Voyeur and Victim

April 10, 1996

By J.T. Griffith
originally published in 1996
Jam!: You have used the words “dreamscape” and “new world” to describe your music and Shag Tobacco as a project. I was wondering what such a canvas allows you to do as a artist or a performance artist, if you don’t mind that label.
Gavin Friday: Well, in this day and age, one of the most ugly things about music, entertainment, movies, writing or any form of expression is the A to Z mentality where everything has to be fuckin’ explained, ya know? And the mystique or everyone’s imaginations are being bottled up into categories. And I hate that. I think it is the death of any culture or any expression.
For me the process of an album or a CD is that of course it has its own certain meaning, but it should also open up doors, like a new world. When I make an album, like Shag Tobacco, it is like a little movie or a play. When I use the word dreamscape its more in the context of the short story that is in the little booklet in the CD written by Patrick McCabe. Its amazing. Pat is a good friend of mine and a collaborator on some projects we have coming out next year. (These projects include a film based on Shag.)
J: How did the story come about?
G: I gave him the album last year just when we finished it, and gave him the lyrics and told him to live with the record for the next few weeks. And then we went out and talked, threw ideas around. Basically I requested that he take the characters in the album and take the essence of Shag, take the atmosphere, take the world and the smell of the place and condense it into one night. The one night scenario is set in Dublin. Its a hallucination. Its one of those moments that we all go through where its 2 o’clock in the morning and you are completely drunk but absolutely stone-cold sober. And you say “I’m not going home, I can’t face shit.” And you meet these people, and its the most histrionic night of your life. You finally get home at six in the morning and your girlfriend or your lover is there going “Turn off the light! What the fuck is going on?” And you snap out. That is the dreamscape. It’s very James Joyce-influenced. But really to answer your question in a round-about way (grin)….It’s the creation of something that gives and inspires and is almost like a spring board for other things. When I was a kid what music did for me was to open up doors to literature, movies, stuff through which you can go someplace else. You don’t have to take smack; just read William Burroughs and see how fuckin stupid it is. You know what I mean?
The inclusion of “Shagging Tobacco” (at the beginning of the CD) is really important for me. You write for an Internet magazine which is in its teens. Maybe it is not even there yet, only a little baby crawling around. A lot of the communication seems to me to be a glorified CB Radio talk. “Hey how is the weather in Cleveland?” “Yeah check this out its snowing here.” You cant even really communicate. Subtlety, irony, sarcasm, humor don’t translate on the net. You need to use a fuckin side-ways smiley face for people to understand you. Wait until its really gets going…but you can never kill the power of literature. And that is why I put that story in there. As we are reaching the 21st century everything is being minimalized in its simplicity. I like putting something very complicated up there that is to be ignored or adored. But at least it is fuckin there.
J: What is both attractive and perplexing about your music is that it is not literal. At different times one can hear different things whether in the texture of the music, or in what you are saying, or even who is saying it. Sometimes you sing in the 1st person but the songs are rarely autobiographical, and other times in the 3rd person – are you as a narrator a stalker, a participant, a viewer?
G: It’s a bit of everything. It’s schizophrenic in many ways. I am voyeur and I am victim. I am honest and I am dishonest.
J: You are obvious and oblivious as in “Caruso.”
G: Yes. Yes. Caruso is very me. It’s a very personal song. But while I am using this ridiculous operatic imagery, its also a very personal sad song. But it is not a 20th century type of sadness. One must put one’s tongue firmly in cheek and sing.
J: Which you do in the next song, “Angel” where you go from brooding to an ethereal pop song.
G: Yes totally. “Angel” is a most simplistic song emotionally. But sonically it is very complex. Believe it or not we wrote that in the studio. It was one of the few songs that came out of pure improvisation. That and some of the arrangement of the T-Rex tune “Slider” which came out of loops we were just fuckin’ around with. We decided to try a T-Rex song over this fucked up rhythm. Though we used the T-Rex chords its a million miles away from the original. With “Angel” we had this bass line that we really liked, and it was just stock. We had lots of unused basslines and sounds. We were bored one day and things weren’t going the way we wanted them to. So we messed around for a bit. Tim Simenon (who produced Shag) loved it and said “let’s record it.” So we laid down the bass, then the rhythm, and improvised. So with Renaud Pion with his boisterous horns and Maurice (Maurice Skeezer) plays the bass on it. I don’t know if you knew he could do that.
J: No, I didn’t.
