By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Where you been? I haven't seen you for weeks You've been hanging out with all those Jesus freaks Oh, yeah, and I feel like giving in ... — Felt, "Ballad of the Band" Josh Caterer sits in a leather armchair at Uncommon Ground, trying to figure out how to drink his hot chocolate. He sat down not knowing what he wanted, ordered this drink on a whim, and now it's a bit more than he bargained for — a wide soup bowl of cinnamon-dusted, frothy hedonism (in any other context, I'd remark on how sinful it looks) and it's got no handle. Whipped cream is piled high and is deflating over the brim. To get what he wants, he's going to have to abandon a few expectations. But this is the prodigal son of Chicago rock, a wide-eyed searcher who broke up his band, the Smoking Popes, on the cusp of national stardom and chucked his rock records to find what he wanted in a newfound Christian faith. Now, seven years later — having searched and researched his soul, started a separate Christian band called Duvall and become a father of two — here he is slurping cocoa and matter-of-factly discussing how he's managed to compartmentalize his religious and rockin' ambitions well enough to return to the devil's music. He's revived the Popes, they're having a blast in practice, and they might write a new album. The reunion show this week at Metro — originally scheduled as a one-off, a test, a lark — sold out in 36 minutes, so now there's talk of a tour. He's blessed. He hefts the bowl with both hands and sinks his nose into the foam. "At the time," Josh says, wiping away the mustache, "the best way to respond to my decision to follow Christ was to quit the band. I did it with a sense of permanence. But my understanding of the faith has grown to the point where I can see how to encompass the Popes. On the one hand, I can do it without compromising my faith; on the other, I can do it without using the Popes as a platform for expressing my faith." So relax, kids. No altar calls at the rock show. Not that Josh didn't try that before the breakup. For the encores in '98, the band would return to play "I Know You Love Me," and Josh would discuss his newfound faith, a moment captured on the band's posthumous 2000 live album. You can almost hear the crowd shudder — not because they're necessarily a bunch of pagans but because suddenly Josh was Debby Boone, explaining that the "you" in "You Light Up My Life" was really Jesus and, well, few things can deflate a concert at a rock club near the witching hour quite like a little heartfelt evangelism. (Plus, the mind began to reel: Did the band's other perfectly romantic songs now have religious overtones? "You Spoke to Me"? "Let Them Die"? "Paul"? Had we been tricked?) "That went over better than you might expect, though," Josh says of his attempted homilies. "I never had anything thrown at me." • • • We hadn't been tricked, he assures. The songs are as secular and seductive as we thought they were. But as he became swept up in Christianity — a result of years of searching for spiritual significance, from Buddhism to the Bible — it became clear the Popes were not the platform to make that particular joyful noise. Because Josh had little to no religious upbringing, his new insights were overwhelming. He didn't know how to balance the new life with the old. All he could think to do was eliminate the old one. It was written. The guy who led a band with albums titled "Get Fired," "Born to Quit," "Destination Failure" and "The Party's Over" finally called it a day. "It was a process over about a year," says Eli Caterer, Josh's brother and the Popes' guitarist. (The band also includes another Caterer brother, Matt, on bass, and a new drummer, Rob Kellenberger.) "Josh had become born again, and we started talking about it in practices. We started bringing it up with him, and eventually he started saying, 'Yeah, yeah, I can't keep doing this.' Josh is the kind of guy who likes having one-on-one meetings with people, and that's how he told us he wanted out. That's also how he got the band back together." And he didn't just quit the band. He quit the life. He threw out his Zeppelin records. And the AC/DC, the Ramones, the Buzzcocks (which he describes with a phrase often ascribed to the Popes: "great melodic pop with a touch of melancholy") — all of it went into the bin. He stopped going to clubs. He switched off the TV. It's a typical response of brand-new Christians, he's found, but perhaps it's especially ironic in Josh's case. He had not just listened to rock records and shaken a fist or two in his time; he'd tried to emulate them — an act that carries its own particular messianic overtones. In "You Spoke to Me," from the Smoking Popes' second disc, "Destination Failure," Josh sings from the perspective of fans who see their music idols as golden gods: "I don't know if you actually saved my life — but you changed it, that's for sure." "That song's about being on tour with Jawbreaker and hearing the things people would say to Blake [Schwarzenbach, the singer] when they got to meet him," Josh says. "They said crazy things. With tears in their eyes, they'd be gushing about the importance of his music in their lives, how they wouldn't be here without him. I was so struck by that, by the way this music affected people. "My faith now has allowed me to sort of shift the importance I place on music and the lens I look at it through. Before, I think I saw music in some way like that — as some means to connect to something greater. There is that larger spiritual significance to making music, and music itself tends to have a religious quality, even if you're not an ordinarily religious person. But coming to know Christ, I understand that music can be used as a tool to worship and can help you in your religious experience — but maybe it's not that experience itself." That's the discovery that set him free, he says. He's not the messiah — and now that he believes who is, the pressure's off. The real one, in his mind, can worry about the saving of lives. Josh maybe can change a few. And he can work at music again for what it is, a means instead of an end. "The thing I want now is God," he says, finishing the hot chocolate and smacking his lips, "so music is finally something to be enjoyed." • • • In 1997, the Smoking Popes toured nationally as an opener for another act who regularly hears the praise of a fervent flock: Morrissey (who had gushed about "Born to Quit" that July on KROQ in Los Angeles: "I bought the album, and I just thought it was extraordinary — the most lovable thing I'd heard for years. I think he has a great voice. Are they big here?"). The Popes and Morrissey's new band were both units marrying driving, buzzsaw guitars to lyrics that are quite clever though often hastily judged by their surface melancholy. Josh, the Moz — one ticket, two tortured romantics. And both can croon cream into butter. When discussing his band's sound, Josh uses a surprising word: "loungey." It's surprising, given some of the breakneck tempos and the buzzsaw guitars. It also may have been a description surprising to fans until the band's last studio record, the prophetically titled "The Party's Over" — a collection of 10 pre-Beatles pop standards. That album, Josh says, despite being an intentional record contract buster for the band, was the zenith of one of the band's rollicking musical experiments. "I guess people thought the whole loungey thing we did was tongue-in-cheek," he says, cocking his head quizzically. "By the time we made that covers album, I guess they knew we were sincere. It took me a few years to be confident enough to attempt that vibrato. I started in punk bands in garages, basically yelling. When we recorded [our indie debut] 'Get Fired,' the last song I did vocals for was 'Let's Hear It for Love.' And, you know, when I'm alone or in the shower or something, I sing with an exaggerated vibrato. I thought, 'Let's lay down a track of me singing like that.' I did, and we laughed — but we thought it was cool enough to leave it." By the next album, "Born to Quit," which would become the band's debut for Capitol Records, Josh was pushing the loungey singing on every track. Josh was tapping into something he did get growing up: an appreciation of standards. When he started writing songs at age 11, he was doing so out of a fondness for ... "The Music Man." "Goodnight, my someone; goodnight, my love," he half-sings, half-reminisces. "You can play three chords under that. I was figuring those out on the guitar. Even at that age, I was beginning to appreciate the timeless quality of that music. I could recognize that that kind of songwriting had a substance that transcended musical trends. It's not just that Sinatra was a stylish guy that we still listen to his music. If the melody is strong enough, and the lyrical content has an emotional quality that can touch people in a meaningful way, then the songs sound good 10, 20 years later, regardless of the recording quality." • • • It's not been 10 years since the Popes wound down, but the band's following seems to have held steady, even grown. The Popes' strong melodies and emotional lyrics seem to be doing their job. "Being in Duvall, Josh and I were always surprised when young people would come to those shows because they didn't find the Popes until after we broke up," Eli says. "People were still finding out about us. The music was still out there doing its thing. It didn't just end when we unplugged it. The fan base is still growing. It seems to have a life of its own." "I could never tell how widespread it was. There's always that chance you're living in a bubble," Josh says. Then, noting the sold-out show at Metro, he says, "Well, now we know the bubble is at least big enough to contain 1,100 people." The Popes also played their part, however big or small, in influencing Chicago's current crop of pop-punks. The Popes' new bio quotes Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, saying, "After Naked Raygun, Chicago was the Smoking Popes. They were the Alkaline Trio before Alkaline Trio; they were Fall Out Boy before Fall Out Boy." Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio adds: "The Smoking Popes were a good band that only wrote good songs. They have always been a big influence on Alkaline Trio and are a huge reason a lot of us started bands in the first place. I can't wait to see them again — I hope they play 'Brand New Hairstyle.'" Josh confirms that a tour is being planned, probably to support a new collection of the band's hits or some out-of-print material. And the Popes plan to try some new songs. But likely not in this week's show. "This show is really an attempt to reignite the flame we had going when we broke up," Josh says. "It shouldn't be hard to re-establish ourselves as the band eternally about to break." The Smoking Popes with Bella lea When: 11 p.m. Friday Where: Metro, 3710 N. Clark Tickets: Sold out Phone: (773) 549-0203 Duvall to Remain a Faith-Fueled Band After Josh Caterer found religion and dismantled the Smoking Popes, he wasn't done with music altogether. Instead of keeping the Popes around as a mouthpiece for his new spiritual notions, he formed a new combo for that purpose called Duvall. Duvall released two CDs, "Volume and Density" in 2003 and a Christmas record, "Oh Holy Night," in 2004, both on the Asian Man label. Now that the Popes are resurrected, Duvall will continue, though in what capacity or frequency Josh is not entirely sure. "When I was ready to come back to rock, I didn't want to start with the Popes," Josh says. "I wanted to express things I couldn't in the Popes. That's why I put Duvall together. I'll keep doing that. It'll be my outlet for that kind of expression." His brother Eli — a fellow Pope and a founding member of Duvall — thinks that's the best plan, even though in March, he left Duvall, for similar reasons (though opposite philosophies) that caused Josh to bail on the Popes. "Duvall had been riding this fence," Eli said. "Initially, Josh was ambiguous about his faith, then he realized he wanted to be more open about it. But we were still playing these secular shows. It was a conflict. Now he wants to be open and singing about faith and Jesus and stuff, which I totally support, but since I'm not actually a Christian, I felt like I couldn't do it, to be promoting beliefs I don't really believe in." Josh says he's waiting to see how the Popes revival shapes up before figuring out what his next move will be in Duvall. By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times Slah-oan! Slah-oan! The stage was set and the natives were restless. The chant started slowly. At first it was in perfect harmony with the song playing over the PA, almost as if it were a backing track. But the song ended and the chant continued — as if this were a European soccer match or a Morrissey concert. Next, darkness, shadows ambled into position, then a snare drum rolled and everything just exploded. Sloan is the Canadian Fab Four, a powerhouse quartet that writes well and rocks hard. Fifteen years into a career of sorts, and here they were Thursday night back in Chicago celebrating an unusually refreshing look backward — the release of "A Sides Win," an astonishingly solid singles collection reaching back to 1992. Back then, Geffen Records was trying to turn them into Sonic Youth when all they really wanted to be was Cheap Trick. (From the stage on Thursday, bassist Chris Murphy referred to Robin Zander "the best singer in America.") Fortunately, they became much more — without, thus far, anything resembling "The Flame" (shudder) — and turned the Beatles' fully cocked "Revolver" rock 'n' roll legacy into an experience more fun, more clever and more honest than every band in the mid-'90s "power-pop revival" put together and turned up to 11. Thursday's show at the Double Door — where they last played, they kept reminding us, years ago when they opened for Jale (who? exactly) — was an unapologetic romp through the greatest hits. Given the band's exuberance and the fans' unwavering devotion — Slah-oan! Slah-oan! ... it kept going throughout the show — it was an approach that never seemed calculated to sell the latest record. They played the hits (in Canada, where their second album was voted the greatest disc of all time, yes, they have hits) because they are, indeed, great songs. No one in the crowd cried out for obscure album tracks. Many clapped along long before they were asked to (each incidence of which somehow, at least through these rose-colored lenses, was utterly free of the usual cliches). Every song elicited whoops and cheers and wild movement by the kind of geeky rock fans who are not prone to grace in such contexts. It was easy to imagine the Double Door as the UIC Pavilion. Here's a band that missed the era that would have embraced it with arena arms. Opening with "Losing California," with guitarist Patrick Pentland craning his neck to accommodate a mike stand too tall for him, Sloan crashed through its A-list, covering nearly all of the greatest-hits package — a maniacal "Money City Maniacs," a stomping "She Says What She Means," closing with the frenetic, two-minute rush of "The Good in Everyone." Sloan didn't begin its career quite as rawk as it's become, an evolution that was obvious when, after blasting through a half dozen breathless scorchers, they were a bit too out of breath to handle the delicate harmonies of one of their first singles, "Coax Me." And when everyone but Pentland switched instruments so that drummer Andrew Scott could play guitar and sing a couple of his songs — all four members write and sing, like Teenage Fanclub — his slow, carefully colored dirge-ballad was an interesting and, admittedly, welcome island in the testosterone flood. Those who claim that rock is dead simply don't understand the compartmentalized playing field of 21st century popular culture. It ain't dead, it's just been put into its place. But that doesn't mean it's any less thrilling when you dive in. Just listen to the fans spilling out of the Double Door, still chanting. Slah-oan! Slah-oan! Sloan at the Double Door By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times When New Order finished playing "Transmission" — a quirky song by New Order's doomed, post-punk predecessor, Joy Division — singer Bernard Sumner hissed and said, "Enough of that rock s---! We want you to start dancing!" And, true to the band's hits-heavy set, they launched into "True Faith" as if it were a brand-new nightclub sensation. Like most of the set Tuesday night at the Aragon Ballroom, these were songs they seemed obliged to play. God forbid a New Order concert should pass without "True Faith," "Bizarre Love Triangle" and the requisite Joy Division chestnut. But during "Transmission," something happened that makes New Order shows still worth seeing after (gulp) a quarter of a century. This band — a British outfit we sometimes know more from dance floors and John Hughes movie soundtracks — actually rocked. Sumner matched the songs' quaint but deceptively foreboding mood with uncharacteristic growling and gurgling (it's a bit low for his range), while bassist Peter Hook barked and shrieked randomly. And for a few minutes, the New Order experience was about pogoing and pumping fists rather than twirling and dancing. Post-punk, indeed. Tuesday's energetic show was spiced with such moments. Given that the band's live incarnation is a genuine guitar-bass-drums-vocals quartet, the occasional use of pre-recorded synthesizers and beats seemed surprisingly intrusive. The best songs were those that allowed guitarist Phil Cunningham to cut loose ("Regret," "Crystal") and let Hook show off his chiming namesake hooks in soloing poses at the edge of the stage (nearly every song, but especially the new "Hey Now What You Doing" and the opener, "Love Vigilantes"). Hook was manic, and once again he proved to be an invaluable asset in the band's attack — something not said about many bass players. Looking like a bedraggled Alan Rickman, Hook prowled the spotlight all night, plucking out the alarmingly simple bass melodies that make New Order, like so many of the British bands from that early '80s era, sound as good in concert and on the dance floor as it does in the car or on an iPod. Sometimes he's providing the groove, sometimes he's taking the melody, often he's doing both. Again, this magic peaked during a Joy Division song, the classic "Love Will Tear Us Apart." It had its typically lumbering moments, but when Hook stopped bellowing indecipherably, dropped the melody and started grinding into his black bass next to drummer Stephen Morris' explosive kit, the two sparked some crackling fire, which Hook tamed to the end with an absurd but wildly cheered one-note solo back at stage's edge. Sumner introduced all the songs — no suspense, no pretensions — cracked jokes and thanked Chicago for waiting 12 years since the band's last local show. And, really, it's that down-to-earth attitude that makes New Order still so engaging at this late date. The band didn't break new ground, by any means, but it rocked — no extended remix required. New Order at the Aragon Ballroom BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Danny Fallis just doesn't get it. The new Web site for his band, Tall Tales, recently went online and already fans are contacting him by email to request copies of the old cassettes — "Crime in a Bucket," "Your Analysis" and "Damn Kat." "Who in the world is looking for 'Your Analysis'?" he wondered aloud recently. For most has-been college party bands, that momentary curiosity would simply be a funny moment in an otherwise adult day. For Tall Tales, however, it's new encouragement. They are, indeed, a has-been college party band — four Tulsa natives who were a hit in Norman throughout the early '90s — but they've also reunited and recorded a new CD, "Pot Pie." "It's absurd," Fallis snorts. "Our great rock 'n' roll reunion? Please. There are no false expectations from this. It's all joking and fun." Tall Tales was always thus — a smart-aleck foursome that often performed in pajamas and sang quirky, throw-away ditties such as "Sheeps a-Grazin'," "Me So Horny," "Dead Kids on the Block" and "Bruised Banana." But they were popular, filling Norman clubs such as Rome XC and Mr. Bill's, and by '93 they had several major record labels spinning what would be the band's last recording before breaking up, the CD "69 Minutes." Fallis