Click here for Part I of the Jack Rabid interview.

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DF: Bringing up bad records kind of leads to my next question. I've often read, in response to readers questions, about records that you think are important or your favorite records. Your taste drives the magazine and I think people purchase it a lot of times just to read who you like in your top 40. Do you have any you could share with us right now?

JR: There have been so many, I can't even begin to list them. Last night we were talking about some of them like the Wipers, Youth of America; Comstat Angels, Sleep No More; The Kinks, Arthur...; and The Hollies, Butterfly. It's kind of like Robert Pollard's list last issue. It took him like 60 tapes just to do four years. Like what, 90 hours of music, just to do like four years of great albums, you know. And I'm right behind him in that regard, he's a little older than I am. We could do that in just about any era that ever existed since 1912.

JR: It's like saying: how do you get into this underground music. Can you give me a list of like 20 records? I might have included a Kinks record or Beatles record, why not, Little Richard, give them an idea where the spirit came from Chuck Berry, "Esquerita", maybe even something going back to Ray Charles or James Brown or any number of the wild people of the '50s and '60s, sure. Or "You're Gonna Miss Me" by the Thirteenth Floor Elevators or "Psycho" by The Sonics, "Let 'em Whale". But I'd think you probably give Raw Power by Iggy and The Stooges. I prefer the original mix, the David Bowie mix. You go from there in a lot of ways to the Sex Pistols, the first two Clash albums, the first four Ramone's albums. Then you go from there to the more obscure groups: The Avengers and the Weirdos. Tremendous bands, Bad Brains, DOA's first two albums. You get out of the hard fast stuff and you get into the more esoteric stuff like Echo and the Bunnymen's second album, Chameleons, the Wipers, The Lucy Show, geez there are so many of them I can't begin to name them, the Pale Saints, Catherine Wheel, My Bloody Valentine.

DF: There's millions of band. You know, just a partial list is really interesting to hear them as you rattle them off.

JR: Well, I'll read it later and I'll think of 400 that I forgot, like I should have mentioned them, I should have mentioned them. I could I have left them out.

DF: It leads into my next question. Every issue you basically list records that you review and you number them. And this issue you had the new Pernice record as number one and Bob's record number two?

JR: It could have been the other way around.

DF: Exactly, and I ask myself the question, I think that the new Pernice record could be like a decade defining record. I think it's that good. I think that the new Guided By Voices may be Robert's best. And it's just incredible that these two records came out in the same issue.

JR: There is your answer to whomever said that Rock is Dead. You could say, yeah, people say rock was dead in 1960 or dead in 1974 when some of the greatest records were being made under their noses because it wasn't on the charts. Rock n' Roll is always dead, isn't it?

DF: Yeah, that's true.

JR: It's been dead since it was created in 1954.

DF: Well, rock n' roll is dead if the listener is?

JR: Yeah, we use to have a flyer even worse in 1980 that said punk is not dead, you are. I love that flyer because—here I've been doing a magazine 21 years. I think you can't do a magazine 21 years without admitting you are now in your late 30s and you are at a prime time when people have already given up on this stuff. The only thing that keeps me going is this proof—rock n' roll isn't dead, pop music isn't dead, you know, garage rock isn't dead, power pop is not dead.

JR: It all takes me back to the speech about new wave, from the Decline of Western Civilization movie which I quoted a couple issues ago. Let's see if I can quote it off the top of my head: "I have excellent news for the world, there is no such thing as new wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain that you were not into the boring old rock 'n roll but you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid that you'd get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn't give you coke anymore" and he says, and this is the part that I kind of lose it, he said something like, "there is new underground sound, there's punk, there's pop, there's power pop, there's skull, there's rockabilly, there's psychobilly", you know, he names a whole bunch of things like that and he goes, "but new wave doesn't mean shit" He says it in a very French accent.

