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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Dave Seaman <seamand@upmc.edu> |
| Subject | Raspberries/Knack - July 15 Cleveland |
| Date | Mon, 25 Apr 2005 14:15:55 -0400 |
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Got this from the Raspberries web site:
Raspberries Live Appearances
July 2nd - Coors Amphitheatre, Denver (Coors Amphitheatre website - Tix on
Sale mid-May) Unofficial line-up - Gary Lewis & Playboys, Box Tops, BJ
Thomas, The Spinners, Paul Revere & Raiders, Raspberries, Little Richard!
Doors open 2:00 PM (local bands) Show starts at 3:30 PM.
July 15th - Scene Pavilion, Cleveland (Pre-sale reserved seating for HOB
members April 27-29) General Public tickets on sale Saturday, April 30th,
11:00 AM) Opening Acts - Stone Pony Band & The Knack!
----
Also, those who were interested in the whole debate over "should Scott
McCarl be in the reunited Raspberries??? - check out this interview,
especially question #8... Case closed.
An Interview With Scott McCarl by Marvin Matthews 11/04
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking with Scott on the phone. He
was kind enough to take some time out of his workday and place the long
distance call. For those of you who are not aware, these days Scott drives
the airport shuttle bus between Santa Barbara, CA and Los Angeles airport -
something that certainly does not appear to be as glamorous as that other
job he had all those years ago. When I asked him about this work, Scott's
reply was, "I don't report to anybody, and I get to drive alongside the
ocean everyday, beautiful view, so what's to complain about?" Scott came
across just as I imagined: a real down-to-earth, sincere guy. While we were
speaking to each other, I jotted down quick notes, and then sent the
interview to Scott to get his permission to post it. He mailed me back
hand-written notes (talk about giving it a personal flavor!). What follows
is the gist of our conversation.
1. ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH ANY MUSICAL PROJECTS, WORKING ON ANY MUSIC?
I'm not doing too much musically. In my heart I'd like to do something
again, but I don't know if it'll happen because it is such a time and
financial commitment. Sometimes when I feel moved, I'll pick up the guitar
and I'll write a chorus or a verse, but that doesn't happen often. The last
few things I've done have been because someone has come to me (the Shoes
project, the Drysdales project). So if someone approached me, then maybe I'd
do something. It's always fun doing stuff with other people.
Before I did my solo record, I had done music for a living for such a long
time and it turned bad on me. I got down to the bottom of the barrel and
then re-discovered what it was that first got me excited about "I Want to
Hold Your Hand." That's when I approached Tom Sorrells about cutting the
solo disc.
2. MANY PEOPLE HAVE TALKED ABOUT YOUR SOLO DISC, "PLAY ON", AND HOW IT IS A
FAVOURITE OF THEIRS.
Yeah that was a fun thing to do, and there were some nice songs on it. I'm
glad people liked it.
3. IN MY OPINION, THE SONG "PLAY ON" IS A CLASSIC. THERE'S NO DENYING IT. A
FRIEND OF MINE BELIEVES THAT EVEN TODAY, IF "PLAY ON" WAS PRESENTED TO A
CURRENT BAND SUCH AS "JET", IT COULD BE A HIT SONG. WAS IT EVER CONSIDERED
FOR A SINGLE RELEASE?
Well that's nice of you to say that. It certainly should have been a single,
and at 3 minutes in length, it wasn't the opus that "Overnight Sensation"
was, even though "Overnight" was ahead of its time and a wonderful song. Why
it was never released as a single, only Capitol knows for sure.
4. CAN YOU STILL HIT THOSE HIGH NOTES ON "PLAY ON"?
Yeah (laughs).
5. DO YOU REMEMBER DOING A GIG IN LONG ISLAND TOWARD THE END OF THE '75 LEG
OF THE TOUR, WITH ERIC AND MIKE (NO WALLY AND NO BILLY HANNA) - AND DOING
BEATLES' COVERS ("NO REPLY", "ANYTIME AT ALL")? YOU DON'T HAVE IT LISTED IN
YOUR ITINERARY NOR IS IT IN KEN SHARP'S BOOK, BUT ACCORDING TO A FRIEND OF
MINE, IT DID HAPPEN BECAUSE HE WAS THERE!
