By Thomas Conner
© TULSA WORLD After their first or second album, U2 skipped across America and performed a show in Oklahoma City. Halfway through the show, Bono asked if anyone in the crowd would come up and sing a Neil Young song while he took a breather. A young Tyson Meade volunteered, jumped on stage and began crooning for the crowd as U2 backed him half-heartedly. Meade, however, didn't really know the words, and he sounded less than honey-throated. His first taste of fame was cut short when Bono planted his boot in Meade's backside and abruptly returned him to the madding crowd. But Meade has a knack of re-emerging from the crowd. A few years later he was back onstage with his own band, Defenestration, and when that minor local legend dissolved, he re-emerged in 1990 at the microphone with the Chainsaw Kittens. With the Kittens, he's been beaten up and sneered at, but no one is kicking him off the stage, and when the band's fourth album is released this fall, he's likely to be kicking off the stage his own gaggle of groupies. The whole reason Meade formed the Chainsaw Kittens was to stand out, he said — not in the manner of whoring with the media, more like rebelling against the troubling trend of being normal. “I was sick of the Reviers and Guadalcanal Diary ... tired of the T-shirt and jeans thing,'' Meade said in a recent interview. “It seemed to me that rock should have some sort of face, not be faceless and nameless. Hootie (and the Blowfish) is so homogenized I just want to puke. We wanted to do something really raucous and a little dangerous.'' Meade's conception of raucousness and danger was dead-on: A cuddly longhair in Norman, Okla., he began wearing dresses and makeup. This raised the ire of many of our less open-minded brethren and resulted in a few skirmishes. “I used to do all kinds of stuff to get a reaction from people,'' Meade told us two years ago before a Tulsa gig. “I don't do so much anymore. Now we're focusing on playing our music. That's what we really want to try and do now.'' Those old Kittens shows at Norman's Hollywood Theater five or six years ago were the real stuff of youth. Crowds packed that dank, stained movie house and watched four hometown guys rip out hard pop sounds that were almost as exciting as the sound was bad. They jumped around, putting on an incredibly exciting live show, and everyone left absolutely convinced that Norman would, in no time, be the next Athens or the next Seattle. Norman (sigh) has not become the next anything, but the same cannot yet be said of the Kittens. They have, indeed, hung most of the dresses back in the closet and lately focused solely on the music. The upcoming Kittens record is one more step in the transformation of the Kittens. OK, not a transformation — more a refinement. The band members have spent the last several years working on solo projects and honing a slightly more stripped-down, focused sound for the band. In the last couple of years, Kittens guitarist Trent Bell has concentrated on his own projects and productions in his Norman studio, Bell Labs, while Meade has crafted his own solo records. “Motorcycle Childhood,'' his solo debut, was released in January on Seattle's Echostatic label, which also will release Meade's ambient record in January 1997. “I don't know that I was trying to prove anything to anyone but myself with the solo stuff,'' Meade said. “I really wanted to know that I could fly on my own and do it and put it out and take the heat by myself.'' “Motorcycle Childhood'' was an easy-going labor of love for Meade. The disc is extraordinarily simple, sweet and beautiful, uncomplicated songs written from various vignettes in Meade's pleasant existence and recorded in several living rooms. Meade said he took his time and let the creativity grow naturally. “I felt really good when I was doing it,'' he said. “Something like (the song) `Off With You,' was as simple as hearing a friend of mine playing this piano piece and thinking, `I could put words to that.' She said that would be cool, her boyfriend taped it, and it was completely spontaneous. Isn't that cool? After the majesty of that song, Meade made another serendipitous song, the brief pivot point on the record, “Reverse Nelson-Inside Crotch.'' He was at Bell's studio one day and heard a riff that Bell had taped and set aside, thinking it awful. Meade began clapping along and thought it held promise. He added some “Valium guitar and crazy organ'' and — voila! One more track. It's a much more accurate picture of Meade and his family life, much of which hearkens back to these parts. The album's cover photo shows a young, barefoot Tyson and his mother both on motorcycles in the family's Osage County apple orchard. “In summer, I picked apples for people and charged $5 a bushel. That was enough to buy a New York Dolls record,'' Meade said. Meade acknowledges the curse Oklahoma residency can be on a rock 'n' roll band, but he's not ashamed of his homeland. The new Kittens record will be called “Speedway Oklahoma.'' “We never worry about that kind of thing,'' he said. “We've never sold a lot of records, so maybe if we mention something really taboo, like where we're from, that'll be controversial enough to get people to buy it ... It definitely has a rural kind of weirdness to it — a go out and drink by a bonfire kind of thing. You can put it into a Trans Am and crank it up.'' The band easily could have moved to Los Angeles or New York when they signed their first major-label contract with Mammoth Records in 1990, but they chose to stay in Norman. Meade said it keeps them grounded and free of the sometimes corrupting influence of too much going on. Being in Oklahoma also makes them hard to find, though some rather big names have made the effort. When the Kittens' first record, “Violent Religion,'' had been out a few months, Meade got a call one day from a fellow aspiring rocker, Billy Corgan, who was starting a little band called the Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan was calling to gush over the Kittens' record and to voice his hope that his band would be able to make a record half as cool. Corgan now floats across MTV and cashes royalty checks from his platinum-selling albums. Meade, meanwhile, still kills time working at Shadowplay Records in Norman and grows peppers in his garden. Both are happy, but local fans tend to wonder why the deserving Chainsaw Kittens haven't become huge stars. “Some people strive, like Billy Corgan wants to be a really huge rock star. That's cool, but me — I want to strive to make albums I'm going to be proud of when I'm 60. I've reached that point, and I'm happy I did,'' Meade said. “Being famous seemed really cool at one point. I'm doing lots of things I love to do, though.'' Corgan himself wonders at the Kittens' lack of peer status. Early this year, he told Out magazine that the Kittens were “a quintessential pop-rock band'' and said, “There are certainly songs that they wrote that could have been pop-rock hits. It's kind of a mystery why they haven't.'' They've certainly got the names to drop. The Kittens are friends with the Smashing Pumpkins, which led to the Kittens signing to Scratchie Records (a Chicago label started by two members of the Pumpkins), and they're also tight with the Counting Crows. Butch Vig, of all people, produced the second Chainsaw Kittens album, “Flipped Out in Singapore.'' The new record — at the risk of raising those hopes again -- may be a significant step up for the band. After leaving Mammoth because the label didn't publicize the third record satisfactorily, the Kittens landed on Scratchie, which recently was acquired by Mercury Records. “Speedway Oklahoma'' was due for release in the spring, but the new marketers at Mercury delayed it to Oct. 15 to give them time to prepare a proper buzz. The disc steps back from the metallic edge that got more serrated as the Kittens progressed. Meade said every song uses strings, and the arrangements loosened up as the songwriting got tighter. “It's still really rockish, but it fills out a little more. We didn't depend on the guitar standard to carry it as much,'' Meade said. “People who follow us will think its back to where we were at 'Violent Religion' but more mature or something ... It's kind of like my record, but definitely more rock 'n' roll. It just doesn't sound like we're playing in a stadium.'' Also, watch for the Kittens' contribution to an upcoming tribute album to Cheap Trick. They cover “Dream Police.'' Tyson Meade discography: With Defenestration -- “Defenestration'' EP (Slow Iguana, 1986) “Dali Does Windows'' (Relativity, 1987) With the Chainsaw Kittens -- “Violent Religion'' (Mammoth, 1990) “Flipped Out in Singapore'' (Mammoth, 1992) “Angel on the Range'' EP (Mammoth, 1993) “Pop Heiress'' (Mammoth-Atlantic, 1994) “Candy for You'' EP (Scratchie, 1996) “Speedway Oklahoma'' (Scratchie, due out Oct. 15) Solo -- “Motorcycle Childhood'' (Echostatic, 1996) If this isn't around town, call Echostatic to order at (206) 322-7366. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Some artists touch us in the most extraordinary, unspoken ways. They craft their art almost unconsciously — making it look so easy — and while others merely reach out and titillate our glands, these rare artists reach out and massage the very muscle of our hearts. They transport us through all the barriers of politics, genres and all forms of identity to touch souls. It is here I will claim that Paul Buchanan — leader of a Scottish pop trio you've probably never heard of, the Blue Nile — is such an artist. I will not go about this objectively. I can't; I love his work too much. For those who amuse us with complaints about biased reviews (duh), I am hereby laying my biases upon the table. Buchanan's songs are the perfect balance between the melodic and the rhythmic, the spiritual and the physical, and I adore them. The Blue Nile has made three records in 12 years. That's 24 songs (none of them hits), an average of two a year — not exactly career momentum. After the debut record, “A Walk Across the Rooftops,'' appeared on A&M Records in 1984, fans of the album couldn't wait to hear what this band would do next. But wait they did. It took the Blue Nile five years to deliver the follow-up, the critically acclaimed “Hats.'' A fierce legal battle to free the band from a bad contract kept fans waiting another seven years for the third disc, “Peace at Last,'' which was released last month by Warner Bros. Still, the sound on “Peace at Last'' is so immediate and accessible, it's as if the band had been there all along. In a recent interview, Buchanan explained the band's anti-commercial pace. “After the first record, if we'd gone right back to work like others, we'd have made the next record in due course, but we weren't ready. We were insecure and we thrashed about for a while. We finally summoned the courage to play again for anyone who was still listening,'' he said. “I hope people don't think we're lying about in a swimming pool doing take after take after take. Nothing could be further from the truth. We got so caught up in the promoting and traveling and the one thing we overlooked was finding the time to go home at night and play the piano and let a song develop. We literally got off the plane one day and were told we'd be in the studio the next day. “We stoically went along with that for a while, but that's like putting a flower in a dark room and screaming at it to grow instead of giving it light and water and nurturing it.'' The new record turns to the acoustic guitar to prop up Buchanan's muted, ecstatic yearnings. The first record was a haunted, delicate clamor of eerie sounds — trumpet, guitars and keyboards — and every song is an excellent example of the value of space in a composition. “Hats'' carried forth the exact same lyrical imagery and emotional approach. There is nary a live instrument on the album, but seldom has studio technology been used to such a warm and personal effect. For “Peace at Last,'' Buchanan strived to maintain the music's sophistication and bring more live instruments into the mix. The result is a balance of all that is phenomenal about both previous albums. “I wanted to use wooden things. I wanted it to be a warm recording. I wanted to undo some of the notions about us,'' Buchanan said. “I felt mislabeled as being intellectual or cerebral or something like that. It isn't true for us at all. I wanted these songs to stand on their roots.'' The writing off of the Blue Nile as music for intellectuals is a bit of a farce. Buchanan's manipulation of empty space instead of 24 tracks of backing vocals, strings and atmospheric synthesizers sets sometimes sets a stark mood, and starkness is not a favorite aspect of mainstream culture. His lyrics rarely venture into anything intellectual. The joy of the first album is Buchanan's soul-less tenor crying out phrases like “I am in love'' and “Yes! I love you'' with youthful thrill. There are no manifestos on Blue Nile records, only gushing emotions fresh from the end of a humbly tailored sleeve. “Happiness,'' the opener to “Peace at Last'' features a simple theme, “Now that I've found peace at last / tell me Jesus / will it last?'' followed by another smooth Buchanan falsetto moment of glee: “It's only love!'' By the time the choir comes in, your eyes have closed and you've already been transported to a better place. “If someone responds in that way, it's because we have those feelings and assume others have those feelings, too,'' Buchanan said. “Our job is regarded as recreating those feelings but not attracting attention to ourselves doing so. We trusted there are people out there who would react if we did something honestly . . . There's no angle here, no ulterior motive. We're not here to get a Cadillac. “I don't want to sound pretentious. I just think the songs are true, and if they're true, the people will recognize it.'' By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Thomas Anderson still gets the odd piece of fan mail from Hong Kong or Bulgaria. Regardless of the country of origin, the letters follow the same basic lines: they found the album, bought it because it was American, and after they studied the lyrics and translated them, they think he's the next Leonard Cohen. It's a definite ego boost for one of the most critically lauded yet efficiently obscure songwriters of the last decade. Anderson's humility is both deserved and appalling. He's not worried about fame. Really. “It's nice if you have worldwide acclaim,'' he said in a recent interview. “All you really need, though, is to know that people appreciate your stuff and that you can still make a living doing it. Tomorrow never knows — you could wake up tomorrow with the Tulsa World calling you for an interview or you could die on a park bench like Edgar Allen Poe.'' Either way, you get famous, right? Yeah, well. Despite most readers' probable unfamiliarity with Anderson, he's been a critics' darling since his first indie release — the cumbersomely titled “Allright, It Was Frank ... and He's Risen From the Dead and Gone Off With His Truck'' — in 1989. He's gotten rave reviews from Rolling Stone to Berlin's Tip magazine. Why do critics love this hyperliterate native of Miami, Okla., so much? It could be because Anderson is a music journalist himself. Anderson sandwiched this interview between calls to Billboard and Musician magazines about upcoming reviews. But it's much more than mere nepotism. The fact that Anderson makes a fair living by writing prose as well as poetry indicates his talent for eloquent expression. Critics love him because he's a word man, a penultimate storyteller, and journalists like to think they are, too. The lyrical subjects on his third and latest disc, “Moon Going Down'' on the slightly higher profile indie label Marilyn, are about par for Anderson's musings — several ghosts (“Sing You Sinners,'' “Jerry's Kids'') and many quirky characters (“Running With Heidi,'' “Last I Saw of Adam''). Anderson's