My (Or)Deal

by John Apanites

Kim Tells Her Side Of The Story.

“Hi, Kim?” I inquired, in my best I’m-not-sure-I-should-be-calling-you voice. The other end responded with an affirmative “Yes,” and I felt like I needed some instant credibility, so I laid out the credentials.

“Kim, this is John from MOO. I spoke with you briefly on Friday night at the GBV show at Gilly’s. I was hoping to set up an interview to talk with you about your band Tammy and the Amps.” I held my breath as the phone waves turned to hours (Gordon Lightfoot?).
“Sure, John, I love MOO. What are you doing right now?” At this point I looked up and realized, “Hey, I’m still at work.’ So I say,
“Hey, I’m at work.” Kim responds by saying, “Well, call me before you’re about to leave work, and we can meet down in the Oregon District. Louie Lerma (Amps bass player) and Jim MacPherson (Breeders and Amps drummer) want to come along also.”

I tell Kim I’ll call her back later and about 4:30 I rang her again. She still sounded friendly, and we set up a meeting time of 5:30 at Hummer’s in the Oregon District. I jumped into my car, raced down to the Oregon District, took a wrong turn, got slightly lost, and then with the wonder of ATM bank technology, I discovered that I had almost no money in my account.

MOO: Well, let’s see if this [tape recorder] works. It’s from AT&T, so it should. (I laugh nervously and wonder who changed the batteries last.) I caught you guys at Gilly’s the other night, and I was curious if Tammy and the Amps is a side project or a full-blown unit?

Kim: We got plans. We’re supposed to go to Europe and England in August. There are two outdoor festivals we could get: one is Lowlands in Holland, the other one is a good one, but I’ve never heard of it before. It was a French one with two good bands like Pavement or Beck.

MOO: Is Nate the other guitar player in the Amps?

Kim: Yeah, Nate Farley, he’s in The Method. And you know the Tasties? Louie’s the drummer for them. And me and MacPherson are in the Breeders. (stated with mock indignation)

MOO: Will there be a Tammy and the Amps album?

Kim: We got most of the stuff done. We only need … like Lou and Nate aren’t on it. Yet. But they will be. We have songs called “Dedicated,” “Tipp City,” “Empty Glasses,” “Bragging Party,” “Pacer,” “Hoverin’,” “Breaking the Split Screen Barrier,” the brand new one, we know a Tasties cover called “Just Like A Briar,” we know a GBV song called “Shocker,” we’ve done that before. We almost have enough for an album. Me and MacPherson, we just wanted to play so badly and Josephine wasn’t around, Kelley … well, what happened was after Lollapalooza last year, I knew that I was probably going to do a solo album, because everybody was going to have a year off, and I tend to be a workaholic. I thought I’d do everything on four-track, and then I’ll record every instrument myself in a studio, and then I’ll have a solo album released by spring. Then we were going to make it a Breeders’ record as impetus for Kelley to stay straight, to show her through actions more than words that even though it was a solo album … to kind of distract her, and use her time, and to take her mind off drugs, we would change this into a Breeders album. So it would be a Breeders thing where Kelley would come down and record. We went to New York City, and that’s when we saw Kelley kicking. Jim drove her home in the pickup and he delivered her to my dad. My dad took her to the rehab unit. Then, all of a sudden, it’s a solo album again.

Jim: But now I’m on it, so Kim’s kicking my ass.

Kim: Jim’s all over, he’s playing all the drums on it. Kelley’s playing bass on something like three songs. Lead guitar on three.

MOO: Did you like playing Gilly’s [June 2], or is that a little too reserved?

Kim: I like the club. It looks nice with all the tables out. They were freaking out, the Gilly’s people.

MOO: Well, no one broke anything.

Kim: They just do jazz and blues. The review in the Dayton Daily News, you should read it. It’s hilarious. Should I tell you about it?

MOO: You might as well, because I’m curious.

Kim: Okay. Well, it started out with GBV throws this one away. The beginning was “a plea to all fans of this band: if you are not in the band, then please stay off the stage,” and then he went on to bitch…It’s Dave Larsen, we call him the “gnome.” Then he went on to bitch about how the people in the back of the crowd would holler up and say, “Get off the stage,” and how it was “sad” and “Toby looked on this scene with contempt,” and you know Toby, he’s not contempt. At one point, Bob fell to his knees and pleaded, “Please don’t leave.” What had happened was an amp broke, so the lights came on and he announced they were changing the amp. Then he knelt down to talk to some people. In the article it reads, “At one point, Bob slumped to his knees, pleading, ‘Don’t go,’ but it was already too late; most of the fans couldn’t watch as the band that they had excitedly come to see with Tammy and the Amps making the evening more… you know… anticipatory for everyone to watch it grind to an embarrassing halt. Gaunt was the tight outfit of the evening. Guided By Voices were fueled by whiskey and beer.
They were sloppy. Bob summed it up best when he was on his knees at the end of the night saying, ‘Don’t trust in Guided By Voices.’” You were there; was the show awful or something? I know it was sloppy, but they’re not really that tight anyway, but was it embarrassing, was it sad?

