The solitary artist recording in his home studio

East River Pipe is the bargain basement Citizen Kane of rock-and-roll. His trusty analog Tascam 388 recorder is his Rosebud. For a long time, Astoria, Queens was his Xanadu. In a small apartment did Mr. Pipe three stately albums self-record: "Shining Hours in a Can," "Poor Fricky," and "Mel." With his fragile sense of melody, understated pop sensibilities and song themes more akin to Bukowski than the Beatles, he’s created his own frail, beautiful world, inhabited by losers and has-beens who, as a result of their bad luck and questionable choices, are left with a wisdom and serenity only found through failure.

East River Pipe is really F.M. Cornog, and he’s fled Xanadu, I mean Queens, for New Jersey, where he was raised. His nom de plume, by the way, relates to a pipe he once saw spewing raw sewage into the East River, and a strange sense of self-identification he felt watching it. With a new album, "The Gasoline Age," due out in August on Merge Records, not much else has changed, as he assures me he still records his music in the same solitary fashion.

Regarding his songs, he knows of where he speaks, as he has encountered serious failures in his life, to the point of alcoholism and homelessness. But with the help of Barbara Powers, who became his girlfriend/manager, he’s now an unsung hero in today’s ever-changing pop music world and well into a successful recording career that deserves more acclaim.

William Repsher: Your production company, Hell Gate Productions, is named after the infamous Hell Gate Bridge in Astoria; the logo is, in fact, a black-ink drawing of the bridge itself. How did living in Astoria affect you personally and as a recording artist?

F.M. Cornog: Well, personally, the ethnic diversity of Queens had a big effect on me. I loved it. Queens is New York City's most ethnically diverse borough, ya know.

And, as a recording artist, Astoria's influence definitely came out in the lyrics of my songs. Simply put, I usually write about people and things I see. So, wherever I'm living at any given time, I nearly always end up writing songs about that area, that neighborhood, that city. For example, the song "Dogman" was written about a mentally ill woman in the neighborhood, who lived with her ten dogs in a tiny apartment. Other songs were sparked by the prostitutes hanging out in front of the Turf Motel down the street. Other songs began while I was drinking beer at The Spinning Wheel up the street, talking with the local characters and drunks. Other songs were touched off by the young hustlers playing cards at the corner bodega. Other songs were sparked by the macho motorhead guys and their girlfriends up at Astoria Park, who cruise up and down Shore Boulevard in their cars on the weekends during the summer.

All these images, and thousands of other images, bounce around in my mind. They refract and reflect off each other. They get colored and grouped. And the songs just come out, somehow.

WR: Richard Thompson often says that people are mistaken to judge his emotional state by the quality of his songs, that he is a far more happy-go-lucky person than his fans would assume from the darker themes of his songs. Would you also describe yourself this way?

FMC: Hmmmm . . . I suppose I can't disown my songs to the extent that Mr. Thompson does, but yeah, I guess I'm a little more well-adjusted than my songs might suggest. I do know, that whenever I put a new album out and I do interviews, the journalists usually remark that they were expecting me to be kind of a quiet, serious, humorless type. They always seem a little surprised that I'm a talkative, animated, reasonably normal idiot.

Causing a ruckus with his artistic expression

WR: When you recorded in your apartment in Astoria, did the neighbors complain? I ask because most recording studios are not located in residential areas, much less apartment buildings, and you must have made a serious amount of noise, especially with the drums. Also, will you follow the same method of recording now that you've moved back to New Jersey?

FMC: My fellow apartment dwellers never complained, ever. They probably would have been pissed if I played a more aggressive style of music, like speed metal or bass n' drums. But my stuff is relatively quiet and melodic.

And yes, I'm using the same methods out here in Jersey. I'm still recording on the old, analog Tascam 388.

WR: As a multi-instrumentalist, what do you consider your strongest instrument? With the last album, Mel, it sounded like you were growing much more comfortable with the layering of keyboards.

