Dr. Dave's Journal Page:
MIKE DAVIS INTERVIEW for CAROUSEL MAGAZINE:
It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving that Mike Davis, leader of "Mike Davis & The
Laughing Buddha Episodes" had arranged to meet, for an interview that
was to appear in the December issue of the new Carousel magazine. My
wife, Carol came along for the ride and to take pictures.
The sky was overcast with flurries gently falling as we pulled into the
Beer Tree Brewing Company in Port Crane. The parking lot was
packed, which surprised me, after all it was a Sunday afternoon...not
typically a busy club day, but the Fox and Farmers Food Truck was pulled
up to the south wall of the building (to the left as you enter) and we
walked in. Inside the rustic wooden exterior of the craft brewery
it was warm, football was on the widescreen and local alt/pop singer,
Devinne Meyer was getting ready to entertain. Her boyfriend,
Davis, was helping her set-up her equipment, on the north, interior side of the rectangular bar, set
in the middle of the room. Her backdrop would be a wall with a
large window pane and a clear view of the brewing vats in the room
beyond. We walked up to Davis and Meyers,
introduced ourselves, ordered drinks and set down to talk, while Devinne
began to sing.
Davis was dressed in an orange, white and black flannel shirt, under a black
thinsulate jacket, his friendly face adorned with a full, trimmed,
beard and moustache. A knit winter hat covered his head. He ordered
the “Funky Berries,” while I had the “Tree Ultra Light.”
MD: So you heard the album…
CAROUSEL: I did. I think I like “Stay Fine” the best. I like the horn sound.
MD: It's a little more radio friendly…
CAROUSEL: Well it could be that...I tend to go for the higher energy songs, I'm not a ballad guy.
MD: I've always been a ballad guy.
CAROUSEL: Let me ask you about that, because your music is described in many different ways, from jam band to heart soul and ballad soul...how do you see yourself?
MD: ...it's like soul music that like tries to come from like the root of everyone's heart and not just like mine. It's weird to think that you can like speak for the universe, but that's kinda where I'm coming from, which is like everyone has this flame inside of them at the very core of them and I basically wanna write music from that space, as much as possible.
CAROUSEL: I hear where you’re coming from, but everybody writes from their field of reference, anyway.
MD: right. I'm very into meditation and like Adaita. It's a form of meditation that's meant to get beyond your mind and more into what's actually real as opposed to what we think is real. It's more like pushing away the s**t that isn't really universal and true, so that you see what's left and you can find some peaceful stuff.
CAROUSEL: I’m getting the vibe here, not that it’s not obvious, but there’s a reason that the band is “The Laughing Buddha Episodes.”
MD: yeah.
CAROUSEL: You seem like a very, just from reading your song lyrics, you’re a very zen guy.
MD: Yeah, that's definitely a part of me, like, it was sort of a conscientious choice. I used to think I was gonna be in a rock band, but some part of me, I’m compelled to wanna, like, break my mold, sort of a thing, at all times, as much as possible, like, to break the past things that have held me back, y’know?
CAROUSEL: Okay.
MD: Uh, to kinda like come into more of a sense of, just more peace. That’s really what I want is peace. There was a time when I quit music because I thought I was gonna be a monk. That lasted about two months. (chuckles) ...and then I started writing my last album.
CAROUSEL: I gotta ask, I know ya live in Norwich now...is that where you’re from originally?
MD: Yeah. ...but, I’ve lived a million different places, yeah. I lived in Vermont for awhile, I lived in New York City for awhile...Ashville, North Carolina...I’ve moved around a lot just to kinda like, just see what’s out there y’know?
CAROUSEL: It doesn’t seem like the kind of direction that a kid from Norwich takes, if the kid stays in Norwich.
MD: Well, yeah...I don’t really know that there’s really a kind of direction that comes out of Norwich anyway, there’s some really talented people that come out of there for sure.
CAROUSEL: I don’t want to pigeon-hole you, but it seems like a small conservative town…not that everybody’s gonna be that way, but that just the kind of idea that I get. My father has a cabin on Lake Steere and we’d come into Norwich a lot, when I was a kid, so I know the area somewhat.
MD: Yeah, I got wrangled up by the hippies pretty quick as a kid. My brother tore me away...I used to never wanna do drugs or anything and my brothers like, he went to college and he grabs me one day and he says, “I’m gettin’ you high today!” ...and like ever since then it’s been like, uh, that’s the thing too about drugs, it makes you more introspective, it makes you more like, thoughtful about yourself. I mean, maybe it makes some people paranoid right?
CAROUSEL: It depends on what you do and how much…
MD: Exactly, man. Exactly. I’ve done my share of experimenting with different things, not everything, but…
CAROUSEL: Let me ask you, not that it has anything to do with anything, but how old are you? ‘Cause you seem like a really old soul…
MD: I’m 38, so, but I’ve always been an old soul. I remember trying out for football as a kid and I had one amazing catch, but I was way too fat. (laughs) So, I quit and decided I’d be much better off as a poet, so…
CAROUSEL: When did you start pickin’ up a guitar?
MD: I was about sixteen…
CAROUSEL: ...or was that even your first musical instrument?
