Kingtone

Albany CA is a sleepy little city that is part of the East Bay just north of Berkeley. A mostly ‘middle class’ (for the SF Bay Area) kinda place where people raise kids without the fears of many modern urban dwellers. It has a conservative 1950s feel to it, and from what I hear the cops there like it that way. Strangely enough, it is home to some amazing talent and subversiveness. Maybe that is not strange at all.

Here’s some examples I have experienced.

This past weekend I played on a session with Drag City artist, Edith Frost. It was a nice song titled, My Euphorbia and was recorded for a possible future DC comp that apparently has something to do with the tracks being performed live. Those in attendance were Edith, Wil Hendricks on standup bass, myself on guitar, Val Esway and Heather Davison on backup vocals. Edith and Wil (via Chicago) live in Albany.

Last monday night, we kicked off a new monthly ‘Improv Hootenany’ series at the Ivy Room in, you guessed it, Albany, CA. The idea is to have a place for outsound artists to hang out and try new and crazy music collaborations in an upscale, comfy, dimly-lit place where fans can come, sip a cocktail and appreciate the music with no cover. There was a featured set from Myles Boisen and John Hanes, sets curated by Jonathan Segel, Joe Rut, John Shiurba, Carnacki and yours truly - aided and abetted by the likes of Suki O’Kane, John Brumit, Karry Walker, Pat Spurgeon (of Rogue Wave), Morgan Guberman and some great walk ons. The whole evening was glued together with special DJ sets by LA based Scrote and Carnacki.

Several now legendary punk bands hail from Albany, CA - like Operation Ivy and offshoots like Schlong and Rancid. Schlong and OPIvy’s maniac drummer was Dave Mello, whom I played with in the HO! along with Albany’s Tim Romain and Joey Schaaf - who also played in The Dance Hall Crashers and in Zebu with myself and Dave Mello’s brother, Pat Mello (also of Schlong). Tight webs, these band lineages often are.

Albany, CA is also the home of Gerald Gaxiola aka The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists, which is, coincidentally, also a movie by El Cerrito’s Les Blank about The Maestro and making art for art’s sake. Every time I see it I want to be and remain, an artist.

note: El Cerrito is just north of and pretty much the same kind of place as Albany. And yes, Creedence Clearwater Revival started in El Cerrito.

One of the best bands I have been in was Zebu. It wasn’t the most musically competent, but it was definitely the best band. Zebu was a guitar, bass and drums power trio with an ‘all for one and one for all’ ethos defined by Pat Mello and Joey Schaaf, two veteran punk rock musicians. We bitched, argued and performed the good and bad together and our shows were no-holds-barred, on-the-edge affairs that always moved rooms and people. Total rock ‘n’ roll release. The only other band that came close was the Ho, but that was The Who’s material.

Zebu used to have pot and Oly beer fueled jams/rehearsals that produced almost all our material. Some of our more epic numbers were worked out from ideas brought in by Pat or me, but things usually started with a guitar riff or a pop/punk chord change, slammed into overdrive by the insane bass playing of Pat and urgent and often disfunctional drumming of Joey (the Tom Jones of drumming). This mix quickly dictated the direction of the music, with Pat and Joey picking spots to take for their own. The lyrics and melodies came fast and furious and this kept the intensity intact. We used to rely on tapes of these sessions to figure out what the heck we had done. Then we put work into the songs. We rehearsed alot. We had to because Joey, at this point deep into his stoner phase, was either forgetting his parts or inventing new ones, thinking they were old ones. I remember hating it at times. Just one of the seeds of our eventual undoing.

Alternatively described as ‘a cross between the Minutemen and the Who’ and ‘the Pink Floyd of punk rock’, Zebu was criminally under-recorded. We did a great four song studio recording that captured our ‘pop/punk’ thing but omitted the epic punk/jam side of the equation. A handful of live board tapes captured some of that, but with unfortunate sound quality.

Zebu’s heydey was 1997-2001. We still get together every once in while for a reunion show when the three of us are in Oakland at the same time. The last one was in 2006, after four years off, and it kicked ass. I made ten special Zebu reunion CDrs for that show. Each one had one song that the other nine did not. Those sold out quick. This past October, we got together for a private jam over at Jack Canada’s house. It was like the old days, small sweaty space, loud as hell and cheap beer. I wasn’t expecting much to come of it, but the energy of the Zebu was not to be denied. We absolutely rocked – writing several great songs, long since forgotten. Too bad the tape wasn’t rolling…

Long ride the wild Zebu.