Karl Interview II

Note: This interview dates to around February 2006

MY: I'm still trying to figure out the plot to Tracklist 1 (and some of Tracklist 2, by virtue of the same songs being on it) and I notice that the first real break in 'album time' comes after Tired of Sex. Superfriend is the next song and it finds Jonas talking to Lisa for the first time, presumably after having "dumped" Maria. You gave me the two verses that we hear on the DVD, but you mentioned that there was another verse before those two. I was hoping that you could reveal it to me, because I want to know what's going on in Jonas' head after dumping Maria, what he's talking to Lisa about, and what causes him to suddenly worship Lisa. 

KK: The first verse, which I think I shouldn’t be telling you, but what the f***, is:

What the hell am I doing?

Thinking with my willy

Knowing I don’t love her

I tell her no, then kiss her toes

What the heck are you doing?

Leading on that poor girl

You know there’s something better

Deep in you

Now let it through

The first part must be Jonas, the second part is... someone else. Wuan? Danno? Lisa????? (OR Jonas talking to himself!??) its not 'pitched up', but that may or may not mean its supposed to be a man’s vocal.

MY: After Superfriend comes She's Had A Girl. Now, the problem here for me is that this would obviously take nine months. Am I correct in assuming that the mission is now nine months old (give or take)? You mentioned before not being sure who the mother is (Jonas is the dad), but logic would dictate that Maria is the mother (It seems that Lisa doesn't figure in the story before this song in Tracklist 2, leaving only Maria as the mother in that tracklist). In Blast Off! they say "cooped up all year" so I am wondering if this is actually almost a year into the mission. Thus Jonas sleeping with Maria in Come To My Pod would result in the conception, because it seems that Come To My Pod is the same "night" as Blast Off! based on the conversational nature of YWGWMT/CTMP. I suppose Oh Jonas/Maria's Theme could add some insight here, so if you remember anything about that song as well, it would be helpful. Anyway, I really want to clarify how far into the mission we are at this point. Knowing who the mom is would be good, too! Do you remember any lyrics from this one? 

KK: You’re right; the mom pretty much has to be Maria. You are correct when you assume the mission is long and time slips to allow for the birth of the daughter. In Blast Off! I’ve always assumed they are early in the mission but know that it’s gonna be long. Therefore the subsequent fertilization of Maria leads to the daughter later in the mission. As I’ve said before, I really feel that what Rivers put on tape wasn’t the whole shebang, but rather the significant highlights of what would really have to be fleshed out if it was truly to be staged as a musical, or really, fleshed out into an album’s worth of music. I guess he'd disagree, but to that I say "but the album would have been like, 24 minutes long!"

MY: Next comes Good News!. First off, I wonder, based on the similarity between the title and Blast Off!, if the song is structured in a similar manner. The alternate title, Dude We're Finally Landing, makes me think that this song features Jonas and Wuan and/or Dono, so that would also make it Blast Off!-esque. Do you know who participates in this song? Next, I am wondering if the full year is now up because they have landed back on Earth, or if they have arrived on Nomis to do whatever it is they are trying to do. If She's Had A Girl is nine months into the mission, then it makes sense that the mission's year is up in this song. Can you remember where exactly the ship has landed and any character development (lyrics)? 

KK: Not same structure as Blast Off! at all. I recall it’s harmonized, with all/many of the characters signing the same parts and then diverging, singing multi parts simultaneously, like all voicing their thoughts at the same time. Pretty cool. Not a rock song, more an a cappella thing, hat finally gets an acoustic guitar late in the song. It’s short. Rivers wasn’t kidding when he recently wrote that thing about most of what you don’t have is really link pieces and segues, not full songs.

MY: On to Now I Finally See.... You said before "''Now I finally see what it is I want' is the first lyric from this one. This lyric is reprised from the end of "She's Had a Girl." It's musically similar to "Devotion""
So now I'm guessing that in this song Lisa dumps Jonas (perhaps realizing the truth about him and Maria?) because, as I said before, I'm pretty sure Getchoo is Jonas complaining about being dumped. It would make sense, anyway. If you can add anything to that, that would be cool.  

KK: "Now I finally see/what it is I want" is SORTA like the feel/melody in devotion's "Waiting for you/I’ll always be your friend", in that 6/8 style time. BUT NOT REALLY- it’s just close enough to strongly remind me of it.) Anyway, I think this line is from Jonas - realizing what he really wants. How that figures into things I am not sure. The problem: I don’t think there are any other lyrics to the song!

MY: I think, after this, I'm okay for plotline, unless Longtime Sunshine Reprise has any giant revelations (does it?)...   

KK: No - honestly I think that LTSS was an attempt to add a coda song, with a tune he had written independently of the song cycle - a song about rivers, grafted into the black hole story. The reprise is just an extended bit of it.

