This is the best interview you will ever read. Not because of anything I did, but because of the great Gary Wilson, a superb songwriter, whose electric Electric Endicott is a mind blowing experience (Jazz? Soul? Whatever, it defies category) of almost unspeakably brilliant shining fuck shit up wonder.
I came to Wilson beyond late. I didn’t know anything about what you are about to read when I started writing incessantly about him last year. A PR firm sent me a song and I flipped out.
I asked Gary if he would please sit for an interview and he allowed me to send him a list of questions. What will follow is his responses
It is a bit depressing to think that the best thing I’ve ever written was written by somebody else. On the other hand, if it gets you to listen to this musicalgenuis I’ll live with it . Let’s do it Gary.
Do you suffer from nostalgia? Yes. This is probably why I continue to do my music and shows. It brings me back to a time when I was excited about music, playing in bands, etc. When I was 10 years old I joined the Dion Fan Club. I always enjoyed the teen idols back in those days. You had Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Fabian, Frankie Avalon and of course my favorite Dion. Music was new and exciting for me. I started playing in rock bands when I was in 7th grade (12 years old). I still have the Farfisa Combo Compact organ that my father bought me. I plan on cutting the organ in half for my next television appearance. I played this organ in Lord Fuzz when I was 13 years old. There was an innocence to the way we approached and performed music back then. Our parents would take us to rehearsals and gigs. I think as we age we all want to relive the feelings we felt when we were young. A certain scent in the air, the radio playing a particular song, the feelings you felt when you knew summer was around the corner, a late night call from Linda or Karen, walking home from school in the spring time, the scent of the air on a cool October night. This is why I recently acquired the house I grew up in. They say you can’t go home again. I say you can.
That long hiatus from recording. Bad news? I know you were still playing live. When I was living in Endicott I had recording equipment. When I moved to California (1978) the only instrument I took with me was my Fender Jazz Bass (I wish I still had it). I did not take any recording equipment. Some of the early recordings (1978-1980) that I did in San Diego were done with borrowed and rented recording equipment. At the time I met my girlfriend Bernadette Allen who was a grad student at UCSD. We would often go to the college recording studio and record experimental music. Bernadette and I also did public access television shows that Bernadette produced. Lost most of that through the years. I then bought a Tascam 244 four tack cassette and a Akai reel to reel (for mixdown) and began to record new material. Every now and then I would go out and perform with my back up band The Blind Dates. At the time (1978-1982) very few venues and outlets in San Diego were interested in booking my band so once again my band became the outcasts within the music scene. I then was offered a job playing bass with a blues band (Big City Blues). Since they had the gigs it was a good scene. I ended up playing bass with blues legend Roy Brown (“Good Rocking Tonight”). Roy Brown, in my opinion was the originator of rock and roll. He was big in 1949 and the early 50s. This led to me playing bass with Percy Mayfield, The Coasters, etc. Never was into blues when I was young. Playing with some of these legends was definitely an education in blues, early rock, etc. They were the real deal. In other words I was recording and performing my music when ever I could but no one was interested. Strange how things have changed.
Do you consider yourself eccentric? I feel that I am just living the way I want, not sure if it’s eccentric. Been this way since I was 10 years old so it seems normal to me. Always was an outcast from the mainstream (except when I was playing cover material with a lounge band and no one knew about the “other side of Gary”). I always tell people to walk their own path. Make your own little world. If that’s being eccentric then so be it.
Do you consider your music experimental? There are different elements to my music. When I was 13 years old I started writing experimental classical music. Then experimental art and theater. The “weirder the better”. This latter was incorporated into my rock band. My old performances were highly experimental. I would book my act into the “wrong” venues. Then my band would use contact mics on chalk boards (which we would scratch to the horror of the venue owner), electronic tapes, flour thrown all over the band and stage, chocolate milk, hay, pillows, chairs, plastic bags, duct taped to our bodies while we rolled all over the stage and floor. We looked like a live Robert Rauschenberg painting. Frank Roma would be on electric clarinet or saxophone with his instrument going through various distortion boxes. The drummer would be pouring milk and flour all over his drums while he kicked them around the stage. We would end up smashing all our equipment on stage. One time we played a gymnasium at a local university. The drummer and I took turns using a bowling ball from one side of the room and rolling the ball into his drum set. The good old days.
