Podcast Episode 17 – Waiting For You to Fall (Pinkpop 2)

Written By Lance Davis

The Jayhawks at Farm Aid, Ames, Iowa, April 24, 1993. L-R: Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg, Gary Louris, Mark Olson & Ken Callahan.
Photo: Paul Natkin

Welcome to Don't Call It Nothing, the podcast dedicated to the lost history of '90s roots, rap, and rock 'n' roll. I’m your host Lance Davis and today we’re gonna finish our look at Pinkpop ’93.

But first, lemme give a shout out to Mike McAfee for buying me so much coffee I started shaking. That’s how you know it’s working. When you hit that “Buy Me a Coffee” button at the top of the page, you can become a member or you can use it like a tip jar and that’s what Mike did. Honestly, no one had done that before, so cool. Also, much love to Shayne Deal who signed up for an annual membership. Shayne and I go all the way back to Seattle and she spent some time in HB with me and Craig. One of my enduring memories was us watching the insanity pepper episode of The Simpsons over and over because obviously I taped it – I see Anne Warth over there nodding in agreement – and that episode never stopped being hilarious. The brick of weed had nothing to do with it.

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Gary Louris doing Gary Louris things

OK, so let’s return to May 31, 1993, and the Pinkpop Festival in The Netherlands. Last time we went dark with the Red Devils and Thelonious Monster. Blues, drugs, fights, cops, jail, death. Add in my bonus episode about Bob Forrest and I separately growing up in racist-ass Huntington Beach and we’ve been knee deep in the muck like the Toxic Avenger. This time around, not totally light, I’m still gonna discuss sexism in the context of the ‘90s music industry, but I promise there will be no staring into the existential void. Today we’re hanging with The Jayhawks and Bettie Serveert, two of the chillest bands to carve out space in the 1990s and beyond. They’ve had weird parallel careers, too. Check this out.

Both bands also put out fanclubby type albums in this time frame. In 1998, Bettie released an awesome Velvet Underground covers CD — but in Europe only — and that was from a show they played in November ‘97. Similarly, in 2002 The Jayhawks released Live From The Women's Club, an acoustic performance from that April released through the band's online fan page.

Even though they played after Bettie, let’s start with The Jayhawks. They were one of three Def American bands on the Pinkpop bill, The Red Devils and Black Crowes being the others. Looking at those three bands, it’s like Rick Rubin was assembling a Rolling Stones frankenlabel. The Devils represented the R&B roots of the Stones, The Black Crowes were basically a Stones/Faces cover band with a Jackie Jormp-Jomp lead singer, and The Jayhawks were like the Stones when they were palling around with Gram Parsons and writing songs like “Loving Cup” and “Moonlight Mile.” What separated The Jayhawks from those other two acts is they had the two best songwriters (Mark Olson and Gary Louris), arguably the best musician (also Louris), and an exquisite vocal blend that had its roots in the Louvin Brothers.

That’s The Jayhawks from September 27, 1991, at the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis covering “You’re Learning” by the Louvins. Olson is the Charlie down low and Louris the Ira up top as the two Jayhawks extend the close harmony tradition of brother acts like the Louvins and Everlys, but via country rockers like Roger McGuinn, Gram Parsons, and Chris Hillman. For all of the country and folk elements in the band’s arsenal, though, The Jayhawks were at bottom a rock band. You listen to drummer Ken Callahan and bassist Marc Perlman, they’re a rock rhythm section who can play country beats, not the other way around. And we know they’re rock because you have to have rock thickness to support Gary Louris' headcutting Fuzz Face leads and behind the beat, steel-esque guitar bends evocative of the late, great Clarence White. It was a guitar tone completely out of step with the drop-D grunge riffage and metallic funk so popular in the early-to-mid ‘90s.