JR: And when everyone goes rock 'n roll is dead. I go, which one? Are we saying guitar music is dead? Are we saying pop music is dead? Are we saying kids are only interested in hip hop and dance music? It was really disconcerting going to Paris last week because every single bar I went into they played house and techno. I know a lot of people like that but, to me, it's just pulse, and tone and beat. That is not music. To me it's not music any more than this conversation between us is because it's rhythmic sound. I think there is always going to be someone who wants to hear a good melody and a thoughtful idea and a little energy, what ever form that energy takes.

DF: It's amazing to me, you've got so much great stuff now and then.

JR: Yeah, well, let me put it this way, a lot of people want to separate the Beatles of the White Album and Sergeant Pepper, the later mature Beatles that made psychedelic records that everyone loved, from the R&B band that made "Hold Me Tight" and "Not a Second Time" and "Please, Please Me." And I refuse. To me it's all the same bands; it's the same energy. You couldn't have had "I Am The Walrus" without "I Want To Hold Your Hand" without "I Want to Be Your Lover Baby, I Want To Be Your Man." That to me is the same person, the same thing, it's just the band growing as they get old, but it's the same energy. That's the way I feel about rock 'n roll, the energy takes different forms as long as people are making music with heart.

DF: It's still the same artist.

JR: I don't think John Lennon would have disagreed with me. He wasn't turning his back, maybe lyrically he thought that it was naive cause they had all heard Bob Dylan and decided it was time to say something. But the energy, actually the energy and feel is someone dying to make music. Whether they want to be a star or not is not important to me. What's important to me is the feel of the music. How mainlined is it? I think most pop music in the charts and in general of what people listen to is equivalent to drugs that have been stepped on. Not that I ever took drugs. But do you want pure drugs, or do you want something that's watered down? That's where the whole phrase ‘watered down' came from. Do you want a coke or do you want half coke and half ice that's melted? That is what most people settle for. I won't settle for it. And I think that there is plenty of music being made now, and there will be in the future, made by people who have that heart who aren't going to settle for a glass of three quarters melted ice and one quarter coke. They want the whole coke.

DF: I think that anybody that's read the magazine can see that. I mean it's chock full of artists, old and new. Think about the recently released Nuggets II Box. That's just unbelievable.

JR: I'm glad to say I didn't even have half of that. As much as I have I didn't even have half of that.

DF: That is one of the amazing things about Nuggets II. I popped it in and I was just blown away. Who are these guys? I've never heard of them. Q65? The Motions? Wow.

JR: I'll tell you what that means. It proves my long standing comment about the '60s is that you can buy records from now until next week, just constantly buy records. Spend all 24 hours buying records. You wouldn't touch the faintest beginnings of every single great recording of that era. And the reason for that is, again, because the Beatles were the number one band, the Rolling Stones were the number one band, the Kinks, and the Byrds, I mean, these people had chart success. People wanted to be them. So every single human being in the world, who wanted to have girls scream for them, who wanted to make music with energy, or music of that sort at any given point of the 60s. If they came in late '63 they'd want to do something that sounded like Johnny Kidd and the Pirates record. If they came in late '63 or '64 they wanted to be the Beatles and the Kinks and then '65 or '66 maybe the later Beatles or Kinks or maybe Jimi Hendrix or something you know, it just kept changing. But that was the stuff that dominated that era. That was what was selling the records. So it's no surprise that every single country produced fucking 800 bands. Switzerland produced 800 bands. They couldn't of had an incident in the Philippines if they weren't playing in the Philippines. Who plays in the Philippines now? That's how popular the Beatles were. Like Muhammad Ali, everyone knew him everywhere. They could have played behind the Iron Curtain, it wouldn't have mattered.

DF: They created a certain amount of energy and I think everyone got excited?

JR: And everybody said let's pick up guitars and play rock n' roll music.

DF: I think even a lot of the artist that were around then, a lot of them still have the energy. I was up in New York about a month ago and I saw Blunstone and Argent at the CaveStomp Show. It was great, I really enjoyed it.

JR: I liked some of it but most of it I hated.

DF: You hated what?

JR: All the Argent songs.

DF: At the show?

JR: Yeah. I loved the Zombies stuff.

