Hush little Lion, don't you cry...

Here's a token sports recap. They don't make for the best reads, since they date rather quickly, but at least this one manages to work a great singer-songwriter into the action.

THE SLEEP OF THE JUST MISSED

By David O’Connell

(published October 21, 2005 in the York Daily Record)

Elvis Costello once recorded a song entitled “Sleep of the Just.” Had he attended Thursday afternoon’s first-round District 3 field hockey playoff game between third-seeded Red Lion and 14th-seeded Cumberland Valley, he might have crooned about the “Sleep of the Just Missed.”

For that is the sleep that surely awaits Red Lion’s Sara Runkle for the foreseeable future. Runkle’s penalty stroke, which she hooked wide left of the goal with 2:16 remaining, proved to be the difference as the Cumberland Valley Eagles turned the lights out on Red Lion’s season, 1-0.

“Sara’s a senior, and she’s a good player,” said Lions coach Carol Gillmen, “but she had a little too much adrenaline, and it was just a little wide.”

Runkle’s shot at tying the game came after Cumberland goalie Kelly Tenan played mother hen to the brightly colored egg that was the ball and was whistled. Unfortunately for the Lions, they were destined for a goose-egg on the scoreboard.

“It was a hard fought game,” said Gillmen. “We just couldn’t get the ball in the net.”

The lion’s share of the Lions failure to score can be credited to the Eagles defense, which held the Lions to just five shots on goal. But Red Lion was not above returning the favor, doing the Eagles one better by yielding only four shots.

However, Cumberland one-upped Red Lion where it counts most: the scoreboard. Their lone goal came midway through the first half when Robin Fencel’s centering pass dribbled through a host of Lion defenders and found the end of Holly Alspaugh’s stick. She punched it into the net from a yard out, and though Cumberland had no way of knowing at the time, they had just won the game.

Still, Eagles coach Patrick Weigel was upset with himself after the game, in particular for a strategic move that backfired and kept the ball near the Eagles’ goal for much of the last 10 minutes of the game.

“That was one of my genius moves,” said Weigel. “We went with three backs and a sweeper, and I think we started thinking too much about protecting the lead.”

Not that Weigel wasn’t willing to credit the Lions for being a worthy foe.

“They’re just as good a team as we are,” he said. “Today we got done a little bit more than they did.”

The Eagles move on to face Carlisle in second round action.

Catalina caper

Here's another piece on a band that broke up not too long after I wrote about them. Poor, poor Salena Catalina. They were quite talented, actually.

So who will be the next victim of my curse? I'd put my money on Barry Glenn Davis. His label seems to have folded, and the contact info for both him and his Denis Learyesque-looking manager has yielded nothing. Is he still in the game? Haven't a clue.

RECORD REVIEW: SALENA CATALINA

By David O'Connell

(published October 23, 2003 in The York Dispatch)

How do I describe a relatively unknown band to thee? Let me count the ways. One trick is to reduce the band's identity to the end result of a pseudo-algebraic equation. If you like bands A and B, the reasoning goes, then you will just absolutely love this brand new band C that I am going to tell you all about, for they sound exactly like bands A and B put together. Of course, this method is only truly effective if the bands being referenced enjoy a large measure of popularity and/or infamy. So if Salena Catalina, a relatively unknown Pittsburgh-based quartet led by York Suburban graduate Lexi Rebert, combines the drugged-out experimentation of mid-60s Beatles with the new age stylings of Mr. John Tesh, then you, the music writer, have it made. As an added bonus, it affords you the opportunity to include a John Tesh 'large forehead' joke somewhere in your review, and those are always fun to do.

