Things to do in Dayton | Restaurants, Theatre, Music and More
Bonneville has accomplished a lot for a young band. They participated in the Dayton Band Playoffs in 2002, before their freshman year of high school. They’ve released several CDs, and in a few weeks, they’ll embark on a winter tour taking them from Columbus to Nashville and South Carolina. Before their journey begins, they’ll perform at Canal Street Tavern on November 29.
This week, the band will appear on Kaleidoscope on WYSO (Wednesday 8-11pm) for a live set and interview.
The Rebel Set is gearing up to release a follow-up to their debut album, Ghost Town Silence. The new offering is called Across the Relentless Sea and will be available as both physical CDs and digital copies on iTunes, Amazon, etc on November 14th. To celebrate the release, The Rebel Set will perform at the Oregon Express on November 14 along with fellow Dayton bands Akillis Green and To Catch a Matador.
The band will also be stopping by the WYSO studios on Wednesday, November 11th for a live performance and interview on Kaleidoscope at around 9pm.
In September, Pacchia introduced groove., a weekend concert series that marked a return to live music for the restaurant/bar. Recently, groove. announced its Pre-Thanskgiving rock show featuring music from The Story Changes, Stone the Mayor Sheriffs and Luxury Pushers on November 25.
Tonight on Kaleidoscope, WYSO listeners will get an update groove., including information on some upcoming shows. Kaleidoscope airs 8-11pm every Wednesday night on WYSO.
Back in mid-September there were whispers that Swearing at Motorists would be returning to Dayton after a 3 year hiatus and performing a single US show at Canal Street Tavern. Those whispers have turned into shouts of joy as the show date rapidly approaches. Tomorrow night (Thursday, Oct 29) Dave Doughman will be joined onstage at Canal Street Tavern by original Swearing at Motorists drummer (and current Smug Brother) Don Thrasher. They’ll be playing 2000 release Number Seven Uptown in its entirety. Completing an amazing evening of local music, the Smug Brothers will also perform along with Rev. Davis Kettering and Fab Gear DJs. The doors at Canal Street will open at 8pm, and music is set to start at 9pm.
Dave Doughman will also be a guest on Kaleidoscope tonight (Wednesday) on WYSO. The show is from 8-11pm, and Dave will be dropping by during the second half of the show, sometime after the open house at the Dayton Dirt Collective.
If you haven’t checked out State School’s Cats in Boxes EP, you’re missing out on one of the fantastic newer bands Dayton has to offer. Fresh from their performance at Dayton Music Fest, this indie folk act is preparing for their upcoming Southern tour. But before they leave, they’ll be stopping by WYSO for a live set on Kaleidoscope, this Wednesday (October 14th).
You can catch Kaleidoscope on Wednesday nights, 8-11pm on 91.3FM, or you can listen online at wyso.org. You can also catch State School at their next local gig on November 8th at Blind Bob’s in the Oregon District.
The University of Dayton Arts Series always brings unique and engaging arts performers to campus, and Guy Livingston is certainly no exception. This American-born pianist from Paris will be shaking up any traditional ideas you might have about attending a piano performance. His concert scheduled for Wednesday October 14th, “One Minute More,” is ideal for music lovers with short attention spans. Livingston will perform a collection of contemporary works that are just one minute in length, accompanied by video projection. Where else can you hear new music from 60 different composers in one short hour? Visit his website at http://www.guylivingston.com for sample clips (and be sure to check out the world’s shortest opera).
Livingston is also one of the foremost experts on radical composer and pianist George Antheil, a self-declared “Bad Boy of Music” who led a musical revolution in 1920’s Paris. During his visit to UD, Livingston will lecture on Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique and the collaboration between musicians and artists that occurred during this influential time period. In preparation for Livingston’s visit, the UD Arts Series will also be hosting a free screening of Bad Boy Made Good, a documentary film about Antheil’s tumultuous life and work.
Bad Boy Made Good: Music Documentary Film
Monday, Oct. 12 at 8 pm
No tickets required for this free event.
