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Swinging for the stars
Baseball meets rock and roll on Hot Stove, Cool Music
BY MATT ASHARE

It’s 11 a.m. this past Sunday, the morning after Theo Epstein and his twin brother celebrated their 30th birthdays together, and the youngest general manager in major-league baseball appears to have made it through the night of partying relatively unscathed as we settle in for a restorative brunch at Thorntons, a neighborhood eatery that’s just a Manny Ramirez home run from Epstein’s place of employment. To Epstein’s obvious relief, we’re not here to talk about the Red Sox or, more specifically, anything having to do with the letter "A" and the name "Rod," unless you mean the A-chord that anchors "Rockin’ in the Free World," the Neil Young tune that Epstein’s band Trauser cover on the soon-to-be-released compilation Hot Stove, Cool Music Volume 1 (Fenway/Q-Division). That’s right, along with helping to run one of baseball’s most storied teams in a city that’s known to be just a little sports crazed, Epstein plays guitar in a band. And though he’s the first to admit that he’s "the ultimate novice" and that the tracks by Pearl Jam, Paul Westerberg, Kay Hanley with and without Dropkick Murphys, and Susan Tedeschi are bound to overshadow Trauser’s contribution to Hot Stove, the band do pull off a respectable if straightforward version of "Rockin’ in the Free World."

"Give it to me straight: how badly did we bastardize Neil?", Epstein asks with some genuine concern. His relief is just as genuine when I reassure him that it’s a fine recording. "Thank God for Pro Tools," he shoots back, referring to the computer-based recording system the band were given access to at Q-Division after they were asked to be part of the Hot Stove recording project. That came in the wake of a "Hot Stove, Cool Music" Jimmy Fund benefit concert that Trauser were invited to perform at last January at the Paradise — an event that took Epstein out of the musical frying pan and threw him into the rock-and-roll fire.

"It was back around the time I was being considered for the GM job," he recalls. "My first reaction was total fear — we’d never played in front of more than two people. So I was very hesitant. I definitely felt more pressure that night than I did at my first press conference, but it was also more exhilarating. We only did four songs, but it was an amazing thrill for me."

Putting together a Hot Stove CD to accompany what had grown into an annual event capable of selling out the Paradise — this year’s edition takes place this Sunday — was the next natural step for the participants and organizers, who had grown to include ESPN senior baseball analyst Peter Gammons, Mike Denneen from Q-Division, local band manager Michael Creamer, and, as of last year, Fenway Recordings founder Mark Kates. From Epstein’s point of view, that simply amounted to another major hurdle in his nascent career as a part-time musician. "After last year’s show, everyone was talking about CDs and DVDs. And maybe we sounded okay that night, but we had no idea what we were doing. So I was a little hesitant. But everyone said it would be painless, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. They brought us into the studio, recorded the song, and cleaned it all up until I was amazed at how it sounded. I actually gave a copy of the tape to one of our PR guys at the Red Sox, and the next thing I knew I was walking down to my seat before a game and they’re playing our version of ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ over the Fenway PA."

Epstein isn’t the only person from the baseball side of the tracks on the first volume of Hot Stove, Cool Music: the disc, whose actual title begins, Peter Gammons Presents . . . , also features two tracks — Chuck Berry’s "Carol" and Eddie Cochran’s "Summertime Blues" — on which the former Boston Globe baseball writer acquits himself honorably to tight backing by local band the Gentlemen; retired Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell with his band Stickfigure; and former Angels/current Mariners infielder Scott Spiezio with his band Sand Frog.

Even when you cross over to the rock-and-roll side of the tracks, you’ll find baseball connections. Susan Tedeschi came to Gammons’s attention because his seats at Fenway are adjacent to where Tedeschi’s parents have their season tickets. Locals are well aware that both Hanley and former Buffalo Tom singer/guitarist Bill Janovitz are big Sox fans, so it’s no surprise that they’ve been more than willing to perform at the "Hot Stove, Cool Music" shows, all four of which have included the Gentlemen, Janovitz, and Hanley husband Michael Eisenstein.

