Piero Capizzi Interview 2000: Transcript with Introduction by Brian McMahon Based on questions sent email by Piero Cappizi for his online history of music, what follows is Brian’s ramble thru the Cleveland years (1968-75 ) “The people of Cleveland were hostile, angry and aggressive. Sure, some were not, but they only served to further irritate the majority population. This may still be the case. I don’t know; I don’t go back there. The Electric Eels might have been the band for their times! No? A perfect reflection of their environment ... by a factor of ten! But hey, whadaya expect in a place of dispirited, resentful people without dreams,—or even more sick —people with dreams fufilled, and 40 years of life expectancy still out in front of them. The city of Cleveland squats with its back turned to the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Erie. Its horizon lost in a low grey sunless sky. In the late 60s / early 70s most Clevelanders didn’t look at the lake, they didn’t talk about the lake, and they neither fished nor swam in the poisoned waters. Bouys of bloated sturgeon bobbed along its garbage strewn beaches. Barges offered no fantasy of escape nor hope for adventure as they travelled back and forth between the mines and the mills. Fortunately, I found some amazing things along that deserted shoreline: psychedelics, extreme politics, satanic rituals, petty criminality, artistic violence and random sexual escapades. Still, every once in a while one had to come back up for some really bad air. The emulsifier in Cleveland’s immigrant stew was, paradoxically, the animosity of its people, who sincerely did not want to live together. Eastern Europeans, Appalachians, and rural Southerners, all defended their neighborhoods from hostile outsiders with a thinly-veiled bigotry which was at root in the nasty city. Hate was the tie that bound —blacks to whites, hillbillies to slavs, eastsiders to westsiders, blue collars to white ... and the Electric Eels were asking, “can you smell this?” — “HOW ‘BOUT NOW!!!?” “White flight” was the phenomenon whereby entire inner-city neighborhoods fell like dominos before the invading hordes of blacks. My own parents were among the early participants in the exodus from East Cleveland, selling our house before property values declined. Had they not given such valiant effort to “save the family” from “dangerous elements”, the Electric Eels would not have come to be. I wouldn’t have met Davy McManus and John Morton . Davy wouldn’t have named the band, and been the glue that kept the three of us together. John’s “XblankX” and “Johnny and the Dicks” happened later because the three of us had to do the Eels first. It was primary. It was the best thing to do and we knew it. All set in motion by my folks delivering me from the threatening prospect of integration on the economically challenged but cuturally rich near-eastside (ask any eastsider) into the wealth and serenity of the suburban westside lawns of Lakewood. Thanks mom and dad! Prose and poetry was the language of revolution in the 50s, music the 60s. And, so, accordingly, I was given the present of a Sears “folk guitar”, designed to cripple and thereby destroy whatever interest I may have had in playing as soon as my parents saw the tip of my passion protruding from beneath the pillow under my sleeping 12 year-old head. That it was but a corner of my transistor radio tuned to “a Detroit station” was enough. Take it right from Uncle Lou, they “couldn’t believe what they heard at all! ... not one tiny bit.” I can vividly recall, years later, smashing the orange sunburst top of that Kingston guitar, the instrument of my long torture, against a moonlit tree trunk in Davy’s backyard. For the Electric Eels I'd by a Telecaster to bleed on instead. The music scene, circa late '60s Cleveland, was desperately dull —even as the city was a favourite stop for really great regional and national groups: Velvets, Nazz, Amboy Dukes, Yardbirds, Alice Cooper, Blue Cheer, Jefferson Airplane, Stooges. But, original music had to come from out of state. And the flip side of that record was that local cover bands thrived. I guess you could say it was a town of assholes playing music for assholes. A few better venues eventually popped up ... —but who cares. Not enough folks to make a difference. And everybody ended up going to NYC. Except, of course, me and Davy. We stayed on to wash dishes in a string of upscale restaurants ... all the while fine-tuning our alchoholism and engaging in various other high-concept projects. Piero, before I dish anecdotes about some of the characters and bands who were in the orbit of the Electric Eels, I’d like to reply to an oft-asked question posed by you as well. Yes, I do believe I know the ingredient that sets our recordings apart from our CLE contemporaries: It’s the context. I mean, you can actually hear the context on tape. In the twin guitars, voice—yeah, and especially in the lyrics. Context courses like a raging river through the 2-track acetate. And the Eels’ conceptual grounding makes it to