NEWBEATS

NEWBEATS

MIRACLE IN THE WORKS

Think of all those great rock ’n’ roll towns around the country: Akron, Ohio; Athens, Georgia and Austin, Texas. And those are just the A’s. Notice that New England

doesn’t even have a representative in the Top 40. That’s about to change. It’s now possible to add New Haven, Connecticut to the list. Yup, New Haven—home of the ivydraped wall of Yale University, the stodgy ole Carpenters, not to mention the birthplace of moi—has an honest-to-God rock scene.

Leading the pack of Nutmeg State rockers is a quartet comprised of partiernext-door-types called Miracle Legion. Unlike those of us who chose to flee the city’s gray skies and dying elm trees, these dudes (singer Mark Mulcahy, guitarist Ray Neal, drummer Jeff Weiderschall and bassist Joel Potoocsky) like it in the Elm City.

“It’s easier here than in New York or Los Angeles,” explains Neal. “You can get swallowed up by some of those other towns. There’s so much going on there. If we’re here, we can look back at it all with some perspective.”

That attitude, coupled with their relaxed, acoustic-R.E.M.-meets-the-Doors-on-acid sound has made their first EP, The Backyard, a hot item—despite the band’s tiny label and laissez faire distribution. But the R.E.M. connection leaves them decidedly grumpy.

Groans Mulcahy, “It’s just that wherever

we are talked about, it’s brought up—saying that we sound like them. It’s not that it’s a bad comparison, but we just hope that it doesn’t go against us.” He shudders. “We are not R.E.M. clones.”

Miracle Legion may not want to hear about it, but it’s all their own fault. Like that group we won’t mention (but their initials are R.E.M.), the Legion employs a seductivelylayered, rough guitar sound, and teams it with a singer with a deep voice and a relaxed, unhurried manner. And although this is the nuclear/yuppie ’80s, The Backyard focuses on human themes (growing up, losing friends) and is played by human beings. Absolutely no Fairlights to be found. Anywhere.

“When we first put out the record,” remarks Ray, “I thought it was good and all, but that it would be like everyone else we knew—they make 500 copies that just sit in boxes in their basement for the rest of their lives. We just sort of did our thing, and the rest just happened.” Which is not to say that Madonna should start looking over her shoulder just yet, but things are starting to move for the little band that could.

A number of labels have shown interest, and the band recently did a leg of the Wire Train tour. Still, most often when the Legion

hit the road, they go it alone. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

“We’ve been down south a lot,” says Mark. “We usually go over really well there. But then,” he adds with a wry smile, “we’ve also played every empty club in the south. Every one.”

Oh well. They’re not discouraged. They’ve got enough tunes for an album, and are currently up to their ears in all the hassles of being a young band with little recording experiences and less backing. It’s the small things that they’re finding difficult —like finding a producer. Though they recorded The Backyard on their own, this time out they want a professional turning the knobs. They just don’t know where to find one.

“I think if the right producer comes along, it would be nice. Someone who could help us, but not change us. But,” shrugs Ray, “I don’t know any producers. Or how you go about affording them.”

Don’t sweat it, guys—miracles can happen.

Sharon Liveten

GONE RYDIN’

Sid Griffin—Long Ryders member, Gram Parsons biographer and all-around swell person—gets letters: “Kids from garage bands write to me, saying ‘We’ve got a band, and I didn’t send you a tape because we’re not any good, but I want you to know that we do “10-5-60.” ’ You have no idea of what that means to me, knowing that there are kids trying so hard to play one of our songs. It’s great, because I know what it’s like to be in a garage trying to play ‘London Calling’ or ‘Beat On The Brat’ or ‘Gloria’ when you barely know how to tune the goddamn guitar.”

Griffin is a man who knows his garages. The Kentucky-born guitarist/fan moved to Los Angeles in 1977; there, he formed the Unclaimed, whose acid-punk fetishism predated the Paisley Underground by a couple of years. Frustrated with the band’s revivalist leanings, Griffin and bassist Barry Shank broke off in 1981 to form the Long Ryders, intended as a contemporary American rock ’n’ roll band with a healthy respect for rock and country traditions. Guitarist Stephen McCarthy (who, with Griffin, writes and sings a majority of the Ryders’ material) and drummer Greg Sowders completed the lineup; Des Brewer replaced Shank on the band’s independent debut EP, 1983’s 70-5-60.

The latter disc was fun, in a garagey sort of way, but it was 1984’s more cohesive Native Sons (which introduced current bassist Tom Stevens, a/k/a Bingo) that established the Long Ryders as a force on the revitalized American band scene. Native Sons also won the band temporary NextBig-Thingdom in England, where they signed an international deal with Island and recorded their first major-label LP, State Of Our Union, which finally fuses the band’s influences into a distinctive style.

Signing with a major has eased the band’s financial situation somewhat; but the multi-instrumental (pedal steel, banjo, mandolin, etc.) McCarthy points out, “We’re certainly not living some grand lifestyle—I still don’t have a car. You can only go on making independent records for so long, and then after a while the majors won’t touch you.”

“There are a lot more people who want to be my friends now,” notes Griffin. “I go to the same clubs in Hollywood that I’ve always gone to, and a lot more people want to pal up to me. I smile and all that, but I don’t let it go to my head, because the worst thing you can do is start to believe some of these myths. We’re still just guys, and we still aren’t any better than anybody else.”

