Local H feels fallout from Littleton tragedy

(May 2, 1999)

As soon as he heard about the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., Local H singer-guitarist Scott Lucas had a sinking feeling the group's April 30 appearance with the controversial Marilyn Manson at Denver's Red Rocks Amphitheater would be canceled.

He was right.

"I got a call (last week) that it's possible that the authorities had gone onto these little morons' Web site and saw Marilyn Manson lyrics on it," Lucas said recently. "Now they're thinking about canceling the show and I know that they will because everyone's too much of a pussy to stand up and say, 'Look, that's not the reason this happened.'

"It's not going to do anybody any good to march into Wal-Mart and take all the Marilyn Manson records. Go march into Wal-Mart and take all the guns. It's crazy."

Local H had been scheduled to perform with Marilyn Manson and Second Coming at a concert marking the 35th anniversary of Denver radio station KPBI-FM, but the show was canceled at the request of Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

Marilyn Manson, subsequently, postponed the final five dates on his latest tour out of respect for the Columbine victims.

Lately, Lucas and drummer Joe Daniels can't buy a break. Local H's third Island album, "Pack Up the Cats," was released last September amid a mega-merger between Island's parent company, PolyGram, and Seagrams, which owns Universal. Any momentum the duo had was quickly erased, Lucas said.

"We're fine if you take in account how many people, how many bands have been dropped," Lucas said, "but when we put this record out, people were more worried about whether or not they were going to have a job than working our record. Everyone has tried and is still committed to it, so that's probably why we're still doing okay. No matter how hard they try, we're still losing momentum. That sucks."

"Pack Up the Cats," featuring the revved-up singles "All the Kids Are Right" and "All Right (Oh Yeah)," was universally hailed for its album-long theme of a small-town guy who makes it big but can't quite handle it. The album also brought back Cheap Trick-style melodic rock, Lucas' personal mission statement.

"Rock's not as prevalent as I'd like it to be on TV and on the radio and on the cover of dumb magazines," he said, "but that doesn't mean there aren't any great rock bands out there. If you're the kind of person who's always looked for the good music to be on the radio and on TV, you're living the life of disappointment. Growing up, none of the bands I listened to were on hit radio, like the first couple of Ozzy Osbourne records.

Local H is more than willing to carry the rock torch, Lucas said.

"It becomes more important to me as it goes on that I can leave this whole thing with my integrity intact," he said. "If I can do that, it'll be all right. It won't matter how much money we've made, it'll matter that people can look back and say, 'Well, those guys never did anything too embarrassing.' "

BWF (before we forget): Local H fans can gather on the Web @ www.localh.com. .... The Local H album discography - "Hamfisted" (Island, 1995); "As Good As Dead" (1996); "Pack Up the Cats" (1998).

The career of Nils Lofgren: 30 years and counting

(Aug. 30, 1998)

Nils Lofgren considers buying a Powerball lottery ticket every now and then, but why bother? He's already one of the luckiest men in the music business.

The suburban Washington, D.C.-based guitar legend has had the kind of career experiences that a $180 million jackpot can't buy. He routinely plays alongside Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Ringo Starr. His own group, Grin, had a four-album run in the early '70s, and his solo career has spanned three decades.

"Those are invaluable experiences that have a lot to do with who I am," Lofgren said recently. "I know in certain ways I have a corny, sentimental side and the business I'm in is a bit callous, so sometimes all those experiences in those bands with those people have given me a lot of confidence to weather being one of the outsiders when it comes to commercial success."

Nils Lofgren, an outsider? Odd but true.

For the first time in a long time, he's without a record deal, but that didn't stop him from financing his latest album, "Acoustic Live," recorded at Barnes of Wolftrap in Vienna, Va., on Jan. 18, 1997. After selling the album at shows, Lofgren then secured a distribution deal with The Right Stuff, which released it to retail on June 30.

"I'm thrilled because I think it's one of the best records I've ever made," Lofgren said. "I loved it; there's six new songs on there, which made it a lot more interesting.

"The goal was to capture an emotional performance of an acoustic live show, but acoustic live by nature is very intimate, closer to the basics in how a song is originally conceived and then its stripped down with a band. It allows people to get closer to the essence of the song and the singer, and it puts me and the people I play on the spot more; it's a deeper focus to maintain, and once you find it and get it, which is my job and you're supposed to do it immediately actually, you can really tell the audience appreciates getting an up-close look like that."

Lofgren is appreciated in many circles, dating back 30 years ago next month, when he made his professional debut. The way he tells it, it has been an uphill battle ever since.

With $100 in his pocket, Lofgren left home at age 17 and made his way to New York intent on winning a record deal. Contrary to urban legend, he did not run away from his family; he was going where his heart led him.

