True blue

Mr. Airplane Man strike the chords of the soul

by John O'Neill

The last time anyone in Worcester recalls Westborough's Margaret Garrett being around was at an all-night, substance-fueled hootenanny that developed one Saturday night after her band Blow had finished up a gig at Ralph's. Full of noodling, rants, raps, and mild hallucinations, the impromptu house party didn't break till the sun did. Not too long after, the Sonic Youth-inspired outfit graduated from Clark and faded into oblivion. Garrett meanwhile moved to Cambridge, snapped her cap one day over a Howlin' Wolf number she heard while record shopping, and set out for San Francisco with childhood friend Tara McManus to start a music career as Mr. Airplane Man. After a relatively fruitless year's stint on the West Coast, the duo returned to the Hub and immediately started playing around the Central Square area.

"We were totally working on tips, trying to pay the rent; and we just barely did it," says McManus with a giggle. "We were out all day playing every day for seven or sometimes 10 hours. We worked really hard the last year. Maybe it's because we both quit our jobs and went for it. Like, `fuck it,' either we'll make it or we won't."

With a cheap guitar for Garrett and a plastic bucket for McManus -- and a hunger to play Delta-inspired raunch -- the Airplane gals hunkered down on the pavement, wailing away for the crowd. They soon attracted the attention of your more-than-average passersby, not the least of whom were Morphine's Mark Sandman and writer (W.C. Handy award winner for blues journalism and former Phoenix writer) Ted Drozdowski, who signed on to manage the band after catching them playing outside a liquor store.

"We got lucky," McManus confides. "We got to meet a lot of people and get a lot of gigs by playing in the street."

From there, the duo have been on a rocket ride from house party to House of Blues, winning the praise of blues giants Koko Taylor and R.L. Burnside to wrinkled scene veterans like Peter Wolf. Old folk, skate punks, blues traditionalists, even jaded writers are already on board or taking the jump onto the MAP bandwagon.

And that's because they stir up the VIBE: that unspecified something that exists deep inside -- a primal urge that's been encoded somewhere along the DNA helix that forced the first musician to grab a rock and whack it against a tree stump. You can hear it in Hank Williams's hiccup, see it in Dex Romweber's tortured face, feel it in Jeffrey Lee Pierce's fractured guitar bursts, even be drilled to the wall as it radiates from Lux Interior's eyes. Most certainly Howlin' Wolf's soul was possessed by it as few before or since have, and now Mr. Airplane Man join the short list of those tapping into the bedrock that causes gin mills to heave and makes Baptist ministers start yammering about Satan.

With their self-titled debut (with four tracks produced by Sandman) Mr. Airplane Man not only manage to conjure up the specter of Wolf, they also call on the spirit of everyone from Charley Patton and Fred McDowell to Congo Powers-era Cramps and the Gun Club. Garrett howls and moans as if she were scraped off a back porch somewhere on the Mississippi Delta, and McManus drums with the primitive big-beat encrypted in her right hand. Garrett-penned originals run a twisted gamut that, while keeping low to the dirt, stray well beyond the boundaries of conventional blues. "Highway" introduces muddy psychedelia. "My Hand" becomes a backwoods chant; and even a cover of Wolf's own "Moanin' for My Baby" gets a healthy dollop of fuzz-guitar treatment.

"I don't really see us as a blues band, but that is how people perceive us," says McManus. "I don't know what we are. I'm glad we can play blues clubs, but I like playing rock clubs. It's nice we can go in both worlds. People are so divided, I'm glad we can be in lots of different scenes. And I love playing on the street because that's a whole other scene we wouldn't play to. Our biggest fans are older people who dance and jump and don't care that they may look like fools!

"I think people respond to something that's real, cuz there's so much phony, packaged bullshit. There's so much pressure about `songwriting,' real self-absorbed, dense songs. It gets boring. I think people respond to old songs with old structure. Margaret's really talented, and we both have a real strong idea of the sound we want."

Mr. Airplane Man take the next step with a regional tour opening for Morphine (they make their Worcester debut at Gilrein's this Friday night) and have a recording date at Mississippi's Fat Possum Records. And that's all within a year of playing for pocket change.

"It is happening so fast, I'm not sure what's going to happen. We just really want to tour," says McManus of the band's future. There has been rumblings of label interest. "I don't know how the label thing will go.

"It's funny, cuz so many people told us we were doing everything wrong that first summer on the street. We didn't have a press kit. We were too busy practicing ten hours a day . . ."

McManus trails off for a few moments while trying to put the last year into context. "I'm so broke! I'm not allowed to say in interviews that I'm not in it for the money! But too many bands spend too much time trying to suck up to the industry. If you just play your ass off, good things can happen."