Tales from the Tavern: He Said She Said

EXCERPTS FROM THE TALES FROM THE TAVERN INTERVIEWS
Ryan Bingham – Feb. 3, 2010
RC What are the inspirations for you ---the things that inspire you and keep you going during the tough times - and now where you’re at---what you find optimistic?
Ryan Bingham In life the main things that keep you going is people—your friends and your family and the people around you. In the mornings when I wake up with my wife beside me and she’s got this big smile on her face - there is nothing about that that doesn’t make you want to get up and get going, that’s a big start you know. And your friends that surround you and people who want to hear your songs, that’s what keeps you going playing music - they say hey man I dig that tune can you play this song or that song -- if people didn’t want to hear the songs I wouldn’t have any reason to play them.
RC That one song about the poets singing with blood---it just tore my heart apart---what image does that give you?
Ryan You know, a lot of these songs come from the road … that’s kind of just laying it all out there – playing those bars, places where nobody listens and nobody cares. Not even playing, just life in general - people go through life everyday and go to jobs they don’t want to work at -- you know their situation at home is just messed up. Everyday you bleed a little bit and it drains you -- just getting down the road…
RC Timing wise, things have changed in your career recently …
Ryan Oh yea, big time.
RC Is it all cool?
RyanYea man, I remember when I decided I wanted to play music---I was living in this small town, I was working in this body shop painting cars - sanding cars. I wasn’t even a painter and went to rodeos on the weekend, and decided I ‘m going to play music for a living whether I make money or not. I didn’t really have anything going for me anyways and I loved playing music. I had a roommate and couldn’t really afford rent - I got a camper on my truck, and said I’m going to live right here in this truck, and I would just go around playing bars and music and I don’t really need anything else. I made that decision and I don’t care if I make a dime or a dollar, as long as I am playing music. I will be happy - never looked back
RC God bless you man.
I met my drummer and we used to run bulls, and we were hanging out and he said what are you doing. I’m just going to play music, I am tired of all this -- got to get a real job. I said I’m not going to do this anymore – I’m just going to play music and he said I’m going to go with you. So we got in this Suburban and that’s all we did we would just camp out - sleep outside. I remember one time it was late at night and we pulled over and had our sleeping bags and we had a dog that went with us. The dog wasn’t mean at all -- kids could hang all over her unless we were sleeping and if we were sleeping she wouldn’t let anyone come near us, and someone came up and the dog was going crazy barking. I remember waking up and thinking we were on the beach somewhere because there was sand everywhere. We were hung over and I looked up and there were like ten little kids and my dog’s in between us and these kids and we are in these sleeping bags. My dog is barking and these kids were crying and these two older ladies come walking up - the mothers - and they said, I can’t believe you guys are camping out on the playground. I look back and there is a swing set behind us and our dog was keeping these kids back and I thought have we really come to this.
RCYou had a line tonight—I miss living and living misses me - any commentary on that
RyanI don’t know man some of this stuff is an unconscious kind of thing and I don’t realize it until after I write it. It probably means something, I don’t know. I don’t really write stuff down. I don’t sit down and write songs and say I need something to rhyme with this, I just play and let things come off the top of my head and that’s what I write down and sometimes I’ll just be humming along and singing and it will come out and I won’t realize until later until my wife reads it and says – do you know what you just said - and I’ll look at it again. I haven’t really thought about it until you just said it. I never even thought about that line

