture of themselves in place of a movie action shot—but with their eyes covered with strategically placed black bars. At the bottom of the page, an announcement urged users of the page to visit “real Hacker sites,” providing a quick link to their own home pages.
MGM could have had these kids arrested for the prank. Instead, since the movie Hackers is supposed to present a defense of the hacker lifestyle, the studio was left in the unenviable position of having to back down.
“We don’t approve of their trashing our web site,” says a company statement, “but we are thoroughly impressed by their creativity and ingenuity.”
Despite the prank, the studio intends to proceed with a planned “24-hour Hackathon” to be held Sept. 12 on the Web site, beginning at 5 p.m. Nashville time. Users will be able to engage their hacker sides in a special game that will be released that day. The first person to complete the game will win a new computer.
One person, speaking anonymously in an Internet newsgroup, called the decision to continue the contest a joke. “Why hold a Hackathon,” he asked, “when they’ve already been hacked?”
Good question.
You can take a look at both versions of the Hackers web page on the Internet. Point your WWW browser to: http://www.mgmua.com/hackers.
Strummin’ Along
Gruhn Guitars’ Web site is picking up steam, according to a company spokesperson. “We’ve gotten about 70 catalog requests or so in under a day,” Carl Nelson said a day or so after the site’s official release, “[and] several want file requests and others have various questions about instruments. I’m pleased that the site seems to be popular and hope it just keeps getting better!”
Expect this site to expand quite a bit. If you haven’t checked it out yet, try
http://www.nashville.net/~gruhn.
Scene Us?
I’ll let you in on a little secret.
The Nashville Scene’s been tinkering away at our Internet connection for weeks now, and it looks like the paper will be plunging headlong into the bitstream shortly. In fact, we’ll be announcing something next week. Stay tuned for details.
What will the offer? Well, we don’t want to give anything away yet, but you can bet we’ll keep you up to date with all sorts of listings. See you next week—online!
Joel Moses can be reached via e-mail at joel@moses.com.
