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 Wednesday, November 21, 2007 3:27 PM CST |
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Big Bad Voodoo Daddy bring wild holiday party to town
Talk about working some real voodoo. Back around 1996, a seven-piece band called Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was a Wednesday night fixture at an L.A. club called The Derby. The band's specialty: Creating/playing new music in the vintage swing mode of the '40s and '50s. The seven youthful members also dressed the part. To the nines. Double-breasted, wide-lapel, pinstriped suits. Fedoras. Attitude. Smooth jumpin' moves. They were the essence of underground retro-cool, attracting a name-dropping list of Hollywood movers and shakers to their hump-night sets, says trumpet man Glen "The Kid" Marhevka, who'll be tooting his own horn with the band for its upcoming holiday-themed concert at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts (7:30 p.m. Dec. 1; tickets still available). One of the club's regular habitués was actor-writer Jon Favreau. Favreau was in the midst of writing a movie vehicle that was essentially about him and his L.A. cronies -- a posse of guys in their late 20s who were on the romantic rebound and partaking of the swinging singles scene. When it came time to shoot the movie -- a low-budget indie item called, in fact, "Swingers" -- Favreau decided to film a chunk of it at The Derby, with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy jump-jiving in the background. "We'd been playing at the club around 3½ years," recalls Marhevka, who joined the band in 1995 when it expanded from a trio to a septet. "All those guys (Favreau and his cronies) would come out every Wednesday night, for at least a year or two. We were a big industry underground thing, and it was the place to go." Favreau slipped the band's founder and lead singer Scotty Morris a copy of the script. "Hey, I wrote a script and I want you guys to be in it," Favreau said. According to Marhevka, he's pretty certain that Morris never actually read it. After all, it looked on the surface like another vanity project that maybe three people and Favreau's relatives would ever see. But when Favreau asked his opinion, Morris enthused, "It's great!" And, as it turned out, it was: A little movie that could. And did. According to Marhevka, the club action and music eventually portrayed on screen was impossible to differentiate from the actual action, personalities and music being heard every Wednesday night: They were one and the same. Directed by Doug Liman, who would go on to make the monster hit "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," "Swingers" became a cult hit, along with its retro-cool soundtrack, which featured not only a couple hits by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, but also one by of their retro-cool inspirations, Rat Pack crooner Dean Martin. The song was "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You." After having been a strictly West Coast phenomenon, BBVD was suddenly at the forefront of the "Swingers"-driven, Gen X-sanctioned swing-dance craze -- the one that took the land by storm around a decade ago. Big Daddy hits like "Pinstripe Suit," "Go Daddy-O" and "You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight" infiltrated other TV and movie soundtracks, not to mention the dance floors of America. Flash-forward a decade, long after the swing-dance craze has crested, but never really left us -- witness the ongoing popularity of TV reality shows like "Dancing With the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance," both of which dip into the BBVD catalogue from time to time. The seven BBVD members, no longer Wednesday night swingers, are all married family men, with kids and mortgages: Morris, Marhevka, drummer Kurt Sodergren, bass player Dirk Shumaker, sax players Andy Rowley and Karl Hunter, and keyboardist Joshua Levy. But the jive jumps on. Recently, the band found itself in the legendary Capitol Records building in the heart of Hollywood, where they recorded several of their earlier albums. The occasion: The recently released Dean Martin tribute album, "Dean Martin: Forever Cool," featuring classic Dino tracks mixed with new contributions by the likes of Martina McBride, Kevin Spacey and Charles Aznavour. Among those new contributors, aptly enough: Dino/Rat Pack idolizers BBVD. Even more aptly enough, among the two songs they performed with the late Dino's carefully preserved vocals: "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You." "How cool is that?" asks Marhevka, who, despite