Creating Utopia: An Interview With Jason Falkner

Posted in Current Faves, Interviews, Music |

Jason Falkner: I tried to find the shoes that The Undertones were wearing—which we called “monkey boots”—forever! I finally went to London when I was 16 and the first person I saw wearing them was a 70-year-old double-decker bus driver. And I pointed down at his shoes and I was like, “Where the hell did you get those? Those are punk rock boots!”

The Undertones

And he’s like (adopts London Cockney accent), “What’re you talkin’ about, mate? These cost five pounds!” And they were Yugoslavian military boots. That’s kind of a silly example.

Popshifter: No, when you’re 14 or whatever, that’s a big deal.

Jason Falkner: Yeah, it’s a big deal. When you had to search something out, you really appreciated it.

Popshifter: Yep!

Jason Falkner: Just going to vinyl shops and digging through boxes of seven-inches, looking for some gem that you wanted, that was really exciting. It’s just different looking it up online or downloading it from some music site or even ordering it.

It’s like “click.” Yep, I ordered it; it’s in the mail. It’s just a different thing. That’s something I really am glad I experienced and I’m glad I’m old enough to have been around before that. You’re a part of the experience; your own choices are a part of the experience. As opposed to being able to type something into Google.

As far as taste in music and art, I developed my own taste and style from a really isolated place. It was my vision of a utopia; that’s what I was always trying to create. So it doesn’t surprise me at all that a lot of people now wouldn’t really get what I’m doing. I mean a lot of the mass consumers.

I think anyone with a desire to hear something a little more interesting would, if they got the chance to hear my music, find something about it that they like or love. I’m not speaking to the people who watch Entertainment Tonight.

Popshifter: (laughs)

Jason Falkner: At all.

Popshifter: Or TMZ.com.

Jason Falkner: No, even worse, yeah. I could (pause) care less.

Popshifter: Couldn’t? (laughs)

Jason Falkner: This is the funny thing. Some people say, “I could care less.”

Popshifter: I know, but I think that’s grammatically incorrect, isn’t it?

Effect An Effect © xkcd

Jason Falkner: Okay, so how about this one: I could or couldn’t give a shit.

Popshifter: (cracks up)

Jason Falkner: Because people say both. Neither really work. (laughs) That’s my favorite expression.

Popshifter: I agree with you that that’s a big problem with pop culture today, that maybe there isn’t the same affection or appreciation for things as there was maybe 20 years ago.

Jason Falkner: There are just so many choices now. And in a way, that means that maybe there are fewer choices, you know what I mean?

Popshifter: Do you hate freedom? Come on, now. (pause) I’m just joking.

Jason Falkner: I’m a Communist, man! No, but you know what I mean. There are just so many things flooding every kind of entertainment market. Obviously, large record companies. . . those were just a crooked thing from their inception. Run by people who didn’t really care about the artists. Although obviously there were exceptions like Richard Branson, Chris Blackwell, or even Rick Rubin. Generally speaking—and I’ve been doing this for a while and I’ve met with every single large record maverick—they’ve all kind of disappointed me.

It’s a good thing that’s kind of waned and artists are more in control of promoting themselves, like over the Internet. For better or worse, record companies were a barometer for what they thought would sell. The good people, like those I mentioned before, were a barometer for what was good to release. And that’s a really important issue that I never hear anybody talking about.

It kind of drives me crazy. Just because you want to be good, doesn’t mean that you are.

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Click to read more from Jason Falkner on. . .

Revisiting The Beatles
Ripoffs and references
That “Power Pop” thing
“It all boils down to Bowie.”
A pre-Internet world
The dumbing down of pop culture
What’s next for Jason

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