november 8, 2005
A couple of weeks ago my friend Mike Kubeck from
Super Deluxe asked if I'd be interested in putting a group together for a private party. A party band! Now that just kinda warmed my heart: it wasn't a request to join some night of improvised or electronic music, or to accompany some modern dance or butoh or anything like that. There'd be no laptops or contact mics in sight, nobody playing their guitar with al dente spaghetti or blowing into 30-foot tubes attached to miniature helicopter blades. He needed a good old fashioned band for a good old fashioned party. Best part, though, was that I could do more or less whatever I wanted to, style-wise, as long as it was, you know, crowd-pleasing enough in a party kind of way. So after giving the matter about 15 seconds thought, I decided it would be an evening of vintage, southern roots R&B. Specifically of the METERS and the BOOKER T AND THE MGs variety. With a little Dr. John and Professor Longhair thrown in for good measure. The legendary funky and soulful music of those two most iconic of American music towns, Memphis and New Orleans. Yep, it'd be a cover band! And at this point, that's about as avant-garde as you can get, if you know what I mean.
So, I went about enlisting the aid of the best men for the job: on guitar, the legendary veteran of Tokyo Bibinba Club and countless other influential and highly-regarded bands: KASUGA "HACHI" HIROFUMI. On bass, the ever-solid and extremely amiable NASUNO MITSURU (from Altered States, among other projects). On keyboards, Soul Flower Union veteran OKUNO SHINYA, who brought his love for the Meters right along with his great chops and Leslie speaker.On sax, the inimitable and indefatigable UMEZU KAZUTOKI, my old cohort and one of those horn players who can dig into an R&B feel in superb fashion. Yours truly manned the drum chair (just the standard kit, no gizmos, bells or whistles) and provided vocals where necessary. A couple of rehearsals was all it took, and presto, Tokyo's finest interpreters of 70's era southern instrumental soul were ready to rock the joint!
And we did. From the Meters funky book we offered up
Cissy Strut, Pungee, Look-Ka Py Py and more. From Booker T it was Aw Mercy, Hip Hug Her, Soul Dressing, etc. And the rollicking New Orleans "second-line" numbers like Blow Wind Blow and Big Chief were big fun! We even did an old favorite of mine called "Polk Salad Annie" (a big radio hit down in Alabama when I was all of 10 years old) by Louisianan Tony Joe White.
The only thing that was a little off was that we were playing for a very young crowd (all early 20-somethings...) who, well, weren't exactly sure what planet the music they were hearing came from. It's probably safe to say that none of them, not a single one in the room, had ever heard anything by the Meters or Booker T. I think they were a little perplexed, to tell you the truth. Well, who knows, maybe we planted a little seed of interest into one or two of those babies! They did actually listen very politely to the set. And there were a good enough number of smiling faces (the kinds of smiles that signal "this is fun!") among the largely female crowd. And as for the band, well, everybody had a fine time and everybody wants to keep doing it, so I think I'll try to keep this thing going, gradually adding original material to supplement the classic covers: maybe something coming out of a similar bag, but a little more our own, or whatever. Now I gotta come up with a name for this unit, though. Any ideas?
october 13, 2005
Following hurricane Katrina, I penned a song called New Orleans 2005, to channel some of my anger at the conspicuous lack of disaster relief, and at what I believe are the racist underpinnings of such lack. I posted links to the song (as well as written-out lyrics) on a few forum pages here and there on the net. Here is a link to one such page:
http://www.americana-uk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2558
You might find some of the back-and-forth opinion-sharing to be of some interest.
I am happy to see that a a piece of music can still engender a bit of political discussion. And while some may recoil in knee-jerk reaction against the term "protest song", I think that it is certainly time, given the current dire circumstances surrounding the abuses of power in evidence everywhere (particularly in the current U.S. administration and its slimy corporate underwriters) for a resurgence of social/political commentary in music. And indeed, if you do a net search for "protest song" you'll find a fair number of entries, some of which will lead you to contemporary songs along with the "We Shall Overcome"s and the "Which Side Are You On"s so popular in the 60's. I can't vouch for how much of the politically related stuff out there is any good or not, but it's heartening to see that there is activity in this direction. And while I think it can certainly be a kind of artistic death for a songwriter to limit his or her output to explicitly political themes, I do think there should be more, maybe much more social commentary happening now in contemporary music, and particularly from high-profile singers who have the ear of the masses. So, yeah, c'mon Britney Spears, you're from Louisiana... what do you think of the way things went down post-Katrina?
march, 2005
This past February, 2005 I was very happy to take part in the recording of what will be the Kropotkins' 3rd release. We spent a few days at the fantastic, historic Easley Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where we recorded about a dozen songs. Those familiar with the history of the group will know that I was a member back in the mid nineties, and appeared on the first CD (The Kropotkins), which came out in 1995. Moving to Tokyo unfortunately meant that I could no longer continue as a regular member of the band, and for the 2nd Kropotkins release (Five Points Crawl) bandleader Dave Soldier brought in none other that ex-Velvet Underground legend Mo Tucker to replace me! But I'm happy to say I was back in the friendly company of members Dave, Jonathan Kane, Charlie Burnham, Mark "dog" Deffenbaugh, and of course, the star vocalist of the band, Lorette Velvette, for sessions that were fun and relaxed and a real pleasure to take part in. The studio was a great place to be (hey, it was once owned by the BAR-KAYS!), and I think we made some pretty good music. I contributed 3 of my tunes to the effort. Not sure yet when it'll be out: that depends on when the almost absurdly busy and prolific Mr. Soldier can get around to mixing it and preparing it for release on his Mulatta label.
whenever...
Since "Secrets of Teaching Yourself Music" was released last year, my phone just hasn't stopped ringing: invitations to perform for heads of state, speaking engagements (the various scientific conferences have been a real hoot), and of course, the Pepsi commercial that aired during Super Bowl. Myself, I'd rather sift through rusty razorblades than watch a Super Bowl, plus I threw my TV into a motel swimming pool in Mississippi about 25 years ago (brought it all the way from Alabama just to do so), so I haven't seen the commercial, but I'm told that my soundtrack (17 pocket vibrators rattling a tomato juice can full of contact microphones) provided the perfect sonic backdrop for that supermodel winking and drinking sugar water while strapped to a predator drone over the Iraqi desert. My thanks to everyone involved.