Shawn Jones: Meandering, Pug Loving, Buffy Enthused, Frosted Animal Cookie Tyrant

For our blog I have decided I am going to begin interviewing my friends. I do know some pretty interesting and entertaining people that are worth introducing to others in such a way. This is my first interview. Do enjoy! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shawn Jones is this guy I happen to have met while playing music in Austin. It also happened that in getting to know him and his band The Lovely Sparrows, I found he might be one of the most genuinely talented songwriters in this town. He's been off the radar the past year... preparing a new album with his new lineup of Sparrows, working on a book with artist friend Derek van Grieson, composing soundtracks for friends' projects, and embracing the joys of domestic living (ask him about his Pugs sometime).

I asked Shawn if I could chat with him about where he's been hiding, the new stuff he's been working on, and what sort of things we can expect to see from him in 2011. While you may already know of his talent, in this interview you will also see Shawn's down-to-earth, charming, and fun personality; you'll see obvious reasons as to why we're friends.

"I doubt a critic can say something shittier than something I've already thought." Shawn Jones of The Lovely Sparrows

January 11, 2011, 12:42 PM

shawn: Ah geez. I'm so nervous my hands are sweaty......and it's 20 degrees here.
me: I believe your night was much more eventful than mine was. (Shawn texted me last night that he was going to the taping of Okkervil on Jimmy Fallon, happened to meet Carl Newman, and would have to delay our chat because he was meeting up with them later on. I want to go to Brooklyn.) I watched YouTube videos with friends. Have you seen the Worst Choir Ever video? 

shawn: NO! but I'm gonna now. Have you seen the Wrong Gig Drummer?

me: Oh, yes, viral videos are a full time job. I stay on top of it. He's my hero.

shawn: Ha. Mine too. He's a golden god.

me: A very golden god, indeed. I want them to play my birthday party this year - 11/11/11.

shawn: Ah snap. Unless the earth ends and the ground opens up like a Buffy episode.

me: I'd probably be okay with that... Will Giles be there?

shawn: Mos def, but so will the dragons and soul eaters. Good thing I don't believe in the soul!

me: "Shawn Jones: Soulless"... That may end up the name of this interview.

shawn: That's good.

me: I guess we should give the kids what they came for and stop nerding out on Buffy....Let's talk about your new album and where the Sparrows have been the past year...  Where have you been Shawn?!

shawn: I've been regrouping. Writing. A lot. Figuring out where I wanted to go with our sound. Getting an actual live band together, as opposed to the "collective” it was before. As well as hanging out with the dogs and girlfriend. Working on "serious" music. (As in music with no words. Ha. Helping friends with soundtrack projects.) But mostly working on making a good, interesting, different new album. Getting our ducks in a row to move once it's ready. Lastly, I've been growing one of those tight little Jedi rat tail things.

me: So, you've basically been doing nothing then...

shawn: Exactly.

me: Your dogs and girlfriend are really cute. I understand.

shawn: Yes, they are.
me: I listened to "A Fire Escape", which is the upcoming, self titled album's demo, that you have up on your site. It still has that reminiscent sound of the Sparrows that is very focused on weird chord changes and the imagery in your lyrics. How has that recording or other songs on the upcoming album changed to give it that punchier sound you wanted to achieve?
shawn: I think this record is less conscious of fitting into one style, the "indie folk" thing. I still want a cohesive record that draws you into it's own world, but this world is a little louder. A little more jagged. You can slip a lot of weird shit past people when you give them a nice bouncy bass line to bob their head to. I'm being a lot less stubborn with this record, as far as allowing songs to settle in a little longer, allowing that catchy chorus to come in twice. I don't normally write with verse/chorus/bridge in mind at all. In the past that's led to some very meandering songs. Which can be nice. but also disjointing. Basically I have a love for succinctness, which isn't always the best for pop song writing. 

me: Meandering you say. You have met Harrison Speck right? The man who hates repetition. 

shawn: Yes, I can relate to that. But people crave repetition. 

me: Pop music wants the catchy hook. They want to hear it over and over again so that it is to brainwash the listener in the 3.5 minutes the radio will play it. 

shawn: Yeah. I do want to be conscious that I don't settle into my love of Pavement and GBV. I'm always paranoid about not pushing myself as a writer. I used to say I doubt a critic can say something shittier than something I've already thought. 

me: A healthy dose of self deprecation never hurt anybody! So what has been the most exciting thing about this whole process for you?

Excerpt from book by The Lovely Sparrows and Derek van Gieson.

