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 GOING UNDERGROUND
Little Steven Van Zandt wants people to remember what’s cool. He’s even willing to help them do it. By James Mayfield
Whether he’s wielding a Gibson Firebird onstage as part of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, roughing up someone in his role as Silvio Dante on HBO’s The Sopranos, or introducing the world to a new radio format, Little Steven Van Zandt takes on each role with passion, professionalism, and seemingly endless energy.
“I really am a person who needs to do more than one thing,” says the Boston-born, New Jersey–raised Van Zandt. “That’s the only way I can give 100 percent to everything. Because if I’m just doing one thing,
I overwhelm it, and I wind up giving 200 percent to something, and it’s overkill.”
One of Van Zandt’s most personally satisfying interests is Little Steven’s Underground Garage, a syndicated show that offers an educational and eye-opening two hours of rock-and-roll radio. “We’ve got a bunch of young people listening for the new stuff and have older people listening for the old stuff, and we turn them on to each other’s music,” Van Zandt says. And there’s plenty of turning on happening: More than a million listeners tune in to Underground Garage in 200-plus markets. But wait — there’s more. Van Zandt has also created two stations for Sirius Satellite Radio: Underground Garage (channel 25) and its country cousin, Outlaw Country (channel 63). Between the three, Van Zandt has built a musical caulk gun, making sure nothing falls through the cracks.
When you talk to Van Zandt, who turns 56 on November 22, you can hear the enthusiasm in his voice as he reflects on the old days of rock and roll — when DJs and personalities ruled the airwaves and when listeners still got excited about music. And when he talks, you can’t help but get excited about the music as well.
Of all the musical genres, why have you chosen to champion garage bands on your radio program? We’ve somehow gotten to the twenty-first century having a format for everything but rock and roll. I can’t quite tolerate the fact that we’re going to have a generation or two of kids that have never heard it. It’s just not accessible to them. So what happened was I stumbled into this whole contemporary garage-rock world.
You’re talking about bands like the Hives, Vines, and White Stripes? Yep. They kind of don’t quite fit anywhere. I mean, the alternative stations will play them for a minute, and some of the harder-rock stations will play them for a minute. But mostly their music doesn’t quite fit. So I decided to get some of this on the radio. And then, as I created my show, I realized I was creating a format. So I said, “Let’s try it out 24/7 at Sirius Satellite.” That turned into two formats because the same exact thing is going on in country music. The great classic, older cats are being ignored, the new cats are being ignored, and all the interesting cats in between are being ignored. Things are starting to move in the right direction. I’m a radio fan; I want to bring people back to radio. They’ve been hearing bad radio for 15 years, man. I don’t blame them for leaving. We’re trying to bring them back. Yeah, there are going to be trends that come and go, fashions that come and go. But great rock and roll lasts a lifetime, and cool is forever. If you know what’s cool, you’re going to be all right. That’s what we try to do with Underground Garage: remind everybody to just keep that stuff alive.
But not just on the radio: You put together a tour called Little Steven’s Underground Garage Presents the Rolling Rock and Roll Show, which is ending this month. We are basically engaged in having to create a new infrastructure for rock and roll, because it no longer exists. In the one we grew up with, you had the local clubs, you could tour cheaply, you had tour support once you did get signed, and the local promoters were still a force of nature. Now there are all these national organizations. It’s a different vibe because, once they took over, you lost that local and regional base. Plus, you had local radio [before]. You could go on your local station and get played. We used to walk into the biggest station in New York anytime we felt like it. Walked in there and played DJ for an hour or two, y’know? It was the same all across the country. And now everything has kind of gone national, and everything has become homogenized.
We’re trying to bring back rock and roll in its most primitive and natural state, which is live and in person. When we do live shows, we try to have five decades represented onstage, because we always have five bands. We do it kind of the old Alan Freed and Murray the K way, where you have short sets and bang bang bang — you keep it moving. A local band gets a chance to play with some of the bigger bands, and that’s always fun too. Rolling Rock sponsors it. If these go well, we’re hoping Rolling Rock or somebody steps up so that we’ll get to do 12 tours next year. I want to do a tour every month.
What about your own touring with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band? I’ve got a feeling we will most likely do another record and do another tour with the E Street Band. I don’t see why not. We’re still getting better.
