When Rami Sharkey, a.k.a. Ballzack, asked me if he could interview Biff Rose, I wondered what shenanigans could’ve led him to discover someone with the name “Biff Rose.” In retrospect, it’s embarrassing that I didn’t already know the enigmatic nature of Rose, who was born in New Orleans and is attached to some of the biggest names in show business. The singer-songwriter got his start as a standup comedian in the early ‘60s (a road Ballzack would travel down over thirty years later) and wrote sketch comedy with the all-time-great comedian George Carlin. David Bowie recorded “Fill Your Heart,” a song Rose co-wrote with Paul Williams, on 1971’s Hunky Dory, after the song had already been released by another star of the day, Tiny Tim. Rose’s contributions to big-time musicians didn’t stop there (Pat Boone and John Denver both covered Rose-written songs) and he not only performed on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show but the classic Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and American Bandstand.

After Rose recorded Roast Beef in 1978, little was heard from him publicly until his work was re-released in 2005, though he kept busy by creating several websites and multimedia work.

Rose’s website and current work is, to put it lightly, controversial. He’s incorporated spoken word and rap into his music and uses to racial stereotypes in his art. One of his websites, jewmanity.com, is but one of his projects that plays with words to make a point. Some have labeled him an anti-Semite and/or racist. Rose denies that. It’s hard to believe that someone featured on online videos teaching African American kids how to play piano is racist, but that’s the paradox of Biff Rose.

After agreeing to chat with Sharkey via e-mail, Rose suggested that we start the print version right then an there, so we’re going to bring you the entire conversation from start to finish and in a different format that our interviews are normally in. The bolded parts are Sharkey’s e-mails to Biff, the non-bolded Rose’s replies. It’s sparsely edited to keep intact Rose’s unique blend of stream of consciousness thinking and metaphorical speaking, so there are misspellings, jabs at other New Orleans publications and Rose’s frank anecdotes of New Orleans, New York and celebrity.

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Interview by Dan Fox

Photos by Chris George

It was a bittersweet day in 2004 when Chris George and Daniel Majorie powered down their Milton St. home studio in old Gretna for the last time. For years, the aptly-titled Living Room had earned a reputation for being the place for up and coming bands of all genres to record. Some of our most beloved performers, from Blair Gimma, Big Blue Marble and Community to Hawg Jaw and Outlaw Order cut some of their first recordings at the Living Room. It wasn’t just the rock bottom costs, which were always per project (never hourly) that kept it booked solid through the year, but the whole experience of tracking in an intimate environment (the control room doubled as George’s bedroom) with people who brought a fiery, passionate and personal approach to engineering. Majorie’s engineering skills, which he had honed at school and in Nashville, coupled with George’s creative abilities that ranged from mic placement and drum tuning to barbecue and photography made for an unforgettable experience for musicians otherwise feeling the stress of a recording session. Their success eventually exhausted the possibilities of that little house and it became increasingly evident that a new venue would be needed, one that would not only broaden the possibilities but suggest a full-time occupation instead of recording only after a day’s work in an outside world hardly sympathetic to the hours music keeps. For over two years now, the buzz has been growing over the work that Majorie and George have put into the church/machine shop sitting directly under the Crescent City Connection, which was little more than a shell and a prayer when they wrangled it away from the city’s coffers. The Living Room Studio, version two is about ready to open its doors again and the wait will have been well worth it. From the colorful paint choices to the crisp echo of the live room, it’s clear that the past couple of years have been a labor of love for Majorie and George. ANTIGRAVITY caught up with the duo as they worked in the control room, one of the last spaces of the studio to be completed, and talked about reviving old gear, keeping bands happy and, of course, the good ole’ days of four-track cassette recording. (more…)

By Jason Songe

For all you Pixies, Frank Black, and Breeders fans out there, here’s a portion of the interview that focused exclusively on those bands and Mumphrey’s work with them

