Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Mondo 2000/Ann-Magnuson

Text File | 1993-01-01 | 9KB | 210 lines

Resinatrix
Pipecleaning with Ann Magnuson
INTERVIEW BY GINA HARP

Ann Magnuson is absorbed weekly by the naugahyde nation as
Catherine the bitchy editor on ABC's Anything But Love, and
embraced lasciviously by the independent music scene as one half of
Bongwater. Along the way she's also appeared in several films, created
unique one-woman shows, and proven herself as a writer.

 MONDO 2000: What were you trying to achieve with The Big
Sellout?

ANN MAGNUSON: Our goal was to do for power and greed what
we did for sex on The Power of Pussy. But we didn't know what
would come out in the wash. Anything is possible when you get
behind closed doors with Kramer.

M2: What inspired the theme?

AM: Mostly my experiences in the big bad world of Hollywood-the
odd feelings one gets when confronted with the possibility of fame and
power. A theme for one of the songs is a strange demon that possesses
you to constantly need more attention, more approval. It's the power
trip_ if I may be so hippyish to imply that power corrupts. But it's also
something very sexy. You want it, you need it-it's appealing.
Personally, though, I've never found people who are really powerful
very sexy. People like Donald Trump or Mike Ovitz or Kevin Costner.
I think some of the most powerful people are those who don't need to
prove anything.

BONGWATER ON THE ROCKS, EXTRA DRY

M2: How did you get hooked up with Kramer?

AM: I knew him vaguely from the downtown music and arts scene in
New York, and he called me. I was in this band called Pulsallama-an
all-girl percussive orchestra. He had done sound for us on several
occasions, and years after we broke up, he called me. He had just
gotten a hold of a studio, Noise New York, and asked if I wanted to
come over and play. So we started collaborating-just fooling around
in the studio.

I admire Kramer. I like working with him, although he can be
maddening. He's certainly pissed off a lot of people along the way, but
he gets the stuff out there.  Regardless of what some people might
think, his primary goal is just to make music and get it out to people
who'll like it.

M2: Why the name Bongwater?

AM: It was at the top of a list of mine of names for future bands.

M2: It's such a repulsive thing!

AM: I guess it's aptly titled.

M2: No_

AM: Well, it depends on your point of view. There are people I used
to know who drank bongwater to get high. When they were really
desperate they either sniffed gasoline or drank bongwater or inhaled
fumes from Arid Extra-Dry. It was a sick little decade, the seventies.

DON'T LET THE LEFT VEIN KNOW_

M2: How do you maintain your sanity? There's an awful lot of
bullshit in Tinseltown.

AM: If I didn't do Bongwater, I'd probably open a vein. But if I only
did Bongwater, I'd open two veins.

M2: Do your co-stars know anything about Bongwater?

AM: No, not really. Jamie [Lee Curtis] knows I'm in a folk band down
here, which she came to see. She's very supportive. I hesitate to give
them the records. I'm not sure they'd like it. It takes a certain
sensibility. This girl who worked on the Rock Awards sent our record
to a columnist from USA Today who liked me from the show, but I
don't think he even listened past the first song. He just didn't get it. He
gave it to their music critics who couldn't understand it at all, which
seems so_ I mean, compared to a lot of music this is terribly accessible.
But everything's so compartmentalized. What's avant-garde to some
is mainstream to others, and there's no distinct counter-culture
anymore-there are five thousand offshoots. I wonder what they'd
make of Ween. We did a show with them at CBGB's. I felt like I was
in a freshman dormitory at a mushroom party!

SEX APPEAL

M2: The Power of Pussy is great. Can you tell me where it came from?

AM: It came from entering my sexual prime in all its orgiastic glory
as I get into my ripening thirties.

M2: It's about many different things.

AM: A lot of it comes from the AIDS epidemic-how it's affected me
and so many of my friends.  Some of that angst, pain, confusion and
anger was involved in this record. And it's just the gloriousness of
sex-when you finally achieve your perfect orgasm-the beauty amongst
all the pain. What else can I say? If I try to explain it too much I'll end
up sounding like Madonna on Nightline.

M2: People don't like to talk about sex. Too many negative
connotations.

