By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times BICYCLE DIARIES By David Byrne Viking, 303 pages, $25.95 On the Talking Heads' 1979 album, "Fear of Music," the disembodied, hesitant voice of singer David Byrne runs down the virtues and disadvantages of the world's metropolises in the song "Cities." "I'm checking them out," he says of various spots, from London to El Paso. "I got it figured out / There's good points and bad points / But it all works out." Such might be the epigram for this innovative musician's latest foray into publishing. Bicycle Diaries is a spruced-up bundle of Byrne's personal journals, focusing exclusively on his observations on a variety of subjects inspired by his travels. The chapter titles — "London," "Berlin," "Istanbul," "Baltimore, Detroit, Sweetwater, Columbus, New Orleans, Pittsburgh," etc. — are evidence of a man who gets around. Their content shows a keen, nonjudgmental intellect with occasionally intriguing insight into modern life and the things we construct to live it in. For about 30 years, Byrne has been riding bicycles as his primary means of transportation. He two-wheels it around New York City (a brave man) and packs folding bicycles when he travels around the world to perform concerts or curate art exhibits or speak at various cultural events. He keeps a renaissance man's schedule, and by cycling from the hotel to the museum or the venue, he experiences cities up-close and sees their architecture in great detail and gains a feeling for the character of the pedestrians that's more savory and, sometimes literally, in-your-face than that experienced behind the windows of a car, bus or train. "In a car," he writes from Detroit, "one would have sought out a freeway, one of the notorious concrete arteries, and would never have seen any of this stuff." However, other than infrequent mentions of odd bicycle lanes or public policy related to cyclists, Bicycle Diaries is not about cycling at all. It's about the stuff. It's not a series of diaries about bicycling; it's about the places where Byrne happened to be pedaling and the things along the way that turned his head. But it's not even really a travelogue, either, though he does provide a general sense of place for each city he discusses. His observations of the urban environment are usually little more than occasional mentions of how difficult or easy it is to bike there, or superfluous-but-colorful notations like this: "Sydney. Hooley freaking dooley, what a weird and gorgeous city!" He only brings up "the cycling meme" as a means of explaining, usually offhand, why he's seeing the things he's seeing. Instead, this is a cheerfully rambling stream of sentience about such wide-ranging topics as censorship, self-censorship, the uses of music, art (a lot of art, complete with many intriguing photos), "the morbidity of beauty," post-9/11 angst, gentrification, the fauna of Australia, suburban sprawl, PowerPoint and other miscellany. Like his music, the prose is easygoing, fluid, a quick read. There's no central thesis, but it's a nice ride with interesting scenery. Byrne, famous as a pop singer, drifts naturally in and out of his subjects and only occasionally discusses music. Again, the concerts he's in town for are his raison d'etre for taking a bike ride and ending up in a seven-page discussion of, for instance, Imelda Marcos. Often his musical observations are not his at all, but he claims them by repeating them, such as this astute point of view from an acquaintance in Buenos Aries: "Nito said that rock and roll is now viewed as the music of the big companies, as it emanates from the large, usually northern, wealthy countries, and therefore is no loner considered to be the voice of the people — not even the people where it comes from." (In a later chapter, he opines a bit on hip-hop, calling it "corporate rebellion," and noting that Chicago hip-hopper R. Kelly's " 'Trapped in the Closet' is one of the wackiest and most creative video pieces I've seen in years.") In many of these chapters, Byrne seems intrigued and slightly fascinated by the foreigner's clearer — and always wiser — perspective on our own American culture. But in his account of Buenos Aries, that tide turns when he discovers that the natives hardly listen to their native music and are surprised when Byrne's own band begins playing salsa-flavored melodies and samba rhythms in concert. These are simply the diaries of an insightful fellow with his eyes open, moving a bit more slowly through your town. A more fitting epigram, in this case, might be a line from a song by Chicago band Poi Dog Pondering. In "The Ancient Egyptians," Poi Dog singer Frank Orrall describes the many human civilizations that expanded and thrived despite the lack of automobiles. When friends insist on jumping into a cab or car, he sings, "But I say no, no, no / and didn't you know / you get to know things better when they go by slow." By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times We're sitting in the Palm Court of the Drake Hotel, about as opulent as a room is going to get, and we're sipping tea. It's just us — the dozen people attending Tea Extravaganza 2009, an independent tea tasting led by Chas Kroll of the American Tea Masters Association — and the clinks of teacups reverberate around the well-appointed room, even above the trickle of the centerpiece fountains. Kroll is discussing the selection process for the fine, downy leaves that make up the Chinese green tea he's pouring into tiny "aroma cups." It's called Melon Slice (Top Liu An Gua Pian), from PeLi Teas, and it's a knockout — aromas of sandalwood, flavors of salt and smoke, a surprisingly bold expedition across the tongue. "See?" says Kroll, smiling demurely. "You wonder why people still drink sodas at all." At this particular tea party, that seems to be the rub. Around the table are 12 people who are passionate about tea — tea shop owners, tea sellers, tea lovers and three newly graduated tea masters from Kroll's ATMA course. These are people who want to affect that change, weaning people from sodas and flavored waters — even from coffee — and initiating them into the wide world of tea. There's a lot of talk about "taking tea to the next level" and "bringing it to the masses." They mean the American masses, of course. Almost everywhere else in the world, tea is ubiquitous, bested in popularity only by water itself. Here in the States, though, tea still largely means Lipton bags brewed in a large steel urn and dumped over ice with a lot of sugar. "It's a challenge, educating people about it," says Daphne Jones, a Chicago marketing specialist who helped Kroll organize the Drake event earlier this month. She's also a newly certified tea master. "People understand some of the health benefits of tea, but that's about it. They don't see that there is this world of flavor and localization and customization, the same way they've discovered in their food over the last several years. "It can be daunting, sure, but once people understand that you can have a beer-level tea or a Dom Perignon-level tea, they can start appreciating it like they do with wine." That's where this crew hopes to help. Whether it's Kroll and his expanding tea master minions, or the many tea sommeliers cropping up at shops and restaurants around the country and throughout Chicago — all they are saying is give teas a chance. CULTIVATING 'MASTERS' Kroll, 62, hasn't just capitalized on the rising American interest in tea, he capitalizes it. He trademarked the phrase Certified Tea Master. Because, he says, if he didn't, who would? "I created the American Tea Masters Association out of frustration, basically," he says. Kroll ran his own tech company through the '80s and a tea company, Royal Dynasty Tea, in the '90s. "Vendors would tell me all the time, 'You'd make a great tea master.' I didn't know precisely what that meant, but I liked the sound of it. So I went looking for the organization that bestowed such a title, and it didn't exist. ... So I created it." A Chicago native "and still a die-hard Cubs fan," Kroll established the ATMA from his current San Diego home. He created the rules for becoming a Certified Tea Master and wrote the manuals for the 13-week course he teaches — over the Internet via Skype — to aspiring tea lovers around the country. "A lot of people say you have to be in the industry for 10, 20, even 30 years to be considered a tea master," he says. "My students use accelerated learning techniques so they can at least come out of the starting gate running." Kroll's program, he says, is aimed at the everyman. Still, the recognized professional route for aspiring tea business owners is through another program, the Specialty Tea Institute run by the New York-based Tea Association of the United States. The STI program features two foundation levels plus a professional certification. Kroll's youngest graduate is Christopher Bourgea, 21. A student at Anderson University outside of Indianapolis, Bourgea sews his own tea bags and plans to use his certification as the backbone of his own tea company aimed at potential tea lovers his age. "I am all about loose-leaf tea, but most people are nervous to have loose-leaf tea. I know that if I want to make tea popular with high school and college-aged kids, I'm going to have to put the tea in bags. It is pretty much the only way they will try the teas. I hope to get people hooked with the bags and then move them over to the loose-leaf." LEARNING BY TASTE Rodrick Markus, on the other hand, is just a dealer. He gets the good stuff, the pricey stuff — it comes by the kilo — and likes to offer prospective customers a little sample to get them hooked. "I have friends and clients who tell me, 'Rod, just treat me like a drug addict. When I get low, you've got to get me more,' " Markus says while simmering his latest batch of quality pu-erh tea on a recent afternoon at the Park Hyatt's NoMI Cafe. "I guess you can call me a 'tea sommelier.' That term is big now, depending on which circle you're in. "I don't see how anyone who's less than 80 years old and doesn't have a gray beard reaching the floor can be called a 'tea master.' But whatever you call me, I'm glad to be helping people learn more about tea." Markus owns and operates the Rare Tea Cellar based in Chicago. After practicing psychology and hypnotherapy, he became an importer of wine and cigars, but 12 years ago he switched to tea. "Tea has all the positive aspects of wine and cigars — the unique flavors, the pleasurable sensory experience, the terroir — without anything remotely negative," he says. "My old friends say, 'Aw, Rod, you've gone soft on us. We used to sit around and smoke cigars and drink wine, now you just sip tea.' Then they taste what I've got, and they get it." The Rare Tea Cellar is aptly named. At NoMI, he doled out a delightful Emperor's Ceylon Platinum Tip tea, tasting of honey and pine, and a 1990 Vintage Reserve Silver Needle Pu-erh (yes, tea lovers, a white pu-erh!). Markus loves the pu-erhs, teas that are pressed into bricks and aged for many years in cellars or caves. "I'm always into the rarest of the rare, with anything. If I saw a $30 doughnut, I'd try it." Then again, he realizes he can't impose his grandiose designs on everyone. "You can't be too out-there or too much of a stickler, or you'll alienate everyone. We want to bring people into this experience, not push them away. So we try to make it as easy as possible." RTC teas sometimes come sealed in five-gram packages, for instance, because who actually has a gram scale at home to measure just the right amount? He also sells many hand-tied display teas, which are tea leaves tied into a sphere about the size of a plump grape — simply drop them in the pot and pour the water over, then watch them unfurl beautifully. Markus didn't pursue any tea certification. His education has come through his experience as a buyer. "I learned more from tasting tea over and over and over," he says. "You learn more from bad tea than good tea. I've tasted the same teas 1,000 times. When I hit about my 100,000th cup, I started to finally get what was happening." Does the average person have to try hundreds of thousands of cups of tea to get it, too? Of course not. But Markus uses his saturated experience to train servers and chefs at restaurants such as Chicago's NoMI and L2O (where he's planned 15-course meals featuring 15 tea pairings), so that the average person can sit down, ask and answer a few questions and be matched with the Goldilocks tea — the one that's juuuust right. BEYOND BLACK AND GREEN But what about those of us who rarely enjoy the rarified air of fancy restaurants? Who can we turn to for advice on which tea goes best with a chocolate bar or our favorite take-out sushi? Sam Ritchey at TeaGschwendner is happy to oblige. His business cards say "tea sommelier," but he calls himself an ambassador. He, too, has an informal education in tea. "I'm not a buyer, I don't taste teas to grade them for sale. I taste teas because I enjoy them," Ritchey says one afternoon in the clean, well-lit State Street shop. "I make it more tangible and appreciable for [customers]." Ritchey organizes small tastings and other events at the German company's shop. He recently led an evening sampling of nine Himalayan Darjeelings. "Granted, we're not to the point where the public is interested in something like the Himalayan tasting. That will always be a niche," Ritchey admits. "But people are now getting that there's a broad world here to explore, just like wine. There are options now for people who want to step beyond the box of black or green teas, and there are more people to lead them. "We've already come a long way. Look at the sophistication of coffee in this country now. I'm not saying that Starbucks is a specialty company, but it's brought us a long way from Sanka." Ready to bag the bag? By Thomas Conner © Chicago Sun-Times To start sampling good loose-leaf teas, don't go it alone. Not only are there more tea sommeliers in town to guide your first steps, there also are numerous opportunities to join other tea explorers at events like these: On foot The Chicago Food Planet's strolling, lunchtime Near North Food Tour visits seven spots, including a stop at TeaGschwendner for a brief run-down on the basics of good tea. See it, smell it and taste it with your friends, or make friends along the way. $42 a person, includes all food tastings; www.chicagofoodplanet.com All together Local tea blogger Lainie Petersen (www.lainiesips.com) organizes frequent outings (five in the next month) to local tea shops and restaurants, bringing like-minded tea lovers together to sip and socialize. Register at www.meetup.com/tealovers In the cup Tea sommelier Sam Ritchey organizes educational and sumptuous tea tastings at the TeaGschwendner shop. This fall he's got: "The Extraordinary History of the Ordinary Teabag," Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m. "A Cultural Journey Through the World of Tea," Oct. 29, 7:30 p.m. "An Evening With Edmon: Premium Green Teas," Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. $10 per person, reservations required; 1160 N. State, (312) 932-0639 At the table Rod Markus of the Rare Tea Cellar guides diners through special tea dinners, pairing multi-course meals with great teas, at restaurants around Chicago. His next events include a Japanese Kaiseki Tea Ceremony on Oct. 11 at L2O, 2300 N. Lincoln Park West, and a Slow Food Tea Dinner on Nov. 19 at the fusion restaurant Naha, 500 N. Clark. See rareteacellar.com for details. In print Local tea lover Susan Blumberg assembled a handy guide, All the Tea in Chicago (Desvoeux, $9.99), which outlines the basics on just about every tea shop and afternoon tea service in Chicago and some suburbs. Use it to plan some outings with your friends. For details, go to desvoeuxpress.com/all theteainchicago.html. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Lindsey Buckingham is attempting to explain why his on-again, off-again megastar band, Fleetwood Mac, is on the road again without an album to support. Nothing to sell. Just the classic band (himself, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood — still no Christine McVie), together again, playing the hits. He provides lots of deeply considered reasons, yadda yadda — but then he says something extraordinary. "Maybe someone came to the conclusion that it might not be a bad time to go out and do some dates to use as hang time, as a proving ground," he says. "It's an inverted model, for sure, but there's something to it." Proving ground? What could Fleetwood Mac — author of one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, 1977's "Rumours" — possibly have to prove at this point? Buckingham chuckles. He's used to people straining to square his massive insecurities with his equally massive successes. "In a general sense, every time you get together to do something new, you have to start thinking after all these years there are still things for us to work out emotionally, historically. We are a band of couples who broke up and got through it living in various states of denial and never getting closure — at least from my perspective — and it leaves a lot of stuff hanging out there. "I took off in '87 to regain my sanity, and the band died a slow death without me. That didn't make me feel too bad," he snickers. "Without sounding too vindictive, it was nice to know they needed me. ... But we're still a work in progress in terms of those interactions. There are still things that need to be worked through." Kind of amazing, isn't it? More than 30 years after Buckingham and Nicks split up at the dawn of the band's success, the "issues" remain that palpable between them. He still considers the band a "band of couples who broke up." And that was always part of the appeal — the telenovela-like drama and tension between two of the fiercest artistic personalities in Southern California. Buckingham, at least, still hopes to harness that tension for more musical magic. He and the other members seem to be viewing this tour as a casual way for the quartet to settle a bit, to get back into some kind of rhythm that would produce a new record. It's the elephant in the room that each member treads carefully around. "There have been discussions, for sure, that we would love to make some more music," said founding drummer Mick Fleetwood, during an earlier teleconference with the band. "I think it's really down to the whole sort of biorhythms of how everyone is feeling and what's appropriate." They're still so careful when speaking of each other, except Nicks, who remarked — with discernable astonishment — how well they were all getting on so far and added, "Lindsey has been in incredibly good humor since we started rehearsal. When Lindsey is in a good humor, everybody is in a good humor." They still look to him, take their cues from him, and he remains the band's creative linchpin. The last few Mac albums he was on — you know, the successful ones — each began