Baseball, Music and Loving the Evil Empire

Talking MLB and alt-rock history with The Baseball Project's Steve Wynn

When I launched this Substack last August, I promised that my paid subscribers would occasionally be treated to transcripts of interviews I’d done in years past, including material that has never been previously published (or has been out of print for so long that I may as well give it a good dust-off). I’ve shared several so far, including old conversations with Angus Young, Rob Halford, Ernie Isley, Dennis Coffey, and the irrepressible Sleaford Mods.

But sometimes, there will be unpublished stuff from more recent interviews, as well. Fr’instance, I had a great conversation last month with Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate about Grand Salami Time!, the new album from The Baseball Project — the seamhead supergroup he formed back in 2007 with his wife Linda Pitmon (Filthy Friends, Zuzu’s Petals), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows/Minus 5) and R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills. A chunk of our interview ran in The Forward (and you can and should read it here), but there was so much goodness left over that I’ve decided to share the unpublished highlights with my paid Jagged Time Lapse subscribers. (Thanks again to all of you who have upgraded to paid subscriptions, or have been paid subscribers from the get-go; I am so friggin’ grateful for your support.)

Though I have serious issues with the current incarnation of MLB, baseball has long been almost as important to me as music — which is why I’ve written three books on baseball in the 1970s — and I love how The Baseball Project fuses the two things, especially on the new album. In fact, even if you don’t care about baseball, I’d recommend Grand Salami Time! to anyone who digs any of the aforementioned bands, since it’s pretty damn thrilling just from a musical standpoint. And while Steve and I definitely got into some baseball talk in this interview, you’ll also find some pretty great tidbits here about the strange early trajectory of this band, working with legendary producer Mitch Easter on the new album, and how Steve and the R.E.M. boys became friends back in the early days of what we now call alternative rock…