Love So True

John Lindaman of True Love Always

SPEAKS!

The voice on the other end was

Paul "Grip correspondent" Wilkinson. "Can I Borrow the tape recorder," his exasperated voice pleaded. "I need it, in my mailbox, in an hour." Being intrepid editors, we knew something was up... something big. He had found Lindaman. . . Charlottesville’s John Lindaman of Teenbeat Recording Artists True Love Always, and ex- of Operation: Love...

the elusive Lindaman-- the songster behind TLA’s recent sophomore release, Hopefully.

We delivered the recorder immediately. . .

Grip Monthly: I'm here with John Lindaman, Wednesday night, Guadalajara.

John Lindaman: The downtown Guadalajara.

Grip: Natch. We're here celebrating Hopefully, which came out when?

Lindaman: Well, the street date was September 21st. Some retailers sold it starting at midnight the day before. We decided not to press any charges.

Grip: Any studio chatter on the internet you'd care to comment on?

Lindaman: I'd like to take this opportunity to put some of the rumors to rest. It's not actually true that I hired the guitar player from REO Speedwagon to recut Tobin (Rodriquez)'s bass parts on (Hopefully)...the bass parts were achieved through hours of digital editing.

Grip: Cut and paste?

Lindaman: They call it something different now.

Grip: What bass did you sample?

Lindaman: it's not really a bass, but the keyboard from "Push it," by Salt-n-Pepa. (laughter)

Grip: From the maxi-single, for those heavy days. (laughter)

Lindaman: from when you're not feeling too fresh. (laughter)

Grip: And you've been getting good press, and playing alot? Did Grip like the record?

Lindaman: I think they said it sounded like Air Miami again.

(EDITOR’S TANTRUM: Grip hasn’t reviewed the new TLA record as of this posting. TeenBeat has sent us exactly one promo to us in our near-decade of regional music magazining so we consistently fall behind on their stuff. Wish it weren’t so... -- Weenie Ed. Jr.)

Grip: Oh well, moving on.

Lindaman: We took hiatus because Tobin had to honeymoon after his Wedding.

Grip: He didn't have to, he chose to!

Lindaman: That's true, but with a band named True Love Always, you can't dock him for that. But now we're getting into fighting shape.

Grip: Talk about TeenBeat.

Lindaman: Lo these fifteen, thirteen something years ago, in Wakefield High School, Teenbeat Records was born. I was there, it made a big impact on me. I actually helped sell the first TeenBeat 7 inch, which was Unrest doing "So You Want to Be a Rock-n-Roll Star?'

Grip: By the Moody Blues?

Lindaman: It was the Byrds.

Grip: I'll edit it so it looks like I got that one right.

Lindaman: In fact I think I still owe Mark Robinson money from that.

Grip: Mark Robinson co-produced the first True Love Always record?

Lindaman: We call him "the producer." He's in charge. I take orders from him. It's kind of like that No Limit Posse movie, with Robinson as the Godfather.

Grip: I meant the big man upstairs was the producer.

Lindaman: God is my co-producer.

Grip: But there were some legal problems putting God on the record?

Lindaman: Yeah, Prince had already \ taken that.

Grip: And Matt's been playing with Mark Robinson. That's some tasty rocking.

Lindaman: Yes, the Flin-Flon combo. It's nice to see a band that finally features Matt Datesman to the fullest of his abilities, instead of just the simpy love songs we give him to play.

Grip: Oh come on. (laughter)

Lindaman: No, I'm serious!!! (laughter)

Grip: He really chafed at having to play with brushes, didn't he? You had to cram that one down his throat.

Lindaman: I mean he's the nicest guy on earth so he's not going to say anything about it, but I think deep insiode he really began to hate me for it.

Grip: And how did he deal with that hatred?

Lindaman: I think he turned it inside, didn't let it out, and it's eating at him to this day.

Grip: So what's on the horizon?

Lindaman: Well there's some people in Japan who want to book us for shows there. We have to see if we can afford it.

Grip: Maybe you could wear some Bodo's silk jackets? Then when the Japanese tourists come to town...

Lindaman: We're also thinking we could open a Bodo's in Japan, sooner than the one on the Corner.

Grip: Kyoto Bodo?

Lindaman: Live at Bodo-Khan. (laughter)

Grip: So who would do this tour?

Lindaman: Well, me, Matt and Tobin. (laughter) No, this guy Ken from Rover Records came to the TeenBeat weekend at Galaxy Hut, videotaped that, made a short documentary for Tokyo TV.

Grip: Wow. Have you seen it?

Lindaman: Hell no, it's on in Tokyo. Perhaps Grip’s legal department can wrangle through some of those issues.

Grip: We'll put our intern on it. She's a feisty gal. . . tell people about your Charlottesville musical history.

Lindaman: (Heavy, heavy sigh) Well, I was in a band called The Fledglings which gave me a chance to smoke and play the guitar, but I was no good at it, so I had to put down the cigarette. And I was in a band before that, and another band before that. (more sighing)

Grip: Weren't you in an art metal band with Jim from Baaba Seth?

Lindaman: Yeah, Grave Raper.

Grip: But you got sued when it was Three Fingered Grave Raper, didn't you? (laughter)

Lindaman: Yeah, we had to back off a little on the album cover art. And then we were in a band called Monkey Business for a while. (laughter) And then's there this one Fledglings gig, like a 5:00 am Sigma Nu Coffe House where I had put a bunch of blotter in my headband, and it was really kicking in by the end of the set. I looked down, and in the woodgrain I saw this enormous Dragon that was the Serpent coiled in the center of the earth, and I was convinced that it was going to come out of the floor and swallow me. But I managed to keep playing and finish the song.