"My parents were the only people who supported me creatively when I wanted to be a musician," Lofgren said. "All my friends, the whole community was in an uproar, like 'You can't do that.' The only kids who left school were juvenile delinquents. I went to New York and after about eight days, I was ill with pneumonia, I was living in the street and freezing at night and sweating during the day.

"I hung out mainly on the doorsteps in Greenwich Village. One runaway would watch each other as we slept, and during the day, I'd take subways uptown. I'd look in the phone book and I'd sneak into record companies. I would hide in the hallway and when I saw an opening, I would run to somebody's office and started babbling, 'I want a record deal.' Usually, they'd have security escort me out. I didn't know what else to do."

Thanks to the lighting director for the group Traffic who befriended him, Lofgren packed a year of living into those eight days.

"The deal was, I gave him all my money to fix his car and I got to hang out with him," Lofgren said, "and he took me into the clubs where Jimi Hendrix was, where all these great musicians were jamming after hours. He used to sneak me into the Fillmore East with him, and I'd jam with the Animals backstage in a little dressing room.

"Then I ran into Sly Stone as I was getting kicked out of CBS. On the 10th floor, he came in on a new 10-speed bike, with his Afro. He stopped me as they were taking me out, and he talked to me a while and found out what was going on with me. He got a kick out of me being a 17 year old runaway looking for a record deal. He told me where he was staying, and I couldn't find a place to stay at night. Late that night, as shy as I was, I banged on his hotel door. He had like 50 people in there partying; he let me go off into a corner, curl up and sleep on the floor."

Weak from pneumonia and desolate, Lofgren returned home. His parents nursed him back to health, but his burning desire to make a name for himself never wavered.

"I really wanted to be a musician, and my parents couldn't convince me to go back to school," he said. "The reason I left was 'Well, if I'm going to make a decision like that at age 17, I can't expect Mom and Dad to pay my way, I gotta go make a living.' My parents made me pay rent, gave me some incentives, and let me start off as a professional out of their home."

After his first group failed, Lofgren formed Grin with drummer Bob Berberich and bassist Bob Gordon. In the audience at one of their early shows was Neil Young, who was so impressed with Lofgren's guitar, singing and keyboard abilities he asked him to play on his "After the Gold Rush" album. He also contributed heavily to Crazy Horse's debut album but turned down an invitation to join the band; he remained committed to Grin.

Grin recorded three moderately successful albums for Spindizzy/Columbia and one for A&M, but by 1973, the group had run its course. While the press falsely speculated Lofgren would replace Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, he began a long, fruitful solo career. Four of his first five albums for A&M cracked Billboard's Top 60 from 1975 to 1979.

"Then I got to be friends with Bruce (Springsteen) in the early '70s and maintained a friendship," Lofgren said, "and luckily, in '84 he needed a guitarist and I got the call, and after a couple of days of jamming in New Jersey, it felt good. More importantly, it felt good to Bruce and the band, and I was invited to join (for 'Born in the U.S.A.'), which was another gift from heaven.

"Then, on that tour after a gig at Wembley Stadium, we were all invited to Ringo's 50th birthday party. They had a studio set up and we got to jam with him and got to talking and struck up a friendship. Four years later, in '89, he asked me to join his first All-Starr Band and then invited me back for the second All-Starr Band."

Three more Lofgren albums charted, the most recent being 1991's "Silver Lining" (Rykodisc). Though he's a free agent now, he isn't so consumed anymore with landing a deal. He's waiting for the right company "that's willing to get their hands dirty and push a little bit and dig, because I know there's an audience out there that enjoys this stuff and finding it is just way too complicated for a record company."

"I'm still the same as when I was 17," he said. "I still have my dreams that someday I'll have a big hit record and bring my own lights and P.A. and get to have a bus with my family and get to rehearse a lot and do cool things onstage, design a set and get my old custom trampoline back in the show and do flips again. I'm a performer, I love to be in front of an audience, and it came out on this record."

BWF (before we forget): For more on Nils Lofgren on the Web, visit www.rockhouse.com/nils/ or www.bakernorthrop.com. ... The Nils Lofgren album discography - "Nils Lofgren" (A&M, 1975); "Cry Tough" (1976); "I Came to Dance" (1977); "Night After Night" (1977); "Nils" (1979); "Night Fades Away" (Backstreet, 1981); "Wonderland" (1983); "Flip" (Columbia, 1985); "Code of the Road" (Towerbell, 1986); "The Best of Nils Lofgren: Don't Walk ... Rock" (UK Connoisseur, 1990); "Silver Lining" (Rykodisc, 1991); "Crooked Line" (Essential, 1992); "Every Breath" (Rykodisc, 1994); "Damaged Goods" (1995); "Acoustic Live" (The Right Stuff, 1998).

Look out, The London Suede is 'Coming Up'

(May 1, 1997)

Neil Codling is easing into his role as the new kid in town for The London Suede.

In fact, he quite enjoys the perks that go along with being the rock quintet's new keyboardist, backup vocalist and teen idol.