For example, from that same Uptown show, check out this version of “Wichita,” which appeared on the following year’s Hollywood Town Hall. Perlman and Callahan keep a rock pocket through most of the song, with Perlman going into a countryish backbeat only in the chorus. Their job is to support the vocals and Louris snatching wigs off the dudes who think they’re good guitar players.

Hollywood Town Hall, which came out in September 1992, was way too rock for Nashville, but also couldn't find a spot on commercial rock stations, despite the fact The Jayhawks weren't all that different from Tom Petty and R.E.M. and historically speaking, fit very comfortably in the Byrds/Eagles camp, insert obvious bird joke here. Instead, they found a whole lotta nothing. Gary Louris was interviewed by Rolling Stone in 2016 and he had this to say.

"There was no scene that we felt like we were part of. If anything, there was Uncle Tupelo, but I think we were a little bit ahead of some of the other bands. There weren't a lot of people doing what we were doing at the time and that was part of the thrill of it. It didn't fit in Minnesota and didn't fit anywhere else. There was never any kind of country rock summit meeting. Even to this day, we're still outsiders. We never get acknowledged by any kind of Americana music festival. It's almost like we don't exist in some way, and that's ok. Part of it is probably a result of being isolated up here in Minneapolis."
–Gary Louris to Andrew Leahey, Rolling Stone, April 29, 2016

The worst part of all this is that Hollywood Town Hall, Tomorrow The Green Grass, Sound Of Lies, and Smile is a four-album run on par with any comparable run in the Byrds, Eagles, Petty, or R.E.M. catalogs. If you know me, you know how much I’ve listened to The Byrds [Adios Lounge]. The Jayhawks did everything The Byrds did, but better. Olson sings like GP and writes like Gene Clark. Louris is so good he’s like Clarence White on guitar multiplied by Roger McGuinn the singer AND songwriter — and he’s better than McGuinn at both. Perlman and Hillman are a push on bass and Callahan and Tim O’Reagan may not be as busy as Gene Parsons as drummers, but do plenty fine in holding down a pocket. The Byrds have Dave Crosby. The Jayhawks have Karen Grotberg. Massive advantage Jayhawks.

And yet it’s The Jayhawks who became cult artists instead of a legacy act, which is what they deserved. If you were programming commercial radio between 1992 and 2001 and didn’t put The Jayhawks into medium rotation – I’m not even saying heavy, medium would’ve been fine – consider yourself a failure at your job. Is it any coincidence the music industry was collapsing when Smile came out? Industry apologists will say file sharing killed the golden goose, but if you couldn’t fucking turn The Jayhawks into household names – which should’ve been a layup since they did all the work – you dicks deserved Napsterpocalypse.

That’s The Jayhawks from Pinkpop ’93 with “Waiting For The Sun,” another one of those “impossible to market” songs from Hollywood Town Hall. I mean, how could normies possibly enjoy Olson/Louris harmonies, Karen Grotberg throwing down diamond tiara piano lines, and Louris’ big riff swamp guitar? Pfft. Back in the loincloth, Keidis!

The Jayhawks were in that unenviable position where other bands loved them, their fans knew how good they were, but they couldn’t gain any traction in the marketplace. Which is how they found themselves playing with Joe Henry for a spell. They all lived in Minneapolis, so Henry and The Jayhawks became fast friends. They played, toured, and wrote together. Henry contributed liner notes to Hollywood Town Hall and The Jayhawks supported Joe on a pair of albums, Short Man’s Room, which came out in ’92, and Kindness Of The World, which followed in ’93. Kindness has a few jams, like “Fireman’s Wedding” and “Dead To The World,” but I think Short Man’s is the more cohesive record. For example, here’s “Reckless Child” featuring Razz Russell on violin, Dave Boquist (a few years before he joined Son Volt) on banjo, and The Jayhawks on the beach.

