Local swingers

Roomful of Blues, Love Dogs, and Bellevue Cadillac

Cellars by Starlight by Brett Milano

If you happen to be a member of Roomful of Blues, the notion of a swing revival has got to seem a little strange. After all, these guys were reviving swing in the early '70s, when some members of the Squirrel Nut Zippers (and for that matter, a couple current members of Roomful) were in diapers. For bands like this, and relative local upstarts like the Love Dogs and Bellevue Cadillac, you can't miss swing when it didn't go away.

"I think the revival is great," notes guitarist Chris Vachon, a Roomful member since 1990. "It's bringing an older form of music before people who weren't interested in hearing it before. It's like any other kind of blues -- when Stevie Ray Vaughan came and rocked up some blues and people liked it, that was great too. And it means that more people will come out to see us, and we're all for that. But then, who knows what will be in style next year?"

Asked about the current crop of swing bands, Vachon admits he hasn't heard a lot of them. "To be honest with you, I haven't really followed the whole thing, and I hope I don't make people mad by saying that. I've just been too busy with this band."

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but the new There Goes the Neighborhood (Bullseye Blues/Rounder) is one of the more swing-friendly albums Roomful have made. It leans away from the rocking R&B sound of their last few albums (they even covered the Treniers' garage classic "Farmer John" on the last one) and back toward a horn-driven, '40s-influenced style. The swing quotient is also boosted by new singer Mac Odom (replacing Providence blues veteran Sugar Ray Norcia), who projects a slightly hammy, cool-cat appeal that's a change from Norcia's more lowdown style. I'm not cranky enough to suggest that Roomful's traditional approach to swing is automatically better than Brian Setzer's or Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's -- every kind of music needs its popularizers as well as its preservers. But the two worlds aren't all that far apart, and Roomful tear into the covers on their new disc (from Duke Ellington, Percy Mayfield, and Memphis Slim) with the same verve Setzer brings to Louis Prima.

Besides, as Vachon indicates, the band have been a little too busy to notice trends. Always prone to personnel changes, Roomful lost more than half their line-up after recording a Christmas album last year. Five of the nine members, including Norcia, jumped ship. When the current disc was recorded, the new outfit had been together a grand total of two weeks.

"We could have put off the recording, but then we'd probably have had to wait another year to get a good release date," says Vachon. "So we figured, it's a new band and a new line-up, so why not a new record? It put a little excitement into the group to have one coming out, and we really became a band in the studio."

It can't hurt if the musical climate has gotten friendlier to what Roomful did all along. But they won't be emulating the California crew by wearing zoot suits, a move the band ditched back in the '70s.

"They went through one period where they were all wearing tuxedoes," Vachon laughs. "When I joined the band, I tried to bring back suits and that kind of thing, but then I found out how hard it is to try getting in and out of a van every night with five suits, guitars, and everything else. Dressing up gets pretty tough when you're doing 250 dates a year."

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A first-division party band, the Love Dogs are a little less shy about dissing the revival. On the promos for their new Heavy Petting (Tone Cool/Rounder) is the pronouncement "This ain't just another baggy-suit-wearing jive-daddy outfit!" Could these Dogs be biting the hand that feeds them?

"That was the label's idea," notes singer Ed "Duato" Scheer. "Put it this way: if someone hears Brian Setzer on the radio and it makes them buy a Louis Prima record, so much the better. I think it's divided into two groups: you have people doing R&B because they've loved it all along -- look at Roomful, they've been doing it forever -- and you have the bandwagon jumpers. I'll let the individual decide who those are. If the record company wants to plug into that market and get us some airplay, that's fine with us. But it's not for us to show anybody else up -- that kind of negativity gets you nowhere. But sure, it was fun for us to go to LA and have people say, `You guys are the real deal.' " And the difference? "Just depth, primarily. We're better musicians, and I'm gonna pat myself on the back, I think our vocals are far and above what's out there."

The Love Dogs' timing was impeccable, since the swing revival hit about six months after their debut CD came out last year. "You've got a void now," Scheer explains, "because grunge has passed and there's nothing brand new on the horizon. At times like that, retro stuff is going to come back. And it's an outgrowth of people not drinking as much, not smoking as much, and looking for ways to meet people outside of a bar environment. We play a lot of non-drinking events and that's fine, we'll still do the drinking songs. People don't mind the words when they're too busy dancing."

The Dogs' new album is slightly less of a nonstop party than the debut. There are no blatant drinking songs, and they make a relatively brave move by putting a six-minute ballad toward the front of the disc. No big change in direction, though -- this is high-spirited stuff with comedic moments more than balanced by solid grooves, honest soul, and tasty soloists (among them are two members of the old Girls Night Out crew, saxophonist Myanna and keyboardist Alizon Lissance). And it makes some kind of sense that the disc's brief spoken-word track, "Nobody's Dog," is done in a voice that's a dead ringer for (but isn't) Peter Wolf: the Love Dogs are taking classic influences out for a fresh spin, much the way the J. Geils Band once did with blues material.

