Bif Naked bares all on big-label debut

(Aug. 22, 1999)

No subject is taboo for rock newcomer Bif Naked. Not even the contentious topic of abortion.

On "Chotee," a poignant track off her debut Lava/Atlantic album, "I Bificus" (released Aug. 3), the Vancouver-based singer-songwriter pours her heart out for the unborn child she gave up years ago.

"It's not a yea or nay song regarding pregnancy termination," Naked said recently. "I've always been a pro-choice girl, but the anguish you go through making a decision like that - regardless of which way you decide - you're going to feel that anxiety or your heart is going to ache, no matter what. That song can be taken two ways: the loss of a love, for the marriage or for the man, what could have been. People have their own interpretations for the song. I haven't had too much flak about it.

"I was a substance abuser when I was young. I didn't go straight-edge until 1995 and so I really know, even though I have a lot of feelings of regret and heartache over that time in my life, I also do believe and really have to believe that it was for the best. I don't know what state that child would have been in, because I was essentially a substance-abusing little skateboarder. We didn't even realize I was pregnant for a long time. It was a decision that ultimately was the right decision, but I also have to live the rest of my life believing that."

Elsewhere, Naked isn't afraid to mince any words on her strong U.S. debut, tackling religion, love and bisexuality. She attributes her breath-of-fresh-air honesty to her parents, two American missionaries who adopted the New Delhi-born orphan in the 1970s.

"I don't have anything to hide," Naked said. "Honesty is what inspires me to write a song. The fan base I've developed over the years, they've kind of come to expect it, so I don't have a lot of fear."

That fan base has turned Naked into a pop icon in Canada, where she released her second album, "I Bificus," in March on her own label, Her Royal Majesty's Records. She toured 11 months out of the past year and also performed in Europe before catching the eye of Lava president Jason Flom.

"I came down (to New York) to do a show, and (Jason) happened to be around the vicinity," Naked said. "I've never been the kind of artist who's played by the rules. It's definitely a company that likes to take things to their limit and push the envelope. I can't tell you how really lucky I feel. Everyone is just so positive. There's much so energy, no smoke and mirrors."

The same can be said for Naked's far-flung influences. On the first single, "Moment of Weakness," she displays rock-savvy aggression in the tradition of Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith. She's equally comfortable with power ballads, like "Lucky" and "Violence."

"That diversity is from having lived in India when we were little," Naked said. "My parents were American, but we also listened to Indian music. My parents were Glenn Miller and Nat 'King' Cole freaks, so we listened to that a lot. Then I got a record called 'Unleashed in the East' by Judas Priest when I was 13 or 14. Then I started listening to hard music.

"Then Madonna happened. I heard 'Holiday' when I was in high school and it changed everything. I loved Iron Maiden, Madonna and Prince and Culture Club. Probably my favorite band right now is Buena Vista Social Club, and classical Indian music will always have a place in my heart. I've been very lucky to have so many fingers in the sonic pie, so to speak.

"My album's really all over the map. I've been so lucky to be able to do that with very little repercussions. I have so many different styles of CDs in my collection at home. I never thought there was any reason to make it one style on a record. I never set out to do a fast song and a slow song, then a medium song and a fast song. It was never like that. I've never felt any hindrance by the style of song."

It's a good thing she didn't pursue her original creative outlet: ballet.

"My mother stuck us in ballet class," Naked said. "I was in ballet for like 12 years. I enrolled in the University of Winnipeg to take theater. These guys in my theater class had a thrash band, and their singer quit. They had a gig opening for a band called DOA, and so I filled in, and I've been on tour ever since.

