If you're not familiar with his music, check out some of his recordings.
And try to catch him live.
For those attending Zappanale, Eugene and Schroeder are scheduled to perform twice.
They will be doing a concert at the Exhibition Hall on Saturday morning, plus another one at The Mystery Stage on Sunday.
Time for a short chat.
UniMuta : Hi Eugene, I’m looking forward to seeing you in concert again. It has been too long. Earlier today, I read on Facebook that you will be bringing one of your albums along to Zappanale, the one that you recorded with Jimmy Carl Black in concert in Tokyo in 2008 ! And where you played a lot of Zappa songs. I have it, and I can strongly recommend it to everyone.
Looking back on the Jack and Jim shows that you did, was it a satisfying experience? Something that you look back upon with joy, touring with Jimmy Carl?
Eugene Chadbourne : I haven't really found this to be the case once I started getting back into action. There seem to be a lot of gigs being organized all over the world. People really are happy to go to live music events. I know this sounds corny and there have been health issues, we all lived through the world shutting down, but after doing a two month tour through seven countries in all kinds of conditions, meeting all kinds of people and not even getting a cold, it is hard to be in the same kind of panic about Covid.
My next gigs are around New York state and at the Anarchist Book Fair in New York City followed by a month of shows in Australia. The next European concerts as well as a UK tour are at this point not scheduled.
UniMuta : I love your DIY approach when it comes to making records or making recordings available. Did you use a similar way of working for your (most recent) book, “Dreamory”, your collection of tour and dream diaries ? Did you publish it and do you distribute it yourself? Where do you find the energy?
Eugene Chadbourne : I did talk to a few publishers about Dreamory but their reaction only made me feel stronger about publishing it myself. I am glad I did. One publisher wanted me to abandon Dreamory and write a book about Bob Dylan's lyrics and/or a biography of Sam Peckinpah.
Writing and editing a book of that size involves lots and lots of time, some of which was easy to grab as part of the touring schedule... If I could plug in a computer, I could write for hours waiting for trains, for example.
I wrote on trains, backstage, and in hotel rooms, of course. Distributing it myself has resulted in a great profit return, out of 1000 books there are less than 300 left. I should be able to bring 3 or 4 for the merchandise tent. In fact, I am packing this material now. The actual physical act of getting the books to concert sales tables which was obviously necessary after I went through the intial obvious burst of mail order customers...Well, that I compared with a military campaign and supply line issues. The books are fucking heavy and the category of :"flat rate" postal box available for sending a maximum or four books is expensive. Within the United States, there is a media rate that makes sending cartons ahead on tour pretty easy. If I am driving or with a driver then these books are not such a problem, but carrying them around on trains and through airports... Here's where a writer might ask if he is being punished for writing so much.
I was always drawn to large books and the reactions of people who said they wouldn't read them. They were too long, like, oh, this film is too long, or how I can watch this opera for three hours.
A book that size presents a challenge, even being able to hold it up to read in bed.
There's a missing tape out there somewhere, with me and Jimmy Carl and Don Preston playing a version of Space is the Place by Sun Ra that goes on between twenty and thirty minutes. A record producer was there that was involved with a Grandmothers' project. He complained about us spending so much time doing that in the studio and said that no piece of music needs to be that long. I told Jimmy "I guess his mother never took him to the symphony."
UniMuta : As I said, I’m really looking forward to the concerts, and I do hope that you bring an extra copy along of “Mind Crusher”, another one of your recent albums, and of the Dreamory book as I would be very happy to buy both from you (and Belgian customs makes it quite a hassle to get it by mail).
Eugene Chadbourne :The Euro Schengenstein made a pretty serious decision about VAT and foreign purchases. They basically did away with the entire "system" of a customer buying something and having it sent to them marked as a "gift" and set at a lower value than they paid.
Now everything has to enter with an official purchase receipt attached to the parcel and the VAT paid up front.
Nonetheless my 8 cd box set with Anthony Braxton was sent back from Ireland and the poor customer just gave up on it.
So I know what you are talking about!
Eugene Chadbourne : That would be something I would have real trouble finding something to complain about. It was a wonderful experience for me, every concert, and, yes, there were some ups and downs with his alcoholism and health but you know he really gave it his all.
He had to deal with the changing nature of the music scene and with me, he plunged into a whole world of alternative approaches; his background with the Mothers was of course well part of the commercial music industry, big corporate labels, despite being so freaky.
He was the first drummer to provide such a simple and steady accompaniment to me. I was coming out of a world of music where some of the drummers don't think kindly about "accompanying" anything.
I think the touring must have worn him down. It got more and more small time with less and less financial return. You must have seen the part of the film where he is exchanging his US dollars in the German post office and the bleak outcome in the end. It is hard to accurately measure the amount of energy let alone hours spent pulling off tours like that.
He had to deal with the changing nature of the music scene and with me, he plunged into a whole world of alternative approaches; his background with the Mothers was of course well part of the commercial music industry, big corporate labels, despite being so freaky.
He was the first drummer to provide such a simple and steady accompaniment to me. I was coming out of a world of music where some of the drummers don't think kindly about "accompanying" anything.
I think the touring must have worn him down. It got more and more small time with less and less financial return. You must have seen the part of the film where he is exchanging his US dollars in the German post office and the bleak outcome in the end. It is hard to accurately measure the amount of energy let alone hours spent pulling off tours like that.
UniMuta : In my eyes, you have always been a performing musician. Someone who’s always on the road, touring with one project or another. If I’m not mistaken, you did a short tour with Schroeder in Southern Europe earlier this year. How did it go? Did you do new regions, meet new people?