MD: It was my first musical instrument. I knew I loved music before then, but that was definitely, that was the first...for whatever reason I fell into like, Jimi Hendrix and stuff like that. My buddy was really into Hendrix and he kept playing me tapes of their music and that sort of like evolved from that man into that sort of hippie aesthetic in music. I fell in love with (Bob) Marley, fell in love with Phish, all those kind of groovy y’know, upbeat kinda groovy stuff.
CAROUSEL: I can hear that...I almost wanna say there’s a Dave Matthews Band aesthetic in some of your music, not everywhere, because a lot of the instrumentation isn’t the same, he has a fiddle player in your bandd, but it seems like there’s a lot of similarities...maybe some Jack Johnson…
MD: The thing about Dave Matthews is that he’s fairly progressive. Y’know what I mean? As far as like, an acoustic songwriter goes…
CAROUSEL: Right.
MD: I think that’s a fair comparison.
CAROUSEL: He blends a lot of Apalachia in his music…
MD: Yeah, I can see that, definitely. I don’t that I do all that much.
CAROUSEL: Considering you’ve been around for awhile, for a lot of us, we’re just hearing about you the last couple a years...how long were you away from the area before you came back? Were you in a bunch of other bands? ...what’s the story?
MD: Yeah, so I moved to Rhode Island when I was like 25 or 24, to pursue a band that I had started when I was in college, so we broke up...and then we decided we were gonna reform with a different bass player...and we moved somewhere so we’d be between Boston and New York, right?
CAROUSEL: So college was where?
MD: SUNY Potsdam. I went for English writing (major) and a Philosophy minor.
CAROUSEL: That works for the songwriter part of you, anyway…
MD: Yeah, well that was the thing, I was gonna do something that I had to work to hard at as a major. Something I already loved and enjoyed. To just love it and not have to worry about it being work. Y’know what I mean? So, I had that band, their name was ExpandID, with an ID at the end, so like expand your ID. That’s been sort of like the theme for my life anyway. The Laughing Buddha Episodes is sort of an extension of that. This is like the same theme of, like, everybody’s way more than they think they are, sort of a thing, y’know what I mean? So, knowing our potential far outweighs what we do I wanted to see what I can do to like...and I know I’m going off track…
CAROUSEL: That’s okay…
MD: So, I had that band and I moved back to New York and had another band called Plain Man Brown, that played quite a bit in Syracuse for awhile and that kind of fizzled out. Again, I was constantly fighting this urge to just be like a meditator. To just meditate and be like, just find my place in the universe. So honestly the reason why my journey has taken so long, is because I wanna be sure of that before I take that first step. Finally, I’m walking now, so that’s good.
CAROUSEL: You’re one of the guys that’s searching.
MD: Yeah, but it’s easy to get addicted to searching. It’s easy to get addicted to not finding. Y’know?
CAROUSEL: Yeah, but don’t you wanna find eventually?
MD: Well, yeah. That is, yeah, the ultimate. Yeah, for sure.
CAROUSEL: Tell me about the band? Are they all from around here? I mean they must be now...
MD: So, the band as it is now is not the original band, we’ve actually gone through a couple of different modifications. So right now, we have Tom Westcott on bass, Mike Melnyk on keyboard and Cooper Casterline on drums. Tom and Mike were good friends with my Brian (Goldman?). They used to play in a band called “Bad Weather Blues” together. I would go to their shows and hang out with them and they had no clue that I was a musician. So one day Brian invited my on stage and fast forward several years, that band broke up and Mike and Tom...and I forget how it happened, but I warmed up for Ultra Vibe, their band with Steve Simmons, so I ended up opening for those guys and they heard my original music and they were like, “Holy s**t,” like they wanted to hang out. It’s a blessing, man. Total serendipity. Tom’s added such a great element to my music, he’s got a sort of a director inside of him, like a music director...and his stage presence is so great, like a wild man, y’know? He likes to get freaky on stage, jump around, throw his bass around and stuff, but his sensibility has really kind of infused the band, I would say, with a lot of really good energy...focus, too, y’know? One thing about me is I’ve sort of been “hippie” enough so that I don’t care too to much if it’s like perfect, or this or that and he knows music so well that like he basically compliments me, where I’m just sort of like some kid in a playground just f**kin’ around, he’s sort of like “well, if you f**k around over here, and then you go over there…” he’s an arranger in a lot of ways for what we do musically live on stage. Mike obviously, also plays in “Ultra Vibe” and he’s probably the best musician I’ve ever played with, like legit...Tom’s definitely number two.
CAROUSEL: I’ve known Mike a long time. I used to work with both Mike and his brother a different radio station. I didn’t know they were gonna be over at Fox 40 when I was hired there. It was a pleasant surprise to find them there.
MD: Yeah, I bet. He’s such a good dude...he’s one a those cats...give the shirt off his back for ya...it’s a great change from some of the personalities you find in bands, too. Cooper, he’s a young kid too, he’s a bad mother. Just to keep going on that scenario...he was playing in “Triple Down”...
CAROUSEL: That’s the connection to Michael Wu, then!
MD: Yes. He know Mike Wu quite well. I love Mike Wu, too. He’s great.
CAROUSEL: I noticed he was in that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young project last week for him. That makes sense.
MD: It’s all connected, man.
CAROUSEL: It really is.
MD: Once you get into the scene at all you realize that everyone’s friends with everyone else.
