Meg's new CD

I like Meg Hentges because her favorite musicians are my favorite musicians. I like her because she's one of the only female singer/songwriters who bothers to imitate Lou Reed. I like her because she's influenced by Patti Smith, and yet she feels no great Lilithian obligation to be Smith's aural doppelgänger. I like that she got the guy who wrote "That Thing You Do" (Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger) to produce her latest album, Brompton's Cocktail. I like that she was in a quartet called Two Nice Girls before Ben Folds Five was a threesome. I like that the words "microdots," "taupe," "bob" (the verb) and "queers" all appear together on one album. I like that she sorta resembles Marcia Brady's long-estranged, progressively-educated older sister.

I like that she's a feminist who's bold enough to praise The Rolling Stones' "Some Girls" album (when a Women's Studies professor of mine played the title track for the class, legions of co-eds could be heard gasping in horror halfway down the hall. I'd also like to point out that this college is Camille Paglia's alma mater.) I like that she can take her Stones jones and spin it into something cynical and rocking and relevant, like "Tattoo Urge" ("17 'Joe's in all . . . a living, breathing monument to her ex-husband Joe.") I like that she has a Nico story.

What I'm trying to convey is, and here's where I explain how much I detest making such lists and how disappointed I usually am by new releases, Meg Hentges has got her lofty spot in my Top Ten Albums of 1999 all locked up, and we're only halfway into the year. Here's the LeisureSuit.net interview:

Jody Beth Rosen: Let's start off with influences: Name five of your favorite albumsat age 15 and five of your favorite albums now. Feel free to say why.

Meg Hentges: I am unsure of the exact release dates for these albums, but the LPsthat were never far from my turntable in the 70's were:
The Rolling Stones, "Some Girls"
Lou Reed, "Street Hassle"
Patti Smith, "Radio Ethiopia"
Spirit, "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus"
The Clash, "The Clash"
These records fought for space here with The O'Jays, Harry Nilsson,Sly and the Family Stone, and all of the Beatles albums.
CDs in my CD player now:
Fountains of Wayne, "Utopia Parkway"
"The Dusty Springfield Anthology"
David Garza, "This Euphoria"
Mercury Rev, "Deserter's Songs"
Money Mark, "Push The Button"

JBR: What's the first record you ever bought? What's the first recordyou ever sold (out of embarrassment, or poverty, or whatever?)

MH:The first record I ever bought was The Beatles, "Abbey Road", althoughit was a few years after it came out. In the mid eighties, before Imoved to Austin from Portland, I sold almost my entire recordcollection. I needed the money, and I couldn't fit them into myVolkswagen anyway.

JBR: How difficult is it for you to forge a career in music in 1999, whenlabels, commercial radio stations and TV are only paying attention tomillion-selling "divas" and teenyboppers? How long do you suppose itwill take before we see some real Nirvana-style dissent in themainstream?

MH: It seems to me that labels, commercial radio stations, and TV havetraditionally only paid attention to million selling "divas",teenyboppers, and white male bands. I guess that means white malebands are suffering a bit right now, which affects me not at all.It's hard to remember now, because grunge was co-opted by themainstream media so quickly, that Nirvana was ever real dissent atone time. Don't forget: Warrant, Cinderella, Poison. I think itwill be no time at all until bands everywhere are forming andplaying in defiance of something that's not even on my radar screenyet.

JBR: You have been a staple of both the Portland music scene and theAustin music scene. Those are cities that have been captured on film(by respectively, Gus Van Sant and Rick Linklater) at crucial momentsin their economic developments. In what city do you see a bigyouth-culture blossoming right now?

Meg's second CD.

MH: First, I'd like to mention that I think Gus Van Sant's Mala Nocheis a beautiful movie. It captures something very true about Portland.I also love Slacker for the authenticity. You ask a veryinteresting question that got me thinking about the connectionsbetween economics and youth-culture movements. I don't know enoughabout the economic conditions in cities like Detroit in the sixties,San Francisco in the late sixties, or London in the late seventies,to make up a theory. Some people have speculated that social oppressioncan cause a youth-culture backlash. In that case, in these increasinglyPuritanical times, we should be in for some good rockin'. I can'treally say where the outbreak will occur--I haven't been out on the roadfor awhile, but I think soon there will be renewed interest inLatin styles. I don't mean Ricky Martin. I mean, for instance, theTejano and Mariachi music so common around here [Austin]. It's party music,it's beautiful and it's sexy.