stories are always haunted and his antagonized protagonists are usually on the road. He sings their tales with his nervous, thin voice in as folksy a manner as rock 'n' roll will allow. He's been compared to everyone from Lou Reed to Lyle Lovett. “The acclaim has not been worthless,'' he said. “It's really helped me, not in terms of sales but in terms of getting small labels interested. When somebody gets written up favorably, the small labels start calling. It opens a lot of doors, and it does sell some records.'' It got him to Austin, Texas, anyway, his current home. Anderson launched his first musical experiments from Norman, though, where he moved in the late '80s after graduating from Oklahoma State University. “There were two places in Oklahoma then where people were forming bands: Tulsa and Norman,'' Anderson said. “Most of the musicians I know in Tulsa were in cover bands. Norman struck me as the most open- minded scene. Stillwater had such a large old hippie enclave, and the music still reflected that. It was too isolated for me.'' Most of his friends continued south and settled amid the thriving local music scene in Austin, but Anderson stayed in Norman. He liked it. It fit. “It's a good place to go to form a band and get your chops together while you figure out exactly what you want to do. The scene is creative enough, but there aren't any pressures, which can be a good or a bad thing,'' Anderson said. “Norman is a little bit like Austin. I don't know if it will ever be as big a scene, though, simply because of economics. It can't support a lot of clubs. The spirit is there.'' Still, Anderson eventually gave in to central Oklahoma's indifference to original music and headed to Austin with the rest of the talent. “Not of lot of people were getting what I was doing,'' he said. “I'm this guy with an acoustic guitar singing some songs I wrote. People in Oklahoma City think that means one of two things: he wants to be Neil Young or he wants to be Larry Gatlin. So I came to Austin where they do get it. I'm not a huge star down here by any stretch of the imagination, but they do understand that there are people here like Vic Chesnutt who just have some songs to sing, and they'll listen.'' Indeed, he ain't no superstar. He is confident, however, that time will be good to him. “Something I've been learning over the years is that there are a lot of others like me in that respect — people slogging it out. I read somewhere that if you keep doing this for 15 years then you get your legend card and people begin to notice you, start covering your songs and everything,'' Anderson said. “If you stick with something long enough, people will catch up with you. When I was at OSU, a visiting poet said that if you want to be successful you'd better hope you live a long time.'' Then Anderson started citing monumental examples of this theory. Leonard Cohen: “He's in his 60s and people are just now figuring out he's one of the best songwriters around.'' Richard Thompson: “The rock world certainly caught up with him. I see Thompson covers all over the place now.'' Elliott Murphy: “His new album has Springsteen and the Violent Femmes on it. He's been turning out quality work since the 1970s and he still hasn't got the respect he deserves. He may never get it. I may never get it.'' The logical thing to do here, of course, if he wants to get noticed, would be to sell out — write that hooky love-you-all-night-long song, pepper it with “baby'' and “oh yeah'' and collect the checks. Anderson's got the ability to write catchy pop — listen to “She Looks Like Ricki Lee Jones'' — but somehow he's too darn smart to write vapid lyrics, try though he has. “I've tried to sell out. I've made really half-hearted attempts at writing sell-outs, and I've hated myself afterward,'' he said. “I wish I had that kind of meteoric career where I shoot into the top eschelons of the business very, very quickly, but that's not how it seems to work with me. I just have to do what I feel in my heart and soul and win or lose on what I am.'' His one recent stab at success was a nomination for a W.C. Handy Blues Award. Yes, a blues award. Anderson wrote a song with blues singer Keri Leigh, a friend of his from Oklahoma. The song is called “Here's Your Mop, Mr. Johnson'' — a quintessential Anderson title — and it was up for best blues song fo the year. Leigh and her band, the Blue Devils, performed the song at the awards ceremony in May; alas, it did not win the prestigious award. “Moon Going Down'' is a success for Anderson, anyway. He said it's his “purest'' album. “This one is the closest to what I heard in my head,'' he said. “The songs I heard in my head this time I pretty much succeeded in getting onto the tape that way. We really nailed it this time.'' Someday he'll hit. Someday we'll be writing reviews of the Thomas Anderson tribute album on Columbia Records featuring Bettie Serveert, Giant Sand, King Missile and Aunt Beanie's First- Prize Beets. Until then, he'll keep puttering down the lost highways full of America's hidden relatives and just do his thing. Before we called him, he'd just spoken to a label in Sweden about cutting a mini-album. “You do what you can, you know?'' he said. “If the steps are only upward, even if they're tiny, it's better than selling tires.'' This post contains my complete running coverage of this annual festival ...
© Tulsa World Walls of wailing By Thomas Conner 06/28/1996 Lloyd “Bread'' MacDonald and Winston “Pipe'' Matthews, together known as the Wailing Souls, learned by doing. In their early teens, the two would finish up a typical school day in Trench Town, Jamaica, with a vocal jam session in an unused kitchen. Hanging out in their government yards (the Jamaican equivalent of the projects) with the likes of young Bob Marley, Ken Boothe and Delroy Wilson, they learned how to sing and how to mean it. Pipe and Bread went on to record a string of reggae hits and establish themselves as an important part of the reggae scene in the late 1970s and early '80s. In 1988, they relocated to Los Angeles, but their mission and message stayed the same. In fact, they discovered that the social worlds of Jamaica and Los Angeles offered the same hope and despair. We caught up with Bread in Los Angeles this week before his Tulsa appearance as a part of Reggaefest this weekend. Tulsa World: How did the environment of the government yards in Trench Town contribute to the music you created? Bread: When all the people are put together like that, it teaches you how to get along with your neighbors. It helps to develop a sense of family among many families. There is so much poverty, and out of that is where most of the music is spawned. People like Bob Marley and so many of the reggae singers are always singing about oppression and suffering. That's our roots, really. No matter where we are, we always remember the places like Trench Town. It's easy for me to put myself right back into that frame of mind in Trench Town. That picture stays with me wherever I go and will be there all my life. How are Trench Town and Los Angeles alike? Trench Town in Jamaica is very much like Compton in Los Angeles. Both places graduated many talented youths into musical careers and both places have a lot of gangs. Lots of our friends in school took the wrong path and did not survive. If Pipe and I hadn't latched onto music when we were youths, we wouldn't be here today ... Trench Town is a strange place. If you mix with the wrong crowd, you could end up in prison or dead. We're thankful we found guys like Bob Marley to hang out with and learn music. And these conditions are pretty universal? Is that why you wrote anti-violence songs like “O.K. Corral'' and “What's a Life Worth''? These things are happening all over the world. There is violence going on all over. We always try to write songs that reflect what's happening all around the world. Most of our songs from 10 years ago are still relevant. I don't know if that's good or bad. What's unique about reggae music? Why can it spread those good messages so effectively? That message itself is unique to reggae music. The rhythm is very unique, too. You hear a reggae song and you know it's a reggae song. We Jamaicans talk a different way and walk a different way and dance a different way. The music basically reflects all those things. It's music born out of the ghetto, not out of a conservatory or something. The people who play reggae music learned to play music by ear. It's created in jam sessions. In that way, we have no boundary, nothing to say you can't do this or don't do that. You just do whatever is natural in the context. It's freedom music. Is it difficult to balance the demands of writing good music and good messages? We look at music as a spiritual thing, and the lyrical content is most important. If we have a great track going but the lyrics are not right yet, we'll take two months or whatever it takes to finish the lyrics before we finish the track. The words come first. What do you think of other forms of reggae — ska, dancehall, rocksteady, etc.? It's all the same music, man, it's just the music growing. It's the same thing and we love it. You have to have the roots and you have to have the branches. To me, it's just Jamaican music, whatever you call it. Walls of Wailing II By Thomas Conner 06/28/1996 Bob Marley's last birthday party was thrown in Germany where the Wailers had convened briefly after a tour. It was clear by that point that Marley was not well, that his cancer was a formidable foe even to someone as positively charged as Marley. Amid the tempered revelry, Marley pulled aside the band's guitarist, Junior Marvin, and bassist, Aston “Familyman'' Barrett, and told them to keep the Wailers together. “He said if worse came to the worst, he wanted us to keep the positive energy going, to keep the music and the spirit and the vibe going,'' Marvin told the Tulsa World last week in a rare media interview. “We thank Jah we're still here, doing this for him and the world.'' True to Marley's wish, the Wailers have not stopped. They played at Marley's funeral in 1981. A few months later, they were already playing tribute shows in San Francisco. The occasional legal wrangle has delayed recordings since then, but the band has released three albums since Marley passed, and the members continue spreading Marley's positive vibration around the world. The Wailers without Marley are a different band, certainly. A lot of technology has come around since Marley was in the studio, and the Wailers make use of it to create their own sound, their own songs. But they will always carry the legacy of Bob — a legacy in music that extends far beyond the confines of “reggae'' or even “black'' music — and they'll probably always play the old Marley tunes. “Our show is about 50-50 old and new,'' Marvin said. “We do about six or seven songs from our new album, and we do the Marley classics like `Exodus' and `I Shot the Sheriff,' stuff like that. A lot of people want to hear the old songs, but that doesn't mean our audience is always old. There's a brand new generation out there. Our crowds are full of 12-year-olds, 17-year-olds, parents, grandparents, delinquents. They want to hear the things Marley sang about. We don't get tired of it. It's like the Olympics, it's like with Bob we won the Olympic medal. It's an honor. You can't decide one day you just don't want to talk about it anymore. It's an honor to keep the message going.'' The Wailers started humbly enough, as a trio of singers wanting to take the doo-wop sounds they loved on radio and fit them to the island rhythms of Jamaica. Marley's smoky voice led the group through two albums that launched the band onto international charts, and the peaceful revolution began. Marvin hooked up with the Wailers in London in 1977. He had played guitar on Steve Winwood's “Arc of a Diver,'' but he had no steady band of his own. Marley recognized Marvin's ability to play a wide variety of styles, from rock to blues to reggae riddim and brought him into the fold. The first project they worked on together was the “Exodus'' album. “Our first session together was when I came in to play one day with Bob and Tyrone Downey, the keyboard player. They were jamming, so we became a trio. We were really happy with the way things sounded, and I thought it was great to be playing with a reggae band like this. Dreams really do come true,'' Marvin said. Marvin's lead guitar gave some presence to the typically bass-defined reggae pocket. His grasp of different styles came from his upbringing — a jazzman father, an uncle who was a sound man, schooling that exposed him to classical music and rock 'n' roll. Marvin refers to his own playing as a mix of Jimi Hendrix and George Benson, and Bob used that versatility to explore all the extremes. Had Marley's popularity not taken off as it did, Marvin wonders if Jamaican artists would have seen the acceptance they now enjoy. Before Marley's reggae music got around, few off-island had heard the style at all. “Nowadays you see many reggae bands all over the world. In Bob's time, hardly anyone from Jamaica was touring. Many were putting out that positive energy in the music, but they hadn't been able to get it out to the world,'' Marvin said. So that's another reason the Wailers determined to carry on with the band. Reggae is one part groove to one part sermonizing -- most of these musicians have a message of love they want to preach to the masses, and in the wake of Marley their jamming can reach wider audiences. The groove makes the message easy to take, and the message makes you feel like dancing. It's musical mission work. Marley was able to break through, Marvin said, because he kept his messages simple. Plus, he practiced what he preached, a rarity among musicians, Marvin said. “Bob always said he wanted even a baby to be able to understand what he was saying,'' Marvin said. “He was direct, strong and forceful in a very loving kind of way. He didn't put you off or upset you. He made you happy to talk about thing you might be afraid to talk about.'' The latest Wailers album, “Jah Message'' on Ras Records, uses a lot of new technology — drum machines supply a lot of the groove and eerie guitar effects flavor the mixes — but the message is the same. Some titles: “Rasta,'' “Jah Love (Believers)'' and “Many Roads to Zion.'' “Know Thyself'' even reflects the Wailers' doo-wop roots; Marvin and company open the song singing, “Shoo whap shoo whap, do do do day.'' The world needs reggae, Marvin said. We need that message, that reminder of peace. Music being a universal language, it can reach cultures all over the world, and we always need it, he said. “We need the message all the time. The conflicts and troubles are the same around the world in every time of history. We have a negative, warring side to us and we need to calm that vibration. Music helps us stay calm and balanced,'' Marvin said. “The message is very simple — 'Let's get together and feel all right,' like the song says. It's that simple.'' Reggaefest By Thomas Conner 07/02/1996 It's easy to hype Reggaefest with lots of cutesy, condescending ignorance — talking about musical styles you really don't understand, insulting overuse of the word “mon'' — but when the whole thing comes together, it really is something special. For all the advertised peace, love and understanding, there is a unified feeling of happiness and hope that actually delivers. Or that could just be the delirium of heatstroke. Either way, Reggaefest is the best party around, and this year's bill was the finest lineup of world music talent in years — a truly impressive bunch of international stars in lil' ol' Tulsa. The crowd Saturday evening appeared to be a huge turnout even for the perennially popular Reggaefest. The big draw was the featured act, the one and only Wailers band. This continually evolving group that once backed the legendary Bob Marley continues to tour and perform Marley's songs as well as its own originals. But