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I might hit the Mohegan Sun on Sunday if my director doesn't dangle the tickets in front of some woman he is seeing...then I'll make him write the review!
Heads up if you missed Tull @ Chevalier
They play SUNDAY before going to IRELAND, NETHERLANDS etc. on the tour
My second interview with Ian, aired on Activate Media where my show now airs on Friday nights
What a gentleman, the interviews are supposed to be 20 minutes but he gave me 30!
TOUR DATES
http://jethrotull.com/tour-dates/
Ian Anderson talks about theater, the internet and Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull with leader/vocalist Ian Anderson hit with “Hymn 43” on radio in the Boston area though, strangely, it topped out at #91 on the Billboard charts. But along with that airplay and concerts back in the day, those shows courtesy of promoter Don Law, the group had fantastic word-of-mouth (as did Led Zeppelin) in the high schools of the time.
An Anderson interview that ran on Newton’s WNTN - AM in the 1970s (yes, the station that had Howard Stern as a young disc jockey) was totally inspiring. It was this writer’s mission to share some words with the founder of the eclectic blues/folk/progressive/pop ensemble. I’ve been fortunate enough to have two discussions with Mr. Anderson, the second on July 12, 2019 in advance of the Sep. 11, 2019 date scheduled for the Chevalier theater in Medford.
The interview:
We’re speaking with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull about his work and the upcoming show at the recently reactivated Chevalier Theater in Medford, Massachusetts where the band is performing on September 11, 2019.
Hello Ian.
Ian: Hello there to you.
JV: As of September 2019, Jethro Tull will be added to the list of great names playing The Chevalier - Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Lou Rawls, even a speech by John F. Kennedy... Welcome to Medford.
Ian: Very exciting, and I suppose I could throw in a few more venues where it’s fairly obvious we’ve shared a stage with the good and the great of history. Like playing in Ephesus (Istanbul, Turkey), a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater where famously St. Paul the Apostle addressed the crowds to try and persuade them of the virtues of Christianity, and...having performed there, sharing the stage there with St. Paul, I have to say, we actually got a better reception than he did, he kinda got booed offstage so we did better than that in 1991 when we played there.
Lots of places I’ve played, they’re very special...whether it’s a little theater somewhere or some grand ancient monument I do try to...upon the history and the feeling of the other people who walked out on the stage there to do whatever it is they do and take their life in their hands to go out there and try and entertain and win approval of an audience.
JV: 69′ was that around the Boston Tea Party time?
Ian: Indeed. The Boston Tea Party was one of the very first shows we played. We opened up in New York and then went up to Boston where our equipment failed to make it. It was a scary show because we had to borrow equipment locally and it wasn’t necessarily what we were used to. But, yeah, you kind of got used to the difficulty along the way when you’re a lowly opening act. And the Boston Tea Party, run by one of the USA’s great promoters, Don Law, that’s a very memorable part of Jethro Tull’s early success. So between Bill Graham’s shows at the Fillmore East and Don Law in Boston, these were the early shows that got Jethro Tull talked about, and then we suddenly found out that promoters in the mid-west and on the west coast were talking about Jethro Tull too. So that early success through Bill Graham and Don Law was very important in getting the early word about Jethro Tull out there on the big stage of America.
JV: I worked for Don for about 18 years so he has my respect, and saw many a Jethro Tull show that he put on. The beauty of the Chevalier is that it was dormant for so many years, so it is great to see you in this venue because it is historic, beautiful but there was nothing happening there - after all those great acts so this is very special, Jethro Tull coming to this little area.
Ian: It’s very important that theaters like that, when they get a new lease of life, that they can build up a loyalty from an audience that - perhaps - has not had the opportunity to enjoy them. So, we can only hope that our concert and other concerts at the Chevalier Theater will bring in an audience who will be loyal to the theater. Because that’s the great advantage of having a great venue - is that people will choose to come there to see a whole bunch of other acts. It’s not just about you, it’s about the theater - it’s about what that represents and becomes in terms of being a cultural and socially important part of any given neighborhood.
Just as the Fillmore East had its day and its huge loyalty; just like the Isle of Wight Festival even to this day still has loyalty and fans who will go there regardless of whose on, it’s very important to keep that spirit alive and regeneration of old theaters from the great period of theater building in the 20s and 30s, that’s a very important thing to support, for the acts who played there and for the audiences who buy the ticket.
JV: There’s a trend in Massachusetts that more cities and towns are booking concerts away from Boston. These little movie theaters have been reactivated like the Chevalier. Are you seeing this around the country and around the world?
But it’s kinda happened in the U.K. as well - we have some great, classic venues that most of which I have to say have not closed their doors. They were the ones I played in 1969 when we started playing the English theater venue circuit and pretty much all of them are still around today - all those great classic venues, they’re still there. In some cases they’ve been revamped and improved, in some cases they are in need of a little coat of paint and and a little plumbing attention in the toilet backstage but, they’re all still there, very few of them have closed their doors.
JV: We have one, just the next town over, the Regent (in Arlington, Massachusetts) which in the mid-60s would only play movies. But when I was in school, they had Little Anthony and the Imperials (circa 1964) - just out of the blue - and then in the 2000s they went to Bollywood, and now they’re doing concerts again. It’s great to go in and see in a smaller venue, Big Brother and The Holding Company.
Ian: Sure.
JV: It’s really nice that you can go and talk to David Getz (of Big Brother) in person. It’s a great feeling.