"My parents have always been bleeding-heart liberals, so they've always been real supportive. My dad used to come see me play in all the skateboard parks and sing my little 'Fuck you, fuck you' lyrics. He'd go, 'Gosh, kid, I don't know what you're saying. I can't understand you, but you sure can jump up and down.' I'd be like, 'Thanks, Dad.' "

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "My first record actually was a gift from George, my boyfriend in grade eight. He gave me 'Unleashed in the East' by Judas Priest. My sister had the first Motley Crue record, so we listened to 'Shout At the Devil' all the time too."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "It was the Iron Maiden 'Powerslave' tour with Twisted Sister as the opening act. What's really funny is, I listened to a lot of Twisted Sister back then, and then it turns out Jason (Flom) discovered them. When I found that out, I said to him, 'Dee Snider spit on me at a concert in 1984!' I was in the fourth row with my sister; she was like 8. I can't believe my parents actually let us go to that by ourselves. I was smoking cigarettes, I was like 11 or 12, trying to get my little sister to smoke 'em too. She was crying the whole show, bawling her eyes out. I was going, 'Shut up, shut up, stand on the chair!' Dee Snider spit on us, it was the thrill of my life. And they wore more makeup than I do today."

BWF (before we forget): Let Bif Naked dress you up on the Web @ www.bifnaked.com.

Ultra Nate's finally free to do what she wants

(Jan. 22, 1998)

Ultra Nate doesn't mind wearing the dance diva crown again. Just don't confuse her with any prima donnas.

"Diva is one of those words that has a double meaning to me," the Baltimore native said recently. "It's a very positive thing on one side. I feel like when you are dubbed a diva, it's like being elevated to sainthood or like planting your feet on the sidewalk in Hollywood. It's that place where you can do no wrong.

"On the negative side of it, people see divas as being immature and childish and irrational and volatile and unpredictable and unstable, all that stuff that I'm absolutely not.

"For the most part, it means respect. For that side of it, I can definitely deal with being dubbed a diva."

Nate has earned it.

More than four years between albums is an eternity, especially in the dance industry, but few in the know could forget the charismatic singer-songwriter, who burst onto the scene in 1989 with the scorching single "It's Over Now" at age 18.

By 1994, Nate was at a crossroads after a bitter split with Warner Bros. over creative and career control and then an amicable break with her mentors, the Basement Boys. But the anthem-strong "Free," the best dance track of 1997, bar none, has put her back on the dance map.

Nate honestly feared that her time away would hurt her standing.

"I had never intended for that much time to go by," she said. "I had done two independent singles in between there, but I hadn't had an official Ultra Nate release in four years, so I was kind of weary that that might be the case.

"People fall off all the time in dance music. There's one slamming track and you never hear from them again; they're off into obscurity. The fortunate thing for my situation, I had six years of longevity and two albums under my belt and about six or seven hit singles on the underground level, so I had some commercial success.

"That actually solidified my situation and made it easier for me to keep my head above water, even when I hadn't put a record out in a few years. It was very apparent to me that the dance community hadn't forgotten me and still respected me and loved my music."

"Free," Nate's debut single for Strictly Rhythm, allayed all her fears: It was an instant dance classic (It remains on Billboard's dance maxi-singles sales chart after 33 weeks); it spent nearly five months on Billboard's pop Hot 100; it was a Top 10 hit in England and is poised for a rerelease there, and it went No. 1 in Spain and Italy and Top 10 in Canada, Switzerland and France.

Nate calls it "the most fun surprise I've had in a long time."

"Free," with its hook-laden chorus "You're free to do what you want to do; you've got to live your life, do what you want to do," takes "a look at the world we're living in and looking at the situation around us, simply saying, 'Look, this is not cool,' " Nate says. "There are a lot of not-very-cool things happening in the world, and we've got to address those issues and start dealing with them so we can make the situation better.

"People tell me all the time about different little things it meant for them. One guy told me that he's in college and he's having some really tough classes and that whenever he gets down, and the pressure gets too much for him, he'll turn 'Free' on and it'll get him through. I'm like, okay, whatever works for you."

With a hit on its hands but no album to promote, Strictly Rhythm lured Nate back into the studio.

"We had to get it done quickly, according to the label," she said. "They're like, 'We need an album now!' Fortunately, I already had five songs done, and that was two of the ballads, 'Every Now and Then' and 'Crying Time,' which I did with Mood II Swing, and 'Release the Pressure' and 'Situation Critical,' which I had done with Al Mack. 'Free' was done, of course, so I was already five songs into having album material.

