Ric Interviewed On WNYC Public radio

Here's the downloadable edited Interview Ric had with a very knowledgeable Leonard Lopate on Public radio's WNYC.

WNYC Interview

Bill Graham Unlocks The Cars and Ocasek Vaults

The late great rock promoter has recently unlocked the vaults containing his treasure chest of archived audio shows. There are a couple hundred of live shows to choose from but two which should concern Ocasek fans. The first one is a performance that originally aired on the syndicated show "Rock and Roll Tonight" it featured songs from Ric's first solo album Beatitude. It was recorded live at Perkins Palace in California. Ric's three man band consisted of himself, Greg Hawkes (Keyboards,Drum program) and Casey Lindstrom (lead guitar)

The second performance is somewhat of a mixed bag. It contains mostly The Cars performing live in 1978 at the Palladium in NYC while opening upo for Cheap Trick. Mixed within this live show are two performances of "Misfit Kid" and " Gimme Some Slack" which originally aired on the King Biscuit Flour Hour syndicated radio program in 1980. The set includes some really rare live happenings. Candy-O w/sax , NightSpots w/echo, and the aforementioned rare Panorama tracks.

Troub


Follow this link For Ric Ocasek Perkins Palace 1983

Follow this Link For The Cars At Palladium 1978 and KBFH 1980

Ric News You REALLY should Read

What's Ric Listening To these days ?

When The Next solo CD coming out ?

It can all be found in Sunday November 12th's New York Times.

"Reggae, the Ramones and Keane: Just What He Needed

by Winter Miller

For the legions who have mispronounced Ric Ocasek’s name for three decades, it’s oh-KASS-eck. As a producer, this former Cars frontman, now 57, has worked with Brazilian Girls, No Doubt and Weezer, among others. He spent a year as an artists-and-repertory executive for Elektra. He’s writing his second book of poetry and prose and working on another solo album, due this spring. In his spare time he draws. In October “The Cars Unlocked” was released: a retrospective DVD and CD of live concert performances and interviews that Mr. Ocasek culled and produced. The Boston-based Cars, which broke up in 1987, recorded six albums, which have sold more than 25 million records. Mr. Ocasek has broad musical tastes: he’s been known to choose a CD by its cover. From his home in Manhattan, he spoke with Winter Miller about what he’s listening to and watching.

White Mice

“Muzik” (Basic Replay) is a reggae record. I don’t know much about White Mice; I went to Other Music and bought a bunch of records. It was the cover; the guy on the cover looks about 10. The reggae is beautiful, really well done. There’s hardly any info on the record, no liner notes, nothing about him. When I got it, I thought, Oh God, this is really great. Reggae is one of my favorite kinds of music; I never get tired of that beat on three. I think he’s breaking ground. On the cover he looks like he is. He doesn’t have any dreads, he’s got a bow tie on.

Keane

I love “Under the Iron Sea” (Interscope). Tom Chaplin’s voice is really beautiful. They don’t sound like any other band out there, and they’re consistent. I saw them perform live once, and they were just completely real about it; there was no fake show. The guy could really pull off the vocals. He sings some stuff in falsetto. I really like the song “Atlantic”: it’s a catchy pop song — could be a hit — but it still has integrity. It’s not schlock pop.

Dead Moon

“Echoes of the Past” (Sub Pop) is a compilation record; it’s got 50 songs on it. It’s a band hardly anybody knows about. Every song sounds the same, kind of like the ’60s band the Seeds. It’s a band that will never be commercial, never see the light of day in that sense, but it does have a devout following. It’s almost like Robert Plant singing, but it’s kind of straight-out old rock ’n’ roll riffs. It’s kind of raw, but I really like it.

Albert Hammond Jr.

He’s the guitar player from the Strokes. He writes phenomenal songs. I was really shocked another member of the band could write as well as that. I heard snippets of “Yours to Keep” (Rough Trade) before it was out, but once it came out, I was really pleased with what he did. It looks like Albert has a future making records. It was arranged really well.