CAROUSEL: ...and not only that but everyone seems to have a couple of different bands for all their different personalities…
MD: Yeah. Yep. True. So, everyone coalesced together, it’s just serendipity, man. Like I just asked Cooper, “hey, I got these tunes” I sent him a Dropbox link to a buncha my tunes and he’s like, “Yeah, I could learn those.” ...cause my drummer at the time was starting to play with this other group and I’m like, well, I gotta have somebody, y’know what I mean? So, it turned out I ended up getting a really bad ass somebody for drums.
CAROUSEL: Cool.
MD: Yeah.
CAROUSEL: Its nice when things work out, so…
MD: I think so. Yeah, it’s working out great. We compliment each other really well. I like that the group can, kinda like, turn on a dime, where it’s like...we’ll be going forward, forward, forward in a jam, and then like, something will happen, somebody will drop out, and just turn...like, just turn the music and everybody follows. It’s great that we all have those big ears that we can employ in the middle of a song, in the moment, let’s just see what we can do! What the hell, y’know? Mike is famous for that. Like, he’ll, oh god, I don’t even know...some classical piece that he’ll pull off in the middle of my reggae tune “Ellafae” (which he spells out for me.), but he goes into this classical piece which goes into a little organ thing for while basically everybody’s jaw drops because he’s a virtuoso, y’know. Fun to watch.
CAROUSEL: He’s got a photographic memory, you gotta watch out for those guys (laughs). So, tell me, I can see where the Buddha reference in the name makes sense. When...where did you have that whole name come from though? That’s one of the most original names I’ve ever heard of.
MD: Well, thanks man. So, I’ve already established I’m a spiritual dude. I listen to this guy named Mooji (spells this too, thankfully.) who again with the whole Advaita thing, and they have a series of episodes, they’re called “Laughing Buddha,” and it’s on YouTube, y’know? ...and like, the whole idea behind it is y’know these people come to these intense, very like centering, uh, epiphanies about themselves and they can’t help but laugh at how simple it is and all that, and I feel like, so basically they start laughing, they can’t stop and people in the audience start laughing and then everybody’s laughing by the end of it. Everybody realizes, like it’s this cathartic moment where you’re releasing all the bulls**t, right? I kind of feel like that’s what mankind needs right now. We need to release all the bulls**t and laugh about life, more than anything. There’s a lot of s**t, people are scared a lot…
CAROUSEL: I know, I know. A couple more elections and we’ll all be able to to laugh…
MD: Yeah, right? (chuckles) Let’s not talk politics, oh god. (laughs some more) So, yeah...that’s really where the name came from, just one day I was in Asheville, North Carolina and um, “Mike Davis and The Laughing Buddha Episodes” right? Actually at first, I thought it was gonna be a solo acoustic project. Yeah, it was just sort of like, I don’t know...like we’re in the episodes of our own humanity, where it’s like time for us to really kinda hunker down and grow up, basically. If we don’t we’re probably gonna end up being extinct, which is probably better for the planet, then us like y’know, learning how to travel in space and then go do the same thing to another planet that we’ve done to ours, y’know what I mean? Y’know, it’s like not very sustainable, what we’re doing right now, y’know?
CAROUSEL: I know. Some of us are learning. We’re not all capable, but some us are.
MD: Yeah, and I think it’s important too for people who are learning to be more vocal about it. Y’know? ‘Cause again, like, if I had my druthers, I’d rather be at home, right? ...but, I love people, I love music, so of course, I’m gonna come out and share my music, right? I have to because otherwise it’ll just die in my house and I don’t want that, man. I don’t think anybody wants that, y’know? It’s just like a sad poem, right there.
CAROUSEL: No, I get that. That’s alright. So, where are you hoping this goes?
MD: I would love to play festivals. I would love to have national airplay. Uh, I know it’s not the kind of music that’s going to get under everybody’s skin, right?
CAROUSEL: Oh, it’ll get under some…
MD: Yeah, it’s more of a niche thing I think.
CAROUSEL: ...but, overall, no, I understand.
MD: Yeah, I’m under no illusion. There was a time in my life when I used to want everybody to love me all the time, right? It’s like, not everybody’s gonna love ya, man. Some people are gonna think you’re just a mouthy asshole, and that’s okay, too.
CAROUSEL: There’s always haters.
MD: Well, yeah and hey...you can’t let that stuff get you down, man. ‘Cause I did for a long time, I mean, I’m a very sensitive type of individual and if somebody gave me any kind of criticism or made me feel weird about anything, even though I had the self-assurance to go on, they would really kind of like, cripple me, y’know?
CAROUSEL: ...but as we get older, our skin gets a little thicker.
MD: Yeah, and you just start to realize it’s all bulls**t. That person’s opinion to me means nothing. No one’s opinion means anything except your own, really...living in your own world, right? ...to a degree and then obviously, people will help you out along the way, too...and hopefully you’re astute enough to see it when it comes, right?
CAROUSEL: Well, there’s that. Hopefully, it’s the right people. The outside world makes an impact at some point. Hopefully you’ve insulated yourself with enough good people.
MD: Again, that’s why I’m very lucky to have the band that I have around me. Everybody’s so easy. There’s no real personality issues. We’re able to have fun and just jam and get crazy. There’s no worries with those guys. ...and anything that they may have to say is just gonna be constructive.
(we get off topic talking about festivals, Driftwood, Donna The Buffalo, Bess Greenberg Milkweed, and the studio in Norwich, (where the latest album was recorded) which is bankrupt and closing to most, before we get back on topic.)