"It wasn't too difficult to pull the rest of it together under the time situation. Conceptually, it was already in my head what the album needed to sound like, what it needed to talk about. It's where my head was as an adult, realizing the situation that we're living in, and I just wanted to write about that, bringing those issues to the forefront that people deal with day in and day out. I wanted it to have a real feel to it."

Nate and her production team are putting the finishing touches on the album, titled "Situation: Critical," slated for an April release. An advance copy makes it clear that Nate's reign will continue.

In one word, being in control is "wonderful," Nate said.

"It's what you dream of. It's like you're working for yourself," she said. "You're doing it the way you envision it to be done. It's the greatest reward and then to have it come out successful is even sweeter. I always knew I could do this, just given the opportunity and the resources to make it happen.

"That experience with Warner Bros. was very necessary in order for me to get here, so I don't regret it at all. It was very necessary for my learning experience. I probably never would have been able to write a song like 'Free' if I hadn't gone through the experiences and the growth process I did with Warner Bros."

BWF (before we forget): "Free" ended a 43-week run on Billboard's maxi-singles sales chart in late April 1998. ... Nate later charted in the Hot 100 as part of the trio Stars On 54, with Amber and Jocelyn Enriquez, in a dance remake of Gordon Lightfoot's 1971 hit "If You Could Read My Mind." The track appeared in the "54" film soundtrack. ... The Ultra Nate album discography - "Blue Notes in the Basement" (Eternal/Warner, 1991); "One Woman's Insanity" (Warner, 1993); "Situation: Critical" (Strictly Rhythm, 1998).

Bob Neuwirth enjoys a 'Havana Midnight'

(Dec. 5, 1999)

Folk singer-songwriter Bob Neuwirth calls "Havana Midnight," his album with veteran Cuban pianist-composer-arranger José Maria Vitier, a true collaboration, without money as a motivation.

The Diesel Motor Records album, released Oct. 15 in Europe, is available in the United States at Amazon.com and other online stores.

"It wasn't shaped to be a release," Neuwirth said recently. "I was talking about these two Cuban bands I had heard and someone overheard me in a restaurant and said I should meet this woman who's doing a cultural exchange program with Cuban musicians.

"It was just a bunch of fortuitous coincidences. She said, 'I'm going to Havana, why don't you give me a couple of records and I'll take them down there?' She heard these records and said, 'You should meet José Maria, he's more of your generation.' His son, being a professor, translated the words to the songs and I got an e-mail back saying 'Let's meet' when José Maria came to Massachusetts."

When the two met backstage at a performance, they both started laughing, "which is always a good sign," Neuwirth says. It was then that Vitier, whose score for the Cuban film "Fresa y Chocolata (Strawberries and Chocolate)" was nominated for an Oscar, suggested they work together.

"I was blown away," Neuwirth said, "because by then I had been made aware of 'Missa Cubana,' the Cuban masses he wrote for the pope's visit (to Cuba in 1998). I was also further made aware of the fact that he wasn't just a jazz player, he was a composer. He had done all these ballet and film scores.

"I thought, 'Why not?' I'll take a tape recorder with me, we'll sit around the kitchen table, tap on some bongos and sing 'Guantanamera.' When I got down there (to Cuba), to his house out in the country, I was playing some songs for him. He said, 'You know, Bob, you don't play the sounds the same way twice.' I said, 'Yeah, that's sort of where I come from, get up on the stage and do whatever happens.' He kind of looked at me with a semi-sad look and said, 'We have much work to do.' Whereupon, he proceeded to whip my ass into shape. He is a task master, and he wrote everything down. As I'd be singing a song, he'd be arranging it and writing all the notes out."

Vitier then assembled a talented lineup of musicians, such as guitarist Rey Guerra, nuevo trova master Silvio Rodriguez and percussionist Emilio del Monte Jr.

The nine tracks on "Havana Midnight," particularly "Dead Man's Clothes" and "Havana Farewell," have an alluring melancholy about them.

