TL So you heard DEAD MOON before you heard THE RATS or some of Fred Cole’s earlier bands?

KF There are a lot of little discoveries we made along the way. I had always heard about Fred & Toody, and Andrew was definitely a well-known character and a great person about Portland –a real figure in the music community out there. There was a lot of stuff we unearthed along the way. We certainly liked their music, but we weren’t fanatical. So the first time we discovered THE RATS, coming across that and knowing who that was and the whole history behind it, as well as their country-western kind of phase as RANGE RATS at almost the same time as the punk stuff, it made them seem all-the-more interesting.

JS It keeps adding to the depth of their characters, in a way, that they can spit out all these different types of music, but it all has their signature style somehow attached to it. Fred in the early 1970’s was in a band called ZIPPER that was awesome, kind of similar to Led Zeppelin (Andrew calls it “Fred Zeppelin”). Fred had WESTERN FRONT that was sort of Western style music, and one of their most fascinating things was their RANGE RATS phase. That was a phase in between the country-ish WESTERN FRONT and DEAD MOON. RANGE RATS was just really raw, heartfelt songs that are more akin to Johnny Cash or something. (We just saw the documentary JOHNNY CASH: THE MAN, HIS WORLD, HIS MUSIC from 1969, which made us think of RANGE RATS). The RANGE RATS was similar, with very South-western style songs. It was recorded by Fred on fire-damaged recording equipment. Mostly just Fred and Toody with a Roland drum machine, and a couple other friends appear. It’s never been released, but they gave it to us to use for the film, which we did use to great effect. It kind of feels like Ennio Morricone music from a spaghetti western. So that was a strange time in their lives apparently, as their kids were almost out of high school, their oldest was out of school, and Fred & Toody took a wild chance to do something fun and goofy and go and perform in small western mining towns by themselves, just them and a somewhat broken drum machine. They performed for miners and ranchers, trying to get enough money to gamble a little in between playing these crossroads bars that are dotted around Reno, Nevada.

TL Is that a big inspiration for their gigging, because there is the scene where they gamble for several hours? Is that something that has been a life-long passion?

KF I think they’ve really enjoyed ghost town culture and just exploring that part of the West. The gambling/casino interest ties into their fascination with a sort of old America frontier sensibility. They were raised out there, and with Fred being primarily from Vegas he was around it all the time. They are also very superstitious folks & that fits right in with the casino thing.

JS Also, anything DEAD MOON does (Fred in particular) is done in a certain way that is important to them. Fred has very definite ideas about the world, and his approach to it. It kind of ties into everything they do, including their gambling, where he has his numbers picked out, and they seem to be fascinated with the experience. Fred often writes us after they go to Reno for a weekend, he says they lost some money but they had a good time and it was cheaper than therapy. But we’re pretty sure they spend 3 days straight without sleeping playing nickel Keno.

TL Just nickels?

JS Yeah, just nickels.

TL Does he use the same numbers every time or does it just depend?

KF I think it’s like a sequencing thing. It definitely revolves around certain numbers, but I think they have a certain weird nickel Keno math that is fueled by coffee and cigarettes.

JS If you watch some of the Super 8 footage in the film of Fred, Toody & Andrew walking around New Orleans, stomping around in their usual attire, which is their rather spooky cowboy gear, you might catch Fred dodging manhole covers and cracks in the sidewalk, which is part of his superstitions. We just noticed because we knew that about Fred already.
When we were traveling in Europe with them, it was Kate and myself, Andrew, his then-girlfriend and now-wife Jennifer, and Fred & Toody. All six of us were packed into their little tour van, three in the front seat and three in the back seat. They just constantly chain smoked, and Kate actually later contracted bronchitis and then asthma from the experience. Anyway, they filled both their ashtrays up to overflowing only partway through the tour. We had decided early on that since we were cramping the van so badly and they never complained, we should make ourselves useful by helping with parking the van, setting up and packing up their music gear, and whatever else we could. So cleaning up the inside of the van one morning at a beautiful little Austrian guesthouse, Kate decided she would take the gnarly, filled-over ashtray and dump it. The next morning they saw that and flipped out. Fred said that the last time the ashtray was emptied on a tour years before that either the transmission blew or they threw some oil, and Fred blamed that on the ashtray having been emptied.

KF They were pretty cool about it, but you could tell they were devastated.

