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| Spoon-taneity |
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| The
Spoonman Speaketh |
| Interview
by Ken Strong |
He's a familiar figure to many in Seattle,
especially those who frequent the Pike Place
Market: the muscular, middle-aged man with
the mohawk, standing on the sidewalk, usually
accompanying singer/songwriter/guitarist Jim
Page, with his huge array of spoons of different
shapes and sizes and materials spread out
on a blanket, furiously playing against his
face and body, eyes closed, lost in the performance.
Pete Seeger called him "the best damn
spoon player in the universe." Frank
Zappa told him, "You haven't got a commercial
bone in your body." The Grateful Dead's
Mickey Hart said, "Finally, some real
music." He's played on sidewalks and
in bars all around the world, played with
Zappa, Aerosmith, and k.d. lang; appeared
on Broadway with Itzhak Perlman; on David
Letterman's show; and in a Grammy Award-winning
song and MTV video by Soundgarden. Artis the
Spoonman has taken his silverware skills far.
Real Change: When did you first come to
Seattle?
Artis the Spoonman: I've been in Seattle
since 1949. I was born in Kodiak, but I only
lived there the first five months of my life.
My mother left my father there and brought
me down here. I never met him-as a matter
of fact, a friend of mine just found him this
year. I haven't verified or validated it.
He died in 1994. This other guy became my
stepfather. In a few months, she was pregnant
by him, with my sister. Then he legally adopted
me and changed my name to Artis.
I legally changed my name to just "Artis"
when I was 40 years old. I just have the one
name; it wasn't my thing to carry anybody
else's bloodline, it's just not my bag, and
I don't really know my own bloodline, so I
didn't feel attached. And Artis is my name,
so I use it. The only time having the single
name is a problem is when some computer geek
can't figure out how to put it in his damn
computer. I'm actually responsible for the
Washington Department of Licensing in Olympia
changing their databases to accommodate single
names, because of me. This happened about
five or six years ago.
RC: When did you first develop your
interest in silverware?
Artis: I was 10 years old when my mother
bought me a pair of musical spoons - she bought
my sister a pair as well. I broke mine. They
were made here in Seattle - the man who built
the Fiddler's Inn, in Wedgwood [north Seattle]
had a little cottage industry making musical
spoons. This was back in the 1950s; Lawrence
Welk funded it. They were two spoons with
a plastic handle holding them together.
After I broke mine, I took my sister's from
her and never gave them back. I wasn't really
into it at that time; I played along with
my mother's swing tunes. I was into Elvis
at the time, but whenever a swing tune, or
a Latin tune, came along where the spoons
would fit, I played along with it.
But it wasn't until one day in the Navy -
I was the youngest guy in my squadron, and
I wasn't very well liked, I was a thief and
a loudmouth. One day when I was about 19,
it was late, I saw these two guys standing
by a table with a couple of spoons on the
table, and one of them was playing, so I picked
up the spoons and started playing, and put
them back down and walked away. And as I walked
away, I could feel through the back of my
head that these guys were looking at me with
respect now.
I got out of the Navy, and I went into the
Post Office, and I quit the Post Office, my
daughter was born, and my wife and I were
divorced, it was 1972, and I went to live
in Fremont. I lived upstairs in that historic
building they moved [recently home to the
Red Door Alehouse], above three bars. It was
$36 a month, and I was drawing $72 a week
unemployment, so I really had it fat. I went
to work at Tommy's Café downstairs-I
saw Tommy this year for the first time in
25 years - I worked for free, he'd feed me
and give me money if I needed it. I started
playing the teaspoons along with the jukebox,
when there wasn't anything else going on.
And people liked it, no one ever told me to
quit, and finally they stocked the jukebox
with what I wanted so I could play along -
Mantovani, Peggy Lee, Elvis, the Kinks, the
Stones, Wes Montgomery, King Curtis, Eddy
Arnold, all stuff that I liked.
RC: You've played with an astonishing
range of people. How did you get in touch
with all of them?
Artis: Oh, it just happens, it's a
career, you just fall into it. The only one
I ever pursued was Zappa, because of a dream.
One night, about 1975, I had a dream that
I was playing with Zappa and Dr. Hook. In
early '76, I was living in Portland, and Dr.
Hook came to town. I went to the sound check
in the afternoon, and they had me play with
them that night. So I knew that I was going
to play with Zappa, and five years later I
met him, and he immediately asked me to play,
I didn't ask him. In 1992, Zappa invited me
to his house and recorded and sampled my playing,
and we hung out for a few hours. It was like
being welcomed to the club. I mean, I'm broke.
I'm not successful as a businessperson at
all.
I lived 20 years on the road: 1974 to 1994
- lived in a car, slept under bridges, hitchhiked.
In '81 I bought my first bus, lived in it
until '94. Now I live in a basement in West
Seattle, and I cannot see the sky. But, it's
$100 a month rent. My finances are fucked,
except when you come to me to do business,
I am professional, I have respect. But I don't
know how to go out and say, "Yo, I'm
the man, you need to hire me."
I'm going to Cuba in February - I have to
pay $1,000 to do it, but I went through my
address book and raised $1,000! In $20-$50
increments, from my friends and associates,
you know.
RC: At least you're doing what you
want.
Artis: No, I'm not doing what I want!
