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geddy-leesbian · 3 months ago

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Rough draft of the Gaiden flavored Winterserra first meeting scene 🎉

Trips to the park are always a nice time. Luis plays with Lucia for a while, running around and pushing her on a swing, then he settles down on a bench with a book to read, leaving Lucia to play alone, occasionally looking up to check on her.

Today's park trip started off fine, but now Lucia is frantically barreling towards Luis, looking panicked.

“Papa, my ears are ringing,” Luis is instantly filled with dread. It's been almost a year since Lucia's ears rang, Luis thought nightmarish BOWs were a thing in their past. “Monsters. That guy on the other bench, his baby.”

Luis looks over towards the other bench, trying not to be obvious. His first thought is to dismiss Lucia's claim, because the man looks perfectly normal. Boring, even. He's attentively watching a toddler play in a sandbox, who looks just as normal.

But Lucia has never had a false positive. They tested her abilities rigorously in the Umbrella facility. Occasionally she failed to detect a BOW, but when she said there was one, there was. Even outside of controlled environments and in stressful situations, when they were aboard the Starlight and the submarine, her performance was flawless. When she told Luis something bad happened and there were zombies on the boat, she was right. Every time she said the tyrant was nearby, she was right. When she said that the “Leon” they found wasn't really him, instead the shape-shifting BOW taking on his appearance, she was right. Not a single false positive. If she thinks there's more to these two than meets the eye, Luis can't disagree.

“Don't worry about them, princess. I don't think they're a threat. You go back out and play and I'll try to talk to him a bit? Maybe they're just like you, nice humans with special powers from experiments, not really monsters.”

While Lucia still looks a bit nervous, she doesn't look as scared and runs back over to the playground equipment. Luis heads over to take the open spot on the other bench. His words had been something he pulled out of his ass to calm Lucia down, but he thinks they may have been more correct than he thought once he observes the stranger closer.

He tilts his head to glance at Luis quickly, then his gaze snaps back to the toddler. His eyes are glued to her. His body is tense, like he's ready to jump up and run to her at any moment. It's cute. It reminds Luis of how he was with Lucia when they first started settling into their new, Umbrella-less lives. He was downright paranoid, hovering over her and watching her like a hawk, convinced there was an Umbrella soldier lurking around every corner, ready to pounce and rip Lucia away from him. It seems like this man has the same fears.

“Hey, new face,” Luis eventually says. He's already satisfied that the man and his daughter aren't a threat, but he still wants to dig for more information, just out of curiosity. “I come here all the time and haven't seen you before, you must be new in town? Name's Luis Navarro, you are?”

“Ethan.”

“What brings you to the area?”

“It's…” Ethan doesn't look at Luis at all as he talks, he continues staring straight ahead at the little girl playing, presumably his daughter. There's some resemblance, she has his hair and maybe some of his facial features, though it's hard to tell at the toddler stage. Luis also notices him nervously rubbing at his bare ring finger with his other hand, touching where a wedding band may have sat at one point. Luis is a little surprised by his own internal response, excitement that Ethan is single. “It's just a long story. Complicated.”

“I get it, I'm from Spain. It's a very long story, how me and my daughter Lucia ended up here. How we ended up together at all really, she isn't my biological daughter, it's complicated,” Luis had hoped that voluntarily offering up pieces of his story, like his relation to Lucia, might inspire Ethan to open up about his story. But he says nothing, and Luis bites his tongue resisting the urge to directly ask Ethan about his story, knowing it's likely a sore subject. Though he also doesn't want to let the conversation die. “What do you do for a living?”

“I don't really have a job right now, but I was an engineer and I'll get back to it soon.”

“Or you can really have a fresh start here, in a new place, take on a new career, that's what I did. I'm a scientist. I used to be a researcher, now I'm just a biology teacher, it felt very freeing, the career change.”

Ethan doesn't say anything more, just continues watching the toddler silently.

“Hey,” Luis eventually says, still not willing to let the conversation die. “That's your daughter?”

“Yeah. Rosemary,” For the first time, Ethan actually smiles. “It's just me and her. It's not easy raising her alone, but she's my everything.”

“I get that too. It's just me and Lucia. She's the light of my life, I don't know what I'd do without her, but it's still hard sometimes. I'm sure it's even tougher in your shoes, having to take care of a baby yourself. So helpless and vulnerable, completely reliant on you. Lucia can still be clingy sometimes, but she's getting more independent.”

Luis's eyes drift from Ethan's smile down to his wrist, noticing an unusual scar wrapped all the way around his wrist. It almost looks like his hand came off and someone stitched it back on. Almost. Luis has experience with stitches. It's too sloppy, whoever did those stitches couldn't have been skilled and knowledgeable enough to reattach a completely severed hand without affecting its range of movement or nerves. Ethan doesn't seem to have any problem moving any of his fingers. It must have been a different, bizarre injury.