Ian: Yeah, and one of the good things about playing - why I have always enjoyed playing theaters - I’m much happier playing to 1500 people in a theatrical context because it’s a little bit more, for me, suitable to the kind of music we do. I have a proscenium stage, there are wings to retreat into, you can make a theatrical presence and - above all - you can’t reach out and touch everyone in the audience but it’s certainly more of an intimate and direct experience than playing in Madison Square Gardens, or indeed, in the old Boston Gardens which was the kind of venue where you really didn’t feel connected to the audience at all.
JV: The Rolling Stones just played (July 7, 2019) at Gillette Stadium this past Sunday (July 7, 2019); I was at home reviewing their Bridges to Bremen DVD...it was a lot more fun for me not to be with 60,000 people.
Back in the early 70s when Jethro Tull was playing arenas and then in stadiums...like Shea Stadium, for example, in New York, then it wasn’t exclusive. I was still playing theaters whenever I could. And telling our manager, please, I want to play in 2000 seat theaters, I don’t want to play in the sports arenas or in football stadiums. I’ve always enjoyed playing theaters, and outside of the USA, most of the time that’s what we’ve done. But, of course there are some times we find ourselves standing outdoors in the summer as I will be several times in Europe this year -- staring at a large crowd at some festival somewhere. Which, it’s OK once in awhile; it’s OK, but not every week let alone every night, that would drive me nuts. I like my theaters.
Joe V: The Jethro Tull website is amazing. I’m always looking for a clean and easy to read website. It reads like a virtual newspaper, was that the intent?
Ian: Well, it was set up really to be an informational website not only for the fans but also for the media. So it’s always been constructed and revamped along those lines. It’s not a...it’s certainly not a piece of social media where I invite comment or communication with fans because...I’m a bit of a loner, I don’t really enjoy communicating one to one with people, I do that through my music.
I have no interest in entering into spirited or, indeed, unpleasant communication with those who use social media to vent their villainous spleens and use, to raise usually a very unpleasant language.
You know I’m afraid your President sets a very poor example in using social media to attack people in very unpleasant terms and I think, unfortunately, that does encourage others to do the same...and so I think whether you are just a member of the public or you are POTUS himself or, perhaps, herself, then I think you should behave in a statesmanly manner regardless of whether you are a true statesman or a member of the public communicating with somebody else.
I think it’s important to have some manners and some decorum, and that’s the way I try to be, and I never let our website become a voice box for my more controversial feelings and opinions which I tend most of the time to keep to myself.
Ian: Yeah, and that’s really the part that I think is important for media; I always said that there’s so much on there that you can draw upon - and you’re welcome to copy and past it because most of it is stuff I’ve written.
So, 95 percent of what is on our website comes from me tapping at the keyboard of a computer. That,...is in itself one big set of information and recollections and stuff that I have written. I’m very happy if people copy and paste and utilize that material and download photographs and images which will help them with their journalistic aspirations.
When I set out, when I was a teenager and thought seriously about being a journalist, we didn’t have that sort of stuff we could draw upon; we had to find things out the hard way back then. So journalism, back then, was a much harder trade than it is in today’s world of copy and paste.
JV: That’s so good to hear because I’m nervous about using anyone’s photos in my stories, but we can use them from the Jethro Tull website?
Ian: Absolutely, you can download a whole bunch of stuff there with my great approval and with my compliments, and indeed you can copy and paste anything you find there. It’s there for you and other professionals in the media as well as the rank and file public. I sign endless photographs that I know, I recognize all too well, because they’ve downloaded them from our website.
I’m more than happy when people do that because that’s what they are there for.
Joe V: Are we talking about Stand Up?
Ian: Well that’s a tricky one, yes, Stand Up’s particularly difficult, and there have been a few others where it would be difficult to write on and find a clear space. Like the Thick as a Brick album, for example. Aqualung has got some clear space to sign on, but there have been a few that weren’t terribly good from that perspective - and quite often when you’re doing merchandising, it’s very tempting to just stay in the world of black T Shirts, because as I keep telling the guy who does our merch designs... leave me a little space to sign my name. I have endless boxes of black T Shirts, Jethro Tull t-shirts in our warehouse that are impossible to sign.
JV: The entire Stand Up album is on YouTube for free. There’s advertising on it. I’m wondering if the advertising revenue compensates for the lack of monies the internet offers, compared to radio and TV?
Ian: Well the problem with all of that is, you can chase YouTube and have things taken down, but as fast as you do it they get put up by somebody else using a different address. It is - it’s the world we live in. It doesn’t bother me as much as it must bother young artists who are struggling to make a living and who don’t realize that the income they can derive from recorded work, audio and video is going to be virtually nothing compared to the glory days of record sales back in the 70s and 80s - that’s just not possible anymore for artists.
It’s only the absolute...the crème de la crème in commercial terms - people like Ed Sheeran - who will make a lot of money out of streaming and downloads, and perhaps some associated advertising from the people, those who put things up on YouTube and elsewhere. But trying to monetize stuff, the cost of doing it, the cost of administering all of that is, in manpower and fee terms, greater than your income, in most cases. So I don’t think...really it pays to do...it’s only if something is thoroughly objectionable...or something really deeply unpleasant that I would probably go to the trouble to have things taken down.
A week later, they pop up again. Just like people who go on and alter your Wikipedia entry in scurrilous fashion, tossing in something that is either completely wrong or just meant to be a little joke. It’s necessary for me once a year to go through my Wikipedia entries and make sure that they haven’t been doctored for somebody’s amusement. These things happen, unfortunately.