The cultural exchange proved to be a career experience for Neuwirth, and that says a lot, considering his background. He has worked with k.d. lang, Robert Earl Keen and Peter Case and produced albums for T-Bone Burnett and Vince Bell. He emerged from the Cambridge, Mass., folk-blues scene in the 1960s, eventually working with Bob Dylan, and with his art background, he helped film the Monterey and Toronto pop festivals with D.A. Pennebaker. He also toured with Kris Kristofferson, taught Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" to good friend Janis Joplin and co-wrote "Mercedes Benz" with her.

"I loved Janis, she was like my sister, in many ways," Neuwirth said. "I don't think she realized her potential. I think it was a big mistake what happened to her; I don't think she was of that frame of mind (to kill herself) and do it on purpose. I knew she had been clean and would flirt with (drugs) again. Everyone thinks they're handsome and bulletproof when they're on a winning thing.

"Her record ('Pearl') wasn't finished yet, and she really wanted to finish it. They had to make that record out of work vocals. And that's how 'Mercedes Benz' ended up on there, because they needed more material to fill it out.

"I think if she was around today, she wouldn't be out there making a fool of herself. She'd be out there commanding respect. She'd be a wonderful singer by now and a really, really good writer by now. I think she'd be writing stuff that'd scare little girls."

BWF (before we forget): For more on Bob Neuwirth on the Web, visit www.bakernorthrop.com. There's also www.bobneuwirth.com.

Never the Bride is married to music

(July 6, 1995)

In their years fronting London-based bluesy rock quintet Never the Bride, singer Nikki Lamborn and keyboardist-guitarist Catherine "Been" Feeney have done about every gig imaginable. Clubs, pubs, biker festivals, weddings, bar mitzvahs and the occasional funeral.

One inevitable performance, in particular, is unsettling even for them.

"We have a friend who's dying of AIDS at the moment," Lamborn said recently, "and he's actually booked us for his funeral already." Said Feeney: "He's planning for us to put a video together. He's a bit of a character, and he sings too and he wants to open this video singing, 'It's my party and I can die if I want to.' It's a celebration of his life, really."

Yes, it sounds maudlin, but Feeney said doing something for an ailing friend "makes you feel closer to them, that you've helped them cope with their death."

Never the Bride's the-show-must-go-on attitude has served them well, leading to a deal with Atlantic Records and a confident, self-titled debut album (due July 11). Success finally tapped them on the shoulder when a longtime fan became an artist & repertoire representative for a management company and all along had grand plans for them.

"He used to come to our shows over the course of about three years," Feeney said, "and we didn't think anything of it. We just thought he was a fan.

"Then about a year and a half ago, he came up to us in a club and said, 'Did you ever get a deal?' And we said no. He was so excited. He asked us for a tape, which we were happy to give him. Two days later, his boss - now our present manager - came to see us and loved us. Then he went to America with another of his bands and brought our tape along. Within about two weeks, he had gotten us a deal with Atlantic.

"After eight years, we might be an overnight success, just like that."

Never the Bride first appeared on "Enconium," the Led Zeppelin tribute album, doing a cover of "Going to California." Their debut album was produced by Ron Nevison (Heart, The Who, Starship), but Lamborn and Feeney said they were involved in every aspect of the production.

"We had so many songs and we basically wanted to run with them," Feeney said. "We put what we do best on to a record."

BWF (before we forget): Here comes Never the Bride on the Web @ www.neverthebride.com.

Neville Brothers pass along their gift

(May 26, 1994)

Art Neville remembers it as if it were yesterday.

Neville and his brothers - Cyril, Charles and Aaron - had just finished a gig opening up for the Rolling Stones more than 20 years ago. They were all piled into Keith Richards' apartment in New York, hanging loose and absorbing each other's company.

"I was sitting on the floor with Aaron's son, Ivan, who was real young at the time, and as plain as day, I remember telling him, 'Do you have any idea what's going on?' And he's like, 'I don't know,' " the eldest Neville said during a recent stop on their U.S. tour. "I wanted to tell him, 'Look. Look who we're sitting with. That's Keith Richards over there and Mick Jagger over there.' He had no idea."

The occasion didn't dawn on Ivan until many years later when his talent on the bass guitar became part of Bonnie Raitt's sound, then on the Stones' "Dirty Work" album and on their upcoming Virgin debut, "Voodoo Lounge" (due July 12).

