PULLING BACK THE COVERS, CONTINUED FROM PG. 23
We buy all day-every day LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
BUY • SELL • TRADE GUITARS • DRUMS • AMPS PRO SOUND • KEYBOARDS
BAND INSTRUMENTS 4341 Old William Penn Hwy, Monroeville 412-85-MUSIC Monday-Saturday 10am-8pm www.musicgoroundmonroevillepa.com NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE...
hind e b r e t n i W e v a Le lcome Spring and we at the Wurlitzer th theatre organ! thea Crystal Falls Theatre in Michigan, returns to Pittsburgh on April 5 at 2PM for a celebration of Spring at Keystone Oaks High School in Dormont.
Tickets
$15 in advance, $20 at the door. Students free.
Go to www.theatreorgans.com/PATOS for details. 24
COMING AND GOING
Why some musicians leave town ... and others move back {BY ANDY MULKERIN} The ages-old tale is that of the musician from Pittsburgh who lights out for somewhere else — Nashville, New York City, Los Angeles — because he or she can’t make a living playing music here. But it doesn’t always work exactly that way. Some musicians have moved to Pittsburgh and settled down, like saxophonist Erik Lawrence, who’s made a career playing with rock and jazz groups including a notable stint with the Levon Helm band. Others, like Brooke Annibale, leave Pittsburgh only to return. We talked to a handful of artists who either moved in, moved out or boomeranged, in order to find out what Pittsburgh lacks — and what it has that some cities don’t.
Erik Lawrence Erik Lawrence grew up in Nyack, N.Y., the son of famed saxophonist Arnie Lawrence. Besides New York, he lived in Vermont for a time; in 2012, he moved to Pittsburgh with his girlfriend, musician Brooke Smokelin (see page 28). “I had been playing with Levon Helm for years, and in 2012, he passed away,” Lawrence recalls. “Honestly, for that time period, I was satisfied being the saxophone player in my favorite band I’d ever played in, and doing original projects with my friends. … It seemed like a good time to leave; [New York] is an expensive place, and a lonely place, especially when the woman you love has already moved back to Pittsburgh.” “I didn’t want to stress the situation by coming in and pretending to be a big fish in a small pond” as a sax player with a global reputation, Lawrence explains. “And I’m not, in Pittsburgh. I have a lot of favorite saxophone players in this town, and I just love their playing.” As a seasoned musician, what would Lawrence like to see change here? “The thing that I feel needs some attention is — every place you go to see music, there’s no cover charge,” he says. “I’ve played with some of the upperechelon-type players here in Pittsburgh. And when you can only make ‘X’ amount of money per night, despite the quality that you’re bringing to the table, it’s really difficult. I’m not so much thinking about myself — although I’d love to make a living where I live — but I’m thinking of some of these great young musicians who are going to have to move out of the city in order to make a living, because 10 years
PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER 03.19/03.26.2014
CONTINUES ON PG. 28
started playing a couple times a week with guitarist Kathy Horne, who Kasan and Belback joke was “too smart and talented” to stay in the band. Payne, another Kim Phuc alum, eventually took over on guitar, and Jensen offered his services as a bassist. “We just wanted to find musicians who would goof around,” Kasan says. “All of my close friends who didn’t really know each other became good friends at once. It was pretty magical.” Band members claim that at first, no one liked The Gotobeds — not even their girlfriends. That is no longer the case. In the next few months, the group releases a record on 12XU, a label run by Matador Records co-owner Gerard Cosloy. Cosloy heard the band when it appeared on DJ Terre T’s Cherry Blossom Clinic, one of the most popular shows on New Jerseybased independent radio station WFMU. Terre T “said we were the nicest boys who have ever been on the show,” Kasan recalls with a grin. (“Weren’t we also the drunkest?” Payne asks “They made a beer run for us halfway through.”) Cosloy called into the show to find out more. There’s no mistaking the Gotobeds’ slacker aesthetic: “We know we’re not going to crack the charts” is Kasan’s attitude. But the key to their success might lie in asking for what they want, and knowing whom to ask. “Asking gets you so far,” Kasan says. “When Gerard said he liked our band, I said, ‘Will you put out our record?’” And when Cosloy asked what he could do for the band that they couldn’t do for themselves, Kasan was straightforward. “I said, ‘You have money and influence. We don’t.’ He said, ‘Gotcha. I can help.’ He wanted to make sure that we had realistic expectations.” For any band, there’s a challenge in negotiating the space between being accessible and pandering, between playing it cool and being assholes, between taking things too seriously and not taking them seriously enough. The Gotobeds are a lot of fun to listen to, but its ability to walk those fine lines might be its greatest asset. Maybe it all comes down to getting into the rock game for the right reasons. “We’ve already gone further than we dreamed of,” Kasan says. “I’ve been in other bands that were not fun. I want this to be as fun as possible. We all have stressful jobs, stressful relationships. This should be the least of it.” Cosloy asked the band to play a showcase at SXSW, one of the many unofficial events that crop up alongside the official festival schedule. “We stupidly booked this one show for free in the middle of the day, and then reverse-engineered the trip around it,” Kasan laughs.
But, again, asking came in handy. The band got in touch with an old Kim Phuc associate, booking agent Timmy Hefner, of the Chaos in Tejas festival. He put The Gotobeds on an official showcase with acts like Destruction Unit, Perfect Pussy and Back to Back. And while the members are grateful — “Some bands would kill to be part of the official thing,” Payne says — they’re not overly impressed with themselves. “We’re the only band going to SXSW who doesn’t think they’re going to make it big,” Kasan jokes. “We’re going to make it medium.” Anyway, he adds, the official festival isn’t that cool: “The unofficial thing has wilder parties and cooler times.”
“I want this to be as fun as possible.” A COUPLE DAYS after their Allentown practice session, band members load their gear into Gooski’s for their mini-tour sendoff show. In between carrying guitars and drum pieces, Kasan greets friends and wellwishers with the warmth of a rock ’n’ roll mayor. The Beagle Brothers are the openers, and while the inclusion of the country band is mildly confusing to some, several people agree that it’s nice to have only two bands on a show once in awhile. Belback notes that most bands play too long and that he can’t even think of any band he’d like to see play for more than 45 minutes. The Gotobeds, naturally, plan to stick to a 20- or 25-minute set. By the time they take the stage, the bar’s back room is crowded, though not too packed to dance, or slam yourself into other people, or dodge other flailing bodies. On stage, The Gotobeds have the same goofy, brotherly chemistry they had at practice, and seem to implicitly count audience members as co-conspirators in their antics. When someone buys the band shots, much of the audience spontaneously joins in on the toast. The band spends a lot of time grinning. So does the crowd. Kasan chugs beers between verses and plays guitar from all angles; all four band members climb around on their equipment. This is the kind of band that makes youngsters say, “That looks fun. I want to do that.” But any young would-be rockers would do well to take Kasan’s words to heart: “We work really hard, but it’s not work when it’s fun.” M W E L S H@ P G H C I T Y PA P E R. C OM