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Oral history interview with Paul Woznicki, February 15, 2012

Woznicki, Paul Musician

Size: Transcript: 18 pages.

Format of recording: Originally recorded as digital wav file. Duration is 62 min.

Collection Summary: An interview of Paul Woznicki conducted February 15, 2012 by Caitlin Davis for the Helen Farr Sloan Library and Archives of the Delaware Art Museum.

This interview was conducted for Dream Streets: Art in Wilmington 1970–1990, an exhibition held at the Delaware Art Museum June 27–September 27, 2015 on the contemporary art scene in Wilmington in the 1970s and 1980s.

Funding for the transcription of this interview was provided by a grant from the Delaware Humanities Forum.

The transcript of this interview is in the public domain and may be used without permission. Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Paul Woznicki, February 15, 2012, Helen Farr Sloan Library and Archives, Delaware Art Museum.

CAITLIN: I am Caitlin Davis interviewing Paul Woznicki on February 15th, 2012. So, I guess to start: what is your background? Are you originally from Delaware?

PAUL: Born and raised.

CAITLIN: Okay. Wilmington, or –?

PAUL: Newark/Wilmington. Went to Mt Pleasant High school, went to University of Delaware for a very, very short time.

CAITLIN: Okay. I’ll write that: “short time.” Have you always been interested in music or how did that come about?

PAUL: Yeah, it started out when I was probably six. When my father broke out his harmonica and he played it for me. So I taught myself to play it, it was my first instrument.

CAITLIN: And what other instruments did you play?

PAUL: Keyboards, which includes accordion. Flute. Various little odds [inaudible]—brass controller.

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CAITLIN: What’s that?

PAUL: It looks like—I wish I had a picture—it’s a digital saxophone. It looks like a saxophone. But it has a MIDI, which is a hook-up—MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. I can take this plug from the saxophone and plug it into my keyboards and play sounds from that. Of course sax has its own sounds, but that was 1980, 1990.

CAITLIN: Okay. How did you learn how to—is the correct term, play the synthesizer? Use the synthesizer?

PAUL: Yeah, buy it and just play with it. When people ask me “What books do you read, what’s the last book you read?” My answer is “I don’t read books, I read manuals.” A lot of manual reading. Of course a lot of the manuals for these synthesizers are translations from Japanese, so a lot of times it leads you down the wrong path to try and figure out how to work it. But it’s trial and error.

CAITLIN: So how did you first get interested in that? Did you buy one on a whim?

PAUL: Well, electronic music started—they called it electronic music with tape recorders. John Cage, have you heard of him? He’s the godfather of all this stuff—but electronic music was making tape loops and stuff, recording, and it would loop around and use many tape recorders, run the tape from one to other. I started out messing around with little tape recorders and kind of just—and very early electronic music record must have come out in the ‘60s as a kid, and I thought that was just so cool. And then things like this came along.

CAITLIN: And then you just started playing with them and figured out how they worked?

PAUL: Right, and just add to the collections. My basement is a virtual museum of old stuff. Most which still work.

CAITLIN: Were they expensive at the time?

PAUL: Well, yes, synthesizers—well, my keyboards that I did buy—but a lot of things I made and altered things. Even toys, little toys that had beeps and bloops inside. Which is this thing—I’ll whip that out later. But yeah, taking apart things and putting them together in a different way. I made a lot, like before I could afford a string synthesizer, early, early in the 70’s there was a keyboard that was just to make a string synthesizer sound, violin sounds. But before I could afford that, one of my accordions I took apart and I hooked up an air dryer to it to pump the air. That’s it right there, it’s an accordion. Inside there I had a hair dryer that blew the air so I didn’t have to squeeze it. That’s got to be ‘70s. Yeah I know, go ahead and say it.

CAITLIN: You look so different!

PAUL: What’s wrong with you? That’s my rig from the ‘70s, ‘80s, taken in the basement of the dentist office I worked—Dr. Yaleson—he let me use the basement for my—

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CAITLIN: Okay so that was your primary job? And then this was like a hobby?

PAUL: Yeah, my career is a dental technician. I make teeth. Which is art? I sculpt all day; my sculptures are little teeth, working with gold [inaudible].

CAITLIN: Your hair’s a little longer.

PAUL: Yeah and a little darker. This is what’s in this bag. That’s one of my robots, was part of my act for a while.

CAITLIN: That’s great. So you just would read the manuals, figure out how everything worked, played it by ear.

