Singer-songwriter P.J. O’Connor needed a verse melody.
Or, more specifically, his song “Stop to Smell the Rose” needed one.
O’Connor stood in New York City’s West 4th Street subway station, a series of levels that seemingly reach down to the earth’s core. O’Connor, who has perfect pitch, heard a subway keyboardist play a riff. The riff he knew would be his verse.
“I ran over to the guy,” O’Connor recalls. “I was like, ‘That's F sharp minor, right?’ And he moved it from F sharp minor and then he did the minor seven. And he smiled at me. He's like, 'You're gonna use that ain't you?'”
O’Connor tipped his muse $7, because while 20% is a standard tip on a meal, no one ever knows the gratuity for a verse, and ran home to finish the song.
O’Connor’s telling the story, not just because of the way it demonstrates the tremendous value of the New York City subway system, but also because it’s a lesson about being in the moment. “I didn't have my stupid headphones on,” he says. “And I was subconsciously doing the work, which is how I spend a lot of my time, subconsciously picking things up and doing the work. It's really hard in today's day and age and that is exactly what Television's Golden Age is about: being present.”
Due to arrive this Thursday, November 12th, Television’s Golden Age is O’Connor’s solo debut, roots music through the lens of New York City‘s glorious New Wave past. The songs are pretty and timeless, but O’Connor’s voice is devoid of Americana’s twang. You can almost picture him sitting on a quiet country porch, desperately trying to figure out a way back to Eighth Avenue.
Born in Garden City, Long Island, O’Connor wound up at Boston College, connecting there with fellow Long Islanders The Bogmen, who convinced him to drop out and join their fledgling band as a percussionist. The band never quite made it (even their Wikipedia page has notability concerns), they let O’Connor go, and he wound up in the Brooklyn-based punk band Radio 4.
That band ended for O’Connor and after a detour to Ireland, he was ready to take the plunge into his own project, supported by many of his former bandmates, including Bogman Billy Campion, who produced the album as Vic Thrill.
The album deals with heartbreak and the pre-Biden/Harris victory state of the country, with the title track taking on these issues directly. For O’Connor, the answer is similar to solving songwriting challenges: being present. “We just need to practice empathy and gratitude and corny stuff like that,” O’Connor says. “We're all frustrated and I think [“Television’s Golden Age”] really vividly depicts that. But this isn't fatal. We can turn the shit around. We always have.”
Television’s Golden Age isn’t relentlessly hopeful, so much as it’s realistically positive. O’Connor sings about the darkness but ultimately chooses to focus on the light.
What made you decide to do a solo album now?
I got sacked [from the Bogmen]. You know, the plane was going down and I was surplus to requirements, as a percussionist. And at the time it sounded almost condescending, but [Billy Campion, who ended up producing Television’s Golden Age] was like, 'Don't you think you should be doing so much more than, you know, playing percussion in the Bogmen? Because you understand you can do that.' And I was just so filled with fear. I just needed to grow up, you know, I needed to put pen to paper. And honestly, put the frickin’ work in.
And it wasn't until the end of Radio 4, when we had a really bad car accident in January 2010 and I didn't go back to the band. One of my favorite things to do was to play with Billy and Brendan Ryan [of the Bogmen]. We’d do it a couple of times a month back in those days, up in Hell's Kitchen. And we would just kick around great cover songs, you know, Kinks, stuff you're not going to hear other bands play because [the venue] had a piano. And I wanted to get back into playing drums and singing. And so now I was doing that. And I really started to feel like I was growing into my shoes, at that point. Playing drums and singing, I felt like this is what I should be doing.
That turned into [a demo], with the encouragement of Billy Ryan. And I probably went to Billy Ryan with about five or six tunes, two of which are "Wolf Den" and "Indecisive Moon." I went through a bad breakup there and it was it was my first social media breakup, where the woman, three weeks after handing me my papers, she's flaunting this unbelievable new romance on social media. The pain from that breakup really, really inspired me. Pain is the touchstone to growth, without question.
And somewhere along the line, I end up busking over in Ireland and that's where I came back with different ideas. I wasn't going to sing about the breakup anymore, but for me, where I am now as a writer, you know Dylan number one, Robert Hunter number two, in terms of lyrics, but I need to do the Lou Reed, John Lennon, what's happening directly with me or around me that I can relate to. And so as much as I would love to write "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" or "Terrapin Station," or something like that, that's not my comfort zone.
Why is "You Burned Your Name" a duet?
So, I have this song, which I think is a duet. And when I originally wrote it, I had no idea that song was going to be a duet, but I sang the part that's the female part now in this falsetto. Which I wanted to sound like a gravelly Tom Waits. The working title was called "Christopher Street," because I used to live down there. And I was trying to write about this kind of Tom Waits-y, grimy you know, trick-turning things that happen towards the west end of Christopher Street. And I wanted to use that scratchy, Tom Waits falsetto, except my falsetto is much more in line with Barry Gibb. It didn't happen.
But thankfully Brendan Ryan, the keyboardist from the Bogmen, who's also all over my record, he was like, ‘You need to revisit that one. I like that one a lot.’ And it occurred to me, ‘Why don't I just have a woman sing the high part?’ And when that occurred to me, the song just completely wrote itself, which is an artist's dream, when that happens. And yeah, it's another breakup song, but I could juxtapose the pronouns. I had fun with it. And as soon as I did that, the chorus came together really quick. I mean, the song was written in probably less than an hour, after I figured out that I would bring in a female. And then I knew right away that it would be Little Embers, who is a dear friend of mine. I thought her voice would be perfect for it.