The Avant-Garde Crossroads of Art & Music: Ballet Mécanique
Lecture by Guy Livingston
Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 1:30 pm
No tickets required for this free event.
Guy Livingston: “One Minute More”
Wednesday, Oct. 14 at 8 pm
Tickets are $14 for general admission; $8 for University of Dayton faculty, staff and alumni; and $5 for students. Contact the UD Box Office at 937-229-2545.
All events will be held at Sears Recital Hall on the University of Dayton campus. For more information about the UD Arts Series: 937-229-2787 or http://artsseries.udayton.edu.
For many local music fans, the first week of October has become an unofficial holiday thanks to Dayton Music Fest. The festival is celebrating it’s fifth anniversary by once again offering a fine sampling of over 30 local bands at a variety of downtown Dayton venues. This year’s festival is October 3rd, and the excitement is building. It’s a great opportunity to see a bunch of your favorite local bands in a single evening, but you needn’t be a part of “the scene” to enjoy yourself. The festival is also the perfect opportunity to see just some of the amazing music Dayton has to offer every weekend.
There are also several local events that have popped up in conjunction with Dayton Music Fest. One of them is Poster-tastic, an art show celebrating local gig poster art, at Derailed Salon Hair Salon in the Oregon District.
On September 30, Kaleidoscope will present a special Dayton Music Fest show with music from many of the festival bands as well as interviews with the organizers of Dayton Music Fest and the organizer of Poster-tastic. Kaleidoscope airs Wednesday nights from 8 to 11pm on WYSO.
It was a packed house at Canal Street Tavern on Saturday, September 26 as the final round of the 2009 Dayton Band Playoffs began. Oxymoronatron and the Turkish Delights each performed high energy sets for the crowd. At the end of the night, the count began on the over 300 votes cast. It came down to 4 votes to determine the Turkish Delights were this year’s winner. You can catch both of the finalists live October 3rd at Dayton Music Fest.
The 26th Annual Dayton Band Playoffs are coming to a close, but not before this Saturday’s highly anticipated final round. The Turkish Delights will take the stage against Oxymoronatron at Canal Street Tavern in what is sure to be an amazing performance by both bands.
Remember, the winner of the Dayton Band Playoffs is determined by the audience so the only way to ensure that your pick will win is to show up. Past winners include Magic Jackson, Orange Willard, Shrug and Brainiac.
Since it’s creation, the Dayton Dirt Collective has played host to many unique local and regional bands. On Thursday, September 24th, Flotation Walls will make a return visit to the DDC as part of a handful of regional shows they’re playing with New York act Finding Fiction. In addition to bringing their experimental pop arrangements to the DDC, Flotation Walls will also be making an accoustic appearance on WYSO’s Kaleidoscope on Wednesday, September 23rd 98-11pm).
You can tune into WYSO at 91.3FM or listen online via their website. The performance will also be available to stream on WYSO’s website on Thursday, September 24th. For more information on upcoming live performances on Kaleidoscope, check out the show’s Facebook page.
I’m pleased to announce that we have our first official syndicated blog here on DMM, and we went big with this one! Please welcome The Buddha Den – the BEST local music blog anywhere in the Dayton Region! Kyle Melton is the man behind the blog, and as a lifelong Daytonian he knows the local music scene as well as anybody. If you want to read more about him, just head over to the the articles about his two-year anniversary featured in this week’s Active Dayton and Dayton City Paper.
The Buddha Den covers the local music scene with a primary focus on indie rock. In addition to very well written posts about local shows, bands and even national indie groups (that are usually playing a show in Dayton), The Buddha Den features many great mp3’s from Dayton’s best bands – with the stipulation that they are for sampling only, and he encourages folks to support the bands by buying their music and/or coming to shows. So if you want to listen to a track or two before deciding to go check out a show then head over to the Buddha Den’s site and you’ll likely find it there.
So what is all this syndication all about? It just means that you’ll be able to read Buddha Den posts here on DMM in their entirety shortly after they’re published. If you’re a true local music junkie then you’ll likely just go straight to The Buddha Den’s site, but if you just want one site to get the overview then you can get it here. Look for more syndications in the near future as we continue our quest to make DMM the most comprehensive online magazine in the region!