PAUL: Because it’s still basically piano playing. But it wasn’t pianos.

CAITLIN: Did you know anyone else that played? Did you have a group of friends that you would get together?

PAUL: Not in Delaware, but when I ventured into Philly, there was an explosion of it going on. We were the first, there wasn’t anybody before us except Walter Carlos, who put out that album which when the Minimoog came out.

CAITLIN: What is a Moog? I don’t know anything about this, what is a Moog?

PAUL: It was the first commercial synthesizer. And this person Walter Carlos put out an album called Switched on Bach. He did all Bach music on the synthesizer.

CAITLIN: Oh that’s cool. Would you call him an inspiration?

PAUL: Oh yeah, absolutely. Back then it was Walter Carlos, who eventually became Wendy Carlos.

CAITLIN: Oh good to know.

PAUL: There was one album—movie soundtrack album—she did the music for The Shining.

CAITLIN: Oh really? That’s one of my favorite movies.

PAUL: An earlier movie, Clockwork Orange. I think it was Clockwork Orange when she/he was going through the change. We’re not talking about menopause.

CAITLIN: So yeah, when you went to Philly you found more people who were interested.

PAUL: Yeah, found this whole circle. In fact we created a music orchestra of synthesizers that we did concerts.

CAITLIN: Oh that’s cool. Where would you play in Philly?

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PAUL: In Philly, the Painted Bride Arts Center. JC Dobbs was a place. There were a couple other little galleries—A Taj featured electronic music. We all had our own separate groups, or solo. Back then I was a solo performer. We also did these performances. There were seven of us, seven synthesizer players.

CAITLIN: Are you still in touch with any of them?

PAUL: Yeah, I still run into some of them. A lot of them moved away. A couple guys are still around. It’s amazing how today, like in the last few years, young guys—when I say young guys, guys in their 20s or 30s—have really latched on to old synthesizer stuff. They’re really into it.

CAITLIN: So it’s coming full circle.

PAUL: Right. It’s cool to play an old synthesizer. Ever since the internet was invented, I continually get emails from people from all over the world that have found that album. And also the same year I did that movie Fiend, the soundtrack, and I got all these inquiries about what am I doing today, how much they loved this old stuff and how groundbreaking it was, and it’s amazing how much this legwork—I made 2,000 copies in 1980 and hooked up with these guys in Philly, Red Records/Ulterior, and put this out.

They had their distribution all over the world. This thing got into record stores all over. But recently this guy found me from Brooklyn who wants to re-release this, to put it out again. People want it. Vinyl is back. It’s popular again. I went and visited him in Brooklyn, and his whole studio was nothing but these ‘70s, ‘80s synthesizers. He collects the old stuff. He’s just so into it. So like you said, it’s made full circle.

CAITLIN: Let’s talk about the album a little. How did that come about?

PAUL: Well, playing, running around Philly. I was very highly supported by WXPN, which is still poplar today. But back then it was John De Laburto, Gina Wong, Michelle Palici, they just played my music all the time. They would promote shows. I guess it’s like the early days of The Queen, The World Cafe kind of thing, only it wasn’t that, it was XPN. So, one of these guys, him and another guy, partner, were putting out records. “You really should put out a record.” So I finally did.

CAITLIN: How long did it take you—did you already have the songs prepared?

PAUL: Yeah, the songs already prepared and of course I’ve always put out my own solo EPs—well, cassette tapes, eight-tracks—and sold them. I borrowed a friend of mine’s really good four-track tape recorder and recorded in my basement the album, gave them my tape. The record itself was pressed in Holland and the reason they said to do it in Holland vs. the US was because of the speed that they pressed records was half the speed so it was higher quality. I mean, who would really—but that’s why it was pressed in Holland.

CAITLIN: So how do you go about making a song?

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PAUL: Just doodling around. Either playing on my piano upstairs or down in my basement/studio. Just playing on my keyboards, practice/play. Then something comes up, it never fails. “Oh that’s different.” Then develop it, over and over and over.

CAITLIN: Keep building.

PAUL: Yeah and before I know it there’s a new cut.

CAITLIN: And then you just kept on recording it.

PAUL: Yeah, and that’s how I learned to play it a second time.

CAITLIN: Yeah that’s what I was going to say. Is it hard once you come up with something and you’re like “oh that sounds really good?”

