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Barbara
Manning: Sealing Her Fate
from Magnet (July 1997)
by Jud Cost
The creative force behind such esteemed outfits as SF Seals
and World of Pooh, this San Francisco singer/songwriter always
felt the need to hide behind a band moniker. But with 1212,
her stellar new album, Barbara Manning has become confident
enough to use her own name
 Seven
years ago, Barbara Manning & The Tablespoons -- cellist Kim
Osterwalder, bassist/producer Greg Freeman and longtime Manning
pal Melanie Clarin on drums -- were playing the back room of
San Francisco's Albion, a cramped Mission District venue whose
exposed air ducts, Salvation Army couches and dressmaking dummies
made it feel more like an attic than a nightclub. Five songs
into her set, Manning abruptly stopped the action and announced
to her adoring crowd, "Sorry, I'll be right back. I have to
go pee."
In 1991, at the record-release party for One Perfect Green
Blanket, Manning demonstrated that SF Seals (the band name
she was using then) was to be a truly democratic effort. Manning's
combo opened the set with four songs written and sung by new
recruit Michelle Cernuto, a move that totally stunned Heyday
Records guru Pat Thomas. "Only Barbara could get away with something
like that at her own show," chuckled Thomas, shaking his head
in disbelief.
Manning recently swore, "I'll never use a band name again,"
after the most recent version of the Seals hit the rocks --
her new album, 1212, is the first Matador release under
her own name. But now she's begining to waver. "Never say never,"
she says coyly, drinking beer and downing gratis spinach calzone
at Miki's Place, and old-timer's watering hole in Providence,
RI. "My contract with Matador says I can record under any name.
I always felt it would take somthing away from what your name
is -- making it into a product -- if music was sold under a
name representing a person. But now I'm completely comfortable
using my name. I feel so liberated that I probably wouldn't
jump into another band name right away anyway."
The name on the package is important to Manning, whose selection
of SF Seals was anything but arbitrary. "I needed a band name,"
she says, "and my friend Mad Dog suggested, 'How about San Francisco
Seals? They're not using it.'" True enough, since the local
minor-league entry in the Pacific Coast League went out of existence
in 1957. "It was a great name," gushes Manning, a baseball nut.
"It had connotations of a lovely era: the 40's and Joe DiMaggio.
I'm proud of being from San Francisco, and I love sea lions."
The title of Manning's new release refers to her birthday. "It's
pronounced 'twelve twelve,'" she says. "I wanted something short
and easy to write, because (her previous Matador album) Truth
Walks In Sleepy Shadows was so long. And I wanted something
personal, because this was my first solo album in quite a long
time." Notoriously camera-shy -- her picture graces none of
her album sleeves since her work with 28th Day, the Chico State
University band she shared in the early 1980s with Cole Marquis
(Case For Radio) -- Manning recently gritted her teeth and sat
for the photographers. "There's a picture of me on the new record,"
she murmurs. "And that's really unusual for me, because I never
figured it would sell any records."
To Manning, lyrics are just as important as the name and the
look of an album. "I think they're crucial," she says. "If the
lyrics are terrible or the singer's pretentious, it can ruin
a song for me." Manning takes pains to polish her libretto.
And she's trying to escape a catch-22 in her songwriting method:
she writes her best stuff during the aftershock of the break-up
with a lover. "I work hard on my lyrics, to make them intelligent,
and I've been trying to write songs when I'm happy."
Growing increasingly unhappy as a record clerk at Reckless Records
in San Francisco, Manning recently quit her day job. "I don't
feel comfortable on Haight Street any more," she reveals. "I
don't fit in, and I don't feel that hip flair I used to get
working on Haight Street. Actually, I feel much older than everyone
I see there now. I like the idea of feeling youthful and full
of spirit -- which I see in all my friends -- but I don't have
much tolerance for those irresponsible young panhandlers with
that pierced-nose thing. I guess I'm getting squarer and squarer
as I get older."