BM: You’d asked me about “Fields of Marigold.” It’s not one of my favorite songs on my end, though I like the song a lot. That whole record was done in a rehearsal hall that sounded like garbage, so it was a constant fight to get the distant sound of the drums out of every other microphone. We had been doing the Black Letter Days stuff in a loft in Little Tokyo in downtown L.A., and it was really comfortable, like a real nice apartment, and we were able to get fairly decent sounds. We basically got kicked out. They didn’t realize, I guess, that we were recording actual records in there. The landlord comes by and says, “You can’t have these drums anymore.” Charles is like, “Ok, we’ll be out in six hours.” He calls me up and he’s like, “We’re moving out. I have an idea. See if you can make it work.” The idea was that the band (The Catholics) set up and record in 3rd Encore’s showcasing room (seen in Pixies film loudQUIETloud). Charles’ attitude was, “Fuck the landlord and loft, we’ll be set up and recording somewhere else tomorrow.” And we were. It just happened to be somewhere sortof sucky. It was this huge, square, awful-sounding room with a really high drop ceiling, like a warehouse. If you listen, you can hear how cavernous it is on Devil’s Workshop. “Out of State” is probably the best-sounding one on it. If you’re a fan, and you don’t give a shit about the ultimate mix, then yeah, “Fields of Marigold” is a rockin’ tune. But, it’s my job to try and deliver some fat shit. I like Sabbath records, crankin’ Sabbath. (more…)

By Jason Songe

Photos by Eric Martinez and Dan Fox

Traveling down LA 21 towards Bogalusa, I stopped into a convenience store to get a six-pack for Ben Mumphrey as a thank-you for the time he was giving up for our interview about Studio in the Country and his sound engineering work there. The early twenty-something clerk with a mangy beard was buried in his beverage orders, and when he looked up and spoke his country accent soothed me. It was a sure sign I’d crossed the line into a simpler, slower dimension, and probably because I spent many vacations as a child on a Mississippi farm it felt like cold water on my head after a long run. It makes sense, then, that as I got closer to the studio and further into the country, my heartbeat slowed.

I saw the two huge cedar pylons marking a driveway entrance and I turned between them onto the gravel road that led down to a geometrically edgy structure that looked like a student of Frank Lloyd Wright designed it in the ‘70s. “This has to be the place,” I said. I stepped out the car, took in the pine trees, ponds and open land that went on for acres. The feeling of calm reminded me of a retreat I took in Convent, Louisiana, which has got to be one of the most beautiful places you’ll find mid-state.

Studio in the Country took six years to design and was finished in 1973. According to an old studio brochure, a country location was chosen to minimize earth vibrations. It has been used by Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Professor Longhair, The Neville Brothers, The Gutter Twins, Kansas (“Carry On Wayward Son”), Marilyn Manson, etc.

“It was built by A-grade sound architects with a soft ceiling,” Mumphrey said as he took me on a tour of the studio. Mumphrey was telling the truth because I heard my ears ringing in the large recording room. The only time I can normally hear my ears ringing is when I’m going to sleep.

Next Mumphrey walked me outside and down to the studio’s cabin-sized echo chamber, which is used to naturally capture reverb. Two lines come from the control room and plug into two mics for a vocal sound that’s “richer and creamier than computer reverb.”

Mumphrey started engineering music in ‘97, and since then has engineered, mixed, or produced records for The Pixies, Frank Black and The Catholics, The Breeders, The Gutter Twins, Fu Manchu, Mark Langean, Auf der Maur, Anders Osborne, etc., and he was the monitor engineer for The Pixies on all of their reunion tours.

Mumphrey and I ended the tour back in the main building, inside the control room. There, ANTIGRAVITY asked him questions about the studio, his work and the bands he’s recorded. This interview starts with an answer, as Mumphrey discusses the differences in studio taste over the decades and how that ultimately affected The Pixies. (more…)

Since it’s anniversary month here at AG, here’s another June blast from the past: our Keith Knight interview from June 2006. As I said in the post about this month’s cover, I felt like that issue was really worth celebrating since it was our first anniversary after Katrina and we asked Keith Knight to draw me and editors Noah Bonaparte and Patrick Strange into the mix, which he did brilliantly. Keith happened to be in New Orleans that month to promote The Beginner’s Guide To Community-Based Arts to the librarian’s conference, so we put together a slideshow for him at Handsome Willy’s.

Here it is:

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We’re in an era of unparalleled awareness for the art of cartooning. Between George Bush’s uncanny ability to stimulate political cartoonists, the now-infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons, animated series based on strips like Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks, and–while much tamer to audiences, for sure–the domination of the box office by comic icons Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, more people are aware comics exist than ever before. One comic strip that can run the gamut of emotions all the above can inflict is Keith Knight’s The K Chronicles, a unique foray into politics, pop culture and human emotions. Knight is just as likely to reference Star Wars as he is to mention his mother, and in any given strip you may be treated to the lighthearted optimism of “Life’s Little Victories,” a theme that celebrates when the simple things in life go your way, or an unabashed send-up of Dick Cheney’s latest hunting misadventure. When you may least expect it, though, Knight can deliver a heartwrenching or heartwarming slice of life, whether it’s his wife’s cancer-scare (she’s okay), the death of an influential person (like comic great Will Eisner) or a tribute to the people of the Gulf Coast.

