GARAGE ORCHESTRA

Garage Orchestra was released in the spring of 1994 on an independent record company catering to the rising tide of 90s grunge bands. I don't know what this little record was doing there, one wallet chained/ buzz haircut/three quarter length short-pants employee said to me, "I heard your album Cindy Lee and it sounds like a cross between christmas music and tunes for a commercial". Luckily, I took it as a compliment.

And fortunately a few well heeled music outlets shed some positive ink about it that year, like Rolling Stone:

"(****)Squealing and swooping, Cindy Lee Berryhill's voice is a natural gas. Even more wondrous is the San Diego guitarist's arranging. To songs whose raw, free ecstasies recall Patti Smith, Berryhill adds strings-and-timpani flourishes that echo Brian Wilson. By turns quirky and tender in their lyrics, "Radio Astronomy", Every Someone Tonight", and "Scariest Thing In The World" conjure up a visionary, whimsical universe. Ace players like cellist Renata Bratt and percussionist Randy Hoffman flesh out eccentric tunes whose charm exerts fresh fascination and an odd, gripping luminosity."

..And, Record Collector (UK):

"Sometimes you imagine a sound in your head, and there doesn't seem to be any music in the world that can satisfy it. You can dream up your own menu, but mine demanded the Beach Boys' harmonies and Brian Wilson's idiosyncratic melodies coupled with a Dylanesque lyrical vision and the poetic passion of Patti Smith. If the result could somehow be witty, romantic and half-crazy as well, so much the better. Somebody else had the same dream, and the ability and daring to pull it off. Cindy Lee Berryhill's 'Garage Orchestra' from 1994 was the result, the third in an occasional series of visionary albums from the Californian singer-songwriter."

-Peter Doggett(1996)

At any rate, the commercial-christmasy music sounds of the G.O. are back in print via iTunes, TuneCore and other music outlets....

MAKE WAY FOR THE HANDICAPPED

A few days ago I received an email from a guy I don't know, the subject line said Make Way For The Handicapped, which happens to be a song from my album, Beloved Stranger (Populuxe Records 2008). The email said this:

Wow! I was trying to find MWFTH on youtube by my former band, the Mumbletypegs, when I came across your video. FYI, I'm not seeking money. I'm just very happy to hear someone covering one of our songs, and a person of your stature, no less. Its like the time a kid from Poland got our album. -Rush Riddle

...I was surprised and flummoxed. What did this mean? So I googled the band and found this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWUeFvM31M0

Wow!... I wrote back to the guy that emailed me:

Hi Rush, Wow cool to get your email. And found your version on YouTube. Are you the guy singing the song? There's a real story to this tune and if you are him you know the tale. Let me know if you're the elusive "Alex", or if you know, how I can be in touch with him..

all the best, cindy lee berryhill

* * *

Sometimes a story winds throughout your life that is so compelling, it keeps retelling itself, making installments over the long-haul, embroiling you in it's wild weave in the most inexplicable ways. Sometimes it's a story about good stuff, sometimes it's a series of bad events, usually it's a combination of both. This story in addition to being those things is, peculiar.

In the early 1980s I was living just off of Hollywood Blvd. with a couple I'd met in the Music Exchange Newspaper classifieds, when I was hunting for band members. I wanted to start a rock band and call it The Stoopids and play at the clubs around LA.

They, Jane and John, had just arrived from Chicago and had a dingy studio apartment, with a lot of cockroaches and a tiny bathroom. John the 23 year old guitarist and I hit it off musically and we decided to join forces, I wrote the songs, sang and played rhythm and he was great at coming up with classic George Harrison-like rock riffs. His girlfriend was a 45 year old greying hippy, that always wore the same bedraggled bag-dress, but she was really nice, supportive of John and thought I was really talented. So she became our "manager".

Before I moved in with them I was staying in a room in a mini mansion in Bel Aire (the really ritzy part of Beverly Hills), exactly next door to the Beverly Hillbillies mansion. The owner was a wealthy, divorced, financier that had lots of photos of himself and Hugh Hefner. This guy would bring a new bunny-type-girl home every weekend. "Cindy this is Bambii, Bambii this is Cindy". I made this guys orange juice every week day and cleaned his bedroom in exchange for staying at this place (which was a downstairs servants-like quarters). I never slept with him nor spoke more than two sentences to him. It was usually just "Cindy this is Cookie, Cookie this is Cindy"or, "Thanks for the orange juice".

