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Friday, January 03, 2003

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

Karl Mullen knew the local music scene had turned a corner when the Sprout Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving as a catalyst for change in the arts community, agreed to underwrite a month-long celebration featuring 100 bands at Club Cafe.

	Schedule: "100Bands, 31Nights, 1City" Friday: Johnsons Big Band, The Working Poor, Americanski (8 p.m.; $5). Saturday: The Legion of Incredibly Strange Superheroes, Hope Harveys, Hi- Frequencies (7:30 p.m.; $5). Sunday: Mercury, Yummy, Lushwell (8 p.m.; $5). Monday: "New Voices," a forum for new artists hosted by J. G. Boccella (sign up at 6 p.m.; 7 p.m. show; free). Tuesday: Fyah Wyah, Wisdom Band Freedom (7:30 p.m.; $5). Wednesday: Kevin Finn CD Release Party, Eric Fox, Up the Sandbox (7:30 p.m.; $5). Followed by After Dark Sessions featuring Pittsburgh electronic musicians Sugapablo, Oscillator Project, Mike Klobuchar, Impercept and Stoic Sex Pro (11 p.m., free). Thursday: New Jazz Night with Cap Gun Quartet, Mr. Nimbus, Matula Oblongata (7:30 p.m.; $5). Followed by After Dark Sessions, an improv jam session (11 p.m., free). Jan. 10: Boxstep, Daryl Fleming, Paul Labrise and The Trees (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 11: Manpig, Ritual Space Travel Agency, The Wolves (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 12: 3 Car Garage, The Yards, Strangeway (8 p.m.; $5). Jan. 13: "New Voices" forum (6 p.m. sign-up; 7 p.m. show; free). Jan. 14: Mofones, The Gothees, Red Bobs (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 15: The Invisible Village Theater (Details TBA). Followed by After Dark Sessions featuring Bull Seal Collective (11 p.m.; free). Jan. 16: Jazz Satellite, Mi Sandz, Howie Alexander (7:30 p.m.; $5). Followed by DJ Ryan Walsh (11 p.m., free). Jan. 17: SodaJerk, Soma Mestizo (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 18: OPEK, Beam (7:30 p.m.; $5) Jan. 19: New Invisible Joy, Tangerine, Mile One (8 p.m.; $5). Jan. 20: "New Voices" forum (6 p.m. sign-up; 7 p.m. show; free). Jan. 21: Deliberate Strangers, Local Honey, Lonesome Bob (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 22: Salena Catalina, New Pussycats, The Attendants (7:30 p.m.; $5). Followed by After Dark Sessions featuring Pittsburgh electronic musicians Manherringbone, Sugapablo, Powder French and The Stem Cell Liberation Front (11 p.m.; free). Jan. 23: The Bessemers, other artists TBA (7:30 p.m.; $5). Followed by Dr. Zombo's Weird Vinyl Party (11 p.m., free). Jan. 24: The Breakup Society, ATS, Bingo Coyote (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 25: Hearts And Science, Life In Bed, Lorelei (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 26: Transition, Loonsdale, Mill Street Criminals (4 p.m.; all ages; $10). Owensring, Waking Matthew, Original Low (8 p.m.; 21 and over; $5). Jan. 27: "New Voices" forum (6 p.m. sign-up; 7 p.m.; free). Jan. 28: Yawp presents "The Mother of All YAWPs" with Bull Seal Collective, Chiz Trio, Charles Clifton, Gail Ghai (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 29: Pandora's Box, Fuzzy Comets, The Distractions, Cool Grand (7:30 p.m.; $5). Followed by After Dark Sessions featuring Bull Seal Collective (11 p.m., free). Jan. 30: The Barrett Black Band, Rain Quartet (7:30 p.m.; $5). Jan. 31: Jennifer Goree CD Release Party, Mark Dignam, The Last Town Chorus (7:30 p.m.; $5). All artists are subject to change.

