An oldie but still a classic: Open Your Eyes, the epic from Compartments in a new video. Ants again for the first time. Rick Wakeman’s cape.

Roger CortonI see you redid the old videos for Open Your Eyes. You combined the three parts all into one. Why?

JCHAnts (laughs). You remember when the computer servers crashed last summer? I lost a ton of old original materials.

As Editor, this is where I jump in with a ‘We Regret The Error’. As our readers know, I chop out a lot of material from our chats in order to make these (cough) discussions readable. My goal is 800 words even though we rarely make it. Sometimes I’m not as careful as I could be and in this case, I hacked out the entire portion of our chat on 08/24/16 where we discussed the server crash. I apologize for not finding […]

Happy Birthday Dr. Bill Bruford. Max Roach. How JC’s drumming has (cough) evolved. Terry Gilliam. Too many notes, Dear Mozart. How do you record yourself playing with yourself? And do Penis Extenders really work? Practice. Practice. Practice. Physicality vs. composing away from an instrument. Some thoughts on recording a conversation with yourself.

Roger CortonBill Bruford had a birthday this week. Did you know he was a PhD?

JCHI do now. I actually tried reading his dissertation.

RCAnd?

JCHAnd it’s supposed to be some analysis of how various drummers approach (cough) ‘the beat’. That is, their approach to ‘time’. Now you know I have no trouble posting links to pretty arcane shit, but that thing? WOWSA! It never ceases to amaze me how people can be such great musicians and have such a BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING internal process. I mean seriously. Especially Brits. Fripp too.

RCI know exactly what you mean. I bought one of Fripp’s guitar video courses sight unseen and […]

Health Care. Marcel Duchamp and toilets. Postmodern. Andy Warhol and Campbell Soup Cans. Making a statement and William Carlos Williams. Strategery. Son House. Brazil. Trump. It’s complicated. Who knew?

Roger CortonSo last time we talked about how hard it is writing great lyrics. And in fact you said “there is almost nothing I seem to hate worse in life than lyrics”.

JCHCorrect.

RCWhat with all the recent chaos we haven’t spent much time talking up your new album Progress. I think this is a chance to kill two birds with one stone; talk up a song and dive more into lyrics.

JCHYou’re so manly when you’re take charge.

RCI noticed something odd when I listened to my Progress CD of ‘Health Care’. The ‘raps’ aren’t the same as on this video.

JCHCorrect.

RCI assume that’s intentional?

JCHCorrect.

RCYou’re going to stop doing that soon, right?

JCHRight […]

Writing good lyrics is really hard. Yesterday and Scrambled Eggs. Talking Heads and cleaning. Bad lyrics are what killed Progressive Rock. Phonemes, Siberian Khatru and abstraction. Love Beach is a terrible lyric. But What A Wonderful World is a great lyric. Obituaries.

Roger CortonYou mentioned in last week’s marathon that you were working what you called ‘the connective tissue’ of The Boats.

JCHYes and that means words. Lyrics. And there is almost nothing I seem to hate worse in life than lyrics.

RCReally?

JCHYes. OK, I’m going to swing the camera around for a second. Notice anything?

RCWhat am I supposed to notice?

JCHI’m a bachelor pushing sixty. That should be your first clue. How does the place look?

RCClean?

JCHTOO clean. The place is fucking immaculate. That should tell you something.

RCTell me what?

JCHThat I’m engaging in almost constant task avoidance. When I’m cleaning? That means I’m doing ‘busy work’ […]

Tour cancellation and writing 372 refund notes. Trump and China. Igor and Young Frankenstein. Healthcare. Allan Holdsworth and death. Health Care. Whither Protest Music? Beethoven and re-invention. The Heiligenstadt Testament and career counseling.

Roger CortonLucy. You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!

JCHDo I? I mean that implies there are even a few people left out there (sniff).

RCYou may have a point. (laughs) No sniveling, son. OK, let’s recap. You cancelled the tour. And then we took some time off to recover from shock.

JCHAnd now weeeee’re back baby.

RCRight. So let’s get right to it. Now why did you feel the need to do something so extreme?

JCHI want to be clear. There wasn’t anything ‘tragic’ going on. I’m not ‘dying’. But about sixty days to go, I re-scheduled the first weekend–your weekend, because, as I was rehearsing, I was having quite a lot of neck and shoulder pain and couldn’t get through an entire mock show comfortably. And […]