FAN QUESTIONS!

Artwork by Malcolm Smith at Art Party Comics

KJ writes, “Tell Me A Lie” is one of my all-time favorite Nu Shooz songs, and I was wondering what your songwriting process is.

Hello KJ!

Well, first of all, thanks for that wonderful letter. 'Tell Me a Lie' was one of my absolute favorite songs off of "Bagtown." Another was 'The Color of Everything' from “Pandora’s Box.” That whole album was a departure from my normal writing style, which was to start with a bass line, a kick/snare pattern, some nice chords, and go from there.

On 'Pandora,' well... Martin Scorsese made a documentary about Bob Dylan called 'No Direction Home,' which I watched over and over in the studio. And that's when I finally realized what Lyrics could do. That they could be like impressionist paintings. At that point, I'd been writing songs for thirty years. So this time, I STARTED WITH THE LYRICS, just writing free of the music.

The first song that came out of that writing style was 'Spy vs Spy.' It was like a revelation. It opened up lyrics to new rhyming schemes and song forms. In the early days, it was so hard to keep four hours of material fresh. At the end of the night, there were always songs we were tired of but had to play to fill the time. So, I worked on songs in batches of ten and tried to finish two every week for Wednesday's rehearsal. I wrote some pretty flimsy stuff at times, but just good enough to fill the dance floor. (Some of those I'm still rewriting in my head.)

But how I did it was what we called the BONE PILE. The BONE PILE worked like this.

I would work on music and lyrics separately. I'd collect a bag of chord changes that I liked and SEPARATELY a bag of word fragments, mostly TITLES and hooks. Then, I'd try the hooks against the chord changes till I found ones that fit together. It was very much an assembly line process. 'The Real Thing' was a song that came together like that. The lyric fragment I started with in that song was "Whatever you want, whatever you need." And it expanded out from there. Musically, I knew I wanted to make a Gamble and Huff/ Philly Soul song like they might write for the OJays.

So, that might be more than you wanted to know, but that's how it was done.

We really appreciate it when people dig into our band and get beyond 'I Can't Wait.' There's a lot there. And we loved the bit about your bass player from Senegal. Our songs were well-liked in Africa, especially (for some reason) 'Should I say Yes.'

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Gotta question for the Shooz? Just get in touch through our contact page and we’ll try to answer in a future newsletter!

'Bagtown' Lives On!

Time flies doesn’t it? Just over a year ago we did a video shoot for the song ‘Bagtown’, the title cut from the album… (You guessed it)…’Bagtown.’ We shot the band in front of a green screen. Director Mike Wellins was behind the camera.

Malcolm Smith went to work building the town. That project took seven months, burned up many hot-glue guns, and filled about 30 square feet of our studio. The result of his labor was fantastic and magical beyond our wildest expectations. Mike came in and shot it from every possible angle.

Then it was time to take it down. We were sad. “Can’t we leave it up for just one more day? Or a week?“

Mike to the rescue again. He happens to be the proprietor of the FreakyButTrue Peculiarium, one of those institutions dedicated to keeping Portland Weird. He offered us a home for our beloved ‘Bagtown’ set, and came up with this beautiful presentation. ‘Bagtown’ is now under attack from Godzilla and Sharknado!

All is right with the world.

The "Making of..." our nu video for "Bagtown"!

Seven months ago we had a video shoot with the band for the song "Bagtown"
Over the winter, our son Malcolm Smith has been working on the miniature Bagtown set - which is ALMOST complete. Next we'll put it in the hands of animator/director Mike Wellins and his talented assistant Jasper Thun who will take our green screen selves and actually put us INSIDE the town. Mike is also the proprietor of Portland's FreakyButTrue Peculiarium (something you must see if you ever make it to the city!)

No date for completion yet. The cool part is, BAGTOWN LIVES! Check out the video above that we made in our studio to get a behind the scenes glimpse into the "Making of..."

Spring 2017

Spring is Here! The trees are getting their fresh coat of leaves. What better time to release a Nu Shooz song with brand-new clothes on. We’re proud to unveil the Eric Kupper Radio Remix of “Real Thing” from the “Bagtown” album!

We want to thank everyone who took the time to vote for their favorite cover art on our FB Page. Here’s the winner. Hope you like it!

“Real Thing” was remixed by Eric Kupper, a star of the house music scene. Eric is known to DJ's everywhere for his production skills and a client list eight miles high, having worked with everyone from Alicia Keys to Depeche Mode. There’s a radio edit, and a club mix for you folks who want to dance all night. The response has been fantastic.  Comments are rolling in from all over Europe, Asia, and Africa! We’re also charting on Traxsource - the ultimate DJ go to site for new music.

You can listen and download the radio edit here...

And the (longer) Club Mix is here on Traxsource.

Summer shows are already falling into place. We’ll be Freestylin’ it at the shows below in May and June. Watch this space for full band shows later this summer.

FRIDAY MAY 19

First, it's the 3rd annual LOTOS Music Festival in Boca Raton FL, featuring Boy George, The Romantics, Ace of Base, Nu Shooz, and more.

FRIDAY JUNE 2

Then it's the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival in southern California with The Motels, Dramarama, Pretty Poison, Nu Shooz, and more.

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All in all, life is good. As winter turns to spring we look forward to another season of music, art, and fun.

Vive le printemps!

XO VALERIE AND JOHN

'Real Thing' Official Lyric Video Released

The Strands of Time (The Making of the ‘Real Thing Video’)

Is there a reason and a purpose for everything? Maybe – maybe not. And maybe the reason’s just not clear at the time. Ten years ago I started scotch taping pictures into old phone books. The original idea was to create an image file for drawings, otherwise known as an Art Morgue. This turned into a sort of mega collage, while it’s original function was completely engulfed by Google images.

Around the same time I was writing music for documentary filmmaker Larry Johnson for things like The Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Texas and a museum exhibit about Buffalo Bill in Colorado. We also traveled to Vietnam twice together to work on Larry’s film ‘Ghost Money.’

Fast forward to the present. The Nu Shooz band had come back to life, rising from the swamp like the creature from the Black Lagoon. The creature wanted CONTENT, and it wanted it NOW. Valerie got busy making a series of short films about life in Nu Shooz-land; in airports, in rehearsals, in the studio during the making of Bagtown.

Now she wanted to make a “lyric” video for the first single – ‘Real Thing.’ Our dining room table was soon cluttered with scissors, paste, and magazines as she started cutting out letters and pasting them together to form the words from the song. But she needed a background. The phone book collage! It would be the perfect backdrop for this frenzy of fonts. Two days later, after 100’s of photos and video had been taken, she sat for 6 hours and started to edit. 30 seconds in and it became obvious that unless she wanted to cancel life (and upcoming gigs) this project would never be completed in time!

A call to Larry was made. Could he take over the editing chair? Does he have time to get it done in a week? Yes! He’s available and into it!

So there you have it. All these crazy strands came together – the collage book, Larry Johnson, Bagtown,the films, the songs. Sometimes you have to do these things just for fun, and let the strands weave together on their own.  - John