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- Wednesday, June 25, 2003 Blog Beat Interview: Henning Ohlenbusch This week, the Blog Beat Interview turns its spotlight on Henning Ohlenbusch. Ohlenbusch has been a fixture in many prominent Pioneer Valley bands over the years, including Aloha Steamtrain, The Fawns and School for the Dead. With School for the Dead, Ohlenbusch set up The Living Rockumentary, a fascinating weblog meant to chronicle the band's practices, shows, recording sessions and daily communications with each other. It is as entertaining as it is prolific. Blog Beat: If you were introduced to a stranger at a cocktail party, what three adjectives used to describe you would make you the proudest? Henning: A cocktail party?!? Who am I? James Bond? How did I get at a cocktail party all of a sudden? Wasn't I just learning to ride a bike? It wouldn't really matter what they said since whenever I meet someone new, I black-out and forget everything that was spoken. But if I had to pick three adjectives that they might use to describe me, I guess I would go with: immortal, healthy, and happy. Blog Beat: I'm still sniggering at the image of you in black tie, sipping a glassful of Bollinger. What's the most you've ever paid for a bottle of champagne and what was the occasion? Henning: I've never bought a bottle of champagne. The occasion was that I wasn't buying a bottle of champagne, I guess. The most I ever paid for a Sprite is 39 dollars at Showcase Cinemas in West Springfield. Blog Beat: Wow, we're only a couple questions in, and already you are pimping Sprite, Showcase Cinemas and the city of West Springfield. I hope you are being compensated generously by those fine establishments. But maybe we should start plugging your weblog here. You've been doing The Living Rockumentary since the '80s, right? At any rate, it was one of the first weblogs I saw pop up in Western Mass. Why did you start it? Henning: Man, I wish I had been doing The Living Rockumentary since the '80s. Nothing better than reading old diaries. I like to sip a nice cold Snapple while doing so. (You know what? I was going to continue on with this whole product endorsement gag, but I just don't have the energy. Besides when you suffer from tendinitis as much as I do, you have make sure every word counts. I shouldn't have written that whole last sentence, in fact, but going back and deleting it only makes things worse. That's the thing with hand problems -- typing and untyping both hurt.) The Living Rockumentary was born a year ago. Actually, we just celebrated its one-year anniversary this week. It came about mostly because of the success that Brian (School for the Dead drummer and contributor to the Rockumentary) and I had with a similar project before. When we were in a band called The Aloha Steamtrain together, we began a Gig Diary, detailing stories from each gig we played. You can find it here. Now you can spend the next 20 hours reading and looking at hundreds of pictures, if you want. Anyway, at shows, people started coming up to us and mentioning strange, personal things. Like someone might say, "How is your foot feeling?" and I would eventually realize that I wrote something about hurting my foot weeks earlier on the gig diary. So cool. A few people actually said their favorite thing about the band was our gig diary. Well, when School for the Dead started I wanted to continue on with that sort of thing, but I also wanted to improve on it. Knowing that all five members of the band were very prolific and humorous writers was an incentive to start it. I can remember trying to explain it to Ken (keyboard, voice and percussion) one night at Harry's. I also thought that some folks might really be interested in the inner workings of an independent band. I thought it might dispell some myths (like that we make money playing music) and provide some insight (like we are all a bunch of freaks.) I'm not sure if we have really done that or not, but I still think a lot of people enjoy it. Lots of times, it is the band's sole means of communication. Side note on that: Brian has been in Scandinavia for the last two weeks, but he is still able to post. How cool is that? Wow, sorry, that was way too many words. Blog Beat: First, congratulations on the longest answer in the vaunted history of the Blog Beat Interview. I wince just thinking of your inflamed tendons now! Second, I think you have succeeded wildly with The Living Rockumentary on all fronts. It accomplishes all of those goals you mention. I know I check it out daily or even more often. Oh, hold it; that's not one of your goals. Anyway, what kinds of feedback do you get on it? Henning:
Don't say feedback. I am engineering sound tonight at Harry's. I used
to have a comments section set up on the Rockumentary, but the Blog Beat: I like that bulletin board. Recently, you asked people on there for suggestions for a cover song that your band might tackle. Will you really do a Neil Diamond, Turtles or Kelly Clarkson song, as they have requested? Or do you intend to come in under a witty pseudonym at the end and suggest a song the band was planning to do all along? Henning: Yeah, we got a lot of great suggestions. I don't believe that I ever promised that we would do one of them, though. Truth is, we probably won't do the Neil Diamond or Turtles songs. That's not because we don't like them; it's because in other band incarnations most of us have already enjoyed playing those songs. We want to do something new for all of us. I don't know from Kelly Clarkson. Blog Beat: Besides interaction with the audience, what are the other advantages to a band keeping a weblog? Henning: First off, it is proof that we are all big, big nerds. Which is important. There are a lot of other advantages, too. It's a really good way for us all to keep in contact. We communicate through the Rockumentary. In fact, sometimes, when we meet for practice or at a gig, we have nothing to say