The Life Of A 21st Century Musician: An Interview With Jim Campilongo

Popshifter: Speaking of your music, you have a new record, Orange, that comes out February 16—

Jim Campilongo: That’s right.

Popshifter: —with Anton Fier as producer, who was the original drummer in the Lounge Lizards, played in Golden Palominos. . . I noticed listening to this record, compared with Heaven Is Creepy, it’s difficult to quantify in a way, but I guess to me it’s more of a “New York”-sounding record.

Jim Campilongo: Yeah. I mean, I’ll take that. It definitely was a conscious thing, to have an “All New York” cast and crew, on my part. I’m not taking all the credit for the difference between the records; Anton’s contribution was great, but in the past, I’ve at least had my big toe in San Francisco, whether it be engineering it there, mastering it in SF, or something like that, and I didn’t do that. This record is all New York. The furthest we got was Brooklyn. I think Anton’s influence, some of his goals and my goals. . . yeah, I think that’s great. I love New York and its history, and I hope that I can contribute something to the city with my residency [at the Living Room, every Monday night] or my presence, being there, because I know it gives a lot to me. I guess it does sound “New York,” but there are so many versions of “New York.” If you’d said “What’s the most New York thing you can think of?” I’d probably have said On The Corner, Miles Davis, or Charlie Parker or something like that.

Popshifter: Or you know, someone else might say the Velvet Underground. . . there are any number of things that are “New York”

Jim Campilongo: That’s totally valid. The Velvet Underground. So how is my record New York? I don’t wanna put you on the spot, but I’m curious. . . (laughs)

Popshifter: There’s something about it. . . I mean, it’s not like there wasn’t “fire” in your playing before, but it seems. . . and granted, not every song on the record is like this—”Awful Pretty, Pretty Awful” is about as far away from this as it could possibly be—but some of the songs, I’m thinking “Backburner” or “I’m Hellen Keller, You’re a Waffle Iron”. . .

Jim Campilongo: Yeah. That’s pretty New York. That outro, the way there’s a long feedback. . . You’re right. I never really thought of it that way. I appreciate it. And “Awful Pretty, Pretty Awfu,l”, you know, I didn’t want that on the record, or didn’t consider it. I had written it after seeing a country swing band. I went home and I wrote that, and I sent it to a musician in this country swing band—the guitarist—and said, “Hey, I wrote this song for you. I was inspired by seeing you guys and I wrote this song.” Between me, you and the walls, he never responded! (laughs)

I thought it was kind of cool, and then I forgot about the tune. I was practicing it one day and I was going through some MP3 files of tunes I’d written, and I’d been relearning it and Anton came over. I’d been playing it with a Boomerang looper as a rhthym—just me and me, basically—and Anton said “Hey that’s really good! You ought to put that on your record” and I said, “Yeah, but this is a Ten Gallon Cats kind of thing” and he says, “No. That’s your thing. We gotta have your thing on the record. . . ” And I said “OK.”

And I’m really glad it’s on there, but I was concerned, thinking, well, I’ve got this acoustic song called “Orange”, it’s really pretty, now we have “Awful Pretty, Pretty Awful”, now we have “Backburner”. . . and I was really worried about how the record would fit together. Anton really assured me—promised actually—that the record would have continuity. And I think it does. You know, I don’t think it has the continuity of Miles Davis’s Kind Of Blue, but you know . . . I don’t get sick of myself [on it], and I do sometimes. I mean, how much can a guy do for 40 minutes, instrumental, with a Telecaster? After 40 minutes, I’m done.

I think what’s successful with this record is that it’s like a real good Jim Campilongo iPod shuffle. If I get tired from, say “Chelsea Bridge,” something that’s intense or kind of draining, there seems to be another flavor, other flavors that kind of energize the experience. I have to say, I’m happy with that.

Click to read more from Jim Campilongo on. . .

New Record Details and The New York Sound
Making The Songs Work Together
Guitar vs. Singing
Sideman vs. Frontman
The Life Of A 21st Century Musician
Jim Campilongo In 3D?

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