By Dan Szczesny
HippoPress.com
It's midnight on a warm December Wednesday and a tight knot of bodies, tired and tipsy from the past few hours, still circles the dance floor at the Black Brimmer. The dancers aren't young; they have families, children, wives and husbands to go home to. They wear sequined dresses that sparkle like tiny flashbulbs. They wear black boots and turtlenecks. There is gray in their temples and in their beards. They dance as the evening slips like liquid into morning.
They dance because Mama Kicks compels them them to.
For nearly five years now, the Brimmer's house band has plowed relentlessly through long sets of Motown and '80s rock, blues and disco. They play every Wednesday at the Brimmer, they play at the Yard, and at Whippersnappers in Londonderry. They play at the new 88 Buffet in Nashua and at the Red Blazer in Concord. Individual members plays solo gigs as well, and they put out CDs.
Like the fans that follow them from bar to bar to hear "Truckin'" and "Take me to the River" and "The Wanderer," Mama Kicks is not young.
In her late 30s, lead singer and guitarist Lisa Guyer is the youngest member. Keyboardist and singer Gardner Berry is 52. New drummer David Stefanelli is 40.
Mama Kicks is the cover band that so many cover bands aspire to be; it's all they do and they make a living doing it. They have all been around in several incarnations for years, Gardner for nearly 40 years in fact. They have played this music for so long in so many ways in so many places, they don't even have a set list. They rehearse only once a week. Live gigs, sometimes as many as five or six a week, are rehearsal enough.
"They have been able to sustain a living," says WZID's Jim Roach, a marketing consultant and local music guru. "That's unheard of in the music business." Manchester is a city of musical ironies. Cover bands are what people want. Even some fairly well know regional acts, like Chad LaMarsh or Evan Goodrow - both up and comers with a decent sized catalog of original music - come to Manchester and play covers. But as popular as covers are, as much as the dance floors in the city fill when a band rips into a "Satisfaction," being in a cover band is generally a night time, part-time job. Not for Mama Kicks. "We're lucky," Lisa says. "We've never had to work."
Charmed life, hard road
"Work" is relative. A week in the life of Mama Kicks puts to rest the notion that musicians lead an easy life. All they do is Mama Kicks. It's their lives. They set up in the morning before a gig (they do their own set up, because "it keeps us in shape," says Lisa), catch a bite to eat for lunch, work on their Web site in the afternoon, play until 1 a.m. and break down the stage seven hours later. They do this five or six times a week.
And to get here, they have all paid their dues. Gardner is the rock. His first band was The Telstars in 1964. Since then he's worked with Stonecross, Double Cross, the Classics' Showband and The Wicked Big Band. He's the straight man, the guy who Lisa and Dave play off of. They call him "G-man." During a photo shoot at his east Manchester home, every photo of him looks alike; solid, mostly unsmiling, together. He always returns calls, speaks frankly and generously about his music, and knows the importance, even at this stage of his career, of press, But he's also been around long enough to know he's lucky to still have such a strong voice.
"There is virtually no security in this job except knowing that I'm doing a good job at what I do," he says on a Wednesday morning at the Brimmer. He and Lisa are setting up for the evening's show, and Gardner is focused. "I could fall back on lounge singing," he says with a shrug. "But I'm making a decent living right now." After a pause, he says, "On paper at the end of the year, we don't make much. We're almost a nonprofit organization," and he laughs, letting down his guard for a moment.
Gardner, who hails from Kingston, has two sons and a granddaughter. He's been married four times, once to Lisa. "We double date," Gardner says about his relationship with Lisa. "We still get to work together, but she doesn't have to pick up my socks." Lisa overhears his comment, and after a shared look they both burst into laughter. Photos of him and Lisa, young, buff, '80s, are still posted on his refrigerator.
