Note: The recording quality was abysmal, and it was often impossible
for me to decipher what was said. Karin's voice in particular did not
record well, and I couldn't get 90% of the questions. So I just did
the best I could without getting so frustrated and exhausted that i
wouldn't finish. So I may not always get the exact wording right, and
I have omitted all the "um...er...and" kind of things. If I couldn't
make enough sense of it, or if I thought it wasn't particularly
interesting (do you really want to know about their sandwiches?), I
skipped whole sentences or sections. I didn't add anything though.
Curly brackets will indicate my attepts to interpolate, and square
brackets will set off the explanatory comments like [crowd guffaws].
Oh, yeah, and I don't speak French.
Start with "Bothered"
Linford: Anyone at the show last night? [cheers] It was a lot of fun.
Karin: That's Kerry Faye, he's done an amazing job on our sound for a long time. You may have heard a squeaky noise last night. That's Agnes. [squeaky noise] You see, Kerry went to Catholic school, and now he gets his revenge by squeezing the nun. [Agnes is a little rubber toy in the shape of a nun, like a rubber duck... only a nun. Um, yeah... you get the idea.]
"Lucy" Inroductions of Todd Kolloff, operations manager, and Todd Kearby, all-around amazing superhero, who is setting up the merchandise stand. Karin explains that Todd has an imaginary Dachsund named Chilito, whom he loves to talk about. Linford comments: "I have a feeling we're going to lose a lot of fans today."
Q: Did any Rhinelanders join last night?
Q: Did anybody buy their membership at a store?
[silence]
L: Basically, the vibe is that anybody can join through December 31st and get this current CD and {gorgeous letters and picture} and all that kind of thing. Eventually, after we've been together for six days, we'll have a picture of the new lineup. ... All memberships will expire on New Year's Eve at midnight. Then you have to rejoin and get the next CD. Those who join in 1998 will get this CD. Future members can order _Besides_; that will only be for future Rhinelanders.
Q: Someone asked if those who joined a long, long time ago would get another CD for having been around so long. L: I don't know what the bonus is there -- your membership was $5 less. You did get the wedding photo, but your membership still expires at the same time as everybody else's. And then we start fresh on Jan 1st, 1998.
Q: Who are the new members of the band? K: On vocals and violin, this is Terri Templeton. All the way from London, England (if anyone has a connection with immigration, we'd like to talk to you after the show)... this is, on guitar, Jack Henderson.
Q: Is it Gordon or Jack? K: It is both, but it is Jack. It's offically Jack. L: And on fretless bass is Mike Georgin. {something about playing with him this spring as a foursome}. "Paul & Virginia" K: Anyone want to ask Brian anything, while he's on the mike?
Q: About his recent honeymoon. Brian: We were in Florida for a week, at Siesta Key, and New Orleans for a couple of days. Got some sun, got some music, had a good time. [pause] Anything else? [crowd laughs] You guys have questions; I know you do.
Q: {something unintelligble}
B: "Who's my favorite Spice Girl?" I'd have to think about that.
K: I bet Mallory would have something to say about that.
Q: Whether the names in the songs refer to real people or fictional
characters.
K: Paul & Virginia is a song that came out of a book - an old
book; it was written in France, oh... 18th century - called Paul &
Virginia. It's a very tragic, flowery, story. I became familiar with
the book through an artist named Cot, who painted some illustrations
of these characters for the book. I saw the paintings and just liked
the romantic style and that's where it all came from. So they're
fictional.
L: Lucy actually is a friend of ours. June is a fictional character. Who else is there? ... Oh, Jacksie. Just real briefly. That song was loosely based on a true story of C. S. Lewis. His childhood nickname was Jacksie. He renamed himself when he was, like, 3 years old and refused to answer to any other name than Jack or Jacksie. And with a name like Clive Staples Lewis, wouldn't you have changed your name? So that's kind of where that comes from. ... Katie? [puzzled pause] You got the wrong fan club meeting. Oh, Sleep Baby Jane! Is there a Katie in that? ... I stand corrected. Did I write that? ... My apologies. Katie is fictional. ... Oh, Mary's Waltz. Right. I'm not going to say anything about that one.
Q: What does "Il Est Dans Mon Poche" mean? K: "It's in my Pocket". It should be "ma Poche" - feminine. We had this friend who used to walk around singing "Il Est Dans Mon Poche" in a high, falsetto voice.
