Caught in the Carousel

Letter from the Editor - July 2008

By Alex Green

My favorite moment this month was when our Editor-at-Large David Porter called me early one morning to tell me how great his phone interview with the legendary Solomon Burke went.

Interviewing anybody can be a risk, but interviewing someone you admire is riskier because you've got way more at stake—their back catalogue, the ripped t-shirt from the '87 tour you still wear to the gym, bumper stickers on your car, and a string of memories that all happened while their songs were playing. Okay, maybe it's our fault for getting too emotionally involved, but we have no control over that and that's just the way it goes.

"You should never meet your heroes," The Jazz Butcher told me when I was eighteen. When I asked him why, he said, "Because they'll always have it in for you." At the time, I didn't understand that because The Jazz Butcher was my hero and he didn't seem to have it in for me—he was actually quite pleasant—but now I get what he meant. I've had interviews go horribly wrong (names are not important, but they were heartbreaking) and I've had interviews go incredibly well (Tom DiCillo, David Bowie, Michael Hutchence) and each time I pick up the phone to have a chat with an artist, I know that it could really go either way. When you interview someone you admire on any level, all that architecture you've built, all those cities you've constructed in their honor, could be crushed in an instant.

It happens.

And it doesn't.

So David Porter had a great interview with Solomon Burke and you're going to read it here this month. It's a lovely piece and one that I think you'll find as enjoyable to read as it was for our dear Mr. Porter to conduct. So dig in.

And there's more where that came from.
This month we've also got:

**A Consummate Top Ten (two, in fact!) from Glen Phillips. The former Toad The Wet Sprocket frontman not only gave us his Consummate Top Ten(s), he was kind enough to speak to us about his new E.P. Secrets Of The New Explorers.

**New Zealand's Brooke Fraser is the subject of our Scouting Report this month. The lovely singer/songwriter willingly filled out our questionnaire and I think you'll find her answers to be very amusing. I also think you'll find her new album Albertine, rather gorgeous.

**We've got reviews! Among others, we've got:
**Designer/Staff Writer Lyn Dunagan on Rats With Wings and The Silver State.
**Thomas Cooney on Melody Gardot.
**Dr. Slurpee, Podiatrist To The Stars on the Midnight Juggernauts.
**Jessica Simons on Redcast.

**MP3 Downloads: New ones this month by Tokyo Police Club, The Dodos, Everest,
Morning State, Pomegranates and more!

Also, many congratulations are in order for our staff:

**The aforementioned Lyn Dunagan knocked out yet another triathlon, this time blazing through it in a personal best of 2:44:45. Well done, Lyn!

**Yvonne Prinz (www.stillthereclare.com), straight after signing a multi-book deal with Harper Collins, is now hard at work on her new screenplay. I've seen the first few pages and all I can say is: Hi-lar-ious. Trust me, this is going to be brilliant.

**David Porter and his lovely wife Antigone are relocating to Cyprus. We're told Mr. Porter will be setting up his Editor-at-Large desk in a window overlooking the ocean. We are jealous, but we have reliable information that tells us there's a plush guest bedroom for vacationing Editors….

We are pleased.

Enjoy this issue, dear readers. We're very proud. Write, call, email, text, deliver cookies in baskets on our front step.

We'll give them a good home…

Love and Rockets,
Alex Green
Editor, Caught In The Carousel
Alex670@earthlink.net