Manning often fantasizes about her ideal job situation. "I need
to work in a place where everyone is really focused on work,
rather than somewhere like, 'Hey, nobody's looking.' I would
love to be a gardener. My dream job would be to work at Golden
Gate Park and have my own section and know what all my trees
were."
Before leaving Reckless, Manning had an unpleasant run-in with
Joan Osborne, just as the Relish albums was making Osborne
a household name in 1995. "She was a bitch customer," Manning
snaps. "I didn't even know who she was, but this guy comes up
to me and asks for the Joan Osborne album. I typed her name
into the computer and told him, 'No, sorry.' And he goes, 'Well,
she's standing right there.' I thought, 'Whatever.' She came
up to me, and I waited oon her. I was trying to help her, but
she was really intolerant, with a lot of attitude. I said to
myself, 'I'm gonna remember you name, and I'm not ever gonna
like you.'"
Neither is Manning a rubber stamp for other successful women
in rock 'n' roll in the '90s: Kim Deal, Aimee Mann and Courtney
Love. Even Matador labelmate Liz Phair -- frequently cited by
critics as following in Manning's wake -- is fair game for a
few well-aimed darts. "I think I'm heads and tails above Liz
Phair," says Manning. "Her songs are thin and limited, and mine
are alive." Manning also disagrees with comparisons of her work
to Phair's. "She's doing something much more confrontational,
and I've always done something more introspective." Manning
also feels detached from the growing ranks of indie-rock woman
when it comes to the bottom line. "They have their lives take
care of. I'm the one who's desperate. In 10 years, I'll probably
still be working at some little record store. I don't have a
shiny future mapped out. I'll always be on the edge. But I love
my life and my adventures and the friendships I've made."
 It's
not like taking the kids to soccer practice in a Dodge Caravan,
but Manning senses moments of motherhood in her art. "I feel
like I'm the guardian of each song I write, and I have to five
it everything it needs to be a full and complete entity." This
stance, she says, has nothing to do with fashion. "I serve my
songs, as opposed to them being part of my attire, like a necklace
or a bracelet. I feel like the mom, and I have to make sure
my songs are well-fed and have all the string arrangements they
ever craved. Or that I'm not abusing them by singing them too
hard or too softly. The songs I write and the songs I interpret
I give 100 percent."
In addition to its cornerstone work, a chillling 18-minute Manning
opus called "The Arsonist Story," 1212 features a handful
of riveting cover selections by Nick Saloman, Richard Thompson
and Mick Farren, as well as a chilling, left-field surprise
called "Rickity Tickity Tin." Written by Harvard math professor
Tom Lehrer, who doubled as a witty folk singer 35 years ago,
it was a tune from Manning's childhood. "My mom used to sing
that to me when I was little," she recalls. Like most of her
covers, Manning possesses its soul. Lehrer played the song for
nervous laughs; Manning makes it sound like a "true" story from
the tabloids.
The new album also welcomes aboard Manning's dream back-up band,
the Giant Sand rhythm section of bassist Joey Burns and drummer
John Convertino. Manning recently took the duo on a brief tour
of New Zealand. "That was a present to myself," says Manning.
"I hooked up with the guitarist from the Clean, David Kilgour,
and Graeme Downes from the Verlaines. We played both islands
and recorded seven brand new songs for the next album."
Latching onto Burns and Convertino was a refreshing tonic for
a bad experience Manning and her sister Terri had touring Europe
in 1992 with the Silos. "They were mean, ugly, American guys
who put pornography up in the van," she says. "They were horrible
to us. They were animals and I never want to see them again.
Terri and I were a little leery when we were offered a tour
of the East Coast, riding in the van with Giant Sand. But they
were great. They treated us like we were their little sisters.
We really connected."
The recent joyful antipodean experience with Burns and Convertino
helped Manning see into the furnace room of her art. "I used
to think my muse was living this dark well of sorrow and heartbreak,"
she says. "But now I realize my muse is flying way above me.
And it's always there, in painful times and in happy times.
It's very liberating."
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