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Saturday, April 11, 2020

Greta- INTERVIEW WITH JOSH GORDON



I would like to dedicate this post to the memory of Paul Wisdom Plagens- a man of immeasurable talent and inimitable creative voice. Please keep him in your thoughts as you enjoy Greta's music, and delve into their history with me.
           
Design by Josh Gordon & Richard Frankel; Photography by Alison Dyer and GALLO, C
I have wanted to write about LA-based band Greta for quite some time. As music journalist Stewart Mason writes, they: "...executed one of the most impressive mid-career changes of direction of the 90's" (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/greta-mn0002294238/biography). Still, their two releases "No Biting" (1993) and "This Is Greta!" (1995) are tied together by keen melodic sense, strong musicianship, and encyclopedic knowledge of rock history. The heavy psychedelia of "No Biting" was quite unique: the metallic attack of Scott Carneghi's drumming, and frequent forays into truculent first-wave grunge riffage--- paired with singer Paul Plagens' ear for melody and Josh Gordon's fluid, mellifluous bass-lines. In other words, equally prepared to pulverize or to romance. The music video for the single "Fathom" even got some rotation on MTV's zeitgeist defining "Headbanger's Ball" (they had videos featured on Beavis and Butthead's video review segment too, but I can't confirm which one(s)). Viewers who tuned into "The Ball" on November 13th 1993, for example, would have seen "Fathom" played alongside reels for Megadeth's "Peace Sells" and Motorhead's "Burner". But Headbanger's Ball was only part of the story---there were hints in the music that Greta would have been just as at home with fellow LA locals Redd Kross or Dramarama. Those hints exploded to the fore on 1995's This Is Greta!, an impressive power-pop platter, featuring my personal Desert Island Discs pick: "Some People". It remains an overflowing chalice of inspired 90's ambrosia (highlights including the aforementioned "Some People", the punchy opener "About You", the soaring "Silver Blue," and the relentlessly catchy "Warm Disease"). According to a 1995 interview in Highwire Daze Magazine, there may have been even MORE goodness, as the band apparently wrote as many as 30 songs for the album before settling on the final 11(wrightproductions.tripod.com/greta.html). Whether these additional tracks still exist out there in the ether I do not know, but I digress. I could write all day, but fortunately for you, Greta's bass player and frequent songwriting collaborator Josh Gordon has agreed to answer some questions for me.

"Some People" Audio-1995 (Youtube)
"Silver Blue" Audio- 1995 (Youtube)
"About You" Video- 1995 (Youtube)
"Jesus Crux" Audio- 1993 (Youtube)

Greta in Rolling Stone Magazine (5 August 1993); Photo by Greg Allen
















N: Where did the name “Greta” come from? Did it have anything to do with the dress Paul was known to wear on stage in the early days? An alter ego perhaps?


JG: Our original drummer Brad Wilk came up with the name. He left to join Rage Against the Machine. we were sitting around at rehearsal or in the car trying to come up with a name, and he said "what do you think about Greta?" We all thought it was really interesting and unique. I don't know if you've ever been in a band, but coming up with a good name is such a hard thing to do. We had spent weeks-- maybe even months-- trying to come up with a name with no luck whatsoever. He said it, and it just kind of rang with us, so we went with it. The dress originally came from a Halloween outfit that Paul had worn for a house party we were playing. Paul went in drag, and we thought it was awesome. It brought an energy to the band, and Paul was able to really let himself go as a lead singer in it. Most of us have strong feminine components to our personality, and identify very strongly with feminine energy. The dress and the name personified this for us. We were feminists from an early age and very anti-macho. The lyrics to “Off the Slug” are an example of this. 

Paul Plagens in his Halloween party dress; Photo by Lindsay Brice for Getty Images


N: I think “No Biting” and “This Is Greta!”, while very different, are both strong in their own ways. I’ve noticed some reviewers taking the album title “This Is Greta!” as a declaration that it embodied the “real” Greta---the project you guys really wanted to do. Are they making too much of the name, or maybe misinterpreting it? Or was that really the case?


