It's pushing noon when Steven Bernstein croaks a hello over the phone. Last night had been a big to-do. The slide trumpeter, arranger, composer and leader of Sex Mob played the first segment of a high-profile rainforest benefit at Carnegie Hall organized by Sting's wife, Trudy Styler. Bernstein wrote the arrangement for Elton John's version of the "Woody Woodpecker" theme, as well as played in the big band.
It's all in a hectic day's work for the 42-year-old, who built his rep as a denizen of New York's avant-garde "downtown" scene, and has been steadily expanding his horizons. The following day, Friday, calls for mixing his new Diaspora Hollywood album, a slate of Jewish songs performed in West Coast jazz style to be released on John Zorn's Tzadik label. The next evening is a reunion gig with his former band Spanish Fly. Monday nights are reserved for his critically lauded Millennial Territory Orchestra at the club Jazz Standard.
Over the last couple of months, Bernstein wrote six horn arrangements and played on guitarist Bill Frisell's forthcoming album, produced and played on a new project by the trendy L.A. band Shivaree, performed on a Medeski Martin & Wood session, and wrote music for a Visa commercial featuring George Steinbrenner and Derek Jeter.
"The thing about a musician's life is, it's up and down," Bernstein says matter-of-factly. "Right now, it's up."
If all this were not enough, Bernstein was set to head out with Sex Mob on a short Southern tour the following Wednesday. "Quite honestly, I'd make more money if I stayed home," he says. "But the real gift of being a musician is getting in front of people and playing for them."
And that doesn't mean strictly in the Northeast, as is often the case with New York's hippest forward-thinking musicians. While many of their peers seem stuck in the rarified air of Manhattan, Sex Mob can take its music to the hinterlands because, well, the quartet knows how to stir up a party. Featuring alto saxophonist Briggan Krauss, acoustic bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen (replaced on this tour by Calvin Weston, who's played with Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer, the Lounge Lizards and others) and Bernstein's slurry slide trumpet, the Mob plays greasy, funky, gutbucket music that bridges the gap between storied jazz tradition and no-holds-barred futurism. The band made their bones by taking songs like the Stones' "Ruby Tuesday," Prince's "Sign O' the Times" and the James Bond theme and running them through their brawny instrumental mill.
The upcoming Tampa Bay stops, their fourth or fifth time through, will find Sex Mob mixing in originals. The quartet's latest CD, Dime Grind Palace (Rope-a-Dope), was nearly all written by Bernstein. "I had done basically five CDs of covers," he explains. "It was time to write for the band."
Bernstein characterizes that process as "Easy. For about a month before recording, I wrote music every day and every night, in pencil in a notebook. Basically, when the notebook was filled, I went back and saw what I had and started refining the stuff. The concept of the record was to capture a moment in time. Records used to be done that way. Now they're projects. I wanted to get back to the concept of documenting a moment of my life in music."
Fans of Sex Mob's daring, often humorous covers will likely warm easily to the original material. The band maintains its sleazy sonic palette, and delivers the same sort of sludgy funk, raggedy ensemble work, skronky solos and helter-skelter eclecticism — this time augmented by an array of guest musicians who include underground trombone king Roswell Rudd and slide guitar wizard Dave Tronzo.
Bernstein is itching to get to Florida, where several towns, including Tampa, have rolled out the welcome mat. The trumpeter has a particularly fond memory of playing the now-defunct Atomic Age Café in Ybor City. Around 2 a.m., he and his mates took the music out onto Seventh Avenue, the crowd rallying around. Sex Mob had to drive to the Carolinas in a few hours, but Bernstein wouldn't have chosen to be anywhere else. He was, after all, playing for the people.
Contact Senior Writer Eric Snider at 813-248-8888, ext. 114, or eric.snider@weeklyplanet.com.
