Cocktail Slippers - Norwegian Rockheroins

Cocktail Slippers NRC review :In the new-wave are the girl groups became more down to earth by adding electric guitars and singing organs. Cocktail Slippers start where Blondie’s Denis ended, with catchy harmony vocals and songs that tell in simple words (baby, baby) about the cruel truth of love.
Guitarist Little Steven from Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band saw the 5 girl play and immediately offered them a record deal, overpowered by their devotion to rock & roll and the self-assured voice of leadsinger Modesty Blaze.

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A cover version of Connie Francis’ 1964 hitsong Don’t Ever Leave Me shows flawless where these ladies get their inspiration from, not far from the place where Bruce Springsteen found his melodramatic rockfeel. Little Steven co-produced the album and wrote the title track St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a beautiful song about a love that is put through the test in a hurricane. The melody is one you think that has always been there.

Strong songs like the heavy doowopping Love Me Back and the on Da Doo Ron Ron from The Crystals inspired You Do Run give new vitality to a timesless pop-perception, played and sung with a holy believe in own abilities.

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre rages on for 37 irresistible minutes and has to be put on repeat straight after that, simply because the world lacks a modern-day girl group that gets close to staing in the shadows of these wonderful ‘old-fashioned’ Cocktail Slippers.

You can purchase the CD,LP and download the full album from the record labels website: Wicked Cool Records – http://www.wickedcoolrecords.com/shop/bands/cocktail-slippers

The Len Price 3 Releasing New Album Titled Pictures

Technorati Tags: len price 3,len price 3 new album,len price 3 pictures,len price 3 third album,little steven,the len price 3,the len price 3 picture,wicked cool bands,wicked cool records,wicked cool recos cds and lps,wickied cool music

"Rock and Roll doesn't need saving, the cure's right here." - David Fricke,
Rolling Stone

PICTURES is third album from The Len Price 3, and like their previous,
critically acclaimed records, this album is brimming with epic songs that
capture the electricity of the band's live shows. However, the band has
managed to enhance tracks on PICTURES with different arrangements and more
varied instrumentation than they've utilized on previous albums.

With their 2007 album RENTACROWD, and debut for Wicked Cool Records, The Len
Price 3 again earned triumphant reviews from USA Today, Rolling Stone, and
MTV.  Meanwhile, the band won over a growing throng of fans with their
Medway, UK signature tunes: cuts teeming with an onslaught of hooks and a
raw 60's garage sound.

PICTURES is a set of musical snapshots about people the band have
encountered and it's filled with observations about the light and dark parts
of the modern world.  "I'm just reporting things that I've seen, heard about
or been involved in," says Glenn Page (singer and guitarist). "I suppose
it's the confessions of a voyeur."

Big Summer Sale on all clothing & bundles

Summer Sale! We are discounting ALL of our clothing and bundles 20% for ONE WEEK! No silliness here – ALL of our t-shirts, hoodies/jackets, hats, kids stuff, and more are included. This isn’t about old designs or select sizes – it’s ALL clothing. In fact, we’ve added bundles to this sale, because they include clothing! So, a selection that’s been designed to be a fantastic value, is now irresistible. We’ve never had a sale like this before, so this is an excellent time to stock up!

Paying Dues Still the Best...

Paying Dues Still the Best Way to Make It in Music Industry

Last year, 13 millions tracks were put up on iTunes. Of those, 10 million failed to find a single buyer. Remember this the next time you hear somebody wibbling on about the "endless possibilities" offered by all the new music sites and, in particular, the music- oriented social network sites.

Allowing anybody anywhere to get their songs out has not resulted in a brave new DIY world; it just means the lunatics have taken over the asylum. Only one of out of 10 bands on a major label turns a profit. In the good old pre-net days, this meant there was a kind of filter in place (a 10 per cent return isn't such a bad thing in the mad, bad music world). But now the filters are turned off and we are faced with an incontinent torrent of the truly execrable.

However, the music media is supposed to offer up a welcoming pair of arms to "new music" in all its forms. But a scene that celebrates itself (and sets up forums to do so) does nobody any favours. "We need to develop bands" is the catch-cry. Really? The Beatles developed by going to Hamburg and playing five shows a day seven days a week until they felt ready to approach a record label.

Go back to this year's SXSW music industry talking shop in Texas. You'll find that, away from all the incessant and completely meaningless twittering, the only real speech that mattered was by Steve Van Zandt, musician, DJ, E Street band member and ex-Sopranos cast member.

Van Zandt upset the "we're all in together" mood with a speech that began: "Modern music sucks. It blows. Sure, nobody's buying records. No shit. They suck. Over the past 30 years I've been witness to a crisis of craft."

That crisis of craft is sorely evident on a daily basis in the pitiful excuse for music put on MySpace pages. "Get better, then get on MySpace" said Van Zandt. "Then when people come to see you, they won't be disappointed. Don't expect people to be patient and say 'oh, they're a developing act'. Wrong."

Over 30 years the guitarist has seen how the instant exposure of the social networking site has replaced the once crucial bar-band stage, where "bands get the chance to play other people's songs, analyse them, understand them. You learn greatness from greatness. The Beatles were a club band for five years and they played covers for five more years." Not sure if he's got those figures exactly right, but the point holds up.