Tracing the complete genesis of the Hot Stove, Cool Music project, however, is like piecing together the elements of a three-way trade involving four major-leaguers, two prospects, and a player to be named later. As Epstein puts it, "If you ask 10 different people, you’ll probably get 10 different answers. But basically it’s a union of baseball and music. Between the acts at the show, they talk about baseball, and they auction off baseball items. It may have started off as baseball people doing a music event, but there are also now a lot of music people involved. So maybe it’s become a musical event with a baseball theme."

One point that no one denies is that without Gammons, there would be no cool music to go with what baseball players in the ’20s and ’30s referred to as the "hot stove" season — i.e., the winter months, when they’d sit around a hot stove and rehash the previous year. Gammons, who played in bands as a college student, does his best to stay in touch with what’s going on in the musical world. Four years ago, he used the connections he’d made with local artists and with baseball players who have bands of their own to organize a concert as an unofficial adjunct to a baseball-writers’-awards dinner that takes place in Boston every January. And his friendship with Mark Kates — a long-time diehard Red Sox fan who did a stint as a Geffen A&R staffer before taking over as president of the Beastie Boys’ now defunct Grand Royal label — actually predates both the "Hot Stove" concerts and Kates’s return to Boston from LA. As Kates recalls, it was a reference to Sonic Youth in one of Gammons’s columns that created the first link between the two. And by christening his label Fenway Recordings, Kates opened the door to a music/baseball collaboration. True, Theo Epstein wasn’t quite sure what to think when he saw his first Fenway Recordings release. "I was like, ‘Do we have a label as part of our organization?’, he says with a laugh. "And then someone explained to me what Mark was doing, and I thought it was awesome."

All the pieces seemed to fall in place at just the right time for Hot Stove, Cool Music: Kates’s contacts in the national music industry, Q-Division’s role as a studio around which a thriving local music scene congregates, Gammons’s senior status in the realm of baseball. "There was really never any master plan," Epstein says. "It’s just that a lot of people involved in the Red Sox love music, and a lot of local musicians love the Red Sox. So it was a real natural evolution in that a lot of the baseball players Peter talked to were interested in seeing bands, and a lot of the musicians he knew around here were really into the Red Sox. I think it was the kind of thing that developed in dark alleys and little conversations, with nobody ever expecting that it would lead to something as big as it’s become. I mean, there are musicians at Fenway all the time watching the team play. And a lot of players play guitar and even go to shows occasionally. That’s hard, because our schedule is too non-stop for them to actually be involved in the local music scene. But at the show last year, a number of our players showed up. It was interesting for me, because I was already nervous enough, and then I remember looking up in the middle of one of our songs and seeing [pitcher Tim] Wakefield and a couple of other players. They seemed to be into it. I know we made our mistakes, but everyone was very gentle and very nice about it."

To the extent that the disc features one of the best tunes Janovitz has recorded in years, a great Pogues-style duet by Dropkick Murphys with Kay Hanley, and an outstanding showing by the local scene, it is a triumph. And this year’s show promises to raise the bar even higher. Along with a bill that includes Hanley, the Gentlemen, Janovitz, Gammons and his Hot Stove All-Stars, Trauser, Loveless, Kates as DJ Carbo, Stickfigure, and Sand Frog, the night will feature Saturday Night Live cast member Seth Meyers putting Epstein through what should be an amusing Q&A session plus an auction that includes a part in the Farrelly Brothers’ next film, which is going to be a Three Stooges bio-pic.

Gammons couldn’t be happier. As he explains over the phone from his home in Brookline, "This is just the perfect city to do something like this in. You have all the college students, you have all the kids who are music crazy, and you have all loyal Red Sox fans to draw on. It makes me think of something that Springsteen said when he played Fenway: he said he had never played a venue that better reflected a community."

The "Hot Stove, Cool Music" concert takes place this Sunday, January 11, at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston; call (617) 562-8804.


Issue Date: January 9 - 15, 2004
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