Of course the moment Ethan finally tilts his head to make eye contact with Luis would just so happen to be the moment Luis is rudely staring at his scar. Luis quickly looks back up, checking to see that Lucia is still playing, then looking at Rosemary, hoping Ethan won't notice Luis was staring at his scar.

“She looks just like you,” Luis says, hoping to distract Ethan with an unrelated question. “She take after you in other ways too?”

“No.” Ethan snaps, voice suddenly cold and harsh. “She's not like me.”

Finally accepting that he won't be getting much more out of this interaction, Luis tries to get up from the bench, but as soon as he stands up the man grabs his wrist and pulls, yanking Luis back down onto the bench, with enough force that it's a literal pain in his ass. Any lingering doubts about the accuracy of Lucia's ability is laid to rest; the man doesn't appear to be strong enough to pull Luis down as hard as he did, there's clearly an infection lending him strength.

“I don't know who the hell you are or what psycho group you're working for, and I don't care. My daughter is my daughter, she's not a weapon, or a lab rat,” Ethan is still holding onto Luis's wrist, squeezing hard enough to hurt. “She's a baby, not a tool to be used by anyone. I will never let another scientist get their hands on her. If you ever even lay a finger on her, you'll be a dead man.”

Luis suddenly feels a lot less alone in the universe. One of the hardest things about raising Lucia is just how isolated he feels. He can't relate to other parents because they have normal kids, not kids who were victims of mad science. Luis worries about so many things, but none of them are the things normal parents worry about.

But Ethan understands how hard it is to have a daughter that mad scientists want to use for their fucked up agendas. Ethan understands how exhausting it is to constantly be on guard constantly, to sleep restlessly with one eye open, because at any moment someone could come along to take your daughter away from you, to turn her into a test subject for cruel experiments or weaponize the superpowers she never asked for. Ethan is the only other person on this earth that understands, and Luis desperately wants to tell him that, all of that, after apologizing for the misunderstanding and accidentally making him fear for Rosemary's safety.

But Luis doesn't get a chance to. Ethan finally releases the crushing grip he had on Luis's wrist and immediately stands up and rushes over to Rosemary, scooping her up and running towards the parking lot. Luis pulls his sleeve up and glances at his wrist, which is red and painful. He's pretty sure Ethan's grip was strong enough that he's going to wake up with a nasty purple bruise. But he has no ill will towards the man. From Ethan's perspective, it seemed like a given that Luis was a scientist interested in Rosemary for fucked up reasons. Ethan's response being to show off his strength and threaten Luis's life is actually a bit endearing. Luis has no superpowers, but he knows he would still try to intimidate and threaten anyone who he thought might want to harm Lucia.

For a second, Luis contemplates running after Ethan to explain himself, but he knows that realistically that would only make the situation worse. He just has to hope that Ethan wasn't shaken enough to skip town, because Luis desperately wants a second chance to run into the man and apologize and clear everything up, explain how Luis understands his life more than anyone else ever can. And… Ethan is blond, smart, strong, fiercely protective, and a good father, all the things Luis likes in a man. Even if they didn't have the insane BOW daughter experience in common, Luis would want a chance to flirt with him.

Luis pulls his sleeve back down to hide the bruise before going over to Lucia to reassure her that the people she was worried about definitely weren't monsters and there isn't anything to be scared of.

#winterserra #resident evil lucia #<- have to tag her im the only person making content for her gotta feed the tag

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desertsquiet · 1 year ago

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This is very recent and such a beautifully written article I super super super recommend it

#gram parsons #the byrds #the flying burrito brothers #the international submarine band

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astrangetorpedo · 3 months ago

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Mick Management Doesn’t Just Represent Artists — It’s in the ‘World-Building’ Business

"We don't like to refer to ourselves as a management company anymore. We're a music company," says partner Jonathan Eshak.

BY FRANK DIGIACOMO 7/22/2024

Jonathan Eshak (left) and Michael McDonald photographed on June 3, 2024 in Los Angeles. Michael Buckner

Given the multitude of distribution, streaming, promotion and marketing options and expectations, the business of becoming an established artist has turned into a seriously heavy lift for music acts and their managers. It’s one reason that Mick Management partner Jonathan Eshak says, “We don’t like to refer to ourselves as a management company anymore. We’re a music company. What we do more than anything else is brand development, artist development — world-building … We’re not just trying to keep the train on the tracks.”

Eshak and his partner, Michael McDonald, the company’s founder, got into management after immersing themselves in other sectors of the business. McDonald served as Dave Matthews Band’s tour manager before co-founding ATO Records in 2000 with Matthews; his manager, Red Light founder Coran Capshaw; and Chris Tetzeli, who went on to start 7S Management. He opened Mick the following year with John Mayer as one of his first clients and, in 2004, brought on data savant Eshak, who worked at Universal Music Publishing Group (and is the twin brother of Island Records co-CEO Justin Eshak). Jonathan became a partner in 2015.

