Julian Summerhill - Hologram Cowboys Lay Down With Their Horses

"Bright Moments"

This interview was conducted by Jean-Christophe Simone, co-editor of the French Quarterly, Grand Guignol - a journal of contemporary music and culture...

He spoke with Mr... Summerhill in fall of 2004, as he was finishing work on his album "The Hologram Cowboys Lay Down With Their Horses" at The Plant recording studios in Sausalito, CA... It was a reunion of sorts... They first met in 1995, just after the release of "American Blood - Safety in Numbers", Summerhill's controversial album with Grammy winning guitarist Bill Frisell, which he recorded under the name Victor Bruce Godsey... Throughout the evening, they are interrupted occasionally by various technical decisions Summerhill is asked to make, as well as a procession of visitors stopping by...

Simone -

Haven't seen you since... ... ?

Summerhill -

New York, I think... ...

Yes, it was not long after "American Blood" was released, which brought me to you in the first place...

I remember, I bought you a real NYC egg cream... we walked through Thompkins Square Park... and there was that girl... that very tall girl... who had some kind of... seizure... from... we thought she was epileptic... then the paramedics came and... turns out it was an OD... welcome to New York...

Oh God!... I remember her... I wonder where she is now?...

Sleeping with the fishes...

You have a new name... a new address... a new life...

I know, you'd think I was in the witness protection program...

(laughter)

So why did you change your name from Victor Bruce Godsey to Julian Summerhill?...

It started because I was writing so many different kinds of songs in completely different styles that I sort of... I started dividing them up into families... and for each family... for each style... I used a different pseudonym to fit that music...

So... Julian Summerhill?...

Julian Summerhill was born here in California as I was writing this family of songs called "Infinity Edges"... He just... the name just... took over... I just found that it gave a tremendous surge of energy to the work I was doing... so... I started using it more and more... I made lots of new friends out here who now know me only as Julian... so... it all just feels like it was meant to be...

It reminds me of when actors talk about how important the name is of whatever role they're playing... how powerful it can be in invoking the character for them...

Very much so... it's very much like that... only those roles are usually temporary... I expect to go on writing as Julian for a good long time...

So... Hello Julian... ... ... Can I ask you about "American Blood"?...

What about it?...

Well... it's been almost ten years now, since it came out... and... it just seems so... prophetic... since 9-11 and this war... now we have real American blood being spilled everyday...

Don't forget Iraqi blood... and British blood... and countless other blood...

Right, but as I revisit some of those lyrics... it really seems to forecast this whole time of terror and war... even the

album cover... an American Flag with skulls instead of stars...

Those are French skulls, actually...

French?...

I stole those skulls off the cover of a book of poetry deconstructions by Robert Gluck... it was... they were from an old photograph of a French phrenology exhibit... with the skulls all in a row... on shelves... you know?... I lifted them off there and... laid them over the American Flag...

So what do you think about this concept of... prophesy?...

What about it?...

Do you think you... do you think it was?...

No... I mean... who knows?... whoever knows?... when you write something... I just... it was a darkness... I just remember feeling a great darkness gathering over the Country and the world... but maybe it was just a darkness over me... I mean... that's all you ever really have to work with, isn't it?... In poetry or lyrics or whatever... how you see the world... what comes in on the antennae... (makes a "scary music" sound with his mouth)

(laughs) Tell me again... how that album came about in the first place...

Ancient history... isn't it?...

No... now it's real history!...

(laughter)

Frisell sent me some music in the mail from Seattle... asked me... could I write lyrics to it... I was... I remember I was working on something else and... I stopped for eight days... and wrote those songs... "Gone, Just Like a Train"... everything... just like they are now... sent them back to Bill (Frisell)...

Eight days?... one day longer than God took to make the world!...

God is a tough act to follow...

(laughter)

Did it... have you kept up with how well it sold... and where... over the years?...

Seems like it appealed to a particular... I don't know... the most royalties I've gotten from that album have come from... what I call the "suicide capitals of Europe"... Sweden... Denmark... Norway... you know... Ingmar Bergman land...

Ah!... Here's the Fairchild!...

(The interview is interrupted as an assistant wheels in a piece of antique studio gear, housed in a wooden case)

This is a genuine Fairchild Stereo Limiter... completely restored... from the 1960's... we're going to strap this... put it over the whole mix and... you'll see... in a minute...

(One hour later)

How did you come to work with Steve Arrington?...

We were... (interrupted by the playback of a new mix)... see?... how rich and creamy this sounds?... I could eat this song!... that's the Fairchild, doing it's thing... anyway... what was the question?...

Just wondering how you came to play on the first "Steve Arrington's Hall of Fame " album with Steve Arrington?...