record: the philosophy rendered auraly. Residue of an Eels radar. Soundings from a super-magnification sonic mirror that we trained on the city. And, hey, now that I come to think about it, context may also have had more than a little to do with why the Electric Eels couldn’t — as a band intact — leave the town of its birth. You've asked that I comment on members of other bands ... so, Piero, I ramble on: Peter Laughner (Rocket from the Tombs) and I had some things in common ... including the same eclectic taste in songwriters ... and at least two girlfriends (I found out later). But, enough differences kept us from seeking each other out on any more than an occasional basis. I guess we became closest in the early 70’s. That's when I and my girlfriend Kristen moved just the next building over from his ‘n Charlotte’s East Cleveland apartment. It was there, turns out, where that little red rooste came to call ! At that time, I thought I was listening to a lot of music— but Peter was listening to even more. He played better guitar ( with several bands, duos, and solo ); drank way more; and stayed out much, much later. He even got thrown in jail more— and that’s saying a lot. In a few particular cases, I would have accompanied him there ...well, had I not—to twist the Biblical phrase—denied Peter thrice, that is. First time, he got caught stealing lawn jockies from front yards in the posh, west-suburban, Bay Village. At the time, I was actually up the street at the getaway car, struggling with a beautiful score of my own: a four-foot industrial Ridgid pipe wrench— mailbox still attached—fixed to a 150 lb concrete base. A present of which I later made to him and Charlotte to assuage my guilt-icks for having driven off when I saw him being grabbed by the cops. Next time, he was ejected by security guards at the Doors concert for smuggling in a couple quarts of Jack Daniels, which they confiscated. But not without the very bloody fight Peter put up in spite of his also being in bodily possession of most of the illegal substances of the era. And then they threw out anyone who knew him. I denied him a third time, ... when tje cops pulled up on me and this folk-singing guy Terry Hartman as we were walking Euclid Avenue some ten feet away from the curb where Peter was bashing the glass out of consecutive parking meters with hammer and chisel. Like we were gonna say, “yeah, he’s with us”? Charlotte made his bail about 4 hours later ... and then she really chewed his ass out. Terry and I barely crashed that night for the laughing. Much later, I played in a group with Charlotte and Andrew Klimek ( who I think were married for awhile) : Red Dark Sweet. I was probably very obviously uncomfortable in that band, even though we had a communist pot and pan drummer named John. I think they are both (Andrew and Charlotte) extremely talented but not very visual. My efforts to incorporate sculpture and graphics were always tolerated but not encouraged. By the way, I love Andrew’s songs, “Lincoln Tunnel” and “European Economic Community”. I lived with Michael Weldon at least twice. He travelled from apartment to apartment with volumes of text and photo clippings which would become the very fine tome “Psychotronic Film Guide”. He sometimes turned into Mo Tucker ... when around Mirrors. And that’s a good thing cause that’s exactly what those guys needed. Michael and I educated each other all through high school about music and films, whilst doing prodigious amounts of mind-expanding substances. We virtually tripped our way through the 60’s —the best decade of the century. And I feel bad for everyone who missed it. Unequivocally, all stories about John Morton and me are true. When we weren’t fighting with each other we were either punching-or-being-punched in bars across the city. Anytime I felt that we had maybe made it thru the night without a scrap, I was proved wrong. One time John thought I “backed down on” from these longshoremen at the Harbor Inn in the flats. It looked like a suicide to me. So, John broke my jaw with a right roundhouse when we got outside. I had to forgo my usual bowl of chili at the neighborhood lunch bar for about a month, taking sustenance only thru a straw— much to the delight of my chronic alchoholism, which began to take on the distinctly dominant influence among other more moderate personalities dwelling within the temple of my soul. John and I sometimes subcontracted construction jobs together. He was a diligent carpenter (built our Marshall stacks) and I was a thorough painter (painted and repainted rooms of my parents’ house everytime I needed money). And one summer we signed on to erect farm silos across southern Ohio. Even John’s girlfriend at the time, Michele Zalopany joined the crew! She was the best worker. They later married and divorced ... and she found notable success as an artist, — charcoals mostly I think. Started in New York mounting plates on canvases for Julian Schabel, then had her own shows. I visited her in the Eighties in her apartment at the Chelsea. I also understand, Piero, that