With a staff of approximately 20 in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville, the duo has built a boutique firm — with its own record label, Mick Music, distributed by Believe — that represents Maggie Rogers, who released the critically praised Don’t Forget Me in April; Leon Bridges and Ray LaMontagne, who will both release albums later this year; The Walkmen and the solo career of their frontman, Hamilton Leithauser; Sharon Van Etten; Brett Dennen; Mandy Moore; My Morning Jacket; and The Marias.

In a fragmented culture where “it’s very hard to find water-cooler moments,” according to Eshak, Mick’s team excels in building committed fan bases for a roster of individualistic artists who punch above their weight. “Artists all define success differently, and we understand that,” he adds. “We understand that there’s no one way of doing it anymore.” Their bespoke approach has resulted in some notable recent successes. In August, Rogers will embark on an international arena tour — including two shows at Madison Square Garden — though she has yet to achieve platinum sales with an album. In 2018, Leithauser began a five-night residency at the swank, 100-capacity Café Carlyle in New York, playing to “a few die-hard Walkmen fans and some fairly confused business travelers,” as Eshak puts it. This year, Leithauser sold out 12 nights, and the concept will be expanded with potential notable guests in 2025. And in June, The Marias celebrated the release of their new album, Submarine, with a secret pop-up show in downtown Los Angeles for approximately 5,000 fans. Eshak says 38,000 RSVP’d.

“What each of those things speak to is us finding interesting ways that the artists appreciate and superserve fan bases,” McDonald says.

What are the challenges of running an artist management company today versus 25 years ago?

Jonathan Eshak: When I first started with Michael, the sky had started to fall on the recorded-music business. This was the dawn of file-sharing companies like Napster and Kazaa. It was attractive to join Michael for that very reason. He was coming from building a world that was unique, not just to the ebbs and flows of the success of recorded music but also, how do you do things well in touring, merchandising, etc. He understood the creation of cultures, having worked with Dave Matthews and Coran.

Like the Grateful Dead, Matthews built a culture around his music.

Eshak: The Dead were the godfathers of that, and Mick’s ethos effectively starts there. While the challenges of the industry have evolved, the code of building an artist’s career remains the same. Which is, how do you focus on building a meaningful, long-lasting relationship with your fan base? We always say, “How do we make the artist the hit and not just the songs?” Music is just part of the cocktail. It’s also, how are we creating a dynamic of connectivity between the artist and the fan? How are we merchandising with them? How are we creating live shows that are meaningful, that evolve? There’s been a lot of lip service about artist development throughout the history of recorded music.

Michael McDonald: There were fewer breakthrough moments then, whereas today, because of the way technology and culture has evolved, it’s been democratized. The upside is that more people can succeed. The downside is there are fewer channels that create that star-turn moment.

Maggie Rogers seems to be a prime example of someone who has grown through connectivity with her fans.

Eshak: Maggie has understood the importance of connectivity from the start. She had this moment of Pharrell-ity, for lack of a better word, and instead of sitting back and working that, she understood the importance of going around the world and connecting with her fans face-to-face. To your point, she’s doing two nights in Madison Square Garden without a platinum record. Now, she obviously wants that and we want that for her, but people who are in are in. Even as she’s grown, the No. 1 thing on the checklist is, what are we doing for that audience?

What’s an example of that?

Eshak: When we were announcing the fall arena tour, we created pop-up shops in all the markets where people could line up to buy exclusive merchandise and, most importantly, reduced-price tickets. She was hearing from unsettled fans about ticket prices, so we tried to create solves. Fans could walk [into the pop-ups], point at a seat map and get a ticket that was going to cost less than if they paid for it online. Because of that, her fans understand that she sees them.

What questions do you ask before signing an artist?

McDonald: Most importantly, “Do we love the music? Do we feel like we can really grow this career?” And then, “Do they, will they, work hard?” We can’t want it more than they do. Some of this is research you can do before you meet the artist. Much of it we do through conversations, but there’s also data that’s crucial. We’ve had great success following our passion and guts, but to not use the tools at our disposal to help make those decisions would be foolish. Data is a great strength of Jonathan’s and why we’ve evolved in using it to inform decisions but never to unequivocally make decisions. If we did, we never would have signed some of the artists we have.

Why did you partner with Firebird?

McDonald: Firebird brings us resources that a company our size doesn’t have. There’s a data department and an analytics department of 10 to 15 people. There’s a finance department. There are all sorts of things that allow us to double down on the data and free us up to stay focused on our artists.

What’s your pitch to artists you want to sign?

Eshak: It really comes down to having a shared code, so it’s important that we take the time to sit down with artists and say, “What are your life goals in addition to success in recorded music?” This is such a deep relationship that we talk all the time. We talk on weekends. We’re there with them for very big life stages, and it’s really important for us to have at least a common set of goals because it takes a lot out of everybody. Where we do a good job is acting almost as coaches now. It’s our job to be highly informed about how people are having success, distilling that and applying it to the artists that we represent, who are all quite different. In other words, how can we do this with you so that you remain true to yourself? We can’t do that for a thousand artists. It’s not the business model that Michael and I have elected to build.