MD: ...the first album I did, “The Shape Under,” took me eight years. The second album, “Find Youself>Caterpiller” took me three years, so I think I can get it down to maybe a year on a record, and I'll be good…(his voice trailed off before he could say “if I had a recording studio” which I presume was where he was going, as we were just talking about the sale price for the one in Norwich, which is reportedly ready to be sold for the right price. Then I made a comment that again took us off topic, before returning to future recordings and the future of the band.). I'm trying to cut down the time it takes to get my ideas out there. That's why multi-tracking is so good though. The technology today is insane.
CAROUSEL: Sure. Well, you can turn your house today, into a studio.
MD: I probably don't need ALL the bells and whistles, just a few good microphones.
CAROUSEL: That's how Marv William's did his album. Red House Studios, that's his house!
MD: Nice. Well, my first one I did one a four track, right at home. Well...that four-track followed me around from like Vermont to Norwich to Sherrill NY to like Asheville, North Carolina, like yeah.
CAROUSEL: So it's well travelled.
MD: Oh yeah, lotsa locales for that record, well eight years! ...I can send you a link to stream it online. It's on bandcamp. Look up, “The Shape Under.” Yeah, I basically kinda wanna take over the world. I wanna become a bad mother with my music. I think that would be fun. I'd like to be the guy that's out there, really friggin’ lookin’ people in the face, getting reaction, gettin’ s**t done, man. Getting people's hearts stirred up y'know.
CAROUSEL: C'mon. How much do you really wanna do that?
MD: Not enough to get it done (laughs)! Honestly, more than anything else I'm kinda hoping for a...I don't know, kinda hoping that through the fact that the album's available for free, people can listen to the music, I'm hoping that that, people start sharing that, and like, even if I died tomorrow, if the album can go out and touch people, that's really where I'm at.
CAROUSEL: You're looking for word of mouth at this point.
MD: Yeah, it's really word of mouth...and I think that the best stuff kinda comes up that way anyway. That prepackaged Top 40 bulls**t's dumb.
CAROUSEL: ...if you've got all these ideas, how far along are you to the next album?
MD: So we just had our first rehearsal last week for the first two songs that are on the new album...I'm not gonna tell you the name for it, yet..
CAROUSEL: You've already got a name for it?
MD: Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It's uh, I really don't want to divulge too much, yet. It's gonna be sort of a joke album title...uh, it's gonna kinda, y'know, harken back to the fact that I've got like ten years worth of music that I've not done anything with because I was focusing on this one project...and then this other project...I had all this other stuff that I was writing, while basically I was supposed to be a monk or something, right? It's gonna be a fun record, I'm excited as hell for the premise, just played out for the first time for a couple of those tunes, which is weird, because y'know, I wrote those tunes like ten years ago, easy, if not longer ago, some of them are like 15 years old...it's like the first time to hear them out loud! We've got this tune called “Bootcamp” which is basically just a straight one-minute long punk song and it's basically about how they're sending you out to die sort of thing.
CAROUSEL: How much original music do you get to play at your shows?
MD: Almost all of it ...part of the reason Tom Westcott is playing with us is because it's original, he actually had a buncha projects and things in his life got kinda complicated, so he had to simplify. Luckily my band was one of the, I mean he's a phenomenal bass player, so I take that to be a huge boon for my band in that he said, okay, I'll still play with you, and that's exciting. That's validation.
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John Stark Remembers!
How his rock universe revolved around
Binghamton!
Whenever I had a question about the old days of
music in Binghamton, one thing I could count on was a response from John
Stark. I first noticed him on facebook, posting about lost members of
local bands that far too few remembered. I quickly friended him and came
to rely on his expertise when matters of this sort would rise up. Until
we finally got our schedules to mesh for this interview last month, I
hadn’t met him before. The light he shed’s on local rock music and it’s
impact in our fair city is quite eye opening.
CA: First, about
you, you’re local, right...you say you’re dad worked at IBM?
JS:
Yeah, he did. I grew up in Johnson City, then the highway came thru,
took our house and we moved to Endwell...we were four houses away from
the left field fence at Johnson Field...we lived on Carlson Street and
our house sat between two pine trees that my father had planted...those
pine trees are still there!
CA: When you got interested in
music...did you start out on guitar?
JS: Being so close to
Johnson Field I had a lot of baseball cards and I traded a neighborhood
friend for a plastic toy guitar and I fooled around on that until I took
my first real guitar lesson in January 1959...John Swaboda, on Burbank
Avenue, gave guitar lessons and I started there. At that time, Ricky
Nelson was popular, so was Elvis and I remember at the end of Ozzie &
Harriet, Ricky Nelson would play and all the kids were out there
watching him and I wanted to do that.
CA: You were how old?
JS: I was ten.
CA: When did that evolve into playing with
bands?
JS: Another kid moved into the neighborhood who played
clarinet and we became constant companions. I talked him into ditching
the clarinet and playing the guitar. We would listen to Ventures
records, Duane Eddy, all that stuff...and we would spend our weekend
nights with the record player and a stack of 45’s, trying to figure out
what these guys were doing.
CA: First band you were in?