PAUL: There’s always a little outline, a sketch, and I can always go to that and—rare that it’s played exactly the same. Improv, that’s sort of what I’m probably most famous for—if you want to say “famous.” I’m an improvisationalist. I can sit onto anything and add my two cents without having to know the song kind of thing. It still is pretty strong in Philly, just improv musicians. You don’t even have to know each other, but if you know how to improv, you can create music on the spot. Do that a lot.

CAITLIN: Have you done any records since then or is that you’re only?

PAUL: Just CDs. I’ve been on other projects. Edge City Collective—that was their three CD—over years, three different CDS, all improvisational.

CAITLIN: Edge City Collective?

PAUL: Yes.

CAITLIN: And that’s involved with other people that are not just you?

PAUL: Right. And I was the only synthesizer for it, all the rest were drums, bass player, chords. It was a really cool rep CD, they got sent around all over the place, played on other people’s albums or whatever. Add a flute, a keyboard, an accordion. And soundtrack stuff. To this day I still dabble in that. I did Fiend and then Channel 12 WHYY, which in the early days they had a studio here in Wilmington. And I did the soundtrack for their news show. They used it for a couple years actually, it was my theme music for—”Here’s the channel 12 theme.”

CAITLIN: How did you come up with that theme? Did they ask you to do it?

PAUL: Well I approached them: “Here I am, I do this stuff.” And then oh I can’t remember names—Michael Kujared—I can’t remember people, but they asked me to do the news. You know, actually, going back before that, when channel 12 was very young, and George Stewart.

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CAITLIN: Oh yeah, Thoth.

PAUL: Thoth.

CAITLIN: Thoth.

PAUL: Do you have a copy—did he give you a copy of that?

CAITLIN: I’ve seen it; I don’t have a copy in my possession though.

PAUL: Darn. That just came along, he handed me the video—I guess it was VHS or something—and he says “I need soundtrack for this, do whatever you want,” he says “I trust whatever you–”

CAITLIN: Did you know him before?

PAUL: Yeah, I knew him as a DJ, radio—I guess he was down there at WVUD—it was called something different then.

CAITLIN: Yeah, it was—I think it might have been WXDR.

PAUL: Yeah, I think you’re right.

CAITLIN: Okay, so you knew of him and then he approached you.

PAUL: Right, and did Thoth. He presented it to Channel 12, WHYY, and it was used as a filler in some programs and in short, you know it was five minutes to the hours. Even back then Channel 12 would go off the year and there would be a test—but before that would happen they would, I think it was a five minute, seven minute long video, and they would run it, the filler.

I think that also was on for several years. But because of Thoth they knew of me—I met people in I guess galleries or something that were affiliated with Channel 12, and actually 1979 they—the station wasn’t going to be open for Christmas or whatever, they needed something to run like the month before—on Christmas day I did a Paul Woznicki half hour Christmas show that ran all day.

CAITLIN: It was all Christmas music?

PAUL: Oh no, I was doing my solo synthesizer thing. So I got that and then from that that’s how I eventually got to do the music from their news show. The progression thing—

CAITLIN: That’s a lot, well that’s good. I guess—what will we talk about next? Fiend, how did that come about?

PAUL: Through Tom Watkins. Got to love that guy, man. It’s too bad—I mean, the gallery museum could do a whole exhibit—

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CAITLIN: I know; it’s a shame.

PAUL: A little history on Tom—

CAITLIN: Yeah maybe we should start with Tom first.

PAUL: I’m sure you’ve heard of John Waters. Do you know about his early movies Pink Flamingos? Did you ever see Pink Flamingos?

CAITLIN: No, I haven’t seen—well, I first heard of him when they re-did the movie Hairspray a few years ago, because he did the original. And then I didn’t really hear anything about him, I mean, I’m a little young. And then by researching for this I found out that he did all those types of movies, like Desperate Living and everything like that.

PAUL: Right, Pink Flamingos and Tom worked on it. Tom knew John Waters as friends or whatever and Tom was part of that crew. And then Tom did actually some special effects for Desperate Living, which was the next movie of John’s. And both of those two are like—I mean, there was nothing like that before, John definitely was an original. And in fact, Tom, his books—he had the comic book store downstairs, upstairs he had an apartment—this is at Fifth and Market—and upstairs he had this little apartment and then he had a costume shop and there was a movie theater called the Warner Movie in Wilmington that they were going to tear down and one night miraculously Tom had the chairs from the movie theater—

CAITLIN: He took them?

PAUL: I think they fell off the back of the truck.

CAITLIN: Oh I’m sure.