DF: I flew up there and it was worth it just to see Blunstone sing "A Rose for Emily".

JR: That was riveting.

DF: That was amazing.

JR: You should have seen the show three years ago when it was him without Argent. It was a bunch of local musicians who love Colin and they did nothing but Zombies songs and stuff from the first two solo albums. Wow. I have a tape of that. That's how good that was. I feel privileged to have seen both of those nights.

DF: Apparently, they had a reunion in London a few years ago for one song or something?

JR: Three songs, actually. All three of their hits.

DF: Right, I'm a huge Zombies fan.

JR: Good for you. We can certainly add Odyssey and Oracle to the list.

DF: Just to get back to you a little bit. I really think that one of your strengths among the many is your interviewing style. How do you feel about that in the grand scheme of what you do as a writer? The Pollard interview to me was incredible in the sense that I felt like I was there with you guys, having a beer, just standing there listening to it. It was interesting to the extent that a lot of interviews I read, it feels like somebody's on the other end quizzing the artist, and the artist is sitting there taking an examination or something.

JR: That's what I call the twenty questions.

DF: You aren't really learning anything about the artists. I learned more about Pollard and his scene when you quoted his friend, he said ‘look at the fart box on her'. That was unbelievable, that was it. You know, I was like, wow. This is a real guy from a real town making real music. That's what it's all about.

JR: I have a little different agenda than a lot of people. A lot of people want to get to the sensational episode. Like if I were investigating the Chondra Levy disappearance, I would care only about her disappearance. The other angles are completely irrelevant to me. If the guy had something to do with it, then route it out, but it doesn't matter to me as to what their relationship was except for supplying a motive. I'd try to get to the essence. I don't care about who is sleeping with whom. I don't care about the sexiness of the story. I don't care about trying to get somebody to say a controversial thing. If they say it, then that's their business. But that's not what I set out to do. I don't try to make someone be interesting who isn't. I let them be themselves. And the way you do that is to know a lot about them. Just show up prepared. I don't have to do that much research because I usually only pick people that I'm genuinely interested in. Sometimes, in fact, they can dispel some notion I have of them and I think they find that just as valuable.

DF: It appears that you have a natural kinship with these people.

JR: I try to establish it. But that to me is not an accident. A lot people I interview are people I have never met. I just did Iggy Pop, right, and my early questions are tailored to indicate to him that this is not going to be the same old bullshit interview: that you're talking to someone who, "A", admires you and, "B", is interested in securing some interesting knowledge out of you in a conversational format.

JR: I started off the interview by talking about how he jumped on my back at a Bad Brains show in 1981. I don't think that's the first question most people face in an interview. But instead of going, ‘let's talk about the new album', here we are talking about some incident in his life, twenty years ago, that only I would recall since I was there. In fact, I frankly took place in it. Then it turns into a discussion about the Bad Brains, what that night was like, how it was great for him to see the East Village that he hadn't seen. It breaks down a certain wall. It may seem like a fun little question, but it's filling that second purpose which is to get him comfortable enough to speak to me.

JR: When I ask him a more usual question, I'm going to put it differently. I'm going to try and plumb a little deeper into motivations and ideas and what happened, and what he was thinking and what he thought was funny about it. You know, conversation can be dry, but I think if someone were sitting next to us right now and listening to the two of us talking, they would be no less interested. They would not be bored.

DF: Like I said, you can quiz someone and they could look at their watch and say, "when is this going to be over" or you can have a conversation to a certain extent. I think that it's important, and I think that you do that in your interviewing style. You get the essence.

JR: I don't think it's hard either.

DF: Well, I think what you said is true. You do have to understand who you are talking to, and what their background is, and why are you interviewing this person. I'm interviewing you because I feel that what you do is important. I think it's important to so many people. You have a good circulation. You educate people and in terms of what's out there—rock n' roll. I mean, people can buy your magazine, look at it and go "you know what, I'm going to buy a couple of these records and just check it out."

