Loading summary
Transcript140 lines
- [00:00]
Host 1
Jokerman podcast is brought to you by Distrokid and their new Direct to fan tool. Allowing any artist to sell merch. Distrokid Direct allows artists to create a merch store in minutes without any upfront costs or any technical skills or know how they'll take care of all the logistics and the nitty gritty. And as with distribution through Distrokid, they never take a cut of the proceeds. You, the artist, keep 100% of your earnings. Once again, that's Distrokid Direct. Open a store today@distrokid.com direct.
- [00:40]
Host 2 (Evan)
Hello, it's Evan. Welcome back to Jokerman and a very special episode. Our guest today is Stephen Hall, AKA Neurasta Steel. Chances are good that you've heard the name recently. The new double album collection My Skyscraper from the small yet mighty Ulyssa label has basically made Steven and Nerasta Steel an overnight cult smash sensation and critical favorite of the year. A lot of the enthusiasm rightfully feels motivated by a desire to catch up with someone who's instantly recognizable for those whose ears and eyes are tuned to such things, as a person who is authentically and deeply connected to times and places and figures that have become almost mythical in certain corners of cultural memory. His personal and creative collaborative relationship with Arthur Russell is a focal point of his story. But rather than just being a piece of trivia, it's a kind of keystone to understanding the depth and breadth and spiritual dimensions of the man and his music. It's a very rare moment to see an artist and a larger audience meet the way that is happening now via this collection, which, of course, barely scratches the surface of his output, just as this interview only barely gestures at the outlines of an amazingly rich life in art and poetry and music. With that said, please enjoy, as we did, the chance to hear about some of his incredible life and times in the podcasting debut of Stephen hall and Neurastasia.
- [02:32]
Musical Interlude / Song
Walking to a different town and talking what did I learn? Talking to a different crowd and walking what did I learn? What did I do today? What did I do today? What did I do today? What did I do today?
- [03:15]
Host 1
Wow, look at that.
- [03:16]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, this is. This is the. This is. I'm literally in the corn belt. So we call this place the Farmhouse because we got it, because it's right on the edge of a corn belt, which, of course, you know, corn is like. Corn belt is one of the Arthur Russell themes in my life, because he was from Iowa, and now it's kind of coming full circle. I'm Back I'm in the Midwest now, in the corn belt.
- [03:35]
Host 2 (Evan)
Yeah, there's a picture in my. In my kitchen. My girlfriend has had this up for years, but it's. It's a picture of Arthur Russell as a blur dancing around in a cornfield.
- [03:46]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Well, there's also a kind picture of him, a close up of him in the corn, like his head amongst the corn. And that's with the Guardian article that just came out when I was working with a photographer. She didn't know this reference, but I was telling her about the Arthur Russell and the cornfield pictures and that's what we were trying. She was recreating that without actually knowing because I was directing her with that. But yeah, my cat is playing in the background. So that's the scratching side of here.
- [04:10]
Host 1
The cat. What's the cat's name?
- [04:12]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Romeo. And actually his legal name is Ro. Meow. But we call him Romeo.
- [04:18]
Host 1
Yeah, Romeow doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well as Romeo. I appreciate that. Well, I want to start this conversation off the same way I started off the conversation with Bruce Hornsby a couple months ago.
- [04:29]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Oh, okay. Bruce Hornsby, he's coming here to Champagne this fall. And my friend Eric at the label, he's a friend of Bruce Hornsby's. And when I asked what my dream is diamond is, that name comes up and it says all ties in. I just did a guest mix for NTs with the I can't make you love me by Bonnie Wright and Bruce Hornsby. And I, I sing with that at home. I harmonize with them at home. So my dream is one day to get Bruce Hornsby in the studio to do some Martha Russell songs.
- [04:58]
Host 2 (Evan)
Oh my God.
- [04:59]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
That's like. Because to me, he's the greatest keyboard player. Every time you hear him play, you know it's him. There's only a few players like that, you know, there's only a few singers like that. As soon as you hear them, you know, phrasing on the piano is so gorgeous. So my friend Eric, who started this whole Skyskipper thing, he's got an obsession with Bruce Hornsby and really appreciates him. So I'm going to get to meet him this fall. He's one of my heroes.
- [05:22]
Host 1
I'm so excited your friend Eric was the question because Bruce Hornsby, as you've already said, Bruce and Eric, this is Eric Danis of Ulyssa are our pals. And Eric put out a record that Bruce Hornsby was involved in to some Contra house last year that Hornsby was Involved in.
- [05:42]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, I think Eric. I think actually Eric did some of the lyrics on that.
- [05:44]
Host 1
I think he did. But I'm just curious, how did you and Eric connect? Because you two are the toast of the town these days.
- [05:52]
Host 2 (Evan)
I have to interject and note that Eric has been a friend in my life for many, many years because he was the manager of my band.
- [06:02]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Oh, okay.
- [06:03]
Host 2 (Evan)
Way back in 2015, thereabouts. 1415. During the short and turbulent lifetime of my band called Dub Thompson, which Eric was instrumental in getting signed to Dead Oceans. He was a big champion of this record we made.
- [06:22]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Wow.
- [06:22]
Host 2 (Evan)
And is indirectly responsible for many madcap adventures in my own life. So it's kind of amazing for me to see and on a much more impressive scale, the continuing influence of Eric's enthusiasm upon the world and in much grander fashion here with the attention and acclaim that the collection my skyscraper has been getting.
- [06:48]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yes. Well, as much as I'm being recognized, Eric and John are being recognized because it was not only the music. I mean, I'm proud of the music. I know I'm a pretty good musician, but it was the way Eric presented it because I was so fortunate. Well, the way the whole thing happened was Shane from Chanel Beads. So there's a couple of variations on the story, but basically Shane from Chanel Beads had Cool, Cool Fire on his iPhone and stuck it into Clark's face, Mr. Pleasure Systems and said, you've got to listen to this. That was Cool Fire. So all this happened with Cool Fire and then Shane turned Eric onto Cool Fire and Eric just went ballistic.
- [07:27]
Musical Interlude / Song
He.
