SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2021
VOLUME NINE NUMBER THREE
FARUQ Z. BEY
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
William Parker
(January 23-29)
Jason Palmer
(January 30-February 5)
Living Colour
(February 6-12)
Christian Sands
(February 13-19)
Henry Grimes
(February 20-26)
Charles Tolliver
(February 27-March 5)
Kendrick Scott
(March 6-March 12)
Marcus Strickland
(March 13-19)
Seth Parker Woods
(March 20-26)
Ulysses Owens
(March 27-April 2)
Steve Nelson
(April 3-9)
Steve Wilson
(April 10-16)
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/living-colour-mn0000825087/biography
Living Colour
(1984-1995 + 2000-Present)
Artist Biography by Greg Prato
During the 1980s, rock had become increasingly segregated and predictable, a departure from the late '60s and early '70s, when such musically and ethnically diverse artists as Jimi Hendrix, Sly & the Family Stone, and Santana topped the charts. But New York's Living Colour was one band that helped break down the doors by the end of the '80s, leading to a much more open-minded musical landscape that would help pave the way for future bands such as Rage Against the Machine and Sevendust. The group (singer Corey Glover, guitarist Vernon Reid, bassist Muzz Skillings, and drummer Will Calhoun) first formed in the mid-'80s, with Reid being the only member with real prior band experience; he was a member of Ronald Shannon Jackson's experimental jazz outfit, and had recorded with Defunkt and Public Enemy, as well as issuing a solo album with Bill Frisell, 1984's Smash & Scatteration.
It took the fledgling band a few years for their sound to gel, as they honed their act at N.Y.C.'s famed CBGB's. The group found an unlikely supporter in Mick Jagger, who took the band under his wing, produced a demo for them, and helped them secure a record deal with Epic (just prior, Glover had to take a brief leave of absence from the band, as he landed a role in Oliver Stone's Vietnam War epic Platoon). Living Colour's debut album, Vivid, was issued in the summer of 1988, but it took a few months for momentum to build. By the winter, the band's striking video for their anthem "Cult of Personality" was all over MTV, pushing Vivid to the upper reaches of the charts and to platinum certification. Living Colour also took home their first of several Grammy Awards, as "Cult" won Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1989 ceremony, and the band supported the release with a string of dates that autumn, opening for the Rolling Stones' first U.S. tour in eight years.
Starting with Vivid and continuing on future albums, the band showed that rock could still convey a message (as evidenced by such tracks as "Open Letter to a Landlord" and "Funny Vibe," among others). The quartet regrouped a year later for their sophomore effort, Time's Up, an album that performed respectably on the charts but failed to live up to the expectations of their smash debut. An appearance at the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in the summer of 1991 kept the group in the public's eye, as did an EP of outtakes, Biscuits. Skillings left the group shortly thereafter (replaced by studio vet Doug Wimbish), and their darkest and most challenging release yet, Stain, was issued in 1993. Although it failed to sell as well as its predecessors, it retained the band's large and dedicated following, as Living Colour appeared to be entering an interesting and groundbreaking new musical phase in their career. The band began writing the following year for what would be their fourth full-length, but an inability to settle on a single musical direction caused friction between the members, leading to Living Colour's demise in early 1995.
In the wake of Living Colour's split, all of its former members pursued other projects. Reid issued a solo album, 1996's Mistaken Identity (as well as guesting on other artists' recordings), while Glover attempted to launch a career as a solo artist, issuing the overlooked Hymns in 1998, appearing as a VJ on VH1, and acting in the 1996 movie Loose Women. Calhoun and Wimbish remained together and launched a new outfit, the drum'n'bass-inspired Jungle Funk, who issued a self-titled debut release in 1997 (Wimbish also issued a solo album, Trippy Notes for Bass, in 1999). With Living Colour out of commission for several years by the early 21st century, Calhoun and Wimbish teamed up once more with Glover in a new outfit, Headfake, playing often in the New York City area. A few days before Christmas in 2000, Headfake played a show at CBGB's and were joined on-stage by Reid, which led to rumors of an impending Living Colour reunion. The rumors proved to be true, and Living Colour launched their first tour together in six years during the summer of 2001.