PAUL: Or the dumpster. He created a little movie theater in this little building, the Rondo Center, and he actually had the world premiere of Desperate Living here at the Rondo—he called it the Rondo Center.

CAITLIN: Okay, because of Rondo Hatton.

PAUL: Right, right And John Waters came with Divine—but Divine came as a guy for the premier—

CAITLIN: What was the other—Edie –?

PAUL: Edith Massey. And here’s a side thing on Edith Massey. Her trademark was, she had no teeth in her mouth except two teeth, the two fangs—but that was her trademark. But she was losing one, one was falling and she said “I’m going to have to go to the dentist and they’re going to pull this and that’s my trademark, how can I?”

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And I was going to make her an upper denture with one tooth to replace the one that was going to fall out, be taken out, because it was all infected, really raunchy. But I was going to do that, it was all set up, I had an appointment set to go down and I was going to take impressions of her and make her—but she died, within that week of talking to her and our appointment and—

CAITLIN: Did you go to the funeral?

PAUL: No. So John Waters came up for the world premiere.

CAITLIN: Was it crowded?

PAUL: Yeah, it was a good, a lot of people. I hung out with John, Divine. We went to the Walnut Room. John liked to hang out in the sleaziest bars, so we went there drinking afterwards.

CAITLIN: What was John like? Would he be someone worth trying to get in touch with for Tom Watkins?

PAUL: No. When I run into John, it’s the same question I’m asking everybody—”John, remember me?” “Oh yeah, you’re the synthesizer” “Yeah, that’s me” and he says “Oh, how’s Tom doing this days, you never hear from him.” Same thing. John Waters are big time, man. Who would ever—?

CAITLIN: I know; it’s so funny. Because when was all this going on, this was late 70s, so you guys were all in your 20s?

PAUL: Yeah, 28. I guess I was 31 in 1980. I’m 60 now, so.

CAITLIN: No one would have ever thought that he would become the star of the group.

PAUL: But you look back and you look at Hairspray, his version, you could see how that could be a musical. And the other one, Cry Baby—I think I did hear that they are now converting that to a Broadway show. And I could see—there were dance, singing scenes in that movie—I could see that being his next big hit. Cry Baby. John, he’s–

CAITLIN: Who would have thought?

PAUL: He’s a funny guy.

CAITLIN: Is he? He has that little moustache.

PAUL: Yeah, real prim and proper.

CAITLIN: And he’s from Baltimore, right? Divine and Edie they were all from that area?

PAUL: Yup.

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CAITLIN: And how did he get involved with Wilmington? Did Tom just go down to work on the films and then they would—

PAUL: Right. Because back then, he wasn’t a big—Pink Flamingo definitely got recognized. Well you know the State Theatre…

CAITLIN: In Newark?

PAUL: Yeah, the State Theatre. That was one of the places he would play. Hairspray also came with a scratch and sniff card, through the movie. A number would flash up and that meant you were supposed to scratch number two or number three on the card. They would hold up these raunchy looking sneakers, and number two would smell like raunchy sneakers. So that was the early stages of the aroma-something—aroma-roma is what Tom would’ve called it.

CAITLIN: That’s awesome.

PAUL: So with Tom, good Tom, we were good friends. We were definitely two peas in a pod when it came to the art world. So with Tom there were these conventions in New York. You know ComiCon? Well this was pre-ComiCon, but I think that’s what ComiCon has become, a comic convention/science fiction convention. I got to play at this ComiCon comic convention in New York. Tom was there with his connections, comic bookshop and all—and so this movie director from Baltimore, Don Dohler, met me liked my music and he says “I’m in the process of making this movie, horror movie themed, would you be interested in doing the soundtrack?” “Damn straight!”

Many months later I get a call from him, “well, the films ready for the soundtrack, and I have this machine, editing machine”—where you roll the film and there’s a little screen—he says “I’m running it for a week and I only have it for a week, can you come and we’ll work on it for a weekend.” So I did the whole movie from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon with maybe three hours sleep. For all the scenes and this and that, watch it and give him several versions of—

CAITLIN: How did you prep for that?

PAUL: I didn’t. Improv. He had an idea: “Well I would kind of like this kind of a sound.”

CAITLIN: Because it’s a horror movie, right?

PAUL: Right. So he’s like “Well, I’d kind of like this.” So, I’m like the painter with his palette. I’ve got the synthesizer and I’m switching buttons—” Well how about that?” “Yeah yeah yeah, that’s cool, that’s cool. Okay let’s run that.” So I would watch and kind of synch to—that’s how it happened. That thing, that movie, believe it or not has become this cult, has a cult following, in Europe. You always hear this: “oh my music’s popular in—”

CAITLIN: I know. But it really is!