The Blue Man Group’s How To Be A Megastar Tour 2.1 can be most easily described as Dr. Suess meets Sousa. What better way to articulate the primitive rhythms that course their way through contorted PVC pipes and other instruments with such eccentric names as the Tubulum, the Drumbone and the Piano Smasher, all the while being played by three earless, cobalt mutes.
The Blue Man Group began as an expressive idea that sprung from the minds of Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton (collectively known as CMP) while they were working as caterers at Glorious Foods in Manhattan, New York. They donned the now familiar blue grease paint, latex bald caps and black clothing in the late eighties, appearing on the streets in full regalia. Sometimes they meandered sporadically through the city, astoundingly innocent in their observations of their surrounding and the myriad masses of people that walked past, equally astounded by their appearance. Other times were spent mimicking dance moves across the street from hot nightspots sans music. They held a funeral for the Eighties, which prompted a modicum of media exposure.
Eventually, they began performing small routines in The CLUB at LaMama Experimental Theater Club, garnering them a review in the New York Times, by critic Stephen Holden hailing the show as a “deliriously antic blend of music, painting and clowning.” Their short performances led to The CLUB’s owner, Meryl Vladimer, commissioning the group to create a full length show, which resulted in TUBES. The Blue Man Group’s popularity quickly soared and the show garnered them a Obie Award as well as a Lucille Lortel Award which led the show to be taken to the Astor Place Theater off Broadway in 1991.
Since those early days, the Blue Man Group has become and empire unto itself, breaking through in advertisements, the music industry, stage, theater and movies as well as toy development, a traveling museum exhibit and even a school for children with an emphasis on creative learning processes. Their shows are staples in New York, Chicago, Boston, Orlando and Las Vegas with tours across North America and an international tour that has stops in Stuttgart, Switzerland, Spain, France and Austria. These overlapping shows and venues have compelled the original group to hold massive auditions for talented individuals to become second generation Blue Men (which I will term The Blue Brood 2.0). I set out to speak with one or more of this new Blue Brood 2.0 to see what the whole BMG experience was like.
My first attempt at an interview with the Blue Man Group did not go well at all. The only sounds to be heard on the recording of our “conversation” was my own voice asking astoundingly interesting questions, only to be pelted with marshmallows. Halfway through the tape, one can hear my surprised cries as the trio experimented with the acoustics of my balding pate with a large mallet. They were very courteous hosts, however, as illustrated towards the end of the interview when many Twinkie wrappers can be heard crinkling as they offered me their sole source of sustenance in an act of mute hospitality.
It was my mistake to attempt to speak with them while they were still in character, so I decided on a different course of action. I contacted BMG’s agent and he set up an interview with Marc Roberts, who was once a criminal justice major before quickly switching to theater performance after seeing the Blue Man Group live. Roberts spent over two years auditioning for the group, eventually being selected from an original open casting of over twenty-five hundred applicants.
J.T.: With a casting call of something like 2,500 other people auditioning, what set you apart from the others and what was the process of getting in there?
Oh my gosh! Well, you know, it was just one of those things where I just went in and I was myself and sometimes the stars align. You just happen to be more you than anyone else, I guess. It’s just one of those things. It’s such an indescribable process, the whole audition process. When people asked me what happened, I have to just tell them what specific events happened, like how it happened. I guess I just kept cool under pressure better than the next guy…I don’t know to tell you the truth. They could have just drawn a name out of a hat. Either way, I’m happy I’m happy I’m here.
J.T.: In your opinion, what’s the biggest difference between the theater shows and the arena tours?