Knight’s not a Johnny-come-lately, some hanger-on to McGruder’s faux-provacativeness–he’s been a professional for over twelve years. He started out as a caricature artist in his hometown Boston and, once he moved to indie-comic Mecca San Francisco, worked his way from ‘zine artist to full-fledged newspaper comics page contributor. Since the K Chronicles became entrenched in publications nation(and world)wide, he’s started a second strip, (th)ink, a comic done in single panel style (a la a serious Far Side) meant to take on race and political issues. He’s also illustrated a book called The Beginner’s Guide To Community-Based Arts, a book that tells the stories of several activists who use art to make their communities around the country better.

The man’s got legs, as they say, and one method he’s used to accumulate fans is his slideshow, an indie-comics convention favorite. Knight hosts the show like a comedian, moving through pics of his strips and elaborating on their history like the college professor you always wished you had. ANTIGRAVITY has been on the Keith Knight train since its beginning–The K Chronicles was the first strip we decided to run, and when an opportunity to host a slideshow presented itself we pounced on it. AG presents the Keith Knight slideshow in the latter part of June, and we spoke with Knight about his growing up in Boston, working for ESPN and MAD, and some of his more controversial strips, like the one where he smoked crack with God. (more…)

Interview by Leo McGovern.

One of my early interviews for ANTIGRAVITY was with Susannah Breslin. I’d heard she’d recently moved to New Orleans from Los Angeles, and was anxious to interview her and help promote the New Orleans Bookfair, which she had a scheduled reading at in late-October 2004. We sat in the back courtyard at the old Z’otz in the French Quarter. Her short story collection, You’re A Bad Man, Aren’t You, had recently been released.

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ANTIGRAVITY: When did you move to New Orleans?

Susannah Breslin: September 2003. My intention was to stay here for a year, but now my guess is I’ll stay for two years. The weather here is unbearable. I can’t live here permanently, but it’ll be longer than a year.

AG: What made you decide to move to New Orleans?

SB: I was tired of being in Los Angeles. I’d never been to the south before. I knew it was warm and cheap. It had a seedy reputation. When I figured out the abbreviation was “No L.A.” it seemed like it was divine. [Laughs] It was a way to get away from the competitiveness that was L.A. and just try and focus on writing the book instead, rather than keeping my head above water as a freelancer.

AG: You’ve said that instead of “feel good” movies, you prefer “feel bad” ones. What exactly are “feel bad” movies?

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In a special artist-on-artist chat, The Junior League’s Joe Adragna talks with Sloan’s Jay Ferguson.

I will not pretend to be non-partisan when it comes to Sloan. They are, to my mind, one of the best bands ever and one of the few bands that, since their inception in 1991, have consistently created strong albums and have avoided the usually-inevitable weak one. The Toronto-based four piece, fresh off my favorite record of 2006 (that would be thirty-track epic Never Hear The End Of It), are back with Parallel Play, the latest release in a career that’s flown under the radar of the U.S. mainstream.

The group has four distinct songwriters and multi-instrumentalists: Jay Ferguson, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, and Andrew Scott. Each member contributes at least three songs to Parallel Play (Scott clocks in with four), and their individual songwriting styles are well represented. The great thing about Sloan’s White Album approach is that it’s kind of like getting four different flavors of ice cream—it’s all tasty, and you don’t have to decide between cherry vanilla and rocky road. Ferguson, the band’s resident pop confectionist, delivers one of the album’s high points with the melancholic (but bouncy) “Cheap Champagne;” Murphy’s clever lyrics and gifted melodic sense shines on “All I Am is All You’re Not;” Pentland brings his brand of the rock with the catchy lead-off track, “Believe;” and Scott blasts through the garage-like “Emergency 911.”

