STEFAN'S INTERVIEW WITH RUTH EDDY AT WPKN
On January 27 I drove up to Connecticut for a live radio interview with Ruth Eddy of WPKN Radio 89.5 FM, Bridgeport. I tuned in her station and heard my name being announced just as I approached the station at exit 27 on I-95. We had made arrangements for the interview through email. I arrived at the studio at 2:50, just ten minutes before going on air. Ruth poured me a coffee and I sat opposite her with the headphones on. Her 4 and a half year old son, Henry was there with her to greet me.
Ruth: We talked by email that Ken Whiteley goes back to the early Bruce Cockburn days. Were you friends with him?
Stefan: I did meet him a couple of times when I was playing coffeehouses in Toronto in the Seventies but we were'nt friends.
Ruth: You're originally from Canada. What inspired you to take a break from music and come back?
Stefan: When I was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I picked up my guitar and was sad that I couldn't play it, after neglecting it for 17 years. I was determined to get it back so I practiced every day. I got really inspired to write a lot of songs and produced two albums.
Ruth: On three of the cuts you play guitar and harmonica. Let's give people a listen. This is one of my favorite cuts: Lion's Big Debut from Time of Wonder by Stefan des Lauriers.
Lion's Big Debut/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom
Stefan: I've only performed Lion's Big Debut a few times. I wrote the bridge as I played it at a home recording studio, and that became the template for the song.
Ruth: How old are your kids?
Stefan: I have a girl (Naomi) 8, a boy (Leon) 10 and a girl (Renee) 12. Renee sings on one of the songs, Yodeling Frog.
Ruth: This may look like a children's album but it's not just for kids. You've been in contact with David Zinovenko who has a children's show at this station.
Stefan: Yes, David sometimes plays Time to Say Goodnight on his show. I sent him a preliminary DAT to him and he gave me some feedback that helped me make it a better recording.
Ruth: When you picked up guitar, to get back to an earlier thread, did you have it in your mind that you would make another album?
Stefan: Yes I was very determined to record my music. It is kind of frustrating knowing what it might be like down the road with my condition, it's a race against the clock. I documented all of my songs but one, Carousel Wind. At the end of the time when I could still play well, I was writing music that was pretty sophisticated. Now it is hard for my hands to keep up to where my mind is at musically.
Ruth: Is there some kind of technology that can help you with the limitations of Parkinson's when you're recording?
Stefan: Since I can't go out and perform all the time I have a tendency to sing flat. One of the things that David Zinovenko and another DJ in Seattle said was that sometimes I sing off key. So Sharkey used Autotune to put every note in perfect pitch.
Ruth: This was done in Canada? Stefan: No, this was done at Heartland Sounds in Ossining, and a lot of the instrumentation was done by Ken Whiteley at Casa Wroxton Studio in Toronto.
Ruth: So Ken Whiteley was an old friend of yours.
Stefan: Actually he was more of a stranger... I listened to a tape called Kids Songs by Nancy Cassidy that was produced by Ken Whiteley on Kids Klutz Press.That was that was the sound that I wanted. About three years ago I was trying to get a Canada Council grant so I approached Ken and sent him a tape of my songs. He liked what he heard and helped me out a lot. I did make a notation in my journal that I ran into him at the Mariposa folk festival office in the Seventies. While we were doing the project Ken talked to Collin Linden about me and Collin said that he remembered me from the coffeehouse scene.
Ruth: How did you end up in New Jersey?
Stefan: That's a long story.
Ruth: Do you want to give us an intro to Vision of Victory.
Stefan: This is about returning to the scene of the climb. When I could climb the mountain I didn't, now that I can't I'm gonna. The climb is a metaphor for pursuing my music career. My favorite line is "You go as high as you can go and then your climb begins." That line has many meanings.
Vision of Victory/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom
Ruth: Joining me in the studio this afternoon is Stefan des Lauriers. I tend to over announce a little because sometimes when you're driving in your car and you turn the dial to something you like and don't catch the name of something you like. The next song is Sunflowers.
Stefan: This song came in a dream. Some songs I work on for years some happen in a few days. This one came in a few days. I saw a black and white photograph of soldiers with their shiny helmets, and then looked at it again and saw a freshly plowed field. Then I saw rows of Sunflowers. I took those images and tied them together in a song. Soldiers in a parade turn their heads in a parade when the marshall yells "eyes right," and they all turn like sunflowers facing the sun.
Sunflowers/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom
Ruth: You were telling me that one was produced by Sharkey McEwen. Do you have a website; if people are interested how can they buy Time of Wonder?
Stefan: They can buy it at my site, Music Kingdom, at CDbaby.com or Amazon.com. But at Amazon you have to look for me in the Music Section because there is a children's book by the same title.
Ruth: I See here that one of your songs was submitted to the Children's Web Awards.
Stefan: Yes, Wind-up Monkey was a finalist in a contest at www.childrensmusic.org. That's a wonderful site with listings of about four hundred children's musicians. It was through their listserv that I got in touch with David Zinovenko. That award was last summer.
Ruth: Are you still writing songs.
Stefan: The last song I wrote was about a year ago, it was called Eternal Troubadour, and it was a song about Tiny Tim. Ruth: Tiny Tim of Ed Sullivan fame, right?
Stefan: Yes, I was inspired to write the song after reading the biography Tiny Tim by Harry Stein. There is a song on my CD inspired by Emmit Kelly's Autobiography, Clown, called When the Silver Whistle Blows.
Ruth: The next song is Great Engineer. Would you like to say something about this song?
Stefan: I wrote this song late in the Seventies but wrote the bridge a couple years ago. It went "Station Masters stopwatch makes time stand still it seems." But stopwatch isn't railroad parlance, so I had to think of something else. It took me a year to come up with "gold watch."
Great Engineer/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom
Ruth: Now Stefan you've got to amuse the people while I get the next two songs. Stefan: The next two songs are Wind-up Monkey Dance, and Jet Fuel Folderol. Wind up monkey was a line dance written especially for kids who have a tendency of stepping out of line.
Ruth: O Henry!
Stefan: And then we're going into Jet Fuel Folderol which has wild harmonica and a kazoo solo.
Ruth: Do you play the nose flute? I do.
Wind-up Monkey Dance/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music
Kingdom
Jet Fuel Folderol/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom
Ruth: What is a folderol?
Stefan: It's a poem with a lot of hyperbole. Ruth: You're music reminds me of the Holy Modal Rounders. I think I read somewhere that Rounder records got their name from that group. We're listening to a CD called Time of Wonder, and man, I like it a lot. We're going to give one away, and put one into the library, because I think some of the other DJ's will want to play it. Are you going to put anything else out?
Stefan: I have about 40 more songs and ten stories to record. Would you like me to read a story. I have one called L'esprit de l'escalier.
Ruth: As long as it doesn't contain one of the 8 banned words. Stefan: I thought there were seven.
Ruth: One was added in honor of Howard Stern. But don't trick me into saying it, Stefan.
One Too Many Rungs/L'esprit de l'escalier.
Stefan: I wish I could play guitar but I would have had to change my strings.
Ruth: And what does L'esprit de l'escalier mean?
Stefan: It's like a snappy comeback you think of the next day.
Ruth: I want to thank you for coming here today. Is there one song that you'd like to close with?
Stefan: Tour de Farce. I wrote the breathtaking harmonica interlude as I was playing it and that's what became the song.
Tour de Farce/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom
As I got on the freeway and headed home I heard one more song from my CD... Jamboree/Stefan des Lauriers/Time of Wonder/Music Kingdom