"Sunday Night Session,"
KSTX 89.1, San Antonio, January 5, 1997
["Hosa Dyna" playing in background]
David Furst: Welcome to "Sunday Night Session." I'm David Furst and tonight we go backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club for an interview and live performance with Brave Combo and Lauren Agnelli. Brave Combo has been around since the late 1970s. But their mix of polka, rock, Latin rhythms, horas, and science fiction has been gathering extra attention during the recent popularity of lounge music. They've been nominated for Grammys, and in a perfect pairing they were the band at David Byrne's wedding reception. Brave Combo has two new albums out. One is Mood Swing Music, which features rare and mostly unreleased tracks and collaborations spanning the years 1987 through 1995. The other is a collaboration with ex-Washington Squares vocalist Lauren Agnelli, the passionate Kiss of Fire. We caught up with Lauren and Brave Combo backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club fifteen minutes before they actually hit the stage, and interrupted them during their dinner. Stay tuned for conversation and live music with Brave Combo and Lauren Agnelli, tonight on "Sunday Night Session."
Here's a song from Brave Combo's 1995 album Polkas for a Gloomy World. This is "Flying Saucer." [Plays "Flying Saucer"]
Brave Combo, and "Flying Saucer." The group consists of Carl Finch -- accordion, keyboards, guitar, and vocals; Jeffrey Barnes -- sax (among other woodwinds), percussion, guitar, and vocals; Bubba Hernandez -- bass and vocals; Greg Beck -- drums; Joe Cripps -- percussion; and Danny O'Brien -- trumpet. And we all crammed into this dressing room backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club and let's head back there now. This is Brave Combo with Lauren Agnelli backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club.
[creaking door sound effect]
Well, I'd like to welcome you both to "Sunday Night Session," you're just about to go on, you just have a few minutes here. You've got two albums out right now, one is Kiss of Fire and the other is Mood Swing Music, one featuring Lauren and the other is a collection of recordings from throughout your career, right?
Carl Finch: That's correct.
[inexplicable cackling laughter from Bubba]
Carl: We have two new albums.
David: Well, Mood Swing Music I think is the perfect title for this CD because, I mean, stylistically the music is from all corners of the globe and...
Carl: All over the place!
David: ...and the recordings are from all over the world, as well.
Carl: Yeah, there's stuff from all kinds of things. We did some compilations on other labels -- other than Rounder -- that some of these recordings were kind of held up on, and, like the, uh, "Last Words of Sigmund Freud" was from an album that was on Restless several years ago, called Polka Comes to Your Haus, was that the name of it?
Bubba Hernandez: Yeah, Polkas Come to Your Haus, or something.
Carl: And, let's see, the, uh, "Skin" was a cut from the an album from the poetry of Ernest Noyes Brookings who was a resident of a nursing home up in Massachusetts.
David: Yeah, "Skin" is one of my favorites.
Carl: Thank you.
David: And, the lyrics are, are very interesting on that one.
Carl: Man, check out his poetry! All of his stuff's like that. Very matter-of-fact stuff.
David: Is that from the, the Duplex Planet?...
Carl: Yeah.
David: Okay.
Carl: Yeah, David Greenberger produced all of these. He's put out, like, three or four albums of this guy's poetry. A lot of artists around the country have written music.
David: And he's one of the guys who's living in this, uh, this complex, right?
Carl: Well, he's not living anymore but yeah, he was. The complex is, I don't even think exists any more.
David: Oh, no kidding?
Carl: Hmmm-mmm. I don't think so. I think it's torn down. They closed it a few years ago. But David still has lots of conversations recorded and transcribed that he'll be releasing for a while in booklet form at least, I'm sure.
David: Yeah, I know, I picked up a book of his transcriptions from...
Carl: Yeah.
David: ...from some of the recordings.
Carl: It's great stuff.
David: Yeah.
Carl: It's really, really good. Really insightful, too, in a kind of innocent way.
[Plays "Skin"]
David: "Skin," from Brave Combo's new album Mood Swing Music. We're speaking with the members of Brave Combo tonight on "Sunday Night Session." One of your press releases says, you guys are all, or at least the main part of the band is, from Denton, right? Denton, Texas.
Carl: Yeah, we all are.
Jeffrey Barnes: Everybody is.
David: It says "Birthplace of Sly and the Family Stone and Pat Boone."
Carl: Mmm-hmm. Roy Orbison went to school there...
David: Ah, great!
Carl: ...and Charles "Tex" Watson...
Jeffrey: Uh-huh.
