The MichiganDaily - Weekend etc. - Thursday, March 17, 1994 -5 On their first headlining tour, 'Allgood' makes good By TOM ERLEWINE Athens, Georgia is alegendary town in popularmusic. Notonly haveR.E.M. and the B-52's come from there, but also have such lesser-known but equally wonderful pop bands like Love Tractor and Pylon. The latest band to emerge from the blessed New South is Allgood, a Southern interpretation of the hippie blues rock of Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors. Thankfully, Allgood can jam and groove like the Allman Broth- ers and their lead singer Corky Jones is a dead ringer for Stevie Ray Vaughn, which is what separates the band from the crowded pack. Currently, Allgood is back on the road, supporting their majorlabel-debut, "Uncommon Goal." "It's a full-blown, do-the-whole- country thing,"explained bassistMike Sain. "Ofcourse, we're doing the Mid- westagain.Wehaddoneitonce,around this time last year, for the first time by ourselves and itwent OK. And then we came back with Big Head Todd, and this is pretty much his areaof the coun- try. We opened up 1,000 seat theaters for him and also we had done the H.O.R.D.E. tour. So between that, al- mostevery show we did with them was soldout.Wehad some greatreceptions in the Midwest which is what made us want to come back and do it again and that's pretty much what we're doing right now." Being on their own headlining tour is a slightly different prospect for the band. Despite having a warm reception from audiences and critics, Allgood couldn't break all the way into radio and they are still trying to pull people into the clubs and bars. As Sain ex- plained, "If you're not that well-known and Joe Schmoe is having the bad keg party that night and that happens to be the crowd of people that would have come to see you play, you're crowd can be off. If everybody knows that there's a buzz on your band, they'll have the keg party before the show." With tours like H.O.R.D.E. and the opening slot Not yet in 'where are they now?' file BAND Continued from page 3 obviously in Virginia a lot because that's where we're from, and nobody outside of there knew us, 'cause we didn't have anything out until about five months ago. In the Southeast I think we have a really faithful fan base -people that really get into it - and I think they spread the word. We go into places we haven't been before, up in the Northeast and stuff, and find that people have been listening to us for a long time." The strength of their following helped the band sign a record contract with RCA. "In May we're gonna go into the studio for the first time, so that's going to be a lot of fun," said Matthews. "We're going in for a long time; hopefully, we'll be in there for the whole project for about two months. We're excited about that." Currently, the band has a number of songs it could release on their album - songs that were released on their independent live album, "Remember Two Things" and songs they haven't recorded yet. "We'll have to sit down and discuss it and look at the list of songs we have. It might be nice to put out some songs with a stronger version or a different version, because I like a lot of the songs that we put on ('Remember') but I think a different depiction of them might be kind of cool. 'Recently' is one - that's one we've sort of been pushing really hard. I love that song!" he laughed. "I The AgeofRubens FEBRUARY 2 - APRIL 24 think we could do a good version of that. No, in 10 years we'll do another version of 'Recently'- it'll probably be like the Spinal Tap reunion. We'll be residing in the 'where are they now?' file, playing military schools." In all seriousness, things are looking bright for the Dave Matthews Band. After all, they will have a new EP out in a few months (through mail- order and at shows only) and their first full-length studio album will be released by RCA, the home of Elvis Presley. "I'm not a huge Elvis fan - I never have been, I don't know why. I was a massive Beatles fan; they just made me laugh more, I guess. When I was a little kid I was kind of into giggling as much as listening to music and Elvis was always a little too cool for me. I was an obsessed Beatles fan from around the age of six until - I'm still obsessed. I had pictures all over, I was crazy. When people were blowing up frogs, I was blowing up little photographs of the Beatles." When Matthews was a child listening to the Beatles, he had some idea that he would want to pursue a musical career. "I knew I did (have an idea) when I was listening to the Beatles because I just thought that would be the cool thing to do in life. I always wanted to do it, but really not more than wanting to act or wanting to paint. I was kind of obsessed by all of the arts. What it is now is not something that I was dreaming about a long time ago. I couldn't have thought this up in my wildest dreams." THE DAVTI-~AEYr7 ND will play the Blind Pig tonight. Doors open at 9:30 p.m.; tickets are $5 in advance. for Big Head Todd behind them, as well as strong word of mouth, Allgood is beginning to have that buzz. That buzz should continue through- out the year, when their second album for A & M is released in May. "In January, before we tookoff in the South, we played a club in Augusta, Georgia and recorded a live record," recalled Sain. "With a live record, all you do is get up there and crank it, you know, and get it on tape, mix it down, and it's ready to roll." Sain relishes the pros- pect of the live album because Allgood is a band that was born to play live. "The thing is, we have a hell of a lot more experience at playing live than we do playing in the studio," he said, "so it was very comfortable to get up there and do our own natural thing. On this live record we have one song from 'Uncommon Goal,' three songs from an independent record we did before, we did an old Freddy King song - 'Sugar Sweet' that I think is off 'Bur- glar' -and then we had one new song that we hadn't recorded yet that we put on there. Technically,it'san EP butit's about 40 minutes long." Since Allgood feels the mostcom- fortable playing live, they try out all their new songs during their set. "It's really such a litmus test live because when you play a song that everybody knows, they're excited thatyou'replay- ing a song thatthey know and they're at the show. It's almost a virginal experi- ence and it's a very true test to how good a song is. Also for us, you're jamming something and all of a sud- den, sometimes for us, it's like 'Man, this doesn't feel right.' But you got to get out there and play it, because play- ing to an audience and playing in your "Allgood:" Corky Jones, John Carter, Clay Fuller, Charlie Pruet, Mike Sain. practice basement is like night and day. So when you're up there and perform- ing something and you're like, 'You know, this part doesn't do it for me,' then I lookout in the crowd and it's not doing it for anybody else-let'schange it." Although "Uncommon Goal"'cap- tured some of the band's kinetic live energy, it does seem a little polished, which Sain freely admits. "Forourfirst effort, we did a good job. I think that it may have been a little too glossy if you've seen us live, which is why I'm excited about the live record coming out because it's mistakes and all, warts and all but it's got that energy we get when we're on and the crowd's on. It's hard to duplicate that in the studio, no matter what." ALLGOOD willhit two - count 'em wo -different Rick's in the state of Michigan; on Friday, they'replaying East Lansing and on Saturday they'replaying Kalamazoo. Catch 'em if you're in that area. i- s .'- M CA i Yopu o