- [07:28]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
He just. He did this mix for Ulissa, which was something like sensitive and gentle, which included several of my songs from Cool Fire. And he just got me from the. From the get go. I didn't need to explain anything where I was coming from. He just got it from the beginning. So it was just like. I wouldn't say love at first sight, but sonically, in terms of our, you know, Our musical. Our site, we're sort of parallel with our musical tastes. You know, it was kind of like that. And so he said, you know, do you have any other stuff you might want to put out? And then, then he got like a couple of hours of mixes where they included different versions of songs and also, you know, of course, songs from different times and from very wide array of genres. And then the thing about Eric was he was totally open to. I was giving him. And then he chose what I think are some of my. Not only my best songs, but my best recordings because for Me, production is a very elusive kind of alchemy, mystical kind of thing. I kind of worship the people who can mix, you know, like. Well, Arthur Baker would be one that would come to mind. And so I sent him a whole bunch of mixes of different songs and different versions. And then, like, for Gray Boy, I sent him the acapella thing as an intro to the actual version of the song, which he didn't choose because he loved the acapella much. So it's his kind of sideways of looking at things. And then when I told him, you know, he. He said it really like the acapella one. I said, well, did you hear the whole track? He said, what do you mean? I said, well, there's like a minute and a half of silence before I start singing again because that's the instrumental break. And if you hear the. The regular song, which I can send to you later, that's where in the English version, I do a guitar. In the Mandarin version, sung by a Hong Kong singer, Peter Zumo does the Trombone Soul in the middle of that. So when you're hearing the acapella version, that's. That's just me reading and waiting for my cue for the next part. And also you hear the recording machine tracking in the background as a roll in 16, which is just.
- [09:50]
Musical Interlude / Song
What?
- [09:51]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Oh, he wants to get out now. He wants to get out.
- [09:53]
Host 1
There's old Romeo.
- [09:58]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
There you go.
- [09:59]
Host 1
Wow, look at the background there with the sun setting and the tree looks like a screen.
- [10:03]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah. I mean. I mean, come on, does it get any better?
- [10:06]
Host 1
Yeah. Incredible.
- [10:07]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
That's the thing is, you know, when I. When I imagine what my life could be after all this craziness happened, you know, I'm already in a good place. So it's like anything else is like a cherry on top. Because I'm very, very lucky to be in a situation where I can just do music when I. To have that kind of freedom. But, you know, about a month or so ago, I was driving an Uber car, you know, for some extra money, and I'm not doing that anymore.
- [10:30]
Host 1
Amazing.
- [10:31]
Host 2 (Evan)
Congratulations.
- [10:33]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Thank you. Not that. And I did like, the Uber car driving, and I thought I might do it, do it some more as well. It's like someone who wins the lottery and they still want to keep a day job.
- [10:42]
Host 1
That's right.
- [10:43]
Musical Interlude / Song
Yeah.
- [10:44]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah. So I feel kind of like that because as a Scottish person, I always have to be practical and think about, you know, the survival and the bottom line. But it's just completely surreal what happened. It was really like the Heavens opened up and, you know, the hand of God came down and handed me like mana, so. Which is turning into money. It's just been a trip. Literally and figuratively, metaphorically, it's been a trip.
- [11:10]
Host 1
So it sounds like, pretty clear that this is something of a surprise in terms of the way that the music and the record has been received by the general public.
- [11:19]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
It was a shock, but not a surprise because I thought this would happen, like 40 years ago. I thought I was going to be a pop star, you know, when I was working with Arthur. And he believed it so much that he was very scared of that happening, that I would sort of leave him in the dust, you know, when I had the opportunity. And it always happened again. And with Arthur's landing, we sort of self imploded. You know, some bands are sort of doomed and that one was. Was really. It's like. Like a rocket that flared up and then sort of exploded or fizzled. Fizzled out, I don't know, whatever. But we made some great. But at the expense of our own relationships. And. I mean, you've been in the band. He'll know about these kind of dynamics.
- [11:58]
Host 2 (Evan)
Oh, yes. Yes, I do. In terms of how the record's being received, it seems to me like a lot of the people who appreciate it the most and most vocally are artists themselves or very involved in and invested in art music.
- [12:17]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Actually, the most heartwarming part of some of these responses are one is a younger guy saying, I'm a musician and you showing me that I can actually do this and keep doing this for my life and, you know, get. Get somewhere with it. The other reaction that is. That's even more pleasing to me is musicians who tell me that they're being inspired by hearing the music. And then one in particular, one musician contacted me and said he hadn't written anything for a while, any songs, and he. He played my record, the whole record, and then he wrote a song.
- [12:46]
Host 1
Wow.
- [12:47]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
So to me, that's. That's. That's. That's like beyond, you know, a nice response. That's just exactly. I mean, the two things I'm looking for would that, you know, to inspire someone else, either by my example, because the other thing about Eric, the genius of Eric and. And also, I can't discount John in the background, sort of. He's. I don't know. I haven't exactly figured out what the dynamics are because they're. They're like twins and. Or like a couple of high school kids who just getting excited about some kind of New something that they've discovered and then sharing it with each other. Yeah. So the thing, the genius of Eric was that he. After I gave him the Arthur Russell tracks where Arthur plays the drums, then he decided to go from a single album we already finished, to go to a double album. And I thought that was foolish given the market, because I wasn't really well known and it's a small label and it's an expensive proposition, a double album. And then on top of that, I usually present myself in a rather abstract or shrouded way that I like to have. The music speaks for itself. I mean, the. The releases I've done before, I have really. I have no fanfare. But he decided to tell my story, the story of the arc of the music. And that's what I think propelled it as much as the reaction to the music itself, because it placed it in a certain context where people could have access to it through the story and then they could sort of consider it in that light. So I think that really helped. And then being in the summer, a summer release, I don't think it would have worked in the winter. That's an interesting aspect of it that so many people have sort of latched onto. Is summer like a summer thing or summer groove? That's very playful, very pleasing to me. And then there's an aspect of it which is also almost because. Because it's been so. I mean, I can't say anything else about it. It's just. It's gigantic what has happened. I mean, it's so far reaching that it's very tempting to think about things that are either mystical or cosmic or, you know, in some other related realm. Because. Because what has happened is so phenomenal. So my friends have suggested that, you know, creative visualization may be a. You know. And another friend said in Chinese astrology, this is my year because I'm a rooster, apparently. This is the special read. And then I just checked my astrology the other day by accident because someone had posted on IG about a thing about cancer. I'm cancer. And then I looked up at what it said about cancer and it said that, for instance, today is the luckiest day of the year. And it's basically like the luckiest day of my life today.
- [15:19]
Musical Interlude / Song
Wow.
- [15:20]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Being this particular full moon.
- [15:21]
Host 1
Happy recent birthday to a cancer.