Bad Brains

This is from 1982. It’s real raw. That band is probably the No. 1 punk band in the world. They probably influenced every punk band there is. There’s not a lot of footage of them at all; they were hard to pin down. As the years went on H. R., the lead singer, got hard to deal with. He wouldn’t do the hardcore stuff anymore, he started to get crazy, he wanted to stick with the reggae. But when he did do the hardcore stuff, there was no one who could even come close. There wasn’t much you could see; even if you went on YouTube, you wouldn’t see much. But “Bad Brains Live at CBGB 1982” (Music Video Distributors) is the real deal; its really what the Bad Brains were like. This is a phenomenal thing to have out.

The Ramones

The Ramones DVD “Raw” (Image Entertainment) is really comprehensive, far more comprehensive than “The Cars Unlocked.” It’s more of a traditional documentary. If you really wonder what the Ramones were all about over the years, if you’re a Ramones fan or even if you’re not, it’s phenomenal video. I liked every bit of it. It’s fun to see all the Phil Spector stuff. You heard stories, like Phil Spector had a gun in the studio, and you didn’t know if he did, but you watch it, and you find out he did. It’s a great retrospective of them.

Peter, Bjorn and John

The songs are great — the arrangements and the general vocals. It sounds a bit British. The chord structures are slightly different: they don’t play a C chord like everyone else. A lot of British bands use a different chord structure. They may learn to play things on the guitar different. It’s a hard thing to pinpoint. The album’s called “Writer’s Block” (Wichita), which I never understood because I never had it. I never put that pressure on myself. I always have stuff to write.

Matt Sharp on both Ric and Paulina

The following couple of excerpts are from an interview with former Weezer band member and Rental frontman Matt Sharp taken from a recent interview he had with Chartattack.com . The complete article is linked following the excerpts concerning Ric and Paulina.

What's your favourite of the two Weezer albums that you played on?

Oh wow, I don't know. They both have great memories to them, and terrifying memories. I remember sitting in the sound booth trying to do the back-up vocals on the Blue album and Ric Ocasek was on the other side of the glass and I'd never made a record before at that time, so everything just seemed like a television show. And he was going "Oh, your vocal is flat," and at that point I'd never really sung much before, and I just couldn't figure out what they were talking about, or how to correct it and what to do about it. And Ric was sort of one of the biggest icons from when I was growing up, so to have the guy looking at you going "You're wrong, you're flat" even though he was gentle about it, was just so terrifying and such a horrible feeling. So I guess there was that, but also the excitement of making the records. On both albums I just had this feeling of being so grateful to be there.

Back during the early days of The Rentals, you were very cagey about what specifically your single "Friends Of P" was about. And it still seems like you avoid the subject in current interviews. So how about giving ChartAttack the scoop? It's time to unlock the mystery. What is that song about?

It's about Paulina Porizkova, who is Rick Ocasek's wife, who used to come down to Electric Ladyland studios when we were recording the Blue album. And she would read our palms, and she was pregnant and she would just hang out. And we were like, "Wow, a pregnant supermodel is reading our palms." And then she would complain about how only bands like Warrant and all these '80s heavy metal bands are the only people who would write songs about her. And so she was really bummed out that nobody cool was writing songs about her now, so I wrote that song for her while we were at Electric Lady as an attempt to get her out of the '80s hair metal rut she was stuck in.


Matt Sharp Entire Article

Friends Of P. Song

Ric Ocasek Unlocked

By Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

November 7, 2006

They stole his band, but they couldn't steal his music.

While Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes tour as the New Cars with Todd Rundgren on lead vocals, Cars founder Ric Ocasek has spent his time making the ultimate home movie.

Digging through years of privately shot video, Ocasek has put together The Cars Unlocked - The Live Performances, a DVD full of live music and behind-the-scenes footage.

"I thought it would be interesting for people to see," the reclusive Ocasek says from his New York home. "We weren't too vocal about a lot of stuff, which was intentional on my part, because I wanted to preserve some mystery."

The Cars Unlocked has that, with lots of home footage mixed with feeds taken off the big-screen system at certain concerts.

There were no overdubs, with all live music. "I didn't have much choice. I didn't have any 24-track tapes to mix from," Ocasek says.

It's a tribute to the original band, with drummer David Robinson and the late Benjamin Orr, who co-founded the band with Ocasek, well-represented.

AND THEY'RE OFF!