remembers how close the band came to the big time. "When was that? Yeah, Valentine's Day, 1993," he said. "We were supposed to play at Kelly's (a Norman nightclub) with Bunnies of Doom opening. "Tyson (Meade, leader of the Chainsaw Kittens) and I were driving to the gig from my pre-party, and we couldn't find any parking. We get closer to the club, and I can't get in. I was like, 'What's going on here tonight?' "I finally got backstage, and we got into our pajamas and animal slippers. We start the show, lead into 'Cousins,' and I look out and see people standing all the way to the back, with more outside trying to get in. I thought, 'This is what we wanted.' "And a month later, Rob tells us he's going to Russia." Tall Tales guitarist Rob Reid left the Norman-based band of Tulsa natives for a post-graduate program in Russia and, basically, didn't come back. He wound up in New York, making records as Bob Bob Bob, and spending the next decade trotting the globe as a writer for Lonely Planet travel guides. Fallis soldiered on with Tall Tales — long enough for two of the band's tracks to land with N.O.T.A., Brother Inferior, Pitbulls on Crack and others on the 1995 Tulsa rock compilation "Rhythm of Damage" — but things, as they do, eventually fell apart. (Greg Dobbs, who replaced Reid, is also part of the reunion effort.) However, Reid's travel-writing trips brought him through Oklahoma in 2000, and he called Tall Tales drummer Alan Hiserodt in Norman. Hiserodt has remained active in the ever-changing Norman music scene, also drumming now in the pop-rock band Klipspringer. Bassist Mitch Newlin also was in town, married and still writing the kind of funny-ha-ha (OK, sophomoric) songs for which Tall Tales was briefly famous. (One of Newlin's ditties, "Lost My Penis," was voted "song of the year" in 1999 by the Oklahoma Daily newspaper at the University of Oklahoma.) He was up for a jam with his old bandmates. Suddenly, Fallis was driving to Norman, and Tall Tales was a band again — writing and recording new songs, no less. "I hadn't done music in so long," Fallis said during an interview at the end of his shift at a Tulsa advertising agency. "I knew I would revisit it eventually, but I got so busy in my life. Then Rob calls me, wanting me to do this. . . . I was nervous. I hadn't sung in six years. I was trying to sing in the car on the way to Norman, knowing this would be happening. I'd go into these coughing fits. "We started playing, and we didn't play one old song. We started writing. After an hour it was as if we'd never stopped." He paused, gazed into his beer. "It's scary to think about what would've happened if we hadn't stopped." The chemistry was immediate; the recording process, well — it started four years ago. "I liked the old days when a weekend, a faulty four-track and 58 beers meant a Monday morning EP," Reid said in a recent email from his home in New York City. "It's taken us longer than the (Pink) Floyd to do something built around my hasty, flip, off-handed progressions. I'm not 100 percent comfortable with such a setting. You only get one comeback — not that anyone's waiting for it." "Pot Pie" finds the band capturing that former, reckless spirit. The song titles give it away: "UFO," "Hi-Def TV," "Liver and Onions," "Psychic Hotline Girls," "(Never Go Outside While There's A) Nuclear War" and more. And who will seek out this album? "Well, that one guy who wants 'Your Analysis' — I'll bet he'll buy the new one, too," Fallis said. Believe it or not, Fallis says the band already has finished half of a "second reunion CD." "Pot Pie" is now available through the band's Web site, www.talltales.info. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Rod Bryan keeps the Little Rock faithful alert to his Anthro-Pop record-shop inventory through an online message board. His occasional missives wear his attitude on their e-sleeve. "Please disregard above adverts," his online "blog" advises at the top of the page, referring to the current strip hawking cell phone minutes. "Got a bunch of great used '80s vinyl from the Replacements, XTC, Elvis Costello, the Smiths, the dB's," he announced in December. Then he added, "Also good stuff from Arkansas natives Johnny Cash, Jim Dickinson, Ho-Hum, Jason Morphew ... Levon Helm." Every monthly announcement also mentions the arrival of new records from the Fall. Rod loves the Fall. There's some self-promotion to this. In fact, Anthro-Pop as a whole exists as an outpost of Rod's personal interests. Rod and his brother Lenny are foundation members of Little Rock semi-legendary pop band Ho-Hum, the band that's usually playing on the stereo at Anthro-Pop. It's a band that sounds like all of the above listed cornerstone acts playing at once, particularly if some of the records had been warped by the southern Arkansas sun in the back of Lenny's car. The quartet is comprised of the Bryan brothers — plus relative newcomers Brad Brown and Sam Heard — hulking but otherwise nondescript guys who grew up in Bradley, Ark., a dying town on a forgotten railroad southeast of Texarkana. It's the kind of place where listening to a band like the Minutemen earned frowns from the townsfolk. Selling the same records — and their CD reissues — to a new generation in the capital city is poetic justice. If it trains young ears to like those same sounds that are now muddied and metamorphosized in the aural ambrosia of Ho-Hum, even better. Ho-Hum, on the other hand, has never gotten a break and probably never will. In the old model of the music business, that would be a cryin' shame. In the classified and categorized, segmented and specialized 21st century, it's just business as usual. For whatever it's worth, though, Ho-Hum has its core following. They are anxious, underappreciated fans who will lean into your personal space with set jaws and proselytize fiercely about the most exciting, innovative and invigorating band you've never heard. There aren't enough superlatives in their vocabularies, and — for Ho-Hum — there aren't enough such fans. "We're a word-of-mouth sensation," Rod says. "The place we're playing in Tulsa is, what, 100-capacity?" Influential despite themselves Rod hunkers down behind the counter near the door of Anthro-Pop. It's a pretty standard indie record shop — dig the wall covered with 45's — except that most new homes are built with larger walk-in closets. "It's not quite Championship Vinyl ('High Fidelity')," he says. "There are a bunch of kids that want to hang out here, but there's no room for more than about one or two customers." He fixes turntables on site for extra cash, and frequently he's so involved in fiddling with his digital sampler that he snarls and discourages incoming foot traffic. Today, his conversation has surly undertones. "Even moderate success is worse than anonymity," he declares. "That's where I am today. I mean, we're getting good press on the new record, but all that means is that everybody wants a free copy. We never get paid for these records." The eighth full-length from Ho-Hum, "Near and Dear," was released last fall. Its 11 tracks of typically dense, cleverly arranged, emotive Southern pop have indeed furthered the band's reputation as the best sleeper act south of the Mason-Dixon. This time, review requests came from as far as the New York Press, which touted the music in a rambling review as "extraordinary," "triumphant" and, er, "winsome." More superlatives, and still the Bryans must work day jobs to pay the bills. "I make a lot more money playing in a cheesy cover band than I do in Ho-Hum," Rod says, speaking of the Sugar Kings, the pride of central Arkansas wedding receptions and private parties. "Though I'm sick of playing 'Brown-Eyed Girl.' Even Van Morrison hated that song before it was off the charts." Ho-Hum's street cred, though, is off the charts in Little Rock. At least a half dozen Little Rock bands are currently at work on a Ho-Hum tribute CD. Tulsa favorites the Boondogs are contributing a track, "Funny," from Ho-Hum's 1997 album "Sanduleak." "I think there's a pretty tight group of artists we've influenced regionally," Rod says. "We've gotten into New York and L.A., too, but kind of what we do tends to speak to people around here. I mean, it might speak to more people around the country if we'd ever have any marketing. Even our major-label record had a very ramshackle marketing effort." The end is the beginning OK, there was that one break. After rising through the Arkansas rock scene in the early '90s, Ho-Hum attracted the attention of Tom Lewis, a scout for John Prine's Oh Boy record label. Shortly after, Lewis wound up at Universal Records. He remembered Ho-Hum and offered them a contract. The band recorded its national debut, "Local," at the famed Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. At the production helm were no other than Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (the Smiths, David Bowie, Bush). Universal helped the band tour the continent. The recipe for success could not have been seasoned any better. "But it was a disaster," Lenny says. "I hate that record. I've never liked it." The problem: Langer and Winstanley's production ideas ran contrary to what the Bryan brothers wanted. Under contract for the label, the Bryans had virtually no say in the matter. "Local" was not promoted and wound up in bargain bins by the end of '96. That was not, however, the end of the story. In fact, it was the beginning. The very things that made "Local" difficult to produce and promote remain the things that make Ho-Hum so unique. The frustration they experienced with Universal only strengthened their resolve. They continued making records at home in Arkansas, and their records increasingly sounded like Arkansas. "That was really why 'Local' failed. It's because we wanted to sound like ourselves — like these guys from Bradley," Rod says. "Once we were done, they just wanted us out of the way so the producers could make it sound like New York." "We could have made the jump to live somewhere else, you know?" Lenny ponders. "But I always admired a band like R.E.M. because they were from Georgia and they stayed there. You think of R.E.M., you think of Athens, Ga. You think of the Replacements, you think of Minneapolis. We wanted those terms: to be successful but stay here." It's the same sentiment often expressed by the Flaming Lips, the now famous and respected rock trio that has insisted on basing its operations at home in Oklahoma City. Such stubbornness, usually over time, allows a distinct musical personality to form and grow. Eventually, after cultivating itself in relative isolation, the band sounds like the Next Big Thing. "I mean, I like being a critic's darling," Lenny says. "Our integrity is pretty much intact." Magic mystery four The band's cult breakthrough was, undoubtedly, 1999's "Massacre" on HTS Recordings. The melodies swirl. The emotions heave. The arrangements are so organic they practically make your stereo perspire. "That was the first record that finally sounded like us," Lenny says. "On 'Local' and 'Sanduleak,' we'd have songs that sounded much different, but we wouldn't record them because we thought, 'That's not how we're perceived.' We finally said, 'Let's just do what we want to do,' and that's what became 'Massacre.' " "Our lives were falling apart," Rod says. "Everything was crumbling around us. We had that record to make, and we . . . well, we explored a bit." In 2001, Ho-Hum emerged with "Funny Business," an aptly titled short album that came out of left field and astonished many fans. Gone were the melodies and the organics. In their place: massive synthesized and electronically manipulated sounds. Every note Lenny sings on these five tracks is run through a vocoder. It's "Kid B." "We had gotten sick of things, and I decided to experiment beyond what we could ever reproduce live," Lenny says. "I'd been listening to a lot of Herbie Hancock. Not 'Rockit' Herbie Hancock but '70s Herbie Hancock. And I like Underworld; they use him a lot. "Basically, that record is me trying to destroy Ho-Hum. But they all ended up playing on it, and it found its own distinct audience." Ho-Hum survived to make "Near and Dear," a return to form but replete with electronic flourishes picked up from the "Funny Business" exercise and employed with the band's usual care and subtlety. "It's a record with some timely themes, I think," Rod says. "But then, what I read into the songs is one thing, then I'll read an interview with my brother and find out the song's not at all what I thought it was about. 'Land Ho!,' for instance, I thought was about the environment and ecology, and it turns out Lenny says it's a break-up song. That tribute CD is really helping me figure out our own songs. I heard somebody's version of 'I Love You Like I Love Me' (from 'Massacre') the other day and finally understood the words. Lenny and I have argued about that before. I say, 'You could be praising Hitler or something, and I wanna know what you're saying.' "He's all right, though. He's just Michael Stipe-ing the words. The magic's in the mystery, anyway." Ho-Hum with Sarah Wagner & the Pop Adelphics When: 9 p.m. Saturday Where: Unit D, 1238 W. 41st St. Admission: $3 suggested donation at the door BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Dear Leon, You probably don't know me from Adam, maybe only as a tag-along colleague of John Wooley's. We've talked only a few times, on rare occasions when you let down your veil of eccentricity and granted an interview. I write this open letter to you, though, because after seeing you launch the show for Joe Cocker on Monday night at the Brady Theater, I wanted to address you directly instead of merely preaching to the asylum choir, as it were. Who knows if we'll ever speak again. This is likely my last concert review for this publication, so I'm feeling rather audacious. Concerts are not competitions, by any means. That's good, Leon, because Cocker kicked your butt Monday night. It was a little shocking. Granted, I was in my mother's womb when the two of you were romping across the country as the infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen, but I've seen you in that concert film stealing Joe's show. Heck, you stole his very fire. I've listened to and reported the stories and legends about that event for more than seven years as a pop critic for this newspaper. People speak of you as if you were some kind of shaman — in hushed tones, the awe still palpable after three decades. But it's an awe rooted in that heyday. It's old. Obviously, so are you. In body, that's one thing, but in spirit — somehow I didn't expect that. I should have: you've been giving this same show for a decade, at least. Monday night was no different. Maybe a little worse, really. You sat motionless at your keyboard, wheezing through songs you were reading off a teleprompter, never looking at the audience — never even acknowledging us. You plowed through the set without so much as a breath between songs. When you mashed your last chord Monday night and removed your sunglasses, I saw your eyes for the first time in years. They looked vacant, maybe a little uncomfortable. Most telling, though, you looked insanely bored. I actually expected boredom and autopilot from Cocker. I've never been fond of that old hack, but he blew me away. He had the sell-out crowd on its feet for an hour-and-a-half. He's three years younger than you, but Monday night it looked like 20. His trademark spasmodic arms were wringing out some hot soul, and — during his smooth, reggae take on "Summer in the City" — he convulsed his entire body to make incredible wails come out. Did you see the women dancing as he sang "You Can Leave Your Hat On"? No, I guess you didn't. You'd left the theater before his set started. I wish you had seen it — not to ogle the chicks but to watch Cocker in action. He should be a washed-up has-been by now, but he was a master Monday night. Maybe he needs Viagra at his age, but he hasn't forgotten what his blue-eyed soul is all about. It's about sex, and he can still conjure it. What's your music about these days, Leon? Is it just down to the bottom line? Are you touring simply because you have to pay the rent? Your show reeks of that motive. There's no showmanship. There's no entertainment. There's absolutely zero passion. All you had up there Monday night was a bunch of fine songs smothered by synthesized instruments, polyester arrangements and desperate, break-neck speed. This sub-Best Western lounge act may work for you. Fine. You're obviously able to book plenty of shows, and you've got your record label humming. But if Cocker wasn't on the bill Monday night, we'd have gone home restless, feeling cheated. You were once one of the greatest showmen in rock 'n' roll. I don't mean to crack the whip and insist on the same level of energy and psychosis; I just somehow expected greater maturity in your act instead of this much self-parody. For whatever it's worth — they don't call this "two cents" for nothing — I, the young upstart with virtually no on-stage experience, offer these suggestions for your future endeavors: 1. Go unplugged Get rid of that silly synthesizer you cling to. The synchronized synth-piano effect you played so frequently Monday night is tinny, harsh, awful. If you must have the teleprompter screen, those can be rigged to sit anywhere, such as the music stand on a piano. You're a techie, you know this. The Brady Theater has a beautiful grand piano in the house. I'd pay good money to see you play an actual piano again. I think it would do you good, if I might be so bold. Piano keys kick back in a way keyboards don't, and it looks like you could use a little reaction from your music, a little challenge. Plus, all that synthesized noise has no dynamics. Every song you played, from the jaunty "Tight Rope" to the exquisite ballad "A Song for You," came at us with the exact same hammering force and volume. There was no loud and soft, no give and take, none of your trademark subtleties. Also, lose those synth-drum pads. Better yet: bring back Teddy Jack. 2. Get up, stand up We've all heard about your legendary (or mythical) shyness. Is that why you never move? Is that why the only time we hear you speak is to introduce the band? All that beautiful, long white hair — and it just lays there. I don't expect it to fly like it used to when you were running around the stage in 1970, but I hardly think it's a lot to ask that you move around a little. Turning your neck to the left would be a start. Look at us. Here's a biggie: smile. The Brady was filled to the brim Monday night with people who shelled out hard-earned bucks — amid both the Christmas shopping season and a bad economy — to see you. Sure, they want to hear the songs, but your presence is also part of the bargain. If you want to make your career strictly about songwriting and steer clear of the stage, more power to you; you're one of the best writers around. But if you're going to strike the deal and perform for us, commit to the physical aspect of it. Even Jimmy Webb rocks back and forth and chats a little. 3. Put a spell on us Speaking of Webb, take a page from his book. Grow a little mystique around yourself. In fact, go away for a while, if you can afford it. You're in league with people like Webb as a songwriter, but you're more than that, really. I think of you more along the lines of Van Dyke Parks — an arranger, a writer, a maestro. Play on that, and flaunt a little ego. Don't play every venue offered you. Seeing you live should be an event, a rare and precious opportunity. This was your third show here this year. If you're going to stay in Nashville, work behind the scenes with other artists who will speak of you reverently in their interviews. You are the master of space and time, right? 