We kind of... we came up together, me and Steve... he gave me my first real gig in this, like... lounge band... playing around the Midwest... we were still in our teens...

Arrington was the singer?...

No... he was the drummer... but now that you mention it... he did sing a lot in that band... see, we had a girl singer... she was Stanley Cowell's niece... the great jazz piano player, Stanley Cowell... his niece... but Steve did sing a lot of songs from behind the drums... I could hear his style forming even then... as you know... he went on to be one of the great innovative singers of all time... widely imitated... great writer too... and a great natural musician... the best I've ever played with... so... I forgot the question...

The "Hall of Fame" album?...

Right... well... when Steve left the Funk band "Slave"... after they had all those hits with him... he got his own deal with Atlantic... I was living back in NYC then... he called me to come work with him... just like we had always dreamed... so... we... we made that first album and it really is a classic now... it's been... sampled... I think six or seven times... that we know about...

What are some of the samples from that album?...

Oh God!... let's see... A Tribe Called Quest sampled a song I co-wrote and played Fender Rhodes on that they called "Chase Part II"... it's on "Midnight Marauders"... and... what else?... NWA on "Straight Outta Compton"... they took that groove from "Weak at the Knees" and sort of pimped it out and it... it became one of the songs on "Straight Outta Compton"... I know Ice Cube used it again on "America's Most Wanted"... then, those guys from Philly, Three Times Dope used that same groove... as did Jermaine Dupree on "Money Ain't a Thing"... which is also on Jay-Z's album "Hard Knock Life"... and who am I leaving out?... Brand Nubian sampled us... a song called "Grand Poobah Positive LG"... which samples "Nobody Can Be You But You"... Ah... oh yeah... LL... LL Cool J... a few years back took that song and turned it into "Nobody can Freak You But You" on his album "Phenomenon"... add to that, Steve's other stuff from Slave like "Watching You", which became Snoop's "Gin and Juice", and more recently, Snoop's "Let's Get Blown"... etc... etc... and you can see how this music has permeated Hip-Hop culture...

What did you play on the "Hall of Fame" album?...

Most of the keyboards... Fender Rhodes mostly... which I have a serious jones for again...

Where were you the first time you heard your keyboards sampled on a Hip-Hop record?...

The perfect place you would want to be... walking down the street in lower Manhattan on a hot summer night... with the music coming out of someone's boom box and filling up the whole block with sound... just... sublime... to experience that...

(Interview is interrupted for mix playbacks and adjustments... Summerhill screens the first three songs from his new excursion into modern Country and roots music called "The Hologram Cowboys Lay Down With Their Horses" featuring Bill Frisell on guitar... )

Frisell sounds good, doesn't he?...

I never heard him sound quite like that before...

I know... he's got so many sides... definitely got some hillbilly in him...

How did you meet him... When did you... ?

Half a lifetime ago, now... he came... he got to NYC where I was living and we just... we started playing a lot... experimenting... we had an ongoing... not a band... but what the Situationists would call a... situation together for about three years there... where we would play with different aggregations of guest musicians and whoever... and just improvise... knock down doors... erase boundaries... we called it "The Dismembers" because it was always changing... with new people... again, I was witness to Bill evolving that amazing, singular style of his... that... sound!...

Who were some of the guest Dismembers?...

Oh... let's see... some of the guys from Ornette Coleman's band at the time... Dennis Alston, Ornette's drummer... Arthur Rhames, the great electric guitarist and saxophonist who was also Vernon Reid's mentor... Arthur was my roommate for awhile when I lived uptown... he was also on the "Hall of Fame" album with me, by the way... and ah... who else?... various members of the original Contortions and Voidoids... it was fun mixing those guys up into new configurations... I even invited Allen Ginsberg down to read his poetry... with us improvising behind him... he read "Howl" in its entirety, which I still have on tape... that was a good night... so you see... it was like that... by definition it was completely different every time...

Did you ever document or record "The Dismembers"?...

I've always been an obsessive documentarian and recordist... I try to tape or write down everything that seems interesting at the time...

But I mean... any studio recordings?...

No... no... That would have seemed antithetical to what we were doing, as would performing live... I taped everything from "The Dismembers" on cassette... with a boom box... I have like... fourteen hours or so that I saved from those three years... some of the best musical moments I've ever experienced... I wish the sound quality was better on those tapes... but the music is... incendiary!...

Ever think of putting it out?...

I have actually thought about it... I've started playing with the new restoration software... dumping things in there and cleaning up the hiss... hyping the bass... you know?... I want to make a really great album's worth of material from those fourteen hours and... release it, somehow... deity of your choice willin', and the creek don't rise...

