The Hampton Grease Band is
one of the most important staples in Atlanta's fast-growing youth community of
identification. We know they're great, they are always there, and sometimes
they're better than at other times; but unlike other rock groups in the area,
the Hampton Grease Band seems to be taking on a community function in which
music--rock and roll music, loud music, electric music, violent music, the high
energy force for change that John Sinclair has talked about--serves as a spring
in which a community can periodically refresh itself, a musical fountain of
youth consciousness.
The HGB consists of
vocalist (and now saxophonist Bruce Hampton (Taurus), guitarists Glenn Phillips
(Aries) and Harold Kelling (Leo), bassist Charlie Phillips (Libra), and drummer
Ted Levine (Pisces). Usually they do a long, suite-type of thing which includes
many different songs drawn from different periods in the development of rock,
maybe laced with a couple of campy pieces, some from a Southern hymnal, some
from nowhere you're familiar with, all placed within the context of a
free-floating cosmic music inspired by the best expressions of revolutionary
black music in Amerika.
At the old Catacombs two
years ago, the HGB seemed to be into a Paul Butterfield/Mike Bloomfield white
blues thing, with jazz overtones; Hampton was just as insane then as he is now,
but more into a self-destruction bag. One night he made use of an obviously
spontaneous nose-bleed to turn one set into a horrific bash of monster,
crashing blues rock; another night he seemed to be going absolutely wild and
threw a drum set into the audience. The Grease Band still digs rock theatrics,
but now more often that not expressed in the music itself. They have
incorporated into their musical interaction a vocal shout, an antiphonal,
non-verbal call and response series of shouts and yelps and exhortations.
Hampton now honks and screams on a saxophone, and is experimenting successfully
with jazz vocal techniques introduced into American black music by Pharoah
Sanders' group (it sounds like a hip yodel). His vocals are not as uptight as
they once were. Whether shouting out some Howlin' Wolf blues, running through
"Rock Around the Clock," or telling us about "Mr. Bones,"
the strain in the voice is going, and the wonderful things Hampton is doing
with the yodel technique indicate that he is even more seriously fashioning a
vocal relationship with his instrumental pyrotechnics of the band. Hampton's
priorities are not misplaced: his foray into the territory marked by the great
black vocalisms of Amerika stems from inspiration, not exploitation.
Instrumentally, what can
you say about the Hampton Grease Band except that they are one of the best rock
bands anywhere. Guitarists Glenn Phillips and Harold Kelling are fantastic
soloists who prove that virtuosity need not be stultifying; together they do a
sort of dual battle improvisational collective onslaught of the senses that
free-floats with the bass-drum rhythm in a world we don't often visit except
through chemicals or through some equally shattering experience. Charlie
Phillips, bassist for the group, is one of the most exciting, firmly swinging
in the field; he answers, speaks to, comments on, disagrees, attacks,
undercuts, supports, embraces and becomes one with the musical gestalt through
which his own instrumental voice is carried. Now the band has a new drummer,
Ted Levine, who is the best one they have ever had, a powerhouse of energy that
finally provides the rhythmic foundation they have always needed. Together,
they are simply dynamite.
At the same time the HGB
moves forward, it seems also to reach farther back into its roots. While
traveling freely into the cosmic territory of Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane,
they will suddenly bring up the rear with Little Richard, or their versions of
"That'll Be The Day," or "Walk Don't Run". It's not a
gimmick; they are saying that both approaches work well, they both express
different phases, different levels or planes of the new. On a sunlit September
Sunday in Piedmont Park, the Grease Band played what they consider to be the
best thing they've done. The next Sunday was cloudy and rainy, and music turned
into blue uniforms, tear gas, clubs and guns and blood. The following Sunday,
the Hampton Grease Band, and other rock groups in the community, brought us all
full circle back to free music in the park with a long, inter-connected set
that seemed to sum up musically the history of our experience. They were heavily
into their blues thing, their jazz thing, their basic rock thing; they made
sounds drawn from the Ventures, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, soul, some original
stuff, but now they are beginning to reflect the impact of white country music
in a campy version of "Wolverton Mountain," then "San Antonio
Rose," and even in a familiar Southern hymn, "Rock of Ages."
We don't recognize them
often enough, we don't "think" about them because they are so much a
part of us. We remember them from earlier days, the first band to play in
Piedmont Park, the first electric rock band to play at the old Catacombs. We
know them from student get-togethers, teeny-bopper clubs in the suburbs, the
Lotus "underground" film days at the Peachtree Art Theatre, the Bird
birthday party, many beautiful Piedmont Park Saturdays and Sunday--and one ugly
one--followed by the Sunday of free music that we won for ourselves by
defending our people, our community, from the system that builds Colony Squares
it can see and destroys invisible communities of human beings it doesn't even
recognize. There is nothing in the High Mausoleum of "Art" that can
approach the relationship between artistic creation and aesthetic response that
the Hampton Grease Band has given to Atlanta's youth community. One kind of art
hangs up on the wall, somebody owns it. The other belongs to the people who put
the system and its values up against the wall. Hail, hail rock and roll!