JBR: What pisses you off more than anything else?

MH: Laziness.
Betrayal of trust.
The world is run by day people (night sleepers).
Getting heckled by the band we're opening for (Pushmonkey at theSteamboat in Austin).

JBR: Out of your whole catalogue, which song do you consider your"statement of purpose?" Why?

MH: Tie: "Laziness Kills" (see above), and "This Kind of Love" becauseit is a song about remaining hopeful and being true to yourself,which is not easy.

JBR: On "Brompton's Cocktail," I hear lyrical references to The VelvetUnderground ("Margarita told Tom..."), Yo La Tengo ("ba ba, ba ba, baba ba"), and Steely Dan ("can't buy a thrill..."). The musicalreferences (although you may not realize it) range from Cheap Trickto The Cars to 80's Brit-reggae-pop to R.E.M. and 10,000 Maniacs.How do such references seep into your songs? Do you listen to a lotof music during the writing and recording process, or is it allingrained into your pop culture memory?

MH: I'm glad you caught the Velvet Underground reference. It's morethan a reference, actually, it's a tribute. Both to Lou Reed(Margarita told Tom that "...no kinds of love are better thanothers") and to Tom Robinson ("...crossing over the road"). When Iwas in high school, it meant everything to me to know that therewere people like Lou Reed and Tom Robinson in the world. Youknow, weird people, like me.
You're going to have to give credit for the "ba ba's" to AdamSchlesinger. He wrote that chorus.
Yeah, I know that Steely Dan had an album out about 10,000 yearsago called "Can't Buy A Thrill", and I realized it as soon as Iwrote the line down, but how else can you say that and still rhymeit with Cecil B. DeMille?
Which reminds me to tell you that the only music on your listthat I never listened to is 10,000 Maniacs. I managed to missthem altogether.
I rarely listen to music when I'm trying to write. I need daysand days of silence.

Meg's EP. Say that five times fast!

JBR: Everyone's songwriting experience is different; some people havea 4-track around at all times to record impromptu ideas, some peopledon't look at a guitar or pick up a pen and paper before they hit thestudio, and some people wake up with brilliant lyrics at 4 a.m.What's your method?

MH: I need silence. I hear the songs in my imagination, and I needcomplete quiet in order to hear them. Sometimes they roll aroundin my head for months. I play with the ideas, change them around.Usually the voice singing in my head is not my own voice, but someother GOOD voice, accompanied by a full band. The music in myhead is very good. The trouble always comes in getting it out. Luckily, I almost always write with Jude. She plays bass in theband. She brings in incredible ideas of her own. We writetogether in a room with our instruments, pen and paper, andsometimes a jambox.
I do love to record at home. I've got a nice home studio fordemo making, and I spend most of my time there.

JBR: When was the last time you watched MTV? What was on, and how longbefore you changed the channel in disgust?

The last time I watched MTV was at Q Division Studios when we weremixing "Brompton's Cocktail" (I don't have cable TV). What wason were game shows. What wasn't on was music. Game shows killedthe video star. We didn't watch at all.

JBR: Do you have any hilariously disastrous "Spinal Tap"-type stories?

MH: Most hilarious stories suffer from geographical troubles (you had to be there). I will quickly say that I was in a band that opened forNico, and I did spend a weird evening trying to score heroinfor her. (No luck. She had to settle for two fifths of whiskeyinstead.)
I also vaguely remember a night in Dayton where, too stoned tofunction, one band member wedged us in our big van in anunderground parking garage.
Oh, yeah, there was a guy once who was traveling around with my band.He talked all the time about knives. Finally, I got fed up with himso I pulled the singer aside and told her I didn't want her toinvite her friend along on the road anymore. She said, "My friend?I thought he was your friend."

For more information on Meg Hentges, visit http://www.bugjuice.com/meghentges