to each other because we already know it all from reading it online. Usually in that situation, we just punch each other in the face as hard as we can. It's also a good record keeper. I can look back and see when we played what show or what night we recorded which tracks, for example. If you start at the beginning, you can see the band develop like through time-lapsed photography. Blog Beat: It must help with marketing the band, too. For instance, I notice Jane Siberry links out to you from her World Garden site. Any idea what other bands link to your weblog? On the flip side, which musician's weblogs do you tune in to regularly and why? Henning: Oh, sure it definitely helps. I don't know who else might link to us. There are a few ways to check for "backwards links" in search engines, and what not, but they all find different things. I think the Bourgeois Heroes, Group DeVille, Dennis Crommett, and Philip Price all link back to us, which is nice. There are a lot of others, too, and a lot of non-musicians link to us also. (Is the school year finished? There are a lot of teenagers walking around downtown Northampton.) I try to read other musician blogs, but it seems that most of them aren't updated regularly. I have a list of blogs that I enjoy. It's on the left hand side of the Rockumentary. You can go there and then click on the links and then read their blogs and then click on their links and then read those blogs and then click on their links and then keep navigating through this never-ending web of nonsense until your fingers are worn to the nub and your eyes are dried out and cracked. You know, if you want to. Blog Beat: Yeah, band blogs are notorious for not updating in a timely fashion. We fans aren't stupid, though. We saw those Rolling Stones movies from the early '70s. We watched Almost Famous. We've read the complete works of Pamela DesBarres and Gene Simmons. We know the score. So, how is it that your band has the time to post so often to your weblog? Henning: Well, there is the obvious advantage of having five people writing. Chances are good that at least one of us will have something to say, and it often will start a conversation of sorts. Besides that, we are all pretty prolific and just enjoy the process of writing. Even if it is just stupid stuff. On top of that, if we miss a day, I start getting e-mails from readers. It's a lot of pressure, man. A lot of pressure. Blog Beat: Since you're prolific and you at least pretend to take requests, would you consider writing a song about blogs? Many nice words, you know, rhyme with blog. Henning: Hog, Smog, Prologue, Dialog, Hot Dog, Jog, Bog, Waterlog, Flog, Eggnog, The Troggs, Wart Hog, The Fog, Pog (remember Pogs?) and Og (The guy from B.C.). There's your song. Happy? Blog Beat: What kinds of things do you hate reading in weblogs? Henning: That's an interesting question. Why are you so angry? I can't think of any type of thing that I would hate reading in a blog. I mean, I guess the worst would be that it was kind of boring or hateful. The boring stuff I can just skip over, and the hateful stuff is kind of interesting. I'm a little intrigued by what makes some people so hateful. Like, take your question in which you assume that I hate some things written in blogs. Why are you a harbinger of hate? Blog Beat: Explain the llama thing. Henning: How come you never answer my questions? Wait, don't answer that. Yes, what is the deal with the llama thing? A few months ago, I drew this llama and named him Ian. Every time I looked at the picture, I laughed. What is he so surprised about?!? And why is he a llama? So I thought he should become our band mascot. He was interested. We drew up a contract. He spit on it. (At first I thought, oh man, he drives a hard bargain, but then I realized that's just how llamas sign things.) And we got to work. Now, I don't know why Joe M has shown an interest in llamas, and I think someone else mentioned them recently, too. I guess, in lots of ways, llamas are really cool.
Henning: Not really. When I post a survey or a question on Your Own Rockumentary, or if someone new links to our page, then it spikes up a bit. Also, sometimes, after a particularly well attended show, more people will check us out. I used to have a separate page that kept a running tab of all the strange searches that led people to the Rockumentary, but I couldn't keep up with it. Blog Beat: What's the best e-mail you've gotten through the site? Henning: Dear School for the Dead, You don't no me, but I really wanted to right to you anyways. Last night I was feeling pretty down about a bunch of stuff, my dad had been yelling at me, and I was so ready to put out the order to bomb the crap out of Iran but then I stumbeld up on you're site abotu rockumentaries. The way the 5 of you guys seem to get a long so well, really inspired me. "Yeah," I said, "maybe there is hope." So, I decided to stop dropping bombs and instead to start a blog. It'll be kind of like yours exept that instead of five musicians it's gonna be all the leaders of a bunch of cool and not-so-cool countries. Anyways, I hope it works. I sent out a bunch of emails and I signed them all with smily faces. G.W. Blog Beat: Wow. You guys have reach. Think it's legit? Henning: No, I just made it up. But I can assure that if that actually was a real e-mail from George Bush, it would have been 100 percent legit. That's how we do things at School for the Dead. Blog Beat: That's a good ending point. But since we are still talking here, I am guessing you may yet provide us with an even better ending point. Henning: You asked me to write a song about blogs. Well, here's a little quick poem. Please don't read it: Let's wire the animals
and see what they tell us. What if a dog kept a blog? What if a frog kept a blog? What if a hog kept a blog? Stupid animals. Want to be the subject of an upcoming Blog Beat Interview? Let me know.
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