EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AUGUST 24-30.1973 BERKELEY BARB PAGE 21 JOHNNY WINTER FROSTED BY NIXED KEYSTONE HYPE by Robert "Razor"' Blades in and said "I'm uh, Johnny Winter and I wanna play." So I played at the Playboy Club (laughter). Blades: Who did you play with? Johnny: (laughter) I can't remem­ ber, ... I was too drunk. Usually I don't like to play when I'm drunk, because I don't want to embarrass myself. I can sing when I'm drunk, but I can't play.

Blades: Have you done any of the late night television shows? Johnny: I did the Midnight Spe­ cial. They told us we could play as loud as we wanted, but we decided vo ecstatically-received to turn down anyway. I also thought sets at Keystone Berkeley, and a I'd jump around a whole lot because run-in with club-owner Freddie I figured everybody would dig it. Herrara, Johnny wanted to do an Anyway, the minute we start playing interview to get a few things off his all the camera men and the stage chest. Acting road manager Jerry crew from the network run away Landry hustled us out the back door holding their ears. So they told us into Johnny's huge black motor we'd have to turn down. I told them home. they'd have to get another band, be­ Albino Kangaroo was the name to cause we were playing way softer be used in any advertisements. Be­ than usual to start with. So all the sides Johnny, the band consisted of guys come back, and then they tell drummer Richard Hughes from the me I can only move in a four-foot last J. Winter album, ."Still Alive area so as they can keep the camera and Well" (Coumbia KC 32188), on me. We did the set and the crew and Peter Kaukonen on base. Peter ipertended everything was okay. It is the brother of JEfferson Air­ turned out they couldn't hear any­ plane/Hot Tuna guitarist Jorma thing through their headphones. It Kaukonen. Black Kangaroo was the came out pretty messed up. title Peter used for his last band. When Mama Cass was guest They had one LP on the Airplane hosting for the Johnny Carson show started record label, Grunt. Hence she wanted to put me on, but NEC ... Albino Kangaroo. insisted I use the NEC orchestra. I Sitting down, I noticed how frail couldn't bring my band, so I didn't Johnny was. He needed help getting do it. That was about a year ago. I on and off stage. His eyesight, like think I might do it if I had the most albinos, was notoriously poor, chance again! (laughter) probably suffering from near- BlEdes: I heard you were working sightedness, an exaggerated sensi­ on an album with Greg Allman. tivity to light, and cross-eyedness. Johnny: We got together and cut Johnny's being slightly drunk didn't three songs on a demo in L.A. seem to help his bearing. He sported (laughter) Buddy Miles was going to a short, unkept snow-white beard. be the drummer in the group. They His abnormally thin hair hung down didn't turn out too well. far below his slim shoulders. It also never happened because * * * the record companies were fighting. Johnny: After completing our Columbia, my company, thought I tour in June and living in Man­ was worth more, and his (Greg), hattan awhile, I decided to buy this scene. I wanted people to pay $2.50 Jerry: Freddie was supposed to like to smash my guitar over his Capricron/Warner Bros., thought thing (his mobile home) and drive or $3.00, but $4.00 is just absurd. give us fifty percent of the door, so head. I was really glad he didn't say he was worth more. They should across the country. There aren't any Jerry: Johnny isn't even taking because he charged $4.00 instead of goodbye I don't know what I have split the money evenly. clubs in New York for new bands to any of the money you know the $3.50 like he said he would, I figured would have done. It's a shame you can't play with play, and I just wanted to get a band money doesn't mean anything. he shouldn't profit from it. So, I said Blades: You know while I was who you want to. Actually, CBS has. together, have some fun, and play Johnny: Peter and the equipment to him after we finished the first set, watching you, I was thinking how been fair. After I finished being a around without it having to be "The man need the bread so they can "You've got $2000 in the box office; unfortunate it was there couldn't be junkie for a year, and got ready to Johnny Winter Show," but what keep their house. See, people come we want $1300!" and he got furious any young kids in the audience, be­ record an LP again, CBS wanted it happened here tonight makes it real in and have to pay $4.00 and then and started screaming at me. He cause you were giving off a lot of on their label. hard. they think it's me that's makin' talked to Johnny, who said he would energy and younger crowds really Blades: What did you think of . Jerry Landry: We phoned up them pay it, and I didn't want that. play for $1000, because Johnny soak it up. your performance tonight? Freddie and explained there I came to San Francisco