Joey Burns
Calexico
What are your hopes and plans for 2007?
Chill out at home, read, write and do some recording projects here and there. I would like to travel to South America, Eastern Europe, and China if possible.
What was the best album released in 2006 that few people heard?
Vinicio Caposella’s Ovunque Proteggi (Atlantic Records Italy). We first heard of Vinicio’s music while touring in Italy a few years back and then in 2005 while working on Garden Ruin with producer JD Foster, Marc Ribot called up JD to ask if he and our band wanted to come work on an album with an Italian Tom Waits sort of character, Vinicio Capossela, in some caves in the south of Italy. We were curious but couldn’t make the last minute invitation. However, while on tour in April 2006 with Iron and Wine in Italy, Vinicio and his guitarist joined us onstage in Milan for a set of songs. It was stellar, the audience truly adored him and his odd sense of character. Salvador Duran who we had brought from Tucson joined in on vocals with Vinicio for a mesmerizing version of “Pena de Alma” sung in both Spanish and Italian. His music is hard to describe, it touches on many different styles (experimental, rock, ballad, Latin, classic, folk) and at the core of it all he has a larger than life personality that loves to surprise the listener from song to song.
What album or song do you feel best defines this generation?
Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet” from the album Time Out Of Mind.
What’s the biggest goal for your life that you have yet to achieve?
Balance.
With the rise of MySpace and the ever-increasing presence of bloggers, what is your feeling about using the Internet as a promotional tool? Will MySpace last and are you actively involved in your band’s MySpace page? With the music blogs seen as an increasingly influential source for breaking new artists, do you read them and are they a positive influence that bypasses the industry machinery or just empty hype?
I like that more voices can be heard and ideas/opinions can be shared or discussed online. The tools will keep on expanding and the companies will be slow to the punch, but in the end people will always want to see, hear, experience art in person and hang out together. I send messages to our record label who maintain our MySpace page. I often look for new music and bands on MySpace as well and then look for links to more substantial information and background. I do research online more and more and I appreciate when I can access music and information easily. As for paying attention to blogs, I don’t spend too much time there, I tend to want facts and make my own opinions.
If the world were ending in 24 hours, what would you do in those 24 hours?
Be with the one I love at the water’s edge.
If you could be one fictional character, who would you be and why?
I would be Nobody from the film Dead Man. I like the idea of helping people find their way when lost. I guess the music does that for me. It’s simple and taps deep into the spirit and flesh.
In 2006, what was the best movie you saw, book you read, and/or TV show you watched?
Books: Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, Charles Bowden’s A Shadow In The City as well as his article on immigration titled Exodus, which appeared in the Sept/Oct ‘06 issue of Mother Jones Magazine, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Bill Carter’s Fools Rush In, John Peel’s Margrave of the Marshes. Movies: We Jam Econo-The Minutemen. TV: Deadwood on HBO, Rome on HBO, World Cup Soccer Games (Zidane!), National League Baseball Playoff Games.
Do you have any other thoughts about the current state of the world or the state of the music industry?
I like the fact that the music industry is changing and hope that bands and artists will continue to tour or be able to afford to do so.
1/2007