--miller
francis jr.
GREASE
RAP
(Interview
with Bruce Hampton)
What's Grease?
It's a concept of music.
It's a concept of life. It means lobster eggs and ointment. It means basically
to suck, yeah, basically to suck. It's hard to define.
What kind of music is it?
Suck rock. It's a
combination between suck rock and ointment. Grease is a form of life; it's also
a form of music. It's all a form of eggs; it all leads back to eggs.
Who understands your music
here in Atlanta?
About three people. Every
once in a while when we're playing, people will say, "What's that they're
doing?" They can't get into what we're doing because they're looking for
some local psychedelic be-bop band. What we try to do is create power. We just
try to destroy. See, our main ambition in life aside from growing a bosom on
top of our heads is to die on stage and when we die on stage that will be when
we ultimately reach Grease. People are scared of us around here and they don't
let us play much. What they're really afraid of is that, if they listen,
they'll find out that they're really as much of what we're playing about as we
are. We try to be as honest as possible. It's complete sincerity. There's no
put-on, no stage act.
What about technical
ability?
You need to learn how to
play. Everything has to be together and to destroy and it's not a question of
having a lot of technical capability. The goal is complete expression, and when
you completely attain this expression, you won't sound like anybody. You have
your own sound and you just destroy. What we want people to do is just climb in
and hear Grease and to destroy. Yeah, that's it.
"Give me
a gun, and I'll blow your fucking head off!--Bruce Hampton
Like most
heavy rock groups, the Hampton Grease Band suffers from overhype. The public
has been drenched with news of their comings and goings, their backstage
fighting, their messy private lives, their overt attempts to cash in on any
current fad. Still, the band feels that in spite of the television, radio, and
press coverage of their not-so-innocent antics, the music will endure.
According to guitarist Harold Kelling, "Our music reflects BOLTS,"
and this seems to be the real strength behind Grease.
One of the
heaviest rock groups in the country, the HGB totals in at 785 pounds, not
including equipment. They are 109 years old and come from Krele (pronounced
krel), "eight light earth years away from this planet," according to
vocalist Bruce Hampton. What has always held them together is their hatred of
the Band's bassist, Charlie, whom they hold at arm's length because of a
Business Law degree from Oglethorpe College. Yet, Charlie is their leader.
According to guitarist Glenn Phillips, "Charlie's my big brother- my
father image." Manager for the HGB is Steve Cole of Discovery: "We
first met Steve at the Catacombs- he said we were a good soul band and that if
we put on coats and ties and worked on our act, he'd make us a lot of
money!"
Unlike most
rock groups, the Grease Band is heavily into political struggles: "We
stand on our record," they say when asked to define their politics. Deeply
into the study of communications media, just how hip the HGB is is illustrated
by the fact that their politics was formulated not from the book, not even from
the movie, but from the television show of "My Friend Flicka"!
Not content to
rest on their laurels as musicians and entertainers, the Hampton Grease Band
likes to get involved. For February they are planning the First International
News Festival which will bring together in Montgomery, Alabama, for the first
time Frank McGee, Sander Vanocur, Jerry Psenka, John Doyle, Hal Suit, Walter
Cronkite and other news heavies. Hampton says there will be no police. Emcee
will be Big Bill Hill, disc jockey from Chicago, fresh from his triumph at the
Ann Arbor News Festival.
The HGB is
currently working on production of a mammoth one-record album for BITE label
which will be an exploration of the musical world of Norma Tanega as seen
through the eyes of Immanuel Kant; it will be called Who Ate the World? or,
more simply, FLAPS. Sample verse: "CANADE DOWN AND GROPE UNTIL, AROUND THE
PEAK AT VQLTAG'S WILL. THE CRAYON FORTH AND SIX SHALL SPEAK, SATEEMUS BLONE
CABLATIC GEEK."
Two
experiences that sum up the soul of the Hampton Grease Band most effectively
are the time several years ago when Bruce Hampton was playing records in his
grandmother's basement, and she came downstairs yelling, "Turn off that Goddam
music--it sounds like bees!" Another time the band was playing the
Catacombs "coffeehouse" and the Mother David underground
establishment threw them out because their music was too loud, too electric,
and too rock and roll: "They said we weren't underground--they said we
were sewerground!
--miller francis Jr.