Word: banding
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Nick Hexum, lead singer of the reggae-rock band 311, bought a 5.5-acre mango-tree-lined island near Key West, Fla., as a getaway from his hectic touring life. Fittingly, he changed its name from Money Key to Melody Key. His house rests on stilts and is built in the shape of two hexagons in order to better weather hurricanes. It has a pool, air-conditioning and Internet access. Hexum spends much of his time there snapper-fishing and scuba-diving. "Maybe it's too sleepy for some people, but that's what I go down there...
...their heart of hearts," says Stew (real name: Mark Stewart), the creator and composer of Passing Strange, "I think every rock-'n'-roll guy who always laughs at the American musical in truth wants to write a musical. You don't want to be with a touring band every night. And it gives you a chance to tell a story." A native of Los Angeles who has been recording albums and doing cabaret shows with his band, the Negro Problem, for the past 10 years, Stew, 46, had seen only one musical--How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying...
Dramatically, the show feels a little padded (shorter stays and another stop on this tour might have helped), but musically, it's original and extraordinarily winning. Stew, a bald, bespectacled guitarist who leads the band and narrates, is a professorial presence onstage whose flat, prosy singing voice gives an ironic grounding to the lyrical, gently rocking melodies. He's a model of a new kind of stage composer, one neither steeped in Broadway tradition nor reacting overtly against it. "Without casting any aspersions," says Stew, "I don't think most of the so-called rock onstage sounds like anything...
...around since the mid-nineties, but it also seems to be a function of the venue. Somerville Theater has found a unique niche market, catering to a somewhat older demographic with established indie artists who haven’t “sold out.” While the band was kept to a fairly low volume, everyone sat politely until the last note of each song stopped ringing. Though songs from “Distortion,” the band’s newest album, are covered in layers of shoegaze distortion, feedback, and electronic effects, the live performance...
...made the terrible mistake of sitting right in front of the Columbia band section. My ears are going to start bleeding any second...