JS And Fred’s also that way about clothing. They made us feel welcome from the minute we began filming them. They grabbed us when we all met in Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport and told us “Alright, you’re both in the band now, no matter what happens while we’re on this tour, or who asks, etc.,” and away we went. Problem was, the airline had lost Fred’s luggage, which contained his stage clothes. So he only had the T-shirt he was wearing. Fred’s very superstitious about his stage clothes, which consist of a vest and a cowboy shirt that he’s worn for so long is worn out at the elbows, but it is made out of some sort of mysterious mixtures of fabric that he can’t find anywhere else in his researches that evaporates his sweat best. He considers it a lucky shirt and demands to play in it, as well as the vest, so he was convinced it was going to be a terrible tour because of it. He wasn’t full-on despondent, but it was definitely something he could bitch about as we were driving around.

TL Could you give a quick rundown of Fred Cole’s bands over the years?

JS At the age of 13 he was in a group called LITTLE RED ROOSTERS that did Jerry Lee Lewis songs and other type stuff of the times, around 1962-63. From there he went on to be in a band called THE LORDS, and he was playing bass for them in Las Vegas strip joints at the age of 14, in clubs that wouldn’t allow people in under the age of 18. He would try to get home late from these gigs, which earned him a lot more money than his divorced mom was making at the time, but the cops would always bust him with the curfew laws and take him to jail. This created a lot of friction with his single, working mom. Patty Duke’s husband at the time, Mike Tell, was managing THE LORDS, and when Fred was 15 he convinced him to break off from THE LORDS and become DEEP SOUL COLE, which was his white Stevie Wonder kind of thing. Fred had played bass for THE LORDS, but he was such an energetic vocalist he became the main attraction of his new act, climbing curtains, running across the backs of chairs in a full theater to get to the stage, and being tied behind Mike Tell’s car to run around the perimeter of Las Vegas to get in shape and promote the act. After DEEP SOLE COLE, he started playing with some other Vegas musicians, some of whom were runaways, and became THE WEEDS. Fred was probably about 16 at that time, and they started having pretty interesting concert experiences, and dealing with different promoters and managers who were various degrees of crazy.
One of these nuts told them he had booked them at the famous Fillmore, but after they spent all their money driving to San Francisco, they found out there was no show and they had just been led on by this mildly insane manager. They felt something weird was in the air in San Francisco, taking certain signs as being bad omens, and immediately got out of town by heading to Portland, Oregon. They settled THE WEEDS in Portland, and really immersed themselves playing up and down the West Coast with many of the famous bands of that psychedelic era. Then a funny thing happened – they were taken on by Universal Records, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers, and were being managed by a man by the name of Lord Tim, who was also managing The Seeds. He decided it would be better if they were promoted as a teeny-bopper bubble gum band, and their name was too close to “The Seeds”, so their name then was changed to THE LOLLIPOP SHOPPE. This image was quite different from the music they were playing. Their songs as THE WEEDS were strong and eclectic – one being a Van Morrison cover, another sounds similar to Big Brother & The Holding Co. Another sounds like The Velvet Underground. THE LOLLIPOP SHOPPE was very heavy garage/psychedelia, with their big hit that they became known for being “You Must Be a Witch”, which is featured on one of those Nuggets compilations. They became entrenched in this scene in between 1966-1969, playing with the likes of Janis Joplin & Big Brother, The Doors, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, Steppenwolf, and of course The Seeds and others.
After THE LOLLIPOP SHOPPE there’s a whole slew of bands Fred was in, many of which we aren’t knowledgeable about, one of which is some sort of acoustic duo that may eventually be released. In 1974 Fred was in a band called ZIPPER, and after that there was KING BEE amongst others, and this was where Fred first played guitar. There was ALBATROSS, THE TORPEDOES, WESTERN FRONT, THE RATS, RANGE RATS. It really takes a whole page just to list all his bands.

TL Did ZIPPER release a full-length album?

JS Yes, it was a full album – self-titled. We listened to it and we were aghast that we had never heard of it before, when it sounded so familiar in a 70’s stadium rock kind of way. We got really excited when we first heard it, as it seems like some kind of missing link in West Coast heavy 70’s rock.

TL It’s interesting as you find out about all these other bands, it’s like excavating.

