Choose... Pat DiNizio Harry Connick Jr. Richard Lloyd Rolling Stones





Bibi Farber - guitar, Chris Butler - drums, Richard Lloyd - guitar and vocals, Peter Stuart - bass

Hooking Up with Richard Lloyd Here follows an interview with me which appeared in the sadly now-defunct Marquee Moon website, from 3/99. It was a most wonderful and comprehensive site dedicated to Television. We're talking stories? This is my most relevant, most important and most ongoing story - Richard Lloyd. In celebration of everything this spring of 2001: the band is in the studio recording, the success of The Cover Doesn't Matter and the Television dates, it is my pleasure to introduce you to the long answer - written two years ago - to the most frequently asked question (after "Is Bibi your real name?") namely: "So how did you hook up with Richard Lloyd?" Read on! From March 1999 Interview by Tom Wisner When did you first hear Richard Lloyd live? Within 48 hours of moving back to the United States. This was January of 1983. Having just flown in to New York from Sweden, where I lived for six teenage years, my friend Harry picked me up at the airport and said: "I have your weekend all planned out -Richard Lloyd is playing tomorrow" Harry and I met at a Tom Verlaine show in New York the previous year. I had also seen Tom Verlaine in Sweden in 1982 and was duly enchanted by all things Television. My closest friends in this town of Orebro Sweden had a band called Lolita Pop. It would not be pushing it to say that they created the epicenter of Television fanaticism in all of Scandinavia. They did several TV covers, they obsessed about Verlaine-esque guitar sounds and boy did they play his records all the time! When "Words from the Front" came out I was with them on the road and we must have listened to that thing fifteen times a day. Anyway, before I moved back my new friend Harry said: "You really need to check out Richard Lloyd. He's just fucking amazing. There's absolutely nothing like him. He's more rock & roll, but lyrical; more muscular, dirtier, but melodic and crazy... and more pop than Verlaine. You better check out his record "Alchemy". You cannot miss this guy's live shows." Cool. Sounds like a good recommendation. So, I went that night, still jet lagged and hazy, and Harry was dead on. It was a mesmerizing experience. I had seen anything even close. I alerted all my Swedish Television fanatics: Listen if you're gonna obsess about some New York guitar player, make it this one. I vowed never to miss a show if I could help it. Did you play guitar? I had played bass in a band in Sweden, played some acoustic but had never considered the electric guitar. A guy named Bob who I kept running in to at the shows was working with Richard Lloyd in some managerial capacity. We got together a few times and he showed me some Lloyd guitar stuff - chordal inversions with intricate picking that I found fascinating. I finally bought a Fender Mustang so I could have a guitar to practice it on. He showed me as much as he knew. After a few weeks he said: "You seem to be really interested in this. I think you need a teacher. I'm not going to introduce you Richard, but there's this guy Keith Patchel who used to play in his band who is also a guitar teacher. He could show you tons of stuff". So Keith and I got together, ripped apart Richard Lloyd songs, and studied theory and technique. We hung out too. Sometimes we'd go to the shows together and I got to meet Richard. I had in my possession Richard's demo for Alchemy, which I played constantly. More than anything else in the whole 80's, I think, I played those five songs. (new note: among others the never released "Secret Words", which is now in our set. ) This is the Keith Patchel who was with Richard Lloyd as his rhythm guitarist in Sweden for the Field of Fire record, right? How did you fit into all this? Well, I didn't mean to, but one thing led to another and next thing I knew Keith came with me to visit Sweden one summer. I introduced him to all my friends in Lolita Pop, their label Mistlur and all the people who ended up making Field of Fire come together. Half the people on this record are very close friends of mine, ex- bandmates, Lolita Pop people, what have you. Using my contacts there, he hooked up an opportunity for Richard to record this second solo record. Now, I was thrilled about this because if there was anyone I wanted to hear a new record from it was Richard Lloyd. But it was weird because although it involved ALL my closest friends who I had just left and missed so much, and I felt like I hooked it all up, y'know I was all alone