Well if he says he was there, I can't argue with that (laughs)! It sounds
familiar, but if it's not listed in my itinerary, I'm not sure. I remember
doing a show around tax time so it would have been earlier in '75. I
remember it 'cos it was an awful experience!
(In Scott¹s notes to me, he added: ³I went back to Ken¹s book, and there it
is: 3 dates in March¹75 labeled ³3-man², none on Long Island, but we were
nearby...could¹ve happened.²)
6. WHAT WAS THAT LIKE - PLAYING A REAL 'SMOKE -FILLED, SLEAZY BAR" WITH A
THREE-MAN LINE-UP, AROUND THE TIME THAT "STARTING OVER" WAS VOTED "BEST
ALBUM OF THE YEAR" IN ROLLING STONE? WERE THE 'BERRIES DEPRESSED? ANGRY?
UPSET?
Ha! It certainly was strange. At that point we threw up our hands, we knew
we had done the best we could and no one was listening.
7. DO YOU RECALL YOUR MOST MEMORABLE SHOW?
The one that stands out for me was Central Park. It was the first lovely
weekday of spring, early May. There were nearly 100,000 people in the Park.
We weren't the only act, I think the Chambers Brothers might have been among
the others acts, but it was during the making of "Starting Over", and we
were introduced by John Lennon. You sure can't beat that.
8. I'M SURE YOU'VE HEARD THE TALK ABOUT AN UPCOMING REUNION OF THE BAND WITH
ERIC, DAVE, WALLY AND JIM. ARE YOU TAKING PART OR PLANNING TO ATTEND?
Nah, it's their day. They're four local heroes and they should enjoy their
time. I think Mike (McBride) and I shouldn't go and muddy it up. I kinda
think that there'll be something else that will come out of it, maybe here
on the West Coast, and then I'll go see that. I hope that when they all get
together, it goes well. Sure we had problems years ago, but everyone's
different now. I know that Eric is very different from what he used to be.
He's really a wonderful family man and a great father. Dave, Wally, Jim...
they've all got families and kids, and are in their 50's. There are a lot of
old hurts that I figure are probably healed by now, so I would hope that
people have let go of the old bad feelings.
9. WHAT WAS THE "REFRESHED² EXPERIENCE LIKE?
The tapings went really well. I wish I had stuck around for the actual
mixing, but I left it up to Dave and Wally to do. It was also a great
experience doing that Odeon show and a lot of fun getting to know Jim and
Dave.
10. WOULD YOU WORK WITH THEM AGAIN?
I'd do something with any Raspberry in a second. I even told Dave that if he
needed a high vocal part for his solo disc, that I'd love to help him out,
but I think that Dave really wanted to create his own album by himself. I
can appreciate that. I still talk to Wally occasionally to see how Jesse is
doing and stuff. Wally is a great guy.
11. WHAT WAS IT LIKE LOOKING IN ON THE ERIC-WALLY RELATIONSHIP? IT CERTAINLY
MUST HAVE BEEN HARD TO WATCH AT TIMES.
You know all great teams are like water and oil. Simon and Garfunkel, Brian
Wilson and Mike Love...Eric and Wally were a great team and their
relationship was also very much like that. You know that Beatles film ("Let
It Be") where everyone's arguing with everyone? There were times when it was
just like that.
12. WOULD YOU WORK WITH ERIC AGAIN?
The last time I saw or spoke to Eric was around 2000 and I talked to him
about just that. I said that we should do something together because
everything we ever did was pretty good. At that time his kids were very
young and time was a factor, so he wasn't very interested. I remember joking
with him about his kids, and saying, "hey your kid has great Beatle hair!",
and he said, "Ah I'm not into that anymore." Maybe he has more time now that
his kids are probably in school.