as Buckingham solo projects that the record label and the band begged to turn into band efforts. "Tango in the Night" sounds like his crystalline solo work with a few warmer Nicks and McVie songs added. Buckingham had asked Fleetwood and bassist John McVie to back him on another solo album that, with the addition of four Nicks songs, became Fleetwood Mac's 2003 comeback CD, "Say You Will." But he'd like that pattern to change. After "Say You Will," Buckingham told the band to leave him alone for three years, during which he exorcised two back-to-back solo discs: the quieter, almost indie-rock outing "Under the Skin" in 2006, and last year's slightly harder rocking "Gift of Screws." As a result, Buckingham says he feels refreshed and at the height of his creative powers. "Having accomplished what I wanted to do with both solo albums, I'm really in the best place I've been artistically," he says. "I tapped into things I wanted to get to for a long time. And I have a lot of new material — I could drop another solo album at any time — but no one's talking yet about a new Mac album, at least for a while. Still, I'm pointedly not fleshing out my new stuff, so that I might be able to show it to the band and let it take on a life in the context of that. "The way we used to do it, we'd each have rough ideas and would get together and the songs would get formulized and brought into some sort of life for the first time through a set of Fleetwood Mac eyes. More often than not, over the last few experiences it's been my solo material that had to be slightly altered to make it feel more Fleetwood Mac-like. So I'd really welcome the chance to come to these people with things a little less fleshed out, something that might be born as Fleetwood Mac rather than being just ... painted like it." So he speaks of this tour as a "way to create a level of ferment" among the band again, and adds uncharacteristic optimism of "bringing things to light in a more organic way by being together without a real reason." The question is: Do you want to pay $50 to $150 for a ticket to watch four grizzled but talented music makers "hang" and "ferment"? Buckingham says the band is not using the tour as an expensive woodshed. "We've very pointedly stuck to catalog for this tour," he says, adding, "There is still validity in looking at this body of work, the irony being that this is what most people want to hear from us, anyway. I figure, let's make our mantra just hanging and working on the rough edges in terms of personal interactions with band members. That in itself will be part of the preparation for making an album, whenever that does happen." FLEETWOOD MAC When: 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday Where: Allstate Arena, 6920 N. Mannheim, Rosemont Tickets: $49.50-$149.50 Phone: (312) 559-1212 By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Loudon Wainwright III doesn't often get political in his folk songs, but that doesn't mean he's purely objective on the subject. "Yes, my wife and I were watching the election results here in L.A., and enjoying the results. Congratulations there in Chicago," he tells us. "Whew. Four years ago I was in Vancouver mixing a record and watching returns at a Canadian house and, God, I was ready to pick up the paper and start looking for apartments." Indeed, he returned home to America — but now he's in recovery. That is, his new album is called "Recovery," and it's a set of 13 old songs — songs mostly from the earliest outings of Wainwright's career (he was the first "new Bob Dylan," the singing surgeon on "MASH," a Grammy winning singer-songwriter, even star of and soundtrack creator for several Judd Apatow projects — and, yes, he's the father of Rufus and Martha). At the behest of artist-producer Joe Henry, Wainwright dredged up this baker's dozen of old tunes — "School Days," "The Drinking Song," "The Man Who Couldn't Cry," "Be Careful There's a Baby in the House" and more — and re-recorded them with his band. He talked to the Sun-Times about why he decided to look backward and what it's like singing a young man's songs at an older age. Q. Each time we talk, I have to stop myself from calling you "Loudo" or assuming a friendship with you, which I think is the result of listening to so many of your deeply personal songs for so many decades. Is that common, people assuming a familiarity with you because there's so much biography in your music? A. That's OK. It's not a bad thing. It hasn't gotten too creepy yet. People know a version of me, certain biographical facts because I've written about them. But they don't really know me, and I certainly don't know them. They show up in the CD line when I'm signing copies, and they say, you know, "This song meant a lot to me," and I like that. Q. And here you are 40 years later, still touring. A. Yeah, my swingin' life, still beating the bushes, still seeing if I can kindle some interest. I've been kindling now for 40 years — exactly, actually. I got paid to play music for the first time probably in 1968. Q. How convenient for a milestone anniversary to offer this disc of retooled old songs? A. Well, it wasn't that kind of thing, really. It all started in discussions with Joe Henry, when we were working on "Strange Weirdos" [an album of songs used in and inspired by the film "Knocked Up"]. I really love this group of musicians I'm recording with now in L.A., and we thought, "Why not go back and look at some of the old songs?" Q. How did you decide which ones to "re-cover"? A. It was very democratic. Joe mentioned some songs, I had some suggestions. I know that in these days of the Internet and downloading a song and reshuffling a playlist, the listener has a lot of choice in terms of the way they experience music. The last few albums I've made, I've tried to put the songs together in a way that creates a tone or a mood — dare I say, takes you on a journey. But once you make it, God knows, people can do whatever they want with it. Still, I gathered these 13 songs to try and make a journey. Q. Having traveled quite a journey in 40 years, what kind of journey is this record? A. Well, it's all about this band, really. That's what makes this different. That and the fact that it's all now from the perspective of a singer who's aged almost 40 years. The things I write about haven't changed much, actually. I was obsessed with getting old even when I was young. Q. What was it like to rediscover songs you'd forgotten? A. Well, I was sometimes amazed. Like "Old Friend" — I hate to praise myself, but I was amazed at what a good song it is. I was good, man! [Laughs.] Q. Was there a desire to do anything different with the songs? A. I came out of a tradition of singer-songwriters, and I liked guys who made voice-and-guitar records. So I resisted it. Now the calendar pages are flipping, the autumn leaves are blowing and here I am back doing these songs with a band. But it's a band I'm extremely comfortable with and really respect. Q. I hear the next album might also be a looking back. A. The next record might be different. I'm working with Dick Connette on a collection — there was a guy in the '20s, Charlie Poole, with a band called the North Carolina Ramblers. Dick and I are both fans of his, and we're working on something like that, singing some of those songs, writing new ones, adapting some. LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III Opening for Leo Kottke When: 8 p.m. Saturday Where: McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage, Fawell and Park, Glen Ellyn Tickets: $32-$42 Phone: (630) 942-4000 Tea it up, in Hawaii - It was a long time brewing, but state's tea pioneers now pouring it on10/19/2008
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Birds caw and twitter in the jungle. Koi circle lazily in a small pond. We're sitting in an old barn transformed into an open-air studio, where Eva Lee is pouring some tea. Lee wipes the rim of a large tea bowl, circling the teapot over its perimeter. She pours the light, bronze liquid into tiny porcelain "aroma cups." This is a gung fu cha tea ceremony, informal and chatty. The new oolong we're about to drink had about only 50 yards to travel from bush to teapot. It grows under the shady canopy behind the studio. The proximity wouldn't be surprising in prolific tea-producing regions. But we're not in China or Japan. We're at Lee's home and garden in the jungle, just outside Volcano Village on the Big Island of Hawaii. The 50th state is often celebrated for its Kona coffee, the premium beans grown on the Big Island's west side. But these days there's a new stimulating beverage on the island: tea. Actually, it's the oldest and second-most popular drink in the world, next to water. Lee is one of the island's new breed of tea pioneers. She planted her first camellia sinensis bushes ("the mother block," she now calls them) nearly eight years ago in a semi-sunny spot outside the Volcano Village studio she shares with her husband, Chiu Leong, a potter and photographer. Tea was introduced to Hawaii in 1887 but, over the years, farmers' fits and starts with the plant failed to produce a commodity-level product. Still, the Big Island's rich, volcanic soil and moody microclimates mirror many of the places where tea thrives — the slopes of China, the forests of India. Around the turn of this century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several state agencies gave interested tea growers in Hawaii a leg up in starting small-scale tea operations. "The people behind the programs weren't as interested in turning tea into a big cash commodity for Hawaii. They wanted people who would experiment and play, developed something new and interesting," Lee says, between pours. "My husband and I knew virtually nothing about growing tea before we started," she adds. "We were interested in starting something new that would have meaning to us, and we contacted Dr. Francis Zee [of the Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo], who was really trying to get it going here. He was skeptical, but when I mentioned that Chiu was a potter, the door went wide open. He didn't want to turn to farmers for this, because they wouldn't take the risks artists would." Seven years later and Lee — a founding member of the Hawaii Tea Society, around 40 members strong — is hosting tea ceremonies in her Tea Hawaii studio. It's nestled in the rain forest behind Volcano Village, a comfy tourist town on the edge of the still-steaming Kilauea crater. She samples her own teas, as well as those of neighboring grower Mike Riley, pouring them into handmade cups and pots made by Leong. Like wine, tea plants take a few years to establish before real production can begin. Lee's plants are thriving now. Her teas are for sale around the island and are served — in creative recipes, as well as alongside them — at restaurants such as Alan Wong's in Honolulu (808-949-2526, www.alanwongs.com). "We have just the right temperature, just the right humidity," Lee says of the Hawaii climate, as she pours another cup. "We grow ours here under the shade, under the canopy, which is slower but makes the tea sweeter — better for matcha," referring to the Japanese-style powdered green tea. Other Big Island growers specialize in different varieties of tea. Rob Nunally and Mike Longo of Onomea Tea Co., west of Hilo, use the same plant to make darker oolongs, assams and other black teas. "I love tea — good black tea," Nunally says, walking back from several newly planted rows of the dark-green bushes. "I grew up in Fiji, drinking tea as a kid. Once we realized this opportunity was available to us, and we had this land, we thought, 'Perfect!' " Like Lee, Nunally and Longo had no dirt under their nails when they starting planting their 2,400 tea bushes four years ago around their cliff-top home overlooking Onomea Bay. Nunally sells computers and Longo is a chiropractor. Also like Lee, the "tea boys" at Onomea Tea have no ambitions to become big commercial tea farmers. Theirs is a specialty operation, run on a small scale for boutique buyers. "We just plant and pick. We do the wilting over there on our dining room table," Longo says, pointing. "Then we host teas for groups and tourists. It's the perfect-sized operation to be both a beloved hobby and a serious business." The couple behind Mauna Kea Tea has slightly bigger goals. On the slope of another of the Big Island's towering volcanos (this one dormant), Takahiro and Kimberly Ino grow "a little oolong, really on the light side, some yellow tea, but our main thing is green tea." Still a young operation, planted just three years ago, the Inos have previous experience in organic farming and hope to make Mauna Kea Tea more widely available around Hawaii. "We'd like to keep it a speciality, but we'd also like to provide commodity items for people on the island," Takahiro Ino says. "We like to be connected to the land and let people know they can enjoy that deeper connection, too, and it can be affordable." Whether serving a niche market or a wide population, as Lee says, "there is room for all Hawaii tea growers." By 2010, according to the Sage Group's yearly Tea Report — this year headlined "Specialty Tea Is Hot!" — annual tea sales in the U.S. are projected to double to $10 billion. "When we traveled in China," Takahiro Ino says, "we were amazed by how Chinese culture is so connected to tea, and how it's a part of everyday life. It's like coffee is here. Everywhere there you find a teahouse. It's very natural to them. "If we and the other Hawaii tea growers can influence that in this corner of the world or anywhere," he adds, "that would be great." IF YOU GO Most tea farms and gardens on the Big Island welcome visitors: - Tea Hawaii is nestled in the jungle behind Volcano Village, a cozy outpost along Hwy. 11 at 4,000 feet, near the entrance to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Eva Lee welcomes visitors for tours and tea service by appointment; (808) 967-7637, www.teahawaii.com. Lee's studio and tea plantings also are part of a joint tour with the nearby Volcano Winery; the Wine & Tea package includes a guided tour of both places at 9:30 a.m. daily, $25; (808) 967-7772, www.volcanowinery.com. - Big Island Tea is another upstart garden between Hilo and Volcano Village, in a town called Glenwood; (808) 968-1800, www.bigislandtea.com. - Onomea Tea Co. also welcomes visitors and groups by appointment to its farm with stunning cliff-top views of the Pacific. It's west of Hilo on Hwy. 19 on the renowned Hamakua Coast, www.onomeatea.com. - Mauna Kea Tea is further west on Hwy. 19 in Ahualoa, on the slopes of its namesake volcano. They host groups by appointment; (808) 775-1171, www.maunakeatea.com. Mauna Kea's tea fields are also part of a tour, organized by the Hawaii Tourism Authority, including two other Hamakua Coast farms (the Long Ears Coffee Co. and the Volcano Island Honey Co.) at 8:45 a.m. daily, $75; (808) 775-1000. Between Hilo and Volcano Village, be sure to stop at the Hilo Coffee Mill. Despite the name, this shop also sells and serves locally grown teas. Owners of the shop also recently planted their own tea bushes out back; (866) 982-5551, www.hilo coffeemill.com. (A tip: For the coffee junkies in your party, drink the Ka'u brew here instead of Kona coffee. It's much smoother and more delicious.) WHERE TO STAY: Hilo offers a few convenient, comfortable options. But Volcano Village is the snuggest spot to lay your head. Kilauea Lodge has 12 roomy rooms and two cottages ($170-$225) just off Hwy. 11. It's homey, has up-to-date amenities (even WiFi) and sports a fine restaurant with rich dinners and fresh breakfasts; (808) 967-7366, www.kilauealodge.com. On the other side of Hwy. 11, the Volcano Rainforest Retreat has four creatively designed, amenity-packed cabins nestled into the rainforest ($110-$260). Tranquil and cozy, these retreats pamper merely by the beauty of their natural and man-made surroundings. The hot tub during a rain forest rain shower ain't too bad, either; (800) 550-8696, www.volcanoretreat.com. IN HONOLULU: No doubt you'll be flying into Honolulu before hitting the Big Island. Take the time for a Japanese tea ceremony demonstration at Urasenke Foundation, 245 Saratoga Rd., in the shadow of Donald Trump's Waikiki hotel that's under construction. In an exquisitely crafted teahouse, visitors are shown an abbreviated version of the formal gongfu ceremony (a full one would last up to four hours), complete with matcha tea and tasty treats. At 10 a.m. Wednesdays and Fridays; (808) 923-3059. A gay love story, with marriage of artistic equals - Celebrating the partnership of 'Chris & Don'8/1/2008
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times 'CHRIS & DON: A LOVE STORY' ★★★ Zeitgeist Films presents a documentary directed by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara. Running time: 90 minutes. No MPAA rating. Opening today at Landmark Century. It's tempting to think, midway through the charming documentary "Chris & Don," that the film should instead be titled "Don & Chris." Don Bachardy, after all, is the one half of this love story who's on screen or narrating probably 80 percent of the time. It's Don's life we get the most details from. Or at least, we see more of his emotions, his reactions, hear his decisions discussed. These are the things we want from biography, things we can learn from. Don, surely, should get the first billing. But to think that would be a tragic (though common) misunderstanding of human relationships, of true love, even of art. Because the story of Don Bachardy is very much the story of the late writer Christopher Isherwood, and vice versa. The two artists were intertwined, affected each other's work, reflected each other in their work. They were utterly in love, and (as the subtitle reminds us) this film is not a document of two noted figures and their artistic legacy, it is a document of a relationship, a marriage. Given the news out of California these days, such an objective look at a gay marriage couldn't have been more serendipitously scheduled. There's an extra level of "controversy" to this relationship. Chris and Don were not only a gay couple, Chris was 30 years Don's senior. They met on a Los Angeles beach when Don was 16. "Chris & Don" is laden with home-movie footage of the two of them, in the '50s, both looking so fresh and exuberant. Don, though, features more prominently in that footage, clearly the fixation of Chris, the writer who once proclaimed "I am a camera." Don is young and beautiful, his gap-toothed smile gleaming through the grainy images. The film's relatively few talking heads discuss the impact Don had on all Chris' friends and colleagues. It's easy to see. But therein lies the slippery slope this documentary seeks to reverse, and almost succeeds in doing so. It's tempting to rush to judgment, as we do with relationships in which one partner is significantly older than the other: He corrupted the boy. Don himself frames it in the beginning of the film, describing Chris this way as "the archvillain, warping him to his mold, teaching him wicked things" — before adding, with a devilish grin, "which is exactly what the boy wanted." "Chris & Don" shows no wickedness at all. It is not whitewashed — the dark times in the relationship are not ignored, such as Don's thoughts of leaving Chris (who died in 1986), arguments, the stress of the age difference, how they were evicted from a house because of it — it's simply objective. There is no Gay Issue and no Age Issue, nor was there in Isherwood's work. To make issues of these things, Isherwood understood, would overpower his narrative and make caricatures of his characters. It would be unrealistic, untrue. The tone of the film is perfectly in line with that of Isherwood's prose and the stylistic declaration of his "I am a camera" quotation from "Berlin Diary" in Goodbye to Berlin (the basis for each incarnation of "Cabaret"), which continues: "... with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking ... someday this will all have to be developed." And here is the film, developing it. We see that not only did Chris deeply impact the life of young Don, encouraging and fostering the artistic talent that made him a renowned portrait artist, but that Don deeply impacted Chris. The good times in their relationship were Isherwood's inspiration toward that more reportorial, objective style of prose for which he was made famous — turning the "fiction" of Goodbye to Berlin into the autobiographical narrative of Christopher and His Kind, his fastest-selling book. The bad times inspired the successful point-of-view experiment of A Single Man, in which the older Chris struggles to come to terms with his impending mortality and the loss of his life — and the love of his life. In the end, we have here a very human love story, one reminding us that our own biographies are not our own stories. My story hasn't been mine for nearly 15 years, since I met my partner. It's impossible to evaluate Fitzgerald without considering Zelda. Chris, we now see, couldn't have been Isherwood without Don. Listen without prejudice: Look past the sex, drugs, the weird TV. George Michael can *sing*7/6/2008