the crowd came to hear those classics, and the Wailers came through. What a show — you've got the expectation of seeing several historical figures in the pantheon of world music, you've got a catalog of timeless songs that by their very nature instill positive vibrations and singing along, and you've got a band that in spite of anyone's huffing about composition of original members versus new members delivers a powerful performance. Lead singer and guitarist Junior Marvin can perform “I Shot the Sheriff'' repeatedly and have his ticket written for him for the rest of his life, but if he's resting on his laurels he doesn't show it. He put every bit of his vocal strength and showmanship into Saturday night's set, and they way he sermonized the sweaty congregation hinted that his heart was in it, too. The Wailers are still an impressive band. Aston “Familyman'' Barrett is the best bassist in reggae, a genre that revolves around the bass guitar. Alvin “Secco'' Patterson is the happiest percussion player you'll ever see. Saturday night he slapped his drums and wore a towering rave hat with Rasta colors. During “Where Is Love,'' he removed it and, sure enough, that huge hat was stuffed with dreads. Many Marley classics were covered — “Natty Dread,'' “I Shot the Sheriff,'' “No Woman, No Cry,'' “Positive Vibration,'' “Exodus,'' even “The Heathen.'' The new Wailers material varies between good progressive reggae, like “Jah Love,'' to silly filler like “Rasta,'' sort of a Rastafarian “Jesus Loves Me.'' Marvin pulled out the 12-string guitar for “Redemption Song,'' and the performance of “One Love'' was as inspiring as any gospel music. It is gospel music. Listen to those lyrics, “Give thanks and praise to the Lord, and I will feel all right.'' It's a devoted religious message being played to a multitude of eager listeners, and it succeeds where much religious music fails because of that extra step — feeling all right. Thousands of Tulsans held hands and felt all right for two solid hours. Amen. The two-day festival featured 10 other high-class musical acts. Here are some highlights: Festival organizers tried to branch out a bit this year. One of the results of that effort was the appearance of the Grown-Ups on the second stage Friday and Saturday. This is a ska band from Denton, Texas, and they're pretty hot. Ska is a fairly rigid style of music, but the Grown-Ups found ways to loosen it up a bit, chiefly due to an energetic trombone player (with great shoes) and an innovative drummer. The lead singer, though his lyrics are pretty amateurish, barks with the force of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. When someone on Friday shouted, “Play some Bosstones!'' he said, “What are the Bosstones? Is that 'More Than a Feeling?''' Another result of branching out was Friday night's main stage set by O.J. Ekemodie and the Nigerian All-Stars. Ekemodie and his two female dancers, one on either side, must be the Tony Orlando & Dawn of western Africa, playing their Afro-beat and singing songs about “social concerns.'' He played a mean sax and a cool drum out of which he got a surprising array of tones. His frequent dedications to a free Nelson Mandela helped both charge and date the festival; Mandela's freedom was still nebulous during last year's Reggaefest. Billy Goat returned to Tulsa to ply us once again with its tribal rhythms. This band, now based in Lawrence, Kan., played the festival's second stage Saturday evening and actually got some of the typically staid second stage audience members to dance. Billy Goat always does. The rhythm is the thing for them, evidenced by two drummers and a band member who's sole purpose is to dance. Local Hero kicked off the main stage Saturday evening after a brief delay caused by power problems. This Tulsa-based band has played almost every Reggaefest, and the band deserves its billing on the main stage. After seeing Local Hero a million times at venues around the state, it's easy to forget how good they are until they're in a festival alongside the international stars and they hold their own. Heck, they were better than a couple of the main stage acts from exotic islands. Lead singer and bassist Doc James introduced the band's final number, “Put Your Hand in Mine,'' saying, “Everybody asks us why we're not bigger, more famous ... I'm happy right where I am.'' We're happy to have him here, too. Arrow is a tiny man but very mighty. He has taken soca music across an astonishing number of borders, primarily due to the success of his song “Hot Hot Hot'' — a terribly appropriate song for the occasion — which he served up in the middle of his Saturday night set on the main stage with infectious energy. His band was incredibly tight and proficient; the drummer did not stop whacking the same beat for the first 20 minutes of the set, and Arrow knelt down before his three-man horn section for good reason. By the time they blasted into “O'La Soca,'' everybody's feet hurt. Bless those Rhythm Lizards. This local band of worldly music had its own stage throughout the festival, playing sets while the main stage was changing acts. They somehow came up with enough material to perform for nearly six hours on a frying pan of a stage and played their hearts out to a captive audience among the merchandise booths. They win the endurance award. Festival organizer Tim Barraza made a special dedication before the Wailers set, dedicating this year's event to its former emcee, J.T. “Dread'' Turner, and presenting a plaque to Turner's three children. Turner died in September in a California hospital. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World First, I couldn't get anyone to go to the show with me. "Who are the Plimsouls?'' my poor friends would ask. I could feel age advancing upon me like a Monkees fan. Then I arrived at Ikon and greeted Davit Souders, the club's owner. He said, "You'll feel young when you get inside. Three kids came in and asked for their money back because they said the crowd was too old.'' Indeed, I was a pup among dewey-eyed fellow geeks stuck somewhere between the uplifting label of boomers and the targeting label of Generation X. Some of them had brought their kids, and all of them restrained themselves from dancing. The Plimsouls are relics from that brief period in music history when pop and rock merged quite fluidly. Now 15 years after their original heyday, they held the Ikon stage on Monday night with all the presence of ROCK STARS — flashy, brash, hard-worn purveyors of the teen beat. Nobody in this quartet is pin-up material (when they make the film, Eric Stolz will gain several pounds and play lead singer Peter Case), but they rock in the purest sense. They're not out to change the world, they're not willing to sell their grandmothers to be the next big thing and they have a freakin' ball. Case has one of the most unpleasant, scratchy voices in rock 'n' roll, and he uses it to an incredibly appealing effect. Without the sniggering attitude of a young Paul Westerburg, Case leads his band through music perfectly balanced between the jangle of the Byrds and the serrated stab of Blondie. It was around bands like the Plimsouls, the dBs and early Joe Jackson that the term "power pop'' was born. This is pop — unselfconscious, unpretentious songs about bad luck and getting even and missing your other half -- charged with the desperation and kick of serious rock 'n' roll. As the band charged through its lengthy set (rarely stopping for more than a breath between songs), the guitarist cycled through about eight different guitars while drummer Clem Burke — of Blondie fame — reminded us how cool drummers can be. n occasional offbeats, he would raise a drumstick high in the air, his eyes following it, then drop it with a crash and a wince. He wore a D.A.R.E. T-shirt. (When they make the film, Dana Carvey will have his role.) This was no nostalgia show, either. As Case sang, "Time goes by so fast / I don't want to live in the past.'' The set included the standards (yes, they played "A Million Miles Away'') plus a Who cover and several new songs, "Playing With Jack'' and "(Too Much) Satisfaction,'' which are just as hot as the originals, maybe better. Another band of power popsters from the L.A. scene opened the show, 20/20. These three guys are Tulsa natives, though this was their first Tulsa show. The group's two founding members came back together last year to make another album with Bill Belknap, owner of Long Branch Studios. Now the three kick around the country playing infrequent gigs, wherever they find a festival or an audience of new wave nostalgists. Despite that occasional playing schedule, this trio is amazingly tight. Guitarist Steve Allen worked a lot of sound out of his lone guitar, and Belknap pounds the drums with shocking ferocity. Ron Flynt, the gangly bassist, loped around the Ikon stage flashing his curious expressions of bliss and confusion. His songs of tarnished innocence and childlike reconciliation reflect his visage, from the set opener "Song of the Universe'' through 20/20 classics like "Remember the Lightning,'' "Nuclear Boy'' and "Yellow Pills.'' I'm no old coot, but somehow I become Grumpy Old Man when talking about my new wave heroes. Those three kids should have stuck around. This "old'' music feels so much younger. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Plimsouls fans have long lamented the failure of their favorite band to take over the world. Listening to the band's pinnacle album, 1983's "Everywhere at Once,'' they certainly sound like they could have — charged guitars and a hoarse singer that preceded the height of Husker Du and the Replacements. Lead singer Peter Case is the first to fess up as to why the Plimsouls died an early death. They were slackers, he said. "We didn't have it together at all,'' he said in an interview last week. "We were talking last night about our behavior during various tours. We weren't ever focused. You've got to be willing to sell your grandmother to go far in this business, and we weren't. We had the music and the drive and the commitment, but we didn't have any common sense.'' For instance, Case said he hired the band's first manager simply because the guy had cool clothes. One bad decision led to another, and soon the band faded away. But that's not the end of the story. Case — a consummate songwriter who had polished his sense of perfect pop in another short-lived band, the Nerves, before charging the Plimsouls — laid down his electric guitar when the Plimsouls dissolved and picked up his acoustic. For the next several years, Case painted a portrait of the artist as a hip, literate troubadour, complete with baggy suit and felt fedora. His folk approach wowed critics but still escaped widespread attention. Now he's back with the Plimsouls. The band reunited two years ago and rode the same wave of Los Angeles new wave nostalgia that brought 20/20, a band of Tulsa natives, back together. The revived Plimsouls now ride that wave across the country, playing to venues packed with people who claim they've loved the Plimsouls all along. Funny how that happens. "Stuff changes through time,'' Case said. "I definitely remember nobody listened to Big Star when they were out. I had the third album on tape and took it everywhere. No one knew who they were. Nobody gave a s--- about the Velvet Underground, either. Now everyone's realizing how important they were.'' The Plimsouls were sucked up by a late '70s record-label hunt to find the next Knack. But don't tell Case that. "We didn't have anything to do with that, with new wave or anything,'' he said. "The first big Rolling Stone article about us was headlined, 'L.A. Look for the New Knack.' It's insulting to be called a throw-off of the Knack. New wave was a polite way of saying punk at the time — no one knew what anything was called. We didn't mind being stuck with the label because it said 'new,' which we liked to think we were, but it still just meant something I didn't understand, like 'French cinema.' The Clash called themselves new wave, you know? I mean, let's wait and see what 'alternative' looks like in 15 years.'' After an independent debut that raised a few eyebrows, the Plimsouls signed a huge deal with Geffen and released "Everywhere at Once,'' the album that spawned the one song that can truthfully be called a hit, "A Million Miles Away.'' Case growled on that record long before Greg Dulli's desperate rasp came along in the Afghan Whigs, and the band's aggressive spirit recalled the harmony and power of "Beatles VI'' without losing its independence. But alas, it was not meant to be. Case said they just didn't have the gumption to take over the world. "We were lazy, and we were stupid in terms of career choices,'' Case said. "We worked hard, but I'm just not able to connect in that way. Maybe it just wasn't our fate. I mean, Tom Petty and those guys did 72 takes of 'Refugee.' They killing their drummer, and it worked. We were really just a garage band. I've had a great career. I'm not complaining. You can be a great artist, and that doesn't mean you have to make a fool of yourself on MTV's 'Sex Secrets of the Stars' or something. But try to explain that to anybody.'' Case didn't really want to walk away from the band, but he said he felt he couldn't do both — the solo work and the band. The band finally did reform and start playing gigs again. Case said he now has the best of both worlds, but he's not so sure how the Plimsouls fit into the current music scene. "We played last night at this festival with Jewel and different assorted alternative rockers. The average age of the crowd was about 12. They were moshing and jumping around on each other. I don't really see myself as the spokesman for the 12-year-olds,'' he said. Drumming for the Plimsouls now is Clem Burke, who played drums with Blondie. Case called him "the best drummer in the world.'' The Plimsouls with 20/20 When: 7 p.m. Monday Where: Ikon, 606 S. Elgin Ave. Tickets: $10 at the door By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Prior to his upcoming visit to Tulsa, and his appearance in "Sesame Street Live: Let's Play School,'' America's favorite bird, Big Bird, stopped to answer a few questions about his life and times. The Tulsa World spoke with Big Bird on March 20 — his birthday. Here's a report of the, er, fowl language: Tulsa World: How old are you today? Big Bird: 6 years old. I don't think I look a day over 5, do you? TW: How long have you been 6 years old? BB: Longer than I have fingers to count. TW: You have fingers? BB: I'm luckier than most birds. TW: What's your secret of staying so young? BB: Living in my fantasy world. I'm a part of a fictitious world where nothing changes. Plus, constant maintenance and grooming. TW: What species of bird are you? BB: That has never been figured out. Maybe sort of a stretch canary. I'm synonymous with all birds. TW: Can you fly? BB: No. But I have high-flying dreams. TW: What is your natural habitat? BB: My nest on Sesame Street! It's at 123 1/2 Sesame St. TW: Are there other birds like you? BB: Nope. There's only one Big Bird. TW: What do you want to be when you grow up? BB: I'm still thinking about that one. I'm pretty happy where I am. TW: Will you ever graduate from first grade? BB: I get a gold star every night for doing my homework. I get a little help from my friends on Sesame Street, of course. TW: What do you want to teach other children? BB: To feel good about school, to be cooperative grown-ups and to develop their own sense of humor. TW: What's the most important lesson you've learned? BB: How important my friends are. And that the world is a better place with all different kinds of people and animals living together as friends. TW: What's your favorite record? BB: "Mocking a Mockingbird and Other Big Bird Calls.'' TW: If you had one wish, what would it be? BB: I'd wish for two more wishes so I could give one to you. This post contains my complete running coverage of this annual conference and festival ...