FMC: I've always felt more at home on piano or keyboard instruments than I've felt on guitars or whatever. I'm actually a pretty lame musician on every instrument, except piano.

WR: Has anyone told you that some of the songs on the last album, like "Take Back the Days" and "Going to Nowhere," wouldn't have sounded out of place on Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" album? Are you a closet Stevie Nicks fan? (I also wouldn't be surprised if you were a Jeff Lynne/ELO fan.)

FMC: Stevie Nicks is OK. But Lindsey Buckingham is the brain and soul of that band. I like him a lot. I think he is vastly underrated as a musician and producer. I like the rhythm section in Fleetwood Mac too . . . John McVie and Mick Fleetwood play really well together. They create a really nice, solid bed for those songs.

Jeff Lynne is OK too, but I'm not a big fan. My musical role models are more like Tom Verlaine, The Beatles, Lou Reed, Todd Rundgren and Stevie Wonder.

WR: Do you get any sense of who your fans are? Your mode of operation differs from many performers in that you record in a relatively solitary environment and rarely perform live, thus limiting you from heavier contact with your fans. I'm wondering if that affects how you perceive who listens to your music.

FMC: All I really know about my listeners is what I read from the letters and e-mails I get. One thing I've noticed about these people is that the vast majority of them seem to be far more intelligent, far more insightful, and far more likable than I am. Also, most of them seem to like music more than I do.

WR: What was the worst live show you ever played? Please elaborate. Also, would you ever consider touring with a band like Lambchop?

FMC: All of my live shows have been bad. For me, at least. I hate performing live. Some people love to perform live, but I absolutely hate . . . I dread it. Stagefright is part of it, but it goes further than that. Most times, it seems forced and pointless and self-indulgent to me. I just don't enjoy it, so I very rarely do it.

Playing with Lambchop is actually one of the few ways I can even imagine myself playing live at this point. The people in Lambchop are such nice, nice, normal folks. They make such beautiful, beautiful noise together. They're my favorite band in the whole world! So, who knows? Maybe someday.

WR: What are your feelings on the music business in general? It seems that you've carved out a good place for yourself on a small independent label. Have you ever been courted by a major label? Would that be something you would consider?

The cover of "Mel"

FMC: Sure, I'd consider being on a major label. I've been "courted" by several major labels since my first few singles came out. And actually, I signed with a major label right after "Mel" came out. I was signed to EMI America very briefly, but one month after I signed the contract, EMI UK, the parent company, pulled the plug on EMI America. I didn't have to give them a record, and I walked away with a nice hunk of cash.

I signed with EMI America because they were offering me total creative freedom, and because they were paying me a fair amount of money per album to own my master tapes.

Creative freedom aside, ownership of the masters is a big thing for me. If a label wants to own any artist's master tapes, I think that the artist should be compensated fairly for that. Many of the other major labels that have approached me over the years, waved record contracts in my face, but the advances they were offering were insultingly low, a total joke. Other bands might have taken those deals just to be on a major label, but I couldn't. I think the average major label deal is artistic and monetary suicide for the bands that go through with it.

Also, I want to make it clear that I'm not complaining about the major label record industry here. I'm just a sober realist. It's a fuckin' business . . . No different from selling toothpaste or cars or jeans or deodorant. So, sure, I'd sign to a major label again, as long as the deal was fair. I just don't like feeling like a five-dollar crack whore getting reamed up the butt.

WR: Your life story seems ripe for a VH-1: Behind the Music special. For the closing scene, what beach/other relaxing place in New Jersey do you see yourself strolling on at sunset as the announcer says, "It's been a long, hard road for F.M. Cornog, but he's finally found his place in the sun?"

FMC: I think we could film that scene on top of the Newark landfill, while buzzards circle over my head.

WR: Have books and/or movies had an influence on your songs? If so, name a few. Maybe one day Martin Scorcese will have a scene where Joe Pesci stomps someone in a deli to the tune of "Axl or Iggy."

