Poe

Have you ever seen a ghost? Have you ever thought you heard one? What if you could talk to someone you loved after they were long gone? For singer/songwriter Poe these weren't just random Ouija board queries, they were real questions she asked while recording her second album, Haunted. Working from audio tapes recorded by her father before he died and incorporating bits of the epic novel "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski (Poe's brother), the album is an eerie revelation of family secrets. It's a tale that was close to going unheard when radio programmers told Poe that they simply were "not playing women" these days. So Poe got creative and asked her brother to read portions of his novel over a remix of the the rocking "Hey Pretty." The rest, as she told Meridith Gottlieb, is a mix of luck, pluck and the good fortune of having met a weird English guy in junior high who turned her on to Depeche Mode. MTV: "Hey Pretty" didn't get on radio via the traditional route. Can you explain that? Poe: Radio was not interested. I called a few program directors, and they [said], "We really love the record, but we're just not playing women." This one [program director] in Portland, Oregon, said, "My station is basically in the same boat. Do some crazy mix that you think will fit this format, and I'll play it once." I go home, and I'm like, "They're not playing women? Fine, I've got a brother." So I called my brother, and I'm like, "You gotta come over and read a piece of your book in this song." I wrote on [the tape], "Rough mix from Poe's house, unmastered — do not play." ... He played it and got inundated with phone calls. By the end of the week he had played it 25 times, which wouldn't have meant all that much because it's a small station in Portland. But the next week, KROQ in Los Angeles had it. ... The funny thing was that Mark writes his book, and he gets all these critical reviews — you know, the New York Times, all the good stuff — [and] still doesn't have a girlfriend. He's on the radio once, and every ex-girlfriend calls him. He's like, "Wait, I spend 10 years writing a book, and then I'm on the radio once and that's when everybody calls?" It gives you a little bit of perspective between the writer's life and the rock star. He's a rock star now. [Laughs] MTV: Doesn't your work have a history of interweaving with your brother's writing? Poe: The way that my brother and I have shared ideas goes back so far. ... We moved around like crazy as kids, so we were in countries where nobody spoke English, and we had to be friends. We just couldn't fight — we couldn't afford to. My brother would write something, and I would get jealous and go, "God, that's so good." I would take an idea or a line, and I would write [something,] and then my brother would get jealous, so he would take a bit of that and incorporate it into a character in a short story. Later, [when] I started writing songs, we started to really like the fact that there was this long history to some of these characters. Even Johnny Truant, the major character in his book, references [my song] "Angry Johnny," which references something much older. That process intensified while I was making this album and while Mark was finishing his book.

MTV: There were a lot more female artists on the radio when your first album came out than there are now. What happened? Poe: It got so extreme, and the pinnacle of the girl moment was Lilith Fair. To some degree, in my opinion, they made it exclusive. They said, "This is all girls," and the classic response to that is, "Fine, we're going to be all boys." I do have a bit of a disagreement with that. Lilith Fair should have included guys. It could have been put together by a woman and promoted by a woman, and it's not that I think women shouldn't bond together and be cool, but what we're talking about is music, and music has no gender. ... I think it's always a little dangerous to be gender-specific. I think that the reaction to that was for rock radio to go, "This has gone too far. It's not rock and roll anymore, it's too girly." MTV: How did your late father contribute to Haunted? Poe: The record started with the discovery of these tapes [of my father]. ... I found a box of cassettes — labeled meticulously in his handwriting — of him talking to me. ... I can't even tell you what it was like to hear my father saying, "You know, I wanted to share a few thoughts with you," telling me things he never said when he was alive. It was the most intense moment of my life. So I threw it into the computer, and I cut up every phrase and labeled eight hours of audio and started to re-create this conversation with him that I couldn't complete when he was living.

MTV: Do you feel you've closed a couple of chapters of your life with this record? Poe: Totally. At the end of making the record, I was working on the last song and ... I had this last little sample of [a] girl saying, "It's OK, you can go now." I just burst into tears and said, "I can't finish this song." And [my co-producer said,] "Why?" I was like, "Because when I do, I really have to let him go." It could have been just my complicated sense of who he [my father] was, what was uncomfortable and unresolved and tangled up. But whatever it was, it was gone, and for the first time in a very long time I felt like life is brand new — like I'm a blank canvas, like I'm starting over.

MTV: How do you feel about sharing a stage with one of your favorite bands, Depeche Mode? Poe: I only saw them live once, and it was three years ago. I remember saying to my brother, "God, I would give anything to sit through a soundcheck of theirs." I always was amazed at how warm their music felt [even though] it was so electronic. You didn't get the feeling that someone was just playing to tape and singing. The first thing I thought when I got this tour was, "Man, I'm going to get to sit through every soundcheck and look at how they do what they do." When I was in junior high, this guy moved to our school from London, and he was taller than everybody and really skinny, and he wore black eyeliner and had spiky hair and had a Sex Pistols T-shirt and this long earring. He was this unique, interesting, badass guy, and every girl in the school had a crush on [him]. He was blasting this tape of Depeche Mode in his car, and that was the first time I heard it. I can remember every element of that moment.