It was a case of what goes around, comes around, Art said.

"Good things like that happen if you keep yourself proper, keep yourself right and be prepared, never expecting anything. I always say, be prepared for the unexpected."

The Neville Brothers are no strangers to the unexpected. Art never assumed their gumbo combination of soul, rock, reggae and jazz would catch on and continue to flourish some 20 years later. It's all come around again on their latest A&M album, "Live On Planet Earth," taken from shows in the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia and Israel.

"We have about eight new songs on this one," Art said. "We had so many tapes to go through and edit and figure out what we wanted to use. My brother, Cyril, did most of the hard work on that."

After two decades of breaking down barriers, what motivates the quartet to carry on? That's easy, Art said. "It's love and family and our extended family, the people we perform with and to. We try to pass on a little happiness. Some of our songs are happy songs and others are about things we should be paying attention to, without being preachy."

Like any family affair, the Nevilles have had their struggles - from money and problems with labels to indifference. Art said it was all part of the grand plan.

"Those things had to happen for us to get to this point," he said, "and we're still growing. We're not expecting anything, we're just enjoying what we're doing. This is a blessing and a gift to us.

"It's not about the money, because if that were the case, we would've quit a long time ago. It's about sharing our gifts."

The Nevilles often talk about passing along the torch to another generation. Art says it's a heavy burden for anyone to undertake, but if there's any group out there that can do it, it's one close to his heart: Def Generation.

"It's a mixture of some of our family and friends and nephews out of New Orleans. Cyril's been producing and working with them for a long time. You'll be hearing from them."

The Nields are in a class by themselves

(April 18, 1996)

David Jones vowed long ago to take his wife's name when they got married. Now he is David Nields, and he's in Nerissa Nields' band called The Nields.

Isn't that romantic?

"The truth is, it didn't have anything to do with the band, even though that became pretty convenient in the end," guitarist David Nields said recently in a tour stop to promote the folky rock quintet's Razor & Tie Music album, "Gotta Get Over Greta."

"I grew up as David Jones, and for that I was tormented endlessly in school. You know, Davy Jones of the Monkees and about the other Davy Jones' locker at the bottom of the ocean. Anything you can possibly imagine. Even David Bowie couldn't take it and changed his name from David Jones to Bowie. Wouldn't you?"

Singers Nerissa and sister Katryna Nields met David at graduate school in the Washington, D.C., area in the late '80s, then moved to Connecticut to form The Nields with bassist Dave Chalfant. A third Dave, drummer Dave Hower, joined later.

Critical ravings for their vignette-laden, melodically passionate songs soon followed. Relentless touring also helped build a cult following that has swelled to a 11,000-member mailing list and an active Web site.

For "Gotta Get Over Greta," produced by Kevin Moloney (U2, Sinead O'Connor), The Nields had a simple goal:

"The word 'record' has dropped out of use because people are making CDs," Dave Nields said, "but I think 'record' is the best title for what musicians do. They make a record of what they are.

"For this album, we had worked up the arrangements as a band. We were really excited about the songwriting, because when Nerissa and I wrote these songs, we had the band's sound in mind. It's a much more unified project than anything else we've done."

Dave Nields thinks so highly of Moloney, he calls him "the sixth member of The Nields."

"When he first saw us, it was in a little club in Los Angeles," he said. "He immediately liked what we were doing and understood us on an emotional and intellectual level. His idea for us was to capture our sound rather than mold us into his image."

BWF (before we forget): "Gotta Get Over Greta" was reissued by Guardian/EMI on May 6, 1997, and contained three new tracks, "Taxi Girl," "Einstein's Daughter" and a cover of the Beatles' "Lovely Rita." ... Check out The Nields on the Web @ www.pobox.com/~nields.

Mojo Nixon's living on the air in Cincinnati

(April 18, 1999)

Mojo Nixon and the city of Cincinnati - now those are two diametrically different entities. One thrives on controversy, the other wears its conservatism on its collective sleeve.

Since mid-1998, the sardonic roots-rocker has held court on the air in the riverfront city as host of "Mojo's Saturday Night House Party" on WLW and morning-show man on FM sister station WEBN.