JR: Well, hopefully. What I like the most is when people e-mail me and say I bought such and such record on your recommendation, I never would have heard them otherwise. Boy that is great. I got a lot of those letters after Idlewild because I reviewed that as an import. And even when that album finally came out a year later, just people finally buying it going, wow, you were really on to something there. Thank you for letting me know.

JR: I'm just trying to help. It's the same spirit I had 21 years ago. I'm trying to add to the discourse of what's going on. To spread information, and to just say wow, this stuff really turns me on. And if it does to me, it probably will to you too, if you have even vaguely similar tastes. That it has that energy and that honesty and that ability which you can't separate from the equation either.

DF: You talk about honesty and that's what I get from The Big Takeover. I feel that you're honest and I feel that the writers are honest.

JR: Well, we are trying to be because I think people can see through bullshit. I think a lot of magazines don't give their readers much credit for being able to patently see through all their wiles. For instance, you pick up a magazine and there is this fawning review of some record and then a big feature and then there is an Ad, right. That's fine because you want people to advertise in your magazine. But I think with us, people trust us because they know we are just as likely to give an advertised record a bad review. You know, and we don't trade content for advertising. On the other hand, with a lot of magazines, you can just sort of see through it. You can see that they don't really love this record. They are straining to play it into something bigger than it is. Or they are just trying to build up some scene to sell magazines. We don't do that. We don't create scenes that don't exist. We just document those that come up on their own.

DF: I read one of your responses to a reader who had a problem with somebody that had reviewed a record.

JR: Steve Gardner's review.

DF: Yeah, and all I could think of—I review a lot of stuff on my Fufkin and occasionally one of the writers will send something in that they didn't like something. I'll just basically say, look, if there is something you didn't like and you give your reasons for it, I respect you enough as a writer, with knowledge to make that statement. As long as it doesn't get personal and as long as it's something that you can back up, it goes up. It goes up unedited. I think that that seems to be your style.

JR: Obviously, it's a minority vote. Reviews are negative but I think it is pretty obvious in our negative reviews that there is constructive criticism too. It's very easy to hand a paper back to a student and say that your paper sucks. It's another thing to get out the red pen and make suggestions. This is why I didn't like your paper. Or this is why I like your previous papers and I think you are on the wrong track now on this one. That I preferred your work before and this is why. Or for instance, a more typical review, you're not there yet with this paper, but I see potential if you strengthen these areas. I think in a way I mean it's not that I'm a teacher and that bands are my pupils by no means. But to me, without that criticism just to say that this record sucks is of no use to the reader. The reader doesn't get any indication why you think it's bad. And then if he disagrees with it, he just thinks you're a jerk. You hate that record, fuck you. It reminds me of Jello Biafra talking about when he was a kid in Boulder and how the local rock critic would just rip up the Stooges record or the Ramone's records and just say this was worthless music. Kind of like the letter to Circus I printed about the Ramone's review. And he would just read those reviews and go any thing this guy hates, I'm obviously gonna love. You know, this guy hates Alice Cooper, I love Alice Cooper. In a way, sometimes the negative reviews can inspire people.

DF: I think sometimes the negative review will kind of make somebody think if it's cogent and if it says something. The reader may ask: "why is this person writing this?"

JR: Yeah, most of the negative reviews of punk rock just attracted me. I kept thinking well if they stirred up this kind of adverse reaction, at least it'd be something I'd like to hear. How could it be so bad?

DF: This month, one of my writers talked about the new Radiohead record and he didn't care for it. And the reason for what he said was that he has so much respect for what their potential is as a band and that's the thing. He has a certain expectation and he doesn't think they are meeting that expectation.

JR: Well, that's a very fair criticism. I don't know if I agree with it or not, but that's not even the point. The point is that he gave it some thought and really tried his best to get at the essence of the record which is the ultimate ruling. You can't really help people as a reviewer unless you show them that you put in that effort which is what I was trying to say to that response. I've often seen very bad reviews of records I've cherished. We hear the same thing and then we come to two different conclusions about the relative worth. But I respect people who put in that time. I don't respect people who kind of off-handedly dismiss something. And it's very clear from their prose that they were just trying to be clever and not in any way indicate this effort that they put in to find something worthwhile in this record to get at what really is good or bad about it.

