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Music Preview: Pittsburgh band shows how far it can go stylistically on second record
Friday, February 23, 2001 By Scott Mervis, Weekend Editor, Post-Gazette
The rock band that defies labels has become a music story cliche. But in the case of Crisis Car, there's no getting around it. Consider the Pittsburgh band's second record, "Skychair Maker," in which Crisis Car breezes through Phishy folk-rock, spaghetti-western twang, jazz-fusion, progressive rock and funk before they're barely out of the garage.
Pulling off a range from Phish to Crosby, Stills & Nash to Genesis to Zappa not only takes a scary amount of talent, but also a sweeping set of musical interests.
Korel Tunador, who loves music enough to play guitar, sax, piano and accordion, says with enthusiasm that there simply aren't any limits to where they can go.
"I would say that we're completely open-minded, we're young and there's a lot of music to be made. We want to go anywhere, and the more songs you write, the more of every genre that you have."
The creators of "Skychair Maker" go so far as to say that it's the kind of hodgepodge they will build upon down the road.
"In the future," says drummer Jere Bucek, "we're talking about having thematic albums, as far as the next one being an Americana record. We're going to do a dance record ...."
"We've got about 20 pretty ballads," Tunador adds. "A good bit of a rock record already written. We've got some outer-space jams in the works."
"There could be a whole album on each song," says Bucek.
Four years running, Crisis Car is a band that came, literally, Out of the Blue. Formed on the campus at State College, Out of the Blue was a soulful, percussive unit, young and pretty, that swept in and won the Graffiti Rock Challenge in 1993 with a sound that had folks thinking of Rusted Root.
They split up after college and three of its members -- singer Frank Spadafora, bassist Mike Speranzo and guitarist Eric Cerelli -- were back in Pittsburgh in the fall of '94 and, according to Spadafora, "started writing and sharing songs for no other purpose than to play music."
The first incarnation of Crisis Car played a tighter set of pop Americana. It took a sharp turn for the experimental when Cerelli left and Tunador joined into the band. The multi-instrumentalist has a broad, ongoing resume that includes the Crawlin' Low Band, the Johnsons, Jenn Wertz's Love Child and Margalit and the Liquitones.
Suddenly, Spadafora was looking at being paired with another singing, songwriting and guitar-playing force, and one with a "strong and dynamic personality."
"Personally, it's opened up music horizons immensely for me," Spadafora says. "It's challenged me to no end. To go to someone else's interpretations and melodic sense, and craft your voice and stylings around that, is really an eye-opening experience. It really kicked my butt."
Another shift came when Speranzo, wanting to devote himself full time to his studio, Mr. Small's Funhouse, was replaced by Randy Venturini, a former Dave Harger Group bassist who, Spadafora says, provided the band with "a pulsing constant center." Bucek, who went to Montour High School with Tunador, spent six years giving the U.S. Army Band its beat, a gig that calls for both discipline and versatility.
With their jazzy, electro-acoustic guitar sound, trippy vocal harmonies and offbeat songs, it's not a stretch to compare them to Phish. Spadafora says the comparison is flattering because of the Vermont band's "sonic reach," but that he doesn't hear it. Bucek also insists that Crisis Car isn't that kind of band.
"We're not a jam band. We [jam] sometimes," he says, "but there aren't that many songs we do live that aren't the same as on the record."
Record companies might like bands that can fit a definable niche. But in the long run there are advantages to being able to adapt to different environments -- like playing to a hippie crowd at a campground festival or a rock crowd at Nick's Fat City. In Ithaca, N.Y., last weekend, Crisis Car played a more folky set in a coffeehouse. At Nick's, they can crank up the same songs at a higher voltage.
"I don't know many bands that can strip it down to a quiet acoustic style with piano and accordion and then the next night have a rock 'n' roll show," Spadafora says.
In the end, the singer says, it all comes down to the songs. And they've got songs -- pretty ones like "Love Song to a Lighthouse" and weird ones like "The Celebrated Meal," an ode to lentil soup.
"We've now played with a hundred different bands over the past couple years, and the only ones that stick with me are the bands where you can strip away everything else and the song stands on its own. There are a lot of jam bands with amazing musicians, but if there's not a melody or craft in the songwriting that doesn't stick in my head, I don't take it home with me. What we have going for us is, we can craft songs."
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WITH: Homunculus.