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PAUL: Yeah, this is true. Actually a record producer from England, Lee Purkis, contacted me about—he wants to put out a soundtrack album of Fiend. He says “You can’t believe it, that movie is filtering around all through Britain, people go and see it” he was like “I think we could sell a bunch of copies with the soundtrack.”

Everybody’s saying like “That was groundbreaking soundtrack music.” but I have no rights to the music. I did that music Friday to Sunday, John Hannah made about 500 dollars cash, I signed a contract and I said “Well, you have to–” Don has died since then and his son has control of the thing—but yeah, I’m going to get 50/50, so when that all comes out and gets sold I’ll make some money from the record. But yeah, it all happened through Tom and the comic book convention New York.

CAITLIN: That’s cool. Well, I guess, backtrack a little to the Rondo Center. You also played there other times, right? What was that?

PAUL: He would have once a month, a vegetarian dinner, concert, and then a movie.

CAITLIN: What movies would he play?

PAUL: Forbidden Planet—

CAITLIN: I don’t know what that is. Like, sleazy movies?

PAUL: No, Forbidden Planet was the first science fiction movie—in fact, in that clip from this magazine, Famous Monsters, they say my music reminded them of music from Forbidden Planet. They were the first people—it was a husband and wife team that did synth—well, electronic music for soundtracks—and it was the first movie to use the Theremin. The Theremin is a synthesizer where it sounded like someone playing a saw. But it’s like you just move your hand and this beam, invisible beam, to bend the sound.

CAITLIN: And this was Forbidden Planet?

PAUL: Yes. You know the guy in Naked Gun, the gray hair guy, Nelson? Leslie Nelson? He starred in Forbidden Planet. It’s a cool movie. And John Waters’ movies—

CAITLIN: So this was once a month that this happened? And then who would turn out for that, just friends?

PAUL: Yeah, people that knew Tom, and he would fill those Warner Theater seats. But it was definitely an underground crowd. It was vibrant. It was all Tom. And then came along that Rob Jones guy.

CAITLIN: Yeah that’s my next question.

PAUL: He had his apartment there, where Queen Theater is. It was a big loft; it was the Fifth Street Gallery. He had art shows there. I got to play some openings there

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CAITLIN: Do you remember any of the shows?

PAUL: I couldn’t even tell you. Well one was Tom’s. And Rob would also have roller-skating parties.

CAITLIN: Yeah, explain what that was.

PAUL: It was the whole—just open wooded floors, cleared everything out of the way, come over get drunk and roller-skate. It was neat. And Tom and he put on the Sleaze Convention.

CAITLIN: Did you go to that?

PAUL: No, I missed that.

CAITLIN: Oh, man.

PAUL: There was a book about rock-n-roll history or something, and there’s a quote in there from Blondie. Deborah Harry said that they were doing a gig in New York but they left from New York to come to of all places Wilmington Delaware, to the Sleaze Convention. Blondie was there.

CAITLIN: Yeah, I talked to Chris Stein, I guess that’s his name, who’s also in Blondie—I don’t know if he’s a guitar player or whatever but anyway—he also came down with her because I couldn’t get in contact with Debbie of course. He gave me some fun tidbits. John Holmstrom from Punk magazine, I talked to him, he was there. But a lot of people—it’s hard, because people don’t remember really. They’re like “Ah, it was so long ago.”

PAUL: I missed that whole thing. I think I might have been out of town or something, but I missed it all. I just remember Tom saying about how good it was. Well, that was transvestite, drag queens; Tom was into that cross dressing. I did a show, it was called the Flight Deck in Market Street—a lot of these things, Tom would put it together for me—and I had this light show, crazy light show, liquid lights, psychedelic stuff, and played my music.

Tom was the hostess, meeting people at the door; he was dressed up like a stewardess. Tom is 6’6”, you know, real tall guy, kind of looks like Herman Munster in a way. And he was dressed up in this blue stewardess outfit, it cracked me up man.

CAITLIN: That’s so funny. He seems like a character. That’s why I would love to find him!

PAUL: Yeah, now in our past emails you know that movie American Splendor—

CAITLIN: Yep, I talked to Joyce on the phone the other day. Same story, hasn’t talked to him since she left for Ohio, so that’s what everyone—and everyone wants to get in contact with him, every person is like “Oh my gosh it would be great to see him, to talk to him,” and no one knows where he is. And Joyce said she tried—she had an old phone number of his—and before she

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called me, tried it and it didn’t have an answering machine, it just kept on ringing, so that number’s probably disconnected.