That's how Springsteen and the E Streeters did it. "When we played for 50 people, we knocked those people out," he said. "That's why when we came back, there were 200 people. Then 400 people. Then 1,000."

It's why so many of today's potential stadium-fillers fall at the first hurdle, be they X-Factor winners or auteur indie types. They are snapped up in a reckless music industry gambling game and are flung at the public before they've played a dozen gigs. No wonder half of them end up crying all the way to The Priory.

Back in Van Zandt's day, a band would be given up to their fifth album to make an impression instead of, as is the case now, being chucked on the rubbish tip after their first one failed to dent the top 10.

"If a record company knows they'll share in the revenue when you're playing arenas," he says, "maybe they'll be a little more patient with you." And any band performing in arenas have literally built up that audience in tiny increments along the way by playing and playing and playing, not by having a nice MySpace page, not by having a "media profile" and not through any other assorted stunt.

bboyd@irishtimes.com

Steve Van Zandt will host his radio show at Tower Records, Wicklow Street, Dublin this Sunday at 1pm. Later in the day The Urges and The Len Price 3 from Van Zandt's Wicked Cool label will play in-store

Originally published by BRIAN BOYD.

(c) 2009 Irish Times. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/theticket/2009/0710/1224250335364.html

Happy 4th of July! While we haven’t had much summer weather at the shop here in NYC, we’re enjoying some of those exceptional days now. Since BBQ, beverages, and time with friends and family will be the top priorities over the long weekend, we wanted to remind you of the apparel and gear that will only enhance the festivities: our stars & stripes tie dye, the patriotic pint glasses, and our tank tops. We did have a few tank tops last summer, but we’ve added new stuff for 2009, like our women’s black Anvil tank top (with the classic Underground Garage logo in white), and our spiral yellow & orange tie dye for the men. Keep in mind - when you order any four t-shirts or bundles, get 10% off your order! Check out everything by clicking the image below, and thanks for your support!

VIEW ITEMS HERE

Become a fan of Stevie Van Zandt on Facebook

Click On Image Above To Be A Friend Of Little Steven Van Zandt

July 2009 Rolling Stone (SPAIN) : REVIEW Cocktail Slippers Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

July 2009 Rolling Stone (SPAIN) : REVIEW Cocktail Slippers Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre
"The last Little Steven's discovery for his great record label, Wicked Cool, are this norway girls that looks that they can be one night without problems on Bada Bing but with this "all girls group" garage pop bands indescribable charm: sharp guitars and melodies, well administer farfisas and even vocal harmonies that remember us B52's (and also a falsetto Rolling Stones)... the most funny girls from Oslo". THREE STARS.....MORE

Wicked Cool Records’ Steve Van Zandt makes Tower appearance

The E Street Band-er is broadcasting live from the D2 record store, and plugging his label.

Sunday July 12 finds Little Steven popping in to Tower Records in Wicklow Street to both present a live edition of his Underground Garage radio show, which usually airs every Friday at 10pm on Dublin City FM, and plug his Wicked Cool record label.

To jolly things along, there will be live sets from Medway Sound-ers The Len Price 3 and local Wicked Cool signings The Urges who also play Thomas Reid’s Transformer night on July 25.

Still on a high – what type we’re not exactly sure – after supporting The Fleshtones and Wild Billy Childish & The Musicians Of The British Empire in Holland, they’ll be plugging their cracking Psych-Ward album.

Tower duties completed, Mr. Van Zandt hotfoots it over to the RDS where Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band are playing the second of their two Dublin dates. A limited number of tickets are still available priced €96.25.

Steven Van Zandt sounds off at South by Southwest

Steven Van Zandt, right, doing just one of his jobs, playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the NFL Super Bowl XLIII halftime.AUSTIN -- Steven Van Zandt plays many roles: Guitarist in the E Street Band. Tough-talking club owner Silvio Dante in "The Sopranos." Host of syndicated radio show "Little Steven's Underground Garage."


Van Zandt spoke and answered audience questions in a convention center conference room. As the proprietor of his own Wicked Cool Records, he did not default to the record labels-are-bad stance of many musicians.

Record labels "spend millions of dollars to break you," Van Zandt said. "When your contract's up, you split, and you have a 50 year career. People spending money and investing in you deserve a piece of your whole career. Let's all work together and share what little wealth is left.

"In the old days, the record was the end of the road. That was the end product. Now the record may be the entry level product. You've got to make money from licensing, publishing, live shows."

Wearing his trademark gypsy attire of black headscarf, turquoise shirt, faded jeans and loose-fitting tan jacket, Van Zandt cited the E Street Band as an example of record label patience.

"We broke on the fifth album....If they know they'll share in the revenue when you're playing arenas, maybe they'll be a little more patient."

That said, many labels are bloated and wasteful in an age when economy is necessary. "You've can't have a 2009 staff," Van Zandt said, "with a 1962 business."

With his label and radio shows - he also hosts two channels on Sirius satellite radio -- he's out to "create an infrastructure that makes rock 'n roll accessible and available. And if you're good at it, you can make a living."

New media opportunities for bands - MySpace, Facebook, etc. - are a mixed blessing, Van Zandt argued. Bands often promote themselves prematurely.

"Get better, then get on MySpace," he said. "Then when people come see you they won't be disappointed. Don't expect people to be patient and say, 'Oh, they're a developing act. I don't mind contributing my $6 for that.' Wrong."

