Block

Timing is Everything (Java/Capitol)
An interview with Jamie Block
by Scott Hefflon

From out of nowhere comes a “band” (un)known as Block. With an unobtrusive name and simple cover art, Timing is Everything could easily be seen and passed over in your local mall. And that’d be a crying shame, seeing as Block is one of the most diverse and creative forces in non-suck pop today. While he’s bound to make waves with songs in three hot major motion pictures, at this time, he’s still a relative unknown. He’s certainly not an unknown here at Lollipop – ever since I got an advance to be considered for a compilation I put together for Student.Com, I’ve given copies to all main players on the staff, and everyone loves it. It would’ve been on many a top ten list, but the release of the album was early ’99. As one of the most enjoyable records from end-to-end that’s come through recently, it was necessary to find out what goes on inside the mind of the man who delves into such varied styles and writes such clever, often poignant, lyrics. Playful and painful, the man of many words speaks his mind. Unfortunately, the tape ran out as he admitted the entire album was re-recorded because it didn’t have the right feel. Evidently, the record was originally produced by Mike Rathke, Lou Reed’s producer, but when viewed on the whole, it was too one dimensional. So at great expense, the then-unsigned musician set out to re-record 11 of the 13 songs with various producers, studios, and styles. The result is one of the most refreshing pop albums you’ll hear all year.

I guess from the all the artwork that you’re a smoker…
I’m a toker, I’m a midnight poker… Yeah, I’m a smoker. I actually started smoking in my mid-twenties. I think that’s kinda late to pick up smoking, and the strange thing is I thought I wouldn’t become “a smoker” because I didn’t start when I was thirteen. I was on the road a lot, and it became kind of a time-killer. Do you smoke?

Over two packs a day. I think it gives you a chance to think before responding, and it’s like doing deep breathing exercises, with the nicotine rush as a bonus.
What do you smoke?

GPCs, usually, but Basics were on sale up the street. How about you?
My road manager and sound engineer smokes Camel Wides, but I recently switched to American Spirits. They seem to be a bit mellower. They feel better the next day.

Are you taking shit for promoting cigarettes?
My ex-manager thought it was a horrible cover and it was going to alienate me from the general public, but that’s why he’s my ex-manager. He’s a fuckin’ idiot. There hasn’t been any kind of backlash whatsoever. The guy who designed the CD, Sagmeister, is my favorite designer. He did Lou Reed’s Set the Twilight Reeling, which I absolutely love. We had a meeting, and I was smoking Rothman reds. I mentioned I really enjoy smoking, and when I came back a week later, he’s designed all the artwork. I’m glad I said I liked smoking and not, ya know, young boys after midnight or something. I though the label would have a problem with it, but everyone liked it. It’s legal… The only problem was with the actual cigarette we put in certain copies. It finally dawned on someone at Capitol that if we put a real cigarette in all of them, we couldn’t sell the CD to anyone under eighteen.

Many of your songs, like “Cigarettes, Prozac & Scotch,” sound like very personal stories. I think one of the hits around here is “I-95.” It’s a road anyone from this area has traveled, alone, in the quiet hours of the night and early morning, and the song perfectly captures that feeling.
I put out a record a few years ago, Lead Me Not into Penn Station, before I was signed, so I didn’t have any tour support. So I toured by myself, and it’s pretty lonely going back and forth, up and down, for weeks on end. That song came out of a few hundred experiences, unlike other songs that’re based on one.

It’s more of a sad, twilight song, as opposed to some of your others that’re more upbeat and catchy. I think one of the songs that’s going to capture attention is “I Used to Manage PM Dawn,” so let’s talk about that…
It’s a true story. The guy who used to manage PM Dawn approached me after a show in New York about four years ago. Over the next couple days as he was trying to convince me I should hire him to manage me, he told me everything, pretty much word-for-word, that’s in that song. If you’ve seen the PM Dawn cover, it looks like a Hollywood backdrop. But they actually flew to Iceland to do the photoshoot, and it probably cost the band $25,000, which is a lot of money. Money that the manager doesn’t have to pay. I probably wouldn’t’ve written the song, but a month later he sat me down all mysterious-like, and said he was getting out of managing. It was a year or so later that the words came back to me and I wrote a song around it. I guess it’s true that the songwriter gets the last laugh.

You co-wrote “I-95” with Sander Hicks. Who’s that?
He’s a friend of mine I met when I first moved to New York. I went into a Kinko’s and there was this crazy guy working behind the counter talking about anti-folk. I had just moved from North Carolina because I loved Roger Manning and the whole anti-folk scene of the late ’80s. For me as a songwriter, it was the defining moment when I turned the corner from a kinda Southern, collegey, Dylanesque folkie to realizing this was this whole other language. Ultimately, it was punk-influenced. Anyway, I came to New York because that’s where Alphabet City and everyone was from, and Sanders had done the same thing. We hit it off, and within a few months, I was working at Kinko’s. We made huge posters and started our own anti-folk night, and it was a great period of my life. We were in our early 20s, and while we didn’t have any money, it was really nice because there was a real camaraderie and we shared songs with each other. A lot of my songs from the first album were written that way. We’d sit down and try different things and make suggestions with each others’ songs, and “I-95” came out of that phase.