G: He’s an absolute monster if you can believe it. He is usually a keyboard and accordion player. He plays in a very animalistic way … it’s almost neo-punk. Then I suggested we close our eyes and think. I have this thing about going forward and going back in terms of influences. I said “What would Eric Satie be like if he were on ecstasy and lived in the London of 1996?” Satie was a French piano composer in the 19th century and you would know his motifs from ads. They are beautiful in their simplicity.
J: He might find it hard to play piano on X if his hands were wandering around touching everything.
G: Ha! Yeah it would be weird ‘ya know? “Angel” is one of the most ambiguous and honest lyrics. But to get back to your point, in “Kitchen Sink Drama” I play the role of a middle class house wife. And I do this demented Oprah Winfrey speech.
J: You really critique the limits placed on identity in the suburban life of “Kitchen Sink Drama.” Then in songs like “Slider” you allow the character’s identity to be vague and duplicitous. The song could be about drugs, or about masturbation, or anything.
G: What I love about “Slider” is that it is so ambiguous. I first heard that tune when I was a kid at 13 or 14 and hadn’t a clue (as to what it is finally about) and I still don’t. I think it might have been about snorting cocaine, but it might also been about masturbation or cross-dressing. And I think it also might have just been about whenever he is down “I wank, or snort coke, or I whatever.” When I am sad I slide. It’s beautiful.
J: It’s pathos and scary. Sexuality as a texture with death as an undercurrent. “Slider” is beautiful because it is everything.
G: Totally. And in “Kitchen Sink Drama” the songs ends in an ambiguous way. The lady kills herself but she is happy. Because she wants out of there. She is refusing to take the unprescribed Prozac that is in the Oprah shows, in the media. The real problem with that – and this isn’t just in an American context, but also British, Irish, and European as well — and that being that women, and men but mostly women, marry, fall in love, have kids, and when they decide to make that commitment they give up their identity, their friendships, whatever. Suddenly, their kids are off and out of the house. And what’s she?
The most crucial line in that song is “All I have is what I might have been.” I hope I will never be able to say that. It is one of the most ominous things one could say. It’s just like what a fuckin’ thing, ya know? But that is everywhere in society. Every-fuckin-where. I am sorry Mr. Clinton and Mr. Major, just shovel out those Prozacs. It is making people immune to real life. What is wrong with depression? Depression is the sign of intelligence. It’s a pretty fucked up world out there. If you are depressed about it, you are actually thinking. But everyone sees depression as a weakness.
J: Going from fictional songs to those that are more reflections of your life, do you think that there is any connection between “Kitchen Sink Drama” and “The Last Song I Will Ever Sing”? Both seem to be about reactions to types of death but with completely different takes on it. One sees death as freedom from a contrived life and the other of the impending death from AIDS.
G: Both have relief but from different places. Its a pretty dark ending to the album, isn’t it? But the last track that actually ends the album is “Le Roi D’Amour”, which means “King of Love” … but it sounds much prettier in French. I have been doing that a lot on this record, bringing Germanics, French, Italian, or even Gaelic into the mix. Symbolically this is interesting for me because Europe is getting bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller in other ways. You can see in American English that you have taken on the idioms of Black, Hispanic, or Jewish culture. Everyone knows what “yo mo fo” means, except it sounds stupid unless it comes from a black person. The French language sounds so beautiful that you can say something mean and it just sounds so good. But I will get into all that later.
At the end of all this “Kitchen Sink” and “Last Song” and if there were to be a film made of Shag Tobacco, the closing scene would be a long tunnel and there is light at the end of the tunnel. A crazed couple would be doing this surreal dance number while the curtains come down. Basically what I am trying to say at the end of it all is that of redemption. The lack of love in “Kitchen Sink” is the reason for that woman going. And being fucked over is the reason for “The Last Song.”
“Last Song” is one of my favorites on the album actually. I have known a few people who were sick with AIDS. But this one guy in particular who we knew well (“The Dice Man”) and the strength of character he exhibited in the last 2 or 3 years of his life was huge. He became more active and more charitable because he was more driven to create. The analogy I had was this diva putting everything into one song, going up on stage, singing and then dying.
J: Just like the actor in “Il Postino” who died two days after the film ended. I think its important to note the distinction between the two songs. In “Kitchen Sink” the woman is alone as she dies whereas the diva is surrounded by loved ones, fans, and supporters. Its a much better place to go…
G: Yes! “Kitchen Sink” is very desolate. You know the thing when we were recording it was when we brought this lady in to do some background harmonies. We wanted to capture the feeling that sometimes suicide is painless. People get all freaked about the right to live and shit. Let’s keep it all to ourselves. If you believe in a God, let’s let each individual sort out with that God.
