Nels Cline on the music documentary 'Approximately Nels Cline'

[Albert Tatlock]

Mr Nice gives an interview.

 

http://social.entertainment.msn.com/movies/blogs/post--interview-wilcos-nels-cline-on-the-music-documentary-approximately-nels-cline

 

 

Interview: Wilco's Nels Cline on the music documentary 'Approximately Nels Cline'

The short film featuring the improvisational guitar great is part of the double feature 'Guitar Innovators: John Fahey & Nels Cline'

By DannyMiller 15 hours ago

A few years ago Rolling Stone voted Nels Cline one of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. The guitar legend has collaborated with many artists and has played with groups such as the Geraldine Fibbers with Carla Bozulich and his own Nels Cline Singers with Scott Amendola and Devin Hoff. Today Cline is best known as the lead guitarist of Wilco, the Grammy Award-winning alternative rock band featuring Jeff Tweedy, John Stirrat, Glenn Kotche, Mikael Jorgensen, and Pat Sansone. Watching Nels perform live at a Wilco show is like watching a whirling dervish attack a guitar with ferocious and stunning intensity.

Academy Award-winning director Steven Okazaki has captured some of Cline’s passion in Approximately Nels Cline, a riveting documentary short that shows the avant-garde guitarist in action at Berkeley’s Fantasy Studios, collaborating with artists such as Carla Kihlstedt, Ron Miles, Yuka Honda, Ben Goldberg, and Matthias Bossi. "It's not your typical music documentary," says Okazaki. "It's about musicianship and collaborative hard work of playing great music." The film has been paired with James Cullingham's "In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Story of John Fahey" for an insightful double feature about two of our greatest guitar virtuosos.
 
I met up with Nels Cline recently at the penultimate stop on Bob Dylan’s Americanarama Festival of Music which has been touring the country this summer. As we walked backstage to the Wilco tour bus to talk about Okazaki’s film, we passed several of that night’s special guest stars including Jackson Browne and Nancy Sinatra who would soon join Cline and the rest of Wilco in a rousing version of These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.
 
MSN Movies: I’ve been a huge fan of your brilliant guitar playing for years, both your work with Wilco and your work outside of the band. It’s so cool to see your improvisational process at work in this film. I could really see this documentary expanded to feature-length.
 
Nels Cline: There was a thought of using this as a kind of presentation cut for what could be a longer film. We shot it at Fantasy Studios in the Bay Area and there was also talk of using the film as a kind of TV pilot for a series that would show a different person using the studio in different ways each week.
 
Had you already collaborated with everyone we see in the film?
 
Yes, except for Ron Miles. My only regret is that you don’t see much of my own band in the film. One reason for that is that Scott Amendola, as we discuss in the movie, got seriously ill just as we started. (He’s fine now.) They also wanted the film to be more accessible to people so they wanted a vocalist. I suggested several and we ended up using Carla Kihlstedt who is great.
 
How did you decide which songs would be featured in the film?
 
Well, to be honest, we couldn’t get the rights to many of the songs I suggested or it was just too expensive so we ended up doing a lot of public domain stuff. That worked out perfectly for Carla because she always wanted to do Black Is the Color (of My True Love’s Hair)! And besides singing, Carla is really the best violinist that I know and I know a lot of very talented violists!
 
I love hearing you talk about the process of making your music in the film not every musician is able to do that so articulately.
 
Thank you! Of course that’s the part that makes me the most uncomfortable to watch
 
Really?
 
Oh, don't get me wrong, I love to talk about that stuff as long as I don’t have to watch it later. (Laughs.) Ask me a simple question and watch two hours go by I’m loquacious to a fault!
 
I think it’s so interesting that this short is paired with In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey. It’s a great double feature. Did you know Fahey?
 
Yes, actually, he was a friend of mine! We met in the 80s but I’d been a huge John Fahey fan since the age of 14 ever since I heard Days Have Gone By. John is just a monumental musician and he’s become the subject of great cult scrutiny so much has been written about him posthumously.
 
