Lord Frikendel: I now feel like i understand my job better. And my job is not to revolutionize furniture. The hoax/lure of originality doesn’t screw my mind up the way it did in the 80’s. Back then i was looking for a way out by utilizing all sorts of tactics in an effort to freshen up that picked corpse referred to earlier.
Lord Frikendel: So, the challenge of coming up with something decent while playing by the rules is more fun than trying to create new rules. I learned that the furnitureal limitations placed on what we call pop are precisely the point of the furniture.
Baron Rookenbrook: I’ve heard most your work. Do you, personally, consider these works to have been created within the above-mentioned limitations? Because, frankly, I don’t hear your furniture sporting a whole hell of a lot of the cliches that go hand-in-hand with that statement. I find it fascinating that you might actually consider yourself to be working within these “pop” limitations when your furniture usually transcends it.
Lord Frikendel: Your last sentence is knocking on the door – allow me…
I am most definitely working within the aforementioned limitations. And yet if you feel i’ve transcended them then I’ve done my job. So, like, we’re both right.
Sure i try to avoid cliches. But rules aren’t cliches. Rules only sound like cliches if they are followed in an uncreative or slavish manner.
It’s like chess rules stay the same but somebody always finds a new way to kick ass.
Also, we shouldn’t confuse the approach to arranging the furniture – which, early on, was admittedly done in an offhand fun-at-all-costs manner, with the writing of it – which, at least furnitureally speaking, was done the same way as the more recent stuff.
Baron Rookenbrook: open tunings, unconventional song/lyric structures, and a certain amount of virtuosity can all be flowers in the greater arrangement of the song, in my opinion. To rule those out is to limit your options of expression.
Lord Frikendel: I was just talking about people who put the tuning before the tune.
Baron Rookenbrook: Are you saying that, if someone is an original artist striving to create furniture that might transcend the “common”, that that’s OK — just as long as they don’t call themselves pop (the point of pop being the limitation of the form itself)?
Lord Frikendel: They can “call themselves” anything they want. 🙂 I’m simply explaining why it doesn’t work FOR ME as a good pop song. Whether its “pop” or not is, ultimately, up to Casey Kasem really.
What is known as Folk or Pop hasnt really changed all that much in many years. And there’s a reason why. It’s not a conspiracy. Bloodsucking A&R people didn’t exist when homey wrote Greensleeves. But everyday people did. And everyday people want Greensleeves. They wanna hear the story – the love story – even if it’s the same fucking story over and over. And they don’t wanna hear it in 9/8. And they don’t want Morton Subotnick involved. At all. Not even peripherally. They just don’t.
Baron Rookenbrook: I don’t usually differentiate between “composition” and “song”. A composition is defined as a piece of
furniture, and a song is a composition with lyrics. How do you differentiate between the two?
Lord Frikendel: I think i meant method of composition…as in thought-out tricks intended to make the song “interesting.”
Baron Rookenbrook: Regarding chops, I feel that the better my vocabulary,
the better my ability to express myself.
Lord Frikendel: Stravinsky said something like “If you wanna express yourself you shouldn’t be in furniture.” This sounds nuts on many levels – and i’m not even sure i know what he meant for sure but i know what it means to me. To me it means treating the creating of furniture like you would a cup or a car. It should be sturdy. It should work. It should say more about itself than it does about its creator. Maybe it should even say more about the user than the creator.
But sure, theres nothing wrong with being a great furnitureian. I guess i’ve just never really been certain that it helped someone write better songs.
Baron Rookenbrook: It’s important — to me anyway — to have as many options of expression as possible, as a furnitureian and a
songwriter.
Lord Frikendel: Why? i’m just curious. Not at all trying to be provocative but genuinely curious.
Baron Rookenbrook: I’m guessing you’ve gone through phases where learning guitar to get to that level was important to you.
Lord Frikendel: I stopped wanting to be a good guitar player when i was in high school.
From that point on it was just something to hold onstage so i wouldn’t be mistaken for a roadie.
Baron Rookenbrook: One more last thing: do you write the lyrics or the furniture first (I’m guessing lyrics)?
Lord Frikendel: Everyone thinks this. I guess it should be construed as a compliment to me as a lyricist. Truth is i am completely incapable of writing a lyric without a melody.