Just Breathe_Just Live

fivetoone:

CIRCUS MAGAZINE INTERVIEW, OCTOBER 13, 1970

When I sit back and read the Circus Magazine article, I still remember what Jim sounded like when he answered  my questions. At least I thought I did until I heard the CD. There were nuances and inflections that came back clearly that I had forgotten with the long stretch of time. What was not so clear, and where having the words in front of me helped, was what was said when all of us were talking. That’s where it helps to have both the written word and the CD.  I hope you are able to enjoy both of them. 

~Salli Stevenson, September, 2003.

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Time: 4:00 pm / Place: Doors Office, Rear Patio

SALLI: Has your earliest visualization for your life, your career, your music, been in any way realized?

JIM: Could we start with something lighter?

SALLI: Sure … Your latest album (Absolutely Live) has received some rather harsh criticism, not only because it was another live album among many released, but because of the lack of polish attributed to it by many critics. How did it come about and why the seeming lack of practice?

JIM: The “Live” album was condensed from about 24 hours of taped concerts that we did over approximately a year’s period of time, starting with the Aquarius Theater in 1969, and we thought we might have one that night. We did two sets and we thought we had one then, but when we listened to it in the studio, we found that it didn’t really add up to a very good album. It was a…a good evening, but on tape it didn’t sound that good. So we recorded, oh, seven or eight other concerts and listened to all of it and cut it down and I think…a…that it is a fairly…a..true document of what the band sounds like on a fairly good night. It’s not…it is not the best we can do, and it’s certainly not the worst…a…It’s a true document of an above average evening. I like that long one, The Celebration …. I think it’s not a great version of that piece, but I’m glad we went ahead and put it out, because I doubt if we would have ever done it on a record otherwise.

SALLI: Why is that?

JIM: Well…it…it’s a couple of years old and if we had done it…well, we tried to do it at the time we were doing Waiting For The Sun, and it wasn’t a…it just didn’t seem to make it in the studio, so we used one piece out of it, Not To Touch The Earth, and if we hadn’t of put it on a live album, I think we would have just shelved it forever, so I’m glad that, even in the imperfect form, that it exists. I think it’s better than if we’d never done it.

SALLI: Was there a lack of practice, before you did the album?

JIM: I think most of it sounds pretty… Yeah. Most of it’s pretty professional. There are a few cuts that were done for the first time on stage, that we really hadn’t worked with that much, that have flaws in them, but I don’t think it’s significant.

SALLI: Is there over-dubbing?

JIM: No, there’s not. You work for days to get an instrumental track and then work hours to get a vocal. Of course, in a live thing, it’s just that one shot.

SALLI: It’s been said that you’ve been on a superstar, super-ego trip. Has this affected you, or your friends, our your relations with the band?

JIM: ….Well…I…a….obviously you don’t really talk about those things with people. It’s kind of hard to talk about, but I would say…a…I don’t think it was that bad…and…a…I never really noticed it too much except for…a…a…when you read magazine articles, but living in a town like L.A….a…you don’t notice that kind of thing. People are pretty…a…blaze about things like that.

SALLI: How do you feel about some of the magazine articles that came out. Calling you “Lizard King,” and all that?

JIM: Oh, I liked it. I enjoyed it. I thought I was…a…I’ve always liked reptiles. I’ve always had a fondness for them. I mean we did evolve from reptiles and I’m…

SALLI: Did you ever have a pet snake?

JIM: No.

SALLI: Oh, you missed something. They’re really great.

JIM: I like lizards. Snakes…they’re beautiful, but I can’t really get too near them. They kind of make me nervous.

SALLI: There’s nothing in them to make you nervous.

JIM: No…but they’re beautiful…the colors. I used to see the universe as a mammoth peristaltic snake, and I used to see all the people and objects and landscapes as little pictures on the facets of their skins…scales…I think the peristaltic motion is…it’s…it’s a basic life movement. It’s…let’s see…swallowing, digestion, the rhythms of sexual intercourse are all…and even your basic unicellular structures have this same…

SALLI: Motion?

JIM:…Yeah…peristaltic is the best word I can think of to describe them.

SALLI: In view of your evolutionary background. Do you believe in any of the things that are going down right now, like reincarnation and karmic circles?

JIM: No, not really, but since I don’t have anything to replace it with, I listen to everything. I don’t say no.

SALLI: What is the philosophy that you live by, your primary belief, aside from evolving from snakes?

KURT: (Circus reporter from NY), What about the films you made at UCLA? They never show any of your films there. They show Ray’s films. They show the one about the Japanese girl.

JIM: The only film I made there was a film that was questioning the film process itself, so it was a film about film. I had a lot of people watching the film in a room, and then I showed people watching television and then filled the whole screen up with things that were shot off television….A few people liked it and most people were indifferent to it. It didn’t survive, because you see, you shoot a film…the film, and then the sound track is separate, and then it costs more money to havethe two, they call it “marrying” the two tracks together into one print, so you can show it in a theater, and it wasn’t deemed worthy of being married together, so I never got a copy of it.

SALLI: How did you eventually evolve the whole idea for theatricality in rock? Did it just start to happen, or did you sit down and say we are going to be more theatrical than any other group?

JIM:…Well…initially…I didn’t start out to be a member of a band. I wanted to make films, and um write plays, books, and so when I found myself in a band, I wanted to bring some of those ideas into it. We never really did too much of it though.

SALLI: What is your earliest visualization of yourself…the band?

JIM: I can’t answer that, yet.

SALLI: Ok…Miami…what was your state of mind when you went into that?