Roberts: The challenge is to try and keep the characters as natural as possible. You know, you want to get out here…I mean, I even had that problem going from off-Broadway, which is only about three hundred seats to Vegas, and then from Vegas to a big arena. There’s an intensity that you want to up just because you want to raise the stakes, but at the same time, you want to keep the integrity true. You don’t want to start “miming”. You don’t want to start indicating to people that, “Hmmm! I’m thinking!” as you’re grabbing your chin or holding your head, because, for the most part, if something’s done honestly, it’s read well. We have a huge advantage with the tour because we have a camera and we have three high def screens behind us, so the subtleties like the eyes and stuff that usually wouldn’t transfer, they will now. I would say the biggest challenge for me, to be completely honest with you, is endurance. It is a tiring show. I mean, I’m out of breath, crying by the end of the show, hawking up paint, grabbing for someone while I’m walking off stage because of cramps. It’s embarrassing. That’s my big challenge right now.
J.T.: How hard is it with the arena shows is it to break through “the fourth wall”: to connect with the audience and bring them into the performance?
Roberts: You know, I think with a rock show, it’s a bit easier because people tend to view a rock show with more involvement. There’s more give and take at a rock concert then there would be at a theater performance. When I was at the Astor in New York, it was pretty ridiculous, because you would get a lot of people that wouldn’t know what to expect and they’d be a bit more apprehensive. They wouldn’t want to be looked at. They wouldn’t want to be touched because they want to go to an evening at the theater. I think here, they’re just begging to be involved. I mean, people just run up to the edge of the stage when I break a stick or (when I drop) a stick into the audience, there’s a mad dash to grab it. There’s people running up, grabbing us, taking photos. If anything, it’s kind of scary! You know, there are still only three of us, no matter how big the audience gets, there’s still just the three of us.
J.T.: Well, I know in the beginning, when Chris, Matt and Phil would have meet and greets after the show, they would break character and actually talk, it kind of freaked people out and kind of blew the illusion.
Marc: Well, they’ve never said that we had to stay in character. They’re huge fans of talking about the show. It’s kind of something that we’ve all agreed upon to not talk because for selfish reasons because the instant you talk, you’re going to get people who just want to quiz you like, “How can I do what you do?” “Where does the paint come from?” tell them secrets about the show, you know, “What’s your real name? What’s your phone number?”…that kind of stuff. Then, it’s always like the one person, I feel the one person that I’m going to make really happy by talking is going to be totally counteracted by the fifty other people in line behind them who just want that magic to keep going. They want to believe, with all of their heart, that I’m a “Blue Man”. They know I’m a person, but for the last two hours, they’ve escaped and they just think that there’s this innocent creature out there who just looks at life differently and it just makes them happy and I just want to keep that going. I just want to say that I’m so happy that you’ve…you know, I get a lot of interviews where people just ask me, “Why blue?” or “How long does the make up take?” This is awesome! You know what you’re talking about and I have to say that I really appreciate this.
J.T.: No problem at all. Actually, I wanted to get into some topics, I guess for my own personal interests, that were a little bit deeper. I’ve always been amazed with the group because they are like the perfect outsiders and there’s a duality within the group that these perfect outsiders have somehow connected with the outsider within all of us and have become so popular, so now, the outsiders are popular.
Marc: Yeah, yeah! It’s kind of like the outsiders become the majority and they’ve now become this paradox of the inside. I totally see that. I was definitely drawn to the first show by the fact that there was absolutely no ego. There was the hero aspect of…I mean…I didn’t know what this was, but I was going to go straight towards this and there’s no fear of failure, no fear of looking like a fool and in that aspect, no matter how ridiculous they look, people will just love it, you know?
J.T.: The groups ability to be funny in such a minimalist way with just eye expressions and slight gestures is just amazing.
Roberts: Oh my gosh, yeah. That’s something they teach us. You let the audience write the funniest story. You know, the more you guide them, the more you tell them what’s funny, the less it will be. You try to set up the framework for the joke and they will write the funny punch line for themselves. When they taught me that, and it made my job so much better.
J.T.: What’s new on the How To Be A The Mega Star Tour 2.1 and what is the set list?
Roberts: The How To Be A Mega Star Tour is like an adapted set list from The Complex Tour. It has the music with the vocals. It has some new stuff and it has a few pieces from the original show that are adapted. I would say, compared to the Vegas show, like 85% to 90% of it’s all new. Don’t be expecting to see too much from the “sit down” shows. One of the great things about being on tour is that it’s an organic experience. With the “sit down” shows, we bring in new stuff every couple of months or every year or so, but the tour is one of those things that they just keep constantly fine-tuning. It’s such an amazing experience to get to be at the front end of all this. You know, you go in and they’re like, “No, no! We’re working on this! We re-wrote this style!”