In the early days of the E Street Band, "When we played for 50 people, we knocked those people out. That's why when we came back, there was 200 people. Then 400. Then 1,000."

Van Zandt's label recently signed a band from Denmark called the Breakers, which he compares to early British blues-rock band the Faces. The musicians said they had "no local following" in their hometown. He responded, "How is that possible? You come from a town. You play. How do you not have a local following?"

He instructed the Breakers to learn 25 cover songs and log a five-week residency at a hometown club. They became a "dance band" that sprinkled original material into each set. "By the second week there was a line around the block," he said. "They had transformed from really good to fantastic. You want to be big in your hometown. Or at least known."

Still wearing his record label honcho hat/bandana, Van Zandt plugged the Breakers' two SXSW showcases scheduled for later Friday.

He recently attended the opening of a $15 million "rehearsal hotel" in Scandinavia paid for with government money. The United States, he said, "is the only country in the world that thinks art is a luxury. (In other countries) they support the arts like it's essential. That's not going to change soon, Obama or not."

Meanwhile, musicians should take care of business. When a booking agent informed Van Zandt that the British band Primal Scream was not physically capable of doing a 20-show tour he hoped to organize, he did not hide his disgust.

"C'mon. (The E Street Band) does 20 shows a month. You want to be a drug addict? Go be a drug addict. Don't waste my time."

He noted that the E Street Band keeps its ticket prices below $100, a relative bargain among veteran rock acts. "We've always been the cheapest ticket," Van Zandt said. "I feel good about our show. You're going to leave with more energy than you came with."

Little Steven and rock’s “crisis in craft”

Little Steven Van Zandt in his first role, that of guitarist for the Boss (Associated Press file photograph)

STEVEN VAN ZANDT, Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist, Owner of Wicked Cool Records, Tony Soprano’s consigliere and, more recently, creator of the superb Underground Garage radio show and satellite radio stations, was one of several speakers on Friday at SXSW. He bemoaned the degradation of the craft of rock n roll today. He blamed that, more than illegal downloads, for the problems of the music business today.

“Nobody knows how to make records anymore,” Van Zandt said in a Q&A after his speech. He said he thought 95 percent of the music being made today “sucks.” And that you can’t achieve success without serving an apprenticeship as a bar band. While there are certainly a lot of bad performers out there, Van Zandt’s remarks made him sound a little like an out-of-touch oldster.

Here’s a transcript:

Good morning how are we? I see all my people.

Interesting time in our business, is it not?
Now you wish you listened to your parents and went to college, huh?

We are experiencing the biggest changes in 40 years as the main revenue-producing medium switches from the album to, we don’ t know what yet.
Keep in mind that until the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion landed in 1964, the vinyl single ruled what was called the business. it wasn’t exactly the business in truth, it was more like the Wild West with a bunch of freaks, misfits, outcasts, outlaws, entrepreneurs, renegades and hooligans running around making it all up as they went along.

Finally in 1967 the Beatles made an album called Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — you can ask your grandfather to borrow his copy — and with that record the album became undeniably king. The difference between 79 cents for a single and $4.95 for an album created a music business.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed we’ve now come full circle back to singles and if you’re wondering what 1962 was like, well you’re looking at it. And if that wasn’t enough to deal with, just to make it interesting, let’s throw in a little worldwide economic holocaust, shall we?

You thought you were having problems a year ago? Heh, those were the good old days.

The truth is it might take a year or two but those things will literally sort themselves out. There will be some revenue model, be it the 360 thing, subscriptions or whatever, and frankly there have been enough boring discussions about the mechanics of our business, already enough to last a lifetime. And as far as the economy, well, Obama’s gonna fix the economy so don’t worry about that.

It’s the third topic I want to look at today. All we ever talk about is the delivery systems for the product, the mechanics, the technology, the infrastructure. I wanna spend just a minute on the topic that never gets discussed in the music business, and that’s the music.

The reason why nobody wants to talk about it, it’s understandable because it mostly sucks. I mean it blows, it’s terrible. It’s (long string of expletives). Who are we kidding here? Nobody’s buying records. No (expletive), they suck.

And I know why. Nobody wants to deal with this but, we have to.
Yeah we are expriencing big changes in the business but more impotrantly, over the last 60 years or so, we have been witnesses to a crisis of craft.

I started to notice this crisis right around the time MTV appeared, not that it’s their fault. One must assume the video was as inevitable as the combustion engine, food preservative, the digital format and all those other horrors of commerce disguised as progress. You could fight it, but you’re better off just adjusting and dealing with it. Save your energy because you’re gonna need it.
And MTV may come back around and save us yet. But more about them later.
Rock n roll is the working class art form. Real rock n roll, traditional rock n roll. The music you hear every week on the Underground Garage and every day on Sirius 25 and XM 59, is equal opportunity, regardless of race, education or how much money you got, since the working class don’t think too much about what is art and what is not. Mostly because they’re too busy working. They spend their time on their craft, the practical useful stuff. So let’s get back to basics for a moment, what is our craft?

Rock n roll had always been a two-part craft, performance and record-making, and that turned into a three-part craft for bands, when songwriting was added after the Beatles changed the world.
That self-contained archetype may have been a temporary blip in the big picture. Recent history started to suggest that the Beatles in that short little period may turn out to be the exception, rather than the new rule.

