Today’s tall tale comes from Dave Powers, a former Subterranean producer who currently runs his own site/blog New Music Nation. Reading this made us all nostalgic and we’re going to find this ep of Subterranean and post it online for you if we can.
For the first year of Subterranean’s existence, we shot the show in dirty basements around New York City. One of our recurring locations was the basement of Bowlmor Lanes near Union Square. Upstairs there was a swanky bowling alley and a club. Underground, it was what you might expect: a lot of pipes, some dripping water, many electrical boxes and the scent of oil often permeated the air.
Back in 2004, PJ Harvey came to Bowlmor Lanes to shoot an episode tied into the promotion of her Uh Huh Her album. When guests arrived they were taken upstairs to our makeshift hair and makeup room, a lounge in the bowling alley.
More after the jump…
Shortly after PJ arrived, someone came down to the basement (where I was setting up with the crew) to tell me that PJ wanted to see the location where we were going to shoot the show. She was the only Subterranean guest ever that requested to inspect our shoot location before the actually taping, but I can’t blame her at all. Having never met her before and being a little star struck about getting to meet one of the best artists of the last decade, I have to admit that I was a little nervous about what PJ was going to think of the Bowlmoor basement.
Before we went downstairs, I explained to her that shooting in these unsightly locations was the norm for the show. We liked the raw, underground look and we shot the show on a Hi Definition camera. Those two elements together made for pretty striking visuals. We then descended downward to inspect the basement. She said few words and was all business, but she ultimately said the location would be fine…which was good, because our backup options were kind of limited.
Ultimately, the interview segments we shot with her were excellent. She was very prepared, professional and proper. She knew what she wanted to say and she said it succinctly and eloquently. She was a true professional, indie rock royalty. She was also very sweet. Basically, PJ Harvey was one of the best interviews we ever had on Subterranean.