© Tulsa World Tulsa Musicians Featured at South by Southwest Festival By Thomas Conner 03/17/1996 AUSTIN, Texas — Most people spend the first day of the South by Southwest music festival just getting their bearings. On Thursday, Tulsa band Epperley was just trying to get its equipment. The quartet drove to the Austin festival, and the trusty van broke down more than 20 miles outside of town. “At least we got that far,'' said guitarist Matt Nader. “We could be fishing on the Red River, you know.'' Epperley was scheduled to play Friday night at the Driskill Bar in the Driskill Hotel on Austin's club-lined Sixth Street. The van was towed to an Austin garage, and the band spent Friday extracting from it instruments and amplifiers and loading them into a rented U-Haul trailer. For Tulsa singer-songwriter Bob Collum, Thursday was a day of rubbing shoulders with heroes. Before his show Thursday night, Collum was jacked up by several chance meetings with admired musicians. “I bumped into Robyn Hitchcock right there at the trade show,'' Collum said. “He just turned and looked at me like this,'' whereupon Collum cocked his head and widened his eyes into a very droll, Hitchcockian expression. He also showed off an autograph from Mark Eitzel, former lead singer of American Music Club, who was scheduled to perform Saturday night on Sixth Street. Collum's name-dropping wasn't all blowing smoke, though. Before he began playing his set at the Coffee Plantation, Peter Holsapple came in and shook Collum's hand. Holsapple was in the '80s pop band the dB's and was in Austin to perform at the State Theater with his wife, Susan Cowsill of the Cowsills. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd come by,'' Holsapple said. Collum beamed. “You don't understand,'' he said later. “He's my biggest hero.'' That's clear when Collum plays his earnest, clever brand of acoustic pop. He took to the Coffee Plantation stage Thursday with his guitar and harmonica rack and proudly announced where he was from. “I'm here to report to you that the corn is still as high as an elephant's eye,'' he said and immediately launched into “Little Johnny Shotgun.'' He played eight songs in his allotted 30 minutes, including the four songs from his latest EP: “The Long Way Out,'' “Theoretical Girlfriend,'' “Prozac Yodel No. 9'' and “Writing on the Wall.'' He's a fierce performer. Other acts that followed him Thursday night were a couple of timid souls who looked a bit vulnerable on the stage with just an acoustic guitar between them and the audience. Collum, however, holds the stage with a startling confidence — one you don't expect after talking to the sheepish, caffienated hero-worshipper offstage. He stands at the microphone like Green Day's Billie Joe, a little too far back so that he leans into it with a pigeon-toed stance and neck muscles straining -- along with his conviction. The coffee house audience included about 20 folks seated when Collum began, and maybe 30 when his set wrapped up. The members of Epperley came to support him. Holsapple left early to get to his own gig, but tipped an imaginary hat to Collum as he left. Collum wasn't thrilled with his performance, but you get the impression that he never is. It's not a false modesty, just a charming insecurity. The set was brief, sure, but Collum said he was glad he made the trip. “Sure, it's worth it to come down here, whether you get to play or not,'' he said. “I've gotten to talk to a guy with a New York label, plus I've handed out a bunch of tapes.'' It's all about exposure here. Every little bit counts. Collum, like everyone, had a lengthy list of performers he wanted to see that night, but he said he'd eventually wind up in a bowling alley. “There's this bowling alley next to my hotel,'' he said. “They serve breakfast anytime for, like, $2. That's where I'll be all the time, probably. Just watching old people bowl.'' Another band with a Tulsa connection also landed a gig at the festival. Acoustic Junction played Thursday night at the White Rabbit on Sixth Street. The band is based out of Boulder, Colo., and bassist Curtis Thompson is from Tulsa. The band came together two years ago when Thompson moved to Boulder. They have two independent releases, which together have sold about 40,000 copies. However, the band has yet to play in Tulsa. 20/20, a revived new wave band made up of Tulsa natives, spent Thursday warming up for their Friday night show. 20/20 was a fairly influential band in Los Angeles during the early 1980s, and two original members started writing and recording again last year with Bill Belknap, owner of Tulsa's Longbranch Studios. Friday's show would be the new 20/20's second gig since releasing its fourth record last year, “Four Day Tornado.'' They played at the Poptopia festival in Los Angeles last fall. “We've all got careers and families now, so it's not real feasible for us to get out and tour now,'' Belknap said, though the band may try some traveling this summer. Thursday, they were set up in member Ron Flynt's garage. “It's just like we're in high school again or something,'' said member Steve Allen, with a little excitement and a little amazement. 20/20 was on an attractive bill with the Posies and fellow early '80s new wavers the Plimsouls at Austin's Waterloo Brewing Co. Tulsa-Based Groups Wow Austin Crowds By Thomas Conner 03/19/1996 AUSTIN, Texas — Joan Osborne just wouldn't shut up. The Grammy-snubbed singer was featured at the South by Southwest music festival Friday night on the Outdoor Stage, which was poorly placed in the middle of the intersection at Sixth and Brazos streets in downtown Austin. She held her ground up there about half an hour longer than she was supposed to. Her laziness paid off for one Tulsa band, though. Epperley was scheduled to play at 9 p.m. in the Driskill Bar in the Driskill Hotel, which is right on that corner. Thousands choked the streets to see Osborne play her astonishingly boring set. As 9 p.m. approached, and Osborne was still going, Epperley went ahead and started their show despite a meager crowd of their parents, a couple of execs from their record label and a few bar flies. As they churned out songs, their driving rock attracted quite a crowd — people from the streets who found Epperley's hooks much more interesting than Osborne's aural barbiturates. The Driskill is not a huge place and is not arranged to be conducive to gathering around the makeshift stage, but about 60 people tried during the band's hour-long set. When the band finished “Nice Guy Eddie,'' two guys with justified beer guts whooped, “Now that's good stuff right there!'' They continued dancing throughout the show, to the added amusement of the rest of the crowd and to guitarist Matt Nader. Nader had been discussing the band's music the night before after watching another Tulsan, Bob Collum, perform at a Sixth Street coffee house. The festival was choked with a lot of bands that had listened to too much Nirvana, Nader had said, and he once worried that his band's original album, a self-titled release when the band's name was Bug, suffered from that same ugly comparison. He had made it a point, he said, to try and lighten things up a bit. That's obvious in the new songs written for Epperley's first album on Triple X Records — which is finally released this week after some delays — and is especially obvious when the band plays live. The music sometimes may grind a bit harshly and lead singer David Terry sometimes may whine a bit too piercingly, but the overall vibe is fairly light and someday may even be fun. Terry sings nonsense just as often as he tells an ex how low she is. Osborne finally sang “One of Us,'' left the stage and was escorted through the bar and into the hotel, whereupon Nader said, “Hi Joan!'' in the middle of a song. Then the bar really filled up, and from what I could gather, most were attracted by the music and not waiting for the next band, the Dragmules. Rumor had it that Tommy Stinson, bassist for the defunct Replacements, was there, but I've no idea what he looks like. Terry's mom, Linda, was there, sporting an Epperley T-shirt and beaming with pride. “It's so much bigger than a piano recital when he's 6-years-old, you know,'' she said. Dean Naleway, a representative from Triple X Records, was there. He talked afterwards about the label's plans for Epperley. “These are memorable times, and this is step one,'' he said. “We've got 'em out here and people are listening to them. Now we've got to get the record in the stores and the Best Buys and the listening booths so people can start figuring it out. Pretty soon a lot more people will have heard of these guys.'' Naleway said a thorough tour is not very feasible at this point, but Nader said the band is itching to get on the road. “The only thing we were really looking for (in Austin) was maybe a booking agent, someone who could get us a lot of shows and get us a tour,'' Nader said. “We want to get out and start playing.'' As Epperley played, a true Tulsa mainstay, N.O.T.A., impressed a crowd of maybe 600 at the Back Room, a club a safe distance from the downtown mob. N.O.T.A. has been playing punk off and on in Tulsa since punk was an actual phenomenon at the turn of the '80s. N.O.T.A. member Jeff Klein said the show went as well as they expected. The crowd that showed up at least included some die-hard fans. “People were shouting out song titles from 10 and 12 years ago,'' Klein said, “so I guess we weren't completely forgotten.'' In all the years, N.O.T.A. had never played during South by Southwest, but the band is no stranger to Austin. They played there several times and were on an Austin label in the mid-'80s. While not label-shopping now, Klein said the show was really just to spread the word again that the band was around and to have a little fun. N.O.T.A. opened a bill that included Stiffs Inc. (another punk legend that Klein said “were pathetic'' and “dressed up like Gary Numan''), the Hickoids and the notorious Meatmen. Later that night, a band of erstwhile Tulsans resurrected themselves for a showcase at the Waterloo Brewing Co. in Austin's warehouse district. 20/20 was formed in 1979 when Tulsans Ron Flynt and Steve Allen moved to Los Angeles. The band had moderate success there and a lasting enough effect to pack the outdoor venue Friday night with fans eager to see the revived 20/20 — Flynt, Allen and Bill Belknap, owner of Tulsa's Longbranch Studios. The stage at Waterloo was outside the restaurant under a huge tent. L.A.'s the Delphines played before 20/20, and the huge crowd stuck around. The guys started with a song from their new album, “Four Day Tornado,'' then launched into oldies like “Remember the Lightning.'' Guitarist Allen sang lead on the first, and bassist Flynt sang lead on the second. Flynt's stage voice takes you by surprise — a fairly high and effected rock star vocal coming from such a subdued guy with a low, booming offstage voice. Allen's lead guitar was sharp and the solos peeled straight out of the '80s. “Stone Cold Message of Love'' from the new record was a delicious throwback to the days when arena rock and new wave were clashing — the backbeats pounded through the last chorus and a big, sustained finish with rolling drums and the whole sling-the-guitar-down crash at the end. The crowd bounced up and down and ate it up. SXSW Panel Beats Boredom by Exploring Dead Topic By Thomas Conner 03/21/1996 AUSTIN, Texas — In order to call itself a music “conference,'' South by Southwest organizes several panel sessions and workshops for musicians, press and the like. It adds an air of legitimacy to the three days of listening to rock 'n' roll in bars. Most of the panels sessions could sedate an elephant. “Covering Your Local Scene'' was a pointless exchange of egos between snotty reporters from Los Angeles and frustrated reporters from Texas towns of 6,000 people. “Why You Should Sign a Publishing Deal'' was a cavern of audible Valium — agents and publishing representatives droning on about the virtues of publishing your songs and the legal benefits therein. Zzzzzzzz. The only truly entertaining session came Friday afternoon. It was called “Were the Grateful Dead Really Any Good?'' The goal of the discussion was to determine whether the music of the Grateful Dead was really much beyond the average hippie garage groove or whether it was the sheer genius its fanatical followers claim it to be. As expected, it was a lively debate and reached about as many conclusions as your average episode of “The Jerry Springer Show.'' The panelists were these: Bill Wyman, rock critic of the Chicago Reader; Jim DeRogatis, senior editor at Rolling Stone; Ben Hunter, music editor at Swing Magazine; Michael Krugman, a freelance writer from Brooklyn; John Morthland, a freelance writer from Austin; and Paul Williams with Crawdaddy in Encinitas, Calif. When I entered the room, Williams was discussing his rediscovery of the band in 1978. He said that the Dead, because they toured and played so often, were not always great, but that one out of three shows was guaranteed to “blow your mind.'' “That's not good consumer value,'' DeRogatis quipped. “They've always been a (bad) rock 'n' roll band. They might be a good jug band.'' “But one of those nights will blow your mind,'' Krugman said. “And if they are a jug band, that's cool because you don't get to see jug bands in an arena.'' The fact that the Dead did not always have great shows was a continual hot spot. One man in the audience said he finally went to see the Dead at the urging of many friends, and he thought they were horrible. “Then (my friends) said, 'Well, you have to be in the right frame of mind,' and they said I had to take drugs to really get it, and that got really irritating.'' Another audience member addressed the same issue. “The first 17 times I saw them, I was on acid, and it was fun. The 18th time I was not an acid, and it was a great show. They rocked out a little more, and I enjoyed it more because I wasn't so spaced out that I couldn't enjoy the show, or even pay attention to what was really going on.'' This led to the issue that never seemed to be resolved: Were the Grateful Dead more important for their cultural experience than their music? The drug factor came up repeatedly — people discussing how integral LSD and various drugs were to the enjoyment and understanding of the Dead's music. But that begged this question: How good is music if you have to alter your consciousness to find it interesting? “When you stop taking acid, you realize how boring they are,'' one woman in the audience said. Few denied the unique community that the band inspired among its dedicated followers. “The Dead were able to engender a great feeling among a lot of different people,'' Hunter said. “Some magical experiences came out of seeing the Dead, for whatever reasons. You can make fun of the scene all you want, but there is definitely something there that's not at your basic Better Than Ezra or Rancid show, and likely never will be.'' But there might have been other sides to that huge and infectious community, some said. One woman in the audience didn't think the mere fact that the band was so hugely popular was necessarily a plus. “America's Funniest Home Videos'' is also hugely popular, and that hopefully doesn't constitute artistic merit, she said. DeRogatis saw the huge community more as a marketing target for the band, a captive audience and insurance policy that the members didn't set out to create but didn't shun, either. “They were marketing community as commodity,'' he said. “It was just like Camelot. Camelot never really existed. It was like the Disneyland notion of '60s-Land.'' Here he began reading from a catalog selling Grateful Dead licensed clothing. “A great new line of Steal Your Face active wear,'' he read. “They just wanted to sell more ties!'' he cried. Krugman defended the merchandising. “Everyone sells T-shirts,'' he said. “Some of 'em even like to wear them.'' Another virtue was raised by an audience member: the Dead were not pawns of the record industry. In the last two decades, they made very few records and subsisted almost chiefly on touring -- consistently running the highest-grossing tours each year. “The great thing about the Dead was that they managed to piss off the record industry,'' one audience member said. “Their touring dwarfed their record sales, and the record companies couldn't get a hold on that. They weren't getting any money from it.'' Williams agreed. “No one in the whole indie movement did more to say you can screw the record business than the Grateful Dead. They showed us there is such a thing as going out and making a living playing music, no matter where you are on the Billboard chart.'' A music teacher in the audience found the only real, tangible advantage of the Grateful Dead's