The other thing Olson and Louris did before and after Hollywood Town Hall was record demos. There were two different sessions in 1992, one in February and one in October. In my opinion they did this for three reasons:

a)   The songs were pouring out of Olson and Louris and not documenting them would’ve been stupid,

b)   Some of these demos were gonna end up on Jayhawks albums, and

c)   If the band couldn’t breakthrough on their own, maybe another artist could take an Olson/Louris song to Radio City. Them songwriting checks cash the same as all the others.

They cut dozens of tracks during those two sessions, most of them just Olson and Louris, but the February session also included Razz Russell on mandolin and violin. Naturally, several of the songs ended up on Hollywood and Green Grass. Louris took “Won't Be Coming Home” and “White Shell Road” to Golden Smog and Olson took “She Picks The Violets” to the Creek Dippers. And finally, some tracks were farmed out to other singers.

As it happens, George Drakoulias, who produced Hollywood Town Hall, was working on his next project and he needed Olson and Louris to play back up on one of the songs from those demos.

That’s Maria McKee, Mark Olson, and Gary Louris taking Jools Holland to the backporch. “Precious Time” was broadcast on the Beeb on June 11, 1993, only a couple weeks after Pinkpop and a couple weeks before the song was officially released on Maria’s fabulous You Gotta Sin To Get Saved album [Adios Lounge] – another record that inexplicably sold nada because this country hates nice things.

Maria actually allows me to segue to this episode’s political content. Amidst the hours of video coverage of Pinkpop 1993 is a very brief exchange between an interviewer and Karen Grotberg, The Jayhawks’ keyboard player. She joined the band in ‘92 to build on the Ben Tench/Nicky Hopkins piano and organ parts on Hollywood. As much as I enjoy the band before her arrival, Grotberg added depth to the arrangements and was another beautiful voice in the harmony. Anyway, listen to this.

Karen Grotberg interview about women in rock

OK, two things. First, if you didn’t catch that, Pinkpop ’93 featured THREE female musicians on stage. NOT three bands fronted by women or three different female singers on the bill. Three female musicians total. There was Lenny Kravitz’s drummer, Cindy Blackman Santana, there was Carol Van Dijk, who we’ll get to shortly from Bettie Serveert, and Karen Grotberg. That’s it.

Which brings me to the second thing. Having just pointed out this unfortunate fact to Grotberg – which clearly caught her off-guard – why does the host ask her why there are so few women musicians? That’s a rhetorical question. It’s because he’s a clueless fucking idiot male. Here’s the thing, dude. If you have a massive music festival and only three female musicians were invited, you’re basically telling women and girls that being a rocker is a man’s job, which is categorical bullshit. Be happy I didn’t continue with the audio clip because the guy suggests women don’t wanna rock because of babies.

One of my pet peeves about the constant glorification of late ‘60s/early ‘70s rock – and God knows, I’ve been part of the problem – is there’s virtually no female representation outside of a handful of singers. And everyone seems to be ok with this. What I love about the ‘90s is that women were rockin right with the men, you just had to be self-aware enough to notice. Hell, in 1993 alone you had excellent releases by Maria McKee, PJ Harvey, The Muffs, Liz Phair, The Breeders, and Bikini Kill, any of whom would’ve been a welcome addition to Pinkpop. Name me ANY year in the ‘60s or ‘70s with comparable female rock ‘n’ roll excellence and of course I’m kidding there isn’t one.

From Pinkpop 1993, that’s Bettie Serveert with “Tom Boy.”

"Call me a tom boy and I love it
'Cause only a tom boy could stand above it
And simply change it"

That’s what I’m talkin about. First things first, Bettie Serveert is not a person, it’s a band, and the oddness of the name — to an American anyway — is because they’re Dutch. Well, guitarist Peter Visser, bassist Herman Bunskoeke, and drummer Berend Dubbe are Dutch. Lead singer and songwriter, Carol Van Dijk, was born and raised in Vancouver, BC, but moved to the Netherlands when she was seven. Bettie was one of two Dutch bands on the Pinkpop bill, but where Claw Boys Claw was a Dutch band FOR the Dutch, Bettie was a Dutch band trying to break into America. And though Palomine wasn’t released in America until the spring of ’93, Bettie had been touring Europe since the previous fall, so the band was firing on all cylinders by the time they got to Pinkpop.

