Another Fine Man Behind Bars

Jonathan Richman Interviews Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three

By Jonathan Richman

I’ve just met a remarkable man. Let me tell you about him.

He’s one of the “West Memphis Three” (Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley) who have been in prison since 1993 for the murder of three eight-year-old boys. This happened 15 years ago outside of West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols is on Death Row and one glance tells you he does not belong there.

We (myself and my drummer Tommy) got to Grady, Arkansas at 3:45 PM. We had been given advanced permission to interview Damien Echols, and although visiting hours ended at four, they very nicely gave us a full hour to talk with him.

A guard escorted us across the vast lawns to death row. He was pretty friendly, actually. We’d both spent time around the Marysville and Yuba City part of California so we had a little conversation about that. There were, of course, guard towers looming over you. These particular ones had guys behind Plexiglas starin’ at ya.

The prison seemed even crueler than I’d imagined. Not for squalor and overcrowding, but for the opposite. It was a brand new, sterile, ultramodern, ultra-isolated fortress. No possessions are allowed except they be made of paper. No books can be sent from a home address. No food, no vitamins, no CDs, or tapes nor can a prisoner own a CD player or recording device. There are virtually no windows unless you count the skinny rectangle made out of tinted Plexiglas that “If you twist your body enough you can see two inches of sunlight”. According to Damien, who also explained the lack of recorders and things, “They’re afraid you might record the abuse that goes on here.”

So that’s the next thing, it seems that no matter how much abuse we think goes on in a prison by the guards, we might triple it. This, at least, is the impression you get after talking to Damien and later with his wife.

“Have you ever taken a general psychology course?” He asked us. He told us of the school experiment in which students are divided into “Prisoners” and “Guards”. These experiments must always be stopped early before somebody gets hurt because the “Guards” enjoy it too much. So, why is there so much abuse here? Because there’s abuse in all guard-prisoner relationships, he said.

“You become like a dog, cringing when they’re around. You hide anything not to draw their attention. In the movies or on T.V., they show everyone on Death Row to be like Hannibal Lector. But the guards are the ones to be afraid of.”

Talking to him also gave the impression that the day-to-day tension from the abuse was more than he could tell you. Combined with the meager food, (Tommy asked him what he’d eaten that day, Answer: “A bag of chips, a pack of Skittles, canned chili. It’s in these pouches, they won’t let you have cans, so I put hot water on it….” What about breakfast? “Honey Nut Cheerios, but things like that you have to buy.” He explained that the prisoner barter system ranging from trading cigarettes to services rendered. “If you don’t have money in here, you’ll starve.”) lack of exercise, lack of sunlight and the stress from daily harassment from the guards makes health difficult, Especially if lack of sleep is part of this equation.

Since we are on the subject of food, Damien also told us that the prison grows vegetables in their own garden and feeds it to the prisoners….you’ll notice that the vegetables weren’t on his list for that day, so I say…DAMIEN: EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

“You never go outside?” Asks Tommy. Damien shakes his head no! “They call it outside but…you know what a grain silo is? We go into a grain silo. You have to watch out for the pigeons…”

After this Tommy asks if he’s not afraid to be so candid. If there’s that much abuse won’t he likely be attacked?

“No. The only reason they’re not is because I say it. Once, (after some public statement) they said I was making them look bad. Oh, they beat me some…they starved me…” Then he told us how a priest heard about it so they had to stop. “So the only reason they didn’t do more is because the things I say get attention in the press.” He paused for a second and he said the rest slowly and deliberately, “…pretty much the only thing they’re scared of now, is that people will find out what they’re doing.”

He did say that if they couldn’t get at him directly, “They take it out on Jason [Baldwin], I mean they demoted him. They have him sweeping floors and they tell him why and they tell me why [he’s being singled out].”

But all this hasn’t stopped Damien. “In here I’ve handwritten five books.” And he does mean handwritten. Having gone in as a teenager in 1993, he has never touched a computer nor a cell phone nor a DVD for that matter.

Having read his Almost Home Vol. I, which goes by real fast, I want to read the other books. I asked him what he wanted to say to our readers. He said he wanted people to know about Almost Home Vol. I. He said you can get it on Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.

His case is now being taken up again along with that of the other West Memphis Three. An appeal is now in the works.

And thus Tommy and I met this calm, outspoken, straight talking person. He has much presence. His eyes are real dark and alert. He smiles easily, especially considering the circumstances. He also listens well. It’s not hard to picture him someday when he’s out of prison as a community leader, a distinguished author. He seems to have that type of concentration and discipline. There’s nothing sloppy about him.

