Mad Libs: Besterberg
Welcome to the first installment of Q&A Mad Libs, a weekly (monthly? bimonthly?) feature on HisNerdJig. The gist: I give my friends questions from old Q&As with musicians, and they fill in the blanks. Any which way they chose. You can read more about that here. First up: Matthew Barney Gumble.
MBG and I don’t really have conversations. He’ll send me a link on gchat, I’ll probably exclaim how that blew my mind, usually with “ooo” or “wow, that blew my mind.” I’ll send him a link, not quite as amazing. We’ll both lapse into work-related silence that is completely okay and non-apologetic. He doesn’t make me guilty for responding to a link an hour later. I suppose that’s all you can ask for in a friendship, really.
His loves are dark ‘n stormies, bonerz, Achewood (though he’s resigned not to proselytize about it any longer) and The Replacements. I haven’t known him for very long, but we’ve quickly bonded over the usual things.
I handpicked a few questions from a Paul Westerberg interview for him. Because who doesn’t want to step into the shoes of the man who once wrote, “All I wanna pick is your nose honey”?
Ladies, Gents, I give you MBG.
Pitchfork: This past endless winter made me consider how much the weather in the Midwest plays a role in people forming bands. How did cold weather affect your development as a songwriter? Do you think you would have written the same songs had you formed the Replacements in Hawaii?
MBG: It’s weird that you say that, because Don Ho was such an inspiration for me. Without him I don’t think I’d have entered this business.
Pitchfork: Do the Replacements make you any money?
MBG: My contract specifies that I get paid in cigarettes and gin.
Pitchfork: People hear the records, and they hear 1981, or 1985, or 1989, but here we are in 2008 and it doesn’t seem all that long ago.
MBG: Not… really… a question. I can’t remember what happened on Saturday but then also I remember the lyrics to the “Tato Skins from Keebler” jingle without any difficulty. Time’s a weird thing.
Pitchfork: Is what your music has meant to so many any consolation for missed opportunities?
MBG: Missed opportunities? Lady, what are you talking about? I am married to a sexy rock goddess and plus I once got to title a greatest hits album “Besterberg” – makes me giggle even still. I mean, if I thought that I’d missed any opportunities, then no, it wouldn’t be.
Pitchfork: Was there ever a sense that you were writing songs that maybe even you yourself weren’t quite old enough to understand?
MBG: Seriously, interview-lady, you are blowing my mind right now.
Pitchfork: There’s some unspoken rule that you’re not supposed to cover Kiss and write a song like “Unsatisfied”. But why not?
MBG: Because the people formulating those rules are embarrassed by how stupid they are. See what I did just there? It’s kind of like I called you stupid.
Pitchfork: Did you feel at all left behind by your friends who left town?
MBG: Usually I get asked this about my pseudonymous literary output.