This whole set up would have been a real laugh at the time, but I was depressive from living off of cheap, bad-food, like donuts, Arby's roast beef sandwiches and milk shakes...I think that list pretty much informed my entire diet. A doctor said to me at the time, "are you trying to look malnourished?" and I said "yeh, I'm in a punk rock band and you have to look pretty messed up". I was 19, what did I know.

I got sick of living in the anonymous, luxurious sex-hermitage, servant girl quarters and moved across town, in with Jane and John. Camping out on the floor behind their fold out couch/bed. It was messed up but pretty great, getting 3 square meals a day from Jane. I paid her 20 dollars each week for food, money I made working as a shoe shine girl in Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills. Among others, I shined Jack Lemons shoes, Herb Alperts and Leroy Neiman's, a sports illustrator who made lots of drawings of me shining shoes

John, the guitar player, and I figured out a few songs and then started looking for band members. The first bass player of the Stoopids was Glen, he lived with his navy physicist dad in a house in El Segundo and we'd practice in their garage. Glen was gay and we got along great, he really had a knack for audacity and music and his dad thought I was a genius for some reason.

Then one day our manager Jane got a call from Glen's navy-issue-glasses-wearing-physicist dad, Glen had thrown his bass against the wall and he wouldn't be playing with the Stoopids anymore. He'd had a psychotic break and we had to look for a new bass player.

Almost ten years later Glen called me and explained what really happened. He said he'd been a woman trapped in a mans body and finally got the go ahead to surgically change his sex from male to female. He was super nice as a woman, though quite large. He said I hope you don't mind but I took your name Cynthia as my middle name. It was an honor. I wrote a tribute song for her many years later called Diane, and it's on my album Straight Outta Marysville.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDakhkeGme0

So, Stoopids guitarist John, and I went back to looking for a bassist. We found a guy living in the San Fernando valley, with his mom as I recall, who called himself Alex M. Alex was an extremely talented songwriter. He had an incredible knack for saying inane things that sounded masterful and brilliant. He had one tune that went "I got a neutral shade army jacket on I got a spray can and crumbling wall to lean on". He told me it was inspired by the closing of LA's great and early punk rock venue The Masque.

Alex scared me, so I thought he must be a real punk. He'd say things to get a reaction out of me like: I was at a party last night and they were passing around a jar of human brains and drinking water out of it. He would tell me I'd better toughen up if I wanted to be a real punk. And I did.

One time Alex and I crashed a punk party. I nervously stayed in the main room but Alex careened around the whole place acting like a real fuck up. After a few minutes he ran back over to me with a hand over his eye, saying ..We got to get out of here, I just got punched in the eye by John Doe from X. I thought it was great. We split with him kicking over trash cans on the way out.

One day Alex brought in a new song, Make Way For The Handicapped and I loved it. It was everything I liked about the Ramones and even with a little bit of Talking Heads mixed in. He made me a cassette tape of himself singing his songs over a plodding bass, I'd listen to that cassette over and over laughing my head off and marveling at his musical wit.

One day after practice I drove him to his moms house and we had a talk out front in my car, a 1976 Maverick Grabber. Max confessed he had a crush on me and wanted to be a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I talked to him a long time explaining how I wanted to be platonic friends and band mates and he seemed to handle it well.

A few days later the Stoopids had a band practice and Alex M showed up kinda drunk and with a guy friend. It was a horrible night, we realized Alex was too messed up to play bass and took a break.

Then Alex needed to talk some more about the girlfriend idea and I told him I thought we'd straightened that out. He was upset and ran off to the bathroom, when he came out he joined John and Jane and drummer Terry Cloth and I at the kitchen table. Acting nonchalant he put his arm under his chin and asked about the next practice date, with blood running down his arm. He'd cut his wrist.

* * *

Do you ever get that feeling like you've messed up someones life. If they hadn't met you maybe they would have faired better. It's a child like concept. Sometimes this feeling happens when something bad happens to a family member or a friend when you're a kid, you're the survivor and you're left wondering if you had something to do with their bad luck.

My mom died when I was eight. It wasn't anyones fault. She had a rare form of cancer, they operated and she didn't wake up. I don't remember feeling like it was my fault. As a kid I actually didn't even know what happened to her, she just left the house one day, (a bad day where I'd been pestering her and grandma had to yell at me to leave her alone) and never came back. No one said why, just that she had died.

Kids can get these weird, wrong ideas that if they'd just been a little better behaved they may have changed the winds of fate. Those feelings can carry on into adulthood too. When my husband Paul had a brain injury in 1995, because of riding a bike recklessly down a killer hill with no helmet, I felt somehow that it'd been my fault. If he hadn't moved to Encinitas to be with me and had stayed in Glen Ellen with his old friends and family this would never have happened.