It was, after all, our renaissance. That approximate 20-year era, from 1951 to 1971, will be studied for hundreds of years to come and still informs everything that today is popular music.

So as to our craft — performance, record-making, songwriting — what happened exactly?

The crisis in performance is, I believe, based on one simple fact. When it started, rock n roll was dance music. One day we stopped dancing to it and started listening to it and it’s been downhill ever since.

We had a purpose, had a specific goal, an intention, a mandate, we made people dance or we did not work, we didn’t not get paid, we were fired, we were homeless. That requires a very different energy. To compel people to get out of their chairs and dance, it’s a working-class energy, not an artistic, intellectual, waiting-around-for-inspiration energy. It’s a get-up, go-to-work-and-kill energy. Rip it up, or die trying.

The advent of the video was just the final nail in the performance coffin, a coffin that had already been constructed by years of excessive immersion in ganja, hashish and all forms of water-cooled bong therapy. You didn’t have to make people dance anymore, they were too stoned to dance.
Now you didn’t even have to play your instrument anymore. All you had to do was act like a rock star and bada-bing you were a rock star.

Well now, there’s a new trend that’s even more dangerous, and this affects songwriting as well as performance. Bands are starting to skip the bar-band phase of their development and I’m seeing it all over the world. The club stage, where ideally you’re still a dance band.

But equally important, you get the opportunity to play other people’s songs, your favorite songs. Analyze them, understand them. All of a sudden, I’m hearing it’s not cool to play other people’s songs. That’s for the less gifted, you know, the losers. That thinking has been extended now to include anybody’s songs, you know any songs that didn’t come from your personal musical genius.

This is a major problem. Performance-wise, the energy you discover, manufacture and harness as a dance band stays with you for the rest of your life. You never lose that. And the analysis you must do while learning to play classic songs is how you learn how to write. The melody, this melody with that chord change, produces this effect. It’s how you learn to arrange. The verses go here, the bridge there, it’s how you learn the specific job of each instrument.

You learn greatness from greatness. Nobody is a born great performer, nobody is born a great songwriter. The Beatles were a club and bar band for five years, and then continued playing covers for five albums, the Stones did about three years and their first five albums. All of a sudden, we think we’re better than them?

Another nefarious infection regarding modern songwriting is the auteur theory, which means the person singing has to be the person writing or else it’s irrelevant. This became dominant as rock n roll became the art form of rock. Beginning in 1965, it was the year the Beatles, the Stones, the Byrds and Bob Dylan influenced each other right into a new art form. Suddenly rock was personal.

It was important, and an industry of journalists sprang up to explain it to us. And that was, and is, great, except an inaccurate balance was created between the post-art-form rock and the pre-art-form rock, keeping in mind that the art-form rock was only the last quarter of the renaissance.

It was born in the folk-rock era, continued through psychedelic, country-rock, and into hard rock and the singer-songwriter era, where an inaccurate emphasis on the importance of the self-contained artist has led to the ocean of mediocrity we’re drowning in today.

Journalists work in words, they love words, they are words, so it’s perfectly understandable they labor under the misconception that lyrics are the most important part of the song. They are not and let’s keep in mind, there are of course, major journalist exceptions. The two best rock n roll books are after all Nick Tosches’ “Hellfire,” the Jerry Lee Lewis story, and Dave Marsh’s “Louie Louie,” both about pre-art-form rock and, don’t get me wrong, great lyrics make a song better. I made five political albums and spent months on the lyrics. Just don’t think that’s why people are coming to see your band. Because that is not enough reason. Bob Dylan is the greatest lyric writer that will ever live, but if he wasn’t a great singer and wasn’t able to write, or in the early days steal, great melodies, he’d still be in the Village at Cafe Wha.

The problem with this imbalance is that singers who don’t write or write about the correct subjects,
aren’t taken seriously. And it’s true, in spite of Elvis and Sinatra.

The 15 years of pre-art-form lyrics may not seem as important or meaningful in a social and political way, but as a 13-year-old hearing the super sexy Judy Craig and the Chiffons sing Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry’s “I Have a Boyfriend,” don’t tell me that wasn’t important. More than anything else in the world, I wanted to be that boyfriend. I still do. That was my “Blowing in the Wind,” my “Day in the Life,” or “Sympathy for the Devil,” absolutely. If you wanna write, then learn how to do it.

As one of the great song publishers, like Lance Freed, who were always encouraging young songwriters to co-write with older ones, said, just like it’s important to perform with a purpose, it is equally important to write with a purpose. Whether that purpose is to express your most personal anguish or to simply have a hit record, if you’re gonna do it, do it right.

The third part of our craft is record-making and that discipline has almost completely disappeared.
A record is four things: composition, arrangement, performance and sound. Four different crafts, overseen by a producer, who understands, to some degree, all four elements, plus the big picture of the industry, plus the psychological stuff, being the artist’s psychiatrist, plus the liaison with the business people etc., etc.

Where are they? Where are the real producers, the arrangers, the point being, once upon a time it took an army of very talented people to make records: writers, singers, musicians producers, arrangers, engineers. Now you have to do it all yourself? No wonder everything sucks.

Well, when the major record companies abandoned development, DIY was born, do it yourself. And the auteur theory works well with DIY anyway, so why not?

