Jason Frederick

Nick Meiers: Finally, the perfect person to ask the following question. (Jason works at Northcoast Video in Chicago's Wicker Park) Have you seen any good movies lately?

Jason Frederick: Of late I have been freaking out on Michael Caine... Zulu, Get Carter, The Ipcress File. Before that I was turned on to Sexy Beast (best comedy ever!) and before that I was "changed" by Funny Games. The Incredibles rules, and the Sponge Bob movie was very underrated.

NM: What are you listening to and enjoying lately?

JF: My new Favorite Bands are like this: Pink Mountaintops, Victor Vaughn, Elf Power. I just got a Wang Chung greatest hits CD that's surprisingly listen-able. Been kinda stuck on The Streets and Led Zeppelin too. My birthday was a few days ago, and for my birthday I purchased myself a copy of Boney M's Nightflight to Venus, which I have had on various formats my whole life but never on CD. I spun that damn thing like a propeller for days, total overdose -- love it!

NM: Where do you see yourself in five years (ha!)?

JF: Honestly, five years seems a freakishly short amount of time, approaching quickly and in which I see so many huge possibilities -- very hard to pick what it is I'll end up doing at this very moment. I'd like to get a large dog, or a small child -- maybe try and buy a house... or just go to Japan for a couple weeks. I don't know. I know this for sure, in the next five years I am definitely going to fix my car.

NM: You've recently moved from screaming in hard rock bands to sock hop sing-alongs and crooning. What sparked that?

JF: Boredom... There was time at which it seemed like being in a band like the Means would make it possible to make any kind of music. I felt like, follow any whim that grabbed me. Such was not the case. There were actually a lot of parameters within which I found myself having to keep the music I was writing, or rather, only certain songs I was writing fit the parameters the band deemed "means-y". Everything else got pitched... got so that I had a stack of songs that the Means weren't going to play. Got so that I wasn't interested in going out to see loud grunge or metal bands... boring. Seriously, put on a Pantera record and I'll doze off... It's the same thing over and over and over. I love the idea of going to a sock hop -- you couldn't beat me through the door! Change of pace, fun, surprises. Birthday parties.

NM: If you could go out on tour with any living band, who would it be?

JF: The Streets -- I bet those guys get great weed and demand hotel rooms. I would say Pink Mountain Tops, but I have a feeling those folks are couch and tent sleepers. Not that I don't like camping, I like ponds and grass -- but pools and mattresses are a newfound source of joy in my life.

NM: You're from Ohio. You've lived here in Chicago off and on for seven years. Are there any other cities that you could see spending some residential time before you retire in Florida?

JF: Yeah, good question. There's a petition to get Maria and me to move to New York City -- I might have gone willingly but the last time I was there I stopped down in Times Square. Should have my fucking head examined. I guess I had forgotten that New York, with all its good points, is also the home of Broadway musicals. Why couldn't the terrorists have targeted Cats or Phantom of the Opera? I find both far more offensive than the World Bank. ATMs are useful, Andrew Lloyd Weber is like a goddamn disease! So New York may be out... I recently spent some time in Honolulu -- I have family out there and from time to time toy with the idea of moving out that way. Try and find a job though. There aren't a lot of towns that have more to offer than Chicago except in regards to space and quiet. When I get fed up with the crime and the gunshots, the jerks on the street, and the yuppies in their chariots, I suppose I'll move to wherever there's a job, and a house to live in. You couldn't get me to Florida for anything. You could throw a sack of cash five feet over the border and I wouldn't step in to get it. hellhole = Florida.

NM: What's the favorite you've ever had?

JF: The favorite I've ever had? Maria Franceska Gigante, with no doubt -- she is by far my favorite favorite I have ever had. I rarely have favorites, I more often than not have obsessions which are intense but fade into rumors. Maria has been a favorite for many years now, almost 10. wow. Weird to see that number like that. huh.

NM: I meant to ask what your favorite job has been. What job could you see yourself doing in the future and enjoying?

JF: I have thought a lot about advertising, design or art direction. The new LOVE STORY IN BLOOD RED packaging was a trip to put together, getting the artist into it, getting a designer to lay it out, working it. I'd love to get a job at a label art directing cover art. The bigger the label the better -- that would present far more bizarre problems to solve... Like, if it was your job to create imagery for the next Lindsey Lohan record, what the hell would you do? You'd have about 12 execs to please and all these market research numbers to look at, parameters, and expectations. I think if I could remind myself that it was all bullshit, I could get really into playing this silly game called: "take children's money".