in New York and wasn't at all part of it. Keith and I weren't getting along by the time all this really got rolling even when we were in the same country, we weren't even speaking. In my 19 year old mind, it sucked: he went over there and had all the fun, got ALL the credit. I mean what could be more fun? All I got was the press clippings. Of course in retrospect, I'm delighted to have been in the position to simply connect with all these people. Certain stupid things just got back to me but by now, who cares? At the time I don't know what else I could have contributed or what I wanted anyway. Oh you know what else I got? I finally did get to have some guitar lessons with Richard Lloyd. Certain things I've been doing, like circular picking, certain finger exercises - started way back then. This must have been before the recording because I remember he showed me the riff to Field of Fire and he played over it, he was developing it as a song at the time. He said: "That's pretty good. We should jam sometime". I remember that. Right ... jam sometime! Field of Fire was released here in the States in 1986. Did Richard play shows to support release? He did play around New York a lot, and the new stuff sounded great. He had at the time local guys and this new Swedish drummer who asked me to help him find an apartment. I do a lot of product demonstration now at trade shows for a living but the very first show I ever worked was for his label Mistlur, who had a booth at the New Music Seminar. Richard's record was new and they were trying to launch Lolita Pop in the States as well as other acts in the roster. Richard's manager at the time asked me to come in and just be helpful and enthusiastic in the booth. He gave me lunch and multiple copies of Field of Fire. My rates have since gone up considerably! Anyone need a copy of the maxi single? I still have like four. So then what happened? Life went on. I started my own band in New York, we put out an EP, played all over, toured Sweden, broke up. Then I did that with yet another band, plus I played rhythm guitar in other original New York bands, and rock & roll cover bands for paying gigs. I left NY for Atlanta, performed a lot of solo shows, almost got married, and came back here after two years. And this is really weird: I was desperate for a job, and market research was something I had experience with in Atlanta. I looked up companies in a special directory of market research firms. Got hired by one of them, and went to work. So this was not word of mouth, this is ONE firm in a list of hundreds of such companies in New York. Plenty of musicians worked there, who were between tours like Nina Hagen's entire band. After two months I said to this guy John K, "You look so familiar - tell me everyone you've played with" So, he goes down the list, he'd played with Chuck Berry, Nina Hagen, David Bowie, some 80's bands I forget and Richard Lloyd. "You played with Richard Lloyd!?", I exclaimed. "Yeah", he said, "and David Leonard (guitarist who also worked there) too. Not only that - Richard himself worked here until a few weeks ago. He's on tour with Matthew Sweet. You just missed him." Richard worked here? After a few hours of further conversation and exclamation, I went home and sure enough, my co-workers were in Richard's band for the recording of Real Time. Very strange. So between this and Firepop? The mid-90's? I saw a bunch of Matthew Sweet gigs, the Television reunion gigs, of course a very big deal to all my friends. I've always perceived them (Lloyd and Verlaine) as two separate acts, separate experiences. I like Verlaine, but I prefer them separately, like Thai food and Indian food, so rich, so much going on, so delicious - but they are separate meals...but anyway I won't expound on that on your site here! (laughs) Years rolled on. Myself, I quit music for long stretches at a time but always returned to it. In 1995 I ran into Richard Lloyd at a Matthew Sweet show and he gave me a copy of a new demo which I thought was outstanding - I was struck by the production on this one. At this time I had formed a new heavy alterna-pop band called GLOW. We did a cover of an unreleased Lloyd song called "Only Friend", from this Alchemy demo I had since '83 and played to death. I asked him/told him and he said that was fine. How did you start working together? A year later, I just got this idea in my head that Richard should produce some demos for me. I liked the ideas on his new demo- I heard textures, depth and a dynamic quality in his production here. I had musicians & material ready to go and some recording time coming to me from