You have a label.

Eshak: We have a label, and we’re working with some of our artists whose repertoires are returning to them and they need a mechanism to put music out. Some of it is also identifying artists that we like and helping them put music into the world.

Do you encourage your artists to own their masters?

McDonald: One hundred percent, whenever possible. Today, we would be hard pressed to pursue a deal that started with perpetuity music being somewhere else. There’s always a chance that it’s going to happen, and ultimately, it’s an artist’s decision. If they feel like this is their shot and they’re willing to give that up — absolutely. But one of the reasons we created the label was to say, “All right, let’s have an easy mechanism where we can control the deal terms. Let’s put music out and try to build on that. Then, if a great licensing option is not available today, let’s take a year and try to build something.” Ray LaMontagne’s album Trouble reverted to him in May after 20 years. So it’s not always a three-year or five-year reversion. But 20 years ago, we were able to take a long view and say, “Let’s take whatever percentage less today so at least there’s the option to sell those recordings X number of years later.”

Are your agreements with artists traditional percentage deals or partnerships?

McDonald: It varies. We have a lot of traditional deals, but any time we’re in true partnership, where we’re sharing [intellectual property] with an artist, it’s fully above board and clear with everyone’s legal teams. There is an evolving way that artists are going to get into business with different companies. We welcome that as things evolve.

(x)

#this is an interview w julien’s new manager for those who are interested #non-paywalled link at the end #it seems like they take a more hands on approach w their artists which is great #i like how fan oriented they seem to be #jb #julien baker #jonathan eshak #michael mcdonald #mick management #2024 #july 2024 #interview #archival

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urfavnegronerd · 1 year ago

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honey-kehlani

trope: fluffy

pairing: margo kess x black fem reader

warnings: some good old southern metaphors, Grammarly hates me (i think they anti black fr), lowk internalized homophobia but nothing insane readers kinda on the dl but not gross dl yk?, still ina rut lowkey, got up before my alarm and decided to finish this before i leave

song lyrics are italicized

w/c: 1.6k ish

saw you awake

Margo is pretty. Real pretty. Pretty like magnolias in May type. It’s not like you’ve never liked a girl before, because you definitely have. Them late-night reruns on nick-at-nite you used to watch with your family type shit. That 90’s type pretty. It’s not like you were foreign to the concept of being gay, or lesbian, or however the world wanted to label your innate attraction to girls. It just… wasn’t something you mentioned a lot. You’d talked about it a lot with your grandmother, but other than that? Liking girls was something you just didn’t mention. All you knew was that Margo was pretty, the type pretty to make you adjust your cargo pants so they hung just right, in the way so that when you stretched she could see the band of the Nike Pros you wore. Type pretty to make sure you kept your shoes clean, looking all fresh, type pretty to make sure your washday always happened. Cus girls like clean shoes and pretty hair, right? It wasn’t like you could just… go and spit game to her.

You were sprung off your ass and you couldn’t help it, shit you tried to swing from masculine to feminine enough to make her notice, but nothing seemed to work. You’d tried to talk to her, but it… did not end well. You were shy and blushy and didn’t know what to say.

“Talk to me sweet pea,”

“Grandmama it's just a lot on my mind,”

“Girl I am your grandmother, not talkin' to me is like a screen door on a submarine. It don’t make no sense baby,”

“I know,”

“Is it some girl?”

You tensed a little bit, your grandmother is the only one you’re fully out to.

“Yes ma'am,”

“She got your feathers all ruffled?” Your grandmother slowly looks up from the sweet potatoes she’s peeling, eyebrow raised with a knowing look and smile playing on her lips, a hot blush crawls up your neck and you swallow meekly, nodding.

“She’s real pretty Grandmama. Smart, too.”

“That’s real good, baby,”

“Grandmama I’m being serious, she pretty as a peach and I don’t know what to do about it,”

“What you mean you don't know what to do about it?”

“It’s like, every time I see her, I freeze,”

“Baby you fixin to be just another pretty face to that girl, keep acting like that,”

“But what if she not…”

“Not what? A lesbian?”

“Yeah,”

“Then you move on,”

“It’s a lot more than just movin' on, m’dear,”

“Babycakes it sounds like you just making excuses,”

“Yeah, you probably right m’dear,”

A few weeks had passed since you told your grandmother about Margo. You told your grandmother about some girl you ain't never had the guts to talk to, but now, here you are, a handful of lilies from your grandmama’s garden, mixed with lavender, waiting outside her door. Part of you is happy and excited, but the other part? Thinks this is stupid and you should run. There’s such a huge chance that she could just not be into girls, and then what? You make a complete fool of yourself and it could go bad to the point where she tells everyone. Why was being… like this, so difficult? Loving up on someone shouldn’t be hard, right?

