DATE: Thursday, September 11, 1997          TAG: 9709110035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SUE VanHECKE, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   58 lines

BAND WITH LOCAL ROOTS FINDS SURPRISING SUCCESS IN SPAIN

SETH GORDON and Tony Leventhal of the Hampton Roads-born pop combo the Mockers, met in Spain as very young children. Decades later, Spain has become their band's biggest market.

Their Iberian success happened after vocalist/guitarist Gordon sent some small Spanish distributors the group's 1995 CD ``Somewhere Between Mocksville and Harmony.'' The disc, voted by one Billboard critic as among '95's Top Ten, was well-received; the Mockers didn't realize just how well until they took a Spanish vacation last year.

``It was like some kind of weird movie because the minute we got there the phone started ringing'' with engagements to play acoustic shows, make radio appearances and do press interviews, Gordon said.

``I said, `What? We don't even have guitars.' ''

But with one evening's practice on borrowed guitars with rusting strings, the two were able to pull off an hour's worth of chat and performance on Spanish national radio and a nightclub concert for 150 clamoring fans, as well as additional radio spots and a slew of media interviews.

``It was really surreal, because we were driving around Madrid with the radio on listening to our songs,'' Gordon recalled. ``I just turned to Tony and said: `Did you ever think when we were living down on the coast of Spain and we were nine years old listening to our Beatles records that we would ever be listening to our own record in Madrid?' It was very bizarre.''

The acoustic Mockers went over so well, in fact, that the full band - Gordon, bassist Leventhal, guitarist Dean Howell and new drummer Jon Nifeld, formerly of the Rembrandts - will return to Spain later this month for a two-week concert tour.

Meantime, they will perform twice Saturday - at 8 p.m. Saturday at Hampton Bay Days and later that night at Friar Tuck's in Norfolk.

All of this on top of a year of impressive accomplishments. In January, the band waxed a pair of songs in Nashville with producer Brad Jones (Marshall Crenshaw, Jill Sobule, Imperial Drag), whom Leventhal met at a Crenshaw show in New York City, where all of the Mockers but Gordon now reside. Gordon lives in Norfolk.

In February, the group played a sold-out show in Los Angeles at Poptopia, a 10-day pop music festival featuring melodic bands from all over the world. To advance their upcoming Spanish tour, the Mockers have assembled a five-song promotional EP, ``Smells Like Spain.''

And most recently, the band has finagled the services of Billboard reviews editor Paul Verna and a rep from Sony Publishing in Japan to shop Mockers material to record labels.

With all that going on, the band hasn't played its home turf in seven years.

``Time goes by so quickly,'' said Gordon, who founded the Mockers with Leventhal in 1985. ``Since I live here and Tony lives in New York, it's like, `Oh, another year went by.' We're actually playing more shows in the last two months than we've played in the last couple of years.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color File Photo

The Mockers

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