J.T.: In the beginning, when Chris, Matt and Phil (the creators of BMG) would have meet and greets after the show, they would break character and actually talk, it kind of freaked people out and sort of blew the illusion.
Roberts: Well, they’ve never said that we had to stay in character. They’re huge fans of talking about the show. It’s kind of something that we’ve all agreed upon to not talk because for selfish reasons. I feel the one person that I’m going to make really happy by talking is going to be totally counteracted by the fifty other people in line behind them who just want that magic to keep going. They want to believe, with all of their heart, that I’m a “Blue Man”. They know I’m a person, but for the last two hours, they’ve escaped and they just think that there’s this innocent creature out there who just looks at life differently and it just makes them happy and I just want to keep that going.
J.T.: Is there a fun aspect to the anonymity to it?
Roberts: Oh my gosh! I absolutely love…one of my favorite things stories is, I did this show in Vegas and afterward, I was cleaned up and left, and usually it takes about thirty to forty-five minutes to take the make-up off and take a shower and we talk about the show every single night. So, I’m leaving, walking through the casino this time, and I see a girl that was in the show with me (who was) a featured guest. In the meet and greet, we sign (autographs) by giving kisses and she happened to ask for one on the cheek. I never say no and I’m always willing to go with it on genuine emotion, so I give her a peck on the cheek. Well, I saw her afterward with all her friends and I just wanted to hear what she would say, so I stop and was eavesdropping and she caught me! She gave me this look, like, “Get away from me you weirdo!” and I’m laughing to myself because part of me wanted to be like, “You do realize that I was with you.” but I didn’t want to ruin it. I didn’t want to make her experience become real, as much as it was a fantasy. As much as it was that experience, I didn’t want to then put my face with it and get her weirded out, you know. So, I absolutely love that aspect. I get to put the mask of a “super star” on. I get to put that mask on, but I’m not that…I’m still just Marc Roberts.
There is an idiosyncratic, paradoxical dualism to the Blue Man Group. These utilitarian homologues are the perfect outsiders that, through their naïve view of the world and their use of subtle gestures and bombastic rhythms, reveal to us the underlying complexities that make us truly human, thereby making the perfect outsiders one of the most wildly popular acts in the world. Even within their own small group of three, one of the members can, from time to time, become an outsider themselves by reacting differently then their abnormal norm.
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“I sit here thinking of memories we knew
Life rushes by so fast
We all are blind, and we stumble through our days
As the future turns to past”
Private World
Artie Garr
The digits I had dialed traversed the six hundred miles or so from my home to Art Garfunkel’s New York. The call was answered quickly by the friendly, warm voice of Art saying, “Hi J.T. Just let me close the door of my office… hang on.” The candid and familiar tone set my nerves at ease, somewhat. The sound of silence was finally broken when he picked back up and said, “How do you feel today?” There was such an actual genuineness in his tone that all of my apprehensions faded quickly away.
Our conversation wended its way through politics, global warming, the environment, the disingenuousness within the recording business, apathy and the role of technology in making us even more apathetic. There were fascinating twists and turns, none of which were covered on my meticulously prepared list of questions. We did however get around to his current project, Some Enchanted Evening and the subsequent tour to support it. Some Enchanted Evening is an eclectic collection of Tin Pan Alley style songs by the likes of Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Dorsey and Rogers and Hammerstein, which is wholly engaging in its selection as well as its execution.
It was daunting to interview such an iconic figure, a man whose achievements ranged from a masters in mathematics to all of the songs, music, prose and poetry he has created. Were there other worlds that he has not able to conquer and things that he still wished to attain?
