Tell me about Howestock. The reviews I read made me grit my teeth that I wasn't in London for that!
I mean, it's weird the way that happened! John came to me offhandedly, mentioning something about "the Barbicon"—which, up until I walked in, I had no idea what he was talking about. He said they guy there was doing this [concert series] called "Beyond Nashville" and they wanted Giant Sand and Calexico for a night. So far we've managed to do three of those: yYou saw the "Tribute To Rainer" and the KXCI Benefit shows here in Tucson, then there was also one on New Year's Eve up in Chicago. That was a ton of fun, out of control and beautiful, although the ones down here are always troublesome because I'm usually too preoccupied with the matters of the day and my family life. [laughs] That's why my shows in Tucson kinda suck!

So anyhow, John mentions it and I think, "OK, one more time." Because you never know what will happen. It's a wild card when both bands play together. I feel like I really gotta step up to the plate: "Uh, I feel competitive." Yet I hate that feeling of competition; I started the band to AVOID any form of competition, and it really irks me when I have to be "better than" or at least "as good as." I'd rather things come more slouchingly, or at least more laid back, more naturally.

They asked me to provide a wish list of who I'd want to play, some guests. So OK, Vic, Mark Linkous, Evan ... But I still wasn't taking it seriously, and I went back out on the road. Then when I came back they told me they'd confirmed the show and all those people! I went, "Oh fuck." The way it was gonna be was just me sitting in on piano or something with these people, just a singer/songwriter thing, not bands. A few more weeks go by and the guys from the Barbicon and some magazine guys show up in Tucson, and that's when I had to start taking it seriously. Meanwhile, some festival offers from Europe came up, and could I get a band together? Well, I could get a drummer over there, use the two girls on guitar and bass, although it still wasn't going to be Giant Sand just yet.

I'd been jamming with Noah here in town, with his band, Libre de Gracia, and asked Noah if he wanted to go. Somewhere in there I'd talked to Susan about her fiddle playing and that she'd fit in there too. Then John gets off tour, and we're sitting around in the yard when I tell him that I guess I'm going over to do that Barbicon thing. He kinda looked weird, like he'd made the wrong decision, or confused as to why he's not there. What I heard later was that the Calexico agent might have put a word in their ear that they could do a bigger show later and make a lot more money; those kinds of politics do come into play, but I don't know if that's the real reason. So I asked John if he wanted to go now, and he said yeah. It's hard for me to deny those dudes, especially John, because ultimately I just love playing with them.

Next time I'm gonna ask if I can tag along.
Man, I gotta get meaner! [laughs] Then Joey says he wants to do it, too. We had a great deal of fun. The other irony is that in the advertising it didn't say Giant Sand, it just said me.

So you were both a player and the MC for the evening? I guess it was easy, since you knew the folks. And you could lend some consistency throughout the proceedings.
Yeah, they're all friends, man. That's the thing. It's easy to be comfortable with them. It's not like I'm Jon Stewart up there, handing out awards to people I don't know about.

He has cards to read. Did you have any cards or notes?
No, the only thing I did was at one point I went over to John Parish: "Give me the names of everybody in your band." Because there were 11 people, and I wrote all their names on my hand because I wanted to thank those guys.

The description in Uncut was "Howestock," which I loved.
I didn't hear that at all until I read about it. But those Brits are funny. It was sweet of Polly [Harvey] to come down. Kristin Hersh couldn't make it. Mark Linkous, it was great to see him again because I hadn't seen him in years.

Why didn't Thrill Jockey sticker the CD jewel box for Cover Magazine "featuring PJ Harvey, Neko Case ..." and then just sell the hell out of it?
Well, it's not exactly like we did duets or anything. And that's why I like Thrill Jockey, because they're subtle enough and level-headed enough not to go overboard with that crap. Then you poison and destroy it. But if it's real, and not like a commercial exploitation—"Hey, what would happen if we get The Rock and Hulk Hogan together and have this big fight." It's not like that. It's a genuine friendship that occurred and you don't want to fuck with that or scare somebody off by making them feel used for commercial gain or something. At least that's the way I feel about it.

I interviewed John Doe and told him about Giant Sand and PJ Harvey doing "Johny Hit And Run Paulene" in concert and he was floored, saying, "Get out of here!" He was incredulous and honored, just got a big kick out of it.
That's cool he would even know who Giant Sand was. I saw Exene in the bar here a few years ago and went over to say hey. I told her, "I know you don't remember it, but we opened for X a couple of times in the '80s." She said, "Yeah, I can't remember a lot of that ..."

We had a fantastic version of that song at the London show. We didn't have a guitar hookup for Polly, so I gave her the CD player cued up to some white noise, the same that's on the studio recording. I had it really loud, so I told her, "Polly, just push this button [laughs] when you want to kick it in, and hit it off when you want it to quit." And it sounded great. At the end of the night we did Rainer's "Losing Ground," this monster version with everybody, and it was really beautiful.

I wanted to ask you a bit about your Web activity, too. You've got MP3s, lyrics, a message board, etc. as well as mail-order-only discs. Why did you decide to issue The Rock Opera Years and Down Home 2000 privately, through your site? Had you looked at other artists who had done this successfully in the past? For example, Aimee Mann's initial self-release of Bachelor No. 2 got a lot of publicity and no doubt offered food for thought for other artists.
No, it started with V2 dropping us and then deciding that the fan base at the Web site should have the promo copies (that V2 had pressed up before dropping Giant Sand) of Chore Of Enchantment. I had literally gone broke by then because of the restrictions and time it takes to get out that kind of contract, and I was not convinced that any more time should be put into Chore. So selling the limited pressings out to those that wanted it most seemed like a good starting place. After folks digested it they began to respond in an inspirational way that got me going to find a proper home for it. So it turned to an old friend of mine, Bettina Richards, who started her own label Thrill Jockey after being upset by the bigger labels she used to work for.

After that, the Web site then begat the notion of cleaning house of other clutterings of sonic dust bunnies that were clotting up the place. It began to make more and more sense to offer them up to the fan base at the site—and then of course to take some on the road so that those sales would provide a form of tour support. All in all, it allows more independence from the powers that be. And seems to give people interested in the band more of what they want. By doing this, it also takes on a "lithograph" mentality in an industry that would prefer there to only be a mass of percentage cuts on SoundScan items that they can track and bank on. This becomes more art friendly and less cursed by the restraints of output due to marketing strategies.

Any pitfalls or successes in your mind in terms of being both a signed artist and a self-releasing one?
It's good to be both at the same time. A signed artist usually means there will be decent distribution involved, but not necessarily handled by folks who know what to do with it. A self-releasing one has a better chance of longevity if a realistic fan base is already established. The downside is just that you have to remember to be an office on occasion, which is hard for a scatterbrained mofo! But the CDs seem to get where they need to go.

Is everything working out to your satisfaction?
As far as I know. I haven't had to give it as much of my time lately; it's all Mike Brewer in England and Jim Blackwood in Tucson taking care of it. I've got my hands so full. It's a really good way to stay in touch with the people that really want the stuff because you get the comments immediately from them instead of them being filtered over too much time through the auspices of record company people. The only way before was to read reviews to find out what people thought about the records, and then it was only what the critics thought. Here it's people who really want to get their hands on it and it makes a big difference because they'll let you know if they're satisfied or not. It's pretty cool. The Internet is a great thing—it's literally saved our ass.

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