In 2003, Living Colour secured a deal with Sanctuary and released their most experimental release to date, Collideøscope. Two years later, the rarities collection What's Your Favorite Color? was released, followed by Everything Is Possible: The Very Best of Living Colour in 2006. The all-new The Chair in the Doorway followed in 2009, the result of a new label deal with Megaforce. Busy with their respective families, the band maintained a relatively low profile over the next few years, finally reconvening in 2014 to begin work on some new musical ideas. Recorded sporadically over two years with pop/R&B vet Andre Betts, their "blues-inspired" sixth album, Shade, was eventually released in 2017, preceded by the lurching, aggressive single "Come On."
https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/livingcolour
Living Colour
Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. Led by guitarist Vernon Reid, the bands lineup solidified in the mid-80's w/ Corey Glover (vocals), Will Calhoun (drums) and Muzz Skillings (bass). Stylistically, the band's music is a creative fusion influenced by free jazz, funk, hard rock and heavy metal. Their lyrics range from the personal to the political, in some of the latter cases attacking Eurocentrism and racism in America.
The band’s debut album, “Vivid,” was released in 1988 on Epic Records. The album reached #6 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and was later certified double platinum by the RIAA. It featured “Cult of Personality,” a #13 hit on the Billboard 200 Singles chart as well as the Top 40 hit, “Glamour Boys.” “Cult of Personality” went on to earn the band their first Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.
In 1990 the band's second full-length album, “Time's Up,” was released and reached #13 on the Billboard 200 while certifying gold. It won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Album and featured guest appearances by Queen Latifah, Little Richard, Doug E. Fresh, and Maceo Parker.
Living Colour released the 6-song EP, “Biscuits” which coincided with the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in the summer of 1991.
Skillings left the band in the summer of 1992, replaced by session veteran and Sugarhill Records bass player Doug Wimbish.
“Stain,” their third LP, was released in 1993 by Epic. Reaching #26 on the Billboard 200, the album had a much heavier and aggressive sound, containing elements of thrash metal and industrial music while receiving a Grammy nomination for 'Leave It Alone'.
After a split in 1995, Living Colour returned in December 2000 and began recording “Collideøscope”. Released in 2003, the album featured aggressive lyrics, with many of the songs about the September 11 attacks. It also contained cover versions of AC/DC's “Back in Black” and The Beatles' “Tomorrow Never Knows.”
Their first release on Megaforce Records, “The Chair in the Doorway,” was issued in 2009 and reached #159 on the Billboard 200 charged by the single 'Behind The Sun'
In 2013, the band celebrated the 25th anniversary of 'Vivid' w/ a world tour crossing North and South Americas, Europe, and Japan, including the Soundwave festival in Australia.
The root of Living Colour's next album, came from a performance of Robert Johnson's “Preachin' Blues” at the 100th Anniversary Birthday celebration at the legendary Apollo in New York City.
“Cult” Classic
How Living Colour made one of the most prescient albums of the 20th century, and conquered rock ’n’ roll in the process
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Vernon Reid knew it was time to consult his little red notebook. That day in 1987, the guitarist and his bandmates were rehearsing in their loft above Broadway and DeKalb Avenue in Bushwick when they stumbled upon something. Unprompted, lead singer Corey Glover started humming a tune that would end up sounding familiar to almost anyone who over the ensuing three decades has listened to the radio, watched MTV, attended a sporting event, or virtually wailed in Guitar Hero.