- [15:24]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Oh, thank you. Yeah. 69. It's funny because also the other thing is being an older sex symbol, which I find totally hilarious. I mean, also there's a discussion online now about my skyscraper, meaning my penis. And that is so far from the truth that it's more than hilarious. But now they're talking, now they're discussing about it. And also John, I think John was more responsible for the COVID design. So they think that the graphic on the front, the way that the text was, was tilted over is meant to represent my penis.
- [15:52]
Host 1
Interesting.
- [15:53]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
And the reason why it was tilted over is because I, I asked them to tilt over. And the line in the song that it comes from, you think you're playing God on the top of my skyscraper. So that has nothing to do with. I was singing that song in Taiwan on the top of a skyscraper, on top of a mountain. So it was literally describing what I was doing at that time.
- [16:14]
Host 1
Not metaphorical whatsoever, Completely set the record straight.
- [16:17]
Host 2 (Evan)
But that's how you know you've made it is people are having inaccurate theories about you.
- [16:22]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yes. That's the other thing about the myth about how I was so called, discovered after 40 years and become. Became an overnight sensation was that Eric got a bit upset because he. I said that Shane played it for Clark and then Clark played it for Eric and Harry because no, I discovered you a year before that. So it's like people like have fighting
- [16:41]
Host 1
over how they discovered you.
- [16:43]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, yeah.
- [16:43]
Host 2 (Evan)
Have you been on a podcast before?
- [16:45]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
I think this is my first.
- [16:47]
Host 2 (Evan)
Okay, you heard it here first, folks.
- [16:49]
Host 1
Stephen hall podcast debut.
- [16:50]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
My new management company, which is another thing that happened today was I made an agreement with them. They said I have to set up a podcast studio in my new farmhouse. So I do have a little studio room. So I'm going to set up in there because they said I'm going to do more of these kind of things. But this is fun because I don't mind. I love live things. I mean, whether it's music or just talking. And I don't mind having my picture taken or talking about myself.
- [17:14]
Host 1
You're in the right environment, my friend.
- [17:16]
Host 2 (Evan)
Stars are aligned.
- [17:17]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
So I'll just give you a rundown of what happened today. So the Guardian interview came out this morning. I think the paper feature on me is coming out later today. And then three interviews. Then I had a meeting with a label with Eric this morning where we discussed the details of our agreement and we made a. We decided we were going to go ahead. We made a few adjustments. So we have the agreement now for like 10 years with Eric. I'm throwing my towel in where we. So that you can work on my skyscraper. But also another thing about Eric which is very generous. It's a non exclusive situation. So we do have an offer. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it, but a major record company has made an offer and they're. They're.
- [18:03]
Host 2 (Evan)
I know the one.
- [18:04]
Host 1
I'm one comes to mind. That's right.
- [18:05]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
So we'll leave it at that. So today. Yeah. And then I. I made an agreement with Elisa. We basically, you know, we're moving forward with that agreement. Then I talked with the booking agents. That was the surreal part because they sort of hammered home the idea that I should be really realize what's happening and act appropriately in terms of, like, what kind of concerts or tours I want to do. Because. Because of my age. And I was offered a tour with Chanel Beads. I mean, the guy that discovered me, Shane from Chanel Beads, they offered me a tour and I said no, because I can't play like a club every night like they're doing. They're young guys.
- [18:39]
Host 1
Right.
- [18:40]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
So the idea is I do a few special events. So instead of going a tour with them, I'm opening for them October 14th at the knockdown center in Queens. And then the other thing that happened today was there's going to be an Allen Ginsberg festival, like, anniversary celebration on Little island in New York at the beginning of September. So they invited me to be part of that because Alan, of course, is part of this whole story as well.
- [19:03]
Host 2 (Evan)
Can you talk a little bit about that aspect of things?
- [19:06]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah.
- [19:07]
Host 2 (Evan)
I understand you went to New York and became friends with Alan, but also Larry Fagan and other poets.
- [19:13]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, Well, I was in high school in Wilmington, Delaware. I moved to America when I was 15 with a crew cut. And everyone in high school had long hair because I was watching movies from the 50s and I thought everyone in America had a crew cut. So that was where I started. And then. But I was going up to Philly to see concerts. Tony Williams, Lifetime, the greatest drummer I've ever seen. Joni Mitchell, Holland Oates, great Philadelphia music scene. And also the Philadelphia sound was a big influence. You know, singers like Teddy Pendergrass, the Philadelphia Seltzer Orchestra, all the Philadelphia stuff. And then some poets came down to visit my high school. And then one of them, Larry Fagan, I made friends with bunch of them. And they were all really crazy, wild people. It's amazing they got those jobs. It was a government grant to send writers to high school in Delaware to teach them to do poetry readings and to teach workshops in creative writing. So I became a certified creative writing teacher at, I think 16, going into elementary schools to teach poetry. And then Going up to New York, like on the weekends to visit Larry Fagan, who was in the so called now Famous Poets Building. So in that building, if you do a diagram of it, you'd have the lower floor would be Richard Hale from Television Vision. Then Larry Fagan, my good friend who I went to visit. Then Allen Ginsberg was the next floor above him. Then there were, in that building there were maybe five poets. That would be John Godfrey, Bob Rosenthal, who became Allen Ginsberg's secretary. Shelly Crowd, his wife. Various other poets lived there at different times. Rene Ricard, the Warhol superstar who I dated briefly, was there for a while until he set fire to his apartment due to his excessive behavior. We won't go into that Arthur Russell on the top floor with a wire going out his window down to Allen Ginsberg's apartment for electricity. Because that's kind of the level of living we were at at that point. I was, you know, I was living in a small apartment nearby. So in that building, that's where I started to visit Larry. And then we just ran into other people in the building like, you know, Arthur Russell one day. And Arthur was already working with Alan on music. I think before that, Alan took me to see Arthur perform in a small club on Second Avenue. I think I'd have to check the name for you is something like Belvederes or Balthazar. I'd have to check with Steve Knudsen on that, maybe the history of that. And then what Alan said was, you have to see this guy, you know, what he's doing with music. Because he's like William Carlos Williams. Well, Williams, Carlos Williams was, was Allen's biggest influence and hero. I mean, the whole thing of Allen's approach to poetry comes directly from William Carlos Williams. And he also saw himself even in a lineage directly from. Well, it gets, it gets sidetracked from Walt Whitman through William Carlos Williams to Alan. And then I'm sort of like maybe the next step in that in a way. I mean, that's why I thought of myself. And I was very ambitious in those days. When I made the application to Columbia College, my recommendation letter was written by Adam Ginsburg. So they could not say no. That was one of their most famous alumni. I'll have to show you that later one day. It's hilarious. Talks about me being. Having a great hand. He was talking about my guitar playing, but I think he was making a double entendre anyway. So yes, just hanging out in the Ports Building, running to people. And then with Larry Fagan, he was like, not only My mentor in poetry, but in everything. He would take me to like a Philip Gustin show or take me to some kind of Warhol event or, you know, some kind of dance event in New York. New York is still kind of that way, but at that time it was just. It was just endless. The places you could go, the people you could meet. Everything was kind of open.