However, if Salena Catalina instead combines the sassy vocal stylings of Save Ferris with the wiry-sounding jazz-rock interplay of Soul Coughing, a comparison that is closer to reality, then you have raised more questions than you have answered. Questions such as: Just who is Soul Coughing, anyway? (Answer: A New York City band who released three records in the '90s, broke through at alternative radio in 1998 with the top 10 hit "Circles," and split up soon after.) Or: Yeah, I know who Soul Coughing is! They did that "Runaway Train" song, right? (Answer: No. You are thinking of Soul Asylum.) And: Hey, wasn't Save Ferris the slogan used in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off? (Answer: Yes. But a ska band adopted it as their moniker, and scored an alternative radio hit six years ago with a cover of Dexy’s Midnight Runners' "Come On Eileen.") To go such a route will likely distract your readership into fondly reminiscing about the 1986 hit movie that catapulted Matthew Broderick to stardom, and not giving a second thought to two cult bands they probably have never heard of anyway.

If the writer is of the deferential sort, he can always let the band and their associates pin the label on themselves. Salena Catalina bassist and primary songwriter Pete Bush attempted such a feat when a writer from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked him to describe the band’s music. "It’s the hardest question in the world for us to answer, because we have jazzy elements that I guess give it a slight jazz sound." he said. "But there’s kind of a pop catch to it there somewhere, and those old sex-jazz song cover versions we started out with is the sex thing in the whole jazz-sex-pop or however we’ve been describing ourselves."

I couldn't have said it more tentatively myself. In an early band bio, publicist Sean Enright dispensed with the kind-of's and the I guess's and offered up this description: "More than a band, they are a vibrant musical lapdance." A colorful way of putting it, and there certainly is a 'come-hither' element to Lexi’s vocals, but only a morbid stripper would inject words like "schizophrenic," "forensics," and "poisoned tree" into her sex talk. Also, I think Lexi might be a little too brainy and wordy to fit the aural sex kitten role that Sean has created for her. (Perhaps it gets harder to completely shut one's brain off when you are the daughter of a lawyer---in this case, York County District Attorney H. Stanley Rebert.)

More than that, Sean does Salena Catalina a mild disservice by placing the sexual overtones ahead of the music, which cannot be described adequately using the above models. For instance, take the song "Silky Smooth," which appears on their debut CD, Feel Like A Good Girl. It begins with a little in-joke: a short snippet of the band performing an old jazz number called "She Ain’t Much Of A Wrestler, But You Ought To See Her Box," a nod to their risque novelty jazz days. Eleven seconds in, the swinging stops, Bush’s fuzz-bass kicks in, and chaos ensues, with keyboardist Jen Catalina launching into a series of air raid siren keyboard parts as Lexi coolly strolls in and deftly drops a series of rat-a-tat lines that make her sound like a film-noir actress drunk on free association. One verse finds her in the 1940s, walking through the streets of an unnamed city, and consorting with politicians, while the futuristic second verse sends Lexi on a rocket trip to one of Saturn’s moons, then over to the Sun, and finally back to Earth, re-entering the atmosphere somewhere over South America. After a few slow/fast dynamic shifts, the song winds to a close with an extended electric piano solo reminiscent of the one that capped off Faith No More’s 1990 hit "Epic." It’s an incredibly dizzying, tremendously exciting song, and the musicianship on display clearly trumps whatever prurient interest one might be able to find in it.

So based on this one track, I could say that Salena Catalina equals Faith No More plus Ben Folds Five, but that sort of shorthand would be misleading, since they don’t sound like either group on any other song. It really doesn't even work for the song itself, as parts of it sound like neither of the two groups, and the Ben Folds reference pertains to the way a specific instrument is played, not to the overall sound or the band's compositional style. The jazz/sex/pop description really falls short when it comes to a song like "Fly Away Bird," which is neither sexy (a male band member handles the vocal duties in a decidedly non-lusty manner), nor explicitly jazzy. A detailed track-by-track description of the music and lyrics might suffice, although it would be easier for one to listen to the CD, and experience their uniqueness without labels getting too much in the way.

More info on Salena Catalina can be found at SalenaCatalina.com.

