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By Andy Gadiel
Hello, thanks for calling the hotline... Let us know how you're feeling, how your day is going. What sorts of things are on your mind? Whatcha doing this weekend? What's making you click, today? What's making you YOU? OK...
The genuinely curious, enigmatic, and expressive Mike Gordon invites his fans to share their thoughts with him everyday on his voicemail. An interactive experiment now in its third year, Gordon has resisted his urge to put the forum to rest. Started as a semi-promotional mechanism for his solo album Inside In, it has become a bit of an obsession for both Mike and his loyal listeners who leave cryptic messages in response to his often prodding and revealing intros. Most of the time the mailbox is full, proving that at least a handful of passionate folks make a point to keep Gordon on his toes.
THE ISLAND VIBE
Kottke & Gordon :: Bahamas |
Mike has kept himself extremely busy traveling, writing, and recording new music since the departure of Phish last year. His latest effort, Sixty Six Steps is not just a follow-up to his initial collaboration with Leo Kottke, Clone, but a new direction of experimentation and exploration. Recorded in the Bahamas, the album has a natural island calypso flow and a relaxed mood, which is both easy listening and complex. Fluid and layered, the entire piece emanates with a clear and distinctive 'vibe.' I had the opportunity to speak with Mike for a few moments last month about his latest project, the past, the present, and the future.
"It's been kind of all about the vibe. I had that childhood experience which was very intense and emotional being down there [The Bahamas] on vacation hearing all that music. I went down and had bass and drum jams with Neil [Symonette] and then tried to write some songs. It seemed like there was something in Leo's playing that matched that whole vibe, and it started to make sense. It sort of fell together by itself. Some of the best projects are like that."
While the Island vibe is a clear and prevalent force on the album, it serves to underscore the recording's surroundings and lends support to many of the original songs and distinctive covers.
Mike Gordon - Sitting on the Dock of a Bay |
"It was a question of how far to go with it. Some of the calypso patterns are very specific about how the guitar should sound. I didn't want Leo to do anything except what he normally does, so there is the fine line between them."
"'Rake and Scrape' is the tradition Bahamian calypso version. A lot of the traditional calypso stuff had a lot of horns too, but what I heard by the poolside when I was twelve was just bass, drums, guitar, and keyboard playing these rhythms that were so exotic sounding to my ear that I didn't even know where they were coming from. The bass line tended to be on the up-beat a lot, which is a lot more like Latin music than reggae... almost Afro-Cuban. It's almost like if you took the Afro-Cuban groove and put in a lot of major chords and fast guitar strumming, then that would be the calypso sound. Usually there is one guitar that is strumming fiercely on every 16th note. I was considering going in and erasing every first note of whatever Leo randomly plays, and I think we tried that and used it in at least one case."
GETTING OFF THE GRID
As we've seen in previous projects, Mike's work tends to tell the story of his own life experiences, which is especially prevalent in the aptly titled track, "The Grid," off he and Kottke's new release Sixty Six Steps.
Mike Gordon by Jay Blakesberg |
"The whole story is pretty much true to my own interpretation. I got out there off the grid and realized I wasn't far enough out. I was sort of seeing it as my cabin that I lived in for twelve years and of course my home studio was in Vermont. And then after that, I was in New York, but the cabin I saw as off the grid because it was secluded in the woods with no other houses in view and was supposed to be off the grid. Going there I was discovering that I was still living a normal life and that's not good enough. So that's why the line – 'I told my friends and family that I wasn't very well hid' [is in there]."
Sweet Emotion?
"I don't know what it was, it [the version of "Sweet Emotion" on Sixty Six Steps] just clicked or 'what the hell' let's try this one. The people I was hanging out with when I thought of the idea thought it was a terrible idea."
Many Phish Fans will appreciate Gordon's solid take on the often-covered "Ya Mar." He even snuck in a "Play it Leo" for good synchronistic measure.
Mike Gordon |
"I listened to the original version of 'Ya Mar' by Cyril Ferguson. It's so good. It's just this amazing groove, and the plastic on my album is so worn down that it's kind of fuzzy. When I went down to the Bahamas when I was younger, they played all of their songs with that groove. Even the ones they played by the poolside became over-produced on their album except that one."
Typically self-evaluating, Mike gave some perspective into his own process by sharing this story of the post-production experience.
"Being in the Bahamas, I started to really get into it - the process - and then I got home and I let some time go by. I went for a drive; I really like going for a drive to listen to music. What happened was I was able to listen as a complete outsider on this drive. I wasn't the one who had gone to the Bahamas or Costa Rica but was maybe some Phish fan or whoever had picked up the album. I was listening to the bass and the instruments kind of weave in and out, and I completely fell in love with it. It was just a complete peak experience."
"Although it turns out the treble knob was completely off, and I didn't realize it. It was an accident - a subliminal bass player habit."
Mike and Leo are about to embark upon a month-and-a-half, twenty-five show tour. Playing as a duo will give them an opportunity to offer a truly intimate experience.