Psyching yourself up, lightly bouncing on the balls of your feet, New Balance 550s with juniper, you ring the doorbell, hiding the flowers behind your back.

“Hello?” Margo’s face, big brown eyes, gentle cheekbones, two puffs, and an entire universe worth of beauty peek out from behind the door.

“Margo! I, erm, Margo. Hi,”

“Oh! I know you, we have chem together, right?”

And English and History, but who’s counting?

“Y-Yeah, so, um, listen I was kinda wondering if maybe you wanted to–”

“Those are really pretty flowers,”

“Hnm? Oh, I got them in my grandmother's garden, they’re um, for you,”

“Really?” Her face lights up, starting with her eyes. And oh how you adored the tiny gap between her two front teeth, the way her curls lightly bounced when she laughed or talked. Fully unlocking the door, she swings it open to you. She’s wearing a blue oversized hoodie and purple shorts. “I love lavender.”

You smile and look down, suddenly shy, and you push the flowers into her hands.

“Did you maybe, want to go out with me? Like, together?”

She looks taken aback but smiles softly, inhaling the scent of the flowers.

“Like a date?”

“I– yeah. Like a date.”

“Yes.”

“Wait really?”

“Yeah,”

“So, um, Friday? I’ll pick you up at seven?”

“Seven it is,”

“Okay.”

Friday.

don’t walk away

It’s far from uncommon for you to like girls. However, it was far from common for you to have a girlfriend. A pretty girl, Margo, just so happened to like you back. Enough so to go out on a date with you. The first date was far from awkward. Well, it was awkward. You didn’t know what to say or do, she looked so beautiful, so much so that you had told her at least five times that night. She had her hair in two braids wrapped around her head, and one of the lilies you had given her tucked behind her ear.

It had been just over two months of the two of you being a couple, just about a month and a half of you labeling your relationship. The word girlfriend coming out of her mouth was the most beautiful rendition of the English language you had ever heard, the way she gently rolled her r’s, not like the way you’d speak Spanish, but her r’s were a heavyset sound rolling off her tongue.

It was early morning, the sun gently dusting its way into your room, and your arms were latched around Margo’s waist, face pressed against her bonnet. She’s one of a kind and you could promise anyone that, the kind of smart that makes you itch to work hard in school, so the two of you could be those smart girlfriends, the girlfriends that went to the top universities and had their whole future perfectly aligned. You loved her, and that was simultaneously terrifying but calming at the same tie.

From her thick bed of curls, the same bed of curls that you helped braid and detangle, all the way down to the toenails you helped her paint.

“I wanna paint them purple,” she’d announced one day, voice muffled behind the sweatshirt she had stolen from you.

“So paint ‘em purple,”

“You draw better than me,”

“You want my help?”

“Can you?” she pouted. Of course you could, you’d do anything to make her smile.

Loving Margo was the easiest decision you’d ever made, you didn’t even have to think about it. You just loved her, it was simple as breathing.

“Hey,” you whisper, gently ghosting peppery kisses into her neck. You were positive she wasn’t awake, and you felt empowered. Not in a weird way, oh no. It was like you were the one to protect her, to gently watch her chest rise and fall, hear her breathing, and feel the faint pound of her heart. Margo made you feel safe, happy and loved. She fed your soul, filled you up the way your grandmother’s cooking did, and made you feel warm and euphoric, and sleepy at the same time in a blissful combination that came with feeling the most intense peace you’d ever encountered.

“I love you,” that was the first time you’d said it out loud, it was easier to know she was sleeping and say it. As much as you loved her, uttering those words was the most excruciating fear you’d ever been through, the fear that made you wonder whether or not she loved you for real or if she was just acting. Every day you woke up and hoped that it wasn’t just acting, that she loved you as much as you loved her.

“I love you so much, Margo. I love helping you braid your hair up, and helping take them down, I love the little gap between your teeth, and how bright your smile is. I love how you make me feel, Margo. I love how smart you are because I get to be the one to say that you’re my girlfriend, and how far you’re gonna go. Pretty girl, I love how smart you are, I love the way you think. And I know this is kind of cheating because you’re asleep, but I wanted to say I love you, okay? I love you so much Margo Kess”

It did kind of feel like cheating to you, she was asleep, did saying ‘I love you’ for the first time need to happen while she was awake? You didn’t want to wake her though. She looked so pretty, the bright blue camisole a beautiful contrast to her melanated skin, and of course, the matching bonnet cascading down her back. Deciding to leave it at that, you press your forehead to her shoulder blade and breathe in her scent. The hair oil, the cocoa butter, and the Vaseline.

“Who said I was still sleeping?”

or would you wait for me?

taglist: @masaidabest @hiimayee @kombuuuu @lunarfleur @zo3ez @miguellover6969 @nagi3seastorm @n1cole-ghost @hummusxx

a/n: leaving today until friday, so i wont have any electronics :P but please please please blow up my inbox, we 20 away from 200. i seriously love all yall sm, wanted to feed you before i leave. heavy on that blow up my mentions, inbox, errythang so i can come back and read ur lovely notifs.