“I still haven’t gotten to sing as good as I can, so the first thing your question makes me think is right down the mainstream, the middle of what I do. I’m a singer first and foremost. I can sing better than the world knows me to sing.” he stated flatly, while in my mind, his soaring counter tenor rang through Bridge Over Troubled Water, and I found no flaws whatsoever. “I’m still in the process of getting my full act together, being maximally effective. I don’t look outside of music when you ask me a question. …I am a singer. Have I really done it all? No.”
I disagreed with him, tactfully of course, telling him that the sheer silkiness of Some Enchanted Evening was just astounding. The selections from America’s songbook, containing classics such as I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face, Quiet Nights Of Quiet Stars (Corcovado) and the album’s namesake, Some Enchanted Evening, were all expertly arranged and the singing had such a melodious quality to it, you could feel the relaxed sense of release within him.
“I’m smiling because, you know, I’m quite pleased with it. I know you’re not supposed to say this, but after a bunch of albums, I’ve been convinced to put the vocals way up front finally, very palatably…don’t show off as a singer. Don’t make them go, ‘Look at the singing!’ Just tickle their ears. Serve the listener aurally. So I’m trying to be a servant of delight in this album with the vocals way up front and I thought the phrasing came out good.”
With his background in mathematics, I wondered if he ever saw the musical form as an elegant mathematical process.
“Well, I certainly see Bach and his fugues that way. I calibrate, very carefully with great precision…I am precise. When I’m singing, time and the exactness of rhythm and the solidity of the groove, something that Creedence Clearwater was so brilliant at, is just total, solid time. When you feel that solid time, the mathematician such as I, likes to play with it and surge just a little ahead, a little behind. The precision of the exactness, of feeling it, allows you to play games with it and you pull your listener into such a sensitivity when you play these games. Now you can grab the next word, and just a little ahead of the beat, and it has an effect, an urgency. Or, you slip back, the same thing you do with crescendos and de-crescendos you do volume-wise, you do with little pushes and surges in the rhythm when you’re just mathematically precise about what you do. But, maybe I’m just describing a musicians’ precision.”
Emerging onto the music scene, as well as becoming aware of the sheer breadth of the world, in a time of a convoluted evolution of political and social structure, Art Garfunkel has seen the seams of what holds America together. He has toured across the land, having walked across the country as well and has a keen sense of the changing landscape. How does he view the new technology and the inherent anonymity of the computer age, especially in deference to the changing face of the music industry?
“I very happy to say, I don’t quite get it.” he admitted without regret. “It’s a moving target, it’s shifting sands. I don’t have to get it. All I have to do is sing. Can I find a venue to sing? It may not be the record business, but maybe it’s only the stage.”
“I like this motto. It’s a very important guide to living, in my opinion. ‘Never underestimate the massive quantity of human shyness.'” he said, pausing slightly before expounding on the statement. “People’s ability to be shy is massive and it explains so much. The computer world feeds into people who don’t want to be face to face with anybody, and that shyness, that living through your terminal at a distance, more detached from everybody, getting your entertainment with an increased amount of detachment it’s about feeding into shyness. It’s exactly what the community of the human race does not need. How to superficially pretend we’re in touch with each other from a farther distance with more detachment.”
“W.H. Auden has this little short poem, which tries to preach accepting for whatever is…’Try and embrace whatever is going because these are our lives and we love being alive/ Bless what there is for being/Which has to be obeyed, for/What else am I made for?/Agree or disagree?’ Art finished with a flourish. “Short and sweet. That’s what there is for me. If it’s here, if it makes up our world, try and embrace the whole funny, contradictory, ridiculous picture.”
“It’s a tough age. I’m not partaking of it. I’m proud to be old fashioned in many ways…I don’t own a cell phone, I never got with computers. I don’t own one. I don’t know how they work. It’s costing me.” he stated, somewhat defiantly. “I have personnel to help me, but something tells me that I don’t want to learn to communicate in a zippier way. These are the elements that make quality of life so I don’t want to find shortcuts when it comes to the quality of life.”
With the record industry circling their wagons to try and contain their self-inflicted, short sighted losses, it was apparent that this was a whole new species than the artist friendly record companies of the sixties and seventies. To see the progression from the organic structure where art was appreciated to the mechanical behemoth that manufactured music for the masses must be quite a sad scene indeed.
