13 Songs: Tom Johnson

By Bryce Richardson
Contributing Writer

I ask local artists to put their iPods on shuffle and talk about what comes up. This week I talked to epic beard sporter Tom Johnson, of the Johnson Family Band, Werewolf Bar Mitzvah and Tom & Diane, about comedy on the road, the musical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and one hell of a party.

1) Bill Frisell is without a doubt my favorite musician period. The range of music that he plays is just huge.You find his CDs in the jazz section but he’s very involved with the Americana and folk movements, as well as being at the forefront of modern guitar techniques and innovations with pedals. For me, listening to Bill Frisell, I can hear traces of everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Wes Montgomery to Hank Williams, and yet the second he plays one note, you can tell who he is.

2) Tom Waits, “On the Nickel” Oh man, this song is as beautiful as it gets. Especially in the winter, I think there are just some sad bastard Tom Waits songs that I listen to over and over again. Tom is also up there at the top of my list of favorite artists. His voice sounds like a muted trumpet—it reminds me almost of Miles Davis’s playing. Lyrically, other than Dylan or maybe Leonard Cohen, I don’t think there’s anyone I’d rather listen to.

3) Patton Oswalt, “Bubble of Sanity” As far as things to listen to on the road, comedy albums are great. You can only talk to the same five people for so long when you’re sitting in a van with them. This bit in particular really cracks me up. He’s talking about how communities of weirdos crop up in the strangest places, like Austin, Texas, or Portland, Oregon. I think Duluth, Minnesota is kind of like that, you know, “Well I don’t have money for this sandwich.” “Well sing me a song and you can have one!” that kind of thing.

4) Tim Sparks, “Kanah” This is an album called Masada Guitars, which is Tim, Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot, who plays guitar for Tom Waits doing guitar versions of songs by the band Masada, which is a John Zorn band where Zorn is exploring the Jewish roots of music. I’m in a new band called Werewolf Bar Mitzvah, we’re radical Jewish music and Tim Sparks is the guy who got me into that kind of music. He came and did a clinic at MSUM and so I got to know him through that, and a few months later the HPR was doing a cover story on him and asked me to write it. I got to go out to his house and interview him, and then we started getting the guitars out, and since then whenever he is in town he brings me CDs of radical Jewish music.

5) Charlie Parr, “1928” This song is about his mom, I think, which is off “Rooster,” his second album. Charlie Parr, I’ve always said, is the Splinter to the Johnson Family Band’s Ninja Turtles. He’s our sensei. If my dobro breaks down, it doesn’t matter if Charlie’s in Austin or Duluth or LA, he will sit and talk me through taking it apart and putting it back together over the phone. He’s just one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met, as well as being a fantastically talented musician.

6) John Scofield, “Hammock Soliloquy” For many years John Scofield was my favorite guitar player, until I really started getting into Bill Frisell, and this album in particular is so great, it’s a live album that came out around the same time that I saw him live at the Dakota in Minneapolis. I don’t think I’ve ever been more blown away by a live performance. The guy can play hard bop but he has also put out two albums with Medeski, Martin and Wood so he can do the jazz funk thing too. He’s probably best known as a jazz guitar player but through MMW and touring with Phil Lesh of the Greatful Dead has gotten pretty well known in the hippie crowd. He’s just a real heavy player, super fun.

7) Bob Dylan, “My Back Pages” For the longest time I thought this song was called “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” I guess I don’t concern myself with song titles too much. I don’t necessarily even need to understand what he’s saying, I mean, you can interpret Dylan in so many ways. I don’t even really care what Dylan meant when he said, “Fearing not that I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preach.” I just really enjoy that imagery for myself, which is one of the most amazing things about music, I think.

8) The Beatles, “Carry That Weight” I know it’s kind of cliché to have the Beatles on here, but for me, the whole B-side of “Abbey Road” is basically just one song to me. I just want to hear “Golden Slumbers” before this. When I first moved into this house, all of the roommates, after a long night of drinking, we’d come home and just listen to the B-side of Abbey Road. I have such fond memories of this album and of coming home, as roommates, as a family, and listening to this record and in particular the B-side, not that the A-side is bad, but the B-side is so amazing. This song in particular is so much fun to sing along to when you’re drunk, especially after “Golden Slumbers” which is such a beautiful lullabye and then you come into “Carry That Weight,” which is such a singalong.

9) Sigur Ros, “Staralflur” If you’ve seen “Life Aquatic” you can’t not love this song, it’s such a beautiful scene and a beautiful song. When I used to burn compilation CDs for people, which I don’t particularly do anymore, I would always include this song. Every time I hear it I just think about the scene in “Life Aquatic” where they find the Jaguar Shark and Bill Murray’s character goes through that whole soliloquy about his son dying and everything, and everyone basically accepts him for who he is, even though he’s been a terrible person to most of them throughout the film. And the beautiful climax with the shark going overhead. Great song, great film.

10) Jenny Schienman, “Rebecca’s Song” Oh man, I am in love with Jenny Schienman. She has this kind of Americana thing, similar to Norah Jones, and on this record she does a few classic folk tunes, some Mississippi John Hurt songs and a version of Tom Waits’s “Johnsburg, Illinois.” The cool thing about this chick is, when she first came out with this album, this folky type album, she also came out with an instrumental, experimental jazz album which is totally awesome. She has a great balance between doing real great Americana, folk albums as well as experimental jazz, and then she’s also extremely attractive, which just adds to the whole thing.

11) Igor Stravinsky, “Devil’s Dance” One of my favorite quotes about Stravinsky is, he lived to be a very old man, and someone once asked him, later on in life someone asked him, “How did you manage to live so long?” and Stravinsky said, “I don’t drink any water, and I have a lot of sex,” which I like a lot. Stravinsky was an interesting character, and a controversial musician. I mean, when “Rites of Spring” debuted in Paris, people were rioting because it was so dissonant, I like anyone who can get people to riot with classical music.

12) Louis Armstrong, “What a Wonderful World” This song is completely overdone, but I always have to listen to it when it comes on. I have really been getting into Louis Armstrong lately. I don’t think there’s ever been a musician who has been as influential as a vocalist and an instrumentalist as Louis Armstrong. I think there were very few musicians in his time that were as cutting-edge, as influential and as entertaining and as popular. Not to mention he was one of the first real popular black entertainers. This may not be the best example of the kind of Louis Armstrong music I’ve been getting into lately, but it’s such a beautiful song, you can’t not listen to it.

13) The Hackensaw Boys, “Stealin’” We played with these guys at the Aquarium like three years ago. I don’t even remember what we played or how we played, it probably wasn’t good, it was pretty early in our career. After the show we invited them over to the house to have this huge party. All they wanted to do was jam so we went outside, around the bonfire even though it was about three, four a.m. Their fiddle player’s name was Ferd, just a southern boy, and when he sings he screams at the top of his lungs. The entire time I’m thinking, “Oh man, we’re going to get arrested.” There were so many people there and it was so loud and we played until sunup, but it was one of the only times where I just didn’t care. I was imagining the headlines the next day, “Local bluegrass band, Johnson Family Band, gets arrested with the Hackensaw Boys,” that would have really brought up our street cred, you know? After we played with them all night, that was the moment that we all looked at each other and said, “Oh man, we’ve got to get it together, let’s try to be as cool as these guys.”

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If You Go

What: Johnson Family Band
Where: Fargo VFW
When: Sat, May 15, 9pm
Info: 701.235.8243