JR: They just want to be jokey and just like say this is a good fart in the bathtub. You know, I don't need that. In the end, everybody's review sort of adds to the dialogue I think, good and bad. It gives you kind of like a point counter point. So that you don't be staunch one way, and think that that's the only way. For instance, if I want to take a position on a public issue, it's not really useful for me to only parrot the one side I favor. I think if I'm going to write an editorial, it's just as important for me to at least address the different view points that I dismiss. To at least log them into my editorial. For instance, even the new one I did on Napster, I included a number of arguments in favor of Napster, saying that I felt they should lose the case. Otherwise, who would want to read my editorial. It's not sufficient to me just to put in an alternate view which I did. It's also very important to put in the views contrary to my final assertion, to at least guage their merits. I think that's true as a reviewer as well. You don't have to put in a couple of quite negative comments in a record you cherish. You know, you find little small flaws, quietly note them and move on.

DF: That kind of leads into my next question which asks you about print media in this country. I really think that Seagrams control the print media to such an extent that their view is what's written about in Rolling Stone and in Spin. I know that a lot of those writers have great taste but I don't see it on the page. I think it goes back to what we were talking about, maybe they're constrained.

JR: What are the magazines for? These are entities who have long since lost their mission. Rolling Stone really was a music magazine once. It's a lifestyle magazine now. And even when it was more music than lifestyle some years ago, it was still more interested in fashion. Music as a fashion, who's hip, who's critically lauded, who's this and that and the other thing. There is no room for renegades in those magazines.

DF: There are some magazines recently, I think Revolver, I subscribed, and I just got the new issue and it looks like they've changed their format. Now, they are calling themselves the world's greatest hard rock magazine. You know, SlipKnot's on the cover. But when I subscribed in the first issue, it looked like they might go into a MOJO direction or something.

JR: Maybe that is something that I am proud of then because I really don't think our first issue is at all different from our 48th. We never lost our mission, we've just gotten bigger.

DF: You've gotten bigger and it has the same theme.

JR: The difference is I'm not Jann Wenner. His desire is to attend lavish parties and be a big shot and make a lot of money. My position is as it ever was. If I sit down with you at a restaurant and askwhat kind of music do you like, maybe you don't even know anything about underground music. You know, I'll just say hey, here's some records that I recommend, here's some shows that I've seen that are important. Here's some ideas that I was thinking about. Or even beyond music, just to remind music fans that music is only a part of life; and is at it's best when it reflects the outside world, I touch on issues outside of music you know? I've done editorials about Health Care, about the Gulf War, about the Elections, about the Drug War. I've done a number of non-musical editorials. I even did one on getting over a romantic loss. So whatever is on my mind, I write about. I wrote two about death fairly recently too. A lot of people commented on these.

DF: Have you ever considered writing a book?

JR: Have I considered writing a book? Only in the sense that at least once a month somebody asks me to. My favorite was the Joe Strumer interview where he suggested I write one.

DF: It must have been a thrill to meet him?

JR: Oh, it was a thrill to me him. Again, playing "Safe European Home" at an ear splitting volume and going down to the Palladium a few months later and seeing them open with that song at ear splitting volume from the second row. I can't even begin to describe how orgasmic that was.

JR: Joe Strumer was a joy and it was nice of him to say that I should write a book. It was really a funny thing coming from someone that I admired that much to say hey, I respect what you're doing and I think you really should do this.

DF: How many Clash shows have you seen in New York?

JR: I saw all the ones up through when they moved from the Palladium to Bonds. I didn't really like Sandinista that much and I didn't want to see every single Bond show. I think I saw three. I went more as driven by the opening bands to see what used to be one of my favorite bands, The Bad Brains. But I guess I saw them about 10 times. The Ramones I saw around 15 or 20, Bad Brains I saw around 80.