Well there is one reason why not. Everybody isn’t a star. Everybody isn’t a songwriter, isn’t a singer, isn’t a performer, isn’t a record producer. But who is there to tell them these days, who’s there to help, who’s there to suggest a different direction, to teach, to impose discipline?

Even the majors are starting to adjust, and I hope they succeed because right now in this new paradigm they are useless to us as banks. There’s nowhere to spend their money anymore.
It’s very encouraging and impressive that they stuck with MGMT for 18 months for instance, before it broke. Maybe they look back and learn from Steve Popovich, who stuck with Meat Loaf for over a year, when no one was interested. You know a little bit of this long-term patience is nice to see.
But mostly the majors have passed the creative stuff off to the production companies. There’s nobody home artistically. You know, they can still find a record, and occasionally break one, but they’re gonna have trouble with the second one, because nobody in the company knows how they made the first one.

There’s no development, there’s no long-term thinking, so, as usual, it’s up to the indies, right?
But indies, whoever it is, better establish a new work ethic, better find some new patience, better get back to the basics, and better be qualified to go the distance.

Standards have been set. The standards have been set by Sam Phillips, Leonard Chess, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Berry Gordy. You wanna be in the record business, those are the standards we must live up to. We must introduce, re-introduce, a new dedication to the craft. And worry about the new technology and the art later.

Thank you.

Featured on wickedcoolrecords.com Part Two: The day the music died

Mercury News : REVIEW SXSW: Day Three: Part Two: The day the music died - WELL THE SXSW GODS HAD IT IN FOR ME. Wednesday and Thursday were just too darn great. Their payback: a Friday night wandering fruitlessly in search of great bands....MORE

Little Steven Van Zandt at the Four Seasons hotel in Austin

Lincoln Journal Star : INTERVIEW Little Steven Q&A
On March 19, the Journal Star’s L. Kent Wolgamott and Gary Graff of Suburban Newspapers interviewed Little Steven Van Zandt at the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Music Conference. This is a transcript of that interview....MORE

Artist:Little Steven Van Zandt

Title:

Publication:Lincoln Journal Star

Date:March 27, 2009

Ref: http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2009/03/27/living/gz/music/doc49caf80a22ca1320601475.txt

Q and A: Little Steven Van Zandt
By the Lincoln Journal Star
Friday, Mar 27, 2009 - 12:18:59 am CDT

On March 19, the Journal Star’s L. Kent Wolgamott and Gary Graff of Suburban Newspapers interviewed Little Steven Van Zandt at the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Music Conference. This is a transcript of that interview.

Bruce Springsteen, left, sings with Steven Van Zandt as they open the first of 10 sold-out shows Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP)

Did you have to get a note from mom to get out of rehearsal?

SVZ: “I did actually. I’ve got to get back early Saturday. It’s just right in the middle. We don’t do much. We did like three days this week and we’ll do three more.”
[+]Enlarge
Story Photo
Bruce Springsteen, left, sings with Steven Van Zandt as they open the first of 10 sold-out shows Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP)
Story Photo
Bruce Springsteen, left, sings with Steven Van Zandt as they open the first of 10 sold-out shows Tuesday, July 15, 2003, at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP)
Related Link(s):

Ground Zero blog

And then go?

SVZ: “Yeah.”

Is the new stuff coming?

SVZ: “Yeah. You spend the time translating the new album to live. There’s various changes you make to it, adjustments and all that. That’s what you do.

We may run through a set once or twice. We usually let a crowd in the last couple rehearsals.

But in this case, usually, you have a couple years between tours so you have to get used to doing it again. This last tour ended like six, seven months ago or something.

This is the quickest we’ve ever put out two records since we’ve been in the band.”

What’s that about, huh?

SVZ: “I think it’s fun, I hope we keep doing it.

Honestly, I’d like to do a record every year, I really would. A year and a half, whatever. It’s just that he’s writing. He’s a writin’ fool is what it’s about.

As long as he keeps writing stuff this great, why not put it out, right?”

The last month of the “Magic” tour was so off the hook with the signs and the audibles and stuff. This is an album tour again?

SVZ: “There was no further we could go with that direction. So we’re probably coming back to a little bit more of an organized set for a minute.

I’m saying that, but who knows? I don’t really know that for a fact.

But we usually want to get the new album in. We usually play more of the new album than most groups do.

Our audience is used to it and they like it, which is a wonderful thing about our audience. I think they’re the best in the world for that reason. We’ll probably go out and do half the record, we usually do.”

Do any of the songs really stand out?

SVZ: “They’re all working very well. Let’s see here, “Lucky Day” just kills as you would expect. “Surprise Surprise” has been fun. I love that “Kingdom of Day” …what’s that one, it’s got that sort of Turtles ending?

That one’s coming out really great…maybe I’ll think of it. I’m thinking of the ending I can’t think of the verse right now.

They’re all sounding great. It’s just a matter of seeing where he wants to go themewise.

“Every show has a three, four song segment that’s sort of the theme of that show that says whatever he wants to say at any given time. Then we fit the rest of the show around it, more or less. That’s all developing as we speak, literally.”

Do any of them ever not work? Do you ever get there and go, OK, this is not going to go live?

SVZ: “Not too often. There are so many people in the band that there’s virtually nothing we can’t do.

We could do ‘Beethoven’s Fifth’ probably and we wouldn’t miss much. I’m trying to think, I don’t remember having that problem. Not really, they all seem to work very well.”