- [22:57]
Host 1
When, when exactly are we talking?
- [22:59]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
That would be around. I came to America in 72 or 15, so that would be. Be around 74, 75, something like that. Yeah, yeah, mid late 70s. Yeah.
- [23:09]
Host 2 (Evan)
Wow, man. I'm saying wow a lot in this episode, but it's just incredible to me.
- [23:13]
Host 1
There's a lot to say wow to.
- [23:14]
Host 2 (Evan)
What's your relationship with poetry today? Or did music kind of become your main focus? Or did those end up being parallel?
- [23:23]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Well, they ended up being parallel. I didn't resolve them until I was working with Arthur. Because before that I was just doing music, just kind of just like for fun and know. And the poetry part was serious. I mean that's what I went to Columbia to study with one particular teacher, Kenneth Koch, great poet. But then I was, you know, I was uptown with the, with the uptown crowd, with the Columbia boys. And also there was a very healthy gay literary scene there as well around Columbia, including writers like Brad Gooch, who became like, kind of like my big brother at the college. And then the downtown scene, I was sort of oscillating between the uptown, like a literary serious scene and the downtown wildness where it was like drugs and alcohol and sex and non stop, including, especially in the gay world downtown. You could be in the straight world all day or the mixed world all day, you know, experiencing cultural events. And then at night it just got completely wild in the gay world, was just all night non stop, you know, revelry until it stopped, you know, until it screeched to a halt because of aids. But not only because of aids, because of the, the devastation of drug use around that time, which is, you know, there's an argument to be made that that is tied into creativity. Ian Lewandowski, he did the, the fabulous video for Boss Tricks for the Benny Song with the nightclub performers. Like she's have to check that out if you haven't seen it. But he's also doing a project, a documentary about the Saint nightclub, which was like the last great gay nightclub in which was in the former Fillmore east on Second Avenue. They made it into this like big pleasure dome place. I only went there once, but he's doing this documentary about the same. Which is the most extreme form of gay nightlife where they would. People would night long and take drugs all night long and, you know, have sex all night long on the dance floor even. And the. The gay DJs that were there were playing this like, hypnotic drug dance music all night long that would occasionally crescendo into amazing, like, dance music riffs that they were, you know, they were blending together and like, very kind of creative way of mixing the. Mixing this stuff. So very extreme form of djing. Like the most extreme form of djing in order to. To induce euphoria and, you know, sexual confusion and a sense of out of body, you know, selflessness. So he's doing a. He's doing a documentary about it. So he was contacting people who were survivors of that time because that was a very, very heavy drug scene. And now a lot of those people are gone, either from AIDS or from the actual drug use itself. So I was a lucky survivor. So he liked my music before all this craziness, and he said, could he use a couple of my songs for this documentary because they're from of that time. And I have that feeling of the 80s.
- [26:09]
Host 2 (Evan)
Sounds like of quite a time.
- [26:12]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
The thing is about the nostalgia for people who have not been there is really interesting and ironic because at the end of the night there were, you know, if it was the mineshaft, the S and M bar, there were literally bodies.
- [26:23]
Host 1
Oh, my God.
- [26:24]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
This was the. When SNM scene was totally out of control but totally extreme. And in a way was. It was. Was reached a kind of apex which involved what they call terminal sound sex, which is to have sex while you were dying. And that's just something that William Burroughs explored in his fiction as a kind of erotic nadir of some kind of a kind of. Where emotional and the metaphorical and the literal and the figurative and the religious all came together in one, like, terminal act.
- [26:54]
Musical Interlude / Song
We do the Stingray Shuffle in Super Merit. We got a million DJs, young and hungry girls. We got the red tail lights on the blue Runway.
- [27:23]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
We're lost in music. We're lost in music.
- [27:26]
Musical Interlude / Song
Dick,
- [27:31]
Host 1
I'm curious and I'm certain that you're still kind of figuring some of these things out, given the sort of rocket ship trajectory here. But some of the shows that you're gonna be playing, I'm wondering, like, how are you going to approach some of these shows? Because I think, you know, there's so much. There's so many different styles of music on the record. And so Much of it seems, I don't know, hard. To me, it seems like it might be hard to bring it alive in
- [27:55]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
a room in front of people. That's a real question because in discuss, like, we started some rehearsals here in Champagne. So the question that. The. One of the first questions these young guys asked was, are we reproducing the record? And I have to say to them, well, there's some songs I don't think can be reproduced because they're like. Some of Arthur's songs I wouldn't do in Arthur's Landing because they were basically like studio artifacts that happen in a very improvisational chance situation in the studio. And also in terms of the sound and the effects were also random at that time, but somehow coming together that it was very hard to recreate. I mean, certain songs of Arthur's, I think more of his studio creations rather than actual pop songs. When the songs that he sat down and wrote on the guitar in a sort of conventional songwriting way, those are usually the songs I gravitate towards because they were the songs that we either perform together or as a guitarist, I can relate to them because I basically write my songs on the guitar. I've only written a few songs on keyboard.
- [28:48]
Host 2 (Evan)
There are so many songs that are more about, like, the texture and kind of sculptural and.
- [28:54]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, like Triangular Eyes, like, is like a. Like a full spectral wall of sound there.
- [28:59]
Host 2 (Evan)
But then there's all these other ones that are like, so melodic and memor that in that kind of way, I feel like those could translate to a live setting with even just like an acoustic guitar.