Carl: ...one of the main Manson murderers was captured in Denton.
David: Good, another, another big plus.
Jeffrey: Uh, Bill Moyers, uh?
Bubba Hernandez: Uh, uh, two Miss Americas.
Jeffrey: Two Miss Americas!
Joe Cripps: The Wrestling Von Erichs.
Jeffrey: Oh yes.
[laughter]
Carl: The Von Erichs live right outside town. Well, what's left of "em.
Joe: Yeah.
Bubba: Wasn't it Bonnie and Clyde, they robbed a bank about six miles from there.
Carl: That's about it!
Joe: That's the only people there, anymore!
Carl: Oh, our mayor, before he was the mayor, won the Publishers Clearinghouse...
Bubba: Ten mil, baby!
Carl: Ten million dollars.
Jeffrey: That's how he got to be mayor.
Bubba: Ten million bucks! Burning a hole in his pocket.
David: All right.
Joe: Million dollar mayor, got elected on a platform of "I'm the luckiest guy in town."
[laughter]
Carl: Yeah! Yeah, that's pretty much what it is: "I don't have to have another job so I can, I can devote more time to this."
Jeffrey: There was a guy in a trailer court that won twice as much as him, now, and heaven knows, he may be the next mayor.
[Joe laughs]
Carl: Yeah!
David: Yeah! It's a lucky town.
Joe: It is!
Carl: We want those guys who have the time to do the job.
David: [laughing] Right!
Carl: Not even if we agree with what they're doing, just if you've got the time you can have the job.
[Joe laughs]
[Plays "Hernando's Hideaway"]
David: Brave Combo, and "Hernando's Hideaway." That's a song that can be found on their CD called No, No, No, Cha Cha Cha. Let's hear a song now from Kiss of Fire, their collaboration with vocalist Lauren Agnelli. This is "Burn Slooooooow."
[Plays "Burn Slow"]
David: "Burn Slow," by Brave Combo and Lauren Agnelli. And that's from their new CD Kiss of Fire. Previously this CD has been available in Japan. So I asked the band and Lauren if Kiss of Fire was a recent recording.
Carl: Ohhh, recent in terms of, like, a lifetime?
[laughter]
Carl: Well how fast has the last five years passed for you?
David: It seems like a long time.
Carl: Does it? Wow, no, it doesn't to me.
[laughter]
Lauren Agnelli: It doesn't to me!
Carl: Doesn't, no, so it seems like, I guess it's totally your perspective. It's taken about five or six years to get it together and to actually have it out, but it doesn't seem like a long time.
David: Well it seems like a long time for me to finish working on a project. I would want it to be immediately available. To me it would be frustrating for it to be....
Carl: Yeah. It was very frustrating.
Lauren: Well, like they say, "You can't always get what you want."
Carl: Yeah.
Lauren: "But if you try sometimes...."
Carl: Were you frustrated by this?
Lauren: Was I frustrated?
Carl: To have taken this so long?
Lauren: My personality has always been terribly impatient, but I'm trying to mellow and learn patience and it's paying off, it's a better thing.
Carl: Yeah.
David: The CD is called Kiss of Fire and can we hear a song from that?
Carl: We'll play you that song.
David: All right!
[strange creaking sounds caused by changing position of the microphone]
Carl: It starts like this [imitates strange creaking sounds]...[in a raspy voice] "Kiss me baby!"
[laughter]
Lauren: Oh, man!
[live version of "Kiss of Fire"]
David: That was great!
Carl: [with his mouth full] Thank you...very much.
David: [laughing] Pizza is being consumed immediately!
[laughter]
Carl: That's what gets us through the song.
Joe?: [makes a buzzing sound]
Somebody?: Whoa, that pizza looks gooood!
Bubba: [sings] Yum yum yum yum, yum yum yum yum, that's a pizza pie for me! [part of a song that Tiny Tim taught the band]
Lauren: I was going to sing "Pizza on Fire," but I thought better of it.
David: Well I, I'm really sorry to disturb your dinner like this.
Carl: Oh, this is fine
Joe: This is fine.
Carl: We do everything in parallels.
David: Multi-tasking, all right!
Carl: Yeah!
David: I wanted to ask you, real quick, there's a cover of "Little Bit of Soul" on this album [Mood Swing Music] which is just incredible.
Carl: Thank you.
David: When is that from?
Carl: [eating] Oh, that's from a band called the, wait a minute...
David: The Music Ex....
Carl: Music Explosion...
David: Yeah.