You see how it works. You know it's not right thinking. But it's what happens when you try to make sense of a senseless happening. Somehow, you feel like if you'd been more in control of the situation, you could have prevented it from happening. The ultimate pretend game of control and it's a losing proposition.

* * *

Seeing that blood dripping down Alex M's arm made me feel faint, I called manager Jane into the kitchen. She told me to calm down. She'd seen this sort of thing before, when she was a girlfriend and groupie to the 1960s UK band Sad Cafe (she talked about them endlessly). She explained there wasn't enough blood to make it a real suicide.

No one said anything about it to Alex M. He put his arm back in his sleeve and said he'd see everyone at the next rehearsal then he took off with his friend. A few days later we'd heard that he got into a car accident on purpose on Freeway 101 with himself and his friend getting concussions. And he broke his arm so he couldn't play bass.

I couldn't hack it anymore. I quit and split LA, moving back to the little town of Ramona and in with my parents. I'd left my guitar at Jane and John's place and when I called and asked them about it a month later they said the Jamaican pot dealer down the hall had taken it, then his place got busted and the cops tore the guitar apart. Probably Jane and John took the guitar to a pawn broker.

Everybody limped away from that fucking band. It took years to get myself out of that black hole. A messed up time I never have to go back to. But I made peace with it long ago and have written about it many times. Here are some of the songs: Jane and John, Diane (Straight Outta Marysville). The Heat, Whatever Works (Who's Gonna Save The World).

And of course Make Way For The Handicapped which is me re figuring, trying to remember Alex M's song and since I couldn't, I rewrote it. (In fact, he has co-songwriting credit on the cd sleeve and copyright). Now after all these years, and thanks to Rush's recent email, I can listen to Alex's version and the sound of his voice and bass brings the past flooding back.

Rush Riddle who's film Averageman, is coming out this year, sent me an answer to my query about Alex saying:

No, I'm not "Alex", but he was in our band! He split for up-north ages ago and last I talked to him...said he was getting a sex change!, and was now "Alexis".

Ushers Into The Theater Of Life

Sebastian Green, CLB, Renata Bratt at NVA Theater, Carlsbad CA

(think we were singing a Carter Family tune here, "You're Gonna Be Sorry")

There are a lot of great things about being a guitar instructor. One of them is getting to work with young students that are just finding out who they are as human beings and some of them find out how much they love music, and some discover they have a gift for it. As a teacher, I think, we are just usher's into the theater of life, showing young souls their seat and then the rest is up to them.

Here's a really nice article on one of my guitar students, a 14 year old that's quite the natural on all things musical, but particularly bluegrass guitar. It's been fun and an honor working with Sebastian...

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/columnists/inperson/in-person-teen-guitarist-already-has-a-bright-career-in/article_53dea65f-575e-50d6-bd3d-66ead9b0691c.html

photo credit: Peter Meade

Jonathan Lethem and Paul Williams

This past weekend we had a visit from Paul's longtime friend, novelist Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude etc...). Jonathan shared some stories with Paul, reminding him how they'd met at a science fiction writers convention in Berkeley in the 1980s... and how Paul had been wearing a Meat Puppets tee-shirt at the time. In fact, that same tee-shirt is still in a drawer here at our place, I never had the heart to throw it out. I always loved that he had a Meat Puppets shirt....and what a great underground band.

One of the charms of Paul and his wonderful brain, when it was working properly, was how open minded he was to music that was out of his realm of experience. For a guy that was so much a part of the 1960s he was not the least bit stuck there.

I was talking to someone recently about Paul as a music listener and recollected how Paul, when he was writing the One Hundred Best Singles of Rock and Roll-in the early 90s, wouldn't write off a single, (some suggested to him by friends with fannish fervor), until he'd listened to it nearly 100 times. He used to say, "you have to learn the language of the artist".

Paul introduced me to Jonathan in 1993, he was working at a book store on Telegraph, just before his first novel was released, Gun With Occasional Music. Jonathan let us stay at his place in Berkeley for the night and headed out of town, good thing, I was sick as a dog....high fever the whole bit, but I was wildly in love and Paul had a grand time combing through Jonathan's robust CD and record collection, playing stuff like Grant Lee Buffalo and Pavement for me while I broke the fever.