JS Yes, and actually getting the info out of Fred & Toody is somewhat hard. They’ve done that and moved on, and they don’t dwell on it, though they try and keep track of their history. But man, I mean music is only a part of their lives. Music isn’t the end all for them. They’ve got all kinds of stuff going on in their lives. They’ve got a $1.50 store they just started, and they’ve got tenants in some of their buildings, and they’re dealing with that a lot, besides the music store, the Tombstone General Store, where they have a few employees, and Tombstone Records. So, I think Fred feels positive about leaving things that didn’t work in the past. He’s not as bitter as I think I would be if I went through what he did in the music business.

KF Of note with this musical history is that DEAD MOON started in 1987 with the addition of Andrew, though they aren’t 100% certain about the date. Also, Toody’s first involvement with Fred musically was on bass in 1979 with the inception of THE RATS.

JS In 1990 DEAD MOON hit big in Europe with their first show in The Netherlands at The Vera Club, celebrating the club’s 10th anniversary. Not to mention the interest of Hans Kesteloo of Music Maniac Records for all things garage rock, and he puts out their records in Europe. He knows more about American garage rock than just about any American. He found out Fred was around and doing music, and word made it around the garage community in Europe. Fred demanded they only play with their own instruments, and the club agreed to fly them with their equipment, and they took off. Fred, Toody & Andrew couldn’t believe it. That was sort of the beginning of the success of DEAD MOON on their own terms. THE RATS never seemed to hit it, though if you talk to people familiar with Northwest punk, people talk about THE RATS with great conviction to this day. They must have been a force to reckon with as they were playing with Dead Kennedys, Flesh Eaters, Black Flag, and X, and bands like that.

TL I was curious about the transition between THE RATS and DEAD MOON because THE RATS recorded records weren’t past ’83, so if DEAD MOON wasn’t ‘till ’87, was it a seamless transfer just adding Andrew to the lineup and rocking, and did they take a few years off there?

JS No, they had WESTERN FRONT going as well as RANGE RATS I believe in that time period.

TL Did Toody play in those as well?

KF She didn’t play in WESTERN FRONT that we know of, but RANGE RATS was in the 1983-85 period, and it was Toody and Fred. That’s when they started playing honky tonks around the outskirts of Reno, at first playing cover songs. It was Toody’s first time getting comfortable with singing in front of live audiences, and then they launched into writing their own almost country-folk and Johnny Cash-influenced songs.

JS Toody’s got a really cool 7” out from this time called “Coming On Strong”, which is a really killer David Wilkins song, with a song of their own on the back called “Rather Be Your Lover”. It’s really classic sounding country stuff. It sounds like Patsy Cline almost, or Brenda Lee, or Loretta Lynn. It’s really strange to hear Toody now compared with then. Though DEAD MOON does have their softer songs, as well as harder songs, and many times the same song has both soft and hard sections.

TL So Kate, what were some of the other bands performing in the music scene with DEAD MOON around Portland at the time you were there?

KF They would usually play this one small club that was the local rock joint, Satyricon, they would headline there. They would do that only a few times a year, but they were definitely the house favorites there. I don’t remember the usual line up’s but sometimes they would open for larger bands traveling through Portland, like the first time I saw them was with Mudhoney at a big show, and I was blown away, and went up and introduced myself to them backstage, and they were really sweet. Then I met Andrew later on and got to know him. They were not necessarily known by everyone in Portland though, at that time. People would often know of them, and say “I hear those guys are really big in Europe, yeah, they’re cool.” Of course they’d only been together about 5 or 6 years at that point, and people were saying “Yeah, they’ve been together FOREVER.” It’s funny now because I think the Northwest has come to appreciate them more but they still have that “underground treasures” kind of rep.

TL Hopefully they’ll be appreciated more and more as a result of your efforts.

JS They have rabid fans everywhere. They have fans in Portland that have demanded to Fred that they be able to purchase every bit of the 180 hours of footage that we shot of DEAD MOON on this project. You’ll find people like that on just about every continent now. People really feel their presence, and it’s not just a musical presence. It’s a strange kind of good vibe that they bring with them.

TL Give us the rundown on all the globe trotting you did while documenting DEAD MOON.

KF It was pretty cool because we had talked to them about doing this project, but we hadn’t really taken steps to go out there, and they saw an opening on their European tour in the summer of 2001. They were able to bring us along, and we met them in Amsterdam and became part of their little crew.

JS From Amsterdam we drove straight down through Germany and Austria to end up at a Slovenian Biker Festival.

