Local News & Reviews

[December 20th, 2006]

^Dan Bates Of Crazy Train

Local Ozzy tribute band lives the rock 'n' roll fantasy, man.

[TRIBUTE ROCK] It appears that rumors of Crazy Train's death have been greatly exaggerated. Portland's premier (and as far as we know, only) Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath tribute band publicly called it quits after drummer Jeff Johnson left the group four months ago (see WW, Sept. 20, 2006), only to reunite with founding drummer Mike Yochim shortly thereafter. Dan Bates, Crazy Train's guitarist (who refuses to decide between Tony Iommi and Randy Rhoads), talked to WW over the phone about the band's second lease on life, the Portland tribute scene and owning it onstage.

—CASEY JARMAN.

WW: How is it performing with your original lineup again?

Dan Bates: We got that mojo back that we didn't have for a while there [with Johnson].

Do you guys feel like elder statesmen of the tribute scene at this point?

Yeah. Most of the tribute bands in town did their first show with us. They come to us when they are starting off, which is great. The ones who are doing really good are Drop Dead Legs and Appetite [for Deception].

What makes a tribute band good?

There's a fine line between being a cool tribute band that everybody likes, and being cheesy [where] everybody laughs at you. It's easy to offend your fans by not taking it seriously, you know? If you go at it half-assed or put on a weak show, fans get disappointed. It's all illusion. It's kind of cheesy, but you gotta have the attitude, man. You gotta go up there and be Axl Rose, not just some guy who throws a wig on once a weekend. You gotta really take it seriously and give it 100 percent.

And you feel like you've got a crew that can do that now?

Yeah, and we party with our fans. You have to be theatrical. With a cover band, if you can make it to the end of the song, that's just great. With a tribute band, you gotta be a rock star.

A lot of your fans were teenagers when Sabbath was huge, so maybe it means more to them that you live up to that.

Yeah, and rock stars have a history of letting people down. Especially the new ones. People don't idolize rock stars like they used to. I'm just a normal guy, but when I get up there I ham it up. That's the difference: It's not just going up there with your head hanging down and playing the songs, it's putting on a show.

Crazy Train's next show is Sunday, Dec. 31, with Dirty Little Fingers and Livid Minds at Rock N Roll Pizza. 8 pm. $8. All ages.

^Drop Dead Legs Saturday, Dec. 23

The Van Halen of the 'burbs is led by a real, live pair of drop-dead legs.

[TRIBUTE ROCK] In college, David Lee Roth performed a gymnastics routine to the epic '84 rocker "Panama." Well, not the real DLR, but a blond Hillsboro woman who lives, in a sense, in his image.

Kim Smoltz, a really good sport and lead singer of Van Halen tribute band Drop Dead Legs—and the sexy stems behind the name—also happens to be married to the band's Eddie Van Halen (DDL lead guitarist Jimmy Smoltz). The couple lives in the Southwest 'burbs with their 6-year-old daughter, Madison, where neighbors Michael Anthony (DDL's bassist and Subway sandwich-shop franchiser Bill Popp in real life) and Alex Van Halen (drummer and death-metal fan Billy McNabb) are as readily available for rockin' as they are for weekend barbecues.

While all four bandmates enjoy Van Halen enough, Jimmy Smoltz is the die-hard fan of the group. "My introduction to Van Halen was hearing 'Eruption' for the first time," Jimmy explained when the five of us packed into a booth at the Twilight Cafe last Friday. "I started playing guitar when I was 8 years old...when Van Halen came out, and I was in awe. I said, 'I wanna do that someday.'"

But the members of Drop Dead Legs started out (in 2002) as an '80s cover band called No Excuse Rocks. By 2004, they were starting to get sick of it and realized they were really good at playing Van Halen. Besides Jimmy, no one was obsessed—it just seemed like a good fit. So they decided to try it out at the River Roadhouse in Milwaukie: "For the third set we would leave and change into Van Halen garb and play a set as a tribute band," Jimmy recalled. "Then people started enjoying it so much, we said, 'We think we can take this out as a separate entity.'"

Now, "We go up and it's kind of like a party," Popp explained over a bottle of Coors Light. "None of us know exactly what's going to happen next. Jim will leap off the stage, and Kim just misses me with her high kicks." Jimmy added, "We're a show band, not a CD player onstage. And that's what Van Halen is about; they're about the show." In addition to rehearsing the full repertoire of Roth-era songs, Drop Dead Legs studies videos to learn signature moves and, of course, performs in costume. "I have to wear spandex," Kim added. "That's weird."

—JOSEY DUNCAN.

