D ET RO I T J EW IS H N E WS My Name Is Jonny LLJ 88 onny Polonsky is in the Chapel Hill, N.C., Red Roof Inn. And there's no mistaking what part of the country he's in. "Yeah, it smells like tabacky even though we have a non- smoking room," Polonsky says. He's not complaining. The 26-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist is in the midst of his first national concert tour, supporting "My Name is Jonny," his major-label de- but of cheeky, energetic power pop. He's opening for ex-Pixies leader Frank Black, one of his musical heroes and a patron who helped Polonsky land the recording deal he dreamed about. "Everything's been incredible," Polon- sky says. "I'm really happy making records, being in the music business, re- leasing records commercially. Obvious- ly I want to sell records; it would be great to be really popular and have people buy the record and like it. But I'm just stoked that I'm making records at all. "I didn't know it would be this fast." Polonsky is hardly an overnight suc- cess. Though he was raised in the well- off Chicago suburb of Wilmette, he's still paid his share of dues, playing in a va- riety of bands and diligently honing his songwriting at home on recording gear his parents bought for him. Music runs in the Polonsky genes. His mother, Naomi, is a pianist and folk singer who toured internationally with the Halevi Chorus; Polonsky woke her 26-year-old Jonny Polonsky is on his first national concert tour. GARY GRAFF SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS up at 3 a.m. one day to perform the hand home-made tapes as the Amazing Jonny claps on his song "Gone Away." His fa- Polonsky. `They were more like comic vi- ther — a financial analyst who died when gnettes, really short. Some songs sound- Polonsky was 16 — was more of a mu- ed like spaghetti westerns. There was a lot of varied instrumentation. sic appreciator. "I just made tapes, duped them, went "He was a big jazz fan," Polonsky re- members, "but he always listened to the down to the Kinko's and drew up a cov- er and ran around giving them to people stuff my brother and I would bring home." saying, 'Here, listen to my albums.' I fig- Older brother Dan teaches guitar and bass at an Evanston music store and is ured, if nothing else, it was a way to get in4 foot in the door of record company ex- part of the Chicago punk trio Jaws of Life. ecutives and musicians I re- Polonsky himself became a ally liked." pop fan when he was young, in- Jonny Pol onsky made Most of those musicians fatuated first with the Beatles and Monkees before latching "My Name is Jonny" in were sidemen and studio his bro ther's old players, such as David Bowie onto mid-'80s MTV favorites bedroom; P olonsky plays cohort Reeves Gabrels, who such as Duran Duran. He be- all the ins truments on Polonsky met during one of gan playing the baritone the a [bum. his teen-age summer camps. ukelele when he was 9, then A mutual friend put him in switched to guitar three years touch with Frank Black, who later. Over the years he worked with a variety of groups, including the liked Polonsky's songs enough to help the school jazz band, a country outfit called fledgling pop star find a manager and the Durals, a jazzy "sort of Marvin Ham- record a professional demo tape. That, in turn, gave Polonsky something lisch rock band" named Dagnabit and an- other pop group known as White Fat to pique the interest of record companies. America bit, but the big-time didn't Farm. And Polonsky learned to cook — liter- change Polonsky's approach; he upgrad- ally. After high school, he spent 2Y years ed his recording gear and made "My in Cambridge, Mass., doing an "informal Name is Jonny" in his brother's old bed- apprenticeship" with Julia Child, an old room — christened Ground Round Sound for the exercise. He plays all the instru- friend of his mom's. But Polonsky's real obsession was ments, though when the album was songwriting and recording, which began mixed, Polonsky went to Atlanta to work when his parents bought him his first with Brendan O'Brien, who's produced tape recorder. "I wasn't really writing albums for Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pi- songs," says Polonsky, who released three lots and the Black Crowes. With Polonsky's "Semitic good looks" filling the cover, his album is a pop lover's feast — spare and short (the whole thing is just over 24 minutes long); it's driven by the kind of exuberant riffs that air gui- tar players imagine as they leap around their bedrooms. There are plenty of love songs, as well as a sober remembrance of a fatal boating accident ("I Don't Know What to Dream at-Night") and an ap- preciation of napping ("It's Good to Sleep") that was the first of what Polonsky con- siders his "real" songs. "I've been trying to write since I was around 10 years old; it's only in the last two years that I started getting things I was happy with," he says. "One of the things that kept me back from writing for so long was that I'd compare myself to different writers and recognize where I stole a riff or if something reminded me of someone else. "Now I don't care. I consider myself a thief, but it's a good thing. Some songs sprinkle down from the heavens, and some songs blatantly rip off other people. I can live with that ... and now I get all the publishing money. It's a wonderful business." ❑ Jonny Polonsky plays St. Andrew's Hall Thursday, March 28. Former front man for the Pixies Frank Black head- lines. All ages welcome. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance. Call Ticketmaster at (810) 645-6666.