she owns a farmhouse studio in Italy—your neck of the woods. Anyway, before her success, and sometime during her marriage to John, but years after the Electric Eels had disbanded for good, she played bass guitar in Morton’s X - X ... or Johnny and the Dicks ... or whatever it was called. Hey, that reminds me that one reason the Eels were so loud (and louder) (and still louder) was John’s continuing one-upsmanship.. I had to keep adding cabinets and heads so as not to get totally blown out. John even had this one idea to place small individual speakers on every table in a club, to which would be wired ... his Marshall, only. I once worked at a warehouse with Gene O’Connor of the Dead Boys. He was ok but I had no use for Stiv Bators. His shock value to me was in the single digits. And, I mean, shock was his thing! Well, his band’s thing. They were soooooo unnatural. And rumor has it that the Dead Boys were responsible for stealing some equipment from John and Davy when our bands shared a loft space on 6th St. in Cleveland. The cops called it an inside job, but we had to prove it before we could go busting into the Holiday Inn where we heard the stuff was stashed in the basement. Apparently, the drummer’s father was an owner or manager of the hotel ... but the cops weren’t buying our lead. So we wrote it off as a loss and kicked the DB’s out of the space. After the Eels split up, Davy and I had a band called the B-Sharps. We did a cover of Janis Ian’s “ Society’s Child” as a cha-cha, referred to as “Society’s Cha-Cha”. The members of that band were so friendly and civil that it seemed a refreshing break from the turbulence of the Eels. Mike Metoff (g), Linda Hudson (d), Chas Smith (p), Mike Terbeek (h), were all real sweethearts, but I soon realized that, for Davy and me, where the intrinsic tension and provocation of the Electric Eels went so too did the creative. Still, it was an amusing little band. We covered Bobby Rydell (“Wild One”, which I have on tape), Nat King Cole Trio, and Dion in a most-Davy way. He was also doing stand-up ... and getting slaughtered at the comedy clubs. I think by the time he’d built up a following for his comedy, the B-Sharps had disbanded and we’d dropped out of each other’s lives. The next thing heard was that he’d become a missionary for Christ. And you must know “I never answer panic knocking ...”, so I didn’t get in touch. Jim Jones ( Pere Ubu ) was an occasional bassist at Eels’ practices. And although we found a bass guitar superfluous to our sound, I think we all appreciated having someone else there to push along Nick Knox on the drums. Not only was Jim an exceedingly genuine and warm person, but he was interesting even though he worked in a record store! Which none of us ever did. Which, I believe, kept the Eels from falling victim to an incestuous cross-pollination of personell and sound that can be heard among CLE-wave bands. I’d go so far as to suggest that bands formed by record store - distributor - label employees are largely responsible for the mediocre monolith that is music today. The Chicago scene is an example. Don’t get me started. I loved Brian Kinchey’s band Moses [they served up the best “Cold Turkey” (Lennon)]. Brian was among the most pretentious (in the non-pejorative sense) of the Cleveland rock stars and he should have made it instead of ...say...Eric Carmen. We met a few times around town. When he owned a record store called Platterpus with Jim Jones, we talked at an Adrian Belew guitar seminar. And I think, Piero, my brother Kevin re-introduced us at Otto Mosher’s once on 4th Street where, by the way, the cover photo for Lucky Pierre’s 7” - “Fans & Cameras” was taken. (A single you know well, I understand) Kevin McMahon is, of course, my brother ... and though we’ve liked each other much of the time, we were quite unlike many of CLE band siblings in that there is no history of our working together. He played drums ( a very usefull niche ) at first , but never seemed to want to get involved with me outside of the brief basement jam. So he led his own distinctly different bands whose members held a wary suspicion of the Electric Eels and just what we were trying to be. I don’t know that the rest of ‘em ever got it, but I know Kevin did. And now that thirty odd years have passed and my work grows more accessible with each new day, I predict we may yet collaborate. So “keep watching the skies”. By the way, I loved his album for Nothing Interscope, “Prick”. Speaking of drummers,...I can’t imagine Anton Fier working with Davy in the post-Eels Men from Uncle. We threw him out of the Electric Eels precisely because he was too anal to work with Davy. I’m sure he hasn’t changed ... although, I can’t say and I’ve never heard anything he ever played on since then. He was zealously pedantic. A total creative impediment,...and my wife says he looked like Wayne Newton. The Mirrors were a band whose music I have only recently begun to appreciate. Especially Jamie Klimek. I knew and liked all the members but never paid much attention really... and I