13. DURING YOUR WORK DAY, HAVE YOU EVER COME ACROSS SOMEONE WHO HAS
RECOGNIZED YOU?
Not really, but there have been many conversations with people about music
and inevitably I get asked if I ever made a record, which leads to the
question about what band I was in. More often than not, when I mention the
name "Raspberries", the other person says, "Woah I used to love that band!"
That's kinda neat because I would never have thought that all these years
later people would still think about the band.
14. DO YOU THINK THAT A SHOW LIKE "BEHIND THE MUSIC" OR "REUNITED" ON VH-1
WOULD EVER DO SOMETHING ON THE 'BERRIES? THERE ARE PEOPLE ON THE EC MESSAGE
BOARD WHO HAVE SUGGESTED A LETTER-WRITING CAMPAIGN TO VH-1 ABOUT THE BAND.
It's funny that you should ask that. Many of the kids who used to love our
band back then, are now in pretty influential positions, so maybe there's
someone like that at VH-1 who'd be interested. I think that there could be a
market for it and there's definitely some interesting material about us. I
suppose if there was enough demand from the public, they'd probably consider
it.
15. I KNOW THAT YOU'VE WORKED WITH KYLE VINCENT IN THE PAST, HAVE YOU
CONSIDERED WORKING WITH HIM AGAIN?
I did some recording at his house about 7 years ago. Can't remember the song
but maybe it was "On the Beach." Next time you speak with Kyle, ask him what
became of that song?! Kyle's a very talented musician and I'm surprised that
he hasn't made it big. He should concentrate on pop music because that's
what he's best at.
16. ANY POSSIBILITY OF STARTING UP YOUR WEBSITE AGAIN?
I don't know. Maybe if I was doing some music, then I'd resurrect it again.
17. ARE YOU STILL IN CONTACT WITH TOM SORRELLS?
I'm still in contact with Tom regularly. He's my oldest music friend, and in
fact tomorrow (September 17th) is the 40th anniversary of when Tom and I saw
the Beatles in Kansas City.
18. IS THERE ANY UNRELEASED MATERIAL OR DEMOS HIDING SOMEWHERE?
Ken Sharp has some really cool stuff from the Don Kirschner Rock Concert
tapings, stuff that didn't make it to air. I had forgotten that we actually
did songs other than what was aired. Also here's an interesting story: Wally
has a lot of contacts in New York City, and about six or seven years ago, he
got a call from someone who witnessed the demolition of the old Record Plant
studio. This person found some tapes in the dumpster with "Raspberries"
written on the case. Wally went down to NY and got the case from the guy. I
have no idea what was on the tapes but I should give Wally a call and ask
him. There were a bunch of them!
19. OTHER MEMORIES, GOOD OR BAD?
I know that this has been re-hashed over and over, but Raspberries wasn't
all Eric. There were others but people tend to forget that because Eric was
the focus and without a doubt, he certainly deserved to be the focus. My
short stay in the band gave me some of the highest highs and the lowest lows
I have ever experienced, all in a very short span of time. When you're
young, and I was around 22, you're not ready for something like that. I
remember the very first night we played some Christian college and we were
so good, they wouldn't let us off the stage. Then on the next night we
substituted for Iggy Pop and we got booed! They were throwing things at us.
Ha! The night after that, I was sick backstage, huddled in a corner, scared
to go out! Dear me! What next? But you know what? I had the opportunity to
actually play in my favorite band. How many people can say that?
20. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SCOTT MCCARL?
Tom Sorrells is putting together a "Best of Titan!" disc; there¹ll be a
couple of 1990¹s odd sox of mine on that. Stuff you haven¹t heard! My wife
has been pushing me to write a book. She said that some of the stories would
make an excellent book, and between Tom and me, we remember everything.
Every time I get the urge to do the book thing, I say to myself: "Who do you
think you are?" But you know what, heck, John Lennon knew me by name!
There you go. I can¹t reiterate enough what a wonderful experience it was to
have this conversation. So Scott if you¹re reading, let¹s do it again soon!
- Marvin (Matthews)
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