Like The Jayhawks, Bettie Serveert gave their label a near-perfect album and were rewarded with polite indifference. It makes no sense. Palomine is like if Dinosaur Jr had Debbie Harry singing and writing. I mentioned how the band released a Velvet Underground covers album. That influence was there from the beginning. The band’s use of wide open space, fluctuating dynamics, and pile driving Neil Young guitar reminds me a lot of Silkworm, who I’ll pod about in the future. And I also hear a lot of Robert Smith in Van Dijk’s ability to give the listener a melancholy pop life raft amidst swells of dissonance.

“Tom Boy,” for instance, has an insanely catchy melody with that sweet descending chord progression doubled by Bunskoeke’s bass, who then wanders around a little bit. As much as I love Visser’s ferocious guitar sound, Bunskoeke is the band’s secret weapon. He can carry the low end with drummer Berend Dubbe, but also act as a melodic counterweight to Carol’s voice. Check this out. I’m gonna play “Under The Surface” and listen to the bass underneath Van Dijk’s voice in the first part of the song. Then, play the song again and listen to it just for the poetry of the lyrics.

That’s Bettie Serveert a few months before Pinkpop on a Dutch TV show called Tom & Herrie with the track “Under The Surface.” I mentioned the Velvets earlier. This song’s bridge, where Carol sings, “Now I got this notion and it's bottled up inside,” is very late period Velvets a la “Foggy Notion,” which is why I don’t that lyric is accidental. Which is why I wanna show some respect to Van Dijk the songwriter.

"You better watch out what you're saying
These words could cut like swords
You better watch out while you're praying
Find out what you're praying for
People tell you what they know
They're mostly wrong from the word go
Cause it's under the surface and it's up in the sky
That's why you won't reach it, so don't even try"

That’s next level stuff. She’s beautiful, has a great voice, is obviously a talented songwriter, so when we go back to that stupid interviewer asking why there are so few women musicians, maybe it’s because when lottery pick talents like Carol Van Dijk and Maria McKee and Kim Shattuck and Kathleen Hanna were ready to get their piece of the pie, men in the music industry had no idea what to do with them. Or ignored them. Or vilified them.

Bettie Serveert L-R: Peter Visser, Carol Van Dijk, Herman Bunskoeke & Berend Dubbe

Consider this. KROQ in LA has been one of the biggest commercial alternative radio stations since the late ‘70s. And I know it wasn’t alternative until the mid-‘90s. Before then it was new wave. Whatever was considered alternative or punk or post-punk, they’ve been there since the late ‘70s and in the mid-’90s they were at a peak. What they played influenced many, many other smaller stations and even what MTV played on 120 Minutes. I think I talked about this on a previous podcast, but every December they publish their top 106 songs for the year because they’re 106.7 on the FM dial. They’ve been doing this for years. And while it’s alternative rock for the basics and normies, it’s valuable in telling us where female alternative rockers fit into the equation. There are 106 potential landing spots, so if we can see how KROQ playlisted women in 1993, we can probably get a good idea how that translated nationally. So, here’s every rock song featuring a female singer and I believe in every one of these cases the singer is also the songwriter. Here we go:

KROQ’s Top 106.7 Songs of 1993

11. Breeders – Cannonball
24. 4 Non Blondes - What's Up?
30. Belly - Feed the Tree
40. Juliana Hatfield 3 - My Sister
42. Bjork - Human Behavior
66. Cranberries – Dreams
98. Belly - Slow Dog

That’s it, and again, I restricted the list to rock songs. The Cranberries’ “Linger” was at #7, but that’s chamber pop, not rock. And Bjork might not be rock, but “Human Behavior” has a heavy beat, so I included it. The final count is seven rock songs featuring a female singer by six total bands out of 106. Roughly 5%. No Muffs, no Maria McKee, no Bikini Kill, no PJ Harvey, no Liz Phair, no Fastbacks, no Bettie Serveert.