In addition to presenting a more unified sound than its predecessors, State Of Our Union (produced by former Record Will Birch) reveals a strong social conscience, with songs like “Two Kinds Of Love” and “Looking For Lewis And Clark” portraying the harsh underside of life in Reagan America. McCarthy: “The album’s about hard times, and maybe that’s depressing, but there’s also a lot of hope too. I think the songs say that times are hard, but they’ve been hard before, so don’t give up. We’re just rock ’n’ roll players, and we want people to have fun with our music; but we also want our lyrics to make sense, and we hope that people can get something out of them.”

Says Griffin, “If you’re writing about what’s going on outside your window, and what you see people going through because of the government or because of inhumanity on the part of some agency, people will always interpret that as being ‘political.’ We’re not politicians, but I’m proud to announce that Ronald Reagan never got a vote from any of the Long Ryders or from any member of our crew.”

It remains to be seen whether bands like the Long Ryders can translate cult success, critical favor and integrity into massmarketability, and Griffin seems fairly unconcerned with questions of commerciality. “I have an ego like everybody else, and I’d love to be on TV every night of the week,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m just hoping that there are enough people out there who can admire us for our idiosyncracies.

”l think this record’s real good, and I’m contented with it,” concludes Griffin. “Do I think it will feed the Ethiopians? No. Do I think it will give the Welsh miners jobs? No. Do I think some kid in Des Moines could buy it and dance around in his room and play air guitar to it? Could be.”

Harold DeMuir

BENNIE WALLACE: AVANT-BARROOM SAX MASTER

What’s Stevie Ray Vaughan doing on a Blue Note record? Playing guitar, of course. Playing his tail off, too, opening up an album that’s opening eyes and ears all over the place, an album which points the way to a new kind of fusion that stresses the common ground between sophisticated jazzmen like Ray Anderson and Eddie Gomez and funkier masters like Vaughan and Dr. John. The album is called Twilight Time and the man leading the date is a Tennessee-bornand-raised/New York-based tenor saxophone player by the name of Bennie Wallace.

Although many people are hearing Wallace’s name for the first time, he’s no newcomer. Currently in his late 30s, Wallace led a double musical life growing up, playing classical clarinet in school and tenor sax after classes were over.

“During that time,” he said by phone from New York, “I was always playing in clubs down South, where you would be playing country music, blues, rock ’n’ roll, dance music or jazz. There was every kind of situation you could think of so I was exposed to a lot of different kinds of music.

“Another thing about coming from down South was that we would hear all the great saxophonists on record. John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins never came down there; nobody else did either. We’d listen to records and imagined that these guys had a sound as big as a house so all the saxophone players down there were very tone-conscious and tried to get a big sound.”

Jazz was his primary passion at the time, so he eventually made his way to New York in 1971. By the end of the decade, he had become a successful jazzman, playing and recording with top rhythm sections and releasing award-winning albums. The thing was, much of the action was in Europe and most of the records were on the German Enja label, which has had now-you-see-it-nowyou-don’t distribution over here in the States. Also, the longer Bennie lived up North, the more he wanted to play the music of the South.

So about three years ago, Wallace, his manager, and record exec Bruce Lundvall began cooking up this project. After their first meeting, Bennie went out and bought $75 worth of albums and, “one of ’em was Stevie’s first record. I really liked it and really liked his playing. I knew that I wanted to do some blues-oriented Southern music and he just seemed like the ideal guy.”

So things were set up; a couple of hot tunes were cut; and more fortuitous connections were made when Joel Dorn brought in Dr. John to play keyboards.

“I’d never met him,’’ Wallace remembered. “I’d heard of him for years, of course, but I’d never heard his music. We just hit it off, became very good friends pretty much immediately, and he became the co-producer of the album, a very inspirational force for the record. We just played here on Thursday, and it was really fun.”

So is the album as a whole. Vaughan’s playing may have inspired guitarist John Scofield to pull out some of his bluesiest solos on record and on songs like “Willie Mae” and “Saint Expedito,” Wallace and trombonist Anderson sound like a full horn section on a rampage.

Then there’s “Twilight Time” itself, put across sensuously, if not smoothly, caught almost by accident.

“That was done on the spur of the moment,” he chuckled; “it wasn’t even supposed to be recorded that night. I was planning on recording it, but not with that group. We had recorded the two New Orleans tunes—we might have recorded ‘Willie Mae’ already too—and we just did Twilight Time.’ We didn’t even run through it first; we just did it. I’m very proud of it; I’m as happy with that as I am with anything I’ve ever recorded. There was a really warm feeling on it.”

And feeling is what Wallace is concentrating on these days. In the past, he’s abstracted melodies, often brilliantly—check out what he does to Monk’s “Round About Midnight” if you can find it—but for the moment, he’s stressing the basics.

“The thing I’m really trying to do with my music,” he noted emphatically, “is concentrate on the emotional content of it, to try to convey the emotions of the music as directly as possible. Without watering down the music, I’m trying to make it where the emotional content of it gets across to anybody, whether they’re a hard core jazz fan or not.”

And the mutha succeeds.

Michael Davis