JS: We had a band in school, the Capri Five. I was approached by a girl
running for student council and she asked if I would play at her pep
rally and I said, sure. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t know a
whole song yet. The only thing I knew was the guitar lick for the Peter
Gunn theme, so I just played that at her rally and the whole gymnasium
went crazy. I had a line of kids wanting to start a band with me. I just
kinda picked the guys I wanted. Then my buddy, who lived was directly
across the street from the left field fence (at Johnson Field), went
with my parents and myself to the Thousand Islands for a vacation and we
got a job playing at McCormacks restaurant in Clayton NY for two or
three nights a week, and we were just thirteen or fourteen. That’s gone
now, but that was our first “professional” gig. We made about ten bucks
a piece, but for a thirteen-year-old kid that was a lot of money.
CA: Tell me about the music scene when you first started getting
involved in it...in the mid-60’s right?
JS: Yeah, our first
(pro) band, we played all instrumentals. Nobody sang. We finally got the
courage to try some vocals. There were dances at the old Hooper school
in Endwell, that we would go to and they had a live rock and roll band,
y’know older guys. We go, watch and try to pick up pointers. Then we’d
go to the EJ Rec Center, just a couple doors down and I remember seeing
Duane Eddy, Johnny & The Hurricanes and the Three Stooges there.
CA: So they were bringing rock bands in from out of town. How many
local rock bands were there?
JS: Not many. Half a dozen maybe?
Chico Lucas & The Corvettes, they had all the gigs wrapped up, The Night
Caps and another band that used to drive around in an old Cadillac
hearse, Fuzzy & The Timebombs. Fuzzy Vizzengard was the leader of the
band. I never got to hear them, but I would see their vehicle all around
town. Later on, Pierre & The Citations came on the scene and I would go
to the Pavilion (The Fountains Pavilion near Johnson Field, also torn
down to make room for Route 17 in the 60’s) and see them play with the
Four Seasons, Dionne Warwick, Gene Pitney...they used to bring a lot of
name acts thru. Bo Diddley used to play here a lot! He played downtown
Binghamton a couple places...he used to play at the Rec Center...
The three other guys in my band were older and went off to college
and left me and our keyboard player, the late Jack Monero, so we kinda
went our separate ways. I got a gig with Tommy Shay and the Fortunes.
Jack hooked up with this drummer, George Searfoss, his stage name was
George Fontaine and they played The Hideaway in Endicott for the
strippers. Playing with Shay was getting a little crazy for me, so one
day I was playing at the Jacinta Lounge in Endwell, Pierre showed up and
asked me if I would join his band, ‘cause he was losing a couple of
guys, so I joined Pierre & the Citations. That was probably around 1965.
CA: Where else would you go to see a show in those days?
JS: The EJ Rec Center used to have a lot of shows...I remember Pierre
has a picture of Fabian shot from the stage. You could see all the girls
in the audience trying to get a piece of Fabian’s hair, clothing or
whatever. It was crazy...there were a lot of clubs in downtown
Binghamton back then, but I was too young to go. That was much earlier.
CA: One thing that piqued my interest was a recent facebook thread
where you mentioned all the musicians you used to know that had passed
away and some of the musicians that you knew I was surprised by. Carl
Wilson, John Lennon?
JS: I never encountered John Lennon, but I
knew he had a summer place in Franklin NY on the river (a small farm
just off Walley Road, where Yoko still spends time, 50 miles away.). As
for Carl Wilson, that’s a long story. In the late 70’s...there was a
girl that I knew from High School, Annie Rosen, who was from Binghamton,
who had married one of the musicians in the Beach Boys band...so Carl
Wilson came to town and she offered to introduce me to him. He asked if
I would help him record some of his original songs. So we demoed seven
songs.
CA: Did anything come of that?
JS: Not really. I
still have the CD. It’s good stuff. He invited me to come to some of his
gigs, so I got to hang out with the Beach Boys many times.
CA:
Was that post-Brian?
JS: Brian was there, all the Wilsons were
alive. Carl was just a sweetheart. The nicest guy. He had such a
beautiful voice. Brian was a little weird. I remember one time in
Saratoga, Carl and I were walking around the grounds of the Gideon
Putnam hotel and he see’s Brian and says, “I’ll introduce you. Let’s go
talk to him” Well I got nervous and asked, “What do I say?” He said,
“tell him you like the way he’s wearing his hair,” so Carl introduced me
and I said, “How ya doin’, Brian. Nice to meet you. I really like your
hair,” and he got all excited and said, “do you really? I think it
reminds the fans of the way I used to look when I was a teenager. That’s
cool.” Immediately after he said that his face regained it’s previous
somber look and he wandered away. I might add that his daughter Carney
(who would later gain fame in Wilson Phillips) was there too, but very
young, riding a tricycle.
Dennis was crazy. He was out of
control. He would get on Mike Love’s nerves. Mike banned him from the
band for awhile until he got cleaned up. He was drinking heavily, but
then Dennis came back, shortly thereafter he died. He was 39 when he
died (accidental drowning). Carl has been gone 21 years this past
February 6th I think. He had stomach and brain cancer. Those were my
pals. I’ve gotten to the point where guys I knew…seems like they’re
checking out everyday almost.
CA: Who else did you encounter?
