m 4
.
Leo Kottke in Eugene
“We re going back to Minnesota on the 16th for a Christmas concert.
It'll cost us more money to have some extra people along but it’s up to
me I’m thinking about getting a Japanese fart soloist...he’ll fart
anywhere if you pay the bill,” Leo says. “It should be fun. ”
Both his shows were sold out days in advance, and an ad in the
Emerald had someone wanting up to $5 for a $2 ticket. Who said rock
and roll is dead” Leo Kottke was in town.
Leo was scheduled for two shows, Wednesday and Thursday night
and squeezed in between was a workshop and a KZEL interview. The
latter was dropped, for obvious reasons Leo returned from an ex
tensive tour or Europe two days before the Eugene date: secondly he
had very little time to recover from the trip and the first show. In the
two days I spent with him. it was easily detectible.
He described himself as “nervous and in a catatonic state” before
the show Wednesday night, but tried not to show it in his performance.
Leo is a hard person to pinpoint and describe. He’s one of those
fellows who's got a story for every situation. •‘Everywhere except for
Denmark was good In Denmark they threw shit at me. They were so
young too. 12 years old. and oh so f—ed up.
“I've never seen one. but they were like an Alice Cooper audience. I
played my usual set of an hour or so ... I wanted to make them
suffer Ha! I got hit with a beer bottle, a bottle cap and a ballpoint pen
which hit me in the neck.
“They 're smart—when you get hit with those little small things, the
audience can’t see it. All they can see is some guy up there getting
pissed off and shaking around the stage.”
Kottke has two wavs in which he opens his shows. Both were used
Wednesday and Thursday nights. ‘Good evening, ladies and gen
tlemen. I’m Donnie Osmond!" Then of course there's the other
standby. “Hi!” He'll wait till someone says “Hi Leo” back to him and
then reply. “I’m not Leo. my name's Tammy Wynette.”
Most of the crowd felt his nervousness and his obvious lack of rest.
Nevertheless, the show's were more than up to par. Both opened with
instrumentals which led to the merry melodies of his past.
The first time I met Leo. I was quite impressed by his sense of
honesty and overall sincerity toward people, journalists in particular.
He's got to have the most incredible memory of any person I’ve ever
met. Leo recognized 3 out of 4 acquaintances backstage during the
first show. Most he met several years ago.
We had met at a Procol Harum show a few years ago. and it was
then that I discovered his mellowness toward reporters In fact, he's
that way with everyone .Leo is cool, calm and to say the least,
collected
During the second show, Leo dropped one of his guitars face down,
while working on a broken guitar string. “Well, it sounded pretty good
on the way down." he joked The guitar was still on the floor. “See how
cool I am. I haven’t even picked it up yet.”
Thursday afternoon, he was supposed to go over to KZEL and do a
radio interview but was still asleep when I arrived. He was staying
with his friend Bruce Micklus, who the night before entertained
Kottke. and two past acquaintances of Leo’s, promo men from Capitol
and MCA records.
The house was in a beautiful setting atop a declining slope here in
Eugene It provided Leo with some real quiet and privacy, much like
one would find in a silent forest of green.
Pnoto by Kevin Lee
Leo Kottke at Thursday afternoon workshop in Gerlinger Hall.
It was sometime after 1 p.m when we decided it was time to get
moving and head on out for the workshop. “Do you think we’ve got
time enough to stop somewhere for a hamburger?” he asked. We had
the time and so it was to the "golden arches " we drove.
McDonald’s is one of those places where they you can get an "all
American meal, and get change back from your dollar ” Nifty huh0
We stopped at the one on Villard. and Leo was quickly recognized by
the young lady taking our order. It’s hard to figure out how she ever
got his order as she spent most of the time talking about how it was the
first time she'd ever waited on a rock and roll star Big deal
On the way to the workshop, we talked about John Fahey "The first
time I played in Eugene was with Fahey. We played at the bowling
alley He asked the audience if anyone wanted to get married, and
somebody came up. He told her she was too young I guess he
was kinda in a sour mood that night. Right now John’s in India.”
Outside the car window in the street there was a little kid running
through a dozen old puddles of rain Leo focuses his attention on the
boy. throws up his arms in jest and laughs: "Oh, Heaven, look at
him ” It was one of those classy situations that provokes Leo to write
songs, one of which he did that evening. It was a lullaby for “one of
those kids about 10 or 11 that you’d just love to punch! ”
Anyhow, after we had passed the little kid, he continued about
Fahey, "Oh. yeah, he went to India with his Maharishi to see his
Maharishi s Maharishi It’s the truth, but it sounds strange to me.
Well, no it doesn’t, now that I think about it.”
SuncCeuf 0?ilm
6tf (Zuttcvuil 0pVlU*K
Nov. 25
EMU Ballroom
6:30 and 9 pm
$100
"If you see nothing
else this year,
you must see
It will not, I think,
£ ever fade from
memory!"
—*>CnAfiOSCn>Z*£L Utt
COLUMBIA PICTURES Presents 0 BBS Production
JACK NICHOLSON
Kottke has been doing a Tom T. Hall number in all of his shows
lately, called “Pamela Brown.” Dig the lyrics:
1 m the guy who didn't marry pretty Pamela Brown,
Educated, well intentioned, good girl in our town,
I wonder where I'd be today if she had loved me too.
Probably be drivin' kids to school.
Guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown,
All of my good times, all my roamin’ around.
One of these days I might be in your town.
And I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown.
See the likes of cities, and I’ve been inside their doors.
Sailed to foreign countries and walked upon their shores,
I guess the guy she married was the best part of my luck,
She dug him 'cause he drove a pick-up truck.
‘It’s just a real good lyric and a real twist,” Kottke said during a
discussion of its impact on the audience and its lyrical structure.