DF: This is again a loaded question but you've seen so many shows. Is there any show that stands out above all the others ones that you think may have been one of the most incredible shows you've ever seen?

JR: Clash at the Palladium for sure. I mean I've never seen a band work a big theater stage like that. Four or five Bad Brain's shows just tore the absolute sockets out of my nervous system. The '81 Bad Brains, the '80 Bad Brains, the '79 Bad Brains were a force of nature not unlike a hurricane coming to a place that had never seen one. You know, hurricanes always go the same place like South Florida. What if a hurricane goes to North Dakota? Can't you see all the farmers standing around going, what the hell is that?

DF: It's interesting you talk about The Clash and bands from that era. I read that you played with the Buzzcocks recently?

DF: What was that like playing with those guys?

JR: You know it's weird, they were my favorite band in 1978 to 80. They were my Beatles. Once I discovered them after the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash, I came across the Buzzcocks. I played them so nonstop I'm surprised there's grooves on any of my original copies of those records. But over time, starting in '87, I got to know them. I stayed at Steve Diggle's house in Manchester because I was one of the few people writing about his solo band that got to know him. And I got to know Pete after the band reformed in '89. They became pretty strong acquaintances of mine. So opening for them was kind of different, in a way, because I was playing with my friends.

JR: Much like if I play with a local band that are friends of mine. Only on the same token here's this band that has meant so much to me for so long, I made a very small speech just before the end of our set. Saying, ‘You know, I can't tell you what it feels like playing on the same bill with a band that was my favorite band as a teenager. And I hope all of you get to experience it someday. Since I can't describe it, I will wish it on everyone of you.

DF: That's amazing, how long have you been playing with Last Burning Embers, right, that's the name of your band?

JR: Yeah, and Springhouse as well, we're back making an album.

DF: What's going on with that?

JR: Well, we're in the studio about once a week with Springhouse, just working on the vocals because the backing track has long since been finished. We've been working on it kind of slowly for a few years now.

DF: Are you guys playing anywhere in New York in the next month?

JR: Not since '94. Last Burning Embers has had about 15 gigs now.

DF: Do you have anything coming up?

JR: We're playing a lounge next month. But more to the point we're making an album. At the end of August we go in for 6 straight days. Springhouse, unfortunately, doesn't have a big block of time where we can just work for three weeks and finish an album. All three of us are off doing different things. Mostly, those two guys, cause I would do it, just clear the decks.

DF: You occasionally play with the Black Watch?

JR: Yeah, that's right, we did two gigs, me and Larry from Springhouse were the rhythm section. We have an invite to do it again next month too for at least one show. I'm not sure if Larry is free again.

DF: Just a couple of last questions about Indie Zines and some of the things in New York. I'm a big fan of just going to See/Hear in New York and just looking around. Ted at See/Hear has been a supporter of yours for a long time, correct?

JR: Yeah, Ted and I are pretty good acquaintances. Every now and then he will call me up and say that some media outlet is coming down to find out about Fan-Zines and would I like to take part which is really nice of him. I think he respects me.

DF: There are a zillion Zines out there. Are there any Zines out there that you really like?

JR: I wish I was the guy to ask. I feel kind of bad, feeling sort of out of touch with a lot of them because I don't have a great deal of time to read them. I kind of flick through them more than anything because a magazine is a gigantic out pouring of my time. I often don't have the time I'd like to devote to even reading like a Tolstoy novel, which I still read, but it takes me three times longer. You know, like right now I'm finishing a really short Agatha Christie mystery and I think I started it three weeks ago. It's really hard to follow a mystery when you only get to read once every few days.

DF: It seems that you must be pretty busy listening to just the records that come in to review?

JR: Well, I do. I mean I have my assistant here working right now I just spent the last minute and a half helping her move the CD's from one shelve to another. We're getting like 15 -20 a day. I try to listen to as much as I can, but a lot of the times I really can't.

DF: You certainly have a huge amount of records that you review in detail.

JR: Well, you've been talking to me for a while have you heard any music in the background?