(Interview is interrupted as Mr... Summerhill plays through the rest of "Hologram Cowboys", making subtle adjustments... The music is a highly original mix of Country twang, avant-blues, old and new instrumentation, Hip-Hop like grooves, interspersed with several exquisite slower pieces; all with Summerhill's soulful, unmistakable vocals... )

Could you describe this new album you're finishing?... It seems... it surprises me... the style has elements of Country mixed with blues and deep drum grooves... is this... a departure for you... coming from a funk and NYC avant-garde background?...

No... not at all... I mean... first of all... I hate that term "avant-garde"... no offense... but it's my least favorite French expression... it's a contradiction in terms, you see?...

Why?...

Doesn't it translate roughly as "ahead of its time"?... really... this is impossible... because there you are... in that time... doing whatever it is you do... so the term should be "exactly of your time"... but I suppose that doesn't sound as good, does it?... where were we?...

Country music... ? A departure for you... ?

Right... no... no... that's the interesting thing... because these are my roots... before NYC or any of that... it's what I come from... you know?...

How so?...

Well... my parents are both from the rural area around Bristol... called Scott County... which is right on the border of Tennessee and Virginia... they were, in fact, distant cousins... which makes me a genuine in-bred hillbilly... (laughter)... my mother grew up with June Carter Cash, Mother Maybell Carter's daughter... and was, in fact, June's distant cousin... Maybell was an Addington... the same Addingtons on my mother's side of the family... which, strictly speaking, makes me a descendent of the people who pretty much invented what we now call Country music... so you see... it really is in the blood...

The "American" blood...

(laughter)

It sounds like everyone around Bristol was related somehow...

Not unusual in that part of America... my uncle sent me a book of our family history called "The People of Scott County, Virginia"... you can trace a lot of family lines in there going back hundreds of years... three pages over from my mother's history... you get... the Carter Family...

So you would describe this new album, "The Hologram Cowboys Lay Down With Their Horses"... as a... return... ?

As a... both as return to my roots... and as a culmination of all my other influences... a progressive, modern synthesis of country and other styles... but remember, what we loosely call Country music has always been a shotgun wedding of many disparate elements...

Yes, I see... Great musicians on this album...

Yes... brilliant work by Frisell... and Darol Anger, of course, plays amazing fiddle on the first song, "Broken World"... and... the shining light of this whole project, Bruce Kaphan, brings so much to the music with his originality on the pedal steel, an instrument I've always loved... Bruce also did a spectacular job engineering this album... it's taken us almost two years!...

That's a long time!...

Not if you're making really good wine... or diamonds...

Who else is on it?...

I'm proud to have Todd Sickafoose on bass who's been working with Ani DiFranco, and is a great band leader and composer in his own right... and Jim Campilongo, the avant - there's that word again!... the contemporary twang guitarist, played telecaster on one song... Ches Smith who works with Carla Bozulich played beautiful drums... and finally, Noe Venable came down and sang a duet with me called "Heart Gone Missing"... the combination of our two voices creates this third texture... like torn silk over mahogany... she's really... she's a star in the morning sky...

A question about these new songs... I noticed... there seems to be a lot of Christian imagery running through them... are you... is there something I don't know... ?

Right... here's the thing... again... it's the water I was born in... you know... that deep southern, fire and brimstone... Book of Revelation's thing... it's everywhere in our language and culture... my grandfather was a traveling Pentecostal preacher who was so consumed with it all, he took his own life... so there's that kind of history... and... language... running through me... it's in my DNA...

But do you believe... ?

No!... I am The Prince of Darkness!... (laughter)... it's the language... the imagery... the mythology that I draw from... very much in the tradition of old-timey and bluegrass... if you listen to those lyrics... it's just... married together with that music... but if you listen closer... you'll see I've subverted things a bit... turned them upside down...

Just like The Devil?...

Yours truly...

(laughter)

(A short break in which strong green tea and oranges are served... The oranges are fresh from the trees nearby... )

-----------------------------------

A few last questions...

You say that... but do you mean it?...

Well... it's been ten years...

Yes, a lot of blood under the bridge... you'd better get enough to last another ten years... if we make it...

Now that this album's finished and soon to be available on your web site, what are you working on next... any plans?...

God yes!... I need three or four more alter-egos to deal with it... first and foremost... I've gotten back into the piano again, in a big way... I'm working several hours a day now, just developing that in a way... in a way I never have before... I've been... you know... primarily a singer-songwriter, lyricist and multi-instrumentalist most of my creative life... but I've always been a very strong, natural piano player... and now I want to see how far I can take that...

You were Jan Hammer's second keyboard player for a while weren't you?...