“I’m on the inside of the record business and I’m an artist and I can tell you that royalty statements and everything have gone…disappeared in the last year. The structure of the whole business and getting paid has gone somehow into somebody’s sub-basement in some building and no one can find it. In other words, we lost our record business, we the artists have. The royalty payments, the structure, the whole way the business worked, it checked out in ’07. So we’re in a state of real vigilantism. Rules are gone…who is making up the new rules? What kind of grabbing is going on? These are the questions.”
One of the questions I so dearly wanted to ask, but was afraid to, suddenly came up in conversation so I ventured forth. Was his upcoming tour going to include selections from the Simon and Garfunkel repertoire in its set list?
“I’ll sing Kathy’s Song near the end of the show.” he said, much to my relief. “It’s a beautiful, nostalgic love song. I like say it’s Paul Simon’s number one love song. I’ll do some Simon and Garfunkel stuff because it’s coy to leave it out and I’m an entertainer and I want to give the audience Scarborough Fair and I love doing these things.” he proclaimed, quite animatedly. “I have orchestra charts that enhance them and it’s not like I’ve done them thousands of times and am bored. I’ve done them a hundred times. That’s enough to know how it goes and enough to enjoy it.”
I glanced in panic at the clock. I was only supposed to have interviewed him for fifteen minutes and thirty-five had elapsed. My page of prepared questions had almost been wholly forgotten as I had gotten lost in conversation with one of the most prolific originators in modern memory. Too soon, our conversation ended with a poetical phrase that Art had said earlier, summing up not only the last half-hour, but the essence of our existence as well…”Our lives are love and a continual goodbye.”
As a welcome addendum to the original story, Simon and Garfunkel have announced a singular date where they will be performing. The pair will take the stage at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on Saturday, April 24th, 2010. Simon, a veteran of the festival, said in a released statement that “Over the years I’ve always enjoyed performing at Jazz Fest. Everyone connected with the Festival, and in particular Quint Davis (director of Jazz Fest), has created an atmosphere that is both musical and enjoyable. I am looking forward to the opportunity to perform with my old friend Art Garfunkel at this year’s Festival.” This will be the first time since they performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 25th Anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden in October of 2009.
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May 9th, 2007
During a recent telephone interview, I caught up with Rickey Medlocke, one of the three lead guitarists in the current Lynyrd Skynyrd line up. Rickey was one of the original drummers for Lynyrd Skynyrd back in the early seventies who eventually went on to form the southern rock band Blackfoot, so named due to his American Indian heritage.
J.T.: Now, if I remember right, years ago you were in Skynyrd, but you were playing drums.
Rickey: Yeah, I was one of the original drummers, yeah.
J.T.: Do you ever miss being a little more in the background?
Rickey: No! No! No! No! Ha ha! Well, of course not! I was the lead singer and lead guitarist for Blackfoot. I mean, I love to play guitar, I love to entertain people. I just wasn’t…I guess I was a good enough drummer, but I wasn’t a great drummer.
J.T.: How is the current tour holding up. Everything still going good?
Rickey: Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah! Everything is going real good, man. We’re just taking it one day at a time, and so far so good. The crowds have been great, it’s a good package. I mean, Hank (Williams Jr.) has a little bit older fans and our fans are a little bit older, but we also get Lynyrd Skynyrd girls from fifteen to fifty-five now, so I think it works out O.K. The deal is, it’s going good, the crowds are great, they’re all pumped, you know. Hank is Hank and Lynyrd Skynyrd, you know…(Laughs)…what can you say, what can you say!
J.T.: Now, with the younger audiences, do you think your bringing something new to them as well as the presenting the extensive history of Lynyrd Skynyrd?
Rickey: Well, I think so. Last year, we had Three Doors Down out there with us and that was phenomenal. Like I said, the audiences range from fifteen to fifty-five, so, uh, what can you say?
J.T.: With some of the collaborative stuff you guys have been doing with younger artists as well as some of the tour billings with, like you mentioned, Three Doors Down, does that change Skynyrd’s direction at all?