-Dave O'Connell

The lead and how to swing it

Six stories, six leads, one easy way to clear the decks of a bunch of stories in one sitting! All of these were published in The York Dispatch between May 2003 and June 2004. Here we go:

Recording studios: The '80s were a breeding ground for novelty songs. Rising above the techno-pop pack were such hits as "Pac-Man Fever," Buckner & Garcia’s spellbinding tale of a nation addicted to a dot-eating three-dimensional yellow sphere’s valiant struggle against a pack of unruly ghosts, and "Rock Me Amadeus," Falco's defiant taunt aimed a defenseless, long-dead Austrian composer. For better and for worse, it was an anything-goes era.

Around that same time, boxer Larry Holmes was turning around a few questions in that battered head of his. Questions like 'Can I be the World Heavyweight Champion and make a name for myself in the music industry at the same time?' and 'Should I get a record producer from York to help me establish this second career?' Holmes decided 'yes' on both counts, and hooked up with Jerry Duncan to form their own record label, Knockout Records. (1/11/04)

Tea: They take their name from their favorite beverage, "green tea," a drink of Chinese heritage. Their debut record is called Anfang, which means 'beginning' in German. Bassist Dane Jensen is credited in Anfang’s liner notes with "rhythmic chanting," while drummer Alex Smith is credited in their latest press release with playing everyone's favorite West African drum, the djembe.

So it might come as a surprise that these cultural overtones apply not to a group of worldly adults, but to four York Suburban Senior High students who go by the name of Tea. Though none of them are seniors, and guitarist Joe Giuffrida is only a sophomore, the quartet has already won two different 'Battle of the Bands' competitions, appeared live on WRVV (97.3 FM), and helped usher in the New Year as part of York’s annual First Night tradition.

And on September 5, the group will celebrate the release of their first CD with a 6:30 p.m. show at the Yorktowne Hotel in York. Proceeds from the event will benefit Olivia's House, a non-profit organization that specializes in helping children ages 5-18 deal with the loss of a parent, sibling, or close friend. Tea's first involvement with Olivia's House came this past April, when they won free studio time at York’s Bullet Records in a 'Battle of the Bands' fundraiser sponsored by the organization. (9/4/03)

Amilia K. Spicer: She’s been called a "fearless performer" by the San Antonio Express-News. Mysterious forces have compelled music writers to rhyme with one another when describing her voice, judging from previous articles that have labeled her singing as "husky" (Monterey Coast Weekly), "dusky" (Vic’s Music Corner), and yes, "musky" (Sing Out!). And if reviewer Vic Heyman is to be believed, she has the "wit of an elf," though probably not that of a Keebler Elf, because no one could be that funny.

The performer in question is Adams County native (and current Los Angeles resident) Amilia K. Spicer, who has also been referred to in the press as sounding not only "erotic," but like a "seductive lover" and a "French chanteuse." Not that she has a problem with those descriptions, mind you.

"Reviewers often mention the sexiness of my music, and if that's so, I'm pleased," she says. "To me all great music is sensual, and that can be heard in both a whisper and a wail." (8/14/03)

Book Blast: Let us ponder the fate of unwanted books. Some are donated to libraries. Others wait out the years in a musty old attic or a dark, cobweb-filled basement. A few lucky ones are put to practical use---propping up uneven table legs, for instance, or swatting down insects when a traditional flyswatter is not readily available. And sometimes, an unloved book meets its maker when the family pet chances upon it, ignores whatever literary qualities it possesses, and uses it as a chew-toy.

By contrast, the York County Heritage Trust deals with their discards in a much more capitalistic manner. Every year, they sort through piles and piles of books, filter the extraneous titles out of their library, and offer them up for sale at their annual 'Book Blast' event, lifting off from the Agricultural & Industrial Museum in York on August 8. (8/7/03)

Quarry art: Core samples. They are our friends. Every day, these cylindrical pieces of subsurface material offer us great insight into the world. We learn much about geology, and it retroactively justifies all that cash we spent on the insanely expensive drilling equipment that was purchased to remove the darn thing in the first place.