Lisa is the mama who kicks, and the reason many come to see the band's shows. She speaks quickly and bluntly, like she's in a hurry, and she never seems to dress casually. Even while setting up, she's dressed in a tight fitting blouse that displays her belly. He hair is pulled back, showing off the tattoo on top of her ear. She works out hard, and stays in shape. Older photos of her display nearly body- builder-like muscles. But nearly 10 years ago, she became asthmatic. "I'm praying for the day of smoke-free clubs," she says. "It begins to hurt after three or four nights of club smoke." Despite this, on stage, she is the opposite of Gardner. She attacks her guitar, singing like Janis Joplin, working the crowd, understanding and appreciating how many eyes are on her. She's put out two of her own CDs as the Lisa Guyer Band, "Gypsy Girl" and "Leap of Faith," but has no problmes with playing covers live. "We're hired to play covers, it's what we do," she says. "It's our 9-5 job so to speak."
The third member of the band, Dave Stefanelli, has a day job of sorts. He works for jingle companies in Boston. Drums on the California Raisins commercial campaign? That was him. The music for a recent "Front Line" special on pornography? Yup, that was Dave's. He is the clown of the group, a mad, unrelenting jokester, making faces and mugging for cameras. He met me at the door of Gardner's house wearing an immense Elton John-sized pair of glasses. He meant them as a joke. I thought it was just Dave being Dave. Dave just joined the group, after sitting in on drums for a while. He played with The Peter Wolf Band (he of J. Geils fame), and he played in the popular local group, Beloved Few, before the band broke up this year. After working toward record contracts and national fame for so long, Dave seems the least likely to start a new career with a cover band. But to him, it makes perfect sense. "I got to play in the big playground for a while and it can be exciting, but this is where it's at," he says. "Chasing the big brass ring can sometimes damage the foundation of a group. And it's rewarding being in a group as powerful as Mama Kicks. You're not always concerned with whose gonna take it to the next step. It's about having fun."
On this day, just hours from their set at the Brimmer, the three of them are goofing in Gardner's backyard, shooting pictures and MP3s for their Web site. Lisa's boyfriend is taking pictures, while Dave hams it up, writing a sign that says "Got wood?" for a shot of the three of them in front of a woodpile. Dave shoots mini-videos of each of them, and one clip of Lisa pushing a wheelbarrow. They act like kids.
Later, the three rehearse for a bit in Gardner's living room, belting out an impromptu, bluesy version of "Merry Christmas, Baby." Gardner's house is a small brown and blue clapboard that sits at the end of a dead-end street, mere yards from the passing cars on Interstate 93. It's filled with music, pictures of Bonnie Raitt and Joe Cocker, photographs and posters on nearly every wall of the Beatles or John Lennon. It's in this museum to music that they play, without form or care, looking out of Gardner's living room window as the cars zip past and the sun sets behind the highway.
The brass ring
How and where a local band plays, cover band or not, is not a simple equation. There is no standard, though there are some general rules of thumb. Let's forget about big acts and big venues for the moment; places like Verizon Wireless Arena and promoters like Clear Channel are of little concern to local acts, and certainly of no concern to cover bands. They play clubs, but club owners do not, for example, bring in bands because they like the music. The amount of money a band gets for a gig depends almost solely on how many people show up to the club. A big draw makes bigger money. But there are other factors. Some acts ask for a cover charge. Some bars ask for a cover charge. Some club owners pay a bit up front, and more at the end of the night depending on how full the cash drawer ends up.
The smart performers realize this, even if they have reached regional renown.
"When dealing with bars, you have to ask yourself if you are bringing in the people and keeping them there," Chad LaMarsh says. "Is a bar doing well? I can't ask for more money than I'm worth. Those are the things I look for." In Manchester, worth is relative. Local unestablished bands can make anywhere between $300 and $500 a gig, while similar solo acts can command $100 to $200. Larger acts, like Entrain, may be able to command $1,200 to $1,500. "When you divide it up between maybe four or five band members, a couple roadies, maybe a blown speaker, you don't make a lot of money," says Roach. "You have to be very dedicated."