kinda regret that. But I was very asocial when at my best. I did however feel a secret joy whenever they were gigging out, especially the early gigs in Lakewood at the YMCA. I’m sure there they were like the proverbial hair in the hamburger. Paul Marotta (Styrenes, sometimes in the Eels) has become an important part of my life. Since he contacted me in the late 80’s, regarding releases of Electric Eels recordings (which he rescued and preserved), we have continued to correspond, exchange new songs and recordings, and even played together in Atlanta in 1997. With John Morton, we took stage at a 3 day festival at Dottie’s, promoted by Tom Smith (To Live And Shave In LA) and Fifth Column Records, to perform Electric Eels songs for an enthusiastic turnout. It was great fun. Before that night Paul and I had never played out together, in fact we didn’t even like each other much. Now not only does his Jilmar Music administer some of my publishing, but the Styrenes have recorded my new songs on “We Care So You Don’t Have To” (Scat LP), and the band played newer stuff live on European radio their last tour. Always respected by me as a talented musician (read: I always thought he was a hack), I can finally say Paul has become a friend ... and thank Buddah somebody had the sense to save the tapes as the Electric Eels self-destructed. Piero — Cleveland in the 70s: sick, polluted, fucked-up, didn't care 'bout music, didn't have clubs to play. "Cleveland people were hostile, angry and aggressive". Nobody talks, though, about the BIG difference between West and East CLE: why such a big difference? Why two clusters of people in the same town? Why, above all, lots happened in the East? Brian — I dunno, I'm not a sociologist. P — John Morton, Dave McManus and yourself = Electric Eels. Three very different characters, right? B — Yes, different as Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs ... or Larry, Curly and Moe if you prefer. P — Where/when did you three guys meet? B — We met in Lakewood High, a public school, in grades 11 and 12. We all ended up there after being kicked out of private schools for ... manifesting. I was expelled from St. Ignatius, a Jesuit prep school, for shoplifting record albums; John from Lake Ridge Academy for breaking some kid's arms; and Davy from St. Edward's High for various, even more insidious episodes of incorrigibility. P — Legend says you decided to put together the Eels after you went to see Captain Beefheart at La Cave with Left End supporting, right? B — Hard to say when a thing like that gets decided. It gets talked about for a while and then you do it. Yeah, maybe that show was the last straw, the opening band was really awful ... and, by the way, I'm sure it wasn't La Cave. Don Van Vliet stormed off the stage reaming out the sound man after his harp mic kept cutting out, but Rockette Morton really wanted to play! ... he kept the band going for a good long jam, which got a lot less bluesy with the Captain out. And Beefheart never came back. Alex St.Claire was really phenomenal. P — When I think about the Eels one thing that strikes me is that you were always fighting with each other but you were always together, inseperable. How were the dynamics among you and within the band? Who was the leader? B — Well, I don't want the job (leader), even for the historical footnotes; so, let's give it to John. And really the only time we were inseperable was when John had one or both of us in the Morton "death hug". P — Another element that strikes me the most is that the Eels were an attitude more than just a band. How would you define ART TERRORISM, your philosophy of life at that time? B — We simply allowed our art and music to become action — and to enter, unchecked, into the lives of people with whom we came in contact daily. And it terrorized them! P- What did you guys do for a living during the Eels times? B- (silence) Mary Burzynski- Piero wonders if the Eels were employable? And since Brian is angling to skip over this curious question, I offer to fill in on what I observed in 1974-75. John was a professional art student. Occasionally I would see him in a pair of painters pants and he would talk carpentry, as his wife Michele filled my other ear with how she was tired of busting her ass doing shit work to support him. They were very much in love. The only time I knew of John being employed was when he, Michelle and Brian built farm silos in central Ohio. I, myself, opted for the sanity of my job back in town ... where I worked at the State Mental Hospital. Davy, when he worked, was a dishwasher. He cursed the waitresses as he sweated alone next to the giant Hobart ... dreaming of being a chef. (The only night he slept at my house, I found him sleeping with my Sabatier). When we met, Brian was a sandwich maker in a quaint cafe that seated eight people. Complaining of the light workload he quit so he could take advantage of a position that openned installing trailer hitches with a guy who thought he was Elvis in "Blue Hawaii". The unfortunate misspelling of Brian’s name as BRAIN on all of his uniforms caused Brian to think the staff might be actually conspiring to thwart his attempts to excell to a higher position in the trailer hitch chain of command. So, a few days later, it was on to being a bellhop at the Men's Athletic Club. Brian always saw career opportunities where others could not. He worked in a foundry, and as a cabdriver, an ice cream truck man (Bannana Brian), and once as a porn clerk.