Drop Dead Legs plays Saturday, Dec. 23, with Motorbreath and Afterburner at Outlaws Bar & Grill. 9:30 pm. $6. 21+.

^The Dark Side of Cover Songs

Three cover songs and $10K later, Imbibe still stands.

Cover songs are all fun and games until someone gets hurt. As reported two months ago (see "Rogue of the Week," WW, Oct. 18, 2006), Southeast venue/restaurant Imbibe got a sharp smack in the ass by ASCAP, one of three large music-licensing organizations that are, in effect, ad hoc administrators of U.S. copyright law. You see, the Black Notes, a local soul band, had the gall to cover the Hendrix tune "The Wind Cries Mary" and a pair of Stevie Wonder songs, "That Girl" and "Slippin' Into Darkness," on Imbibe's stage. Unfortunately, an ASCAP snoop happened to be in the room. The small club faced damages upward of $30,000 due to its role as the Black Notes' temporary employer.

The same week that WW slapped ASCAP with a Rogue of the Week for sticking it to a small, family-owned business, owner Michael Dorr was in frantic negotiations to reach a compromise that would leave his business standing. He found it, but it hurt like hell: Dorr paid the organization $750 a pop for the songs and three years of back licensing fees. Not including attorney's fees, the rough total of the ordeal was $10,000. Additionally, a badged agent from BMI, another licensing organization, visited him shortly afterward, demanding payment for a license on the spot under threat of lawsuit. The agent walked away with a $900 check. An already shaken Dorr didn't even bother to ask what exactly he would have been sued for.

He managed to come up with the money thanks to a quick bail-out from his father, a step he ultimately may not have needed to take. Dorr was overwhelmed after the bust with "tons of groups calling, willing to help," most of them freely tagging ASCAP's move as "exploitation" or "extortion." One call was from a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., working to regulate music licensing, who offered to set up a PayPal account for donations. Still, Dorr's taken responsibility for the bust and concedes three words of advice to others: "Pay your fee," he says, adding, "They could take everything."

Imbibe may have paid its blood money, but don't expect to hear "I Will Survive" coming from its stage. "I'm not a huge fan of cover bands," Dorr says.

—MICHAEL BYRNE.

For Imbibe's upcoming music lineup, see Headout, page 54. To read a discussion on Michael Byrne's original post about Imbibe's ASCAP predicament, search "Dorr" on LocalCut.com.

^KMRIA Dec. 15, At The Doug Fir

Less booze, more rocking: The Pogues get the royal treatment.

[TRIBUTE rock] "I'm a sissy, I know it," drummer Ezra Holbrook confessed after taking a sip of Guinness from a can. What a relief. Say what you will about the boozy Irish brilliance of the Pogues, but who really needs another Shane MacGowan staggering stinko paralytico across the stage? Friday night at the Doug Fir, it was as if someone said, "Just play the sodding music, mates." 'Cause that's exactly what KMRIA—which stands for Kiss My Royal Irish Arse—did at their packed Christmas show: They kicked the shit out of some MacGowan songs.

It's strange to think of a tribute band as a supergroup, but that's what KMRIA is: Along with Holbrook, the band features Jenny Conlee and Chris Funk from (all hail) the Decemberists, Derek Brown of Fernando, guitarists Casey Neill and Scott McCaughey, flutist Hanz Araki and bassist Jesse Emerson of Amelia. In combination, they transform into one of the tightest Dublin-esque rock outfits this side of the Atlantic. What was most impressive about Friday's performance was the group's range; KMRIA transitioned seamlessly from sing-along shanties like traditional tune "South Australia" right into tender ballads such as the Pogues' "A Rainy Night in Soho." Conlee was a standout—her take on "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day" added just the right lilt to the word "drinking"—but nearly every KMRIA member took a turn at vocals. And just when it seemed the band had run out of lead singers, up popped none other than Colin Meloy. The presence of the Decemberists frontman testified to the collaborative mood of the show: He simply hopped onto the stage, sang a few verses and slipped back down, accepting low-key high-fives from the audience.

Of course the inebriation couldn't be held off forever, and when it arrived courtesy of audience-provided whiskey shots, it only added to the vibe of good cheer and good cheers. By the time KMRIA reached its anticipated take on the Christmas duet "Fairytale of New York," soap-bubble snow had piled on guitar strings, and one singer (let's not name names) was bumping his forehead into his microphone. Somewhere, James Joyce (who titled a section of Ulysses "K.M.R.I.A.") must have been smiling. After all, he once described a similar yuletide dance in "The Dead": "To follow the voice, without looking at the singer's face, was to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight." Nothing sissified about that.

—AARON MESH.