J: Your use of Germanics and other languages adds other levels of ambiguity upon your lyrics. And in some cases, like the use of German specifically, adds to the overall fear factor of the themes.
G: That is what it is exactly. It’s propaganda from when we were kids. You turn on the TV or watch a movie and the portrayal of Germans was of these bastards. Now its the Middle Eastern people get the “horrible bastard syndrome.” In Lethal Weapon 3 the bad guys are all Arabs, it’s total Western propaganda.
There is a great power to the theater of the German language. If a German came in right now and said “Will you go downstairs now?” in German, you’d fuckin’ go. [laughs] And you’d go quick too! And its the power of universality that drives a song like “Caruso.” When the Italian’s swear its almost like a flute playing its so beautiful. “Stronzo,” for example is worse than “shit head.” It’s the remains of shit in a toilet pot. But what a beautiful way to call someone a shit head. “Sssssstronnnnzo!” The Italians and the Spanish curse so beautifully, it almost makes you want to hear it again. They could be saying “Your mother is a whore and sucks on my cock” but you’d love it!
J: The use of different languages allows you to unite your themes of German decadence between the wars with those of contemporary sexual society. In songs like “Caruso” you similarly use melanges and surrealist references to create reflections of characters as well as their states of mind. In addition the use of baroque keyboards and synth sounds makes for a very carnival-esque experience. You convey the feelings and ambiance of horror, the grotesque, and absurdity in the music. Orson Welles, for example, used dark scenes right before very light scenes to convey a transcendence from moral decay to salvation or at least vindication. A lot of your music seems to make similar use of the liminal state – as you sing in Shag Tobacco at 5 in the morning before you go home … when you have drunken clarity ….
G: These are the times when you actually go into an intense moment, they are blurred and really become one. It’s when you come home at 5 in the morning and you say “Jesus my life is a piece of shit. Who am I? Who is this prick in the mirror?” We all do this. I don’t understand this dark label that people have given me. I am not dark at all. I just don’t find the happy things in life to be worth writing about or performing. And I am happy … now and again …. If life is one foot long, then about three inches of it are happiness. The rest is striving in sadness. But those three inches … let’s fuckin’ enjoy them.
J: You say in “Caruso” that the world doesn’t need more “pissy pop stars” which is probably a redundancy. Doesn’t that song contradict your self-analysis you just described? There is a lot of humor and happiness in “Caruso.” There are funny made-up words like “kinky Gerlinky” in the midst of a song replete with references to suicide. With happiness comes depression and vice versa right?
G: Yes. I generalize a bit. I get defensive when people call me “dark.” You know I actually think that “Caruso” is very tongue in cheek.
J: The Gavin Friday acoustic album with organic pop hooks is probably not a very good idea is it?
G: Yeah. “Slider” has humor. And “Pussy” has huge humor.
J: Especially the segment which Mr. Pussy narrates; it’s completely campy and ridiculous. There is a lot of joy in your songs, like “Angel” which seems to be about pure ecstasy.
G: There were two ideas which came into my mind when I was writing that song. First it is the simple need when you are out or away from home for someone to hold you. Whoever it is, your lover, your mother, or your best friend. That is a very beautiful paradise to go to. It is not nice being on your own.
J: It seems like a carnal and earthly salvation. The ecstasy is the pursuit and finding of love. The character in “Last Song” is at the end of that process and has found true companions.
G: Totally. But there is another theme there that was vaguely inspired by the play on AIDS, Angels in America. I saw one act of an Irish production that was overall shit and dated really badly. But it is a great play to read. There is one scene where the AIDS victim is dying and the Angel of Death comes down and the victim has a writhing orgasm. I have this analogy in a song called “Death is Not the End” and the end is very orgasmic and cinematic. I remember wanting to make death almost like you were fucking the Angel of Death and you come as you die. So there is this analogy going on as well as the more simplistic one I mentioned before.
J: I can see a new religion sprouting up based on that idea.
G: Well sex is a better religion than any of the organized religions.
J: Certainly less dogma. Just take it as it comes, pun intended.
G: Ugh!
J: Does the personae you have as Gavin Friday and as a performer give you the opportunity to experience, pass, or escape from things? Are you able to express more through your characters than if you were a leader of a anthematic rock band or a one that was seen as four discrete members?
