Living Colour
About
Living Colour
The brainchild of Vernon Reid, Living Colour first emerged on downtown Manhattan's vibrant 'no-wave' punk-funk music scene in 1983. The embryonic versions of Living Colour played instrumental music rife with evidence of Reid's eclectic tastes, experiences and background. The occasional vocal feature found Reid himself shouting and crooning to a sometimes-comic effect, more out of necessity than desire. Due to its hybrid nature, that first edition of L.C. was considered a suitable opening act for groups as disparate as Fishbone, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and John Cale. Living Colour went through two rhythm section changes before arriving at the ensemble whom recorded Vivid, their major label debut on Epic Records in 1988. Reid lost two sets of journeymen band mates to more lucrative gigs with Lisa Lisa and The Cult Jam and Steve Winwood--- career transitions, which ironically indicate just how wide of a musical net Living Colour was already casting.The mid-80s American music business—radio, record labels, MTV included—was not the most inviting place for an African American yearning to parlay his own brand of metal-dusted rock music. It also seemed to Reid, that a de facto policy of discrimination was being enforced in the business---one that treated rock music as a 'whites-only' province, one where, with rare exception, artists of African descent were expected to only scuffle in acceptably 'ethnic' genres---R&B, rap or reggae---if they wanted to get ahead. Many of Reid's Black peers who wanted to also play rock decided it was easier, and less of an economic risk, to accept musical apartheid. In 1985 Reid, an anything but passive student of Civil Rights history, invited several associates (who included film producer Konda Mason, record producer Craig Street and musician Geri Allen) to join him in forming the Black Rock Coalition. The BRC's stated aim was to combat industry racism and become the pro-active advocates of musical liberation they were seeking. A quarter-century later the BRC's members have come to include the bands Fishbone and Bad Brains, and have become world-renowned for their Black Rock Orchestra which Reid formed and initially directed while Living Colour began building an incendiary rep as one of NYC's best live rock acts.
The version of Living Colour that assembled Vivid began to take shape in late 1985 when vocalist Corey Glover came into the fold. Glover, a fellow Brooklynite from Reid's neighborhood, was himself just out of high school then and already pursuing a career as an actor---a calling that would eventually land him a role as an infantryman in Oliver Stone's 1987 Vietnam war-pic, Platoon. Glover turned out to be the perfect foil for Reid's mercurial songwriting, which demanded a singer who could approximate the gritty soul shouting of a Wilson Pickett, the eternal infernal howl of a Robert Plant and the buoyant lilt of Caribbean Soca champs like Arrow and The Mighty Sparrow. Glover also brought a much needed crowd- rousing theatricality, Eros and outright machismo to the band's prior cerebral jazz-rock genius profile.
In 1986 the band came to the attention of Mick Jagger after Reid did a session for Jagger's second solo album, Primitive Cool. Jagger himself crossed CBGB's threshold one night to catch the band in typical full-on ass-kicking mode. Head suitably blown back, Jagger decided to produce a demo for the band that included two of Living Colour's live-set mainstays, 'Glamour Boys' and 'Which Way To America.’ Reid had confided in Jagger that L.C. had already been rejected by very major label then signing rock in New York. After Jagger's resplendent demo made the rounds, L.C. experienced what New York baseball sage Yogi Berra once described as 'deja vu, all over again.’ Once more all the majors said 'No' with the exception of Epic's fearless, colorblind A&R man Michael Caplan, who'd actually been hot to sign them before Mr. Rolling Stone himself came into the picture. Using Epic’s eminence and Jagger's demo as leverage, Caplan lobbied harder than before to get his bosses to take a chance on L.C. In short order Living Colour's career prayers were answered, and within a few months work on Vivid began with Reid, Glover, nimble and versatile bassist Muzz Skillings and virtuoso drummer Will Calhoun, (a recent Berklee School of Music grad ) in tow.
