Relix`s Laminated interview with Anna – January 2002

Some actually found them
and upon listening were
blown away as they were
grooving to the Seapods,
which then seamlesslysegued
right into Neil Diamond's
"Coming to America."
sGenes
For those of you scoring at home, our 'Ask
The Doctor" column has morphed into
"Laminated." Why? Well, rather than have
you ask us questions, we thought it would
be far more edi$'ing and entertaining for us
to do the asking. This section will focus on
behind-the-scenesinquiries as we share allaccesslaminates. In the issuesto come, look
for a personal tale or two of my own (for
instance, the story behind Butch Trucks'
backstage phone call that saved a SIip set
during the 1999 fambands.com tour). Of
course) if you have any suggestions regarding topics and interview subjects, please
email laminated@jambands.com.
For starters, we decided to ask a few folks
about promotions. People are all too happy to
crow about successfi.;l
promotional ideas,but
we were curious to hear about some failures.
Jammy award winner E{orvi* Set*leeg
long-time talent buyer at New York'sLion's
Den (www.cegmusic.com),
sharesone of
his worst...
Schnee: On a really cold, snowy night a few
years ago, I saw about 40-50 people dressedin
Santa Claus outfits walking around the neighborhood of the Lion's Den. We were relatively
empty due to the cold weather so I walked up
to them and told them I'd cut the cover in half
for eachone if theyall came in.When theygot
to the door, they all started chanting loud and
obnoxiously,"Santas payno cover! Santaspay
no coverl" I rea"lizedthat the only way that they
were going to stop chanting and agreeto come
in was if we let them all in for fiee. I agreed,
which was a big mistake. The Santasbecame
more like Satansonce inside. They tormented
everyone inside the club, especiallythe band
on stage. In fact, many of them jumped
onstage while the band was performing. It
took at least a half hour to get them to leave.
Chnis Zai"rn, long-time Wetlands talent
buyer and currently the force behind
Intransonic (www.intransonic.com), also
answersthis one...
Zahn: I came up with this idea to do a
phony 8-track release party for the
Ominous Seapods.I bought 500 used 8tracks down in New Orleans and out
O m in ou s Se ap odss t ick e rso v e r t h e e x lsr ing labels. The ploy was that every fan
who came in would get a free "Seapod" Strack, but in reality, it was just crappy
Carpenters or Neil Diamond (or one of
many other revolting'70s soft-rock titles).
I thought it would go over big, but it
seemed to really confuse the Podheads.
Fans wanted to know if it was ever going
to come out on CD.
The Seapods'ile*a &{*n{eitfu chimesin...
Monteith: I was psyched. It was so absurd
that the New York Post,one of most classically-mutated newspapers, spilled some ink
about it. Zahnhad the B-tracks sent uD to us
wherewe stickeredrhem.We also *anted to
go the extra step and actually get Seapods
onto the B-tracks so we found an 8-track
piayer with a recording function (I believe
that it was Tom's lbassist Tom Pirozzil
father's). The 8-track recorder had no compatible inputs with anyonet stereo so we
took a box, a microphone and a Seapods
bootleg and pressed play on the box and
record on the 8-track and then let it roll. So
we actually had 8-tracks featuring some live
Seapodsand whatever was going on at "The
Grunge" [the band house] at the time. Zahn
is right; most peopie were confused,but a few
curious fans actually cruised garage salesfor
8-track machines in order to listen to that
beautiful medium of musical enioyment.
I was also interested(and mildly
frightened) to learn what is left
behindfollowing a musicalfestival So I asked ,A*tyc*8*ofsi1r.; coowner and manager of Clean Vibes
(www.cleantibes.com) to identify some of the
more interesting items her organization has
found when cleaning up after festivals oyer the
past few years. Clean Vibes, a company
"dedicatedto responsibleon-site wastemanagement of outdoor festivals and events," has
worked at many notable fests, including the
Phish 2000 NYE show, Gathering of rhe Vibes,
Camp Creek and the Berskhire Mountain
Music Festival.
Borofsky: My personal grand groundscore
would most definitely be my dog, Oz. He
was abandoned at the Oswego Phish festival
in luly of '99. He wandered around the site
for three days following the festival and by
Wednesday he was not really responding to
humans anymore. I spent an hour coaxing
him towards me, then something clicked in
him and I gained his trust. He hasn't left my
side since.I spent hours on the phone trying
to locate an owner but without success.
Unfortunately, Oz is not the only dog we
have found Ieft behind at shows; it's all too
common an occurrence. Oz, however, is a
huge assetto the Clean Vibes crew when he
is around to help out with post-show clean
ups because he takes care of all the leftover
food on the entire site.
Beyond that the list includes: an entire
car which was ieft at Camp Creek; golf tees
and parts of golf clubs; love letters to band
members; week-old raw meat (can you say
MAGGOTS!?); a ponytail detached from
f or m er o w ne r i p l as t ic m a nn eq uin s; a n
averageof about 25 hibachis per show; an
almost full deck of x-rated playing cards;
the remains from the folks who decided to
bring their own toilet, complete with fivegallon bucket and toilet seat (and they
couldn't be bothered to dispose of their
own). This is a definite least-favorite find.
After all, as we say in Clean Vibes, we
might talk a lot of trash, but you will never
catch us talkins sh*t! r
. 67
www.relix.com