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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.April 5, 1996
A quartet of local rock bands will join forces tonight to showcase themselves before what they hope to be a sizable audience of new listeners when the "Berkshire Groove Festival" kicks off at 8 at Woody's Roadhouse in the town of Washington.
Topping the bill is the veteran Berkshire band Xavier, which now goes by the name Lord Hill. Also appearing will be the Reverend Tor Band, the East Creek Band and Skillet. Most of the performers will have tapes and CDs for sale, and special T-shirts featuring the festival's psychedelic logo will be available for purchase.
"The whole idea is to get all our friends together who play in bands and to have a sort of party," said Tor Krautter, the frontman of the Reverend Tor Band and a member of East Creek. "It usually takes a benefit to pull together a whole bunch of bands on the same stage, which is fine, but we wanted to do it just for its own sake."
The festival was the original idea of Krautter and Jason Webster, a bandmate in the Reverend Tor Band who is also a member of Lord Hill. With three of the four bands sharing personnel, Webster described it as "interchangeable band night with interchangeable members."
To highlight the connections, the festival will be set up as one continuous performance with no breaks between bands. The large stage at Woody's will allow for all four bands to have their equipment set up at the outset, and each band's set is likely to merge into the next, as some players leave and others replace them while one band transforms into the next.
"It's a bit of an experiment," said Krautter. "The idea was to present local original music without any breaks and with no letting up on the audience," said Webster. "We also want to try to make people aware that there are original songwriters among the Berkshire bands here."
Webster said that Lord Hill is putting the finishing touches on its latest CD, which was recorded last winter at Long Hill Farm in eastern Massachusetts and which Webster described as sounding like a cross between Bush and the Allman Brothers. The band changed its name because there is already a musician who records for Warner Brothers Records who goes by the name of Xavier.
Krautter said that all the bands on the bill share a "funky, danceable groove," which is partly what attracted him and Webster to Skillet, perhaps the least well known of the four groups in the lineup.
"Tor and I saw Skillet one night at LaCocina in Pittsfield, and we heard all the words, and they were funny and great and nice guys, so we asked them to join in with us," said Webster.
Skillet's guitarist, Tim Heffernan, said the West Stockbridge-based trio has been playing together for about a year. Heffernan met bassist Matt Swift when the two attended Simon's Rock College together in the mid-'80s. The band is rounded out by drummer Derrick Rodgers, the only Berkshire native in the group.
Heffernan, who writes the songs, described his material as "eclectic rock with a lot of influences ranging from minimalism to funk and reggae." He said a listener once came up to him after a show and suggested the band fit in somewhere "between Primus, the Spin Doctors and Miles Davis."
Krautter has hopes that tonight's festival might spark other similar events showcasing bands making original music in the Berkshires.
"If this works, maybe we could do something this summer outdoors, like a local, Berkshire version of Lollapalooza," he said. "We're trying to sort of get something going in the area again. It's been a little stale lately. I'm not trying to slam anyone, but we need some larger events to pull people together instead of the same old club scene."
Cheryl Hoenemeyer, who follows Cohen to NASC's campus center on Tuesday night at 8 and Hoosac Harbor on Wednesday at noon, is a rare piano-playing singer-songwriter. As such, she has been variously likened to Billy Joel and Bruce Hornsby, and indeed her song "Class Notes" -- a snapshot of a group of former classmates some years out of school -- recalls the latter, with a bit of Elton John thrown in for good measure.
We haven't heard Eric Garrison, who performs on Sunday night at the Cactus Cafe in Lee in the Musica y Mas series. But Garrison comes highly recommended by people we trust, and his press kit is loaded with comparisons to the likes of James Taylor, Randy Newman, Harry Chapin, Jim Croce and Jimmy Buffet. His set will begin at 7 and run until 10, and in between there will be an open-mike. Musica y Mas shows are open to all ages; call 243-4300 for more information.
(This review originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on April 5, 1996. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1996. All rights reserved.)
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