KING OF ART COUNTRY
MINNEAPOLIS CITY PAGES
4/27/06

CULTURE TO GO

The King of Art Country: a Q&A with Andy Friedman

Andy Friedman is a 30-year-old visual artist whose cartoons and drawings are regularly published in The New Yorker. In 2002 he began performing before live audiences. Initially the shows, as Friedman describes them, were more like dialogues about the intersection of visual arts and music. He picked the brains of such notables as John Cohen, of The New Lost City Ramblers, and multi-instrumentalist David Amram.

Friedman's performances gradually morphed into something more like spoken word, with his drawings being projected as he recited verse. In recent years he's become more of a traditional musical performer. His latest release, "Live From the Bowery Poetry Club," includes a full backing band and mines country-blues influences. The songs bring to mind Greg Brown and Dave Van Ronk. And while those references unfairly flatter Friedman, his lyrics display a beguiling wit and charm.

Andy Friedman and the Other Failures will be performing at Lee's Liquor Lounge on May 6th. I spoke with him earlier this week on the phone from his home in Brooklyn.

City Pages: Your first show was actually in Minneapolis with Koerner, Ray & Glover?

Andy Friedman: That's true. My first time on stage.

CP: How did that come about?

AF: At that time, this was maybe 4 1/2 years ago, I knew that I wanted to bring my paintings on the road, in front of an audience like my musician friends always did. But I wasn't quite sure how to do it. So I thought, well, I'll just have conversations about that idea with people. I was sort of all about the language of the country blues and whether or not you could you find it in paintings and drawings. I always proclaimed to be a country blues artist, but not with a guitar, with pictures.

So I knew that these guys were up in Minneapolis. I've been listening to their records forever. I don't know why I thought they'd be approachable. But I just wrote a letter. ... I got replies. It probably had a lot to do with The New Yorker letterhead. But nonetheless they agreed to do it and I thought, alright, now I've just got to get there. I booked a couple of shows on the way home and I've been on the road ever since.

CP: Where did that show take place? How did it go?

AF: That show took place at Open Book. How did it go? I don't know. There's no record of it. There's no tape of it. There was a pretty nice-sized audience. And like I said, I'd never been on stage before. I'd just left my job at The New Yorker two days prior. Packed my bags, got in the car and drove. For the first Tuesday in four years I wasn't in my office. I was on stage with Koerner, Ray & Glover. I thought, fine with me, even if it was the worst thing ever.

CP: What we can expect to see at Lee's Liquor Lounge?

AF: We're like a full on honky tonk, country-folk roadhouse band. I call it the genre of art country.

CP: What does that mean?

AF: My blend of bringing my art and my country music to the people.

CP: Who will be in the band that you're bringing to Lee's?

AF: It will be my bass player, my drummer, David Gates, myself, and a fiddle player filling in for my pedal steel from Chicago. The bulk of the band will be there.

CP: You mentioned David Gates, the author of Jernigan and Preston Falls. How did you hook up with him?

AF:Back when I was doing the spoken show, we were on the same reading series in New York City. A lot of my lyrics are pulled from really old, obscure country blues and folk songs. ... We each got 10 minutes to do something and I did two quote unquote songs. Each reader's supposed to do something that he never did in public. So [Gates] brought a banjo and he actually sang a really old Dock Boggs song that actually contained the same lyrics that I had pulled from. We both knew right away that we were probably the only two people in the room, or at least in that zip code, who had ever heard those songs before. So we struck up a conversation at the bar after.

Then about a year later I invited him to read in front of one of my shows. This is when I'd started with the band. He said, you got a band right? Can I bring my telecaster and sit in? And he's been in the band ever since.

CP: It's been about a decade since Gates has produced a novel. Can we blame this lack of productivity on this musical side project.

AF: I would be honored if we could. But I really couldn't say. What I 'm hoping for is that he wins the Pulitzer for his work on Live at the Bowery Poetry Club. A Pulitzer for telecaster. I don't know if they give that out.