Barbeque'd riffs

It's a good time in the Trailer Park

by John O'Neill

The plan is a simple one: ride the vortex. Heck, the raw power that fuels rock music has been around for almost 50 years; and if you wanted to go Darwin, you might make a case for the first Neanderthal who beat two sticks together. Most, however, would point directly to Elvis shaking his hips as the start of it all. Like the beating of butterfly wings that eventually leads to the monsoon half the world away, the pelvis may very well have sent out the first energy wave that was furthered by Jerry Lee's and Richard Penniman's frantic gyrations, and fanned along by Pete Townsend's pinwheeling right arm. The all-powerful force that sent James Brown to his knees caused Otis Redding to shimmy and shake across the stage, and (in a classic case of overwhelming the unprepared) forced Jack Ely to jump in early on the final verse of "Louie Louie" only to bail out and leave his poor drummer to fill the gapping hole. Still, the vortex was so strong, the song climbed to number two on the charts. And Trailer Park are banking on the same energy -- that prompts girls to shriek and guys to swill -- to put them over the top, too.

"It's phenomenal that a band that plays 98 percent original music plays constantly, and expands the fanbase," says vocalist/guitarist James Robinson. "We're happy doing what we're doing. Playing out, writing songs. If enough people hear us, we'll do okay. The vortex of energy will get bigger and bigger."

Formed in 1995 after founding members Tom Mahnken and Greg Lauzon returned from a prolonged stint in New Orleans, where they soaked up the Radiators, Backsliders, and especially the Iguanas, Trailer Park decided their calling was to bring a little fun back into the club scene. Thus, they developed "Barbeque Music." And what exactly is Barbeque Music?

"Well, it's our self-penned genre. It's basically something we wanted to create [for] our own little place in the music world," admits Robinson. "It's [influenced] by old rock and roll, Latin rhythms -- music that you can dance to."

That being the case, Trailer Park's barbecue offers up quite a menu to pick from. Freewheeling and spirited, the band's third disc, Happy Again (Majestic Records), covers the spectrum of party-friendly sounds and boils it down to a spicy R&B-flavored goulash (I know, "ouch, already" with the food thing). "Good Time Music" (with a title that suggests it might come from a Blasters' album) is a tribute to early rockers like Berry, Elvis, B.B., and Howlin' Wolf; and it's a dead ringer for something out of the Gary U.S. Bonds songbook. Meanwhile, "Bucket Made in China" (the title being the song's only lyrics) is easily mistaken for a Latin Rhythms in Hi-Fi number cut by some obscure pre-Castro Cuban outfit. "Ian Lives," a more tongue-in-cheek number, explores cult of personality by-way-of some cat named Ian ("I saw `Ian lives' painted on a steel girder [in Chicago] about 10 stories up and thought it would be a good title.") takes a pseudo Bo Diddley beat and dumps Jamaican-style brass over the top, while "When I Fell Down" bounces along with third-wave ska meets Barenaked Ladies. "Suzette," the album's longest number, owes as much to Howlin' Wolf as it does to Morphine, and "Spy Boy" crosses the wires of a Saturday-morning-cartoon theme with Lee Hazelwood instros. It's an album of well-produced, well-played, and well-written material with big horn muscle and just enough brains that the band can successfully jump from one hoop to the next, all in the name of hoping people will call it fun.

"That's the purpose of putting this band together -- lets give people credit for being intelligent and feeling the music no matter what genre it's in," explains Robinson of their motive. "Tom and I listen to so many genres, and that came out in the writing process. Why not get people to laugh and dance? It's [something] that's been lost for two decades or so."

So Trailer Park soldier on in the name of good timin', packing dance floors all over the area (they hit the Plantation Club this Friday) and stirring up the power of the vortex. They rock, you roll. They smoke, you sweat. And when the evening breezes across the finish line, and everyone mops the sweat from their forehead, there's a feeling of renewal that's inherent when you stomp and shout and work it on out. Trailer Park wouldn't have it any other way.

"Because we can finance ourselves, we can continue to do [music like this]. To get label interest, where they want you to toe the line . . . give you suggestions on what road to go down, that's kind of strange," says Robinson. "[I like] that people can look forward to a hot, sweaty night of beer and dancing with some cool music."

Free For All

It was an offer you couldn't refuse, unless of course you believed in trivialities like free speech. As reported last week in the Worcester Phoenix, the city, namely the Parks Commission, attempted to stifle bands who use what could be considered conceivably naughty words on city property. The commission had threatened to shut down MAFIO's Musicfest after one verbal warning. According to MAFIO's meeting minutes with the city, it was the biggest issue facing the organization's outdoor festival (originally slated for last week, due to rain it has been changed to this Saturday at Cristoforo Columbo Park) -- ahead of both trash collection and parking. Less than twenty-four hours after the Worcester Phoenix hit the street, the city was doing an egg-in-face back pedal, insisting that a "gentlemen's agreement" of sorts had been reached among outfits performing in the MAFIO Summer Music Fest and Locobazooka. Musicians, city officials said, agreed they would refrain from using potentially inflammatory language in their acts. The city also stated that should objectionable language be uttered, it wouldn't (and frankly, couldn't) shut the show down. Which is quite constitutional of it. Special thanks to ACLU bear Ronal Madnick who was seeing such a shade of Commie red after reading our story that he threatened to file an injunction against the city, just because it was the right thing to do.