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Charlie
Messing was once described to me as a "man with a
story." That assessment is somewhat of an
understatement . . . Charlie Messing has a lot of
stories, and we discussed some of them in the
following interview.
In
1977, Charlie played lead guitar on Robert Gordon's
first album, featuring the hit song "Red Hot" with
Link Wray. For the last twenty-two years, Charlie
has continued to write, record, and perform, both
solo and with bands. Earlier this year, Charlie
Messing released a new solo CD entitled
"Bit."
"Bit"
has a generous supply of seventeen great songs that
feature Charlie and his acoustic guitar. His guitar
arrangements are very full, and you need very
little imagination to hear the whole band. This
isn't folk music, it's not "unplugged" music, it's
a disc full of life. Yours, mine, and Charlie's.
Listening to "Bit" is like listening to yourself
talking, with Charlie Messing being the
interpreter. Imagine joining the innocence of Buddy
Holly and the sarcasm of Warren Zevon, and putting
your own life in the middle of it. There you'll
have "Bit."
"Bit"
by Charlie Messing can be purchased securely
on-line at:
http://www.bigheavyworld.com/framesets/store.html
After
arriving at this URL, click on "ALT/POP" to get to
Charlie's CD, "Bit".
Charlie
Messing's website
http://www.bethatwaydotcom.com/
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the
CHARLIE MESSING interview
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Q:
Charlie,
I've been listening to your new solo album "Bit."
Where does the CD title "Bit" come from?
Charlie:
Bit
. . . well, it's a good multiple use word. It means
this is a bit of what I do, it refers to a tiny
particle of which all matter is made and could also
mean I've been bitten. Also, it's a showbiz term
for an "act." Bit is both an action word and a very
still, finite tiny word. It just came to me and I
never thought of a title that was better.
Q:
So,
all of the songs on "Bit" are basically just your
guitar and voice.Your acoustic guitar sound is very
full. I'm wondering if these songs have been
arranged and performed by your band.
Charlie:
None
of these songs were performed by my band. I do
arrange for the band, and I arrange for the guitar.
I don't just play, I have in mind what I would do
with more instruments. If I'd had a bigger budget,
I could have had more on the CD. I also tried to
choose new material that I wasn't already bored
with, that I wouldn't feel I was chipping down.
Once
you arrange for a band it becomes a painting, and
it would be hard to draw a pencil sketch of a
painting and feel that it was fully realized. I
worked on songs I was enthusiastic about because
they were new. I had written them all in the last
year, except "Motormouth." "Motormouth" has been
done by several of my bands, has had several
arrangements, and now it has a new arrangement with
a couple of people I'm working with. I chose songs
that would be best suited for this format and tried
to make it somewhat whole in itself, though many
people, mostly musicians, hear all kinds of other
instruments in their heads. Most of the songs could
use a band, very few of them are ideal in their
bare bones format.
Q:
Are
you still with your band "Be That Way?"
 Charlie:
I'm
getting together a new incarnation of "Be That
Way," all new people. The first band was heavy
metal influenced, the second band was kind of jazz
influenced, and now it's going to be more intimate.
More theatrical. I have a marimba player, I have a
violin player, and they both play percussion. The
violin player also plays rhythm guitar. They both
sing harmony. These are two women, and we are
looking for a stand-up bass player to complete the
concept.
Q:
With
the new band, will any of these songs be performed
or re-recorded?
Charlie:
We're
working on "Day in the Country," "Why Should Today
Be Any Different," "Tabula Rasa," "Location,"
"Motormouth," "What a Day It Was" and "For the Man
Who Can't Have Everything." We will be doing a
number of others. Since the album, I’ve
written twenty other songs. It is a little like
going backwards to flesh out the ones on the album.
When we're at the point where we have hours of
material, all these songs will be
included.
Q:
How
did you happen to produce a solo CD at this
time?
Charlie:
Well,
the other band had just fallen apart, and that was
fine with me, since in many ways we obscured the
material rather than bringing it out. The first
band was even more like that. You know, there were
things that became metal that were never intended
to.
When
I decided to do an album, I figured I was better
off doing it myself, because then I could get the
music to travel farther. Instead of living in a van
for three years, my idea was to get this in the
hands of somebody who wants a song, and they could
make a full blown major record out of it. I thought
it would be much better than just having a document
of a band that had recently been formed, and did
not know each other well, just for the sake of
having a lot of instruments on the album. There was
a small budget..one thousand dollars for recording
and mixing. The whole album is about 85% first
takes. Did a lot of preparation. If I'd had more
budget, it would probably be only 50% first
takes.