PAUL: Just maybe three years ago he was working at the DuPont—

CAITLIN: DuPont—yeah, I contacted them but they never responded, I don’t know if they’re allowed to give out employee info like that.

PAUL: Yeah, he worked on stage. I’d go and he’d let me hang out in the back and watch. I got to see some good ballet. And he was regularly calling me, he was staying at somebody’s house, their father just died and they were letting him live there. We were talking, we were going to get together, we’ve got to do something, and then all of a sudden that was it.

CAITLIN: We’ve had had a sighting though, someone—do you know Anne Eder?

PAUL: Yeah.

CAITLIN: Okay, I talked to her. She—how do I put this—she had a friend that ran into Tom two months ago but I guess they didn’t exchange like “Oh where are you staying—blah blah” or whatever, they were just like “Oh hey, hi,” whatever. So we know he’s alive, but that’s about it, and maybe in the area. He’s in this area, he’s around, but we have no way of getting in contact with him. Do you think he’d be the type of person that would be excited that the Museum is acknowledging him?

PAUL: Oh God yeah. Sure. I know, that’s why it’s so heartbreaking not to be able to get hold of him. I’ll keep my ears open, eyes open, and if I see him—

CAITLIN: Definitely. It’s hard because he has no—most of the people I’ve been contacting have some sort of internet process, I type in their name, it comes up. He has nothing, so it’s hard.

PAUL: He was a union guy, I don’t know—

CAITLIN: That’s what Joyce said I should maybe try to contact the union and see if he’s still involved somehow -

PAUL: Whatever that union—

CAITLIN: Yeah, film association or something.

PAUL: I remember him telling me that he had to become union. Made fun of him: “union, you?!” “I had to, Woz.” My friend who tunes pianos, Jim Ficca, he does the pianos at Hotel, The Grand, The Queen, and Baby Grand.

CAITLIN: I get him, and his brother’s name Billy, and I get both of them mixed up—

PAUL: Billy Ficca is the rock star.

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CAITLIN: He’s the one that was on television.

PAUL: And then Jim is Sin City—his big brother. But Jim said he ran into Tom at Hotel DuPont when he was tuning. Again, this was probably \a couple of years ago. I forget what Ficca said, he said to Tom and Tom goes “Sh-sh don’t say my name, don’t say my name.” So I don’t know what the hell that was about.

CAITLIN: Oh goodness, who knows? I know, everyone has very interesting stories about him, so I would just love to meet him. But who knows. But hopefully by 2015 we’ll be able to track him down.

PAUL: That’s funny, for some reason I thought this was going to be next year or something.

CAITLIN: No, yeah. It’s surprising that it takes about five years for an exhibition. This was starting to get worked on a couple years ago too, and we’re finally just going guns blazing. But yeah, exhibitions take quite a few years to get together.

PAUL: So is that pretty much—

CAITLIN: No, I have a few more questions.

PAUL: No, I’m not in a hurry, I just don’t want to overload you.

CAITLIN: Oh no, it’s okay. You mentioned in your email—or no, maybe it wasn’t an email, maybe it was an article, but you played at the DCCA with George Christie? Explain how that happened.

PAUL: Just a concert. This friend of mine, Ted Marvin, who just died less than a year, massive heart attack, lived out in this mansion right across from the New Bolton Center, you know the University of Pennsylvania’s large animal hospital, this crazy mansion back there. But his girlfriend was involved with the DCCA, so that’s how I got to—in fact I did one with him there too. DCCA.

CAITLIN: And then how did you know George Christie? Because I’ve talked to him briefly, he sent me a few emails.

PAUL: He approached me, saw me playing sometime: “I’d like to play with you.” George is, he’s also in Opera Delaware, and he’s an Opera singer. I don’t read music, I just play, and I’m a player. He has almost all my pieces scored. This guy, he puts anything new, any new song—he plays with me in my gypsy jazz band now.

But yeah, he’s got a Woz book of all my music in scores. George, yeah, long time partner now, played a lot of electronic stuff. Now that gypsy jazz band is the opposite of all that. I play the accordion; he plays the bazooki, its real earthy stuff. But a lot of it is the jazz songs I play in the jazz band on keyboards but converted into the accordion stuff, makes it sound very—turns into real ethnic stuff.