What kind of discussion happens about the older material?

SVZ: “At some point, he’ll decide ‘I want to talk about this this tour,’ the subject, the theme if you will. Then we’ll fit the other stuff around that. But then there will be segments of the show where anything goes and that will change every night. We always change a good third of the show.

Every night?

SVZ: “Yeah, oh yeah.”

And spontaneously, he just calls them out?

SVZ: “It has been extremely spontaneous and might still be. Literally, we were taking requests not only his obscure songs, but any songs. We were doing songs we hadn’t done since the Stone Pony. I have no idea where it will start out and where it will end up. But there’s always, I’d say, a third of the show different every night. There’s spontaneity built in already.

“We’re never, ever rigid. I know a lot of bands play the same set over and over. It’s because they have all that expense of production that has be coordinated, which we don’t have. We’re like, The light man and the sound man, they’ll catch up, they’ll figure it out by the second verse. We don’t care. It’s all about the music. It’s all about the relationship with the audience. We kind of just go for it. I’m very proud of the fact that we’re able to turn arenas and even stadiums into clubs. That’s kind of what we do.”

How hard is it to do that, in particular in stadiums when there are people 300 yards away?

SVZ: “We configure the stage so there’s an intimacy going on up front. The crowd’s right there. Like we did with the Super Bowl. Which is why we finally did the Super Bowl, because they let us do that. You’ve never seen the audience that close before in a Super Bowl. We do the same thing with the show. Bruce is in the crowd, he’s literally talking to people, they’re singing the songs with him.

“So it is a club, if you will in those first 50 feet or 30 rows. That’s the club you’re in. The nice thing now about the big screens is that translates very well to the back of the room. I’ve had people tell me that are in the back that they can see what’s happening, they’re right there. So you feel the intimacy when you’re in the back of the big room. It works real well.”

What are you anticipating with Bonnaroo?

SVZ: “I’m looking forward to that. I hope we do more and more and more of these festivals. I’m politicking for next year to do nothing but.

I just love the idea of meeting new people and reaching new people. I’m sure half the crowd won’t know anything we’re doing, or more. I don’t know.”

It’s been a long time since you’ve been in that position.

SVZ: “We did it last year for the first time with the Harley Davidson thing. You can [see] the curiosity [in] singers that are ‘what is this about?’ They haven’t been there all those years. And it’s fun to win them over, like the old days. Which we had to do for many years. It’s never easy.”

You breaking out the tie-dye for Bonnaroo?

SVZ: I don’t have to break it out. It’s in my blood. My blood’s tie-dyed.

So how do you do all that and do your Underground Garage, Wicked Cool (record label) and all that?

SVZ: “Good question. It actually is helpful. We do a lot of work on the road. Keep in mind, we’re an international company. We have affiliates, 144 or whatever it is in America and every single country in Europe, except France, which we may never get.

I should bring Jerry Lewis over and have him get us a station. Any time you’re in those countries or in those towns, you visit the affiliates. We have distributors in every small country and every town for the record label. I visit record stores. A lot of work gets done on the road. Then you’ve got email and phone and what’s the difference whether you’re in Manhattan or Oslo. You don’t miss much to be honest.

“If it were up to me, I’d be on the road and stay on the road forever. Record as we go and just stay out there. We probably get more done on the road than when we’re off the road.”

Home is probably a lot more distracting.

SVZ: “Actually in some ways it is.”

I remember when you first began the Underground Garage. It’s always felt like you were on a mission. How has that been refined…where are you now compared to where you were seven years ago?

SVZ: “On the one hand you have to say objectively we have come a long way. There has been an enormous amount of progress from when we started where there wasn’t one single rock ‘n’ roll band being played on the radio and there wasn’t any being signed by the record companies.

“When we started in 2002, we knew every single contemporary rock’n’roll record that was being released in the world. We had ‘em all, we knew ‘em all by name. Now, you’ve got thousands and thousands of bands. On the one hand, it’s grown tremendously and it’s doing great. On the other hand, I’m extremely frustrated because it’s not going as fast as I would like, mostly in the area of the TV show.

“I’ve been wanting to get a TV show on for five years. The last three years in a row, we’ve come down to the finish line and didn’t quite get the deal done. That’s extremely frustrating because I think the TV show will really start to change things if we get it on and connect the dots if you will. So that part of it is still a struggle.

“They have the same fears on TV that they once had on radio. I don’t know why. What we’re doing, to me, is not very scary. But it’s scary to the powers that be. It was at one time to the radio too. It took us a year to start with those 20 affiliates. Now we’ve got over a million listeners and we’re an institution, which is great. If we can get the same thing going on TV, the world will start to change.”

Where did that passion come from? Seven years ago and it continues now. What’s the root of that?

SVZ: “It started off very casually, there was no thought of a mission or anything like that. I thought ‘I’m not really hearing my favorite songs on the radio anymore’ in terms of the older ones and I’d discover all these new bands that were obviously not being played on the radio – in the contemporary garage rock scene.

“For the listeners, viewers, and readers, when we say garage rock, just substitute traditional rock ‘n’ roll. Just think of the early Rolling Stones and the early Beatles or whatever. There were a whole bunch of bands whose roots were obviously in the ‘50s and ‘60s, which is another way we define it, with nowhere to go.