JS: The Capri Five, hired a booking agent in Cortland who hooked us
up with a frat house gig in Cornell. We thought, “...here we are in High
School and we’re gonna play a Cornell frat party? Wow.” It was going
pretty good and on one of our breaks we went across the street and heard
this other band, it was Ronnie Dio and the Prophets and I never heard
anything so good in my life. I called the agent on Monday and told him
about them and he said, “if you continue to book with me you’ll see them
a lot, my brother is the lead guitar player. That’s what you’re up
against.” It was indoctrination by fire. I ended up playing a lot of
gigs opposite his band. Later on, when I was in Pierre & the Citations,
(Ronnie and Pierre were pretty good friends) I remember playing New
Years Eve 1965, going into 1966, at the Jucinta Lounge in Endwell with
Ronnie & The Prophets. Ronnie played the early set and we played the
late set, from 2am until 5am. Later on another time, I had a gig at
Delhi College. It was just Ronnie’s band and my band. Our band started
as the crowd came in...then, Ronnie came out and did the entire second
disc of “Tommy” by The Who. The crowd was revved up. Ronnie came off the
stage and we passed in the wings and he said, “Follow that, John Stark!”
I called him a name and we went out and did our set. We ended with the
Sly & The Family Stone medley, “I Wanna Take You Higher” and the crowd
got charged up again. So I was walking off, we were done for the night
and I passed Ronnie backstage again and I said, “...Follow that, Ronnie
Dio!” He looked me up and down and said, “Not bad.” (laughs), so I had
earned his respect at that point. We became very good friends over the
years.
The last time Stark saw Dio was when the Heaven & Hell
tour came to the Arena, just months before Ronnie was diagnosed with
cancer.
Stark also had one degree of separation from Elvis. Carl
Wilson’s manager was Jerry Schilling, the head of the “Memphis Mafia,”
who was once Elvis Presley’s right hand man, and was with “The King”
when he met President Nixon.
Other bands that Stark encountered
include King Harvest, originally a quartet of Cornell University
students...and Orleans, who Stark reminded me, “...the original drummer
for Orleans was Wells Kelly! His father was a professor at Cornell
University.” The two bands are linked because Kelly’s brother Sherman,
wrote “Dancing In The Moonlight.” An early version of Orleans,
Boffalongo, used to play The Warehouse in Kirkwood “all the time.” Stark
says, “I never met Sherman, but we have a lot of mutual friends.”
Indeed. For John Stark, there seems to be no end to that list.
You can still find Stark playing on occasion with Bruce Beadle band, not
the Beadle Brothers, but as Stark reminded me, “...the Beadle father!”
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One Of The Hardest Working Musicians in Binghamton!
Greg Neff
Turns His Love Of Music Into A Second Career!
For most musicians
in the Binghamton area playing for you in area clubs and bars is a
weekend job. They play once or twice a week, but only on the side and
return to their “day jobs” once Monday comes back around.
Not
Greg Neff. He plays as many shows in one week as national touring
musicians play! Two, three or four times a week at Carol’s Coffee house
in Owego, as well as rotating Wednesday night gigs at South City Publick
House, and weekend gigs at McGirks, or Number 5, or the Cyber
Cafe...wherever a willing club will let him pull up a microphone. He
plays like his life depends on it and, as we find out, for the Neff
family, it puts food on the table.
After seeing the Washington
State native several times over the years I finally got to sit down with
him and talk to him at South City Publick House recently. Due to
technical difficulties a second meeting at my studio was necessary, but
both meetings allowed me to discover what drives Neff to work so much.
Carousel: So, how did you get into this crazy business?
Neff:
(chuckles) I started playing guitar about 50 years ago, when I was
little, age eleven, I got a Sears Silvertone for my birthday and after
that started picking up any music I could...I listened to The Beatles,
etc. and I found that it was something that I could actually do, I had a
halfway decent voice...so I played around at parties and friends houses,
things like that but I never really made a living out of it, until
actually about nine or ten years ago, when my wife coaxed me into buying
a new guitar...she insisted. So with my hand tied behind my back I
marched down to the local music store, spent more than I expected, so I
felt, okay, I’ve got this guitar, now I’ve gotta make it worth my
while...and my wife’s while, too!
So, I started learning more
stuff, improving my style of finger picking, this was while we were
living in South Carolina, and I found some places to play out at, I was
doing regular gigs at a couple different places and then my job changed!
I didn’t have a job anymore, Verizon, where I was employed,
restructured. Fortunately, I got a severance package out of it.
My daughter, her husband and kids all live up here and we always wanted
to get close to the grand kids, so we thought, “Let’s go up there, this
is our chance!” I also needed to see if I could make a go of doing this
full time. So we came up here. I went around to a few different venues,
trying to find places to play.
Rick Iacovelli helped me find work
when I first came to town. I looked in the papers and he was playing
everywhere and he played the same kind of music I did. I followed him
around and he was kind enough to let me play during some of his sets.
Carousel: You’re first guitar was a Sears Silvertone? You can’t get
those anymore.
Neff: (laughs) No, you can’t! You can get
remanufactured ones or something like that. They weighed a ton, too.
They were almost like a block of wood. The action was about an inch off
the frets, but I learned on that thing.
Carousel: Now, you’re out
four, five, six nights-a-week...this is all you do now?