Bubba: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Carl: From the sixties -- der-ner-ner-ner -- and and I don't even know how it went anymore!
Bubba: I don't even remember the original version, either.
Carl: I can only hear our version, which we really messed with a lot.
Lauren: They were from the...
Bubba: Da-ditta-ditta-ditta-duh!
David:: It was pretty straightforward, yeah.
[Carl and Bubba attempt a vocal version of the original song]
Carl: We throw in a couple of extra beats, just to kind mess with your head a little bit.
Lauren: I have a...
Jeffrey: We don't know no better.
[strange microphone squeakings resume to howls of protest]
Bubba: Ohhhhh, staaaaahp!
David: The KSTX microphone stands at work. Well, you guys have approached older songs in a completely different way before. Is this just something you just love, get a big kick out of doing?
Carl: Oh, well, if we have to like the songs. I think the real, the thing that Brave Combo tries to do is just find out what's not there. You know it's easy to see, really.
[Plays "Little Bit of Soul"]
David:: Brave Combo's cover of "Little Bit of Soul" from one of their new CDs, Mood Swing Music. We're speaking with Brave Combo tonight backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club and we eventually got around to the subject of one of their recent high-profile collaborations.
I gotta ask you about Tiny Tim.
Carl: Mmm-hmm.
David:: This was last year, you did an album with Tiny Tim. What is a normal day in the studio like with Tiny Tim?
[Jeffrey and Joe laugh]
Jeffrey: There is not such a thing as a normal day in the studio with Tiny Tim.
David:: I guess that goes without saying.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
David:: Well, the version of "Hey Jude" on this CD, I guess this is a straight cha cha cha version of "Hey Jude," it begins with a very manic-sounding Tiny Tim. It sounds like it was before the song was, before, like, the song was gonna roll, him just like warming up with this insane cha cha cha mantra. Was that him just warming up, or was that intentionally recorded for the album?
Carl: Uh...
Jeffrey: Welll...
Carl: Uh, well...
Jeffrey: ...actually....
Carl: ...whadda wanna believe? That's ah....
David:: It sounds like he's just getting into the, the vibe of cha cha cha.
Carl: Well, I will say this -- won't reveal any secrets -- but I will say getting Tiny warmed up was really part of the whole process. And if you get him warmed up, and if you're patient with it -- which I wasn't very often, but sometimes I was -- you really do get over this fence into this sort of magical area with the guy, that's, that's very special, and you can see beyond the quirkiness of him and beyond the noveltyness of him, the specialness of him. It's very apparent, when he's confident, when he's comfortable around you, and when he likes you and he wants to share with you, it's really amazing. We had so many of those times, too, you know, and not just the sort of crazy stuff, but moments where you're in awe of the guy. But he had, you had to warm him up, you had to get him really comfortable. That was probably the most interesting thing -- was that process -- of getting him comfortable in the studio and trusting what you wanted him to do. And, you know, once you did.... And then there was the time when he had to have a Coca-Cola, and the co-producer on the project, who was sort of his, well, he is , the president of his fan club, also, he was there just kind of tending to him, and so he ran out and got him a fountain Coke in a cup and brought it back and -- you know, we're not doing anything until Tiny gets his Coca-Cola! -- [David laughs] and so he comes back and walks up with it and Tiny goes: "Oh! That won't do, it has to be a canned Coke." So -- ohhhhkay, well! -- so I had to call my wife to bring a canned Coke from home and then we could continue. I remember as, [laughs] I remember as many hair-pulling moments as, as great moments, but the great moments were definitely worth it. You know, interesting people can be frustrating, and that's all right.
David:: Yeah.
Carl: You know, in the big picture. That's, they're the people who make the magic, you know. And he's definitely capable of it.
[Plays "Hey Jude"]
David: The unique vocal stylings of Tiny Tim, performing along with Brave Combo. Their take on "Hey Jude" comes from the album they released last year entitled Girl which also features an astounding swing version of "Stairway to Heaven." Sadly, just a couple of days after we taped this interview, Tiny Tim died, so we would like to dedicate this edition of "Sunday Night Session" to Tiny Tim and I'd also like to mention that the Brave Combo-Tiny Tim version of "Stairway to Heaven" is in the running for a Grammy nomination in the Pop Collaboration category. This is KSTX 89.1 FM in San Antonio. We are speaking with Brave Combo and Lauren Agnelli tonight, about their recent collaboration.
How did you guys come to work together? Just mutual admiration?
Lauren: Absolutely!
David: [laughs]
Carl: [eating] Eventually that.
