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Whatchoo
lookin' at? Tony C. and the Truth (Tony is lower-left
wearing the newsboy hat).
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Good
Honest Fun
Hudson-based
rap-rock amalgam Tony C. and the Truth tell tales of touring,
hanging out with Lava labelmates and letting the good times
roll
By
Erik Hage
Even
if you were only paying half a mind this spring, you probably
caught Tony C. & the Truth’s booty- shaking, innuendo-laced
anthem “Little Bit More”—perhaps on alternative radio, where
it’s been in regular rotation across the country, or maybe
even pumping out of a dorm window. The tune, an infectious
collision between hiphop and hard rock, places the group in
the same general territory as their labelmates Kid Rock and
Uncle Kracker.
It starts with a snappy little sample, and then Hudson native
Tony C., in a strikingly low, gravelly rumble, coos, “That’s
lovelyyy . . .” before breaking out the rhyme: “I thought
she was a nasty girl and I was right/She’s tying cherries
up in knots with her tongue/I wish I may, I wish I might,
get me a little some.” It’s one of those simple, good-time
anthems that seems tailor-made for youthful mass consumption,
conjuring up images of college girls in J. Lo sunglasses shaking
it poolside.
The track and the accompanying album, Demonophonic Blues—a
mix of DJ samples (courtesy of DJ prestige), blues (particularly
Tony’s searing slide guitar) and rockin’ power chords—have
taken Tony C. (aka Tony Cesternino) to some interesting places
in the past year. He and his group have toured with Sugar
Ray and Living Colour, their album got a rave in a recent
edition of Billboard and, according to his press kit,
Tony C. even told Kid Rock “to F*ck Off and that he was his
‘new replacement’ ” at an industry fete. I ask him about this
as he and his bandmates hurtle down an Ohio highway in a rainstorm,
on their way to an outdoor gig in Canton.
“No,
dude, that’s not supposed to be in there!” Tony exclaims over
the phone, his deep voice (which puts this white boy in the
choir row between Barry White and James Earle Jones) pitching,
for the first time, out of its soulful malaise. “The first
time I talked to him, I was like, ‘Hey, how you doin’?’ and
he was like [in a dismissive tone] ‘Yeah, yeah, OK.’ A half-hour
later I came up to him and started fuckin’ with him. Then
he paid attention to me. . . . We ended up hanging out all
night and playing songs and shit.”
Beyond kibitzing with the top dog on his label (Atlantic imprint
Lava), Tony and his group—who have been touring only since
last August—also have had a chance to learn from acts who
have been around the block a few times. “We went out [on tour]
with Sugar Ray twice and both of those times were remarkably
fun—a hell of a lot of fun,” Tony notes, adding that they
learned a lot simply by “watching how they interacted with
the crowd.”
These experiences certainly have brought the 27-year-old a
long way from his days at Ichabod Crane High School (where
Tony and guitarist/high-school buddy Patrick Halley first
met; the rest of the band members are from various Northeastern
locales). Nevertheless, he and the Truth still maintain their
home base in the Hudson area, on a rural slab of real estate
called, somewhat ominously, “the compound.” “It’s outside
of town so nobody can find it. It’s a converted barn we made
into a recording studio,” Tony says, pointing out that, among
the other features of his slice of bucolic-meets-high-tech
paradise, is a trailer and a horseshoes pit.
The group actually recorded most of Demonophonic Blues
while living at the compound, and thematically, the album
places the onus on fun, sex and partying. This is music of
the loins, not the head: no intellectual exercises here or
raw confessionals a la alternarock-therapy bands like Staind
or Linkin Park. “We didn’t want to be one of those bands that’s
upset about every damn thing—whining and whining and whining,”
Tony claims. The album opener “Who I Are” certainly throws
down the Truth’s good-time gauntlet, kicking off with Tony’s
nasty, spaghetti-western slide guitar and working its way
through some phat DJ beats, with Tony rapping out such memorable
aphorisms as: “Who I are is who I is/Gee whiz, muthafuckas,
all up in my biz/I got to keep being me till I get laid.”
The tune culminates in a hard-rock flurry of power chords,
biting guitar leads and Tony stretching his vocal cords like
AC/DC’s Brian Johnson.
Throughout the album, the group distill their blues, rock
and rap influences into a toxic party-time mixture, and Tony’s
constant refrain is, “If you’ve got to do it every night,
you might as well have fun.” Even more important, he notes,
the crowd should have a good time as well. “There’s no reason
that anybody needs to come out and see a band play.
They could go home and on the Internet or DVD watch their
favorite band of all time. . . . When they come out, that’s
really special. You know what I mean?”
But the group can also play it straight: “No Pain” is a deceptively
straight-up, soulful slab of blues-rock balladry (replete
with gospel-flavored backup singers) that shows Tony C. and
the Truth aren’t simply a rap-rock hybrid, but a band with
real chops. “The guitars, bass and drums are all live,” Tony
points out. “We overdubbed [only] the organ and vocals.” Another
album highlight is the group’s ZZ Top-style Southern-fried
boogie romp through “Fight for Your Right (To Party).” It’s
an interesting, breakneck-paced send-up of the group’s ancestral
muse, the Beastie Boys.
