Seva

Shoes
“Do You Wanna Get Lucky?”
from Black Vinyl Shoes (1978)

Seva: So this is vintage something, isn't it?

KV: It's the Shoes.

Seva: Don't know this band. I love the guitar tone. Just a little reverb, a little tape echo; make it simple. Power pop for me almost perfectly manifested itself in Cheap Trick and the Smithereens.

Kraftwerk
“Ruckzuck”
from Kraftwerk (1971)

Seva: When I was a kid, I would loved to have heard this record, but I heard a different Kraftwerk, and I heard Morton Feldman, and I heard [composer] Milton Babbitt, and I heard [composer] Vladimir Ussachevsky, and then I bumped into Emerson Lake and Palmer and the progressive rock aspect intrigued me,

because I was a classical pianist. So I started fusing all of these elements together — [composer Igor] Stravisnky and [Frank] Zappa — and it comes out pretty difficult music, no matter what. It's not for the average person; it's like watching high-speed chess and trying to keep up with the game.

Frank Zappa
“Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?”
from Joe's Garage Acts 1, 2 & 3 (1979)

Seva: Mr. Zappa! I had put together this album called Gravity Is My Favorite Drug, and I wanted Zappa to put it out on his label, or something. I was working in the studio making my own music and was making a living doing some engineering, and I hadn't really looked at publishing and all that — he was having such terrible trouble with Warner Brothers at the time. I sent him a copy of the record, along with some T-shirts that I'd made for him and his family, and I got a letter back that said, ‘If you're ever out in Los Angeles, I'd like to meet with you,' which was impossible. And then I would, with a chance, pass through L.A., entirely unexpected, on the way to living in the Philippines for more than a year. And I went by and he met with me and said, ‘I'd put this on the label, except I'm having such trouble with Warner Brothers; they're trying to really break my balls.' So there was nothing he could do about it. So I went on to the Philippines and lived there for a year, and when I came back I got back into radio and really did not follow up. When he did have the opportunity to probably put it out, I just wasn't pursuing it. So the lesson there is don't give up, you know?

Eric Dolphy
“Hat and Beard”
Out To Lunch (1964)

Seva: My other lifeline when I was in Jefferson County as a kid was WUOT, and they would play — there was a show “Unhinged,” and “Unradio” with Mike Dotson and Ashley Capps and the former music director of the station. I can't remember his name now; he plays violin in the symphony, but he's not with the station anymore. I loved how they pushed the envelope of public radio, and unfortunately it's not pushed like that now, at all. This is one of those things where it could be any one of a number of people, and none of them I'll know the name of. For a while I worked with Samurai Celestial, who was a drummer with Sun Ra, and we really pushed the envelope with his records that I produced and mixed. I don't think they're in print right now, and I'd like to solve that. Cosmic Gold Millennium and Isis Sun; they're tremendous pieces. He knew so much about the free style and free form jazz, but he could play all those standards at any moment, as anybody in town who played with him would attest.