EZ T ///
INTERVIEW ASHFORD TUCKER ///
PHOTOGRAPHER "T" ///
DATE FEBRUARY 7 2004 ///

EZ T is the musical brainchild/outlet of one Colin Michael Gagon, a veteran musician who's collaborated (both live and in studio) with the likes of David Pajo and Will Oldham. In fact, EZ T is fresh off a December maiden tour playing support for Pajo's venerable Papa M project throughout the Southern and Midwest. Gagon's live show jostled me into seeking out EZ T's Monitor Records debut Goodbye Little Doll, a record recorded that features the talents of Paul Oldham and Aram Stith and was produced by (Smog) himself, Bill Callaha. I can say with a straight face that the album falls comfortably between Viva Last Blues and American Water on my imaginary album shelf. My actual albums of course live in improper cases beneath a sleeping bag in the trunk of an aging Jetta.

When and how'd you hook up with the Oldham-Palace-Louisville folk? Which of their records do you play on?
I've been friends with Will for a long time. Way before he started making records or even thinking about making records. He asked me to come on a tour with him in '95. So he's my friend. It's just been sort of a gradual process of meeting people through the [Palace] project and other avenues. I'm guess it might be really helpful for some people to think of it as a Palace-related project, but I used these people on the record because I like the way they play as musicians and I like them as people.

How does it make you feel when people immediately compare/relate EZ T to 1970's era country music like John Prine, John Hartford, Waylon Jennings or Merle Haggard?
I'm a fan of all kinds of music that's good. [The 1970's] was a really awesome time for country music. And it's a time that's personally important to me. They were doing some really tripped out shit...But nothing about [Goodbye Little Doll] draws from just one thing.... There's a chain reaction of causality. If you go back to figure Waylon out and say, "What did he like?" and then add in, "Well I'm sure his producers were listening to Sly Stone," it all runs together at some point. I think that it's like anything...if you have to categorize something and that's the most apparent reference, you can do that. But I don't think my music really is country music at all. I just don't see that it's operating in that idiom. The references you list are interesting because I feel that lyrically there definitely is something to adopting a persona and storytelling. But I don't think that this is something necessarily unique to country music. I guess the short answer is that I think the comparison falls short...And I think there's much more punk rock going on in here than country.

And you feel the cross-pollination alters the idea of a genre in the first place?
I feel like the phenomenon of what was going on in the 1970's with the producers is even going on today. Especially if you listen to hot country. And that stuff just sounds like shit. You've got Shania Twain working with the guy who wrote and produced Def Leppard...Frankenstein pop-metal country...So there's also the question of how many of these genres are being calculated on some spreadsheet. But then, that's today. Still, maybe it's naive of us to sit around and say that people in the 1970's were more experimental. It seems true, though. What's that Waylon Jennings song? "Good Hearted Woman?" There's these keyboards. This kind of wacked out Moog comes in. Maybe it's a different song...

I heard the worst rendition of that song in a bar the other night. It wasn't karaoke, but a full band. You could guess each song before they played it.
One of my favorite karaoke moments was here in Milwaukee at this total shithole. This 300 pound woman got up on the bar and sang "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," but she changed the words to "Stick It in the Wet Spot." You can print that. ///