Kottke & Gordon :: 6.19.05 :: Telluride Bluegrass Festival
By Tobin Voggesser |
"We both really liked playing with him [Neil] and he recorded the album with us, but there's something special that happens with the duo too."
"On this last tour, for the first time ever I used no bass amp and no monitors, so the sound had to come from the bass itself. I got an acoustic bass guitar, and I heard Leo just from his guitar itself and a little bit from the front of house. It was the softest sound I ever heard on stage in my entire life, even with the percussion."
Never one to rest for long, Mike has plans to get right back to work upon his return:
"The tour ends in the first couple of days in November. Hopefully by then my studio should be done. It was supposed to take a couple of months but will likely take a year. It's my attic designed by the same guy who designed Trey's barn. Everything is a bit one-off using weird materials including Cyprus that was underwater for a few years. When the studio is done, I'm going to start writing and put the solo band together again."
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There have been times when I felt Trey's decision has opened big doors for me, and I should be forever indebted to him for ending Phish, though I would have continued to play with Phish happily.
-Mike Gordon |
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Phish's Phinal Exit after the Last Notes of Coventry :: 08.15.04 :: By Jeff Kravitz
THOUGHTS ON PHISH
Talking with a man who dominated most of the mid-nineties through Phish, I couldn't resist the urge to inquire into his thoughts on the fan response to the band's breakup and if people still ask him if they're going to get back together.
Mike Gordon & Trey Anastasio :: 08.14.04 :: Coventry, VT
By Libby McLinn |
"I talk to people, and I go out a lot. They don't ask as much as they did six months ago. I have my hotline too and people leave messages. People are more in an acceptance mode, so they're not really pushing it."
"The grieving process is a lot easier then I thought it would be. It's not nearly as bad as divorce. There have been times when I felt Trey's decision has opened big doors for me, and I should be forever indebted to him for ending Phish, though I would have continued to play with Phish happily."
"This way it's just forcing me. There was so much of Phish that was done for me: the songwriting, the managing, the planning of the big festivals, the newsletters, stuff that earlier on I used to help do. Now I feel like it's just really a chance to try and express myself. I should have tried harder with Phish instead of getting so deeply into filmmaking, but for whatever combination of reasons I didn't in the last years - although on tour I always loved it. I always loved playing."
Phish :: 9.20.90 :: Somerville Theatre, MA
By B.C. Kagan |
"The hardest thing is not the feedback from other people but the internal feeling that you're not living up to before. It is a challenge, but I kind of feel like I appreciate the challenge. It makes me want to try even harder to have fun and to have life still be an adventure."
"It's not just the end of Phish - it's turning 40, things are just a little bit different. Life can and should still be an adventure. Sometimes touring with Leo I wish we could extend jams for longer periods of time, and sometimes we do. We have such a good open communication that if one of us has a thought or idea, we talk about it or do it without any hard feelings built up."
"Playing with The Duo (Benevento/Russo) has been really fun too. Those guys are just so easy to hook up with, and they're just so up for having fun. Up for exploring and anything, and I can't say enough. I'd love to go out and play with them again."
"But then I'll go back and listen to some old Phish tape or something, and there is this intangible quality that comes from twenty years of chemistry that is deep, even deeper than the music - something in the friendship and the hanging out and the way that couples with the music."
"There was something that was fading - the inclination to do new things at the rate we needed to continue to stay a band. But in terms of just the sailing quality of the jam - I was getting a lot of that in our last tour."
"A lot of people don't have the experience of doing the same thing from eighteen to forty. Even if it's the most amazing thing in the world, you start to wonder, 'Should I be trying other things too?'
Mike Gordon & Leo Kottke Fall 2005
09.15.05 | Liberty Hall, Lawrence, KS
09.16.05 | Mississippi Nights, St. Louis, MO
09.17.05 | Blue Note, Columbia, MO
09.19.05 | The Orange Peel, Asheville, NC
09.21.05 | Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA
09.23.05 | Austin City Limits, Austin, TX
09.27.05 | Lensic Theatre, Santa Fe, NM
09.28.05 | Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO
09.30.05 | House of Blues, West Hollywood, CA
10.01.05 | Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Palo Alto, CA
10.04.05 | The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA
10.06.05 | The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA
10.09.05 | Moore Theatre, Seattle, WA
10.18.05 | Barrymore Theatre, Madison, WI
10.19.05 | Park West, Chicago, IL
10.21.05 | The Music Mill, Indianapolis, IN
10.22.05 | Bogart's, Cincinnati, OH
10.23.05 | Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor, MI
10.25.05 | Higher Ground, South Burlington, VT
10.26.05 | Toad's Place, New Haven, CT
10.28.05 | Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA
10.29.05 | Irving Plaza, New York, NY
10.30.05 | Theatre of the Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA
11.01.05 | Starr Hill Music Hall, Charlottesville, VA
11.02.05 | 9:30 Club, Washington, DC
JamBase | San Francisco
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