EL PASAJE PLAZA
6-7 p.m. — COLD JOON/DUNDU DOLE Warming up El Pasaje will be this dizzying Bay area cultural melange that combines Afro groove, pop hooks and pure celebration. The West African dance and drum group Dundu Dole, with their colorful costumes and exotic moves, will up the ante. —ERIC SNIDER
7:20-8:30 p.m. — THE CLUMSY LOVERS Americana and jam-scene fans alike are steadily warming to this rising British Columbia combo. The band ably mixes rootsy Appalachian bluegrass with a conspicuous Celtic influence, and delivers it with hooks and raw insurgent-country energy. —SCOTT HARRELL
8:50-10 p.m. — RONNIE BAKER BROOKS This fiery singer/guitar-slinger formed his own band in '99 after spending a dozen years as lead guitarist and bandleader for his legendary pops, Lonnie Brooks. He's coming back after a terrific performance at the Tampa Bay Blues Festival in early April. —ES
10:20-11:30 p.m. — THE DEMPSEYS They're a tight, fiery rockabilly spectacle, one that holds the singular distinction of being the house band at the Tennessee club Elvis Presley's Memphis. The group's late-night Cantina set at Heatwave 2002 held a crowd in thrall despite the time slot — so much so that the throng demanded an encore. —SH
11:50 p.m.-end — BROTHER How does mixing didgeridoos and dueling bagpipes sound? How about throwing in bass, percussion, guitar and vivid vocal harmonies on genre-defying songs? Up for some tribal grooves? Australia's indigenous BROTHER brings this heady brew. —ES
CUBAN CLUB BANDSHELL
6:30-9:30 p.m. — LITTLE LOUIE VEGA One of house music's most enduring names, DJ/producer and Bronx native Vega was brought up in a household full of Latin musicians. He was a DJ at the legendary Studio 54 during the early '80s before becoming half of production team Masters at Work and a godfather of the NYC house scene. —SH
10-11:30 p.m. — DIBLO DIBALA AND MATCHATCHA Zairean guitarist Dibala played one of Heatwave's more memorable sets as a member of Loketo. Now he returns with some of the same musicians as Matchatcha, and will no doubt get the springy soukous grooves going. —ES
11:50 p.m.-end — SEX MOB Call it danceable avant-gutbucket. Led by slide trumpeter Steven Bernstein, NYC's Sex Mob throws down the party while reinventing some of jazz's most storied traditions. See accompanying feature. —ES
CUBAN CLUB CANTINA
6:15-7:15 p.m. — TROUBLED HUBBLE The Illinois alt-pop quartet has been compared to such left-of-center acts as Built to Spill, Modest Mouse and They Might Be Giants. —ES
7:30-8:30 p.m. — MAGGI, PIERCE & E.J. This charming, eccentric Philly trio dubs their sound "down-home farm-city junk music." Modern folk of an entirely different stripe. —ES
8:45-9:50 p.m. — AGAINST ME! An evolution of singer/guitarist Tom's early days belting punk tunes over acoustic guitar as a solo act, explosive Gainesville four-piece Against Me! takes its cues from the eclectic D.I.Y. populism of Billy Bragg, The Clash and The Pogues. —SH
10:05-11:10 p.m. — HAMELL ON TRIAL Socially observant one-man acoustic-guitar army Hamell on Trial has long been an MNF favorite. Funny, frenetic and brutally honest, Hamell stalks the stage like some kind of art-scene revivalist preacher, bracketing eclectic, sweaty songs with hilarious stories, confessions and rants. Good stuff. —SH
11:25 p.m.-12:25 a.m. — THAT 1 GUY S'far as we can recollect, Heatwave has never featured a fella who delivers future funk on a 7-foot-tall homemade instrument called "The Pipe." Hell, it's about time. —ES
12:40 a.m.-end — ELF POWER Expect hooky, fuzzbox-laden melodies and witty, literary lyrics. The band's star looms ever larger on the Athens alt-rock scene, though they haven't quite made a commercial breakthrough — yet. Elf Power's newest album, Walking With the Beggar Boys, just hit the shelves in April, and it got stuck in my truck's CD player for a week. Not that I minded. —MARK SANDERS
CUBAN CLUB BALLROOM
6:45-7:45 p.m. — SKINNY MCGEE & HIS MAYHEM MAKERS This West Central Florida rockabilly trio has become a staple of rockabilly fests, WMNF benefits, and pretty much any Skipper's bill they can grab. Skinny's voice has been often and favorably compared to that of the late, great Johnny Cash. —SH
8:05-9:20 p.m. — MIDNIGHT RAMBLERS The six-piece blends veteran talent from some of Florida's favorite swing and jump-blues bands of the last decade. —ES
9:40-11:10 p.m. — PAUL CEBAR AND THE MILWAUKEEANS Another multi-culti, pan-ethnic freakout. Cebar's been at it a long time, blending soul, African, Latin, reggae, rock and just about anything else he can think of. The band currently includes two percussionists, bass, guitar, and a guy who plays sax, keys and accordion. —ES