What Glover made up on the spot caught Reid’s ear. “I literally was trying to play what he was singing,” the latter said recently. Then he turned to drummer Will Calhoun and asked him to play a beat to it. “We had a cool riff,” Reid said. But, he recalled thinking, “Well, this riff’s gotta go somewhere.” So he opened his miniature volume of handwritten lyrics. One line that he’d scribbled down stood out: “Look in my eyes, what do you see? The cult of personality.” It was a reference to “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 excoriation of Stalinism. The phrase was a cliché, but it framed the concept forming in Reid’s head.
“The whole idea was to move past the duality of: That’s a good person and that’s a bad person,” Reid said. “What do the good and the bad have in common? Is there something that unites Gandhi and Mussolini? Why are they who they are? And part of it is charisma.”
With the sound of the elevated J train rumbling in the background, Living Colour went to work on what would become an anthem. “We started the rehearsal and there was no ‘Cult of Personality,’” Reid said. “At the end of it, ‘Cult of Personality’ had been written.” The opening track on the group’s debut album, Vivid, which turns 30 this week, strutted into the lily-white realm of mainstream rock ’n’ roll and blew out its speakers.
“Rock music was made by white people at that point,” said the band’s former comanager Roger Cramer. “It was the heyday of the hair band. And Living Colour came along and could play and sing circles around those bands. But they were black.”
All four members were, in fact. “The hair,” Reid said, “was a different texture.” Despite having chops and a loyal following in the biggest city in the country, Living Colour for years couldn’t land a record deal. Calhoun said that they’d heard “It’s not gonna happen” so often that it was difficult to believe that they’d ever break through. But in the face of rejection, the band refused to change their style. They were eclectic—“We were part punk, part metal, part funk, part free jazz,” Reid said—but they unmistakably played rock ’n’ roll. That was a statement to a nation with a selective memory.
“One of the most frustrating things,” Calhoun said, “is the ignorance of people who will not admit or deal with the fact that black people invented rock ’n’ roll.” By making songs about the perils of hero worship, racism, and gentrification, Living Colour forced listeners to reckon with uncomfortable truths.
“When I first heard the song ‘Cult of Personality,’” Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, and now Prophets of Rage guitarist Tom Morello said in an email, “I was absolutely blown away that clearly there were other African Americans who unapologetically loved Led Zeppelin and wanted to shred.” The record, he added, “opened the doors to my career.”
“Cult of Personality” and Vivid, which went double-platinum, were the result of Living Colour’s prolonged fight to convince record companies that a black band was not merely a niche act with an outside shot at crossing over to a white audience. The unfair designation was tough to shake. To fully transform into DayGlo superheroes, the quartet needed the backing of the world’s most famous rock star.
Soon after getting “Cult of Personality” down, Living Colour was playing it at their unofficial home base: CBGB. The legendary East Village club was only a trip over the Williamsburg Bridge away from the band’s Brooklyn space. By then, the group was already playing tight gigs all over town.
Reid had spent the early part of the decade touring with jazz-funk drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society and originally formed Living Colour as a side project. For the London-born, New York–raised guitarist with rock ’n’ roll ambitions, it was a maddening period. Black musicians may have honed the genre, but they had long since been relegated to the background of the rock scene. By the early ’80s, critics were treating Jimi Hendrix as a supernatural anomaly rather than a descendant of pioneers Chuck Berry and B.B. King. Racially mixed bands like Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, and War were disappearing. MTV was barely playing videos by black artists. FM rock radio had been scrubbed whiter than CBGB’s iconic awning.
In 1985, seeking change, Reid, journalist Greg Tate, and producer Konda Mason cofounded the Black Rock Coalition, an organization with the stated mission of “creating an atmosphere conducive to the maximum development, exposure, and acceptance of Black alternative music.”