Note that I said “when” he’s out of prison. It’s not exactly a foregone conclusion. In fact, this country has many statesmen-like people on death row who were put there by strange logic: Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Ruchell Magee come to mind. But Tommy and I left with the feeling that he’d make it out of there somehow. If you’d like to learn more about this case let me recommend a video to you: a documentary in two parts called Paradise Lost I and II. I don’t want to tell you too much, but I will say that you’ll learn…nah…watch it for yourself.

Visit www.wm3.org for more info.

This article originally appeared in Mesh Magazine, San Francisco

Another interview with Damien Echols about his art practice on Death Row can be found here

Jonathan and Damien

The smell of the air
and the wind on my face
makes me remember
other places
and other times
when I wasn't
in hell

-- Damien Echols

Another Fine Man Behind Bars
Jonathan Richman interviews Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three

Jonathan hasn't been touring lately but he has some public appearances in California lined up for May and June.

12 May: Reading poetry by Damien Echols at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Jonathan will be auctioning off one of his own artworks to help pay expenses for The West Memphis Three defense fund
16 May: Paradise Lost 2: Revelations Film Screening at The Attic in Santa Cruz. Jonathan will be speaking about his visit with Damien Echols on Death Row. Greg 'Curly' Keranen will be performing as João Dilberto (heads-up: Curly has Vincent Van Gogh mp3 on his website).
3 June: Benefit for The West Memphis Three at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on June 3 (see show info) with Mark Kozelek, Chuck Prophet, and Tommy Guerrero. June 3 is also The West Memphis Three Worldwide Awareness Day.

Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra and Jonathan Richman to Speak at "Skeleton Key" Art Auction Benefit for WM3

On May 12th at 6:00 PM, 111 Minna Gallery (111 Minna Street between New Montgomery & 2nd St.) hosts a reception for "Skeleton Key," an art exhibit featuring pieces by death row inmate Damien Echols and several other artists to benefit the WM3 Defense Fund. This one-night-only event includes music, speaking, and poetry readings by punk legends Henry Rollins and [tentatively] Jello Biafra, veteran rocker Jonathan Richman, Penelope Houston of the Avengers, Michale Graves (former singer of the Misfits), Jacob Pitts of Strangers With Candy, and former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez. Richman will auction one of his own creations to help the defense fund prove Echols' innocence. The gallery showing opens at 12 PM, and includes works by Winston Smith, Shepard Fairey, and Jonathan Richman. Visit 111minnagallery.com or call 415.974.1719 for more info. Donations will be accepted at the door.

The Premiere of Damien Echols' art (6:00 PM - 2:00 AM)
ONE NIGHT ONLY

May 12th @ 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco

Gallery opens for showing 12noon
Reception: 6PM to 2AM
Address: 111 Minna Street (@ New Montgomery & 2nd Streets)
Phone: 415-974-1719

Henry Rollins\, Jonathan Richman\, Matt Gonzalez \, Penelope Houston and Jacob Pitts will be speaking and reading Damien Echols' poetry. (Tentative: Jello Biafra)

Michale Graves and Jacob Pitts will be providing acoustic sets.

Artists include:
Damien Echols

Anne Regan (collaborating with Damien Echols)
Bob Gruen
Carol Queen
Floria Sigsmondi
Grove Pashley
Jayne County
Jonathan Richman
Lorri Davis (collaborating with Damien Echols)
Mick Rock
Norman Reedus
Shepard Fairey
Winston Smith
DJs: Justin McNeal and Marco Vega

Also of interest:

Almost Home: My Life Story Vol 1(book)
by Damien Echols
The Last Pentacle of the Sun(book)
Writings in Support of the West Memphis Three
Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt (book)
The story of The West Memphis Three is chronicled online in the CourtTV Crime Library

Margaret Cho also visited Damien Echols on Death Row.
You can read it about it here

Thanks to Allan Hough for his help.

Jonathan Richman: rebellious straight-man, Warhol fan, insect-lover, roadrunner (but not in jogging shoes)

How to get Jonathan Richman? You might ponder the introduction to his signature tune, Roadrunner, in which the singer starts off by counting to six. Or you could examine the irony of the fact that Richman, a gifted lyricist, has had only one hit record, Egyptian Reggae- an instrumental.

Usually, Richman shies away from offering answers. He is a reluctant interviewee, quite unsuited to self-analysis. And yet, on his DVD, Take Me To The Plaza, he is, if not exactly explaining his art, talking around it. At first, he explains that many of the printed interviews with him have been fictional. Interview magazine in the early 1970s: he never said half that stuff. The Kansas City Pitch: that interview never took place. NME, he says, printed interviews that never happened.

He talks about his records. Two-thirds of them were nothing to do with him. There are ugly covers. "There's one of me in a tracksuit, running, with some sort of transistor radio or Walkman. I found that especially revolting."