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times It's the one good thing that I've got. — George Michael, "Freedom 90" I don't know about the whole show, ABC's new "Eli Stone" — it looked a wee bit hokey, like "Touched by an Angel" for couples who conceived their kids after episodes of "Ally McBeal" — but the George Michael clips give great YouTube. Check out his debut in the series premiere. Eli's having sex and becomes ... distracted by ... music. He stops, investigates — and finds George Michael in his living room singing "Faith." George Michael interrupting someone's sex life for a moment of religious clarity! And still they claim that irony is dead. Throughout this first season of the show, there was George Michael continuing to repurpose his songs as a guardian angel in Eli's dream sequences. The stuffy law firm winds up singing and dancing to "Freedom 90." The firm defends a teenage girl for playing "I Want Your Sex" over the PA during an abstinence-education rally. In the season finale, George Michael brings Eli out of a coma by singing of "a new dawn, a new day" in the standard "Feeling Good." But first Eli asks him, "Are you God?" George Michael smirks and replies, "Well, some men have said so ..." It's wholesome! It's lurid! It's both! George Michael — and for the purposes of this article he shall be referred to by his full name, a la his namesake on another of the pop star's rather inadvertent TV touchstones, "Arrested Development" — isn't God. He ain't even saintly, God knows. But as he comes ashore this summer for his first American tour in 15 years (with a stop Wednesday at Chicago's United Center) thank heavens we can finally re-examine the man for what brings him here — and what really matters in our lives as pop music fans. Because when we're done chuckling about his latest arrest for public sex (Larry Craig was such a copycat) or drugs (as he lit a joint during an interview on Britain's "South Bank Show" in 2006, he explained, "This stuff keeps me sane and happy") or drug-related traffic stops (green means go, red apparently means nap) — entertaining as those are in pop culture's hippodrome of hypocrisy — the scandals have nothing to do with why we still listen to the music. And we do still listen to the music. Turn on a radio, real or online. He's still in the playlists. He's a favorite quick, universal pop cultural reference in movies as well as TV. ("The Rules of Attraction," for instance — dreadful little adaptation, but the hotel-bed dance scene scored by "Faith" redeemed every penny of admission.) Perhaps this is a good reminder as we recover from the R. Kelly child pornography trial — look at all those fans still eating up his output (OK, bad choice of words) — and as we brace for another comeback by the self-proclaimed and similarly acquitted King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Wacko Jacko, certainly, deserves the nickname, but who out there is so self-righteous that they could suddenly deny the basic bliss of "Off the Wall" just because its creator wound up in court? Likely the same gnarled gnomes who pick apart a politican's every gaffe in a frustrated attempt to canonize a saint instead of hire a public servant. Some young trick even claimed recently that Boy George chained him up as a slave in the pop star's basement. Now the bloke is barred from entering the United States (Homeland Security finally pays off!). And you wanna diss George Michael for smoking the occasional spliff and not averting his gaze when a hot cop makes eyes? So we welcome back George Michael — the beleaguered pothead, the lonely john, the misguided angel with the angelic voice — and with his new tour arriving here this week and his new greatest-hits CD ("Twenty-Five," out now), let us remind the masses of the most important part of his rollicking, ever-evolving Wikipedia biography: Dude can sing. Give him five songs Without getting too old-man, everything-was-better-when-Roberta-Flack-was-on-FM on you, the robots are taking over popular song. If it's not a young woman showing off her vocal gymnastics by cramming 18 notes into each syllable (thank you, Mariah), it's a young mallpunk whose mediocre voice has been so "doctored" by ProTools software that he sounds like the second cousin of Matthew Broderick's computer in "War Games." Those who hunger for real singing — who relish the experience of being lifted up by a single powerful voice carefully evoking the words of a well-crafted lyric — are reduced to making pop stars out of young opera tenors. Mamma mia! Pull out your old George Michael records. You didn't sell them all, despite what you claim at parties. Log on, catch up with the last few albums you probably didn't buy. Listen again. The familiarity of his hits can obscure his formidable talent. There's gold in them thar skills. I'm not even that big a fan. I only own two full albums, "Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1" and "Songs From the 20th Century," plus a few of the hits. I just never thought he was worth the butt of the joke. (OK, the butt of Dana Carvey's "SNL" butt jokes, funny stuff.) Here we are in another election year; let's take this opportunity to train ourselves to keep perspective amid petty character assassinations. Suck it up and listen to at least these five songs — five songs from the solo George Michael catalog that showcase the man's incomparable pipes and will make all the gags irrelevant: — "A Different Corner" — After proving that Andrew Ridgeley's contribution to the Wham! equation was virtually nil (as everyone with ears suspected) by scoring a massive solo hit with "Careless Whisper," George Michael released this second single in 1986, and was it ever solo — the first record to top the British charts that was written, performed, arranged and produced by a single person. The song sways ever so gently in a somnambulant cradle of bass, piano and patient synthesizers, over which George Michael's voice coos, aches and, when the words demand it, wails. The only special effect you hear on this recording is the perfect echo of the room. — "Faith" -- Wondering what all the fuss was about a few weeks ago when Bo Diddley died? Wasn't he just some academic hero of bluesmen? The simple, chukka-chukka-chug acoustic guitar riff that props up this easy, urgent hit is a prime example of how far Diddley's influence spread. When an artist like George Michael — berated by then as a bubblegum trifle — needs to lean on some credibility, he brings out the shave, the haircut, and both bits. (Heck, this riff was so simple even Ridgeley could've played it.) But its freshness — dig the way he shifts gears between the breathless and the bombast — is evidenced by its near ubiquity in pop culture, even eclipsing the song everyone wouldn't shut up about in 1987, "I Want Your Sex" (which is — huh? — not on his new greatest hits double disc!). — "My Baby Just Cares for Me" -- Did anyone buy this collection, "Songs From the 20th Century"? Released in 1999 — when doing a covers album was past de rigueur and had become de manded — George Michael tossed out his take on a bunch of his favorite tunes, spanning the century in question, from "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" to the Police's "Roxanne." His reading of this old, jazzy standard brims with effervescent, almost mischievous joy ("even Ricky Martin's smile ..."), and his vocal delivery over all those runs is smooth as buttah. — "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" -- Recorded in 1985 at Live Aid but not released until 1991, this exciting concert moment ("Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Elton John!") shows how strongly he delivers outside the studio. His reading of this classic rock ballad is so fluid and lovely, almost soulful, that Elton's entrance is frankly an unwelcome interruption. — "They Won't Go When I Go" -- George Michael's most awesome performance. On the acclaimed but less successful 1990 "Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1" album, George Michael set out to prove himself an artist and adult, which he could have accomplished simply by choosing to attempt this Stevie Wonder album track. But his transcendent recording, afloat on a tidal gospel arrangement, bests Wonder's original and sets us all up for the notion that — yeah, Eli — maybe he is an angel. Bad company It's not all golden, of course. He's tossed off his share of stinkers — try to stay awake during "Jesus to a Child," I dare you — and all we can say for the Wham! years is, hey, it was what it was (and sometimes, c'mon, it was fun). But compare him to his contemporaries, and he indeed begins looking pretty saintly. Boy George? A crap solo career and the aforementioned legal troubles. Rick Astley? He's about to release a greatest-hits set with more than one song on it, go figure. Pet Shop Boys? Undoubtedly iconic, but they didn't exactly rise above the dance-club rut. Paul Young? (Crickets chirping.) Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Spandau Ballet, Dead or Alive and all the other 1980s chart toppers now playing the state-fair circuit? Shudder. George Michael stands with the icons of that particular age (and their peccadillos), with Madonna (spiritual slut) and Bono (spiritual hack) and Michael Jackson (arrogant oddball). And these days his voice — granted, it's been well-rested of late — sounds better than any one of them. So, children, come back. Forget the jeers of rock critics, and ignore the sanctimonious temperance leagues. Put down the gossip rags. Give some thought to what the experience of listening to music means and the power a strong voice can transmit through your bones. Come see a happy, fulfilled singer at possibly another peak of his performing career. It may be your last chance, after all. He once again recently mulled over the possibility of retiring, with a maturity to his perspective that made us love him all the more: "Mainly the reason is because I'm 45 and I think pop music should be about youth culture. ... It shouldn't be an endurance test." I won't let you down So please don't give me up Because I would really, really love to stick around ... - - - GEORGE MICHAEL THROUGH THE YEARS You'd be perfectly within your rights to have forgotten that George Michael has a shred of talent. In the last 10 years, he's had plenty of media coverage, hardly any of it about him singing. To his credit, you'd be hard-pressed to find a worldwide celebrity who has taken his public embarrassments in such easy stride. He copped to the whole bathroom arrest by joking with Oprah in 2004: "They don't send Columbo in there, you know. They send someone nice-looking." Here's a look at the high notes and low notes of George Michael's nearly 30 years in the public eye. And consider this: Can you think of a single moment in all these years when he's been clean-shaven? November 1979: Forms his first band, a ska group called The Executive, with pal Andrew Ridgeley. April 1982: Ridgeley and George Michael, now teamed as a duo called Wham! (named, so the record company said at the time, for the sound these two made when they came together ... now stop laughing ...), release their first single, "Wham! Rap," in which George Michael (gulp) raps lines such as, "Hey, jerk! You work! This boy's got better things to do." July 1983: The debut Wham! LP, "Fantastic," enters the British albums chart at No. 1. June 1984: Now on a bigger label, Epic, the single "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" hits No. 1. August 1984: Even though the song appeared on the second Wham! album, "Make It Big," the single "Careless Whisper" is billed as solo George Michael. It's an instant No. 1 and is Epic's first million-seller. December 1984: A Wham! world tour begins as George Michael is featured on the charity Band Aid hit "Do They Know It's Christmas?" April 1985: Wham!'s tour of China, the first visit to that country by a Western pop act, generates enormous worldwide media coverage, much of it centered on George Michael. July 1985: George Michael duets with Elton John on the latter's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" during Live Aid at Wembley Stadium. The recording won't be released until December 1991, and it hits No. 1 two months later. June 1986: Taking a stand against the band's manager selling out part of his interest to a South African company (or at least seizing on a fantastic excuse), Wham! decides to split up and plays its farewell concert for 72,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. April 1987: "Faith" is released, the George Michael solo debut. It'll sell 6 million copies in a year. Today, it's minted at least 15 million copies. June 1987: The "I Want Your Sex'" single hits the streets, but not many airwaves. Some American radio stations ban it, and British DJs are allowed to discuss it only by referring to it as "I Want." March 1988: Wins a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for "I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)," his duet with Aretha Franklin. February 1989: Wins another Grammy for Album of the Year, for "Faith." (Yes, it was released in '87. The Grammys, to put it mildly, are slow on the uptake.) September 1990: "Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1" is released. It sells "only" 4 million copies. 1991-95: Begins a long legal fight to escape his contract with the Sony corporation. A casualty in this battle is "Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 2," which dies in preproduction. (Three songs from the project are eventually donated to the AIDS charity disc "Red Hot + Dance," and the song "Crazyman Dance" turned up on the B-side of 1992's "Too Funky," his final recording for Sony.) He's silent for the next three years during the court fight. July 1995: Settles with Sony, signs with Virgin Records. May 1996: "Older" is released, becomes the fastest-selling album in the history of Virgin Records. June 1996: Meets his current partner, art dealer (and former cheerleading coach) Kenny Goss. April 7, 1998: Arrested for "engaging in a lewd act" in a public bathroom at the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Beverly Hills, Calif. Anyone who didn't know he was gay gets the memo. He's charged and released on $500 bail. April 10, 1998: Finally comes out of the closet in an interview on CNN, saying, "This is a good of a time as any. ... I want to say that I have no problem with people knowing that I'm in a relationship with a man right now. I have not been in a relationship with a woman for almost 10 years." Not a single gasp is heard. May 1998: Pleads "no contest" to the charges, is fined $810, ordered to perform 80 hours of community service and seek counseling — and was banned from the park. November 1998: The video for "Outside," from "Ladies & Gentlemen — The Best Of George Michael," parodies the restroom incident. December 1999: Releases "Songs From the Last Century," an album of covers, from "Brother Can You Spare a Dime" to the Police's "Roxanne." April 2000: Joins Melissa Etheridge, Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, the Pet Shop Boys, and k.d. lang to perform in Washington, D.C., as part of Equality Rocks, a benefit concert in support of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian organization. May 26, 2004: Appears on "Oprah" — his first U.S. television appearance in more than 10 years — to promote a new album, "Patience," and discuss his arrest. Early 2005: Goss and George Michael open the Goss Gallery in Dallas. Feb. 26, 2006: Arrested for drug possession after he's found slumped over the steering wheel of his Mercedes near Hyde Park Corner in London. He later describes the incident as his "own stupid fault, as usual." May 2006: While driving his Range Rover in London, hits three parked cars. Later is found by a passer-by again slumped over the steering wheel at a traffic light. September 2006: Scandal again, but one we can support — he's chastised for a tour prop, a giant figure of George Bush in a ... compromising position. Oct. 1, 2006: Found unconscious again at the wheel of his Mercedes in the middle of traffic. He pleaded guilty and was banned from driving for two years, plus more community service. December 2007: Plays himself in a public park looking for action in the series finale of HBO's "Extras." Jan. 16, 2008: Signs a fat book contract with HarperCollins for a memoir which he is to write "entirely himself." April 1, 2008: Releases the double-disc greatest-hits CD "Twenty-Five," featuring 29 songs, including a new version of "Heal the Pain" recorded as a duet with Sir Paul McCartney. June 17, 2008: Opens his first U.S. tour in 15 years in San Diego. Tells the California crowd, "I was watching TV yesterday and saw two women get married!" He then launched into the song "Amazing," which he dedicated to Goss. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times When You Are Engulfed in Flames By David Sedaris Little, Brown, 336 pages, $25.99 Last year, a Vanity Fair article alleged that Augusten Burroughs had fabricated major chunks of his bestselling memoir, Running With Scissors. There was even a lawsuit based on this claim, which Burroughs settled in August, all the while defending his work as "entirely accurate." And when his new real-life musings, A Wolf at the Table, were published earlier this year, many critics scratched their heads and asked whether anyone could truthfully (a) remember this many vivid, minute details about their childhood and (b) have a family that could possibly be this otherworldly, violent and bizarre. (At which point the reader chuckles, "You haven't met my Aunt Agnes ...") Burroughs' peer in this field — the flourishing category of kinda-gay, family-centric, literary stand-up comedy memoir — is David Sedaris, who prefers to call himself a "humorist." Sedaris recently came to the defense of James Frey, whose own exaggerations (yeah, lies) in a memoir brought shame even to Oprah. Sedaris himself has confessed to exaggeration in the name of humor. Though not enough of it this time out. Regardless of where you stand on the issue of playing fast and loose with the truth, you may emerge from Sedaris' latest collection of essays wishing he'd played it a little faster and looser — 'cause it ain't very funny. When You Are Engulfed in Flames, a roundup of 22 essays, all but two of which have been previously published in The New Yorker and other magazines, never quite gets off the couch. Like Hunter S. Thompson attempting to practice gonzo journalism by watching CNN and sending faxes in his 1995 downturn Better Than Sex, Sedaris here seems to pen most of the ruminations from the cozy comfort of his new home in rural France — about the cozy comfort of his new home in rural France. He seems perfectly content, strolling the lanes in Normandy and watching his partner Hugh putter around the house. Who wouldn't be? But contentment has rarely bred art of any universal interest, and Sedaris here is sometimes so passive he ignores opportunities for engaging narrative. In the middle of "The Smoking Section" — the only bulk of new material published here, about the author's attempt to kick the habit — he mentions one way he plans to deal with his struggle: "I hated leaving a hole in the smoking world, and so I recruited someone to take my place." Hopes are raised, here comes a hilarious tale of corrupting a minor! Nope. He blows right by it, preferring to avoid actions with consequences and simply continue whining. One sentence later — "After crossing 'replacement' off my list ..." — he goes back to his very long-winded (is that irony?) gripe session. Most of us never knew someone who was an elf at Macy's, but we've all known someone who quit smoking and, well, you know just how much fun those rants are to listen to, much less read. There are pleasant moments in the dull lull, like dozing on a train and occasionally snapping awake. "Keeping Up" is one of Sedaris' subtle stabs at the softer parts of human nature. A few light touches keep this admission of social helplessness (if not agoraphobia) from sinking completely into a weak whimper for help. Instead, it stays afloat as a sweet confession of the purely practical reasons he can't live without Hugh, a cover for the emotional ones. The only eye-opening achievement here is an absurdist trifle called "What I Learned." It's remarkable mainly because it reads like nothing else here, and uses actual fiction to enliven a skewering of academic existence. "If you passed, you got to live, and if you failed you were burned alive on a pyre that's now the Transgender Studies Building," recalls a refreshing un-Dave narrator of his Princeton years back in ancient times, when he majored in "patricide." Now there's some exaggeration worth reading. But, alas, it's a jewel in the otherwise boring rough. Perhaps Sedaris is the more truthful and honest of the humorous memoirists. Real life, after all, isn't always funny, narratively structured or even interesting. The book version, though — exaggeration or no — should be, right? By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Speaking with Mark Eitzel, it's always surprising how cheery he is. His music, and that of his band, American Music Club, is soft and sad, stirring and smoky. "Brooding" is an overused adjective for it. He's often written off as a grump, a depressive. And while he certainly has a record of behavior and lyrics to convict him of those charges, he's more often a smiling, self-deprecating goofball. "It's a real bore," Eitzel says of the assumptions about him. "People think I'm so morose, but I'm not. My music honestly is a reflection of what I see in people's eyes. Which, yeah, is morose. In San Francisco, take the bus — I mean, c'mon, it's morose. Unless someone's yelling 'Cracker!' at you, which happens every time I ride the bus." And soon he's laughing and spitting out two other facts that are still a surprise about him. "Yes, I'm turning 50, but I'm a gay man, so I can say I'm perpetually 29." He laughs some more. Really. "I'm a middle-aged gay man, which is one step away from being a grande dame." It's not usually the same personality that sighs through supple songs such as "All My Love," "Decibels and Little Pills" and "I Know That's Not Really You" on American Music Club's latest album, the second since they reunited a few years ago, "The Golden Age." There are also two songs aimed at his heralded hometown: "All the Lost Souls Welcome You to San Francisco" and "The Grand Duchess of San Francisco." (Not the grande dame, ahem.) Always a booster for the City by the Bay, these two San Fran titles may have been a reaction against the city in which "The Golden Age" was actually recorded: Los Angeles. "I'm not one of those San Franciscans who hates L.A., though. I love L.A.," Eitzel says. "That's a big thing: Everyone in L.A. hates San Francisco and vice versa. It's a bore. I have a lot of friends down there ... but I'm not gonna live there. I need city. I need a downtown that's not full of stupid violent people and one I can walk across. I don't want to always be driving, driving, driving." But surely the change of locale altered his songwriting perspective, as has happened for countless rock bands who relocate to an L.A. studio, from Steely Dan to Folk Implosion. "Well, with Steely Dan, my God, that much coke use would change anyone," Eitzel says. More laughing. "And, sure, it had its effect. I wrote my first song there beside a kidney-shaped swimming pool with a view of the city. You can't help but love it. It's a mirage on sand. It's completely fake. But it's great. And I like having stupid conversations, really. L.A. is comforting that way. You don't have to think too hard." Eitzel spent his last two solo albums twiddling knobs more than strumming guitars, especially the disc "Candy Ass," which is not his most beloved outing. "That was never supposed to come out," he says. "I did it for the money, honestly. I kinda hate it. I was rushed and I didn't use the good stuff." American Music Club will never slip down the electronic slope, he promises. "AMC is very much a guitar band. Nothing else." But Eitzel is still stretching his musical experience. He's writing a musical. "I'm collaborating with [British playwright] Simon Stephens," Eitzel says. "It's going really well. It's a non-narrative kind of musical, a little bit odd. The songs and the action go together in a very elliptical way. We tried some of them out on some opera aficionados, and they hated it, which is good. They can suck on my big f—-in' butt. You can print that." He's really laughing now. AMERICAN MUSIC CLUB Canasta - 10:30 p.m. Saturday - Schubas, 3159 N. Southport - Tickets, $15 - (773) 525-2508 Lucky dog - Chicago's Poi Dog Pondering strikes a chord with its fantastic new acoustic album, '7'3/30/2008
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Early in Tom Robbins' acclaimed novel, Still Life With Woodpecker, the narrator frets that mere words won't be enough to tell his story. His clacking typewriter's inky letters on parchment won't convey the real essence of his narrative. He pines instead for a "carved typewriter ... its keys living mushrooms, its ribbon the long iridescent tongue of a lizard. An animal typewriter, silent until touched, then filling the page with growls and squeals and squawks, yowls and bleats and snorts, brayings and chatterings and dry rattlings from the underbrush; a typewriter that could type real kisses, ooze semen and sweat." These are Frank Orrall's same fears and desires. In 20 years of making music, Orrall has struggled to translate the sticky, wet, messy experience of life into living pop music. The earthy songs of his Chicago-based band, Poi Dog Pondering, rock and groove but also hum and throb and breathe and laugh. The tunes have celebrated the human body almost as nakedly as Orrall's lyrics. World beat or Chicago house music rhythms demand dancing, while Orrall — c'mon, a singing poet named Orrall! — sings about everything else you can do with your skin and eyes and hands and fluids. "You're a cup that I hold by the cheekbones / I pull you close and I drink you up." "Muscle and sweat and blood and bones / feel good, feel strong!" "Vim and vigor, full of piss and vinegar / wrapping around, surround and bound by ligaments and skin." "Living With the Dreaming Body," "I've Got My Body," "Ta Bouche Est Tabou," "Collarbone." That peaty poetry continues on "7," the seventh and latest Poi Dog Pondering record — out Tuesday, and celebrated last Thursday with a sold-out show at the Vic Theatre — with Orrall confessing to a ravenous sexual appetite in "Candy," demanding that someone "spread your love all over me" in "Super Tarana (little golden deer)," which is definitely in the same spirit of "Sticky," and, in perhaps his most conservative lyric yet, pondering the thought of making a "Baby Together." "There's so much about the life of our bodies, and the life in our bodies, that we ignore or repress. I just sometimes try to sing that unsung stuff," says Orrall during a recent conversation at a South Loop tea house. "But music's about the body and the spirit." That would be the "rock and soul" dichotomy he insists on applying to "7," the first Poi Dog disc since 2003 and the first in many years to eschew samplers and sequencers and get back to making music with instruments made of wood. They even tracked the whole album using analog tape. 'Movement music' "A lot of that [electronic] stuff was hard to convey live," Orrall says. "A major thing that led to this record was me being out on tour with Thievery Corporation. We were sitting around, and one of the guys said, 'Play me one of your new songs.' And I realized I couldn't play him anything on the guitar. I needed all this gear just to convey my ideas. So I thought, I want to be at a dinner party and be able to play all our new songs with just one acoustic guitar." He smiles. "I gotta say, it feels nice. This record is very ... portable." Susan Voelz, the band's longtime violin player, agrees. "Frank said he wanted to make some music he could play on the bus, you know, without having to set up backing tracks," Voelz said during a separate interview by phone. "And now we've really got some songs under our fingers. I love it. Every incarnation of Poi Dog is a trip." Make no mistake, the tunes on "7" are still frequently rhythmic and easily danceable. The only real difference is that the grooves are laid down by congas and body slaps and real drums. Poi Dog shows are usually writhing affairs, with the audience in near-constant motion. Orrall dances, too. He started as a drummer in his native Hawaii, and he confesses to some songs ("Natural Thing," even the languid "Catacombs") being born not out of lyrical or purely musical ideas but from ways he wanted to move his body on stage. He says he likes going out dancing and never misses "Brazilian night" at Chicago's Sonotheque nightclub. Part of what attracted Orrall and his band (then based in Austin, Texas) to settle in Chicago early in the '90s was that love of dance and dance music. Arriving in 1992 on the swell of Chicago's most creative house music years, Orrall says the local DJs he encountered furthered his love of "movement music." 'The ego of words' The core of Poi Dog followed Orrall to Chicago, but Orrall's music had changed. The lyrics almost fell away completely. The "Volo Volo" album originally was completed as an all-instrumental record, which the band's major label at the time politely declined to release; much of that music became the debut of Orrall's first of many side projects, the Palm Fabric Orchestra. Poi Dog released another fairly traditional acoustic-based record, "Pomegranate," in 1995, but Orrall showed his new hand by immediately following it with "Electrique Plummagram," a collection of "Pomegranate" remixes and other electronically derived songs, including some Chicago house music covers. "I liked the vibe of the electronic stuff a lot," Voelz says, adding that her role as a wooden instrument player was not diminished. "I love trip-hop. I've played with a trip-hop DJ for a while. Instrumentally, the rules changed and the music was different. It wasn't all eight-bar phrases. The melodies took over sometimes as opposed to the lyrics. ... I was at South by Southwest [the annual music festival in Austin, Tex.] last week, and I didn't see Lou Reed, but I read about him saying that emotional music with intelligent lyrics is what you're going for. The emotion of the music has to be there. It melds with the lyrics, but the music can communicate by itself if it has to. Or if it wants to." This is the direction Orrall says he took his music during the last several years here in Chicago. He stopped writing lyrics. He and Poi Dog dabbled in arranging for orchestra, presenting two acclaimed concerts with the Chicago Sinfonietta, each of which included an electronically buttressed "remix" of first Dvorak's New World Symphony and then "Carmen." He toyed with ambient video creations in relation to music. He collected a lot of plug-in gear. "I was experimenting with long instrumental passages, feeling that there's so much you can say with music — why clutter it with the ego of words?" he says, hunching up his arms. "Plus, I was getting into this pattern of trying to write songs as opposed to perfunctorily going about writing them. They felt too ego-driven. I basically lost the point for a while. Then, more recently, I just started writing, without expectations, without trying to cram what came to me into four lines, then a chorus, then four more lines. I found I really liked writing long prosaic things rather than in meter. That's when I started getting the material I wanted to get." Next week, the large ensemble — Orrall has to think for a moment about how many players make up the current incarnation of the revolving-door band (it's 10) — hits the road for a rare cross-country tour. When that's done, they return to play at Ravinia, a venue they haven't graced in a decade. "We had a record crowd there last time we played," Orrall says. (The show in August 1997 may have been a record for the band, but it wasn't for Ravinia.) "And there wound up being problems with Ravinia's neighbors. It was really a peak time for us, and huge crowds came, and then there were town meetings about it. So we just kind of stayed away." He thinks another moment, sips his tea. "But it felt like time to go back. I guess a lot of this record is about going back." Poi Dog: Unplugged but charged up Poi Dog Pondering "7" (Platetectonic Music) ★★★1/2 The music of Poi Dog Pondering can grow on you, like a mold or a fungus. And if you're really the type of person to embrace an earthy, organic band like Poi Dog, you don't instinctively see that comparison as negative. Molds and fungi are the most basic, strong and pervasive forms of life, and you think that's worth celebrating. Hell, you think it's worth singing about. The essence of Poi Dog is stated in the refrain of "Outta Yer Head," a song deep into the Chicago ensemble's latest (and seventh) album, "7." Lead singer-songwriter Frank Orrall sings, "C'mon, c'mon, out of your head now / and into your heart." Orall's lyrics and musical sensibility have always come directly from the heart, as both a symbol of romance and nonintellectual motivation as well as an organ of the body pumping its most valuable fluid. Because this record finds the Chicago-based band getting back to basics, performing 14 soulful and neatly arranged pop songs on real instruments as opposed to the samplers and sequencers embraced in previous live and studio outings. And Orrall's got the body and its fluids on his brain more than ever. He wants to spread those fluids around in the not-so-veiled sexual references of "Sticky" ("I'm gonna stick to you, baby / gonna have to pry me loose now"), "Candy" ("I'm gonna eat you from the inside out") and "Super Tarana" ("Spread your love all over me"). The latter two songs are extraordinary — and strangely buried near the end of the disc. "Candy" should be this album's "Complicated," a rousing, escalating rocker that starts out with a simple "mood for something good" and builds to a climax of ferocious physical hunger. "Super Tarana" must have a dozen guitars tracked on the same melody (and in a surprisingly rocking 7/4 time signature), and they sound like a thousand "Wood Guitars." There's some rather dull, by-the-book soul ("Lemon Drop Man," "Baby Together," the almost ambitiously composed "Rusted Weather"), but there are a few moments that conjure the charm of the first record, soft, seeping songs like "Butterflies," which floats on whispers and plucked acoustic guitar and winds up stinging like a bee, and the similarly acoustic-driven (ah, those haunting, beautiful plucks and slides from Susan Voelz's metaphysical violin) "Palm Leaf Effigy," as delicate and beautiful a track as they've recorded in a decade. With 10 members in this incarnation of the ever-evolving lineup, you could call them the Fleetwood Mac of my generation. But the Mac's songs are usually founded on romantic bitterness and betrayal, and Poi Dog is the warm, polar opposite. Twenty years into their musical career, this album actually limbers them up after their frequently stiff and static electronic experiments of recent years. Here's to the electricity of the unplugged. Ex writes about life with Fleetwood Mac, the guitarist's physical abuse and all that cocaine9/30/2007