Around that time, Reid tinkered with his band. Corey Glover was then a young actor—he went on to play a key role in Platoon—who happened to have a booming voice. Reid and Glover didn’t know each other, but had mutual friends. They met at a party for Glover’s former girlfriend. When it came time for cake, Glover remembered his ex asking him alone to sing “Happy Birthday.” So, in hopes of a reunion with her, he said, “I did my best version of ‘Happy Birthday’ that I could do. It made Vernon and I have a conversation, and we talked about music.” The two quickly joined forces.
In addition to Glover, the new Living Colour lineup was bolstered by fellow New Yorkers Calhoun, an award-winning Berklee College of Music grad, and Muzz Skillings, a bassist with rock and jazz experience. The group relied on a wide range of influences, among them the Isley Brothers, Bad Brains, and Prince. “‘Little Red Corvette,’” Reid said, “was manna from heaven.”
But even as Living Colour was taking over New York, record labels shook their fists at the band. “The record business was flat-out racist,” Cramer said. “The pushback was intense from every corner. We shopped them to every single label. At that point in time there were a lot of them.” The lunkheaded but pervasive line of thinking that an all-black rock band singing about social issues couldn’t appeal to the masses irked Glover. “You’d think people would get that there’s a universality to it,” he said.
Living Colour’s fortunes began to change in late ’80s, when Mick Jagger was looking for musicians to play on his second solo album. The Rolling Stones lead singer held an audition at SIR Studios on West 52nd Street. Reid was invited to attend. Glover had just quit his job as an undercover security guard at Tower Records. (“I was horrible at it,” he said, “because I would let people steal records.”) Without much else to do, he tagged along with his nervous friend. Reid described the session as “totally chaotic” and “horrible.” It wasn’t a complete disaster, though.
It turns out that Jagger knew all about Living Colour. Bassist Doug Wimbish, who joined the band in the ’90s, was working with the famous frontman back then. At one point, Reid recalled, Jagger said that he’d heard the band was cool and that he wanted to see them live. “Offhandedly we both said that we were playing at CBGB’s this weekend,” Glover said. Sure enough, Jagger came to the show with Jeff Beck. Cramer remembered roping off a table for Jagger, who had to crane his neck to see over the crowd.
Shortly after that show, Jagger asked the band to join him at Right Track on West 48th Street. While recording his solo album Primitive Cool in the next studio over, he produced two Living Colour demos that were recorded by Bad Brains collaborator Ron St. Germain. The first, “Which Way to America?,” was a rebuke of the class divide, and the second, “Glamour Boys,” was a funky, winking roast of hollow, image-obsessed men.
Even with Jagger’s support, the group continued to face skepticism. Cramer got asked whether Living Colour was similar to Sade and Winger. “If you have to explain to a label what it is that you do as an artist,” Cramer said, “you’re fucked.” He recalled telling one A&R man that Jagger had produced Living Colour’s demos and in response hearing, “What’s he done lately?” One company was interested in the band, Cramer said, but reduced its offer after an executive couldn’t handle how heavy they sounded during a triple bill at the Roxy with hardcore staples the Circle Jerks and Bad Brains.
Epic Records, finally, ended up signing Living Colour. In hindsight, Reid views the deal as a bittersweet triumph. “We had to get the cosign from a person who literally embodied what rock ’n’ roll is,” Reid said. “The fact that he had to come see us, and dig us, for us to get at the back of the line is crazy.” In a way, it echoed the Rolling Stones’ previous embrace of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. It was done out of reverence, but underscored the reality that black artists were being defined not by their own music but by their connection to the white bands unabashedly mimicking them.
Still, at long last, Living Colour had a record contract. The group wasn’t about to let that opportunity slip away. Ed Stasium, who’d worked with the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Jagger on Primitive Cool, produced Vivid. By late 1987, when the band recorded the album, they’d already played its songs thousands of times. For that reason, Calhoun said, “it was a really easy record to make.”