Yeah, you can tell by watching you onstage that you still really enjoy it. It’s fun, y’know? Bruce and I have been friends a long time [since 1965]. You don’t have that many friends who go back that far. So that’s unique in itself, but I just enjoy being with him — I got the best seat in the house for the show. After all these years, he can still make me laugh. And for the two, three hours or however long we play onstage up there, it’s just like a vacation for me. The Sopranos is like that too. It’s a wonderful, wonderful mental vacation away from being me. I get to be somebody else. I am going to very much miss that.
So who’s the tougher “boss” — Springsteen or Tony Soprano? [Laughs] They’re all cool. I’m really my own boss. It’s who I choose to serve at any given time. And I love it when the pressure is not all on me. ’Cause my radio world and my whole rock-and-roll world that I’m dealing with in my Underground Garage, that’s my real job. Those other things are just fabulous hobbies.
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Music
 Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3
Olé! Tarantula (Yep Roc)
Singer-songwriter
Robyn Hitchcock is one of those consistent talents who are easy to
overlook. Beginning his career in the late ’70s with arty English
postpunks the Soft Boys, he branched out on his own in the early ’80s
and has since created a catalog filled with a couple dozen albums of
perfect psych-folk whimsy. Following the 2004 rootsy acoustic effort Spooked,
recorded with alt-country’s first couple, Gillian Welch and David
Rawlings, Hitchcock returns with a full-fledged pop-rock record, and
it’s another collaborative disc. This time, he’s aided by the Venus 3 —
a crew of Seattle-based musicians led by Minus 5 front man Scott
McCaughey and featuring R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Bill
Rieflin — although a few of Hitchcock’s countrymen, including vets like
his old Soft Boys bandmate Kimberly Rew and Faces keyboardist Ian
McLagan, also turn up. The material here is heavily informed by
Hitchcock’s recent travels in America: The desert groove of the title
track was inspired by an extended stay in Arizona, the jaunty fantasy
tale “Belltown Ramble” name-checks the Emerald City enclave, and San
Francisco turns up as a character in the Clint Eastwood–referencing
“A Man’s Got to Know His Limitations, Briggs.” Elsewhere, Hitchcock
writes poignantly of a fellow rocker in “NY Doll,” a halting requiem
for the recently departed New York Dolls bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane.
Musically, McCaughey’s influence is evident on a handful of tracks,
including the upbeat ’60s janglers “Adventure Rocket Ship” and
“Underground Sun.” But ultimately, Hitchcock’s familiar adenoidal
vocals and left-of-center lyricism remain the highlights of a
collection that’s as engaging as any he’s released. — Bob Bozorgmehr
 The Lemonheads
The Lemonheads (Vagrant)
Back
in 1997, onstage at the Reading Festival, Evan Dando announced the
breakup of the Lemonheads. It was a rather curious act of
self-immolation, considering he was the only original member of the
group at the time. But Dando could be forgiven such eccentricities:
After all, in just a decade, he’d seen the Lemonheads grow from a jokey
high school punk band to a worldwide phenomenon, with the press seizing
on him as both a pretty pinup boy and a stoned rock weirdo. In the
meantime, the band and its revolving door lineup had become a vehicle
for his songs, which had begun to lose their luster by the time of
1996’s disappointing Car Button Cloth. A nearly seven-year recording silence followed before Dando reemerged in 2003 with his solo studio debut Baby I’m Bored.
Despite being an accomplished, mature singer-songwriter effort, the
muted reception to the disc and the continued popularity of the
Lemonheads — particularly internationally — prompted Dando to reform
the group in late 2005. The newly constituted lineup features drummer
Bill Stevenson and bassist Karl Alvarez, members of legendary pop-punks
the Descendents (themselves a seminal influence on the early
Lemonheads). The trio whips up a nearly perfect froth on the 11 tracks
here — an effort aided by the occasional guest, including the Band’s
keyboard wizard Garth Hudson and Dinosaur Jr. guitarist J Mascis.
Mostly, though, the focus remains on Dando’s simple, sublime songs and
his big, warm burr of a voice. The material ranges from the explosive
Jam-inspired “Black Gown” to the melancholy crunch of “Become the
Enemy” to the soaring, jangling “Pittsburgh.” It’s easily Dando’s
strongest batch of material since the classic It’s a Shame about Ray and an album worthy of the Lemonheads name. — B.B.
