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July 20, 2004
Hello and Happy July!
Wanted to write a brief entry this
time out as I'm on the road again! Yes, I've finally joined the work
force by accepting a job for an unnamed network for an unnamed show!
If I told you about it all I'd have to kill you. You'd think that I
work for NASA or that I'm smuggling
secrets through
Baghdad. It's just a TV show! But mum is the word.
What I can tell you is that I'll be
on the road for five weeks! Where are they sending me? Paris? Milan?
London? Nope, Cleveland. And various cities in the Midwest that I
can't mention. Oh, okay, I'll mention a few: Louisville, Kentucky, and
St. Louis! There are a few others but again, secret agents would
happen upon your doorstep and rouse you from your sleep and brutal
punishment would ensue. The good news is that I'm back to the land of
my Ohio peoples.
Yes, the moment I touched down in
Cleveland, I was
instantly hit with that glorious Midwestern combo smell of farmland
and July heat. No, not
cow
patties, the smell of cornfields in the sun. The smell of my
childhood and home!
The crew and I walked from our hotel
to a restaurant and my producer said, "Well, what do we do now?" and I
joked, "Well, when I was a kid, we'd spend a long, summer night away
by hitting
lightning
bugs with
wiffle ball bats." Just as I said that, we suddenly noticed that
we were surrounded by
lightning bugs!
It was an Ohio moment! And let me
just apologize to all of the lightning bug community for my early acts
of brutality when I was young.
I'm basically traveling separately
from my crew meaning I'm traveling all by myself and finding my way
around the cities... all by myself! This is quite handy for bathroom
stops, carefree restaurant choices, and singing loudly in the car, but
it makes for a boring old time when you finish work and land back at
the hotel at 6pm with no pals to play with! Amy no mates! Makes me
envious of bands who stroll into town, work and then have several cool
people and dare I say, some of them foxes, waiting to go out with them
or show them the town! I emailed this to a drummer friend of mine and
told him that I needed some
groupies! He wrote
back, "Heard that sister!"
All groupies who want to show my
friend the town on his next tour, please apply in writing with all of
your past experiences and rock references to his website....
KIDDING!
I've taken a few good books with me
to read and have thoroughly enjoyed
Belinda Jones' book: "On
the Road to Mr. Right". The perfect read for a road trip or
even if you're stuck in your flat for the summer. You can escape
vicariously! I also love love loved the book by Jen Sincero called "Don't
Sleep With Your Drummer". My friend Katie recommended it to me
since it reminded her of my 'style' of writing. (I didn't know I had a
style and thought it was probably "off the top of my head".) She was
right and it was practically a diary in spite of the fact that it's
fiction. There are plenty of LA references and it's about a woman in
her thirties who decides that she wants to be a rock and roll star
when she grows up. I loved it and it was very funny. Okay, so enough
of Amy's book club. Let's mosey on over to music, shall we?
The night before I left for my
Midwest adventure, I went to see
Neil Finn and
Tim Finn in concert. The Finn
brothers played LA and I managed to get there just as the doors opened
to pass out flyers for OFTR. As at the
last Elvis
Costello gig, I ran into past recipients of
glennmovie flyers. Sorry about that, but I
gotta keep trying to spread the love! I just went up and down the line
to get in asking if there were any Squeeze fans. The Finn fans are
almost always fans of Glenn, which is why I'd love for any of you out
there who are going to catch the brothers in concert, to at least take
a few flyers and paste them on a bathroom stall door or something!
Most Finn fans are surprised to hear that Glenn is still around and
making music. Almost everyone hadn't been aware of
Glenn's new
album... until I told them about it. Some lovely folks offered to
help the movie in various ways and gave me their cards but since I was
leaving at the crack of dawn the next morning, I wasn't able to follow
up as quickly as I would've liked.
A few reactions that I got made me
laugh. Often times the fans would say, "You gave me a flyer two years
ago! You're STILL not done with the movie??" Well, I'm done but I'm
still trying to get people to see it and trying to raise money in
order to enter more festivals, have more screenings and get more
awareness. With awareness, comes interest and then hopefully, a DVD
distributor and/or television network to buy the flick. How lovely
would it be to sit around the TV say, at Xmas time in Britain and have
GT: OFTR appear on your TV schedule amongst the other
cool holiday viewing! Or if you live in the States, to have the
documentary air on VH1 after the
Squeeze: Bands Reunited special! Keep your fingers crossed!
Back to the concert. After flyering
fun, my friends Tony and Gretchen turned up. Gretchen knows the
guitarist, the fabulously talented Tim Smith. You might know him as
Sheryl Crow's right hand
man/guitarist/vocalist. He's faboo and put Tony, Gretchen, and myself
on the list. We scooched up to the front of the crowd (I'd say about
20th row) and rocked the night away. They played Weather With You
and History Never Repeats and the crowd went crazy. The Finn
harmonies were heavenly as always and Tim S. was playing bass like a
champ in the background. A guy in the audience named Todd offered his
services to sing on It's Only Natural, so they brought him
onstage and he sat down at the piano like it was an everyday
occurrence! The great thing was, he didn't hog the mic or pretend that
he 'belonged' up there, it was as if he just pulled up a chair and
decided to sing along. He actually sounded great and he improvised
some harmonies which inspired a surprised look on Tim and Neil's
faces. They were truly amazed and I think, relieved since it could've
gone horribly wrong. My favorite bit was before Todd started singing,
he said to the audience, "These guys are the most underrated singer
songwriters of our time and they should be playing the
Staples Center!" The crowd
let up a huge round of applause and it was so lovely because I think
everyone who sees Neil and everyone who sees Glenn, feels the same
way. They both should be selling out stadiums and are just not
appreciated enough!
