Monday, June 15, 2009
Robert Triple J DJ (Oct. 14th, 2000)
A blast from the past...Robert playing DJ on Triple J radio in Australia on Oct. 14th, 2000 (Robert's set starts at the 4:46 mark, with the wonderful The Heart of Saturday Night by Tom Waits). And as he's demonstrated a few times over the years, he's very good at being a dj/radio host, and I wish he'd do it more often. Anyway, enjoy it, and I've posted the transcript of the show in the comments section.
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Tom Waits - (Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night
ReplyDeleteRS: "What a beautiful song. You're listening to Triple J, this is Robert from The Cure. That's a song I play more and more as the year wears on, on a saturday afternoon. Although it's still Saturday morning for me in a strange way. Uh, anyway I'll play a bit more music before I start waffling too much. The next one is a Nirvana song called Come As You Are."
Nirvana - Come As You Are.
Jimi Hendrix - Bold As Love
RS: "That was Bold As Love by Jimi Hendrix, and um, I think I better find some people who are still living actually, I just realized there's a bit of a theme developing here. Um yea, your listening to Robert of The Cure on Triple J, home of the hits. Not necessarily hits of this particular year, but now I think I'm going to take a call from someone."
Caller: "Yes, hello"
RS: "Hello, who am I talking to?"
Caller: "This is Jody. How are you Robert?"
RS: "Hello Jody. all right, thank you."
Caller: "This is fantastic, I can't believe I'm speaking to you."
RS: "Where are you calling from?"
Caller: "I'm in Wannapool (I have no idea) which is pretty close to Melbourne."
RS: "Yeah, I know it really well."
Caller: "I've been a fan for years, and I must say that your work is brilliant."
RS: "Thank you."
Caller: "I just wanted to ask about the possibility of you making a solo album after The Cure are finished."
RS: "Um yeah I've already sort of done it. I keep putting it off because I'm enjoying myself with the band too much, so most of its written and I've contacted the various people, other artists that I want to play on it to see if they're interested and most of them have said yes. So I expect I'll start it sometime next year, probably next spring. But I think what we are going to try first when we get home from Australia, I think we're all going to into the studio and try another Cure album. See what happens, but if it doesn't work, you know....anyway, thank you for asking. I'm going to go back to music now, because I feel like I'm ??? myself up through the Saturday. And someone who's still alive thankfully, this is 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins."
Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Joy Division - The Eternal
RS: "....No one told me it was ending. That was two songs back to back, 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins and a song recorded in 1979, what a link, Eternal from Joy Division. That's like falling from summer into winter in about 5 minutes. This is Triple J and this is Robert from The Cure, the unfamiliar voice that you're hearing. I'm going to take a couple of calls now, the first one's Fletch. Hello Fletch."
ReplyDeleteCaller: "Hello Robert. I wanted to ask you why there weren't any music videos for the last album?"
RS: "Primarily because I got fed up making them. We did one for Wrong Number, the single off the Galore album and no one showed it, so it seemed like a bit of a waste of time making another one that no one was going to show."
Caller: "What, you just don't want the inconvenience of it any more or..."
RS: "It's mainly that, but there's also the idea I think that The Cure are, I mean with Bloodflowers there was no intention of having anything played on the radio, I mean it wasn't like we were thinking 'we're going to make an album that isn't gonna get played on the radio', but we sort of realized that we'd have to compromise what we wanted to do in order to get played on the radio and the two pretty much go hand in hand these days. I think the days of us making a darkly-funny video and getting it shown on MTV are gone really and I'm sort of thankful they are."
Caller: "What about like on your website, like with Radiohead, how they've done a lot of visual sort of stuff? Why couldn't you get into art, like the art side of it on your website?"
RS: "We always mean to, I mean like between us we have a couple of handhelds and we are filming stuff all the time. It's really like getting around to doing it because we want to do it all ourselves. I mean our website is very up to date, but unvisual I suppose. But if you try to go on-line in England you'd understand why, it takes forever you know. I think we probably will...we're going into the studio when we get home and I think probably there'll be some down time for certain members of the band, hehe, and they can probably utilize that by putting stuff together. Hopefully by Christmas we'll have something a bit more visual put together, we're intending to change the website at Christmas anyway, so we'll try and incorporate it, it's a good idea."
Caller: "One last question, would you be able to play the Drowning Man tonight? I mean are you playing it or...?"
ReplyDeleteRS: "Yeah, well we haven't done it yet, but yeah, if I remember."
Caller: "Just my little request, that's all."
Robert: "I'll try and bear it in mind when I'm putting together the setlist."
Caller: "Ok, it was awesome talking to you. I'm huge fan. See you tonight."
RS: "Thank you, hope you enjoy it. And next I've got Lorenzo."
Caller: "Hi, how are you?"
RS: "Fine, thank you."
Caller: "I'm sure you're sick of hearing people say I'm a huge fan and everything else, but I am. I just had a quick question. I read somewhere that in the past you guys used to send Perry into the crowd before a show with a video camera, speaking to people, asking what songs they'd like to hear in particular."
