THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502080096
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
THE TRUCK PULLED up and the band began to play.
After three days had passed and the mobile studio was gone again, the band Everything had finished its second album. Recorded at ``The Farm,'' its home/retreat in Woodville, ``Labrador'' gained the former James Madison University students enough word-of-mouth to win them a contract with Capricorn Records.
By last summer, bassist David Slankard says, the conventional wisdom on Everything was something like `` `What the hell's up with this band? Why aren't they signed?' '' Soon, Capricorn president Phil Walden ``got hold of the disc - this is the story we've heard - and decided to sign us.''
Slankard describes the label, best-known for its championing of the Southern-rock sound of the '70s, as ``really cool, a very grassroots organization.'' The eclecticism of Everything assures that it fits well with the company's current orientation toward road-tested ``jam bands.'' Slankard, though, is quick to point out his group's attention to songwriting structure, manifested in several ``Labrador'' numbers that draw heavily on late-Beatles influences.
``That jam thing can be amazing,'' he says. ``But sometimes you hear these bands and there are people who shouldn't be soloing soloing, and the music has no direction.''
Some recent dates with the Dave Matthews Band found Everything challenged by audiences unfamiliar with its material. Rather than stretching out for two hours or longer as the outfit does when headlining, Everything found itself performing ``a greatest hits set. That was wild. But I thought that just energized us.''
There's nothing like the home-field advantage, though.
``When we come to Virginia, they're more participatory,'' Slankard says of the crowds. ``People tend to know our songs.''
He could probably explain why at great length, if he cared to; Slankard mastered in anthropology at JMU.
Most of Everything's members ``came pretty close to a degree,'' he says, before leaving in 1992. Looking at their nascent success, though, ``they decided now was the time.'' by CNB