The finished album, produced by rock veteran Ed Stasium, is in many ways the studio-polished version of Living Colour's dynamic live-show from the period. Songs that had become fan favorites (of a predominantly Black, Brooklyn dwelling fan base at that juncture it should be mentioned) were buffed up and beefed-up for dissemination and world domination in a rock market place, which saw L.C. as quite the exotic novelty. Yet L.C. was not only a rock band who happened to be Black, but a pro-Black pro-social justice rock band who made America's race, class and power conflicts as well as conniptions into the meat and substance of its lyrics and anti-oppression attitude. Proclamations of social discontent were clearly articulated in funky, big-footed and booming power chord-lancing songs like 'Funny Vibe' (featuring special guests Chuck D and Flava Flav of Public Enemy) 'Open Letter To A Landlord,’ 'Desperate People' and the song which became their first MTV and Top 40 hit 'Cult of Personality'---the success of which saw L.C. take home several prizes in 1989---a Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy award for ‘Cult of Personality’ and three MTV Moonman Awards for Best New Artist , Best Group Video of the year, and Best Stage Performance in a Video.
1993's Stain, the band's 3rd and final album for Epic, arrived right in the middle of the so-called grunge moment. American rock's Seattle based game changer brought forth a plethora of bands---notably Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam who, similar to L.C., fused hardcore and progressive elements and steamy Hendrixian funk into a dark, acid-dipped miasma of hooks and hauntings. L.C.'s response to the grunge phenomena resulted in Stain's brooding collection. It also marked the departure of bassist Skillings and the inclusion of Doug Wimbish---a versatile, near legendary bassman known for his work on classic hip hop tracks like 'Rappers Delight' and 'The Message' as well as his work with the London based progressive dub-funk band Tack Head. The disbanded group would not take stage together for another 7 years and didn’t make another recording until 2003, when Collideoscope came out on Sanctuary label.
Since 2002 a regrouped, regenerated, renewed and retooled Living Colour have done several major tours of Europe and South America every year. Their flagship hit ‘Cult Of Personality’ was added to Guitar Hero III, which has since sold over 14 million copies, and in the process introduced the band to an entirely new audience. Yet they've always kept an eye on making a comeback album equal in power, imagination and creative currency to their epochal trilogy. That goal has been realized with the release of THE CHAIR IN THE DOORWAY, a rugged and Obama-nation ready lodestar nearly four years in the making. The album finds L.C. stalwarts Reid, Glover, Calhoun and Wimbish looking backwards, forwards, sideways and upside-down for new inspiration and matriculated definition. Loyal fans of the band's 80s and 90s incarnations will find much to applaud. The rhythmic lock, drive and propulsion they've come to expect from Calhoun and Wimbish sounds as bullish and indefatigable as ever; Reid's flamethrower guitar remains as full of velocity, piss and vinegar. Just as well, Glover's vocals continue to work the gully breach between arena-rock bombast, juke-joint braying, gospel catharsis and soul-man soothsaying. Proving they place no great stock in past glories, L.C. has evolved their stadium-rock power moves into the spacey psychedelic nether regions where today's most progressive rock acts tend to sulk, bleed, hop and dwell.
Lyrically speaking, The Chair is more oblique than Living Colour’s past works, and for that more metaphorically rich, serving up a frenetic, hard-rock meditation on our time---an age where every day the fragility of America's political and economic status is producing tidal waves of dislocation, social paranoia, soul-searching, and perhaps, if L.C. has their Def Con 3 way with modern rock, maybe even a little redemptive critical action. The bend-sinister air of the verses and general vibe on The Chair, though, tend to belie any notion of it as a rallying call to the barricades. When told that the title seemed to suggest coming home to a loved one's suicide, Reid counter-posed another interpretation---that it might also intimate that the fugue of a suicidal spell was broken by a loved one's appearance just before the self-destructive deed was done. With such heady and cheery thoughts foremost in the group's mind, L.C. set about making the fearsome, frolicsome rock ‘n’ roll rollercoaster ride that is The Chair.
Asked “Why Living Colour, again, and why now?,” Reid replies that he's never wanted be in “repertory band”---one looking to make its last hurrah on the nostalgic laurels afforded from songs recorded two decades earlier. "'For us the band has always been about possibilities, so the challenge was to dig deep and see what might be there for us to say to this historical moment. The rock genre still holds appeal because songs with lyrics allow you to concoct an emotional capsule that can speak to people for years afterwards."
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Past Events
17
Oct
2013
21:00
The Commodore Ballroom