"The fans write quite a lot to me, and I got a bit more Christmas presents than anyone else in the band last year," Codling said recently. "The fans still don't know what to think of me. They think I'm aloof. They don't think I'm approachable, so they keep me at sort of arm's length."

His band mates sure don't. Codling is the cousin of drummer Simon Gilbert. He lived not far from where the band regularly rehearses in north London and sat in on a few sessions. Before he knew it, he became one of the gang.

"It started off as me coming down and helping out and playing along on a few things," Codling said, "and then over the course of a few months, I became a full-fledged member.

"When they asked me to join, it didn't even hit me. It wasn't a big shock. There was no handshake or 'welcome to the band.' It sounds strange to hear it that way, but that's the way it happened. By then, I could do the chord changes in my sleep."

Codling quickly made his mark on The London Suede's third Nude/Columbia album, "Coming Up," released stateside on April 8. He co-wrote the tracks "Starcrazy" and "The Chemistry Between Us" with flamboyant lead singer Brett Anderson.

"Coming Up," which debuted at No. 1 on Britain's pop albums chart last year, is a jolt of supercharged, if recycled, Brit-rock riffs and barbed hooks. Though the sound and feel borrows heavily from T. Rex, it remains distinctly modern.

"T. Rex albums have been an inspiration," Codling said, "but the main reverbation between that kind of music and Suede stuff is the simplicity of the songs. It's got a lot more spirit. There are a lot of bands at the moment in England that lift old riffs, but if you can take the spirit of the music rather than the actual chords and riffs or melodies, then you're on to a much better thing.

"It's not a deliberate sitting out and trying to write like T. Rex or remake something from '73 or '74. This is just the way the band is, the way we sound."

BWF (before we forget): Check out The London Suede on the Web @ www.thelondonsuede.com.

Longpigs keep on keepin' on

(Nov. 20, 1997)

What the English rock quartet Longpigs has been through the past few years would sever most bands.

Guitarist Richard Hawley said perseverance and a bit of bloody madness kept them together after a series of calamities, including a near-fatal collision involving their tour van and an 18-wheel truck. The accident put lead singer Crispin Hunt in a coma for three days.

At the time, they were signed to Elektra U.K. When Warner folded its Elektra office in London shortly after the accident, the group's debut album fell by the wayside three weeks before the release of its first single. While the legal minds wrangled over the album's fate, the group pretended it had disbanded and went into seclusion.

When the dust finally settled, the Longpigs signed with Mother Records, the label co-owned by U2 and their manager, Paul McGuinness. Their long-lost album, "THE SUN iS OfTEN oUT," was retooled and a few new tracks were added and was greeted as a breath of Brit-pop air by the normally jaded U.K. music media. Their single, "She Said," was voted the top single of 1996 by the popular "TFI" British TV show.

Then finally came the album's Island-distributed stateside release on Feb. 25. Critics praised it, but the public heard very little of it. That is, until the ballad "On and On" (which first appeared on the "Mission: Impossible" film soundtrack) magically surfaced on alternative-rock radio stations several months ago. It finally landed this week in the Top 20 on Billboard's modern rock tracks chart.

"It's weird how things work out like that," Hawley said during a recent stop on the Longpigs' monthlong U.S. tour with the Dandy Warhols. "We haven't quite let go of the tiger's tail for a year now. We toured extensively through England and Europe and we're just now doing the same in the states.

"Through it all, we always believed it deserved this kind of success."

With the bulk of "THE SUN iS OfTEN oUT" nearly three years old, Hawley said he, Hunt and bassist Simon Stafford and drummer Dee Boyle (formerly of Cabaret Voltaire) are anxious to get into the studio to record new material, but they are willing to ride out the album's popularity.

"Because of the continuing success of the record, you become a victim of your own success, in a way," Hawley said. "People are still playing it, so there's no time to get in and record. We've just been pretty much touring constantly for two and a half years now."

That work ethic scored well with the British media, who view the Longpigs as underdogs, Hawley said.

"We want to remain that way," he said, laughing. "It's sort of the secret of our success."

Respect and longevity are what the group is after, he said.

"People see right through the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am attitude," Hawley said of one-hit wonders. "We don't want to do something that's going to be here today, gone tomorrow. A lot of music we're influenced by, a lot of ideas we're influenced by, are the things that have been around for a long time ... from doo-wop to John Coltrane to Velvet Underground and David Bowie. Those are the people we respect."

BWF (before we forget): Fans can send e-mail to longpigUS@aol.com.

Los Lobos bobs its 'Colossal Head'

(May 2, 1996)

They haven't had a studio album in four years, but Los Lobos hasn't by any means been taking it easy.