MOO: No. What was bad about it and what made people mad is that

Kim: So it was true, people were mad

MOO: People were mad because they had whoever from the crowd come up and sing, and I don’t think it would have bothered them if they had people that were able to sing. They could have gotten me up there, and I would have been just about as good

Kim: You could have gotten up there if you wanted to.

MOO: Well, that’s what we were thinking. I like when they’re loose and they’re joking around, but it was sort of like Karaoke Night.

Kim: But it was like Rock-a-thon. It was all the local bands getting together. It was a hometown thing.

MOO: Well, with GBV getting more popular, there has to be a backlash. I hope the backlash doesn’t happen to them. They’ve been making music for 15 years, and there’s a lot of integrity in that.

Kim: It’s like they had a backlash the first 11 years. I think the reason why it always seems like there’s a backlash is because when bands are unknown, they only get written about by fans. Writers who are actually fans, and they’re always positive reviews. “Hey, you’ve never heard this band, but you got to check them out, blah, blah, blah.” When the band begins to get a name for themselves, and the writers get assigned to bands, they’ll hit somebody who just doesn’t like that kind of music, or they love hip hop but hate guitar rock.

Talk turns to many simultaneous subjects and my recorder couldn’t handle the pressure. So as I listen to the conversation, I realized the key points that came up. The general consensus was that Esoteric is a great new young band. Also, the Chameleon Club located in Hills and Dales Shopping Plaza at the corner of Dorothy Lane and South Dixie Highway came up as a possible new site to hear good bands as they travel through Dayton. Then we end up talking about Cleveland, The Euclid Tavern and artist Derek Hess.

Kim: Have you seen any of his stuff?

Louie: No.

Kim: Trader Vic has a roomful. He’s got a room full of posters. They line the wall. There must be 20 posters. They’re all the same size, so they all look really nice, and yeah, he’s really body-oriented in form, human form and stuff, but warped and perverted in a way. Kind of gross, depending on what kind of band.

MOO: He has the one where someone is about to run over Barney the Dinosaur with a big steamroller.

Jim: Did he ever do one of your posters?

Kim: The only one that I’ve ever seen was the Nirvana/Breeders/Shonen Knife one.

Jim: That’s a good poster.

Kim: He should give us the Nirvana poster. We should get it, we were on the bill.

MOO: When did the Breeders play with them?

Jim: In Utero tour. Two months.

Kim: It was October, November, and I know we did some in December, too.

Jim: Yeah, we did.

Kim: And that was in 1993, because he died in 1994, in April. We flew up for the funeral in Seattle.

MOO: I was bummed after I bought the Unplugged release and finally accepted they’d never put out another album.

Kim: We played “All Apologies” all summer long at Lollapalooza because they said they were going to be at Lollapalooza, so every time before we played, we put “All Apologies” on. They said they were going to play, and they got us on in the fuckin’ first place, and he’s gone now. Fuck it, I had him apologize every fuckin’ night.

MOO: His death caused such a mixed reaction among people. Most of the older people I was working with couldn’t relate to the impact of his death.

Jim: Most people can’t relate to something like that.

MOO: Well, even the media drove it into the ground.

Kim: Like the Gilly’s show, for example. “Embarrassing and sad,” I mean, HELLO!

Jim: “Fueled by whiskey and beer” is a great line.

Kim: It would make me want to go see the show.

Louie: Yeah, all the kids would be going, “Yeah, I’m going.”

Kim: Yeah, sounds cool, man. John (me) was there. He was in the back, screaming for everybody to get off the microphone. I’m blowing you shit, I’m blowing you shit, man.

MOO: You know what bummed me out?

Kim: It was “Hot Freaks.” They were ready for “Hot Freaks,” and some assholes came on and sang it, and that bummed you out.

MOO: Well, I was talking to Jim Weber from the New Bomb Turks about it

Kim: Did they go to the Gilly’s show?

MOO: Yeah. I was talking to Jim… Actually, not all the Turks were there — only Jim and Matt. Jim and I talked about the people getting onstage and singing and how we hoped it wasn’t going to last throughout the whole set. That was the extent of any critical analysis that our conversation yielded. However, this is where the interview took a slight detour and we headed down the Gilly’s path once more.