AM: It's weird, as a teenager in the mid-seventies there was pressure
to be more promiscuous than you would even want to be, and then in
the eighties it turned 180 degrees. I watched it all happen. I've seen
what AIDS will do to a person, and it's enough to make you never
want to have sex ever again. And yet we're sexual creatures. We're
animals and we need it-it's beyond our control.

M2: I just moved to San Francisco earlier this year, and where I come
from a frightening number of people are still having unsafe sex.

AM: They should close their eyes and think about all their close
friends and then eliminate half of them. At least half. But that would
be too easy-they wouldn't have to watch them waste away and die.
But in spite of all that, sex is still fun! There's a puritanism in this
country that's getting the better of us. I mean, everybody has to have
sex! It's like eating, breathing, shitting! The more you pretend you
don't have those urges, the more frustration and anger you're going
to create.

M2: At least the gay community here hasn't let the AIDS crisis
entirely interfere with their fun-there are sex clubs that promote safe
sex.

AM: See, that's the thing. This tragedy has brought all of us close
together. And we're still going out and partying, being creative,
making art and experiencing the joy of life.

NIETZSCHE SUCKS

M2: I can't help but associate the "art scene" with an air of snobbery.

AM: There are a lot of assholes! There is elitism. Although it attracts
people who might be a little more perceptive on some levels, it doesn't
give anybody license to act superior.  Unfortunately, elitism will ruin
any scene until you accept everybody as equal-even the assholes. And
that's the hardest part. I know a lot of people who'd like to assassinate
Jesse Helms, and I'd probably buy the gun for them, but I don't think
I'd load the bullets.

The most venomous, frightening people can be often the most
talented. They were always people you hated and never wanted to be
friends with, but they were chock full of talent. And then there are
people who can be the sweetest people on earth but they don't have an
ounce of talent. You see, talent is a vampire.

M2: Hence inspiration for the song, "Talent is a Vampire"?

AM: That's actually a paraphrase of a Nietzsche quote that deals with
being consumed by the vampirism of your own power.

MELTING POT

M2: I enjoyed seeing you interviewed on Later With Bob Costas.

AM: Oh yeah? That was really dull.

M2: Why wasn't Bongwater brought up?

AM: Because Bob Costas is_ he's a sportscaster! He didn't know
anything about me. I feel uncomfortable on those shows-I have a real
attraction/repulsion problem with the concept of being a celebrity.
Like all Americans, I've been brought up thinking that one's crowning
achievement should be to be famous. And it's completely disgusting.
I find myself in these situations where I'm trying to play along with
the game and I'm thinking, "What in the fuck am I doing here?" And
what am I going to do? Say "Oh by the way, I'm in this band and blah
blah blah?" I would've brought it up, but he would've just looked at
me with a blank stare, so what's the point?

M2: I was just wondering if it was because of the word Bongwater
itself, what with the "War on [some] Drugs"_

AM: I don't think a lot of people even know what it is. There was
actually a picture of me and Kramer as Bongwater in TV Guide for an
article on what TV stars were doing over the summer! Bongs are
rather obsolete objects, aren't they? Maybe not in San Francisco, but
head shops are illegal in most places, which is absurd.

M2: Especially considering how many people smoke pot_

AM: They really ought to legalize it. It's ridiculous.

M2: They could be making a lot of money off of it.

AM: They could be putting it into education and social programs. But
that smells of communism. The religion in this country is the free
enterprise system, which is basically dog-eat-dog-the survival of the
fittest. There's this backward notion that if you're struggling or have
some sort of dysfunction, it's your own damn fault. But the men who
make our laws-and I do say men-they're living in mansions, they go
to country clubs.  Have they ever been stuck in a slum with no option
to get out? No way! Those people aren't going to go work for
McDonald's and then go to community college.

M2: What are you going to do to ameliorate the situation, keep
making Bongwater albums?

AM: Well, artists really aren't politicians. I think the only people who
want to be politicians are shady characters. It's a shame there aren't
any statesmen anymore. There aren't any thinkers. That's usually
what lures people into power anyway-the big sell-out.  We've finally
succumbed.