After the critically lauded "Kiko" in 1992, the Los Angeles-based roots-rock quintet released a greatest-hits package; cut tracks for three movies; contributed to no less than five tribute albums (ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Johnny Thunders); toured the world over; two members - drummer Louie Perez and singer-guitarist David Hidalgo - did a side project called the Latin Playboys in 1994, and along the way, they snapped up a Grammy Award in March for best pop instrumental song, "Mariachi Suite" (from the "Desperado" soundtrack).

"We've been playing all that time since 'Kiko,' " Hidalgo said recently. "We just weren't as visible as we were in the past."

The soundtrack and other extracurricular activity, among other things, afforded the band members more time with their families. But not ones to rest on their laurels, they have returned with "Colossal Head" (Warner), perhaps the group's most authentic rocker to date, replete with revved-up instrumentals and hi-fi intensity.

"This was a really fun album to do," Hidalgo said. "Somehow or another, you have to use the studio, but now it's becoming more of a fun situation to be in.

"This session was more similar to 'Kiko,' where we would not rehearse and try to have a looser working atmosphere in the studio. It's more or less a spontaneous thing now. There are demos made and so some of the songs have been thought out pretty much, but I think capturing a first impression is the main thing, right when it's fresh. People try to grasp on to it and are excited about the idea and then you capture that on tape."

Case in point, the rhythmic "Mas Y Mas." Hidalgo said they liked their first take but went ahead and did a few more versions before realizing the first one did the trick.

"Colossal Head" was released in late March, later debuting at No. 81 on Billboard's pop albums chart. It stalled there and has since fallen to No. 177 this week. The album also received an uncustomary weak review in Rolling Stone magazine - its 2-star rating was surprising in light of typically favorable reviews throughout the country.

"I try to pretend that it doesn't bother me," Hidalgo said, "but I guess if I sat down and read it, it probably would bother me if they said something I didn't agree with. But it's not going to change anything. We're still very proud of this album."

BWF (before we forget): The Los Lobos album discography - "Just Another Band From East L.A." (independent, 1978); "... And a Time to Dance" (Slash, 1983); "How Will the Wolf Survive?" (Slash/Warner, 1984); "By the Light of the Moon" (1987); "La Bamba" soundtrack (1987); "La Pistola Y El Corazon" (1988); "The Neighborhood" (1990); "Kiko" (1992); "Just Another Band From East L.A.: A Collection" (1993); "Colossal Head" (Warner, 1996).

Loudmouth leaves a booming impression

(May 30, 1999)

Several years ago, Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan complained that the band's native Chicago was turning its back on them, citing waning local album sales and radio airplay.

Some Windy City musicians didn't understand Corgan's beef, considering the Smashing Pumpkins were a smash global success. More Gen-X whining, they thought.

Now that Chicago's thundering rock quartet Loudmouth is making waves nationally, guitarist Tony McQuaid finally knows what Corgan means.

"I remember when (Corgan) said that," McQuaid said recently, "and he took a lot of heat for it. I thought, 'There aren't a lot of acts that come out of this city, so why are you saying that?' I didn't understand it at the time, but now I totally understand what he means. It's so true.

"We don't get played at all in Chicago. It's very strange. We made it on our own. We had a couple of people, like Joe Shanahan at Metro who was very supportive of the band, but it's very few and far between. The rock station finally put us on but hardly played us and now they don't play us at all. In Chicago, we get no support at all. It's sad, because it's a great city. There's a lot more exciting things going on there now than Styx and REO Speedwagon. There's a lot of talent there, it just goes unnoticed."

McQuaid and his band mates - guitarist-singer Bob Feddersen, drummer John Sullivan and bassist Mike Flaherty - certainly aren't going to lose any sleep over it. They're too busy at the moment. The group's self-titled Hollywood Records debut album has helped lead a hard-rock resurgence since its March 23 release, while the single "Fly" (first heard on the "Varsity Blues" film soundtrack) has soared up Billboard's mainstream rock tracks chart, positioned this week at No. 11.

It also didn't hurt that members of Metallica have championed the band. James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich were blown away by Loudmouth's fiery display at Chicago's Double Door last year and invited them to attend a few gigs. At the end of one set in St. Louis, Metallica paid them the ultimate compliment, launching into a version of Loudmouth's "Not Free."

"That's amazing to get plugs from those guys and hang out with them. Who could ask for something better?" McQuaid said. "That was such a nice thing for them to do. I'm reading Guitar World and they're talking about us. How many people even take the time to mention somebody they do know let alone an unsigned band just out there plugging away? That just shows how cool those guys are. There are no egos in that band."

Loudmouth formed in 1993 at a time when the popularity of grunge, rap and hip-hop made loud, aggressive rock 'n' roll expendable. The foursome labored on the club circuit and eventually developed a core of fans who, like them, were starving for melodic hard rock with a positive message.

"We grew up listening to Sabbath, Zeppelin, the Stones, Beatles, AC/DC," McQuaid said. "It's hard and cool, but there's also songs there. There's melodies. There's a reason those bands are great."