Of course, I could go on about really geeky production points or fantastic parts on Parallel Play—like the great chorus of “Living The Dream,” with its fantastic ascending bass line; or maybe the “You Keep Me Hanging On” guitar part on “If I Could Change Your Mind;” perhaps I could discuss the echoy, Moby Grape-ish shuffle of “Down in the Basement;” or I could go on about the fabulous harmonies on the chorus of “Believe.”

Instead I’m just going to tell you to go get Parallel Play and enjoy the latest release from a band that will earn an honored place on your turntable/CD player/MP3 player. (more…)

This interview first appeared in the October 2004 issue of ANTIGRAVITY and was conducted by former AG writer Miles Britton (who’s now an editor at MAGNET!).

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Singularity, Ratty Scurvics’ one man music project, has for the past two years been building a loyal and ever growing fan base thanks to his darkly hypnotic songwriting and intense stage presence. Dressed up in his signature clown costume, his face painted stark white, stabbing simultaneously at the keyboard, drums and microphone with a glowing cigarette clamped between his teeth, Scurvics gives us a glimpse of what Brian Eno might have sounded like if he had run away to join the circus. ANTIGRAVITY sat with Ratty and chatted with him about rock operas, the Know Nothing Zircus, and trying not to bleed at the Hi-Ho. (more…)

This interview originally appeared in the March 2007 issue of ANTIGRAVITY.

To celebrate After The Deluge getting picked up by Pantheon, I thought I’d post our original talk with artist Josh Neufeld, which coincided with A.D.’s debut over at SMITH. Interested parties may want to know that the current issue of DC/Vertigo’s American Splendor mini-series features some of Josh’s work.

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Josh Neufeld has become adept at telling graphic stories of a personal nature — his comic series The Vagabonds chronicles his and wife Sari’s travels around the world, his artwork frequently tells Harvey Pekar’s unique slice-of-life stories in American Splendor, and his 2004 graphic novel A Few Perfect Hours (and Other Stories From Southeast Asia & Central Europe) won him a prestigious grant from the Xeric Foundation. Neufeld’s latest projects feature both personal and, for the first time, communal stories. In early ’06 Neufeld released Katrina Came Calling, a chapbook-style collection of prose journal entries written in late ’05 during a three-week tour of duty with the Red Cross in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. In January ’07 the prologue of Neufeld’s new sequential art project, New Orleans: After The Deluge, premiered on SMITH, an upstart website that celebrates personal storytelling and, in 2006, published Shooting War, a highly acclaimed webcomic about the war in Iraq. After The Deluge features several real-life people affected by Katrina (including AG editor Leo McGovern), and Neufeld intends to weave those people’s stories together in an attempt to show readers that New Orleans isn’t a city full of statistics; that the populace of the Gulf Coast isn’t simply full of people either with or without the means and/or desire to leave, return and rebuild; that our region, even a year and a half after Katrina, is brimming with grey area.

ANTIGRAVITY spoke with Neufeld about the reasons he created A.D., what he hopes readers take away from these stories, and how this project is different from anything he’s done before. (more…)

After a year and a few months at it, nine-piece local band Antenna Inn’s sleek, smart and superbly constructed suites of jazzy prog rock are starting to draw a large crowd. They’ve been headlining shows more frequently and are about to release their solid new album, Do/Work, with a party at Tipitina’s. Their’s is the sound of a band working through ideas together for the first time, as they realize their talent and range. As good as Do/Work is, you get the feeling that their next album is going be the one—it’s going to be crazy. For now, though, Do/Work and its highlights: the angelic and Beach Boys-ish back-up vocals and the jazz dirge breakdown at the end of “Ernest Borgnine,” the high frequency bass and bright keyboard on “Ink,” the disorienting horns on “Stockholm Syndrome,” and the swingin’ verses in “Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition.” Though the choruses are pretty catchy, there’s something sublime about each song’s instrumental stretches. The lyrics are dark, anxious, and purging, sometimes malevolent and sometimes self-help-like: “If you’re looking for love, stop, because you will never be happy, even when you are. You will always be lonely…c’mon, people, fall back out of love. Call your mother. Mothers, call your sons.” There’s also a rolling confidence throughout the band—one that could easily be perceived as arrogant, except that confidence is tempered with a clear love of not only New Orleans and its rock scene but the city’s traditional music, as well as a want, almost a need, to create a unifying force that makes it all more successful.

ANTIGRAVITY recently sat down with drummer Eric Rogers and talked about Do/Work, the band’s fan base, and his good, old-fashioned sibling interaction with brother Ryan. (more…)