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From
the book
Working Musicians
by Bruce Pollock
Brenda Kahn
Almost Famous |
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With her first Chaos/Columbia album Epiphany in Brooklyn,
released in 1992, Brenda Kahn established the standard for the punk
rock sorority like PJ Harvey and Liz Phair who were
to follow. Brenda now records for her own label.
I graduated from NYU in 1989, packed everything into my car
and drove to Minneapolis, playing cities on my way. It was my first
tour. My first record had come out on this Brooklyn label called
Community Three Records, a one-person label. I had a song
on there called "Eggs on Drugs." It was all political stuff.
I was a Political Science major in college, and that was my world
at the time. Soon after I moved to Minneapolis I got this phone
call out of the blue, "Are you Brenda Kahn?" Yeah. "I received your
record from Community Three Records and I found out you just moved
to Minneapolis. Why did you move to Minneapolis? Nobody moves here?"
Well, I don't know, I just did. "You know what, I love this record
and I'm going to do a big write up on you." It was two weeks after
I moved there. He did this write up on me that was four pages long
with photographs in the City Pages, which is like
the Village Voice of Minneapolis. So I went from being
a total unknown in New York for four years to being an overnight
star in Minneapolis.
I started to book my own tours. I was like a pit-bull. I would do
these tours and do my own press and radio interviews; I had mailing
lists at every show. The girl at Kinkos I think had a crush on me;
she gave me free copies and I did all my artwork at Kinkos. I'd
map out the cities and then, say, two months in advance, I'd call
Cicero's in Saint Louis and say, "I'll be in town on the 23rd of
June, can I play an opening slot for like $50 just for gas money."
And I'd send them a press kit and it would be like, record, photo,
press clips. It was super professional, and they'd usually say yes.
I'd play Minneapolis; Euclair, Wisconsin; Madison; Chicago; St.
Louis. I sent out postcards for every tour and just built it that
way. I was my own little machine, touring constantly.
One night I was playing at a place in Columbus called Stash's
and I called this guy named Dan and said, I want this date, and
he said it was totally booked, but I happen to know that Poi
Dog Pondering is playing at the State Theater. Let me
see if I can get you on that bill. So he hooked up a show for me
as the opening, opening act at the State Theater. I'm on this month
and a half tour that went all the way to the East and back to the
Midwest and I'm like totally exhausted by the time I get there.
I'm getting paid $35 and I go on at 7:30 or 8:00. Well, it turns
out that Poi Dog Pondering's van got stuck in Dayton and half of
the Stick People, who were touring with them as their opening
act, are with them. So they asked if I would play a longer set.
And I said, well, let's see, I'm getting $35, I'm totally exhausted,
nobody knows who I am, so I just want to do my half hour and go,
if that's all right with you. Plus, I don't know that many songs,
so I couldn't play for an hour. I didn't have that kind of material
and I never did cover songs.
I go onstage, do my little set, get off stage and go up this little
winding staircase to go to the dressing room. About 20 minutes go
by. I'm sitting there eating Triscuits and peanut butter, and this
woman comes in and says, "Are you Brenda? I think you should just
go back downstairs." And I said why? She says, "I think you should
just go check out what's going on." I said OK and I open the door
to the dressing room and I hear this pounding sound. It sounds like
a riot. As I get to the stairs it's like 500 people in the room,
chanting my name. This has never happened to me since! It was incredible,
shocking, amazing and disturbing. So they set up my equipment and
I played a couple more songs and then I say, well, I don't really
have anymore songs, and someone says, play "Eggs on Drugs" again,
so I did. Finally, as I was finishing my thing, Poi Dog shows up
and starts loading equipment on to the stage. It was the most cinematic
moment of my career. And there was nobody there to see it--no road
manager, no one.
My best gig was opening for Bob Dylan in front of 6000 people
at the Zenith in Paris. It was the most exciting and proud
night of my musical career. I was touring in France and my manager
was trying to get me on the Dylan tour for months. I honestly never
thought it was going to happen. But one night I was doing an interview
and he walks in (which he never did) in the middle of the interview
and says, "Just as soon as you're done come and talk to me." So
I go into his office and I say, what's going on. He says, "I have
good news and bad news." What's the good news? "I got you two dates
on the Dylan tour." What 's the bad news? "You can't play solo acoustic.
They won't have any solo acoustic bands opening up for Dylan; that's
the rule." So, I was like, well, the bass player that was on my
record was playing with Boss Hog, and the drummer was the
drummer in the last Replacements tour. I think he might have
been out with them. So it was one of those things where I had to
get a band together. I really didn't want to put a band together
in France, because I don't even know anybody. So what I ended up
doing was, I remembered meeting the guy from the Psychedelic
Furs, John Ashton, when I opened up for Chris Whitley
one night in Woodstock and he was running sound. He'd said,
if you ever need a guitar player let me know. So I call him up from
France, and say, Hey, John… you wanna play a show with me? He's
like, where are you? And I'm like, I'm in France opening up a show
for Dylan in Paris. So he flew out. We threw this band together
and it was totally amazing. The Dylan show was the apex of everything.
I remember on my way over there listening to the radio and they
had a Phil Collins' song playing and then one of my songs.