- [29:08]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Well, that's. That's exactly what I'm going to do because when we approached the Club 101 and we had a couple of nights. So I. I have two ideas for touring in general, which is people really like and what people are attracted to and what maybe set this whole thing off was a certain intimacy or sensitivity or something about my voice that is engaging the same way that Arthur's voice is also engaging. It's a certain. So. And I share that with Clark, my. My manager slash musician, is this idea of singing very close to the mic in a very intimate way. So that's something that was something I want. Always wanted to explore. So. So the idea is that for the first night at 101 and also the first night in Chicago, we're doing two nights in Chicago is just me acoustic. And basically what I do on my IG live is just kind of like you're witnessing me at home playing rehearsing like before. Before this all happened. Like what I do every day, just exercise or therapy. Basically. When you talk about, you know, how did I live this long and still be in okay condition. Well, apart from having really good partners, being in stable relationships, apart from having a wildlife on the side, which is more maybe the side that gets represented in my music than the. Than the boring, you know, home, married life, they really seriously approach music as a kind of therapy. So the. Yeah, yeah. So the opening night was just me on guitar. And just think about Cool Fire, which really turned on Eric. And then now other people are discovering it is when I talk and when I miss may send an anecdote or explain the origin of the song. Because since people are interested in my story almost as much as the music itself or that something that gives them an entrance to or qualifies, it gives it context. I think that kind of, especially in an intimate setting like the Club 101, which is a small place where I can just sort of directly, you know, communicate with the audience by playing and talking. So maybe, you know, say something about where the song was made or what I was doing with Arthur when I wrote with him or something like that. Then the surprise comes the second night because first of all, it's kind of like a lineup of young pop stars, which is almost embarrassing because all these young guys, they just think I'm the bee's knees. And I'm like, okay, fine, you know, so Shane is going to Chanel beach, is going to DJ and perform with me. We haven't even rehearsed yet. I've not even met him. He's going to interview me. That's how he's going. We're going to meet. He's going to interview me before the. Before the Club 101. So our first meeting will be on camera. That's going to be a lot of fun. So, yeah, he's going to DJ and play with me. And then I think his violin player may join me. And then Shane, then Clark, my manager is going to open that night. So it's like all like one big family of these young straight and gay pop stars who suddenly think I'm very special, which is in a way mystifying to me. But it's really wonderful. Two things about what's been happening is I feel a certain responsibility to acknowledge the amazing response. Like, if people tell me they've changed their lives, I'm not going to say laugh and say, that's silly. I'm going to say that I really appreciate that or thank you. Thank you. So. Because what was I trying to do in the first place for all those years? I was trying to elicit that kind of response anyway, so, yeah, so it's like the Toyota commercial from the 70s. You asked for it, you got it. And also with creative visualization, if there's a mystical aspect of it, then I have to be careful what I wish for. If it's some of it's happening or, you know, if it's chaos theory that's also maybe totally random or it may be karma from some other source that I, you know, also should acknowledge. It's just so phenomenal what's happened that it's hard not to imagine that some of it is not either astrological or not necessarily mystical, but cosmic in some sense. Yeah. Well, part of the great thing is that people I've worked with for years, now I have the opportunity to give them opportunities. So we're doing a reunion of Arthur's Landing, the last night, Club 101. So all my opals, the ones that are still talking to me after the broke up, are going to come and play. And the really cool part is, so we played at PS1. It must be like, would it be over 10. Over 10 years ago, Arthur's Landing. And it was like 10 or 12 people on stage, like real disco orchestra. Which is what I'm hoping to do again when we get to, like, tour the festival kind of thing. So playing with us that evening was Max Gordon, who was in high school playing trumpet, and his father, the famous saxophone player, leader of Love of Life Orchestra, Peter Gordon. Gordon, now, Peter, only played. He played on one of my remixes of Arthur's Landing, but he didn't officially play in the band. But I invited everyone who was ever associated with Arthur's Landing because he was. Peter, of course, also worked with Arthur. They did that amazing song together called that Hat, which maybe we might even cover that at some point. It's just the whole song is an instrumental. And then the middle of it, either Arthur or Arthur and Peter are shouting, that hat stays on. And that's the whole song. It's really brilliant.
- [34:05]
Host 2 (Evan)
You can leave your hat on.
- [34:06]
Host 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [34:17]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
And then this. The. The second night, which was the. The. The last night sold out in four minutes. The first two nights sold out in an hour. This is what. Why. Where it becomes surreal, you know? So, I mean, how could you pay for any kind of promotion like this? Even if I had a million dollars, I couldn't buy this kind of publicity or promotion. It's so Organic. So that's why I have to respect it and also respond in kindness, kind. So the last night, I'm doing another solo acoustic, the first act. And then the second night, we're doing the Arthur's Landing reunion, bringing all my old friends in. And the other side of both of the nights with the pop stars and the nights with Arthur's Landing is you see the other side of what I do and what I want to do, which is disco orchestra. And that's what Arthur was working towards as well. The idea of a bunch of mostly friends that you know well and know where they're going. If they're going, like, on a tangent or improvising. You have a basic idea of the structure of a song song, and then you just go from there. You just sort of take off from there. And then the idea is, once it gets to a festival or, you know, a big venue is to just get people out dancing. And my secret weapon for that is Patty Boom, the original drummer of the Scissor Sisters. So he's appearing with me Both at Club 101 and at the opening for the Chanel Beads at the Knockdown Center. And if anyone can make you dance in a festival, it's Paddy Boom. He's like. He's the. He's the guy. I mean, he's my guy. So if at all possible, among all these opportunities of working with different people and going to different places, he's my guy for the drummer because he's. He's so sympathetic and empathic the way. And even for my space, diagnost low things where there's kind of space and there's no beat. He can also interpret that with. With his way of playing percussion. So getting into the studio, doing festivals with Paddy Boom, and then Ernie Brooks, the original bass player from Arthur through the Modern Lovers, the necessaries, all these people he's worked with. But. But Ernie may not be available all the time. So me and Patty are like the basic unit and we sort of add people. What we did with Arthur's Landing was adding people wherever we went. So to have a very basic unit and to take it on tour and then look for, like, a bass player. When I go to London, I'll need a bass player or look for a drummer if Patti's not able to go with me. Things like that. But basically traveling on my own and picking up people as I go, which happened organically again with Arthur's Land.
- [36:40]
Host 2 (Evan)
Can you talk a little bit about your relationship with Arthur Russell as a collaborator and just personally the relationship is
- [36:47]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
the same in all of those contexts. It's all about friendship. So my relationship with Arthur was just based on a very deep friendship and even more than that, a deep respect. And that's where the permission to improvise and to perform together comes from. And to be in the studio and to create something that kind of permission that comes out of both a kind of fellowship, which is maybe if I think the idea of my song and I like to, you know, play with the boys in the band is not really a sexual thing. It's the idea of like bros. The idea of, like guys together, you know, doing things together. And whether it's a party or, you know, playing football or, you know, the kind of. It's kind of platonic attraction and sensuousness that's distinctly non sexual that can be shared. So it's a kind of a state that I'm sort of aspiring to.