• On the first album's signature guitar sound: "I only had one amp and one guitar. I think Elliott had one guitar and one amp. The other thing was, Roy Baker was a really great engineer. The first album was an album we did in 12 days and barely had time to learn anything. It was just very quick. I'm sure he close-miked, but I know he set mikes in the room as well. He was very into ambient sound."

SLEEK DESIGN

• "David (Robinson) did all the (Cars album) covers. He did collages for them that were re-photographed. This was way before PhotoShop where you'd have to do things by hand. In the beginning, I remember talking about wearing black and white onstage because it was easy to find. People started noticing, so we kept doing that, then brought red in to the picture. It was all part of a visual thing."

ROAD TRIP

• "Some tours were long, especially the first two, maybe eight months out of the year, Europe included. Then tours started to get a little more reasonable mentally. They were around four months long. That was mostly for sanity reasons, at least for me personally. I had to write the albums, too, so I had to have some time. The first two were really great fun. But then it became a little redundant."

STEP AWAY FROM THE CARS!

• Approve of the New Cars? Disapprove? "It's somewhere in the middle." But honestly, wouldn't you have liked to tour? "I have this reputation for not liking to tour, and I can't say I do love it. I certainly didn't want to do a reunion tour. There were different factors why I didn't want to do that. I don't feel like I need to be revived. I've got things to do."

DIFFERENT TRACKS

• "If I'm not producing, I'm writing albums, and if I'm not doing that, I'm doing artwork or something. I think some people were born to perform. Some people are better performers than they are songwriters or musicians. Once I saw the world and once I understood the reaction that was always going to be there, it was not as gratifying for me anymore."

WHY? WHY? WHY?

• "I've been doing this (DVD) project for a few years now, off and on. I wanted it to be there because I work with a lot of new bands and they'd say: 'I've never even seen The Cars. I love your music, but I wasn't born yet. I wish I could have seen it.' I always had that in the back of my mind - what about people who have never seen The Cars?"

ROAD GEAR

• "I always use a Les Paul SG. The one I primarily use is from 1962. I bought it on the road once. The first guitar I ever had was an SG, and I had it painted and it had pinstripes on it. That's the one I used on the first album, the whole album. That was before I changed guitars. That would be the one I would grab if there was a fire."

Here's The Link : Rocky Mountain News

Ric Interviewed about Unlocked by AV Club

Reviewed by Noel Murray
November 7th, 2006

For the past several years, The Cars' frontman Ric Ocasek has been digging through his video archives to assemble The Cars Unlocked, a DVD that's part concert film and part kaleidoscopic look at what it was like to live and tour with one of the most distinctive power-pop bands of the '70s and '80s. Drawing on performances from multiple eras and some charmingly amateurish backstage footage, Ocasek has fleshed out the personality of a band best known for affectlessness. Ocasek recently spoke with The A.V. Club about the process of preparing the DVD, The Cars' philosophy, his second career as an in-demand producer, and his reaction to his bandmates' recent decision to record an album with Todd Rundgren under the Cars name.

The A.V. Club: Did you enjoy going back through all this archival material, seeing it again?

Ric Ocasek: Enjoy? [Laughs.] It was kind of interesting, because I hardly remembered what I had. Certainly some of the home movies, I hadn't seen for so long. The footage was taken from VHS and Betamax. I remember buying our first camera on the road, when they first came out.

AVC: There's actually one scene on the DVD where you show somebody reading the manual to learn how to operate the camera.

RO: Yeah, like, "White balance? What's that?" [Laughs.] It's funny how bad the quality is. You see all the light trails and things they don't even have anymore. You couldn't get a light trail on a new camera if you tried. But our lighting designer, he'd follow us around, and he really didn't know what he was shooting, and we didn't know what he was shooting. So I didn't know what I was going to find. It took me quite a long time, on and off for a few years between producing other people, just to log everything. So it was kind of fun for me, and also enlightening to go back and look at all that stuff.

AVC: How so?

RO: The performances, I thought, stood up pretty well. There were a lot of performances to pick from, like 10 or 12 takes of the same song, but on some, the quality of the video was really terrible, or the quality of the sound not so good. A lot of them were just tapes for us to look at after a show. And considering it was all from two-track, I didn't really have anything to mix from. But I kind of didn't want it to be too slick anyway.

AVC: That's sort of the aesthetic of your videos from back then, too.

