HIP THERAPY MUSIC

New music is a hobby for some, a lifestyle for others, but for a select few, it is also a livelihood. Musician Jim Walker has been creating music — some of which you might know — for more than 40 years. He grew up in Southern California but now thrives in Portland, OR. Music is his “north star.” He sings, plays multiple instruments, writes and arranges songs, engineers, runs a successful recording studio and has even flourished in the world of voice-overs and commercial jingles. Plus, he’s a fab storyteller.

One night after a gig in 1988, his band, Lost Anthony, crashed on my apartment floor when I was working on-the-air in San Luis Obispo, CA. In short, we’ve known each other a while. We recently reacquainted via FaceTime after many years of social-media-only contact. Happily, it was like we’d only last spoken yesterday.

Jim is always good for tips on new music (way-back-when he turned me on to Kate Bush and Zappa) and this is part of our discussion about new songs and where to find them.

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For those that don’t know you, tell us about Jim Walker — the high points, who you’ve worked with, what has been the most fun, what makes you smile most.

As far as I go, it’s strange the things people may or may not know me for. Some know me for a song I wrote and sang called “Something To Remember Me By,” from a film from the 80’s called Three O’Clock High. Some don’t know anything about that film but know me for a song called “In My Arms,” from a horror film called Mirror, Mirror. And some people don’t know anything about my music, they know me because I was the voice of a character called Fox McCloud for a Nintendo game called Star Fox: Assault. Probably more people know me for voicing that game than anything else!

Definitely the high point, at least so far, for me was working with my music partner, Tim Ellis. We had an acoustic duo together (Tim and Jim). Tim was a world class musician who could literally play anything on guitar. It’s not hyperbole when I say he was the greatest guitar player I’ve ever heard in my life, famous or not. You could put him in a small coffee shop playing quiet, intimate guitar for three people, or put him on a stage in Southeast Asia playing electric guitar with the National Cambodian Symphony for 10,000 people — which he did — and he’d be just as comfortable. Born to it. 

“We spent decades together, laughed ourselves silly, drank rivers of booze, and got paid for playing music. Now those are some smiles, Bub.”

— Jim Walker

Tim and I played all over the Pacific Northwest, several times a week, and had a wonderful audience who seemed to like us well enough to show up consistently. Tim and I worked on dozens of album projects of mine, and for other people as well. We did music for film, TV, and commercials. Sadly, Tim passed away in 2016 after a very brief illness. It was the pleasure of my life knowing and working with him. We spent decades together, laughed ourselves silly, drank rivers of booze, and got paid for playing music. Now those are some smiles, Bub.

How did you first get into music? What made you pick up a guitar?

Fifth grade. I was in my school’s concert choir. We were singing things like Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, folk stuff mostly, and our concert master was Mr. Beemer. He accompanied us on an acoustic guitar. That thing absolutely fascinated me and I begged my folks for lessons. I think I bellyached for three years or so until they finally caved. My first lesson was when I was 11 years old.

Tell us about moving to Portland all those years ago, and leaving Los Angeles.

When I moved here (30 years ago) I really felt like I’d found my soul city. There’s a really weird balance in Portland because you have tons of artists, a huge LGBTQ community, and everyone is pretty tolerant of everything. (My girlfriend and I) came back to LA, told everyone we were moving up to Portland and they were like, “Portland? What are you going to Portland for? That’s lame. Ahh, you’ll be back.” Well maybe we will. I don’t know. My thinking at the time was I can always wiggle out of this.

“I was a card-carrying member of the KISS Army.”

— Jim Walker

At my studio I mostly work with singer/songwriters who can’t really play, they’re not great instrumentalists. So I’ll usually do all the tracking for them, do all the instruments and then they’ll sing. And during Covid I would do Zoom calls with them. They’d play me their song then I’d record it and then I’d put the track together, send it back, they’d cut the vocal at their house. We just made it work. I did three EPs with people during the first 12-14 months of covid.”

What music inspired you back at the beginning? What inspires you now? 

