Infrequently Asked Questions, Answered by Frank Have you ever experienced synesthesia? If so, describe. Nothing beyond the most common kind. When I was living in Philadelphia, I would pass by certain houses and suddenly picture Christmas at my grandfather's at age 9 in exquisite detail. I eventually traced this to some type of boxwood or yew hedge. Since only a few houses had it, the effect never completely went away. I haven't noticed this in the other places I've lived (Pittsburgh, State College, Albany). Where did the name Vehicle Flips come from, and what other names were tossed around? Back in 1993-94, I made a series of compilation tapes to accompany my frequent trips back and forth between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. I gave them random titles based on cutting out fragments of newspaper headlines. The one that got played the most was called "Vehicle Flips". If I knew it was going to last 6 years, I think I would have nominated something else. I can't remember what other names were kicked around at first, but in 1997 we came very close to reorganizing/renaming ourselves The Card Catalogs. There was also a short-lived side project with my brother called The Coffee Spills. Have you ever been caught without pen and paper (or a recorder) when you really needed to write down lyrics or music? This has happened on a number of occasions. For a while I always made sure to have a pen and paper with me at all times, but in recent years I've stopped worrying about it. Given a quiet hour or two, I can always come up with some new lyrics, so if a lyric comes to me on the bus, and I can't remember it later, it's no big deal. What's the most unusual place you had a musical inspiration? While riding a funicular. Describe the worst venue you ever played. Perhaps Vehicle Flips has held to higher standards, because both of the examples that come to mind apply to Wimp Factor 14. Once WF14 played at an indoor swimming pool in Hamburg, Germany where we had to carry our equipment through the shower area. I was very skittish about the possibility of electric shock. To the people swimming in the pool, I think it was a pleasant novelty, but the event organizer (an American) was incensed. We were basically party-crashing, and to her this was a carefully scripted event. Of course, this is an amusing story to tell (and I did write it up for an issue of Speed Kills, actually) so maybe it shouldn't be counted as the worst venue. The worst venue that does not have an amusing story to go with it was some place in Wilmington, NC. The club wasn't expecting us, so they hired a DJ for the evening. They said they did have our name on the marquee until a few days before, but something made them decide we weren't going to show up. We should have just turned around and gone home, but instead we ended up accepting their offer to play in this small upstairs room. We could not overcome the sound of the bass thump from the dance floor below, and the audience consisted of the 3 members of the Karl Hendricks Trio plus 2 other people who randomly stumbled in. The band broke up soon thereafter, and even though this show wasn't the reason, I've always felt guilty about subjecting the other band members to such a useless exercise. If you've ever written a song while drunk, how did it turn out? One time right after Vehicle Flips finished playing, a flask of vodka or something was being passed around. Mick Taylor was the next act, and his textured instrumental guitar drone inspired a flood of lyrics, which I wrote down on some small scrap of paper, which I never saw again. I am convinced this was one of the better songs I ever came up with. I've never played a set drunk, because I've always been worried I wouldn't remember which strings to press. What is your favorite cereal? Sugar Pops, which of course aren't called that anymore. Was there a moment during your childhood when you realized you really wanted to make music? No. The first time I realized this was when I was about 19 and attending lots of shows, practically anything of even remote interest that came to town. I got into the habit of singing my own melodies on the frequent occasions where the volume was high, the mix muddy, and the vocals indecipherable. I thought that it seemed fairly easy. What is your moon sign? Craig Whitman, the drummer on the first album, was a connoisseur of astrology, but I don't know how to answer this. What is your worst habit? Reading at the dinner table. Tongue in cheek question: Is it your dream to hear your music played on mainstream radio, or would that ruin your indie credibility? Not altogether tongue in cheek answer: I would like to be a one-hit wonder. Financially, it would probably be enough to cover future recording projects for both Vehicle Flips and Magic Marker. It would glimpse a taste of renown but be short-lived enough not to become tiresome. Plus, It would put me in the elite company of Shocking Blue, Every Mother's Son, and Wall of Voodoo. What are your thoughts on terraforming? I've wondered if geography will be called geography on other planets. My guess is that it will, even though people will insist that it is incorrect, that it should be called 'ganymedeography' or whatever. These will be many of the same people who lobbied against the celebration of the millenium in 2000. What was the last recording you listened to? Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs, disc 2. Do you have a favorite book (or author)? Poem (or poet)? Visual artist? At the moment, that would be Paul Auster (even though his stories are invariably spooky), Steve Burt and unnamed amateur snapshot photographers from the 1920s-1950s (see the cover of "Ompompanoosuc", or the current show at the MOMA, called "Other Pictures: Vernacular Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection"). These are transient favorites, though; committing to favorites seems to foreclose too many possibilities. For example, when I was much younger, there was an expectation that you had a favorite color. So I would pick one: say, green. But then immediately the question would arise: what about red? I could never stick with a color for long. If you ever lose your childlike sense of wonder, would you consider trepenation? If not, why not? No. There would seem to be far simpler ways to go about this, like accompanying a 5 year old to the Boston Children's Museum, for example. In an interview, what question would you really want to be asked? Answer it. Q: What would you do if you won the lottery? A: I would start a foundation to reward deserving thinkers. Without knowing quite what form it would take, extended dinner conversations with the awardees would be a key element. As far as I know, philanthropy has not been a stated goal of any of the major contest and lottery winners in recent American history. (Announcing that one will buy a new house for one's own parents doesn't count). For this reason alone, I think I deserve to win; of course, I don't play the lottery, being overly conscious of the futility of multimillion to one odds. I do play some of the snack food lotteries, where the odds are even worse, but at least you get something in return for your dollar. back