And you covered “Catch A Falling Star,” too. It’s dippy, humorous, and an absolute classic cover. But why that song?
Well, I, um, used to date a girl in high school, the girl who I lost my virginity to, and her dad was a Perry Como fan. He used to play his records, and while her parents were in the family room, we’d go up into her room and fuck. And I mean fuck. I can’t believe they didn’t know what were we doing, God, I hope they didn’t. I have a daughter now, she’s four, but I can imagine if a guy ever came to visit my daughter, I’d chaperone and he’d never leave my eyesight. So that’s how that song got into my mind, but I didn’t think of it again until about two years ago, during the whole British easy listening scene in Manhattan. That was obviously very influential to the sounds of this record. There was a joke artist who was, coincidentally enough, also signed to Capitol records named Mrs. Miller who put out a record called Mrs. Miller’s Greatest Hits. That was a joke in and of itself because she only put out one record. You can hear her at the end of our song; we sampled her. One thing you have to remember is that I wasn’t signed when I made this record, so I didn’t think too much about it. It sounded fun, so we did it. When we recorded “I Used to Manage PM Dawn,” even though he didn’t say it, you could tell the engineer was like, “OK, when are we going to finish this silly thing so we can record a real song.” When people respond that way, you know you’re on to something.

There are other reference points on Timing is Everything which make it familiar, yet new at the same time… Do you remember a British pop singer named Jon Astley? Not to be confused with Rick Astley – not at all – Jon Astley did “Jane’s Getting Serious” which later became a Heinz ketchup commercial. Some of you stuff reminds me of him.
No, I’ve never heard of him.

No worries, I’ve never met anyone other than the guy who turned me onto him in the first place who’s ever heard of him.
Wow, that’s pretty scary. One of the guys who helped me out a lot is Andy Partridge of XTC. Long before my first record came out, he heard my music, and I’ll never forget the day I came home to my studio apartment and there was a long message from him on my machine. He said he loved the music and to call him if there was anything he could do. Now I call him Uncle Andy. Little things like that… You can live off those fumes for a long time.

There was another reference I picked up on, and I’m not sure how you’re going to respond to this: Neil Diamond.
Oh, sure. Much of that was intentional.

I’m glad you didn’t just hang up on me…
I think he’s brilliant. Even though I don’t own anything by him, I hear him on the radio and find myself drawn in. Somehow, he became not cool, but a great artist like that’ll come back again. Again, his influence came because of the British thing. Adam Peters, a British fellow, produced that song, “Raise” with me. When I played him the finger-picking acoustic part and the vocals, it was almost a campfire song. He helped me move it into Neil Diamond’s realm with the tambourine and everything. The funny thing is I went to see Randy Newman, whose son is my A&R guy, and after the show I played him my CD and he really liked it. He commented that “Raise” is what Neil Diamond should’ve done.

You’re just lining up the stars and getting the quotes, huh?
Yeah, I guess so. People’ve always said I kinda sounded like Neil Diamond anyway, so this time I just went for it.

There’s also a lot of Lou Reed-ish guitarwork in your songs as well.
Of the first 90 reviews of my record, 70 of them have mentioned Lou Reed, almost always in a positive way. And seeing as Lou is the best of the best, I take that as great compliment. He actually came to a show last year with Mike Rathke, his producer, who produced two of my tracks, “Sick of Life” and “Queen of 5th Street.” I was playing at Ailene’s Grocery, and you could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Mike had told me he’s known Lou for ten years, and he’s never stayed for more than two songs for anybody, but he stayed the whole time, clapped for an encore, and then left.

But unlike Lou and the folkies you’ve talked about, you embrace technology. There’re samples and plenty of strong pop melodies, as well as some kind of a drum loop on “Rhinoceros.”
Yeah, we made that loop. That’s the single, by the way.

Really? Not “I Used to Manage PM Dawn?” That has single written all over it!
That was my pick, but the label said it was too much of a novelty song. The interesting thing is a few major radio stations have said ‘fuck it,’ and they’re playing “…PM Dawn.”

I hear you have a few songs on upcoming movie soundtracks?
Yeah, I hear Drew Barrymore really liked the song for her soundtrack, Never Been Kissed. And I just went to an opening here in New York for Blast From The Past. What a fuckin’ weird scene that was. It must’ve been a $200,000 party or something – booze, amazing food, a swing band, hired swing dancers – I have to get used to these big parties. I hated it. I felt like a fish out of water. I went and people were saying, ‘We have to get your picture with these people.’ So we get there and there are, like, 500 people trying to get their picture with Alicia Silverstone. By the time she gets around to you, she’s not particularly interested in anything, and who can blame her? Quite frankly, I’m not particularly interested in her either, but whatever. The third song in a soundtrack is for Glen Ballard’s Clubland. He heard “I Used to Manage PM Dawn” and he used it for the closing credits. While a lot of the songs on this album seem light and fun, I hope people listen to the imagery being created and get the kind of dark humor, almost horrific at times. I hope they get it. I’m not the Robin Williams of folk.