I was a card-carrying member of the KISS Army. I loved that band beyond words and wanted to play guitar just so I could play those songs. First thing I asked my guitar teacher to show me was the big riff for God Of Thunder.  Zeppelin, Sabbath, Aerosmith all came a bit later, but at the beginning it was all about KISS. Now what inspires me are songs. I’m always blown away when someone marries the perfect music and melody with the perfect words. Music trends ebb and flow but the songs are what we keep listening and connecting to.

You’ve put out a lot of music over the years. How do you know when it’s time to start a new album?

I’m consistently writing and recording. Sometimes I’ll have one song I really like the feel of and think, “I’d like to go this direction for a while.” And I’ll write, work, and follow the muse toward that. Other times, I find that I’ve written and recorded a stack of songs and a bunch of them just happen to work together nicely without me having to do too much, so BANG that’s an album.

“…you can’t sell records anymore. It’s absolutely impossible to sell records…”

— Jim Walker

The nice thing now, well, I don’t know if it’s nice, it is what it is, you can’t sell records anymore. It’s absolutely impossible to sell records so if you’re in this business, you better like it. The only hope you have — and this is the most horrible thing — the only hope you have in this business of making any money is selling your song for a commercial, or a film, or a TV show. 

It’s weird, I’ve put out a LOT of records and what’s funny is, I hear NOTHING when I put a record out. It’s very rare that anybody gives a rat’s ass when I put a record out. But every once in a while, I’ll talk to someone and they’ll say, yeah, I’ve been listening to that record of yours… What? Why didn’t you tell me you were listening to that record? Like I deserve to know or something. And also, I file all my music with ASCAP and one of the things they do is distribute all the music they get out to licensing companies. If you’re with ASCAP, they just do that. And I have probably 600 songs filed with ASCAP and floating around the world and once in a while I will get this check. And I’ll say what’s this all about?

About 2 years ago I got this check for six grand. I went, what is this for? I don’t get checks like that. It was for a song of mine called “Questions.” Ok. Great. What is this being used for? Maybe it’s for a TV show somewhere? So I started doing all this research, Google this, Google that, I couldn’t figure out. So I got a friend at the Harry Fox Agency, hey, how do I find out where I got this money from? And they say, “Well, you can’t. Yeah, when something is licensed, they don’t necessarily have to tell you what it’s being used for, they just pay you.” And I went okaaaaayyy….

So I still tried to find stuff out, if it was in connection to a TV show… and three months later I got another check for six grand! Same song. I was happy to get it. It’s great, it really helps out but I don’t know where it came from! And that stuff bothers me. It still hasn’t resolved itself. The song is kind of a happy-go-lucky, poppy thing which is kind of weird for me but I still don’t know how it was used. 

Who are you listening to the most these days? You mentioned the Cactus Blossoms… who else?

The Cactus Blossoms are pretty cool. Great harmonies and songs. I’m trying to listen to some things I didn’t pay enough attention to at the time (The Kinks, Badfinger, Laura Nyro), music from other countries (CAN, Einsterzende Neubauten, Sergio Mendes, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Caetano Veloso), and I’m liking a lot of newer things — well, new to me anyway — like Lizzo, Toro Y Moi, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Brandi Carlile. I’m just always on the lookout for the song. Please break my heart, you motherfuckers.

“…and then you have a whole bunch of other friends who peaked when they were about 22. That’s the music they still listen to and that’s it. I’m always looking for new music.”

— Jim Walker

Do you think much about your musical taste evolving?

I’m fascinated by this because, and I’m sure you find this too, you do have your friends who are still seeking out new music and then you have a whole bunch of other friends who peaked when they were about 22. That’s the music they still listen to and that’s it. I’m always looking for new music. I’m lucky in the sense that some of the people that I work with are young, so I’ll ask these kids that I work with, like 16, 17, where do you find new music? Almost all of them say YouTube. I’ll put something in that I like and you get the whole sidebar filled. They just put playlists together on YouTube and you can just walk away! 

We all have our things that we like. The stuff that I’m always intrigued by is people that are still doing interesting, unique music with the classic “rock” set-up: guitar, keyboards, bass and drums. If any can still keep pumping stuff out that’s interesting, I’m really intrigued. You know me, I was a huge Zappa fan. I like stuff that’s experimental. I’m always looking for someone that’s coming at stuff in a different way. My parameters now, though, are I gotta find out what their intention is right off the bat. If somebody goes, here, check this new band out, I say, well, who the hell are they? What do they do? What do they play? I want to know shit before I’m committing to listening to something. Which is not how it used to be.