Bettie Serveert from that same Tom & Herrie show in February 1993 doing “Get The Bird,” a Palomine outtake eventually released on the “Kid's Allright” CD single. Where some songs lean into melody and others focus on space and dynamics, this has that early Dino Jr post-punk hailstorm feel. Drummer Dubbe keeps the pocket loose as bassist Bunskoeke circles around the main riff keeping time. Visser’s wah wah divebomb guitar is predictably spectacular. And Carol brings a hard edge to her singing, not quite into growly bear territory, but holding her own amidst the chaos around her.

Lack of female representation – let alone Bettie Serveert representation – was a subset of a less obvious, much bigger problem. And by less obvious I mean less likely to be fixed. That larger problem was this: Industry gatekeepers were paid handsomely to be terrible at their jobs. It’s easy to villainize record labels because they’re villains [laughs]. But, up and down the music industry supply chain – program directors, music directors, booking agents, promoters, magazine editors, newspaper editors, even us lowly writers – you were constantly rewarded for promoting the thing that was already popular. Conversely, there was little incentive for taking a chance on The Jayhawks or taking a chance on Bettie Serveert. If the numbers came back and said, “Cut bait,” you cut bait. I once made a reference to shareholder rock and this is where that process lives. It’s not a genre. It’s not even about music. It’s fast food. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, the problem wasn’t just that KROQ wasn’t playing women rockers. It’s that even when they played women rockers, they were playing the same handful of women. And we know they were doing this because KROQ was only playing the same handful of men. 1993 was one of the strongest years in rock ‘n’ roll history and you wouldn’t have a clue looking at the playlist of one of the most powerful commercial radio stations in the country. Instead of allowing more have nots to the party, KROQ tripled down on the haves: Stone Temple Pilots, Blind Melon, Pearl Jam, Nirvana – oh hey, there’s “Cannonball” – Radiohead, Rage, the Pumpkins. Oh, and I specified women rockers. I didn’t say anything about lackluster folk/pop because while KROQ had no Muffs, Maria McKee, Bikini Kill, PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Fastbacks, or Bettie Serveert in their top 106, they had four tracks by 10,000 Maniacs!!! FOUR!!! Uggggh. No Natalie, not everybody wants that candy.

That’s Bettie Serveert doing “Crutches” at Pinkpop ’93. It showcases their Silkworm-esque ability to create ocean-sized arrangements using space, depth, and dynamics. I love how the song kicks into high gear at 2:00, eases back into the verse about a minute later, and the Pinkpop crowd starts clapping in time to Carol’s vocal, only to head back into the firestorm led by Peter Visser’s massive guitar. Van Dijk singing, “Let the shallowness surround me, let me drown in it” feels like an apt commentary on commercial alternative radio in the ‘90s.

Bettie should be swimming like Scrooge McDuck in piles of gold coins, but we all know that’s not how the music business works. Some make it, some don’t, but luck has way more to do with it than talent. In fact, talent might get in the way. So fuck it. All a band can do is write and record the best songs possible so that years in the future when they listen back they can be proud. Jayhawks, Bettie Serveert … you both did that.

That’s gonna do it for this week, y’all. As I said at the top of the show. you can become a member at the $5 or $20/month level. Just hit that Buy Me a Coffee button at the top of the page or Support at the bottom. Please visit the Don’t Call It Nothing Facebook page and website, dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com. Like, comment, tell yo mama, and tell a friend.

Talk to ya next time!

Lance Davis

Proud hapa dad. Grateful husband. Author. Californian. Hawaiian. Okinawan. Mental health advocate. Resistance.

https://dontcallitnothing.squarespace.com/
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