First up, the giveaway – a copy of Stepping Over Seasons is up for grabs – simply be the first person to comment here and it’s all yours! (I’ll contact you for a postal address)

Next up – 3 copies of my haiku collection are available to win. Simply enter a haiku in the comment box below, and my 3 favourite haiku will get a copy of Orion Tips the Saucepan. (Again, I’ll contact you for a postal address!)

until he orders again, broken crockery for lips
as he grinds the words out
for the girl at the counter

who’s waiting for a tip
with miniature scarecrows for hair
and an expressionless distaste

that rattles mugs, catches in the fan
and falls across us
with the feathery touch of a sigh.

In short, it asks a writer to e-mail an Info Sheet about and Chapter One of their novel/book (not poetry though) on a Friday, and promises a two week turnaround.

Sounds pretty good – two week response from a publishing house? Crazy. Of course, if they like your work you’ll hear back with a request for more chapters within those two weeks, but if they don’t like it – you will hear nothing.

BUT what I like about that is, rather than hearing nothing for 3-6 months and then getting a rejection, instead, you have almost instant feedback. Maybe you’ve been knocked back, but at least you only had to wait for two weeks to hear it. Then you’re free to move on, instead of having your MS tied up with one publisher (who was going to reject it anyway) while the deadlines/submission windows of other publishers slide by.

I haven’t actually got anything to test their two week promise, but I wish I did now.

a tumble-down house
grass seeds take flight

.

thistles dancing -
an autumn wind
muffles the highway

.

.

shuffling over old stone
the echo
of tour guides

my wrist is a bear
on a mouse
it clicks and aches

.

Producers have this fascinating dual representation in the popular media.

On one hand they are the devilish lackey or enforcer of the hopelessly out of touch/money-grubbing record label, sent in to ‘whip a band into shape’ and make sure they come up with another single. The other side of the image is a skilled, intelligent person who can challenge a band and help them  to come up with amazing music. In this version, a producer seems to earn a fierce loyalty from a group and develop a fruitful partnership.

Whenever I read a bio of a band, I always want to know more about the producer. How they worked, how they felt, what sort of power and influence they had with both label and band, what sort of relationships.

One such producer is the late Paul A. Rothchild probably most famous for producing the first 5 Doors albums and Janis Joplin’s Pearl. I know relatively little about him, but most of it is fascinating. A perfectionist and a man of conviction – he was able to wrestle (with help no doubt) the difficult Jim Morrison into many fine performances, but was just as demanding on the rest of the band – “nearly every song on the album [Waiting for the Sun] required at least twenty takes…while ‘The Unknown Soldier,’ recorded in two parts, required a total of 130 starts.”*

His conviction seemed most evident in simply walking out on the Doors after hearing demos for LA Woman, which he is misquoted as calling ‘cocktail music.’ Perhaps leaving a band as troubled as The Doors at this stage was not that hard a choice, but I always found it impressive that he was honest with both himself and the band at that point.

So the sad thing is that there must be dozens of producers out there that have amazing stories, but because they, like so many ‘behind the scenes’ individuals, are doomed to miss out.

Here’s a snippet  from an interview with Paul in 1981 (see link above)

BAM: The first three LPs consisted mainly of songs they knew from being a club band?

PR: the first TWO were released material from the original stage show. By the time we hit Waiting For The Sun, things were getting a little thin.

BAM: Is that why the production was so much more elaborate than on the first two albums?

PR: You got it! As the talent fades, the producer HAS to become more active. It’s sort of like the aging beauty queen. As the beauty fades, more make up goes on.

BAM: What specifically did you do to remedy the situation?

PR: Well, from the third album on, we got into heavy vocal compositing because Jim would come in too drunk to sing decently. Sometimes we’d put together eight different takes of a song to make one good one.

BAM: What’s an example of where you did that?

PR: I don’t even have to name titles. Every single song from the third album on was done that way. Every one. I don’t mean a verse at a time, either. Sometimes it was a phrase at a time, from one breath phrase to another.

Imagine splicing together phrases, lines and words from hundreds of vocal takes for this one:

*p179 ‘No-One Here Gets Out Alive’

I’m probably better off talking about what it feels like to be a tourist in there and mention a couple of things we saw. The link in the text above is good for giving a view of some of the things that are tough to see from the floor of the chapel, along with history behind its construction.

From the Gallery of Maps

We went to the Vatican City on the day before we were due to leave Rome, which was a weekday in autumn and so it wasn’t too busy – comparatively speaking. Four million people are said to visit the museums per year and weekends are busy indeed. (From a conservation standpoint, this must be tough to deal with.) My wife and I started in the museums above, very, very slowly burrowing our way down to the Sistine Chapel, ‘very slowly’ due to the press of bodies rather than the distance we travelled.

The actual Chapel lies beyond many halls and below several floors of the museum, or so it seemed. After the twentieth room/passage/alcove/set of stairs it was hard to tell. We walked through gallery spaces where we saw a Matisse and a couple of Dalis – which was a nice contrast with some of the more gruesome religious art, of slayings and decapitations (as was in vogue at the time.) At each bottle-necked corridor it was one step forward, two steps back, with tour groups moving through like a mass of wandering ghosts, linked by their brightly coloured transistors and a knack for bumping into you. The crowd was like a train of cattle in many ways, it also moved without grace, rigid and processional without the same sense of purpose. Occasionally an arm would steal above the din and at its top, like a star on a Christmas tree, was the unblinking eye of a camera. Then it would retract, almost with shame.

Also from the Gallery of Maps

Not by design, but due to the direction of the arrows leading toward the Cappella Sistina, we came to the Gallery of Maps, which I loved. Wall-sized frescoes showed the regions of Italy during the 1580s in some detail, they were actually one of my favourite parts of the museums. Many sculptures, paintings and tapestries lined the corridors, but some of my favourite pieces were much more modern: like the occasional fan, used to cool things down. These were a sweet gesture but did little in the end – because the mass of bodies that nearly constantly surrounded you were too good at producing sweat and heat. An open window here and there was like an oasis, and quickly occupied.

There were dozens of guards, often hidden from sight, though possessed of great vantage points. Their uniforms were smart and they had the impassive faces that came from being given years worth of reasons not to smile – tourists and their sticky fingers. No matter how many velvet ropes or signs that requested folks ‘not to touch’, the allure of marble and other surfaces proved too strong for many of the visitors.

Finally we came to the Sistine Chapel after nearly an hour of shuffling, and we had to pause on the landing. It was spectacular. No doubt. But by the end of the maze, we found ourselves a little burned out. We’d seen a lot. At the same time, the crowd denied you the time to examine anything at leisure. We had to force ourselves to stay in the packed Chapel longer, but in the end, we were glad to get out and get some air.

Yep, this is from the Gallery of Maps too

What would be best, if you could pick a time when it wasn’t crowded (some folks recommend early morning, we should have researched but added the Vatican City to our list of sights on a whim the night before.) The Chapel deserves to be seen in relative peace, and in a big hit, all at once, with little prelude. Especially not an hour-long crawl through the corridors. That way you can better appreciate the rich, detailed, and perhaps surprisingly colourful work done by Michelangelo. As to how colourful he intended is hotly contended of course.

One more thing, because the Chapel is a functioning one, it remains a holy place and so the guards periodically let out a mighty ‘Shhhhhh’ in unison. It would resonate and was quite powerful. Though it worked for a time, it was like putting a lid on a boiling pot. The pressure would eventually build and the lid/talking would eventually rise again. But I loved that they did not give up.

Better or worse?

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