“… just another place where any yahoo could upload their original music…”

— Jim Walker

Your life is just steeped in music. What’s your best source for finding new songs?

I’m on the Bandcamp.com newsletter and every week they’ll send the new releases and every one of them you can click on and take a listen. And you give them a minute and a half to listen. I’ve developed a bad habit of, if I find something even slightly intriguing, I’ll just buy it. I want to support music. Bandcamp used to be just another place where any yahoo could upload their original music, like SoundCloud, and SoundCloud is cool too, but the weird part about SoundCloud is you can put up a page but you can’t really curate there. You can’t really tell who you are or your story or anything like that. You can just load audio files. Bandcamp you can really curate the page the way you want. You can put your lyrics up, you can give context to your stuff.

It was kind of a wasteland, any yahoo could put up anything. The interesting part to me is about 5 or 6 years ago, Dave Alvin loaded all his stuff to Bandcamp and I was like, what? What’d he do that for? Cool! He  kind of legitimized what was sort of a weird, indie service. And then these film directors, like David Lynch and John Carpenter and Wim Wenders started putting up their soundtracks on Bandcamp. And then all of a sudden it became this cultly, fringy, oddball place to go find music. That’s when I got into it. It’s where I’ve been finding stuff. Also, I always liked the Starbucks digital download cards. That to me was really intriguing. “Oh, here’s a new song!”

(One) place that I’ve found a lot of new music was when Twin Peaks did their reboot. Every show would end at the roadhouse and they would always have some band that you’ve never heard of playing and they would showcase them as the credits rolled. So David Lynch got to break a new band every week which was pretty cool! Eddie Vedder did one show where he sang a song at the end, other than that it was all bands you’ve never heard of. I heard the Cactus Blossoms, I think they’re from Arizona, they sound like the Everly Brothers and they’re young guys. Their harmonies are exactly like the Everly Brothers. They’re looking backward… I’m looking for them to push forward with that sound. 

Who do you think deserves more attention than they’re currently getting? 

Every band I like (on Bandcamp), I think, “Why don’t more people know about this?…It’s soooo good!”

What band or song would you love to see break it big — you can include your own stuff.

I don’t want any band I like to break it big…they’re my little secret. Mine, mine, all mine!

First song that comes to mind: what would be your pick of the week?

Tough one because I listen to so much music. I’ll tell you the last five albums I listen to, how about that?

1. Albert King – BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN
2. Pixies – BOSSANOVA
3. Wilco – AM
4. Frank Zappa – ABSOLUTELY FREE
5. X – ALPHABETLAND

See? I’m no help.

Final thoughts?

It’s funny to think about how much things have changed. Intention has changed so drastically. I feel like when everyone got access to a phone and the selfie-and-camera-ready world we’re all living in, that, mixed with American Idol, where if you make your shot, if you dunk it… you can make it. So that’s the world we’re living in. Just think about it: “I don’t want to do an apprenticeship anywhere, I don’t want to clean the toilet in the studio, I want to be famous right now.” And you hear the music those people make and that’s exactly what it sounds like. 

Last night I was watching a Henry Rollins spoken-word documentary, Keep Talking, Pal, and he was talking a lot about music and records and how people think they’re just floating in the air but he said, “Music saved my ass. Music saved my life. I would be a totally different person right now if it wasn’t for music. I’m not kidding.” And he kept talking about that concept and I was thinking, man, that’s exactly how I feel. If I didn’t have music… where on earth would I be? And I know it’s the same for you. I know it saved your ass, too. I live and smell music. 

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HipTherapyMusic.com has huge respect and gratitude for Jim Walker, who will receive a Hip Therapy Music poster for his generosity of time and spirit. Check out Jim’s website at www.jvamusic.com, and on social sites Instagram, TikTok @jvamusicguy, and YouTube, or leave him your comments below. Yes, Jim, you are a help!

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