On The Record

"Miss Fortune" Part 1

This is one of those times when I set a timer and let my fingers fly. I’m just going to tell you what I remember and do installments until I feel like I’ve told what I want to tell.

I met RS Field in the fall of 2000. The Hardest Part had just come out to lots of attention and critical acclaim and I’d been working a lot — a promotional tour in the UK had taken place mid-summer, I’d gotten a killer band together for road work which began that August — specifically at The Minnesota State Fair, which I’ll never forget playing — state fairs are big pay days for artists and are particularly good opportunities for new ones to hone their chops, me included — we played two shows a day for four days in a row in the free band shell and I wish I’d appreciated the opportunity more than I did — I’m afraid that instead of being grateful for the work, I wondered why no one was paying attention to what I was doing onstage — I didn’t yet know that I needed to earn attention and appreciation and wasn’t just entitled to it because I had talent —

that’s all to say that I was busy. I was also drinking more heavily than I should’ve been and smoking cigarettes like an idiot, all due, I think, to being so very deep down in my trauma that I couldn’t see straight. Due to all of that, I made some terrible decisions. But one of the good ones I made during that time was to do a guest appearance on a record with Los Straightjackets, which was produced by R.S. Field. I had a good time doing the track and Butch and I hit it off with him and his friend, musician Jared Reynolds, who is still one of my best friends today and is currently in Hayes’ band. Because Kenny had raised some questions about The Hardest Part as its producer, Butch had pressed the idea that I needed a producer other than him for my next record. I went along with it, and though I think every artist has the right to pursue collaboration with whomever they wish, I do regret not digging into all of that more because I think I could’ve conducted myself better and protected my relationship with Kenny. But — regrets are dumb, and I see myself at that time now as someone who was just trying to survive her situation and didn’t even know it. And I so very highly value my relationship with R.S. and learned SO much and grew by leaps and bounds under his tutelage. He is a true genius of a very specific kind and is an underrated treasure.

Though The Hardest Part did get a lot of press attention — I even booked both Jay Leno and David Letterman which was a big deal then — it was another commercial failure. I didn’t have hit songs. And I was young and naive and didn’t think things like hits mattered. They do, if you want success enough to create a safety net for yourself. That’s all to say that I moved on from it creatively and had begun writing a third record. I think the first songs I had were “Tumbling Down” (which I adore) and “Let Go” — maybe “Cold in California” in a different incarnation (because the version that’s on the record was written at the Hum Depot, which was Bobby’s studio at the time, which would mean we were doing pre-production which would mean we were already working together) — but I don’t really recall in what order they came. I do remember thinking there were a lot of songs. Now I see how it would’ve made a much stronger 10 song album rather than a 13 song album — I could do without “Ruby Jewel Was Here” particularly. And this is what I mean. What in the world was I doing singing a song like that? I don’t even like it, and it sounds inauthentic because it is. It’s Butch’s darkness, not mine. The singing is affected and labored, and is on most of the whole album. I won’t beat myself up anymore about it but why was I singing so hard? Goodness.

I think my favorite thing about this record is the way it sounds. It’s lush, warm, and saturated like the deepest velvet. We had a sickeningly big budget — we spent ten times what would be considered a really healthy budget in today’s music business. Luck. Timing. But we carried on and added strings, horns, singers, you name it. It was fun, but I got lost. We worked every day of July and August that summer except for weekends. We started at this home studio that belonged to a guy named Guido that R.S. had met somehow. R.S. was all about gear and this guy had the board on which Sadanista had been recorded. So we went over there for what R.S. called the ramp up. Jay Bennett came down from Chicago and brought what I swear was approximately 47 guitars/instruments from the Wilco loft. He drove them down in a minivan and it was like a clown car loading and unloading, bless his soul. He played the piano on “Cold in California” and it was perfect. Mike Webb either redid it later or we recut it and he played it perfectly too. I think we probably recut it and didn’t keep anything from the ramp up sessions at Guidos. I absolutely loved getting to do that Baroque sound with that string quartet on that song. I think that recording is a marvel and the production is sublime. It’s an example of where I was trying to go, which I think was more toward Carole King territory rather than The Band. But I listen to myself sing and all I hear is my broken heart and defiance toward it — subliminally always asking myself how dare I be vulnerable? How dare I need anything? So, I wasn’t and I didn’t. I had to heal to get strong enough to know I could live life the way I chose to, and make art the way I chose to. I had to heal to allow myself any emotions at all.

But damn, what a track!

Life is weird.

Onward. More as I think of it.

AM