"A crumpled cluster of sling slams from the last decade of the last century". With these words Howe Gelb welcomes you to ten years of the sunsets watched and shadows spun by his band, Giant Sand, and gathered together on their new disc, 'Selections Circa 1990-2000'. Steeped in dusky brilliance and dustbowl sounds, the Arizona outfit have blazed a trail on the highways of American music over 21 albums (and as many years) with their fusion of country, blues and rock. 'Selections…' gathers together some of those journeys and features (among others) Evan Dando, Victoria Williams, Juliana Hatfield, Lisa Germano and the late slide guitar legend Rainer Ptacek. Here Gelb relives the memories of when each song went down on tape.
Shiver (From the album 'Chore of Enchantment'.)The most unique memory I have of this song is that none of us recorded it. A guy named Kevin Salem heard us attempt it and called me saying that he would like to re-record the song and send it back to me. I didn't know what he was talking about until it showed up - what you hear is what showed up. He had friends and musicians he knew play on it and then I just walked in and did the vocal and guitar. It was kind of like karaoke. We usually like to change things every time we record and this was the first time we didn't have to record to record!
Temptation of Egg (From the album 'Chore of Enchantment'. Sung with Juliana Hatfield.)Juliana came into town and we were thinking of doing another OP8 [Giant Sand side project] record and doing it with her. I asked her to stick around because I had the idea for this song. I love her voice so much I don't want to hear the other instruments so much as just to hear her sing.
The Inner Flame (From 'The Inner Flame', a tribute record to Giant Sand friend and collaborator the late Rainer Ptacek.) Rainer had gone through a hard year of treatment, dealing with his brain cancer and having to actually relearn how to play guitar from scratch. And not only did he get it back down, but he was playing as good as or better than I ever heard him. I came in on him once and he was in his room writing and I heard him play this song. I mentioned to him very casually, 'maybe we should record this and see what happens'. The next day he thought about it and said 'yeah, let's do it'. We did it in one take.
Sand (A Lee Hazelwood cover and the original mix of a song that would later appear on the OP8 album 'Slush'. Sung with Lisa Germano.)A long time ago a woman named Joyce Linehan, who was managing Barbara Manning, suggested we cover this song with Barbara and we never got around to it. Years later Lisa wanted to record a couple of songs with us and Joey [Convertino, drums] remembered the 'Sand' suggestion. It was Lisa's idea at the last second to sing the male lyrics and for me to sing the female ones. It kind of makes sense when I hear it back - it's what the guy in the song is thinking in his own head. Obviously it's his own voice but he's thinking of what the girl told him.
Music Arcade (Taken from the album 'The Rock Opera Years: Official Bootleg No 2'. Sung with Evan Dando and Victoria Williams.)Neil Young was a big influence on me growing up. We did this up in Joshua Tree when Victoria was recording and then Evan came to town and sang the last verse. He'd never heard the song before and he sang it so tenderly and tentatively that it kind of worked really well. That's him on the last verse.
Remain Distorted (An unused song from the 'Glum' recording sessions later to appear on 'Unsunglum: Official Bootleg No 3'. Sung with Lisa Germano.)We first met Lisa when we did the 'Glum' record. She was going out with the producer so she just came up with all these suggestions to sing and play. We stumbled into each other's world's pretty comfortably. She would pick up any instrument and play and everybody seemed to be tripping on what everybody else was doing. It was almost like a tag team. Somebody would put in their 20 minutes and then somebody else would take over. It was an exceptional way of working, we haven't done it like that since.
Yer Ropes (From the album 'Glum'. Sung with Trina Shoemaker.)Trina was actually the recording engineer on that album and this was one of those songs that we made up in the studio, there were a bunch of them. I love how she sung it, she went over every line and recorded her own voice over it and made it more of a 'thing'. You can also hear Rainer's slide guitar on it.
Corridor (From the album 'Purge and Slouch'.)The whole idea was to make some noises and make it up then and there in the studio. Instead it turned into whatever 'Purge and Slouch' was. That's literally what we felt we were doing: purging and slouching on the couch and playing. We recorded it at the same place we did the 'Chore' record, our friend's house out in the desert. The very same place where Rainer recorded right before he died.
Stuck (From the album 'Centre of the Universe'.)This goes back to when we were on severe budgets and we had to use used tape and try and fit everything on one record. I was living up in the desert in Joshua Tree. I didn't have anything up there to record with so I remember calling Victoria Williams' answering machine as I wrote this song, just so I knew it would be on tape somewhere. I called her answering machine, left five different parts of the song. Then I got the tape from her later and I assembled it. That was a real fun time.
Centre of the Universe (As above.)It's kind of my favourite record as far as songs go. I think it has to do with living up in the desert completely alone and not having TV or anything and just writing. There was a little town, not even a town, just a few houses about five miles down the road and it was where our friend Pappy Allen lived. There was a bar called Pappy and Harriet's Pioneer Town Palace and that sort of became the centre of the universe for us.
Nowhere (From the album 'Ramp'. Sung with Pappy Allen.)Pappy's Bar was really in the middle of nowhere, like a dream. He welcomed us into his world and I had written this song and asked him record it with us. He nailed it first time. He was like 74-years-old and we took him out on the road. He was incredible: a big strong guy, a cowboy, a construction worker, a biker, a country singer and the most positive person I ever met. When you meet people like that it gives you a whole lot of hope about what you can do with your life and what life can do with you.
Wonder (From the album 'Ramp'. Sung with Victoria Williams.)Right after I met Pappy I was invited to come down and sing at a show in LA. I was helping Pappy work on part of his bar one night and I casually asked him did he want to sing that night in Hollywood. I told him we could drive down and work up a song. He said that he would and we got in my old car and drove down. I taught him the song on the way down there. When we arrived Victoria was backstage and that's where we met her. We just fell in sonic love.
Burning Desire (From the album 'Sage Advice'. Sung with Lucinda Williams.)That was a song I wrote driving back to Tuscon to record it at what would become the Wave Lab studios. If you hear the whole song it's just sort of a wonderful wreck. I really love Lucinda's singing on the chorus. I took the choruses and sort of smashed them together and I put a little of bit of radio noise in between them and that's what you ended up with. The music kind of bugs me. I'd like to re-do it someday.
Change Is Now (From The Byrds Tribute Album 'Time Between'.)That song came about from a compilation record that somebody was putting out and Russ Tolman wanted the chance to try to produce us. I thought it was a good mix of what we were doing: the noisy stuff with more fun country stuff.
Howe Gelb was in conversation with Harry Guerin.'Selections Circa 1990-2000' is out now on Vinyl Junkie/Loose.