11:30 p.m.-end — ROCKSTEADY@8 The local supergroup, now five years old, includes former members of Magadog, Strangeways and Amandla Tunesmith. They play classic Jamaican stylee, from ska to rocksteady to roots reggae. —ES
ORPHEUM
6:30-7:30 p.m. — NINI CAMPS With a penchant for Latin rhythms, Miami-raised, New York-based Camps lets her acoustic guitar ring through on most songs, with lap steel guitars adding texture occasionally but rarely overshadowing her velvety singing voice. —MS
7:50-9:05 p.m. — PSYCHO DAISIES W/CHARLIE PICKETT Psycho Daisies came storming out of Miami to become an essential part of Florida's '80s underground with their visceral garage-y rock 'n' roll. The band will be joined by Charlie Pickett, former leader of the vaunted Charlie Pickett & the Eggs, who comes out of retirement and plays Heatwave for the first time since headlining in '83. —ES
9:15-10:15 p.m. — ANNE McCUE She's heartfelt and likeable. McCue's songs are relaxing, will probably stick in your head for about two weeks, and make for perfect outdoor listening. She's familiar with sun-stroked stages, having rocked Lilith Fair for two years and toured with Lucinda Williams. McCue's is one of the folksier sets of the fest. —MS
10:35-11:35 p.m. — NO CHOICE Muscular, melodic old-school punk 'n' roll act No Choice originally formed in Wales in 1981. Their fervently socialist politics made fame pretty much an impossibility in the Reagan/Thatcher era, but repressive times often spawn amazing (and amazingly astute) underground music, and the return of a similar climate has brought the band back along with it. —SH
Midnight-end — IRRITABLE TRIBE OF POETS The jazzy ensemble specializes in laying down smoky grooves for poets and spoken-word artists. Hip, in a neo-beatnik kinda way. —ES
NEW WORLD BREWERY
6:30-7:25 p.m. — THE DIVINERS Not a lot to tell you, other than the fact that it's head Pagan Saint/Murder Creek crooner Will Quinlan's new project. Word is, Quinlan's mildly Celtic alt-country tendencies share speaker space with classic pop hooks, and ace drummer Jimmy Rice (last seen playing bass in the Pagan Saints) is back behind the kit, where he blew minds with the likes of Clang and the Joey Sunshine Band. —SH
7:40-8:35 p.m. — ST. FELONS St. Petersburg's Hunter Oswald, the former drummer of the exceedingly fine Gotohells, steps to the mic to front St. Felons, a rambunctious rock 'n' roll act that owes as much to the Stones and J. Geils as to punk. —ES
8:50-9:45 p.m. — RED TIDE You know we love these guys. Creative, forward-thinking and wildly talented, they're not only the multiethnic face of Tampa Bay indie hip-hop, but have set the standard for originality, flow and live rap performance as well. —SH
10-10:55 p.m. — THE SEMIS So-so rock bands can get by on a psychotic reputation alone, and Tampa's The Semis could draw crowds solely on the strength of theirs if they had to. Even better, then, that the tunes are top-notch bursts of fuzz, hook and psychedelic guitar meandering. —SH
11:10 p.m.-12:05 a.m. — CRASH MITCHELL QUARTET Roots-punk instigator Mitchell was a stalwart supporter of WMNF and the Bay area original-music scene before relocating to Atlanta, and it seems he's only gotten more fervent since. He certainly does ply his quartet's rough-hewn, smart-ass cowpunk more around here than he does in his adopted hometown. You can take the man-boy out of Tampa … —SH
12:20 a.m.-end — THE WASHDOWN This R&B-infused dance-punk quintet caught a lot of flak locally for moving up in the world. (What were they supposed to do, play the New World forever?) After a well-received EP, the group's proper Lookout Records full-length, Yes to Everything, was released this past February. Its sinewy skewed-blues grooves may have inspired cynics to label them garage-rock bandwagoneers, but both the band's dissonant eccentricities and its unhinged live sets are unimpeachable. —SH
Tropical Heatwave, Saturday, May 1, Cuban Club and other venues close by, Ybor City. Tickets: $25 advance (813-238-8001 or www.tropicalheatwave.org), $30 at the gate. Also during the event, WMNF is collecting canned food items for America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay, which provides food for nearly 140,000 needy households in west central Florida. Donation bins are provided at Heatwave, so raid your cupboard and bring along anything you can for the cause.
This article appears in Apr 29 – May 5, 2004.