Gretchen and I sang along to the
songs and my personal highlight of the gig was my favorite Finn song
Only Talking Sense. It was perfectly sublime. Their harmonies
make me feel like I'm cocooned in sugar. After the gig we three
marched backstage and who should we find there but
Grant Lee Phillips,
Jon Brion (he cowrote the
Aimee Mann song That's Just
What You Are - Glenn sings my fave harmonies of all time on that
ditty!) and then one of my favorite, favorite singer/songwriters of
all time: Jason Falkner!
They all conglomerated backstage to meet Neil and Tim Finn and I
thought, "Why not have Paul
McCartney and Glenn show up to make my pop fantasy complete??!"
Sadly, I did not talk to Neil. I was too shy! I was wearing my
fabulous One For the Road shirt and I
had sent him a copy of the movie ages ago and I just didn't want to
have some stilted, awkward conversation. I met Tim S., Gretchen's
friend, who I actually met years ago when I lived in London! I was
working for Channel 5 at the time
and swung some tickets to see Sheryl Crow play a private gig at
Abbey Road Studios. Being a
Beatles fan, it was a dream come
true to be in Studio 2
and being a Sheryl fan, it was doubly thrilling. Tim was playing with
Sheryl at the time and I met him afterwards. (although it was brief
and I'm sure he didn't remember.) Anyhoo - it was lovely to meet Tim
S. and he shared the fact that he is a huge Finn fan! I asked him if
he was thrilled to be playing with them and he said that it is such a
dream come true that it hasn't sunk in yet! LA was only his third gig
with them! I love stories like that! I also found out that Tim S.
played with
Jellyfish, one of my all time favorite bands.
I remember when I was coaxed onstage
by
Nick Seymour of
Crowded House
back in 90 I think it was. Two other girls got up with me and we
belted out the song In the Lowlands. They pulled up another guy
onstage after us and proceeded to ask the crowd to vote who was the
better singer and sadly and rather unfairly, the guy won. I thought us
chicks were pretty damn groovy but hey, there you go. It was the
ultimate karaoke. You hear the song so many times when you're driving
in your car, or hoovering your carpet or whatever and then all of a
sudden the actual song, as it is heard on the record starts playing
behind you and it's the actual BAND playing it for you! It was one of
the highlights of my rock and roll life and I'm just glad that Neil
doesn't remember it!
Tim S. shared with me that his wife
had recently seen Glenn in concert in Atlanta and was blown away by
the gig. I told him that I did the documentary and that I had a copy
of the movie in my bag and his eyes widened and he said excitedly, "Gimme!
Gimme!" So I did. Who knows... maybe he'll pop it in the tour bus and
all can enjoy it! Looking forward to getting his reaction.
Speaking of reactions to the movie,
National Public Radio here in the US
recently featured Glenn on their
Weekend
Edition on July 18th. Unbeknownst to me, they requested a screener
of the movie and the folks at
Compass Records were on the ball and sent them the VHS that I had
sent them. The NPR producer and host watched the movie and loved it
and they played some clips from the movie on the show! They plugged
the documentary and even said to Glenn, "We loved the documentary
One For the Road, how did that come about?" And the ever rambling
Glenn then went on for like, an hour about how much he loves the RV!
Cheers Glenn! www.glennmovie.com Learn it,
live it, love it. SHARE IT! Well, I suppose I should be thankful that
the movie was mentioned at all! And I am! The NPR site has the
interview archived on the site if you want to have a listen. The
movie bits aren't heard in the ten minute snippet provided on the
site, but if you click on the whole Sunday show and then go to the
Glenn piece, you'll hear the movie's dialogue and music.
NPR is HUGE in the US and my inbox
was inundated with emails from new fans and even friends who were
amazed at the mention! Several kind folks promptly signed up on my
mailing list and I was even contacted for some possible interviews so
a big, huge THANKS to NPR! A documentarian friend of mine heard the
radio program which reminded him that I sent the movie ages ago for
him to critique. He ran to his desk and underneath piles of paperwork
and tapes, he dug out my flick and finally watched it. His comments
were all very positive and he wrote that he loved the movie's "goofy
warmth" and that there were some lovely, funny moments as well as just
the right bit of melancholy and that Glenn comes across very well in
the flick! High praise indeed coming from a pro like him. I was
flattered and honored and looked forward to having MORE people see the
darn thing!
Still looking for sponsorship in
order to take the movie around the country and still working hard
trying to get the movie out to you. Watch this space and I thank you
again for your patience and support! I am finished with this job in
five weeks or so and if I come across any cities that you are in and
you're free for a beer, drop me an
email!
Rocking from the
Midwest,
Amy
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