And sometimes, they are our enemies. I, for one, am reminded of my high school marching band days in the trombone section, where we'd steal the mouthpieces from each other's instruments and take "core samples" of our own by jamming them into the soft earth of the football field. Good pranks to be sure, but man were those things difficult to clean out afterwards!

To York artist Bill Thompson, core samples are raw materials for art, like everything else in nature. As he sees it, nothing is too mundane that it can't be transformed into something aesthetically pleasing. (6/1/03)

Barry Glenn Davis: On the road of life, there are passengers and there are drivers. And then there’s Barry Glenn Davis, the ticket-taker at the Exit 9 tollbooth. He nods hello, accepts your fare, and waves you through to your destination.

It's a place where adultery is king, the Cadillac is queen, and every joker in town is doing the wrong things right. A land where cerebral wordplay is in, mindless pretentiousness is out, and entertaining yarns are spun by the minute.

And the best part? It only takes 48 minutes to soak up every hazy memory, ill-considered romance, and convoluted caper to be found within its borders.

That's the running time of Barry Glenn Davis' self-titled debut CD, released this past March on Lanark Records. A big fan of hyphenation (and of toll road-themed cover art), Davis describes himself as an "alt-countrabilly, honky-tonk songwriter," perhaps suggesting that he is not tied to any one specific genre, but to roots music in general. No matter how you label it, the 31-year-old Felton native seems preternaturally at ease in his first major project, the culmination of almost two years of work. (5/22/03)

-Dave O'Connell

Whale writer

TV's Ham Tyler from V: The Series finally gets his props in this recent story:

MOBY DICK LEFEVER, PRINCE OF WHALES

By David O’Connell

(published May 22, 2005 in the York Daily Record/Sunday News without puns in the title)

Of the many motion pictures Hollywood has bestowed upon us, none illustrates the common bond between whales and juvenile delinquents better than Free Willy. The story of Jesse, a 12-year-old vandal with a sensitive side, and Willy, the orca whale he saves from certain death, was the surprise hit of the 1993 summer moviegoing season. Its success spawned Free Willy 2 and Free Willy 3, presumably dealing with the unfreeing, refreeing, reunfreeing, and unreunfreeing of the title character, and put to rest any lofty connotations one might have associated with the term “motion picture trilogy.”

Long before that, Dick Lefever was freeing a Willy of a different sort. The stakes weren’t near as high, as the Willy he freed wasn’t being pursued by a villainous park owner played by veteran character actor Michael Ironside. And instead of feeding on squid and salmon, this Willy preferred to guzzle down gallons of gasoline.

The Willy that Lefever was freeing was, of course, a 1941 Willys Coupe. Over the years, Lefever freed it from a life of never knowing what it would be like to have a 460 with a blower and two four-barrel carburetors inside it, among other modifications. Like Jesse’s pal of the high seas, the Willys Coupe endures today, and occupies a special place in Lefever’s heart.

“I’ve worked on fourteen cars, but the Willys Coupe is my pride and joy,” said Lefever.

Dick Lefever is no ordinary car enthusiast. He is an elder statesman of Yorktowne Rod and Custom, a car club dating back to 1959. And while its 35 or so members have toiled on cars ranging from a ’30 Chevy to a ’47 DeSoto, the focus isn’t just on retooling.

“It’s very informal,” Lefever says of the club he joined back in 1961, at the age of sixteen. “There are no work details, like some other clubs. We just try to kick tires a little bit, and decide what shows we’re going to attend.”

Like, for instance, this year’s Street Rod Nationals East. The club has set up shop every year the show has been in existence, and this year will be no different.

“We’ve got fourteen or fifteen cars lined for up this year,” he says. The Class of 1941 will be well represented, with Lefever’s ‘41 Willys Coupe joining a ’41 Willys Roadster, a ’41 Dodge and a ’41 Plymouth for a grand reunion.

Another of Lefever’s cars will be making the trip, namely his ’36 Chevy Sedan. “I’ve had it for about seventeen years,” he says. “I bought it as a partially built car and finished it. It has a 350 Chevy motor, power glide transmission, Ford independent front suspension, and a Ford rear in it.”