If the Love Dogs are the Geils Band of the swing scene, the jivier Bellevue Cadillac are its Blues Brothers. Currently a huge draw on the wedding-and-party circuit, the Bellevue folks have the inescapable feel of a novelty act, pouring on enough gimmicky lyrics and borrowed licks to keep their grooves from ever catching fire.

On their second disc, Prozac Nation, they implicate themselves as trendies by chanting "Swing!" as the chorus of the very first tune, and by hauling out the obligatory secret-agent riffs (lifted from the most obvious of sources, Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn theme) one song later. Gentleman Joe Cooper sings like a frustrated comedian, and too many of their jokes aren't especially clever -- it's hard to think of targets more abused than Prozac, baby boomers, and the Grateful Dead. And the more serious numbers don't work much better. Who wants to hear a party band lecture you (on "Pay Pay Pay") about the dangers of smoking, drinking, and bad nutrition? Both the playing and the production (by LA veteran Rob Fraboni) are squeaky-clean, which makes the soul and gospel numbers especially regrettable. By the time they get into "Cuppa Joe" -- which turns the old Ink Spots number "Java Jive" into a Starbucks commercial waiting to happen -- you're longing for something a little more authentic. Like, say, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies.

O POSITIVE

Until very recently, the members of O Positive swore they'd never play a reunion show. But the anniversary festivities at T.T. the Bear's Place, which continue through this weekend, sounded like too much fun to miss. "I never went to my high-school reunion either," notes singer Dave Herlihy. "Bands should be either all or nothing. When you're in a band and you want to go for it, forsaking everything else . . . that to me is what it's all about. But I'm not into nostalgia -- more often than not reunions are like the Eagles, just people cashing in."

O Positive have turned down a number of profitable, radio-sponsored reunion shows, but they finally took the plunge for the weekend festivities. "The occasion was good, the money's going to charity [the Transition House women's shelter], and it sounded like fun. So we said, `Sure, we'll do it for T.T.'s.' "

O Positive are now set to be the grand-finale band of the T.T.'s anniversary week on Saturday night, headlining a bill that includes Talking to Animals, Chris Harford, Mark Mulcahy (of Miracle Legion), and Wooden Leg. The band will likely play a greatest-hits set, something they never did when they were together. Expect to hear "With You," "Up, Up, Up," "Talk About Love" and "Back of My Mind" -- all songs that crossed an emotive Anglified sound with punk-inspired drive, a mix that proved enormously popular 10 years ago.

"It's going to be a full-blooded set," Herlihy promises. "We have enough muscle memory that the rehearsals have been surprisingly good. But I don't want to be on automatic pilot for singing; I want it to be emotionally focused."

The show will also serve as a release gig for an O Positive live CD (on their own Smashing label), which has been planned since the band's 1995 break-up. Coming next year is a full CD from Herlihy's current band, Toyboat, which includes O Positive's rhythm section. There may also be a second O Positive show if this Saturday's goes well. But Herlihy has mixed feelings about getting back into the fray, and he plans to press just 500 copies of the live CD. "The college kids have never heard of O Positive, so I have no idea who's going to be at T.T.'s. A lot of people probably don't know who the hell we are anymore."

COMING UP

The great T.T. the Bear's anniversary splurge continues tonight (Thursday) with Steve Wynn, the Gigolo Aunts, Candy Butchers, Mistle Thrush, Ramona Silver, and Jules Verdone. Also tonight, the RPM's and the Magdalenes do the rockabilly thing at Club Bohemia, Vic Firecracker and the Shyness Clinic are at the Middle East, former Roomful of Blues frontman Greg Piccolo is at the House of Blues, ex-Groovasaurus singer Anita Suhanin guests with Slide at the Plough & Stars, and the blooze-rocking Gov't Mule begin two nights at Mama Kin.

It's a pop extravaganza at T.T.'s tomorrow (Friday) with Letters to Cleo, Sloan, Gravel Pit, Chick Graning, the Sterlings, and Boy Wonder. Meanwhile Count Zero headlines the Noise's anniversary party at the Middle East, Pete Droge is at Bill's Bar, and a two-night "White Trash Festival" begins at the Linwood with 8-Ball Shifter, the Speed Devils, Seks Bomba, and Kenne Highland . . . On Saturday, Betwixt support a terrific debut album at the Middle East, there's more white trash at the Linwood with the Strangemen and Bourbonaires, Ramona Silver is at Bill's Bar, blues-rocker A.J. Croce is at Johnny D's, and Chapter in Verse are at the Lizard Lounge . . . Sunday brings a strong triple bill of Blake Hazard, Cindy Lee Berryhill, and Mr. Airplane Man to Green Street . . . And the Vehicle Birth are at the Middle East Wednesday.