Can the man who once warbled "Don Henley Must Die," "Bring Me the Head of David Geffen" and "Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child" peacefully coexist with the town famous for fighting the Mapplethorpe photo exhibit and trying to prevent the Playboy Channel from entering its borders?

So far so good, says the North Carolina native.

"A lot of it is the papers, the radio stations and the civic and church leaders are clinging to this 1950s 'Donna Reed Show' idea that never existed in the first place," Nixon said recently, "but the whole town is just filled with hillbillies. I mean, you can see Kentucky! You can see my brethren floating over on logs.

"The funny thing is, they're fighting to keep the Playboy Channel out (in the early 1980s), but the VCR's been invented, so who needs the Playboy Channel? They're fighting idiotic battles, like 'We can't have strip clubs,' but you can go to Indiana and gamble on them boats."

Nixon isn't afraid to speak his mind, on the air and in the studio. Nothing is sacred on his latest album, "The Real Sock Ray Blue" (on Shanachie, released March 16). Backed by his Toadliquors band, Nixon takes on Disney, McDonald's, the Internet, O.J. Simpson and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Not even Princess Diana is spared from his slings and arrows. On the biting track, "Drunk Divorced Floozie (The Ballad of Diana Spencer)," Nixon rants, "She's just a jet set party girl, gone to meet her maker/ That nobility crap, don't stop the undertaker."

"The whole thing kind of incensed me, just the media frenzy that took place (after her death in 1997)," Nixon said, "and the fact that it was on TV nonstop for four or five days and they were blaming everybody in the world but her and her boyfriend. 'It was the photographers' fault for chasing them.' 'Oh, no, somebody may take a picture of me!'

"I'm sure it was a tragedy to her kids and her family and her friends, but to everybody else, she was a drunk, divorced floozie. First off, she's in France, which is England's mortal enemy. What was the 100-year war? It was between France and England! Who did the English blame for World War II? The French! She's in France with this international playboy, they're in a car driven by a drunk guy going 100 mph. Why? Because they don't want their picture taken. It's just ugly. There's not one honorable thing in it.

"People go, 'Well, she touched so many people's hearts.' She failed as princess; if she had been a good princess, she'd be married to 'Big Ears' (Prince Charles) right now. He'd be king and the old bat (Queen Elizabeth) would be in the old people's home. I understand the roots of the adulation, but the problem is she sucked at it. She didn't succeed."

In "Rock n' Roll Hall of Lame," Nixon saves his best barbs for the sitting target off Lake Erie at the other end of Ohio.

"If there's going to be a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, two people who should be in there are Bruce Springsteen and Curtis Mayfield," he said of this year's inductees. "It shouldn't be called the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame if you're going to put everybody in it. Billy Joel is not rock 'n' roll. Paul McCartney solo is barely rock 'n' roll. Is Paul McCartney in there because of 'Silly Love Songs'?

"I hate the idea that we're institutionalizing rock 'n' roll. And it shouldn't be in Cleveland, it should be in Memphis, that's where rock 'n' roll originated. The Rock and Roll Radio Hall of Fame maybe should be in Cleveland. This whole idea of a bunch of people from New York City putting on ties and tuxedos, riding in limousines to go to the Wardorf-Astoria ... what the hell does that have to do with rock 'n' roll?

"If you're going to put in the Mamas and the Papas, the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, let's put in Blue Oyster Cult, the New York Dolls and the Ramones, goddamnit!"

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "I'm pretty sure it was the Beatles' first album. I got it for Christmas and I played 'I Saw Her Standing There' over and over and over. One of the first records I truly loved was Arthur Conley's 'Sweet Soul Music.' My father ran a black radio station and he'd bring home a bunch of records and I'd sort through them. I remember playing that one until I had to go buy another copy. It got played a lot."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "Led Zeppelin at the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum in '73, but right before that, Rare Earth came to my town and played at my high school on the football field. I remember thinking, 'I think someone's smoking marijuana; I don't know what it smells like but maybe that's what it is.' "

Australia's Noogie is doing just swimmingly

(March 19, 2000)

Most 19 year olds are either immersed in college textbooks or stocking Wal-Mart shelves (or something to that effect), trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives.