MY: In the Recording History, Why Bother? and Waiting On You are both mentioned as being "part" of SFTBH, but neither are really included in either tracklist. I am wondering if these songs SHOULD be part of it or not, especially since you have Why Bother as a Tracklist 1 song, placement unknown... Maybe Rivers would be better off answering this question, but if you've learned anything new about this since you updated the recording history, it would be cool to know. Both of these songs are mentioned as being part of the "Special Coda Remix" so I was wondering how Waiting On You is a "major theme" without being in either tracklist. 

KK: I think these were added later - post ANY tracklist, therefore they don’t appear in sequence or really in them at all. Because they were worked on in 8/95, I must conclude (as it was still Black Hole at that time, though not for too long), that they must fit in somehow - though no such sequence was ever made. 

Also, it wasn’t a "remix". That’s my bad, sorry. More of a multi-song reprise. They sang overlapping parts of all 3 songs, creating a song cycle thing, like when you do "row row row your boat" and the next person comes in on the next line, etc.

MY: In the recording history around 1993/1994, we see Rivers doing Beach Boys covers, barbershop quartets, all-trumpet multi-song sagas (Victory on the Hill/Defeat on the Hill) and being very ambitious/adventurous. After reading that he lost his trumpet and clarinet on the bus, it made me wonder if this affected his songwriting/recording at all. Do any of the SFTBH songs have trumpet in them? Did he ever get a new trumpet and clarinet and keep writing with them? Do you know if any SFTBH songs were "lost" in his notebook (and thus never added to the tracklistings to fill out the story, or something)? 

KK: That loss was devastating to him, though I don’t think any fully realised songs were lost, no. Plenty of song ideas, fragments, etc. on staff paper. And lots of lyrics. I’m amazed we still have what we do have original lyrics wise. Most of the original Pinkerton song lyrics and sketches were lost in the trumpet case fiasco. 

He never did get a new trumpet, but he did get a new clarinet and plenty of other odd instruments over the years.  No trumpets in SFTBH stuff.

MY: From the board: How many copies are there of SFTBH out there (I think this means physical masters/copies/CDs)? Whose CD was it that was pictured on weezernation audio archive on the SFTBH section? (that would be this one: http://sftbh.com/bhcd.jpg , which I think is yours?) 

KK: That was mine. Here’re my guesses: Rivers had his original cassette 8 track and ADAT+DA-88 masters. Some of the cassettes are still around (Ii have them), others are gone. All of the ADAT tapes (Hamburg) are, I think, gone. The DA-88s are probably still around, but a few might have been ruined. Cassette copies of the mixed demos: Rivers had his, plus Matt, me, Brian, maybe Pat. 1-2 more, maybe. I still have mine, I bet Matt and Brian saved theirs, Pat’s is definitely gone, any other copies would be in the closely guarded collections of very close friends of the band- if they still exist. Rivers copied his cassette(s) to DAT, but did a bad job in places, resulting in the cut-offs that drive everyone crazy (but not the one at the beginning of blast off - see below). The CD you see in the pic is one of 3 copies we made, from the DAT tape (therefore have the same cut off beginnings/endings). 1 CD for Rivers’ archive, one for mine, and one spare/emergency one (which actually I also have - in a different location though). I’m sure Rivers’ copy was the source of the mp3s he shared/mistakenly sent out.

MY: From the board: Karl once said that the abrupt begining and endings of Blast Off! were "not due to any scotch tape action". Does this mean that there is something on the tape before what we have, such as a count-in or an intro? 

The abrupt ending yes, as it blends right into 'Who you calling bitch' ..... The middle crunchy part is scotch tape editing as previously explained. UNFORTUNATELY and to my great shock, the INTRO to Blast Off! is cut off EVEN on my own 1994 cassette, meaning it was badly mixed from the MASTER in the first place… and I DON’T have the master, and DON’T know if it still exists!! Rivers messed up a lot of his 8-track masters before handing them to me (he was going to throw them out!), it took me years to sort out which ones actually were there and missing and which were taped over with later work, and what the later work was. The thing is, he got the DA-88 system in late '94 and started working on SFTBH over Christmas break in CT, then continuing his work in Hamburg on an ADAT machine while we waited for Matt to come back from his unexpected trip back to the States. If there’s a complete Blast Off! it’s on his DA-88 master reel, which I am assuming still exists, but I’m not the caretaker of those tapes so unless/untill I can actually view them again, we wont know if there’s a chance of hearing it properly with the count-in etc.