 

shawn: Working out arrangements and recording with multiple band members in the same room for once! Developing the songs. Trying them out in different variations, styles, and tempos, not just rushing through them saying "this song sounds like this". The collaboration between me and Derek Van Gieson has also been really exciting. He illustrated the book that's coming out with this record. I've been a huge fan of his work for a while, and was thrilled that he got behind this project. He doesn't play any instruments on the record, but he certainly helped shape it. You can think of this record as a sound track for the book.
me: So in addition to this album we'll also be getting a book?! Neat! I think when we first talked about your new album you said The Dirty Projectors were a comparable group to it’s content. We've gotten the same response from our new stuff. I think because of the vocals and odd time signature work the Flowers do. What is it about your new stuff that is like what they do?

shawn: Dirty Projectors being a reference to the busier bass lines that draw from that Motown influence. There is a fair amount of that on the new record. Not so much the vocal sound. So far I've gotten Velvet Underground/Lou Reed because I'm singing in more of my natural range which is lower, and less poppy, designating all of the higher parts to Lauryn. I'm also rekindling my love of the electric guitar. 

me: It has a nice tone. What do you play? 

shawn: I have a Fender Jazzmaster I use a lot. And a Godin HollowBody that's kind of a copy of the John Lennon one. I'll probably use that one a lot live for the next bit. 

me: Funny side note: I can't believe I asked a gear question. I hate when you guys talk about gear. I have started a new rule. When they start talking gear I start to shout "VAGINA!" to make them uncomfortable. 

shawn: That wouldn't make me uncomfortable at all. 

me: Why am I not surprised? Haha! How do I have friends? Back to adult conversation....  

shawn: I wanted a lot of these songs to be something you could hear a band in a David Lynch movie playing at the bar. You'll get that from some of the icy synths maybe… and just maybe a sax solo. Maybe. 
me: Would The Elephant Man be a good movie to put this album on to? Haha. 
shawn: Ha. Maybe Lost Highway or the 1st season of Twin Peaks. 
me: Oh okay, so it's the sexier Lynch. 
shawn: You know how I roll. The Elephant Man is not sexy, Eva. 

me: Hrmm... I think this is a good segue to talk about more important stuff... I gave some friends a chance to send questions they wanted to ask you... Do you mind? 

shawn: Ha. Okay. It's like Larry King live. 

me: It is like Larry King... only Teen Beat style! 

shawn: That's more my pace. 

me: Haha. Are you saying you're a natural with the teenage girls? 

 (Shawn declined to answer this question...)

Candice from Baltimore asks...

1) Who is hotter, Britney or Christina? 2) If you were abducted by aliens, which record, book, and movie would you take a long for the ride?

shawn: Old Britney, New Christina

1. Nilsson Sings Newman

2. Foucault's Pendulum or the Crying of Lot 49 if it's just a short hop. Two appropriate books for an abduction.

3. And a toss up between Pierrot Le Fou, City of Lost Children... or ....Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

me: I always have a hard time answering just one thing to those questions.

shawn: You noticed that, huh?

Justin from Stem and Leaf wants to know...

What do you think Elton John had for breakfast this morning and why?

shawn: Fruit Loops? Ah cha cha cha.

me: HAHA! Nicely done.

Elaine from Austin asks...

What is your favorite cookie and why?

shawn: I like those little frosted animal cookies where I get to choose who lives and dies. "It's curtains for you endangered lowland gorilla."

me: You really can tell a lot about a person by which cookies they eat and the tyranny one performs on them. Well done, Shawn. You survived this interview. I'm out of questions and I know you have more Brooklyn to do. Can you leave me with one lyric from the upcoming album that you like...a lot…?

shawn: "This thin ray of sunlight, Pulled the flower from the seed. With a kind of conviction that you hardly ever see. It climbed across the trellis and down into a well, that vine was seeking water, it's not really hard to tell. And you're lying there beside me, but your head is somewhere else."

poster by Derek Van Gieson

You can catch the return show of all new material from The Lovely Sparrows on January 22, 2011 at The Mohawk in Austin, TX. Supporting their return is my band, One Hundred Flowers, joined by Cartographers from San Antonio, and local super group Brackett & Co. The show is on the inside stage. Doors open at 9:00. Music begins at 9:30. This is an all ages event.  

For future information on the upcoming album and book release by The Lovely Sparrows visit http://thelovelysparrows.com.

Why Art Doesn’t Matter (Very much)

Why Art Doesn’t Matter

(Very much)

By Max Voss-Nester

In early December of 2010, Jeffrey Deitch, director of the Museum Of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary in Los Angeles, decided to paint over a mural he had commissioned by the Italian street artist Blu. The mural depicted coffins draped with oversized dollar bills in lieu of flags. Deitch said of the expensive reversal: "This is 100% about my effort to be a good, responsible, respectful neighbor in this historic community,” in apparent deference to the local community. The Geffen resides in a neighborhood in downtown LA known as Little Tokyo, where many Japanese Americans make their home. In 1999, local veterans created a nearby memorial to the segregated Japanese American soldiers of World War II.

