A Conversation with Onnie
My wife and I recently spent a week in California. Have you ever played on the courts at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club? A tennis player’s dream! I took a lesson from a talented young teaching pro from San Diego State, then played a set and a half against him before finally throwing in the towel.
We also visited a stylish restaurant in Pasadena-don’t remember the name, but the theme was “Hawaiian fusion,” which was new to me. Our waiter, a guy in his 20s, noticed the Average White Band T-shirt I was wearing and asked a few questions: “Are you in AWB?” No. “Are you famous?” Regretfully, no.
He became visibly excited when I told him that Onnie McIntyre-the musician who played the iconic “chink a chink” guitar part on Pick Up the Pieces-was an old friend. He asked me to tell Onnie that a generation of kids grew up listening to their parents’ favorite soul groups, including AWB, and still count them among their favorites. Onnie got a kick out of that, and we ended up talking about the good old days, today’s music, and the current state of the Average White Band.
GE: “Before you start ranting about how technology has ruined groove music, let me remind you that you had an original Drumulator!”
OM: “I thought it was the bee’s knees at the time! The Drumulator was half of the price of the Linn drum-which was only 8 bit, by the way-and the Linn cost what, over $4,000? If you remember, the idea was not to record with the Drumulalator, but to use it to put down ideas for demos. Trying to write songs is difficult without a groove. Drum machines are a great help.
Drum machines have taught me to have better time. I’ve worked with guys who grew up with drum machines and their time is fantastic…you get used to the quantization. Sure, your playing can become stiff, but the challenge is to have both tight time and forward motion. I love trying to figure out where the sixteenth note high hat hits should be placed, for example, and the variety of pushes that bring a track to life. Take a well-programmed drum track and give it to a drummer and he or she has got a great reference point to work off of.
I can’t listen to much hip-hop or rap, and it’s not because I object to the technology. Most of the beat box and bass parts are simply boring, and that doesn’t have to be the case. Maybe it’s got something to do with the standard that lives inside your head. Pull out an old James Brown record…every part works on its own, with plenty of space in between. Take the guitar part in “Sex Machine.” It never wavers! Everyone finds their own little space on that track, and it’s the space between parts that makes a groove. If you grow up playing live you learn how to get out of the other person’s way. A whole generation has come of age with only the experience of programming machines, and I think the effect is detrimental to the groove. Again, it’s not the technology itself that’s the problem; it’s the way it’s used, in my judgment. By the way, a lot of the great soul music of the 60’s and 70’s wasn’t tight, but it had magic.”
GE: “What’s the AWB been up to over the last five or ten years?”
OM: “Gigs, mostly-80 to 90 per year. Studio albums have gotten too expensive, especially since we’re completely self-funded. Our last studio album, Living In Color, was recorded in 2004.
Fans kept asking us for CD’s, so we recorded a live album, Soul In The City: Recorded Live at B.B. King’s in 2006. That venue is set up for recording, so we brought in Pete Moshay to engineer the project. Response was very good-we paid off the investment in about three months and are still selling the CD at our gigs-so we recorded a follow up, Times Squared: Recorded Live at B.B. King’s, in 2009. We have to play “Pick Up The Pieces” at every show, so that song is a repeat. Otherwise, the two CD’s have separate play lists.
We have a large back catalogue, which we have to play, but we’re able to introduce new material at our shows, and that keeps us stretching as musicians. We’ve got a great band now. Alan (Gorrie) and I are the only two original members of the group. The new guys do a lot of doubling; Fred Vigdor plays keyboards as well as horns, our lead vocalist Clyde Jones also plays keys, as well as guitar and bass. Rocky Bryant is our drummer. We’ve eliminated one of the two horns we used to carry, but Fred does a great job with his harmonizer creating multiple parts out of one.”
GE: “Has the audience make up changed over the years?”
OM: “It’s funny, you mentioned the young guy you met out in Pasadena. A lot of people his age show up at our gigs and they tell us similar stories about listening to the music when they were kids. We also get older people, the ones who followed us when they were in college, or were just entering the work force. We get a nice blend. And it’s great that when we go to overseas-Japan, for example-we’re still able to attract full houses, two shows a night at a large club or small theater, for six or seven days.”
GE: “How long will the Average White Band keep touring?”
OM: “It’s hard to say-‘til something happens, I suppose. Someone will get sick, circumstances will change, or something unforeseen will happen. A couple of years ago we were playing in Miami. We finished our sound check and went to the dressing room. Less than 10 minutes later we heard a commotion, looked out the window, and saw the entire stage collapse! One of the staging props landed directly on the drum seat. Rocky would have been dead if he’d been sitting there!
But it’s still good fun! Alan makes all our travel arrangements. He negotiates with hotels, gets us the best prices on flights, and so on. We don’t make a fortune. But we’re making it work and doing something we love, so we all consider ourselves quite fortunate.”
4/15/ 2012