4. Come home Actually, don't stay in Nashville. Your kids are grown now, and technology allows us to live anywhere we want and still do business. So move back to Tulsa. Get away from that den of dumbing-down. Sure, Tulsa's not as classy as Nashville (depends, however, on your definition of class), but it's a nurturing musical community. You'd be welcomed with open arms. Remember the Tulsa Sound? Everyone here still claims you were one of its founding fathers, that it's a style of bluesy rock that's more about the space between the notes. Listening to that onslaught of eighth notes unleashed upon us Monday night — a sweet little song like "Hummingbird" whipped up into a suffocating tornado of music — who would still make that claim? Come back, even for a little while. Dig up your roots. Maybe you could host a monthly jam down at the Cain's Ballroom. Heck, Garth doesn't need a Nashville zip code. 5. Suck it up The bulk of the people who bought tickets to Monday's show wanted to see you perform, and they wanted to see Cocker perform, but they really wanted to see the two of you perform together. First time on a bill together in three decades — of course, we all expected it. Surely whatever bad blood that once existed between you would have drained away by now. Alas, you never showed, and we were left to come in through the bathroom window for Cocker's encore, in which he knocked four numbers outta the park. At the very least you might have been inspired by the ol' codger, picked up a few tips from his sheer production values. He's got soul, for sure, but you've got spirit. You used to have grace, and you could at least have been gracious. If not for Joe, for your fans. It's all for your fans. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World People still talk about the tour. Granted, in Tulsa — Leon Russell's recognized home turf — it's the stuff of legend, but across the country it's still one of the best stories in rock 'n' roll. The tale just keeps getting taller. A new band of transplanted locals in Nashville is reportedly even preparing an album tentatively titled "Mad Dogs and Okies." Musicians still have it on their resumes. Sometimes an artist's bio will come into the Arts desk here, and it will tout — very near the top — that this musician performed on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour in 1970. We have to chuckle, because that's not saying much. Hundreds of people wound up on that stage. Funny thing, though: when they mention the tour, it's always Leon Russell's Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour, never Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour. Leon was the bandleader for Joe's show. Pretty unintentionally, though, Leon stole that show right out from under Joe. That's pretty much why these two classic rock figures haven't shared another bill since. Until next week. For the first time since that infamous circus, Russell and Cocker will share the same stage on the same night. That is, they're each scheduled for individual sets as part of one show. Concert organizers don't know whether they'll actually perform together. "I suspect that they will, but I don't know," said Mark Lee of 462 Concerts this week. "No one could imagine them not playing together, but they haven't in 30 years." The Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour was a highlight of Cocker's career and the launch of Russell's. Cocker had come up through the British pub circuit with the Grease Band. He landed a No. 1 hit in 1968 with a gritty, soulful cover of the Beatles' "A Little Help From My Friends." When he sang that song at Woodstock the following year, his superstardom was assured. Russell had been struggling through the ranks in America as a session pianist. He was sought-after — working frequently with Phil Spector — but he was still a session player in the wings. His 1967 solo debut LP, "Look Inside the Asylum Choir," was respected by critics but didn't sell. In '69, he hit the road with Delaney and Bonnie. It was then that the two crossed paths. Cocker, always looking for good material, picked up Russell's "Delta Lady" and recorded it for another hit. When Cocker decided to tour again, he asked Russell to put together a band for him. That was either his first mistake or his stroke of genius, depending on who you talk to. Russell didn't hold back in assembling a motley crew for what would become the Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour. One-time Russell girlfriend Rita Coolidge was on board. Delaney and Bonnie joined up. The Rolling Stones' future horn section was there, as well as Derek and the Dominos' future rhythm section. Some shows had up to 45 people on the stage, including a few actual dogs. It only lasted a couple of months — 48 cities in 56 days — but the tour's effects lasted a lifetime. It was even filmed for a concert movie of the same name. It was the hottest post-Woodtsock ticket around the country, because not only was Cocker in his prime but there was this long-haired Okie up there stealing the show. Russell ran back and forth between piano and guitar, leading the band with his hair flying. Russell was so manic and so darned good that people wound up talking about him as much, if not more, than Cocker — and it was Cocker's headlining tour. After the show inevitably fell apart, Russell's star rose. He showed up on albums by B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan, and the next year was a highlight of George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh. Then he toured with the Stones — all this while living in Tulsa. The record label he founded here, Shelter Records, nurtured the early careers of Tom Petty and Phoebe Snow, as well as locals Dwight Twilley and J.J. Cale. Cocker didn't fare so well after the tour. His albums and performances suffered from problems with alcohol on and off the stage. He bounced back with another hit, a cover of "You Are So Beautiful," in '75, and then made that kind of romantic ballad the hallmark of the rest of his career. Later, his raspy crooning scored him soundtrack hits such as "Up Where We Belong" (a duet with Jennifer Warnes) from 1982's "An Officer and a Gentleman." Russell continues churning out his traditional and sometimes country songcraft through his own label, Leon Russell Records. Cocker just released his latest collection, "Respect Yourself," on the Red Ink label. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Ah, George Winston. Just his name is relaxing now. His "folk piano" records were the first New Age music to find real commercial success, securing a place for the innovative Windham Hill label in the early '80s. His delicate playing evokes the patient seasons, pastoral landscapes and rollicking psychedelic binges glimpsed through previously unopened doors of perception. Wait a minute. What was that last one? Winston has recorded many tributes in his storied career as an instrumental pianist. He's paid homage to the great New Orleans ivory-ticklers that inspired him, namely Professor Longhair and James Booker, and a few years ago he recorded an entire album of Vince Guaraldi's compositions. But his latest project seems, at first, a bit out of step with what we've come to expect from this soothing player. The new album is "Night Divides the Day: The Music of the Doors," 13 classic songs by the Doors translated through Winston's nine-foot Steinway. The project has been so well-received thus far that Winston performed a concert with Doors organist Ray Manzarek on Sept. 26 in New York City. The album proved to be a challenge for Winston, and in our recent interview he discussed the unique opportunities in listening to the Doors for the music instead of just grooving to Jim Morrison's poetry. How did you develop the idea for an entire album of Doors songs? I had been working on a series of solo piano dances, kind of being a piano one-man band. I was checking out everything I wanted to play, R&B and soul and rock, Sam Cooke and Gershwin and the Beatles. I was trying out everything possible, and that was going to be my next record — Volume One of these solo dances. But I noticed that I had worked up 24 Doors songs, a lot of which were not danceable. I began working more with them, and that became the project. The Doors record got bumped ahead to be the new record. So it was purely happenstance? Well, sort of. I have listened to and been inspired by the Doors for 35 years . . . I was a senior in high school in 1967 when I got the Doors' first album, just because someone told me they had an organist. I'd never heard of them. I put it on, and right away "Break on Through to the Other Side" obliterated everything I had ever heard. I was like, "Whoa! What is that?" I decided I had to get an organ and play in a band one day. Had you ever thought of recording these songs before? No. I wasn't even thinking of doing it when this all came about. They're very difficult composers to interpret, and my main temperament is as an interpreter. I mean, with the Doors, the version is the version, you know? Jose Feliciano did a great version of "Light My Fire," so that was encouraging. It was very difficult to make them my own, though. I definitely put the time in on this one. Out of the 24 I had, these 13 worked together best to make the statement I wanted to make. And what statement is that? I like albums to be like one song all the way through. I want the songs to work together in the right order, and these 13 seemed to me to flow together very well the way I had done them. It's great when it all just kind of speaks to you like that. Was it worth the hard work? Oh yes, but I'll never do a record this hard again. Most of these songs were organ songs, not piano, originally. Plus, it was all so personal to me. It was like I was writing a novel about them: I wanted to do them justice because I love them. The more time you've lived with something, the more significant it is. And, you know, what else can you do with "Light My Fire"? Well, it seems that you took the song to New Orleans. That track and "People Are Strange" really heave with a bluesy — almost ragtime — rhythm. Is that because of your New Orleans influences or because they sprang from this dance music project? Some of the songs translated well into my folk piano, melodic mode, and some of them, like those two, are in an R&B style — my James Booker, New Orleans piano mode. That came out of the dances. I was working those songs up to be dances, indirect listening. Those two songs are done completely the way James Booker would have played them. His piano language has kind of ingrained itself into me involuntarily. Professor Longhair was instrumental in your career, so to speak. What was your relationship to him? I never met him. I'd quit playing in the late '70s, and I heard his 1949 recordings 30 years later, in '79. I thought it was so perfect that I started playing again. He inspired James Booker, too, and that became my way of thinking about the piano. You grew up in Montana, and I assume those wide-open spaces and changing seasons fueled your seasonal records ("Autumn," "Winter Into Spring," "December") and that open, circular style you call "folk piano." How did that develop? The folk piano is a style I made up in 1971 as a reaction to stride piano. I wanted to do something simple and melodic, which was opposite of the stride style. I love to have the piano ring out and to keep it simple. I'm interested more in tone quality than in having a lot of notes. But if it wasn't for the stride, I wouldn't have had anything to react against. How much Montana is in your music? The folk piano records are extremely Montana-based. Everything I do, really, has some Montana in it — even the Doors album. The cover photo of the Doors record was taken in Montana, by the way. The way the four seasons are so distinct and different there influences everything I do, even the R&B. "People Are Strange," for instance, is an autumn song. Everything to me is seen through the seasons — that's the bottom line. Some people refer to sound or "om" or the creator, but seasons are the driving force to me. The Vince Guaraldi stuff is all about that. All that Charlie Brown stuff is undeniably linked to certain times of year, not just because the television specials aired around holidays but because the songs were about seasons. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World If it weren't for all that great Aimee Mann music scoring the drawn-out angst of "Magnolia," the director should have used a song by the Frogs for the film's biblical climax. It wouldn't have been the first time you've unwittingly listened to the band. Milwaukee's flipped-out Frogs have been a crucial underpinning of most of the alt-rock you've grown to adore during the last decade and a half. Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder habitually dropped their name in interviews. Both of their bands played the Frogs' wacky gay-power-folk debut "It's Only Right and Natural" on the PA before concerts. Pearl Jam even covered some Frogs songs live and shared a single with them ("Immortality" in '94). Juliana Hatfield's Blake Babies named an EP after a song on the Frogs' debut ("Rosy Jack World"). The Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan and James Iha regularly joined the Frogs onstage. Kelly Deal played bass for them. Beck sampled the Frogs in his hit single "Where It's At." We could go on. And on. Suffice to say: the examples above are artists who have kinky sides to them, and that's the side of everyone that the Frogs embrace. "Kinky? Kinky? Can you even be kinky anymore?" asked Dennis Flemion, the more frenetic and breathless half of the duo with brother Jimmy. "The culture's gotten so scattered, so numbed, nobody even feels kinky anymore." This from a band whose debut album is loaded with stark, naked, pro-gay anthems — written by two brothers who probably are not gay themselves. Flemion would not answer "the $64,000 question" during this week's interview. But on all subjects, the Frogs are, er, unconventional. Some sample song titles (at least ones that can be printed in a general newspaper): "(Thank God I Died In) The Car Crash," "I Don't Care If You Disrespect Me (Just So You Love Me)," "Raped," "I'm Sad the Goat Just Died Today" and "Which One of You gave My Daughter the Dope?" They also perform wearing some crazy costumes. First, it was giant bat wings. Then, not surprisingly, frog outfits with protruding stuffed green arms. Lately, it's bunny suits. That's not to imply that the band is all about humor and weirdness — they have some great straight material, too, so to speak, especially on the newest CD, "Hopscotch Lollipop Sunday Surprise" — but it's the wacky stuff that's gotten them attention. Flemion, however, assured us that the wildly eclectic and bizarre music — connect the dots from Zappa to Captain Beefheart to the Frogs (and, perhaps, fellow Milwaukeeans the Violent Femmes) to Ween — is not recorded and released simply for the sake of using controversy to gain attention. "No, no. That would be the easiest and cheapest trick in the book. 'Oh, let's see how controversial we can be!' What would be the point? Do you think Alice Cooper did that?" Flemion said. "I don't necessarily have to be the thing I create." And therein lies the heart of the Frogs' oddball genius. They truly deserve the label "art-rock," because they approach rock music as artists — using the medium to explore their human potential for all states of thought and feeling. The things they sing about might not describe who they are, but those things came from within them. It's a heady concept, one jazz players might understand better than others. It springs from the practice of improvisation. The Flemion brothers often — and sometimes on stage — practice making up songs on the spot. The band's album "My Daughter the Broad" is a compilation of these improvs, and the results are alternately right-on and far-out. "The songs we make up are often quite controversial and inflammatory," Flemion said. "I could say I'm putting a mirror out there, but that's (nonsense) really, because everybody writes about themselves. Whatever you're writing, it's coming out of you. "Just last night, I finally figured out the meaning of a song I wrote in '87. It's so twisted, you would never understand it, but I realized in a flash, 'Oh my God, that's what I was writing about.' It's something very sad that I made funny, but it came from me. It ultimately always does. "You have to let yourself get out of the way for things to come through, too. That stuff I made up was just me opening my mind and letting stuff fly out of me. That's what we do. We try to open ourselves up that way. The stuff that comes out, well, we can't be afraid of it." The fact that his subconscious ditties shock the conservative and sometimes even the liberal is no surprise to Flemion. Nor is it a threat. "We have to do that as human beings, don't we?" he said. "There's no sense or irreverence in the culture anymore. When I grew up in the '60s, that's the way it was, that's the way you thought. But look at us now. Aren't you bored with what's out there?" Unfortunately, commercialism sells only the material that's inoffensive to focus groups. That's made the Frogs infrequent residents of record store shelves — this despite the duo's piles and piles of songs. They're the They Might Be Giants of the counterculture. "But our records are always delayed," Flemion said. " 'Right Natural' was finished in '87 but didn't come out until '89. 'Racially Yours' finished in '92 and just came out a couple of years ago. "The latest one ('Hopscotch Lollipop Sunday Surprise') was done in '97 and came out last year. The only ones that came out on time were the compilations, and most of that was dated material, anyway." The duo has two new records currently in the works. One of them is — ahem — a spiritual album. "Well, I mean, it's us doing spiritual stuff. One song is called 'Satan,' and it sounds like 'Uncle Ernie' from 'Tommy.' There's a serious one called 'Jesus Is the Answer,' and then there's 'Jesus Is My Buddy' and 'Pact With the Devil Blues.' "It's stuff that actually is fairly universal in theme so that people might even embrace it. Color me surprised." BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World You've probably never seen the most important member of your favorite band. She gets most of the band's money. She's instrumental to the band's success. Every member talks the most about her, and if it weren't for her unique contributions, you'd never have seen the band in the first place. It's the van. Yes, Roger McGuinn offered some great advice about playing guitar and wearing tight pants in his handbook song "So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star," but he left out the most important bit of advice: buy the best van you can afford. Playing live music means hauling equipment — drum kits and doo-dads, cabinets and keisters. If you can't get to the crowd, how can they adore you? It takes a lot of fame and money to afford the tour bus of rock legend, so most bands — even a sizeable majority of household names — travel cramped together with (and sometimes on) their equipment inside a van. Talk to a musician and the van undoubtedly will come up in conversation. It broke down again. It nearly went off an icy precipice in Utah. While trying to sleep in the fetal position against the window, it induced a terrible cramp. "The van is a huge investment, probably the most important piece of equipment you can buy," said Jarod Gollihare, singer-drummer for Admiral Twin. Admiral Twin recently upgraded its ride, bidding farewell to "Old Blue," the lurching, smoking '86 Chevy that's taken this local pop band in loop-de-loops around the country for a decade. Her odometer has rolled twice. "It was on its absolute last wheel, held together with rubber bands. It gradually lost its heating, then the air-conditioning and the transmission's about to fall out. It was making weird noises, and sometimes it was hard to start. Then it would be hard to get it to stop," Gollihare said. "We've never actually driven it to a coast. We've always flown to the coasts. I think the salt air would just disintegrate it." The new Twin ride is a used '99 Ford, purchased with money from a flush gig in Michigan. The former owners were dog trainers. "The dog smell is pretty much gone now, but we left the 'We Raise Golden Retrievers' sticker in the back window," Gollihare said. "This purchase is the biggest thing that's happened to our band in months." Admiral Twin wasn't brand specific in its search for wheels. The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey trio was. Keyboardist Brian Haas was trapped in Los Angeles over the Christmas holidays waiting for a custom Dodge part to be shipped to a garage — where the band's former van had languished inoperable for 19 days. "I guess Dodge vans just totally suck," he said at the time. For a band that plays 221 shows a year from coast to coast, the van is crucial — transport, rehearsal hall and bedroom, all in one. It's got to work. "We just got a lemon," said bassist Reed Mathis of the thankfully