music. “The kids that I've taken to Dead shows learned more about world music than they would have otherwise. They were the first experimental music with mass appeal, and they turned a lot of people onto different styles of expression.'' Wouldn't you love to sign up for her class? By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Arlo Guthrie had some hits back in the '60s, but a lot has happened since then. A lot of new fans have been born, and a lot of them have never even heard of “Alice's Restaurant.'' “Two years ago I had a part in an ABC show called ‘Birds of Paradise,''' Guthrie said last week from a tour stop in Port Angeles, Wash. (“the very north and westest-most tip of this country.'') “It lasted a full season but it wasn't renewed. So I was bumming around Honolulu one day — that's where we shot it — and I was standing on a corner, and a local guy came up to me, a Hawaiian guy, and he said, ‘Mr. Guthrie, we're so sorry they didn't pick up your series again. We loved it here.' I said, ‘Well, I'll just go back to singing,' and he said, ‘Oh, you sing, too?''' Another blow hit him when he stopped to play a show at a university in California. He was talking to the college student who was organizing the event, and she said, “I'm not that familiar with your old stuff. I saw you in (the 1992 film) ‘Roadside Prophets,' so that's where it begins with me.'' “I realized that this gal was not aware of the 15 albums I'd made for Warner (Bros.),'' Guthrie guffawed. “She'd maybe never heard a record of mine at all. I suddenly realized there was a world of people out there with no relation to Woodstock or ‘Alice's Restaurant' or ‘City of New Orleans' or any of it. It's like having a fresh slate.'' Yessir, that hair is white and it is long. Ol' Arlo's been around the block a time or two or 10, and he couldn't be happier about it. Actually, he said, having a portion of the audience find “Alice's Restaurant'' fresh makes playing the 1967 hit a bit easier 29 years later. But Guthrie's show is no nostalgia trip. He's currently supporting a new album with 10 new songs, “Mystic Journey,'' and he's on the road with his son Abe — and that, he said, makes the generation gap all the more easy to take. “It's great having Abe out with me,'' Guthrie said. “We offer each other unique but linked perspectives. He likes being on the road like I do. I've always been a road warrior. Just give me a bus and show me where to go. I've done that successfully for 30 years now, and I'm still married to the same girl.'' Guthrie's success has come on his own merits, too. He calmly dodged the expectations that couldn't help but follow the son of Woody Guthrie — the face of American folk music. He had his own talents and he found his own style, scoring hits in the late '60s with “Alice's Restaurant,'' which became an anthem of the anti-war movement, and a cover of Steve Goodman's “City of New Orleans.'' He continued cranking out albums throughout the '70s, exploring American musical traditions. In the '80s, Guthrie decided to take control of his own affairs. By 1983, he had parted ways with Warner Bros. and formed his own record company, Rising Son Records. For three years, Guthrie and his family dropped out of sight, hunkered down and learned the intricacies of the record business. “It really took us 10 years to figure out what we were doing,'' he said. “I was just the guitar-playing, singer-songwriter type. I didn't know anything about the business.'' First, Rising Son began acquiring and rereleasing Guthrie's old albums, including 1986's “Someday,'' which Guthrie had recorded three years earlier with Warner Bros. before the separation. Then, with a little business savvy under his belt, Guthrie began releasing some ambitious compilations. There was “Woody's 20 Grow Big Songs,'' an elaborately packaged collection of his father's children's music recorded by Guthrie and his extended clan. There was also “Son of the Wind,'' a bunch of old cowboy songs. “I knew that one wasn't commercial. It was just a labor of love,'' Guthrie said. “I could finally afford to do it because I had my own record company.'' So he hasn't exactly been sitting around twiddling his thumbs in the 10 years since “Someday,'' the last full-length record of new, original Arlo songs. “Mystic Journey'' is worth the wait. The 10 new songs, and a cover of Charlie Chaplin's “You Are the Song,'' were penned within the last three or four years and focus on love and spiritual quests. “My songs are sung to those I've come to love,'' he sings in the first track, “Moon Song.'' Spiritual quests are something Guthrie knows a bit about. His 1979 album “Outlasting the Blues'' first really showcased his rigorous self-examination — a process spurred on by his conversion to Catholicism. When he's not making music, he's continuing his own mystic journeys. “My parents were both people who believed in serving humanity,'' he said. “You've got to do something — my dad did, my mom did. We just grew up that way. My kids are being brought up that way. You have to give back, especially when so many wonderful things happen to you.'' Guthrie's main energies now are funneled into The Guthrie Center, an interfaith church foundation providing for children recovering from abuse and garnering support for HIV/AIDS and community services of all kinds. Guthrie has been helping out with AIDS patients a lot lately. “Like anybody, I find myself living in a world where there's an awful lot of sadness, sorrow and devastation,'' he said. “Most of it has to do with AIDS. There are 40 million people around the world infected with HIV, and when you consider the friends and relatives and caretakers and lovers, you're talking about an awful lot of people in hard times. “So I've tried to do what I could to alleviate some of that suffering by singing and raising money and playing benefits, showing up at people's gatherings. It's not that showing up will change someone's life, but it let's people know they're not alone. “The lesson of this century that has to be learned before we move onto the next one is that we never should have to let anyone stand alone. We should support anyone who's suffering. I don't care if it's war, pestilence, famines or AIDS — whatever, we can't let anyone stand alone.'' “Mystic Journey'' is dedicated to Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, a woman Guthrie calls his spiritual leader. With her, he visits AIDS hospices around the country. Recently, they were in Lazarus House, a hospice in New Orleans. Guthrie was in the lobby talking with someone, and Ma was at the bedside of a dying man. The man didn't know Guthrie was in the building. When Ma asked the man what she could do before he died, Guthrie said he answered, “You know, it's kind of silly, but I've always wanted to meet this singer named Arlo Guthrie. His music has meant a lot to me. Have you heard of him?'' Ma's face didn't crack. She told the man to close his eyes, and she went out to get Guthrie. When Guthrie entered the room, she told the man to open his eyes. “He just about died right then and there,'' Guthrie said. “Just to see the expression on his face was incredible. He said, ‘Lady, I don't know who you are but you've got some powers like no one I've ever met.' “That was one of those brilliant moments when God was watching over and taking care of the situation. This can happen to anybody. You don't have to be a celebrity or have a social services degree to make a difference in someone's life. You've just gotta be there.'' Arlo and Abe Guthrie When: 8 p.m. Wednesday Where: Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. Tickets: $19.50 in advance from The Ticket Office at Expo Square, Mohawk Records and Starship Records and Tapes By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World I haven't been in Jify Trip's rehearsal room for five minutes before lead singer Justin Monroe whirls around and asks me, "How do you feel about cottage cheese, man?'' "Why?'' I ask, being too cautious. "Do you use it in your show?'' "No, I just wanted to know how you feel about it,'' he says. Strap in and secure the knives — it's going to be a woolly night. It's December 21, 1995, a cold, murky night on the verge of a new season, and sleet is pelting the half dozen or so cars that swarmed like ATF agents on this modest log cabin on the north edge of Bixby. An hour after sundown, all the technology that gives Jify Trip its venerable voice has been flung into trucks and "sport vehicles.'' The four members of the band and a handful of hangers-on have sought shelter from the cold inside a shed behind the house. The members of Jify Trip and their entourage look like any burgeoning rock bunch. There's guitarist Brent Coates, a handsome everybody with bangs just long enough to confound any idea that he spends one weekend a month in the Army reserves. There's drummer Scott Rouse, the oft-but-lovingly picked-on blondie in flannel shirt and baggy trousers, both easily three sizes too large. Bassist Tommy Niemeyer is the first to joke about his appearance; being half German and half Thai, he is used to being mistaken for every conceivable ethnicity ("I'm the Afro-American-Asian-Arabian-Indian member of the band''). Then there's Justin. Justin looks like the offspring that would result from Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland being caught in baby Bear's bed with Goldilocks. His pink features are framed by a terribly trendy goatee and two long, wavy, blond pigtails. "A horse's ass on both sides,'' someone teases. We're not due at the club for another hour, so time is marked for killing in the carpeted shed. There's a mock stage in the shed, bracketed by a leering Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison poster on one side and a black and white shot of the members of Pearl Jam striking a Guns N' Roses guitar pose on the other. Seeing these choices for decor, I quiver at the thought of an evening of Doors-Pearl Jam inspired music ahead. My fears will soon be allayed. • • • Behind the stage is a polished piece of wood in a sun shape, and mounted on it is a colorful, lacquered puzzle of some kind of mandala. "That's an ancient, medieval Ouija board,'' Tommy says. Over the door to the shed, the phrase "It's the most...'' is stenciled on the jamb. It seems one of the groupies, Russell Becker — the one by the piano with the purple and green court jester hat on — uses the phrase a lot, as in "It's the most cool place'' or "It's the most smelly sofa.'' Russell smiles sheepishly, and I get the impression there's more to it than that. Upon learning that Good, the band scheduled to play before them, won't be playing, Justin and Brent sit down on the stage to add some songs to the set list. Tommy suggests the song "Bite,'' and others in the room call out the name. Justin responds, "Where?'' Jify trip's manager, Mark McCullough, is loitering with us, making lots of managerial promises. "I'm gonna do my damnedest to get you guys signed in '96,'' he resolves. The band mutters things like, "It's about time.'' Even the mere two years Jify Trip has been together have wrought a tinge of cynicism on the band. Finally, someone says, "Let's go to the club,'' and we're piling into S-10s and Broncos to rumble to Eclipse. Jify Trip is on a bill at the club tonight before a Kansas City tribal sensation, Billy Goat. On the ride there, Mark and Tommy reminisce about the band's humble beginnings. Like Spinal Tap, Jify Trip has been through a few drummers, but when Scott joined up exactly one year ago, everything clicked, Tommy says. "He just fit right in, the best of anybody,'' he says. "And he's flourished so much in the last year.'' Mark is clearly pumped up about his new progenitors. Mark formerly managed Tulsa's bastion of ingenious-but-unsigned music, the Mellowdramatic Wallflowers. After a good part of a decade with the group and still no success, Mark bowed out and picked up Jify Trip, which he thinks is much more in-tune with modern rock success. "These guys have so much going on,'' he says, gesturing for emphasis. "They are easily the most marketable band in town, and I think they have a real shot at getting out there.'' We get to Eclipse about 7 p.m. and mill around for a bit while club-owner K. Rahal devises a game plan for the equipment set-up. Scott and Tommy clasp each other's hands and waists and begin waltzing to Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill'' playing over the sound system. I look around the Eclipse and enjoy a rare, smoke-free glimpse of the legendary club. The Eclipse is a second home for a band like this. K.'s club desperately caters to young, original bands like Jify Trip, and the members laugh about that period — familiar to most young bands here — when they were playing Eclipse practically every weekend. Jify Trip's first gig, though, was at the late Windjammer club in east Tulsa. "I was scared to play there,'' Justin says, and the recollection of the event illicits laughter from the other members, but it's a proud, survivalist laughter. "The band before us actually did the hair-swinging thing as they played.'' "And don't forget the girl in white playing pool all night,'' Brent adds. Once Scott's drums are set up and other amps and gear has been tucked out of Billy Goat's way, the entire entourage crams into a weathered, white Ford Bronco in search of sustenance. I have no idea whose Bronco it is, or who is driving, and white Broncos have macabre connotations for me now. We wind up at the Hideaway pizza place on 15th Street, flustering the waitstaff about a table for 10. Brian Hartman — the wide-eyed friend and "fifth member of the band,'' Justin proclaims — is delighted that the restaurant has Pente board games. He seizes one at once and threatens everyone with a game. Once seated and orders taken, the band begins to talk about its illustrious and blooming career. Jify Trip has played the gamut of Tulsa nightspots — the Dugout, the Rhythm Room, Xenophon, TU frat parties — as well as Norman, Oklahoma City and Stillwater clubs. Promotion involves photocopied fliers stuck on phone poles and handed out at shopping malls, and lots of word of mouth. Justin proceeds to illustrate the tireless promotion of a local rock band. He catches the waitress as she begins to walk away with the orders: "Hey, what are you doing about 9:30 tonight?'' She promptly ignores him. He wasn't trying to ask her for a date. It's just another way to spread the word about the band, and it's worked before. Waitresses (and waiters, Brent is a bit too quick to add) from the evening's supper have been known to show up at gigs. Brent works at Chili's and has convinced several of his cohorts to attend. "We just basically play our music,'' Tommy says. "That in itself has gotten people to come back and spread the word. That's how it works, just like the old shampoo commercial: they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on and so on. "Basically, Jify Trip is a cult,'' Justin says. "Everyone is welcome.'' "But nobody comes,'' Brent adds. He assures me it's a joke and promises a substantial core following. "When we started, we had no idea what we were doing,'' Justin says. "It's really funny, man, the growing process we've gone through.'' "We grew, then we got stale for a while,'' Tommy says. "We didn't change our underwear for, like, three months.'' "But now we rock!'' Justin says. "We create from nothing,'' he adds, mystically. "We're absolute music,'' Brent says. Justin, who earlier failed to sell the band on calling the music "hydraulic music,'' says, "I don't get that.'' "We play music for the sake of music,'' Brent explains. Justin laughs. "You caught us on a good night. We're usually at each other's throats. We're all dicks.'' "That's not true,'' says the stong-silent Scott. "Tommy's a nice guy.'' The waitress returns, diverting his attention. Justin tries to make up for the previous misunderstanding. "I wasn't trying to ask you out,'' he says. "I just wanted to know if you'd be interested in seeing a band tonight called Jify Trip.'' "I heard they sucked,'' the waitress says. Tips are reclaimed from the money pile. • • • Back at Eclipse, clubbers are starting to drift in, and the Marlboro haze already has defined the spotlights and slide projections. Justin paces through the tables and chairs with heavy sighs and clenching fists, denying that he's nervous. By 9 p.m., Mark is equally nervous as he scans the sparse room. "I just can't figure out where all the people are,'' he says. "I guess people aren't used to seeing bands here on Thursdays.'' Eclipse usually schedules open mic nights on Thursdays. He's not worrying from his wallet, though. The band, I find out from Mark, is playing tonight's show for free. My jaw drops. "This is your idea of the Christmas spirit?'' I ask. "This is my idea of getting