RS: "Yeah that had to stop when he joined the band though. He insisted, it was part of the deal. Anyway, sorry carry on."
Caller: "I just wanted to know when was the last time you did that?"
RS: "In fact even when he joined the band, because we've known Perry for a long time before he joined, I think it was 1990 the first time he played with us, he was still doing that on certain dates of the Wish tour in 1992, he was still going out to the crowds, I think he got a bit hooked. It's good way to meet people anyway. No, it was interesting, its like we did through most of the 80's actually, just like we used to watch the videos of people, it gave us an idea of who was in the crowd and what they wanted to hear, and we felt we were playing to people. We don't do it now because, you know, we can't find anyone...I mean Perry's sort of had a certain rapport with the audience and managed to sort of pick the right people. We have tried it with other people and it's a bit disastrous because as you probably know, you react to the person behind the camera when you're talking to a camera and when Perry was doing it, we used to get a good reaction. We haven't found the right person to operate it, but I mean with the advent of the internet as well, we can find out what people want that much easier 'cause we just have to go to like fan sites and chat rooms and see what people are talking about what we've been doing at other shows, to find out what's going down and what people would rather hear. If we want to tailor what we're playing to what the fans want to hear, which of course we do, we just go on-line."
Caller: "That was kind of my next question. I was looking at a lot of the setlists on your website that you've played in Europe and the States and they tend to be quite a lot different between one and the other. Are we going to get closer to what you're playing in Europe or closer to what you played in the States? Because it seems to be more commercial what you're doing in the States."
ReplyDeleteRS: "We didn't really, it's like if you look over all of them, we've played about 55 songs, maybe a bit more, like this year. And we played all of them in America as well as in Europe, I think occasionally we threw in a slightly more upbeat set in America, but the difference was that we were playing in Summer and we were playing outside and it's a slightly different sort of vibe. I mean probably here, looking out the window it's sunny, but once we're indoors and it starts to create an atmosphere?, it will probably be more like Europe."
Caller: "And just another quick one, sorry to take up all of your time, there's a few b-sides obviously from Bloodflowers, are we ever going to get a chance to hear them all? Are they going to be released with anything in particular?"
RS: "That's sort of like what I was saying earlier, it's all part of our master plan to update the website, is actually making everything available. Now that we're out of contract with all of the majors, we can hopefully just put all of that kind of stuff up, all the outtakes, all the b-sides, without me being hassled by lawyers from around the world. Which is really what's held things up to this point, because I just don't want to be bothered with dealing with it."
Caller: "Will that be the b-sides collection you were talking about last year or a few years ago?"
RS: "Yeah, I mean it's one of those things that is really time consuming and I don't know if I've got the right personality to sit down and sort things, I always think why am I wallowing in this, but I will get around to it, or someone will, I should learn to delegate a bit more. That'll be my New Year's resolution, hopefully it will be up on the website and you'll be able to hear it. Anyway, speaking of hearing things, thank you very much for calling in, pleasure to speak with you, hope you enjoy the concert, and now you'll hear Only Shallow from My Bloody Valentine."
My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
The Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven
RS: "You're listening to Triple J, the unfamiliar voice being Robert from The Cure. You heard My Bloody Valentine and then Pink Moon from Nick Drake and Monkey Gone to Heaven by The Pixies. All part of an hour of very magical music. And I'm taking a couple more callers to stop me waffling on, the first one's I think Sebastian."
ReplyDeleteCaller: "Hi Robert, How are you?"
RS: "all right, thank you."
Caller: "My questions about the current tour. I was wondering what influenced the decision of this being the last one, I mean why's it the last?"
RS: "This is a tricky one. It's like instinct, like with anything I do with the band, I never really have very good reasons once I verbalize them, but it's just inside myself I know that I've enjoyed this year of touring more than any other year of playing with the band. I just can't see me doing it anymore. I don't necessarily think we'd stop playing completely, but doing a Cure tour is quite a big thing, 'cause if we go somewhere, there's usually alot of people who want to see us, and so it's like, I mean it's boring but there's like scale things and ergonomics and lots of people, lots of crew, lots of travel, I think you kind of have to want to do it and I've been doing it for a long time and I just figured if I don't make sort of a definite break from it, I'll find myself being wheeled in and out of venues."
Caller: "Yeah, yeah, I guess it would be very monotonous."
RS: "I mean once I'm doing it, I love it. Particularly when the shows are good. It's just the rest of it, all that goes with it, it's a little bit much I suppose and it's one of those things where you can either do one thing or another, and I feel there are probably other things I'd rather do.
Caller: "Ok, thanks very much. Have a great tour."
RS: "That's all right. Thank you very much. Next on the line I've got Chris I think."
Caller: "Robert, Hello. How are you doing?"
RS: "all right and you?"
