the biscuit interview

The following interview was conducted on a Saturday afternoon, September 11, 1999. This was shortly after I had started the website; I was 19 years old at the time (you can tell). I had had maybe one or two telephone conversations with Randy prior to this interview. A few months later, I visited Austin and met Randy for the first time and stayed at his house. We were friends after that. Originally, I had planned to transcribe this entire interview, but soon realized it would be a major task. The interview was a little over two hours long. So, I put it off for a few years. Ever since Randy passed away, I've been pushing myself to get this up on the site--I kept telling myself Dixon would have wanted me to do it, to keep archiving. I decided the next best thing would be to digitize it as we now have the room to store it on the server.

I have spent the last few days digitizing and fixing this audio. Very little has been edited out (please excuse my naivety and the fact that I'm a terrible interviewer). There was a 15 minute section where my tape player went haywire and the tape slowed down. I had to cut the section up and fix the speed, so there are a few places here and there where you will notice the tape gettin' funky. I did the best I could. I tried using some filters on the audio without much luck, so if anyone is good at cleaning up audio and would like to take a crack at it, please get in touch with me. So, faulty recording equipment, a marching band, a marching corps of cadets, two fire drills, a $30 phone bill, and three days of digitizing and fixing audio later; you can finally enjoy this little peek into the life of a true original and one of punk rock's greatest frontmen. For those of you who knew him, I hope this brings a smile to your face; for those of you who didn't, I hope this will give you a little better picture of the warmth and beauty that was Randall J. "Biscuit" Turner.