(photo by me at Paul's nursing home here in Encinitas,.... I might add our son Alexander-who just turned 10 this week,- was frolicking with Jonathan and Amy's boys Everett and Desmond while the boring adults conversed)

I've Always Loved A Mystery

...no reason that should stop now

Birthday Greetings For Paul

Today is Paul Williams (aka Crawdaddy, or daddy of Craw?) birthday and he received a flood of happy greetings via my Facebook account. I read them to him at noon today over his favorite lunch, a chili relleno burrito from Juanita's taco stand. Paul teared up and dabbed his nose a number of times while listening, a few of the comments even brought him some laughs .... Below I share with you a few of those messages from an illustrious array of fans and friends...

Joshua Nye Paul, several years ago you did me the courtesy of meeting w/me to discuss your recollections of hearing the acetates for "Smile". I so greatly appreciate having the opportunity to listen. Thank you, and happy birthday.

M.J. Stevens Yeah, we are still out here reading your stuff, Paul. Thanks, and Happy Birthday.

Scott Kempner

Happy Birthday Paul - I discovered Crawdaddy in the summer of 67, with Issue 9. It changed my life - for the better, & set me on the path of being a lifelong musician. I came to befriend R. Meltzer, who is the Godfather of my band, The Dictators (Pearlman was our manager), & it began my lifelong passion for smart, impassioned rock criticism. I treasure all those early issues, which i still own, & are never more than an arm's length away. They're still in perfect shape. They still hold their magic. I grew up in the world of rock criticsim, with Lester, Greil was my father in law for five years, Landau, et al. I have a band called The Del-Lords, make solo albums, & work with the great Dion DiMucci. I am not sure how much of this blessed life would have happened without you. Thanx for everything. And, i do mean everything.

Todd Everett Happy birthday to one of the pioneers, from one of his many acolytes. If we were in the same room, I'd shake your hand.

Arn McConnell Happy birthday to a writer who was influencing me long before I even knew who he was!

Cynthia Lawless happiest 63rd birthday to one of the greatest hits of the 20th century! congrats, Paul!

Mick Gray Happy Birthday to one of THE GREAT ROCK N ROLL WRITERS!!! I wish you a very special day. Paul!

Dave Weil Thank you for the days, Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me. I'm thinking of the days, I won't forget a single day, believe me.

Thankfully, we don't need to sing the second verse because you're still here shining the light!

Rock Critics Anything for the man that made trips to Target worthwhile growing up (straight to the mag rack). Have a very Happy Birthday, Paul!

Peter Stampfel happy birthday, and thank you massively for glorious shitloads!

David Beckham Happy Birthday Paul, Thank you for offering us all Das Energi. I have made it a gift for so many. Also thank you for "Only Apparently Real" and keeping PKD alive for us.

Steven Ben-Off Abrams Happy birthday, Paul! I picked up "Das Energi" as a teenager in the late 70s, really dug it & then was pleasantly surprised when I caught up with your later work & found it to be just as exciting and worthwhile. Thanks for being a good influence on me!

Jocelyn Ertel Das Energi, one of the key books of my life. Happy Birthday Paul!

Rainer Vesely Happy birthday from Austria, Paul!

Michael Rapp happy birthday from your friends at Swarthmore College

Steve Stiles A very happy birthday to you, ol' pal. And merry unbirthdays later.

Gary Heffern birthday greetings from finland paul!

Art Linton Happy Birthday, Paul! You touched my life in a profound way with your writings, especially Das Energi. Eternal thanks to you! Happy birthday! Many happy returns of the day to you! Cheers and all best wishes! Peace and grace.

Gary Schulstad Happy Birthday Paul, Thanks for your friendship; for all the connections you provided between inspiring people, for the direction you gave to hear music in new ways, for deepening my appreciation of life using truths you discovered, and for opening my eyes to numerous and different adventures to experience.

Bob Colby An extremely happy birthday to you, and thanks for all that your writing has done for me and all of us!

Charles R. Cross happy b day paul... your smile and that of your family, can be seen and felt all the way up here in Seattle.

Roy F. Good Happy Birthday! You are the common thread through many people I've met and memories I have...happiness and peace down the road...

Keith Shiraki Happy Birthday Paul, Thank you for sharing your passion for the music that moves you with us. You are blessed with a beautiful and loving wife and son. I treasure the conversations we have shared. Your words continue to inspire past, present and future readers. Peace.

Dan Chusid Happy Birthday Paul! I still have my early Crawdaddys and will never let them go.

David G. Hartwell Happy birthday, Paul. I am going to visit in the fall. Seems like a long time since we last caught up.

Karl Fitzke Paul, Happy Birthday from upstate NY. I treasure the time my family and I got to spend with you and your family when we lived in San Diego. I also love your very personal style of writing which we still get to enjoy despite being so far away. Rock on, brother. You are the gold standard. -Karl

Bart Mann Happy birthday Paul. Thank you for an inspirational career. Oh and thank you for believing in and supporting Phillip K Dick.