Eugene Chadbourne : Actually this was a long tour, from the middle of February until early April, not all of it with Schroeder and not just in Southern Europe. We had a very big show in Hamburg, two nights in Bremen sold out, I returned to Magdeburg for the first time since the DDR days,...
In the south we had a great run of shows in Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland....then I really got into a long solo run all over France where there were some cancellations in the end because of the strikes. This tour represented re-establishing contacts for gigs from the old days and connecting with all the new ones. I worked on it in conjunction with my booking agency in Berlin. I had a super collaboration with an Italian agent working there and we just booked lots of things. It was really successful.
As for people, these tours are a banquet. There is seeing a friend of at least 20 years time and there are the new friendships. Also so many kind young people willing to give me extra help with everything.
Eugene Chadbourne : Actually this was a long tour, from the middle of February until early April, not all of it with Schroeder and not just in Southern Europe. We had a very big show in Hamburg, two nights in Bremen sold out, I returned to Magdeburg for the first time since the DDR days,...
In the south we had a great run of shows in Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland....then I really got into a long solo run all over France where there were some cancellations in the end because of the strikes. This tour represented re-establishing contacts for gigs from the old days and connecting with all the new ones. I worked on it in conjunction with my booking agency in Berlin. I had a super collaboration with an Italian agent working there and we just booked lots of things. It was really successful.
As for people, these tours are a banquet. There is seeing a friend of at least 20 years time and there are the new friendships. Also so many kind young people willing to give me extra help with everything.
UniMuta : With musicians that weren’t allowed to do concerts during COVID, and with artists turning to concerts to gain money as the sales of albums has declined, has it become more difficult to find gigs? Do you have other gigs scheduled in Europe after Zappanale?
Eugene Chadbourne : I haven't really found this to be the case once I started getting back into action. There seem to be a lot of gigs being organized all over the world. People really are happy to go to live music events. I know this sounds corny and there have been health issues, we all lived through the world shutting down, but after doing a two month tour through seven countries in all kinds of conditions, meeting all kinds of people and not even getting a cold, it is hard to be in the same kind of panic about Covid.
My next gigs are around New York state and at the Anarchist Book Fair in New York City followed by a month of shows in Australia. The next European concerts as well as a UK tour are at this point not scheduled.
UniMuta : I love your DIY approach when it comes to making records or making recordings available. Did you use a similar way of working for your (most recent) book, “Dreamory”, your collection of tour and dream diaries ? Did you publish it and do you distribute it yourself? Where do you find the energy?
Eugene Chadbourne : I did talk to a few publishers about Dreamory but their reaction only made me feel stronger about publishing it myself. I am glad I did. One publisher wanted me to abandon Dreamory and write a book about Bob Dylan's lyrics and/or a biography of Sam Peckinpah.
Writing and editing a book of that size involves lots and lots of time, some of which was easy to grab as part of the touring schedule... If I could plug in a computer, I could write for hours waiting for trains, for example.
I wrote on trains, backstage, and in hotel rooms, of course. Distributing it myself has resulted in a great profit return, out of 1000 books there are less than 300 left. I should be able to bring 3 or 4 for the merchandise tent. In fact, I am packing this material now. The actual physical act of getting the books to concert sales tables which was obviously necessary after I went through the intial obvious burst of mail order customers...Well, that I compared with a military campaign and supply line issues. The books are fucking heavy and the category of :"flat rate" postal box available for sending a maximum or four books is expensive. Within the United States, there is a media rate that makes sending cartons ahead on tour pretty easy. If I am driving or with a driver then these books are not such a problem, but carrying them around on trains and through airports... Here's where a writer might ask if he is being punished for writing so much.
I was always drawn to large books and the reactions of people who said they wouldn't read them. They were too long, like, oh, this film is too long, or how I can watch this opera for three hours.
A book that size presents a challenge, even being able to hold it up to read in bed.
There's a missing tape out there somewhere, with me and Jimmy Carl and Don Preston playing a version of Space is the Place by Sun Ra that goes on between twenty and thirty minutes. A record producer was there that was involved with a Grandmothers' project. He complained about us spending so much time doing that in the studio and said that no piece of music needs to be that long. I told Jimmy "I guess his mother never took him to the symphony."
UniMuta : As I said, I’m really looking forward to the concerts, and I do hope that you bring an extra copy along of “Mind Crusher”, another one of your recent albums, and of the Dreamory book as I would be very happy to buy both from you (and Belgian customs makes it quite a hassle to get it by mail).
Eugene Chadbourne :The Euro Schengenstein made a pretty serious decision about VAT and foreign purchases. They basically did away with the entire "system" of a customer buying something and having it sent to them marked as a "gift" and set at a lower value than they paid.
Now everything has to enter with an official purchase receipt attached to the parcel and the VAT paid up front.
Nonetheless my 8 cd box set with Anthony Braxton was sent back from Ireland and the poor customer just gave up on it.
So I know what you are talking about!
UniMuta : And I can imagine that it has a serious impact on your mail order system. But let's keep things positive and let me wish you safe travels and a fun festival !
Eugene Chadbourne :See you there.... & please watch for pop up banjo at the merchandise tent !
Eugene Chadbourne :See you there.... & please watch for pop up banjo at the merchandise tent !
UniMuta : Thank you and see you soon.
Eugene Chadbourne & Schroeder, in concert,
Saturday morning, July 15, at the exhibition room in the center of Bad Doberan
Sunday afternoon, July 16, at the mystery stage at the festival ground
Saturday morning, July 15, at the exhibition room in the center of Bad Doberan
Sunday afternoon, July 16, at the mystery stage at the festival ground
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