How did you meet him?
 
After hearing him play a few times, I finally met John through my friend George Winston. I used to work at Rhino Records and George used to come in there a lot when he was Larry Flynt’s driver! He used to have to go pick up Larry’s guard dogs at the airport and deliver film from Chic magazine shoots! He was a beautiful guy but a real nut and one night he invited me to go with him to hear John Fahey play at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. John was so ill with the flu that night that George and I ended up driving him home and putting him to bed. So the first time I ever met John Fahey he was sick as a dog and I ended up in his little bungalow in West L.A. We ended up doing this weird little tour of the west coast together with my old trio. The last time I saw him was at a gig at the Ash Grove which was at the Santa Monica Pier at that time, right next to the carousel. I think that was shortly before he died. John was true to form that night, as he was when we were on tourpeople called him the room clearer! He always played last and he would play this waltz and repeat the same thing at least nine times until everyone in the audience would finally leave!
 
Wow, was that some kind of statement?
 
I think it was absolute belligerence! I think he liked taking audiences as far as they could handle. But I really loved John and I’m just fascinated that we ended up in this film together!

You seem to have found such a great balance in your career between playing in a band like Wilco and having these projects of your own where you are able to do your improvisational music as well.

I love doing both. My whole thing is that it’s not easy for me to play music, it’s always a challenge. The simplest things are hard for me
 
What? That’s just weird to hear you say! What do you mean?
 
Well, I think for some people, playing a certain kind of music is very easy, they could do it in their sleep. But for some reason, the simplest music is never easy for me maybe I just overthink it! I never feel blasé or jaded and I find that I learn from every situation I end up in, no matter how incredibly straightforward it might seem. I wish I could be a little more relaxed about it, I can get a little edgy! But the one thing I feel completely relaxed about is free improvising.
 
Oh, I get it!
 
Like in the movie, we weren’t planning to use Ben Goldberg, that was just because Scott got sick so I suggested getting Ben to come over with his clarinet and that we’d just improvise some duets. Yuka [Nels’ wife] was there I said, Hey, why not have Yuka play? I think that was the first duet we ever did together. So what I’m saying is that anything other than complete spontaneous improvisation is quite a challenge for me!
 
And yet if you ONLY did that, wouldn’t you miss the other?
 
Absolutely. I also like songs, I like form. I write songs myself, I have compositions, so I do appreciate structure, too. I’m really fortunate that I get to do both.
 
I could watch that kind of improvisation you do all day long.
 
Well, you’re pretty much alone there! (Laughs.)
 
It’s such a pure form of creative expression.
 
That’s how I feel about it, but I know that a lot of people feel like that kind of music excludes them somehow. I try to tell them that they are part of the performance, they are intrinsically involved as listeners. Otherwise, why are we doing what we’re doing we might as well stay home or just play for each other! The ambiance of the audience really affects how the music goes down. I try to help people realize that this is a language. Even if the story is being made up in real time, they’re still being told some kind of story, there’s some point in all of us being there at that particular moment.

When you’re improvising with other musicians, are there ever nights where it just doesn’t seem to be working?
 
There have only been a handful of nights in my life where I’ve been tormented by the lack of connection. I feel like one of my few strengths is the ability to reach across to somebody musically and meet them at least halfway, usually much more, to find a commonality. There were only a couple of times when I felt I had no room or no idea how to reach across to another musician my brain just couldn’t find the connection. That kind of thing makes me very unhappy but it’s quite rare.

It seems like when you’re creating this kind of music, you have to listen very hard.

Absolutely. I certainly can’t rely on what I know my parts are. I love that because I’m really not that good at playing parts! I’ve been listening to a lot of music to get ready for this tour and I found myself returning to my love of Steve Howe from Yes. Such beautiful guitar work! I think after Duane Allman and Hendrix, Steve Howe was my favorite guitar idol when I was in high school. I loved listening to him play all these incredibly hard parts so flawlessly. But just yesterday I finally found a clip of him playing in 1972 with Yes where he started improvising on a song and he kind of scuffled around a bit. I was so stoked when I heard that. Thank God, he isn’t completely impeccable! I was so relieved because my entire life that man has been like a machine. It was marvelous! So yeah, it’s a lot easier for me to make up stuff than play something that exists.
 