Feddersen, Flaherty and Sullivan have known each other since kindergarten. McQuaid is the odd man out; he answered their newspaper ad for a new guitarist. All four hit it off immediately, McQuaid said.

"I'll always be the new guy," he said, with a laugh. "When I met them, it was weird. I jammed with them for the first time and there was this feeling like you had known them all your whole life. It was very instantaneous. Actually, I talked to Johnny over the phone first, that's how we hooked up. I was in a different band at the time. Even on the phone, I knew I was going to be in this band and we hadn't even played together yet.

"We're so tight. It's like a family. We're all friends, and we're all friends with our girlfriends, wives, whatever. When we're together, this is the music we play and we'll play no matter what because we enjoy it as a band and being around each other. Even as we were working our way up and not seeing as much success, that feeling never went away. That was the main factor for us staying together for so long."

For an unknown rock band to be doing so well is a bonus, McQuaid said.

"We're grateful to be able to do it," he said. "We've been together almost seven years. We were always plugging away and doing it, working jobs, sometimes two jobs, practicing at night. You look back and think, 'It sucked back then. It was hard work,' but that's why you work hard to get to a certain point."

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night.' I was about 6 or 7. I also remember getting - when I was really young - Elton John's 'Greatest Hits, Vol. 1.' Then I got into heavy music, like AC/DC and Kiss. My whole room was all Kissed up. I used to put on the makeup and jump around with the Hot Wheels track."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "Ozzy (Osbourne) with Randy Rhoads in 1981. I was 12 years old. We went there and I had no idea who Randy Rhoads was, and they had these cool Randy Rhoads T-shirts. I walk in and I'm thinking, 'Who's Randy Rhoads?' After the show, I ran around that whole arena trying to find one of those T-shirts, but they were all gone."

BWF (before we forget): Open up and say ahhh to Loudmouth on the Web @ www.hollywoodrecords.com.

Laura Love is loving every minute of it

(Feb. 12, 1998)

Don't try pulling a fast one on Laura Love. She's not the gullible type.

The Seattle-based singer-songwriter was convinced everyone was in on an elaborate joke over the holidays, leading her to think that former Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt was using "I Am Wondering," a bouncy track off Love's Mercury Records debut album, "Octoroon," during her Stars On Ice routine.

You are so wrong you can't be right, Love would tell friends. She went to the Internet to prove them wrong.

"I was doing a search to find out what music she was using," Love said recently. "It wasn't an updated search, so the only song that came close to sounding like mine was Melissa Etheridge's 'I'm the Only One,' so I thought, 'This is a big ol' lie.'

"I didn't think much about it until my publisher called me up and said, 'Laura, dahling, I'm sitting here watching television and I'm watching the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree and Katarina Witt is skating to 'I Am Wondering.' Laura, this is so wonderful.' "

Then came a phone call from Witt herself shortly before a Stars On Ice performance in Seattle last month.

"I'm just sitting here reading or something," Love said, "and the phone rang. I said, 'Who's this?' She says, 'This is Katarina.' 'Katarina who?' 'Katarina Witt.' I was like, 'Get out of here!' She invited me to the show and we had a really nice time. I got to meet all these skaters, like Scottie Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi. I'm used to meeting rock stars, but not Olympic skaters. It was so bizarre."

Bizarre, maybe, but not too farfetched.

"I Am Wondering," its rapid-fire word play wrapped around what Love calls an "Afro-Celtic pop" rhythm, is just the kind of offbeat, thoroughly enjoyable treat that Witt's choreographer was looking for.

"It turns out her choreographer was in a record store in Connecticut," Love said, "and she asked the guy behind the counter, 'Hey, what's hot (in music)? What do you like?' He put my record in her hands, and she listened to it and loved it. So that's how it got all started."

The Witt influence, a recent stint opening for Rusted Root and a renewed push by Mercury has led to a long-overdue groundswell for "Octoroon," released last May to instant critical acclaim but a mere blip on record store cash registers. It has sold more than 50,000 copies.

"By my own standards, it was doing great before all this," Love said. "On my own, I never could've sold this many records. I don't think by record company standards it has been a huge success, by any means. They roll on hits, that's their big thing.

"I mean, (fellow Mercury act) Hanson probably sells 50,000 a day. That seems horrifying that something like that could even happen. It's kind of an axiom that if you are successful very quickly, you're also discarded very quickly, and I want to have a career. I want to do what I'm doing until I'm 80, you know. I don't want to be on every single channel and in everyone's face for six months to a year and then be reviled. And that's record companies' definition of success, more so than my own."

At age 38, Love is a late bloomer in big-label terms. She was perfectly content releasing her funk 'n' folk material on her own label, Octoroon Biography, until the Mercury deal surfaced and was too good to pass up.