Baby Monster Studio where I worked part time. I didn't need a new demo, I just thought it would be a good idea. I called him up and he said OK. He didn't ask if I was signed, or had backing or whatever-which was very refreshing since the majority of musicians I had worked with in recent memory - both unknowns and big shots - were mostly interested in my commercial potential more than actually playing together to generate music. Create great recordings. Richard let it be about the music, that's where the value was. He was truly present in the process. It was profoundly refreshing. It was a respectful atmosphere he helped create, and I think everyone rose a little within themselves to the occasion. Musicians and engineers - everyone stopped whining. We cut three songs, and he played on one of them, and that is the song I am most proud of on my CD- ?"Seeds of Anger" This is my favorite guitar solo, period. Of anyone, on any recording, anywhere. You have to hear it. A haunting, heartbreaking solo. So, I had these three songs, plus my previous GLOW demos which were generating some exciting response. Did these demos become Firepop? Yes. I wasn't planning to record a CD, but this is what happened: My guitarist was busy with other projects, he missed a gig, it pissed me off and we parted ways. But the angels in charge of electric guitar were watching out for me! Richard Lloyd offered to play all the guitar parts when we did "the real cd". So what was I going to do? Wait around for some label to make that happen? That might have wasted one or two years! No! Richard was willing to do it. I didn't know if he would get busy with Matthew Sweet again or whatever - a million things could have distracted the project if I waited. I just started making Firepop happen. I did it on credit cards. At this stage I hadn't planned on pressing and releasing it myself, but I wanted it in the can and I wanted him to produce it. Did you start all over? We recorded additional material from scratch, and we replaced all the lead guitars on the existing ones. I played most of the rhythm and he did some non-lead work too, both electric and some stunning acoustic parts. What a pleasure that was! Pile into a studio and let him do his thing on all the guitar tracks. Sounds like fun! Yeah, I was in a happy groove creating Firepop. It was so musically rich and right. It just worked. It is the CD I wanted to make. There was no compromise on my part- no label or manager we had to listen to. I thought Richard was an excellent producer for me. I was surprised how good he was at that actually. He took the time to immerse himself in the details. We were on the same track with what we wanted to hear, how much, in what shape and where. Knowing that he would play guitar, I presented material and arrangements that made the most of this featured guest, who was also producing. He handled the two roles just right. When he wasn't playing, he was a hands-on producer, guiding musicians and engineers with skill. I thought we got great performances out of people. When he played, I sat in the "producers" chair. I wanted LOTS of guitar on here, surging with personality, and he was happy to give that. Richard joked once that I wanted a new CD out of him so much I went and made one myself! That's true. He told his audience from the stage one night: "There?s more of me on Bibi's CD than on Television records...or even my own!" You have a lot of talent from the New York pop world on Firepop. How did this come together? Around this time Dennis Diken (drums) from The Smithereens was doing live shows with me, so he cut some tracks. Ira Elliot of Nada Surf was an old friend from back in his Fuzztones days, when Peter and I were on the garage rock scene. He and Peter actually had a band called The Headless Horsemen that my sister Celia ended up playing drums in. Anyway, he played on my first five songs and got busy with Nada Surf, so Dennis came in at that point. Ira actually was Dennis's drum tech for years too. Royston Langdon from Space Hog worked at Baby Monster Studio when I worked there and when I recorded "Shine" he came in just to hang out and assist the session for old time's sake, even though he was working on a Space Hog record and had a gig that night. He just wanted to be there. So I made him sing with me! Their producer Bryce Goggin engineered the basic tracks and it was such a SpaceHoggy song I just had to hear him on this. Joe McGinty is an excellent pianist, my first choice. He used to play with The Pyschedelic Furs, now his band is called Baby Steps and I think he's an orchestral pop genius. He does these