Joe Pettit Jr is a musician, bookseller, and all-around master of sourcing and supply for good ideas and culture, living in Eugene, Oregon.
1. If you could throw a party, who would cook or cater, what would the menu be, what three bands would play, and where would it be?
I thought about this question for a long time, weighing which legendary cooks I would want to come cater a party, but I always came back to my first thought. In the late ‘80s, when I was attending New College, the liberal arts college of South Florida, I worked part time at a seafood shop called Captain Brian’s. Periodically, he would give me a bunch of fish that he couldn’t sell because it wasn’t as fresh as it had to be. I’d take it back to campus, we’d fire up the grills, and pretty soon we’d have a fish fry party going down in Palm Court or near the Bay. In that spirit, I’d like to recreate one of those epic grilling parties in Palm Court at the New College Campus.
We’d serve blackened grouper, Mahi Mahi tuna, blackened rib eye steaks ( just because I love rib eyes). For the vegetarian and vegans, we have tofu marinated in Sembal Oleck and Bragg’s. Grilled veggie skewers, corn, asparagus, and green onions (cebollitas, to honor my Mexican relatives), fire baked potatoes, my wife Kelly’s potato salad (with a vinegar base rather than mayo).
If we’re talking dream band/time travel scenario, I’d love to have Mission of Burma circa 1982, The Soundtrack of Our Lives, The Grateful Dead circa 1972, and electric period Miles Davis, probably early ‘70s. If we’re talking bands and musicians that are currently working, I’d want The Coral, Jane Weaver, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Blue Oyster Cult, and Alice Cooper doing one of his one off performances with the original Alice Cooper Band.
2. What's your current creative project or projects? What do you want folks to know about it?
My band, Psyrup, is my ongoing creative project. It has been in existence just a little bit longer than my relationship with my wife, Kelly. We’re in the midst of recording our fourth album. We had a major setback due to a break in at our rehearsal space. My Rickenbacker bass, which I’ve had since I was fourteen years old, was stolen, along with all of Ryan’s guitars, light show gear, some amp heads, etc. They didn’t get everything , but they got enough to hurt us and set us back. We’re a group of mellow, but ornery guys. There might have been brief contemplative thoughts about hanging it up, but we’re all in agreement that this is one of the most magical musical groups we’ve all been involved in. When you’ve experienced that level of musical ESP and group creation, much less the emotional and sonic power that we put out on the stage, it’s hard to walk away from that.
We’re about halfway through the recording of the new album. Our previous merch is on Bandcamp in various musical formats, except for the 3rd album, which is only on Spotify and only available for purchase on CD directly from us.
It also goes without saying if anyone has information about the break in at our rehearsal space or the current location of my Rickenbacker bass or Ryan’s guitars, please contact us. And if anyone wants to donate a Rickenbacker bass to me for the cause, it would also be greatly appreciated.
My other musical project, Sara B and the 45 RPM, has been on hiatus since the onset of lock down due to Covid. In the past, the idea of being crowded in a small room with 12 other people playing sweaty soul music was fun. At the moment it sounds really sketchy and nightmarish. We’ve had some discussions about doing a live video performance with a smaller ensemble, but those fell through. We’ll get it together again, probably after everyone gets vaccinated. It’s just too fun to forego forever.
On another front, I’m in the midst of developing a film podcast with my longtime compadre, writer and movie critic, Derek Hill. We’re still a couple months away from dropping episodes, but it’s an idea we’ve been brainstorming for years. To my mind, there’s only a handful of movie podcasts that attempt to discuss movies, and the work of directors and actors with the level of depth and scope that we want to approach it with – for myself, I would say some of those podcasts are The Wrong Reel, Pure Cinema Podcast, All the Colors of the Dark, The Kingcast, and The Losers Club. Last year was going to be the target date, but like almost everyone else, we had a huge setback with Covid-19. We don’t have a title as yet, but we’ll make an announcement as we get closer to a launch date.