David: Okay.
Carl: She was in a band, we were in this band, and they were playing at the Cactus Cafe in Austin...
David:: Yeah.
Carl: ...and we were playing at the Texas Tavern.
Lauren: In the same complex...
Carl: The same night.
Lauren: ...yeah, next door to each other.
David: Right in that big...
Lauren: When I heard the Combo through the hallways, wafting through, after we were done, "cause I guess we were done sooner because we're more acoustic, or something? People weren't dancing as much, so...[widespread chuckling]...they went longer. And thank god they did, "cause it changed my life. I was so, I was really moved, and I just jumped up excitingly and ran in, and, it was the Polkatharsis songs, and they're great songs, you know, it's rousing dance stuff. So afterwards I said "hi" to them.
Carl: Yep.
Lauren: They seemed friendly enough, approachable. And, you know, and they wound up having seen the band the Squares in between their sets and, yeah, it was great. And we corresponded and I went to a bunch of your shows in New York and...
Carl: Yeah, Lauren said she would write, and then I didn't hear from her for six months, but I think you went somewhere, you went to Europe, I think.
Lauren: Yeeeeah.
Carl: And then I heard from you and than we, uh, stopped -- started -- writing and started collaborating and, man, I don't know, it just seems like it all went by pretty fast. But they were playing next door, and I had been in there, I had been reading about them for a long while and we go to New York, but, you know, you just, you go into the city and it's hit-and-miss, so it was really cool that they were next door, and so I saw them and then we were playing at the end of gig I looked over and Lauren was there and it was, it really felt good.
[Plays "A Way to Say Goodbye"]
David: Lauren Agnelli and Brave Combo, with a song that hit the Japanese pop charts, called "A Way to Say Goodbye." We are backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club tonight with Lauren and Brave Combo. And although the Brave Combo-Lauren Agnelli collaboration Kiss of Fire was released on Watermelon Records, most of Brave Combo's albums have been released on Rounder Records. But before their signing to Rounder Brave Combo also released a bunch of albums on their own. I asked Carl Finch when their first album came out.
Carl: Oh, in 1980.
David: 1980?!
Carl: '79. '80. '79 or '80.
David: No kidding. And you were, the signing to Rounder was around "87 or so?
Carl: '86.
David: '86. Now that was pretty much at the peak of pop-metal, uh, Bon Jovi, Poison. Was it, was it hard to approach a label like this with Polkatharsis?
Carl: Uh, they, they approached us, so we were just kind of creating a bit of a stir, with, uh.... We were a rock-and-roll band taking traditional ethnic rhythms and doing kind of rock-and-roll things with them. And Rounder's a label that appreciates roots music and what it evolves into. And so, I don't know where they heard, I don't know where they heard us, maybe we were playing in Austin probably, or somewhere.
David: Mmm-hmm.
Jeffrey: Well we had, we had made Polkatharsis...
David: Oh yeah.
Jeffrey: ...the album they signed up, we made that to sell at a polka festival just down 35 here in West, West comma Texas, and they, to our surprise they picked up on it.
David: I was just at Wurstfest, and your version of "In Heaven There is No Beer" would've been big there. And this, now this version definitely pushes a little further.
Carl: Same thing!
David: Oh yeah, it's the same thing, different kinds of "beer"...
Carl: Yeah! So, you know...
David: With a song like that, how do the polka traditionalists, uh, approach your music? Do they enjoy what you're doing?
Jeffrey: Oh yeah, they do. I mean, we got up for the polka Grammy this last year. However there were some, like, polka shows that wouldn't play "In Heaven There is No Beer" because it mentions S-E-X. And they didn't have any problem with the....
Carl: Mentions it?!? Describes it in graphic detail!
Jeffrey: Well, yes, I mean, sure.
David: The different ways, all the ways you can have sex...
Bubba: A gentleman asked me the other night...
Carl: ...all the different positions, and locations....
Bubba: ...are any of the Tex-Mex Spanish polkas that you're singing, are those risque, I mean...
[squeaking mic stand]
Bubba: I said, "Sir, I wouldn't have anything on this album that I wouldn't play for my mother, how's that."
David: Oh, okay!
Bubba: So it's okay, it's okay!
[Plays "In Heaven There is No Beer"]
David: The classic "In Heaven There is No Beer," given the Brave Combo treatment. This is KSTX's "Sunday Night Session" and we're going to go back to Brave Combo's dressing room at the Cibolo Creek Country Club for another live performance now. And while moving his microphone nearer to his accordion, Carl Finch will continue his fascination with the very squeaky KSTX mic stand.