KF It was in the middle of all these cornfields, and thousands of all these different people from regional biker gangs showed up, and the festival was put on by the Slovenian Road Warriors Biker Gang. It was definitely odd, and it was our first show on the tour with them. From there we headed back to Austria, and then we were primarily all over Germany, which is probably one of their most popular spots. They get treated well there, etc. We then made it back to The Netherlands, then Belgium and France for some outdoor festivals, then Germany again. But every night was different. One night would be a tiny little hole-in-the-wall, and the next night they’re playing some gigantic outdoor music festival with 7 stages, and it’s crazy.

JS In Berlin, Hamburg, and Bautzen (East Germany, near Poland), people would start gathering and waiting for the show in the early afternoon, drinking and talking on the street. We had a Slovenian safety inspector driving around following DEAD MOON for his annual two-week vacation from the factory.

KF He actually ended up staying in our room, but originally he said, “Oh, it’s cool, I’ll sleep in my car.” Fred & Toody took this 20 year-old kid under their wing. We’d joke around with him, and he was very shy and would say “But I am just a country boy,” as he’d never been away from the small town where he lived. And now he’s going to all these different cities with his favorite rock band having the time of his life.

JS We stay in touch with him, and he’s now been to Portland and visited them. They get lots Europeans coming to visit Tombstone Music. In fact when we were there shooting, there were two different Dutch people there to see DEAD MOON play, and one of them actually bought a guitar that Fred had designed in 1974.

KF There’s a certain “pilgrimage” aspect that some European bands take towards a visit to Tombstone, it’s funny to think of all these people that have been to the US but only went to Oregon to visit Dead Moon.

TL I was curious to switch over to the production side of what you guys were up to. I know you predominantly use a PD-150. Were you also using Super 8 and 16mm?

JS We shot color and black & white Super 8 film with a Canon 514-xls with a wide adapter on the lens. It’s really helpful. And we also use a diffused on-board light which really helps for fill light outside, and especially in the dark interiors. We have a little Sony light that uses the same batteries as the PD-150 and TRV-900 cameras, and mounts on any cold shoe on just about every kind of camera. We shot both Kodachrome and Ektachrome color film, and Tri X and Plus X black & white, and it’s fascinating to see what you get. We also shot a little 16mm. Our friend Casey Campbell in Berlin shot a few hundred feet with his wind-up Bolex. Matt Hedt shot some with his Beaulieu in Chapel Hill, where you helped us by shooting Super 8. We had the most cameras that night in Chapel Hill. The film really adds another dimension, especially when you’re working with video as your main medium. Video’s great, but it’s nice to have some
strobey film with a dreamy quality, and it certainly applies well to DEAD MOON’s qualities.

TL How many PD-150’s were you shooting with?

JS One PD-150 which shoots DVCAM mode, a step up from the MINI DV mode of the TRV-900, which was our B Camera. Sometimes we would lock off the TRV-900 high and wide for performance shooting. We found we could take this shot in post with simple Final Cut Pro motion effects, and move it around and zoom in, almost as if it were a crane shot. Luckily for us, DEAD MOON wear pretty much the same clothes every night. Certainly Fred does every night, and Toody most every night, and it was easy to cajole Andrew into wearing the same shirt. So night after night we got them with the same clothes, with two video cameras, as well as Super 8. This made it easy to commit a little trickery and make use of shots from other nights that matched in well. Therefore, it sometimes looks like there were more cameras than there actually were.

KF We didn’t do this a ton though, so there’s much more room to do that if we were to go back in and cut some more songs, which we plan to do for a DVD release. We have a bit of a game plan mapped out, we know which nights match best with other nights- same lighting & backgrounds etc. There’s some room to play, it’s really fun.

JS We shot it in somewhat verite style. At first we were considering including ourselves in the story, kind of reporter-style. But when we first started shooting in Europe we chose to try to stay quiet and just shoot during impromptu moments.

KF That allowed us all to get comfortable, later down the road we did a lot of interviews. That was back in Portland over a few days at Fred & Toody’s place.

