There are a few artists that I am happy to write about repeatedly and indefinitely. In large part, they are the ones who have a relentless supply of creative output. They may not be the most famous or acclaimed but they continue to make art with pictures, words, objects, food … just about everything and anything. I include Tod Lippy on that shortlist. From the first day we met when he was hired over 30 years ago as an editor at PRINT (when it was still a print magazine) to his founding of the indie magazine Publicsfear to the editorship of Scenario, a magazine that published unpublished screenplays, to his most ambitious ongoing effort, the Esopus Foundation, which published an eponymous magazine and books, and includes the record label Tod Lippy Music.
What I did not know is that he performs his own music as well as produces and distributes it. In addition to his personal songbook he is also always on the prowl for new, underexposed talents, who he produces on whatever media is available, including cassettes, LPs and CDs—and streaming, of course. Recently, he asked me and others to join him on a music video for a new piece. I humbly declined, but realizing we’ve never really discussed the musical side of his output, this was a fateful opportunity to do so.
Print publishing has been your métier for decades. How and when did music enter your repertoire?
Music entered my repertoire when I was very young. My father and sister both sang and my mother played piano, so music was a constant in our house. When I was 8 years old, I started taking classical guitar lessons, which continued through my first year of college. Along the way I also learned how to play the piano by ear, which allowed me to obsessively recreate the piano parts on my favorite Top 40 songs. And I also sang in my high school chorus, as well as in different student musical productions. I wonder if the question shouldn’t be, When did music leave your repertoire? At some point in college I stopped playing guitar, piano, and singing for the most part, and didn’t take any of them up with any seriousness until after the last issue of Esopus.
When you were publishing Esopus, the music was an aggregation of musicians and styles that interested you. But what are those inspirations, and how did you decide what to use?
Every issue of Esopus featured a compilation audio CD of new music, each one with a particular theme. These ran the gamut from spam emails to subscribers’ childhood imaginary friends. By creating a specific theme, I found it was much more likely the music I received would be brand-new and written specifically for Esopus. I would invite bands, composers and musicians I admired, or whom had been recommended to me by colleagues, readers, friends—and especially by interns (who were much more voracious consumers of alternative music by emerging bands than I was at that point in my life). As with content in the magazine, I wanted musical contributions to be eclectic and represent a variety of approaches and genres. In the end, we commissioned nearly 300 new songs. These were created by rap artists like dj/rupture, Cadence Weapon and Busdriver; “indie” bands like Grizzly Bear, Cloud Nothings and Frightened Rabbit; singer-songwriters like Jens Lekman, Cassandra Jenkins and Kimya Dawson; and contemporary composers like Elliott Sharp, Anthony Cheung and Carl Stone, to name only a few.
Is there a direct correlation between the art and writing content you champion and the musical component, or are they separate preferences and tastes?
I think my taste is pretty uniform across disciplines. I respond most intensively to art, writing, music, dance, theater and film that challenges me, that makes me better comprehend my own humanity and the humanity of others, and that moves me and fills me with wonder and gratitude.
You’ve issued a considerable number of records. How deep is your following?
I’ve released four full-length albums, one EP and several standalone singles over the past five years, which is kind of insane when I think about it. I’m not exactly sure how that happened—especially in the midst of doing a lot of other things—but I suspect it relates to the fact that in those “dormant” years between college and the end of Esopus, I had suppressed a lot of desire to make music! As for my following, it’s modest, at least at this point. I’ve had some bigger successes—songs or videos that, for one reason or another, seem to garner larger audiences, or, in one case, which ended up scoring a short video for Vogue—but for the most part, my “numbers” are pretty low. Friends keep suggesting I start performing live, which is a great way to build a loyal fanbase, and that’s something I’m starting to consider more seriously.
And speaking of following, who is the audience that you are performing for?
I was asked this question recently about Esopus, and the best answer I could give was that whatever I do creatively, I do, first and foremost, out of a desire to connect to the rest of the world. I don’t think I’ve ever tried to limit my audience to this or that type of person or group, as that would also limit me creatively and affect my ability to reach more people.
There is an introspective-outrospective tone to your current piece that recalls the ’60s. Am I putting my own interpretation on that, or are you singing about the state of today?
People keep mentioning The Beatles in relation to “Florida Plates,” which is, to say the least, deeply flattering! I write songs, for the most part, that come from specific observations I’ve made—like noticing the preponderance of Florida license plates in every state and drawing a parallel to the rise of the far right, or reading the ambitions listed by my classmates in our high school yearbook and trying to evoke the pathos involved in a bunch of teenagers predicting their futures. These details often provide the kernel of an idea that I can then expand upon and hopefully turn into something that feels more universal.
What out of all your platforms is the most challenging for you?
I have a lot of motivation to create things, and I guess that engine, or whatever you want to call it, has made it possible for me to keep my pace up across disciplines over the past 30 or so years. The biggest challenge is always conquering, or at least mitigating, the imposter syndrome that is a part of nearly every creative person’s life. It helps to get external validation, which I’ve gotten more than my fair share of, but in the end, you really just have to push through any doubts you are almost always visited by in the process of creating something new. Sometimes that’s just more challenging than others, I guess.
What do you see as next in your Esopus expression laboratory?
The Esopus archive was acquired by Colby College Libraries in 2019, and the last major expression I made as its founder and editor was co-curating—and designing the catalog for A Lot More Inside: Esopus Magazine, a comprehensive exhibition featuring the Esopus archive, which recently ended its run at the Colby College Museum of Art. At this point, the entire archive is in the excellent hands of its custodians at Colby’s Special Collections and Archives department. While I’m excited to see how all of those archival materials continue to be activated by students, faculty and the surrounding community in Waterville, ME, my job is pretty much done where Esopus is concerned. But I’ve just released a new album, continue to do book design, and have recently made some forays into visual art. And I’m particularly excited about starting a new publishing imprint, Mirrorical, which will release its first book next September.