SEVEN DAYS | august 02-09, 2006 | feature 41A
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SD: What about “Cosmic American,” which is a real sexy song in some ways, but sounds like this wonderful metaphor comparing a relationship to a misdirected electronic miscommunication of sorts. I’m a live wire, I’m a short wave radio / Do you copy / I’m a flash of light from the tower to the runway / If I leave you I’m gonna do it / Semi-automatically . . . What’s going on there? AM: Well, I think you’ve got it.
SD: You have a new CD coming out soon. No title yet. What can you say about it? AM: Well, I’m very excited about it! I recorded it in Bristol, Vermont, with Michael Chorney producing, which is how I made Hymns, but this time around we recorded over the course of many months and had the benefit of time and space. I also was a real pain in the ass about my vocal takes this time around, sometimes recording more takes of a song than I’d like to admit. But I wanted the deliveries to be magical, bursting with intimacy. Also, there are horns on this one. The
songs themselves are a motley crew, but there are several love stories and unrequited love stories in there. SD: “Fonder Heart” is a beautiful new song. What’s the story there? AM: Unrequited infatuation. Creative sublimation. And a phrase from Lawrence Durrell’s Justine, something to the effect of, “We who have loved much and traveled much, we understand the complexities of tenderness and that the line between friend and lover is very fine.” SD: And who is this Uncle Louie in your new tune “Out of Pawn?” AM: I’ll never tell. But it’s (mostly) a true story. The neighborhood bar was called “Saturn Bar,” and it’s still there, in the 9th Ward. That night Uncle Louie also said, “All culture ended in 1995!” Funny, here was a case of me wanting desperately to write a “political” song about what happened — and didn’t happen — in New Orleans, and the words just wouldn’t come. It felt more compelling as a love story. m
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“I’m a live wire, I’m a short wave radio” came from the ether. I was living in Cairo. I’d play that line in the bathroom of my apartment. Bathrooms are important creative spaces for me because of the starkness and the instant reverb. When I was writing it I had this great sense of the relentless hand of fate with regards to my own recklessness. “If I leave you, I’m gonna do it semi-automatically — do you blame me?” I meant that it couldn’t be helped.
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to party like it’s 1984 . . . Sinister stuff. Where’d that one come from? AM: Ha! That is one of those rare tunes that literally took five minutes to write, and no editing. A gift from the ether! So I’m kind of unqualified to talk about it. What you hear is what you get, really. I was actually embarrassed by its simplicity at first, and I had no idea people would latch onto it the way they did. Buzzflash.com promoted the record for a little while based on that song, and Michael Chorney and I actually got to play it on Air America. Sing Out! even printed it in their magazine.
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