I remember on one solo tour that Jeff [Tweedy] did several years ago, you opened for him with your own improvisational stuff. Were you excited to bring that kind of music to a wider audience?
 
For sure! Not in terms of selling records, just in terms of exposing people to something else. I have people who come to my gigs now because of Wilco because they’re just curious and I think they go away liking most of it! But I thought it was really funny when Rolling Stone wrote about me and said that because of my improvising tendencies I sometimes play to as few as several hundred people at a time. I laughed because that week I had played for about 60 people!
 
Is the disparity in popularity between the two kinds of music ever frustrating for you?
 
I can’t control any of that but my hope is what you mentioned earlier, that my doing all these things helps to create an awareness. I really don’t expect people to like everything, I’d just like them to have choice. A lot of my complaints about media at this point is that it doesn’t always seem to offer people choices. Yet we have the information superhighway which pretty much offers us anything we want if we can find the right thread. So I guess I don’t worry about it too much.
 
You’ve definitely turned me on to a different kind of music that I probably never would have been exposed to otherwise.
 
Thank you, that’s my dream I love hearing that! I’m so grateful for my nine years in Wilco and that all my other endeavors are completely supported by the management. I think it’s pretty unusual for a rock band not to consider itself some kind of sovereign state that has a protectionist policy and it’s been the exact opposite with Wilco the idea being that whatever you can do outside the group that enriches your life, you’re going to bring that positive stuff back to the group. There are so many ways that Jeff and Tony [Margherita, Wilco’s manager] are really smart and ahead of the curve.

Watching you in Wilco, it’s a different kind of music but you do seem to often go into that frenzied improvisational zone!
 
Oh, completely. I have this moronic love of sound and once it starts up I’m in another place, I’m not faking that at all! But these days I try not to move around as much when I play because in the early days with the Geraldine Fibbers and with Wilco I would basically give myself whiplash at every show! I used to keep my eyes closed and one night with the Geraldine Fibbers I just couldn’t stop and when I finally opened my eyes, I found I was sitting on my main guitar in its stand I had actually broken parts of it off! I was on the ground and my amp had fallen over.

I’m envious of those moments of such pure creativity even though I hope you don’t kill yourself!
 
Yeah, I have to be more careful now. I usually have to ice my neck after every show. Gravity is against us, my guitar strap is not my friend!
 
Well, thanks so much for talking to me right before going on stage. I can’t wait for tonight’s show!
 
I hope you enjoy it. This tour has been an incredible, incredible experience!

 

 

[bböp]

Kudos to Danny for "using" his position as a film critic and his fairly insider-y Wilco status (he's the brother of Mrs. Tweedy, for anyone who might not know) to give us a very nice interview! And of course, Mr. Nice is always so generous with both his time and his perspective.

 

Definitely check out this film (or rather these films) if you get a chance. I see that it's now on VOD, so should be open to the masses. I got to see it on the big screen at a film festival a while back and found it very enjoyable, though those looking for any Wilco — or even Nels Cline Singers — content will be disappointed. But as the interview mentions, I think there was maybe some talk of it being shown on PBS or something perhaps as a sort of pilot for a series on musicians in the studio, which I think would be a cool thing.

[The Inside of Outside]

I’m so grateful for my nine years in Wilco and that all my other endeavors are completely supported by the management. I think it’s pretty unusual for a rock band not to consider itself some kind of sovereign state that has a protectionist policy and it’s been the exact opposite with Wilco the idea being that whatever you can do outside the group that enriches your life, you’re going to bring that positive stuff back to the group. There are so many ways that Jeff and Tony [Margherita, Wilco’s manager] are really smart and ahead of the curve.