G: I don’t know. I have never been in such a band before. Since the age of seventeen I have been in a band and its always been like layered and complex. I tend to be like that as a person too. I get to jump into characters like putting on slippers, like in “Kitchen Sink Drama” for instance, or “Little Black Dress.” I couldn’t write about these things if I hadn’t lived them myself. I couldn’t communicate the essence of depression or downer drugs without having experienced them. I did have a very heavy problem when I was younger taking vallium and shit like that. But I sorted that out. So I would be way out of line if I actually couldn’t relate. The Virgin Prunes had a very ambiguous sexuality and history, so I do understand when talking about transvestites though I have never been a transvestite. I do understand ambiguous sexuality. I don’t write about what I don’t know and there are elements of me in my songs. Although, they are not overblown autobiographical songs either. Especially “Mr. Pussy” which is ridiculous. It’s the most Vaudeville. It was the biggest challenge and fucked up Tim Simeon’s head a bit.
J: I read a quote from you about T-Rex and the idea that ignorance is bliss. Can you explain your experience with the 1970s especially as relates to “the first kiss” and ideas of sexual naiveté, etc.? The loss of old identity in the embrace of new personae must be very liberating. Your line “I am not me” sung over and over becomes a sexual mantra of freedom, almost.
G: It is that process when we go through when we are 14, 15, or 16 and sort out who we are from who we are not.
J: Almost choosing as we go along.
G: Yes. The line “Spunk-a-flow” refers to a freedom from repression and limitations. It flows because of a willingness to experience new things.
J: Does using the conceit of flamboyant and highly sexual characters free you from those limits which are often placed on thirty-somethings? You seem to use them as a mask behind which more complicated emotions can be expressed.
G: Yes I suppose so. In writing “Caruso” I had this ridiculous idea in my head of the harmonies and melodies but singing them as a tenor. [Gavin proceeds to sing à la Caruso the music to the song] I remember one Sunday afternoon coming back from the city (Dublin) and thinking of all the CDs I hadn’t listen to in a long time, and the books I wanted to read. This triggered an impulse in me to look to new references. Then I was like “Oh … Caruso!” In the studio there was a mirror there and as I was looking in it I began singing and … became Caruso.
J: It is common in rock and roll for artist’s public relations to dominate their creative process. Someone like Sinéad, for example.
G: It goes back to the oppression of the Irish by the British. It’s a real dodgey issue I think for us as Irish artists, and especially for Sinéad. Who interprets what we communicate and why? Like Gaelic … it’s not meant to be understood by everyone. That is why the Gaelic lyrics are not spelled out in the liner notes of Shag Tobacco.
J: I know Sinéad has other issues …
G: Yes she does.
J: … but she represents an attempt to craft an identity for herself that is more about where she is personally that what people expect from her.
G: And she pays a large price for it too. She is a friend of mine and I love her dearly, but sometimes she should chill out a bit, digest what she thinks, and then spit it out.
J: I think that is also why people like her because she is not hindered by over-contemplation and speaks her mind for better and worse.
G: Our impetus for expression always seems to go back to British colonial oppression. It’s like Joyce. His writing is revenge on cultural colonialism and the Queen’s English. Joyce’s wife Nora, for example demonstrates these pressures. She was somewhat of a gypsy-type and only spoke Gaelic. But it was her blatancy that Joyce fell in love with. But she had to learn to speak English to get on. Its a cultural rift between organic nature and societal nature. Portrait of an Artist is one of the most famous works of the 20th Century and is revenge on England in the way the British language is dissected and fucked with. It’s beautiful and poignant. And that is why music and literature and things like that are so strong in a country of just 3.5 million. Because it is all we have.
J: That is a very modernist way of looking at the present through the lens of the historical past. A lot of your songs deal with the themes of reclamation but many more tackle the future. When you sing of the city falling apart, where do you see yourself in that scenario?
G: I think the world is great but it is also shit. I think it is on an edge at the moment. Oh I don’t know. I really don’t know. I worry about the future and wonder what the fuck it is going to be like when I am 55 or 60. Where am I going to be? What will happen to me in the next 25 years? The only thing I am certain of is it is going to get weirder before it gets better.
J: How would the characters in Shag Tobacco describe you? Or how would another artist characterize you if he or she was to cover your album?