good exposure,'' McCullough says. "I wanted to open for Billy Goat, a strong, popular regional act. It's always good to get a tape in their hands, find out who books their shows, etc.'' Tommy is crouching behind his amp to smoke a cigarette in peace. Brent kneels on the stage tuning his two guitars. Brian sets up the retail arm of this project with a box of Jify Trip CDs at a table near the bar. The crowd has picked up by 9:30 p.m. — the usual Eclipse throng of shaved-head and flannel-laden hipsters dressed like they just came in from the fields around Poznon, Poland circa 1908. All the seats and tables are filled, anyway, and a chummy bunch of high school (at most) girls with braces and bobs sit cross-legged on the floor before the stage. At 9:35 p.m., the band gets the word to get onstage. K.'s cheeky announcement booms out of the speakers: "We have for you tonight, Billy Goat! And first, a great Tulsa band, we love them -- Jify Trip!'' The beat and strums fall at the same instant, and the sound slams forward. Justin grabs the mic and shakes and wails as if he'd just caught hold of a wire pulsing several thousand volts. From this moment through to the encore, Justin is no longer with us. He stares forward with glazed eyes in an eerie trance, like a deranged sleepwalker. He shrieks like a 12-year-old Billy Corgan being choked and moves around the stage like Riff Raff doing "The Time Warp.'' The crowd watches with a nonchalance that would ruin bands of lesser conviction. The first song is "Help the Mustard.'' Since there is no sound check before showtime, this is it. When the sound finally dies away, Justin calls to K., "Can I have some monitor? I don't have any.'' During the second song, "Wool,'' which involves a lot of screaming, his vocals cut out several times from the sound system. It's a learning experience for everyone, every single night. Brent gnashes a wad of gum while he slashes his guitar, a stream of flawless chords punctuated with the occasional sharp fill. Tommy's deft dancing up and down the frets of his bass suffers from an unjust mix. Scott's drumming is fervent and pristine; he sometimes even smiles. Jify Trip plays carefully wrought guitar-pop, excellent melodies and rhythms supporting Justin's banshee wails. The girls in front of the stage are up and dancing right away, but they are the only ones moving to the music. A few people against the Van Gogh wall are mouthing the words, but most simply stare. Justin is unfazed; in fact, he approaches them. Pulling on his mic cable, he wanders into the crowd, sometimes getting a good 20 feet from the stage — about halfway across the club. Drifting among frat boys standing near the bar and neohippies flopped on the couches, he takes his shtick to the masses, convulsing and conjuring things from his mic while those near him try to act casual. He's almost oblivious to the crowd — drawn to them, but still off in another dimension of higher sonic beings. During "Nothing Artificial,'' Justin is on top of the speaker stacks. K. comes to the edge of the stage wearing worry under the bill of his Triple X Records cap. Justin hangs upside down off the stack, then stands and spreads his arms out like a plane (or a Christ figure, heaven forbid). While the band takes off on one lick, he dangles the mic and cord from his crotch and swings. When the song ends, Justin chants as if hypnotized, "Us. Us. Us. Us.'' The crowd dares him to jump. "Isn't this great?'' McCullough says behind me. He looks like he's just seen his first snowfall. "Now do you see why I wanted to push these guys?'' The last song is an Adorable cover, "Homeboy.'' When Justin teeters toward the edge of the stage in preparation to leave it, the crowd, to my delighted surprise, begins shouting, "One more! One more!'' Justin looks up, as if the voices of adoration have pierced a pinhole in his trance. K.'s voice again booms from the darkness: "C'mon guys, they want one more song. How 'bout it?'' Justin hardly moves and says, "This song is called 'Ides of January.' It sucks because we suck. Thank you. Yes, we suck. Thank you.'' Tommy straps his bass back on and they dish out one more screamer. • • • When Jify Trip makes its hasty exodus from the stage and Billy Goat members begin setting up their gear around 10:30 p.m., the band members scatter through the crowd in search of girlfriends. Justin can't seem to find his, and he natters unconvincing assurances that this was a good show. He snatches a handful of the band's CDs and begins passing them out to the crowd — giving them away. When asked if this was a good show, Brian, our Pente champ, turns thumbs down. He's not slagging the band; he's slagging the crowd. "Nobody did anything,'' he says. "Usually we've got people jumping around, going crazy. Everybody's lazy here tonight.'' They weren't lazy when Billy Goat came on. Jify Trip regrouped outside to cool off, then filed back in once Billy Goat's beats started shaking the walls. Billy Goat, a funk-a-go-go band now out of Kansas City, keeps the crowd on its feet during its whole set. Jify Trip stays for most of the show, as enthralled by the band as anyone — likely moreso. When Billy Goat leader Mike Dillon really started going on his hand drums, Justin scans the club. "Where's Scott? He's gotta see this!'' During Billy Goat's "Old School, Jam 23,'' Justin is up on someone's shoulders, waving his arms like he's at a Dokken show. Scott was, indeed, there, staring typically calmly at the two drummers' precision timing. An hour into Billy Goat's set, Jify Trip files out to the sidewalk and huddles in the cold. Tommy's eyes are still wide from the Billy Goat experience. "Jeez, did we even play?'' Justin asks. "They are the only band that's ever played after us that just completely kicked our ass,'' Tommy says. With everyone screaming in the cold, it's decided to return to Tommy's to consume mass quantities. "So this is Jify Trip,'' Justin said. "Hope you liked it. See you at the top.'' By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey "Live at the Lincoln Continental'' (Blue Horn) A Tulsa club act that's not guitar-bass-drums is always a welcome relief, but the Jazz Odyssey is something else. This disc, recorded at Eclipse and Club One, captures the band's precarious teetering between funk and jazz. Great party disc. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World We caught up with Marilyn Manson in New Orleans. It seemed like the ideal town for someone as dark and sinister as Mr. Manson, so we asked what sights he'd been seeing. "Well, last night we went grave digging,'' he said. Oh, jeez. Here we go. "There's this old cemetery around here, and the weather has deteriorated the ground — it's just this big mud puddle,'' Manson explained. "There are pieces of coffins and corpses lying around, and no one seems to care. So we kind of went shopping at the bone flea market. It's not something I'm really into, but our bassist likes to put them in his hair.'' Such is the grim but happy life of Marilyn Manson, the heart of darkness from the terminally happy state of Florida, and the rising messiahs in the cult of death metal. Granted, rock is filled with bands who enjoy turning the notion of good taste upside down, but Manson's is a particularly putrid strain, specializing in songs about blood, disease, rape and abuse. But don't be too quick to judge. Manson's mission has less to do with advocacy of these evils and more to do with reflecting them back in our faces. Mr. Manson, as the band's leader is hailed, blames us for creating him. It's best to let him explain. "Anyone who misunderstands Marilyn Manson right off the bat and takes it for the shock value only — thinks we're glorifying anything — is just feeding into the very trap that we're all about,'' Manson said. "If you're disgusted by us, then you should be asking yourselves why you're disgusted and why you created this possibility in the first place.'' Fliers broadcast about to promote the album feature a searing open letter "to whom it may conform'' from Mr. Manson. It is decorated with the typical skulls, bugs, syringes and pieces of candy. Some highlights: "Marilyn Manson is the harvest of thown-away kids, and America is now afraid to reap what it has sown. You have spoonfed us Saturday morning mouthfuls of maggots and lies disguised in your sugary breakfast cereals. The plates you made us clean were filled with your fears. These things have hardened in our soft, pink bellies ... It's too late to take it all back. This is your world in which we grow, and we will grow to hate you.'' Gulp. The band is Manson's vehicle for getting his message across. The band has barely cracked sales of 50,000, and the debut disc, "Portrait of an American Family,'' is not likely to go platinum. "I still don't think I've gotten across to enough people,'' Manson said. Still, here they are getting written up in our own placid community. The message is getting out. And Manson chose his medium well. Before the band came together five years ago, he considered being a writer, but he figured music got into more people's heads than any other form of communication. "Music is the most powerful form of expression in America,'' he said. "That's where the great tyrants and anti-Christs, the people who want to make some sort of big social change, are talking. If Hitler were alive today, he'd be a rock star.'' You can just hear Bob Dole quivering, can't you? Marilyn Manson is the perfect target for a campaign ad: Manson himself is the creepiest visage on the continent, strewn with Alice Cooper raccoon eyes, vicious tattoos and blood often trickling over his deathly pale skin. He's bound to be spotted soon in a campaign commercial, frightening old housewives while a serene voice tells them that this is the state of all rock music today and, if you don't vote for Candidate A, your children will be under direct orders from Marilyn Manson to pillage the countryside. Oh — and the music? Well, yes, there's music at the heart of this, too. "Portrait of an American Family'' is the first deal with Nothing Records, founded by Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor. His hand in the album's distorted, edgy production is obvious. The guitar riffs and song structures are nothing terribly unique musically, but the vocal effects and Manson's ranting are uncomfortable and scary. But is that all there is to Marilyn Manson — a freaky gimmick? Most of the bands Manson claims as influences used the lipstick and bodily secretion fixations strictly to sell records. "I get a lot of flak from people who think that what I do isn't me, that it's just an image we put forth to get attention,'' Manson said. "I'm sorry if I'm a little more creative than Hootie and the Blowfish, but I'm not doing this for anyone else. I want to be the things that made me happy when I was a kid. Everyone has an image, even if it's a bland, regular-guy image. I make myself happy being this way. I do this for me. "We're in such a bland, politically correct era where music is such a product on TV. It doesn't matter if you sound like the band last week — in fact, that's even better. I'm bored with that." By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Every time the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is listed in a festival bill, it's always followed by “alternative.'' It's a moniker the group can live with, even boast of, and a truer word was never written. This is a jazz band that has been known to have mosh pits at its shows, and its members speak intensely of how its performances “rock.'' These guys don't just want to blow their horns — they want to blow them in your face. “We can really freak out sometimes,'' said keyboardist Brian Haas. “A lot of times it's very chaotic.'' It's true. A Jacob Fred show can be very sweaty. People get up, shake a leg and holler — no polite applause here. Which is, after all, what jazz got people doing in the first place. “After a show, I'm ready to just drop,'' Haas said. “Our audiences usually are, too. Sometimes we forget that they need a break, too.'' Haas is the epitome of the Jacob Fred aura: he uses the word “cats'' a lot when referring to his colleagues, and his finesse on his Fender Rhodes electric piano defies all preconceived notions his shaved head and questionable fashion decisions may conjure. Jacob Fred, that is, starts with the esteemed traditional and pushes it, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the '90s. “We're picking up where Miles Davis left off as far as pushing the music forward,'' Haas said. “Since he died, the momentum in jazz has kind of slowed down, and we're trying to rev it up again.'' It's a bold claim from a bunch of University of Tulsa upstarts with homework to do after the show, but if Fate is good enough to smile on them, this band could one day stretch out that legacy and blow people away all over the nation. “There are so many reissues going on, and no one's doing anything very exciting,'' said Matt Leland, on trombone. “All Blue Note (Records) does anymore is cater to the crowd that made it big, and they're all old now. Someday they'll all die off and what are the younger ones going to have? It's a prime time to shake things up.'' One listen to Jacob Fred's debut CD will confirm the “shake things up'' plan. The disc, “Live at the Lincoln Continental,'' was recorded from gigs at Tulsa's Eclipse and Club One and is a perfect primer to the Jacob Fred ... well ... jazz odyssey. Featuring material written by four of the band's eight members, the CD scans the chaos of influences that somehow coalesces into their music. “Every single one of us is coming from a totally different place,'' Haas said. “The more we play together, the less (the music) becomes an individual thing and the more it becomes a group dynamic ... We just love playing together, fortunately. A jazz ensemble like this doesn't happen very often. We're all so very different, but we say our thing through the same mouthpiece. That's what makes our shows rock.'' “Live at the Lincoln Continental'' starts off with the quick funk of “Pimpnotic,'' then moves through the alarming chase-scene score of “I Love Steve Haas,'' the cool suspicion of “Behind the Barricades'' and the pinnacle of barely-tamed madness, “Lorna's Calypso.'' You name the influence; it's in there. “There are so many schisms within jazz,'' said Leland, crafter of half the songs on the disc. “We come from a very traditional base and add something to it. I mean, it's 1995 and we have each grown up listening to a lot of different music that has influenced us. What we produce may not sound 'traditional,' but we approach everything from the traditional and build from there.'' These aren't punks out to throw wrenches into the system, either. The members of Jacob Fred are not whacking axes and banging drums because it's fun and obnoxious, and they're certainly not doing it for the money (every gig's copious compensation must be split eight ways). Each composition is a carefully wrought idea forged with a youthful fury and finesse. “We come from a strong songwriting base,'' Leland said. “We're most concerned with conveying the idea of the songs, not so much with how high and fast we can play. The audience gets bored with fast notes and showing off real quick. You don't have to dazzle them. They have more fun with the ideas of the songs.'' “If you're up there playing bulls—-, they know it,'' piped in Kyle Wright, a shy guy but a powerful Gabriel on trumpet. Such wisdom from men dead set on “taking jazz to the MTV crowd.'' Oh, the thinks they could think! The name, incidentally, is derived from Haas' former CB handle, Jacob Fred. It's also the name he would use in junior high when he would call a girl and wake up her parents. “Who is this?'' they would demand. “Mr. Fred,'' he would say. The band is Wright, Leland, Haas, Rod Mackey on saxophones, Dove McHargue on guitar (check him out on “Lorna's Calypso''!), Reed Mathis on bass, Sean Layton on drums and Matt Edwards on percussion. All but two are or were TU students, though the band is not affiliated in any way with the school. “Our professors hate us,'' Haas said. The unique crossover ability of Jacob Fred allows them to play any kind of gig. Frequent staples of such rock dens as Eclipse and Club One, they also easily fit into the local jazz festivals. “We can still get hired for receptions and kick back and swing,'' Haas said. “We can do it all.'' Check them out this month at a benefit for the A.D.A.M.S. Theater on Aug. 19, Aug. 29 at Eton Square Shopping Center (in front of Uno's) and Aug. 31 at Cafe 66 in Norman. The CD can be found at Starship Records and Tapes, Mohawk Music, Media Play, Sound Warehouse, Camelot Music in Eastland Mall and the CD Warehouse. This post contains my complete running coverage of this annual festival ...
