Art of the Deal

Worcester's favorite Who-inspired outfit proves it was worth the wait

by John O'Neill

It was a fine Thursday evening in late May; it threatened rain but was unseasonably warm. And much to the relief of Worcester Phoenix staffers, the Tammany Club was wall-to-wall walloped; even though Seinfeld's final episode played in the corner, a general good-time feeling was flowing like dollar drafts. So when the Deal picked up their Best Music Poll award for Best Pop/Rock Band, it was extra nice they had a chance to play original songs in front of a roomful of peers instead of peppering the performance with covers. The fact that they blew the roof off the joint during their six-song set reflected a hard-won coming-out party for a trio who had never gained much respect. And, as there was a CD in the works, things never looked more promising for Worcester's number-one distiller of Who-inspired bash and of pre-punk pop.

Cut to the scene of the Deal's ultimate moment; only now it's cold as a witch's tit outside, Seinfeld is a somewhat-distant memory, and, some 20 months after receiving their plaque and taking a victory lap, the band are finally, finally ready to celebrate the release of their debut disc. Accordingly given the tongue-in-cheek, will-it-ever-get-here title Upcoming (BFD), the disc and its release party are a slow train coming -- if you're into understatements. Upcoming, after all, became such a lengthy project that even the band began to have doubts about it.

"Yeah, there was a point [where I thought it would never be finished]," says guitarist John Donovan while sipping a Bass next to a table loaded with the band's about-to-be-introduced product. "It got to the point of putting the boot up the proverbial ass. All the basic tracks were there, we just had to frost the cake. Plus, there was the matter of this being our first CD. We had to muddle our way around. It was a fairly torturous process."

Recorded entirely at bassist Bill Nelson's Big Deal Studio, Upcoming was back-burnered while Nelson handled an expanding roster of clients. Because the band had already decided to scale back their performance schedule to work on the disc, they lost momentum. Add the usual "kids with new toys" aspect that seems to hamstring most bands' first trip to the studio, and you have an aces recipe for sluggishness. As Nelson relates, "We were riding high when we were playing out, and [momentum] slid down from there. We'd goof off and experiment, and, from a business aspect, the studio got real busy. There's no real excuse, it's circumstantial. If you want to do something right, you can't put in two hours a week."

After catching a second wind with a new batch of songs, Donovan and Nelson hunkered down with the tracks and finally managed to finish the disc in time for the New Year. And, while it's not anything that's going to revolutionize the way music is regarded, Upcoming is a pretty-solid statement from a band who have always walked a bizarre DMZ between being a hard-rocking cover act (an "influence purée," as Donovan puts it) and a proto-pretty pop band. That dichotomy is directly reflected in the album. It's a schizophrenic mix of tight, muscular, hook-filled material, but it also experiments with material and gimmickry that may have been better left alone.

Opening with the cool spaghetti-spy instro "Doodle," Upcoming heads into the syncopated groove of "Said and Done," the first glimpse of what can best be called over-thinking in the studio. "Not the Type" carries a middle-of-the-road safeness that, except for a ripping Donovan solo, also cools the album off. Luckily, "Like Today," a pop gem that shimmers vocally, picks up the pace to "Go Girl" (which cops the opening Holy Trinity of chords from "Smoke on the Water" and ends up becoming the great, lost Knack single). "Ladder" features Bill Nelson pulling an acoustic turn, and "Both Ends" is another fine popper that bows deeply to mid-'70s Cheap Trick while displaying drummer Dave Nelson's John Woo style -- fluid and beautiful somehow result from ugly chaos. It's obviously a jazz upbringing being scuttled in childhood by watching too much Keith Moon. "Higgie D" is a trippy number with funk that is usurped by a Beatles chorus, and "Remember When" is sung by Dave Nelson with such ragged simplicity that it owes as much to Tommy Stinson as it does to the Stones. "Outta Place" revisits the too-much-time-in-post-recording syndrome, while "Background" closes the disc out with an airy, experimental touch (there's also the show staple "Smack the Puppet" hidden as a bonus track) that seems to capture (with a much better result, though) what the band wanted to get across in the studio on numbers like "Outta Place" and "Said and Done." While Upcoming should be seen as a top-notch effort, it still seems to lack the fire they display during live shows. Edges have been sanded down, spastic drumming has been minimized, and Donovan's searing guitar is reeled in or layered with effects. So, though it isn't the killer it might have been, it's still worthy of notice.

"I may have spent too much time mixing. It's a slippery slope. I coulda been done a year ago, but it wouldn't have sounded as good," says Nelson. "After all the time it took us to do this, we gotta promote it as opposed to `well we sold 50 [tonight] and I got 950 left in the box!'"

Local Buzz

It took a while, and it was completed with a stealth-like lack of attention, but Marc Copley (formerly Barnicle) has signed a deal with industry biggie RCA Records. The James Montgomery/Mary Lou Lord sideman also received every condition he asked for in the contract, which is highly unusual. Congrats. Our fingers are crossed here at HQ. Prize Fighter are wrapping up pre-production and getting ready to head into the studio with producer Brian McTernan (whose credits include the Promise Ring, Texas is the Reason, and Garrison). Speaking of Garrison, the band are in the studio working with Kurt Ballou on material for their first full-length release on Revelation Records. The band played some of the upcoming material at the Lucky Dog's Local Musicians for Local Heroes benefit. It's been awhile since the Worm had a true-blue, ass-kickin', old-school, beer-swigging bar band to root for, but the Ugly Americans might fill the bill. With only one gig under their belt, they, we reckon, could be the best thing for local taverns since the Furies. Just stick them in the corner and let 'em rip. The Jay Tyer Quartet, without question one of the area's top-three contemporary jazz outfits, have released their debut disc, Metacomet. And it's sublimely fabulous. Make sure to call WICN and request it.