At some point in the early 1970s, a schoolboy named Karl Grable sat at the Ozark Theatre and had a memory deeply imprinted into his subconscious. When standing in that remodeled space today, his mind goes back. Way back.
“I was watching Snoopy, Come Home,” he can recall with clarity. “I sat right over there. And I was singing along to the movie. Some older kids were there and yelled at me to ‘Shut up!’ That was it. I was crushed.”
Get a guide to the region’s booming music scene
Subscribe to the St. Louis Music newsletter to discover upcoming concerts, local artists to watch, and more across an eclectic playlist of genres.
Twenty years later, the Ozark was shuttered and Grable wasn’t singing anymore, but was enjoying life as the founding bassist of a band called The Urge, which grew from Webster Groves High School kingpins into one of the biggest-drawing original music bands in St. Louis. After a handful of self-releases in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the band’s 1995 cassette/CD Receiving the Gift of Flavor wound up winning the ear of the A&R department at Immortal Records and, with a couple of small retoolings, became the album that’d serve as their major label debut in 1996.
Fast-foward another 20 years, and the band was back, holed up at the largely rehabbed Ozark, as they spent this past Saturday night rerecording Receiving the Gift of Flavor in a live setting that was an interesting-to-view public recording experience. Fans that had taken par part at the highest level of an online, crowdfunding support effort through PledgeMusic.com were treated to the “show,” a handful of drink tickets, a buffet of comfort foods, and a chance to sign a giant, inflatable pickle, all while sitting within a venue tricked out as a recording-studio-for-the-night.
At about 7:50 p.m., with fans milling about, singer Steve Ewing strode up to his microphone and lyric lectern, both partially obscured by a series of a upturned tables and Indian blankets. He set up the expectations.
“This is kinda crazy,” he began, to cheers. “We’re gonna record an album right now… We’re going from the top of the album, all the way down to the bottom. We’ll track the high harmonies and low harmonies later. But 90 percent of what you’ll hear on the album is being recorded here tonight.”
And with that, the band ran through two takes of the rousing “Brainless,” a single from Flavor, and still one of the band’s concert staples. Pretty much every track from then on was given two run-throughs, three for a trickier cut. Fans danced in the aisle near their seats, or at the listening station, where four high-quality headphones projected what was being tracked behind a large, soundboard-blocking wall. Because the audience was packed with die-hards, who sang along to even deep-album cuts, there were hoots and hollers with each newly tackled track, with some folks following along via the CDs and tapes they brought along.
Around the halfway mark, the band paused for a break and sax player Bill Reiter admitted that the room had gotten “hotter than hell” and, maybe because of that, the band was “playing pretty good.”
Reiter and drummer John Pessoni had arguably the toughest assignments of the night, as both had performed at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre only a week prior, with the high-intensity, hyper-popular Pink Floyd tribute El Monstero. (The ever-gregarious Pessoni even worked double-duty that night, with the Led Zeppelin tribute Celebration Day.) The rehearsal schedule for the two had been especially intense in the weeks leading up to their active August.
“We were preparing for these shows on parallel tracks,” Reiter said, moments before rejoining the band onstage for the second half of the album. “I think compartmentalizing is the right term for it. I could do this in my sleep. I could wake up and play these songs. With El Monstero, it gets pretty cerebral. But this is just about playing the jams.”
And that they did, to a crowd that sang along, cheered frequently, shouted out commentary and often rocked classic-era Urge tee-shirts that may, or may not, have fit as easily as they used to. In fact, that’s a good jumping off point for a few sights and sounds of the evening…
Ewing noted that Grable was wearing the same shirt as the “Brainless” video of two decades back, which drew a Pessoni crack that “I’m impressed it still fits!”
As impressive as Grable’s trim frame is the fact that the band’s largely intact from its major label days, which followed a good-sized shake-up in the group’s emerging years lineup. Along with Pessoni, Grable, Reiter and Ewing, trombonist Matt Kwiatkowski and guitarist Jerry Jost remain today, as does ever-accommodating manager Phil Dunscombe.
One of the add-on presents of the evening was an autographed baby doll, which reflected the distinctive image on the front of the album. Pessoni said that Grable had to go to great lengths to find a big enough stash of them, though he eventually tracked down a sufficient number online. At the break, it was amusing to see all the dolls sitting on tables, next to half-enjoyed plates of popcorn shrimp, jalapeno poppers and grapes.
Later this fall, the band will be joining forces with Public House Brewing, out of Rolla/St. James, MO. A Belgian wit bier named “The Gift of Flavor” will debut in October or so. Members of Public House were on hand at the Ozark, serving up samples of their current roster of beers, while frequently taking time out to dance around in matching pickle outfits. (Pickles and Urge lyrics… well, you’d have to be a fan.)
And those fans knew that the original release featured a cut called “Killing Is Easy,” which was replaced by “Take Away” on the label release. The band played both and each will be on the new version.
At this point, Pessoni’s taking on remixing duties for the project, at his home studio, where he’ll cut together the best of Saturday night’s bits, while adding in small amounts of post-production color.
In the interests of disclosure, this writer owns a business that’s neighbor to Ewing’s Tower Grove version of Steve’s Hot Dogs.