hailing from the Gen X demographic sector, grew up a fan and practitioner of vintage jazz, swing and attire. "We were in Studios A and B, where he (Martin) recorded a lot of his hits," Marhevka adds, with a certain awe. "Everybody recorded there: Sinatra, Garland, Nat 'King' Cole. And all their pictures are up on the walls, looking down. And we were singing into the same microphone they did. And standing on the same podium." And singing the song they shared the "Swingers" soundtrack with a decade earlier. How cool is that? Way cool. The stuff of pure musical voodoo, in fact. At a glanceWhat: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's Wild & Swingin' Holiday Party When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1 Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington Tickets: $32.50 to $38.50 Box office number: (866) 686-9541 Who do Voodoo?You may not know the name by heart, but chances are you've encountered the retro-jive sounds of Southern California's Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (BBVD) somewhere along the pop culture way over the past 18 years of its existence. Among the possibilities: • The cult movie 'Swingers' (1996): BBVD received its breakout mass exposure when director Doug ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith") Liman cast the group as "The Derby Band" and incorporated two BBVD songs ("You & Me & The Bottle Makes Three Tonight," "Go Daddy-O") on the soundtrack. • The flop movie 'Three to Tango' (1999): BBVD placed two more of its hits, "Maddest Kind of Love" and "Jumpin' Jack," on the soundtrack of the forgettable Matthew Perry-Neve Campbell-Dylan McDermott romantic comedy. • The kids' movie 'The Wild' (2006): BBVD worked the pre-pubescent demographic last year by placing one if its hits, "Big Time Boppin' (Go Man Go)," on the soundtrack of the hit animated movie. (For the kid-flick record BBVD's "Go Daddy Go" was also used in the coming attractions trailer for Pixar-Disney's "Ratatouille.") • Super Bowl XXXIII (1999): Cashing in on the "Swingers" success, not to mention the revived swing dance craze, BBVD received its widest audience to date as performers for Super Bowl XXXIII's halftime show. • Prime time: Over the past decade or so, BBVD has turned the act of playing themselves on TV into something of a cottage industry. Among the series in which they've performed as themselves are: "Party of Five," "Ally McBeal," "Melrose Place" and "Titans." • Late time: BBVD have been frequent haunters of the late-night talk show circuit, including two performances on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and three visits to "Last Call with Carson Daly." • Reality time: BBVD's jive-ready swing sounds have frequently been used as the soundtrack for ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," including "Mr. Pinstripe Suit" and "Mambo Swing." • Jukeboxes, baby: Since hitting the big time, BBVD have released seven albums, including "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy" (1994), "Watchu' Want for Christmas" (1995), "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy: American Deluxe" (1998), "This Beautiful Life" (1999), "Save My Soul" (2003), "BBVD Live" (2004), "Everything You Want for Christmas" (2004). • Dino, too, baby: Realizing a dream come true for the band, BBVD's vocals have been appended to those of Dean Martin in the newly released tribute album, "Dean Martin: Forever Cool," featuring other collaborations with the likes of Robbie Williams, Kevin Spacey, Dave Koz, Joss Stone, Martina McBride and Charles Aznavour. BBVD matches wits/sounds/cool with Dino on "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You" and "Who's Got the Action?" Who's your Daddy?Big Bad Voodoo Daddy packs a lot of pin stripes, fedoras and cool attitude on a single stage, with seven bodies jumpin' to the jive. To help keep everyone straight, here's the scorecard: • Scotty Morris: The Daddy singing the lead vocals and holding the guitar. He also founded the group. • Kurt Sodergren: The Daddy holding the drum sticks and hitting things with them. Also a founding member. • Dirk Shumaker: The Daddy wielding the big ol' upright fiddle (string bass). Founding member No. 3. • Andy Rowley: The Daddy on the big ol' sax with the deep voice (baritone saxophone). • Glen 'The Kid' Marhevka: The Daddy coaxing the high notes out of the flashy brass rod (trumpet) • Karl Hunter: The Daddy pulling double-woodwind-duty (switching between sax and clarinet) • Joshua Levy: The Daddy tickling/banging/caressing/cajoling the ivories. 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