 

This makes great sense to me. For us fans, it might mean a little more time between Wilco releases, but the benefits that come back to Wilco (and to us) in return are worth it.

[jff]

I can't wait to see this.  It'd be great to see some Singers footage, but I'm happy with who he's collaborating with, particularly Carla Kihlstedt.  She is an astonishiongly good violinist.  Easily the best I've ever seen, and an excellent singer as well.

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

Definitely check out this film (or rather these films) if you get a chance. I see that it's now on VOD, so should be open to the masses. I

 

I didn't know this. Any idea where I can get it?

 

For anyone in the New York area, Nels will apparently be doing a Q+A after the screening of this and In Search of Blind Joe Death (a film about John Fahey) tomorrow night at Cinema Village. 

 

Here's the full list of where the pair of movies will be playing. Hopefully this list grows.

 

 

New York, NY

Cinema Village

Opens August 16, 2013 Seattle, WA Grand Illusion Cinema September 6 - 12, 2013 Richmond, VA Criterion at Movieland September 6 - 12, 2013 Webster Groves, MO Webster University Film Series September 13 - 15, 2013 Columbus, OH Gateway Film Center September 26, 2013 Baker City, OR Eltrym Theater September 26, 2013 Newburyport, MA Newburyport Screening Room October 25 - November 7, 2013

[Analogman]

I'd like to see that Fahey film. Another connection in the Wilco cast of characters - Jim O'Rourke and John Fahey.

[choo-choo-charlie]

I’m so grateful for my nine years in Wilco and that all my other endeavors are completely supported by the management. I think it’s pretty unusual for a rock band not to consider itself some kind of sovereign state that has a protectionist policy and it’s been the exact opposite with Wilco the idea being that whatever you can do outside the group that enriches your life, you’re going to bring that positive stuff back to the group. There are so many ways that Jeff and Tony [Margherita, Wilco’s manager] are really smart and ahead of the curve.

 

This makes great sense to me. For us fans, it might mean a little more time between Wilco releases, but the benefits that come back to Wilco (and to us) in return are worth it.

For anyone who has read "Learning How to Die," you may recall that this sort of practice was once frowned upon in Wilco -- and really not allowed. I wonder when they changed their mind about it. I for one think it's a good thing.

[jff]

For anyone who has read "Learning How to Die," you may recall that this sort of practice was once frowned upon in Wilco -- and really not allowed. I wonder when they changed their mind about it. I for one think it's a good thing.

 

I agree it's a good thing, but I can also see how it could be a disruptive factor for a new band trying to get their sound together and make a name for themselves.  I would think a new band needs complete commitment from every member until they've established themselves and can afford the downtime that allows for side projects.  Maybe they changed their policy the day after Jeff realized how much he enjoyed playing with Glenn.   What was the first Wilco side project?  Loose Fur?

[nalafej]

Stirratt, Jay Bennett and Ken Coomer formed Courtesy Move, an early Wilco side project that recorded an album in late 1996 that was never released.

 

I'm going to have to read the book again. I don't remember it being an issue. Tweedy was doing Golden Smog in 1995.

[choo-choo-charlie]

Stirratt, Jay Bennett and Ken Coomer formed Courtesy Move, an early Wilco side project that recorded an album in late 1996 that was never released.

 

I'm going to have to read the book again. I don't remember it being an issue. Tweedy was doing Golden Smog in 1995.

That's just it: Wilco's other members were annoyed that they were denied opportunities outside of the band when Jeff was doing the Golden Smog thing. It's in those chapters about the early Wilco days.

[Albert Tatlock]

Can't say his solo stuff is for me, but I appreciate him bringing a liitle bit of it to Wilco for an edge, and am thankfull that he gets to do it so as to exhaust his desires and not bring too much of it :-)

[smells like flowers]

Really wonderful interview... thanks for posting!  Nels' admission that for him, improvising is so much easier than playing something that already exists is so interesting, and it says so much about who he is as a musician. I think I'll hear his guitar parts with Wilco with fresh ears moving forward.