© Tulsa World Faces in the Crowd By Thomas Conner 08/04/1995 Sen. Orrin Hatch was introduced by a young man who advised the audience which over-the-counter pain remedies effectively simulate a heroin high. The senator — an actor, of course — stepped up to the third stage and began auctioning off the national parks and the public school system to indifferent bidders in the crowd. His ranting was interrupted by protesters from the Elf Liberation Front. And the simulated high hadn't even kicked in yet. So you can see that Lollapalooza is more than just a music festival. Oh, so much more. Lollapalooza is a sampling of contemporary youth culture, or at least a parade of those masks the kids are allowed to rent. The ticket price alone can be earned by just watching the people go by at one particular sidewalk. You'll see every fashion mistake since the first World War out there. This is an age group that grew up parroting Billy Crystal's Fernando Lamas catch phrase, “It is better to look good than to feel good.'' They mean it; on July 10 at the Kansas City show, kids trudged through the near-100-degree swelter in wool stocking caps, flannel shirts and heavy boots. Other dedicated followers of fashion sport 'do rags, pierced noses, pierced ears, pierced navels, pierced lips (watch them try to eat the stir fry), toe rings, Brady Bunch striped T-shirts, jean jackets with anarchy symbols emblazoned with permanent marker, T-shirts that say “Kansas Zen Society'' (the oxymoron of the day), tie-dyed shirts, ballcaps in every direction, Dr. Suess hats, Tommy Hilfiger Golf Team shirts, postal uniforms, Stars and Stripes bikinis, every landscape of facial hair one can conceive, and tattoos tattoos tattoos! But not everyone in the crowd is a young'un. Fred Coombs, 38, of Olathe, Kan., stood out like a sore thumb in his button-down shirt and Dockers shorts at the Kansas City show. “I'm like that director on the old Dave Letterman show -- the blue shirt, the tan chinos, the brown shoes,'' Coombs said. “I just discovered that I had too strong a parental instinct to let my son come to this madness by himself.'' Coombs' 13-year-old son, Jay, said he was having fun despite having his dad around. “He's a pretty good sport,'' Jay said. This conversation took place in the shadow of a giant condom, mind you. An AIDS awareness group had, er, erected the 12-foot device over its information table. That was next to the Planned Parenthood table, where you can get free goodies if you hop on one leg while saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Lolla Land: A Self-Help Guide By Thomas Conner 08/04/1995 Whatever you do, don't forget the tanning lotion. And here are some other factoids and tips for the Lollapalooza virgin: — “Lollapalooza'' is an actual word defined in Webster's College Dictionary as “Slang. an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.'' — The festival began in 1991 as the farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, the influential band fronted by the festival organizer, Perry Farrell. He wanted to do something special to honor the band on its final go-round, so he hooked up with agents Marc Geiger and Don Muller, added seven bands to the bill as well as food, vendors and art displays, and pulled off an extravaganza unlike any promotion ever attempted before. Still going ... — Number of people who attended the festival last year: 969,554. — Water, water everywhere: Most venues will allow one bottle of water per ticketholder through the gate. You'll want to ration it when you see that a cup of ice water costs $3 at the concession stands, but be sure to get your proper fill of nature's lifeblood. Number of people treated last year for heat-related illness: 203. Near some restrooms there will be showerheads for public dousing, and the festival sets up Rain Rooms for your relief — tents full of water spray through which you are herded like cattle through a car wash. Number of gallons used in last year's Rain Rooms: 154,801. — Plan for the shopping. The cheapest T-shirt for a main-stage act is $20. A meal from one of the worldwide food vendors will average around $5. And the vendors! — Number of pounds of carrots consumed by artists during last year's festival: 2,365. — Dollars donated to charity from last year's festival alone: 856,437. Tour planners hope this year's charity hat will push the five-year festival total over $2 million. — Number of kids who crowd-surfed to the front of the main stage last year: 6,533. — Number of bottles of Evian consumed backstage during last year's tour: 25,800. — The Starplex can be Mosquito Central around dusk. Throw a bottle of Muskol or some kind of insect repellent in your hip pack. Sonic Youth - Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon - and Courtney Love's Hole Head a Truly Ensemble Lollaplooza By Thomas Conner 08/04/1995 Beck bounced off the Lollapalooza stage like Tigger just out of rehab. He bounded over to two humble Midwestern journalists eager to interview the artist — about his work, his schemetic aural creations, his interpretation of the sociopolitical state of modern rock music — and he grabbed them by the shoulders. “Yes. No. Maybe. Never. Only after meals, and I refuse to answer that one on the grounds that it's too damn hot,'' he said in a frightening, Pee-Wee-on-meth crescendo. He then dropped his water bottle, cursed, and skipped away to a waiting, air-conditioned bus. It was that kind of day. The Tulsa World attended the Kansas City date for Lollapalooza, July 10, in order to experience the madness and thus warn those of you making the trek to the Dallas show on Aug. 10. And for those of you waffling on whether or not to make the journey, we feel it necessary to — right here, in front of your boss — testify to your weakening condition, how we have heard that raspy cough, how pale you've been looking (i.e., call in sick and hit the road!). Now ensconced as an annual institution, Lollapalooza lumbers around the country this summer with its fifth and best bill ever. The Kansas City show nearly sold out the Sandstone Amphitheater in the suburb of Bonner Springs, Kan. The Dallas show, at the Starplex, is expected to sell out, at least by showtime. (The reserved seating is gone, but early this week Ticket Master still had general admission available at $31.25 a ticket. Call (212) 373-8000, and expect a lengthy hold.) This year, the Lollapalooza name may be as big a draw as the headliners, who get a rare chance to play for a filled arena. The festival's founding philosophy of showcasing new talent has been relegated to the second and third stages this year, which actually is more conducive to the tastes of the most diverse crowd you'll ever see. Many acts on the main stage have been around for a while — the main headliner act, Sonic Youth, has a greatest hits album out, for instance — but this is still a cutting-edge festival, a chance for an urban and college-town culture to visit the suburbs and spread the freak power far and wide. The day on the main stage begins with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, a ska-punk act with a social conscience that wound up stealing some of the day in Kansas City. The first and last slots on the bill are the worst for bands; everyone's arriving and getting settled in during the first band, and a lot of goobers pack up to beat the traffic during the last band. The Bosstones, however, opened the festival with a roar and wound up reprising their set on the second stage late in the evening. Frontman Dicky Barrett sweats all over the stage, leading the band in a frenetic swing that inevitably catches up the crowd. Jesus Lizard is next. Here's some advice: Get there early, drop your stuff, enjoy the Bosstones, then do your settling in during Jesus Lizard. This band fuses whiny rants onto hard-rock riffs and has been doing so for six years without making any impact. Vocalist David Yow announced in Kansas City, “I have sort of an upset tummy,'' then launched into a song about his urine. Ex-Scratch Acid guitarist David Wm. Sims wields his axe like an assault weapon, but this is still a great opportunity to scout better seats and grab a smoothie. The bouncy Beck takes the stage in third place. More appropriate for a sizzling street corner than a sizzling arena, Beck's Juice-O-Matic approach to music doesn't wilt in the heat. With a '60s-vintage effects box and vocals that sound like Tom Waits transmitting from Jupiter, Beck screeches all over the stage and swings like few blond kids in knit caps can swing. In Kansas City, his hometown, he played “Pay No Mind'' “heartland style,'' and he previewed two eerie pieces from his next disc, including a slow grinder called “Black Hole.'' And yes, he satisfied all the frat boys who were there to see “that guy who sings `Loser.' '' For that hit, he was joined onstage by the S7Ws, two men in sailor suits who stood guard at the corners of the stage like Public Enemy's X Men. “Take it easy,'' he said before bounding off stage, “and have a good picnic.'' The fourth act in Dallas will be Elastica, a hot new pop group from the other side of the pond. They take the place of Sinead O'Connor, who left the lineup because she's pregnant and the heat was a bit too much. It's a tragic loss; she was the turning point of the Kansas City show. Her fans were rabid, screaming like banshees when she came on stage and not stopping until the last chords of “Fire on Babylon'' were off to the stratosphere. The pregnancy explains why she was so subdued, walking around the stage barefoot, looking comfortable and laid back like Michelle Shocked or Carly Simon. Elastica started filling clubs in and around London two years ago. Leader Justine Frischmann left Suede before that band hit it big. The band's self-titled U.S. debut (another Geffen band on the bill!) collects 16 short-but-sweet tracks from independently released EPs. “This is music to be brave to,'' Frischmann has said. Their sing-song squelch should fit right into the festival. The coolest new band on the bill is Pavement, a band of upstarts who offer a refreshing — gasp, even melodic — pop sensibility amid the dissonant lineup. Bringing its crooked reign on stage, Pavement prefers to sound as if its songs just fell together — melodies are there but tentative. Lead goofball Steve Malkmus shifts between sleepy-eyed cool to yelping exasperation while wearing silly hats. The bulk of the Kansas City crowd just didn't quite get Pavement, though. The band ambled on, coughed, tuned up, joked among themselves and plowed into herky-jerky numbers like “Father to a Sister of a Thought'' and pop gems like “Kennel District'' and “Range Life'' while dazed breadbasket babies stared blankly at the stage and applauded politely. Ah well, gotta pay those dues before you pay the rent. When Pavement modestly leaves the stage, the stage managers go into high gear. For Cypress Hill, they hustle out a giant gong, a giant bong, DJ posts flanked by towering (simulated, surely) marijuana plants, and a 20-foot gold Buddha with a pot leaf on his belly. So begins this one trick pony's act — endless pro-marijuana rap. They certainly have guts. Before “I Want to Get High,'' lead rapper B-Real lights a joint on stage for the screaming glee of the crowd. He slides along with his annoying voice — like Bill Cosby imitating his children — and rants about the virtues of marijuana legalization. Despite the thinness of the group's one-topic set and B-Real's habit of calling everyone in the audience “mother f—-ers,'' Cypress Hill does get the crowd on its feet — a surprising hunk of which came especially to see them. Holding to the festival tradition of foul language and her own knack for tastelessness, Courtney Love stepped out onto the Kansas City stage next to sneer, “I'm going to abuse you because you deserve it, you f—-ing sh—s.'' The widow Cobain then lead her band, Hole, through some of the tightest and well-built pop of the day, over which she warbled like a drowsy sheep. Most of the band's latest album, “Live Through This,'' was covered, with sharp interpretations of “Gutless'' and “Softer Softest.'' Wearing a stark white dress and made-up like she was bruised and battered, she picked fights with anyone she could see in the crowd who wore a Pearl Jam T-shirts. Many of her stage antics are just a little too difficult to attempt to explain in a wholesome newspaper. Finally, Sonic Youth held everyone into the head-for-the-parking-lot timeslot with the expected confidence of the only band to transcend the typical underground, art-or-popularity quandary. Drawing on a history stretching back to 1982, Thurston Moore matter-of-factly introduced the songs, many of which were unrecorded ones. His lyrics were more audible, which is a real plus and reflects the heightening of that awareness on the band's remastered greatest hits package out last spring, “Screaming Fields of Sonic Love.'' This post contains my complete running coverage of this annual festival ...
