Tuesday at Rehearsal
Private location in Hyattsville, MD

Familiar Faces
I attended this week's rehearsal. I wanted to interview those FF members I had not yet interviewed if possible. I also wanted to go over what is permissible from my planned filming of Wednesday's performance at Takoma Station. When I arrived, Donnell had just arrived. There was also a technician who said he was known as Dominique or Mr. Black. Donnell discussed with him what to do to fix up the rehearsal space, possibly for a live recording (they definitely need to get rid of the beeping noise produced by the exit sign first). They also discussed fixing the air conditioning. Mr. Black said it wasn't working at all. I brought a printed list of all of the official releases I have from 911/Familiar Faces, Donnell confirmed that I have everything. In fact, he said, "You may even have more than I do."

Over time Duane Face, Pooh, Dwayne, DP, and Bojack arrived. He said that I started a trend, after I had started to work with them, Marceia Cork had called him (I introduced her to him on Friday), and a graduate student from Howard University. The Howard student, like me, is working on a thesis on GoGo and was coming tonight to interview the band. Mr. Black gave her directions when she called Donnell. Donnell said that Marceia goes to their shows occasionally, including the show at Aqua. I said, "That was May 30th". They (especially Pooh) laughed at my ability to recall the date. I said I wasn't at that show because I was at the Yard Party: Junkyard Band and Backyard Band. Donnell asked, "Yard Party?" Pooh said that they (JYB & BYB) always call it that when they play together. I told them that Junkyard had released their PA from that night. We also discussed Rare Essence's new album, Live in 2004 (recorded at Classics), which had been released that day. I had only gotten a chance to listen to half of it. DP called Dave "32" Ellis, Donnell Jr., since he was imitating Donnell on the album. (Having listened to the whole album and watched the DVD since, I can say he clearly yells "Yeah!" like Donnell on the album).

Since I hadn't interviewed Bojack, I asked him if we could do so. He said, "Yes", and I set up to interview him in the same spot as before. He had a little trouble getting comfortable on the chairs in there, but finally went with one. Bojack's daughter briefly interrupted the interview with a phone call to his cell phone. It was a really good interview - Bojack definitely had a number of insights that were not raised in the previous interviews I have conducted. Towards the end of the interview Pooh walked in and smiled for the camera. Pooh left (the rehearsal space, not just that room) shortly after talking to Bojack, then Bojack left too.

I told Donnell that I had another question I wanted to ask him on tape. DP made a face and joked in an affected voice, "He won't answer any more of your questions." Donnell said, "Sure, in a minute" - after he was done. I missed the Howard student; she came and left during my interview of Bojack. DP left.

Duane, Dwayne and Donnell had a long conversation about musicianship and the local music industry. Donnell talked about how Duane likes to try new sounds. Duane said that next model keyboard up from his (which is a Yamaha Motif6) has a thousand more sounds than this one. Donnell said that rather than spending money to buy a new keyboard, he should get lessons. It is more important to have the chops than the fancy sounding instrument. Donnell told how Duane came to start practicing with the band. I include it here in Duane's words: "Footz (RIP) sister, Tanya, told Donnell something at Ms. Mack's funeral reception. For 2 months Tanya kept telling me to call Donnell. I never would call 'cause I just assumed he wouldn't take me seriously because of my age. After I finally called him, he told me to come to the rehearsal. After the rehearsal, he told me that BJ and Godfather were permanent, but I was still welcome to rehearse with them all I want, and if I wanted to, I could come to the shows. That was in November 2003. Been with them since." They continued to talk about chops (in general). Dwayne talked about how both BJ and Godfather have excellent feel. Dwayne said the Fender Rhodes has the best sound of any keyboard, but that you have to really have the skill to play it well. I told him about Thelonious Moog, a group that recorded Thelonious Monk songs with a Moog. Dwayne said that now, "you can go to Chuck Levin's and buy an instructional DVD to learn to play any instrument." Dwayne talked about his first show with the band (the Market Lounge on Saturday June 26th); he was only given the practice CD that day. After the first set, Doc, Godfather and BJ had asked if he had rehearsed with the band previously because of how well he flowed with the band. Dwayne had told them no, that he just followed this rule of playing, "when in doubt, stay out." Donnell said that if you don't give Godfather a solo every third song, he will take one anyway. Donnell said that while Boolah was a great guitar player, he was really aggressive, which didn't mesh with the rest of the band as well as Dwayne did, partly because Doc is also very aggressive.

L!ssen came up, Donnell talked about the car accident that Michael Thompson had been in. Then they talked about the intra-band dispute with L!ssen. This flowed into a discussion of the successful strategy that L!ssen used to get to where they are. They developed a dedicated fan base of 100 or so fans, and then moved to the 94th Aerosquadron in College Park, MD. They hired the most aggressive promoter in the area Jerry (a 'Bama from New York), and really expanded their fan base, especially with the local University of Maryland students, who would, in Donnell's words, "get a little music." Duane said that was where he first heard of them having big crowds, and that in the crowds the opening few weeks, stars of other GoGo bands would appear in the audience, that probably helped. Donnell felt just the opposite, that the star audience members probably held them back due to the different kind of audience. Donnell talked about how Jerry would hand out flyers to absolutely everyone, even though Club Amazon (their Saturday venue in Laurel) is filled to capacity. Even filled to capacity, Jerry added Y2K Band and a seafood buffet to the fare. Dwayne mentioned that Jerry can be hard to work with. He talked about tactics that his band, MVP, used or considered. One of these was to perform for free in front of a crowd to get notice. He said they did so well opening for other GoGo bands that they would outplay them. The end result was that the headline band would tell the promoter they didn't want MVP to perform with them anymore. Donnell discussed the difficulty of getting band members (in general) to do free shows. Donnell and Dwayne compared how they were paid by Rare Essence and how much that was compared to how much management made, some of this had been discussed by Donnell in an earlier conversation at the studio earlier.

Dwayne and Donnell talked about Dwayne's stint with Redds & the Boys. It was shortly after the release of the movie Good to Go (aka Short Fuse) that Redds descended into drugs. Donnell said Redds was also depressed because someone close to him had died. I told Dwayne that a guy in Italy planned to do reissues of Redds; I should put Dwayne in touch with him. Dwayne said that Redds was really big in Italy.

They then talked about going to see Prince at the MCI Center on August 14th. I said that I saw him at the RBC Center in Raleigh, NC on April 23rd and he was a disappointment, he didn't crank. They handed out copies of the Musicology album, but I hadn't listened to it yet. They said the album was really good (I have listened to it since and it's entertaining, but not all that great in my opinion). I said that when I saw him with Larry Graham and Doug E. Fresh in April 1998 at the Capital Ballroom, that he had cranked, but not now. Donnell suggested maybe it was because Prince had found religion. Donnell said that Prince's best tour was in 1988, the Lovesexy tour. He said that was the tour where Prince admitted using ecstasy. They discussed which of Prince's bands was best. Then they discussed of Sheila E. and her father, Pete Escovedo. Donnell questioned why she didn't use her last name - when she plays with her Dad now, she doesn't put her name on the billing. He had played in Santana.

Donnell said that every time he goes over to Bojack's house, he's playing Escovedo or Tito Puente. Donnell said that when they (FF) made scale, the pay would no longer be equal. After this conversation, I filmed Donnell's response to my question - which was how he went from deciding to leave Rare Essence to creating 911.