DF: Yes, a little bit.

JR: There's always music playing here. I just came back from a week in London and Paris, actually two weeks in London and Paris and I didn't listen to a single scrap of music. That was on purpose. To me it was a vacation as much for music is my job.

DF: You need to relax a little bit you know

JR: Yeah, just thought it would be nice. A little break. But here I am playing, let's see, Ron Sexsmith, TSOL's new album The Lucy Show, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Teenage Fanclub is the last one. That's five records going around right now, shuffle play.

DF: That's what you do. You listen to music and you react to it and you tell the truth.

JR: You know, right now this song playing by Ron Sex Smith cover of "Thumbelina." And you know like my life is immeasurably improved having this song in it than not having this song in it. I pity the fact that the vast millions of people in this world will never have any idea that this song exists. It's sort of the theme of the first song on this album. It goes, ‘I brought a song into this world, how will this song survive, so many songs have died at birth' he says. I think most of them didn't die at birth, they died in childhood. When they got released and no one listened to them. So I can't even claim to have listened to all of them. But I'd like to think that I am at least a court of last sense. Kind of like Whoopie Goldberg's character in Monkey Bone when she played Death. You know, I might send you back out into the world so people can hear you for a change.

DF: Well, I know that as an artist if you send in a CD to the Big Takeover you hope to get your CD reviewed.

JR: Well, we have disappointed far more than we've encouraged just because we can't possibly review 25 CD's a day. We'd have a magazine that would stretch for 800 pages.

DF: I've had the privilege of being reviewed in your magazine twice and it certainly was a huge thrill for me.

JR: Thank you. You are one of the few I guess you could say we encouraged. Fortunately, you were doing something that caught my ear.

JR: Did I do the reviews?

DF: No, it was somebody else.

JR: Well, you got past me. You were one of the three out of the 25 that day. That I said, well this has something, let's try it, let's review it.

JR: Well, we try not to leave anybody out. Every now and then somebody will get on me because they'll say he used to be in the Stooges or the lead who used be in the blah blah, and I'll say, ‘everyone know's that'. And they'll say, ‘everyone'. Were you ever 16? I always tell them that story about how we read about Lou Reed and how he has a band called the Velvet Underground and we'd buy a Velvet Underground record. If they hadn't said it we wouldn't have known. Not everybody comes in the world sophisticated. I will know twice as much in ten years that I know now. I'll be writing about some obscure '40s R&B artist that I never heard of in this moment in time. That's why the search always continues for me. There's 5 zillion artists and I've heard of just the tiniest little percentage of them of all the records I've heard. That's the thing. I am out there looking. I am always out there looking for other records that really knock me out of the bed in the morning.

DF: Good music will leave a legacy and that might be a good way to end the interview. Because I think that is what you do. You will leave a legacy. I mean, if you stop publishing the Big Takeover tomorrow, I think it's made a mark. I think it's influenced people. I think you've taught people a lot of things and if you haven't, you have allowed them to think and maybe react and say, look, I don't agree with this. But it's honest.

JR: Yes, I'd like to think if I did necessarily teach anybody something that I brought them their perspective and beyond that I encouraged them to get more involved. Not only in music but in any creative pursuit. Because I think a lot of people struggle through life like why do I get out of bed in the morning, there's got to be more to it than this. I'm always trying to tap people back into that original potential they had of just being alive and vaguely healthy. Time is an opportunity. That being alive is an opportunity and we ought to seize it to do good things that will inspire other people. Why not. It's kind of like a hockey plus minus. You know, you're out on the ice, do you do something that contributes to a goal or do you contribute to something that's against a goal. Kind of a Steinbeck philosophy that I stole from East of Eden from that two page chapter he wrote where he just lays it on the line, ‘is your life a good one or is your life a bad one' you know, will people cry big tears when you're dead or will they say well that's good I never liked him anyway. You can't bullshit people. You either really contributed out of your genuine desire and your heart or you didn't. As a musician and as a writer that's what I want to do.

DF: Well, you have accomplished that goal.

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