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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TRAINING CAMP BATTLES TO WATCH OUT FOR

One of the good things about being a year removed from a conference championship appearance and having re-signed or extended most of your notable free agents from that squad is that you have few notable positional battles. When the Saints convene for Training Camp ’08 on July 24th, their biggest offseason additions will step into pre-defined roles: MLB Jonathan Vilma immediately becomes the starting middle linebacker on the Saints’ defense and DE Bobby McCray is penned into the rotation at defense end. The Saints do have some questions at big-time positions like wide receiver and cornerback, so we’ll take a look at the players vying for starting roles, and perhaps roster spots.

Wide Receivers: Marques Colston, Devery Henderson, Terrance Copper, David Patten, Robert Meachem, Adrian Arrington, Lance Moore, Skyler Green, Todd Blythe, Titus Ryan, Carlos Robinson. Roster spots available: 6.

The Saints carried six receivers in ’07, and with them all returning in ’08 there’s no reason to think they’ll change that number, but a couple of the names may change. Colston’s a lock, and the questions begin with who’ll start opposite him. The team needs a reliable receiver to draw the double team away from Colston while stretching the field and not allowing defenses to stack the line against our running game.

After an ‘07 training camp in which everyone claimed his concentration problems were behind him, former second round pick Henderson suffered through yet another frustrating season of just as many drops and missed chances as breathtaking catches. He was re-signed to a one-year contract and this might be his last chance to catch on with the Saints. He’s a pretty good bet to make the roster, but can he prove consistent enough to start?

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The new chapter of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge has gone live—it’s entitled “If It’s The Last Thing We Ever Do” and takes place on September 1st, 2005 outside the Convention Center.

I’m curious to see what people think about this, and A.D. in general, especially after all the play the “parasite class” comments have gotten lately.

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…)

King Khan And The Shrines, Jacuzzi Boys, One Eyed Jacks, 9pm. Internationally hated by riot control police yet adored by the quirky and cool alike, King Khan and The Shrines are on the move and they’re coming to NOLA, baby. These good-humored and rowdy youngsters play some good, old-timey, part-psychedelic-part-bi band-part-summer-beach party-on-mescaline, rock-you-to-the-bottom-of-your soul music that would make James Brown proud. In fact, they could’ve probably gone head-to-head with the (R.I.P.) Godfather of Soul when it comes to performing with zest, high energy, and showmanship. To say that these kids are eccentric is a bit of an understatement. With a band member that goes by Bamboorella (go-go queen of the underworld) it’s safe to say that King Khan and The Shrines are not your parents’ soul band. With a take-no-prisoners attitude, pulpy image and a delicious throwback sound, you’ll feel like you have no choice but to go along for the ride, no matter how strange it may be. —Caroline DeBruhl

Due to a printing error (that inadvertently left pages 33-36 out of the print edition), our July issue will hit tomorrow (the 2nd) instead of today. The printer is reprinting and adding the necessary pages and I’m actually heading over there first thing in the morning to personally cobble together the issues, so you can start to look to your normal drop spots around noon or so—we’ll probably start distributing in Uptown first, then Mid-City, then the Quarter and Marigny.

In the meantime, whet your appetite with a .pdf download.

Sorry for the delay—believe it or not, this is just the second time in our four-year run that one of our printers made an error that resulted in the need to reprint!

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…)

The July issue of ANTIGRAVITY will hit today, July 1st. Look for the print edition this afternoon at a place of interest near you! We have interviews with Studio In The Country’s Ben Mumphrey, The Living Room Studio’s Chris George and Daniel Majorie, Part 2 of Ballzack’s chat with Biff Rose, a Bonnaroo photo wrap by Zack Smith, the debut of our new comic strip, Firesquito, a preview of Saints Training Camp ‘08 and much more!

You can download the July issue here!

Help us celebrate our 4 years in New Orleans at Handsome Willy’s with NOLA Rising, DJ sets by AG writers, cheap food and drink and, above all else, cake. We’ll go from 7pm ’til around 10 or so!