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CAITLIN: Let’s break out the robots.

PAUL: Well it’s time to break out the robots.

CAITLIN: Yeah. Joyce mentioned that you would walk, go ahead—

PAUL: This was from the ‘70s. This was my flip movie, this was me.

CAITLIN: Are those Polaroid’s?

PAUL: Yeah, this took a long time to make. Look at these—these are just fillers. These are other robots, don’t work anymore, but if you flip it like this, you can see the robots going back and forth.

CAITLIN: Yeah Joyce said that you would go up and down Market and then go into the banks with her and all the bank tellers would be like “What is this?!”

PAUL: The person who wrote the article hung out with me and followed me doing that stuff. It’s amazing. This thing is like 35, 37 years old.

CAITLIN: And you built this all yourself.

PAUL: Yeah, and still to this day people are still fascinated. Just imagine back in the ‘70s something like that. There was nothing—

CAITLIN: No, nothing, even—Oh my gosh this is so cool!

PAUL: And he has his little synthesizer. This one I used to mount a camera on it, and now I have a 3D camera, so it’s like little videos running [inaudible] it’s pretty awesome. Listen to the pitch. I have the pitch control I have hooked up to the steering and you’ll hear it [inaudible]. It changes. We used to have so much fun with these things.

CAITLIN: How many did you have?

PAUL: I had two others. Other friends would just: “Take them out!” We’d take them to New York and just run those around. We would have massive people following us up the streets like in Chinatown. We used to love going to Chinatown, running these around [inaudible]. We’d stand around like this, you wouldn’t even know who was running it, and the controllers were behind us. Before you knew it we had 50 people just looking at it. “Oh look he’s talking to me!” It’s basically a radio controlled car with fancy stuff on top.

When we got to the Saturday Night Live thing, I said “[inaudible]” so we went to the lobby in NBC, downstairs lobby, just clicked the robots and just started running them around the lobby and before you know it somebody came down and said “Oh these things are so cool you’ve got to call this producer.” He gives me this card. It was Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live. Called up, he switched me over to Barbara Burns who was the talent coordinator of Saturday

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Night Live. And this was the very first, it might have been Season 2, Saturday Night was new and really hot.

Called up and she says “Yes, I heard about your robots and we want to see them.” Following week drove up, took the robots, and went in– I met the whole original crew, man, they were all there, Jane Curtin, Laraine [Newman]—I can’t remember her last name. Everyone was there. And Dan Aykroyd, seemed like he was like the main guy there—they took me into his office, he was in his office. I just remember him picking up that robot and holding him and he says “Wow these are just really fascinating.” And he goes “did you ever think of—you know, you could mass produce these.”

And I said to him “Yeah, but if I did that then I wouldn’t have the only one in the world.” And I just remember how he looked at it again and he looked up at me, like a glistening, he really liked that. They were going to use them with the cone head. They were already saying “Oh these would be great with the cone head skit.” so we left, took it into the Lorne Michaels’ office, and he says “Oh I love these things.” got down on his hands and knees patting—we were always like such a high after that.

And when we were leaving, he says “Oh we will definitely write these into a skit with the cone heads.” but this was—they only had maybe two or three more shows for the season, and kept continuous correspondence, she sent me a letter she called me once and said “We’re still thinking of you, just want to let you know.” I was like “Oh I’m in; I’m in, Saturday Night Live.” But then the next season they dropped the cone heads, and they did the skit with the wide asses, the families [inaudible]. And that was that.

CAITLIN: Oh that’s a shame!

PAUL: I know, so close. So close.

CAITLIN: It’s still cool though that you were able to meet everyone.

PAUL: Yeah it was a great memory. And I would love to run them again actually one more time and ask, just say, “Do you remember me with the robot?” He probably would, I remember he loved them sitting them on his lap.

CAITLIN: So cool. Did you name them at all?

PAUL: I actually did. This one I named Peony, which is a Chinese name, some Pearl-esque Buck, because it did look Chinese to me.

CAITLIN: How did you figure out how to put them together?

PAUL: Lots of glue. Throwing junk in and taking things apart. It wasn’t like a matter of learning; it was just a matter of doing. But yeah, these robots were fun. This thing here. You

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listen to the opening credits of themes—that’s what’s in their theme. I hook up a jack to plug this into an amp and it really sounds cool with a lot of reverb and stuff.