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Storms: My Life WIth Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac By Carol Ann Harris Chicago Review Press, 400 pages, $24.95 So maybe you've heard that the members of Fleetwood Mac did a little cocaine in their heyday? Well, make no mistake, they did a lot of cocaine. Unbelievable amounts. All the time. Everywhere. Carol Ann Harris — girlfriend of Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham from the 1977 release of the band's megahit album "Rumours" through Buckingham's second solo album in the early '80s — recalls how each band member took a powder before, during and after nearly every concert. In her new memoir, Storms: My Life With Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, she recalls the first night of the "Rumours" tour, when the road manager "J.C." ordered Buckingham, singer Stevie Nicks and the rest of the band to line up backstage a few minutes before show time. "They seemed to know what came next," she writes. "Like obedient schoolchildren, the band formed their line, holding out their fists. J.C. poured a small pile of cocaine onto each wrist. 'Two minutes! Let's toot and get those roses in your cheeks, Stevie!' " The artificial stimulants continued throughout the concerts, too, with roadies supplying bottlecaps full of blow to tables in the wings. "During the show, the band would fade back to the speakers at every opportunity and give themselves a bottlecap pick-me-up," Harris writes. "On Christine and John's [McVie] side of the stage, vodka tonics were replenished as needed, and on Lindsey's side ... his roadie always kept a joint going." In this book, that's supposed to be the fun part. Then the domestic violence begins — sudden bursts of fury from Buckingham that would vanish as quickly as they appeared but leave behind physical and mental wounds — and what first seemed to Harris like a fairy-tale romance in swingin' '70s Los Angeles turned into a downward spiral of monstrous abuse and fear. Now, 30 years after it all began, Harris is finally publishing her candid account — and a rare glimpse — of life inside the band. Q. So why write this book now? A. I actually started writing in 1990. Everyone assumes I just sat down and wrote it this year. It originally started as some writing for myself. I decided to start writing about what I went through, going through all my journals and tapes. By 1991, I had about a thousand-page manuscript. A friend helped me organize it, and we started paring it down. The fact that I was a battered woman really kept driving me, but that's such a small part of the book. It's mainly just a story of what it's like to be with the band. I've been asked a million times, "What was it like?" So I tried my best to give an eyewitness account. Q. How aware was the band that you were working on this, and what have the reactions been? A. Sarah Fleetwood [wife of drummer Mick] and I remained best friends for years, so she knew from the very beginning, from the first page. I'm friends with John Courage, too ["J.C."], and made sure the band knew. They've known for years. I don't know how they feel about the finished book, but I hope they like a lot of it. Q. You haven't heard anything from them? A. No reactions. It's been very silent. I fully expected feedback — these are not people who stand by quietly for anything. Q. OK, so the cocaine. Wow. That was a lot of blow. A. People are shocked by this. I thought everyone already knew that. It was funny at the time, though it was a sheer miracle we weren't busted. It was everywhere. The band never tried to hide it. Q. Why do you think the drugs were such an integral part of this particular group — or was it like this with every other band, too, and Mac just gets the press about it? A. I didn't tour with other bands, but you know, members of the Eagles have spoken publicly about drug use. From my experience, it's so exhausting and just such pressure [to be a touring musician]. These people going out on the road singing the same song night after night, doing three cities in three days, and doing it all for a year at a time — it's exhausting. The cocaine kept them going. And four members were in relationships that crumbled, so having to perform night after night with someone you'd like to never see again, and singing songs about that very fact, well, it drives you to crazy things. Q. Do you think the music would have been different without the drugs? A. There's a new article in Classic Rock [magazine], an interview with [Fleetwood Mac producers] Ken Calliat and Richard Dashut talking about that. The band was so high on blow that they made music that was edgier and more powerful. But then, who knows how great it could've been without the cocaine? Q. This is a cliched question of abused women, I fear, but I think the tension in this narrative begs it: Why did you suffer abuse for so long before leaving Lindsey Buckingham? A. It was not like you've probably heard or seen domestic abuse portrayed. I never got the apology the next day, the bouquet of flowers and the "Sorry, I'll never do that again." I got up the next day and he refused to speak about it, like it never happened. It never seemed to happen for a concrete reason. It's not that I was out too late or had done something or was being punished. It would happen out of the blue. It didn't make sense, so I thought it was my fault. I'm not a good enough girlfriend, I'm not relieving his pressure. I blamed it on the pressure of the music, this album or that album, being on the road. Q. What finally led you to leave him? A. That episode at the end of the book, when he'd really hurt me and I went to Century City Hospital so badly injured. And I had to say it out loud: This was done, I was injured. That doctor — what I wrote was verbatim, I never forgot what he said — saying, "You have to leave him." It was a huge wakeup call. Q. Lindsey and Stevie broke up before you two were together, but their romantic tension endures to this day, at least in the view of the public. Why is that? A. Because their relationship is trapped in those great songs that are still played over and over, and which mean something to so many people still. It's interesting to me that when most people break up, people cease to see you as a couple. For Christine and John, and especially for Stevie and Lindsey, they'll always be a couple. The public will always see them as Romeo and Juliet because they still perform together and sing those songs. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Ten years ago, the album wasn't even out yet but the single already had MMMbopped onto the Billboard charts in the Top 20, and Walker Hanson, father of the three boys who would take his surname into the pop cultural stratosphere, stood offstage in the family's hometown of Tulsa, Okla., plugged his ears against the squealing audience, shook his head and sighed, "I never dreamed it would lead to this." Today, Taylor Hanson — the Hanson trio's still-hunky lead singer — is 24 and has three kids of his own. He can't believe it led to this, either, he says. In fact, a decade after Taylor and his brothers, older Isaac and younger Zac, inflated bubblegum pop to new heights with the megahit single "MMMBop," Taylor was sitting backstage before a show last week in Westbury, N.Y., talking about growth and change and life lessons learned and all the old days gone by. Rewind: He's 24. "A lot of fans have been there with us from the beginning, but they're not the same people," Taylor says. "Everybody's really changed. ... Time is weird that way. Some things seem like yesterday, some seem like a lifetime ago. Fans are saying to us now, 'Hey, 10 years.' And everybody's got a different story. 'I was doing this when I first heard you,' that kinda thing. But it's 10 years — and they're still fans." Why is that, and how has this band of brothers survived? They still sell records — 2004's "Underneath" wasn't their best effort but it still sold more than 350,000 copies, and the new single, "The Great Divide," was the most-requested song at Chicago's Q101 early this month — and this weekend's two-night stand at the House of Blues, supporting July's new release, "The Walk," sold out right quick. They were lumped in with their late-'90s classmates, called a "boy band" just like 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. But those confectionary concoctions have melted away (in many cases, imploded), and the hook of "MMMBop" is still alarmingly easy to recall and hum. There have been no tortured Hanson solo albums, and no rehab. Taylor says today's Hanson fans are mostly the same group that fell in love with him and his brothers in '97, young women (and, yes, some guys) now roughly his age. But he adds, "There's also, like, a younger generation, younger siblings. Maybe their twentysomething friend or sister turned them on to us. Or, for that matter, a parent." And he kind of snorts when he says the word "parent." Rewind: He and wife Natalie, 23, have three kids. Thing is, what the fans are paying for is largely what they've always gotten from Hanson: reliable, groove-driven, nearly soulful rock and pop. The band's riffs still can beat down Maroon 5, and Taylor's punched-in-the-gut vocals can still out-soul poseurs like the Fray. "Not to pat ourselves on the back," Taylor says, "but we've never really done anything that reflects very directly what's going on. We've always been our own beast, drawing influences from places that are not the same as our peers. The thing that's in [the national debut disc, 'Middle of Nowhere'] is the core of our influences, that soul music, that freshness that came from young guys who loved that classic soul music and interpreted it with the energy of young teenagers." And do they still have that energy, now that they're absolutely ancient in their 20s? "It's a little different now, but we can still move it," Taylor says. Then he chuckles. "We're sustainable energy. We're moving beyond fossil fuels." Free of its record company — the subject of much rejoicing in the Hanson camp, as well as analysis in the documentary film "Strong Enough to Break" — Hanson returned home to Tulsa to record "The Walk." "The last album ['Underneath'] was very disjointed," Taylor says. "We wanted to do something that was the opposite of that, something rooted and familiar. Instead of battling record-company turmoil or going in the aimless direction of some A&R guy, we wanted to settle into a place where we felt comfortable and make a great record." Then he starts talking like a lame-duck president, musing over his band's legacy. (Rewind: just 10 years in pop music.) "It's really interesting the way history looks at Hanson now," Taylor says. "The evolving perception is that our first record was a garage band with a couple of really talented R&B beat-oriented producers that kind of shared our love of soul music. And we want that to endure." HANSON 8 p.m. Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn Sold out A decade of Hanson By Thomas Conner © Chicago Sun-Times It seems like only yesterday we were loving, then hating, that furiously catchy "MMMBop" single. But it was 10 whole years ago. A look back at the boys' boppin' ride: 1997 Before the "Middle of Nowhere" album is released in May, Hanson's inaugural single, "MMMBop," debuts in Billboard's Top 20. By the end of the summer, the song — with a nonsensical chorus that requires no real translation — has hit No. 1 or at least the Top 10 in every country that keeps pop charts. At Christmas, there's even a fresh Hanson holiday album on shelves, "Snowed In." 1998 The trio tours and tours and tours. To have something else to hawk at each stadium the world over, they reissue songs from their previous two regional releases as a collection called "Three Car Garage," then a live album called "Live From Albertane." 1999 The Music Industry Massacre of 1999 finds Hanson's label, Mercury, folded into the Island Def Jam conglomerate. Relations deteriorate. 2000 The sophomore effort shows up: "This Time Around," a remarkably muscled and rockin' collection featuring guest spots from fellow young phenom Jonny Lang and Blues Traveler's John Popper. 2001-2002 Hanson struggles to escape its contract with Island Def Jam. The brothers tour, but new music is not forthcoming. Meanwhile, Taylor gets married and has his first child. 2003 The whirlwind touring continues, but at least this one's an acoustic affair. In fact, the Hansons record and film their Chicago stop to release later as the DVD "Underneath Acoustic Live." 2004 On its own indie label, 3CG Records, the band releases "Underneath," another strong set featuring collaborations with Matthew Sweet. The album enters Billboard's Independent Chart at No. 1. 2005 Hey, let's tour some more! This time, Hanson stopped at colleges along the way to screen its documentary, "Strong Enough to Break," about its break from Island Def Jam and the road to becoming indie rockers. 2006 The trio travels to South Africa and Mozambique, recording a children's choir to be used on future songs. Both Isaac and Zac get married. 2007 In the weeks leading up to the July release of "The Walk," Hanson's fourth full-length album, the band posts half a dozen video podcasts online about the making of the record. Fans, band 'walk' together By Thomas Conner © Chicago Sun-Times Hanson isn't just talking the talk these days, they're walking "The Walk." Literally. As part of the tour, the band is staging a one-mile walk in each city, inviting fans to join the Hanson brothers to just ... walk. "It's amazing to see what happens when you grab a few hundred kids and walk down the middle of the road," Taylor Hanson says. "There's an impact on the people walking — talking, getting together — and the people observing." These events are an outgrowth of Hanson's newly emerged social conscience, itself the result of the band's recent travels in Africa. "The Walk" album opens with a children's choir in Soweto, South Africa, singing a message of hope. The Hansons found these kids when they joined some friends from a Tulsa, Okla.-based medical technology company, Docvia, on a trip last year delivering goods to a hospital in South Africa. There they encountered the continent's HIV/AIDS crisis firsthand. "These kids, orphaned in the epidemic, started chanting, 'I have hope.' We just thought that was so powerful," Taylor says. "What we came back with was a sense that the issue of AIDS really relates to middle America and our generation, because we're the ones who can attack it and do something about it. And we thought, one way or another, we need to capture this in our music." The choir appears in the Hanson song "Great Divide," which was released on iTunes as a charity single, with proceeds going to a Soweto hospital. The exact location of each day's walk will be announced at hanson.net three hours in advance. They'll be encouraging you to buy some shoes there, too — TOMS shoes has offered to donate a pair of shoes to needy kids for every pair purchased. And even if you're not feeling charitable: Fans who participate in the walks will get into the concert each night ahead of the line. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times It's a big family. You've got Loudon Wainwright III, once declared a "new Bob Dylan," who's been singing and recording personal folk songs for coming on four decades now. His ex-wife is Kate McGarrigle, of Canada's beloved McGarrigle Sisters. Their children are singer-songwriter Martha and the grandiose pop star Rufus Wainwright. One of the Roches and her daughter lurk in this family tree, too. Everyone has their own career, and sometimes they even sing together. But, as Yoda once said, there is another. Sloan Wainwright — Loudon's sister, Rufus and Martha's aunt — is the undiscovered treasure of this musical dynasty. Writing and singing since her youth (she's not quite 50), she's been recording only for the last decade. But already her six CDs have set her apart from her brother's witty, documentarian and occasionally caustic songs. "My songwriting is very different from Loudon's," says Sloan during a phone conversation from her home in Katonah, N.Y. "We're such different people, and we come from a very different place as far as expressing ourselves." Loudon's songs frequently dwell on undisguised family issues. His divorces are well-chronicled in his catalog, as are various escapades and bouts with the kids ("Rufus Is a Tit Man," "Father/ Daughter Dialogue," "Five Years Old"). Rufus and Martha have returned the favor on their own albums, and even Sloan has mentioned the relatives in her own music. But in "The Baby and the Bathwater," from her most recent album, "Life Grows Back," she sings the woe of all such biographical songwriters: "Why must we have an audience / To applaud our every confession?" "That song itself is a family song," she says. "It's kind of an auntie giving some auntie-ish advice about being grateful for the good stuff that comes in life, and that line, that's really kind of asking the question about the predicament many of my friends and family are in, this situation where we do work ourselves out in front of an audience. And maybe it's not always such a great idea." Sloan's recording career came late because she was sidetracked for 23 years as co-owner of the Bakers Cafe in Katonah. Throughout that experience, though, she continued singing and performing, developing her stage chops and her unique, contralto voice before learning to apply it in the studio. "The way I see it, there's the art of writing songs, the art of working with your instrument, then there's the art of creating a record, which is entirely separate, and then there's the art of performance," Sloan says. "To me, they're all kind of separate. ... One thing with my songs and my voice that I've learned to do over the years is to kind of use my voice — not my writing voice but the sonic part of my instrument — to rearrange what people are thinking in a performance. ... It's not so much about what I'm saying as how I'm saying it, the way words go together and the way I make them sound." Chicagoans can experience such rearrangement when Sloan Wainwright makes a rare appearance here — on radio, at least. She and her trusted guitarist, Stephen Murphy, will perform live on "Folkstage" at 6 p.m. Saturday on WFMT-FM (98.7). (Only members of the WFMT Fine Arts Circle can attend the broadcast as the studio audience.) She'll be playing songs from "Life Grows Back." She also will appear with Dorothy Scott and Maura O'Connell at a benefit show, "A Women's Night Out: The Art of Music," at 8 p.m. Sept. 15, at the Door County Auditorium in Fish Creek, Wis. Loudon also has a Chicago date ahead: Sept. 22 with Lucy Roche (his daughter by Suzzy Roche) at the Old Town School of Folk Music. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times His music keeps getting more ambitious, more grandiose, more opulently operatic — and his fans keep lapping it up. Rufus Wainwright, the young darling of a profound musical legacy (the Wainwright-McGarrigle clan), re-created Judy Garland's old act at Carnegie Hall earlier this year, to rave reviews (the CD and DVD of the show are out this fall), and he just released his latest disc, "Release the Stars," to still more acclaim. So he's back on tour, and back at Ravinia — but this time without lil' Ben Folds in tow — at 7:30 p.m. Saturday ($45 pavilion, $20 lawn; call (847) 266-5100 or visit ravinia.org). Q. What's new in the show? A. A lot compared to shows I've done recently in Chicago. I haven't done a big show there in a while. The Ravinia shows have been pared down; this one's got a big, heavy band, with the full breadth of my material — my songs, French songs, Judy Garland songs. Q. And did I hear correctly you're doing costume changes? A. Well, you know, I always love taking my clothes off. Without giving too much away, it's very, uh, ethnic and Hollywood. Q. How was Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant as a producer on "Release the Stars"? A. He was helpful in reminding me that there's an audience out there, that my lofty goals are great but it's important to get on radio and make a couple of bucks, too. Like the song "Tiergarten" started out a bit dirgey. He said I needed some snappy tunes, and I followed his lead. Now it's almost a reggae song. Q. When you get off the road, you're writing an opera? A. Yes, it's called "Prima Donna," and it has nothing to do with Madonna. It's about an opera singer, because I love the genre. I love those characters — Maria Callas or Joan Sutherland — those opera divas. They need their own opera. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times The film is nearly always mentioned with modifiers such as "landmark," "milestone" and "a watershed moment." Fans and academics alike — in surveys such as the book The Celluloid Closet and the film "Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema" — continue to cite it as the single turning point for Hollywood's depiction of homosexuals, a swift and sure abolition of swishy cliches. Retailers specializing in gay cinema are weary from continuous customer requests for the film. Yet after nearly 40 years, it remains out of print on VHS and unavailable on DVD. The movie is "The Boys in the Band," a dramatic ensemble play faithfully adapted for the screen in 1970 and starring the complete stage cast, and the first screen success for Chicago-native director William Friedkin ("The Exorcist," "Bug"). It's poignant, it's catty, it's vicious and, as the New York Times described it, it "makes 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' look like a vicarage tea party." But to see it — or to see it again, in a clear, crisp print with better sound than your ancient, worn-out VHS copy from its last, late-'80s release — set your DVRs for 1:15 a.m. Tuesday (Monday night) on Turner Classic Movies. It airs as part of the cable channel's "Screened Out: Gay Images in Film" series this month — and coinciding with this weekend's gay pride celebrations in Chicago. "For me, this will be the film's television premiere," says Mart Crowley, "Band's" playwright and screenwriter, from his Los Angeles home (though he's in the process of moving back to New York). "Once upon a time in New York City years ago, five or six years after the film was released, one of those errant channels showed it. The language and such was so that they couldn't broadcast it, and they didn't bother to bleep it — they just cut the frames out in which there was any obscenity. The picture would just jump around. I couldn't watch it." Thirty-nine years after his play debuted, Crowley is still answering for its impact. "Nobody knew what hit 'em for a while [after it was produced] — not even me," he says. "I was as surprised as anyone else. I was just writing about myself and my friends. I mean, once upon a time it was just referred to as a play. Now it's the 'first gay play' or the 'first out play.' And I still don't even really know what that means." Changing times "The Boys in the Band" was controversial in its day, and remains so still. It's the story of a rather dismal birthday party — or so it becomes — among Michael (Kenneth Nelson), the quick-witted but steel-hearted host, and his fellow gay friends: a flamboyant queen, Emory (Cliff Gorman); a Jewish pothead, Harold (Leonard Frey); a mopey analysis patient, Donald (Frederick Combs); a hustler, "The Cowboy" (Robert LaTourneaux); a dapper black man, Bernard (Reuben Greene); a mysterious old friend, Alan (Peter White), and the couple of Hank (Laurence Luckinbill) and Larry (Keith Prentice). The first act is all wisecracks, the second act is all barbs. Life in the closet was dreary and desperate, and the self-loathing nearly eats some of these characters alive. "It's hard for anyone, straight or gay, who grew up post-Stonewall to relate to these poor quivering queers," the New York Post wrote when the film was restored for the Tribeca Film Festival in 1999. "But most will also have compassion for these sad sacks, living in a deforming straitjacket of shame, misery and contempt. 'Boys' is a useful yardstick of how far gay men have come, and how far they have yet to go." Crowley, to an extent, agrees with these assessments of his work. "I understand why the new movement doesn't want these negative images. They're gay and proud, these boys today, and they don't want to admit that some of us felt miserable at times or that we didn't all arrive at this point in history in a golden chariot. ... We weren't encouraged by anyone's parents or religious leaders or friends. I was a devout Catholic, and I was going to hell. Michael's character reflects that. But now they can see these images and re-evaluate their history. Because it really did start out in a different key." Today we see Oscar nominations for straight actors in gay roles, but Crowley had a hard time finding actors to take on the challenge of "Boys," which is why he held onto them from the stage to the screen. Luckinbill's agent, who also represented Crowley, tried to discourage him from the role of semi-macho, bisexual Hank. "She said it would kill my career," Luckinbill said in 2002. "I said, 'It's a great play, and how is being in a great play going to hurt my career?' ... It did everything in reverse of what my agent said, except for one thing: I lost a True cigarettes commercial. They said, 'No fags smoke our fags!' " A DVD soon? The film certainly made its mark, at least on gay audiences. TLA Entertainment, a video retailer with a popular gay and lesbian catalog, wishes it had a DVD version to hawk. "Would it sell? Absolutely," says TLA's managing editor, Scott Cranin. "We get requests for it all the time. I get several e-mails asking for 'Boys in the Band' virtually every week." So does Crowley. "They bug me in the Virgin Megastore, asking, 'When, when, when?' I have a standard form letter to send to people who write and ask about it. I tell them to write letters to CBS [Consumer Products]." The history of "Band's" ownership is a tortured one. Suffice to say CBS confirmed this week that they do own the film through their partnership with King World. "CBS maybe just discovered that they own it," Crowley says. "I'm told it'll be showing up on DVD next year, in 1908 ... no, it's 2008!" That would be the 40th anniversary of the play's first production in New York. (Calls to CBS to confirm a DVD were not returned.) Dominick Dunne was an executive producer on the film. In a letter posted on the "Band" message boards at IMDB.com, Dunne says, "CBS is finally aware that they own the picture and they are releasing a DVD for the 40th anniversary as a two-disc piece with interviews with Mart, me, Billy Friedkin, etc." In addition, a documentary about Crowley's work is under way, with the working title "The Making of 'The Boys in the Band.' " Filmmaker Crayton Robey, 34, has gathered all kinds of source material and interviews about the play's genesis and the movie's impact. He hopes to release his film independently or include it as an extra feature on the DVD. He pulls no punches in his assessment of "Band": "It's the most significant cultural creative breakthrough the world saw," he said last week in an interview from his New York home. "It was so important, people don't often realize. It was the 'Brokeback Mountain' of its day." There's no mistaking the Cowboy Junkies - Margo Timmins' signature sound just one component6/24/2007
By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Margo Timmins is blessed with one of Those Voices — an utterly unique and instantly identifiable sound that sharply defines her music and her band, the Cowboy Junkies. On the Junkies' new disc, "At the End of Paths Taken," that voice pushes typically sublime melodies while the band further relaxes the loose, spooky alt-country sound it's honed for two decades and writhes through some crazy noises, eerie voices and unexpected sounds. The disc has received adoration from critics and fans since its April release — the kind of rapturous reception given to the band's second album, "The Trinity Session," which broke them to a mainstream audience and which celebrates its 20th anniversary later this year with a special edition. Timmins discussed all this and more when we caught up with her before a show in New York ... somewhere. "We're playing tomorrow night," she cooed over the phone, "but I couldn't tell you where. It doesn't matter. As long as we show up and there's an audience, we have no expectations." Q. Were the great reviews for the new disc a surprise, or did you feel this one was something special? A. After so many years, we have no expectations of how an album will be received. When we listened to it after recording it, we were more surprised at how well it turned out. It was an album in which we really had no idea what we were doing. We went through tons of changes. Our only plan was this: totally experiment and play with the songs. We came at it almost backwards from the way we've been doing every other album for 20 years. Q. How'd that approach come about? A. It started with Michael writing songs and handing them to me without music, just the words. So I got familiar with the poetry first, on paper. And come to find, he'd written the music in weird guitar keys he's never used before. Some went smoothly. Others were like, "Is this good?" But by the time we got to the end and listened to the whole thing in order, we just laughed and thought, "It worked!" I mean, we can always make it work, but it was good. Q. What made you think it was good? A. Well, I played it for my parents. And my aunt and uncle were there, too, for some weird reason. They're of a totally different generation, I thought they wouldn't get it. I thought my aunt and uncle wouldn't even try. But by the end of the album I could tell they'd gotten sucked in. I think that's what this album does. If you give it time, it'll suck you into what I think is a really comfortable place. Q. On the surface, the record doesn't sound that different, given that the band has such a consistent sound. But it hits you differently, harder. What's happening here that hasn't before? A. It's certainly a Junkies record. My voice is always the thing people identify as a Junkies record. ... We do have a signature sound, even now after 20 years. I don't fully know what that sound is, I don't know what makes it, but it only happens when the four of us are playing together. When I've sung with other bands, it's not there. ... But the music behind me this time is strange — so many layers and weird sounds. Oddly enough, the only real melody in any of the songs is my vocal. And this otherworldly music just twists and writhes around me. Q. And that is the result of the experimentation? A. Oh yeah. In "Mountain" [a truly odd pastiche of spoken-word, tortured music and Margo singing a brief chorus], you can hear me laughing. I'm always laughing in rehearsal — there's a lot of my laughter on tape — and when Mike was mixing the song he dropped some of my laughter in there. It's not as a joke; he uses it as an instrument. It's very subtle. But it's very much part of the "OK, let's throw this in and see if it works" spirit of making this record. Q. What about the Cowboy Junkies is distinctly Canadian? A. Hmm. I think we're very Canadian, but what that is I just don't know. [Pause] It's a ... part of it is ... it's being humble. That's a positive thing almost, but there's a negative side to it. We spoke of having no expectations — that's a good way to live, but it's also not good because you don't make demands and you don't get as far as you could have, or should have. You won't be disappointed, but the other side is you don't make things happen. I think that's very Canadian. Pretty much just going with the flow, wherever it might take you — I think Canada as a whole is very much like that. Like, "All right, we'll get into this war if you want to." [Laughs] Q. What was it about "The Trinity Session" that made such a breakthrough for you back in 1988? A. That record happened at a time where that kind of sound was just not happening. These big rock bands were all at the top of the charts. Then this quietness emerged from the din — I think that's what got people's attention. ... At the time, there just wasn't anything like it. We had no idea it would catch on like it did. We knew it was special, no doubt. The next morning, we listened to the tapes. Oddly enough, my mom was there, because Mike had run the tapes over to my house around the block. We knew right away it was good and different, but we figured it would be an underground thing, not something that would attract major labels and attention. But my mom turned to me and said, "Your life will never be the same." Q. Is your mom always present for these first listens? A. [Laughs] I know, it's crazy, isn't it? I'm 46 and Mom's always around. But I thought she was crazy when she said that, but I remember for years waiting for my life to go back to normal. She knew. I should ask her — I don't know if that statement of hers was a happy thought for her or not. Q. And did I hear there's a 20th anniversary edition of "Trinity" in the works? A. Yes, [coming out] this fall. We wanted to do something special to mark the 20th, but we didn't want to take away from "Trinity." We went back to the church [Toronto's Holy Trinity, where the album was recorded], which was scary. I didn't want to muck it up. And we just covered the whole album — the same songs, just 20 years later, and with some guests: Natalie Merchant [doing "To Love Is to Bury"], Vic Chesnutt ["Postcard Blues"] and Ryan Adams ["200 More Miles"]. We filmed it all, of course, because in the era of DVD everything must be documented. We were really nervous, but it came out great. We realized that the reason the record sounded so well is because we picked the right building. The sound is so beautiful in there, and because it's so beautiful it's inspiring. You get in there and hear yourself, and you're like, "OK, I can sing!" The sound floats and comes down and wraps you up. I'd forgotten the feeling of it. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Loudon Wainwright III "Strange Weirdos" (Concord) ★★★ Rarely do the planets align in the production of movie music quite the way they did to produce this soundtrack to Judd Apatow's latest comedy, "Knocked Up." Because when you're looking for someone to write songs for a film about a star-crossed relationship born out of foolishness and resulting in a child that neither partner is quite prepared to deal with, well, Loudon Wainwright's your man. This is the guy who's been chronicling all of the above in his own life for nearly four decades now, including songs that could be featured in the sequel, songs such as "Be Careful There's a Baby in the House" and "Rufus Is a Tit Man." Of course, Loudon's kids are another story. He's particularly had a difficult go of it with daughter Martha (a frequent backup to brother Rufus, now with her own solo album out), who joined him to sing the difficult "Father/Daughter Dialogue" and later wrote about him in, uh, "Bloody Mother F—-ing Ass——." Suffice to say, Loudo's the family and relationship issues songwriter, and on this batch of typically wry songs — fleshed out from the mostly instrumental versions used as a score for the film — he's working with a crack band (including old pal Richard Thompson) and great collaborators (Greg Leisz, Van Dyke Parks and producer Joe Henry). The music is loose but professional, loping but determined, suitable to the alternating humor ("Grey in L.A.," a concert staple for a while, is a great antidote to that city's imposing sunniness) and sober examination ("Doin' the Math" is a new perspective on growing old). The requisite touching moment, too, occurs in "Daughter," in which Loudon muses from the viewpoint of a father watching his daughter at play. "I lost every time I fought her," he sings. Is he talking about his own family? Has he ever not? By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times The way critics have gone on about the Brazilian influences in this band's music, you'd be forgiven if you arrived to their concerts expecting a bar full of tropical beverages and a singer on stage wielding a goatskin pandeiro. "I was kind of sick of hearing that," says Sam Prekop, singer for Chicago indie-rock stalwarts The Sea & Cake, of the band's alleged South American influences. "I blocked it out. ... You could hold a gun to my head and I could not play a single Brazilian song." Prekop calls his band's relationship to Brazilian records a "kinship." The Sea & Cake's acclaimed guitarist, Archer Prewitt, explains further: "A lot of what we respond to in Brazilian music is the musicality of it, the choice of chords. I've always been partial to the jazzier chords." The Sea & Cake is certainly jazzier, in general. In indie-rock, the band stands out as a consistently light — but musically quite dense — and breezy quartet, often bouncing along on grooves both loose and locked, and supporting Prekop's thin, airy vocals and impressionistic words. More than most bands, The Sea & Cake strives for beauty. "A lot of the Brazilian stuff attempts genuinely to get at the service of beauty," Prekop says. "It's sunny and melancholy at the same time, and that quality — that mixture — is always something to strive for." On the band's latest CD, "Everybody" — available Tuesday from local label Thrill Jockey — The Sea & Cake gets down to basics as they rarely have before. Gone are whatever distractions have been written off in the past as foreign influence. Few extra sounds and instruments intrude on this batch of songs. What we have is a compact guitar-bass-drums-vocals band, playing tighter pop-song forms than they have in years. "These are almost chiseled little pop numbers," Prekop says, seemingly surprised to admit it aloud. "Sometimes people forget: We are a pop band." Location, location The change is arresting and vital, a radical departure. But it's also subtle, ephemeral, difficult to detect. Such is the paradox of The Sea & Cake (it's suitably cryptic name a result of Prekop misunderstanding the title of a Gastr del Sol song, "The C in Cake"). Noticing it likely depends on how long you've been unraveling their music. The renewed focus — let's not call it "stripped down" — is largely the result of location, location, location. Instead of recording in or near Chicago with drummer