( Brian wrongly believed his artful arangement of dildos would boost sales.) He also worked as a human grounding wire for two electricians. My favorite though was his stint as a handyman— he wasn't. Fortunately his clientele breathed air too rarified to know what handy was. P - Flashbacks from an Eels gig: John wears a coat hung together with safety pins; Dave is covered in rat traps; John hits a large sheet of metal with a sledgehammer, What was the role of visual art for the Eels? Mary - Since I'm on a roll, let me continue; because this calls for the kind of classification that Brian won't do. Without identifying themselves as such, the Eel's lives were pieces of conceptual art. It just wasn't documented, because that ran counter to the spontaneous interactive experiment they were. (Paul recorded the band for his own purposes and the tapes were a surprise when they surfaced.) Everything the band did was art, up to and including visual spectacles in traditional and non-traditional mediums. The outfits you describe were nothing special. Chinese dinner at Jong Mai's might’ve inspired similar dress. John did however did go on to pursue a career in the visual arts. Brian's focused on writing ... and Davy had the Hobart. P — Eels equals three very different personalities and three very different ways of writing songs, I'd assume, right? B — Piero, you know what happens when you ASSUME ... You make an ASS of U and ME ! And, besides, you'd be wrong. Because, I think we all came into practices with very complete songs—although Davy might not have any chords ready. P - What was Paul Marotta's role within the Eels and for the CLE music scene in general? B - (silence) ... ( and more silence) Mary - Piero, I know what Brian's thinking: "Paul doesn't like to be talked about." And we have to respect that. I know that's unsatisfying, but Paul's pretty well defined how he sees his role in the Cleveland scene. I remember him in utter exasperation as he painstakingly tried to capture a perfect take of the Eel's at play. I'm glad he eventually settled for less. P — Although looking from the outside, the 70's scene in CLE might look very homogenous, Eels, Mirrors, Rocket from the Tombs were very different and not very connected at all, right? Why was that? B — Well, the music is totally dissimilar. The personalities of the bands were incompatible. And a mission statement from each would set out completely different goals. Shall I go on? P — Let me try to put a few tiles of the Eels puzzle together ... B — You may as well have a try. P — ... When did you move to Columbus? Is it true that you moved because John had to run away from a jealous husband? B — First off, John never ran away from anything — he ran at things. And I think his modus operandi would have led him to invite the jealous husband for a menage a trois, and failing that, he'd either kick his ass or take a beating standing up. At any rate, we moved with John so we could do the Eels while he attended art school. That was sometime in 1973-4. P — Paul in his liner notes to "Those Were Different Times" claims that you took part in the Men from Uncle, the Eels-Styrenes project from summer of '75. You've always denied that, right? B — Sometimes I think Paul was in so many different PROJECTS that he can't remember that I was only in the Electric Eels, really ... even if I was occasionally sitting in on somebody's idea of a sequel. There's no such thing as a Eels-Styrenes project unless ya wanna call it ELO. Sorry, the very notion of such a collaboration just reminded me of that preposterous statement Jeff Lynne made about the Electric Light Orchestra wanting to bridge the gap between rock and classical music. It sounds like a Paul idea. P — Last Eels concert in September '75, then the band vanishes. A few concerts, no recordings in a proper studio, no attempts whatsoever to leave some more concrete traces behind you. Why that? B — Piero, I don't have any children, and the Electric Eels band doesn't have any little bands, and I don't understand, per se, the concept of leaving concrete traces behind. Even now, with my current solo recordings, that thinking is never operative. The Eels were, by nature, ephemeral. Making tapes, to hear oneself back, can be part of a daily process, but it would have been antithetical for us to record for reasons beyond an "art now!" agenda. P — Then you quit playing and left CLE to go to Chicago; when did you start up music again and what made that happen? B — In 1990 somebody showed up at an art studio, where I was working, with a copy of the Electric Eels LP (Tinnitus) that he'd just bought at the record store. "Is