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CVS
wears his pop on his sleeve. "I grew up in this rural thing and I had Who
records and I had Beatle records. I had this '60s thing. A lot of people want
to play down their influence by The Beatles, but it's kind of hard to miss. I
was born in '65. My mom was into that stuff. The Mamas and Papas too. That was
my first LP, their greatest hits. And I got into that. I suppose if I'd grown
up around blues, then I suppose I would've been a blues player."
Clarksdale's
loss has been pop fans' gain. And with a third album, Go! due out early May and
the fourth already in progress, Audities readers and pop fans everywhere have
even more reason to be thankful. I chased CVS around the clubs in San Francisco
in March as he, bass player Peter Straus, and drummer Bennett Bowman readied
themselves for a joint show with John Wesley Harding at The Great American
Music Hall. Finally, the show behind him, CVS agreed to a meeting at his home
base and studio, Ordophon-Upon-Avon on a secluded cul-de-sac which climbs a
hill above San Francisco's Upper Market area. We talked about his journey from
rural upstate New York to darling of the pop cognoscenti, about the new album,
and about what he's up to next. "Was there some defining pop moment in
your life that set you on the course you're headed on today?" I started.
"By
1981, I was old enough to take the bus into Syracuse. It was a 45 minute bus
ride. So we'd go into Syracuse and get to see bands play. I had fake IDs. I was
16. I don't know how I got in because I'm still kind of baby-faced," he
laughed. "There was this band called Flashcubes. Maybe some people have
heard of them. Very pop. But not even the pop thing, it was more just..."
CVS paused and his tone became reverential, awe inspired as he recalled those
days, "...live rock 'n' roll. Not in a concert thing like most kids are
introduced to it. But this was in a club thing...200 people, loud guitars, the
lights, the club venue thing. Which to me was just..." he halted again,
trying to find words for the power of that experience. "...even, I see
bands now...I see my own band and it is not as exciting as that was at the
time. Maybe it was just because it was before MTV. Before the myth had become
diminished because of the mass media. That just kicked my ass. It was the most
exciting thing to see bands like that."
"So
tell me about your first band," I coaxed, continuing the reverie. "My
first band was called The U-Turns. I could show you pictures. It's three guys
with their mod clothes. Not quite mod, because you couldn't get those clothes
where I grew up. People didn't wear those clothes in the '60s where I grew up.
They weren't in any of the thrift stores. It was just the three of us."
Shifting
to the present, we talked about the assembling of the new album, Go! . But
first, I was curious about the activities underway for a fourth release, a
recent recording session in New York with Richard X. Heyman. "We did six
songs. Well, it was Richard and his wife Nancy. I was just listening to those
tracks today. She's a kick-ass bass player. All I can think of is Carol Kaye,
that Spector session woman. Richard is a Jack of all trades. We had him on
drums, he was playing piano and he would've played guitar if I'd had one there
for him. And Dennis Diken played drums, the guy from the Smithereens."
"We
did a couple of rock songs. It was like..."reliving the intensity of that
session, CVS made a growling sound, bent forward, and shook his head
vigorously, tossing his mod haircut into a frenzied mess. "And Dennis just
kicked ass. It was the first time I'd ever recorded a session with the whole
deal...bass, drums, grand piano, me in the booth, organ. All going down at
once. I've been listening to Dusty in Memphis a lot the last year and that was
all that I was thinking, 'We've just got to do something like they would've
done in Memphis.'"
"Tell
me about the new album," I asked, "How would you describe Go! ?"
"I tried to put it together as an up-tempo record and then I started to
discover the sameness about it. One song would go to the next and you'd think
you were hearing the same song again if you weren't paying attention. Because I
rushed into the sequencing, I made a couple of judgment errors. I had to move
it around, replaced a couple of songs, but now I'm done. I've put some segues
in, some little crossfades like I did with Big White Lies. I wrote some liner
notes to it. It's a nice package. I think that record will be compared to both
my first and second albums. It's a light record. It doesn't have any real
plaintive lyrics. It's not really a heavy record to me. People have been saying
they like it, because it's got a lot of candy on it."
Having
produced good friend John Wesley Harding's New Deal and completed Go! in 1995
and now hard at work on his next album, I asked CVS if he could possibly have
any other projects lined up for 1996. "I'm hoping to get together with my
old band Flying Color," came his surprise answer. "I'm going to
expand my studio and I'm thinking of maybe trying to get them to come in. And
maybe recording some new songs, and maybe some stuff that we never got to
finish back then. I thought I could bring them in because the Flying Colour
album is being reissued in Spain. That's the story I've gotten. The deal's not
complete, but it's ready to go. We've written the liner notes for it.
Everyone's all excited about it."
Before
we wandered too far off into a discussion of microphone placement and recording
techniques from the 50s to the 70s, a phone call came in. Between rehearsals,
local club gigs, and remixing tapes of the New York session, CVS is right now
looking for a new housemate who doesn't mind a "non-trad situation."
"Being
Chris von Sneidern and the career involved is a priority to me, but it's not
everyone else's priority. But I'm still at the level of living my frugal life,
in my shared house, in my in-law apartment." Potential housemates may want
to check the Sunday Examiner under the heading "Pop Situations
Wanted."
-James
K. Cribb