I’ve been a fan of Jim Basnight for a while now, and his music never disappoints. It’s always good and a lot of fun to listen to. His latest singles are no exception, so check them out. You’ll be glad you did.
Jim was kind enough to answer a few questions about them.
Andrea Weiss:What is "Hello Mary Jane" about? I remember you saying it was a pot reference?
Jim Basnight: I wrote "HMJ" with the late Ben Rabinowitz. Ben and I met when he was around 13-14 and I was 16-17 in 1973-74. We met hanging around at record stores in a neighborhood in Seattle adjacent to the University of Washington called "The U-District." It was where a lot of the Seattle counter-culture was based in the 1960's and it still carried that trait then and for many years into the 80's and even the very early 90's. Ben and I shared a love for current music of the day, notably David Bowie and his guitarist at that time, Mick Ronson, plus two New York bands: Lou Reed, who also worked with Ronson on his Transformer album, and the Velvet Underground, and New York Dolls and their lead guitarist, Johnny Thunders.
When the Dolls did an in-store at a U-District record store in 1974, Thunders heard Ben play and told him that he wanted Ben to form a band with him. A friend of Ben's named Lee Lumsden and Ben's brother Dan had a self-mimeographed fanzine called The District Diary, which became Chatterbox, after the Dolls song, in 1975. We all contributed to it, including other long-time friends of mine from the neighborhood, Ben primarily with his incredibly good artwork. Ben and I were friends for many years. As both of our lives went in different directions, we always stayed in touch and consistently made attempts to collaborate artistically. "Hello Mary Jane" was one of those collaborations. I don't know if it was about marijuana. As I mentioned in my recent press kit for the single:
"Does it relate to cannabis, children’s shoes with tie over hasps, a peanut butter and molasses taffy or a secret obsession with females of that name? How would I know?"
I would add that Ben and I were smoking pot a little when we wrote it. But it's also a name bandied about in rock and roll often. Tom Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane," Rick James' "Mary Jane" and the lyrics (below) to the 1968 Top 25 bubblegum hit "Quick Joey Small," by Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, come to mind, but I'm sure there's a lot more:
"Sweet Mary Jane was goin' insane
When she heard of Joey's jail break
But she knew all the while 'cause
She sent him a file
Baked inside a fudge cake"
It was a pop song that we believed could be a lot of things to a lot of folks, would be danceable, catchy, and possibly a little irreverent. It was a lot of fun to write it with Ben and it's been a ton of fun to play for many years in nearly all my bands.
AW: "My Vision Of You" is a bitter relationship song. Was there meant to be a contrast between a happy song and a sad one?"
JB: I think there was a bit of reasoning in picking it as the flip side of "Hello Mary Jane." One is rockin' and loose and one is poppy and tight. Both have good feels and grooves. That's the common denominator which made them go together well.
"MVOY" was written with Mike Czekaj, another longtime friend and musical collaborator. I met Mike on the East Coast when I lived there, when I was living in NYC. Soon after we did some gigs and he backed me on a recording session with producer Genya Ravan, I moved back to Seattle. But we stayed in touch. When Mike moved to LA to play in the Fuzztones, I had already been there for around a year when the version of the Moberlys I formed in Seattle (the band which played on most of the tracks on Seattle-NY-LA, Toby Keil on bass, Glenn Oyabe on guitar, and Dave Drewry on drums) moved down the coast to LA. Very soon after we reconnected in LA, we started writing songs together. "MVOY" is one of many songs we wrote over the years. Like "HMJ" it's a tried-and-true live number in my shows in the Jim Basnight Band.
It is bittersweet, but the point of the song from my perspective is, "Our love was so good that even though we're not together, it's still real to me." There is hope, of another chance implied and there is also positive value in the old expression, "It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."
AW: One song is punky and the other is more pop. Was that meant to be a contrast too?
JB: It was. This is very perceptive of you. I wouldn't call "HMJ" punky. To me it's more garage-rocky, in a Kinky, Bolanesque way. But I think it sounds unique, like my best stuff usually does. You do a great job of listening, at least to my tunes. Thanks!!
AW: What are the backstories for these two songs?
JB: I think I covered that, but I'll add a little more info. For "MVOY" the song has evolved as a live piece into less of a hugely layered vocal piece and more of a tight and groovy somewhat Beatlesque pop number. For "HMJ," the Rockinghams re-did it, with a slightly shorter arrangement.
For the new single version on the Pop Top (2022 Remaster), the original version of the song was edited to be a bit shorter again and the sounds were brilliantly enhanced by Garey Shelton's keen ears. I think both tunes were greatly enhanced by Shelton's work.
AW: Do you intend to tour behind them?
JB: I do. I'm looking to travel to the East Coast in late summer and continue to Europe, before returning to the Seattle. I'll be releasing more details as they firm up. I'm also looking to release a third single from the Pop Top album.
I'm seriously considering including "Stop The Words" in that release, as it was chosen as part of Little Steven's Underground Garage's "Coolest Song In The World" ongoing series. The flipside is more up-in-the-air, but I'm close to deciding.
The first single, "Opportunity Knocks" and "Still A Part of Me," was very well received, getting a lot of great plays and reviews around the net and around the world.