Right... I worked with him for about three years... Jan hired me primarily as a singer... but I also played all the rhythmic and chordal stuff, while he played single lines on the synth, like Jimi Hendrix... we did a tour and a live album with Al Dimeola (laughs) that became the "Tour De Force" album... with Steve Gadd on drums, of all people... and what else?... we had a band with Jack Bruce for awhile... that was quite lovely... singing with Jack Bruce... how much better does it get than that?... I know, singing with Steve Arrington!... (laughs)...

Did you tour with Jack Bruce?...

We did one big tour across pre-unified Germany... it's all kind of hazy because both Jack and I were being... how should I say?... rather bad boys at the time... I do remember being arrested with him in East Germany for pissing on the side of the road... just like The Rolling Stones... anyway... I digress... what was the question?...

Current and future projects?...

Right... right... what have I said so far?...

Piano...

Right... well, I'm also developing a new collection of songs that are very closely related thematically in the music and the lyrics called "Infinity Edges"... it's a very West Coast album... using jazz and chill-out grooves and permutations of Bossa Nova... the title refers to those swimming pools you see in the Hollywood Hills that have no edges to them... that seem to... float off into the sky... like you could swim right into the stars... but it's also a kind of metaphor for falling in love... how it always seems infinite... but then you find the edges where it ends...

What else... ?

Another family of old-timey and bluegrassy songs called "Resurrection Hymnal"... where I take the scary religious thing and really twist it... all to be recorded on old period instruments, using old recording equipment... I already have two old wire recorders, which I'll use for that... as well as tape... and other things...

Like your old band, "The Faith Healers"?...

Yes, very much like the band I had in NYC years ago called "The Faith Healers" (not the alternative rock band of the same name)... it was the favorite band I ever had, actually... like an unholy marriage of Hazel Dickens and Ornette Coleman... like their bastard child...

(laughter)

Any "Faith Healers" music available?...

Look on my web site... www... juliansummerhill... com... I hate it when people say that!...

Now, some last questions...

You said that before!... I have to go soon... what's left?...

Who's your favorite songwriter?...

That's easy!... Charles Telerant, one of my oldest friends... he played much of the drums in "The Dismembers"... we co-wrote an album together called "Sunshine Avenue" for the Japanese guitar player, Yoshiaki Masuo, years ago... Charles wrote one side of it, and I wrote the other side... remember when there were sides?... it was better, wasn't it?... Charles is an absolutely pure, natural genius as a songwriter... he hasn't written that much, but what he did write is from the Gods... You don't have to write that much if it's really good... ask Robert Johnson... ask Hank Williams... Still, I'm expecting a great second flowering to come from him soon... I'm so lucky to have been a witness to so much great talent... just to have encountered all these people... and then to work with them... what are the odds?... Anyway, Charles and I have been knocking the ball back and forth into each other's court ever since, each trying to out-do the other one...

Could you leave us with some of your brightest moments... as a musician... as a writer... as an artist... ?

(sings) "Bright Moments... Bright Moments"... like Rahsaan! (Roland Kirk)... as many as there are stars in the sky... let's see... how about... holding onto Sun Ra's robes while we marched around New England Conservatory, chanting "Space Is The Place"... or ... a long, strange afternoon talking chord voicings and Zen philosophy with Larry Young... or another long afternoon jamming with Sonny Rollins, when I was still too young to vote, and having him invite me into his band (I didn't go)... or what about the time I introduced Beck to one of the original Almanac Singers, who used to play with Woody Guthrie, and feeling that current of history run straight through us, from the past to the future... or... what about that year with "Hall of Fame"... opening every night for Parliament- Funkadelic... then sitting curled up under Bernie Worell's piano, and soaking up the groove... or... what about sleeping over at William Burroughs loft... playing darts and talking cut-ups and dog viruses... or staying at Jack Bruce's place and having him bring out Jimi Hendrix's old jacket for me to try on... and having it fit, too! (a little long in the sleeve)... just being at the Great Intersection, you know?... downtown Manhattan... just being there for that... the intersection of Punk and free improvisation and Hip-Hop and Spoken Word and old and new Folk Music... to have been a witness and a vital participant in all that... "Bright Moments"... and many more to come...

An amazing life!...

And this is part two... F... Scott Fitzgerald was wrong when he said "There are no second acts in American Lives"... I'm having mine now... the plot thickens...

Any Last thoughts?...

Aren't you going to ask me what I'll say to God when I get to Heaven?...

Ok... What will you say to God?...

I'll say "There must be some mistake... I think they switched my ticket with some very disappointed little school girl down in Hell... "

(laughter)

- Jean-Christophe Simone