There are even more factors. Some performers play only for tips. For example, guitarist Tim Pike often sits in with Mama Kicks at the Brimmer for tips alone. Gardner jokes that Tim often gets more in tips than members of the band earn individually.
LaMarsh does not ask for tips or a cover charge. He allows the club to set the cover, but makes sure his contract clarifies that the cover can not be too demanding. During Mama Kicks shows, Guyer sells copies of her CDs. Yet despite all these factors, one thing is still clear: regardless of the performer's popularity or success, in Manchester, playing original tunes may be more detrimental to an act, and a club's bottom line, than playing covers. "I don't kid myself and think people are out there to hear my tunes," LaMarsh says. "It's great to get requests for my original stuff, but the bottom line is that I'm a cover artist."
Guyer says that Brimmer crowds enjoy a lot of 70s disco and soul, so that's what the band plays."I don't even particularly like it," she says. "But it packs them in." Even independent promoters understand what brings people out to a club in Manchester. "It's a bit odd, as New Hampshire does extremely well with classic rock acts," said Mass Concerts promoter Cindy Burke. "Yet that same act won't do as well in downtown Boston."
Mass Concerts recently brought Bob Dylan to the civic center, but the promotions company also works with smaller local acts. "We're being very aggressive trying to bring in more and more bands to New Hampshire, and not just to Verizon," Burke says, "but places like Chantilly's too." Chantilly's recently moved from Concord back to Manchester, in part to capitalize on the move in the city toward heavy rock and '80s acts."The city's not known for alternative rock," Burke says. "Straight ahead in- your-face rock, that's what works." There's another factor that works to the advantage of local bands in Manchester; they can actually get paid more working outside Boston.
"It's true, bands get paid more in the suburbs than in Boston," says Debbie Catalano, who runs a booking and promotion agency in Stoneham, Mass. "People know what to expect up there, and bands get regular bookings more easily." That seems to be the case in Manchester. As the city grows and the new civic center drives the city's musical stock up, more unlikely locations are starting to offer live music: The Vintage Cafe, American Legion Post and Unwined, for example.
And through all the changes and uncertainty, Mama Kicks plays.
The gig
It is more than two hours and past 11 p.m. before Mama Kicks takes their first break. They play relentlessly, like it's their first gig and they are working to keep their jobs. I ask all three before the show if, after years of playing, they still get excited beforehand. "Excited?" Gardner says. "I still get nervous. I'm confident, but I'm never sure."
That nervousness is not betrayed on stage. Dave jokes with the band, and with the crowd. At one point, he shouts out, "Everybody take off your clothes!" When some of the dancers actually begin to strip, he quickly adds, "Maybe that's not a good idea after all!"
Often, the band confers briefly between songs, with Lisa calling out song titles. Sometimes there is no pause; the band just plays right into the next tune. During a break, Gardner talks about the band's groupies. Lisa calls them "Band-Aids." There is Captain Karl, a unassuming fan who take a cab to all the Mama Kicks shows. Sometimes, the group puts some shakers on stage, and the Captain will meander on up and shake away. There is also another couple, Harold and Lil. "They just come on up and sing and dance," Gardner says. The band rarely does requests, mostly because of rude fans. "People think it's part of their job to barrage you with requests," Lisa says. "We gauge what an audience wants and we play it. We play the crowd."
After the show, the band is still pumped and they decide to pack up most of the gear right then. Normally, they come back the next morning. But this weekend, they are going to be the first band to play at the new 88 Buffet in Salem - both Friday and Saturday - and they want to get a head start.
The schedule is tough. Lisa says she can't work as hard or as often as Gardner. Dave has to drive up from Boston to play with the band. But they all know how rare it is that they can do this, day after day, making a living - even if it is just squeaking by. Up to her neck in equipment, rushing to make the next stop, and after years of playing cover tunes for a living, Lisa doesn't even hesitate when asked to describe her life. "What I do for life is a party," she says. "It's a charmed life."