- [37:36]
Host 1
Sort of like a podcast, Men, you know, hanging out together and just.
- [37:39]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:40]
Host 1
So being friends.
- [37:41]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah.
- [37:41]
Host 2 (Evan)
Could be Arthur Russell. I mean, he seems to be. I watched the documentary about him and even in that film, it's like hard to get to know exactly who he was. I just sort of wonder about if that's how it was in. In person. Was he that enigmatic?
- [38:02]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
No, no, no, no, no. First of all, he's probably the funniest guy I ever met in my life. So he had a very disarming. He was from the Midwest, he grew up in Iowa. He was basically a farm, like in a farm town, farm boy. And that was one of the themes, you know, in his music and his lyrics. But he had two sides to him. So there was like this farm boy. He grew up like a gay boy in. In a town in Iowa. His father was the mayor, I think, of the town. And eventually coming to a very cool and deep understanding with his parents about who he was and what they want to do. Because, like me, I was supported by my mother for a long time in order to do music. He was also. His parents helped him out as well, doing recordings and just to help him to survive. So at the beginning it was a struggle, and then he went to San Francisco and got involved with the poetry scene and the. And the like the free. What you want to call the free love scene in San Francisco, where he was living in a. It didn't just. I mean, there's a lot of people for. For Buddhism as a kind of.
- [39:05]
Host 1
Of.
- [39:06]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
I've seen sort of materialistic, manifest manifestations of it in Hong Kong and when I went to Bangkok. I saw a more pure form of it. So there's a lot of people who, like. Like Buddhism as a trend or as a kind of a fad or, you know, a lifestyle. But Arthur actually lived it, you know, and practiced it. It was like a living example of. Of how to do it and. And. But without, you know, really even displaying it as a very, very subtle kind of message of showing by example, but being very, kind of polite about it. So. So he had. So he had this Iowa, like, corny, romantic thing going, and then he had this other something that was almost like driving him. And I've seen this in the few people I would call genius. He just couldn't see. Stop. He was. Just couldn't prevent himself from doing things. And also this way of roping other people in, which is part of his charm, being able to find interesting people on the same wavelength, and then being able to corral these people and then direct them, that's a real talent in and of itself. I've only seen a few people with that talent, and that would include Alan Ginsberg himself. The idea of creating a circle of people who complement what you're doing and also, in a way, almost amplify it, while you're also, in Alan's case, was helping the people around him who were brilliant but also dysfunctional. And so I see that as a model myself. Arthur talked about a fountain of money that would rain on his friends when he became successful. So aside from the Iowa kid who was nice, polite, and kind of funny, and there was this tremendously ambitious and confident talent, he had this idea that he really knew that how good he was, in a way. I never had that confidence. And he gave me that confidence eventually of really knowing what he could do. And I think a lot of that came from his very, very deep practice of not just one kind of Buddhism, but different sort of different areas of it and different schools of it. I mean, very few of us actually get there. And my friend Arthur Rosa was there in terms of being realized and as a complete individual and being able to be at peace with yourself to the extent that you could lay yourself aside to become selfless, particularly in this situation of musical fellowship, which, you know, sometimes. I described it to another music friend. Sometimes being in a band is closer than being in a love affair because it is so detailed and so particular, so intense. So sometimes you get so close to someone and this might happen with Arthur is you almost like, going through them, and then you're. Then you're in another state where you're almost like, beyond that. When I talk about the first love, I mean, what. So, okay, so you're in love. Are you in a state of love? What comes next is my, that's my question, and that's what I'm asking. A lot of these songs is okay, if you can attain. If you're talking about heaven on earth, and that's a subject matter of a lot of my songs, I talk about perfection. That's one of my themes. I talk about heaven and I talk about realization of heaven on earth. So it's the idea of a manifestation of religion that's not in another world or up in the sky. It neither exists nor is important if it's not right here, if it's not in the moment. So. And then to put that into daily practice,
- [42:53]
Musical Interlude / Song
If you meet me halfway, then that's cool.
- [43:07]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah. Another question about creativity would be involving drugs, too, because Arthur and I would smoke weed together. And that was like, our daily routine, and it continues to be. And in terms of response to responsibility, since I have so many young gay fans, another mysterious thing to me is I have to be really careful when they ask me, like, what is your technique? What is your, how do you work? I, I, I know that I give pause to that because if I'm a gay icon, which I never wanted to be and never saw, even saw myself as gay, I'm bisexual. You know, I just happen to like guys more or they find them more interesting. My stepfather said, stephen's not gay. He's just a man's man. I thought that was, I thought that was like, that's me. That's me. Because it's like the idea, idea of, like, what so excited me about the Asian culture, like, particularly Chinese culture, is like, man, you would see, like, straight guys walking down the street in Bangkok holding hands, and it was just not an issue. It was not. And the whole thing in America about being uptight about masculine, you know, sexuality is, to me is like, that's totally puritanical and it's like 19th century way of thinking. I come from Europe, where we're like, more in the future in terms of our attitude towards all of that relationships, sexuality. I don't believe in marriage, but I married my husband to keep him from going back to China, which would have been a fate worse than death because he was in art school at that time.
- [44:26]
Host 1
Can you talk a little bit about your time in East Asia? Because I read the Guardian piece earlier today, and it sounds like you've had some pretty extensive experience over There just, like, how did you find your way there? How did it manifest in the music that you make?