Not Nick Hyde, lead singer-guitarist of the Australian indie-pop quartet Noogie. He wakes up every morning with a smile on his face, thankful for everything he has.

He should be happy. After sweeping their homeland last year, Hyde and his band mates - guitarist Mike Jeffrey, bassist Alex van Wensveen and drummer Chuck Ridler - have set their sights on the United States. Their debut album, "Learn to Swim" (Trauma), was released March 7; they did a series of West Coast showcases with label mates The Flys, then played at Chicago's House of Blues on March 8 and New York's CBGB's Downstairs Lounge on March 9 and performed on the Oxygen TV/Internet program "Trackers" on March 10 before returning to their native Sydney.

Sure beats the ol' day job back home.

"I work at a BP service station along with Mike," Hyde said recently. "The other two guys work in department stores. When I told my boss we were going to America, he wasn't too happy about it, because we gave them only a week's notice. We said, 'Yeah, well, we're going to America. See ya later.' "

The day job came in handy for at least one track on "Learn to Swim." Hyde wrote "Remote Controller (TV Screen)" while stuck on a late-night shift.

"I wrote a lot of the lyrics to the songs at work," he said. "For 'TV Screen,' I was working one night till dawn and took my guitar in and wrote that song. We had just come from recording all day and went straight to work that night and I was in kind of a bad mood. I didn't get home till 10 o'clock the next morning and then kinda died. I had just moved out of home and I was about $600 in debt. The only thing I could get was a midnight-to-dawn job, so I had to do that for like three weeks, then I got a normal day shift like everyone else."

The four, all enamored with everything from Crowded House and the Beatles to Radiohead, formed Noogie three years ago when they were in the 10th grade.

"We finished school and realized that we always wanted to do the band but we weren't sure it could go as far as it has," Hyde said. "It was a choice we had to make: Either get a job and work for the rest of our lives or try and give this music thing a crack. The driving ambition for me doing this is getting to do this and not have to get a job. It would be the best lifestyle possible.

"My parents have always encouraged me to pursue what I want to do and they've always given heaps of help, so here I am. Even if we had gone to university last year, I'm not sure it would've been the right thing to do anyway because I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm pretty sure the others feel the same way."

Noogie's first song, "I'd Rather Float," appeared on the popular Australian compilation series, "Grow Your Own 3," which garnered heavy radio airplay. Then it snowballed from there: The CD caught the attention of the indie label Foghorn, which released a five-song EP; Trauma heard the EP and quickly signed them to an album deal.

"We gave ourselves a year," Hyde said, "and that's when we got the contract with Trauma, and it's turned into two years now. Hopefully, it'll turn into forever."

The first U.S. single, "Meantime," is a prime example of the Noogie touch: It's a smartly condensed, three-minute pop song that addresses the "word games" in relationships.

"I have a pretty short attention span myself," Hyde said, "so it has to go somewhere in three minutes or I turn it off. That's why the easiest way to do that is to trim down the song a bit. Some of the songs were a bit longer, but for lyrical purposes and radio, they got cut down a little bit. But the songs always seem to come out to three minutes and we like it that way.

The Noogie sound is all encompassing, a reflection of their eclectic tastes, Hyde said.

"We all went to school together and listened to a lot of the same stuff, even though everyone has their own interests and brings it into the band," he said. "Like the bass player is into '80s rock and the drummer likes electronic music; I've got pretty broad tastes myself. Because of my parents, I'm into the Beatles and Elton John, but I also got into Nirvana and Green Day and Pavement and the Sebadoh. And we all like Radiohead.

"We've always been kind of poppy. At our high school, there were a lot of bands and the punk influences came through at one stage. We were renowned as the poppier band. But we've always tried to avoid describing our music as one style or pursue one style because then you lose the freedom of creating music for the fun of it."

And it's definitely fun - traveling the world, playing their own material, meeting new people - at least till they have to go back to "real" work.