🩷 reblogs are always appreciated for reach <3

xoxo,

rae <3

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shadowland · 1 year ago

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Country Trip: A Talk With Gram Parsons

Fusion magazine, March 26 1969 {x} transcript ↓

Gram: "There's a very good music scene in L.A., a lot of good musicians have been playing together lately and getting together... but not so much at the whiskey and places like that, as in honky-tonks out in the valley - groups like Delanie and Bonnie, Taj Mahal, the Tulsa Rhythm Review... a lot of funky people coming from the south - Texas, Tennessee, and Tulsa - coming out to L.A. to make a little dough, and they find out that you can't really because there aren't many clubs in L.A. to play at, unless you're the Four Ragas...

Someone: "Actually, there's only one club that's left, you know, and that's the Whiskey. The city has clamped down on dancing - you can not dance in clubs anymore, which just kills the business. The Whiskey is on its last legs fighting to keep the wolf away."

Gram: "What was happening in L.A. was Snoopy's Opera House, Peacock Alley, the Laurel Room, the Prehade, the Palamino, the Ace's Club and the Red Volure, and the Hobo - clubs like that that nobody knows about that are like in the San Fernando Valley, the City of Industry, Orange County, I mean the clubs out in the Valley are really honky-tonks, and they're really funky, and they're nicer than like the honky-tonks in Nashville, because the people there are less liable to rap on you for having long hair - they see more of it - and you can go out there and Boogie all you want. So that's real nice - that's the most positive thing I can think of about L.A. - these places out in the Valley, like out on the Strip itself... with all the people addicted to carbon monoxide."

WH: "You were at Harvard-"

Gram: "Briefly - very briefly."

WH: "But up here with the International Submarine Band, and up here with country and western - and you thought you could do best with it out on the coast, rather than like going back to Nashville and playing around there...?"

Gram: "I wanted to go out where it was warm. I was really tired of the cold - here and in New York - and I wanted to go out to the coast for awhile - 'cause it was warm, and everybody was saying it was nice, and I hadn't been there yet. And in two years I sort of surmised what it was all about, and now I'm ready to go someplace else."

WH: "Is it the Bakersfield influence that comes down to people in the San Fernando Valley-"

Gram: "Yeah, it is."

Someone: "Not really, you know. Bakersfield is sort of its own little thing - Buck Owens, Merle Haggard - and southern California, from L.A. down, has always been a very big country and western thing: located in the little suburban communities like Norwalk, Downing, the Valley - all those places around L.A."

Gram: "But the Bakersfield thing is what really got me into it: like four years ago, I was digging Buck Owens, some of the people like that. I mean, I dug the older country artists before then - but I just got started getting into the real hot, electric thing they had. And I sat around and said it sure would be nice to like do a recording session and have Don Rich come down, and cats like that - that's ultimately what happened before we split there, we got together with all those guys, and we all dig each other. Maybe Liza Williams doesn't know who we are, best they do."

WH: "You yourself were in with Billy James in Laurel Canyon foe awhile, weren't you?"

Gram: "Yeah... enjoyed that you know - a nice thing to do. It's too bad that it couldn't be a little cooler - it couldn't be a little bit cooler... It's all like a great [illegible sentence] don't know who you're talking to... Mod Squad time... you don't know... chick comes on to everybody in the band... I'm beginning to wonder about Hippies in general... You can just tell by looking at a person's eyes... but they got all the gear, the blonde hair, everything, and they're so damn ready... but you don't know... When people on Sunset Strip ask you what your sign is, they're really asking if you're bisexual or not - because the chicks who ask you are the chicks who dig bisexual cats, sort of, and the guys who ask you are the guys who dig bisexual cats, sort of - and and they're asking you what your sign is, because they want to know if you're earthy or firey, or airy, or watery - you know, what are you. Nobody knows anything about astrology there, I mean very few people do. What your rising sign is doesn't mean anything."

WH: "Why not San Francisco?"

Gram: "I hate San Francisco. San Francisco is just the jivest town in the world. It's beautiful, and everyone loves its morning fog that fills the air and everything - but listen, when people start playing the 'Star Spangled Banner' by Kate Smith on the radio just to put down the United States - nothing good can come of it. And San Francisco is the home of the Onk."

Someone: "All the long hair and the Hippie freakery has filtered down no through the entire Establishment and has manifested itself in Onk."

Gram: "Both cities though, have their good and bad points, but they're due for a - I don't know - a lot of people say earthquake; I'd say that both cities are ready to pay a lot of dues, because old people and young people are jiving each other, and not getting together... It's time to get ourselves together. I mean, we can all be positive if we want to - but we've got to really love each other; we can't just do this to each other, you know, all the time. We've got to find a way and be consistent in it, or you're gonna meet with hysteria - and I think that both cities are going toward hysteria.