MTV: Will your brother Mark be with you on this tour? Poe: My brother, the writer, who sits in his room writing, is going to be onstage in front of 20,000 people at a time. As the little sister, I feel like I'm playing a cruel joke on him.

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Lyle Lovett
Photo: Michael Wilson

While songwriters and online music companies argued over how writers should be compensated for downloads of their songs, MusicNet — a subscription service run by RealNetworks and three of the five major record companies — got its first public demonstration in front of a House subcommittee Thursday.

RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser offered a display of the service in front of the House Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. For a monthly fee, MusicNet affiliates such as AOL will allow users to search for songs by title, artist name or keyword. Glaser typed in the keyword "love" and received a screenful of titles, including Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All" and Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)." MusicNet would allow users to download music for a limited period of time. Glaser clicked on a song he had downloaded earlier and received the message "Your license for this song has expired. Please press play to renew the license." This way, users will have to renew their subscriptions to retain access to the songs they download.

Unlike Napster, a file-sharing program that allows users to download music from any other Napster user's computer, MusicNet will give its subscribers access only to songs it stores on a central database. The only songs available will be from labels owned by AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI.

Vivendi Universal Executive Vice Chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. briefly discussed Duet, the joint online music venture between Universal and Sony, saying that it would offer both music and artist information.

Bronfman said Duet will offer streaming audio and "tethered downloads," which would also be temporary. Neither service will allow users to make permanent copies, at least in the immediate future.

One committee member accused the major labels of dragging their feet on granting licenses to other online music services to build a market for MusicNet and Duet.

"Consumers obviously wish they had access online to all the music ever recorded," California Rep. Elton Gallegly said. "The online music market has not moved quickly enough to meet this demand." Notably absent from the hearing was Napster, which was not invited. Earlier in the week, Napster sent an e-mail to members of its "action network," asking them to e-mail or call committee members in support of the file-sharing service.

The main obstacle facing Duet, MusicNet and other online music services is how to compensate songwriters. The services are lobbying for blanket licensing, where a service would pay a single fee to a royalty collection organization, which then distributes payments to writers and other copyright holders. Radio stations already pay blanket, or compulsory, licensing fees.

Country singer/songwriter Lyle Lovett and songwriter Mike Stoller argued against blanket licensing, and Lovett distinguished between a radio broadcast and a download. "When a song is broadcast on the radio, it's a promotional tool to encourage people to buy an album," Lovett said. "If people are downloading it on the Internet, they won't have to purchase it." Stoller, half of the legendary songwriting team of Leiber and Stoller, argued that Internet music services should pay a separate fee to copyright holders each time a song is downloaded, similar to the "mechanical" license fees that are paid on CDs, cassettes and vinyl sales.

Glaser claimed that the copies made by users of its services are no different than "copies" that are made of radio broadcasts that are relayed from one transmission tower to another. Glaser said that mechanical licensing fees for Internet copies would be unwieldy and virtually impossible to enforce.

Stoller complained that labels were trying to deny writers their fair share by asking for blanket licensing, and he countered claims that it's too difficult to keep track of individual downloads of a song. "I'm no expert on computers," Stoller said, "but I think we all agree that computers are good at counting." MP3.com President Robin Richards agreed with Glaser but said that his service's "locker" function — which allows users to store copies of music they've purchased so they can access songs without playing their compact discs — would be impossible if MP3.com had to make separate licensing deals with the thousands of publishers and copyright holders.

At an April 3 Senate judiciary committee hearing, Napster CEO Hank Barry also lobbied for compulsory licensing, to the opposition of Recording Industry Association of America chief Hilary Rosen.

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Poe and Gwen Stefani have collaborated on a new song, "Rise and Shine," to benefit an organization dedicated to educating and enhancing the lives of children with AIDS.

Poe was initially motivated to write the song for the Levar And Friends Fund of Rochester, New York, after meeting Levar Hogan Halter, the organization's namesake, at a concert in December 1996.

Halter is a twelve-year-old born with HIV whose mother and father both succumbed to the AIDS virus. Halter, who has since developed AIDS, was also diagnosed recently with brain cancer.

Poe staged a benefit concert for Halter in May 1997 that raised some $20,000 for the fund. The singer then wrote "Rise and Shine" so Levar could fulfill a dream and hear his voice on the radio, as he sings on the beginning of the track.

Stefani became aware of the organization and project via Poe, and agreed to provide backing vocals to "Rise and Shine." Atlantic Records and Poe will donate all proceeds from the single's sales to the nonprofit fund.

L.A.F.F. coordinates programs with other local agencies that help sponsor summer camps and recreational programs for children with the virus and those affected by a relative or friend with HIV or AIDS.

"Rise and Shine" premiered earlier this week on several Rochester radio stations and L.A.F.F. hopes that the single will gradually be released nationwide.

For more information about Levar and L.A.F.F., you can contact the organization by phone at (716) 336-9349, or by mail at L.A.F.F., 500 East Main St., Rochester, New York, 14604-1912.

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