JS With the interviews we used the TRV-900 with a wide lens as the wide shot, because of it’s lower resolution. We’d then shoot fairly tight stuff with the PD-150. We found this worked really well in editing, and you don’t have to resort to jump cuts. It works to be close in on their eyes too, especially for video.
TL Production-wise, what gave you the biggest headaches trying to complete the documentary?
KF A big headache was shooting in clubs every night, it was especially crazy to only have the two of us rolling in there, dealing with our gear & the clubs themselves. One night maybe we’d get a decent board-feed and the band would be great but then then the lighting person wouldn’t speak english, or is on some weird drug or had some awful dark “arty” lighting cue that he loved or something. Other nights the feed would cut out, or something else. We definitely felt a little cursed with the live stuff, in Chapel Hill we spent a bunch of time lighting the club and arranging to shoot with 4 cameras only to have the audio person refuse to give us a board feed, and this was at a club we knew! In the end we always felt like there was some aspect that was compromised but you just have to make do. There are ways to do a live music shoot with less of a gamble but it’s a pretty extensive operation, and after all the effort that’d probably be the night that the band was totally off.

TL Just mainly being at the mercy of other people around you?

KF That was a big headache, but it was also tough to keep on our toes & keep our energy & perspective. We shot & lived with them for weeks at a time so it was a struggle to balance when we were “on” & shooting & when we were “off”. There was also the balance between keeping the tech stuff somewhat professional, thinking creatively & keeping our subjects comfortable - it was intense.
(TOM-because I changed the above section this is non-sequitor below…) – KF&JS

JS In Berlin, the sound guys at the club kept turning on reverb effects, and DEAD MOON hates any kind of effects added to their music. That’s why they record themselves. You certainly hear this in their albums. Their sound is really primitive. They also don’t like crazy lighting, and they especially despise fog machines, as they irritate their throats when their voices are close to worn out already. So this particular night in Berlin, the sound guy kept turning on and messing around with some kind of reverb effect, and Toody, Andrew, & Fred were up in arms. They of course always tell the sound guys “No Effects”, but they get ignored a lot. So Kate and I stopped shooting a couple times each in order to tell these sound guys to turn the effects off, over and over. And then it would come right back on. Then they turned on the fog machines, and claimed they had no control over them, so I ended up climbing underneath this little two-foot-high stage to pull the plug from these billowing fog machines.

KF It was funny because I said “where’d he go” and looked under the stage where he’s crawling in all this glass, and well, you can imagine what else is lurking underneath a Berlin club’s stage.

JS Our friend Casey who was shooting some 16mm which looked beautiful, decided he need a low shot there, and got down on his knees in this immense crush of fevered DEAD MOON fans. We eventually had to ask him to stop for fear of him getting really hurt. So we’d run into problems like that, but we also ran into a lot of people who tried to help us in a friendly kind of way. People can be kind of jaded about filming here in New York City. So it was a mixed bag that we were presented with. We weren’t always ready for what was thrown at us, but we dealt as best we could.

TL So DEAD MOON’s touring Europe again this spring. How many times have they toured over there?

KF Occasionally they’ll go over for just a few nights, or do a short stint in Holland, but they’ve done 6 or 7, month-or-longer tours so far; and their 2 month tour this time is crazy. They’ve only got 2 days off between Paris and a show in Greece, and they’re driving, not flying.

JS They seem to be happy if they are driving or playing 6 to 7 days a week. They’re there to make money.

KF If they have a day off, it’ll be between some city in Holland and someplace like Norway. If anything, the day off is usually worse, as it’s spent driving.

JS As Andrew says, “Day On”

KF “Day Off? No, Day On.”

TL That was another thing I was going to get to. Can you tell us any Andrew stories from when you were on tour with them that didn’t make it in the film?

JS He’s just a real approachable, gregarious person. He could be a diplomat, he can be thrust into any situation…

KF And he can look at a person by a small gesture they’ve made, or one or two words they’ve said, and pick up on that and know what they’re like, and disarm them and charm them. It’s really amazing. He looks like a rocker kind of guy, and he looks pretty sketchy and scary, and we’re traveling around southern Germany, and he’s encountering all these people, older matrons running guesthouses, etc.. And in a moment, if he wants to turn it on, which he usually does because he loves people, he’s charmed them, and the next thing you know they’ve exchanged T-shirts or something.

JS When we were traveling in the States with them, our friend Matt Hedt came up to help shoot in DC, and his family lives in the area. Andrew was riding in the car with Kate and myself, and Matt invited us to stay at his folks’ house that night. His dad’s a minister who runs a school, and his mom’s great.

KF It had been a wild show that night, and Andrew’d had plenty to drink, after which he just gets funnier, he’s definitely not a mean drunk. But he wasn’t in a state you’d necessarily want to take him home to your parents.