[squeaking of microphone stand]
David: There's the mic stand again! We're getting the mic in place for the accordion.
[giggling]
Carl: You can work that sound in somehow. Okay, we'll play a polka, speaking of polkas.
Jeffrey: Oh, that's what we're going to do.
David: Okay.
Carl: Yeah, we'll do the "High Bounce Polka."
David: This is called the "High Bounce Polka."
Carl: Okay, here we go, ready? [to Jeffrey] Are you ready?
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Carl: One, two, three, four...
[Spirited live version of "High Bounce Polka" -- yeeee-ha!]
David: That's fantastic.
Carl: That's by Marion Lush.
David: The "High Bounce Polka"?
Carl: Yeah.
David: That's great.
[Squeak of mic stand]
Bubba: There you have it.
Carl: That was actually by the Marion Lush Orchestra. He was a, an American-Polish, very popular American-Polish singer and crooner, but he's not alive now but, that was from, his band recorded that song.
David: Listening to that, it reminded me of another one of your polkas, one of my favorites called the "Mystery Spot Polka" which is, uh, it's got a lot of the traditional polka sound, it's got some very bizarre rhythms pulling against each other. There's the seven-nine measures going back and forth, and then, during the singing sections, I start to even lose, lose track of what's going on in the background there.
Carl: [eating] Then you, you have experienced it the way Jeff wants you to hear it.
[laughter]
Bubba: Yeah, exactly.
Lauren: Yeah.
Jeffrey: It's a mystery. I don't know how it works.
[laughter]
Jeffrey: No, I know how it works. Sorta. Kinda.
[laughter]
Jeffrey: No, I wrote it, let's see, it was written to be, uh, actually it was written to be a, the lyrics were supposed to have been a poem by e e cummings, called "Jimmy's Got a Goil, Goil, Goil,"
Bubba: Goil.
Carl: I like that.
Jeffrey: Yeah. But, I couldn't get permission from his publishers fast enough before we recorded it, although they were very nice about it, so I had to write my own lyrics to it...
David: Awww....
Jeffrey: ...anyway, how it, that's one of the reasons it is like it is. But, uh, that nine and seven thing is, uh, was originally titled "Mystery Spot," it got kinda grafted onto "Jimmy's Got a Goil," and eventually "Mystery Spot" was entirely too powerful and took over the whole song [laughs].
David: The mystery being the confusion?
Jeffrey: Yeah, I, I....
David: When you're in that zone of not knowing what measure you're in...
Jeffrey: Yeah, but it's, it's uh, it's exhilarating. It's about the places that you don't understand what it is and, I'm, I'm being with some people and they were trying to figure something, and I said, I'm completely flustered by this, I have no idea what it is, and somebody spoke up and says, "I know what it is." "Well, what is it?" "It's a mystery!"
[laughter]
[Plays "Mystery Spot Polka"]
David: From Polkas for a Gloomy World, that was Brave Combo and the "Mystery Spot Polka." This is "Sunday Night Session" and we've been speaking with Brave Combo and Lauren Agnelli backstage at the Cibolo Creek Country Club, interrupting their dinner, right up to the time they were supposed to go on stage.
Carl: Do we start in fifteen minutes?
Bubba: Oh, we have a show to do.
David: Yeah, I know...
Bubba: A live one, other than this one.
David: Well, they're just about to hit the stage...
Carl: LET THEM EAT CAKE!
Bubba: Let them eat pizza!
Joe: Let them eat pizza! Wait, wait, get the....
David: We are backstage here at the Cibolo Creek Country Club, crammed into a very hot little room and, I'd like to thank you guys for stopping by "Sunday Night Session" here. You're just about to hit the stage, thanks so much for taking the time here.
Carl: Sure, thank you very much.
Everyone: Thank you, thanks a lot.
Carl: It was fun.
David: Well, here's another song from the new Brave Combo-Lauren Agnelli album Kiss of Fire. This is "J'ai Faim, Toujours."
[Plays" J'ai Faim, Toujours"]
David: I'm hungry all the time [translation of song title]. Lauren Agnelli and Brave Combo from their new CD Kiss of Fire.
["Pirate Captain's Quickstep" plays in background]
Kiss of Fire is available now on Watermelon Records and Brave Combo's new collection of rare tracks Mood Swing Music is also out now on Rounder Records. If you have any questions about Brave Combo and Lauren Agnelli, feel free to call us here at the station.