We're writing a song called 'The San Francisco Gold Rush' right now, and it's on the theory that San Francisco has done approximately the same thing to the music scene in the 60's that Philadelphia did to the 50's, you know, and this is really obvious to me the way that Philadelphia affected Elvis Presley with its satin shirts, and losing the real... I don't mean the clothes that he wore. I just use that to project an image of... Do you know what I mean? Well so there you go; San Francisco has made everyone want to be Ginger Baker, or Eric Clapton, and have ribbons hanging from your shirt and the whole thing. I'm using clothes because clothes are the most obvious thing you can point at... to see what a person is doing. And the other side uses clothes too; Richard Nixon and Governor Reagan see a bunch of little girls in peajackets and wearing Onks, and they think they're the enemies of educational wisdom, you know. Maybe everyone would be a lot safer wearing sequins. We're wearing them 'cause they're bullet proof."

WH: Has Bakersfield been coaslatent all the while?

Gram: "Not really, because country music is going through its fad so rapidly too. I mean, its being affected by the Nehru shirt scene, Glen Campbell, for instance, is a very, very good guitar player - one of the best, but he has been hyped, ruined - destroyed. So many of the country artists are just trying to pick up gimmicks. They always have but they're getting more and more into it - but the same thing with the spades, man, they're getting into a real jive protest scene. They're saying that we are where it's at - you can't have soul unless you're black; and country people are saying you can't have a soul unless you're white unless its one a [illegible word] in it, nothing [illegible word] unless it has a steel guitar. Now I don't go along with that, you see. I think horns are really great and everything, but I want to play with a steel guitar because it's where I'm at now. I love steel. But I'm perfectly willing to listen to B.B. King. The problem is that country radio stations are not playing the real country songs: they're playing "Gentle on My Mind" because they want pop people to get into country music. They think that's the way to do it, but it's not... Yeah, Glen Campbell sang tenor on the International Submarine Band record. He's funky you know."

WH: "What's (James) Burton doing?"

Someone: "Sessions - eighty zillion sessions, you know, work."

Gram: "We run into him a lot. I think he's on sort of the same level that we are, you know; he's eyeing the whole scene very skeptically, and he's a very funky cat-"

Chris Ethridge: "He's got real long hair now, and a beard..."

Gram: "And his brother calls him in the middle of - he called him in the middle of a session Chris and I did with him the other week, looking for a 64 Chevrolet engine in a 49 frame or something... James is really all right, you know, and he's just waiting, he's just waiting..."

Gram: "The Tulsa guys, the Memphis guys - ten years ago, they were playing with Buddy Holly, they were playing with the Crickets, they were playing with Little Richard, they were playing with guys like that; and now they're doing their brand new 1969 thing. It's the same with us. And Jerry Lee Lewis is back, Fats Domino is back - I couldn't be happier. Conway Twitty's back. He's got the hottest new country band around, and he's out of sight. In his own right, he's better than all of us new country groups - 'cause he's paid more dues, he's older. As soon as young kids start digging old funky white artists like they dig old funky black artists... Like they can listen to B.B. King but can they listen to George Jones, they can listen to George Jones, they can listen to Albert King and Ike and Tina Turner, and so on, but can they listen to Conway Twitty... You've got your Otis Redding, but you've also got your Merle Haggard. I suppose that we would correspond and parallel - we would be on the same level as the newest things that are happening in Rhythm & Blues, like down in Muscle Shoals that's our scene. It's a bunch of young white people who are starting to play white music.

You really can't put music in geographical places, because country music probably came out of the Midwest as opposed to the south. But I'd say Muscle Shoals is one of the hottest recording scenes in the United States, and it's one that we relate to more than we relate to Nashville or L.A. We try to make our recording sessions sort of like Muscles Shoals rather than Nashville. We didn't hire a bunch of X musicians, we all concentrated within ourselves on doing it. And we just hung out - and did it together.

Chris Ethridge: "You remember all of those cats that did 'Where Have You Been,' and a real good song, 'You Better Move On' - all of those tunes, remember those tunes? Those were some of the first ones cut down in Muscle Shoals, and that was like ten years ago, or eight years ago. Old Rick Hall, you know, he got himself a studio, and started getting the local cats from around there coming in. And Joe South and Tommy Roe would come in from Atlanta, and they'd cut some stuff, like 'Carol' - do you remember that record 'Carol'? there was a guy in the background going 'Ompah, ompah,' like that; well, that was a farmer from Dewy, Alabama who was a friend of Dan Penn's, and he came up to visit - so they put him on a record; and there he was, you know, he made it.

Gram: "On 'Hippie Boy' ...I mean, the album (The Gilded Palace of Sin) goes from like Everly Bros. cuts to more modern, polished things. But at the end of the album, there's like all of our friends there singing: the GTO's, Joel Scott Hill, Johnny Barbatoes, Henry Louie, Larry March, Bobby McMann - we're all like singing together, 'There'll be peace in the valley.' We had a real good time doing the album.

