Posts Tagged ‘kara zuaro’
Kara Zuaro On The Road
Posted on: March 21, 2011
Interview with Journalist Kara Zuaro
A little background, Kara, how did you begin your career as a
music/food/travel journalist? and who were you influences?
I guess I my career started when I was editor of my high school
newspaper — or rather, when I got in a fight with the principal of my
high school about some controversial articles that she wouldn’t allow
us to run. The morning I resigned from my post as editor-in-chief and
cut the rest of the day of school marked the beginning of my career in
journalism.In college, I was lucky to be a part of an amazing staff at Notre
Dame’s Scholastic magazine, and I interned for CMJ during my summers
at home in New York. I wrote my first music reviews and interviews
for CMJ, and when one of my CMJ editors got a job at Citysearch, she
let me write some restaurant reviews so that I could get paid AND get
some free food out of the deal. I had a couple of secretarial day
jobs after college, but my freelance work for Citysearch eventually
helped me to get hired at Epicurious. Epi assigned me my first food
and travel features.
I continued to write about music on the side while I was at
Epicurious, and that’s when I collected all the recipes for my indie
rock cookbook, “I Like Food, Food Tastes Good.” The cookbook includes
a bunch of stories about bands and food, and when I was writing them,
I re-read Michael Azerrad’s’ “Our Band Could Be Your Life” and “Nowhere
To Run: The Story of Soul Music” by Gerri Hirshey, which offers a
personal look at the lives of people like Otis Redding, James Brown,
and Aretha Franklin. I consider myself more of a music fan than a
music critic, and those two books helped me find my voice.
What is the most memorable concert you’ve ever attended?
Gosh, probably Paul McCartney at Madison Square Garden in 5th grade.
I remember the room getting darker and this small riser magically
lifting Paul and his piano as he played “Fool on the Hill” — I still
get goosebumps thinking about it. I also remembering asking my dad
why the people sitting next to us were smoking such funny-smelling
cigarettes. He gave me a brief and alarming description of what it
meant to “get stoned,” and explained that we didn’t need to smoke
marijuana to have a good time. Pretty awesome setting for a
don’t-do-drugs speech!
What are a few items essential to your “tour survival kit”?
Sleeping bag, pillow, ear plugs, sleeping mask, phone with internet
access, facial cleansing wipes, aspirin. Some dudes have no trouble
sleeping splayed out on a stranger’s couch without a sheet — but I
need to be wrapped up in something when we sleep. If I can create a
little nest for myself, I can sleep on any floor, anywhere. (A little
whiskey before bedtime helps, too.) Nowadays, your phone provides
every map you’ll need. And the cleansing wipes mean you can wash up
even if you can’t get near a sink or shower. The aspirin is not only
to ease your own pain but also to aid your grouchy hungover band mates.
Bring a lot. I like Excedrin Migraine.
What are you listening to now? Who is your most recent favorite Artist or album, (if one is too narrow, do you have a top three?)
I just downloaded the new Justin Townes Earle single, and I’m really
excited about his new record — Jason Isbell, formerly of the Drive-By
Truckers plays on it. I love Dr. Dog. I was a big Archers of Loaf fan
and listen to a lot of Crooked Fingers, Eric Bachmann’s post-Archers
project. And I love Otis Redding, Cat Stevens, Bruce Springsteen, the
Beatles… it’s hard to really hard to narrow it down!
What is your favorite recipe in I Like Food, Food Tastes Good: In The Kitchen With Your Favorite Bands?
Singer-songwriter/classically-trained chef Patrick Phelan’s “Swanky
Mac & Cheese,” made with Gruyere and fresh lobster, is one of the most
delicious things I’ve ever made. But you can’t be cooking that fancy
all the time. The My Morning Jacket sandwich, made with a fake
chicken patty, cheddar, farmer’s cheese, and pickles, has been getting
a lot of play in our kitchen this summer.
What is your latest Project you have been working on?I’m in the very early stages of putting together a travel book that
uses indie rock tours as vacation inspiration.
What are you reading now?
Sherman Alexie’s “War Dances” — such a big-hearted book. I don’t
want it to end.
Any stories from your excursions on the road with your favorite bands that
especially stand out?
Title Tracks, a band from DC, took me from San Diego to Seattle with
them in May. There were four guys in the band at the time, and I
didn’t know any of them very well in the beginning of tour. But, you
know, we were in close quarters the whole time, so we didn’t stay
strangers for long.
Lots of fun things happened along the way — we slept on an alpaca
farm in Santa Barbara, where we met a 160-pound dog that recently
killed a mountain lion. We were flashed by a young blond, while
sitting around pool at the Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco around 3am.
I ate my first In-N-Out burger, and my first loquats (picked off a
tree in Santa Monica). And I got to see one of my favorite bands play
every day.
But I keep thinking back to an off-night, when the band didn’t have a
show, in Medford, Oregon. We got a cheap hotel room there, and one of
the guys seemed to want some alone-time to wash up and relax. Another
one wanted to check out this (terrifying-looking) strip club called
“The Office.” We’d been together for five days straight at this
point, and we’d been stuck in the car all day, but instead of feeling
sick of them, I felt kind of weird and sad about splitting up. I
missed my husband and my bed and my nice, clean, private bathroom, but
I was starting to realize that I was going to miss the band when I
went home.
Anyway, the remaining two guys took me to this pretty awful college
bar, where the their license scanner read me as 408 years old. It
took some doing to convince them that it wasn’t a fake ID. (I’m
actually 31.) By the time I came back to the table with our second
round, the whole band was at there — the strippers and the quiet
hotel room, it seems, weren’t as entertaining as hanging out together.
It sounds so sappy, but at the time, nothing in the world seemed more
fun than hanging out at that terrible bar with those dudes.
That’s the kind of thing that can only happen on tour — you find
yourself somewhere you never intended to be and never hope to visit
again, but at that moment, there is no place in the world you’d rather be
odetoxylophone 