Rick Takes The Q Questionnaire
What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
Open my eyes. Usually after an unsettled but dreamless sleep. I've awakened more than once feeling like I've run two or three marathons in succession. Then I throw down a Monster White. Sometimes I even remember to get dressed.
What was the first gig you went to?
Genesis, Hartford Civic Center, 1981. ABACAB tour. Nosebleed seats. They could have been the Lollipop Guild.
Which song do you wish you had written?
Ask me again tomorrow and I'd probably say differently, but today it's Surf's Up by The Beach Boys, maybe because we lost Brian Wilson recently. That angular but spectacular melody, the sui generis arrangement, those magical, ethereal harmonies at the fade — if Brian had just done that one song it would still have been enough to place him in the pantheon of great pop songwriters. You can practically see the sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows by the end.
What is the best advice you've ever received?
Be.. here.. now. Ram Dass. That book is a comfort to have by the bedside.
What is your most treasured material possession?
I can't think of anything I treasure, per se. I like my Mac Mini, but that's mostly because I make music on it.
Who is the last person you slept with?
My fair lady, with whom I cohabitate, and who is an awesome songwriter in her own right.
What do you think of Bob Dylan?
I don't have many thoughts about Dylan, beyond the three or four songs of his that I've had to learn for the various cover bands and open mics I used to play on the Shoreline east of New Haven. You can probably guess which three or four... But I'd hold that his career trajectory is the essence of progressive music — not talking about odd time signatures, or jazz changes, or comprehensively mindblowing musicianship — just getting bored with what he was doing and finding something new to do, like Miles Davis did. And not only not being bothered with who he was leaving behind, but using it as grist for the mill. (not-half-bad Dylan impression) "You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend..."
I've had many more thoughts about symphonic composers and the rock composers who were inspired by them. Of the former, well.. Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Holst, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Bartók, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Riley, Reich. Of the latter, first it was Keith Emerson, Tony Banks, Dave Stewart, Dave Brubeck.. these days I'm listening to a lot of Greg Spawton, Jem Godfrey, and Neal Morse.
When did you last cry and why?
I think it was when Pekoe, my family's beloved Peke-a-Poo, was going to be taken to the vet to be put down after a long, happy life of us making each other happy, and I couldn't be the one to do it. I had to say goodbye and then go to work on an IT help desk, and curb my irritation while fielding calls from fools all morning, and I remember sitting alone at the lunch table and just trying to hold back the tears, knowing she'd be gone by the time I got home from work.
What characteristics do you think you've inherited from your parents?
Notwithstanding that last story, my dad gave me a certain stoicism that I struggle to shake off. The stiff upper lip, probably came down from my Welsh ancestors. My mom gave me tenacity and these raccoon eyes, among other facial characteristics, like these alarmingly high cheekbones.
What's the biggest myth about fame?
Ask me again when I'm famous.
What are you like when you're drunk?
It's been so long since I've deliberately gotten drunk, or high, that I don't quite remember. I.. recall that I was a fairly jolly drunk though, and that I was even jollier after a joint. But almost by definition I'm an unreliable narrator, since I was drunk or stoned at the time.
Who would you have play you in a film?
If I were dead I wouldn't much care, but if I were alive to see it happen I'd totally cast myself in the role. A, I could — I have a bit of acting experience, plus I know the character intimately. B, Hollywood has tricks now that would de-age me so I could play a younger version of me. C, I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it. That mistrust is probably something else I got from my parents. It goes some way toward explaining why making Atfulcrum records is a one-man operation, actually, for the most part.
Pick five words that describe yourself.
Empathetic. Loyal. Aries. Inquisitive. Tall.
Is there one piece of criticism that sticks in your mind?
A lady friend accused me once of not being sufficiently caring about her troubles. This was back when I was like a freshman in college. I was so emotionally tangled up in my own emotions that I couldn't even figure out how to love anyone or anything, including myself. That took me a long time to untangle, and to the extent that I have untangled it, it reminds me that walking a mile in someone else's sandals is part of why we're here.
Do you believe in God?
I think there's a beautiful order to the universe, and that if there weren't rules there couldn't be that order, there'd be nothing but chaos. There wouldn't be molecules organized into stars, organized into atmospheres, into the riot of flora and fauna here on Earth (that includes humans). I think there's a plan behind it all, and that the scientists are the ones who'll unlock its vagaries.
Although I don't think it's necessarily wise to personalize that plan or that order in the form of a man, or a woman, or some other gender, no matter how omnipowerful we may claim that entity is. If that entity is powerful enough to have a plan and then effectuate it, I'd be hard pressed to believe it was merely a bipedal hominid, although of course that's one form it could take, to keep us from going uncontrollably insane when we met it.
