 Good Article from a fan |
phreak 
Radioactive Hatchling
Registration Date: 08-02-2004
Posts: 8,405
Favorite 77s album: Drowning With Land In Sight
Location: Stella's Garage
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published in a free paper in OH back in '03... great stuff!
Music: not new, not fresh, just good
The Seventy Sevens' "direct"
By Geoffrey Tate Published: Tuesday, February 25, 2003
The public has never been accused of being smart, exactly, or discerning in any way. If you don't believe me, consider this: if "Kangaroo Jack" makes ten million more dollars, there will be a sequel.
People mostly want something very similar to the last big thing. Nobody in general wants anything new or fresh. And when it's all over with, and some new pre-packaged form of entertainment gets shoved down their throats by MTV and the media, no one remembers if NSync or the Backstreet Boys came out first.
Rock and Roll is no different. There's no money in "New and Fresh," at least not since Rock and Roll was new and fresh. It was okay then to try new things because the whole thing was new.
That is not the way it is now. Nowadays, a new band has to conform to "The Sound." You have to make your band like the last band who sold a million records, and if you don't, it's hello honkytonks and bars and cheap hotels and cheaper whiskey and playing to a packed house of forty or so people. And these forty or so are all your friends. You may not know their names, but they know the words, and so do you.
Michael Roe is the epitome of everything that is Right about music and Wrong about the industry. He writes his own songs and his band, The Seventy Sevens, play their own instruments. Their music is the very existence of Rock and Roll, and when it comes right down to it, the man can flat out play guitar.
Over the course of twenty years, their style has changed according to their whims, not the whims of pop culture. They never recruited the Dust Brothers to produce an album so the kids will like it. He's never sung a duet with Sheryl Crow or played himself on a television show. They never wrote a song "for the radio," but any number of their songs could've been huge if anyone with access to a corporate radio play list had ever heard them play. But all he wanted to do was play his songs, his way, and if people liked them, then that was okay, too. That sounds a lot like the credo of some other Rock and Roll colleagues that just happened to get started at a time when you could get away with new things. Does anyone remember "Trans," "Saved," or "Slow Train Coming"? Bob Dylan and Neil Young never pandered, and neither has Mike Roe.
So why does Mike Roe continue to toil away in relative obscurity, while lesser talented "musicians" continually make it big? The first reason is that you as a consumer do not demand things from your musicians--things such as talent, ability, or brilliance. You take what you're given, and Linkin Park becomes Crazy Town becomes whatever other crap band is popular this week, and so it goes.
The other reason is that Mike Roe has been cursed by his belief in God. No one wants a Rock Star who believes in God. Buddha--that's okay, or whatever other Eastern religion or philosophy washes down the pike or is made popular by a surviving Beatle--but not God. Not the "Ten Commandments" God. Not, gasp, the Bible God.
So he writes a song about his beliefs and ten other songs about getting divorced and the album ends up undistributed. That's basically the same pattern every Tom Petty album from 1993 to 1999 used. But The Seventy Sevens are relegated to discount bins (if you can find them at all) and incessant touring, in order to sell three thousand copies of the new CD only to make rent.
The Seventy Sevens got their start in the early 80's in Sacramento, California and released their first album, Ping Pong Over the Abyss, in 1982. They've played the Fillmore, the Roxy and a thousand nameless bars in nameless cities across America. I got a chance to talk with him at one of these nameless gigs at the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton on February 13. Some of you may wonder why I chose to interview a guy I am clearly a fan of. The answer is simple: I am not getting paid for this. The paper is free and journalistic integrity costs money.
ME: "What was your first real gig?"
HIM: "I did some things at school once in a while, but my first real gig that I ever played that I got paid was opening up for Jimmy Swaggart. He was doing a convention for the Assemblies of God, a young people's convention. I was 15 years old in a band called The Brotherhood. We got a standing ovation, 15,000 people, and he had to go on after us and preach against Rock and Roll. It was sort of a fitting beginning. It was kind of auspicious."
ME: "What was the first album you ever bought?"
HIM: "First album I ever bought? I remember the first album ever bought for me. It was '50 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.' Actually my parents had a Fats Domino album, and that was kind of my introduction to Rock and Roll. Later, they brought home Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis, all those people. And when they saw the affect it was having on me, they tried to pull back, but it was too late. The damage had been done. I told my mother when I was four years old I wanted to be a Rock and Roll singer and a dishwasher. And that's kinda how it's worked out."
ME: "When I listen to The Seventy Sevens or your solo albums, I hear a lot of different sounds and influences, including Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis (most notably on the appropriately named 'Perfect Blues' off 'Sticks and Stones,' which you say in the liner notes, 'gave us a newfound respect for Jerry Lee Lewis...It took us four tracks and eight hands to even begin to approach what the Killer does with only two'). But I also hear The Who, Zeppelin, Elvis Costello, The Byrds, Beatles, and Bob Dylan. On your solo albums and the most recent Sevens effort, the direct EP, there is clearly a Jerry Garcia element to the guitar playing. So the question is, what is your favorite Grateful Dead album?"