© Tulsa World To Third World, It's Not Fans, It's Family By Thomas Conner 06/23/1995 When the interview started, Bunny Rugs had just dealt his daughter the second hand of a Jamaican card game called Three Card Peter Pat. The young girl had just fleeced her father and was giggling in anticipation of another rout. Rugs is a family man, he said, just like Third World is a family band — with family all over the world. Rugs, a stage name for William Clarke, is the lead vocalist of Third World, one of the featured bands at Tulsa's Reggaefest '95. The Tulsa show will be the band's first gig on its summer tour. A lot of bands strain under the rigors of cross-country touring. But for Bunny, it's one big family reunion. “I don't call them fans, I call them family,'' he said, after his daughter won another hand. “Each year we look forward to meeting our family all over again. There are so many people that we know in Japan, in America, in Europe, especially in Jamaica, and touring gives us the opportunity to see them all again.'' Rugs loves the road. He can't wait to get on the road again each time, he said. “It's not good for family life, but it pays the bills,'' he said. “I love hotel rooms. My (two) girls come along sometimes when we're going places they've never been before. I'd like to have them with me more, but it's hard. Still, I love going out. “You have to have that built-in chemistry to love the road. It's hard to keep your energy up, but when the curtains go up, somehow you find the strength, especially if you're doing something you love. “Once, when we were in Europe, I was really sick with hepatitis. I would lay in the bus until time to go on, drink a jug of ginseng and go on, and I'd be just fine until the curtain went down. It's the music that's just keeps me going.'' Rugs has his own music and his work with Third World keeping him going. This summer's tour will support Third World's recent release, “Live It Up,'' and Rugs just released his own solo effort called “Talking to You'' on a small indie label in New York, Shanachie. It's his first solo effort in more than two decades. The solo work was produced by popular Jamaican producer Jack Scorpio. “Our relationship turned out really well,'' Rugs said. “It's a little different from the music with Third World, only in terms of production. It's a little more dance hall, and I've got some different styles from the different people working with me.'' “Talking to You'' reached No. 16 on last week's Black Echo chart. The last time Rugs cut a solo recording was before he joined up with Third World — in 1973. The members of Third World are most of the original members of pre-Jacob Miller's Inner Circle. When four of the members broke away to form Third World, Rugs went to see them at New York City's Bottom Line club. “And I've been with them ever since that night,'' he said. Third World, however, is more than just another reggae act. The lyrical sensibility is the same — lots of peace, love and harmony — but the music worms its way through all kinds of styles, from Caribbean into rhythm and blues and finishing with true funk. “Third World's music has its own sound, sure,'' Rugs said, “and the message is one of peace and harmony. We really haven't changed over the years. The instrumentation might have changed, but we are always singing about the same things — peace, world harmony, love between man and woman. It would change if we were singing about guns and violence, I guess, but we're on the other end of all that, you know ...'' He paused. “Goodness, she beat me again,'' he said. “She's got me down six-love.'' His daughter giggled triumphantly in the background. “Next time we're playing for money.'' Goin' Solo: Reggae's Rose Makes a Comeback By Thomas Conner 06/23/1995 Guess who's coming to Tulsa. After a 10-year hiatus from visibility in America, reggae's great uncle, Michael Rose, comes back ashore this summer, starting with Tulsa's Reggaefest '95. “This festival is like my big kick-off,'' Rose said this week in a telephone interview from his doctor's office in Jamaica. “I'm jus' tryin' to get healthy and put together my tour.'' And what a kick-off. Since leaving Black Uhuru, the kingpins of reggae, 10 years ago, fans of Rose's unique style and sound have been chomping at the bit for a new album. Rose was Uhuru's chief songwriter, scoring such hits as “Shine Eye Gal'' and “Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,'' and he left the band right after its “Anthem'' album was awarded the 1985 Grammy for Best Reggae Album. “It was just that we couldn't work together anymore,'' Rose said of his departure. “There were no bad feelings. We just didn't have anything verbally, and we couldn't do business anymore.'' As a soloist, Rose began to release singles intermittently -- material he had written and recorded between Uhuru tours. In 1990, he released an album called “Proud,'' and in 1993 another called “Bonanza'' (with the delicious hit “Ganga Bonanza''). Since then he's tossed out several singles recorded from sessions with Sly and Robbie, the infallible rhythm section that was the core of Black Uhuru. None of this material, however, was released in the United States. This year, Rose's first major-label, self-titled solo recording is on American shelves. Released on Heartbeat Records, “Michael Rose'' is a high-production addition to Rose's string of hits, if not the monumental recording Black Uhuru fans have been itching for. Rose, still fumbling for a solo voice (and control of his trademark locks), tries a few stylistic experiments, but he sounds best when he plays it straight, as in the disc's opener, “Too Hard a Hearing,'' and the powerful “Warning.'' The album's first single, “Badder Than You,'' jabs at the young'uns who have not only imitated his unique vocal wail, but have downright copied him without any credit. He sings: “I can do it better than you / I can do it best / You know that I'm badder than you.'' “I'm not really angry at no one,'' Rose said, “but some of these guys don't give me credit. They never say they like me or nothing; they only try to discredit me. Look at Snow. He took everything from me.'' Still, Rose is hunting for new young reggae stars. He and his brother have launched the Jamaica-based Image label to focus on young talent. Rose had his own influences, though. The most notable was reggaemeister Dennis Brown, who Rose calls his “godfather.'' Rose also cites — surprise — Bob Marley, as well as other actual surprises like Billy Paul, Marvin Gaye and the Temptations. “When we got started in Jamaica, we used to entertain tourists on the streets, you know,'' Rose said. “That was the only opportunity to get into music. Some of that old soul music attracted people to us.'' Rose said he idolized Brown, but soon forged his own style. “You can't be like someone else the rest of your life.'' He now is certainly his own man. Rose relishes some of the freedoms he has now as a solo artist. “Working with myself, I'm my own boss,'' he said. Dancehall Days: Yellowman Makes Tulsa Debut By Thomas Conner 06/23/1995 Long regarded as the most important dancehall player in the reggae universe, Yellowman has overcome great odds to make it in music. Born in Jamaica an albino — with no skin pigmentation -- Yellowman was forced into institutions and special schools. Dropping his real name, Winston Foster, he embraced his nickname, Yellowman (because “I'm yellow, like cheese''), and turned it into a winning moniker. And only recently, Yellowman won battles with throat and skin cancer. This summer, he returns to the road on the heels of his latest solo release, “Prayer.'' With more than 25 albums to his credit, Yellowman still pours on nutritious grooves in simple songs like “Africa'' and “Reggae Music.'' The title track is a blend of sweet vocals and a dancehall-style chanting of the Lord's Prayer. He also collaborated with reggae greats like the Mighty Diamonds and David Folkes on this album. Yellowman's music ranges from the political to the spiritual. His lengthy list of hits includes “Soldier Take Over,'' Mad Over Me,'' “I'm Getting Married,'' “Jamaica a Little Miami'' and “Me Kill Barney'' (which has nothing to do with the famed purple dinosaur). Yellowman is the best-selling reggae artist since Bob Marley. Wendy Shaw has a long history in reggae music — a genre not exactly brimming with talented women. She started fronting an all-Rasta women band called Jahdeeda in the mid-'80s, and now she's causing quite a buzz in the record industry in southern California. Her first album, “Praise His Majesty,'' came about after lots of work recording and exploring in reggae's heartland, Jamaica. After a show at the Sunsplash festival, she met Rita Marley (wife of Bob). Marley encouraged her to come to Tuff Going Music, which ended up distributing Shaw's first singles. She made her debut in 1990 at the 9th Annual Bob Marley Day celebration in Long Beach, Calif. Her latest record, “Passing Through the Flames,'' continues to speak a message of love and peace in a special style only a woman could add to the reggae vein. Her spirituality dominates much of her lyrical subjects. “Rastafari is a way of life to live and be free from the hooks of Babylon,'' Shaw has said. “All of my songs so far have touched upon this theme.'' BY THOMAS CONNER
© TULSA WORLD Matthew Sweet has been all over the map — literally and musically. He's come a long way from that seersucker jacket and wallflower gaze on the cover of his first LP, 1986's "Inside," to the black leather and devilish grin on the back of his current chartbuster, "100% Fun." Geographically, he's come to L.A. by way of New York City; Athens, Ga.; and his homely home state of Nebraska. Musically, he's come to the seventh level of power-pop heaven by way of synthesizer anesthesia and look-Ma-I'm-on-a-major-label overkill. And like all travelers, he is better and wiser for his journeys. "My whole concept, though, hasn't changed that much," Sweet said. "As long as I have a room with a multi-track (recorder) in it, I can make music." The multi-track is key. Sweet is one like many across the country: a goofy Midwestern boy who spent his formative years locked in his bedroom with his first four-track, writing silly songs for the kick of it and experimenting with sound like a Merry Prankster aboard Ken Kesey's Day-Glo bus. Sweet just happened to creep ever so slowly into well-deserved national notice. Sweet spoke with the Tulsa World last week from the office of his Los Angeles record company, Zoo Entertainment. "I don't work and work on songs," he said. "They come instantly or they don't happen. Sometimes I'm just blowing off steam, getting moody and weird, and I get my guitar and just muse on it. It's therapy, and for a long time — really, all the time — it was totally that until `Girlfriend' came along and made it a career thing." "Girlfriend" was his 1992 release and the one that pulled him out of cult status and into that realm of "modern rock" praise that's just enough to pump your ego and get your name in the paper but not enough to boost you from renting the house to buying it. But on that album, Sweet found his niche — his literal and musical home. The success of "Girlfriend" also accomplished one major feat: it got Sweet out of the house. " 'Girlfriend' gave way to my first real live outing. I didn't play live much at first because I was doing a lot of multi-track stuff and was playing almost everything myself, so it wasn't very feasible to go out on the road." Sweet said his music — with mostly guitars and drums — translates to live performance pretty well. "It's a pretty basic combo. We don't do a lot of the harmonies and stuff because that would mean I'd have to have background singers or something." This cracks him up, but he recovers. "No, the live shows are a little more intense, more rock. We're also trying more acoustic stuff this time." Some rockers complain about touring; some can't wait to get on the road again. Sweet said he's in-between. "I remember at first I was so unprepared for that kind of life. It's a real strain to try and stay healthy and keep going, and you miss things like your wife and house. “But these days I'm into getting out and playing guitar. It's a great chance to get out and have fun with some songs, kick around a little more." Before Sweet hit the road to tootle to the multitudes, he was a nomadic, bright hooksmith moving around the country. Out of high school, Sweet was determined to get to Athens, Ga., the late-'80s harmonic convergence of innovative rock. "There was a real magical feeling in Athens. It was really encouraging," Sweet said. "But as time went on, Pylon broke up, R.E.M. pretty much left and the scene got nastier, and just like everywhere else, it turned out to be a bunch of greedy, nasty musicians and hangers-on." He bailed, and he didn't take with him much of the jangly Southern rock sound from Athens. ("I've never made the Athens claim," he said.) But he did take the connections. As a result of his tenure there, Sweet can name-drop with the best of them. Starting as lead guitarist for cult-faves Oh-OK with Lynda (sister of Michael) Stipe, Sweet landed his first solo record deal with Columbia, which produced "Inside," featuring Sweet with Aimee Mann ('Til Tuesday), two Bangles, Jody Harris, Mike Campbell (Petty's Heartbreakers), Valerie Simpson (Ashford and ...), Chris Stamey, Fred Maher and others. The album was produced in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and London. A smorgasbord of talent made for a nice first record, but the work thereafter suffered from synth-itis. Not until "Girlfriend" did Sweet find his groove. "At the beginning of my career, I kind of didn't know what I was doing," he said. "I tried some different things until some certain ones clicked." A little bit of that, a little bit of this until he was 100 percent Matthew Sweet. The latest album, "100% Fun," capitalizes on Sweet's strong suits -- guitar, guitar, guitar. His versatile formula is melodious and monstrous, especially the album's first track, "Sick of Myself," which reached No. 9 on Billboard's modern rock chart last week. It's a catchy crunch of electric strings alongside Sweet's vital vocal: "But I'm sick of myself when I look at you/Something is beautiful and true/In a world that's ugly and a lie/It's hard to even want to try." The lyrics do not exactly conjure the title "100% Fun." Sweet's songs are not depressing, by any means, but he's not retreading "Walkin' on Sunshine," either. The album title, though, smacks of a little sarcasm. "When my last album ("Altered Beast") came out," he said, "people kept telling me how dark and weird the songs were. So I told everyone I was going to call my next album `100% Fun.' Now I'm hoping the title will predispose people to think the record is more pleasant than it really is." "Altered Beast" actually featured some of Sweet's finer songcraft, but the subjects were black and the characters were creepy, not unlike R.E.M.'s "Monster." "I came to think of it as creepy because I think that's cool," Sweet said. "I can be wacky, but sometimes those things aren't as important to me. "Though ('100% Fun') deals with the more human side of life, there are also some songs that have a weirder, wackier perspective. I'm really into sci-fi monster music, and I think those songs help give the album an added kick." The tour kicked into gear this week. Sweet said he hoped the band would be into a groove by the time they hit Tulsa. |
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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