Are you in love? Does it (did it) make you happy. Yes and in one way it makes me sad because she is having health issues. We were happy for many years.
The resurgence in 1996, did you want it or were you swept away by it? The real resurgence came in 2002. In 1996-1997 I was hearing reports that Beck was playing my song “6.4=Makeout” in concert. I remember feeling a bit down as I was preparing to go to my midnight shift at the video store I was working at. This was around 1997. I had the MTV Music Award show playing in the background as I dressed for work. Beck won a multiple of awards that night with his album “Odelay”. As he was exiting the venue Kurt Lodger (MTV reporter) stopped Beck and interviewed him for a few minutes. All of a sudden Beck mentions my song “6.4=Makeout” and “Lose Control” to Kurt Lodger. I had to catch the bus to get to work that night but I remember feeling happy after seeing that. It still took another five years for things to happen for me. I am very happy and grateful that things turned around for me. After so many years of not being noticed I never expected things to end up the way they did. I remember the premier of the Michael Wolk documentary “You Think You Really Know Me: The Gary Wilson Story” at Lincoln Center in New York. IT was either 2004 or 2005. The place was sold out. I hid in the back of the theater, watching my story unfold on the big screen. It was quite moving and brought a few tears to my eyes. I would never have anticipated something like that 20 years ago. Things have definitely changed for the better for me and I am very happy about that.
What makes you happiest? Coming home from a Gary Wilson performance, a pizza in the oven and a horror movie (black and white) on TV. I did a show in NYC a few years back and was staying at a hotel where the rooms start on the 20th floor. I finished the show, grabbed a pizza and a two litter bottle of Coke and headed back to my hotel room. I then opened the curtains which revealed a spectacular view of Manhattan. I turned the lights down, turned the TV on to a horror movie and ate pizza in the dark. I was in paradise.
I loved Electric Endicot -are you pleased? Yes. I am happy and pleased that you like “Electric Endicott”.
I know you don’t wanna, but please put a label on your music. I call it Gary Wilson music.
Any thoughts on John Cage? Yes, I miss him. When I was 13 years old John Cage changed my life. The story goes like this. I was listening to classical composers like Edgar Varese, Schoenberg, Berg, etc. I thought twelve tone music was unusual. I would often go to the local university (Binghamton University) and their music department had a listening room where you could listen to records over a pair of earphones. One day I picked a John Cage piece to listen to after hearing Frank Zappa talk about John Cage in an interview. Wow! I never heard music like that. The tile of the composition was “Concert For Piano and Orchestra” and featured David Tudor on piano. It was recorded live at a 1958 John Cage concert. I had a chance to talk to Mr. Cage many years later when he was a visiting artist in residence at UCSD. I walked up to Mr. Cage and asked him if he remembered me (John Cage invited me to his house when I was 15 years old). He said he did. I then handed him a copy of my record and he smiled
Influences? Dion, Ron Carter, John Cage, early Beatles, Herbie Hancock, Blue Cheer, The Fugs, Debussy, Charlie Haden, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Christian Wolf, Burton Green, Wes Montgomery, Tony Bennett, Keith Jarrett, early Rolling Stones (when Brian Jones was with the band), Fabian, Morton Feldman, Troy Donahue, Robert Rauschenberg, Jimmy Smith, Barry White, Eric Satie, Bobby Rydell, Truman Capote, etc.
Favorite book? “The Painted Bird” by Jerzy Kosinski “Valley Of The Dolls” by Jacqueline Sussan “Local Color” by Truman Capote.
Favorite album? John Cage’s “Cartridge Music” from the 1960 Time Records recording. Side one features John Cage and David Tudor performing the John Cage composition “Cartridge Music”. Side two contains three compositions by Christian Wolf.
Do you believe in God? Yes.
If there is a God what would you play for it? I would perform my rendition of a composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams called “A Lark Ascending”. This composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams always brings a tear to my eyes. So lovely yet sad. Might also squeeze in “6.4=Makeout”.