RO: It dates everything in kind of a cool way. That's the way things looked, and that's the way things looked when you videotaped them. I kind of like that aspect of it.

AVC: Did you find, looking at the backstage bits especially, that you remembered much?

RO: It was kind of a big haze. But I thought that people should see what we did to keep from getting bored on the road, and I also tried to edit it in a way that wasn't too serious. I think bands, when they're on the road, they keep their sanity by developing an internal sense of humor. I don't know if this comes across on the DVD, but I do think this footage comes from a time when The Cars were having some fun. As time went on, I could see the whole band changing in a way.

Also, I felt this flowed in a way that was slightly chronological, but not too much biography. I didn't want it to be too biographical. I thought this was a little more artful.

AVC: Did the other members of The Cars help you with the DVD at all?

RO: No, I have to say they didn't, really. It was pretty much all my thing. Although David Robinson, the drummer, designed the package. And I'd send him rough tapes of things, and he'd make comments. I didn't really want to make it a democratic type of thing. It's my vision of what we did that I wanted to portray.

AVC: As far as you know, they're not opposed to it, though?

RO: No, no. Everybody's seen it. Everybody likes it, as far as I know.

AVC: Any lingering hard feelings over the Rundgren affair?

RO: I don't know, you know? Why make trouble? That will stand or fall on its own. People can decide for themselves.

AVC: Was there anything in your old performances that you look at now and wish you'd done differently, like the stage design, or your costumes, or your hairstyles?

RO: No, there's really nothing I regret. Because the performances were usually consistently, as far as we were concerned, pretty good. The band was actually pretty competent. We were a band that kind of did just stand there, and that's the way we wanted it to be. I didn't feel like gymnastics were part of The Cars. I certainly philosophically didn't want to prod the audience to react to anything. To me, it was more like negative theater. We didn't really talk to the audience. I didn't see that being a part of this band. And some people liked that. Bands do it now and don't get criticized for it. The Killers don't move much. Different kinds of bands do different things. Some people dance and run around and yell and try to get audience reactions, and some bands kind of play their music.

I thought the set designs were cool. The same person did all of our set designs. He was a performance artist from San Francisco who was the type of guy who would wear trash bags to the concert, and staple pieces of steak to them. So no, I didn't really care what people liked. It was kind of a funny thing, I guess, the way we looked. I guess it was new wave. [Laughs.] First we were punk, you know? That's what they said. Then we were new wave. I think we were too soft to be punk. Plus, we weren't too punky. It's funny how you get that label. We used to joke about that a lot.

AVC: Those early Cars albums don't really sound like anything that was on pop radio at the time. What was it like dealing with the label when you had a sound that wasn't necessarily familiar?

RO: Things were more open then. We were lucky enough to get radio play with our demos, before the band even broke. So that was kind of a nice coup for us. I think we really wanted to be different. It wasn't something we could have contrived. The songs and the arrangements came out the way they did because of the people in the band. And after the first album, the label didn't complain too much. [Laughs.] They really, totally left us alone. I never saw an A&R person coming in and checking to see if everything was going all right. We just did what we felt like in the studio.

Now, producing a lot of new bands like I do, there's so much pressure from labels. I have to lock them out of the room. It's not as free an experience, unless you're making indie records. In those days, they really left us alone. I think Elektra was probably just happy that they had a hit. They didn't want to destroy what it was. And I don't know that we would've listened to anybody anyway. There was really nothing for anyone to say.

AVC: It's hard to pinpoint any hard influences on The Cars besides old-time rock and maybe krautrock. What were you listening to then?

RO: As a songwriter, oddly enough, my influences were people like Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, and Buddy Holly. Some psychedelic stuff, too. Back then, there wasn't a lot of press on bands. There was Creem and Rolling Stone, and that was about it. There certainly wasn't the Internet. You would stay in your basement and create something and then come out. You didn't have anything to rub off on. You didn't know what the band down the street was doing, because you couldn't look it up, and you couldn't see it on TV. I think people tended to come out with things that were different because they weren't influenced by their environments as much. I find these days, you almost have to force yourself to stay in a vacuum to become different—if you really want to be different. Maybe you have to have something different inside of you as well.