tribute nights called The Losers Lounge and there I met cellist Jane Scarpontoni, who's toured with everyone and Lounge Lizards, Indigo Girls and Joe played on three songs. You see us both credited on "17After 3" because Richard liked my left hand execution of the song when I played a guide track and Joe's right hand embellishment. We're both in the mix! Yes, it was really an eclectic group of my favorite pop people and friends and Gene Holder (formerly bassist of the dB's) is an engineer nowadays and worked with us on four of the songs from scratch as well as most of the mixes. I had the pleasure of thinking through and then actualizing the sounds of piano, cello and the thunderous Dennis Diken and the exhilarating Lloyd guitar against that! I LOVE this CD. I am really thrilled to have been able to put it together. It spans from the delicate to the outrageous if I may say so myself. Did you try to shop it around to labels? I'm getting started with that now. I decided to press it myself and reach you guys! The Deprived Lloyd Fans. Seriously, being someone who feels there aren't enough Lloyd solo records in the world, I wanted to make this available to the, well, the community here on your site and the like! I do want to find a home for Firepop and get distribution, and record my next record for a label, but this first baby came out ready or not! I'm shopping it now. So, any and all leads may kindly contact me! And then you both went to Sweden when this was in the can? When we finished the recording, I told Richard I was going over for a solo show in a festival in Sweden, summer of 1997. He said: "I'll come play if you want" The Swedish rock community knows all about Richard Lloyd and he knew this would help me. So I brought my bass player Peter Stuart and as this crazy life would have it - one of my absolute best friends, the person I played with before anyone, Peter Olsen was available to play drums. Peter Olsen had done both touring and recording work with Richard Lloyd twelve years earlier on Field of Fire. So they knew each other - it was so comfortable. Wonderfully absurd and comfortable! Here we were in my old town of Orebro Sweden where all the Field of Fire action I missed more than a decade earlier started! It was wonderfully absurd that Richard Lloyd knew all these friends of mine and all the customs and ways of Sweden, all the weird Swedish food and everything! Like a dream where totally separate parts of your life interact seamlessly& Lolita Pop even played this festival, who had been broken up for years! We played on a stage on the grounds of a castle complete with a cobblestone bridge overlooking my old high school. The MC who introduced us was this cute guy who never paid me any attention when we were 17 and it was all the ultimate and everything I ever wanted. We sounded coherent and powerful after only five days of rehearsal. Even the weather was absurdly warm and sunny. There's a review of this show on my site. I'll never forget it. Did you do other dates as well? We did about five gigs in Sweden. I asked Richard if he wanted to do any of his songs in the set. We did, so I got to play these very interesting rhythm guitar parts. We played Alchemy and Black to White and some current songs. A friend of a friend was taping the Stockholm show and thank God for that! I didn't even know at the time, but when we returned I gave Richard a copy and he liked the way his material sounded with us playing it. And he started his new band in New York? Yes, he asked me to play guitar and Peter to play bass and we got Dee Pop from The Bush Tetras to play drums, originally, now Chris Butler (ex-Waitresses). So we played about once a month last year. It's been very exciting. The rhythm parts alone are a whole universe of guitar education - seriously. A few songs I'd been playing my whole life, like Misty Eyes. We've had great responses to the shows, it's really been a good thing. Does the band play any old classics? Yes, sometimes we've done Fire Engine and See No Evil. People go crazy! Richard has all this great new material that is very impactful, all strong songs and very unique songs. This new stuff has been the body of the set. He's recording it now. Start getting excited - you're in for a treat! What does Tom Verlaine mean to you? A unique guitarist, that everyone around me is always listening to. Even my sister and brother in law always know whatever Tom Verlaine is doing! I think I have maybe every release of his but two. Peer pressure! (laughs) Like I said, I appreciate his work in a very separate context from Lloyd's work. I almost don't even associate