---

Booker Noe is:
Mike Wing: guitar
Lori Kolb-Wing: bass
Jake Hupert: drums

RW: We're with Booker Noe and we're on our way to . . . where we going? A liquor store?

WING: Cal's Liquor's.

RW: And where is Cal's Liquor's located?

WING: Van Buren and Wells.

RW: Van Buren and Wells.

LORI: Is this for the Reglar Wiglar?

RW: Ahh well . . . it is for a "magazine."

LORI: Ok . . .

RW: What magazine wants to option it, we don't know yet.

LORI: Is it going to be a magazine with the circulation of the Wiglar?

RW: Could be.

WING: Is there going to be tablature in it? Am I going to have to write all my songs out in tablature?

RW: That's a good idea, I never thought of that. Tablature sells copies. That sells magazines.

WING: Are we going to start talking about gear now?

RW: What do you play through?

WING: I'm using a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.

RW: What's your favorite gauge of string?

WING: I like the GHS Boomer Thin and Thick, the thicker the better is the way I look at it.

RW: Excellent! Enough of that. Where does the name Booker Noe come from? Is it a character in a Western? That's what I tell people.

LORI:No. He was the last--

RW: Mohican?

LORI: He was the last Jim Beam distiller.

WING: The current distiller.

RW: He's still alive?

LORI: He was born in 1906.

RW: Whiskey will keep you young. So he's still in power?

WING: Yes, he is. I thought you said there was an exit here.

RW: There is.

(There is a brief moment of confusion as the turn on to Lake Shore Drive comes into sight.)

RW: How do you describe Booker Noe's music? Can I tell you how I describe it to people? It's theme music to a Western movie. How's that?

LORI: That's good. It's a little more rock than that.

RW: A rockin' Western! I didn't say it was a lame Western did I?

LORI: No, you didn't. You wanna fight?

RW: Not yet.

WING: That would be somewhat to the idea, but we think it stems off into other areas, like rock and roll.

LORI: It's kind of surfy.

WING: It's kind of country, but we do like Western movie soundtracks.

RW: Do you play country and western? I understand that you're playing two shows tonight. That's quite a grueling schedule.

WING: What?

RW: That's quite a grueling schedule. I'm sorry, I'm eating a Jack's Naturally Rising frozen pizza slice.

WING: You should really eat a little bit healthier.

RW: I should but hey, I was asleep about fifteen minutes ago, so . . . you gotta go to where the story is in this business.

WING: When you interviewed the Polkaholics (RW #12) did you get up fifteen minutes before their interview too?

RW: No, I prepared all day for that interview. I got up really early. I rehearsed all the questions. We're not talking about the Polkaholics. We're talkin' to Booker Noe.

UPV (Unidentified Person in Van): What's that you're drinking? Coffee?

RW: Yeah. I actually wrote out some questions but I forgot 'em.

LORI: Save 'em for the follow-up interview when we're rich and famous and we grant one interview.

RW: I will. (To Unidentified Person in Van) So what's your role in all this?

UPV: I'm just along for the ride, man.

RW: Yeah, there's a lot of guys like you in the music business. Who is this guy?

(Silence)

RW: We're looking at boats on Lake Michigan. It's a crisp spring evening. I'm going to continue this interview throughout the course of the night.

Lori: Yeah, after we've had a few drinks.

RW: I've had a few drinks and I'm recording over someone's demo tape right now. I don't know whose but I'm sure they deserve better.

Cal's Liquor's is a south Loop dive through a hole in the wall, not much in the way of decór but they did happen to have free music and cold beer and that's a good combination.

RW: So where are we and why exactly are we here?

WING: We're here to turn a few more heads on to the Booker Noe sound.

RW: Is that a slow process or do you find that people are hip to the country/western/rock kind of thing?

WING: I don't think it's that slow of a process. When we get in front of people they seem to enjoy it quite a bit. The problem is getting ourselves in front of a lot of people.

RW: Yeah, that's always tough.

WING: Yeah.

RW: Especially getting a lot of people to pay money to have you in front of them.

WING: That is a problem.

RW: I'm surprised, but I believe it.

RW: Is this a bad time for music, right now? The end of the world, this is a bad time for music? Is it ever a bad time for music?

WING: Yes.

RW: There is a bad time for music?

WING: If you're talking about popular music. Is that what you're, in fact, talking about?

RW: I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there.

WING: When I turn on a Top 40 hit rock radio station

RW: Which is how often?

WING: Maybe once a week.

RW: You turn on a hit radio station once a week?

WING: When I listen to it, I hear two or three songs in a row that sound very similar, the quadrupled vocals, these big effects and they got so much compression on them that it sounds like a video game/skateboard kind of thing. We got to go back to where the amp and the guitar make a difference again.

RW: Back to where the amp and the guitar make love again?

WING: Sweet love.

After the show.

RW: You guys were really workin' it up there. I could tell. You're sweaty.

WING: When I play I like to have a little sweat going so sometimes you're sort of shivering up there. I don't like U2, I don't like any of that shit.

RW: You don't like U2?

WING: Let's put it this way, I saw U2 at the Fox Theater in '87 or '88.

RW: And they weren't sweating enough for you?

WING: Bono was very sweaty, I'm just talking about that fucking video they had.

RW: The one where they're sweating?

WING: "Christmas Day" or whatever the hell, where they're standing outside.

RW: "New Year's Day"?

UPV: "Sunday Bloody Sunday", man.

WING: Yeah, where they're standing outside with cut-off gloves and shit. But anyway, I saw them in Detroit and they were very good but—

RW: They were too sweaty?

WING: Well, obviously Bono lost touch with reality. I think that the Reglar Wiglar audience would agree with me.

RW: I think a great portion of them would agree with you on that one, but certainly not all of them.

(Jake approaches.)

JAKE: Hey, that gig was a lot of fun.

RW: It looked like fun.

JAKE: Yes, it was. It was hot and then I took my shirt off.

RW: I saw that.

JAKE: And then it got a little hotter in the room, you know what I'm saying?

RW: A lot of the ladies had to sit down.

JAKE: We got a ten dollar bill in the tip jar.

RW: I'll bet.

JAKE: It has my tits written all over it.

RW: I know, I put that in there. Just kidding, I wouldn't tip Pamela Anderson Lee ten bucks. You guys still gotta play another show tonight?

JAKE: Yeah. I'm used to it though, I used to play cruise ships in Las Vegas.

Well, that's it. That's all I was able to salvage from the tape. Booker Noe did indeed play another show that night and I'm pretty sure I was there. My tape recorder disappeared for awhile at the party. I found it on the side of a pool table recording some idiotic meathead conversation that thoroughly bored me upon replay. Pretty pathetic, huh? (Just say yes.) I tried to do a follow-up interview with the Booker Noe but they've since moved to Colorado. And so it goes.