Rickey: Well, that’s really interesting. We’ve been writing for a new CD right now and we’ve been writing with a lot of different writers. We’re involved with a guy that’s been writing and been involved with Velvet Revolver and people like that. We’re writing with a guy that is the guitar player right now for Rob Zombie. On the other side of it, we’re writing with people that’s been, you know, that’s had hits with…country (artists). We’re involved with a bunch of writers and what I think it does is, whatever we put our hands on, it comes out as Lynyrd Skynyrd. Because I think Skynyrd music has a broad spectrum anyway.
J.T.: Yeah, it definitely crosses boundaries. From rock to blues to country…
Rickey: Oh yeah! Sure does, man.
J.T: I know there was some controversy among Skynyrd fans when you introduced the Travelin’ Man duet, where Johnny VanZant sings along with the vocals from the deceased Ronnie VanZant. Is that still part of the performance?
Rickey: Well, this year…I’m not going to let any secrets out, but we’re doing some really different stuff. You know, that came about back on the Thyrty record, and we introduced that and we’ve used it every once in a while, but we’ve got some other surprises in store for everybody on this thing. You know, they’re going to have to come out and check it out.
J.T.: Along those lines, with the song Red, White and Blue, is there more of a patriotic reaction to that song now then when it was released?
Rickey: Well, I think that it’s about the same, maybe a little bit more. I mean, the one thing that I do know that’s going on in this world today is everything is so polarized, you know? It’s a damn shame, you know? It seems like our country is being pulled completely apart, and for Lynyrd Skynyrd, we’ve been the American band for all these years…and it’s really sad for us to see how this country is being so polarized and pulled apart. When, in reality, a few short years ago, you couldn’t break this country apart… it’s interesting. Now, it’s like everybody’s losing their damn balls, man, and nobody wants to stand up and do anything. So, you know, that’s the whole thing about it; instead of getting stronger, instead of having some damn balls about ourselves, the country’s getting softer, being weaker. I, for myself don’t like to use the band as a platform to talk about politics, because I think that entertainers should definitely stay the hell out of politics, you know what I mean? Because, entertainers…we got our own kind of gig and a lot of Hollywood, those people don’t know what the hell they’re talking about when they get into politics. I mean, Ronald Reagan was a rare case, you know? Ha! That guy was a very rare case, you know? But the point of what I’m getting at is instead of pulling this nation apart, we should be pulling it together, you know? Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent or whatever, we’ve got one of the best countries in the damn world, and guess what? It seems like the damn thing’s being ripped in two.
J.T.: Yeah, it’s like everybody is in their own camps and you can’t say anything cause you don’t know if you’re going to end up in a fist fight.
Rickey: Yeah! Right! Also, its like, just think about it…guys have been cracking jokes for years and years and years and everybody kind of took it in stride. Now, you got to be real careful with what you say because you’re going to end up without a gig, your family is going to be broke, you’re going to be homeless, or whatever. It’s like, this country has become so politically correct, it’s sickening.
J.T.: Well, like what happened with the Dixie Chicks. A two-second comment cost them gigs and appearances.
Rickey: Yeah, I mean, I got my own opinions of the Dixie Chicks, man. You know what? We live in one of the greatest countries in the world, and that’s how they can become as wealthy as they’ve become. You know what I mean? By living in a place where they’ve had the opportunity to do that. But you know, man? At the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, we live in a great nation and we should learn to appreciate what we’ve got. People…just take everything for granted, you know, and that’s a damn shame, man.
The prolific powerhouse that is Lynyrd Skynyrd rolls on, playing town after town with various acts such as Saliva, Hank Williams, Jr. and Kid Rock. The group has faithfully released new material, starting with the album Vicious Cycle in 2003 and the most recent edition to their eclectic repertoire, Gods And Guns, was released in September, 2009. While there are those fervent purists who believe that the real Lynyrd Skynyrd perished in a flash of flames in a swamp in Magnolia, Mississippi, the true tradition of Southern Rock has been loyally carried on, with still one more from the road just around the corner.
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