departed Dodge. "Last year, that van forced us to cancel tons of gigs. We missed the whole Dirty Dozen Brass Band tour because it dropped its transmission for the second time and stuck us in a roach motel in Florida, where we laid around watching 'Behind the Music' all day with whores calling the room asking us if wanted dates." The Odyssey's new Ford has already been on an odyssey — 47,000 miles since February, and no complaints. The guys also do what they can to make the place feel like home. "We took the middle two seats out and put down a futon," Mathis said. "We've got kitchen drawers up front, a cooler and a water dispenser. We try to keep at least one plant inside to keep the air clean and the energy positive. We had one spider plant that lasted a year and a half. We were amazed." "We keep ours pretty clean and standard-looking," said guitarist Mark Haugh of the van hauling his band, Caroline's Spine. "If we don't keep it clean, we'll get in a fight. I can, well, be kind of a slob." When the members of Caroline's Spine went shopping for their latest van — their fifth in less than a decade — they decided to go all out and get all the features they wanted and needed. "Until now, it's always been the cheapest van we can find, then we throw 100,000 miles on it and get rid of it," Haugh said. "This one we actually special-ordered. We got a good deal and got exactly what we wanted. We have a matching white trailer, so we look like a government vehicle. That's important so you don't get pulled over." The band's previous vans included Haugh's old Volkswagen minibus, an "old, beat-up Dodge that never worked," a green Ford and an "old Ford conversion van that was like the Good Times van, the '70s disco vehicle." The new van has a diesel engine. "If you close your eyes, it sounds like a bus," Haugh said. "We got all these features, but somehow we didn't get a CD player. I still haven't figured that out." BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World There's so much to do before leaving home to tour the nation in a rock 'n' roll band. "I gotta bet batteries, strings, a foot pedal. There's hotel rooms to square away. Orders from the web site have to go out. A magazine wants a photo to go with an interview I just did. And who's gonna feed the turtles?" This is an exasperated but excited Dwight Twilley. The Tulsa-based rocker hits the road this weekend — after a Saturday night appearance at Uncle Buddy's Roadshow in Claremore — for the first time in 15 years — since touring with Greg Khin. Not only is he returning to the road — to support last year's CD release, "The Luck" — but he's heading out as the Dwight Twilley Band. The group heads through the Midwest before planning East and West coast legs. Why is he touring again after all this time? It's business. "We got roasted on 'The Luck,' " he said this week. "It's the first record on a label I own (Big Oak Recordings), we had a really good record to release, and we get it out there two weeks before 9-11. We'd done lots of prep work for it, but after that we were all just a bunch of zombies. So this tour is us going out to wave the flag and say, 'Hey, remember this record we put out?' " The slimmed-down Dwight Twilley Band for this jaunt includes original guitarist Bill Pitcock IV, early drummer Jerry Naifeh and longtime bassist (and Nashville Rebel) Dave White. The origin of the smaller ensemble has its roots in the recording sessions for Twilley's '99 "Tulsa" album. "We've been doing the big show for so long, with the double drummers and everything, but there was a point during 'Tulsa' when just me and Jerry and Pitcock, no bassist, were goofing around and tracking it, and everyone looked at each other and thought it was pretty cool," he said. "So we thought we'd do the stripped-down thing for the tour — get rid of the bells and whistles and just leave the train." The band is also rehearsing what Twilley called "the unthinkable" — a cover. He would not, however, tell us what song it is. "I was thinking about Leon (Russell) doing that Rolling Stones song ('Jumpin' Jack Flash'), how he took a really standard song and really made it a Leon original. We've taken a standard like that and made it totally Twilley. I don't think I want to tell you what it is. I don't think it'll even be that noticeable. It'll probably sound like another Twilley song. Carl Perkins wrote it, as far as I know. "I once did 'Money.' It's the only cover I ever recorded — the B-side to 'Somebody to Love.' It got massive airplay for a while, back in '79, and we loved playing it in the set because, for a while, people actually threw money onstage during the song. I remember Pitcock playing a solo that he couldn't tear his hands away from, and he was keeping this 20-dollar bill on his shoe. Some people threw checks — and they were good." Twilley had Top 10 hits in '75 with "I'm on Fire" and '84 with "Girls." He was voted Artist of the Year at the first Spot Music Awards in '99. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Last time I saw David Garza, he brought me to my knees. Quite literally — a park in Austin, a year and a half ago, and Garza strutted onto the outdoor stage under the black clouds of a brewing storm and dared the lightning bolts to fly by the bald audacity of his guitar playing. All he had at his disposal was his clipped, cat-like voice and a revved-up Rickenbacker guitar, but no plaintive singer-songwriter was he. All by himself he rocked harder than every lineup of Starship on a single stage, yelping and growling and playing that guitar so hard and fast and with such conviction and clarity, well, I actually worried he was hurting himself. But he brought all the layered, looped tracks from his Atlantic debut album to life with the sweat of his brow instead of the flick of a switch, and by the time he finished "Discoball World" I was on my knees at the edge of the stage, clawing at my face and bellowing. Fortunately, I was not alone. So if you're headed down the 'pike this weekend to catch matchbox 20 (whatever) and Train (snore), don't linger in those overpriced Bricktown restaurants too long and miss the opening act, 'cause it's David Garza (that's dah-VEED to you, gringo) and that same, lone guitar, and I guarantee he'll justify the ticket price and the gas money in 30 all-too-short minutes. "Yeah, that's what I'm doing on this matchbox 20 tour, and it's real fun," Garza said in an interview last week from a tour stop in El Paso, Texas. "I'm coming off a string of shows in clubs, solo stuff, you know, but you don't get to bring out the loud amps in these small clubs. On those outdoor stages and in those arenas, I can crank it up." He says this with an obvious timbre of relish, even though Garza — Billboard magazine compared him to "trailblazers such as Prince, David Bowie and Prince" — is as gut-wrenching with a slow hand as he is when he's smokin'. His particular oomph makes him a bit of an anomaly in the laid-back, folkie Austin, Texas, music scene from which he's been based since landing at the University of Texas on a classical guitar scholarship. After dabbling in cover bands — "playing Billy Idol and INXS and Big Audio Dynamite for dances" — Garza thrust a band called Twang Twang Shock-a-Boom into the scene where the likes of Asleep at the Wheel shuffle along as politely as possible. Record label execs showed up at his shows like lawyers in an emergency room — so fast that Garza rebuffed a few offers until he felt his songs were ready for the big time. "I guess it happened somewhat fast back then. I got my start playing solo guitar at an Italian restaurant. I was the guy who wandered from table to table, and I had to hold my own with the single instrument," Garza said. "Now that I get to travel a little farther and wider, I try to push it a little. So much music today is so dense and thick, with a lot of beats and loops and programs and samples. For me personally, the most revolutionary thing I can do is play unaccompanied, loud electric guitar." His affection for stripped-down r-a-w-k rock only hints at the irony of his latest album title, "Overdub," his second release for Lava-Atlantic Records. A chunkier, rougher record than the previous two — "This Euphoria," his dreamy debut for Atlantic, and "Kingdom Come and Go," a solo acoustic record on Garza's own Wide Open Records label -- "Overdub" symbolizes more personal philosophy than studio trickery. "A lot of what I've done over the last 10 years is overdub things. You know, there's a redemptive idea in overdubbing. Spiritually, lyrically — as I'm growing older I start looking at how to fix things in my life, similar to the recording process. It's not as clean in real life. You don't get to fix your mistakes by patching in an overdub," Garza said. "This album sounds rougher basically because I got to produce it. I had the time and the budget, and I got to work with bassist Doug Wimbish (Tackhead, Sugarhill Gang) and drummer Will Calhoun (Living Colour). When those guys step, the earth shakes. That sound is the crumbling of buildings as they're ringing their terror in the tracks. We got a bold, old rock sound — just three humans playing in a circle. "It's different from the way most albums are made, and have been made for since '92 or '93 — the whole building of tracks, not necessarily the performance of a song. It starts with that perfect time loop, over which the drummer plays some funky drums. Then the bass player stops playing Nintendo and puts in his line. Then you call the guitar player on his cell phone and tell him to come in do his guitar parts. Then you wait for your special guest stars to come in from the limo. The way this was done was we three guys shook hands and started playing rock 'n' roll. `Bloodsuckers' was the first thing we played together, and I said, `Oh yeah, this is going to work.' " There were a few guest stars in this process, though -- Craig Ross, a fellow Austin rocker who contributes much of the six-string stomp heard on his phenomenal 1996 release "Dead Spy Report" and everybody's favorite lovelorn indie waif, Juliana Hatfield, whose bright voice adds to the lilt of "Keep on Crying." For now, though, Garza's on the road by himself, standing on the shoulders of giants even though his sound is just as tall. "Like I said, I can turn it up on this tour," he said, "and man, if I can make your ears bleed, I'll go for it." Matchbox 20, Train and Garza play at 7 p.m. Wednesday (Sept 12) at the Myriad Convention Center in Oklahoma City. Call (405) 297-3300 for information and tickets, or buy tickets online at www.tickets.com. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Before going on the air, Davit Souders mentions this band from Coffeyville that's been bugging him — in a good way. They're called Pheb:ate, they've got a fresh debut CD and for the last several weeks the band and its small legion of supporters from the Kansas border have been tying up the phone lines during Souders' late-night local music radio show, "Home Groan," begging him to play something from the new CD. "These crazy kids," Souders says, "they still want to get on the ol' radio." So the show starts — 11 p.m. sharp, as it does every Sunday night on KMYZ 104.5-FM — and pretty soon the phone lines are blinking again. This time, though, one of them is a cellular call. The producer patches it into the studio speakers. "Look out the window!" cries a jubilant young woman through the satellite static. We go to the window and eight floors down in the parking lot is a gaggle of young'uns, waving hysterically and brandishing an acoustic guitar. For the next half hour, the crowd grows, and the young woman on hold keeps begging to be allowed into the studio. At one point, things get a little loony, with the band's female fans so eager to show their support that they show, well, more of themselves than their mommas would have appreciated. It's one video camera away from becoming "Home Groan Girls Gone Wild." Souders — a true rock 'n' roll warrior, but a businessman who enjoys at least a modicum of control — eventually relents, and the band is ushered upstairs for a quick on-air chat and an impromptu performance in the studio. After the show, the whole group hangs outside and plays guitar, confident their assertiveness has scored them a major marketing triumph. "That's as pure as it gets in my book, right there," Souders says later that night. "I mean, Jim Halsey (local music entrepreneur) is always talking about the psychic payoff musicians get from things like this. Boom — there it is on those faces right there. Because when it comes down to it, it's not really about money and girls and sales figures, it's about getting played. It's about getting to feel like the work you've put into something means something, anything, to even one little radio host like me." In the nearly six years he's been hosting "Home Groan," a weekly show dedicated to Tulsa-area original music, Souders has been buttered up by bands hoping to score a spin on his show. They know when he's due on the air, and sometimes they lie in wait in that same parking lot outside the station, thrusting CDs in his hand and sometimes a pizza or two — learning early lessons of salesmanship the hard way. As America's — and Tulsa's — radio landscape becomes more vanilla, monochromatic and pre-recorded, "Home Groan" has survived as a refreshing oasis, largely due to madcap moments like this one. More importantly, though, is the influence the show has maintained — the impact radio airplay (even in the worst possible timeslot, late on a Sunday night) has on the evolutionary spark of a local and regional artistic scene. Why else would two or three dozen kids from Coffeyville drive an hour in the dark of night to harass an innocent DJ? Souders, of course, is more than a DJ. He's been formulating fiendish local concerts as Diabolical Productions for more than a decade, having worked hand-in-hand for several years at the Cain's Ballroom when Larry Shaeffer was there, and having owned and operated his own nightclub, Ikon, in three Tulsa locations. He's also a musician, once a member of a local band called Lynx and currently singing for a revolving forum of local players called D.D.S. He even makes his own kilts, but perhaps that's another story (best told by the accompanying photo). His radio career began in the eighth grade in the late '70s, when he was the voice of Tulsa Public Schools lunch menus on KAKC. For this duty — reading the advance warnings of tomorrow's institutional slop — he created an on-air personality called Dr. Psycho Fanatic. Everything you need to know about Souders (other than his obsessions with Elvis Presley and his idol, Alan Freed) likely is summed up in this fact: to this day, the Dr. Psycho Fanatic gig is still on his resume. From 1990 to 1994, Souders hosted the "Teknopolis" electronic music show, which bounced between three different local stations. In '96, he picked up the "Home Groan" gig, replacing its original host, Admiral Twin drummer-singer Jarrod Gollihare. He has certainly made the show his own. In particular, he has been instrumental in applying the show's brand to occasional "Home Groan" "low-dough" concerts featuring local bands as well as two "Home Groan" CD compilations. The former have been especially illustrative of the show's success. "We had a show at Cain's a couple of years ago where we had about 500 kids," Souders said. "Of course, I emcee a la Alan Freed, and you know I end all the radio shows with my little catchphrase: 'I'm not evil, I'm just Diabolical.' So I get up on stage at this show and say, 'I'm not evil, I'm just . . .' and the bulk of the crowd shouts, 'Diabolical!' I was blown away." Souders hopes to one day produce another CD compilation, probably of live performances from those low-dough shows, but the plans to reopen Ikon are in the deep freeze. Meanwhile, Diabolical continues bringing interesting shows to Tulsa. But Souders is clearly in his element behind the microphone, scratching his head underneath the trademark bandana and directing a new band into the public arena. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World When Dwight Twilley released "Tulsa" in 1999 — his first album of new material in more than a decade, his ninth in a quarter-century — the CD garnered high critical praise (and won him two Spot Music Awards), particularly in Europe where critics and fans snatched up the disc indignantly, practically scolding Twilley for being absent from music-making all those years. Little did they know — he was absent from the record-store shelves but not from studios. In the early '90s, before moving back to Tulsa from Los Angeles, Twilley — who scored Top 20 hits with "I'm on Fire" in 1975 and "Girls" in 1984 — recorded an album of new material and called it "The Luck." Ironically, the album had no luck at all. Producer Richie Podolor wasn't happy with the offers he received for the album from record labels, and the tapes wound up shelved, written off and eventually forgotten. Now "The Luck" is seeing daylight due to a sequence of happy windfalls — the critical success of "Tulsa," the formation of his own record company (the Big Oak Recording Group, named for the most prominent feature in Twilley's midtown Tulsa front lawn), and the addition of the Dwight Twilley Band to the eligibility list for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "The Luck" will be released internationally on Tuesday. "It's been very frustrating to have these songs collecting dust," Twilley said in a recent interview. "I think it's a really serious studio record." Some of the tracks from "The Luck" have shaken off that dust in the last couple of years, appearing on the Twilley rarities collection "Between the Cracks, Vol. 1." The title track was re-recorded for "Tulsa," "because I think it's a good song and I thought it would never come out," Twilley said. Fortunately, Twilley's brand of rock 'n' roll — rootsy in the tradition of a meaty, Sun Records backbeat and classic in the sense of the purest pop classicism a la the Beatles -- is so timeless that "The Luck" still sounds as fresh as the day it was recorded. Even the song with Tom Petty's backing vocals — from tapes that are much older. "Petty's on another album of mine and he probably doesn't even know it," Twilley chuckles. "When he came in to do 'Girls' with me (in 1984), we also cut a song called 'Forget About It Baby.' I discovered those tapes while I was working on 'The Luck' and — since I never let a good song go — decided to redo some of the drums. I always loved the song but I hated what the producers did to it. Then we redid the bass, and then this and then that. Now the only thing remaining from the original sessions are my and Tom's voices." Twilley's first outing to promote the "new" album is a doozy: on Sept. 28, he's headlining the Serie-B pop festival in Calahorra, Spain. Other acts on the eclectic pop-rock bill include Mudhoney, Bevis Frond, Cotton Mather and Death Cab for Cutie. The new band assembled for the show includes Dave White and Bill Padgett (the Nashville Rebels behind local rockabilly stud Brian Parton), Jerry Naifeh (original percussionist for the Dwight Twilley Band), guitarist Tom Hanford and bassist Sean Standing Bear. Despite the European success of Twilley's band and solo efforts in the past, this will be his first-ever European performance. "We recorded over there, but we never played live," Twilley said. "Clive (Davis, former head of Arista Records) had this policy not to play his acts there. And last year, we did this press tour across the continent behind `Tulsa,' and the first question out of every journalist's mouth was, 'When are you coming?'" That media tour opened Twilley's eyes to the differences between American and European music markets — as well as the rebirth of his own popularity there. One music-industry representative in England floored Twilley by informing him that he had named his son after him, James for James Paul McCartney and Dwight for Dwight Twilley. "Sitting down personally with the press over there, it becomes immediately apparent that there's still a deep appreciation for the pop song there," Twilley said. "When I was a kid in the music business, the philosophy was, 'I'll give 'em the record they can't refuse.' That's all disappeared here in America. The song is no longer the focal point. It's the packaging. The song won't save you here anymore. The business has gotten too big. There are great bands writing great songs over there, and they're getting by on those songs. And, I mean, they're still talking about great acts like Paul Revere and the Raiders. Who over here still knows who they were?" One American honor has edged within reach, though. This year, the Dwight Twilley Band — the original mid-'70s lineup, which included the late Phil Seymour, a local pop talent of equal stature — has become eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "There's no letter or announcement for that kind of thing. You just suddenly appear on the magic list. All of a sudden we were getting tons of e-mails from people saying, 'Congratulations!' and we had no idea what we'd done," Twilley said. "I figured no one would remember me. I'm honored to just be on the list." Other new eligibles include Bruce Springsteen, the Sex Pistols and Blondie. "Some people campaign for that, you know. They write letters and take out ads and really push to get inducted," Twilley said, then paused. "I'm a little too busy for that." After the jaunt to Spain, Twilley said he hopes to begin recording a proper follow-up to "Tulsa." The album won Best National Album and Twilley won Artist of the Year at the first Spot Music Awards. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World The Mystery Band has managed to live up to its name again. Rumors are rabid about the band's club gig this weekend: just who is this Doug Wylie, the Mystery Band's new singer? Is it really Dwight Twilley, or just some Twilley wanna-be? The Mystery Band certainly has a history with Twilley. Drummer Jerry Naifeh played drums and percussion on several of Twilley's pivotal early records, including the 1975 hit "I'm on Fire." Naifeh and Mystery Band guitarist Bingo Sloan played on Twilley's latest album, "Tulsa." Longtime Twilley guitarist, Bill Pitcock IV, was also once a member of the band. The other current members are not enigmas to local music fans: Barry Henderson, guitars and keyboards, from the "Mazeppa" show's Bo Velvet and the Desert Snakes; and Rick Berryman, bass, who fans might remember from the Push. Twilley himself has performed with the Mystery Band. In 1990, the band lost two of its members — Chris Campbell and Jim "Tank" Parmley — in an auto accident. Twilley and his longtime songwriting partner Phil Seymour played with the band in the interim. In fact, it was the last time the two local icons performed together on stage before Seymour's death from cancer in '93. Now the Mystery Band is back in action, and this week they're adding the shadowy Wylie. The band claims he looks like Twilley and sounds like Twilley but that he's really just a hot new talent they discovered in Okfuskee. The band's new single, "Come Together," has received airplay on KMOD this week. It's a sharp pop song, but that voice sounds an awful lot like Twilley. Twilley is cagey when you broach the subject. "He apparently does all my favorite old rock 'n' roll songs. He thinks songwriting is stupid. He's doing `Good Golly Miss Molly' and stuff. He does it pretty well, too, so I'm told," Twilley said. "I hear he even tries to do his hair like mine," he said. "I wish him luck." Wylie himself could not be reached for comment. He's been in seclusion with Chris Gaines. Figure out the Dwight Twilley/Doug Wylie mystery for yourself when the Mystery Band plays at 9:30 p.m. Friday at The Break, 4404 S. Peoria Ave. Cover charge is $3. This post contains my complete running coverage of this annual conference and festival ...
© Tulsa World Tulsa band Fanzine gets a chance to shine at SXSW showcase By Thomas Conner 03/19/2000 AUSTIN, Texas — The sound man at Opal Divine's Firehouse was filling the pre-show dead time with his own selection of classic-rock greatest hits: a couple of cuts from the Eagles' "Long Run" album, a smattering of Zeppelin, a lot of Journey. A few minutes before showtime, he played Cheap Trick's live cover of "Ain't That a Shame," and Fanzine drummer Don Jameson started air-drumming. "Oh, yes!" he said, tapping into the song's lengthy introductory groove. "This is what it's about, right here. It's not, 'Won't you step back from that ledge, my friend' " — making a face, making fun of the Third Eye Blind hit "Jumper" — "It's about the shaking of the booty. It's about being larger than life . . . There isn't an arena big enough to hold us." This weekend it wasn't arenas, just a small club patio on the edge of Austin's hottest nightclub scene and in the middle of its yearly music-industry lottery. On Wednesday night, Jameson and his Tulsa-based rock band, Fanzine, kicked off the South by Southwest music festival, an annual congregation of music-business talent scouts and international media all searching for the Next Big Thing. Nearly 1,000 bands — a record — from around the world were scheduled to play hourlong sets in clubs throughout Austin this weekend, and Fanzine had the daunting task of playing in the first showcase slot on the first night of the festival. In just a few hours, and certainly over the four days of the festival, these four players would learn what, indeed, it was all about. It's all about the gig South by Southwest is basically a live-music mall. "Buyers" from record labels, management companies and music magazines stroll up and down Austin's nightclub-lined Sixth Street and shop for the hottest new fashions in pop music. So when your band is fortunate enough to land a showcase here, you want everything to be perfect. For Fanzine, it very nearly was. "How lucky are we to be playing right before the Mayflies?" Jameson asked when the band finished sound check. The Mayflies, an up-and-coming pop band from Chapel Hill, N.C., were listed by many SXSW forecasters as one of the most interesting acts to see this year. They would thus be drawing a crowd of scouts and record company reps, and many of them would come early — and hear Fanzine. "We're blessed tonight. This feels good," Fanzine singer Adam said before the show. The band arrived in Austin on Tuesday and immediately went to work with staple guns and smiles, tacking up posters advertising the Wednesday night gig and thrusting handbills into the palms of any passers-by. "We came all this way, I just want someone to see us," Jameson said. "Tonight's all about being seen — eyes on us." And, of course, ears. It's not about the gig Still, Jameson and the other Fanzine players weren't expecting miracles. Their set coincided with the Austin Music Awards — a ceremony honoring the best of local talent, much like Tulsa's Spotniks — the big event of Wednesday night. The band's 24 hours in town wasn't a lot of time to spread the word about its showcase. Most music reps and media don't arrive until late Wednesday or Thursday, anyway. "I really expect very little tonight," Jameson said. "It's the first night, and this club's off the beaten path, but this sure is great to put (in the press kit). It means we've been chosen among some kind of selected upper crust." The World Wide Web was certainly an aid in advance promotion. Word of the showcase spread quickly on, oddly enough, Web sites and newsgroups for fans of the Toadies. Plus, Tulsa radio music directors e-mailed their record company contacts en masse, advising them of the Fanzine show. One of them, KMYZ 104.5-FM music director Ray Seggern, attended Wednesday's show. Seggern is an Austin native, having worked with the city's popular modern rock station for several years. He knows people, and he dragged as many as he could with him to see the Tulsa band. But even Seggern was realistic. "It's not about the gig," he said. "The gig is the least important part. (What's important) is the networking, the experience, the mindset. Just being here and wearing a badge is important." Case in point: Hanson. The young Tulsa trio spent several days at SXSW early in the '90s. Too young to even play in the local bars, they strolled the streets and softball-park bleachers, singing for anyone who would listen. An astute music manager did, and the rest is history. It's about support For Fanzine's show, though, Opal Divine's was packed. Most importantly, the crowd stayed and stared. Many SXSW showcase audiences often are indifferent groups of jaded music-industry mavens concentrating on wheeling and dealing with other industry folk rather than listening to the bands. Fanzine's crowd, though, stopped, looked and listened. The band was on point, too. Tighter than they've been in many months — and fueled by more adreneline, no doubt — they tore through 40 minutes of their groove-stuffed, flashy and unrelenting rock 'n' roll. Adam threw off his bright orange jacket ("You like me mack?") by the third song and was soon shaking his tambourine all over the club's outdoor wooden deck and dancing with Beatle Bob, an eccentric music-industry analyst who came to the show and danced his trademark swingin' dance. Many in Wednesday night's crowd were Tulsans, checking out their hometown band on Austin's turf. Tim Kassen, a Williams Company agent who also books bands for Tulsa's Bourbon Street Cafe on 15th Street, was in town and said he made a beeline to Fanzine's show. "Nobody performs like Adam, with all that energy," he said. "Heck, if I had the money, I'd sign them." Also looking on were T.J. Green and Angie Devore, the husband-and-wife team at the helm of new Tulsa band Ultrafix. They weren't scheduled to play in Austin this weekend; they came down just to attend the conference and meet music-business folks and other musicians. They had planned to arrive in Austin on Thursday but came a day early to be present for the Fanzine show. "It's all about support, man," Green said. By George, we got us a rock show By Thomas Conner 03/19/2000 AUSTIN, Texas — When South by Southwest occurs each March, the Texas capital is literally overrun by music businesspeople and musicians. How invasive is the conference? Just ask presidential hopeful George W. Bush. When the Texas governor realized he was going to sweep Tuesday's second big round of Republican presidential primaries, his campaign staff decided to book a local ballroom to host the celebration and inevitable victory speech. But they couldn't find one. Every ballroom, theater and public venue in town was booked up with SXSW events. Bush and his supporters wound up in far northwest Austin, patting themselves on the back in a gymnasium at the Dell Jewish Community Campus. Talk about rocking the vote. Rangers in command Storms raked the Texas hill country late Thursday afternoon. The Ray Price show in the park surely was doomed, so we headed for indoor shelter. The fact that it had tortillas, margaritas and the Red Dirt Rangers made it downright heaven. The Oklahoma roots-music band played the first of its five SXSW-week gigs ("Six," Ranger John Cooper said later — "We actually got one that pays!") at Jovita's, an authentic Mexican restaurant south of downtown Austin. And I mean authentic. The walls were arrayed with rich, colorful murals, mostly depicting masked rebels in olive drab, including a giant portrait of Che Guevera. The tables were so sticky we had to paper them over with copies from a stack of someone's Spanish-English poem entitled "Crossroads." Our waitress had two breathtaking parrots tattooed on her shoulder blades. As the storm pelted Jovita's corrugated skylight, the Rangers blasted through their typically invigorating set of Okie rock 'n' soul, opening the show with two Woody Guthrie covers, "Rangers' Command" (the title track to the Rangers' latest CD, recorded in Austin) and "California Stars" (one of the Woody lyrics put to music by Billy Bragg and Wilco) — a nod to Woody's younger sister, Mary Jo Edgmon, sitting in the audience. Also watching the Rangers was fellow Stillwater native, now Austin-based songwriter Jimmy Lafave. The Rangers also played his song "Red Dirt Roads," rocking it more than Lafave probably ever envisioned and using it as a sparring match between electric guitarist Ben Han and new steel guitarist Roger Ray, also of Stillwater's Jason Boland and the Stranglers. Whoops and yelps all around. This ... is Wanda Conversation overheard on the sidewalk outside the Continental Club, Thursday night in the freezing cold, waiting in vain to get inside and hear Oklahoma City rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson: She: "We'll never get in." He: "They're full? At eight o'clock? Who is this woman?" She: "I don't know. She looks like Loretta Lynn." He: "Loretta Lynn never had a stand-up bass player like that." She: "Can you see her hair?" He: "That's all I can see. I could be back at the hotel and still see that hair." She: "It's not that big." He: "What?" She: "Nothing. I was wrong." Talking 'bout Tulsa Tulsans protested the derogatory mention of the city in a recent Best Western ad campaign, but our hometown creeps into the world's consciousness in strange and mysterious ways. Take, for example, a song by Astrid, a spunky and tuneful guitar band from Scotland. Near the end of the band's hard-hitting showcase, they played a song called "Cybersex," which the singer was good enough to point out "is about cybersex." The refrain, from the point of view of the narrative's libidinous web surfer: "It's 3 p.m. in Idlewild / Kansas, Tulsa, Arkansas." Minty sweet Norman band Starlight Mints were lucky enough to land a SXSW showcase this year, but it was nearly ruined by equipment problems that delayed them 20 minutes — nearly half of their allotted playing time. (And SXSW showcases begin and end on time, or else.) Still, the embryonic rock band impressed a capacity crowd at the intimate Copper Tank North club with its herky-jerky melodies and noises. My notes include this absurd but revealing description of the band's music: "Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes) singing, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) on guitar, chick from the Rentals (Maya Rudolph) on keys, all aboard a carousel at Wayne Coyne's (Flaming Lips) fun park." For the record While SXSW takes over Austin with live music, another of the country's biggest musical events occurs here at the same time. This one involves recorded music: the annual Austin Record Convention, the largest new-and-used record sale in the country. Hundreds of record dealers from all over the country huddle over tables in the Palmer Municipal Auditorium and hawk more than a million CDs, LPs, 45s and even 78s. With the world's music business leaders in town, these dealers have to face a particular and knowledgeable clientele. "This is the reissue, though. See, it's dated '92. You don't have the '84 original with the six extra versions?" That's pretty standard discussion fare at the convention. One dealer from Minnesota boasted a pristine, still-wrapped copy of former Tulsan Leon Russell's "The Wedding Album." Asking price: $100. A C-note? Has he heard it? "No, but my books tell me that's a steal." A rose by any other name ... Part of the fun of perusing the SXSW schedule is the humor and daring of some of the band names. The chucklers on this year's list: Alabama Thunder Pussy, ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, Betty Blowtorch, Camaro Hair, Del the Funky Homosapien, the Dino Martinis, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, I Am the World Trade Center, Man Scouts of America, Maximum Coherence During Flying, the Psychedelic Kinky Fellows, Roar! Lion, Sci-Fi Uterus and the Tremolo Beer Gut. Food for the soul If you want music media to come see your band, set up a free buffet. A table of sumptuous Texas barbecue and an absence of cash registers filled La Zona Rosa with SXSW registrants Thursday afternoon to see the Nixons open for Texas guitar hero Ian Moore. Greasy hands clapped for the Nixons' timeless (as in, stuck in 1993) grunge rock. The band sported a new record label (the showcase sponsor, Koch Records), new songs ("P.O.V." and the wildly cheery "Blackout") and, well, a new band. Singer Zac Malloy is the only original Norman-native member left, having jettisoned the rest of the crew for a new batch of Dallas-based throw-backs. The Nixons started in Norman as a cover band, scored a modern rock hit early in the '90s with "Sister" and now are based in Dallas. A new album is due April 11. 'What about the amps?' Austin is full of colorful, sometimes downright eccentric, characters, so when we noticed the guy talking to himself on Fourth Street, it was no big shock. He stood in the hot afternoon sun, pacing in circles, gesturing wildly and talking, talking, talking — by himself. "What about the amps?" he kept asking. "Where are the amps?" We skirted him just off the curb, thinking to ourselves, "So young, and already so nuts." Then we noticed it. The earpiece, the hidden microphone — a hands-free cell phone. SXSW snapshots: The high, mighty and downright loony go wild in Austin By Thomas Conner 03/22/2000 AUSTIN, Texas — More than 30 years after his death, musicians — and, indeed, Americans — are just now figuring out what Woody Guthrie was about. Greg Johnson, owner of Oklahoma City's revered Blue Door nightclub, summed it up ably during a South by Southwest panel discussion entitled "Made for You and Me: Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Legacy." "Woody was about freedom and community," Johnson said. "He was about propping people up. Bruce Springsteen used to say it this way: 'Woody was about the next guy in line.' " Veteran music journalist Dave Marsh led the panel, which also included Austin-based songwriters Jimmy Lafave and Michael Fracasso. The star of the panel, though, was Guthrie's youngest sister, Mary Jo Edgmon, who regaled the crowd with homespun tales of her proud father, her misunderstood mother and her iconic older brother. "I was reared on music all the way up to here," Edgmon said, pointing over her head. "Woody taught me chords on the guitar. I got really good at that C chord, I guess it was." Edgmon spoke proudly of the "1,000 percent turnaround" in America's perception of Woody, particularly in his Green Country hometown of Okemah. She said she's thrilled to see the misunderstandings about Woody's political and spiritual beliefs clearing up. "I want the world to understand that the Guthrie family was not trash, that Woody was as good a man as there is," she said. Lafave and Fracasso both punctuated the panel session with performances. Fracasso sang Guthrie's "1913 Massacre" and one of his own songs directly inspired by Woody's songwriting (Fracasso's chorus: "From the mountains to the valleys / from the prairies to the sea / If you ain't got love, you ain't got a nickel"). Lafave sang a song about Woody called "Woody's Road," written by acclaimed Oklahoma songwriter Bob Childers, and then closed the afternoon event with a rendition of Guthrie's "Oklahoma Hills," joined by members of the Red Dirt Rangers and Edgmon herself. Paint the town Redd Austin's Top of the Marc is a clean, classy place — not your usual SXSW mosh pit. The clientele shows the proper amount of cuff, and the bar has drambuie. Festival organizers couldn't just stick another all-girl Japanese punk band in here. They needed class. So they called upon Charlie Redd and his boys. Decked out and dynamic, the Full Flava Kings brought Redd back home in style. "Bring it on home, y'all!" Redd would shout in a song's closing jam, though it was unclear which home he was referring to — his native Austin or his new Tulsa HQ. Either way, his Austin friends and fans saw a new Redd on Saturday night: more groovy, more gravy and drizzling a more honeyed baritone over the band's dense rhythm-and-funk. In addition to charter Kings Dave Kelly on guitar, Brian Lee on keyboards and Stanley Fary beating the drums mercilessly, the Full Flava Kings debuted new guitarist and veteran Tulsa funkmeister Travis Fite (Phat Thumb) to the Austin crowd. Their response? Ask the female stranger who tried to start The Bump with me during the show. Here come the brides Tyson Meade, the colorful leader of the Norman-reared Chainsaw Kittens, used to wear dresses on stage as a rule. After his Friday night SXSW showcase, he took the fixation to a bold new level by getting married to another man in full white-gown fabulousness. Before the next band (the bizarro but like-minded Frogs) took the tent stage outside the Gallery Lombardi Lounge, Meade reappeared in a wedding processional that parted the crowd. The wedding party included several maids, matrons and misters of honor in various degrees of Mardi Gras-esque garb, all of whom surrounded the officiating Hindu priest for the brief ceremony. In a flurry of toasts