Thanks to my NBC Examiner gig, I got to interview Silas Weir Mitchell of “Grimm” this week. First and foremost, not only do I love this show, but I am convinced his character, Monroe, is the best character on TV right now. To say I was thrilled was an understatement.
And I wasn’t disappointed.
Normally, I shy away from the old Q&A format of just regurgitating an interview verbatim, but this one begged for it. I had asked Silas about similarities between his quirky character and his real life persona, and he mentioned their minds work in very similar ways.
“It kind of bounces around a little bit, you know, and then once it latches on to something, it will bore all the way into it, like the clock making or the Pilates or the vegan thing or, you know, but when it’s not anchored, it kind of skitters around. My mind is like that. If I don’t have something to really focus on, I can kind of, think about five things to do at once. You know what I mean?”
Then he proceeded to demonstrate that aforementioned principle multiple times in the interview, which I found very Monroe-like. And I’m not about to edit that down to something more standard.
We also had a rather funny moment when he was patched through by his agent on the phone, and he was having a very hard time hearing me, so he was trying to be really quiet. And I was yelling into the phone.
Silas: I’ll just stay really still and not move.
Me: You stay still and I’ll scream.
(awkward silence)
Me: Okay, that sounded kind of weird
Silas: I wasn’t going to go there…
Anyway, if you aren’t watching the show, catch up with it here. And here’s a video homage to everyone’s favorite big bad wolf, Monroe.
Note: This photo really has nothing to do with the post, other than a homage to random good fortune. But I like pictures so I wanted one on it.
I am having the oddest day today.
I spent the morning writing up some new articles for my CMT Examiner site when I got off work. Then I went to one of their phone trainings, then things got really weird.
I’m getting emails from Chuck Ragan’s rep asking me to write something up for No Depression for him. Grammy nominee Linda Chorney is messaging me on Facebook to say hello. I respond to emails from a publicist at CMT to set up interviews with Paige Duke and some of their other reality show casts. My editor at Yahoo!Movies sends me the nicest message about setting up a special beat for me because he so loves what I’m writing for them. I’m querying Miranda Lambert’s, and Trace Adkins and The Band Perry’s and Keith Urban’s reps for photos and maybe interviews if I can dare hope — I’m doing that because instead of spending most of my time trying to find the right people, my contact person at Examiner just basically handed me the keys to the country kingdom in the form of the CORRECT contacts for every major country artist on the planet.
After spending five years struggling just to get the right contacts in rock and roll to finally get somewhere, that last one alone is enough to make a grown woman cry.
My interview with Beverly McClellan, a Season 1 finalist for “The Voice,” is up at Yahoo!TV. Ms. Beverly is quite a character, and was bursting with great quotes — as I was transcribing the interview, I noticed I spent more time laughing than asking questions. Please check out the interview here, as well as one I did with semi-finalist Casey Weston.
If I seem to be stalking former contestants for the show, there’s a reason: I am covering “The Voice” for Yahoo!TV and wholeheartedly admit to being a huge fan of the show, which is much more surprising if you know I am a music snob and normally loathe music contests — I personally hold “American Idol” and Simon Cowell responsible for a great deal of the downfall of good music in general.
This is going to sound crazy, but “The Voice” is one of the things that have recently made me really re-discover my love of music, after serious burnout covering the music industry for several years. I highly recommend you check out the archives of Season 1 before season 2 launches after the Super Bowl. Click here for the Season 1 archives at NBC.com.
I got to sit down and chat via phone with one my favorite contestants from Season 1 of “The Voice” and the interview is posted now here.
Casey was somehow passed over on the initial auditions, which was definitely a mistake. Her rendition of Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy” earned a her a chance to move on, going all the way to the semi-finals. One of the highlights was her battle duet singing “Leather and Lace” — there was no denying the comparisons to Stevie Nicks, herself.
Casey Weston epitomizes the girl next door, and with her country-influenced musical roots — and her affinity for writing her own songs — one could start making comparisons to that other country-girl-next-door sensation. You know…what’s-her-name? But Weston’s rise to fame is going a bit slower, despite a huge boost as one of the eight semi-finalists on the inaugural season of “The Voice.”
I was thinking I was having trouble getting motivated to write during the Yahoo holiday because I’m spoiled by almost instant approval and pay, plus some extra hours I picked up at the day job…but I’m realizing as I sit down tonight working on my interview with The Voice finalist Beverley McClellan, who I interviewed only a couple of days before my phone interview with Grammy nominee Linda Chorney, that talking to two such extraordinary women artists who have carved their own path for so long (aged 42 and 51 respectively) and gone through the adversity of sticking it out as artists without compromising themselves…has completely blown a fuse. Serious overload. In a good way, but…overload. But I’ve flipped the breaker switch and getting back on track now, albeit a bit slowly.
It’s also got me thinking a lot about the importance of the “Hail Mary,” as both sort of did their own versions of them, with last ditch efforts that paid off. I think there is definitely a story in there beyond an interview with one or the other, but about being women who have sacrificed any kind of conventional life to live as an artist, and not giving in to that pressure we all get – but especially women – to settle down and raise a family and give up our “silly dreams.” The key phrase in that sentence being “give up.”
Luckily, for those of us of a certain age, my independent poll conducted that week of exactly three women over 40 shows that 3 out of 3 of those women really don’t give a shit what other people think. The one good thing about getting old.
And speaking of extraordinary women artists of a certain age:
(I was wandering through the wasteland of my painfully neglected photography blog and saw this post, which I thought I should bring out where someone might actually…read it. So it's a bit dated. But always relevant…)
Okay, I know I have another blog for my band work, but to not
mention it on this one would be leaving out the very thing I love most
and am most known for. Now, lest you think I'm some young, tattooed
hipster, I'm a chubby 42 year old woman. I look so not rock and
roll. Nor do I dress like a teenager — I've already told people if I
ever become one of those women who try to dress and act half her age,
to shoot me. Please.
So imagine how odd I look at these shows.
And how odd I often feel. Or used to…I've gotten pretty comfortable
with being the old fart in the crowd.
So, anyway, part of what I do involves getting in the pit. I get my ass kicked. A lot.
And
one thing I've learned out in Arizona, is those kids from the Rez are
crazy in the pit. For reals. So I knew when I went up to Window Rock,
NM with my boys The Koffin Kats, it was going to be rough. An audience
entirely of Rez kids, on their own turf (at Day's Customs, an auto body
shop.)
This is what the boys had to work with — a flatbed trailer for a "stage."
I
love behind the scenes shots and catching candids of guys offstage.
Especially the Kats. They're great guys and have three very different
— and QUITE interesting — personalities.
