THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606220052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 113 lines
MUSIC EVOLVES differently on Planet Drum than it does anywhere else in the galaxy. No guitar noodling. Forget the verse-chorus-bridge routine. Just lay down the rhythmic foundation and build, build, build.
Traditionalists might say that's tampering with the natural order.
Not so, says Mickey Hart.
``Let's get some perspective on this,'' he said. ``When you live on Planet Drum, the drum is the center of the universe. The drums drive the tonality . .
It took four years, but Hart, the Grateful Dead's percussionist on that long, strange trip, stuck to his M.O. on ``Mickey Hart's Mystery Box,'' the follow-up to 1991's Grammy-winning ``Planet Drum.''
Mickey Hart's Mystery Box, that's without the quotation marks, is also the name of his new band, one of the headliners for Tuesday's Furthur Festival at the Virginia Beach Amphitheater. The Box band includes six vocalists, four percussionists, plus bass guitar and keyboards.
The album started taking shape when ``the Planet Drum engine'' - Hart and percussionists Giovanni Hidalgo and Zakir Hussain - recorded the initial, bare-bones rhythm tracks. Hart took them to longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and then set out to find his vocalists, which might have taken longer had it not been for Jerry Garcia.
The guitarist pointed him to ``Do It A Cappella,'' a Spike Lee documentary that featured the female British sextet Mint Juleps.
Back in the studio, Hart and a full roster of guest artists fine-tuned the grooves while Bay Area musicians Dave Jenkins and Vince Welnick, the Tubes' keyboardist, fleshed out the melodies.
``We smiled all the way through it,'' Hart said recently from his office in California's Sonoma County. ``It seemed like one of those blessed little works. Some have a little halo on them; this was one of them.
``It's a hard thing to stay on course for four years. A million times I wanted to do other things, add a saxophone here or a great guitar lick there, but I resisted the pull to the dark side. This was the way it was in the dream, the original flash.''
The album, released two weeks ago, layers '50s and '60s pop styles on a churning, sinewy, percussive canvas. The mix is unlikely, but readily accessible - ear candy with a bite.
``Look Away'' would fit in at a shag club; ``John Cage Is Dead'' is a big-beat chant. Hart composed the atmospheric ``Only the Strange Remain'' for the Grateful Dead, though it was never recorded. ``Down the Road'' is a neat slice of talking blues that refers to Joe Hill, John Lennon, JFK and Garcia.
Hunter's contributions can't be overstated, Hart said. ``When you're (trying) to explain the unexplainable, something sorrowful or joyful, he does it in a few words or with a line or two of chorus. I would never have been able to get a handle on it without him.
``And he was right there in the studio working with the girls, just like in the Grateful Dead when we did our best stuff - `American Beauty' and `Workingman's Dead.' That was very important.''
Call it design by committee. The Mint Juleps, sisters Debbie, Elizabeth, Marcia and Sandra Charles, and friends Julie Isaac and Debbie Longworth, had a similar role in shaping ``Mystery Box.''
``We took 30 days to track the girls,'' said Hart, a big McGuire Sisters fan. ``It wasn't just wham-bam. This was an affair, a serious affair. We spent a lot of time together getting it right, delivering it the right way. They embellished it and created a lot of the harmonies.
``There's no way to take it to this level without that. They weren't just like hired hands.''
No structure, though, sonic or otherwise, stands up long if the foundation isn't solid. ``Mystery Box's'' reaches deep and far, to Africa and India, South America and the Arctic Circle.
Hart, who has published two books on ethnomusicology, fashioned some instruments himself.
``Our species, one of the things we did a lot was build lots and lots of ways of making percussive sounds,'' he said. ``In four years, you can go to a lot of places and find these gourmet sounds.''
Getting his fellow percussionists into his home studio was more complicated. Hart had to sandwich the project between Dead tours. ``These guys all have their own solo careers. They're superstars in a whole world that doesn't have anything to do with the Grateful Dead or popular music.''
On the album, talking drums and didgeridoos take the guitar and bass lines, one reason why Entertainment Weekly described it as ``world beat pop.'' Hart agrees. The music is familiar, he said, but even with its indigenous influences, it's not culturally specific.
How does that translate in concert? In preparation for the summer-long Furthur Festival, he took his Mystery Box for a test drive late last month at a California show.
Hart laughed. ``Think Bataan death march, Guam in a squall. The wind was blowing like 50 miles an hour, it was raining and it was really cold. The monitors weren't working and the band didn't have its own stage setup yet. It was not my idea of a good concert. It was more like an endurance test.''
But not one without an up side. The concert showed the band's potential beyond the CD, and everyone had a good time, Hart said, clapping and dancing until the end.
Deadheads are nothing if not devoted.
``They're not expecting the Grateful Dead,'' Hart said of audiences for the Furthur Festival, which includes the Dead's Bob Weir and his band Ratdog. ``They may want to hear it, in the back of their minds, but they're just trying to get that feeling. And they will get it.
``They know how to be the Grateful Dead. They've empowered themselves. They invented themselves, that's their greatest creation. It's ritualizing. They wanted a place for this to happen, a nice place to meet and have the experience. The Grateful Dead wasn't necessarily the very center of it.''
Garcia, who suffered a fatal heart attack last August, would give the festival his blessing, Hart said.
``In one sense he won't be there, but in another he will. I can't get him out of my ear. I know he would want this to happen. The last thing he would have said is the Grateful Dead should fold up tent.'' ILLUSTRATION: JOHN WERNER
Drummer Mickey Hart
FESTIVAL FACTS
[For a copy of the facts, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW by CNB