** Author's Note: Any drug talk here is just a bunch of crap, because both dudes in the interview are hopelessly square when it comes to partying. Thanks **

Grip: You're like the guy in the Marines ad.

Lindaman: Right.

Grip: Does it piss you off that we have to pay for those ads? I don't think we should have to pay for ads for the U.S. military. I don't mind them getting PSA's after 11:00 when WVIR can't sell time.

Lindaman: I'd rather us pay for them than have them take them. Just march in and point some guns at some TV producers, force them to make the ads, shoot the place up.

Grip: Manifest destiny.

Lindaman: Exactly. Go into the fridge, drink the Coke. The thing I really like about those ads is that it's impossible to tell them from a Gillette ad.

Grip: (Back to music) And then there's the Maynard Sipe years.

Lindaman: That's right, enter the Sipe.

Grip: And you worked with Tobin at the Corner Parking Lot.

Lindaman: Right. And he was also my TA in Art History class. In fact I knew about him from the Parking Lot before I met him. Then I went to this class and saw this guy running the projector, and I think he was falling asleep. I knew it had to be the Tobin I had heard about, and in fact it was.

Grip: Did he grade your paper?

Lindaman: He graded generously.

Grip: That's subjective, right? You can't write a wrong art paper.

Lindaman: I did.

Grip: Now you were a Rhetoric major, were you not?

Lindaman: It's true, I'm not ashamed of my Rhetoric major, in fact I'm proud of it. Those were heady days.It enables me to be part of the highest paid graduates, since Herman Moore was also a Rhetoric major. We never worked closely together.

Grip: No booty calls with Herman?

Lindaman: I think he preferred to work alone. I also planned to use a strict Aristoteleon rhetorical system for the interview, with carefully constructed sylogisms. Instead I'm afraid we've fallen into the truncated sylogism which is more common and informal.

Grip: And you feel...shame at this?

Lindaman: I feel pretty good.

Grip: Any road stories?

Lindaman: The tour with Versus from Austin, Texas, back through the Gulf Coast up to D.C., during the record heatwave, with my station wagon. It's a 1986 Ford Country Squire, blue with brown wood paneling, and V8 authority.

Grip: And a bumpin' system.

Lindaman: Ah, no. It has an AM radio. The FM is theoretically there, but doesn't work. Upon arrival in Austin, the windows stop working. There's no Air Conditioning, so we're driving through the 110 degree killer Texas weather, and only the driver's window opens. That was the first day of the tour.

Grip: Does Matt drive?

Lindaman: I do all the driving. I finally relented from my control freak status and let Matt drive six hours on the last day. I'm not proud that I held off so long before letting him drive. I drove from Charlottesville to Hope, Arkansas the first day. And then from Hope to Austin the second day.

Grip: Any car games? I Spy?

Lindaman: On the way down there, banter and amusement. And after the heatwave, sullen sweating and scratching.

Grip: Road Food?

Lindaman: Usually breakfast is of the Waffle House variety, and then usually no lunch, we drive straight through. So we usually have pretzels and water. The rule of the road, pretzels and water. And then we seek out the local Veggie Heaven in town. The greatest of which is The Grid, in Athens, where Pat, the bass player for Kincaid works. My windows now work when it's cold, and stop when it gets hot. Kind of ironic.

Grip: A black fly in your Chardonnay. What else is up?

Lindaman: Every February 19th, the TeenBeat Anniverary show is held, which falls on February 19th this year, and then the next night the awards banquet at Oriental restaurant in Arlington. Flaming volcanoes are consumed, lots of singing, festiveness in the air. We received a gold record for our first single, "Mediterranean," for dozens of sales. And mysteriously didn't receive an award for our first CD. I'm still a little sore about that. I don't think he had time to spray paint a CD gold.

Grip: Does gold spray paint hold on a CD?

Lindaman: Apparently so. I mean, I've seen others.

Grip: Those sour grapes make the wine bitter, John.

Lindaman: I can't give up my dreams. . . So we played the Tallahassee Pop Festival, and after driving all night, we walked in to four guys in their boxer shorts watching the Pamela Anderson Tommy Lee video. This was at noon.

Grip: Decrepit.

Lindaman: One of them was John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats. We hope to hook up with him for a tour. Part of his methodology is that he finds a band to tour with because he doesn't drive. But we had a blast hanging out with him. He was obsessed with doing this impression of Bill Cosby, in the style of the "Bill Cosby Himself" special that was on HBO in the early 80's, talking about his son Ennis being killed. It's very macabre at first, but then it just loses all meaning. he's not afraid to go all the way to the mat.

Grip: Lord no! Grip readers, you have it here first! And then you had a massive "Meet and Greet?"

Lindaman: No, then we watched Baxter, about a dog who can think.

Grip: My dog Flyboy can think, hH just has some spatial problems.

Lindaman: But he doesn't speak in subtitles, That's what I'm getting at.

Grip: Have you ever heard someone speak to your dog in a foreign language and you assume they don't understand it? Yo u're so xenophobic that you assume they only understand English.

Lindaman: (John takes a long drink here [water]) I don't have a dog.

Grip: And the next record?

Lindaman: It's all about love. Good love, bad love, mad love.

Grip: Sore love. Furious love.

Lindaman: Jungle love.