The Cars—we all liked different things. Greg [Hawkes] and Elliot [Easton] liked The Beach Boys and The Beatles, and certainly I did as well. Other people in the band liked other music. We didn't usually cross-collaborate. We never said, "Oh, this should sound like this," or whatever. We were in sort of a hole, and we tried not to pay too much attention to what was going on outside.

AVC: Were you collegial with the other bands of your era?

RO: Since the beginning of our career was in Boston, there were a lot of Boston bands we knew, of course. But we didn't really hang out with other bands much. We were in that little Boston scene, but the names of those bands escape my mind, except for Aimee Mann's band, The Young Snakes. I was kind of looking for something new, but there wasn't a lot. But it was a fun scene in Boston then. Radio was real supportive of local bands. I don't know if Boston's ever been as influential as it probably was in those times.

AVC: Until recently, it seemed that The Cars were one of the few great bands that hadn't had a lot of influence on modern rock, but now a lot of bands sound at least a little like The Cars.

RO: I see that written a lot. I suppose it's true. There's more keyboards in bands now. I would certainly never take credit for it. It's funny, sometimes I read about a band that people say sounds like The Cars, and I think, "Oh, it doesn't really." Maybe little twinges here and there vocally. But it's flattering if it's true.

AVC: How have your experiences as a recording artist affected the way you work as a producer?

RO: It's a big advantage, because I think I understand what bands want, just from having made records myself. I understand what it takes to get a good vocal sound, or to make people comfortable in the studio. From minor things like their headphone mix—and if a singer's singing, how they should hear themselves—to how to make people feel that they're getting exactly what they want. All those things, I think, are an advantage, especially the part about having done it myself. I'm not just an engineer who records the sounds well. I'm not afraid to take chances.

And some of it's just band politics. I've been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn't like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out. But I've also always loved the technology part of it. I've always loved the studio part. Making albums. Besides writing songs, which has been my primary thing, making records would be second. Obviously, touring would be third. Touring wasn't my favorite thing to do, but the first few tours were pretty fun. Seeing the world and everything.

AVC: Were there places you looked forward to visiting? Like, "Oh boy, San Francisco!" vs. "Oh crap, Houston."

RO: Certainly. [Laughs.] Houston was pretty good, actually. There were about eight cities in America that I would be excited to play. And of course it was always fun to play in Europe. We only did that a couple times. There were some places that were always very fun, and then there were some places that you kind of dreaded. It didn't matter what year we went to San Jose, they just spit on us. [Laughs.] Even when we sold out there! It was funny. I think we sold out so that people could spit on us. It was always fun to go to Los Angeles and San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago. Mostly the big cities. But I guess once you've seen the world, you don't really need to revisit it.

Here's the Link : AV Club Article

Ric's Real My Space Page Now Up

After being impersonated for about a year the real Ric Ocasek has taken command of his myspace account.

How do we know this ?

Well, first off the page has two never before heard demos on it and secondly the real Ric is a lot busier to post than the previous imposter. The myspace page also features two videos from Ric's own video vault. Two songs from the upcoming video compilation project Different Times can be seen there. " All We Need Is Love" and "Not Shocked" live.

Ric has promised art and poetry as well. The demos I previously mentioned are incredible. One is the Ric only Demo for "Let's Go" and the other a recording of him and the late great Benjamin Orr doing a cover of Buddy Holly's "Everyday".

Make sure you bookmark this badboy, it is essential to any Ric Ocasek fan.

Ric's MY Space Page

Ric Appears In Hysterical Online Wikiality Encyclopedia

Comedian Stephen Colbert has developed a spoof like version of Wikipedia entitled Wikiality. It works exactly as Wikipedia except that the content goes totally unchecked and is designed to be a parody of Wikipedia's. Wikiality contributors are encouraged to post absurd facts. It's basically a jab at Wikipedia for not being a reliable source for information because it's facts are posted by basically anyone who has internet acess. Ric's Wikiality is a gasser, check it out.

Here's The Link :

Ric's Wikiality

Slew of Unlocked Reviews

Good bad or indifferent I have put up Links to reviews for the recently released The Cars "Unlocked" DVD. In the upcoming weeks I will have my own review of the Ocasek made documentary about his former band.