and funny-but-heartfelt vows, Meade and Skip Handleman Werner — who was always preceded by the mysterious title "international pop star" — were pronounced unlawfully married. They smooched, and the wedding party bunny-hopped from the venue as "Y.M.C.A." blared. Reports of this high camp should not overshadow news of the Kittens' triumphant return. Still without a record deal after the sad demise of the Smashing Pumpkins' Scratchie Records, the Kittens blasted back into action Friday night with an explosive set of old and new glam-punk songs. Meade, juiced by pre-wedding jitters, took the stage in a royal blue feathery jacket and furiously belted and screamed his way through the serrated set of Kitty classics reaching all the way back to the band's debut album, "Violent Religion." I can't chaaange Billy Joe Winghead's lead singer, John Manson, took out his personal angst about Meade's marriage (he was distraught over not getting to, um, kiss the bride) through BJW's two sets of roadhouse rock. The OKC-Tulsa band blew into Austin late Saturday and played back-to-back shows at the Hole in the Wall, a University of Texas hangout, and Cheapo Discs. Shoppers at the latter venue were typically unfazed by the blaring band over in the corner — until they played "Free Bird." A cliche request that normally turns off young rock audiences always turns heads when its coming from the five-piece Billy Joe Winghead. Tulsa bassist Steve Jones sings over the guitar grind while Manson waves out the melody on his green theremin. Amid the band's repertoire of songs about rest-stop sex, doomed B-filmstars and car salesman lingo, "Free Bird" is practically the crown jewel and always a crowd pleaser. Hit me with your best shot Readers of the Austin Chronicle voted David Garza the city's second-best musician of the '90s. (Ask a blues fan who was first.) It's not simply because he writes well-rounded pop songs and executes them gracefully on record with his band; it's that he really doesn't need his band at all. On the Waterloo Park stage late Saturday afternoon, Garza held his own with only his pretty red Gibson guitar to keep him company. Songs that on record seem pieced together by clever arrangements of drum machines, acoustic guitar and Garza's versatile voice — like "Discoball World" -- evened out in frenetic and energetic solo jams. Near the end, he took requests, cheerfully tearing his fingernails off by barreling through "Take Another Shot." Thank you, sir, may I have another? The good, the bad, and the ugly Rumor of the week: That Neil Young was the mysterious "special guest" billed immediately before Steve Earle's Friday night set at Stubb's. Young was in Austin for South by Southwest, but not the music part. His latest concert film, "Silver and Gold," was premiering. The special guest was Whiskeytown singer Ryan Adams. Patron saint of the festival: Doug Sahm. The drive-train for the Sir Douglas Quartet may be dead but he hasn't left Austin. From two star-studded tributes to him — one at Wednesday night's Austin Music Awards (featuring Shawn and Shandon Sahm), another Friday at the legendary Antone's blues club (featuring former bandmate Augie Meyers and, straight from the where-is-he-now bins, Joe "King" Carassco) -- to posters in Mexican restaurants advertising prints of his portrait for sale, Sahm has edged out Townes Van Zandt as the bandwagon who bought the farm. Best TV footage no one could use: Steve Earle's Thursday morning keynote address. Earle delivered his words of wisdom wearing a T-shirt that read, "I'm from f—-ing outer space." Comeback of the week: Former Byrds icon Roger McGuinn, whose Friday night performance brought overplayed standards back down to earth with grace and style. Best T-shirt: "My lawyer can kick your lawyer's ass." Most shameless self-promotion: Dallas rap-rockers Pimpadelic not only drove around downtown blocks in its giant tour bus with the band's name emblazoned along the sides, the band also spent its free time walking around Austin with dancers it hired from the Yellow Rose strip club, all of whom, of course, sported tightly cropped T-shirts bearing the band's name. Watch for the band's debut on Tommy Boy Records. Most prominent foreign country: The Netherlands, buoyed by waning interest in the annual Japan Night and extensive lobbying by the Dutch Rock and Pop Institute. Best non-SXSW show: Austin's ear-splitting Hotwheels Jr. on Friday afternoon in a tiny CD shop way out in north Austin. They spell it r-a-w-k. Favorite new discovery: Scotland's newest guitar pop band Astrid, with a debut album, "Strange Weather Lately," out now on Fantastic Plastic Records. Best diversion on the way to another gig: The strolling horn band Crawdaddy-O, which braved the frigid cold Thursday night livening people's steps with funky Dixieland jams, including — at Adam of Fanzine's request — some sizzling James Brown. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Scene One: Bailey's Bar and Grill, Round three of the Musician's Cup It's good to be out of the Oklahoma wind, though the club isn't exactly warm. A smattering of people — mostly band members who will play later — mill around the long room, Korn blaring from the sound system. The bright flash of the video trivia game is distracting. The refrigerator behind the bar has about seven Shiner Bocks in it. Long night ahead. First band up: Ester Drang. They're kids, or they look it. Greasy hair, ratty T-shirts, lots of grey and black. They set up — a xylophone? — take their places and begin playing without so much as a glance at the crowd. Great, more sad, shoe-gazing geeks. The set starts with a sample, someone talking, spitting out something and getting excited, though the sound is distorted, muffled. The sheepish red-head starts playing a light, dreamy melody on a Fender Rhodes piano. Drums burst in with a whack and a skitter. The shyest-looking kid in the world — black hair too short to hide his eyes, but still he tries — starts moaning into the microphone. A song has begun. Hasn't it? The drummer plays complex structure, the bass player, too, though the guitars, keyboards, eerie sounds flood the room, filling it instead of demanding their own space. It rocks, carefully. When the song seems to end, tinkling piano and more subtle samples keep the sound alive. A few people clap, then feel embarrassed. It's not that people don't want to applaud, it's just difficult to tell where one song ends and the next begins. It's thrilling confusion, and no one in the typically hard-rock bar knows what to make of it. Even the ones in back who started out giggling are now mesmerized. Several bands follow, great ones — grinding guitars, roaring vocals, good ol' modern rock. But when the last band folds and the four judges lean into the default contest director, the verdicts are swift. "No brainer. Ester Drang." "Ester Drang." "Yeah, me, too." "Who was the first band?" Scene Two: Bryce's room, one week later All five of Ester Drang are hanging out at the rehearsal pad, the bedroom of Bryce Chambers — the shy singer. It's an add-on to the front of a cookie-cutter shack in Broken Arrow, and it looks like an aging, decrepit set from a "VH-1 Storytellers" episode: orange carpet underneath the traditional, crumb-laden Oriental rug; gear stacked and piled everywhere, with cords underfoot; dusty toys on shelves; a couch standing on its end and leaning against a wall; a Teletubby doll, Po, perched on top of it; a box of Vivarin; the sole source of light a honey-pot lamp with no shade; and on the walls, other than peeling wallpaper — a bull-fighter on black velvet, a poster for "The Princess Bride" and a painting of Jesus with his arm around a young man, his head hung sad and low. The band, slumped in various seats, is talking about the reasons behind the mesmerized crowds at local bars. It's nothing, they say. "Around here, nobody's doing what we're doing. It's been done other places. We're just not copying what's going on around here," says David Motter. He says he plays keyboards, but he's the one who kept ducking under the decks at the Bailey's show, changing cords, twiddling knobs and plugging in new samples. "It's not that we're that good, we're just different here," says piano player James McAlister. They begin the requisite citing of influences, which is actually pertinent, for a change. They list a lot of bands from a wide variety of styles, the common threads being moody and ambient: Massive Attack, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and "emo" bands like Sunny Day Real Estate ("Although, it's getting cliche to say you're influenced by them," Motter says). McAlister even admits an admiration for the Beach Boys. (In the past, when he still went by J.J., he confessed to liking Toto.) Somehow, all these influences gel into Ester Drang's melancholy, down-tempo dreamscapes. "I don't think anything we've done to date is all that innovative," says McAlister, shamelessly modest. "We still have a lot more maturity to go through before we've created something truly unique. I'm just a product of what I think is cool. Any band is. Nothing you create is solely of yourself." Then bassist Kyle Winner nails it: "But it's not as much about creating a sound, it's more of a feel." Ester Drang is all about feeling. McAlister's right -- they're young and have a lot of growth ahead, and the band's current phase is very child-like. The music is purely emotional, concerned with sensory communication more than intellectual declaration. The band, in fact, is still learning how to control this subconscious exploration. The band's first gigs were on the local Christian rock circuit. With averted eyes, mumbled lyrics and no W.W.J.D. lanyards, Ester Drang was the Christian fish out of water. The members still consider Ester Drang a Christian band, but they try not to limit their expression. And they'll play absolutely anywhere, not just churches and sanctioned events. "Anywhere where the door's open and the electricity works," Williams says. Scene Three: Bryce's room, a knock at the door Bryce Chambers hops up, steps outside. Moments later he trudges back into the room. "That was a cop," he says. "Somebody complained about the noise." Everyone chuckles. "Man, we stopped playing an hour ago," Winner says. "Yeah, but you guys were playing metal. I could hear it. It was ungodly loud," Motter says, laughing. McAlister, typically stoic, seems vaguely perplexed. "We've been practicing here for five years, and that's our first noise complaint. Then someone adds, "People are taking notice." BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Brad Mitcho's a tad edgy. Not that Mitcho isn't always edgy, but today he's unusually tense. His eyes are darting back and forth with that kind of caged-animal, cramming-for-a-life-altering-test panic. He only makes eye contact when it surprises you. The waitress at the Brook is wary of him. He's tripped her fidgeting alarm, and it's clear he hasn't seen the sun in a few days. "I'm freaking out," he mutters during our conversation last week. "I'm trying to get it all done. I come from a theater background, so I tend to go overboard when getting ready for a show." This show, especially. The pressure's on this weekend as Molly's Yes unveils itself as a major-label pop band. The Tulsa quartet actually will play two shows — Oklahoma City on Friday, here at home Saturday — to celebrate the international release of "Wonderworld," the band's first shot on Universal's Republic Records. The CD was due on shelves across the country this week. "Wonderworld" is a spiffed-up version of the band's debut CD, "Paper Judas," which was released locally early this year. In the hands of Republic, the album's sound got a shot of steroids and added an extra track. But the umpteen thousands of copies still read, "Produced by Brad Mitcho." Molly's Yes — the name comes from Molly Bloom's life-affirming monologue at the end of James Joyce's "Ulysses" — consists of Mitcho, bassist and what critics like to call "sonic architect"; Ed Goggin, a powerful singer with an unruffled eye on Bono's white flag; Mac Ross, a gifted guitarist with an ear for tone and texture; and Scott Taylor, drummer and, like Mitcho, a former resident of another Tulsa musical mainstay, Glass House. In three short years, these four have blazed a trail of glory that defines the phrase "meteoric rise." How high they will go remains to be seen. One thing is clear to Molly's Yes, though. The next phase of their promising recording career starts this weekend. Back home. Making connections Mitcho's been up nights working on "incidental music." That's a phrase that usually sends serious rock fans scurrying for the beer tent, but it sheds light on the way Molly's Yes makes music. They don't just make music. They make an experience. "The whole vibe of this band has been to take slick songwriting and apply the electronic element," Mitcho says. "The artists who have inspired us are people like U2, Kate Bush — people who are aware of the audio, video and theatrical element of a show." Indeed, when Mitcho refers to the "electronic element," he's talking about sight and sound. Saturday's hometown show will be a festival of carefully orchestrated music and video, thanks to the work and talent of multimedia designers like Chris White at Tulsa's Winner Communications. It'll be cool, Mitcho assures, but it's made a lot of extra work for him. "Computers can't jam," he says. "I have to create a lot of music to bridge the songs, and I have to represent the songs as finished products." Molly's Yes is not an electronic band, though they are certainly electronically enhanced. Goggin's emotional songs and plaintive wails are melodic, accessible and moving, and he says he writes on an acoustic guitar like any other rock musician. Once the song gets its legs, Goggin hands it over to Mitcho, who slinks into his electronic lair. "The most exciting part is when I write a song and give it to Brad, and then he goes and does his ... thing," Goggin says. "I can't wait to come back and see where it's gone and get to see this Frankenstein thing come out." "The first time Ed and I were working together," Mitcho says, "we were talking about all these things we wanted to do with our music, and we had the same ideas for loops and stuff. He kept asking, `Do we have the technology to do that?' Well, yeah, we do!" So began a year-long journey for Molly's Yes: the creation of "Paper Judas." Mitcho maintained his intense focus on the album every step of the way — sometimes to the point of obsession. Goggin is quoted in the band's new Republic bio as saying, "He would not settle for anything less than the best to the point where he almost needed psychiatric help." The result of the labors, though, helped the band score three nominations at next month's Spot Music Awards, considerable radio exposure throughout the state (no small feat) and a contract with one of the music industry's most enterprising record labels. 'Sugar' coated Effects and cool sounds don't make a successful record, though, and they (usually) don't land your band a record contract. The Molly's Yes song "Sugar" — which was the single released locally and nationally — is impossible to eject from your head because, at the barest level, it's a solid song. " 'Sugar' was never meant to be 'Brain Salad Surgery' (Emerson, Lake and Palmer)," Mitcho says. "It's not hollow. It's basically three chords and the truth." "The title of it makes it sound like a confectionery thing, but the irony is that it's about drug abuse," Goggin says. "It's a beautiful tune wrapped up in a serious issue. 'Tell Me the Truth' gets into the complexity of a relationship. I mean, for the most part, this is pretty grown-up stuff. To me, that's more subversive than coming out with the angry thing right off. It's like, 'Yeah, we get it already. You're pissed off.' "Of course, people like to corner you into being this or that. We've already taken flack for different things. People who know me know I'm not this bookish guy thinking heavy things all the time. But, see, Molly's Yes is a great name because that last chapter (of Ulysses) is not just a daydream about flowers, it's about everything, a whole lifetime of experience, of sex, of love, everything. It's about all that we deal with as human beings. We, as a band, can be all those things. Starting slowly After this weekend's hometown kick-off, the band's plan -- surprisingly — is supposed to lie low. They recently hired a manager, Scott McCracken (Lauryn Hill, Cherry Poppin' Daddies, Spacehog), but there are no plans for Molly's Yes to tour extensively until after the band's New Year's Eve gig with Caroline's Spine at the Brady Theater. "Once the record hits, we're going to party here but keep it pretty low-key until after the holidays," Goggin says. "Every artist and their dog is coming out with their Last Record of the Century this fall. We're not going to try and compete with that, with people like Beck. It would be too difficult for a new band to squeeze in." So for now, there's just the party. Not only has Mitcho been locked up in his home studio creating cartilage for the show's transitions, but the band has been working and rehearsing at a fever pitch. This is the hometown crowd, after all. It's homecoming weekend. "People in Tulsa are looking to see if we've moved to that next level," Goggin says, "and we have a certain amount of gratitude to all the people who helped us achieve this, from all the media to the people at Christopher Sound and Vision to basically all the people who came out to the Brink every weekend to see us. We owe them something big." Molly's Yes performs Saturday at the Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St., with Shaking Tree. Doors open at 8 p.m., show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $7, at the Ticket Office at Expo Square, Mohawk Music, Starship Records and Tapes and the Mark-It Shirt Shop. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World The star-studded Spot Music Awards show just added another stud. Dwight Twilley — premier pop-rocker behind such early hits as "I'm on Fire" and "Girls," — has been added to the bill of the Nov. 12 concert at the Cain's Ballroom. Twilley will headline the Tulsa-talent show along with the Tractors and Admiral Twin. The free concert that night follows a first-ever VIP awards ceremony honoring Tulsa musicians, presented by the Tulsa World and its Spot entertainment magazine. Twilley's performance at the Spotniks will reunite him with original Dwight Twilley Band guitarist Bill Pitcock IV, who hasn't played on stage with Twilley in nearly 15 years. Pitcock contributed some of his unique guitar work to Twilley's latest album — Twilley's first new material since 1986 — entitled "Tulsa." And "Tulsa" is beginning to get around. Recorded entirely in Twilley's converted garage studio in midtown and released this summer on the American indie label Copper Records, "Tulsa" was picked up just this week by Castle Music, one of the largest independent record companies in Europe. The company also has agreed to distribute "Between the Cracks," a CD collection of rarities and outtakes from Twilley's entire three-decade career, released in the United States last month on Not Lame Records. "We got the deal!" exclaimed Jan Allison, Twilley's wife, from the canned veggies aisle at the neighborhood supermarket. She and Twilley were huddled in conference. Big dinner plans were afoot to celebrate a record deal that could be the beginning not only of Twilley's long-overdue comeback but of the much-ballyhooed return of power pop in general. "Everyone's been talking about how power pop was going to make this big return, but it hasn't happened. These people at Castle are telling me they want my record to lead the charge," Twilley said. "They've picked up six other bands from these labels, too, with the intention of starting this pop revolution in Europe, where they're craving it. I mean, people are going crazy to get these records over there ... And if it happens in Europe, then it could more easily happen here. We tend to take our cues from Europe on what's cool." Twilley's been releasing occasional vinyl singles in Europe for about a year through a French label called Pop the Balloon Records. The label reports that Twilley's singles have been the most successful sellers in its history. Why is the Old World so mad about the boy? It may be the Elvis Factor: Twilley never toured in Europe. Like Elvis, Europeans have only heard the buzz about him and been able to buy records, but they've never gotten to actually see him. Thus, they clamor after the records with greater appetites. "From their standpoint, I'm just something they've heard about," Twilley said. "When I had big records here, the first thing the labels wanted to spend money on was a tour of the states. We just never got to tour over there. If someone had said, 'Go play over there,' I would have. It was only when we set up my web site that I realized how big my audience is over there ... The worldwide reaction to this record has made me go, 'Gah!' I guess I'd better get off my butt and make another one." Are there songs in the works for another record? He simply chuckled. "I always have songs," he said. "I could make probably two or three records without writing a single new song. 