We can call it what we like — God, Buddha, Allah, Source, Grandmother, the Tao, Chi — but no matter what name, it's greater than any name we could give, bigger than we know, and more comprehensive than we can know. Like C S Lewis said, Aslan isn't exactly a tame lion, is he? I think a lot of people think they've got a better handle on it than they actually do, but hey, if it helps them sleep at night...
What is your most unpleasant characteristic?
As far as I can tell it's the quest for perfection. There's a reason these records take years to craft — a habit I'm going to have to unlearn now I'm finally under contract! Left to my own devices as I usually am, I'll make Peter Gabriel and Tom Scholz look relatively slapdash and blasé. Portishead would look positively chatty by comparison.
What's your greatest fear?
Being a burden on others. I know I have been at various low points of my existence.
What ambitions do you still have to fulfil?
Actually surviving doing my own music would be a fine ambition to fulfil. That's really the only one I think about.
Are you afraid of failure?
Nah, failure happens. I've been around enough to know the embarrassment is usually only temporary in the end. Samuel Beckett said try again, fail again, fail better. That's at least part of what puts the progress in progressive music.
What do you never leave home without?
There's probably nothing I never leave home without. I've locked myself out of the apartment building I now live in three times in the eight months I've been here in Oakland, because I thought I had my house keys on me when I had my car keys. Or conversely that I went out to my car to go to the 7 Eleven and found my house keys on me and my car keys still sitting on the shelf back inside. I've also left the flat and negotiated the streets of Oakland without my wallet, which contains my driver license and my debit card. Been lucky so far though, touch wood.
Who is your best male friend and your best female friend?
Believe it or not I don't have all that many friends. I curate my circle with a certain fastidiousness and, I hesitate to say, viciousness. If you're among the handful of people I talk to on a semi-regular basis, it's because I want you in my life, and I want to do things for you, and more to your question, there's no pecking order. But cross me and you're gone, at least until you explain yourself to my satisfaction. That's something I absolutely need to work on, and I'll probably need help doing it.
Who would you most like to meet?
Another thing I maybe need to work on is my longstanding aversion to meeting my heroes: I feel like they can only disappoint you when you actually meet them, I'd rather have them at a distance, up there, on the plinth. So, the short answer is, there's no one I'd go out of my way to meet.
That said, backstage after an Allan Holdsworth show at Toads in New Haven, Gary Husband (his drummer on that tour) and I had gravitated from talking music, seasoned vet to local working jobber, to talking about beer, we both had a bottle of Stroh's in our hands. I looked up at this guy who'd insinuated his way into the chat, suddenly holding forth about hops and barley — lager was clearly one of his favourite topics, he too was enjoying a Stroh's — Holdsworth himself. I let him carry on about beer for a bit, and he eventually accepted my praise with gratitude and humility.
Similarly in the mid-80s, my woman at the time had to almost drag me by what was left of my hair to meet Dave Brubeck in the backstage area of the outdoor stage on New Haven Green, where his then-Quartet was about to play the Jazz Festival. Brubeck watched the scene with a smile, my girl nudging me forward, me dragging my feet — but it wasn't a condescending smile; he'd probably seen this scenario play out countless times over the previous forty or fifty years. When I did finally approach him, he was most gracious, humble, and receptive to my fumbling praise. I regret now that I didn't tell him that I think I heard Time Out from inside my mother's womb — I can't explain my affinity with that album other than it's the coolest of cool West Coast jazz and it's Brubeck's piano and Paul Desmond's sax, and it was very much in the house while my mom was carrying me. But if he casts his kindly gaze from his current sector to my current sector, I think he knows.
What music would you have played at your funeral?
While everyone's watching my ashes being scattered to the four winds.. maybe a selection from Daphnis et Chloé by Ravel, or maybe Satie's Gymnopédies just to tweak everybody one last time. At the afterparty, uptempo prog rock, jazz fusion, and Celtic trad. Irish or Scottish trad, Capercaillie or Dervish, either would work, some Richard Thompson and Fairport tossed in. As they're walking out the door, Supper's Ready. Or The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.
When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see?
These bags under my eyes bug me, but other than that I think I'm all right.
Do you have anything to declare?
Atfulcrum's latest album, Microviews, is available now on Evernight Surge Records. Stream it at the usual places, or buy it here at this web site. You won't be disappointed.
Styling itself as "The modern guide to music and more", the late, lamented Q Magazine was a mainstay of the British music press from 1986 to 2020. The last page of the magazine was usually if not always devoted to the Questionnaire: the same questions, asked each month of the famous and infamous in the British music industry. By way of introduction to the sensibility behind Atfulcrum, Rick answers their standard set of queries.