Every year, a couple of records sneak up right under our noses. For months, they`re dog food. Then, one morning, we wake up and discover the breakfast of champions.
Witness the recent rise of Living Colour and the Cowboy Junkies, bands that, a year ago, were virtually unknown. They both had released worthy albums, but neither was exactly burning up the charts. Until . . .
Living Colour`s champion turned out to be the Rolling Stones, who asked the band to open their mammoth North American tour. For the Junkies, salvation came in the form of an appearance last February on ”Saturday Night Live.”
Suddenly, Living Colour and the Cowboy Junkies weren`t obscure bands anymore.
It`s a tale that the four guys in the Subdudes know well. Six months ago, mention of the band`s name left most folks saying, ”Who?” But lately, the band`s self-titled debut has been selling at a brisk 1,000-records-a-week pace, according to Atlantic Records. Much of the interest has been generated by word-of-mouth and heavy touring, which has brought the band through the Chicago area three times in recent months (they open Monday for k.d. lang at the Paramount Arts Center in Aurora).
”Most of the country doesn`t know who we are yet,” said bassist Johnny Ray Allen. ”It`s just a matter of getting there, because we feel we`ve made a record that`s going to last a long time. I think the incredible response in Chicago shows that.”
The local connection was first made last October during Melissa Etheridge`s memorable string of five sold-out shows at the Park West. The Subdudes were the opening band each night, and made a deep impression with their soulful street-corner harmonies, gently swaying melodies and syncopated Cajun rhythms.
A few weeks later, the Subdudes returned as headliners at Park West, and again played to a packed house.
”It was a thrill,” Allen said. ”The people in Chicago came to listen, not just pass time.”
Chicago has since become one of the band`s strongholds, he added, along with Denver and New Orleans, where the band originated as the Continental Drifters in 1984.
”New Orleans is full of great music and a great place to learn, but it`s kind of a dead end,” Allen said. ”Music is a cultural thing there, everybody plays an instrument. It`s like, `You think that guy plays a mean trumpet, well you should see my aunt. . .”`
But it was no laughing matter when the Drifters were living up to their name, trying to scrape out a living between penny-ante gigs.
”We had a five- to nine-piece band, with a horn section, backup singers, the works,” Allen recalled. ”We played real loud `cause we didn`t know what we were doing. Instead of sticking to our roots, we were copying people that were copying us. We sounded like one of those ersatz British soul bands. Real schizophrenic.”
A cure was found one night in April, 1987, when pianist John Magnie was scheduled to play solo at a New Orleans club. He asked his Drifters pals to join him for a come-as-you-are gig: ”Bring whatever you can carry,” he said. Allen and Tommy Malone strapped on acoustic guitars, and drummer Steve Amedee came armed with bongos and a tambourine.
”It was magic,” Allen recalled. ”We listened to the tape of that first night and sloppy as it was, you could just tell. This was it.”
A weekly Monday night gig at the hallowed Tipitina`s assured the band that this more ”subdued” style was ripe with possibility, and pretty soon the Drifters disappeared and the Subdudes were born.
”We said, `We`ve got something, let`s get out of town and roll with it,”` Allen said. They relocated to Ft. Collins (Magnie was originally from Colorado), and soon began playing several shows a week.
The Subdudes evolved from favorite sons to national act with the help of Musician magazine`s annual Best Unsigned Band Contest. Judges Elvis Costello, T-Bone Burnett and producer Mitchell Froom loved the band; only Mark Knopfler turned thumbs down, so the Subdudes finished a bittersweet second among 20 finalists.
”Maybe God`s forgiven Knopfler, but I haven`t,” Allen laughed. But the bottom line was that none of the other contestants got a record deal, while the Subdudes had a half-dozen major record companies snapping at their heels before deciding on Atlantic.
Paired with producer Don Gehman (of John Cougar Mellencamp fame) the Subdudes recorded their first album ”as live as possible,” Allen said. The result is a splendid document, steeped in the mysteries of Southern soul, New Orleans rhythm and doo-wop harmonizing.
Malone, Magnie and Amedee blend their voices like they`ve been singing together all their professional lives-and they have. ”I`m the baby in the group,” Allen said, ”and I`ve been with `em 12 years. A lot of good singers don`t know a thing about harmony, but these guys know it and each other.”
The band`s practice sessions are even more spartan than their concerts, often consisting of the three singers accompanied by just a guitar or an accordion. Their mingled voices evoke a sense of yearning, a mood of joy slipping into melancholy and back again, that can`t be taught, and it`s why the record works so well as a late-night companion.
But at the same time, the Subdude`s jaunty rhythms, redolent of the Big Easy, are an invitation to dance. Credit belongs to Malone`s terse, singing guitar leads, Magnie`s accordion, and Allen`s bass, but most especially to Amedee-the Charlie Watts of rock `n` roll tambourine players.
The band went through several drummers, including a couple of guys who went on to play with John Hiatt and Pat McLaughlin, ”but it just never sounded right,” Allen said.
”The high-hat, which the drummer uses to keep time, is in the same range as the voice. So it takes a real finesse drummer to mesh with that, and that`s why Steve works so well. Now he can do anything on that tambourine that a good drummer can do.”
The secret to Amedee`s technique? It`s all in the left hand, with which he holds the tambourine, while banging on it with a plastic brush. ”He shakes the tambourine to get the time-keeping effect of the high-hat, and uses his thumb to adjust the tone. When he wants it to sound like a snare drum, he presses down hard on the middle of the tambourine head. To get a drum role, he moves his thumb from the middle to the outside as he hits it with the stick.” Amedee`s style ”just evolved through luck, trial and error,” Allen said. ”Kind of like this band.”
