T-Model Ford Interview (1997)

My 1997 T-Model Ford interview tape has apparently disappeared for all time, joining a Redd Kross interview (drunkenly recorded on pause in its entirety) from sometime in 1984 or 1985 at the Rat and a 1982 phone interview with the Angry Samoans' Todd Homer (technical problems with my pre-WWII Radio Shack recording device) in that big RTB Interviewing Hall of Shame wing in the sky. The frustrating thing is that I was actually able to listen to all of T-Model's interview after I taped it, but multiple moves since then and a return to the East Coast in 1998 sort of help explain the organizational chaos that led to its loss. Let this be a cautionary tale for all you youngsters out there.

Although you will never know what fun you missed in not reading the interview, I feel like I ought to mention a couple of details about the show it was recorded at anyway. It took place in Long Beach, CA, sometime in 1997, while T-Model was out promoting that great, raw debut of his, Pee-Wee Get My Gun. T-Model and his drummer Spam were actually opening up for RL Burnside's band on the tour, making this part of a sensational Fat Possum double bill that still gets my musical salivary glands going when I think about it, and RL himself was fresh off the success of opening for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at some big hall show I saw them at in Hollywood a year or two before. Anyway, I was pretty excited to see both acts in what I assumed would be a smaller, more intimate setting.

T-Model's and RL's sets themselves were pretty awesome, but I only got it half-right about the venue. While smaller than the JSBX show, it was the sort of somewhat garish commercial blues club you might expect to find within walking distance of the tourist ship the Queen Mary. Anyway, after waiting around for T-Model to finish chatting up a couple of platinum blonde floozies at the bar after RL Burnside's group had finished, I finally got my chance to properly interview the man well after midnight. He was extremely friendly to me, patiently answering questions about whatever subject was put on the table; however, in freely offering stream of consciousness tidbits about the umpteen kids he'd fathered and/or various crimes he'd committed over the years, he sort of struck me as an extraterrestrial or something in terms of the impossible distance between his world and mine growing up. It's a shame the tape's lost because the transcript would've made an amazing read whatever your take on the guy's music itself.

In the absence of said interview, one of the coolest things to happen to me as a result of attending the show is that I ended up making a purchase that night from this young white guy who kind of looked like a college kid who was the guest second guitarist in RL Burnside's three-piece. This guy, "Schooley," basically hustled me into paying "list price" for a copy of his own band's debut LP sight unseen, but I forked over the extra money anyway since I liked his guitar playing and the thing was put out on Crypt Records--the gold standard for quality for me in those days. After not even playing the CD for a year or two later for some reason, I finally listened to it one day and was immediately blown away. It's called We Told You Not to Cross Us... by the Revelators, and it's well worth not losing over 10+ years later if you get my drift.

P.S. If you have the time, click here for a funny bit on Schooley's 1997 stint in RL Burnside's back-up band and up some hilarious insight into life on the road with T-Model and Spam.