"I wasn't really looking for this at all," Love said. "In my early teens and 20s, I really wanted to be on a major label. 'I want a record deal, I want a record deal, I want a record deal. Oh, God, please sign me.' In the meantime, I thought I needed music in my life, regardless of whether or not a record company is involved, so I made my own record company and I just went on and did my thing.

"I learned all the facets of the industry and assembled this team of people around me who booked me, managed me and promoted me. It was a healthy living, and we were very successful at it. We were playing all these shows, and people who were on big labels were coming up to us and saying, 'Man, the way you're doing it is the way to do it. As soon as I get out of my contract, I'm doing what you're doing.'

"I resisted for a long time. I had some label interest, and then Mercury came up and said, 'Look, we're not interested in controlling you. We're going to let you make the records the way you've been making them and stay out of your way.' Right on."

If the popularity of "Octoroon" continues to spread, that's fine with Love. It will allow her to carry on her mission: to save a pollution-ravaged creek near her home.

"I work on this creek in my spare time," she said. "It's threatened by development, by people that don't know the value of the creek. This is a very economically depressed neighborhood; people are dumping their oil into it, using bleach in it. It's so delicate and so fragile. I'm taking every cent I make and buying bits of land along this creek. It's very cheap land, because this is a very poor area. It's been known as Poverty Gulch.

"I put out a newsletter, and I have community meetings and I talk to the kids. ... I go around this neighborhood and act like a bag lady. I'm in bib overalls and I go with a shopping cart and pick up trash, and people ask what I'm doing."

It would be great to have a hit record, Love said, "so I could really buy that land outright and not have to make these monthly payments that scare me to death."

BWF (before we forget): Laura Love is in the air on the Web @ www.mercuryrecords.com/mercury or via e-mail.

Love American Style: Truer than the red, white and blue

(Oct. 9, 1997)

Whenever Rob Montejo needs a pick-me-up, all he has to do is play "Not About to Lose It," the first single off Love American Style's debut Oxygen Records album "undo" (out Oct. 14).

The song is a personal anthem for Montejo, former leader of Smashing Orange, a rock group that got eaten alive during its brief stint on a major record label several years ago.

"It reminds me not to give up," Montejo said recently from his home in Delaware. "I know that sounds corny. I wanted to continue to play music and be in a band and write songs. I didn't want to give it up, even though that was a pretty big letdown."

A combination of things led to Smashing Orange's downfall, Montejo said. The A&R person who brought them to MCA left within two weeks of signing them; they had a bad manager, and "all the wrong things that could happen happened," Montejo said. It led to strained relations within the band.

After the breakup, Montejo moved on with his life, returned to his native Delaware and eventually hooked up with bassist Steven Haley and drummer Bob Furlong to create Love American Style. On "undo," it's an edgy, dreamy and bold style.

"It's a rebirth," Montejo said of the album. "I wanted to shed everything that's familiar to you, shed your world and break it down ... and start over again."

What kept Montejo going, even after Smashing Orange got squashed?

"Just the desire to be a successful musician, I guess," he said. "It's my dream to write, play and make a living out of making music. I didn't want to give that dream up. I'm still young; there's plenty of time for me to keep on fighting."

BWF (before we forget): Embrace Love American Style on the Web @ www.oxygenrec.com.

Love Battery is all charged up

(April 20, 1995)

Its recent tour opening for Bettie Serveert just a mere memory, Seattle "grungeadelic" rock group Love Battery now is traipsing across Europe with Mudhoney.

Singer-guitarist Ron Nine can only laugh about their inauspicious beginning March 29 in Minneapolis.

"We got added on to the Bettie Serveert tour late in the proceedings," he said, "so we flew from San Francisco to Seattle for one day and then flew to Minneapolis to meet up with them on Wednesday.

"Our gear was driven from San Francisco to Minneapolis, and we got there but the gear didn't. So before we even met these people, it was 'Hi, we're Love Battery. We're your opening band ... by the way, can we use ALL your gear?' But they were so sweet to us. Most musicians who've been around the block can relate to almost any situation like that."

Love Battery's Atlas/A&M debut album, "Straight Freak Ticket," was released in late February, and after a slow start, it's gaining momentum with the cosmic single "Fuzz Factory."

Like the rest of the album, "Fuzz Factory" straddles the psychedelic-pop fence. Nine said there are a myriad of influences seeping through.

"I think it was Hendrix who really made me want to play guitar," he said, "and it was punk rock that really made me want to be in a band. It's all sorts of influences, pushing and pulling us in different directions."

Love in Reverse turns in the right direction

(Aug. 2, 1998)

Intestinal fortitude goes a long way in the music business. Singer-guitarist Michael Ferentino and his Love in Reverse band mates could write a book about it.

The Toms River, N.J., rock trio finished its second Reprise album, "Words Become Worms," more than a year ago, but for a variety of reasons, the release date was moved six times. The album finally arrived in stores last week and not a moment too soon.

