Jeff as quoted in the June 20, 1997 Chicago Tribune from an interview done shortly after an Uncommon Ground show February 7 or 8, 1994.
By Greg Kot
Submitted by Ana
"It's all about getting to a place where I can let my deepest eccentricities out, I just see things a little differently and express myself a little differently and I think it's because I haven't been in one place for very long. So I was seen from my childhood as hyperactive, homosexual, weird, insane, obnoxious, offensive, funny. . . . It's a tremendous point of pain, my inability to relate to the status quo.
"Moving to the East Side from California was the most extreme and successful self-rescue operation I'd ever implemented, Otherwise I was going to rot from the inside. It was do or die. I've always done music, been in bands, but at the time I was staring at the walls, with no hope and no confidence. New York is stinking with industrial waste, but it's also stinking with purpose.
"I am a storyteller, lounge singer, I am the entertainer, I am the rock star, I am gay, I am wrong, I am there for the story to go down, the cocktail host-shaman, the little romantic chanteuse wanna-be. All the men hated my Judy Garland jacket (trying to explain the cover of Grace).
"Sometimes it's life-affirming to say you want to kill yourself, because I've felt that way, that I'm useless, a withered old flower, but there's something murkily beautiful about living this life, and to recognize it and sing about it is tremendously nutritious. . . . That's why when I go see a movie or a play or a concert I want to be ripped apart, to witness something that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed on the rocks. That's what I'm going for when I make music."
By Greg Kot
Submitted by Ana
"It's all about getting to a place where I can let my deepest eccentricities out, I just see things a little differently and express myself a little differently and I think it's because I haven't been in one place for very long. So I was seen from my childhood as hyperactive, homosexual, weird, insane, obnoxious, offensive, funny. . . . It's a tremendous point of pain, my inability to relate to the status quo.
"Moving to the East Side from California was the most extreme and successful self-rescue operation I'd ever implemented, Otherwise I was going to rot from the inside. It was do or die. I've always done music, been in bands, but at the time I was staring at the walls, with no hope and no confidence. New York is stinking with industrial waste, but it's also stinking with purpose.
"I am a storyteller, lounge singer, I am the entertainer, I am the rock star, I am gay, I am wrong, I am there for the story to go down, the cocktail host-shaman, the little romantic chanteuse wanna-be. All the men hated my Judy Garland jacket (trying to explain the cover of Grace).
"Sometimes it's life-affirming to say you want to kill yourself, because I've felt that way, that I'm useless, a withered old flower, but there's something murkily beautiful about living this life, and to recognize it and sing about it is tremendously nutritious. . . . That's why when I go see a movie or a play or a concert I want to be ripped apart, to witness something that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed on the rocks. That's what I'm going for when I make music."
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