WH: "The thing is with that song ('Hippie Boy') - the talking kind of country song has the potential for being sentimental, and yet it doesn't become so."

Gram: "Yeah, well - that song - We had the idea from the very beginning; we kept saying, we got to do a song called 'Hippie Boy' about Chicago, and it's got to be a narrative song, and Chris Hillman has to do it; and he has to drink a fifth of scotch before he does it - just to really feel the whole thing; not smoke an ounce of grass - but drink a fifth of scotch and do a narrative. And let's see someone else do that - let's see McGuinn do it."

WH: "It seemed like the toughest challenge of the record."

Gram: "Right, it was. We went through 'Hot Burrito 1 & 2,' and we saw that we had the high polished musical thing by the nuts - we had it and we could do it. My piano playing and organ playing came back to where it used to be, before I was with the Byrds. I started getting funky again, and everybody started getting funky again; and it was time to do 'Hippie Boy' - It was time to end the album. And after we did it, it was time to beat it - it was time to get out of L.A. We would love to have our next album called 'Ray of Hope', you know. We'd like to find some place over in Europe where we're really happy and we write about all the funky nice farmers. We dig to do that; I mean, we are not a negative, put-down group, like people seem to think. They're so uptight about our sequined suits - I just can't believe it. Just because we wear sequined suits doesn't mean that we think we're great. It means we think sequins are great. We think sequins are good taste. Rolling Stone, the Free Press - they think that we're a bunch of... show offs, and we're trying to put everything down. We're merely reflecting everything, because real music is supposed to reflect reality. You can't build a reality in music, you have to reflect it. Like 'original' music was made to get people together - like religious music, to sort of form a bond between you and your ancestors, let's say. In church, you would have music that would make you nostalgic, and think of the oldies times and what the reality really was that has led you up to right now. That's where music's at You can't build your own reality - that's why psychedelic music is so jive; it's every a everybody's own bag. No, I'm sorry, you know, we're all in it together - like it or not.

To do the album in L.A., we had to close ourselves off. When the smog was heavy we had to wear tanks of oxygen, and luckily we were blessed with a fellow named Henry Louie who can just cool out. He's an engineer unlike any engineer I've ever worked with, and projected an attitude of; 'we're not in L.A. boys, we're together.'"

WH: "You had to go through three years of L.A. to do this - with the Submarine Band, and the Byrds."

Gram: "We paid a lot of dues, but we dug it. I mean, while everybody else was going to the Whiskey building up their egos, and everything, we were saying; 'Jesus Christ, man, nobody likes us. Jesus, what are we doing'. In the meantime, we were going out to places like all those clubs I mentioned, and to forget our troubles, we were getting smashed - and rocking 'n rolling every night, you know, just as hard as we could. And after three years, somebody finally bought country music, someone finally bought the Internal Submarine Band - and then they sold the name, and everything; we paid more dues - but country music was being accepted and we didn't care. And now, everybody wants to get on the bandwagon; everybody want to say they're country as Crawdaddy seems to think he is."

Someone: "I don't think he himself is trying to project that image, but that it's imposed-"

Gram: "Oh right, he's always been funky. People hated him when he started out. They said rotten things about him, but now they're trying to project the country scene onto him. And he isn't country. He's a poet-"

Someone: "He's and old fashioned minstrel."

Gram: - "a beautiful poet, but Columbia records does the same thing with him that they did with the Byrds; they hype him. And I don't know, you just can't believe that sort of stuff..."

WH: "Has A & M been good to you?"

Gram: "They have been real good. They've let us follow our concepts, so to speak. I mean, they're in it for the money like every other record company, and if people start buying out records, they'll let us run with the ball. That's all I can say. I don't know what will happen - otherwise, I don't even want to think about it. If I have to pay more dues I'm willing to because I dig honky-tonk, and rock and roll - and being on the street doesn't bug me at all. I don't need to have an image... So it doesn't matter, one record company or the other. When we got together there were a lot of record companies that were eager to sign us - and anything we wanted, they were willing to do - but we just happened to sign with A & M, mainly because of Mike Vosse, who came and got us. I mean, he was actually interested. He didn't set up appointments for us to come and see him; he came and saw us. Tom Wilkes, in the graphics department, was a friend of Chris', you know. So we had a personal contact and they took a personal interest in us. It's not the big executives - like Herb Alpert and everything did - but who cares about big executives? Who knows where they're at anyway? Herb Alpert's a nice cat, he's a brilliant cat, he's got a beautiful smile - and that's all I know."

#gram parsons #the byrds #the flying burrito brothers #the gilded palace of sin #country music #60s #let me know if you want me to transcribe this #edit: ahh !! he talks about bisexuality !!!! and calls everyone funky and cats #chris hillman and the hippie boy song #i typed out 3160 words and it was worth it

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