Despite Tony’s upstate pedigree, the group built their live
following in NYC (though they frequently return to Hudson,
often doing two-to-three-hour live shows for the home fans
at Joe’s). By summer 2002, the labels came calling, drawn
by Tony’s distinct voice, the music’s potent marketability
and the group’s versatility. (“We can play any damn thing,”
Tony notes, when it’s pointed out that they get paired up
with vastly different kinds of acts on the road.) Tony says
the group went with Lava because of the smaller organization’s
success rate and personal attention. “You know everybody that
works there. They always answer your phone calls—you don’t
get the corporate runaround with them too bad.”
Once the label deal was struck, Tony called his old high-school
pal Patrick Halley and told him he was in the band. One problem:
Halley couldn’t really play guitar, and his job description
would be rhythm guitar. “We taught him to play,” Tony recalls.
“He figured he’d give it a shot, but he didn’t want to embarrass
himself and we couldn’t take anybody on the road that wasn’t
good enough. It took about six months, but he plays better
than I do now.” (Tony’s been playing since he was 6 years
old.)
With a group in place and a single and album imminent, the
Truth hit the road last August and have been steadily out
there since then. But the first time the group heard their
own song on the radio was back home between jaunts. They heard
that Albany’s WHRL was going to play “Little Bit More” and
jumped in the car to head northward. “We’re driving a hundred
miles an hour up the Taconic Parkway to try to get [within
reception range] by nine o’clock to hear it,” Tony remembers.
“We hear the first few notes and then ‘crackle, crackle, crackle’
[and] Hootie and the Blowfish came on. We got pissed.” The
group missed the whole song, but once they got reception again
Tony says he called the station and asked, “ ‘Hey man can
you play that song again? This is Tony C.—I want to hear my
song on the radio today.’ ”
And? “He did it, man. It was pretty fucking awesome.”
Rough Mix
THE
SOUND OF THE MUMBLE: Ever find yourself needing a way
to record a live show? An outdoor show? An under-the-bridge
show? Enter Mumblesound. What’s Mumblesound, you ask?
Seamus McNulty (of Sifters fame) and Frank Moscowitz
of the Orange and Princess Mabel have started a mobile recording
business, which they are referring to as “a studio without
walls.” On the Web site (www.mumblesound.com), they tell us
that they’ll be wherever we need them: “rock and roll in a
warehouse, jazz in a restaurant, punk in a basement, classical
in a church, country in a bar or bluegrass on a front porch.”
The duo also offer their skills in engineering, as well as
top-notch computers, mics, battery backups, etc. Find out
costs and other pesky details on their Web site. On a different
note, catch McNulty’s band the Sifters when they play
their last show before taking an indefinite break (due to
the imminent birth of lead singer Andy Sink’s first
child) at the Lark Tavern next Saturday (July 26).
SO
YOU WANNA BE A ROCK STAR? Dan Goodspeed has birthed
another baby of his own, one he’s promising to take good care
of: TheRockstar.com (www.rkstar.com), an online music
’zine rife with local club listings, band bios, audio, video,
newsletters, a discussion board and much more. Like a phoenix
from the ashes of bumrock.com (mmm, birds flying from bums),
TheRockstar.com wants to be the comprehensive online source
for all things local music. Goodspeed would love to have you
sign up online, but he is accepting phone calls from the Luddites,
253-2758.
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AND
THE WINNER IS . . . Congratulations are in order to Sean
Rowe for snagging a fellowship from the New York Foundation
for the Arts. Rowe, the gravelly voiced singer-songwriter
from Castleton who does a regular gig at Lionheart
on Monday nights, was one of only four Upstaters to receive
the nod from NYFA in the music composition category (the other
11 are from in and around NYC). NYFA sifted through more than
4,700 applications this year, and when all was said and done
they lumped Mr. Rowe in with the other 147 winners from a
range of artistic disciplines including architecture/environmental
structures, choreography, fiction, painting, photography,
playwriting/screenwriting and video. Along with the honor,
NYFA threw a $7,000 check in the singer’s lap to help ease
the financial burden while Rowe marinates in his own creative
juices. We look forward to tasting your stew, Sean.
HERE’S
A STORY FOR YOU: Seven Stories Falling just released their
new CD Man of 1000 Skies, featuring the ultra-hooky
“Like Me.” Catch the guys when they’re interviewed by Jason
Keller this Sunday (June 20) on EQX 103.1’s Big Break
at 8 PM. You can sample the new album on the band’s Web site
at www.7sfrock.com. Or catch them live next Thursday (June
24) when they play E. O’Dwyer’s in Saratoga Springs.
GUERRILLAS
IN OUR MIDST: Scott Nichols of the Pink Hearse
Paparazzi Project organized the third annual Guerrilla
Picnic, a Lake George musical phenom that’s free and open
to the public. The first day of the two-day fest featured
acts like Horse in a Box, Resonator, Kickstand Love, the Mathema
ticians, Struction and many more. However, the second day
of the fest, which was slated to include Madeline Fer guson,
Lost in Translation, Bullets Say Goodbye, and others, was
preempted when park rangers came and shut it down, citing
that the organizers did not acquire the necessary insurance
to hold such an event. Too bad, because they had all the permits
they needed. We have yet to hear whether or not they’ll try
to hold another picnic next year.
HEELLLOOOOOO
OUT THERE! Are you in the next superstar band? Are you
a club owner or musician who’s doing something really frickin’
cool and we don’t know about it? Then don’t be shy—tell us!
For gig listings, e-mail calendar@metroland.net (be sure to
include the band, venue, date, time, cost and contact info);
to report music news or UFO sightings (wait, this isn’t the
right place for that, nevermind), e-mail Kathryn Lurie at
klurie@metroland.net.
—Kathryn
Lurie and Travis Durfee
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