SO FAR AS I CAN TELL, these are all the SFTBH/Pinkerton related demos done on cassette 8-track, before the DA-88 (probably before the SFTBH idea occurred to Rivers):

Waiting On You

Longtime Sunshine

Getchoo
YGYLTMS

Tired of Sex

No Other One

Devotion 

And when you see any from these on the SFTBH tracklists its these 8-track demos done in LA. The others were done on the DA-88 in late 94/early 95 or in Hamburg, 2/95. 

MY: Do you know what Rivers' plans for SFTBH were after wrapping Pinkerton and the b-sides? Was there ever any intention of working on something using the songs NOT released at the time? 

KK: No he just moved on - Pinkerton was the end result, not a separate project. In other words, to Rivers, it was all one road that resulted in Pinkerton. He didn’t jump from the SFTBH highway to the Pink highway - he stayed on, renamed and repurposed the SFTBH highway INTO the Pink highway. Hence his reluctance to treat it as a legit unfinished project - to him, it was paved over with Pinkerton, what he feels is a superior and correct result.

MY: Back to the 'unheard' songs, could you go through this list and say which songs are fast/upbeat (like Blast Off! or YWGWMT) and which are slow/sombre (like Come To My Pod or Longtime Sunshine)?

KK: Tracklist 1:
3. Maria's Theme   this = Oh Jonas (:30)                   

8. She's Had A Girl  (:55)   slow sad acoustic
9. Good News!  (1:05)   baroque, musical, multi vocals w/ multi parts. slow. happy.
10. Now I Finally See  (:40)   huge rock, slow
15. What Is This I Find?  (1:20)  slow, pretty, acoustic.
17. Longtime Sunshine Reprise  (? - :30?) like Longtime, slow, pretty.

Tracklist 2:
2. Who You Callin' Bitch?  (:45)   slow but huge, rocking.

4. Please Remember  (:40)  rock, mid tempo
12. Lisa  (3:05) rock, fast
14. Superfriend Reprise (:25) slow/mid tempo. Instrumental Superfriend part.

MY: Of those songs, which is the longest (how long)? Which is the shortest (how short)? 

KK: See times above.

MY: In the recording history, there are a lot of times where you are unsure of whether or not a song is a home demo (Christmas '94) or a Hamburg recording. Is this because multiple versions of some songs exist?
 

KK: No it’s because I just am not sure which ones were done where. Remember I wasn’t looking over his shoulder; he worked alone, and later presented us with the sequenced cassette. I can sorta tell by how they sound, but not really in some cases.

MY: The Blast Off! we have now is the one that ends with "Whooooo you" which obviously goes into Who You Callin' Bitch?, which we do not have. However, in Tracklist 1, it's supposed to go into YWGWMT. Does this mean that there's a different 'version' of Blast Off! for Tracklist 1 that flows better with YWGWMT? If this is the case, does this version not include the vocoder verse? I'm just wondering about when Tracklist 2 was started and at what point the current available Blast Off! took shape.

KK: Nope there’s no other version, aside from the 8/95 Electric Lady one, of which I explained the various differences (evolutions?) to the '94 OG demo in the previous email. It must be, as it sonically matches up this way, that he originally had it the "second tracklist" way, then substituted YWGWMT, then later swapped back - ergo the second tracklist order (in that case of songs 1,2,3) is just the OG restored to its OG order…

I think Tracklist 2 is just a later Rivers reordering/finalization of the plan. I can’t get in his head and figure out what the deal was, but it clearly re-used some old demos and substituted other, newer ones, plus rejiggered the order. remember, the "Tracklist 1 and 2" thing was my way of dealing with this discovery: I had a cassette from early ‘95 that I THOUGHT for years was the deal, then discovered the "new" tracklist when I want to dub Rivers' DAT tape to CD. So, if that’s the tracklist RC settled on (why else is it on his own 'final' DAT this way?) then that’s the "final" tracklist. (So far as I can tell)

Let me postulate the following, you tell me if it matches what is known at present:

+ means added

= means moved to/from within the listing (not brought in or discarded)

- means removed

1. Blast Off!

=2.YWGWMT - (moved to #19) 

+3 Who You Callin’ Bitch (added later)

3. Maria’s Theme/Oh Jonas

+4. Please Remember (added later)

5. Come to My Pod

6. Oh No This is Not for Me

7. Tired of Sex

=8. Superfriend (moved to #17)

9. She’s Had a Girl

10. Good News/Dude We’re Finally Landing

11. Now I Finally See

-12. Getchoo (removed)

13. IJTOTLOMD

+14. Lisa (added later) 

- 15.No Other One (removed) 

- 16. Devotion (removed)

=17. Superfriend (added - moved from #8)

+18. Superfriend Reprise (added later)

= 19. YWGWMT (added - moved from #2)

20. What Is This I Find?

- 21 - Longtime Sunshine (removed)

- 22 - long time sunshine reprise (removed)