The last thing I’m working on is an article on the giallo films of Lucio Fulci. During lock down, I went down the rabbit hole of Italian genre cinema, revisiting some of my horror favorites, and diving deep into giallo films, a very stylized and codified version of the suspense film. Mario Bava and Dario Argento are the acknowledged masters of the form, but I fell in love with the fever dream films of Fulci. It started when I dipped my metaphorical toe into his Zombie films. I loved the power and craziness of his vision. His best work has a nightmarish poetry to it, akin to the spirit of a director like David Lynch. Fulci was an Italian film craftsman, akin to the studio filmmakers in the golden years of the Hollywood studio system. His work spans almost every popular Italian film genre, starting with comedy in the 1950s, veering off into historical drama, spaghetti westerns, and giallo in the ‘60s, then finally the extreme horror films that made his reputation at the end of the ‘70s and into the early ‘80s. He had a really strong run from the late ‘60s to the mid-80s, when declining health and declining film budgets hobbled his output. Like all the best directors, he has some psychological issues that he works out onscreen. Fair warning, in the eighties, misogyny is on full blown display. It’s partly cultural, and partly personal, but it takes a really dark turn. A lot of those movies are uncomfortable to watch for a number of reasons. However, I find his golden period of films endlessly fascination, so much so, that I want to write an article about a certain branch of them.
3. What's a brick and mortar business you've always wanted to work at, something you'd even do for free?
I kind of already do it, working as a book seller in a store while also doing online sales. About the only thing I’d want to expand upon is the book finding aspect, travelling around the world to find exotic and rare books, sort of like Johnny Depp in The Ninth Gate. I’m definitely a physical media kind of guy. It’s an interesting time in the industry. The reality is we’re seeing a lot of items that used to be common place just disappear from circulation.
Due to the collapse of a lot of smaller brick and mortar bookstores due to Covid fallout, what would be considered pirates in another time – companies and individuals using algorithm programs to snap up product at a low price on one website and pretending that they have the book and then jacking the prices up much higher on another – are drastically changing the free market landscape online.
It’s happening with the other physical media products, as well – CDs, albums, Blu Rays, DVDs - but I’m really involved with the book world aspects. It’s a complex issue that I’m really giving a dumbed down explanation.
Don’t get me wrong. Streaming is a wonderful thing. Spotify and Itunes are the closest thing to the Universal library that I used to imagine where you could find any album you wanted and listen to it in a matter of moments. The same with movie streaming services like Criterion, Shudder, Kanopy, Hulu and Netflix. It’s an embarrassment of riches. The reality, though, is that if you’re a hard core buff in any media form, you can’t find everything, and your choices are limited by who has the rights to what and who wants the item to be in circulation. And that stuff disappears. Long argument shortened – I want to be the guy to help you find this disappearing stuff. I focus on books. I’ve been collecting books since I was eight years old. But I could just as easily be in a store that sells music or movies in their various physical forms.
4. What does your ideal creative day look like?
I get up, make a pot of coffee, sit down at the computer and write a while. Take a break, fiddle around with my guitar or bass, learning or writing a new song. Maybe read for a while. Then go meet up with the guys in Psyrup for a recording session. Go home, put on an album and make one of my favorite dishes (Chicken and Yellow Rice has been on my mind for a week or so). Wrap up the day by building a book shelf I’ve been wanting to make. If I’m not drop dead sleepy, then put on a movie and drift off to dream land. That’s not too ambitious, is it?
5. What’s your favorite record right now?
I’m bouncing back and forth between Tori Amos’s American Doll Posse and the new Alice Cooper album, Detroit Stories. Listening to the Tori Amos album came about due to a completely random event. I’ve been playing musical roulette with my CD collection, randomly grabbing something I haven’t listened to in a while. Apparently, I bought that album and never listened to it. It’s friggin’ amazing! One of the strongest of her albums that I’ve heard. Great pop hooks, heavy guitar riffs, and her voice at times just makes me all weak kneed and googley eyed. The Alice Cooper album is really strong. It’s so inspiring that we have a number of artists right now whose works span decades - in Alice’s case almost half a century - putting out work that can easily stand with the best works from their prime. This one is full blown, fist pumping Detroit rock and roll as only Alice can do, and it’s a glorious thing.