NM: What was your favorite part about George's "CD Packaging" piece I forwarded you a couple weeks back? (What Your CD's Packaging Says About You: A 29-Point Psychological Roadmap)

JF: Pretty much all of it. It was funny mostly because it hit all the bases and trashed them all. Ultimately there was no right answer. Everything's tired, everything's been done -- I don't know, I enjoyed the wearied reviewer tone to it more than anything. What I want to see someone do is go around and interview and review reviewers, you know? I'd love to see someone come down on (the Chicago Reader's) Pete Margasak and review his reviewing style -- or the guys in The Onion. Great possibility for satire there, I think. Satire of substance. As long as whoever was writing the article didn't care if they ever got their band reviewed, anywhere, ever again. Which is why I will not be doing it. Keep up the good work, Pete! Love your stuff, dude.

NM: Fill in the blank and explain: I'm so tired of ___________.

JF: Urban teenagers and their goddamned chip bags. Now, I was 13 once, and I was a shoplifter, that's my claim to youthful rebellion. I stole stuff: cigarettes, radios, beer, whatever. Fourth grade was a dark time for me. I'm not proud of it, it's just the way it is. But I was never a litterer. These kids today have no imagination, no taste in clothing or music, and the sloppy little sons of bitches just throw their crap on the ground. You should see the streets of Chicago, crap everywhere. I blame the little hoodlums. It's not like they don't have room in their pockets, for Christ's sake -- their pants are six sizes too big! Miserable, motherless drooling zombies -- jail's too good for 'em. I say we round em up and dump the lot in a landfill, buried alive with the rest of the waste.

NM: But I'm really excited about ___________.

JF: IMDB.com -- the Internet Movie Data Base. The authority on movies. Man, this site has everything. I can sit there for hours. Who was in what, little known facts, movie links. Everything. Enormous. I mean, this thing is the Oracle at Delphi. Why bother watching a movie without it? You liked Sexy Beast, did you know Ray Winston was in a movie called Scum in the '70s as a teen in a reform school? Etc. Etc.

NM: Let's assume 50 people read this. What record(s) do these people not know about, but need to get on top of?

JF: Mark Reilly and the Creepers' Rock n Roll Liquorice Flavor. This guy Mark Reilly was in the Fall, left the Fall and this band, the Creepers is his next thing. It's more like rock than the Fall, but it's still arty and hilarious -- "there's two Neil Youngs, two of them, there's two now". Dan Melchior's Broke Review's Heavy Dirt. Though I'm told this guy Dan is a total curmudgeon and has quit rock, his record Heavy Dirt is a total blast. Lo-fi-ish, spiteful and right on, "If you wanna buy groceries, than go to the store, you want to grow roses, than get some manure." Tracy + the Plastics' Culture for Pigeon. Now, people may have heard of this record, I don't know. I hear this woman has some sexual/political agenda, I don't know about any of that, and am not the one to comment on it. What I will say is that this record is at times a creepy lullaby and at others a bouncing good time. In both cases it is poetic and contemplative. Too damn cool. "We'll have to drop the guns to drive, we'll have to knit or stitch a claw." New Bad Things's Freewheel. From Portland, Oregon, and I guess no more. This weirdo band had horns, at least two different vocalists, and great lyrics. It seemed to me like they could give a damn about anything but having fun, and their sometimes snide lyrics were stark and obvious. You knew these people they were singing about were most likely people the band knew. "Josh has a crush on a femme from Reid." "Oh, I see, you just wanna go 'cause you think what's his name'll be there." "Don't be the one who writes the love songs, for pretty girls, the sensitive smokers with the cigarette eyes." There's more, aren't there... those are just the bands you've never hear that I don't know personally. Those are records I bought. I could list a pack of bands I know and we'd be here all week.

NM: Huh. You actually answered in a way that I learned something about you. I thought you'd just gush on Devin's record. (Devin Davis's Lonely People of the World, Unite!)

JF: I would have gushed on Devin, or shit, yours even, but I left it to records of people I didn't know.

NM: Is there anything you wish I would have asked? If so, answer it.

JF: No, there's a lot of stuff I'm glad you didn't ask, though. But I don't want to talk about any of that. How'd I do? You happy?

NM: Ya, but there's a lot of grammar errors. Some of it's like your own language. But ya, it's cool. Finally someone with an opinion. I'm tired of diplomatic answers all the time. It's like talking to fucking politicians.

-- Nick Meiers