Q:
When
you write, does the guitar part come first, lyrics
first, or all at once?
Charlie:
Once
in a while, the music will come first, and I will
try to figure out what the music says if you
express it verbally. But usually, I'll write a
bunch of words and turn it into a song. Some can be
rewritten fifteen times before I can live with the
words. Some I write, and hardly change a word. The
whole thing just comes out. The music is the same
way. Sometimes I'll have to try the music a few
different ways before it works. I'll try it in one
key, put the melody there, and then sometimes it'll
turn out that if I change the key, the melody falls
together.
Pieces
of music that are stored in my mind, little
fragments, just bubble up, and are captured by the
song. There are some like "Why Should Today Be Any
Different" . . . the chorus of that is from "Cherry
Pink and Apple Blossom White" which was a hit
instrumental for Perez Prado, a Latin band in the
'50s. Yeah, I stole that. I stole a couple things.
In "Location", I think I stole something from Ray
Davies. My brother, Ken, who's a big Kinks fan, is
the only one who caught that so far.
 Q:
Charlie,
I really like your guitar style, it's so full.
You've got a whole band in your fingers. You're
definitely not just a pick-strum guy.
Charlie:
Probably
that came out of years of fingerpicking. I used to
play "Whiter Shade of Pale" with the thumb doing
the bass, and the other fingers doing the other
parts. I used to do "Walk Away Renee", and
"Pictures of Lily" by the Who. I arranged things
for folk guitar that had never been done like that.
In
one sense, it comes from my having taken piano
lessons when I was a young child. Guitar lessons
are something I never took. I did take some folk
lessons in the early '60s where you strum, like
"dum-da-dum-da-da-da-dum-da-dum, as in "Sloop John
B." About ten people sitting around with guitars.
The
only other lesson I really had was from Link Wray,
in 1977, when I auditioned for the road band to
support the album we had just recorded. (This was
the first Robert Gordon album) I got in there with
Link Wray, and he said "Can you do this?" and I
said "No", and he said "Can you do this?" and I
said "No," and he was talking about bar chords and
stuff like that. I had put off bar chords-I was a
folk guy! I did all kinds of things with my thumb
that were considered illegal moves. I walked away
from that audition thinking, "I should be able to
do all those things," so I practiced and practiced
until I could do everything that I had flunked in
the audition. Those were the only lessons I really
took. The rest of it was just listening to
records.
Q:
How
did your association with Robert Gordon and Link
Wray happen, that lead to you being the guitarist
on the first Robert Gordon album?
Charlie:
OK,
Robert Gordon was scheduled to do an album with
Link Wray. I was in a band with a fellow named Paul
Presti, who passed away in '85. Paul Presti was the
hot lead guitar player in the Unholy Modal
Rounders. We were an underground band with Peter
Stampfel. The bass player was Kirby Pines, and the
drummer was Jeff Berman. While this band was coming
apart in the summer of '77, Paul auditioned for
Robert. Robert was looking for a guitar player who
could play rockabilly. Paul brought me along. I was
told I could also audition, so since I liked
rockabilly, I auditioned. He ended up making me the
lead guitar player, and telling Paul to just play
rhythm. I could do those little . . . you know . .
. I could play like Carl Perkins. Simple, soulful,
folky, and country.
So,
I was playing the leads while Link was out of town,
and Robert was warming up for the album. Then, when
the studio musicians, who were Billy Cross, Rob
Stoner, and Howie Wyeth, got together with Robert,
I helped teach them the songs. Then, Link came to
town, and we did the album. I was on a majority of
the cuts of the album. When it came time to do
tours, the other three guys knew a guy who could
play anything. My quality was not that I could play
anything, it was that I could play what I felt,
just like the people that invented those styles.
So, I lost out to the politics of the situation.
Like in the audition, they had me play all kinds of
things that, in one sense, were hardly needed. But,
having full confidence in the guys behind him was
very important, and I don't blame him for that. I
was an unknown factor, so he toured with these
other guys. I can't remember the name of the
guitarist he took instead.
Q:
Is
that album still available?
Charlie:
The
first Robert Gordon album? I believe it is. It was
originally on Private Stock Records, which the
first Blondie record was also on. When Robert
joined RCA Victor, they bought the album from
Private Stock. He recorded with RCA until
1981, the last one they put out was "Are You Gonna
Be the One." Since then, he's put out some other
albums on smaller labels.