HIM: "'American Beauty,' because, you know, my favorite Grateful Dead moments were at concerts or hearing some of the live recordings. But, if I had to pick one album, a desert island disc, it would be 'American Beauty,' because you can't listen to that and stay in a bad mood. It makes me think of home."
ME: "What do you listen to? What are your favorite albums?"
HIM: "My most listened to album is an album by Bill Evans and Jim Hall called 'Undercurrent.' It's a jazz album, just piano and guitar, from 1962. I listen to this album every night before I go to bed. It gives me peace of mind. It's just a brilliant collaboration of piano and guitar."
ME: "After twenty years, does it sometimes get hard? What keeps you going?"
HIM: "I need to make a living. I can't see myself doing anything else. Life is always gonna be hard at some point, you know, for everybody. I decided a long time ago, if life was gonna be hard, I want it to be hard on my own terms rather than someone else's. Being a musician gives me the freedom to fail or succeed on my own terms, do what I want to do. Do what I do best. I just have to keep working, I mean, I gotta work.
"After there's so much discouragement, you get past the point of caring anymore and you go into this other realm of just being really grateful that you're doing something that you know how to do well and people like and I've learned how to count my blessings and really enjoy what I have in spite of it being on a really small scale. In some ways that's better because I am able to spend a lot of time with my daughter. I think there's some part of me that knows that what's best for me is just a quiet life, family and friends."
That was the interview. The real thing. The image I'd created of Mike Roe in my own imagination over the last ten years and twenty albums was not shattered by Rock Star Pretentiousness. There's no chance he'll end up in a Gap ad. He doesn't get drunk with The Strokes or sleep with Courtney Love and maybe that's why he'll never be famous. But I'll take that over some jerk (read: Ryan Adams) who breaks up a great band because it's "creative prison."
Mike Roe's songs stand alone, and that is never more evident than on the new Seventy Sevens EP, "direct." This is the rootsiest album the Sevens have ever done. Some of the Lost Dogs records Roe has played on border on country, but this is pure Americana. His lyrics tell of heartache and loss in "Born On Separate Days," which starts off the six-song record. "Take Your Mind Off It" is fantastic Jerry Garcia Band-style guitar over layers of vocals. The middle tracks are catchy as hell, and I can barely resist singing along to them, even though I haven't had the record long enough to know the words.
If I ever had to pick my desert island discs, the name Mike Roe would come up at least twice, maybe more, depending on what time it is.
You can't get these albums from a record store, so if you're interested go to www.77s.com. They're all there.
If you're not interested in New Music that is not prepackaged, Creed will have another album out soon. Vaya con dios, pero vaya.
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~ ffphreeack!! ~
Christianity 101: love God; love others
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06-03-2005 05:34 |
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carl
Flower in the Sand
Registration Date: 06-02-2004
Posts: 1,884
Favorite 77s album: The Funky Crow Thang
Location: Loveland, CO.... "I told my mother when I was four years old I wanted to be a Rock and Roll singer and a dishwasher. And that's kinda how it's worked out."
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I have a new location now... 
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(this is my official work photo, BTW... 
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06-03-2005 05:51 |
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j77
unregistered
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Michael Roe is the epitome of everything that is Right about music and Wrong about the industry. He writes his own songs and his band, The Seventy Sevens, play their own instruments. Their music is the very existence of Rock and Roll, and when it comes right down to it, the man can flat out play guitar.
If you're not interested in New Music that is not prepackaged, Creed will have another album out soon. Vaya con dios, pero vaya.
That last line is hilarious and so true.
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06-03-2005 06:30 |
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Alex
Mr. Magoo
Registration Date: 05-01-2005
Posts: 894
Favorite 77s album: Eighty Eight
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
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| RE: Good Article from a fan |
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| quote: |
Originally posted by phreak
They never wrote a song "for the radio," but any number of their songs could've been huge if anyone with access to a corporate radio play list had ever heard them play. |
"Write us a hit, Bongo!" (Liner note to "MT")
Sadly, it didn't work out the way they planned from the start.
Alex
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06-03-2005 11:52 |
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sirjakeyjake
Praying Naked
Registration Date: 07-29-2004
Posts: 554
Favorite 77s album: S&S
Location: WEST COAST, BABY!
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| RE: Good Article from a fan |
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Great article. That was very close to the one from that mag in San Fran that somebody shared on the ListSrv a while back. (was that you, Linda?)
Thanks for sharing,
__________________
=jb=
"We are the music makers,
and we are the dreamers of dreams."
----------Willy Wonka----------
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06-03-2005 15:47 |
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Audiori J
unregistered
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Dang it... do I have to be a Swaggert fan now?
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06-06-2005 10:28 |
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