this your band, man?", he asked. I had to fucking sit down. Obviously, some tapes had been saved, and, though I'd been told about bad bootleg cassettes going round for years, I hadn't heard any. I was struck dumb. By the high-fidelity of songs I hadn't heard in 15 years. The shit was good! Uh, and that's when I started writing again. P — What kind of music have you been listening to over the last 20 years? B — I listen to a little bit of everything ... but not much of anything. I still love to hear crafty pop songs, which are pretty few and far between, but for inspiration I'll throw on every other genre ... from Monk to Cage to Broadway. I listen not to borrow or even steal —though I've nothing against that—but to assimilate certain absractions, I guess. I play anything that will help me to slightly alter my decidedly pop constructions. P — How changed is the way you write songs since the Eels times? ... So far you've issued three very different solo works ( see discography ). How do you see them and how do you descibe the differences? B — Well, a writer writes for the band he's in, doesn't he? For all practical purposes, the three solo records represent three different bands. And I still write songs for the Electric Eels, so that's a fourth band ... and I always will. As you point out, my solo recordings are as different from one another as they are from the Eels and yet people have come to my record label's web site to say they can tell, from hearing my solo stuff, which are my songs in the Electric Eels. So to finally answer your question: I don't think much has really changed excepting the bands. P — When did you get to know Tom Smith (To Live and Shave in LA) and how was blending his noisy stuff with your lo-fi folk in "17 Volts"? B — Tom Smith would have been an Electric Eel. He's a brilliant lyricist. I love the guy so much that one of my few regrets is that he didn't become known to me 20 years earlier. As a producer, Tom has made recording with me a pleasure for all producers who will come after him. I say that humbly. Forever shall be the ripples, of not only "17 Volts", but of every single occasion that has brought us together since. He is truly ... The Shit. P — Any reasons why you issued your second work, "An Inch Equals A Thousand Miles", on vinyl only? B — Two reasons. Steve Silverstein and Mike Whitney, my producers, conceived and executed a full-length recording for vinyl reproduction. In fact, I have a one-off cd from the analog master ... and it can't compare to the lps cut from the vinyl master that John Golden delivered us. And I take Mike and Steve's efforts seriously enough not to compromise their vision for what would amount to a “convenience argument” from the current cd culture. I'm in no way a purist when it comes to analog vs digital, but I try to respect the deeply-felt wishes of others ... and if I don't, I don't get involved with them at the start. P — Is the pop influenced stuff on your last EP, "YEAH", just a divertissement or is that a genre that you still want to explore? B — It's all me. I don't write for a market. But if I have a radio hit or movie song that's okay by me. Hell, that could even happen with "Jaguar Ride" by the Electric Eels. And don't forget that I'm a natural-born fan of big slabs of 45 vinyl ... Move, Kinks, Love, Byrds. I hear "Yeah" as sort of a 2K"California Sun" kind of side. And yes, I'd love to do a full-length with the Kitchen Ants, who were my band on the EP. P — I heard rumors about unpublished Eels recordings that could see the light of day, any news about it? B — No news is good news. If there are any more recordings after "Those Were Different Times", they are, to paraphrase the New York Times, unfit to print. Mary - "Eyeball of Hell" will be out this summer on Scat. Go to scatrecords.com. I can't say what's on because Paul’s got the tapes ... and you know how that goes. P - What happened to that group that John wanted to put together with you a couple of years ago in NY? Was it called Amoeba? Mary - Amoeba (Raft Boy) was John and Paul Marotta's attempt to work musically together in the nineties. They played at least one gig at Tora Tora Tora in Atlanta 1997 and broke up. I can imagine why! Paul is as anal as John is spontaneous. The tapes of that gig will probably never see the light of day; but who knows what will surface in another twenty years from Paul's vault. P — Which music directions will you go next after "Yeah"? What are you up to now? B — I'm working on some long-term projects that I'll bring out in 2001. By the way, that's not a significant date for me, beyond the fact it's when I expect there'll be something to show. Meanwhile, we're working on a couple of new sites, including electriceels.com. And on the subject of sites, I was really pleased to hear from Mary that in the first 2 months of 2K, we got 50,000 hits. And though we haven't posted MP3s yet, Mary also tells me I've even sold a few records. P — Going back to the CONTEXT: do you ever miss CLE? B — No, but going back to CLE, I might begin to miss the CONTEXT. End