JS So we all load downstairs into the house where are rooms are, and Matt’s mom pops down and says “Hey how great to see you all, does anyone want a beer or anything?” And we were beat from shooting and traveling, and passed. The next thing we hear is Andrew following her upstairs saying “Excuse, Ma’am, I’ll take you up on that beer!” And he apparently spent an hour or so hanging out in the kitchen with Matt’s mom. We saw the really cute note Matt’s mom left for Andrew and the rest of us the next morning.

KF In southern Germany at the beautiful Pflamminger Guesthouse, we met this stern looking guy Hermann with a bristly mustache, and his wife back in the kitchen. Just a beautiful village where we stumbled on a Polka band practicing in a back yard on a little walk we took. And they didn’t speak any English at all, which is somewhat rare in Germany. Luckily, we had an article in German about DEAD MOON. After a couple days being there, the proprietor Hermann was very curious about us, and what we were doing. He was very stern and serious, and you couldn’t get him to crack a smile.

JS Toody, Fred, & Andrew all look a little like witches or something. The first morning this guy had asked Andrew what he wanted for breakfast, Andrew said, “Do you have beer? I’ll have that.” The next morning when we went in with Andrew to get breakfast, Hermann leaned over to Andrew and asked in this booming voice “Coffee, tea, BEEEEER?”

KF And then he got this big smile on his face, and you could tell that it was very exciting that his little joke had gone over so well. It seemed like he had been waiting all morning to make the joke.

JS He ended up giving us a bunch of honey they made at the guesthouse, and posing for a picture outside with us when we left.

KF Andrew often has Jagermeister at 10 am, it’s a real ice breaker with the locals.

JS DEAD MOON all seem to feel that if they are genuine, they can go anywhere in the world and be fairly welcomed. It is kind of crazy some of the wild situations they’ve been put in, maybe crossing borders looking like they do, they overcome it with kindness; or being pulled over by paramilitary type Russian police and hassled. The world is pretty much their oyster now.

TL I was curious as you got to know them better, and spend more time with them, was there anything kind of surprising or unexpected that you found out about them.

KF It was amazing because we didn’t really know very much about them as people when we started. We also hadn’t heard that they build their own houses or many other anecdotes about them. It felt like some kind of a magical world as these things were revealed, I would have thought it was too good to be true if I had read it in an article but instead we were being welcomed inside. So everything was surprising in that sense, there was a sort of a “pinch me” quality to our time with them. The most unexpected thing is that we have so little negative to say, even after the intensity of our experience with them. They really are kind and creative but totally genuine, it seems like a rare mix. There were lots of little surprises along the way too, the casinos, their fantastically unusual houses, Fred’s woodworking crafts, it’s a long list.

JS There was also Toody’s development as a musician, Andrew’s journey, Fred & Toody’s children, and their time in the Yukon, when Fred shot a bear that was starting to charge them, as well as their steering going out on the drive to the Yukon, and going over a cliff thinking they were dead, but landing safe & sound. When we went out to screen the film in Portland this January, there had been a huge snowstorm, which is very unusual there.

KF Toody & Fred had been stranded out at their house in the country for over a week. When we called, we asked if they need anything, and all they said was “Bring beer and milk.” Then Fred had us pull their van out of the snowdrift and briars at the end of their driveway with our rental car. We had better traction than their tour van, with it’s hundreds of thousands of miles on the same tires.

JS That’s just the sort of adventure you’re sure to have when you’re with them, because Fred wants to do whatever he can himself and cheaply, and that leads to a lot of fun adventures. When we stayed with them, we had to pretty much stalk them in their own house. They have a sort of set routine that is their “day”. If they’re around Portland, and not practicing or recording, or playing a gig, they get up around 11 am or so, have some coffee, then go into Clackamas to Tombstone Music. Fred was building this 10,000 square foot, 2-story western-style mini mall at that time. Toody, manages Tombstone Music as well as Tombstone their label, and they check up on their “General Store”, which is a little convenience mart. Then around 3 or 4pm, they might make a quick grocery store run, then head home. They might have a few drinks then go to sleep around 6 or 7pm. Then they sleep until about midnight. They then get up and cook dinner and do all kinds of little stuff, like writing, or checking emails, playing video games, and Fred loves to scratch little messages into the Acetates he cuts, right on the inside of the record, after the grooves.

KF We were completely thrown for a loop as we tried to follow their schedule.