Jack Tempchin - April 1, 2009
RC: This idea of pertinence, is that a responsibility you feel?
JT: No, I don’t think it has much to do with me, I mean you come from the era you come from and the influences and you just do what you’re doing. And then the world either moves with you or it moves the other way ...
JT: ... I remember I went to buy a car early on, buy a used car, and we went into the little finance room and the lady said, well what do you do for a living.  And I said I’m a musician, and she said, oh you mean a bum…
RC: did she actually say that?
JT: well yes, essentially. Because I hadn’t had really any success yet, and there was no money. I’m still getting the same money when I play in San Diego in a bar as I did 30 years ago, and everything else has gone up a little bit since then, so…yeah, having a hit was really great. I don’t know how it would happen these days.
RC: that’s my question
JT: these days are not the same. There’s not a hit song. I mean there are still hit songs, I guess, but it’s not the same. I means it’s like comparing when we used to have three channels on the television, that was all you could watch, and they went off around twelve midnigh…three channels, compared to like now, you have about 600 channels, I mean, how can you have a hit show. You can still have a hit show with 600 channels, but you can’t have as big a hit. Back then, when the top 40 played stuff, and you were listening with your transistor radio under the covers, you were hear “Sukiyaki”, from Japan, at the same time you were hearing the Rolling Stones and somebody else, and there were only about 10 or 12 of them, and everyone in the country was listening to those same 10 or 12 songs, and still knows them, and I just don’t think you have hit songs like that today. It’s not quite the same.
RC: throughout this whole time, have you been performing?
JT: yea, I decided to, there was a couple of years where I got into real estate, and I thought, well this will be cool, and I made a bunch of money for about three years in real estate, I bought a some houses, and I sold them, but I wasn’t performing. And I thought, OK, I did it, I made some money, but I didn’t like it. Where was the fun part? There was no fun part at all. So I took my guitar and I went down to this club and started to play, and realized that I couldn’t play anymore. You know after a couple of years where I hardly picked it up, and it was like, oh man, it took me months to get back up. And I said, hey, never again, you know, you feed the flame of your own creativity, and you’ve got to keep feeding it. If you don’t put logs in there, the fire’s gonna go out. And so I just decided, this is it for me, that from now on, I’m going full on 100%, forever, because nothing else compares to it. I mean you know that. I with other musicians, recording, the playing live, it’s all just as much fun as a guy can have. I mean on any level, the writing part, the working with other musicians, recording, the playing live, it’s all just as much fun as a guy can have. Now the other time I was in there to buy a car, I mean this was 20 years later, and it was like, oh you write songs, that’s cool. And the finance guy at this Cadillac place, he goes, this is the greatest job in the world, he says, I love being this finance guy, and you know I’ve tried a lot of stuff, and he said, this is the most fun a guy could ever have, and I think, well here’s another guy whose found his spot. It certainly wouldn’t be a good spot for me, but he loves it just as much as I love what I’m doing. So, I guess that’s the deal. And I guess someone who doesn’t love it that much shouldn’t be doing it really. JT: and then this other thing, like Mozart said, neither imagination or whatever else he said, is the soul of genius. He said, love is the soul of genius, and I think that what he meant is that if you love it, and you love it more and more, and you’re so consumed by your love and what it is you’re doing, that that’s what causes you to be a genius. You know, like Mozart was consumed by what he was doing, he was a genius at 9 years old. He was like 5 when he wrote "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"…but whatever, and it’s the amount of love that determines how good you are. I mean, I look at other guys, and there’s a sort of competing as you go up, you know, and then you see someone like Bob Dylan, and you think, you can’t compete with that guy, I mean he’s like on a complete other level, he’s so good, but ultimately, he’s just loved it, so much more than me, that he got so much better at it, that why he’s him. I think that’s how it works out. I think that there’s a lot of people better than me, and that’s why, they love it so much, that they soak it up until they become great.

Teresa Tudury - February 2009
Our culture as we know it is breaking down. Everybody’s losing their shirts. Nobody has their retirement money anymore. We’re watching it all break down, and it’s going to happen even more.
We’re obviously screwed up and we’re hitting bottom … collectively as a society. So OK, who makes the new culture? Well, the artists do. And we don’t know what we’re doing. But we have to stay open to what’s coming through, right? Like little shamans, because artists create the culture and point the way to what’s coming next, because we’re always picking up on the collective, we’re always working through the collective –
The idea is that we’re open to the impulses. When you’re writing your material you don’t go – I’m going to write this song. The impulse starts to come and you have to follow it and go – where’s this song going? You have to stay open. When you spend your whole life pushed up against the unconscious like that, you’re hitting the collective. You’re drawing on things; you become like a psychic. And that’s what the artist’s job is

Eliza Gilkyson - Oct. 15, 2008
Eliza: I don’t know if there’s really something I feel I have to tell people as much as I feel I have an obligation to myself – to be incredibly true to myself … and all that means is I try to process what comes out of me, and make great music and great poetry. I have an obligation to be the best I can with that. I don’t know how that fits in with other people other than that I’m so grateful – it’s like a big sounding board. I don’t do this in a vacuum. I’m very much aware of the reflection that happens from listeners – and I’m very much in need of that. I’m not this solo artiste, I really do need that feedback from other people.
RC: So, since there is a need for some sort of response, how does that fit in with commercial considerations?
Eliza: I don’t know. I’ve never been commercial, I’ve never had a record deal with a major label; I’ve never been courted by the industry. I have no idea how it fits in.
RC: You don’t consider that when you’re actually recording a song.
Eliza: No. I used to – when I was trying to get something from the industry. But now … I don’t think there is an industry, especially at my age. I think all there is – is me … and them, in terms of people who might be interested in what I do. It’s more a question of how can I get this out there, especially since there’s not really an industry infrastructure for somebody like me?
RC: When you say people like me, what are you thinking.
Eliza. I think – older. I think there is an audience for what I have to say, but I don’t think there is an infrastructure for how to get to that audience. That’s why what you’re doing is really important to me.

Kevin Welch - October, 2008
RC: What would you call a bad gig?
Kevin Welch: Any gig where people aren’t paying attention – whether it’s 20,000 of them or 20 of them

Audrey Auld Mezera, Katy Moffat, and Andrew Hardin - March 19, 2008
Andrew Hardin: This is what is known as a great gig. It’s got great acoustics … great technical support … great location … great area … great audience … great promoter …

Audrey Auld Mezera: Great food!