That’s not the only sedan to which the club can lay claim. Vice-president Gary Beyer, a hot rod aficionado since 1968, owns a ’32 Pro-Streeted two-door Chevy Sedan with ’88 Mustang GT running gear underneath. “I chopped the top, filled the roof in with steel, took three inches out of the top and lowered it,” says Beyer of the extremely made-over car. Not even the windows were spared: Beyer made them three inches smaller.

“That car’s been on the road since I started,” he notes proudly. “I’ve rebuilt it three times, but it’s still on the road.”

Three times? Well then, by current president Mike Mentzer’s standards, Beyer should be a certified genius. “You can learn a lot about automobiles just by working on them,” he says. “If you don’t work on a car, you’re never going to learn anything about it.”

Mentzer has three lifetimes’ worth of knowledge as his disposal. His father was a mechanic and his grandfather worked on cars, so the early years of his life were spent poking around a place built for things nearing the end of their life: the junkyard.

“I remember Saturday mornings, we’d all go down the junkyard,” he says. “We’d look for cars, take them home, and then bring them back to life.”

And so began a lifetime of playing Dr. Frankenstein to various automobiles, many of them not street rods. It’s only appropriate, too, that his taste in cars isn’t limited to street rods, as the Yorktowne Rod & Custom is open to car-lovers of all stripes.

“We allow anything,” says Lefever. “It can be street rods, muscle cars, or antiques. Any type of car.”

That’s the key word with these guys: casual, like the easy camaraderie between a young boy and his screentested, 6,000-pound whale friend. Lefever sums it up nicely: “What makes our club different is that we’re not tied down to work. We’re a lean-back friendly club.”

Tonight on UPN27 News: A Scam Is Exposed, A Robbery Is Foiled, and Lives Hang In The Balance Due To Locust Swarm

AL GORE, CRACKER BARREL & SISTER HAZEL: A MIGHTY TRIUMVIRATE OF ROCK

Brought to you by the fine folks at David O’Connell, Inc.

(published October 13, 2003 in The York Dispatch---do I even have to say it?---minus the whimsical title)

What a difference three years makes.

Six years ago, Sister Hazel was living the good life, as far as pop-music stardom goes. The Gainesville, Fla. quintet’s major label debut, Somewhere More Familiar, had reached gold status, and was well on its way to breaking the platinum barrier. A single from the CD, “All For You,” had fallen just shy of becoming a Top 10 smash, and the accompanying video spent lots of “very weird” quality time (to hear lead singer Ken Block explain it) with its elders on MTV and VH1. The band’s influence reached as far up as the White House, where no less a musical authority than ex-Vice President Al Gore sang (or robotically intoned) their praises.

By the time the group’s 2000 sophomore effort, Fortress, hit shelves, the musical landscape had drastically changed. At modern rock radio stations, jangly alternative rock was out, and the harsher, more aggressive strains of “nu metal” (typified by Staind and Limp Bizkit) were in, along with a disdain for the traditional spellings of “new,” “stained,” and “biscuit.” Top 40 radio had openly declared its love for boy-bands (Backstreet Boys), provocatively attired mall-chicks (Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera), and American-sounding Latin music. Sister Hazel’s music no longer fit into pop/rock radio playlists so easily, and Fortress proved to be anything but mighty at both radio and retail. This led to a parting of ways with their label, Universal.

“Choosing to leave Universal was a scary thing for us,” says bassist Jeff Beres. “At first, all we had ever wanted was a major label record deal, and now we had all decided the best thing to do was to leave it. There was separation anxiety, like breaking up with a girlfriend. But sometimes you know leaving is the best thing for you even if it seems the hardest thing to do. We just realized we were producing so much music we believed in that we wanted to be able to release and promote it on our own schedule.”