Kim: Fucking New Bomb Turks. Every fucking poster you see in Europe they fuckin’ moon everybody, and they’re having a problem with Karaoke? Are you shitting me?

MOO: Well, they were killed by Karaoke, that’s their problem.

Kim: Oh, let’s do it the New Bomb Turks way, that’s the professional way. I mean, Hello! The only professional thing would be for all of GBV to sit there, pull their pants down and moon everybody. That’s what the New Bomb Turks fuckin’ do. What are they sayin’ something is unprofessional or not for? Crap, I don’t even want to know.

MOO: All right, I won’t say anymore about what people said.

Kim: It’s ridiculous.

MOO: Well, NBT love GBV so

Kim: We were over in Europe all the fuckin’ time their fuckin’ posters were up. That’s why I liked them. So now all of a sudden they’re going to get a fuckin’ band hat on, and say people aren’t acting the right way?

MOO: No, they didn’t say that.

Kim: Every club we came up to, there was their ass I looked at. Every night, too. Then I thought, “Oh, cool, somebody from Ohio’s ass is up here on a Germany club in Frankfurt, and there’s an ass,” and they went to the Gilly’s show and it what… were they offended? They must have been offended by the rock. I mean, fuck.

MOO: No, they said… Actually, most people in the crowd seemed to say “we wish they wouldn’t put those guys on the stage.”

Kim: They wish they would put our butts onstage.

MOO: Well, that would have been visual, at least. The Turks weren’t critical; they’re all good guys.

Kim: They can’t be critical. They mooned all of Europe.

MOO: Well, you’re right about that, but I think it was only Bill’s ass

Kim: Well, how can they be critical about someone’s… Forget it.

MOO: Well, I’m glad I brought this up.

Kim: It is funny. I loved it. I loved seeing the posters out. I hope they do it again. And I hope any little asshole critic that goes, “I really think it’s really unprofessional that New Bomb Turks moon every billboard that they ever put up in Europe.” Well, I hope they do it again, and have double ass on every poster.

Jim: With a [middle] finger coming up between the legs.

Kim: You know the Spin article? Have you read it yet?

MOO: Yeah, I did read it.

Kim: You know it has to do with Kelley and drugs, and me… and there’s like, what is it? I didn’t read it. That’s my thing. That’s what I do, I don’t read things if I don’t think they’re going to be good. I don’t even look at the pictures. But Jim tells me, “Yeah, they got me saying ‘All the high school girls, and as I’m riding down the road, I’m checking them out.’”

Jim: No, “the girls are giving me the eye.” High school girls are giving me “the eye.”

Kim: “And when I get out of the car, and I got a wife and a couple of babies, they freak out.” He is like totally consumed by how two lines make him sound. Same thing with Nate, you know that from Dave Larsen’s review about “tentative.”

Jim: Tentative. He called me up, and all he said was “tentative.”

Kim: That’s all he said to me, too.

MOO: So this was from the same review?

Kim: There was a little section about Tammy and the Amps, and he said, “They didn’t come together until the last three songs.” We only played six songs. “The vocals were tentative.” So every time Nate calls us now, “Hi, this is Nate, sorry if I’m being too tentative.” Nate has totally focused to one word about him. One word, and he’s like, you can’t even talk to him anymore.
He’s too tentative anymore. It’s so funny to hear… I mean, it’s so normal for everybody to have a huge ego, it’s great. It’s great. Otherwise, everybody would act like Bono, you know, really big. (Kim does her most sincere caring Bono vox.) “Sorry you didn’t like the show. I’m really sorry about that. I feel like it’s my responsibility. What was it about the show?” Where people like Jim, me, Kelley, they’re like “You don’t like me?
Fuck you, man. You can fucking suck my dick.” And that’s the normal way. Everybody has a huge ego, except maybe Hall and Oates and maybe Stipe. These people, they don’t even get mad anymore.
It was a chance for all the Dayton bands to get together at Gilly’s and celebrate, and just have a big party. On Sunday, after reading the review, I felt like I needed to call Guided By Voices and apologize, because I personally embarrassed them. It doesn’t help what we’re doing very much when somebody’s looking over our shoulder and saying we didn’t put on a professional show because everybody in town was too pumped to enjoy themselves. It’s really sad and to have Dave Larsen review that show with all local bands who were so excited to stand in front of another local band and fucking crowd surf. To have that situation transfer into we were “ugly,” we had our own rock star fantasies going on, we couldn’t leave Guided By Voices. It’s just the way that you look at it. The way he looked at it and the way you looked at it was wrong. The way we meant it was right, and there’s nothing that’s going to change that.

Jim: It was a party, and it shouldn’t have been reviewed