Andrew Hardin: The food – my god … I’m sure we are all very grateful. I know I am … So these are the gigs that you live for.

Katy Moffat: That’s true. It’s very very special, and it only happens when there is someone like you who makes it happen - so once more, gratitude.

Audrey Auld Mezera: And it’s arriving and having a sound guy (Tyson Leonard) that doesn’t lay a trip on you or treat you like you’ve never used a microphone before, and having someone there who helps out with the merchandise (Robbie Van Gelder); that’s a big weight off your shoulders.

Andrew Hardin: And not taking a percentage (of those merchandising sales) as well.

Audrey Auld Mezera: It’s a general feeling of everyone you work with - they all care about the show. I was asked so many times tonight - are you ok? Can I get you anything? I wish I wanted something so they could get me something.

Andrew Hardin: For the first time in my life I’m actually fine (laughing) - I don’t need anything.

Audrey Auld Mezera: Yea, but it’s really nice to feel looked after - respected and appreciated. I’m sure the audience would say the same thing - you can tell they are in 100 percent a great mood. They all turn up on a Wednesday night and they are all pumped up and ready to have a really good time.”

Katy—once again it takes someone who actually has built up a series because the people have confidence in you—they believe in you and they know that you are not going to let them down so this is really once again what makes a great gig

Andrew---yea that’s actually kind of a miracle in a way---something that defies the laws of everything else—big media –business and everything –it more like personal good vibes and knowledge and soul—and you put soul into this and we put soul into our performance---

Ron ---the audience puts soul into it---

Andrew---it’s not like rolling into town taking your money and leaving


Danny O'Keefe - April 2, 2008
Danny: One of the crucial mistakes of my life is that I never went out there and worked the road. I never really got the performing thing until years later---it took me years to get a second set.
I’m slow that way and it took a long time to mature into that whole process because I didn’t start out as a performer—I started out as a writer and that was the thing that was always more important. I would go out for six weeks to promote a record and then I’d escape
Ron: Is it still the thing that’s most important?
Danny: What, the writing? The creation is more important. It’s not so much the writing anymore cause you can re-create the song.
Ron: What do you call the creation?
Danny: It’s that thing that moves you. You can feel it when you start to write a song - you get emotionally fragile and you don’t know what it is, and threads come and you keep pulling the threads and eventually you pull them into some kind of fabric and that begins to look like something, and you know you’re getting one. The other ones are just constructions, you know. You can go to Nashville and construct 10 songs in a day but very few of them are ones that make a mark on you, and those are what you want--- the ones that leave a mark on you 'cause that’s what you are looking for."

Excerpts from the Tales from the Tavern Interviews

Mark Stuart & Stacey Earle - 11/14/07
Mark Stuart: I’ve had people tell me something in five minutes I wish I had known 20 years ago—and all it would have taken is someone to pass it on to me 20 years ago
Ron: Can you think of an example?
Stacy Earle: Well, such as - Don’t go throwing your heart out there somewhere where it’s going to get broken. Don’t go take your songs and yourself and try and sit in a rowdy bar and play. Don’t pick the wrong venue. You have to seek out the right venue; the people who want to listen
Mark: Let me expend on that. If you want to be an artist who’s creating and doing something that’s unique to you, generally don’t put yourself in or subject yourself to anything that’s going to crush you or be counter productive to that. Now, in my case it was 20 years of playing in the rowdy bars with people that didn’t appreciate what I was doing and you think - you know, I’m not here to do my stuff; I’m here to do “Rock and Roll Hootchie Coo” and “Mustang Sally” all night long. OK, but at least I’m still singing and playing and getting paid at the end of the night, but actually what’s going on is slowly but surely they are pounding away at you and they are forcing you to be something that you never set out to be and it’s seeping into your psyche and you are becoming something that you never set out to be and you are driving home after a gig unrewarded and you’ve lost sight of what it is you wanted to be. So what’s the answer to this? Get out of that situation; quit doing it, and that’s a tough thing to do when your making a living doing it.


Michael Smith 3-12-08
The level of vivacity, the level of excitedness that comes from the Tales from the Tavern crowd is on a different level, a different plane.
They’re light-hearted and they’re social and they’re verbal—but they were definitely saying – I’m having a good time are you gonna get in the way or are you gonna help me have a good time - you walk out there and you can feel that. It’s great because it makes me think I’m not a sedate little folksinger. It makes me think that I am capable of playing to people who have a life going on – the audience has a life going on, and I’m happy to rise to that occasion, and I am aware of the fact that it is demanding. - Michael Smith


Chris Smither - from 3-22-05
“It gives me a great deal of pleasure to see people trying desperately to do something that means so much to them. You’re told from the time you’re little, find something you like to do and figure out a way to make a living at it … so few people get to realize that. It’s important to encourage the ones who are trying.”* - Smither