Michael Eck – Interview – Thanks for Asking!
Written by Staff on April 18, 2024
Michael Eck – Interview – Thanks for Asking! – by Liam Sweeny.
RRX: We all get a little support from those around us. And we also can be impressed by our fellow performers. Who do you admire in your community, and why?
ME: How long do you have? This could take months. I’ll limit it to one tale, from the way-back machine. Growing up in Slingerlands, as a kid I would ride my bike a few doors down and hear the A.D.s rehearse in Mark Wilkens’ basement on Kenwood Ave. Then I heard those same songs on the radio, specifically being played by Lin Brehmer on Q104. Connection made! Not long after, at age 15, I was lugging gear and doing lights for the band at J.B. Scott’s and CBGB. That, my friends, is how punk rock works.
RRX: Artists, musicians, we immortalize. We set it in stone. Is there anyone who has passed that you feel you have immortalized in your work? If so, can you tell us a little about them?”
ME: Sometimes I feel, like my hero Patti Smith, as if my work has become about memorializing others. Too many comrades, fellow musicians and family members—they travel in my songs, directly and indirectly, all the time. I miss you, Greg Haymes.
RRX: What historical era would you like to visit if the sole purpose was to put together a Battle of the Bands? How would you set it up?
ME: I wouldn’t even have to set it up. It actually happened. “A Grapes of Wrath Evening” at the Forrest Theater in New York City, March 3, 1940. Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Aunt Molly Jackson and Alan Lomax—all together for the first time. Wow!
RRX: We have to play somewhere, and sometimes those places have more going for them than a stage and a power outlet. What is a memorable place you played, and bonus points if it’s not a well-known place.
ME: As a solo “folk” performer weaned on punk rock, this is an easy question. Locally, Caffe Lena still feels like home. And, now long gone, in Manhattan, The Fort at SideWalk Cafe was a place where I could scream and yell with an acoustic guitar and be accepted like it was the only logical thing to do.
RRX: Part of learning to be a musician is to fall in love with a song, an album, and hammer away at your instrument until you can play that whole thing. What was that song for you? Was there a hardest part?
ME: When I was young, I wanted to be Bill Nelson from Be-Bop Deluxe. I wanted to display my complete mastery of every facet of the electric guitar. I was, however, lazy and had a tin ear. I never learned a single lick of his. I fell in love with songs instead. My revenge? Later in life, I became brand editor for a major guitar manufacturer, so the geeky love of gear did lead to something, Ma!
RRX: Is there a song you wrote that really died on the vine? Something you all like but somehow just couldn’t make it work. You swear never to play it live, that sort of thing?
ME: If you haven’t written plenty of shitty songs that will never see light of day, what business have you writing anything decent? I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of my songs interpreted and performed by other artists, on record and onstage. There is no better feeling than that.
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