Robert Collyer I was a big Crawdaddy fan..mother jones..all that stuff. Paul ! Thanks for making my bleek life in the foggy potato fields of the early 70's in Germany a somewhat joyful one !!!

Debra Ruzinsky Paul, you have touched our lives deeply! We love you and wish we were there to tell you in person. Happy Birthday from Deb,McNevin, and Nathan.

Matthew Wilson Happy birthday to a man whose writing has expanded my mind and spirit!

Remember Tomorrow

It's a weird story. Eleven years ago I was given ten thousand dollars from Warner Brothers to make a demo of four songs. Nice. I'd approached them with a prospect. I had befriended two young girls in San Diego, Lindsay and Anna Troy they were 12 and 15 and asked them if they'd be interested in singing some of my songs on an album. Then I taught them the songs and alot of harmonies and put together a band.

My old pal Chris Davies (Garage Orchestra, Penetrator's) and I work-shopped some ideas for tracks at his place. For one song we built a track on a cassette tape consisting of a cha cha beat from an old Casio keyboard then put some staccato organ chords on it and a messed up sounding guitar...we bounced one track over to another cassette player again and again which increased the "distress" aspect of the sound. I was sure to record the "tracks", that is hold the cassette player, far away from the speakers so you could "hear the air" between the speaker and the player. I swear I could hear Phil Spector's famous "recorded air" in the final tape.

That is the track the rest of the band would have to play along with in the studio.

Somehow I was able to coerce some amazing players to join me in the studio. This is where having some money from a record label helped tremendously. (Look no one got rich. Then again no one ever does in the music business except for the insanely lucky and a few flashy pimps).

Justin Meldal-Johnsen (Beck, NIN,imarobot) on bass, Roger Manning (Jelly Fish, Beck) plays the keyboards, Randy Hoffman (Gar.Orch/Harry Partch) on vibraphone/timpani/woodblocks, Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, T Bone Burnett) on drums, Chris Davies lead guitar, Stew (Passing Strange, Negro Problem) on rhythm guitar and Henry Diltz taking photos and playing a bit of banjo and clarinet.

This session was recorded in June of 1999, one day for eight hours and the music tracks were done. A week later me and Lindsey and Anna sang the vocal parts. With the sisters singing the leads on the songs.

Everything looked rosy. Paul thought it was some of my best work yet. I took the demos to our guy at Warner Bros. he listened and said "I think we need to make the rest of the album now. And Cindy Lee, you need to make your next album here too."

My plan to take over the music-world, was all falling perfectly into place. Then, quite suddenly, all fucking hell broke loose...

My husband Paul, announced that he was about to embark on an affair with a woman he'd met at a science fiction convention. But he hadn't checked in with her on that just yet. It was a speculative idea. He said he thought it shouldn't effect us too much as he'd just fly out to see her three or four times a year, in Miami.

It was preposterous, it was insane and it was the same week that my point person, the Vice President of A+R at Warner Brothers, was abruptly fired after 15 years with the company. Then on the hell heels of this news, his boss, our new WB point person, was fired. But not until Paul poured water over his head during our meditation group lunch and ran screaming out of the room.

I wasn't going along with his affair plan the way he'd thought I would. He was shocked I wasn't okay with the 3 to 4 times a year plan. I told Paul he could go to Miami as much as wanted to, and explore endless possibilities with the librarian, because I wouldn't be in the picture anymore and then I moved out.

And so the four tracks were put on a shelf and the young girls grew up to be fine young women with lives and careers of their own. I went back in the studio a year later and recorded 3 songs with a string session, I was living up in LA and seeing a guy with photos on his wall he'd bought from a gallery, they were all black and white shots of dead and gunned up mobsters. ( "If you don't like these you're not gonna like my idea of a picnic in a Manson Cave.") He was a writer, one day we had a skirmish and he said to me: "You should treat me better, I'm a living legend you know".

I got a call from the living legend I was still married to, we shared a laugh, he told me he was seeing a therapist and could he visit me. Things just sorta went that direction from there on out. The evil days had passed and the heavenly spheres were back in alignment again.

A few months ago I heard those WB tracks for the first time in eleven years and I noticed that the hurt was all gone. The floods had passed and the droughts and what was left was the music. I had the opportunity to immerse myself in it's world again this week, (singing, adding Renata Bratt's cello and melodica).

It's a beautiful place, being in the midst of all that sweetness and intensity, a love affair in the form of sound.