the two. I go in and out of listening to him. This week I played Flashlight a lot. A song that never fails to delight me is "One Time at Sundown" on that. I'd like to see him do the thing with Jimmy Ripp. I really like Jimmy Ripp! I saw them, with JD Daugherty and Fred Smith in Gothenburg in '82 and THAT was amazing. I've never met Tom though. I've never been "introduced". He was sitting right in front of me at a David Bowie show at Madison Square Garden once in the 80's. I used to work in a record store he came in and shopped in sometimes, sixteen years ago. This is funny - Peter Stuart, (the bass player both Richard and I have been playing with) worked together in that store and I used to take Peter to Richard's shows way back then - all those clubs have since closed. Like The Peppermint Lounge, Folk City, The World, The Ritz. You mentioned you and Peter were massive Who fans. Yes, that's right. I had the pleasure of meeting Pete Townshend about five years ago. He asked me what I listen to. I said "Richard Lloyd" He lit up and said "Oh really?" I said, "Yes, not generally speaking as in Television, but specifically Richard Lloyd" He said, "Yes, I know, I know." I sent him a copy of Firepop this summer and it got back to me that he liked it. He wrote me a letter that says "I am also a fan of RL" That was fun! I did an internship at a recording studio here in New York - RPM when The Rolling Stones did overdubs for "Dirty Work" ('86). Somehow I mentioned Richard Lloyd to Keith Richards and he said in his smoky voice with a smile to Ronnie (Wood) "The girl's got taste..." Do you know Billy Ficca or Fred Smith? Billy, no. I first met him at one of our Bottom Line shows last year. But Fred I've known forever. He used to work at "We Buy Guitars" on 48th st here in New York and I wandered in to chat all the time. Back when you could get vintage Fenders at a good price. He plays with Courtney Lee Adams Jr, a great singer/songwriter/guitarist in fact they played at my release party for Firepop. I remember when he played with Christie Rose and The Midnight Walkers - he does have a country streak! I love his bass playing and he's a very nice fellow. Do you play vintage Fenders? With Richard I've been playing a guitar he sold me from his own collection. A strat re-issue, mid-90's. Blue Photo flame finish. It plays great. When I do solo shows, I play a Rickenbacker, through an old Ampeg Jet and an external 80's reverb rack. I call it my intergenerational rig. I still have the old Mustang '64 for old times sake and a few other guitars hanging around. So what's next? More of the same I hope! I'm trying to get Firepop out to the people who will enjoy this. Suffice it to say, if you like Richard Lloyd at all, you will enjoy this. Maybe a label will enter the picture this year. Then I hope to record another CD and keep doing shows. I also want to write songs for other artists. I look forward to when Richard Lloyd finishes his recordings and so should you! Until then stay tuned to these sites for the latest news, right?

Short version of the story I have been fascinated with the guitar work of Richard Lloyd since I was 19 and first saw him in 1983, within 48 hours of returning to live in New York after 6 years in Sweden. That year I took up the electric guitar and started fooling around with some of his riffs. I saw virtually all of the gigs in New York that he played during the 80's and 90's, of course bought the records he released. In the mid- 90's I asked Richard Lloyd to produce a demo for me. We completed three songs, one of which he played on. One thing led to another and I ended up doing a whole CD with him as producer and lead guitarist - Firepop! I then went to Sweden to play a solo gig- and, well you can read below what happened to that - Richard came with me, we played as a band, and when we returned he asked me to join his band. I ended up playing as his rhythm guitarist for another 4 years! It was truly THE highlight of my guitar playing life. I keep telling my friends - I would have been at all these shows anyway!! Here you can read the interview I did for a now defunct Television site which details my amazing guitar journey working for Mr Lloyd (link here!) or listen to mine and Richard Lloyd's interview at www.eargasm.com A lovely trip it's been, all in all.  I urge you to visit www.richardlloyd.com  also designed and maintained by the deleriously talented Keith Allison.  For you TV heads - keep going to http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk  and visit "The Wonder - Tom Verlaine, Television & Stuff", again, brought to you by Keith Allison.