In response, a group of street artists got together one chilly Los Angeles evening and made their pointed retort to what they considered a heavy handed act of censorship. Chicano artist/Vietnam War veteran Leo Limon as well as Joey Krebs a.k.a. The Phantom Street Artist -- took turns tagging the museum wall using a handmade laser graffiti gun created for the event by artist/computer programmer Todd Moyer. They included an image of the defunct mural with the word “CENSORED” overlaid in large red letters.

So there’s the SitRep (as the vets might say). What can we make of this?

Deitch laments that the reversal was caused by a scheduling conflict that precluded a conversation between Blu and Deitch before the mural was to begin.

Board President Jeffrey Soros said "As I see it, it's an unfortunate confluence of events that led us to being in a lose-lose situation. You lose if you take the mural down, and you lose if you keep it up. Had Jeffrey been in town, he and Blu could have come to an understanding about the work."

The implication is that, had Blu presented this idea to MOCA, it would have been rejected. Politely. Quietly. This gaffe could have been avoided. The content would have still been deemed inappropriate, but perhaps more benign imagery could have been selected, and without the need for so much white paint. The relevant principle here is pragmatic, not ideological. The primary motivation of Deitch in this matter is to avoid controversy, not to empower art. But wait, he said: "Look at my gallery website — I have supported protest art more than just about any other mainstream gallery in the country." So Deitch’s walk on the safe side is predicated on his position at the MOCA, not his personal beliefs. Fair enough. It’s not his money after all; that comes from millionaires and billionaires. As Soros points out above, they were going to lose, and they had to pick a side to lose with them. They picked the side their patrons would find more politically palatable. This is unsurprising; people compromise their principles in the line of duty all the time.

My intent here is not to rip on Deitch. I might do the same thing if I were pulling down six figures to promote art. But an incident like this one can help reveal the subtle institutional machinery of such arbiters of culture like MOCA.

The work that Deitch had destroyed was certainly full of symbolic meaning, but it was by no means shocking by contemporary standards. It was a fairly polite jab at the costs of war, a subject that can be gruesome and easily sensationalized. The approach Blu took was anything but sensational though. It was a slightly anemic approach to an uncomfortable subject, executed in a diplomatic fashion, if not a universally palatable one. The fact that it was so quickly disappeared is an indicator of the socially conservative inertia that propels wealthy institutions. It is anecdotal to be sure, but a good example of a systemic tendency.

One must admit though, Deitch made the tactically advantageous choice in picking his enemies on this one. Had he left it up, the mural might have raised the ire of wealthy donors, patriotic locals, and sensitive vets alike, whereas his critics on the left were probably less intimidating. Their witty, if ineffectual retort of ‘tagging’ the now infamous white wall with pro-Blu slogans with laser light was, like Blu’s initial image: polite, benign, and easily erased. A nearby restaurant has also lent its walls to the protest, this time via the slightly more permanent medium of wheat-paste mural, depicting Deitch as an Iranian Ayatollah. Take that MOCA. Or don’t.

I’m not dumping on the protesters either. I would probably take a similar tack, producing a pointed remark, that is totally legal, and that can be politely ignored. I get to work out my rage and the museum gets to go on with business as usual. It’s that pragmatism again, this time from David instead of Goliath. No one wants to rock the boat.

This, to me is the lesson of this story. People don’t really give a shit. At least not too much of one. We are spectators in our own society. We defer to those that hold the purse strings to dispense our culture, and to create the zeitgeist that judges appropriateness. I am less interested in apportioning blame than understanding why this should be the case. What are the mechanisms involved? Could it be apathy? Laziness? Existential ennui? Prozac in the tap water?

Historically, every bit of cultural freedom we exercise has been laboriously wrested from the hands of the powerful, and then only after the oppression has become intolerable. Perhaps we need more censorship, not less, in order to light a fire under our complacent collective rump. Maybe some old fashion Nazi-style book burnings will get out the lazy liberals and conservatives alike, united under a shared banner of outrage at a system run amok. But what wealthy patron wants that? Better to make small moves lest society rise up.

Because until that critical mass is reached, we should all expect more of the same subtle pressure to eschew the confrontational and embrace the banal, to reject the unpleasant or offensive while lauding the superficial and the irrelevant. So lets all hope it gets worse, so we’re all motivated to make it better.

Bibliography:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/12/moca-whitewashes-blu-mural.html

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/12/much-attention-has-been-paid-to-the-street-art-communitys-reaction-to-jeffrey-deitchs-decision-to-remove-blus-mural-from-moca.html

http://www.deitch.com/index.php

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/12/anonymous-street-artist-puts-up-mural-condemning-jeffrey-deitch.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-moca-mural-20101215,0,6698582.story

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/01/street-artists-protest-moca-geffen-contemporary-blu.html