because wants to play for the people and Johnny: Yeh, I'm getting close to Johnny: It wasn't polished or couldn't be any advertisement using there are a lot of small clubs around have a good time, even though he's thirty and I'm beginning to really nothin'. It's just supposed to be a Johnny Winter's name, and that we we could play, but so far people have getting burned himself. feel a generation gap. When I fun band. We got together and wanted the door charge to be about just taken advantage of us. I wanted Robert "Razor" Blades: Just for started playing big concerts, about practiced a few times before we $2.50 or $3.00. Well, he explained to it so the band didnt have to be comparison's sake how much do four years ago, it seemed the crowds started playing anywhere, but you me how he typically charges $3.50, great. Clubs can be a lot of fun be­ you usually make for one perfor­ were about 19 years old. Geez, now can't -expect it to be very tight so we said okay. We just wanted to cause I can get better commu­ mance? it seems like they're 14 (laughter). we've only been playing together for come in and play, take our money nication with the audience and Johnny: Well, on the last tour the You know, I played clubs for a few weeks. Boy, there wasn't one eight years, and the owners are and leave. You know the money isn't people pay less. least we ever made was $15,000 a guy in that band that knew what was the point, but the Orphanage gave Concerts and rock 'n' roll night, and the most was at Madison almost all like Freddie. At this one happening during the last half of the place in Houston the owner told me us a check that bounced, and we shows the people don't come for Square Garden where we made last song. the music. I've tried it both ways $50,000. I had to learn five new songs he'd * * * don't like being ripped off. Anyway, tell me each week. He said, "If you we get here and Freddie is charging playing well, and jumpin' around, Anyway, I said to him (Freddie), After talking with Johnny for over and people always seem to like me "You've ripped us off, and the learn em ya get the job. If ya don't an hour I was convinced he was one $4.00 at the door. I'll find somebody who can." Johnny: Yeh, that's cracy man. best when I jump around. That's people who paid to see us, and I of the most friendly, personable why I wanted to play some clubs, I don't like you, but we'll play any­ Earlier in the year I played at the people I've met superstar or not. That*s a concert price, and I didn't Playboy Club in Chicago. I walked want to get into doing a concert didn't want to have to jump around. way." All the time I was thinking I'd A DANGLING DIARY.. GOD TELLS ALL1 ... a dangling sentence which take nearly one thousand words of "God's Diary" by J. Price. rator is a writer and soon-to-be intellectual discussions for one winding us through classical Columbia University professor. As hundred and forty-two pages. Later supposedly we are to finish. A more Millet Books, $2.00. sophisticated reader-participation is . imagery to eat an eclair, but the last On the absolute last page of we tune in he has been Iving in a our character unassumingly bumps pages give us real drama that moves. tacky New York hotel on a grant into some curious religious events, what gives literature impact, and "God's Diary" we are told not only where "God's Diary" falls short. It The scenes strongly provoke feeling the meaning of the book's title, but from the University, gets himself spins into conflicting notions of love, and thought, and by the book's end good and evil, poor and rich, and does-all the work for us. It lacks helpfully, that we have not really and his thesis kicked out for rent a sensitive awareness of scene design evasion and vounces through New happily shoots himself. control. We should be tantalized, read a much-too-blabby novel, but a guided and shown, not lectured and and pacing is realized. diary. The excuse isn't a strong York madness on a philosophical The reader is not only burdened with the narrator's digestion of every confessed to. The viewpoint char­ enough case for substituting action pogo stick as he awaits his fall "God's Diary" is a workbook, not event and sensory stimulus which acter can show us his thinking, but for indulgent introspection. teaching gig. really for us, but for Mr. Price. It's He winds up living with a guy who confronts him, but durdoned as well listening to it is tiresome. A stock-character narrator leads Mr. Price has a sotyr to tell, and the book every writer whose talents us sighingly through the nineteenth- tried to mug him, and they, and with pointed dialogue and inef­ gallop ahead of his skills must write. shabby wife and two angelic little fectual devices, the worst of which is the writing does show progressive century romantic viewpoint of improvement. The first two pages —DlckNo-ah present day New York City. Nar­ girls, maneuver themselves into a distracting .. .