 My Morning Jacket
Okonokos (ATO/RCA)
In
decades past, the idea of a scuffling young band using a live album as
a means to a mainstream breakthrough wasn’t so unusual. Case in point:
The Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, Kiss’s Alive!, and Cheap Trick’s At Budokan
showed the power of the groups’ performances and helped turn around
their career fortunes. Louisville roots-pop combo My Morning Jacket has
always had a reputation as a breathtaking live act, and while the
group’s records have evinced a unique sounding quality, owing largely
to the reverb-loving ways of front man Jim James, their studio sets
have never really matched the experience of seeing them play in person.
MMJ has solved that dilemma with the release of Okonokos, a
sprawling concert collection that finally captures the band in its
truest form and which should help catapult them to the commercial
heights they deserve. The 22-song double-disc effort touches on the
group’s entire catalog, from their early independent albums to their
most recent efforts for Dave Matthews’s ATO label. James’s thrilling
falsetto and soulful charisma are the focal points, while the rest of
the group proves a dynamic and sympathetic bunch, carefully balancing
rock-band anthems and jam-band explorations. Enhanced by a near-perfect
sonic atmosphere, courtesy of engineer Michael Brauer (Bob Dylan, Simon
& Garfunkel), the mesmerizing, dreamy quality of MMJ’s music is
fully and finally realized here. — B.B.
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TV or Not TV?
With the fall television season in full swing, our TV critic goes behind the
scenes to see what most shows go through to get there. By Ken Parish Perkins
We’re
in a 48-seat screening room, sitting in comfy swivel chairs and
watching a television pilot. We’re also snickering and hissing instead
of being objective and unobtrusive, as was gently suggested by our
hosts at ASI Entertainment, a market-research concern that deals mainly
in television programming. But imagine Lisa Rinna and Gabrielle Reece
portraying kick-butt secret agents undercover as volleyball players in
a series called, no kidding, I Spike, and you’ll understand our unintentional insubordination.
Usually
the people in these chairs are average television watchers (not cynical
television critics). Reporters aren’t normally allowed here, but we’re
participating in a mock trial of sorts so that we can see what goes on
at ASI; I Spike was left to die long ago. So for now, we are
nothing more than normal viewers, the sort to whom ASI gives
approximately $75 and bottled water in exchange for their honest
opinions, delivered via a dial that registers every second of desire
and disgust. Viewers also fill out a lengthy survey with questions like
“What would you change?” and sit in a room to discuss everything about
the show: plot, dialogue, titles, music, scenery, and characters. While
nibbling on finger sandwiches and fingernails, show creators view it
all from behind two-way mirrors, taking in every facial expression,
tic, or twitch of these critics and even meticulously studying,
depending on their heart conditions, a real-time line graph of likes
and dislikes, which is charted right before their eyes on a monitor.
Sitting
in on focus groups like these can be, as one producer of a half-hour
comedy put it, “like sticking a sharp knife deep in your gut, and every
now and then, twisting it.” Which explains why Carl Reiner once broke
up a discussion group by bursting into the room and yelling, “I’ll take
it from here.”
“He lost it,” recalls an ASI employee. The
incident happened after someone in the focus group blurted, “He used to
have so much class. And now he’s associated his name with this?”
Testing
television pilots before committing to air a multiepisode series has
been a time-honored tradition since pretty much forever for broadcast
networks hoping to lower their margin of error. Because costs of
creating, staffing, and airing a television series are well into the
millions, the idea is to get as close to guaranteed success as
possible. Of course, a great pilot does not a great series make, nor do
all poorly testing series go down in flames. There’s a matter of weekly
execution, as Steven Bochco found out with the cop drama Brooklyn South, which tested high but went, ahem, south after a handful of episodes. On the other hand, Seinfeld tested poorly but ended up, well, you know where.
Shows with lukewarm results often use the information to retool and try again. All in the Family
was trashed for its lead being an unapologetic bigot, the wife being
too submissive, and the family dynamic being too chaotic, but a heavily
altered pilot convinced CBS to air what turned into a classic. No
wonder few things are as vital, and as secretive, in television as the
focus group, which has the power to rewrite dialogue it finds stale or
offensive, dump a title it doesn’t think makes sense, or indirectly
pink-slip an annoying actress.
ASI owner David Castler tells his
150 or so clients a year, who pony up $20,000 a session, to use the
focus groups for insight, direction, and information.
“It’s an excruciating process but a necessary evil,” says Ian Biederman, creator and executive producer of the new CBS series Shark,
starring James Woods. “You know from minute to minute whether they are
enjoying it or falling asleep. And you get to watch 12 to 14 people sit
around a table with a leader and answer specific questions about your
pilot: Did you like this character? Why not? Were you interested in
seeing more about this or that? It’s educational. But you may end up
going to a bar afterward.”