Neff:
This is it, besides watching the grandkids! I’ve been very fortunate to
find a few places that will have me regularly...Carol’s Coffee & Art Bar
in Owego, McGirks in Chenango Bridge, South City Publick House, Number
5, Cyber Cafe, all in Binghamton..I try to approach it like a job. I
always bring a resume and a CD to an interview, and I try to be as
appealing to the venue as I can possibly be. Carol’s is like my
homebase. Carol & Dave, been really great to me. They’ve really opened
their doors to me. I play there during the day Tuesdays, Wednesdays and
Saturdays and I host an open mic night on Thursday nights, which has
provided for a nice musical community.
Carousel: So how did this
whole sound of yours develop, this early seventies, So-Cal, soft rock
thing…
Neff: (chuckles) I pretty much live in the past most of
the time and I’ve been trying to get out of that a little bit and maybe
get some newer stuff. I should have a little more flexibility in that
area, but those are the songs I grew up with. My brother and I used to
grab Beatles (song) books and I used to listen to James Taylor who was
hugely influential for me with his guitar picking, or Simon & Garfunkel
and...those are the ones I grew up with and I really gravitated to. It
was more conducive to a single solo artist. I played in a couple bands
when I was real young, but then I heard Simon & Garfunkel and Donovan
and said, “these guys can really play guitar and make it sound really
full, do some guitar picking and sing.”
Carousel: Have you ever
considered writing your own music?
Neff: Yeah (chuckling) yeah I
have. I know I should and I know I will...it’s one of those things that
I’ve been putting off. I guess it’s more cowardice than anything else
because I like to be able to see the audience members lips move when i’m
singing because they know the song...they can sing along, when people
come up to me at the end of the night and tell me that they knew every
song I played, I love that..but I’ve been getting pressure since I’ve
started hosting open mic night at Carol’s. There are a lot of people out
there who are just starting out who are writing these amazing songs. In
order to become a better artist it's something I’ve got to do.
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She’s Not Just Her Father’s Daughter
Jen Chapin, daughter of
legendary singer, Harry Chapin, brings the spirit of her ancestors to
Atomic Tom’s in Binghamton on Sunday, August 25th in a unique show that
is being groomed for a theatrical run!
Carousel: Hi! Looking
forward to seeing you at Atomic Tom’s on Sunday night, August 25th!
JC: Yeah! Binghamton has been very welcoming, I mean that’s largely
due to the community growing effort of our host!
Carousel: Well,
John Kanazawich has been doing that for many, many years. The first
thing that I wanted to ask you, is to contextualize your career. Not
everybody has got the advantage of growing up in a family that is as
musically inclined as yours. Many turn to music as an escape and pursue
it professionally if they get good enough. I was wondering when you
decided that you had your own voice and that you wanted to pursue it
professionally.
JC: When I come to Binghamton, and really all the
shows I have been doing in 2019, have been presenting this new
theatrical concert that I have been doing, where we banter between songs
and play the song and tell the story. Typically you are putting an
emphasis on your latest songs and new album you are trying to sell. In
this case, I have put together a show, emphasizing the songs, the
working title is “Essential Stories.” One of the major themes of it and
it’s kind of scripted, and also multi-formated, monologue and interview,
even rap and poem, different ways that I’m forming the connected tissue
between the songs, but one of the themes I talk about, not just because
of my family, not just because of my dad, my family, my uncles, the
active musicians of recent years and present day, but I have privileged
information from my family to create, even when it’s not such a
practical choice. Also going back to just being part of this lost tribe
where you’re in the new world for many generations and you're under
pressure to get a real job, be a bio-medical engineer, etc. because my
family has been here a long time for the most part. So I go back into
the family history, back in the day, to my ancestors, Zeek and Samuel
Chapin and talk about culture in my family having a lot of artists and
musicians and my dad having reached what was never quite enough for him,
but still some notable success, as a musician, so that I didn’t have to
“come out of the closet” as most artists do as an artist, living this
alternative lifestyle, but to the second part of your question, as to
when and how did I decide, I was kind of a late bloomer given all that.
I played music. Always loved to sing. Played flute in the middle/
elementary school band, but then sang in college in a party band. That
was a lot of fun, but toward the end of my college years where I
realized, partly because of the band that I was in broke up and then
reformed with out me, aka kicked me out and I realized that I needed, no
matter what I was doing, as a teacher, which has been my job in recent
years or at a non-profit organization which is as much a part of my
familial legacy as is music, because of my dad’s activism and my mom
partnering in that, I just realized I needed music. It was part of my
life, my self-expression, an outlet. So I went to music school after
getting an undergraduate degree in international relations from a fancy
Ivy-league college. I went to Berkley College of Music because I didn’t
want to be kicked out of any bands, even if I was just moon lighting
with my colleagues from my responsible job. I realized that I needed to
widen my vocabulary. I needed to have more tools as a song writer and I
started writing songs not because I was an emotional teen trying to
process a break-up or deal with my turbulent life. I wanted to sing
songs that hadn’t been sung before so I’m not gonna be compared to them.
When I’m working with performers, like coaching them, encouraging them,
I’m always saying “it’s not about you, it’s about the song. You’re
serving the song. Get out of your own head. Stop being self-conscious”
That’s when I started. I want people to hear my voice and think I sound
good. That was my motivation and I need songs to do that, because if I
sing, “Baby I Love You” or my favorite Aretha Franklin song, I’m never
gonna sound as good as Aretha Franklin, so let me make my own stories
here.
Carousel: I get that. Isn’t everyone trying to find their
own voice initially?