G: AAAAH!! Oh no! God forbid, eh? [long pause] I don’t know, man. The most literal thing about me is “My 20th Century.” And there are reference points in there not to Gavin Friday but to my real name. But I don’t know. That is a real tough question that I might not be the best person to answer. Ultimately the world of Shag Tobacco may seem extraordinary but I quite like the ordinary world. I think at the end of the day, the kitchen and the bedroom are very comfortable places. More peripheral spaces, like the Internet for example, though I am not fully familiar with that yet – I am so bad with computers – are places to search for identity but in the end may not be the most important landscapes or canvases. The place wherein it is the most important to be confident with your identity is your daily life, don’t ya think?
J: Where do you fit in the recording process?
G: I will do anything. I tend to bring a lot of ideas to the recording sessions. Maurice is like a professor. He knows what will work and how we can achieve it. For example, “Dolls” was composed on the piano. It was very organic actually. Then we applied different styles to the piece. I was like, “Let’s try tacky disco sounds … and let’s have punk as well.” What would a eighteenth century composer create if he were writing now and hanging with transvestites? So we added a disco bass and then the punk guitar.
In recording sessions I bring the elements of theater to the music. Maurice works on capturing the sounds, laying down the bass lines, you know. Tim was in charge of funky percussion parts, rhythms that were all over the Seventies. I feel like I am the theater director and stockpiler because I have a huge collection of sounds and ideas. It’s very a to and fro thing.
J: Were most of your songs written in that type of extended collaboration?
G: Well with Caruso, we don’t actually know how it got written. It started as this simple piece, right? I think the greatest thing about recording music is that it has to be inspirational. We experimented with the operatics and added them on a lark to see how it would go. But then we had to stop and detach from the special effects. It was like “Stop. Piano. Play.” For me it always comes back to a simple root: piano and voice. Maurice pushes me creatively. Sometimes it is to go up an octave or down. And I am like holding his hand throughout. We have a very physical and organic relationship as writers. It starts as a common point and then we add (dramatic) elements to songs.
J: So your songs start out in the beer hall and then it is later when you add the postmodern elements and the cross dressing …
G: Right. But they are there all along. In the “Dolls” and “Mr. Pussy” tunes, and probably “My Twentieth Century” too, sexuality has gone around the bend you know? It goes from gay rights to “bring back the man!” I like the idea of “the edge” or the point at which you look out to the unknown. And here it is that the Twentieth Century is burning. The pom-pom girls and the can-can girls are trapped because they are the most obvious icons. Their physicality is limited by standards and expectations, and society in general. They encapsulate the “fuck” of human sexuality. But where does it go from there? What we need from the intellectuals is “high heels and vicious tongues” because what we have now is a little fuckin shallow. I am waiting for the Samuel Beckett in drag, it may happen …
J: Waiting for Fantasia? It could be the title of your movie …
G: You know … getting back to this “dark” label I have. The whole “kinky Gerlinky” line is meant to be funny. But there is more humor in “cock incognito” … It’s so much fun!
J: I played that part for a very uptight and very straight friend of mine …
G: And what did he think?
J: He wanted to hear the next song. [laugh]
G: Ha!
J: That song conjures up the feeling of being on the edge. It anticipates something liberating but also a dangerous event. It is “so much fun.” But then you have the “knock knock, who’s there” section where intolerance pays a visit to the deviants, so to speak. Like in the documentary film “Paris is Burning” your characters here struggle in a society where their ideals are not reflected in the overall culture. The implication that there is a violent counter-response to their identity is terrifying in “Dolls.”
G: It goes back to some primitive event I think. The man, dressed up all flamboyant is like the peacock strutting around looking for a mate, or at least some attention. “No guys here. Just dolls” is a take off on “Guys and Dolls.” Unlike the musical which separates the two, in “Dolls” you can be both.
J: But there is that element of violence, isn’t there?
G: There is.
J: The “civilized … how they despise” are the “belligerent scum” who are trying to pass judgment. It’s not just a violence committed but of imposing a heterosexual understanding upon someone else.
G: In “Little Black Dress” the “superman and the filthy rich get in queue to “scratch the itch.” Sexuality is powerful but it also can corrupt. The song is about the power of sexuality. Imagine the most beautiful person walking across a crowded room wearing skimpy dress. She can get anything she wants because of the power she has sexually over men. What I question is what happens when you take off the dress? Is she a prisoner to that dress?
There is nothing wrong with sexual beauty. It’s a gift really. But you have to learn how to use it. Sex can be a religion but it is also weapon. Now where does that leave us?
Originally published by Jam On Line