And that leads us right up to the present, where Sister Hazel’s new self-released record, Chasing Daylight, has just hit stores, and the group is gearing up for an October 11 stop at Messiah College. The label change, along with a shift in the climate of radio, has propelled the album’s first single, “Life Got In The Way,” onto Billboard’s Modern Adult Monitor chart, which you must not confuse with any of the six million other weekly charts that Billboard publishes.

According to the band, Chasing Daylight exists “somewhere between Cracker Barrel and sushi…comforting, artful, yet raw,” making Cracker Barrel’s much-rumored status as the epitome of artfulness official and legally binding. The songs were put together during what Beres and Block call their “just shut up and play” period, but with the playing done and the CD now in stores, the group is breaking its vow of silence and waxing philosophical on the album’s title at great length.

“Life often has you going in and out of darkness,” says Block, “but instead of looking and lurking in darkness, we try to chase daylight, and chase hopeful situations around. Our music helps us do that, and we hope it can offer the same for others. Our music is like therapy for us, but a lot of what we've gone through, other people can relate to. We spend many, many hours laboring over lyrics, making sure we're understood but leaving enough ambiguity for people to plug in their own situation. We want Chasing Daylight to offer lyrical intimacy, introspection, but also just plain primal, organic grooves and mindless fun. We want people to be able to close their doors, and sit and think to it, but also to turn it up, open their car windows and get a speeding ticket.”

So for those of you who plan on listening to Chasing Daylight while driving to the show, please keep this in mind: The fine for exceeding a posted 65 mph speed limit is $42.50 plus $2 per mph in excess of 5 mph over the limit. For any other speed limit violations, the fine is $35, plus $2 per mph in excess of 5 mph over the limit. Fines in active work zones are doubled, and various surcharges may be added to your total. In addition, penalty points will be added onto your driving license, and if you accumulate too many, it may be another three years before you are legally permitted to drive to another Sister Hazel show.

-Dave O'Connell

1969: The year that was, still is, and always will be. Resistance is futile.

Everything you need to know about this one can be found in the title...


CURSE YOU, DAVE BINDER AND YOUR VERY BRIEF DEADLINE-SURFING ANSWERS TO MY E-MAILED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS!

A heavily researched panic attack by David O’Connell

(published September 18, 2003 in The York Dispatch under a shorter, less self-referential title)
What do you get when you type the name “Dave Binder” into an Internet search engine?

Among other things, you wind up with links to the many Dave Binders of the world. A few of them are athletic minded individuals: Dave Binder of Decatur, Ga. recently took home a first place trophy in a local “golf gala," while another Dave Binder tends to the walking wounded as the University of New Mexico’s head athletics trainer.

Some of them should probably get out a bit more often; for instance, Dave Binder of the Illinois Dave Binders Local 151 recently “dungeonmastered” a Star Wars role-playing game that, in the words of a fellow player, was “unique” and “really neat.”

To ignore other Dave Binders might cost you your life: Dave Binder’s work as a member of the Emergency Film Group of Edgartown, Mass. has taught us important lessons on how to handle anhydrous ammonia, a dangerous gas that can severely burn the eyes, lungs and throat.

Perhaps the strangest Dave Binder of them all is Dave Binder of Coupeville, Wash., who for $20 will teach interested persons the obscure art of “napkin folding," in which ordinary napkins can be transformed into candlesticks, bagpipes, or elf’s shoes.

Though all of these Dave Binders play important roles in American society, one Dave Binder stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of popularity (or number of Internet mentions, anyway) and that is folk singer Dave Binder.

Oddly enough, this Dave Binder is somewhat at odds with the Internet. Yes, he does have his own website, http://www.davebinder.com, and uses it to promote upcoming concerts such as the “1969: The Year That Rocked The World” extravaganza taking place Thursday night on the Penn State York campus.

And yet the whole purpose of a show like “1969” is to take us back to a simpler time when the Internet didn’t exist, a time when putting together a list of America’s many Dave Binders was not the easy task that it is today. An age when the CD format on which Binder’s six albums are available was merely a gleam in a Dutch physicist’s eye. Why, back in 1969, Binder was ten years away from playing his first show, and more than two decades away from receiving the first of ten consecutive Campus Entertainer of the Year Award nominations. Life’s been very good to him since 1969, in fact, so why the look back?