I want to produce! I've got five CDs that
I have the material and ability to do, if
I could hire the musicians, if I could pay
the engineer. I've got a rock one, I've got
a live one, I've got a children's one, I've
got a ballad one, and a completely instrumental
one. It'd probably be $20,000 at the very
minimum to master them, and that's still not
manufacturing them. But I've got to survive
in the meantime, trying to stay off the fucking
street, trying to eke a goddamn meal. I'm
serious; I hate this fucking shit. I wouldn't
be on the sideline anymore if I didn't have
to be. Thirty fucking years of this. I can't
seem to get my funds together. I'm dysfunctional,
bipolar, medicated, angry, and an alcoholic.
The only thing I'm not sick of is the show
itself - when I'm doing it, playing it.
I wouldn't play with anyone but Jim Page,
as far as the sidewalks. There's very few
who write on a level with the stuff Jim writes
- Zappa, Pete Townsend, Sun Ra - and Jim doesn't
even know these people, he won't "get"
Sun Ra or Zappa. He's totally the folk person,
for lack of a better word.
RC: Have you always been a natural
performer?
Artis: Yeah. When I was 19, even on
the ship in the Navy, I was entertaining the
guys by dropping the splits, singing along
with Jackie Wilson. Just like the hip-hoppers
today - I love it!
It's ironic, though - the glamour stuff, the
stardom stuff is bullshit. It really is. I
mean, it's pathetic, like you had this N30
event [celebrating the second anniversary
of the Seattle WTO protests last Nov. 30]
which drew a couple of hundred people to Town
Hall, and yet they'll come out in the thousands
for some rock star. This is twisted, when
it comes to citizen awareness.
RC: There'll be one hundred thousand
for a football game.
Artis: Yeah! That's rock stardom, too.
I can see the appreciation there, but not
when it's just that, when all the common social
consciousness is just vacuumed out, so that
they don't even pay attention to how jeopardized
their common condition is.
RC: You went to Japan, too? How was
that?
Artis: Three times I've been to Japan.
Everywhere I go it's the same - everywhere
I go people appreciate the show. It crosses
all language barriers. Certainly one of the
most outrageous times was playing in Bali,
because it was a completely different culture.
They're not completely westernized, there's
some pretty remote places. I'd just pick somebody
to play to, and the next thing you know, they're
coming out of the trails, I'd get this big
crowd around me, they're all watching me.
When I'd quit, they don't applaud, it's not
that they didn't like it, but they just don't
do that there. But when I'd pick up my stuff
and start to leave, they'd all go, in their
language, "Again! Again! Encore!"
I've seen tears in elders' eyes when I'd leave
them.
Because the crackers that visit in these places,
they bring their goddamn video cameras and
plastic and they argue over fifty cents! The
difference between a tourist and a visitor
is that a tourist never leaves their house,
they're only gone two weeks or six weeks or
whatever, and they're only thinking about
how they're going back to their front room
and showing the video. They never take the
one eye, at least, off the camera, and the
other eye is usually shut, so they don't see
anything on the periphery. All they got is
a narrow little frame.
But the visitor goes, and they take their
talent, I don't care if they're a mechanic,
a linguist, a cook, a musician, a poet, whatever,
and they share that. And the next thing you
know, they're eating the food, from the leaf,
on the dirt, with the people, and the people
can't afford to give it to you, so you sure
do pay them, but you don't argue over fifty
fucking cents. And then you find out, in a
short period of time, the difference between
the tourist and the more at-home visitor,
you go buy a shirt or something you do like,
they will give you, maybe not the local rate,
because the locals don't buy it, but not the
tourist rate, either, because you ain't arguing!
Although, haggling is also part of the tradition.
But playing there was just fabulous! Fabulous!
RC: What other interesting places have
you gone to?
Artis: Seattle! I love Seattle. I love
Seattle! Fabulous place. I like the expanse
of Texas. Santa Cruz. Australia. I've been
to 30 countries. Flying into Tripoli while
I was in the Navy, it gave me a perspective
when they were bombing it with billion-dollar
planes, bombing $100 stucco huts. You put
it into perspective, standing behind crowds
of people - I remember hearing a blue-hair
say to his wife, "Well, it must be for
our own good, after all, it's the President
doing it." And I'm thinking, people really
believe that!
Citizen awareness is so important. Less than
10 percent of the American citizenry have
a passport, so even less than that ever leave
the fucking country. They could walk from
here to Canada; why don't they? Go to Canada
for the weekend! Go to Mexico! You can fly
to some island in the Pacific for some dirt-cheap
price! Go! You can always go to Europe for
$300. We are a country of individuals. We
haven't got a clue. We're so afraid of everything.
RC: Do you think people in this country
are, in general, less informed about things?
Artis: I think, in general, yes. I
hesitate to make any general statements about
that because I could easily find my foot in
my mouth. But the English-speaking places,
like Australia, they are more determined to
be isolated. Australia is a country of bigots-the
whites are the complete dominant race, it's
like being in the U.S. in the late '50s.
RC: You're a pretty familiar figure
around here, aren't you?
Artis: Some people would say this is
a vain statement, but it's not, it's fact:
I am the most famous spoon player ever. Ever.
On the planet, in history. I've played to
millions of people. There are other spoon
players - there are great, more proficient
spoon players than me, fabulous spoon players,
but I've become the most famous. |
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