"This has been long overdue," Ferentino said recently. "A lot of things changed at Warner and we wondered who would stay and who would leave. So we've been sitting here waiting a year for it to come out. It was real monotonous, but we just kept working and did some other records. There were periods of 'Why do they keep doing this?,' but it turns out that they really got behind the band in the long run."

Why not? The first single, "Load of Motivation," is a melodic firestorm of guitars and driving beats in the truest Killing Joke-Nine Inch Nails sense. Elsewhere, Ferentino, bassist-keyboardist Andres Karu and drummer Dave Halpern stretched rock's boundaries on experimental songs cut in their new 32-track studio.

"The last record (1996's 'I Was Here') was pretty mellow, with some heavy stuff on it, but it was like a guitar, bass and drums record," Ferentino said. "It was very British pop influenced and took a lot of chances, musically. But what I wanted to do on the next record was take a lot of chances production-wise. This time we got to produce it ourselves, so I wanted to create all these ethereal sounds, pop songs mixed with ambient soundscapes. It was going to be a diverse record but still have a little dark edge that we've always had, along with an optimistic pop side."

Everyone involved knew "Load of Motivation" would be the single, but Ferentino said he and his band mates weren't happy with their version, so they called in producer John Fryer (Nine Inch Nails, Gravity Kills) to help out. He gave it a jolt of energy and urgency.

Having their own studio was a godsend, Ferentino said, because they no longer had to worry about anyone else's money or a producer's schedule. They would work on the tracks daily from 8 at night till well into the morning.

"At the time, I had been experimenting with a lot of different drugs," Ferentino said, "and now I've put it behind me, but during that record, I think a lot of it was influenced by drugs. A lot of times, we'd go in there and record something and I'd get really stoned, come back in and we'd be playing the tape back and I'd say, 'Why don't I try something else here, because my mind was really getting spaced out.' I don't think I went a whole day straight recording that record.

"I'm not somebody that advocates doing anything that doesn't feel natural. I have written straight since that record and it's some of my best stuff ever. It's not something you necessarily need, but it was something I was going through at the time. Instead of looking at it negatively, I look at what positive came out of it."

Love in Reverse's story may sound familiar. Several years ago, the band was the subject of ABC-TV's "Turning Point," which chronicled its rise from being an unknown to signing a major-label deal. Their debut, "I Was Here," was produced by Grammy winner Russ Titelman, and it led to high-profile road stints with Stabbing Westward, Gravity Kills, Republica and Holy Barbarians.

And now comes "Words Becomes Worms." Ferentino is relieved that it's out, at last.

"I think we're going to slowly get to the right audience, people who will get into this band," he said. "It's the kind of music that either you're going to love it or hate it. I don't think it's going to be 'the next thing.' I've never expected it to be, because that's not what we're all about.

"If by chance it somehow sold a million records, I would be pleasantly surprised, of course, but that was never my goal. It was always a slow climb. I would like to be respected for my music, and I'd like to keep doing it."

BWF (before we forget): To put Love in Reverse on the Web, visit www.RepriseRec.com/loveinreverse, or send e-mail to Loveinrec@aol.com.

Lovemongers' Heart is in the right place

(March 15, 1998)

State highway patrols may have a new weapon in the war on reckless driving: the Lovemongers' debut Will Records album, "Whirlygig."

"We had one guy tell us that the album was good for road rage," lead singer Ann Wilson said recently from her Seattle home. "He's in (Los Angeles), and he said he was playing it and looked down at his speedometer and he was only going 60 (mph), and he just felt happy and really good, even though people were zooming by him and cutting him off. He didn't care."

That could serve as an analogy for Wilson and her sister, Nancy, better known for their long, fruitful partnership as Heart. While the current music climate may be passing them by, the Wilsons are quietly driving along at their own pace, no longer impeded by major-label distractions and overambitious producers.

"We wanted to express ourselves in the completely honest way that we've been doing the past few years," Ann Wilson said, "and get all these songs that have been hanging out for the last five years that we had written, get them out and do it in a way that wouldn't be under a radar, where we didn't have anybody breathing down our necks, where we could be completely ourselves and do our own production. If it's not broken, don't fix it. We wanted it to remain vital, not overproduced."

The Wilsons and band mates Sue Ennis (keyboards), Frank Cox (guitar) and Ben Smith (drums) accomplished that goal, opting for Heart-felt, acoustic-driven simplicity. Tracks such as the sultry "Kiss" and "City on the Hill" hearken to the Wilsons' "Dreamboat Annie" glory days.

"We didn't even use a real recording studio," Ann Wilson said. "We used rehearsal space and rented some gear and a 16-track board and just recorded the basics - the drums, bass and guitar, vocals and keyboards - all analog and then we did the lesser important overdubs on an ADAT, so you've got that real analog sound, the old-fashioned, kind of in-your-face sound. It meant that maybe there are some moments of low-fi on there, but we didn't care. We were more excited about making sure they had a breath of life in them."

