RM : I was brought up near the base and had been listening to American pop music, for example the music of Presley and so on, ever since I was a little kid. But I think it was around the 80s that I just lost interest. How about you? Do you still follow the American pop music scene? Do you listen to hip-hop or house music?

SE: Not as much as I used to. I've had exactly the same experience, I think we are about the same age, and we are probably both defined more or less by rock'n roll music. In the 60s and 70s, nothing was more important to me than rock'n roll. Fiction, movies. . . nothing had more impact on me.

That was true for almost 25 years. In the late 80s, I understood enough about rock'n roll to know that the most important thing happening was rap or hip-hop. Objectively, I knew this was the most vital and dynamic thing going on in pop music. And even as I knew that, for the first time in 25 years, pop music no longer spoke to me. It didn't speak to me the way psychedelic music had, it didn't speak to me the way Dylan had, or The Velvet Underground or the Doors or Van Morrison or Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Bruce Springsteen had. . . It didn't speak to me the way punk had. Punk had made a big impact upon me. I was just too white and too old and I had to make my peace with the fact that music had passed me by.

RM : This means that you didn't have the code inside yourself that responded to hip-hop or rap.

SE : Not emotionally, not subjectively, not on the level that the other music we talked about did. Not on the level that soul music did or R&B, bebop jazz did. I could listen to an album by Public Enemy, for instance, and admire it. I would know it was good and inventive and vital. And yet it was not music, nor the sound track of my life. And I guess it is the same true thing to you.

RM : Yes, completely the same. I think Public Enemy is good, too, but I can't bring myself to listening to the CD more than twice. Except that in my case, this emotional detachment started from punk. I couldn't really relate myself to punk music.

SE : Punk changed me. It was one of those rock'n roll epiphanies happening over the course of 50 years. Like hearing Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" for the first time, or hearing John Lennon's first solo album for the first time. When I heard Patty Smith's first album for the first time, it changed the way I thought about art and life. It had all the impact that the best rock'n roll had had up until then. When I saw the Sex Pistols for the first time on TV in a news clip, I was completely electrified. And I never really assumed a punk life style. . . At that point I was too old to pretend I can be a punk, but I loved the music. And that was the last time rock'n roll did that to me, and that was twenty years ago.

RM : Now, I will give you the last question. If you were to move to Mars, and you were allowed to bring only three CDs, what would you bring? I would bring Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Lady Land" (1968), The Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" (1968) and The Door's "Strange Days" (1967). What about you? It has to be something except The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and it has to be American.

SE : So I can't take "Astral Weeks" (1968) by Van Morrison ?

RM : No, because he is Irish. But I guess he is now living in America, so I guess it's okay.

SE : Well, I would take Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks", "Where are You" by Frank Sinatra.

RM: Again, it has to be rock'n roll.

SE: Oh, American rock'n roll. Okay, then, The Velvet Underground's first album. And then, it would be either "Blonde on Blonde (1966) by Bob Dylan or "Otis Blue" (1965) by Otis Redding, but I've got to consider carefully. It's a tough choice.

RM : Yes, it's hard to choose the third one.

SE: Well, I guess this is the perfect place to end this, . . . on Mars!