“It started in 1989 when I realized that no one was doing a twenty-year Woodstock tribute,” explains Binder, a 47-year old Massachusetts native. “It grew from there as I realized all the other events of that year.”

Binder’s show takes the big hits of the “Summer of ‘69” and places them into context alongside the landmark events of the day. For instance, a discussion of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon segues into a solo acoustic rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” From the Beatles to Richard Nixon, no important musical or historical figures are left out of this unique tribute, just one of several theme shows Binder puts on for college audiences across the country.

Catch Binder one night and you might see him in full James Taylor drag, leading a sing-along of “You’ve Got A Friend” as he strums his way through “Fire and Rain: An Evening of James Taylor.” See him on a college campus, and you might get to witness Dave whipping a group of incoming freshman into shape through his “Orientation” program of songs and sketches. (Perhaps something like that is in the cards for his Saturday morning show at York College of Pennsylvania.) On other occasions, you might get to watch him squirm as he takes “Any Reasonable Request," an improvisational show where the audience dictates the set list and dares Dave to “play it or fake it.” Regardless of which Dave Binder show you take in, you can rest assured that at no time will you be asked to fold a napkin into the shape of a duck. Dave “Folk Singer” Binder himself guarantees it.

-Dave O'Connell

We are family...or were, anyway

The following story was written in Duck, North Carolina, in the Outer Banks. Not that it had to be: the subject matter required absolutely no travel whatsoever. I could have done the writing and the phone interviews from York and all would have been fine and dandy.

Exactly why didn't I do that, anyway?

Like all good musical pseudo-families---The Thompson Twins, Bros., MFSB---Ashley and her relatives would soon become “estranged” from one another. In this particular case, it proves that a blood bond is stronger than one born out of newspaper ads and stalking.

LIVE FROM CODORUS PARK: ASHLEY MARIE & FAMILY WHO ARE NOT ACTUALLY FAMILY

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS MORE NOT FAMILY AND EVEN MORE NOT FAMILY

By David O’Connell

(published in The York Dispatch on June 26, 2003, sans stupid headline)
At first glance, the band name Ashley Marie & Family gives off all the wrong vibes. One expects an aggressively wholesome family combo, with a cloying child vocalist strutting about the stage, smothering the audience with truckloads of sass. Lots of hand clapping, corny skits, that kind of thing.

So it’s a surprise to find that Ashley Marie is a full-grown, 20-year-old singer, and her “family” consists of rock ‘n’ roll musicians who bear no familial relation to her at all.

In fact, the “family” in the band’s name comes from a comment guitarist Chris Bell made one night in a state of post-gig euphoria. “We had signed a lot of autographs and a million people had told us we were the greatest,” says Marie. “We were sitting there patting each other on the back and our guitar player said 'I never thought when I joined this band that I would have this much fun. You guys are like family to me.'”

Being a caring, sensitive bunch, the other band members laughed at his syrupy comment and ridiculed him for weeks. Marie even played up his gushy remark at gigs, pointing to her bassist and calling him “Dad,” and confusing more than a few audience members in the process.

The joke wound up sticking, which is why a group with the name Ashley Marie & Family will be taking the stage at Saturday’s 'Codorus Summer Blast', lifting off June 28 from Codorus Park. In addition to Ashley’s close-knit clan, the event will also feature veteran oldies band Pentagon, as well as The Colgan Brothers Band.

Though Ashley wasn’t the precocious show-off in a family country band as a kid, the truth is not much different. “I got ridiculed in school for my deep, manly voice, so I had to put a good use to it,” she says. “My local 4-H had a performing arts club, and they provided the entertainment for the Carroll County Fair in Maryland. One year, I got the opportunity to sing a few songs to taped backgrounds, and afterward everyone kept requesting that I sing more.”

