Mike Greene Music

I would say, for those of you who don't already know, that the Hampton Grease Band has split apart much like an amoeba separating from the middle, but there's something rather simple about an amoeba and the image isn't really appropriate—though when you think of it, an amoeba is the lowest form of life. Consider instead the dual personalities of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two opposing forces imposing too much of a strain on one body, in this case the band. In many ways Bruce Hampton and Mike Green represented such contrasting energies existent in the Hampton Grease Band, and though like Jekyll and Hyde they were fun to watch and fun to hear, evidently it was not much fun to actually exist that way.

Nothing could seem more incongruous than a duet by Bruce Hampton and Mike Green. Bruce, a shouter, and Mike, a crooner (in the contemporary sense), it just didn't fit, and one wondered initially how these two could musically coexist, or would even want to. As a matter of fact, I don't remember them singing together, rather each would sing lead on different tunes, attended on occasion by Jerry. Actually this weird eclecticism achieved by the group, or that happened to the group, I found appealing. You never got bored at a Grease Band performance and that is saying something, because contrary to the romance, I, for one, never heard a singer I couldn't get enough of. Watching the band, when one was exhausted with Bruce, or vice versa, the group simply shifted gears and was into an entirely different thing behind Mike or Jerry, keeping it all very lively.

The price the group paid for harboring such strange dynamics was greater, I guess, than anyone bargained for, and was evident on many levels. Most obviously, the hodge-podge, catch-as-catch-can sound of the group forbade any single identity being connected to it, and economically that proved very bad. Club owners didn't know what they were seeing, and record execs didn't know what they were hearing. It was impossible to cut an album, they discovered, and attain any single unifying characteristic. It proved frustrating for those who believed in the band because everyone knew something very definite was happening but nobody knew exactly what it was. As it turned out nobody ever did know.

It was also frustrating to the members of the group, and not just because they didn't know what was the magical string to success, though that certainly was a part of it. Actually one of the delightful aspects of the group was that they seemed oblivious to corporate notions of success. They never seemed to take themselves seriously, and that proved a very accessible quality to an audience. (Maybe that was what was so characteristic of the band - which proved so difficult an item to bottle.) But of course Bruce and Mike, Glenn Phillips and Mile Holbrook and Jerry Fields are individuals who have thought about music a long time and do in fact take themselves seriously. It was naturally difficult for Hampton and Green, who both have strong conceptions about music, to opt for satisfaction half the time, or to give Glenn his due.

Well, there comes a time when anyone with whatever aspirations realizes that the moment has come to make that one big well-digested dump, or get off the pot. That time for members of the Grease Band was about six months ago and now Bruce Hampton is rounding up completely new players and will form a new group—in his own image— and Mike Green finding Mike Holbrook simpatico, has added a new drummer and guitar player and is in search of a piano player who will round out his new group. I haven't heard Bruce's group as yet, but I expect it will feature as many visual pyrotechnics as musical ones.

I have heard Mike Green's group which premiered at The Twelfth Gate last week. As a unit it is young and has problems, probably many of which are problems only to me. (What determination it must take to start a new rock band in 1974!) But one thing should be clear to anybody that hears him—Mike Green sings like a bird. You don't hear that kind of statement anymore, as most rock songsters can now get by on an audience's extended capacities to accept self-expression per se, however well expressed. Mike's singing puts you on the mysterious wings of something that is obviously a gift, something that you know desire alone can't accomplish. It is a pleasure (and a relief to those of us hung up on such things) to lay back and hear someone who obviously has the call

It is easy to understand someone with as lyrical a voice as Green's wanting to sing love songs. These are the songs he has always written and which never had much release in the Grease Band. (Bruce might feel comfortable singing love to a penguin but to little else.) They are also the hardest songs to write convincingly, pitfalls lying from the strained poetics of a Joni Mitchell, to the strained soup of a Neil Diamond. Love letters are often interesting only to the writer and Mike's lyrics, however sincerely meant, give me the feeling of facility rather than conviction. I know that this is a difficult area to deal in, but somehow a song like "Ashes to Ashes" should be more important than it is. As I say maybe this is a problem only to me as I prefer Motown jive to intense thirty-two bar rock drama.

I have high hopes for the group itself. No one is striving to impress the higher academics of jazz. Everyone plays tastefully within himself and it seems the group could well discover its own life force before long. Ironically, the band needs another singer to offset Mike and I understand the search is on. They'll be playing at Richard's February 11-16.

Incidentally, Mike Green's group is one of the first casualties of the energy crisis. Two months ago everybody was offering him record deals. Now I hear they've stopped talking. So if you want to buy a Mike Green album, drive slow.

-rootie kazzotie