Let me just give you a quick what it looks like in 3D, a 3D monitor. Can’t see it, need my glasses. Hold this right in front of you, because its 3D. But that’s from the robots. Little kids love to play—this is just two months ago, these festivals that I play. I bring them out, what the heck. [Inaudible] little kids. That’s me. See nobody knows [inaudible].

CAITLIN: That’s really cool. I have two more questions. You mentioned the Melting Planet Band? When was that?

PAUL: When I was still doing my solo thing, electronic, but I also was playing with these guys, same year, ‘70s. It was the Melting Planet Band, which was a jazz fusion kind of a band with sax guitar George and Jim Ficca on drums—there were two drummers, Jim Ficca sometimes and this guy named Craig Ektra. In guitars there were two different guys we played with George Christie and Richard White. We’d play around Philly, here in Wilmington; at the Deer Park they had Sunday Night Jazz. We played there a lot.

CAITLIN: What places did you play when you were in Wilmington?

PAUL: Crepe Chalet, Flight Deck, Crumbs, it was called the Copper Kettle. None of these places even exist anymore. Copper Kettle, DCCA, Tom’s place, Fifth Street Gallery. Baccus—University of Delaware, done concerts there. I’m sure there’s other—oh a place called Zincs. It’s not the Washington Ale House, but it used to be called Zincs. Then it was a funky little bar.

CAITLIN: Well that’s good. How would you describe the Wilmington music scene as opposed to a larger city like Philadelphia since you played in both?

PAUL: I guess it’s a smaller town it becomes more of a cliqueish thing.

CAITLIN: Why do you think you were more accepted in Philadelphia than here with your music?

PAUL: I don’t know. I was always trying to play in Wilmington, but just didn’t—I don’t know. Because I was so different maybe, for the time. It seems to be still the same that way today. I’m playing all over the place with these different bands, play around Wilmington—

CAITLIN: Delaware’s a little behind.

PAUL: I’m still always trying—this is the Gypsy Jazz Band. If you could pass it on to whomever, galleries—this band would be so perfect for all these little restaurants. I don’t know. They want singer-songwriters, but this is really good stuff. You listen to it.

CAITLIN: I will for sure, I’ll pass it on.

PAUL: We’re playing at Friday night the Bellefonte Cafe, and Sunday night Homegrown Cafe

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CAITLIN: Oh okay, in Newark?

PAUL: Yeah, they’re starting trying to have a jazz night there. The drummer Bruce’s son in law is a bartender there so he got us in and we’ll try it. It’s a really cool band, it’s different.

CAITLIN: That great. Well I guess that’s all my questions,

PAUL: Let me just give you—see that thing work.

CAITLIN: Oh yeah, I want to see that. Where’s that plug? Right there

PAUL: This is cool. And these are rare, really rare. I think there are only 1580.

CAITLIN: Really?

PAUL: I’m not sure; it might have been actually the ‘60s when this came out.

CAITLIN: So when you were creating songs you would just play around, find a pattern that you like and record it.

PAUL: Yeah. [Inaudible] But yeah, you can hear this in my album.

CAITLIN: That’s awesome.

PAUL: Yeah isn’t that cool? It’s a museum piece.

CAITLIN: Yeah definitely. This is great.

PAUL: There were a couple guys in Philly that had one. In fact that’s where I got this; I bought it from a guy that needed money bad. For $100. And on eBay there was one there a long time ago it was $1,500.

CAITLIN: Well then you got a deal my friend.

PAUL: That’s it.

CAITLIN: Well thank you, this has been great talking to you.

CAITLIN: Yes. I will look through all these materials. I will send you—I’ll probably just do it today because I have your address on your email—I’ll mail you.

PAUL: Since I will get them back, I might as well, since these are laminated this will be a good thing to hold on.

CAITLIN: Thank you. And I will still continue my search for Tom Watkins and you do as well.

PAUL: Yeah I have a feeling I’ll find him.

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CAITLIN: We have to; we have a lot of people looking for him.

PAUL: I definitely circulate in the—like, Tom, some habits don’t change, Tom Waters, and I still like to hang out in these funky bars. I know I’ll find him.

CAITLIN: Here’s this.

PAUL: That you can keep because I have these empty covers

CAITLIN: Would you like these back?

PAUL: Well you can keep them.

CAITLIN: Okay thank you.

PAUL: Take them back when—

CAITLIN: Yeah, everything will be in good hands

PAUL: And if they want, if you don’t ever catch up to him, I have these too. Did you see the joke in this one?

[End of Audio] Duration: 62 minutes