Roadrunner, of course, is nothing to do with jogging. It is a bleak and lonely song about Richman driving around Massachusetts in his father's station wagon, finding beauty in the mercury vapour labs, and solace in the rock and roll on the radio.

He viewed his first album, The Modern Lovers - a classic - as a collection of demos but, 30 years on, his opinion has softened. He likes the guitar solo on Girl Friend, and Pablo Picasso - who was never called an asshole - because it has John Cale, ex of the Velvet Underground, on piano.

He likes I, Jonathan, dislikes Jonathan Sings, but his favourite is Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow, from 2001. The live album, Live at the Longbranch, released by Ernie Brooks, the Modern Lovers’ bass player, is OK, in that it sounds terrible. "The great stuff is really great and it's so-oh embarrassing. I blush when I listen to those things. I was such a brat."

Some of his records are, he says, too precious. The children's songs - perhaps he means Hey There Little Insect, or Abominable Snowman in the Market - were misunderstood. They were meant to move people, not to be cute. "The good thing about my old records is that I was given complete control. The bad thing about my records is that I was given complete control."

He offers fragments of biography. He was heavily influenced by Roy Rogers singing The Happy Hungry Chuck Wagon Song. If you listen to the music from Zorro, you can hear where his guitar got its cartoon colours from. As he grew older he liked Little Richard, Little Eva, Frankie Lymon, the Crystals, the Chiffons, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Stooges, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones and the Who. His fondness for the Velvets blossomed when he swapped a Fugs record for one by the VU.

Sweet, soft Jonathan. So private, so eternally mysterious. I arranged to call him and a familiar voice, half-cheerful, half-anxious, boomed from the telephone.

"Hello!?" the voice said. "Just a second! Don't go away!" After 45 long seconds, Richman returned. "Hi! I'm ready."

We talked awhile. Tiny talk. About his audience, which is aged 20-25, because "they're the people who go out". His role in the Farrelly Brothers’ comedy, There's Something About Mary, was "a lot of fun". It also got him recognised "for a few minutes". Every show is different, he said. "It never doesn't change."

We could have gone on like this forever. Everything was nice. It was like breathing on Andy Warhol’s mirror.

"I started out making drawings and paintings. It was really hearing the rock band the Velvet Underground ... I wanted to try and make an atmosphere like that with musical instruments. I didn't play anything at the time and some people still say I don't play anything now, but I just showed up with a guitar and started to make a bunch of noise.

"Painting is good, but you're in your room painting it, or on the sidewalk, and then you show it to people later. With this thing you make it up right there in front of people."

At 18, Richman moved from Boston to New York, to follow the Velvets. He wanted to explore the scene surrounding Warhol's at the Factory.

"It was really starting to break up, so I was on my own. There weren't so many films anymore. If I’d gotten there three years earlier then I would've seen more of the wild stuff."

Warhol, he said, was "very nice. A very honest person, like, uh, I very much liked him."

The public front of Warhol was true?

"I'm not too sure about what the public front is. I was really young and he was just a very nice person to me."

When the Modern Lovers relocated to California, Richman encountered another legendary figure, Gram Parsons. They used to play softball together and there are tales of an inebriated Parsons struggling to complete a round of miniature golf. Gram played guitar for me sometimes. If he'd lived, he mighta sang on a record or two with me. He offered. I didn't offer to sing on a record with him because I didn't want to embarrass him."

Tiny talk exhausted, it seemed safe to ask Richman about his own material. I suggested that critics always claimed his lyrics were naive.

"I don't know," he said. "What do they mean by that?"

Perhaps, I said, it is because some of his songs have a childlike quality.

"I can't tell. Some of them were just supposed to be made up for children."

We talked about rock and roll. Richman’s records are pure and direct, but they seem, at first, to lack rebellion.

"I don't know what you mean," Richman said. "I don't know one way or the other. I don't know whether I did or didn't do that."

To fully understand Richman, you need to go back to the start, to that wild live album. There you can hear that, actually, Richman could hardly have been more rebellious. On the song, I'm Straight, he boasts about the fact that he doesn't take drugs. He was singing to a hippie audience. "The audience hated it. They were supposed to."

They were supposed to, Richman said, because he was angry. "They weren't supposed to like it, and they didn't."

By now, he was trying to get off the phone. We had picked at the enigma long enough. I asked him about his earliest memories. One was hearing opera, Carmen or Aida. He hummed the tune. "Dum dum dum dum, dum-te-tum-te dum."

Was it a happy memory?

"Well," said the author of I'm a Little Dinosaur, Here Come the Martian Martians and I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar, "songs are different. Happy or sad."

-- Alastair McKay

via Alternatives to Valium