JC: Well, yes and no. I find that a lot of
people, singers, they’re trying to imitate Sam Smith or Beyonce and
music goes in trends and waves and they tend to be these voices of the
moment where there are two or three ways of singing at any given time. A
lot of people don’t find their own voice, they just kind of wanna do
what…it’s good to find out what you love.
Carousel: Right, but
isn’t it different for poets and songwriters?
JC: Yeah, If
you’re writing songs or poetry then you are expressing your own voice
and it can be derivative, which is also okay, but do it in your own way.
Carousel: Let me back track for a minute. What instrument did you say
you played in school.
JC: Well, thru Junior High, I played the
flute, and for the last version of the show that I did, just this past
Sunday at the Colony Café in Woodstock NY, I did actually play a few
bars of the flute, both for fun and as part of the story telling,
because some of the feedback I’ve gotten as part of developing this
“Essential Stories” show was to mix it up and try different things…try a
tone poem, so I was experimenting, introducing this song that was about
September 11th, that I wrote just in the initial months, where I was
very much immersed in mourning for my friend who died and that was both
extremely painful, but also a blessing because it focused my grief into
a person, instead of this great existential crisis that everybody was
in. Then it was just starting to be like what are we going to do out of
this situation? What are the decisions we are going to make? As the wars
were starting to take shape. There was this whole thing where patriotism
means unquestioning submission to whatever the rule is. We have to fight
the terrorists and if you’re not saying things in a certain way then
you’re with the terrorists, y’know which now we’ve kind of absorbed as
normal… but then was a radical departure from our sense of
patriotism…that strain of illiberalism. I played, as part of introducing
that song, I did a little poem and few bars of the national anthem on
the flute, just to grab peoples attention and people can have different
reactions to hearing that music That’s been something that’s been fun
for me, in this case it was truly very emotional, and I expect to
continue being that. But it was also in the big picture very fun to
experiment with different ways to tell the story.
Carousel: When
you say a “tone poem” do mean beat poetry?
JC: I had those
comparisons made before. One of my first albums that I really focused on
and promoted was a duo with just acoustic bass and voice, and people
definitely heard that as beat poetry…just one step away from talking
over a conga beat. That song was called “Open Wide” with my husband
Stephan Crump, who will be with us in Binghamton. That was back in 2002!
“Tone Poem” was a suggestion by a musical director, Henry Aaronson, who
had some success on Broadway. I think he’d been to a show I’d done in
Manhattan, just one iteration back of this show and suggested that. So
he’s the reason that phrase is stuck in my head.
It’s all about being
free. What’s the best way to get this message across…and not feeling
constricted. One of the things I’ve realized also it’s that I’m a nerd
and sometimes I use big words and maybe layered concepts and ideas that
I want to express. I’m a history and politics nerd and so that might
come out in the way that I speak. Sometimes people think that’s snobby
or not accessible, but I think I balance that, or I try. Sometimes I
used bad words or bad grammar, and also self-deprecating jokes, or play
my Fourth Grade level flute.
Carousel: Self deprecating humor is
good. I use that myself. It sounds like this show covers a lot of
territory. Are you expanding beyond folk music?
JC: My music has
always been genre spanning. The musicians I play with are coming from
the jazz tradition, and that has always been an inspiration to me, but
then I get grouped-in as a folk musician, which I appreciate because of
the tradition of folk music, being communal and having meaning beyond
the “licking-your-wounds-from-a-your-latest-romance” which is the big
weight of popular music, but at the same time, a lot of my songs have
been at this slightly awkward place in-between, where it’s sort of
considered folky and I will in folk clubs or something, but it’s not
like people can hear (my songs) once and sing along, because it does
have that sort of jazz flavor where some of the phrasing, some of the
rhythms are a little bit complex or unconventional. Definitely, if we
get an encore in Binghamton and it doesn’t get too late, we might play a
classic rock cover song that will take people back to the good old days.
I’m not gonna give it away because it’s fun and funny. But the music is
definitely bluesy, rocky, funky, jazzy…some people here like funk and
soul traditions in there and that is certainly a great source of
inspiration.
While the show is a departure from what I’ve done, the
music itself is music I’ve been writing for twenty years and it’s always
been a mix of genres. There’s some new songs from the last two years,
but that’s not a big radical change.
Carousel: I’ve been told to
ask about your band, which I don’t know anything about, so you’re gonna
haveta school me on them.
JC: The last time I came to Binghamton
I brought just my guitarist, Jamie Fox, who is an old friend, a
colleague first, but just touring for decades. We know each other's
lives, we know each other's hearts, you might say. He plays electric
guitar and he’s wonderful, plays very evocative textures. He’s just
super tasty. I never tell him what to do. I just show him the songs and
he knows what to do. I often joke that he’s the original Jamie Fox. Then
my husband, Stefan Crump, plays electric and acoustic bass, but in my
trio, he plays just acoustic bass, but he uses every corner of that big,
curvy, round thang. He uses a bow and people think he’s playing a cello
and they’re not really familiar with the instrument...and he taps on the
wood and gets nice percussive sound, which is especially useful since we
don’t have a drummer. If we get a theatrical run of the show, which is
kinda the goal…
Carousel: Sounds like it’s made for it.
JC: Thank you. I would probably then bring in some of my favorite
collaborators from over the years to play drums.