FMC: Yeah, movies are an influence on me. Some of my favorite movies are Taxi Driver, The Godfather (Part 1 & 2), Five Easy Pieces, Blue Velvet, The Deer Hunter, The King Of Comedy, This Is Spinal Tap, Barfly, Cape Fear, The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven, all the Dirty Harry movies, Bananas, Being There, Scarface, The Last Detail, Badlands, Runaway Train, Roger And Me, Buffalo 66.

Writers? Hmmm . . . Henry Miller, Franz Kafka, and Charles Bukowski. Lately I've been getting a kick out of Camille Paglia's stuff too.

WR: It's been recently reported that Rod Stewart has been crying in concert because certain songs remind him too much of his soon-to-be-ex, Rachel Hunter. Are there any songs of yours that might have a similar effect on you were you to perform them live?

FMC: No. And I think Rod should stop his womanly weeping, and start acting like a MAN, right now!

WR: Non-New Yorkers may not realize how isolating living in New York can be. They see movies, television shows and news clips showing sidewalks swarming with people and imagine that it must be impossible to feel lonely there. But it's often that very reason--the concentrated presence of millions of people--that amplifies a sense of loneliness as much as living in a cave in Montana would. I think your songs capture some of that feeling; do you think leaving New York will alter that aspect of your songs?

FMC: That aspect will probably always be in my songs. You see, I've always felt a sense of solitude wherever I've lived in my adult life. I felt it in San Francisco. I felt it in Hoboken. And I felt it in Queens. But, loneliness, no, loneliness isn't the right word. Solitude, yeah. A feeling of unconnectedness, yeah. Alienation, yeah. Estrangement, yeah. Hmmm, personally, New York City never increased or lessened these feelings for me. I feel those things everywhere I go.

WR: As your album titles do not refer to song titles on the albums and are not easily definable, what do they mean: "Mel," "Poor Fricky" and "Shining Hours in a Can?" Are the titles related to the album cover art?

FMC: "Mel" was named after a guy that I used to buy pot from in Central Park. You'd walk up to him and he'd start saying, "I got the Panama Red . . . Panama Red." We'd sit there at the Bethesda Fountain and smoke, and just bullshit about music and other crap.

"Poor Fricky" was named after a pony that Barbara (my girlfriend) and I met on the boardwalk at Asbury Park. Fricky had been dyed bright pink by his owner. Some people are just fuckin' worthless and cruel. Fricky was 50 cents a ride. I related to his cheap vaudevillian life. I'm 50 cents a ride too.

"Shining Hours in a Can" could have been named "Beer," but I thought "Shining Hours In A Can" sounded more interesting at the time.

WR: Many musicians who came of age in the late 60's and early 70's refer to seeing The Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show" as a defining moment in their lives that made them want to become rock-and-roll stars. Do you have any such moments from your childhood?

FMC: Not really. I never had ONE moment that changed everything for me. It was more like a bunch of little moments . . . Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip . . . Crack. AM radio in the 1970's had a huge cumulative effect on me. New York City had a station called WABC that I listened to constantly when I was a kid. It was Top 40 stuff . . . Elton John, Al Green, Paul McCartney & Wings, Marvin Gaye, John Lennon, Bee Gees, Stevie Wonder, Eagles, Ohio Players, Bowie, Hall & Oates, Earth Wind & Fire, Chi-Lites, Todd Rundgren, The Stylistics. When I was a kid, these were the artists that made me want to play music and write songs.

WR: Barring The Spinning Wheel, what New York bar has the best Guinness on tap, assuming, of course, that you are a true connoisseur of the black stuff and not just making boastful claims?

FMC: There's a great dive that I like, right up the street from The Spinning Wheel, called Cronin and Phelan Bar. It's at the corner of Broadway & Steinway in Astoria. Drunks mostly. Those are the kind of bars I like. Everybody knows what they're there for.