And what about, "The Radiator’s Wheezing" and "Rogue Waves?” I thought those had very old-fashioned throwback sounds.
So "Radiators Wheezing" was one of the last songs to make it. I always had faith in it. But I tell you one of the most amazing things is after you finish writing something is that vulnerability you feel and how you're almost naked. I'm in the studio with Vic Thrill, who's Billy Campion, and you know throwing that one down? And Billy just being like 'Dude, it's all there. I love the chorus. Don't worry. There's no bridge needed. There's no instrumental part needed. It's perfect the way it is.' And yeah, that's another experience song. I live in the West Village, kind of near Meatpacking, and it's going to be the first cold weekend. So, you hear the pipes? They're starting to sing and that's where that one came from.
And you mentioned "Rogue Waves." Wow. That could be my favorite song on the record. That was along the same line as "Radiators Wheezing." Again, a little bit of discomfort, playing it for Billy Campion. And yeah the bridge of that song, which is actually an instrumental bridge, the middle eight, when I finished it, and I listened back to it, I thought that that would be pretty much the musical peak of the whole record.
So, we were able to throw French horn at it and able to throw those amazing strings [from Julie Kathryn]. I love checking what Jack Nitzsche did with Neil Young. I never bring in strings at the top. Man, when you bring in those strings? After you've made the table and you've done verse-chorus, and then you hit them in the second verse and now your strings behind it, like I have chills even talking about that with you. And she just attacked the way I described it to her with the strings and it came out pretty much exactly as I wanted it to sound and they're huge parts of both the songs you mentioned.
Two of your songs were optioned to TV shows (CSI: Los Angeles and Instinct). What does that mean for you?
Oh, my gosh, it was huge. It enabled me to put the record out myself. Anthony Roman from Radio 4 is my guru and one of my very best friends. And right when this label thing was going on, and he, like me, had thought my best option was to find a label and get that kind of backing. And he said, 'I sense that you're discouraged. And I just want you to know that I'm going to be with you every step of the way.' I'm like, choking up actually saying this, because it meant so much to hear that, from Anthony, who took me around the world in Radio 4. I have to tell you, coming off the Bogmen, which, you know, you get signed by Clive Davis, and you think it's all right there in front of you. And it ended. The Bogmen have gone on to this great thing that I'm really proud of. But in the late 90s, it was certainly a disappointment.
So I get this money from CBS and it enabled me to finally put the record out, literally put everything together and pay for the vinyl, pay for the artwork, pay for the PR, a little marketing. And I could not be more thankful or grateful to have [CBS] in my corner. I'm like the crime drama soundtrack guy [laughs].
Did you like being a sideman? Did you like touring?
Yes. So, the Bogmen had a ton of personality. And I loved being a percussionist in the Bogmen. It was a little bit more, I guess, careful or I had to be kind of deliberate in how I approached adding percussion to songs that rarely went over four, four-and-a-half minutes. Billy's vocal ideas were so layered and he loved having me sing with him. And man, we could sing so well together that I think that he saw in the Bogmen a chance to do like a Talking Heads, maybe Clash, with really good background vocals. Which is how he saw my role and why he brought me in, aside from the fact that I think he saw a brother. We're just, all of us, such close, close friends.
And now moving on to Radio 4 is this band that's somewhere between Santana meets the Clash, and it's all about percussion. And I really enjoyed the role because if you go to the merch table after the show, and you get a chance to meet people, and the percussionist guy's always the underdog, I guess. You don't go there thinking you're going to like fall in love with a guy playing shakers and stuff like that, and just grooving.
But I thought it was really important, when I wasn't playing in a certain part of the song, you can't just be hitting percussion the entire time, to just kind of like really close my eyes and get into the music. And I'm not a great dancer by any means but I found myself in a trance almost, with Radio 4's music, dancing when I wasn't performing or with shakers in my hand, and even if the song only had like tambourine in the chorus, I would just go berserk. And you know, I look at videos of it and it's a little bit embarrassing, but it's all about connection. My whole thing is connection. And it was definitely a way to connect.
Percussion is one of the easiest ways to connect to the listener or the punter in the audience because 'Hey, I can do that. I can't do with that keyboard guy's doing and who knows what language that guy is playing on those frets of that guitar instrument. I get what that guy's doing. I get him.'
What are your five favorite albums of all time?
I'm going to bang them out. The Clash’s London Calling is number five. Number four is my favorite singer and my favorite vocal album ever, Veedon Fleece by Van Morrison. Number three is my heroes of all time, which is the Grateful Dead, and the album is Europe ‘72. I would never put a compilation on this list but there's too much unreleased material, like first-time released. When you think of "Ramble On Rose, "Brown Eyed Women," "Jack Straw," "He's Gone." I mean, the list is endless. Those were never studio songs. They're just the first time they came out. So that is my number three.
Number two is Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. And my number one favorite, and I think the greatest record of all time, is the self-titled record from The Band. That's my jam. Their second record. They call it the brown album.
I was thinking hard about this. London Calling made it for me, but barely. I adore Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys and I think you'd be remiss putting any other record than Pet Sounds and I do love the Stones’ record Exile on Main St. But I had to go with The Clash because it goes so far back in my youth and every single time you put it on, it just keeps coming at you and coming at you and coming at you. But you're not tired; you're inspired by what's going on.
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