hopes pinned to poses honed in men's room mirrors



* Oldish interview of Sparklehorse Mark Linkous. excerpt:

AL: The song "It's A Wonderful Life" is like a Walt Disney song. It is so happy and cheerful. Is it supposed to be ironic?

Mark: In a way. I got fed up with people in America thinking that my music is morose and depressing and all that. That song is like a "fuck you" to journalists, or people who are not smart enough to see what it is. But in the end, it was more about how everyday, you should pick up something, no matter how minuscule or microscopic it is, and when you go to bed, you can say I was glad that I was alive to see that. That's really what it's about.
...
AL: Do you believe in any religion? I know you had an accident a few years ago.

Mark: Not after that. It never caused any religious awakening. I have always remained sort of agnostic I guess. I believe that there is a God but I don't believe that it can be explained or understood. Whether you are evoking a higher intelligence like God or nature, it can be seen as the same thing. In West Virginia, there are snake handlers. They are a different level. It's very inspiring. Whether it's religion or anything that could do that.
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AL: Any advice for younger people who want to do music?

Mark: Buy a 99 dollar four-track and record some stuff and put it out on the Internet.

* Gibby Haynes interviews Willie Nelson and Willie Nelson interviews Gibby Haynes. excerpt:

Gibby: Willie, you wrote a song called "Crazy" and they denied it. One was German so I couldn't really blame him that much and as it turned out he had signed three bands and all the singers of these three bands had died. So it's lucky that he didn't know that you wrote "Crazy" (Both Laugh) There's also another one I'd love to hear something about, "The Red-Headed Stranger." Is that a song about a man that shoots a woman for touching his horse?

Willie: Yeah, it was originally a song called Red Headed Stranger and it was a record written by Arthur "Guitar Ruby" Smith and I used to be a disc jockey up in Fort Worth at KCNC and I had a children's program each day. My show ran from noon until 3pm, but I had a fifteen minute program each day from o1:00 until 1:15 where I played children's music so the mothers could get their little kids to take a nap you know. That was back in the radio of the 50's. There was this song called "The Red Headed Stranger" and I played it every day on my show and it was one of the most requested songs. I sang it to my kids at night with the first family that I had and so everyone just associated me and that song. "The Red Headed Stranger." And then, I had a chance to do my first album and I had artistic control (so they say), so I did the Red Headed Stranger Album. I did it in about 12 or 15 hours and it cost like ten or twelve thousand dollars to complete.
...
Gibby: You're the Perry Farrell of country music. I don't know if you'll get that one.

Willie: No, I don't know who that is.
Gibby: That's OK, don't worry about it, he looks like the devil without a tail. He's one of those weird guys. But that period, that was a weird period. It was in that transitional period. It kinda went from LSD to methamphetamines, you know what I mean? Shit got weird. There was a lot of dangerous people running around. These rumrunners and shit, but you had one of the picnics out on MoPac [Missouri Pacific Highway] didn't you, when MoPac was being built?