Opinions are registered with dials that go high for good and low for bad; a red button signals you’ve had enough. (I Spike
lost 60 percent of its audience in its first two minutes.) The graphs
are so specific, they tell producers which lines weren’t funny and
which characters caused a downward spike by merely entering a room.
Results are broken down by demographics like age, gender, and even
race. Networks pay more attention to their particular target. CBS
wouldn’t want a room full of young viewers, and Comedy Central wouldn’t
care to have older ones. For a series like Brothers & Sisters, an intense family drama, ABC wanted viewers who would normally like to see talky family dramas. Mainly women.
Men’s
scores dropped considerably during the talky relationship scenes of
that series, says Castler, while women’s perked up. That’s a given.
Another focus group truism: Women often lose interest when scantily
clad women are the focus, but men’s scores, no matter how bad the
program was beforehand, shoot up. (In our mock test, the male critics
were far more, shall we say, conciliatory during the fight scenes in a women’s prison. Hmm.)
The
frustrating part for network execs is that they still never really know
if a show will work or not. Television testing is hardly an exact
science, says Marti Noxon, who was executive producer of Brothers & Sisters
before quitting in August. It’s tricky, she adds, since overvaluing or
undervaluing the process could get you in trouble. Sometimes changes
are good. Other times, they rob a series of its heart.
“It’s a
weird process,” Noxon says. “And for creatives, it’s especially hard —
to feel that you’re living and dying by dials. But imagine what we’d
get if we relied on the tastes of business-minded executives.”
We know: I Spike.
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Season Pass
Most of the fall TV season is already in place, but a few stragglers are finally hitting screens this month. We size up two new shows and tell you if they’re worth committing to. Because a TiVo can only hold so much. (All times are Eastern.) By Zac Crain
Big Day
(ABC, Thursdays, 8 p.m.)
As the name (sort of) implies, Big Day tracks one couple’s march down the aisle. So, basically, it’s sort of like 24, only with wedding planners instead of, you know, terrorists and stuff. Speaking of 24, it’s the first thing we thought of when we heard this show’s concept. Why? Well, apart from Big Day’s similarone-day-over-one-season format, 24 actually covered some of this exact terrain a few years ago, when a blushing bride turned out to have ties to a terrorist plot scheduled to take place on her big day. Good stuff, right? That’s why 24 finally won an Emmy this year. But back to Big Day. The show, created by writers Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa (13 Going on 30), has three more or less likable leads — Marla Sokoloff (The Practice) as the bride-to-be, Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me!) as her pain-in-the-neck mom, and Josh Cooke (from not much, really) as the groom — and an interesting setup. Potential problems: Having sat through our own wedding videos on more than one occasion, we’d agree that there is undoubtedly a fair amount of drama, but a full season’s worth? Not sure. And what will the producers choose for next season, if there is a next season? Saving the world? Yeah, we buy that taking 20 or so episodes. Getting ready for, let’s say, a big promotion? Not so much.
Verdict: Worth a look, but don’t get committed. Yes, that’s a lame joke. We know.
Day Break
(ABC, Wednesdays, 9 p.m.)
Like Big Day, Day Break is somewhat following in 24’s footsteps, since the entire season (which will be short; it has 13 episodes in this time slot before Lost takes it back) tracks one torturous day in the life of Detective Brett Hopper, who has been framed for murder. But there’s a twist: That day doesn’t drag out over the course of the season, like it does in 24 and Big Day; it starts again every episode. You’re confused. Sorry. Cribbing the rest of its concept from Groundhog Day (which, by the way, is still awesome, no matter how many times it pops up on basic cable), Hopper’s bad day starts over every morning, so he has to go through it all again. Taye Diggs stars as Hopper, and this might be the role that allows him to make the leap to star status. We say “might” because while ABC has had a great run with serialized dramas over the past few years (Grey’s Anatomy, the first season of Desperate Housewives, the aforementioned Lost), it also has coughed up a few stinkers (Invasion, the second season of Desperate Housewives). Diggs has been a winning presence in just about everything he’s appeared in, so the time feels right. Of course, the time felt right when he tried to go the series route with Kevin Hill, so who knows?
Verdict: Book it. It’ll give you a nice placeholder until Lost comes back next year.
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