Posted on 07/01/2005 6:18:43 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Free of record-label disputes and a troubled marriage, Michelle Shocked is back on a creative streak and ready to drop not one, not two, but three new records on her fans.
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a folk-rock outing that chronicles her breakup with writer Bart Bull. The bio on her Web site calls it a "breakup epic in the grand tradition of Richard and Linda Thompson's 'Shoot out the Lights' and Bob Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks' and Marvin Gaye's 'Here, My Dear.' "
"Mexican Standoff" touches on her Latin and Texas roots. And "Got No Strings" applies Western swing to songs from Disney films.
Anyone who's followed Shocked's career knows to expect these kinds of twists from the free-spirited singer-songwriter who debuted in 1986 with "Texas Campfire Songs," recorded on a Sony Walkman, built on that initial buzz two years later with the more finessed "Short Sharp Shocked," featuring her biggest song, "Anchorage," and then took a big band detour on "Captain Swing."
Now the East Texas-born singer is living in L.A. with a new love, and talking about her trilogy and her divorce. As for opinion on rock's most cherished songwriter, don't ask.
Q: How did you come to put out three albums at once?
A: Well, it might be the brave new world. I'm running my own label, and there's no one stopping me. I can do what I want.
Q: For "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," did you think, "I'm going to sit down and write a breakup album, like those classic ones"?
A: No, I don't like some of those. I don't like the bitterness, I don't like the acrimony.
Q: You don't like "Blood on the Tracks"?
A: You know, I'm not a Dylan fan. I'm sorry, I'm just not. It probably puts me in a tiny minority ...
Q: I've never heard a songwriter say that, but OK, we'll move on.
A: Forgive me. ... When it came time, I did want to chronicle the experience, but I wanted it to be based more on a sense of humor, a sense of wryness. Yeah, we're knuckleheads, we try to make it work, but the odds aren't in our favor.
Q: Did it take time to arrive at that attitude?
A: No, I think I went into the marriage with it. It was such a long shot. I'm neurotic; he's neurotic. The one thing I didn't count on that took us down was alcoholism. I think we could have made it work without the alcoholism.
Q: Earlier in your career, you tried to cross genres and met some resistance.
A: Earlier in my career, I outlined for the A&R man who signed me, I said, "I have a trilogy. I'm going to release three albums. They are designed to shine the light, give people information as to what my influences and inspirations are. I want to let people know where I'm coming from musically."
They couldn't be less interested. They heard the song "Anchorage," and they pretty much plugged me into an A&R formula, which is, "go as fast and far as you can on your first album, because it's all going to be downhill from there." In other words, they like to take a novelty song and just pump it beyond any reasonable measure, and you coast the rest of your career on that song. They weren't interested in a concept of me building my audience slowly based on a clear understanding in what my artistic direction was.
Q: Do you sense that your fan base can take these stylistic leaps with you as well?
A: They do it intuitively, more and more as time is on my side, and I'm able to issue my own material and tell the story more directly. The audiences have responded, and to some degree there was been a winnowing process. There are the few audience members who come to hear "Anchorage;" the rest have come to expect the unexpected. That is the delight of a Michelle Shocked performance.
Q: Just going back to something, I'm curious as to why you don't like Dylan.
A: It's most likely sour grapes, but that's not ... I think he took a lot of speed and wrote a lot of nonsense. And because people were so frightened, so confused by the times that were a-changing, they elevated his Dada into meaning, and he's been riding on the coattails of their interpretation ever since.
Q: Interesting point of view.
A: Not completely unique. I know a lot of songwriters from Texas, because we come from such a different tradition, we've all had to run that gauntlet where if you're a songwriter, Dylan is presumed to be the touchstone. I know from my own experience growing up in Texas, there were Texas songwriters that had different musical values than the ones Dylan espoused.
(Scott Mervis can be reached at smervis(at)post-gazette.com.)
Having never heard of her, I think she should be a bit more careful about how she treads around people a lot more successful than she.
A&R = Artist and Repertoire = talent scout
Check out her 'American flag burka" on her web page. She also has photos with code pink.
surprised?....not me
Yeah, she's a flaming lefty. Be that as it may, her music is still far more interesting than the crap that gets airplay. I like her music.
Anyone who can say this with a straight face must be pretty funny --
I think we could have made it work without the alcoholism.
Dylan admitted that he was so stoned he doesn't know what "meaning" much of what he wrote has. Only Leftist loons try to get meaning from the dribble written by uneducated and constantly stoned musicians. Sometimes they try put out a political statement, (usually from a leftist point of view).
That's about it.
OK. In the 60's he took a lot of speed and wrote a lot of nonsense. And he also wrote dozens of great songs.
In the 70's he also wrote dozens of great songs.
In the early and late 80's he also wrote dozens of great songs (though he had a bad patch in the middle 80's).
He didn't write much since then, but his last 2 albums, in 1997 and 2001, were very original and very good.
Dylan shares with Shakespeare the quality of inexhaustibility. Talent can recognize genius, and most of the pros grant Dylan the top place among contemporary songwriters. Some of them, though, are too jealous to evaluate him objectively.
How many great songs has Michelle Shocked written?
>>... I think he took a lot of speed and wrote a lot of nonsense... And because people were so confused by the times that were a-changing, they elevated his Dada into meaning...<<
Never did get Dylan, although I wasn't around at his, ahem, peak.
I couldn't help but read her statements about Dylan and think of the elevation of Kurt Cobain to the position of the "spokesperson of *his* generation". Although I do like a lot of Nirvana's music, to think of Kurt Cobain as the spokesperson of anything (except perhaps "This is Your Brain on Drugs" or maybe, more fittingly, "This is Your Brains on the Ceiling") is ridiculous.
All you Dylan fans must be deaf. Let me point out something:
He's a HORRIBLE singer. I mean HORRIBLE! He sings horribly! Can anyone say he is a good singer? Thats what dylan fans don't get. People dislike him because he is a horrible, horrible singer. I'm surprised Quincy Jones didn't shoot him when he sang his part in "We are the World".
Dylan's singing voice is a take off on traditional folk and blues singers.
OK, Nathan. You don't like or respect Dylan. No problem.
What CD's are in your car? in your home player? Who do you listen to?
He could play Dylan's Nashville Skyline and listen to Charlie Daniels on that album. The two have been friends for years...
Just caught Michelle at Antone's here in Austin last Sunday evening. It was a great show as always. Carolyn Wonderland opened for her. If you haven't had a chance to hear Carolyn go to her website www.carolynwonderland.com several free downloads are available. She Rocks!!!!!
I agree that you hear many say what you have said. More often, though, as on this thread, the dislike for Dylan comes from his lyrics, not his voice.
Good singer? I wouldn't go so far. His voice and his words work well together for me. Music need not be "pretty" for me to like it. A good number of the Texas songwriters that Michelle seems to tout in the interview (not by name) also have difficult voices. Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark spring immediately to mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.