“I’d just done the first season of the Sopranos, a ridiculously acclaimed show. We’d just done the reunion tour, very successful. I thought ‘OK, I’ve got a little celebrity capital, which comes and goes, let me use it on this because I think it would a nice, fun thing to do.’ Honestly, I didn't t think anything past that.

“I did a pilot show, we sent it to 350 stations, they all turned it down. Every single one. Now I’ve got to pay attention. What’s going on here. I couldn’t have been more casual about it. I thought this would be the easiest thing in the world. I’m giving it to them for free, by the way. No charge.”

They wouldn’t take free programming?

SVZ: “No. I know I’m going to be the most famous deejay in South Dakota or Montana. Don’t want it. Wait a minute, what’s going on here. So I go to syndicators, there are about five big syndicators in the country, they all say the same thing. This is a great show, I’d listen to this show, but we can’t get rock ‘n’ roll on the radio. That’s a quote. You can’t get rock ‘n’ roll on the radio. We’ve come this far down where we can’t get rock ‘n’ roll on the radio. I got really, really, really pissed off. I’m like ‘what the hell have we been doing this 30 years for?

“We spent six, eight months fighting our way in. The program directors were into it, but nervous. So finally, I said, this is stupid. Let’s go to the general managers and see what we can do. I went to several cities and said ‘Listen, I’ll sell the show out for a year for you. I’m going to come to town and play your arena and that whole top row is going to be all your sponsors. I know they’ll support the show. So forget about the music, let’s talk money. This is America. I’m going to sell the show out for a year. In radio, you may know this or may not, they sell their entire inventory every month. That’s a lot of work. No thanks. We sell by the entire year. We did that in 20 cities, sold the show out for a year.

“Then I said to the general managers to tell the program director if they’re nervous about anything that it’s fine, which they did. It also helped that in most cases, not all the cases, but most, I’ll take your worst time slot. What’s the least revenue producing time slot you have? 10 o’clock Sunday night. That’s the last time it’s measured. All of a sudden that became a revenue producing slot for them.

“The first ratings books came out and went sky high, ridiculous numbers. Numbers no one’s ever seen before. Eights and 10s and 12s in a world where they struggle to get to two. All of a sudden people relax when they see those kinds of numbers. It’s not so scary after all. I don’t know what’s so scary. I’m playing 25 percent of the bands they play, you know what I mean. Just different tracks. It worked out fine.”

So when does the label figure in?

SVZ: “The label came from bands that we were playing on the radio from overseas that were saying Listen, we don’t have any American distribution, would you start a label?’ We said, alright, let’s give it a shot. It’s the worst possible time to start a label, so let’s do it. Makes sense to me. That’s why we have so many international bands.

“It’s kind of a fun challenge to figure out what the record business is going to be. I wish I had a little more time. We’re starting to make time to be creative, which I haven’t had much time to do. This Cocktail Slippers record is the first record I’ve produced in 15 years. Since the Arc Angels probably.”

How about yourself as a solo artist?

SVZ: “We got my masters back, so we’ll probably release all of those records again, which will be fun. I don’t have that much of a desire to do a solo record. I’m not saying never, but right now, I’d rather work with these new bands, maybe write a song or two for them, produce a song or two for them. It’s fun, it’s fun to do that. I want to do that more often.

“I stopped producing in the ‘90s because there was no reason to make a great record. What are you going to do with it, you know? No radio can play it, nobody. I said ‘until we start creating a new infrastructure, there’s no reason to be creative any more.’ Now we’re getting there. We have distribution in America and western Europe, a bit of a pipeline. We’ve got a solid structure on those two continents. We’ll get to Asia next year, I hope.”

What was it about the Cocktail Slippers that brought you back into producing?

SVZ: “Really it’s a prerequisite for all of our bands that they have some roots in the 50s and 60s or else we wouldn’t be playing them on radio, we wouldn’t be signing them. In their case, the last record was terrific. I heard a little girl group in them, I thought “I wonder if we could push that a little bit and go in that direction a little bit further. I talked to the girls about it. They liked the idea, making it a little bit broader, a little bit less narrow punky and making it more of a straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll group with girl group roots that you could actually hear a little more obviously. Without being nostalgic, it will still sound like a new record.

“They were into it. I said ‘let’s try some things’ and I did a song or two and before you know, I did the whole album. I brought in (his production company president) Jean Beauvior to help me out. It turned out great. I’ve got to say I’m extremely happy with the record.

Does he still have the hair?

SVZ: “No, he shaved his head completely. I didn’t ask him to do it. It would be fun to have a chief executive looking like that, with a Mohawk.”

So why do you think it is that traditional rock ‘n’ roll has gone underground? It just never made sense to me.

SVZ: “It’s a little hard to figure. It sounds a little bit like a paranoid conspiracy theory and I don’t mean to say they all sat in a room and decided this, but the way the corporate mergers have gone – and it’s not just music – I think the most homogenized genres are the ones that have been supported and been made accessible to the public, through accident or circumstance.

“You’ve got hip-hop, pop and hard rock. That’s the three big genres the mainstream supports and allows to hear on a regular basis. Coincidentally, those are the three most homogenized genres. I think consciously or not, a decision was made – ‘these rock ‘n’ roll artists are a pain in the ass. They’re kind of inconsistent, sometimes they’re really great, sometimes they’re not and who knows what they’re going to do.’