Caller: "Very well, thank you. First of all, thanks very much for bringing the show down to Australia, you have such a huge fan base, it's awesome to see you here. My question is you've mentioned doing some demos for the next album, I was wondering if it will be along the same lines as the trilogy or whether you're going to have a new direction once again?"
RS: "Well the others were expecting me to, I mean usually I react against, you know like when we did Disintegration, the next we did was Mixed Up which was like remixes, I think the others were expecting me to do something similar, but I'm surprised myself actually by continuing on in pretty much the same vein as Bloodflowers, I think because I've enjoyed making the album and playing the songs this year that the songs I've written are in a similar mood, if anything, they're more miserable. But I haven't quite decided on how to approach it lyrically yet, but certainly musically it's very, the more atmospheric side of the band, sort of like that part. There are no radio singles I fear on the next album either."
ReplyDeleteCaller: "Great. Thanks for continuing."
RS: "That's all right, I hope you enjoy the shows. all right next up we've got a song by Suzanne Vega. Small Blue Thing."
Suzanne Vega - Small Blue Thing
Depeche Mode - Walking In My Shoes
Mogwai - Come On Die Young
RS: "Yeah, from the album Come On Die Young that was Come On Die Young by Mogwai. Before that was Walking In My Shoes by Depeche Mode and before that, Small Blue Thing by Suzanne Vega. You're listening to the national countdown show on Triple J with Robert from The Cure. A couple more callers before I go. This one is Stephanie. Hello?"
Caller: "You doing well?"
ReplyDeleteRS: "Uh yeah, I think so."
Caller: "I'm fine thanks. My question is I was wondering if you have one stand out Cure track that you enjoy playing the most live?"
RS: "Probably through the course of the year I think Bloodflowers has become my favorite Cure song, 'cause we usually close the main set with it pretty much every night and it's become a very emotional moment."
Silence
RS: "There you go, that was it, that was my answer."
Caller: "Ah, thank you very much, it's one that I like too."
RS: "Thank you very much."
Caller: "Thank you for everything, the time, the music, the tours, all of it."
RS: "Thanks."
Caller: "And... gets cut off
RS: "Oh, that was it. Richard I've got on next. I'm sorry about that, I'm not very used to doing this, it's not my real job. Hello Richard."
Caller: "Hi. My question is How was your trip over here?"
RS: "Well it landed. So it was fine. Apart from that I can't say much about it, I wasn't really all there for most of the trip. I brought my mum and dad over with me actually. They've never been to Australia before and I figured like as I'm giving up I may as well. They've got a lot of relations out here that they haven't seen in like years, so they kind of kept me occupied and um, I took (?) drink with me and time flew."
ReplyDeleteCaller: "I went over and saw you in the Wembley Arena and it totally went off. And I was wondering if it was going to be anything similar to tonight in Sydney?"
RS: "You think I can remember what we played at Wembley? Some of it's gonna be the same, I'm probably going to base tonight and tomorrow night on sort of what we did, we did 2 nights in Paris early in the year and 2 nights in Los Angeles and I figured out a good way of breaking up the 50 songs across the 2 nights, based on the idea that some people are gonna go both nights, so I'm not quite sure. I haven't done the setlist yet, I'll be doing it when I get down to the venue, so who knows."
Caller: "Cool. Anyway you're my hero at the moment. And it's great talking to you."
RS: laughing "What do you mean "at the moment"?"
Caller: "Well it jumps you know?"
RS: "Yeah, until some other youngster comes along."
Caller: "Being a 15 year old I have to leave my options open."
RS: "Yeah, that's true, I keep forgetting how fickle teenagers are. All right, well I hope you enjoy it anyway. Ok, bye. Right, I've just about run out of time. I'm being allowed just 2 more songs. I've had a fantastic time, thank you very much Triple J for having me in here. We'll finish with Brand New Key from Melanie which is sort of a weird choice, but something I've always loved from the days when I was a teenager and Hello, Goodbye from The Beatles. Anyway, BYE"
Melanie - Brand New Key
The Beatles - Hello, Goodbye
Very cool, thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteI read it all and I loved it
ReplyDeletethanks!
Thanks Craig for the transcript, I'll be able to listen later but it was great to get to read it all and not have to wait! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteFantastic, thanks for the great work--this was extremely entertaining.
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to have this file on mp3, wav or something apart from real audio media ?
ReplyDeleteThanks..
You can download it and convert it.
ReplyDeleteOh yes Craig , i tried this option, i have switch converter, and exactly i have this sofware for being able to convert real audio files to mp3 and i did it in the past ´cause i used to have a lot of real audio CURE files but now, i don´t know what happen, it can´t be converted to mp3...
ReplyDelete:(
Thanks Craig ~ that was fun to hear!
ReplyDeletein 256kb/s mp3 for MadBob - http://www.sendspace.com/file/9y4k8z
ReplyDeleteThank you so much AndytherealCUREfan Hero...
ReplyDelete:)
I have no idea about Wannapool either. It might actually be Warnamboul.
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks!
ReplyDelete