'Baby's Got the Blues Again' (a song on 'Tulsa') is an old one that was on the original demo Phil (Seymour) and I took to Shelter Records. I thought that was a quirky and bold thing to do, putting it on the new record. Funny thing is, that's the song that's been spotlighted in most of the press we've been getting. I look back and think, 'Well, hell, there's 13 or 14 boxes with more of those.' That's what I raided to fill up 'Between the Cracks' — which is titled `Volume One,' by the way. And, I mean, these songs seem to stand the test of time. I don't think anyone listens to 'Baby's Got the Blues Again' and says, 'Wow, that's a 20-year-old song.'" Twilley hopes to mount a European tour soon to capitalize on his new continental success, but it will take some work to put it together. He hadn't even planned on playing locally until the Spot Music Awards came along. "It was only because of this thing you guys did — paying some attention to Tulsa musicians — that I decided to play," he said. In addition to suiting up with Pitcock for the first time in a long time, Twilley said he's planning some other surprises for the Spotniks show. Namely, he said he'll probably sit down at a piano again, "which I haven't done in years on stage but actually did on this record." Mostly, Twilley said, he just wants to have a blast. "This thing is like a special occasion. It's almost a partyish atmosphere, I think. The key to the whole deal is just to have a gas so the audience is aware they can have a good time and see what these wacky Tulsa musicians are all about." Also on the bill for the Nov. 12 concert are the Red Dirt Rangers, Freak Show, the Full Flavor Kings, Brian Parton and the Nashville Rebels, and Republic Records recording artist Molly's Yes. Twilley's "Tulsa" album has been nominated for the Best National Album award, and Twilley himself is up for Artist of the Year. Ballots for the awards run each Friday inside the Spot magazine. The last chance to vote will be the Oct. 22 ballot. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World The Norman club was a closet, anyway. The throng of collegiates, practically perspiring beer, willingly wriggled inch-by-inch through the door, compressing into the raunchy space and straining to see, to be seen, to hear what was going on. The typically laid-back Norman music fans were desperate, wild-eyed, clawing over each other's backs to see a band. A local band, no less. It was 1992, and the hometown Flaming Lips had recently signed to a major label, Warner Bros., and, to everyone's great relief, they hadn't sold out or lost their edge. In fact, they'd gotten tighter. Their Warner Bros. debut, "Hit to Death in the Future Head," focused and even magnified the band's off-kilter squeak-rock, its purposeful and orchestrated distortion, its kaleidoscopic lyrical visions. A bonus track even featured 29 minutes of stereo static. It was a Lips experience: enthralling, frightening, daring in its wizardry and sheer mass. When Steven Drozd's drums rolled and crashed on "Hold Your Head," it seemed that the world would end in that crummy little dive. The softest bullet ever shot Wayne Coyne, the Flaming Lips' de facto leader and chief sonic architect, finally got through on his cell phone last week. His voice was strained through the pixelized stops and starts of cross-continental cellular transmission. Somehow, it was an appropriate way to hear him. "We drove from Minneapolis to Seattle yesterday," he said. "I had some other interviews to do, and the cell phones wouldn't even work all the way across the Dakotas and Montana. I thought technology had invaded everywhere." The Lips are touring in support of their latest album, "The Soft Bulletin." It's their ninth full-length album, and it's the most fully realized, all-encompassing, masterful composition of the Oklahoma City-based band's 15-year career. The fumbling experiments in sound the Lips have conducted in the past three years pay off in breathtaking, sweeping rushes of sound — non-musical noises made not only musical but harmonious, delicate, emotional and enormous. Instead of the static guitars and loose-limbed rumble that supported the grade-A whimsy of the Lips' fluke 1993 hit, "She Don't Use Jelly," the songs on "The Soft Bulletin" strive for other sounds — plunky pianos, perky piccolos, nebulous noises. It's as if Coyne & Co. have mastered in music what poets have been striving for in print for centuries: the communication of the idea by invoking as many of the senses as possible. In modern music, though, Coyne said the range for that expression is quite narrow. "The music wants to limit itself," he said, crackling through the cellular relay towers. "Rock bands even limit themselves, saying, 'We'll play guitars and drums and that's all.' I've fallen into that myself in the past, and I kick myself. I use the analogy of painting. It's like a painter saying, 'I only use red and gray.' That's kind of limiting. Don't you want to use anything available to express your idea?" Gentlemen . . . press play Car Radio Orchestra was a Coyne experiment conducted in a parking garage during the 1997 South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. Up to 30 volunteered cars, including Coyne's, were led up to the fifth floor of the garage and arranged in a certain pattern. The drivers were instructed to open all doors and windows and crank their stereos up as loud as possible without distorting. They were each given a numbered cassette, and when Coyne shouted "Go!" through his megaphone, they all pressed play. The first piece was titled "That's the Crotch Calling the Devil Black," a swirl of white noise and high-pitched sounds — different parts coming from different cars — culminating in the breathy gasps and shouts of a lengthy female orgasm. A second composition followed, full of pounding drums that reverberated endlessly off the concrete ceilings and floors like the bouncing ball on a screen saver. Swelling synthesized music and crashing cymbals crescendoed into manic madness, and three cars blew fuses. Setting his sights on sound Later that year, the Flaming Lips released "Zaireeka," a set of four CDs designed to be played simultaneously — the fruits of the Car Radio Orchestra trials. Fans around the country set up four CD players around their living rooms to indulge in this new experience in sound. These projects were not simply the ravings of a madman with a big budget. (Major record labels — which are giant, profit-driven corporations — rarely release the whims of a mischievous employee.) Coyne said he was trying to funnel his boundless ideas into the medium in which he and he band work. "To be merely imaginative isn't the cure we're looking for," Coyne said last week, his voice distorting now like the aural equivalent of a television screen moire. "I think of a million ideas, but I have to have a reason as to why this idea applies now instead of later. The space we occupied with other bands eight or nine years ago — the distortion, effects, no boundaries — that's been absorbed in the mainstream culture." "The Soft Bulletin" features numerous environmental sounds that have been squeezed, pitched and distorted into musical elements. Coyne was personally taken with the sound his freezer door made when opening and closing — "this great thud and sucking sound, familiar to anyone who's spent a lifetime grabbing popsicles." So he recorded it and used it as a rhythmic element. "You can make music out of these!" he said, gleefully. "We're building sounds out of insects and refrigerators and using them in a sophisticated musical way. Brian Wilson said, `I just wasn't made for these times.' I say the opposite: these times were made for me." Is it live? This meticulous crafting of sounds in a recording studio is surely innovative; this, after all, is a rock band. Rock bands tour, play concerts. How will we hear these fantastic noises when the Flaming Lips are onstage? Enter the backup tape. For the current series of concerts, the Lips are playing to a pre-recorded tape of backing tracks and some rhythms. This is not karaoke, though; unlike the 'N Syncs and Britney Spearses, the Lips use the backing tracks for our benefit, not their own. In fact, the current live show is another experiment of Coyne's: the headphone concert. Upon entering the hall, most concertgoers will be given a portable radio and a pair of in-the-ear headphones. Using an FM transmitter, the band broadcasts the backing track inside the hall, so listeners can hear what's going in the room as well as enjoying the more detailed mix and stereo spread through the headphones. "Last Thanksgiving, (our manager) Scott Booker and I were sitting around thinking about what we were going to do to present this live," Coyne said. "We don't have Ronald Jones (a former Lips member) who was a master at rebuilding things, but even for him this would have been too much. So I finally sat down and said, 'I know what we're going to do. We'll play to a backup tape.' " Some practice runs were scheduled at the Boar's Head club in Oklahoma City, but Coyne said he didn't like the way the live music sounded with the tape. He started trying to think out of the box — how could the band present live sound in some other way than sending their amplifier signals through a bunch of speakers? The idea for headphones came to him at breakfast the next day. "It's worked, and it's something people really do like," he said. "The sort of thing we present, it just gives the songs more impact. There are so many things missing when you're standing a few feet from the stage hearing 120 decibels. We're one band you have to hear clearly to get the full range of the experience." Music Against Brain Degeneration Tour Featuring the Flaming Lips with Robyn Hitchcock, Sebadoh and Sonic Boom's E.A.R. When 7 p.m. Friday Where Will Rogers Theater, near 44th Street and Western Avenue in Oklahoma City Tickets $16; in Tulsa from Mohawk Music, 664-2951 By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Dwight Twilley doesn't sit still. Even in his own home. He's sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, rocking back and forth, sucking Parliament cigarettes to the filters. Sometimes he gets up and paces behind the couch. He bites his nails like a new father outside the maternity ward. He is a new father, really. His latest baby is being born right here in this living room, on the stereo. It's Twilley's new album — his first record of new songs since 1986. We're in Twilley's living room in a nondescript house in a midtown Tulsa neighborhood like any other. The dogs frolic in a fenced yard out back. The neighborhood kids loiter in the front yard, hoping to find one of the box turtles that live underneath the property's massive, signature oak tree. There are no fancy cars in the driveway. Only the converted garage with no windows -- Twilley's recording studio — gives away anything unusual about the house. No one would drive by and think this was the home of a Top 40 pop star. "It's only when I'm out mowing the lawn and looking dirty and awful that somebody drives by and stops. 'Are you Dwight Twilley? Can I get your autograph?' " he says. That odd, windowless garage is where the entire new album was recorded. It doesn't sound like a homemade record, though. It sounds bigger and brighter than any album released in his three-decade career. It sounds as if he had a huge, major-label recording budget — or, as Twilley is fond of putting it, "We tried to make this record sound like we had a deli tray." But there was no caterer, no staff of engineers, no heady Los Angeles vibe intoxicating everyone in the process. Just snacks in the kitchen across the breezeway, Twilley's wife Jan Allison running the control board and the laid-back comfort of Tulsa keeping the couple sane for a change. In fact, the heady Tulsa vibe informed and inspired practically every note, word and sound that went into this new record — from the use of a recorded thunderstorm and cicada chorus to lyrics such as, "I gave a lot up for rock 'n' roll / I had a lover but I let her go in Tulsa." A quick scan around the living room reveals prints of Twilley's paintings on the wall, a Bee Gees boxed set on the stereo cabinet, Twilley himself jittering through his nervous energy on the floor. At least he's still got the energy, and at least he's home. The new album will be on shelves Tuesday. It's called "Tulsa." All roads lead to Tulsa It's 1970. Twilley and Phil Seymour have finally gotten out of town. The two had met three years earlier at a screening of "A Hard Day's Night" and discovered their musical chemistry, as well as their desire to practice that science far and away from Tulsa. In a '58 Chevy, they head east to Memphis. Driving down Union Avenue, they pass a storefront painted with the moniker of Sun Records. "Hey, look, it's a record company," Twilley says. He and Seymour walk into Sun Records and talk to "some guy named Phillips." They have no idea where they are — Sun Records, the studio where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and countless others were molded, talking to Sam Phillips, the man responsible for their molding. Phillips listens to the tape of songs by Twilley and Seymour. He doesn't send them away. Instead, he sends them to Tupelo, Miss., to see Ray Harris, who says, "Y'all sing like (weenies)!" "We had no idea where we were, really. We thought Elvis was a movie star and that the Beatles invented rock 'n' roll. We heard this Elvis stuff and were saying, 'Hey, that sounds like Ringo,' " Twilley says of the trip. "It made an impression. That's what wound up setting us apart. Everybody else thought the Beatles invented rock 'n' roll, and we fused the two. "Plus, when we came back, we didn't sing like (weenies)." A few years later, after learning to blend the catchy pop of the Beatles with the backbeats of classic rock 'n' roll, Twilley and Seymour escape Tulsa again. This time they go west, to Los Angeles. Once again, they start shopping their tapes to record companies. "Leon (Russell) had started Shelter by then, and that was the last thing we wanted," Twilley says now. "We thought that was the stupidest thing in the world. Every club in (Tulsa) had someone singing like this — " and he launches into a wheezy, whiny Leon Russell impression. "We drove 1,500 miles to get away from that." Still, during the pair's first week in L.A., someone takes their tape to the Hollywood office of Russell's Shelter Records. Within days, Twilley gets a call from Russell's manager and label head Denny Cordell. "I show up at the Shelter office and sit in the little waiting room. The Shelter people are in listening to the tape and apparently freaking out. Somebody said, 'They came out here with a tape of 30 of these (songs)!' Denny walks out and says, 'I've heard your tape. Here's how I feel about it,' and drops a record contract in my lap. Then he walks out, saying over his shoulder, 'You'd better get an attorney.' That was it," Twilley said. "Then they sent us back to Tulsa." Inspired insubordination It's a chilly night early in 1975. Actually, it's early in the morning, maybe 3 a.m. Twilley and Seymour are toying around in the Church Studio (then owned by Russell) under strict orders from Shelter Records to get to know the studio and not — under any circumstances — record any songs. Maybe it's the hour, maybe there are stimulants -- regardless, Twilley and Seymour buck the orders. Seymour takes Twilley into the hallways and says, "Let's do it. Let's record a hit. Right now." Building on a groove Seymour had been tinkering with, and handing guitarist Bill Pitcock IV the riffing opportunity of his life, the Dwight Twilley Band records "I'm on Fire." The Shelter people will be annoyed — until they hear it. The single will be rushed out. By June it will hit No. 16 on the charts and stick in the Top 40 for eight weeks. For the next 10 years, Twilley's career will ride a roller-coaster of fame and frustration, scoring another Top 10 hit in 1984 with "Girls" and settling him into life in L.A. The prodigal star Fast-forward to November 1996. I'm at Caz's in the Brady District, checking out the latest band to be graced by Bill Padgett's thundering drums, a now-defunct act called Buick MacKane. The singer, Brandon McGovern, moved from Memphis to Tulsa just to be near Phil Seymour, who had died from cancer a few years earlier. The influence rings in every sweetened, Beatlesque chord. Buick MacKane is the opener tonight. The main act is Dwight Twilley. Most in the audience remember Dwight, after all, he had some hits. Those still new to the Tulsa scene probably don't realize he was a Tulsan, much less that he's back in town. But the crowd is willing to give his set a listen. When Twilley walkes into the bar — feathered hair, sloganeering buttons on his lapel — he turns heads not with the ghosts of his good looks but with an intangible aura of a superstar. His set on the floor of this tiny shotgun bar was bigger and stronger than any other local show in recent memory, and the songs were gorgeous, crystalline, catchy as hell. What on earth was he doing back here? "After the earthquake ('94, in California), the insurance people said we'd have to move out of the house to fix it and then move back in," said Twilley's wife, Jan Allison. "Dwight looked at me and started singing, 'Take me back to Tulsa . . .'" Weary of the literal and figurative shake, rattle and roll of the L.A. lifestyle, Twilley and Allison moved back in '94. Twilley wasn't retiring. In fact, quite the contrary — he planned to finally record a new album right away. "But with fax machines and Fed-Ex, you don't need to live in the big business centers anymore," Twilley said. "I wanted to come home." 'I'm Back Again' Before Twilley and Allison premiere the new record, Twilley shows off his home studio. It's a masterfully rehabilitated garage, an immaculate studio and a small drum room; set into the door between them is a porthole from the Church Studio. He points out a few pieces of equipment used in the recording, and talks about how many favors he cashed in to lure old Dwight Twilley cronies out to play on yet another record — original guitarist Bill Pitcock, noted local axmen Pat Savage and Tom Hanford, original Dwight Twilley Band drummer Jerry Naifeh, Nashville Rebels bassist Dave White and drummer Bill Padgett, among others. "I used up every favor, burned every bridge. There's guys who won't return my calls anymore," Twilley says. But he doesn't seem to regret the effort. He's very proud of the results and is quite sure that his moving back to Tulsa was a great career move. "This record wouldn't have been possible without the incredible musicianship in this town," he says. "I've always said that Tulsa musicians are the best in the world because they have to work so damn hard, harder than anywhere else. That was part of why I moved back. I wanted a band of Tulsa musicians again . . . and I feel a real sense of accomplishment that I've made a new Dwight Twilley record here in Tulsa." "Tulsa" will be released Tuesday by a Texas-based independent label, Copper Records. It's the first new Twilley record to hit shelves in 13 years, the first recorded in Tulsa in two decades. A CD collection of rarities and outtakes will follow later in the summer from a different label. A new Twilley single — 7-inch vinyl, no less — is the current best-seller for a French indie. Twilley classics have popped up on every "power pop" collection worth its salt in the last three years. Twilley just doesn't sit still — especially when he's home. Between the cracks By Thomas Conner © Tulsa World Twilley's latest salvo includes not one but two new CDs. In addition to the album of new songs, "Tulsa," Twilley soon will release a CD called "Between the Cracks, Vol. 1." It's a collection of rarities, demos and outtakes from the early '70s to the present. Twilley is an extensive archivist of his personal exploits, and he's saved nearly everything he's recorded on his own and with the Dwight Twilley Band. "Between the Cracks" features several gems from this collection, including several tracks from "The Luck" album, which was never released. There's also a demo of a song from about 1973 featuring just Twilley and a piano. "Between the Cracks" will be released by Not Lame Records in Colorado. For more information on Twilley recordings, look to his website at http://members.aol.com/Twillex. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World The members of Epperley on Sunday are returning from the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. They've been there before — once playing a packed official showcase, once playing to the sound man at a "pirate" gig -- but this year's self-promotion rings of self-confidence and assurance. No longer does this Tulsa rock band fit the mold of green, mildly desperate newcomers. An acclaimed new album, some miles on the odometer and a sense of professionalism instilled by four years in the running have fermented the Epperley sound into something finer, full-bodied and formidable. "Like wine, right?" smirked Epperley guitarist Matt Nader during a recent conversation. "Jeez, I hope we've grown by now. We're playing some great shows, and I think we're all excited about the record and what people will think of it." He should be. Epperley's new album, "Sophomore Slump," is likely to raise most of the brows furrowed by the self-titled debut. Recorded and mixed in a whirlwind few days in New York City, the disc is a wallop of fat guitars, roaring production and some solid songs. That it's finally on record store shelves is a bit of a relief, too — the release was delayed for a year — but Nader said he thinks the timing will be just right. "Somehow we haven't let people forget our name, and I think some people are actually waiting for this," he said. The waiting has been the hardest part. Better late than never Exactly one year ago I caught up with Epperley to talk about the new album, finished early in '97. When I asked when the record would be released, all four guys — Nader, singer David Terry, bassist David Bynum and drummer John Truskett — laughed. The responses, though, showed they weren't amused: "Maybe late May?" "This century?" "Hell's frozen now, right?" The band's record label, Los Angeles-based Triple X Records, held onto the disc while working out a deal to distribute it properly. Nader said the delay, while frustrating, will be worth the wait. "The last record (also on Triple X) was hard to find even here in Tulsa, but a friend of mine saw copies in a Tower Records in Germany and Indonesia, and I found it in Paris," Nader said. The new deal should make "Sophomore Slump" readily available in most music shops on this continent. Last year's meeting took place during a rehearsal at Nader's posh south Tulsa house. An upstairs bedroom was the band's studio, littered with chunky sound equipment and videodiscs of cult films. Truskett, the band's manic Neal Cassidy, was sniffling and wheezing behind his kit; the night before, his symptoms had landed him in the emergency room. Before launching into the first song of the afternoon, he beat on his chest, chanting to himself, "Who's not sick? Who's not sick?" "Hey, the drummer for Def Leppard only had one arm," Nader said, attempting consolation. No dice. "Yeah," Truskett said, "but he didn't have bronchitis." As the sun faded, they plowed through several of the songs they're still playing today — the martial beats of "Static," the reinvented boredom lament "Jenks, America," a great song that didn't make the new album, "Casio Man" -- randomly selecting them from a lengthy three-column list on a bulletin board. "Triple X wanted to put out an EP, but we thought that would be a bad idea," Bynum said. "We've got so many songs, though, and we haven't put out a record in so long." Said Nader: "We're the most prolific band in the Midwest." Indeed, since the appearance of "Epperley" in 1996, Nader and his mates have churned out scores of songs. Every few months, I'd see them brandishing another 90-minute cassette of new songs. In addition to producing their own Christmas CD twice, Nader even formed a band on the side, Secret Agent Teenager, to ease some of the songwriting pressure. In the interim, the band also landed a publishing contract with Windswept Pacific. "The publishing deal is actually the best part," Bynum said. "That gets our material in front of a lot of people who otherwise probably wouldn't play one of our records on sight. That has helped us to slowly, very slowly, get bigger." Teen-age imperialism Epperley spent the beginning of 1999 plying the West Coast with this sweeter sound. After four years together, this is the first serious touring the band has done. Nader said the advantages of honing a live show far outweighed the soul-deadening experience of driving for hours on end. "We got to play a lot — a lot more than if we had stayed here in Tulsa," he said. "It was a drag sometimes, pulling eight- to 12-hour drives every day and knowing exactly what records each person would listen to when it was his turn to drive. But we had some really good shows, especially toward the end of the tour." Not only did a San Diego club, the Casbah ("I finally got to rock the Casbah," Nader said), bring Epperley back for a second show, but the band's final gig was an opening slot for Imperial Teen, the latest band featuring Roddy Bottom (Faith No More), at L.A.'s noted Troubadour club. They plan to hit the road again next month, if for no other reason than to see Tina Yothers again. "Remember Tina Yothers, from 'Family Ties'? She's in a band called The Jaded," Terry said. "It's awful. It's like Cinemax after-dark kind of stuff. Really bad." It's gonna happen Meanwhile, Epperley now is concentrating on promoting the new album through all the right channels. The reviews are starting to come in, and most are positive. The band is now listed in the online version of the All-Music Guide, and both albums score three out of five stars. "The first album got reviewed in all these punk magazines," Bynum said. "That's bad." "We got a bad review in one of those that said we sucked because we didn't use distortion in every song," Nader said. "Guitar World said, `This band makes Blind Melon look like Pantera,' " Bynum recalled. "What else was there?" "Remember the shortest one?" Terry asked his mates. "It was just one sentence: 'Isn't Kurt Cobain dead?' " Everyone laughs, and it's a healthy laughter. The Epperley guys usually join detractors of their first record. Most of it was recorded when Epperley still operated under the names Bug and, briefly, Superfuzz, with some extra tracks added from initial, hasty L.A. sessions. "We don't even really like the first record," Nader said. "We can't blame Triple X for not promoting it. It was recorded without any idea that someone would say, `Hey, we want to put this out.' " But that, Epperley likes to remind itself, was a long time ago. "One day," Terry said, "whether it's on Triple X and takes forever or whether we're shoved into the limelight, it's going to happen for us." By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Leon Russell "Face in the Crowd" (Sagestone Entertainment) Ol' Leon's voice is just barely hanging in there, crusty and clogged and in need of some vocal Liquid Plumr. That's never handicapped Bob Dylan or Neil Young, and whether or not you think Russell measures up to those comparisons, "Face in the Crowd" at least pushes that old, gravelly voice of his hard enough to make it stand out in a crowd again. His testosterone-fueled howlings in "Dr. Love" cop some much-needed sexiness from Dr. John's bag of tricks. His growling ups and downs in "So Hard to Say Goodbye" restore some of the spunk of his hit-making days, too. Unlike his last record, the third "Hank Wilson" incarnation, "Faces" isn't rushed as much it sounds eager and comfortable — and seeing or hearing a comfortable Leon is a special treat. Russell could still benefit from the control and finesse of a smart producer — the arrangements and recording of son Teddy Jack tend to gum up in the speakers — but by reviving his distinct songwriting voice, Russell is assured to remain clearly identifiable in the crowd. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World For a moment, I thought it was a joke. "Hi, Thomas, it's Frank Black," said the voice on the phone that morning. "I'm at my manager's house, and I'm making some calls this morning, and I saw you on the list for interview requests, and I just thought I'd call and see if you wanted to set something up." An artist doing his own schlepping? Sounded fishy, to me. Sounded like my friend Robert, too, who also happens to be a fairly rabid Frank Black fan. I nearly laughed aloud. As the conversation trickled on, though — this actually was Frank Black, former lead singer of the Pixies and now slightly less manic solo artist. We arranged our interview for the following week, and I voiced my surprise at his grassroots service. "Well, I'm just a regular guy," he said. "As a fan of your crazy music for the last 10 years, I somehow doubt that, but we'll talk more later," I said. On the appointed day, I called him at 8 a.m. Not exactly a rock star hour. Maybe he's a regular guy, after all. "My mornings are pretty regular guy-ish," Black said. "I get up, give various animals a treat. If I'm in a coffee streak, I'll make coffee. If we have nice foodstuffs in the house, I might prepare myself a gourmet breakfast or skip it altogether. Then I make phone calls." The Pixies re-established the chaos at rock's core, laying the foundations for '90s modern rock with their serrated guitars, sloppy playing and Black's alternating mischievous irony and brain-curdling shouts. Listening to them rage through such visceral, subversive rants like "Gouge Away," "Debaser" and "Bone Machine," sunny mornings with breakfast and puppies are not exactly how I had envisioned Black greeting each new day. The years have mellowed Black, though — not to mention the distance from the Pixies' former glory. The group disbanded in 1993, and Black took off on a solo career portraying himself as an average suburban nobody with unexplained obsessions. The sales have shrunk ever since, and so have Black's notions of how to conduct business. "I was calling you because it's just easier for me to get things done when I have the chance," Black said. "The band has decided to do this next leg of the tour without a crew, without even a tour manager. It's my job to advance the shows. We've been in constant downscaling mode for the last couple of years ... We're enjoying becoming more self-sufficient. The more we do it, the less we need. I don't freak out if we show up to a gig and the monitors sound horrible. We booked the gig, and people are there. The only thing that really bugs me is a messy, dirty backstage men's room." Black's latest record illustrates the new stripped-down approach, as well. "Frank Black and the Catholics," Blacks' fourth solo release and the first to bill his new backing band, was recorded directly to two-track digital tape. No multitracking. No overdubbing. No studio trickery or polishing. In fact, the album they released was intended to be a mere series of demonstration recordings. "We were really just making an expensive demo," Black said. "We had booked four days in a studio that was a thousand dollars a day. Time itself said to forget the multitracking and play live, which we'd never done ... I've been in a pattern of writing in the studio, of building a backing track and worrying about the lyrical content later. We couldn't do that here. After the second day in the studio, we realized it sounded good, familiar, like we knew we sounded in a club." The Catholics include bassist David MacCaffrey and drummer Scott Boutier, formerly the rhythm section for Conneticut's Miracle Legion. The eponymous new album features former Bourgeois-Tagg guitarist Lyle Workman; on tour, though, Rich Gilbert, from Human Sexual Response among others, handles the guitars. Black's first couple of solo records were largely collaborations with Eric Drew Feldman, a one-time veteran of both Pere Ubu and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. Though Feldman still contributes on occasion, he backed away from the projects as a tighter band began to gel around Black. Black said Feldman still may join the Catholics as a keyboard player, but he's busy producing PJ Harvey at the moment. The return to the band construct has streamlined his sound, Black said, and he's glad to be a member of a posse again. "It's hard to miss the Pixies when we've got another band dynamic going," Black said. "It feels more band-like now. The choice of bandmates is more mature, too. You sort of fall into a situation with a bunch of people when you're younger. That had no experience behind it. This has 10 to 12 years of experience behind it. Now it's more possible to be the Rolling Stones when before we were more like the Monkees. There's something to be said for experience. It creates a groove of its own, which I think is heavier." Heavy grooves are certainly what Black enjoys. The new album is fairly typical and full of them, though the live recording keeps things moving briskly. The groove is the easy part, Black said. It's the lyric writing he dreads, which may explain a good deal of his, um, bent verses ("My Fu Manchu / Is a hard-earned way / Occidentally tic-tac"). "The easy part is strumming the guitar and getting that first lump of clay that looks like a song. You shape it, figure out the chord progression, and the melody comes out of that. The next part is pushing myself to write the lyric. I have to push," Black said. "It's like an algebra assignment. I'm not looking forward to it, and I put it off. Once I get into it, I enjoy it, but there's a mental block to that point. It's the scholarly side of songwriting. It's about having words rhyme together and having the song make sense, even if it's just to yourself. It's puzzle solving. "At this point, I'm not worried about what the song's about yet. You can write a song about anything. It's about putting words together. I get out dictionaries and reference books, geographical dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries. There's language in these books, and that's what it's all about. I'll get to three notes in the melody, and I'll think, 'Here, I want to go wah-wo-wah.' What word sounds like that? I'll stumble on a word for it. It might be obscure, but it will set off a flurry of activity. Then it's, `Oh, this will be a song about that.' " One thing Black does not write about much, though, is himself. No confessional singer-songwriter stuff here. "I don't get too caught up in that whole diary rock thing, when you have to write something from the heart. That's icky," he said. "You will write from the heart, whatever you write. There's a lot of fake stuff from the heart. People get caught up in striking a certain kind of pose, and it makes for some lame songs." Frank Black and the Catholics When 8 p.m. Saturday Where Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. Tickets $11, available at The Ticket Office at Expo Square, Mohawk Music, Starship Records and Tapes and the Mark-It Shirt Shop By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World There's a big underground rock show in town Friday night, but Flick is not on the bill. It's probably just as well, because these kids — now with their major-label debut on shelves — won't be underground for very long. They'll be playing at the Fur Shop on Friday night, the band's first Tulsa appearance despite living just up the turnpike in Stockton, Mo. That's near Springfield. Don't worry, you're not missing much, according to the band. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of town, and that's exactly the environment in which Flick enjoys creating its slow, serious, patient rock rhapsodies. "It's a town of about 1,500 people. There's not a lot going on," said Flick guitarist Oran Thornton of his hometown during an interview this week. "Trevor and I work better writing-wise being in someplace really quiet instead of someplace fast-paced like New York or L.A. It's nice to work in the middle of the night and walk outside to dead silence, stars and crickets rather than some busy street." Giving polish to the American-dream side of the music business, Flick has reached the big time without straying too far from its southern Missouri hamlet. Before the four members — Oran, his lead singer brother Trevor, bassist Eve Hill and drummer Adam McGrath — had graduated high school, they had major-label scouts finding their way to Stockton to hear them play. The band landed a few opening slots for artists like Duncan Sheik, most of whom went back to their record companies raving about "the kids in Missouri." A deal with Columbia Records was a quick rescue from a struggle to find place to play and an audience to fill it in a rural area not known as a magnet for modern rock. "Around here, it's pretty much all country music," Thornton said. "I think there are a few bars outside of town. If they even have live music, it's probably some country band that doesn't even play good country like Hank Williams — it's that awful, hip new country." With his distaste for country's current regime tucked snugly under his cap, Oran and his bandmates ironically recorded the bulk of their Columbia debut, "The Perfect Kellulight," in a studio outside of Nashville. Nashville turned out to be the perfect place to hone and record the album — again because of the Thornton brothers' desire to be away from any hustle and bustle. "Down in Nashville, we were away from label pressures and opinions of too many other people," Oran said. "It's frustrating when too many people get around you while you're trying to complete a thought. They try to put in their input when you haven't really gotten your whole thought out. We were able to finish our thoughts down there, so the record came out more like we'd envisioned it." Not that the members of Flick harbor any resentment toward Columbia, a major among major labels. The company has taken its time with Flick. Instead of snatching up the band of youngsters, flinging an album onto the shelves and shoving them out on the road, Columbia has given the band the time and resources to develop, releasing an EP early on and giving them space to shape the album. "Making that EP was the learning experience," Oran said. "At the time, we weren't completely happy with what was happening. If we didn't go through that process, we wouldn't have ever learned for sure what we wanted and what we didn't want. You have to figure that out early on or else other people will make you into what they want you to be." Oran is a sprightly 19 years old. His brother Trevor is his younger brother, and the other bandmates teeter similarly around that median age. Somehow in the '90s (after the '80s, during which most of the chart-toppers were retooled boomers) we've come to think this is an awfully young age to be snatched up by the record industry. Oran disagrees. "Back in the '60s and '70s, if someone was in a band at 17, 18 or 19, that was normal," he said. "That's what most rock bands were — young guys. That's why it was cool to want to be in one. Jimmy Page was 19 when he started. Tommy Stinson was 14 when he made the first Replacements record ... "It's an advantage in some ways because you can relate to your audience more. It's a disadvantage in others because of the hype around it. People want to compare us to Hanson or something, just because we're young — which is all we have in common with Hanson." For now, these young'uns will be touring around the region, casually supporting "The Perfect Kellulight" until the record is officially released to radio next month. Then stand back and watch as they shove the Smashing Pumpkins off the modern rock chart. Just a prediction. Flick With Fanzine and the Kickbacks When: 9 p.m. Friday Where: The Fur Shop, 320 E. Third St. Tickets: Cover charge at the door |
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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