Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 3, 1993 TAG: 9403090016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SNOW CREEK LENGTH: Long
But the fact that the Village Idiots, a Martinsville-area band, is the very antithesis of the poor, struggling band living on cheap food and booze makes them every bit as offbeat.
There's Dr. Tom Berry - a.k.a., ``Dr. Jams'' - the 42-year-old keyboard player. He's a surgeon at Memorial Hospital of Martinsville and Henry County, and owns a six-figure recording studio in southern Franklin County called Snow Creek Sound, where the band practices and records.
There's also Dr. Will Zimmer, 32, on rhythm guitar and trombone. He's an internist at the same hospital, and he owns the lights.
And then there's drummer John Stone - a.k.a., ``I'm single'' - a banker; as well as a tire-company owner, a medical secretary, a deejay/college student and a window-maker.
They have their own CD out, called ``We Gotta Lotta Nerve.'' They have their own logo and catch-phrase (``Village Idiots: The Band With an Attitude''). They have at their disposal a 16-track analog, 24-track digital, 28-input recording console, plus more than 30 microphones - enough equipment to turn any of the other local bands a certain shade of envy.
```We Gotta Lotta Nerve'? Well, I guess we do, putting out our own CD and all that,'' concedes Zimmer, the internist, whose song, ``White Boy Blues,'' is a kind of Village Idiots anthem:
You know I haven't suffered, you know I haven't cried
You know I ain't ever been lonely and my woman, she don't lie
Well you can call me crazy, think that I'm a fool
You can call me a Village Idiot but I know what I gotta do
Gotta sing, gotta sing those blues
This middle class white boy's gotta sing the blues
The band - which plays mostly R&B, beach music and rock 'n' roll with a touch of country - also concedes to having a certain amount of attitude, like their logo says. Though together they've written a set's worth of original music, they play mostly cover songs - ``The Big Chill'' soundtrack-type stuff, a little Elvis, with some '70s-style Eagles, Clapton and Doobie Brothers thrown in.
``Tom always says, `I heard the original song last night. We do it much better,''' Zimmer says.
``Well, it's true,'' Berry adds. ```Love Potion No. 9,' by the Coasters, we do do it better.''
Though the Idiots once opened for the Coasters in Manteo, N.C., most of their gigs take place in the Franklin-Henry-Patrick county areas at country club parties, benefit concerts, after-prom parties, the occasional bar.
``We learned `Hava Nagilah' once for a bar mitzvah,'' Zimmer says. ``And then they didn't even ask us to play it.''
Last year at a country club Christmas dance, Berry was late because he had to help his partner out in the operating room. ``No one knew how to set up the sound system but me, so we were late getting started,'' he recalls.
``And then most of the people there were older than us, which is saying something.''
``One lady was in a walker,'' Stone adds. ``She asked Roo [Porter, the sound person and Berry's wife] if OSHA knew about us.''
The band tried to tone down their considerably loud sound, until finally they ended up settling on an evening's worth of quiet bluegrass, with an R&B twist.
``The weird thing is, they've hired us back for next year,'' Berry says.
Besides being loud - no, the doctors don't give free tinnitus treatments (though patients can butter them up by buying their CD) - the Village Idiots are a highly danceable group, attracting both shaggers and free-formers.
``Once some guy was dancing so hard that his pants fell down,'' Zimmer brags.
He was that into the music?
``No, he was just drunk,'' deadpans bassist Preston Martin.
Together 2 years, the Idiots were originally known as Fabulous Ed and the Village Idiots, featuring Ed Moseley from Madison, N.C., on vocals.
``He was this big hulking black guy with a voice from God,'' says nurse Roo Porter, a.k.a., ``sound babe.'' About a year later, Moseley suffered a stroke, and he can no longer speak.
``I've worked in ICUs all my life, but when that happened to Ed - and he lost his voice, of all things - that really got to me,'' Porter says.
To raise money for Moseley's family, the band made a cassette of their demo recordings, which became Snow Creek Sound's first release. Last April, medical secretary Lisa Akridge - of that same Martinsville hospital - joined the band as lead vocalist.
So far, the band is busiest during summers and holidays. Their CD, which is for sale at Roanoke's Record Exchange, is getting air play on WHEO-AM (1270), a country station in Stuart.
``The radio station told me they got four requests for our songs in one day,'' Stone says, though he concedes that one of the callers was him - disguising his voice.
After Stone's last relationship ended, the band showed up at their next gig wearing T-shirts that read, ``The drummer is single.''
Except for Stone. His T-shirt said, ``I'm the drummer.''
Although it's hard for the band to find time to practice - due mainly to the doctors' schedules - they would like to play some bigger gigs, maybe even do more shows at the beach ... although no one's aspiring to give up their day jobs for a life on the road.
``We have no illusions that we'll be the next Beatles or anything,'' Berry says. ``We just love to play.''
Porter says it bothers the doctors that the band is known mainly as ``the Martinsville band with the doctors.''
``It's unfortunate because they all contribute equally, not just the doctors,'' the nurse says.
``Of course it is funny. Like with Will, you see him singing `Jumpin' Jack Flash' and acting crazy one night, and then the next day you have to go up to him at the hospital to ask him about something really serious, like a patient's medicine,'' Porter says. ``Sometimes it's really weird.''
On the front of their CD cover, the guys are in a line, hanging out a set of windows, looking really tough. They have on headbands, hats, sunglasses and T-shirts, and they look like the type of singers who have gravelly voices from playing too many smoke-filled bars.
On the back of their CD cover, the guys are standing in front of that requisite brick wall you see in so many promotional band photos. Jason Minnix, the 20-year-old sax player from Boones Mill, is on the far left, lighting a cigarette.
The rest of the guys, their middle-age bellies pooching out just a little, glare at Minnix in unison with a look that says: ``Haven't you read the surgeon general's warning, son? Those things can kill you.''
The Village Idiots play 7 -11 p.m. Saturday, at Wayside Park in Stuart. Sponsored by WHEO-AM. $5. 694-3115.
by CNB