Slew-O-Links :

Bullz-Eye

Full Vue Drive-In

I Miss The 80's

ExtraWack

Boston.com (Middle of Page)

Ric's Inverse Label Put On Hold

Ric's Inverse label has been put on hold because of all the recent turmoil concerning the Sanctuary Record Group ( Inverse's distributor).

Sanctuary's Chief executive Andy Taylor was fired recently because Sanctuary's 2006 projected financial losses were far greater than predicted. This has resulted in Ric's Inverse being put on what's let's hope is a small haitus. Bad news is that Ocasek has no way to distribute the Hong Kong's new album " Slow Motion Gets Around" through Inverse so the band is seeking other labels to do so.

Troub

Brazilian Girls " Talk To La Bomb" released

New York's Brazilian Girls released their new album "Talk To The La Bomb" on September 12th. Ric was involved in the project but not as fully as we first reported. It appears Ric had produced some tracks for the CD but not all.

However, Ric did lend his guitar to the Brazilian girls sound which earned him a guitar credit in the billfold. Something I haven't seen since he played on Alan Vega's "Saturn Strip album back in the early 80's. Ric for sure produced one of the more critically acclaimed tracks on the CD entitled "Last Call"

Formely Of Ric's Inverse The Hong Kong's First Video

The Hong Kong, Ric's initial signing to his own label Inverse has recently released a song called "Tongue Tied". I suspect this is the first song from their forthcoming album " Slow Motion Gets Around" which is also produced by Ric. This is the first track to make it's way to the public. The song is fantastic and the production is outstanding.

However, according to The Hong Kong's keyboardist Shawn King because of Inverse's dilemma with Sanctuary ( read two posts up) Inverse's fate is on hold.

Because of this The Hong Kong themselves are presently shopping the new album around to other labels.

The Hong Kong's latest release "Tongue Tied" also has a video that accompanies it which has recently won the best Music Video at the Crossroads Film festival in Jackson Mississippi for both the band and its director Sera Rogacki.

The Hong Kong are great peeps and an good band to boot.

Download their first album "Rock The Faces" Here

Take a look at the Video Here.

The Hong Kong - Tongue Tied

Troub

Ric Audio Interview On Amazon.com

Ric recently gave an interview with Amazon.com discussing the time consuming effort it took to put The Cars “Unlocked” DVD together. He also discusses amongst other things the possibility of ever playing with his former band again.

Ric Amazon.com Interview

Ric Continues on Colbert Report Running Gag

Ric recently was shown in the running gag on The Colbert's Report "Rescuing Steven Jr. The Eagle" bit. Ocasek during this latest skit is a vital member of Colbert's "Col-mando's" who have been given the task in this important eagle saving mission. Ric has been chosen because of his New Wave Rock and Muscle. Colbert also adds that Ric resembles a bird. Colbert then unveils a Ric Ocasek tracking system which reveals that Ric has strayed from the mission and is now stalking Todd Rundgren.

Ric in Col-Mando Bit


Troub

The Cars Unlocked To Be Released !

Christmas comes a bit early this year for Ric Ocasek fans as the much anticipated “The Cars Unlocked” documentary has been announced for release October 17th. The company distributing it is Docurama and the project was mainly put together by Ric and his son Eron. You can visit Ric Ocasek.com to actually view trailers of this soon to be released DVD.

The Cars Unlocked DVD will feature about 20 never before seen live performances and backstage footage even including sound checks. It will also include a 28 page photo lyric book put mainly together by Ric himself.

In addition if that weren’t enough to handle a 14 song music CD of Cars unreleased live material will be included. The CD will also include four never released Cars songs whether they are studio or live ones is yet to be determined.

The price of the whole package is slated at $23.96 if you pre-order from the Docurama site starting September 19th. An extraordinarily reasonable price that you know Elliot Easton and Paid Inc had no hand in setting or it would have been set at 60-80 dollars.

For much more information go to the these Docurama links. One is their website link and one is a The Cars Unlocked product pdf file link

Unlocked Docurama Link

Unlocked Product PDF LINK

Colbert Report sends Ocasek on Covert Mission

Ric made his second appearance on Comedy Centrals Colbert Report. Ric participated in a comedy bit where host Stephen Colbert’s eagle namesake Stephen Jr. was being abused by zoo handlers. Colbert called upon three special people to rescue Stephen Jr. from the clutches of his evil bird captors. One was an explosive specialist named Killer, Colbert’s expendable producer Bobby and none other than Ric who would use his brute animal magnetism to woo the female zookeeper away from Colbert’s precious bird.