L: That was just one in a long line of pretentious disasters that have plagued us... wanting people to think that we're multilingual. Q: The first time I heard it, it sounded like "vache".
L: "It's in my cow." "Faithfully Dangerous" Q: Something about Chris Dahlgren
L: Chris Dahlgren still lives in New York City and he works on his own music out there. We just got to talking about what it would really take to fire up this next chapter of the band. He's very committed to staying in New York City because there's a big network of Jazz musicians there that he's a part of. So we decided it wasn't really practical for him to actually be part of this chapter, permanently, because of the distance thing. But he's still very {happy}, musically, and a good friend. K: We know Terri and Chris through the same circle. If any of you are local Cincinnatians, you know maybe a few years ago there was ... and I was {ecstatic when I heard them}, and I've been a fan of Terri's ever since. Back when she was Terri {Kanz}. So she'd been singing with Chris Dahlgren for a long, long time... and Billy Larkin. ... We actually officially met - worked together - through a mutual friend named Jay Bolotin, a local artist; a renaissance man. Did a concert last {year} called Songs of the Blood, and Terri and I sang together, and at that moment I knew she was the one, and asked for her hand. [much laughter] Oh, what a scandal that would be.
Q: Will there be more spoken word?
L: No current plans; that was just a moment of spontaneity. Q: How did you meet the new members?
L: We were hitchhiking in the same direction ... No, we've been a fan of Mike's playing in a group called "Plow on Boy". Alas, they are no longer with us. So we're happy to have him. Jack we actually met over in England a few years back and became big fans of his songwriting. This is kind of an unfinished adventure here, because we're in the process of applying for a work permit for him... that can be a tall mountain to climb but we're hoping to get a work permit for at least several years so he can jump in with both feet and help push this thing whereever it's supposed to be going. Q: Any plans to record Little Blue River?
L: Yeah, we have a demo version of that. {It'll be out} eventually. Q: Who's your favorite Spice Girl? K: [laughs] Guys, i don't think he knows who they are.
L: I vaguely remember seeing a group on Saturday Night Live -- a bunch
of curvy things. [much laughter]
I'm in the loop.
Q: What are people listening to right now?
[here's what I could catch]
Q: Is Karin Swedish? K: My dad is - came over on the boat. So my dad's whole side of the family is all Swedish. I was just reunited with them about three years ago. {that's a really} long story {and you don't} want to hear it.
L: She makes a mean rutmus! What is that, exactly?
K: Rutmus is the Swedish version of mashed potatoes, made with --
?: Fish!
K: [laughs] No, turnips and carrots...
Q: About Daddy Untwisted K: Daddy Untwisted was a collaboration between Ric, linford and myself. Musically it started off with that verse and then, i don't know how {it happened}, Linford just went off and wrote down some of the words that I couldn't say, but I wanted to say, but would have said if I had been a teenager. That's how I felt. He vicariously wrote that song.
Q: What about old songs like "Sea & Sky"?
L: That's a good question. Probably some of the classic songs we're going to retire as sort of a very unique part of that history: the first seven years. A few of them we'll resurrect. We're not really sure what we're going to do and what we're not going to do. Frankly, we're pretty worn out on a lot of that material. We kind of played them into the ground, and it would be pretty hard to get inspired about resurrecting some of them right now. We're more interested in opening some boxes of brand new material that's been sitting there; that's where we're going to start, and we'll see what happens. Q: What's Ric up to?
L: Ric has been on tour with David Wilcox. K: He just co-produced a record with him that just came out. Brian's playing on it as well. Monk is still alive. Ric is going to be a daddy! He's got big plans.
L: Yeah, Ric and Karen are expecting - Ric's wife is also named Karen - they're expecting their first child. [delayed laughter] Please don't start any more rumors. Terri: I'm hurt. [more laughter]
L: They're expecting their first child, and you should definitely
congratulate them if you get the chance.
L: We're going to do this again. Having never done it before, we
thought we'd just show up and meet you all, and see you sweat a little
bit. Actually, we'll probably plan something a little bit more
cohesive next time. We're actually going to do this again this year.
This is the longest day of the year, and we're going to do the next
one on the shortest day of the year, December 21st; winter solstice.
"Jack's Valentine"