JS We’d shoot them for a little bit, then they’d disappear. Now what do we do? We’re way out here in the country. We’d wait till midnight for them to come and get going again. It was like jet lag keeping up with them.

TL When you were in Portland in January for the screening, what was their reaction?

KF They had seen some semblance of it before, and they loved it. They were just giddy and excited about the whole project. We’ve become close to them, kind of like adopted children or something, but they have a lot of different people whom they’ve acted as mentors for, taken them under their wing, and been cool figures for. They enjoyed seeing it and they like it, but they were more like “Wow, this is cool for you guys”.

JS They’re more intrigued with us than the project. They think we’re kind of crazy for doing this movie.

KF The whole time we were shooting they were saying, “You guys are crazy, why would you carry all that equipment around and shoot us so much?”

JS We couldn’t believe it, from these people that drive around non-stop for 3 months at a time, touring.

KF It was a neat kind of working respect that we had.

JS They’ve been nothing but supportive with us in many ways. They haven’t really been that critical. They just seem to be respectful of us as artists as far as UNKNOWN PASSAGE goes, and as much interest as they can muster for it. Y’know, it’s just another part of their lives.

KF They have so much going on it’s just another distraction for them.

TL You already ran down a few stories from on tour. Are there any other memorable experiences that come to mind?

KF Bautzen, East Germany, near the Polish border was interesting. They have these community youth centers all over Germany, and that’s where DEAD MOON sometimes play. But in Bautzen it was really weird, because it had all these rooms, and it was kind of institutional, with high ceilings. With everybody hanging out it felt like a rock & roll orphanage or an abandoned school.

JS There was a really quiet woman with a DEAD MOON tattoo.

KF Her friend and she didn’t speak any English, but the friend could sing every single DEAD MOON lyric in English. She didn’t want to for the camera though, instead she sang “The Rose”, an old Bette Midler show tune.

JS And then Kate shot her singing a sort of Mongolian operatic piece. It’s incredible, and a little of it is in the movie. She somehow traces her descent to Mongolia.

KF She showed me where she had had a tail that was removed, and she made me understand it was an honored trait in that part of the world, and they removed it. I guess it was like a bone spur. It was a funny moment because it was the last night of the tour and I had only ten minutes of tape left with me. She was singing me this incredible song. So I would roll sometimes, but I didn’t want to run out of tape. So she tells me the story, and is yanking down her pants and shows me a rather large scar, and telling me how upset she was that they had taken it away. It was a sign that you were marked or chosen. I didn’t actually shoot her scar though she wanted me to. It was an unusual way to end the tour.

JS In Memphis, Tennessee there’s a guy that goes out of his mind about DEAD MOON, and he went bonkers when we turned the cameras on. It’s actually not in the movie at this time.

TL Any advice that you would give to aspiring documentarians after going through this, especially a feature-length like this?

JS One is to pick your subject well. It’s not as important with shorter pieces, and you can always shoot a short piece as a test, then expand it later if it looks promising. There’s always the “Production Triangle”, of which you can only ever have two parts of the three at once. Those are: FAST, CHEAP, & GOOD. We picked CHEAP & GOOD, which wasn’t FAST. We took our time with it. So figure out your resources. If you don’t have a lot of money, take your time and don’t expect results right away. Build up and see what you can get from a wide range of footage.

KF I would say for doc. stuff, gaining some experience as an editor beforehand will help you volumes. You’ll be able to recognize things in the story to focus on and have a better understanding of what kind of camera coverage you’re going to need. The second part of that is that B Roll, or the stuff behind the scenes, your verite stuff, you can never really have enough of. The only way to get it, and the only way to make sure you’re getting the 50 moments that you’ll actually use out of the thousands that you capture is if you’re just rolling and ready for it. The sooner you can get comfortable around your subject the better, rolling your camera and fitting in. Maybe you start out rolling with the camera on your lap, not getting an image and ramping up to introducing the camera. There were also times were we didn’t have a shot but there was potentially interesting dialog. When in doubt I usually rolled, the camera was pretty much always out.

TL How have you been treating the audio you caught in the field?

KF We ran the audio straight into the cameras. We did the best we could placing microphones, etc. We could spend a lot more time in post trying to make amends with Protools to some of the material. Right now we just have a temp mix in FCP, it’s good for a temp mix but we haven’t messed around with EQ and etc. Because of the fact that we chose to do 95% of everything with just the two of us, I think we sacrificed some elements of production quality, especially audio. We were really trying to maintain intimacy and if we had taken the time to monkey with extra audio gear or had more crew or whatever it would have been a very different experience.

