CDNOW
By Allison Stewart
March 14, 2000
Jon Brion never figured his orchestral score for Paul Thomas Anderson's film Magnolia would amount to much. Aimee Mann's soundtrack had thus far gotten the majority of the media attention, resurrecting her career and earning her an Academy Award nomination in the bargain; Brion, the producer of such recent works as Fiona Apple's When the Pawn . . . and Rufus Wainwright, and a gifted pop musician in his own right, thought his sweeping, Beach-Boys-Meets-Baroque score would never even see the light of day beyond the movie theater. He was as surprised as anybody when specially made copies of the record, pressed only for Oscar voters, started showing up on eBay. The interest in the score led to its official release.
"It was such an odd thing," Brion says. "I didn't know what people's level of interest in orchestral music was to begin with, but people would ask if they could get a copy of it, and I guess it started selling on the Internet for a whole bunch of money. For some reason, people just respond to all the music in the film. Aimee's record has done really well for her, too. Paul places the music very notably in his movies, maybe that has something to do with it."
Brion has knocked around the Los Angeles music scene for years, as a member of the early '90s, Beatles-esque outfit the Grays, as an increasingly A-list producer, and most recently as the guiding force behind the famed Friday night musical showcase at L.A. club Café Largo, which has attracted everyone from Apple to Beck to Michael Stipe. Brion's Largo gig may have raised his profile in the industry, but it hasn't made putting out his own record any easier. Atlantic Records, which had originally planned to release Brion's upcoming solo record, his first, recently released him from his contract.
"They essentially didn't hear any singles," says Brion. "It's the same old story. They looked at me as an artist who didn't want to do standard touring, and I basically wasn't someone they wanted to take a chance on. I can respect that. It's just an irony that before I could get my own record out, I put out some sort of orchestral record, you know?"
The creative shorthand between longtime friends Anderson and Brion came in handy during Magnolia's protracted birthing process. "I had a room rented, and I put a TV monitor in there, and Paul would come in, and we'd watch the movie together," says Brion, who also collaborated on the score for Anderson's first film, Hard Eight. "I would improvise to the monitor, and I would watch him as I was doing it. His shoulders would scrunch up or something, and I would know I was doing it wrong, or he would be jumping up and down, and I knew I was doing it right. He's a very dear friend, and I have a lot of belief in him, but I knew it was going to be very involved. I mean, the original version I saw was four-and-a-half hours long. I always tell friends, 'When you go see the movie, make sure you go to the bathroom before you go in.'"
"I'm not Fiona. I'm a different sort of songwriter, and people either get that or they won't."
Brion's solo album will be released online sometime in the next few months; a collaboration with Grant Lee Phillips, frontman for the now-defunct Grant Lee Buffalo, will likely follow. Famed for his exquisite musical tastes as well as his ability to wring hits out of others, Brion sees the irony in his inability to make a hit record of his own. "It is ironic, but also I'm a writer, so I'll have my own take on things," he says. "I'm not Fiona. I'm a different sort of songwriter, and people either get that or they won't. Most songwriters on the planet are struggling creatures by nature. It's very tough to do that with your life, to make recordings in the first place, and then to get the recordings out, and to get them promoted, and then to guarantee people are gonna hear them; by nature it's a tough thing. So honestly, all of this doesn't faze me a whole lot."