I'm being carted around in a Mercedes and my song is on the radio!
I opened up for Dylan a couple of dates in Luxembourg and that was
weird. They wouldn't let me out of the dressing room. It was bizarre.
In France, I played one song solo acoustic where the band dropped
out, and after I got off stage Dylan's manager says Dylan wants
to say hello to me. So I'm freaking out, excited, and shaking his
hand. And he said, "Hey, I really liked that one song you sang solo"
and I was scared to do it because they said no solo acts, so I said,
well, it's not recorded, but as soon as it is I'll send you a copy.
I didn't know what to say. I was like, that is an awesome shirt
you have on. We spoke for a few minutes and then I left. But to
show you how weird my career is; I went back to the hotel to find
a note that my grandmother had died. So the next day I was on a
plane back to North Bergen, New Jersey, trying to write something
for my grandmother.
I have to say the major label experience was invaluable to me. Not
only was it really fun, touring around on someone else's dime, but
I got do amazing things because of the Columbia hook up.
The record did really well in France, so I toured all over France
to sold-out shows. I toured all over America even though I was never
a big priority at the label. The record only sold 50,000 copies,
but I got so many people who E-mailed me after the fact and said
I first got turned on to you by flipping through records and seeing
the cover of your record and buying it because I thought it was
so cool.
What happened with your second record?
What happened is that my producer had a big falling out with the
label and basically anything that was attached to him got canned.
So it was never released. Six months later I did a deal with Shanachie,
just to get the record out. At the time they were trying to break
into the original pop/rock and roll thing. But it wasn't a good
idea for them. They weren't set up to do it and the record went
nowhere.
It was a struggle when I first got dropped. I felt like a loser.
You had to really be following my career to track me down at that
point. As soon as my record was dropped, my manager stopped returning
my phone calls. That was the most heartbreaking thing. By then I
had obtained a certain level of professionalism and I felt to go
backward from that would somehow disappoint my fans and disappoint
me. To all of a sudden be booking my own shows was really weird.
I'd call up a club and they would be like, Oh, is this Brenda? It
was awkward. Like I had failed in some way. When really I had succeeded.
It's so bizarre. It's just a total false message that society puts
out there. I mean, I obtained such an amazing success in my music
career and I'm just a kid from Jersey, right? I was touring for
years and years and thousands of people bought my record and appreciated
it and that's success, period. How many people dream of releasing
a record? Opening up for Bob Dylan? When I opened up for David
Byrne, at CBGB's, he stood on the side of the stage and
watched me throughout the whole set, and when I walked off the stage
he said, "Good songs." I was like, oh my God. It was my happiest
moment. I'm totally cool.
Even on Shanachie, who are pretty backwards as far as understanding
the pop rock world, to the point where I was accepted to play at
South by Southwest and they wouldn't pay for me to
go or for my hotel or anything, a cool thing happened. I went on
my own to South by Southwest and I met a guy there who was
a booking agent in Germany. Shanachie has a deal with Koch
in Germany and Koch had liked my record so much that they decided
to license it and bring me over there to do a tour. So the guy I
met at South by Southwest set up the tour, something like
20 dates in 24 days all over Germany. And it was like France three
years before; it was all sold out shows with hundreds of people
coming with my old record saying, I've been waiting for four years
to see you play since this came out. I had no idea that anyone in
Germany cared about my music and all of a sudden I'm totally famous
there.
It's really important to keep fame in perspective. For years I wanted
to be famous and in a way I was and I never really knew it. Fame
is like a drug; you can never be famous enough. But a record has
an influence in the world way beyond yourself and your realm. As
an artist, I think you just put the best work out that you can and
it will be meaningful for the people who need to find it. Those
people will find it. And it will change people's lives. That's the
best thing you could hope for. It's the process, you know? It's
the path. I finally realized after trying to push things through
for so long, that this is what you get. You get to perform. You
get to play music for people. That's what you get. You don't get
anything else. If you want to get money, then you have to be a businessperson.
If you want to get famous, that's a whole industry networking game.
But if you want to be a musician, you get to play music. That's
what you get. You get that experience with the audience. That's
the deal. It took me years and years and years to figure that out.
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Copyright
©2002 Harper Entertainment. Reprinted with Permission.
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_________________________________
For more information visit:
http://www.womanrock.com/brenda |
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_________________________________
The following Working Musicians interviews are featured:
Cindy Bullens, It
Was the Rock and Roll Dream
Lita Ford, One
of the Guys
Cheryl James, It
Wasn't a Mutual Decision
Brenda Kahn, Almost
Famous
Laura Nyro, Growth
and Change |
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_________________________________
 This
interview is excerpted from the book Working
Musicians (Harper-Collins), by Bruce Pollock.
Bruce is the author of eight other books on music, including The
Rock Song Index, Hipper Than Our Kids, When Rock Was Young, When
the Music Mattered, and In Their Own Words,
as well as three novels, and is the founding co-Editor in Chief
of GUITAR: For The Practicing Musician. His work has
appeared in The New York Times, Saturday Review, TV Guide,
Entertainment Weekly, Musician, Family Weekly, USA Today, Playboy,
The Gannett Westchester Newspapers, and The Village
Voice. |
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