- [44:40]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Okay, well, it started with my. My. The first serious boyfriend I had, Johnny, who was. He actually grew up in Indonesia, but he was Chinese Indonesian. So in his family, they spoke various languages, including Indonesian and Mandarin. And then since they moved to Hong Kong, he also spoke Cantonese. So I met him in New York at an Asian. There was an Asian gay bar uptown called the Twilight. So I was going there when I was at Columbia. There was also a gay scene at Colombia that was involved with Colombia, had gay dances, which. Sure. I mean, the guys at Columbia were just all these rich, handsome. I didn't really feel like I was part of that because I got there on. Partly on a scholarship and because Alan Gisberg wrote my recommendation. I wasn't there, like, because I was one of these rich, like, privileged, gorgeous, handsome, you know, sporty, athletic guys. They're the guys that I was hanging out with who. Who had no issue with me. They were treating me as my ego. But I always felt like I wasn't really didn't leave. Belong there. I belong more like downtown with the punks and, you know, the poets around St. Mark's Church and the. You know, that. The P.O. building. Oh, yeah. And yeah. So we went to China together and stopped in Hong Kong. And his family was still in Hong Kong then. So we stayed with his family in Hong Kong. And it was just a. I was blindsided by Hong Kong because it hit me on two in two ways. Because it was so British at that time. It had been a colonial British colony for, of course, like, for a second century or more. And the colonialism that was embedded in Hong Kong was really obscene. The way that the British people there treated their Filipino maids, because a lot of Filipino maids worked in Hong Kong, both for Chinese and British families. The colonial attitude of the British people, which I grew up with, that attitude, that's part of my culture. That kind of racism and that kind of colonialism is embedded in British culture, culture still. So I was acutely aware of my position as a foreigner and tried as much as I could to learn the language. Cantonese is almost impenetrable because if a Cantonese speaker then pronounces, like, the maybe four different vowel tones from the same vowel, and you can't hear the difference, but if you're Cantonese, you can hear the difference. It's so subtle. And then the other exciting thing about being around people speaking Cantonese is the Cantonese. Unlike, like, English. English has. Gets, like, buzzwords and train Words, but in Cantonese is like almost a totally fluid language where particularly among the bus drivers and taxi drivers, they have a slang that is constantly changing and updating. So every week there might be a new phrase or a new buzzword that they're all talking about. So there's this kind of like trending in language I find really interesting there. And also the idea of being an outsider. Outsider to not be an outsider as a. As a colonial person. To be an outsider as a visitor or actually living there. Because everywhere I went abroad, I never wanted to be a tourist. I'm not interested in tourist lifestyle. I wanted to find out what their lifestyle was like. So for instance, when I moved to Bangkok, I got an apartment for like $130 a month in Bangkok. So cheap I could keep it there and travel back and forth. But I was living in the area where there were no white people. I didn't live in the gay area. I didn't live in the white area. And those are areas that generally intersect too. I live where the local people who might be from the north or the south, not even like the sophisticated suburban people in Bangkok. And that's how I ended up being in the middle of when there was a civil war. I ended up being living where the resistance was centered because they were people from the north who were actually fighting the government. So two blocks from where my apartment was was a radio station for the resistance that the government soldiers were attacking at that time. And then the resistance guys, the Thai people are the most peaceful and gentle people in the world. But when their passions become inflamed, the taxi drivers, they would carry machetes under their seats, you know, so they were friendly to you until, you know, things got serious. But they wouldn't fight with tourists. They would fight with each other, like over maybe a fear, someone stole a fair for them or something. So I was going to walk into the 7 11, two streets down, and then suddenly I was surrounded by guys with machetes because they thought I was a spy for the government because no foreigners would be seen in that area, particularly during the time of the civil war.
- [48:57]
Host 1
Were you a spy for the government?
- [48:58]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
No, I wasn't. And also, I didn't really like the government at that time, nor. And also I, I. Living in, in Thailand, you couldn't speak, you couldn't say anything against the royal family. There were tourists there who were being arrested and put in jail for six years for. So I, I actually went, okay, we're going off record. So, yeah, that was, that was back on Record that. That was a very intense time because of that. So there was surrounded with guys holding machetes to my neck. And they said, you know, who are you and what are you doing? And so I showed them my. I just gotten this double Vajra tattoo. And on my back is. I don't know if you can be able to see it. It says Buddhist army in Buddhist temple script. So I showed them my tattoos. They couldn't speak much English, and they said, oh, Buddhist. Okay, you can go.
- [49:50]
Host 1
You're okay.
- [49:51]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
So literally, it literally saved my life.
- [49:53]
Host 1
Buddhism saved my life.
- [49:54]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Wow, you're getting the sunset.
- [49:57]
Host 1
Incredible.
- [49:58]
Host 2 (Evan)
Gorgeous.
- [49:58]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
You couldn't plan the better. You've got Sunset over the Cornfield. I mean, come on. I don't need anything else. I don't need a tour of Europe. I've got Sunset Over Cornfield in Illinois.
- [50:08]
Host 1
We've talked about everything but the music itself in some sense. The songs here, though, they run the gamut from some as old as the 1980s up until. Until quite recently, from what I understand.
- [50:20]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yes. Well, the stuff with Arthur on the drums is 1984, because we actually have that documentation of that. A lot of the other songs I can't remember because it's basically. If I was in Asia, I could remember because I didn't have access to weed in Taiwan. It was a death penalty. I go back to your partner on this one, because it all comes from Eric. So it was Eric's idea in the first place place. And he said, you know, don't. Do you have other things that aren't released. I threw, like, several hours of mixes of different songs and different versions of different songs at him. And then he curated it in a masterful way. He created this story, basically. I mean, that English party song is 100% a demo. It was never, never to be a finished song. It was a demo that was sent to Madonna. And I don't know if she ever got to hear it because the guy who requested it was a gay guy who had a crush on me. So I think that was, like, his ruse to try to get to me. And maybe he never turned it over to her. I mean, the one thing that's really unusual about this is that people are listening to the record from beginning to end. Even I don't do that. Maybe because I'm adhd. I'm all. I'm like a dysfunctional parade. I'm manic obsessive. I'm manic depressive. I'm probably slightly autistic, and I'm definitely adhd. I have such a short attention span. And the kids who are listening to it are supposed to have a short attention span, but they're getting engaged in this somehow.
- [51:41]
Host 2 (Evan)
When I think about the album and its kind of reach in terms of how many people are finding it so compelling, I do wonder about that aspect of it. Like, it doesn't feel tied to any one place or time. And it seems like that maybe gives people permission to just feel like it's theirs a bit, I think so.