A veteran of the early punk scene who now books the upscale South Side venue, Mullen says, "It used to be this underground phenomenon. I mean, imagine 10 or 15 years ago thinking we'd get a grant from a mainstream arts group. You'd be like 'Get the [expletive] out of here. Those people ain't coming around.' "

But now they are.

And so is local radio.

The X will broadcast live from Club Cafe each Sunday night this month.

And the official kickoff of the whole event, as headlined by the Johnsons Big Band, will be carried live tonight on WYEP.

"I'm looking forward to hopefully turning some people on to the Johnsons Big Band," says Kyle Smith, the go-to guy for local music programming at YEP, "and the fact that there are a lot of good things going on musically here in Pittsburgh."

Mullen cites the local music year-end show on YEP as both a "breakthrough" and another sign that things are looking up for the local community.

"I think something's happening," Mullen says. "There's something bubbling. There's an energy. There seems to be a lot of looking and reaching out towards trying to make something happen. And I think we're just a small part of that. And YEP's show was another part of that. I think they're thinking of doing that on a regular basis. And that's huge. That really is huge."

The club has been planning the month-long local-music showcase since the summer. Mullen says it came out of "talking with Club Cafe folks and figuring out where we wanted to go and how we wanted to position ourselves. And we decided that we wanted to attempt to be a catalyst for local music."

Smith is impressed with the marathon length of the club's commitment, saying, "I think it's adventurous as hell to try to carry over an event for an entire month. It's gotta be tough to promote and continue the excitement through the whole month, which I hope they can continue and carry through so that somebody doesn't get lost that might be a gem."

Securing the Sprout Fund's support, says Mullen, had the bonus effect of "authenticating" both the local music scene and Club Cafe's event.

"It signifies that it's a scene that's come of age," he says. "And people have really responded. The X didn't say 'Oh, that's a crappy idea. Go away.' They said 'This is wonderful. Let's take it to the next level and do these broadcasts.' Same with YEP. Other people said 'Wow, we were thinking of doing something like that. How can we help?' "

With support coming in from all over, the call went out to bands from several different corners of the music scene, from Polish Hill to Nick's Fat City.

As Mullen says, "I felt it needed to be not just my 100 picks, because that wouldn't work. I think it needs to be inclusive. It needs to go beyond the box a bit. So I asked a number of people for their input. I also asked what I thought then were a number of key bands to program the rest of the night. I asked the Arco Flute Foundation to play and they were the ones who chose the other bands to play with them."

The acts he wound up booking range from surf to electronica with stops at country, indie-rock and Ritual Space Travel Agency.

No Ozzfest music, though.

As Mullen says, "I think every room has its cachet or whatever you want to call it. I mean, obviously, heavy metal doesn't work at Club Cafe. Those bands don't approach us and we haven't approached them. It is a smallish venue. We are heavily aligned with WYEP and Triple A format music. That's not to say that bands can't come and rock here, which they do."

As for the major local bands that haven't been included, Mullen says the goal was never to present this as "The Best 100 Bands in Pittsburgh."

"It is what it is," he says. "And anyone who was forgotten or couldn't play or were having babies -- and all of those things happened -- will hopefully be playing in the future and are welcome here."

In February even.

While he won't be likely turning down another opportunity to book a band as hot as Interpol, the club's renewed commitment to the local scene, he says, will extend beyond Night 31 of "100 Bands, 31 Nights, 1 City." On weekends, for instance, they'll probably do two shows a night, with the nationals playing early and the local bands coming in after the show to keep it going until 2 a.m.

Since announcing the event, says Mullen, "People are coming out of the woodwork saying 'Hey, I've got a band.' And I'm not saying 'Go away.' I'm saying 'Get me something. Let me listen to it.' I think some of the bands have been frustrated about 'Oh the scene's falling apart, clubs are closing.' Hopefully, this is a way of saying 'You know what? There's really some positive, hopeful things going on.' And perhaps this event, with Sprout Fund's help, can be a catalyst for change -- for confirming to everybody that their creativity in local music counts for something. It matters. Part of the scene coming of age is that we put away saying 'My band's better than your band' and 'I've got better beer-drinking followers than you do.' "