The shuffler: Kurt
Wagner, leader since 1986 of the cultishly adored Nashville collective
Lambchop. Originally a trio called Posterchild, Lambchop shifted through a
bunch of names before settling into a rotating, lavish cast of musicians, often
recording with up to 16 band members at a time. Their unclassifiable music
blends countrypolitan with pallid variants of soul, blues, avant-garde
concepts, and whatever else is sitting around. The band's latest, OH (ohio),
is a typically inscrutable mixture of warm music and vaguely impenetrable
lyrics.
Cat Power, "Willie"
Kurt Wagner: I think
[The Greatest]'s a great record for her just in general. I'm kind
of blanking out on "Willie" right now. I remember her as this pretty
introverted person. She used to come to Nashville and stuff, and play shows
that were pretty cool. It was back when she would just play straight through,
she wouldn't stop. Early days, we had a party at the house and she came by. She
locked herself in the bathroom the whole time and wouldn't come out. We had to
pee in the yard. That's my Cat Power story. But I think when that record came
out there was something really striking about it, that I could get beyond the
fact that it was just such a major step, and I was really happy for her.
Bettie Serveert, "This Thing Nowhere"
KW: It's a record [Palomine]
my wife was obsessed about, before we got married and stuff. So I sort of keep
it on my thing to sort of remember that time.I think she's got a great
voice. All that. I just keep it on there. Sentimental record, whatever.
Sourpuss, "Came
Home Late"
KW: Oh, wow, now
we're straying into a weird area. This is an early Lambchop thing; we used to
make cassettes. This one cassette was in like a furry pouch. Secret Secret
Sourpuss. Pretty weird shit. [Laughs.]
The A.V. Club: I looked it up recently to refresh my
memory. I found "I Fucked Your Sister."
KW: Oh, "I'm Fucking
Your Daughter." That was one of those records—I don't think it was from Secret
Secret Sourpuss. Secret Secret Sourpuss was like this weird new idea of doing that, but I
actually wasn't playing guitar or anything in it. I would just do stuff like
sing while holding my tongue, to inflect my voice. Or play the fuckin' flute or
whatever.
AVC: Do you still listen to the Sourpuss stuff?
KW: It was weird. I
hadn't heard it in forever and then a friend of mine put 'em on a CD so I could
actually hear 'em. Threw 'em on here just to check it out. It's still, to me,
pretty cool sounding. It's definitely not what you'd think of when you think of
Lambchop. It's the really fun early days when we were doin' shit.
Sourpuss, "All
Around Man"
KW: See now,
Sourpuss again. Can we skip it? [Laughs.]
Mark Eitzel, "Homeland
Pastoral"
KW: I like Mark. I
like his thing. I think he's great.
AVC: Did you follow him back when he was in American
Music Club?
KW: I actually was
not a big American Music Club fan when they first came out. I'm always late to
shit; I'm just retarded or something. Like The Smiths, when they came out I
didn't get it. Two years later I got it. I was a little slow, so by the time I
got it they were already done, and Mark was kinda doin' his own thing. I saw
him once in Nashville, he came through all by himself. Played in some church and
got pissed off at the soundman and sat in the middle of everybody and played. I
was like, "Whoa, this is great. This is beautiful." I run into him from time to
time in Europe, and it's always good to see him.
Lambchop, "Please Rise"
KW: [Makes a buzzer noise.]
It's just a Lambchop song, new record. See, this is a problem. I'm not a
narcissist.
Buell Kazee, "A
Short Life Of Trouble"
KW: This guy gave me
an anthology of folk music. He's compiling a couple more volumes of it, this
crazy European dude named Max Dax. I've been really into checking out stuff
from that period in time, folk music and stuff. For some reason Europeans have
this weird perspective on what we do, and they're much more into archival stuff
than you would think. And everything on this collection, I'd never heard any of
it. It's great. I really don't even know what I'm listening to when I'm
listening to it, I don't look at the thing to see what it is.
AVC: What's it from, though?
KW: A lot of the
same sources, I guess, of the initial anthology of American folk songs. [The
Smithsonian Anthology Of American Folk Music]. He's just found other
stuff. He's really into research. This guy's really crazy, he did a collection
of Mafia folk songs. He went down to Sicily and talked to the mob, and talked
them into letting him record these traditional songs about the Mafia. It's a
really amazing, beautiful record. And really scary too, because all the lyrics
are about killing each other and blood and revenge.
The Jam, "Man In The Corner Shop"
KW: Sound Affects
is a great record. I wasn't a huge Jam fan, but I thought Sound Affects was a pretty cool record. [Skips ahead.] More
fucking Lambchop. [Skips again.]
M. Ward, "Requiem"
KW: I really like
that record [Post-War]. "Requiem" is a pretty cool song
too. He's a good writer, a good artist. That's a good sounding
record.
AVC: He seems really obsessive about tweaking
everything.
KW: In the
first few records, he definitely was into not letting it get too good sounding,
or at least had a quality to it that was unique and not gussied up.
Sometimes I find that annoying. Sometimes I find it really inspiring
because it creates its own space for whatever the particular song is, and I
appreciate that, but sometimes I go, "Make a record that sounds good," and I
think he did that with Post-War more than he did his other
records. So I'm not distracted by that, but that's just my perspective as
a listener. I get a little funny. I don't want to be
distracted. I just want to be able to listen to a song.
The Jesus And Mary Chain, "Just like Honey"
KW: Great record [Psychocandy].
When it came out, I just thought it was so scary and almost unlistenable, and I
really like that about it. There was a case where it seemed as much
about, maybe even more about the sound, but now it just seems really tame.
AVC: Do you follow the rest of the bands, all that
shoegazer stuff that came out after?
KW: A little
bit, but I never really knew it was called shoegazer stuff. It was just
certain bands that I thought were cool that ended up being there. I
didn't know My Bloody Valentine was shoegazer.I just thought it was My
Bloody Valentine.