"I don't know how the album's going to do in the states," Hyde said. "It's so hard to tell. A lot of these songs have been around since 1997, and I don't know if you find it with music, but after I've been listening to a song for three years, I still like it but it doesn't quite have that sparkle when you first hear it. That's not the case with these songs. We obviously enjoy the music and really like the record."

THE FIRST RECORD I EVER BOUGHT: "Bon Jovi's 'Slippery When Wet.' I was about 6 or 7 and got it from my parents as an Easter present. The first one I bought with my own money was a tape of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' when I was on holiday in Bali."

THE FIRST CONCERT I EVER WENT TO: "Slayer with Biohazard at the Horton Pavilion in Sydney in '95 or '96. I was in a heavy metal stage back then. My friends and I spent the entire concert at the front and then I got so dehydrated that I threw up and wanted to go home. It was awesome."

THE LAST CD I BOUGHT: "Everything But the Girl's 'Temperamental.' I love it. I'm getting into the electronic drums and I think she has a really good voice. They're very cool."

BWF (before we forget): Get your Noogie jones on the Web @ www.noogie.net.

For NRBQ, the music is the message

(Feb. 24, 1994)

There's a reason for the N in NRBQ.

It stands for new.

"That's what we're all about," says keyboardist Terry Adams, a founding member of the New Rhythm & Blues Quartet, known simply as NRBQ since its inception in Miami in 1967.

"We've never been a nostalgia band. We've always kept current. We've kept it new and now," he says from his Vermont home. "It was never a study of past styles, although we did study it and love it."

What's new for NRBQ now is the just-released "Message For The Mess Age," its first studio album in five years. Signed to Rhino's fledgling Forward Records, NRBQ continues concocting a novel mixture of pop, jazz and country and stirring it around with humor.

NRBQ may not get radio air time - it's had only one minor chart single, "Get That Gasoline Blues" in 1974 - and "Message For The Mess Age" may not win over a new corps of fans (even though cuts like "A Little Bit of Bad" and "Over Your Head" could make country listeners feel right at home), but few rock acts can match its fervent following. Nearly 200 gigs a year tell the tale.

"I've heard it said, and I really don't want to be saying it myself, that wherever rock goes, we've been there and left," Adams said of NRBQ's longevity.

"Our band is always doing something that catches on later on. Somebody else gets the recognition and money with some version of it six to 10 years after we've done it. I'm not saying everything we touch is innovative or genius, but we're always doing something new and I think that's why we've been able to stay together."

The other main ingredient to the band's cohesiveness is a sense of humor, Adams says, "otherwise you should chalk it up."

Adams and bassist Joey Spampinato are the only remaining original members, but the current lineup hasn't changed in more than 20 years. Guitarist Al Anderson signed on in 1971, and drummer Tom Ardolino joined three years later.

The band formed as a quintet 27 years ago in Miami when Adams and fellow Kentucky native Steve Ferguson (the band's first guitarist) somehow hooked up with New Yorker Spampinato, drummer Tom Staley and singer Frank Gadler.

"I think we knew somebody who knew somebody and that's why we went down there," Adams says laughing, admitting memories have faded over the years.

Spotted by blues singer Slim Harpo at a New Jersey club and then given a chance to play at the Scene in New York, NRBQ quickly became the "next big thing," scoring with its self-titled debut Columbia album in '69. They stood out like a sore thumb at the height of the psychedelic era.

"I like the '60s as a time, but I'll tell you, when everybody else was listening to Jimi Hendrix, we would be playing Slim Harpo or Sun Ra," Adams says. "When we lived in Miami, it would be so hot that we wouldn't go outside, but when the sun went down, we'd be out in the parking lot playing their stuff."

What makes "Message For The Mess Age" stand out from all the albums in between, Adams says, is that it was a true collaboration.

"Joey and I co-wrote most of the material," he says. "In all the years we've been together, I think we maybe co-wrote only two songs. It's a whole new thing for us to be writing with someone you know so well and you don't even know why you didn't do it before. It's working out really well, and I'm looking forward to doing more with him."

BWF (before we forget): Adams had a cameo appearance in the Robert Altman film "Short Cuts." ... Spampinato is married to country singer Skeeter Davis ("The End of the World").