John McEntire producing, as the band has done for every record except its first, The Sea & Cake traveled around Lake Michigan's tip to Key Club Studio in Benton Harbor, Mich. There they holed up with producer Brian Paulson for sessions Prekop said had "a more immediate performance quality." Not surprising since they'd arrived at the studio this time with songs intact. There was not as much to make up as the sessions proceeded, and few effects and overdubs were added afterward, as has been the norm. That approach made not just recording easier; it's made rehearsing simpler, too. Fewer extras mean fewer surprises when the band hits the road this week to tour "Everybody" (returning for a hometown show May 31 at the Empty Bottle). "We made this one more documentarian than before," Prewitt says. "In the past, the insular Sea & Cake has remained in the studio doing a lot of post-production work on the songs. But we had things pretty much together ahead of time on this one. This was similar to 'The Biz' [in 1995]. We recorded it straight, no tinkering." The kids are alright But in the rural setting of the studio, free time was still indulged in listening to influential music. Just not much Brazilian stuff. "At night, with beers flowing, we'd listen to inspirational music, courtesy of the battling DJs, John [McEntire] and Brian [Paulson]," Prewitt says. "We'd listen to some old French tune, and next to This Heat, which sounded like Tortoise to me." (McEntire once split his time between Tortoise and The Sea & Cake.) "We even watched The Who's 'The Kids Are Alright.' " "That was a mistake," Prekop sighs. Why's that? "Well," Prewitt says, "you watch The Who completely annihilate, and then you go back in and listen to your tinkly little guitar — you start asking, 'What am I doing here?' " But the rock was what they were leaning toward at Key Club. And though "Everybody" still sounds perfectly Sea-worthy, a few songs broke through to that ideal more than others. "I tell people I think we made a rock album," Prekop says, "but they say, 'Sam, you don't know what a rock album is.' " By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times LOVE IS A MIX TAPE: LIFE AND LOSS, ONE SONG AT A TIME By Rob Sheffield Crown, 224 pages, $22.95 The shoeboxes used to be chin-high in my closet — every one of them packed with scuffed cassette boxes and a few loose, unwound tapes. Mixes, made by me and given to me: "This & That," the heavy magnetic tape from Sondra with all the U2; "Savage Indictment of Bourgeois Society," the not-so-savage tape from Chris; Liz made "Tom's Diner," of course, with that awful song by some screechy act called Shelleyan Orphan that, truth be told, was the beginning of our end. These were not just crafty trinkets, they were solemn discourse — letters cobbled together using someone else's words. Because we were young, without enough words of our own yet, we simply passed on the songs that spoke for us, saying in effect, "Here, listen to Morrissey, but know it's really me saying that." Rob Sheffield, in his moving memoir Love Is a Mix Tape, seems to understand this undercurrent of Generation X as well as any author since Nick Hornby — and possibly better, or at least more intensely, than Hornby did in his mix-tape magnum opus, the novel (and later Chicago-made movie) High Fidelity. Whereas Hornby got to the root of a music geek's angst — discovering in the end that it's possible, and probably preferable, to love someone whose music tastes are different from yours — Sheffield digs up that root, skins it, cleans it, cooks it and serves it up, all with a tremendous poignancy and, thank Elvis, not an ounce of self-pity. Music, when appropriated and directed at someone for a particular purpose, does "the same thing music always does," Sheffield writes in this romantic memoir, "which is allow emotionally warped people to communicate by bombarding each other with pitiful cultural artifacts that in a saner world would be forgotten before they even happened." Sheffield circles his central point carefully, discovering that the reason bookish guys like him made all these mixes for girls like Renee, his star-crossed love interest here, is to prove through some kind of aesthetic science that opposites can come together in harmony. That fact is a cliche, of course, but who among us hasn't found themselves attracted to a person diametrically opposed to our Top 10 Attractive Qualities List and not still marveled at it anew? The variety of music on each of my own mix tapes, for instance, is maddening and magical. Chris coupled the serrated edge of the sample-crazed band Negativland with the soothing coo of Harry Nilsson. Liz followed Sade with the Sundays — British soul for British soul. On one I made for (OK, about) Sondra, the Stones' "Street Fighting Man" follows Verdi's "Summer" from "The Four Seasons." In Love Is a Mixed Tape, Rob, a good, shy Irish Catholic boy, struggles to make sense of a similar culture clash: his desire for Renee, a brazen, confident Southern Baptist wild child. Renee is the kind of girl who throws a Billie Joe party, as in the song "Ode to Billie Joe." "I had it on the third of June," she says. "You know, the day the song takes place. I served all the food they eat in the song: black-eyed peas, biscuits, apple pie." Their formula doesn't work on paper, but the real-life harmony between them can't be denied. Early on, Sheffield deduces this about mix-making: "I guess that's why we trade mix tapes. We music fans love our classic albums, our seamless masterpieces, our 'Blonde on Blondes' and 'Talking Books.' But we love to pluck songs off those albums and mix them up with other songs, plunging them back into the rest of the manic slipstream of rock and roll. I'd rather hear the Beatles' 'Getting Better' on a mix tape than 'Sgt. Pepper' any day. I'd rather hear a Frank Sinatra song between Run-DMC and Bananarama than between two other Frank Sinatra songs. When you stick a song on a tape, you set it free." One is never quite sure where the songs end and Sheffield begins in this narrative, which only adds to its alluring cadence and rhythm. Sheffield's prose is tight, lean and full of all the details about young love you wish you'd had the brains to write down when it was still beguiling. He throws in musical and cultural references liberally but without alienating us too much (though it helps to have heard Big Star's "Thirteen" to understand how adorable it is that Rob and Renee danced to it at their wedding), putting him in league with Hornby and another crafty name-dropping novelist, Bret Easton Ellis. Sheffield's euolgy — he reveals early on that Renee died suddenly five years into their marriage — comes equipped with a gimmick: Each chapter starts with a picture of the cassette cover of a particular mix tape. It's supposed to set the scene for each episode, though often the Side A/Side B track listings have little or nothing to do with the action that follows. It's the kind of cutesy gimmick that might ward off curious readers; don't let it — it's harmless. Love Is a Mix Tape celebrates love and music, and what happens when the line between them is crossed, either way. After their first night together at Renee's place, Sheffield writes, "We eventually stopped getting up to flip the tape, and just listened to dead air." The music may have gotten them together, but ultimately they had to fill the silence themselves. Fortunately, despite all the musical reference and reverence, that's the heart of Sheffield's story — and what makes it so sincere and rewarding. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times The documentary begins with a lot of people calling him America's greatest composer. And these are frumpy, serious-looking people, with pianos and bookshelves behind them. Clearly, they should know. It's Gershwin, right? Copland? No, it's — gulp — a jazz man: Billy Strayhorn. And it's OK if you've never heard of him. Actually, it's not OK, but it is understandable. He never got much credit. Never sought it, really, at least not until it was too late. But as Duke Ellington's right-hand man for 29 years, Billy Strayhorn created some of the most beguiling and innovative music the world (certainly the jazz world) has ever heard, from songs such as "Lush Life" and "Take the 'A' Train" to innovative and challenging soundtracks. "Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life," a film by Robert Levi premiering tonight as part of PBS' "Independent Lens" series, approaches the subject with the intent of proving that the real talent in this pair was Strayhorn's. Plenty of ex-Ellington band members are on camera vouching for Ellington's powerful persuasion, if not outright manipulation, and calling him "the king of all bullsh—-ers." But Strayhorn produced many such revelatory moments at Ellington's side. They completed each other's thoughts, finished each other's musical sentences. As a result — and because Strayhorn never pursued, and Ellington rarely gave him, writing credit — it's impossible to tell where Strayhorn's contributions end and the Ellingtonia begins. Which leads Levi to wonder: Did Ellington take advantage of Strayhorn? The film can't nail down an answer, but it offers plenty of circumstantial evidence. Strayhorn was openly gay in the homophobic '40s; add that to his shyness, and it surely would have been easy to keep him in the background. Which is where he is throughout the film. In photos and grainy footage, Ellington is always downstage, in focus, talking or leading the band; Strayhorn is always upstage, in soft focus, over someone's shoulder, silent. In the end, Strayhorn was more a victim of his own poor business dealings. He never worked with a contract, never took a salary (only occasional cash draws). It's not a story unique to Strayhorn; many talented writers and musicians were taken advantage of in the days before copyright law solidified. What is unique by the end of the film is the depth and range of Strayhorn's talent — his obviously inherent genius. And any way that's brought to light is a good thing. 'BILLY STRAYHORN: LUSH LIFE' ★★1/2 10 tonight on WTTW-Channel 11. Soundtrack CD offers music uninterrupted By Thomas Conner © Chicago Sun-Times As with many music documentaries, "Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life" spends more time filming people talking about music than people playing it. Just as a combo begins one of Strayhorn's allegedly genius works, authors and experts began yapping over it. We're asked to take people's word for the music's greatness instead of hearing and judging for ourselves. Fortunately, there's a soundtrack. The combos merely glimpsed in the film are whole on the CD "Lush Life: The Untold Story of Billy Strayhorn" ★★, available via Blue Note Records. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Dwight Twilley "Live: All Access" (Digital Music Group) ★★★ The liner notes to Dwight Twilley's first live record include a mention of who provided the limos. This is hilarious for two reasons. First, it tells you everything you need to know about how Mr. Twilley remains a legend in his own mind. Second, I spent several years covering Twilley in his hometown of Tulsa, Okla., and the idea that anyone rode in a limo to The Venue, the plain-Jane club where this rollicking show was recorded last year, is akin to a tuxedoed prom stud helping his date out of a stretch Hummer for dinner at Chili's. But that's the uncompromising beauty of Twilley. Relocated back to what fellow hometowners Hanson dubbed the "Middle of Nowhere," Twilley's regal air has never waned. He had just two Top 20 hits, ferpetesake — 1975's "I'm on Fire" and 1984's "Girls" — and I'm willing to bet you can't hum either of them. More's the pity, frankly, because (a) they're killer rock singles, especially the first, and (b) Twilley's defiant (stubborn?) maintenance of his Rock Star stance is a thrilling anachronism in an age in which the reports of rock's death are not greatly exaggerated. His voice is finally showing signs of wear here, but he charges hard through a criminally overlooked catalog of rockabilly-fueled rockers and McCartney-dreamy ballads. It's a helluva show, kids, swinging from the boogie of his own "10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancin' " to Larry Williams' chugging 1958 classic "Slow Down." Rock on, brother D., and tell the driver to keep the champagne cold. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times AND THEY ALL SANG: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey By Studs Terkel New Press, 336 pages, $16.95 GIANTS OF JAZZ By Studs Terkel New Press, 224 pages, $14.95 Let's — just this once — not refer to Studs Terkel as an oral historian. It's a title even he probably finds a bit dubious and, for the purposes of this article at least, it doesn't work. Oral historians sit and talk to one person for 12 hours, the reel-to-reel whirring all the while, and it all gets typed up for a dissertation shelved in a university library. Sure, Terkel wound up making a helluva career by popularizing something along these lines, but he started out as a disc jockey. He chatted with guests for hardly more than an hour. He probed their creative process and apparently applied some of it to his own published work. That is, he found the common threads — the melody — in American life, and like a true folk musician he used his talents to remind us that we're all part of something bigger than ourselves. This seems to have been his goal, conscious or not, right out of the gate, as illustrated in two new paperbacks hearkening back to the chattier, tuneful dawn of Studs. And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey is last year's round-up of conversations Terkel conducted with musicians on his Chicago-based radio show, largely from the '50s and '60s; and Giants of Jazz is yet another reprint of Terkel's first book, comprised of 13 concise and compelling biographies of the pioneers of American jazz. "Your jazz is something more than just something invented," he tells singer Betty Carter in a 1989 interview from And They All Sang. "It's part of a continuity." This is the overall Terkel Thesis, and it formed here among these early considerations of music. His life's work has been looking at individuals and how they relate to the whole messy mass of society, and American popular music is expertly adept at reflecting that very relationship. (These books focus on jazz and classical music, mostly, which were, believe it or not, once the popular music of the country.) And They All Sang gets opera singers, composers and even a young, already-evasive Bob Dylan discussing who they are by means of who inspired them. Giants of Jazz, though, is expertly structured to illustrate this. For example, the chapter on Louis Armstrong is sandwiched between the one about King Oliver (who mentored young Louis) and Bessie Smith (who was affected by the sound of Louis' horn); Smith's bio mentions the moment Bix Beiderbecke heard her sing, a moment that left him in awe — and which figures into his own chapter, the next one. These links build a chain throughout the book — mashing up with full force when Count Basie and Charlie Parker hit Kansas City, and then when Dizzy Gillespie meets Bird — and they leave the impression that, yes, each individual was a formidable talent but, no, the opportunity for that talent to succeed did not present itself in a vacuum. These musicians were a part of something greater than themselves, and their own personalities amplified the human race as a whole. It's all part of a continuity. That idea succeeds in these texts not only because of the way Terkel assembles and sequences the Jazz bios, but also by virtue of the space he allows his subjects — both in the spotlight he gives them in Jazz and in the airtime he allowed them on radio. Then again, throughout the interviews in And They All Sang, Terkel's subjects speak freely not only because they have some time to talk but because their interviewer clearly is a musical autodidact. He's not just well-informed but wide open to all forms of music, asking questions of Janis Joplin (they talk about primitive inspirations vs. new technologies) and Keith Jarrett (they discuss his piano technique) that are as thoughtful and insightful as those he lobs at Sol Jurok (the impresario discusses singer Feodor Chaliapin) and Leonard Bernstein (the two share a moment of discovery about Terkel's performance as Editor Daily in "The Cradle Will Rock"). In other words, Terkel's not just a fan with a chat show. He listens, in every sense of the word. And that's the rare talent that made his own career worthy of countless media interviews. But again, this is not oral history. This, at least in the case of And They All Sang, is transcribed radio where conversations, driven by time constraints, often are incomplete. And sometimes they make a difficult read. Sitar player Ravi Shankar, for instance, discusses Indian music this way: "Based on this scale, this raga has its own ascending, descending movements. I'll just give you a little example. [He plays] This is equivalent to the major scale, for instance. [He plays] On each of these scales, we have got hundreds of ragas. [He plays] What I'm playing actually are the skeletons of the ragas, known as the ascending and descending movements." Bet those brackets sounded great on the air, but they're hardly enlightening on the page. Jazz, however, is deceptively alluring, presenting itself as dry facts but carefully crafted so as to suck you into the intoxicating brew of history — and its meanings. Sitting down with this book and an iTunes account makes for an exciting survey course in jazz music, which continues to evolve. But Terkel, who wrote the book in 1957 and updated it in 1975, explains at the end, in the final chapter "Jazz Is the Music of Many," why he chose these 13 players and singers: "In a number of cases the lives and careers of these men [and women] intertwined. In all cases their music did. For the story of jazz cannot be confined to one era or to one style. It is a story of continuous growth. . . . Jazz is one long chain. The lives and the music of these 13 artists are among its major links." By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Perhaps you, too, have condemned the lack of new ideas coming out of Hollywood in recent years (or decades). The endless sequels. Ghastly remakes. Movies that turn into stage musicals and then back into movie musicals. But one corporate rehash actually hit the bull's-eye. The Sci Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica" not only improved on its original source material, it made it forgettable. People have even stopped mentioning the original 1979 series when discussing the current edition. I regret having brought it up now. Forget I said anything. There was no original show. For sheer hot science friction, Sci Fi's "Battlestar Galactica" rivals ABC's "Lost." As both shows enter their third seasons this week, there are easy comparisons, not the least of which is that neither suffered a sophomore slump, and both still appear to have endless source material from which to spin creepy, conspiratorial dramas. In fact, "Galactica" could hang on far longer than "Lost." Its Odyssian tale is a thousand times more universal than ABC's sadistic experiment. Season 3 of "Galactica" opens with timeless (and, given current world affairs, possibly timely) issues. The humans ran from the insidious Cylons — manmade machines that rebeled, evolved into flesh-and-blood models and now want to make babies — and thought they'd found a hidey hole on a distant planet. Season 2 ended with the Cylons showing up and offering a truce. Make that "truce." As with any dominant power offering to shepherd a weaker one (think Saddam and his Iraqis, Hitler and his Jews), the assurances don't go far when the barbed wire is unstrung. Season 3 finds an active human resistance at work. Cylon squads are "disappearing" innocent people (including the feisty Starbuck, whose cell mate is one highly twisted Cylon with a biological clock). Humans are recruited to police their own kind, and the word "collaborator" becomes an epithet. Enhancing its populist approach, the new season brings side characters to the fore, making the crusty Col. Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan) into the series' most engaging and complex individual. Leading the resistance fighters, he has to make some hard choices, and his vision becomes compromised. (That's a crude joke, really.) While the Adamas — Cmdr. Lee (the normally hunky Jamie Bamber, whose softened character wears an unfortunate fat suit) and Adm. William (Edward James Olmos, whose part seems alarmingly diminished in the premiere) — are light years away from figuring out how (or whether) to rescue their brethren, the people on the ground face the religiously fanatic Cylons head on. But what's encouraging is that once the two-part premiere passes and the dust from its action settles, the show digs right into fresh ground in the third show on Oct. 20. Lines between good guys and bad are further blurred, and still everyone blathers on about having kids. But with a new twist. It beats the hell out of ABC's seemingly endless tropical weirdness. When you give up on that mind game — who's the lab rat in that show: the characters or the viewers? — climb aboard "Galactica." They need the population, literally and figuratively. If TV made more shows like this, all would not be lost. 'BATTLESTAR GALACTICA' ★★★1/2 8 to 10 tonight, then 8 to 9 p.m. on future Fridays on the Sci Fi Channel. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Perhaps it's not easy to imagine Woody Guthrie, dusty poet of Okies and union workers everywhere, scarfing down a bagel in a boxcar. Or saying prayers during Rosh Hashana (which begins at sundown Friday). Or managing to secure a flimsy yarmulke to the untamed, wiry shrub that was his hair. But in the latest project to emerge from the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, now in its 10th year of maintaining and redeploying the late folk singer's immense body of work, we are reminded that the man we think of as the quintessential Okie actually spent the bulk of his life based and living in New York City — specifically out on Coney Island with his wife, Marjorie, and their three children, Nora, Arlo and Joady. It was there the insatiably curious songwriter hung out with the community's immigrant Jews and spent Fridays eating Sabbath dinners at the home of his mother-in-law, renowned Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt. As a result, among the piles and boxes of scrawled and typed lyrics in the Guthrie archives are numerous ruminations on Jewish life, namely a carefree bunch of Hanukkah songs — "Honeyky Hanuka," "(Do the) Latke Flip-Flip," "Spin Dreydl Spin," among others — and other observations. The song "Mermaid's Avenue," a possessive spin on the Coney Island street where the Guthries lived, describes the spot as "where the lox and bagels meet / where the halvah meets the pickle / where the sour meets the sweet." And just as the "Mermaid Avenue" albums in the late '90s by British folk-rocker Billy Bragg and the now Chicago-based band Wilco reinvigorated two batches of lost, tuneless Guthrie lyrics, these Jewish-inspired songs now find new tunes and new life on another two records by a single band: "Wonder Wheel" and "Happy Joyous Hanukkah" by the Klezmatics, America's premier klezmer group, both released this month. Multicultural, multispiritual What is the common reaction to news that the latest Woody Guthrie record is a set of klezmer music? Nora Guthrie, who runs the Archives, says she gets a lot of, "Oy vey! Vat are you, meshuganah?!" Keep in mind, Woody — raised in Protestant Oklahoma, self-taught the works of Kalil Gibran and the sayings of Buddah, then plopped down in a fiercely Jewish neighborhood in New York — was a catholic (lowercase, not uppercase) believer. In the '30s and '40s, paperwork at hospitals and in the armed services still had blanks where one filled in one's particular religion; Woody, ever the populist, inevitably wrote down, "All or none." "So, in this sense," Nora wrote, in an e-mail exchange last week from Germany, where she's touring with Arlo, "this is just another soundtrack to 'growing up Guthrie.' We also lived down the block from the Gotti family in Howard Beach, as well, where Sammy the Bull and Louie the Beard were regulars on the block. Victoria, too! So we probably could have included a little 'Return to Sorrento,' as well, ha ha. OK, for my next album: ' "The Sopranos" Sing Woody Guthrie.' " She jokes, but this has been Nora's serious mission with the archives. She seeks not to obliterate the primary cultural image of her father, but simply to broaden it, deepen it, color it. Klezmatics singer Lorin Sklamberg, himself a sound archivist at New York's Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, said in a phone interview last week, "Most people think he's the Dust Bowl balladeer, and his songs have this color associated with them — everything in sepia. It makes me think of how Jews have been represented in films. From 'Yentl' to 'A Stranger Among Us' and 'The Chosen,' Jews are always lit with this eerie, brownish, golden glow. A friend of mine talked about how every time she opens a book [in 'Yentl'] 10,000 watts of light comes out. ... These songs of Woody's are more technicolor." On a full stomach Life in the '40s among the immigrants on Coney Island was naturally colorful. As Vivien Goldman writes in the liner notes to "Wonder Wheel," Woody would take Nora on "morning walks down the boardwalk to have breakfast at Nathan's with her father, who usually wore his favorite white T-shirt. The affable fruit peddler tossed her a plum as she passed, and greetings were exchanged with the owner of the corner store, whose phone was used by the whole neighborhood. It was all enchanting to Woody — the old men playing chess and arguing in Yiddish, the Jewish meydeles splashing in the chilly waves." The song "Mermaid's Avenue," the lead track on "Wonder Wheel," celebrates the joyous, carnival-like atmosphere of Coney Island, describing people eating German, Jewish and American food all along the historic boardwalk. The culinary focus is key for Nora's memories of the Jewish side of her upbringing. "Jewish [to us] meant eating!" Nora wrote. "Friday night, Sabbath, home-cooked dinners at Bubbie's [their nickname for grandma Greenblatt], with blintzes, latkes, sweet and sour meatballs, herring, matzah ... So we knew about the food, the holidays. We celebrated Hanukkah with the 'Hanukkah fairy,' which my parents made up. She went around with Santa delivering the presents. We would leave a large plate of cookies and milk for Santa, and a teeny-tiny little plate with a cookie for the Hanukkah fairy ... and we had a Hanukkah Tree, a k a, a Christmas tree." Kindred spirits The seed for this surprising collaboration germinated after Nora met the Klezmatics at the Tanglewood music festival in Boston. "The way I remember it," Sklamberg said, "we were playing at Tanglewood with Itzhak Perlman about seven years ago. Afterwards, I recognized Nora in the crowd and introduced myself. I said, 'We play one of your grandmother's songs,' and she didn't know that. I asked her if she'd like to meet Itzhak, and she came onto the stage and I introduced them. I said, 'She's the granddaughter of Aliza Greenblatt' — which she found funny because all her life she's been Arlo's sister or Woody's daughter." Nora mentioned that, while organizing Woody's papers for what was then the new archives, she'd discovered several Jewish songs. Later, she sent some to the Klezmatics to review. "She sent us not just Hanukkah songs but songs about the cultural life in Coney Island, anti-fascism things, other stuff she thought would be good match for us," Sklamberg said. "One song I was interested in was called 'Headdy Down,' a lullaby for Arlo and [the other brother] Joady. It has these Yiddishisms in the song that are really cool. You don't expect to see Yiddishized words in a Woody Guthrie song, but there they were." He means taking the name Joady and making it "Jodulah," as Woody did in these lyrics. "Joady, lay your head down," the song goes, "Keppy down, Kepula." "All these Yiddish diminutives — the only way he would have known them is from Marjorie's mother," he said. "He turned one version of the Christmas song 'Children Go Where I Send Thee' into 'Happy Joyous Hanuka,' taking all these characters from the Bible — some having to do with Hanukkah, others having absolutely nothing to do with it — and he puts them all into this song. 'One for Moses on the Mount,' he wrote, which has nothing to do with Hanukkah. ... It's this funny, endearing kind of outsider's attempt at making a Jewish song." THE KLEZMATICS With La Mar Enfortuna When: 7:30 tonight Where: Park West, 322 W. Armitage Tickets: $15 Call: (312) 559-1212 By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times He lost a job, struggled to feed his family and borrowed thousands from relatives before giving up and heeding his original calling: the ministry. Today, he's the Rev. Ed McCoy, pastor of the New Harmony Baptist Church in Detroit, but 40 years ago — in an era he dismisses casually as "a whole other life, a whole different time" — he was a record producer at one of the best times to have such a title and in one of the nation's hottest musical centers. But the audience for his rhythm-and-blues records rarely grew beyond the five-block radius of his makeshift warehouse studio, and scores of hot soul singles went unheard. "Until now!" exclaims Ken Shipley, cheekily heralding the expected turning point in such a story. He's the turning point, in fact. Shipley, along with Tom Lunt and Rob Sevier, his mates at The Numero Group record label, has made it his mission to unearth such lost musical gems from around the country and give them a second chance via a smartly curated and beautifully packaged series of CDs. McCoy's story is moving, but it's a snowflake on the tip of an iceberg. The landscape of America is littered (often literally) with the broken dreams and broken platters of musicians and backers who made great music that, because of whatever vagaries of the business or their personal lives, never saw the proverbial light of day. Numero No. 008 (each title is numbered, thus the label's name) is "Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From the Canyon," a roundup of '60s and '70s female folksingers who cut albums in church basements and whose scuffed LPs might be found only in Salvation Army thrift shops. No. 007 summed up the influential but briefly lived Deep City label in Miami. Numero's third collection chronicled Chicago's own Bandit label, a doomed effort of the late Arrow Brown but a powder keg packed with explosive soul. No one's kidding themselves that landing a track on a Numero compilation offers a new chance at stardom, but many of the artists — fine performers who simply missed the music business boat the first time out — are grateful someone out there finally might hear and appreciate their tunes. "Becky [Severson] was so surprised when we contacted her," Shipley says of the singer whose simply strummed, Joan Baez-inspired "A Special Path" opens the "Ladies From the Canyon" CD. "She didn't think anyone ever cared. ... I mean, we're not anyone's savior here, but it's nice." Where in the world is ...? Finding an artist like Becky Severson, however, takes determination and detective work. If the Numero Group never turns a profit, its founders can moonlight as gumshoes. Shipley's Bucktown apartment is piled with vinyl records. As he talks about each Numero Group CD, he doesn't point to or play from the digital tracks — he's grabbing LPs and 45s out of rickety crates and throwing them on his turntable, sometimes with a preface such as, "You gotta hear this one — it'll destroy your brain!" These are the platters that feed and form each compilation. He presents Severson's LP, a homemade relic from the age of "Godspell" graphic design. "We love ['A Special Path'], and we knew we wanted to lead the CD with it, but we had no idea how to get a hold of her," Shipley says of Severson. Then, pointing to various elements of the album's liner notes, he explains the "CSI" process that precedes the addition of almost every track to a Numero CD. The ladies from this "Canyon" were particularly difficult to find, given that most had married and taken new last names during the last three or more decades. "See, it was recorded at Studio A in St. Paul. We Googled 'Severson' and found 10 in Minnesota, and called them. None of them were her. "We narrowed it down to St. Cloud [Minn.] and called every Severson in the book. The 24th of 25 that we called was her father. He's an 80-year-old guy who lives an hour away from her. He says he's got 500 copies of the record in his attic." The same process unearthed Judy Tomlinson. The title track to her "Window" LP, recorded as Judy Kelly, is a centerpiece of "Ladies From the Canyon," a soaring, early-Joni Mitchell metaphor of vision with voice and piano. If you're reading this and your name happens to be Judy Kelly, you already know this part of the hunt. "We called every Judy Kelly [listed] in the United States," Shipley says. "It took a lot of detective work to find me," Tomlinson wrote to the Sun-Times in an e-mail. "God has a way of working things out, but I'm still completely amazed that two guys from Chicago knew about me and the 'Window' album and had taken the time and trouble to track me down." Caroline Peyton's soulful "Engram" made the CD, though she was easier to find. Peyton's tracks are all over Chicago — a theater student at Northwestern University in the late '60s, she wound up with a stage career that included "The Pirates of Penzance" here beginning in 1981. "James Belushi was our pirate king," she says, "and we were there when his brother John died." Shipley relishes his discoveries. "They don't know this stuff his value," he says. "Most of them have forgotten about it. This is a long-gone part of their lives. My challenge is: There's a million records out there — let's find the best. Anyone could throw an unheard-gospel compilation together, but let's be the guys who assemble the best lost treasures." He'll be on his way Ed McCoy's phone had rung off and on since the '80s with people trying to get their hands on his stash. A few singles from his fledgling Big Mack label had managed to travel and impress a few other archive label owners. "One of the songs we did had become a cult classic in Europe, a collector's item — 'I'll Be on My Way,' by Bob and Fred," McCoy says. The song, recorded by McCoy in '66, is on Numero No. 009, "Eccentric Soul: The Big Mack Label," which comes out Tuesday. "For a number of years this has been going on. ... I told 'em, 'I'm just not in that line now.' ... The Numero boys, they came with a plan, and we said, 'OK, fine.' It's not an issue I'm looking to get rich on. If it does something, fine. If not, OK." McCoy got into the record business in his native Detroit without stars in his eyes. A social worker for the city of Detroit and married with kids by his early 20s, McCoy needed to supplement his income. Fellow Detroiter Berry Gordy was scoring big hits at Motown. McCoy thought: Why not? To get his side business as a record producer started, McCoy borrowed $1,000 from his dad in 1961. Then, realizing his passion for the music was significantly stronger than that for his city job, he decided to make it more than a side business. "I walked into the house on a Friday and told my wife I quit my job," he says. "We had a kid and one on the way, and a big house note. I went out and cut four or five sides, spent all of the thousand dollars. I had no idea what I was doing. I thought all you had to do was record it and get it done and go back and collect your money. But no promotion, no money. I was losing my shirt." He went back to work for the city — in fact, he also picked up another job, working nights at Chrysler Motors, then later bought into a franchise of ice cream trucks — but he also managed to get use of a vacant building on Detroit's Warren Street for McCoy Recording & Distribution, which included three different labels: R&B and soul on Big Mack Records, blue-eyed soul on Wildcat Records and gospel on Brighter Day Records. The Numero compilation chronicles a decade of scorching soul singles at Big Mack, from '63 to '72. The sound of the singles — the "pure car chase" of "Bui Bui" by L. Hollis & the Mackadoos, the off-the-wall "Why Should I Cry?" by the purposefully misspelled Manhattens, the "Animal House"-like stomp of the Sleepwalkers' "Mini Skirt" — is the sound of transition. These are Detroit singers, saturated in the moment of Motown but beginning to hear the grittier soul records coming out of the South. "A lotta good folks came through there," McCoy says. Anyone could walk in off Warren Street and record a one-take, one-off song for $14.95. McCoy took all comers. "Folks were in that building every day rehearsing and working, and I didn't have any money. How the heck did we get it done? Why were these people hanging around? To do it now, I'd need a million dollars. But I'm one of these crazy folk. I dare." McCoy closed down the recording company in 1981 to become a pastor, which has been his main method of making joyful noise for the last 17 years. But he's still in a band — a gospel band. And they're about to record a CD. "But, you know, I'm content with this life. That's why we talked with these [Numero] guys so long," he says. "It's not anything I felt we had to do. It's just what we did. I can't help but be flattered by their interest. ... And if folks out there get to hear the music, even after all these years, well then, we did it. It took us longer than most, but we did it." |
Thomas Conner
These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office. Archives
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