13 QUESTION METHOD: SO BROWN

So Brown lives in rural Alabama.

1. Which was the first record you bought with your own money?
I started buying Beatles albums in 3rd or 4th grade. I think the first one I got was Beatles for Sale.

2. Which was the last record you bought with your own money?
This is a partial list of the albums I bought on my recent trip to New York and Chicago (all were purchased within a few days of each other):

The Patsy Cline Story, Best of Fellini and Nino Rota, Philip Glass — Uakti: Aguas da Amazonia, Neil Young — Live at Massey Hall 1971, John Zorn — Naked City, Balkan Gypsies music, and my current favorite Cambodian Cassette Archives, vol. 1.

3. What was the first solo you learned from a record — and can you still play it?
I didn't start playing guitar until the end of high school. When I was in elementary school I learned many of the Beatles' solos on piano. I remember the harpsichord one from “In My Life” in particular. I could probably still play most of those, but I’m not sure.
Guitar solos didn't make sense to me at first. I ignored them for a while. Then I heard Andrew Bird's The Swimming Hour. I became obsessed with how he was playing solos on the violin, and picked out most of them on guitar. Not sure if I could still play them. I'll try and get back to you on this one.

4. Which recording of your own (or as a sideman) are you most proud of, and why?
I guess I’m most proud of my EP that I made a couple years ago. At one point, we were recording the opening track, and I stepped outside for some fresh air, and when I looked up the moon was brown. It was a lunar eclipse. Everything felt like it was in its right place.

5. What’s the difference between playing live and playing in a studio?
The number of people and, therefore, personalities interacting with me. The energy of the venue always varies and I do my best to adapt to whatever happens. When playing live, I never know if people are going to start dancing or screaming or talking on their cell phones. The studio etiquette is slightly more predictable, usually.

6. What’s the difference between a good gig and a bad gig?
Good gigs feel better, usually. More lessons to learn from the bad ones.

7. What’s the difference between a good guitar and a bad guitar?
I really don't like playing many guitars. Most of the time I don't care for new ones (handmade ones are the exception here), or ones that aren't made out of wood, or ones with obnoxious paint jobs, so that eliminates much of what is out there. I usually like a guitar that's at least 25 years old (40+ is preferred), a natural wood color, not heavy, has a hollow body, and is comfortable in blues tunings. And if there is an odd story behind it, I'll probably fall in love.

8. You play electric and acoustic. Do you approach the two differently?
Same criteria applies to either.

9. Do you sound more like yourself on acoustic or electric?
I really like playing my old Harmony with the pickup on it, and that has elements of both.

10. Do you sound like yourself on other people’s guitars?
I haven't played many other people's instruments, to be honest. Here again, there aren't that many guitars I feel comfortable playing.

11. Which living artist (music, or other arts) would you like to collaborate with?
Man I'd hold up the M. Ward/Handsome Band/Norah Jones tour bus and play with all those guys and gals. They are my current favorites. And I'd try to catch Tom Waits and Chavela Vargas while I was at it. Also there's a rapper in Florida named Rain that I worked with a few years ago, and I'd like to get a whole album of material together with him. I miss that guy.
Lately it's been in my mind that I'd like to sing some old r&b and Motown duets — which were traditionally sung in male/female pairs — with another woman. Maybe an Otis Redding tune. But I don't know a female singer who'd be into those tunes and also into singing them with me.

12. What dead artist would you like to have collaborated with?
In the liner notes of the above-mentioned Cambodian cassette, it says that 90% of the country's musicians were killed when the Khmer Rouge came into power. I'd like to have all those ghosts out to my place and set up some ribbon mikes to catch whatever might result. Also, Hank Williams, Skip James, and Carlos Paredes — not exactly the collaborating types, but people I'd love to spend time with nonetheless.

13. What’s your latest project about?
I’m trying to tap into that essence that is in old blues and country music, the fog over the fields, boats winding their way up river at night — exploring an aesthetic that is in close proximity to the beauty of natural world.

Web site: http://sobrown.net/