I mentioned one day in 1997 casually to Richard Lloyd, when we had completed the recording of Firepop, that I was asked to perform at a festival in Orebro Sweden. Now Richard had recorded Field of Fire (Mistlur) back in 1986 with several of my musician friends from Orebro, the city in which I spent my teenage years. I was asked to play a solo set, which made sense as I was visiting my mother, as well as seeing if there was any interest in Firepop which I hadn't pressed yet. He said: "I'll come with you as your guitarist if you want". Right. Well I didn't have to hear that twice. I called the promoter, and said, "Listen, how about if I bring a band? " Peter Stuart came along on bass. And on drums we had the honor of playing with my dear friend Peter Olsen, who had also toured and recorded with Richard in the Field of Fire days. Slottsfestivalen - The Castle Festival - was our big gig, but we also played another small club in Orebro, one in Stockholm (Tantogarden) and on a boat in Gothenburg! I asked Richard, since I knew he had plenty of fans in these parts, if he wanted to feature a few of his songs. At all four shows we played Alchemy, King of Fools, Strangestrange, Submarine and Black to White, plus Firepop in its entirety. Not only was the reception overwhelmingly positive, but we had sunshine the whole ten days - unheard of in Sweden! They've had maybe 5 days without rain this whole summer (2000) which is typical! My friends in the long since disbanded Lolita Pop did a reunion gig- (they are the original Verlaine fanatics in my life) at the festival, adding to the surreal magnificence of the whole thing. They are the ones responsible for the only cover, Salta Diamanter on my CD. We had great shows - it was such a thrill for me to get this particular combo of musicians together, to rehearse and do shows, travel, share meals and stories, do photo shoots and interviews for the press - our drummer Peter Olsen was the first person I ever had a band with! I speak Swedish, but it is still an exotic experience to be there as I am American and have been back in the States for 18 years now. The reviews were superlative, one is included here below. People - grown men! - came up to me with tears in their eyes and said it was the best concert experience all summer! The Stockholm show at Tantogarden August '97 Photo: Anders Torgander But perhaps the most significant part of this chapter was when we got home - a friend of a friend had recorded our Stockholm show, without our knowledge. It sounded great! I gave Richard a tape copy when we returned to New York and that's when he called a few days later and said, "so I've been thinking of starting my own band again and I was wondering if you wanted to play guitar?" I didn't have to hear that twice either! 1997 Slottsfestivalen, Orebro Photo: Lasse Persson 8/4/97 Nerikes Allehanda Bibi Farber & GLOW - Slottsfestivalen LLOYD SET THE TONE AT BIBI'S PREMIER Billing the performance as "Featuring Richard Lloyd" wouldn't have been too much to ask when BIBI FARBER and her new band premiered live in her old home town. After just a few hours of rehearsal with the talented temporary drummer Peter Olsen the band sounded surprisingly tight and Lloyd played a wonderful musical leading role. Not only in his own four songs but in Bibi's sometimes surprisingly strong repertoire. Lloyd gave her pop rock material "nerve" through his solo expeditions that were always packed with meaning and content. Behind his cool demeanor he got his aggressions out through the guitar strings when he sometimes caressed them, playing crystal clear, sometimes squeezed out lovely tones, occasionally with feedback as an important ingredient. Since there's no organ in the rhythm section we'll skip comparisons to Blondie and Debbie Harry and raise the reference point of Bibi's music to Patti Smith, Television and the classic New York rock. For once the "dark night" rock music moved out of the clubs in New York to the slightly absurd environment of a large outdoor festival. But it worked. In the sunshine that appropriately burst through during "Shine" it was sometimes as hot as a nightclub. Bibi's recordings feature catchy strong melodic pop rock that on stage gets a little rougher and livelier, with less profile, less "hit sensibility" and much more heart and powerful vocals. The audience was mostly unfamiliar with the material so it took awhile for the response to build. After her wonderful and slightly different version of LOLITA POP's "Salta Diamanter" there was no doubt that an encore was required. Finally, Lloyd apologized humbly for mistakes no one heard. Hakan Petterson