- [52:02]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
One word I used today was cosmopolitan because I think my listener is somewhat. Could be somewhat of a world traveler, ideally, and so exposed to different cultures at least, and if not least, open to different cultures. Because I present, you know, there's various influences that I present, either in a very subtle way. You know, my phrasing, my. My harmonies may not be standard Western harmonies. They may be harking back to an earlier, like baroque or early church music time or other cultures, you know, where they have different ways of doing harmonies or to introduce those influences specifically. But I don't like the idea of, like, Asiana, of like a kind of cuteness, I mean, or like the French way of looking at Japanese art as something that'. Exotic. I don't see the. Those Asian elements as being exotic because that's a kind of fetishization of the. Of the culture. So my respect for the culture is total. And in that way, I was very lucky when I was over there to work with. To get to work with traditional musicians. That's why I love the idea that my friend, the producer who produced Cool Fire, he made those. He had a whole set of CDs he did in Taiwan of recordings of these street musicians in particularly in Hong Kong, because they were all dying out, the musicians in that. In on lust of music, they would all be in their 60s and that would be recorded in the 80s. So. And I found musicians to play with. Who were these Cantonese musicians and also the Beijing. I played with the Beijing Opera troupe in. When I was in China, there was these old guys, some of them were superstars from the Beijing opera who were retired. And they just wanted to keep playing. And only a few people would come and listen to them. And sometimes they played two or three times a week. They just got together in this place to play like a. In the open air. I found out totally by accident because I think I missed my bus one day and I walked past and I heard the strange sound. And it was Beijing opera. I knew what it was, but I never really heard it, like, perform live. So after A while I was going there just. I would just go there and listen to them. And some. Some older people will go who love the Beijing Opera to listen to this kind of thing. You see street music everywhere in China, different varieties of it. And also communal dancing, communal borrow dancing. There's this thing about music in China that's very visceral, very physical, the relation to and particularly to live music. So I would go listen to these Beijing operating musicians. First thing that happened was another guy who was watching with me said, you speak English? And I said, yes. He said, you want to teach English? And then I started working for him the next day, teaching elementary kids English. That was my English teaching job in China. But then one day when I was watching the Beijing Opera guys, one of the guys sort of like went like this. And it's said, you know, I think I had my guitar with me that day in a case. He said, you play? I said, yeah. He said, you want to play something very, very simple, like very, very casual. So I joined them. And first of all, the music was in numbers. It's the old way of writing music, like 4, 5, 3. And I just looked at numbers. I can't read that. I can read music, but I can't read this music. 4, 5, 6, 1. What's that? So they said, well. Well, just. Okay. There's a Buddhist expression, when you walk, just walk. So that's the story of my life. What I aspire to is like when you. When I sing, the idea is like, they're steel, which is ornament, is crime. That comes from my architecture studies at Columbia. I started in architecture. That ornament in singing is a crime. That is. It's not in a negative way, but it's just. And you're playing. When you play the guitar, when you sing, you just sing and you just play. You don't try to do anything fancy. I'm a rhythm guitar player. I'm not a lead guitar player. I can do it at home. If I play the lead 50 times, I can get phenomenal lead. But on stage, I need a lead guitar player if I need to lead a guitar. So when you think about how to reproduce songs from the My skyscraper, that's a real issue. Is like, how do I show what it was like when I made it? Because that's what I'm interested in showing. So that would be to make it very loose. And that might disappoint some of the people who want to hear a reproduction of the record. But I think built into my story is that Kind of versatility, the ability to present things a different way. And also I'm experimenting when I do my IG live, which is pretty much daily, my daily rehearsal, I just show people as a way of like showing what I do and also to say thank you particularly for the people who can't get tickets. So we're going to do a pop up concert in New York before the Club 101. Because so many people complained about not getting tickets, I felt really bad. You know, it's what a wonderful problem to have. So we're going to do a free concert concert for the people who couldn't get tickets. So I'm excited. More about that maybe than the gig.
- [56:41]
Host 1
That's great.
- [56:42]
Host 2 (Evan)
Well, I wish you would come out to California sometime. I hope you do.
- [56:45]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Well, no, we were talking about when we talked to the booking agent today. We're talking about the just reopened Castro Theater.
- [56:53]
Host 1
Sure, absolutely. That's right down the street from me. Beautiful venue.
- [56:57]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yeah, so. So that's who my booking agent is talking to tomorrow. And then also we're also we were offered a festival in la, but the date wasn't right for the Europe stuff that I was doing. So this guy Brock Pierce from la, he's putting a cassette of Cool Fire and we talked about doing something with him in LA because he's doing some really cool music there.
- [57:18]
Host 2 (Evan)
Please do.
- [57:18]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Yes, yes. No. Any excuse to go to California, anywhere in California. Because when I was growing up and watching Hollywood movies and listening to Joni Mitchell, you know, Ladies of the Canyon, I just wanted to be in LA. So when I got to LA, I was just so happy, LA. Hollywood, the whole California thing, I'm totally into it, the vibe. And that's where Arthur came from. That's where we connected with it first. Because his time in California like transformed his life. His getting into Buddhist studies, his communal living. Free sex, free love. Discovering himself sexual, sexually. I mean, going from girls to sort of in the middle. There was a time when his songs were like written to girls. And then there was a time where it was kind of not really in the middle. And then there was. Then it sort of changed over. Like your arm wrestling and boys.
- [58:05]
Host 1
Yeah, well, we'll keep our fingers crossed for a visit. I can attest here you're going to sell all these rooms out. Once you get out here, you're on
- [58:15]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
the guest list already. It's just so crazy because anything you can imagine is either happened to me or about to happen or may happen. So. My new mentor. Every day I wake up and I say, well, yesterday that was really cool. And then what's next?
- [58:31]
Host 1
Absolutely.
- [58:32]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
And the only person who's upset or who was kind of freaked out was my husband because we had this great life already worked out. He just got his contract. He works for the university here as a lawyer, although he was an artist when I met him. So we just bought this house. We were just settling down. I was going to set up my studio, do my thing. And then lightning, fireworks, Batman.
- [58:57]
Host 2 (Evan)
I think that people are starred for something that feels like what you explained earlier. That thing of something that is the product of just doing it to do it and being fully present with it. That is what I get. Listening to the album, to the record, is just example after example of songs created just for the. A love of singing songs. The variety of that, the adventurousness of it is very inspiring. And I think that the reaction is based on a feeling that art for art's sake is in fact, worth getting excited about.
- [59:35]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
I would agree 100%.
- [59:38]
Host 1
The world has been waiting to fall in love with you, Stephen Hall.
- [59:42]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
It's all good. It's all show business.
- [59:44]
Host 1
That's right. Thank you again, Stephen. This was fantastic.
- [59:47]
Host 2 (Evan)
Thank you so much.
- [59:48]
Stephen Hall (Neurasta Steel)
Okay, my pleasure. Distinctly my pleasure. No, that. That was a blast. That was great fun. So let's do it again.
- [59:53]
Musical Interlude / Song
First love. Then you fe us too strong to remember like you're changing univers in the time it takes to do something right first one love that you feel it too strong. Me you Time it takes to do something right Going for it's a disco night first love. Too strong. In universe and the time it takes to do something right Go for it, go for it. Sat.