Thursday, November 11, 2004

 

Parchman Farm are playing at Café Du Nord this evening, but I can’t make it cuz I’m deejaying tonight. I’ll go and see them another day, tho. They’ll be playing in December when I am available. Who are Parchman farm, you may ask?

Long story made short: Allyson Baker moved to San Francisco from Canada with the intention of creating a heavy rock band. This band, as she tells it, would eventually become Parchman Farm. (Parchman Farm being the old blues tune by Bukka White, not the real-life prison made into legend by the Coen Brothers movie O Brother Where art Thou) In Toronto, Carson Binks' band was falling apart, so he took a vacation to visit the Bay area. By that time, Allyson had been playing with a solid drummer by the name of Chris La Breche. Allyson knew Chris from his days in the Deadly Snakes, found out he was in town and asked him to ditch the sax he used to play for the bass guitar, and to play it like he was buttering ass. As soon as they hit their first notes, they knew it was on, but they needed a singer. Eric Shea stepped up, looking for a new project to sink his teeth into as their lead singer.

Baker, Binks, and La Breche are like new additions to the Frisco nightlife, but San Francisco won’t find Shea to be a mystery, he has put himself into the heat of the musical maelstrom for years. He was a member of Mover, the country-rock band that could have taken the No-Depression world by storm had it not been for artistic differences that caused its demise. He hosted a weekly acoustic open-mic night called the Monday Night Hoot until the venue (and the city’s rock scene) got bigger and the hoot got the boot, and he has been championing the legacy of Gram Parsons by putting together the annual charity event called Sleepless Nights, where West Coast bands pay tribute to Parsons onstage, playing for free, and donating the proceeds to the Haight Ashbury Free Health Clinic.







The new project, Parchman Farm, has swelled beyond their expectations, with shows booked in the best San Francisco halls, playing with some of the city’s best players. Rumors began spreading of them opening for a re-united Mountain at the Warfield circulated the crowded shows at the Ivy Room or at the El Rio, but still the band took it in stride. They are a young band, having been together for under a year, and they are on the verge of discovering themselves in the process. Their live performances are a free form pastiche of ideas that gel and slip away from each other as the songs unite only to give way to the next big sexy psychedelic groove. “I think that we’re totally in transition,” says Allyson, whose smoldering presence onstage, and warm distorted guitar sounds throw fuel to Binks' blistering bass lines, each riff escalating the progression until all four band members are hovering around the drum set, heads bobbing and hair everywhere.

They dismiss it when I mention that they sound like a stoner rock band, with all of their loud and fuzzy, psychedelic references to Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Hawkwind. Instead, they reference Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and the early Motown recordings as influencing their sounds just as much as Blue Cheer. “We don’t want to pin ourselves into a corner by labeling ourselves, or adhering to genres,” says Shea, “We’re more into funk rhythms and a lot of harmonies.”

LaBreche goes on to explain how important the live experience is; even referring to it as an organic event that includes participation from the audience. “Rock’n roll, or going to see live rock’n roll is a physical thing, though,” says Binks, with dirty blonde hair and a pretty boy face belying the immensity of his playing skills, wherein his fingers move so fast across the fret boards they might fly from his hands at any moment, “People think we’re a loud band, but we’re not a punishing band. It’s more of a sensual thing, like you feel the reverberations in your sternum. It’s heavy, but funky and uplifting. It’s pop music that’s played really heavy, which is much more exciting and sexy.”

“When it happens it feels sort of like a Jacuzzi,” Shea says, “and being able to kick back with the bubbles on all around you.”

After their very first San Francisco show, Nick Tangborn was impressed enough to quickly snag them to release their first record on Jackpine Social Club, the little record label he slugs away for.
“Eric Shea's been a friend of mine for a few years. I dug his old band and seeing him solo, but this time he's doing what he really wants to do,” Tangborn explains in his matter-of-fact way, “He’s such a filthy hippie anyway, now he can hide under his hair and scream like a banshee.”

Taking that into account, look at Parchman Farm’s gig schedule. They have done shows with folk acts, post-punk bands with disco lean, prog-rock bands, and country-rock bands. All of whom seem to have little in common with them, but always playing with high caliber acts. It’s as if the heyday of San Francisco’s summer of love is re-lived, with no boundaries. Are we experiencing a resurgence of the acceptance of different sounding bands on the same bills and who cares if they are so absolutely different?

“I think we're finally seeing some cross-pollination,” says Nick Tangborn, “San Francisco has always had good bands, but each scene is so insular. It seems like the proliferation of new venues in the city, combined with a bunch of people determined to either play good music or helps promote it, is leading to a real upswing in good bands --both quantity wise and quality wise.”

Shea is quick to remind us of the Parchman Farm goal and that is to “make the best Rock and Roll that money can buy,” but it aint about money with this group. They are four closet heshers who have come out of the shadows to seductively scratch that public itch. That is, we all want to rock. When the work week is over, and us common folks need to let it all hang out and just fuckin’ rock, Parchman Farm is gonna be there. The debut release from Parchman Farm is due out in November on Jackpine Social Club Records.

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posted by Hog 5:20 PM