So, the obvious question is: Why isn't this a Heart album? Wilson said it is, sort of.

"It's just that the name has been changed," she said. "I kind of liken it to the period with the Beatles where it was so uncomfortable to be in the Beatles so they were 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' for a while. Not to compare ourselves to the Beatles in any way, but there's an awful lot of baggage that goes along with Heart. It's funny, we just call it Lovemongers and do what we would do anyway; we do what we do, and people seem to be able to relax and enjoy it a little bit better.

"That's why we call it 'Whirlygig,' because it's like coming around (to old Heart). Mostly, we feel 'Hey, we've been here before,' but now we're further on down the road. We're doing it all ourselves. I'm playing bass. It isn't exactly the same, but boy it sure touches on our essence that's been there all along."

Wilson said she is looking for a solo deal, and with it comes Heart.

"We're getting some interest," she said, "but at the same time, I just really don't think it's worth our while getting back into it in the same old way we did in the '80s, where we'd take any outside songs just to have hits and we'll do whatever it takes just to get up there. We need to be more honest now."

The Lovemongers' plate is getting full. Within the next few months, they're scheduled to appear on RuPaul's VH1 show, "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and "The Tonight Show."

"This summer, I've been invited to play at Lilith Fair," Wilson said. "Nancy's trying to have a family, so if she's not involved in that, then we'll do it as the Lovemongers. We've also been invited by the Indigo Girls to take part in their tour, so we're going to be all over the place."

BWF (before we forget): Let Ann and Nancy Wilson break your Heart on the Web @ www.annandnancy.co m.

Lowen & Navarro swing on 'Pendulum'

(Oct. 26, 1995)

Almost intuitively, the song came to Dan Navarro in the middle of the night. It didn't hit him at first, but the chorus said everything he had bottled up inside about his mother's death from cancer last year.

"Crossing over, the line that runs forever, and I know that someday, it will find me too. Crossing over, don't know what I'm gonna do, but when I get there, I'll be looking for you."

The day after scribbling down verses for "Crossing Over," Navarro presented the lyrics to his longtime songwriting partner, Eric Lowen.

"He played it for me and I said, 'That's about your mom,' " Lowen said recently. "And he was like, 'Oh, my God, you're right.' "

Things that his mother had said to him in her final months, that she wasn't afraid and that he shouldn't worry, inspired Navarro to finish "Crossing Over," the most stirring cut off Lowen & Navarro's third album, "Pendulum" (Parachute/Mercury), released last week.

"She told me 10 days before she died that she wasn't in pain," Navarro said. "But she was real uncomfortable and nauseous, mostly from the chemo. Somewhere along the line, I prayed, 'Okay, when this becomes irrevocable, take her quick.'

"From a cancer standpoint, we probably could have had her another year, and of course, I miss her, but that last year would have been awful for her. So, as you would expect, all this was in my head a lot and it came out in this song."

The album title reflects the up and down, back and forth swing of life. Like Navarro, Lowen said he was faced with his own set of problems.

"A lot of it is too personal for me to talk about, but it comes out in the songs," he said. "There's kind of a through-line with the other records, just thematically, because the record 'Walking On a Wire' (1990) was pretty solid in its hopefulness, that there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

" 'Broken Moon' (1993) was a little bit more resignation and acceptance that there's an awful lot of down sides to deal with. This new one is more about how you have to deal with the peaks and valleys. These things have been very unintentional and very natural."

Today, Lowen & Navarro are the darlings of the Triple A format. They're a formidable team, musically and as friends. That wasn't always the case: their first impression of each other wasn't flattering when they met as singing waiters in a Los Angeles restaurant more than a decade ago.

"We didn't get along very well at first," Lowen said. "We both felt like we knew everything, and he just said recently in an interview that he thought I was kind of arrogant and a know-it-all, and I felt the same about him."

Navarro's reaction was even stronger.

"Here's this 6-foot-2, blond, Scandinavian figure. I'm going, 'I just hate him,' " Navarro said. "He had a lot of things I always wanted, or things I thought I wanted."

As time passed, their differences faded, especially after they harmonized for the first time. ("When we sang our first song together, it was like 'Whoa, twin sons of different mothers,' " Navarro said.) They joined a band and assumed songwriting duties, and eventually other artists came calling. Pat Benatar had a Top-5 hit in 1984 with Lowen & Navarro's "We Belong," and artists from the Bangles to Dave Edmunds have recorded their songs.

For years, they had to shake off an industry image as hired lyrical guns. They are, first and foremost, performers.

"We have developed a strong bond," Navarro said. "We've been together a long time. We both discovered that we're better together than separate as performers."