A Conversation with Anne McCue  (continued)

PM: So what music is turning you on lately, and what might you be reading?

AM: Well, I read a lot. [laughs] I just read the David Geffen biography. Have you read that?

PM: No, is that good?

AM: Really good, really interesting, yeah, and really honest. I tend to read a lot of biographies. I read Marianne Faithful's autobiography. That's really good. And I read the Harry Potter books.

PM: [laughs]

AM: [laughs] They were great. And yeah, stuff like that. I read a lot. I'm sort of addicted to reading, actually. My eyes get really tired.

And music-wise, I like Tex Perkins' album, Dark Horses, and Lucinda's last album, Essence. And what else have I been listening to? Mike Stinson.

PM: Who's he?

AM: He's this musician songwriter in L.A., and he's just made this country album, this classic country album. He's a drummer. He plays a lot with Randy Weeks and Jerry Wages in L.A. But he's an amazing songwriter as well. A great drummer, one of the few feel drummers. But his songs are classic country songs.

PM: What label is that, do you know? I'll have to get that.

AM: I think it's his own. I can't remember, but I'll tell you after the interview.

PM: Okay. Because we'd like to cover him if you like him. That's how we find artists sometimes, from other artists.

AM: Yeah. There's this other guy, Jim Bianca, who just put out an album of his own, which is really good. There's a lot of good stuff happening in L.A. at the moment. East Mountain South are on Dreamworks, and they're recording soon. Alexi Murdock--there's this kind of new scene going on there. It's gentle acoustic, quiet...

PM: I've heard that there's a kind of a--what are they calling it? The "canyon sound" or something.

AM: Yeah, yeah.

PM: I heard it was kind of a nuvo-Eagles thing coming up. Is that accurate?

AM: I wouldn't call them that, but I'd put them in the earlier Joni Mitchell sort of scene.

PM: Well, maybe you can help me root some of that out, because if it's a new softer movement afoot, we'd like to get up with it.

AM: Yeah, okay. There's some very good stuff going on, really great songs. I'm putting together a compilation of songs by songwriters in L.A., the criteria is just that it has to be a really good song. And there's twelve really good songs. We're putting it together, we're forming an alliance, kind of a song alliance.

PM: Well, when that compilation is done, yeah, we've got to have it, because then we'll send everybody to all those people's websites, and get a little activity going on.

AM: Yeah.

PM: Last question: Tell us anything, something big or small, that you hope to get done in life?

AM: In life?

PM: Big or small.

AM: I've got a few things. [laughs] I'm writing a novel. But I've been talking about that since I was eight, since I read my first novel, I said, "I want to write one of those." But actually I've made a bit of headway with this. I really hope to get it done. It's a matter of finding the time to sit down and do that. I'm also trying to make a movie. I've filmed a lot of the shows and stuff with Lucinda on the tour. My shows were filmed, and I'm going to make that into a DVD.

PM: You filmed yourself, or you filmed her, or both?

AM: No, I didn't film her, that would be more formal. Whereas with myself, obviously, it was easier just to have someone film it, or whatever. So we filmed that, and we're going to make that into a DVD. You know, just real low, low tech.

PM: Good for you.

AM: Low fidelity production.

PM: Good going.

AM: I love documentaries. I love D.A. Pennebaker, who made Don't Look Back, you know, and things like that. And so we're doing that.

And what else? I don't know. I've just got a lot of things I want to do. I studied film production and film studies when I was at college, so I'd like to make movies. But it's just a matter of finding the time, really, to get the projects going. You just have to keep working at it. And I want to make a new album, obviously.

PM: And that's going to be pretty soon, we hope.

AM: Yeah, I think I'll record in the next few months, maybe have it finished by the end of January, or something like that.

PM: Well, you know, in a profession where it takes, really, a lot of drive, and in a lot of cases a lot of self-obsession to get where one is going--

AM: Yeah.

PM: --it's refreshing to find someone as sweet and as nice as you are to have a conversation like this with. Thank you for your time.

AM: Oh, thank you for talking to me.

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