Interview 2

1. please introduce yourself.

ah, bart from the cat's miaow

2. tell us about the new bart & friends cd.

its a cd of callaborations with friends of mine. each song sounds like a different band, there's about 5 other people singing. its taken me about 2 years to finish, so i cant really get perspective on whether its any good or not, tho i am happy with the way it turned out. steve's sleeve looks great.

3. what's your favorite sugarglider's song?

to be honest i cant really pick one above the other. but thanks for asking as its motivated me to go and listen to all my old sugarglider's records. lets just say it was a particular pleasure to hear yr jacket & dolly again.

4. what band will change rock and roll in 1998?

i cant think of a single band that's doing anything new, myself included. i feel an incredibly long rant coming on that i'll nip in the bud.

5. what is the first record you ever bought?

"counting the beat" by the swingers in 1980. its now being used ad nauseum in an add on tv.

6. if you could make over one celebrity who would it be and what would you do?

lets just say im an avid reader of trashy, gossipy mags like who weekly, and without wanting to sound too catty, i would buy natalie imbruglia a comb.

7. what's happening with library records?

today, im organising steve crushworthy to do the sleeve on robert coopers single. 

as everyone knows, the first 3 singles where the casio pop of stinky fire engine, the split single with the shapiros & and pencil tin and most recently the delightfully understated single by sweet william (is this sounding like a press release or what?)

coming out in the next few weeks is a single by robert cooper ex pencil tin & in november a single by huon, which contains members of sleepy township, cannanes and cat's miaow.

next year im hoping to release singles by upstairs and hopefully a cd of roberts. 


8. what's your favorite book?

my favorite book of the last few years has been high fidelity by nick hornby, no real surprise there. of all time it might be catcher in the rye by jd salinger, again quite possibly one of the most commonly selected all time favorite books. but i also had a quick glance at the book shelf and was quite tempted to pick something by raymond chandler, maybe the big sleep, or the lady in the lake or even farewell, my lovely. i cant decide.

9. what is the best song ever written?

again with the big decisions. um...
pink frost - the chills
100,000 fireflys - the magnetic fields
bizarre love triangle - new order
dalliance - wedding present

but to be honest i'd say wichita lineman by jim webb, for the line
"i need you more than want you, and i want you for all time", one of the most romantic lines ive heard.

ask me again next week and it would be a totally different list

10. which do you prefer: toasted cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

toasted cheese, no contest. tho i did develop a taste for pb & j when i was in the states

11. if you were to cover a heavenly song, which would it be?

i like heavenly a lot, but i'd never cover one of their songs. i don't think i have anything to add to the originals. peter is an excellent guitarist.

12. what were you like at age thirteen?

the words morose, sullen & withdrawn spring to mind. i think i spent most of my teenage years in my bedroom listening to joy division 

13. how many musical instruments can you play and what are they?

hmmm, a handful, but none particularly well.
i started playing bass when i was about 16, but i havent played much in the last 2 years so im a bit rusty.
i started to play the guitar when the cats miaow began.
ive played keyboards on our records sometimes and ive played the drums on a hanshalf trio single but i cant really play either of those instruments. i cant read music, i just pick things up by ear.

14. do you have a pet? what's its name?

no. tho as a child i had a dog called muffin & a deaf cat called mao

15. what do you collect?

marbles, jim thompson novels & soda syphons

16. where's the most exotic place you've ever been? 

new york & paris. but put this in context of growing up in a country town with a population of 4,000. i loved paris, it was so.... french?

17. is the cat's miaow as big a hit in austrailia as it is in the u.s.?

are we a big hit in the us? 

the cat's miaow are pretty much unkown in australia. to put that in some sort of numerical terms, if we sell about 1,000 records in the us, we'd sell about 3 in australia, and that includes the 2 my mum & dad buy.

18. would you consider coming to louisville kentucky to play a show for paddington station (our record label)?

yes i would consider it but the reality is that it's hard enough for us to get together to record let alone tour the world. sometimes we talk about it but i don't hold out much hope. tho come to think of it we get requests from tokyo, paris and new york semi regularly, we could slip louisville in there if we ever get round to it.

19. in one word what is the best thing about the cat's miaow?

nothing