‘‘Pamela Brown” and several others from this tour will be on the
new album due to be released soon. “They said it’ll come out
sometime in January, but I understand that some demos are being
pressed now. There’s a few being done now for the radio stations.” The
new album, finished during the summer, was due for release during
the fall but was delayed due to a vinyl shortage at Capitol Records.
“That was our main gripe.” he continued. “We didn’t care so much if
you couldn’t get the record, but we wanted something fresh out there.
At the moment. I’m playing places I’ve played a couple of times before
and I hate to do them without fresh stuff.” Hie Kottke entourage,
which consists of Leo and his two guitars, is on a 10-day stint which
ends this evening in Portland at the Civic Auditorium. “I’m looking
forward to the holidays,’’ Leo said. “I think I’ll take a month off during
Christmas and rest up.”
“It’s a good record,” Leo said. “It’s one I really like .... a lot
more than any of the others I’ve done. There’s one instrumental, it’s
kind of an Albatross It’s called: ‘A Child Should Be A Fish.’ I did it
on an electric 12-string, where we took the 12-string direct and miked
it, so that it sounds a little different.”
Result: one of the best Kottke albums to date, full of instrumental
and vocal melodies designed to mellow out the mind and soul. “It was
supposed to come out in October but I went about a week over in
recording time. We really took a lot of time on this one, which I think is
why it turned out so nice With the other albums, we got into the studio
too late and had to rush.” Leo said. “There's a lot of vocals with in
strumental construction in the vocal. We tried to work it so that if
someone was interested in my guitar playing they could listen to the
track It’s like the track is good, and the vocal is there, and then the
instrumental break . it’s a lot more arranged.”
The new material from the upcoming album includes a tune Leo and
friend Mike Johnson wrote.“There’s a friend of mine in Minneapolis
that went through what must be the worst possible moment on stage,”
Leo explained. “He was playing at a club in Chicago called the ‘Earl
of Old Town’ a couple of years ago. He’s a classically trained singer so
he casts kind of a chilly sort of spell over an audience and they become
very quiet, sort of tear-stained and attentive. He was reaching for a
high note in his second-to-the-last set and he threw up! The front row
there was a lot closer there than it is here. Anyway, he said thank you
and walked off the stage, which has got to be the height of
professionalism.” The number included on the new album is a lengthy
instrumental.
++++++++
I mentioned one night to Leo that there was a guy in the audience
that had seen him a long time ago at a coffee house near Cart ton
College in Minnesota where the capacity was 35. “Carlton?” he said.
Fish tt Week
Valley River
Willamette PlazaBig M Shopping Center
“I run into people from there all over the face of the earth. They turn
up everywhere. It’s the town where Jesse James was killed. I’m not
sure if it’s known for anything else.
“I had an admirer there who had gotten drafted and came to one of
my concerts and told me that he’d like to distribute my ‘Oblivion’
record in Germany where he was going. He eventually did, and sold 50
copies of it in Munich at the PX. It was winter time, and he had walked
into the river, got pneumonia, walked around town, collapsed
somewhere and died. Ain’t that just the power of music?”
Kottke, 28 years old and born the son of a basketball coach in Athens,
Georgia, began playing his guitar “at 13,” he recalled. Several years
later, he found himself playing at the Showboat Lounge in Washington,
D.C. “I got to hear some really good music there . . . some real good
guitar music. It was owned by Charlie Parker Byrd and a few other
people. It was there that I first heard Kenny Burrell,” Leo says.
During the two days he spent here, it rained all the time, in fact it
rained harder than hell. When he got to Gerlinger Hall on the day of
the workshop, it was still raining and coming down like “cats and
dogs”, as they say in the weather biz’.
Leo was asked at the workshop if he had ever played any other in
struments other than guitar, and if he had had voice lessons, to which
he replied, “I was told that my mouth was too big to play the flute. I
met a singing sergeant in the Air Force once. He told me to grab a
doorknob on both sides, spread my legs apart and sooner or later I’d
find out where my diaphragm was. ” Even funnier was what he said at
the beginning of the workshop. ‘‘Does anybody know what we’re
supposed to do at a workshop?”
At the conclusion of the afternoon it was mentioned that Alan
Gaylor, of the Sunnyland Band, and co-author of “Tiny Island,” would
be coming down for the second show. That evening, Leo and Alan, ex
roommates (“He was a postman and I was a drunk”) sat and
reminisced about old times and discussed the possibilities of a Sun
nyland Band album. “Naw, I don’t think we’re ready for it yet,” A1
said. “I’d rather wait till we get good and tight. We’re just starting to
get used to the new drummer.”
They sat and talked backstage for a good 20 minutes or so and
decided it would be a good idea to get nice and drunk. “I get real waxy
with my words when I’m drunk,' Leo told me. They then headed over
to the local Black Angus and as I understand, drank themselves into a
stupor.
It was still early yet, somewhere around midnight, and they were
still humming away. I realized hours ago that for me, the evening was
nearing its end, but for Leo Kottke the day had just begun.
Greg G. Lee
DonV let the price of
a college education
The price of a college education is skyrocket
ing. Fortunately the Air Force had done some
thing to catch up with it. For the first time, the
6500 Air Force ROTC Scholarships include
the 2-year program, for both men and women.
If you can qualify, the Air Force will pay for
the remainder of your college education. Not
only do ROTC 2-year college scholarships
cover full tuition, but reimbursement for text
books, lab and incidental fees, as well as a tax
free monthly allowance of $100.
To cash in on all this just apply, qualify, and
enroll in the Air Force ROTC at_
University of Oregon_686-3107_
It’s a great way to finish your college
education in the money, and enjoy a
future where the sky’s no limit... as an
officer in the Air Force.