"I started really getting very much into bluegrass, and I just wanted to work more and play more nights," says Connole. "You can't do that with a group that's mostly an original band that has got X amount of people in your fan base, which is a laughable term when you're talking about the Revenants."
Self-effacement aside, the Pearl Chuckers are a genuine labor of love for Connole, who is a relatively recent convert to bluegrass. "Until a couple years ago, as far as I knew, it was The Beverly Hillbillies, and that fucking band on Andy Griffith," says Connole with a laugh.
It was late Zia Records founder Brad Singer who opened Connole's ears to the possibilities the music had to offer. "He made me a tape, and it had two old Stanley Brothers songs on it," recalls Connole. "One of them was "The Drunkard's Lament,' which was darker and more haunting than Bauhaus, or any of the stuff I used to listen to and really enjoy.
"It was also authentic, which made it even more scary. It's like, "This is real. This is about real fucked-up people.' These aren't some kids that are mad at their parents and trying to scare them. Since then I've been hooked."
Listening and exploring the music even further, Connole found his writing becoming heavily influenced by the Appalachian and Anglo-Celtic traditions found in bluegrass. Having composed more than a dozen songs that seemed to lend themselves easily to the style, he began developing plans to showcase the material in a side project. Connole had the songs and a rough set list, including some covers, ready for close to a year. But it was the involvement of former Flathead bassist Ruth Wilson that finally convinced him to move ahead.
Wilson has split the last few years between the Valley and Los Angeles, where she frequently performed as a solo artist. She returned to Phoenix last year, where she began work on a seven-song demo, under the name Blue Ruin, with guitarist Mario Moreno and Flathead drummer Vince Ramierez. Her involvement with Connole began when the two discussed the possibility of her joining the proposed bluegrass ensemble at a fiddle festival in Payson last year.
"To be honest with you, I'm a bad chauvinist," says Connole with a sheepish grin. "I always have been. And I was thinking, "I don't know about a girl,' and so on. She was asking me about it, and one day she showed up at the house to rehearse. And it sounded great. Most of all, she was willing to work as long as I wanted, whether it was four, five or six hours."
Wilson's dedication cemented Connole's decision to finally go ahead with the long-rumored project. Adding his Revenants bandmate Richard Taylor on acoustic guitar, the Pearl Chuckers were born.
The group's original catalogue includes an impressive array of songs, like "The Shape I'm In" and "Lila's Lament," that infuse bluegrass's "high, lonesome" sound with Connole's unique brand of dark wit. ""Lila's Lament' used to be called "Hooker's Lament,' but I figured, "You know, I gotta ease up on the hooker thing,'" says Connole laughing.
While the group has no immediate plans to make its material available, a recording of "Lila's Lament" can be downloaded at the Revenants' official Web site (www.therevenants.com).
At this point, Connole says the group is more concerned with improving its cohesiveness as a unit than any potential commercial considerations. "Bluegrass is almost like reggae music. There's nothing to fall back on and nothing to hide behind. You either play really tight and really smooth or it just sounds like crap. So we're just drilling the rhythm right now."
The band eventually plans on incorporating some of Wilson's originals into the mix, in addition to the handful of covers she already performs.
For Connole, the music offers a profound sense of purity that seems forgotten in modern music. "You get a feeling with this stuff that the guys that wrote these songs weren't thinking, "Hey, we're going to be on MTV and get laid,'" says Connole. "It's something they did purely for fun and enjoyment. Whatever it is that makes human beings make music, it seems to be more pure in bluegrass than I hear in other places."
The Pearl Chuckers are scheduled to perform every Sunday in August at the Green Room in Tempe.
Ricky, Don't Lose Our Number: The transformation of once-great music mag Rolling Stone into a glossier version of Tiger Beat was completed with an August 5 issue that featured a garish cover shot of a linen-clad Ricky Martin floating in a pool, surrounded by half a dozen naked women with the blurb "Ricky Gets Deep." Newsstand versions of the magazine loudly proclaimed its offer of a "FREE RICKY POSTER INSIDE." Not to be outdone by competing publications like 16, the poster is a two-sided affair, the first reproducing the cover shot (in which Martin looks suspiciously uninterested in the bevy of naked beauties floating around him) as well as a second portrait of a bubbly, rain-drenched Martin, clad in silver lamé cargo pants and straddling a motorcycle (needless to say, it doesn't appear that Martin will be joining his local chapter of the Hells Angels anytime soon).
The magazine has been in a long downward spiral that began accelerating after "Hootiegate." The 1996 incident surrounded the firing of music editor Jim DeRogatis for comments regarding his negative review of a Hootie and the Blowfish album, which Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner dutifully replaced with a favorable review he had penned himself.
Even those with less than a passing interest couldn't help but notice the publication's trend of putting scantily clad (or unclad) actresses on its cover for some years now. But the Martin story is another matter. Aside from the poster, the interview (minus the unintentionally hilarious interaction between Martin and writer Nancy Collins) reads more like a carefully screened fax Q&A. Certainly, "deep" isn't the adjective that comes to mind when describing questions like "Do you fall in love often?", "Have you ever had your heart broken?" and "Your schedule is almost inhuman. How do you cool out?"
Despite all this, New Times will be actively covering Martin leading up to his sold-out November 18 performance at America West Arena. At the very least, we promise that we will offer the most unique coverage of "Ricky Mania." Stay tuned.
Never Mind the Corpulent Rockers: Take a quick look at the Valley's upcoming concert calendar and you'll find it's filled with money-making nostalgia tours featuring the likes of Journey/Foreigner, Bad Company/Billy Squier and Mötley Crüe and the Scorpions. While the faceless corporate hacks and sagging glam metalers are getting most of the attention (and undoubtedly the ticket sales as well), there have been a large number of worthwhile shows passing through town this summer. This week is no exception, with a trio of promising bills slated for Friday, July 30. Indie rockers Creeps on Candy make their way through Phoenix with a performance at downtown's Modified. Across town, Austin, Texas, guitar slinger Jake Andrews offers up his brand of blues-based fret work at Tempe's Green Room.
For those who like their rock with a comically morbid sensibility, there's the Groovie Ghoulies. The Sacramento-based punk-pop quartet's sound is a split between Cheap Trick and the Ramones, but their lyrics and imagery are 100 percent horror-show camp.
On their recently released fifth album, Fun in the Dark (Lookout Records), the Ghoulies continue to explore their fascination with monster movies, aliens and general B-movie mayhem on originals like "(She's My) Vampire Girl," "Don't Make Me Kill You Again" and "(She's Got A) Brain Scrambling Device."
The group displays its versatility on Fun in the Dark with a pair of wildly ranging covers, offering up a fairly straight take on the New York Dolls' "Lonely Planet Boy" and a much more skewed interpretation of Sonny Bono's freak-flag-flying anthem "Laugh at Me."
The band has played everywhere from Lollapalooza to the California state capitol, but perhaps the most fitting stage it's ever appeared on was at a Roger Corman convention. Although the atmosphere will be decidedly less creepy, the group makes its return to the Valley (having won over a group of curious onlookers at the Green Room earlier this year) with a performance at the Nile Theater in Mesa this Friday. -- Bob Mehr
Creeps on Candy is scheduled to perform at Modified in Phoenix. Showtime is 9 p.m. Jake Andrews is scheduled to perform at the Green Room in Tempe. Showtime is 9 p.m. The Groovie Ghoulies are scheduled to perform at the Nile Theater in Mesa, with Mad Caddies, The Ataris, Eyeliners, and My Superhero. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. All three shows are scheduled for Friday, July30.