6. What's the last book you wanted to buy 100 copies of and pass out to friends?
The Overstory by Richard Powers. It’s an American epic that focuses on several families and their relationships with trees and the natural world over the span of hundreds of years. That’s a really simplified summary, but it covers the main gist. His depiction of the natural world is just awe inspiring, showing it as a complex and intelligent network that communicates on a very different realm than the human one. If you’ve spent any kind of quality time in the natural world you know it’s conscious. Powers illustrates this consciousness masterfully.
7. It’s a hot summer night and there’s beer in the cooler. What movie would you most like to show in your back yard or on a wall in a public space?
I'd make it a double feature, drive in style. First up is The Visitor, a bonkers ass Italian film from the late ‘70s. Is it about a cosmic war between demons and aliens, the main emissaries being a Jesus type alien and a possessed 8 year old child? I don’t know, but we’ll all have a good time getting our minds blown by this truly weird, and outrageously fun film. I’d follow it up with The Phantom of the Paradise, one of my all time favorite films. It’s Brian De Palma’s take on the Phantom of the Opera, updated to the 70’s rock scene. The colors pop out of the screen, sort of like a live action comic book, with a great Paul Williams soundtrack. And Paul Williams as the enigmatic and sinister record promoter Swan delivers an all time best performance. My parents took me to see it in the movie theater when I was pretty young, and it scarred me, in a good way. Some of those images stayed burned in my brain.
8. How do you take care of your creative practice and stay inspired and energized?
It’s truly difficult with all the demands of adult life, especially in crazy times like now. So many times, my focus becomes finding a way to create more opportunities to make money. That mentality does not really work in the creative realm. When that weighs on me too much, I’ll make it a point to engage with music, movies or books that inspire me. I’ll fall in love with a particular piece, go deep into someone else’s work, and that inspires me to get back to my work with a renewed vigor and inspiration. I’ll make sure I have a project going that engages me creatively and that I have to make a point of regularly and consistently putting butt in chair or at the practice space to get the work done.
9. What made you laugh the hardest this week?
Initially, I was going to write about the Dr. Seuss brouhaha and some of the reactions of our customers, but I realized that would take over a page to explain and give context to what I found funny. Fortunately, something else happened yesterday on my way to work that made me laugh out loud. I was driving down West 7th, near Polk. On the sidewalk at the side of the road was a man in his late 30s, dressed in a combat green button down jacket, unbuttoned, and in combat green trousers. He was obviously shirtless beneath the jacket since I got a full on view of his very hairy chest. In his right hand he held, very delicately I might add, a small cardboard box, maybe 10” x 10”. It took a moment to register, but it began to dawn on me that he was slowly, and very expressively, dancing with this cardboard box. His movements were languid, graceful, and very deliberate. However, it was the look on his face that provided the proverbial icing on the cake. It was the look you would give to the love of your life, the partner who’d been with you side by side through all the trials and tribulations we experience as humans. Tender, passionate, knowing, and fond. Who knows? He looked like he was at the tail end of a long night fueled with alcohol or drugs or whatever substance of your choice, and it was last dance. Maybe, he was seeing the love of his life in that moment. It was a beautiful dance, and very surreal.
10. How would you have handled winning the recent ONE BILLION DOLLAR powerball jackpot?
I would get a lawyer and financial advice before stepping forward to claim the money, while also looking into ways of shielding myself and my family from the vultures who would immediately swoop in. After that, I would send some to members of my immediate family and to friends I knew who were struggling. Long term, I would set up some sort of artistic foundation to finance artists I love and believe in. Unless you get really lucky, it’s tough to make it in any artistic field without some sort of day job or other means of surviving. Not that he needs help, but I would love to finance at least one more major film by David Lynch, to let him create without worrying about the budget. And I’d love to do that for a number of musicians, writers, and filmmakers who I admire and respect. Create some kind of artistic grant, that’s what I’d do, to make life easier for some of us who, whether foolishly or wisely, dare to tread on unknown paths because we can’t help it,
that’s just how we’re wired.
