What Makes the Monkey Dance

Stevie Simkin

Description

How do you define success? If you let somebody else define what success is, you’re a sucker. I’m no sucker.

Chuck Prophet started out as a post-punk California kid who helped kickstart the alt-country genre when he joined Dan Stuart’s Green On Red, then making a name for themselves as part of the so-called Paisley Underground alongside bands like The Dream Syndicate and The Bangles.

While Green On Red established a reputation for self-destruction illuminated by flashes of brilliance in the studio and on festival stages around Europe in the late 1980s, Prophet simultaneously immersed himself in roots music and forged a solo career via backroom and basement venues across his adopted home of San Francisco. He has emerged as one of the most respected musicians of his generation, admired for his talents as a songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and live performer. He has worked with the likes of Tony Visconti and Warren Zevon, and his songs have been performed by artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Solomon Burke.

Those who know him through his social-media presence or his live shows are well aware that no one tells a story quite like Chuck Prophet; here, his voice rings clearly from the first page to the last as he gives his perspective on writing, recording, and performing, and talks candidly about his struggles and remarkable recovery from years of addiction. As Prophet’s official archivist, author Stevie Simkin draws on over a hundred hours of interviews with his subject, as well as contributions from fellow musicians, producers, friends, and associates, and unique access to unreleased songs and live recordings and scores of previously unseen photographs. Time and again, Simkin puts the reader in the room with Chuck as he talks, or in the studio as he plays, and the live experience is captured from both sides of the stage monitors.

An exciting rock’n’roll odyssey, What Makes The Monkey Dance is essential reading for every fan of this phenomenal artist, but also for anyone with an interest in alternative music during a period seismic change, offering a fascinating portrait of how a true artist has managed to carve out a career at the sharp end of a notoriously ruthless industry.

Sujets

• Musique
• Histoire de la musique
• Music
• Rock
• Genres
• Styles

Informations

• Publié par: Jawbone Press
• Date de parution: 25 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781911036623
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

A Jawbone book
First edition 2020
Published in the UK and the USA by
Jawbone Press
Office G1
141–157 Acre Lane
London SW2 5UA
England
www.jawbonepress.com
Volume copyright © 2020 Outline Press Ltd. Text copyright © Stevie Simkin. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.

CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY CHUCK PROPHET
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION: ARE WE ALL PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR?
CHAPTER ONE: WHAT CAME FIRST: GREEN ON RED 1.0 AND 2.0 (1985)
CHAPTER TWO: KNOCKING ON THE DRAGON’S DOOR: NO FREE LUNCH , THE KILLER INSIDE ME (1986–87)
CHAPTER THREE: SNAKE CHARM THAT THING: GREEN ON RED 3.0 (1988–92)
CHAPTER FOUR: STEP RIGHT THIS WAY: BROTHER ALDO (1988–90)
CHAPTER FIVE: CARVING IT OUT OF NOTHING: BALINESE DANCER (1991–92)
CHAPTER SIX: CHOOSING YOUR BATTLES: FEAST OF HEARTS (1993–95)
CHAPTER SEVEN: BALLS TO THE WALL: HOMEMADE BLOOD (1996–97)
CHAPTER EIGHT: ‘JUST START TODAY’: THE HURTING BUSINESS , GO-GO MARKET (1998–2000)
CHAPTER NINE: THE NEW WEST YEARS: NO OTHER LOVE , AGE OF MIRACLES (2001–04)
CHAPTER TEN: FROM THE GROUND UP: SOAP AND WATER , LET FREEDOM RING (2005–09)
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SOMEDAY THIS IS ALL GONNA BE GONE: CRY TOMORROW , TEMPLE BEAUTIFUL (2010–13)
CHAPTER TWELVE: OPEN YOUR HYMNALS: NIGHT SURFER , BOBBY FULLER DIED FOR YOUR SINS (2014–18)
CONCLUSION: KEEP ON MOVING: THE RUBINOOS, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (2019–20)
APPENDIX ONE: GREEN ON RED AND CHUCK PROPHET: TWENTY HISTORIC PERFORMANCES
APPENDIX TWO: DISCOGRAPHIES (COMPILED BY CHARLES PITTER)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENDNOTES


FOREWORD
BY CHUCK PROPHET
I’m not that crazy about the idea of writing a biography. Or sitting down for one. What the heck? I mean, really. When do these books get anything right? I don’t like to confront myself in the mirror from one day to the next, let alone all this.
But, then again, I suppose I’ve been happy to do it. Still, talking about or explaining songwriting has always kind of weirded me out. I don’t like to hear myself do it. But I keep doing it anyway! With some of that explaining stuff, I wish I wasn’t so forthcoming. They say a real magician doesn’t give up his secrets. The ‘secret’ is actually worthless to the audience. They’re just left with an incomplete idea of how you fooled them. So why do it? And where’s the mystique in that? And who’s going to find this interesting? All good questions.
Plus there’s all this recurring talk of success, or the lack of it, however people define it. People must be interested in it. It sure comes up a lot. Yet, if it’s been such a struggle, then why do I feel so lucky? So there you go. Are you getting the picture? I’m a walking contradiction—one part fact, one part fiction. And, yes, there’s been a lot of both in my life.
At first I might have thrown out some stock zingers. I think, Oh, I know how to do this . (What comes first? The music or the lyrics? The advance! Next question.) But eventually the sound bites kind of melt away. I mean, why try to fool anyone? What good would it do?
Speaking to Stevie has felt comfortable for the most part. We have a lot in common. We share a love for much of the same music. And he seems like a nice guy. I like to think I know these things, that I’m a good judge of character. (Though I have made some colossal mistakes in that department too. So read on, if that piques your interest.) I try to be candid. We touch on it. The tumultuous relationships, collaborators, adversaries, fights, losses, scores to settle, and a whole lot of foolishness. Plus a mess of gigs along the way. Stevie was able to talk to people who’ve learned to forgive me my transgressions and maybe share some kind words too.
During all the times Stevie and I sat around talking about things, we happily went on tangents. And maybe it is interesting. That’s the stuff I like.
Sure, there’s been plenty of struggle and hard knocks along the way. Yet it hasn’t been easy for me to express how much fun and, well, joy I’ve had playing music either. It’s difficult to convey. Traveling around the world. Meeting people. Playing music has afforded me all kinds of opportunities. And it has always been an adventure. At times this project has felt like the dreaded box set where it’s generally understood that, once they box you up, its over. It’s pretty unlikely that you will ever transcend anything in that box. You’ve peaked, pal! Hit the bricks. One writer described me nearly thirty years ago as a man with a ‘great future behind him’.
I guess there’s a kind of boilerplate for these things. Chuck went here. Chuck went there. And usually there’s some forensic study of the songs. But, ultimately, this is a book about the music. And, without being overly dramatic, music has sustained me in many ways. It’s given me a purpose, I suppose. And, as a bonus, I have managed to eke out a living. I don’t know what kind of a living it is. Somewhere between a grad student and a guy who has a talent for rebuilding imported car transmissions or something. But it has sustained me. And brought me much of the good stuff in my life. Including Stephanie. Mostly Stephanie.
Speaking of the good stuff, I’m grateful for some kind of fan base. At all. I don’t think money was ever the driving force for me. But people who are engaged? They are gold. There are two or three of them. People like Stevie. They bring something to the party. What exactly? I don’t know. But it feels like love. If not love, certainly something like it.
Onwards,
–CP

AUTHOR’S NOTE
Chuck can say a lot by not saying very much. Maybe that’s a songwriter’s specific gift. My own talents and training have led me down a different path.
I should confess that part of the motivation to write this study of Chuck Prophet’s work and career has been a desire to bring him to the attention of more people. I started out as a fan, and it is a natural urge to want to share with the wider world what moves us; for many of us, music is a more powerful force than anything else. At the same time, this study is also an attempt to make sense of Chuck Prophet’s thirty-five years as a recording artist in an objective frame. From Green On Red’s Gas Food Lodging in 1985 to his most recent solo LP, The Land That Time Forgot , in 2020, there have been a lot of songs, a lot of gigs, and a lot of road.
Inevitably, there is a degree of subjectivity in these pages, especially when it comes to writing about the music itself; how could there not be? In my defence, researchers working in the humanities have more recently been expected to situate themselves in relation to their subject matter. So, here goes. Back in the 80s and early 90s, I spent nine years being trained (or training myself) to write about literature; my PhD, for what it’s worth, was a study of the work of the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, revered by many and dismissed by others as (ironically) unmusical and wilfully obscure. It’s a winding path to end up writing about popular music. But something about Hopkins’s work fascinated me. As so often for those in my trade, four years’ work began with a personal connection, a preoccupation, an obsession.
I teach a Shakespeare class every year, so I am very familiar with the debates about the ‘canon’—that is to say, what constitutes ‘great’ art, and who decides. The way that a canon is constructed has much to do with the whims of fashion, commerce, and how people at any point in history make sense of themselves and the world around them. I have spent more than half my life teaching and writing about literature, drama, and film, as well as popular music. Some of the texts that I’ve studied and taught (poems, novels, plays, films, songs) I can take or leave on a personal level, even while acknowledging their significance; others—songs in particular—have informed my identity, my sensibilities, and have shaped my understanding of the world in fundamental ways. The writer George Steiner suggests that the way a work of art grips our consciousness can be ‘value-free’ and ‘indiscriminate’. He argues that there may be a ‘syllabus of great art’ established by consensus over time (in the UK, for instance, every schoolchild must study a Shakespeare play). But we also have our own ‘canons’ of works of art that move us specifically, he writes, and such a collection for any individual can be ‘a profoundly personal construct’. 1 One key motivation when analysing art is simply to invite others to recognise what we value in it ourselves. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Green On Red popped up on my music radar relatively late, around the time Prophet and bandleader Dan Stuart were appearing on the front pages of UK music weeklies Sounds and Melody Maker promoting their album Here Come The Snakes (1988)—eight years after the band first formed, and four years after Prophet joined them. We were still in the pre-internet era, so keeping up with our favourite artists’ movements remained a hit-and-miss affair, even for bands and artists with a higher profile than Chuck Prophet. In 1991, for instance, I flew to California to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers in LA and San Diego, convinced they were never coming back to the UK. A few weeks later, they announced an imminent European tour.
I came across Prophet’s first solo album, Brother Aldo (1990), by accident, idly thumbing the racks of the only music shop within sixty miles of the family home at that time, perched as I was on the northeast coast of Scotland. I was ready for his subsequent release in 1992, however; I persuaded a friend to drive me to the nearest Virgin Records store to pick up Balinese Dancer on release day (such pilgrimages were a ritual for many committed music fans in an era before downloads and stre