“They went back to controlling artists through production companies and, coincidentally or not, giving up the artistic development that they used to do. So it was easier to sort of watch the bottom line, make it more consistent. So you cut off all the great stuff, but you also cut off, maybe a lot of the failures, so you get this nice middle that we all call boring that they call the business. I guess it works. But along the way, the eccentricities and personality got kind of trimmed out. Rock ‘n’ roll, it’s personality. Little Richard invented it, okay. You don’t get more personality than that. That’s just how it is.

I think it’s partly that. Let’s go the easier route. We don’t really know how to make records any more because most of us are run by accountants and lawyers. So let’s not worry about that nasty, ugly process of the record making, let’s just watch the business and give it to the production companies.”

It’s the TV model, when they were no longer studios, they became distributors…

SVZ: “That’s right, that is a good analogy. I think that’s what happened. I don’t know. I think radio has certainly overreacted, becoming so obsessed with familiarity that they play 300 records. I don’t get that. I don’t get that. We have over 3,000 songs in our playbook. Nobody runs for the hills when we play something they don’t know as long as it’s great.

You say on the radio a lot that bands shouldn’t look like the audience…

SVZ: “I feel that way, I do. I think there’s been a lot of compromises and diluting of that personality thing, ending up with sometimes the band and the audience blending together. I don’t think that’s the healthiest thing.”

People want their stars.

SVZ: “I need mine, you know what I mean. But there are fewer and fewer and fewer.”

Do you think there’s ever going to be rock stars again?

SVZ: “I don’t know. We’re going to hit a gap here soon because we’re not being replaced. So there’s going to be a problem. We’re doing everything we can. That’s what’s so frustrating because things are not going fast enough. We’re doing everything we can to try to create this infrastructure that will support new rock stars, which doesn’t exist right now.

“Rock star means long term success, which is another way of saying it. That means long time development on the other side. That’s the problem. We are trying to create an infrastructure that allows development, with the long term in mind. This goes against every business principle in our society right now, so it’s a struggle. We’ll see if we win or don’t win. If we don’t win, no, there will not be any more stars. There will not be any more long term relationships where you grow up with an artist and continue into your old age with them. Which is wonderful, wonderful we’ve got 30 years with our people and who knows how much more. And the relationship is deep, it’s just like any other relationship. It’s a very valuable relationship, you can depend on it.”

So if you guys were coming out of Jersey now?

SVZ: “We might not get out. It’s hard. We are right in the middle of it and it’s even hard for us to figure out. Honestly, I think the TV show is essential to begin to hope that we can maybe break something through.”

What would that TV show look like?

SVZ: “Did you see Austin Powers, that club scene? It will look like that. It will be wildly colorful. It will have our go-go girls. It will have bands. It will have young hosts. It will have kids dancing to rock ‘n’ roll, which no one’s seen in 30 years. It will be ‘Shindig, ‘Hullabaloo’, ‘Ready Steady Go’, a little bit of (American) ‘Bandstand’. It’s easy. I know how to do it.

“The problem is every other music show that’s been on in the last 20 years has failed. So they’re extremely nervous about it. I’m like ‘They fail because they suck. Why don’t we do a show that doesn’t suck? Maybe that would work. We haven’t found that one partner yet to push the button. We’ve come very, very close.”

Would you host?

SVZ: “No, I don’t want to host. I want younger people. I might make a cameo appearance. There may be an interview segment where I interview somebody, an Ellie Greenwich, a Jeff Barry, an Andrew Loog Oldham. Maybe a little segment, but I want young people seeing their own age group or a few years older as we did. That’s what has to happen. We have to re-shock people with this stuff before they reach the inevitable diluted mainstream and just sort of give up on becoming emotionally attached to music. That’s what’s happening right now. By the time they get into to music, there’s a few things they like, but not really ‘I can’t get through the day without this.’”

It is so constant in their lives still, everybody walks around with earbuds.

SVZ: “It’s a bit of a contradiction. You’re right, there’s a lot of music being sold or stolen, being traded. They are all listening to their iPods. But I’m not getting the feeling there’s a relationship.

“Myself, before the Beatles I was a music fan, I bought singles and I loved those singles, but I didn’t care who the artist was. It was a cool record, then the next month there was another cool record. I’d buy that and I’d enjoy it, I really would. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t know who they were. The Beatles, I wanted to know who they are. It was something different. They were a band, not individuals.

That band thing hit me. That band thing I think is universal, I think is timeless. I really do. If we get on TV, that band thing will hit somebody the same way it hit. I don’t know who, I don’t know when. But there will be something magical.

“Because a great band is magical, you know what I mean. The individuals may be whatever. But when you put them together, something magical happens. That’s something that’s impossible to really analyze, that magic, though, does communicate. I’m hoping that can happen again.”

Being in a great band, when do you know its magical?

SVZ: “You just kind of know it. You scramble around, try to find the right members for a few years. Maybe, find those magical four, five. In this case it kept building.

“Bruce, it was his vision. He handpicked everybody. The same way David Chase would handpick the cast of the Sopranos. The same exact thing, When there’s no compromise in a vision like that, it tends to work.

It’s assembled in a very conscious way by somebody who’s a visionary who knows the pieces of the puzzle. Then you get on stage and you just know it.”

REVIEW Outrageous Cherry Wicked Cool Records

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