To view the clip you have to go to the Comedy Central and do a search for the Colbert Report and look through the archives for a bit called “Rescuing Stephen Jr.”

Here’s a link to get you started

Rescuing Stephen Jr.

Pink Spiders Answer My Question at Pink Spiders.com

I want to thank the guys from The Pink Spiders taking their time out to answer my questions over at their site. Their new album Teenage Graffiti came out August 1st and I urge you to pick it up. The album has a bit of a Modern Lovers connection which diehard Ocasek Fans always know seems to pop up now and then. Jerry Harrison formerly of the Modern Lovers and Talking Heads appears as a musician on the CD. Former Cars drummer David Robinson was a member of the Modern Lovers as well. Also Ocasek is a long time friend of Modern Lovers frontman Jonathan Richman and has produced him in the past.

Here's the Question I posted to their site :

Troub : Did Ric Ocasek ever mention anything about the whole Cars/New Cars tour debacle ? Also, Ric is known for not changing much from demo to final product. Did you hook up with him because of this or for his rep as being like a extra member of the band that won't try to fawk with your sound?

The Pink Spiders : Absolutely, that was one of the really cool things about working with Ric (other than being a huge fan of the Cars). He is a lot more of a spiritual guru, zenmaster, etc than dictator in the studio. He's just really good at making your songs sound cool and getting a great performance out of you. As for the "New Cars", I have to plead the fifth


Here is the Link to their site and my question


Pink Spiders.com

June 17th Ric And Paulina sited in Greenwich Village

It's gotta be mega annoying to have your pics snapped every time you do anything. But Ric and Paulina seem to be taking it all in stride. The couple seem to have been shopping and it looks like Paulina is carrying the bulk of the load. It looks like Ric is driving an economy size car these days to whiz about the city. I'm just wondering how does he fit in it. There is absolutely no leg room in that car for him and his head is scraping the roof. My best guess this was taken in Greenwich village but really could have be taken in any part of NYC.

Troub

June 14th Ric and Paulina attend Adam Sandlers "Click" Premiere

Ric was out in Los Angeles with Paulina attending a Premiere for Adam Sandlers latest piece of comic predictability "Click". I wouldn't pay dime one to see this and apparently either did Ric.

From what I heard the movies concept of having a remote control for life itself was amusing for about 15 minutes and the rest of the movie was an exercise in boredom. Let's hope the after party was better than this latest Sandler Movie.

Troub

Ocasek Beefs Up Brazilian Girls' 'Bomb'

Ric has once again undertaken a avant garde band as a production project in the eclectic techno quartet the Brazilian Girls. The fact that the band is comprised of three men and one woman who are not Brazilian can give you a hint that this is no ordinary band. Well Known in The NYC club scene for their sexy and d mysterious stage shows courtesy of lead singer Sabina Sciubba lacey party masks. Sciubbia delivers her sexy vocals in five different languages. This band has had some nice success sales wise with their self titled debut. The mix of conceptual art and music is a combination that no doubt attracted Ric to working with them as Producer for their sophmore effort.

Here is a copy of the Billboard article written by Katie Hasty

Ocasek Beefs Up Brazilian Girls' 'Bomb'

Eclectic New York outfit the Brazilian Girls get a lift from producer Ric Ocasek on its sophomore album, "Talk to La Bomb." The set is due Sept. 12 via Verve Forecast and is the follow-up to the group's 2005 self-titled debut, which reached No. 6 on Billboard's Top Electronic Albums chart.

"This record is going to be a lot more dynamic," bassist Jesse Murphy tells Billboard.com. "We really captured the lounge aspect of our music with our last one -- you could hear it in a restaurant but not even know it was us. I think because we had so many people around to bounce ideas off of, the songs just got bigger and better."

In addition to producing, Ocasek plays guitar on the first single, "Last Call." Says Murphy, "That was one of the songs we were feeling really iffy on. We kept trying to make it work and were going to just let it die, but then Ric took it and worked it out."