Photo by Samantha Sais from this week's cover of Tucson Weekly
I'm not ungrateful an editor from the Tucson Weekly asked me to do this week's Nine Questions. Just the opposite actually. I just wish she hadn't edited my answers, so it now sounds like I don't love Jimi Hendrix. I love Jimi. And she took out my hearing Peter Gabriel, last year, at The Hollywood Bowl. Concert changed my life. But no matter. The beauty of the internet is I get to post, on The Fezziwig News, the unedited version of The Nine Questions. Ain't ones and zeros grand? Enjoy, y'all, and again thanks, TW, for asking me to do this. It was a lot of fun.
Nine Questions for the Tucson Weekly: March 24th, 2011
By Stu Jenks
What was the first concert you ever saw?
Acoustic: The Royal Scots Guards Pipe and Drum Band, 1972, Reynolds Coliseum, Raleigh, North Carolina. (with my mother Mary)
Electric: Traffic’s Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys tour, same year, Cameron Indoor Stadium, Durham, North Carolina. (without Mary)
What are you listening to these days?
Bruce Cockburn’s Small Source Of Comfort, Scala & Kolacny Brothers’ Circle, Neil Young’s La Noise, Elvis Costello’s Secret, Profane and Sugarcane, and Krishna Das’ Heart As Wide As The World.
What was the first album you owned?
Single: The Battle of New Orleans, Johnny Horton.
Album: Whipped Cream and Other Delights, Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass
What artist, genre, or musical trend does everyone seem to love, but you just don’t get?
Opera. I’ve tried.
What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live?
The Monkees headlined a show at Dorton Arena in Raleigh when I was a kid, and Jimi Hendrix opened for them. Hear Jimi got booed off the stage by the white Southern teenyboppers. Would have loved to have been a fly on that wall.
Musically speaking, what is your favorite guilty pleasure?
Depeche Mode. Reach out and touch faith. And Ho! Ho! Hoey! at Christmastime.
What songs would you like to have played at your funeral?
I have a whole set planned for my funeral at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal: Ben Folds’ Magic performed by The University of Chicago’s Voices In Your Head, Muse’s Blackout, and Krishna Das’ By Your Grace/Jai Gurudev. Magic will also be played at my mother’s funeral.
What band or artist changed your life, and how?
Neil Young’s On The Beach in Bo’s dorm room at Carolina, with a head full of Columbian. And hearing Peter Gabriel play Signal To Noise, last year at The Hollywood Bowl, with a full orchestra. Can’t tell you how hard I cried that night.
Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time?
Easy. Secret World Live by Peter Gabriel.
Stu Jenks (www.stujenks.com) is a nocturnal photographer, daytime writer and midnight harmonium player. His third book, Dementia Blues, a photo-memoir of his dying mother, was released earlier this month.