As
a matter of fact, I have just recently gotten a
live album of Robert in 1981, when he was touring
to support that final RCA Victor album with Danny
Gatton on guitar. It's a fabulous album, and it's
called "The Humbler." It was originally a bootleg.
It was made off the board at a gig in Berkeley, CA,
when Danny Gatton was having an unusually good
evening. One of the guys there that night used to
give it to guitar players who thought they were
great, so they could hear somebody who was REALLY
great, like Danny Gatton. It's called "The Humbler"
and it's available on NRG, which, as far as I know
is Danny Gatton's label, administered by his wife,
his widow.
Q:
I
notice that out of sixteen songs on "Bit," all but
three of them are under three minutes long. Just
like it used to be . . . I was wondering if you
deliberately write traditional radio-length or
demo-length songs, or if it just
happens.
 Charlie:
In
a sense, I write in a normal, pop way, which is to
say . . .
verse-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus-out. I write
a lot of things like that. There was no need for
solos, because I was just presenting the material.
I wanted to get as many songs on there as I could .
. . actually there are seventeen, even though there
are sixteen listed. The seventeenth one is also
about three minutes. It's interesting how the
lengths seem to be exactly like a record used to
be. But, they didn't waste time with a whole lot of
solos back then . . . the shorter it was, the more
certain you were of getting it in the radio. This
album was supposed to have nineteen songs on it; I
dropped two of them. The two that I dropped,
incidentally, were songs that had been done with
the band, and I ran into that thing with the
"pencil sketch of a painting," and it just didn't
seem worth working on them until they worked in a
new way.
Q:
Do
you feel that this CD has a theme?
Charlie:
It's
supposed to be a bit, that represents my whole
thing. My style is kind of like . . . cliche
textures and new structures. The songs are full of
jokes and riddles and advice. There's no love
songs, there's no character in my world called
"baby." As far as my writing, I have a talent for
metaphors, a penchant for couplets . . . two lines
that rhyme, and a large vocabulary of styles. I
love irony and deadpan humor. So much so that one
person told me that they thought this whole CD was
kind of serious and sombre. Actually, it's about as
serious and sombre as a Buster Keaton
movie.
Q:
Like
most songwriters, I'm sure that your writing
contains both fact and fiction. For example "My Old
Town," is that about a real place?
Charlie:
Yeah,
"My Old Town" is about Montpelier, and it came to
me because of a certain day. It was a benefit
concert for Andy Shapiro, when Andy was still
around. Andy was in many bands, and was a gifted
singer, writer, keyboard player, and arranger.
There were a number of bands that were doing a show
in Montpelier one Sunday, and I came down to see
the show. I talked to Andy...he had a brain
condition, and he had forgotten my name. He knew a
friendly face, but he couldn't bring my name to
mind. Which was very different from the last time I
had seen him.
I
saw so many people that day who said "I haven't
seen you around."
Q:
So
Charlie, I'm wondering about the title of the first
song on "Bit". What's a "humdinger?"
Charlie:
Ha!
A total mystery. That song is about perception, the
song is about enthusiasm, it's about calling
something a humdinger, and it doesn't refer to a
damn thing. My mind just . . . zip . . . it just
went. I was perfectly comfortable with the complete
ambiguity of that. It stays on one level, and it's
so accessible, it was nothing complex, it had a
simple kind of drive.
Q:
Charlie,
if there was one artist that you could work with,
whether it be writing, recording or performing, who
would it be? Time travel is OK with this
question.
Charlie:
Elvis.
Definitely. When I first heard rock'n'roll, I
wanted to look like Elvis and sound like Little
Richard. That was my musical inspiration. I also
wanted to be Frankie Lymon, but by the time he died
about the age of twenty-five, I figured I was
better off than he was.
There's
so many people. I have a list of influences on the
CD, starting with Elvis Presley, and ending with
Elvis Costello. Some of my biggest influences were
people who only had one hit record.
To
contact Charlie Messing, you may do so through the
following address and telephone number.
- Charlie
Messing
- PO
Box 114
- Burlington
VT 05402 USA
- Phone
1(802) 862-1966
Visit
Charlie
Messing's website
at www.bethatwaydotcom.com
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"Bit"
by Charlie Messing can be purchased securely
on-line at
http://www.bigheavyworld.com/framesets/store.html
After
arriving at this URL, click on "ALT/POP" to get to
Charlie's CD, "Bit."
Copyright
© 1999 Stable Management
Corporation...All
Rights Reserved
|