JG: The short answer is: we wanted to do both… but the long answer is: the "declaration" is, in fact, a correct interpretation. Paul and I had been friends since we were 12 years old. We, without question, come from the "Beatles are God" school of music. We religiously devoured 1960s music: The Who, The Kinks, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and everything in between. We also became punk and new wave fanatics in the late 70s (which was a seminal era for power pop as well: The Plimsouls, The Knack, 20/20, Paul Collins Beat), so there was also that dichotomy of pop music and "alternative", more dangerous/edgy music. Back then we were regularly bullied at school for wearing punk/new wave styles. We were threatened on a near daily basis. So as quaint as DEVO and The Clash seem now, it really freaked people out back then. People had very visceral reactions to punk rock when it first came out. In 1990 I had become very attracted to industrial/alternative music. Bands like Ministry were taking music into new territory. I told Paul that I wanted to start a band that had the heaviness of some of the metal/industrial music, but with a melodic sense. I wanted to combine the sound and feel of heavy metal with The Beatles. So, cutting back to your question-- when we did the first album, “No Biting”, we were all really into the this hard/soft thing. The first song we came up with for it was "Fathom". I wrote the music, and Paul and I worked together on the lyrics. All the melody for “Fathom” was Paul. We felt we had something unique, and pretty interesting. That set the tone for all of the songs that came after. By the time we got to "This Is Greta", we were painfully disappointed by the lack of success of the first record. By the standards of the industry in charge of our future, it was a colossal disappointment. I have ADD and so I was in a "let's try something different!" mode. We didn't have anything to lose and Paul, Kyle and I always admired bands like the Beatles and Stones that were always changing direction and evolving. Kyle, Scott, and I and were jamming when we all came up with the music for "About You"-- just before Paul got to rehearsal. Kyle came up with the gorgeous music to "Charade". We were just naturally moving in that direction. I think that kind of music is where we defaulted to. One of our pre-“No Biting” singles, made right after we signed to Mercury was a pretty straightforward cover of Hank Williams’ "There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight", and Bing Crosby's "Pennies From Heaven"-- so were always into anything that was good, regardless of genre. So, when we came to "This Is Greta" we had nothing to lose, and thought "fuck it", let’s just make the best record we can. I had to lobby for the title. I wanted it to be an introduction to the band like a lot of the sixties debut albums were -- "Meet The Beatles", "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones", The Zombies, Begin Here" -- I thought "This Is Greta” was absolutely a declaration! This is where we come from and this is who we are. I also love that it's the name of a Spinal Tap record [“This is Spinal Tap”]. We love Spinal Tap, so there was always a kind of "Tap" awareness that anyone who makes rock music should be aware of. This was sort of our "Jazz Odyssey" change of direction, but it was absolutely sincere, and very true to us.   


N: I found a snippet in a Rolling Stone magazine from August 1993 (written by David Wild) calling Greta “Beatles-influenced hard rock” (this article predated “No Biting”). The pop/ power pop elements didn’t really seem as evident until “This Is Greta!”. Was your live set around that time pretty faithful to what ended up on the “No Biting” album? The Beatles seem like an odd primary point of reference for the band’s early incarnation (although your bass playing did always have a melodic McCartney-esque quality to it, even in the heavier moments). Was some of the later material already written/ in your repertoire by this point? Just curious where a journalist would have been coming from in 1993 after seeing one of your shows.


JG: I think I may have rambled the answer for this in my last answer. The only song from TIG that had been written during the “No Biting” era was "Rocking Chair". We had a number of very heavy riffs and jams that we were going to use moving into our second record, but we really were moving in a different direction. Paul was writing really strong songs like "You’re So Whatever" and "Some People," and we were all just going with it. Paul wasn't into heavy metal/hard music in the same way the rest of us were. Fleshing out those heavy riffs wasn't necessarily working or coming naturally at that time.

To anyone who was seeing us live, I can only guess that songs like “Sleepyhead” and “Jesus Crux” may have hinted at our Beatles influences, but songs like "Off The Slug" and "Insomnia" certainly don't make it obvious. 

McCartney is my favorite bass player and I was always trying to find appropriate melodic lines to compliment the songs. The pre-chorus to "Everything's Fine" is an example of my love of McCartney, and I recall actually saying out loud while writing the part: "what would McCartney do?".  Kyle's solos on that record are also, I think, reflective of his understanding and love of straight-ahead melody-oriented guitar solos. 


N: I think 1995 would have been one of the most difficult years to release an album----PERIOD. There was this collision between the cool affected-disaffectedness of early 90’s youth culture (I sense a wry critique of this in “Cal Cool (You’re So Whatever)”), and something more earnest and dramatic emerging in the first wave of “post grunge”. Either way, it didn’t seem like a new group could win—if you fell in with the post-grunge crowd you would attract megatons of hipster ire for being too serious/ earnest/ stiff…but if you channeled the energy of the early 90’s groups you would be labelled a “band-wagon jumper”. I think the enduring strength of Greta is a testament to the band not falling into either camp---being more transcendent...but did you guys ever struggle with anxieties about image? Especially after changing your sound so much between albums? (My take on 90’s culture is from second-hand accounts/ my own preconceived notions, as I was only 2 or 3 years old when this was all happening-so feel free to set me straight!)


JG: You're 100 percent right. You're also spot-on about “Cal Cool”. There was a lot of "hipster" bullshit at the time. I think that era gave rise to the hipster-- which none of us ever subscribed to. Silverlake (a hub of hipster pretension) was near nausea inducing at that period of time. We WERE earnest! I think that's one of the more tragic legacies of the 90s: a destruction of commitment. Everybody became so disaffected and ironic. Irony and satire are great for comedy and art in the right doses, but too much of it takes away society’s emotional vulnerabilities. Without vulnerability, you're really just pretending to be invulnerable. You can get carried away to some dangerous systems, many of which we're experiencing in America now. 

We didn't really struggle with our image. We were just doing what we wanted. We had fun with image, and by that I mean fashion can be fun, and has always been a huge part of rock and roll. We liked that… Bowie, The Sex Pistols, etc… Of course, even no image is an image. The Doc Marten's- cut jeans is obviously an anti-image image… but it's still an image. We were, in a way, so unsuccessful with our first record that we had nothing to lose, so we just did whatever we wanted. It gave us a kind of freedom.  