From that karaoke launching pad, Marie’s star shot into the stratosphere. A writer from The Baltimore Sun penned an article on the preternaturally talented youngster, and a local TV station put together a piece on the little starlet. At the age of fourteen, she entered a Baltimore-area talent search and walked away with the top prize, allowing her the opportunity to open for Martina McBride and record a solo CD.

All the hype proved beneficial in 1997, when Marie decided to form her own band. “The best thing is that we had gigs lined up before we were a band, due to the publicity behind my name,” she says. “I was singing in a local club as part of the house band, and people were coming in and offering to book me at other places. So I formed my own band.”

In the grand tradition of countless other musical ventures, Marie’s band was assembled through the timeless magic of newspaper ads. Within a few weeks, they even had their very own stalker, whom they soon put to good use.

“A month after the ad had run, this gentlemen named Dave Staccone called up and said 'I’m going to be your bass player', like it was a fait accompli or something," recalls Marie. “I told him that we already had a bass player, but we’ll keep you in mind if anything happens---expecting him never to call again. The very next night, he phoned again and said, 'Hey, has that bass player quit yet, because I know I’m going to be your bass player.'

“So I asked him who he had played with, and he came back with all these really big names, like the Everly Brothers. I thought, either this guy is full of it or he’s got a great resume.”

A stalker’s greatest tool is persistence, and it eventually paid dividends for Staccone, making him one of our country’s more accomplished stalkers. “Our bassist had family obligations, and couldn’t keep to our touring schedule, so Dave ended up stepping in,” she says. “He was great. Later on, he said, 'See, I told you I was going to be your bass player.'”

With the missing piece of the puzzle in place, the quintet set about playing club gigs. They signed with Mirasound, a European subsidiary of EMI, and released a CD of non-original material in 2001. They are currently working on a new CD, with Marie and her 'relatives' determined to exercise more creative control over this project.

“We have so much material that it would be silly to do other people’s songs,” asserts Marie.

That job will fall to Pentagon, the Rich Clare-led outfit known for their oldies medleys and between-song comedy sketches. Formed in 1971, Pentagon has played everywhere from Harrah’s in Atlantic City (for 31 straight weeks) to the QEII (for a Steve Allen-hosted variety special) to this year’s Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire 'Blast From The Past' festival (where the elements won out and drenched them in a torrential downpour.)

In the 80s, Clare and company played casinos during the day and clubs at night, penning more than 200 originals in a bid for a major-label record deal. A number of labels, including Geffen, showed interest, but nothing ever materialized. Disillusioned, two members jumped ship, and Clare retired from performing to manage the group full-time. Five years later, Clare embraced what we would now call his “inner Michael Jordan” and came out of retirement, leading Pentagon through the 90s with the band’s only other remaining original member, Jim Colestock.

In 2001, the band released their 30th anniversary CD, bearing the logical title of Pentagon 30, and celebrated the milestone with a show at Hersheypark.

Clare describes the live show with the sort of confidence that naturally springs from three decades of touring: “I have pretty good business savvy. I know what it takes to entertain folks without compromising what we do. The band has always rocked, and on top of that, we do music that people know and we do it well.”

Another band offering their take on other people’s music at the Codorus Blast is The Colgan Brothers Band. Built around the nucleus of siblings Brian and Pat Colgan, this quartet runs the gamut from harmony-drenched acoustic music to straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll.

Brian credits his family as his inspiration for performing: “The Colgan family has always been pretty musical. We had aunts and uncles who played piano and were in jazz bands. We took piano lessons and were exposed to a lot of music while we were growing up.”

After a fifteen-year run and one CD release, the Colgan Brothers are about to call it quits. However, Brian plans to form a new band and concentrate on writing and recording his own original material.

In addition to a seemingly neverending supply of music, the Codorus Summer Blast will feature fireworks, hot air balloons, and a series of educational displays. For those of you who want to be photographed inside a giant strawberry, your strangeness will help benefit the Make-A-Wish foundation. There will also be a craft show and various exhibits on display.

-Dave O'Connell