JS On this, it really could have thrown off the group dynamic. We would have become more a force than observer, affecting more of what went on.

KF If we had split hairs over the details we also would have missed shooting a lot of situations, instead we relied mostly on a great stripped down run & gun setup. We’re sorta paying for it a little in post, but those are the breaks.

TL But the music during shows, you just recorded to your camera? Are you just trying to sweeten that up?

JS We got whatever we could get. Some nights we got feeds from the board. A couple of nights we got DATS. We always used our Sennheiser mics, too. And some of the music Fred & Toody gave us, like of RANGE RATS, which had been originally recorded on fire-damaged equipment. So just about everything we have there is some kind of issue with it. There’s a fine line between the raw quality of it and treating it too much and taking any flavor out of it. DEAD MOON isn’t known for Hi Fidelity, so…

TL When you guys were on tour, did they pretty much play the same set for most shows, or did they mix it up a lot?

KF It was mostly the same set. I think as a result of having us along they worked in a few songs, including older ones, because we and other people were asking. They tend to revive older songs that they’ve been listening to lately, besides playing standards, as well as songs off the newest album. There’s a song on their new album “Dead Ahead” that’s actually an old RANGE RATS song, which they started listening to again because we were so interested in it.

JS Also, speaking about revivals, Andrew has shown some of the footage to his cronies, which includes some old footage of his first band THE BOY WONDERS. It sounds like they are now going to try and finally release recordings they made 20 years ago. It’s incredible stuff. Andrew didn’t have the tape of their TV performance until we gave it to him. It seems like people are falling in love with that stuff again, and there is plenty to fall in love with. It’s great music, and they all look like they were characters in their own right.

TL Do Fred & Toody listen to a lot of other music when they’re around the house, or do they take a break from it since they play so much?

JS I think Fred spends a lot of his time mastering things that punk rock kids send him to produce. When we were there he was mixing some guys really loud punk rock stuff from New Zealand or Australia or something. But as far as listening, they had some records out by their old phonograph player, and that seemed to be about all they had around the house. They had Johnny Cash, Van Morrison, a cowboy campfire songs compilation, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, The Kingsmen, The Wipers, Howlin’ Wolf, and Brenda Lee.

KF They actually used to have a little video store, like as part of one of their businesses – the General Store. So of late they’ve been pulling out these kind of B quality movies from late-‘80’s Hollywood that they bought to rent from the video store that they’ve been losing money on.

JS Stuff we’d never heard of. We were having a great time looking through the titles.

KF It’s like “Pretty Woman”-era, but “Pretty Woman” is not there.

JS Fred was very insistent that we watch a movie called “The Runner”. He said it was great. It’s set in Vegas, so we understand why he likes that, and his love of gambling. The main character runs bets to a casino for a gambling franchise, but it all just confused us and made us laugh really hard.

KF It’s just really badly written and acted.

JS It just made Fred seem even more intriguing. We thought, “Why is he making us watch this?” We had sent them the movie “Gummo” before this project, along with some of the Super 8 we had shot of them. It had just come out, and we thought it was silly and interesting.

KF They said they thought it was one of the weirdest things they’d ever seen, and they were like “Who are these twisted people sending us this crazy movie?”

JS We have a strange relationship of trading stuff with them. We just sent them some cool reissue stuff, like ‘30’s Hawaiian Steel Guitar compilations, Mexican Garage compilations, etc..

KF Actually, what they really do at night, when they wake back up, is they’re making little DEAD MOON medallions, and scouring them by hand. Or else they’re sewing DEAD MOON patches onto baseball hats. They’re real thrifty folks, which is one way of putting it. They just want to do it themselves, so they turn into this little production team. They sort of sit around at night watching Quincy and Perry Mason on TV, doing this stuff.

JS We just got an email from them the other day. They were getting in an order of something like 6,000 posters for the new European tour shipped to them in Oregon. The people at the shipping place told Fred he’d need to have a forklift on hand to unload this huge bail of posters. Fred, being frugal just decided to get whoever was around the store to create a human fire line and manhandle all these posters into Tombstone. That’s the kind of adventure your in for, if he’s trying to save a buck and they’ve got nothing better to do.

FIN