When I run into people who read stuff I wrote, one of the first things they say is, “I can’t believe you talked to (insert name of person I interviewed). That must be so exciting!”  Not wanting to burst their bubble I don’t blurt out things like, “Oh, yeah. He’s the one I was talking to when my cat came in and loudly yakked up a hairball on the living room carpet.”  Or, “Yeah, I was a fan for a really long time, and I was so in awe of the fact that I was talking to him that I just kind of sat there gawking at the phone while he waited for me to say something. But he seemed to be a really patient person, and he didn’t actually call me an idiot when I started gushing about the song that it turns out he didn’t write.”  Being given the opportunity to talk to your favorite musicians is a thrill and a blessing. Actually doing it is a cinch for some of my peers who are poised, polished, and self-assured. That would not be me. Knowledge and preparation can be rendered pretty useless in the face of terminal geekiness and serious ADD.

When I was doing interviews for radio I had that process down. I just recorded their end of the conversation, then edited it into little words and music vignettes or sound bites I could drop in when I played their songs. Short, sweet, and clean on state of the art equipment. Going in-depth and in-print is an entirely different process. You record the whole conversation, including yourself, then have to painstakingly transcribe every word of it and turn it into something a real person can read. This means something linear, and linear is not one of my strong points. If the victim is cooperative I can skitter from topic to topic in a way that has no relationship to logic or sequence. It sorts out in the end but getting there is like slamming off bumpers in a pinball machine. Editing it back into something that makes sense is like laying out a patchwork quilt that you cut out with a blindfold on and hoping the pieces will actually make a square.

Most people get pretty freaked out the first time they hear their voice recorded and played back. Hearing yourself talk to someone you really admire is worse, especially if you have to replay segments multiple times to get everything typed out. The questions that seemed insightful going in always end up sounding dumb and dumber. There are lengthy gaps of silence when you can’t seem to get brain and mouth engaged. Then there’s the embarrassment that comes when you hear yourself butting in when the poor person is trying to make a point. (I apologize to everyone I have done that to, and I promise to not do it again. Really. I know I said that last time, but this time I really mean it.) Handwritten notes are helpful if you can read your own handwriting and keep and your notes in order. I can’t do either of those things. If I manage to make it to the time of the interview without spilling coffee all over the notes, I inevitably drop them all over the floor. Trying to pick them up without disrupting the flow of conversation involves moving around, which aggravates the short in the wire from the phone to the recorder and causes it to make an assortment of interesting sounds. This usually happens while the person I’m talking to is saying something really significant. This is revealed during the playback: “Well I named the CD thomp whack whooosssh because when I was traveling in screeeeeechblat I was really inspired by whrrrrrrthwackhiss.”

Somehow, through serendipity or just dumb luck, they have all come together so far. Smooth jazz artists are generally so nice and so gracious that they not only tolerate it all, they actually thank you after it is done and shows up in print. Some of them spend whole days talking to media people and still remember you next time you see them and ask if the cat is OK, or if the fire department got there in time. It’s always nice to know you made an impression. What kind of impression is the one question that it’s safer not to ask!

- Shannon West