We were particularly proud of the second record. I think we played really well together as a band. I think "Silver Blue" was the tightest and most connected the four of us ever played in the studio. 

Here's a fun fact: Most of the tracks on the 2nd record are demo versions. We went in to record the album after doing the demos, and our A&R man said "these new versions suck...we're going to use the demos".  We recorded the demos in 2 days at Sound City, and there was no pressure. “About You”, “Charade”, “Silver Blue”, “Strained”, “Cal Cool”, and “Some People” were all recorded at Sound City for the demos. “Rocking Chair”, Nothing At All”, “Warm Disease”, and “Anomaly,” I think, were recorded after the demos, and intended for the record.  We're critical of some aspects of “No Biting”-- some of the tempos are too fast, there was a great deal of pressure, I don't think we're grooving and locking in as a band the way we would have liked... I think “Insomnia”, “Jesus Crux”, and “Sleepyhead” came out really well… but “Off the Slug”, “Is It What You Wanted”, “School On Fire”-- we think are too fast. 

We really like “Some People” too! That would've made Paul really happy that it's one of your Desert Island Discs.


N: Greta has some pretty cool videos. “Fathom” and “About You” are a filmmaker’s dream---all sorts of kinetic energy to work with---“Fathom”, for example, has that awesome syncopated riff to frame action around (and, as an aside for any musician readers-- the riff is a great way to see how good at alternate picking you really are). Anyways, do you have any interesting memories from the actual video shoots?


JG: We have great memories of the video shoots. I'm a huge film buff and have a real interest in design. The band let me run with conceptual ideas and production for the videos. For “Fathom” we were working with a pretty small budget. I think the director's name was Troy Smith. I was really into “Survival Research Laboratories”-- a performance art troop from San Francisco. They were doing very industrial, mechanical, violent pieces of performance art that I thought would be really perfect conceptually. Some of the intention behind “Fathom” was to sort of make us the house-band in hell. The opening "staccato" cuts are from a video for a song called "Fire Extinguisher Love" that I directed for a band I was in called "Ugly Wedding" in the late 80s. The guitarist and singer of that band, John Bird, grew up with Paul and I. He played organ on "Nothing At All" on “This Is Greta" and is currently the keyboardist for The Living Dolls with Kyle and I. I also really liked the idea of '60s go-go dancers dancing to such an un-sixties, undanceable piece of music. We had wanted the video to be much more colorful, vivid, and vibrant, and for whatever reason the colors weren't really captured as explosively as they looked in real life. The shoot was an absolute blast. we had a really good time making it. 



We were all really happy with the “About You” video. I worked with the director, Bill Ward, with an idea that I wanted the backdrop to have a 60s feel-- like something from “Shindig” or “Ready Steady Go”, but on a bigger scale. We were letting some of our mod influences come out. The band was facing a critical point with our label and our success (or lack thereof). The A&R guy was really behind us, and we were very excited about this new music, and really enthusiastic about the video. Sadly, it was never sent to MTV. The band was really tight as a unit at that period of time-- musically and emotionally. Bill did a phenomenal job on that video. We met him through my sister, and he had just done work with The Smoking Popes. We still stay in touch through Facebook now and again.

"Fathom" MTV Video-1993 (Youtube)



N: Lastly, in the spirit of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity (thinking about the top 5 side-1, track-1 debate)… how much did you guys agonize about choosing the perfect opening track for “This Is Greta!” “About You” seems like one of those Platonic ideals of a side 1-track 1. Especially considering your influences-- there’s a lot riding on that track. It has to be a real knockout punch (The Beatles’ “Taxman”, and The Knack’s “Let Me Out” for example).


JG: “About You” had that feel for us too. I love that you use The Knack as an example. Paul and I were absolute Knack freaks and I agree with you that “Let Me Out” is one of the great all-time openers! With the title, “This is Greta,” we felt that the first track had to exemplify this shift in sound for us. We experienced it as an up-tempo, lift you off the ground, power pop opener. We were using it to open our shows as well.  

"About You" Video-1995 (Youtube) **ALSO LINKED AT TOP OF PAGE


N: And of course I will give you some free space to say whatever you want---anything you want the listener in 2020 to know, any projects you have going on right now that you’d like to promote---absolutely anything.


JG: Kyle Baer and I still play together in a band called The Living Dolls. All of my influences are there: The Kinks, The Who, Lou Reed, ELO... I'm the lead singer, and I’m afraid I’m not even on the same planet as Paul as a vocalist-- but I love playing music, and will always do it no matter what. Scott was actually in the band for a couple of months as well. We all keep in touch and miss Paul a great deal. He was supremely talented. A tremendous songwriter.

During Paul's memorial, John Easdale (the singer for Dramarama and the co-producer of our first album and early demos) sang “Jesus Crux” and “Sleepyhead” with Scott, Kyle and I.  

It’s so nice to know that people are finding and appreciating the music now. It's validating. It means a lot to us and would have meant so much to Paul.  


 
Greta c. 1993, Photo by Greg Allen








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