[Dixielandjazz] The Ultimate Garage Band?

[Steve Barbone]

You know you're getting old when the celeb bands play R & R instead of jazz.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


Rock on, but Hang on to Your Literary Gigs

NY TIMES - By CHARLES McGRATH  - June 4, 2007

What kind of rock band gets up before noon? For that matter, what kind of
band reads and writes? The Rock Bottom Remainders do both, and have also
been known, while on tour, to tune in to ³The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.² At
a little after 6 on Thursday morning they turned up at the studio of ³Good
Morning America² to do a promotional spot for a Friday-night benefit
coinciding with BookExpo America, the big publishing fair that took place in
New York over the weekend. The green-room spread included, instead of
greenies and quarts of Jack, platters of fresh fruit and, at the request of
Roy Blount Jr., one of the band¹s founding members, a big pan of grits.

Remainders is a booksellers¹ term, used for books that languish on the
shelves so long they have to be dumped at a discount. Most of the members of
the band inhabit a different part of the literary universe, the loftier
reaches of the best-seller list. Besides Mr. Blount, members include Amy
Tan, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow and Mitch Albom.
At least notionally Maya Angelou is also a member, but she has yet to show
up for a gig ‹ a word that members of the Rock Bottom Remainders delight in
using whenever possible.

The band was created in 1992 by Kathi Kamen Goldmark, a singer and musician
who was working part time as a media escort in Los Angeles, driving authors
around on their book tours. ³When they heard I sang in a band, that¹s all
many of them wanted to talk about,² she recalled on Thursday. ³They¹d say:
ŒYou¹re kidding. You¹re so lucky!¹ ² She came up with the idea of putting
together a literary band to give a benefit concert at a Los Angeles book
fair that year and sent out a dozen or so faxes. Those who responded became
the Rock Bottom Remainders, and with a few additions the band has been
together ever since.

They are what every garage band dreams of becoming: a bunch of middle-aged
people with word-processing day jobs who every now and then get to go on
tour, not in a rented van but in Aretha Franklin¹s old bus. They have played
benefit concerts all over the country, before live, paying audiences, and
even have groupies. A few years ago the bus broke down late at night in
Alabama, Mr. Barry recalled, and out of the darkness a fan suddenly
materialized with a copy of ³The Stand² that he wanted Mr. King to
autograph. In Nashville once another King fan was so carried away that she
lit all 10 of her fingernails on fire.

³What we all gain from this is just the friendships, the hanging out,² Mr.
Barry explained. ³There¹s no other group of people I spend this much time
with. Writing is a pretty solitary activity to begin with, and, you know,
once you get to be a certain age, once the kids are grown up, you just don¹t
make that many new friends. But it¹s really intense here. It¹s like camp for
grown-ups.² Ms. Tan said, ³I¹d kill the whales to do this.²

In the beginning, by all accounts, the band was pretty awful, and over the
years the members have memorized a great deal of self-deprecating patter.
³We play music about as well as Metallica writes novels,² Mr. Barry likes to
say. Mr. Turow says, ³We¹re a band that specializes in meeting low
expectations.² And Mr. Blount characterizes the Remainders¹ particular brand
of music as ³hard listening.² He should know. Easily the most sonically
challenged member of the band, he has a voice so bad and pitch so uncertain
that he is usually discouraged from singing at all, except during the chorus
of ³Wild Thing,² when he is allowed to solo on the ³You move me² part.

In truth the Rock Bottom Remainders are not terrible, and harbor a certain
amount of genuine talent. Mr. Pearson was a professional musician before
turning to writing; Mr. Barry played in a college rock band, Federal Duck.
Stars like Bruce Springsteen and Warren Zevon have occasionally made guest
appearances, and over time the band has carefully added some ringers: the
nonfiction author James McBride, for example, who still works as a
professional saxophonist, and the novelist Greg Isles, who for years played
in the band Frankly Scarlet. A key acquisition was Mr. Albom, the sports
columnist, who in 1994 replaced Barbara Kingsolver (who had left to have
children) at the keyboard and as a bonus brought along his wife, Janine
Sabino, a professional singer. Before becoming a writer, Mr. Albom recalled
at the ³Good Morning America² studio, he played the piano for a living. ³I
used to play in an Irish bar about 30 blocks from here,² he said. ³It was
called McSomething¹s, and it used to be just me and the drunks. I¹d get
about $10 a night. Now look at me. I¹m in a band where they have people to
carry our stuff for you.²

On Friday night, just before the band¹s benefit concert at Webster Hall, Mr.
King ducked into a bathroom to slick his hair back into a ducktail. Mr.
King, who sings and plays rhythm guitar, confessed that he had been
practicing at home for weeks. ³Dave and Ridley and Greg take this very
seriously,² he said. ³It¹s like watching three type-A people prepare for the
G.R.E.¹s. I¹m just a hood ornament on this band, but all the same you don¹t
want to make a fool of yourself. There¹s always that fear of failure.² As it
turned out, Mr. Barry and Mr. Pearson, who are in effect the band¹s
co-leaders, had prepared so carefully that when the group¹s members came
onstage, they found on their music stands not just a playlist but also a
list of the chord changes they would need for some new songs they were
trying out. ³We have about 70 or 80 songs we can do,² Mr. Pearson said. ³But
all of them use the same chords.²

The evening featured guest appearances by Frank McCourt, Andy Borowitz and
Leslie Gore, who belted out her ¹60s anthem ³It¹s My Party² and was so
pumped she stayed onstage for the rest of the evening, dancing and vamping.
Halfway through, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Roger McGuinn came out,
transcendently cool in black pants, black shirt and black fedora, and over
the course of a couple of Byrds songs lifted the band way off rock bottom.
For a while it wasn¹t just not bad ‹ it was pretty good. For the rest of the
time it rocked at least, and even wailed during a couple of harmonica solos
by Mr. Barry¹s younger brother Sam, who is not an author, strictly speaking,
but close enough. (He works for a division of HarperCollins.)

There was no fingernail ignition, but the audience swayed, danced and took
countless cellphone pictures. Near the end Mr. Albom did an Elvis
impersonation, appearing first in a wig, sunglasses and gold lamé jacket and
then, for ³Jailhouse Rock,² stripping down to a sleeveless undershirt and
striped prison pants. Then Larry Portzline, of Harrisburg, Pa., who had paid
$2,800 at a charity auction for the privilege, joined the band to sing ³Wild
Thing.² Afterward he was still wired. ³I can¹t believe it,² he said. ³I even
got to rehearse with them. But I wasn¹t worried. I¹ve known ŒWild Thing¹ all
my life.²

Packing up, Mr. King said, ³You never know for certain, but I¹m pretty sure
we never sounded better.²