Their major-label debut, which included the two Jagger-produced demos, was bursting with heavy guitars and sharp social commentary. Cowritten by Reid and poet and professor Tracie Morris, “Open Letter (to a Landlord)” directly addresses the gentrification of American cities. When I mentioned the track to Sevendust lead singer Lajon Witherspoon, he immediately sang the first line of the chorus: “Now you can tear a building down / But you can’t erase a memory.” “I remember that song like it was yesterday,” said Witherspoon, who’s African American. Glover’s voice, the metal vocalist said, has “undeniable soul.”
The seeds for “Funny Vibe” were planted years before when Reid stepped onto a department store elevator and a white woman clutched her handbag. “The fear,” he said, “enraged me.” In an instant, by no fault of his own, Reid was put on the defensive. “And now I have to assuage your fear,” he said. Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Flavor Flav, with whom Reid worked on Yo! Bum Rush the Show, appeared on the track, which asks skittish white people what they’re so damn afraid of. Directed by Charles Stone III, the video features a series of situations similar to the one Reid experienced.
“Who was talking about those issues at the time in rock ’n’ roll?” Calhoun said. “Not many people.”
Before “Cult of Personality” was finished, it needed tweaking. “The way you know the song is not the way we played it,” Glover said. “It was Ed who said, ‘Why don’t you play the hook first, and then the verse?’” After all, how could you not start with that riff? Stasium compared it to “Sunshine of Your Love” and “Mississippi Queen.” It was a sound that only could’ve been generated by someone with Reid’s eclectic style. As Vivid engineer Paul Hamingson put it: “Vernon brings a record store with him every time he plays.” Carla Harvey, a vocalist in the metal band Butcher Babies, told me that the first time she heard the opening of “Cult of Personality,” “the hair stood up on my arms and I was like, What is this?”
To give the song’s message even more weight, the band folded in short portions of historically significant speeches by Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. (The group also wanted to use the closing line of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but it proved too expensive to license.) The excerpts became one of the anthem’s signatures.
Of course, “Cult of Personality” wouldn’t be a classic without a perfect solo. Stasium said Reid nailed it on the first try and then did it again five more times. Each take, the producer said, was different. He chose Reid’s initial effort and didn’t bother offering the guitarist much feedback. “You don’t fuck with art,” Stasium said.
Vivid was released on May 3, 1988. Success wasn’t instantaneous. The first single, “Middle Man,” didn’t make a splash. Then Living Colour filmed the “Cult of Personality” video. “The thought was that if we can make a great video, this thing’s gonna blow out of the water so fast,” said Dan Beck, then senior vice president of marketing and sales at Epic.
Drew Carolan directed the clip, which featured both live performances and historical footage. It introduced the world to Glover’s trademark look: a Body Glove wetsuit. He’d been shopping with his then-girlfriend, a music video stylist, in the Bowery and noticed the stretchy, neon one-piece at the Patricia Field store. He figured it would be an interesting thing to wear onstage at a place as willfully grimy as CBGB.
“I didn’t think anything more about it than that until I realized it looked like a superhero costume,” Glover said. Body Glove later began shipping him suits of various colors. “Everything they sent me started to look more and more like costumes from some comic book,” said Glover, who admitted that his kids aren’t fans of his old skin-tight outfits. “My whole comic-book nerd thing came out.”
As a teenager in his hometown of Nashville, Witherspoon searched for Glover’s spandex suits, but couldn’t find them. The problem, he said, was this: “We didn’t live by any water!”
Beck said that the video first got airplay on local music channels before MTV finally dropped it into its regular rotation. For Witherspoon, seeing Living Colour on TV was formative. “They weren’t afraid to be different, which I thought was something that would help me feel comfortable in my own skin,” he said. “Because I was that kid who was into rock and heavy music. I think they opened the door for artists like me.”
Harvey grew up in Detroit getting teased for being a mixed-race kid who liked rock. After catching a glimpse of Living Colour, she remembered thinking, “They’re like me.”
Rock radio eventually followed MTV’s lead. On April 1, 1989, the band performed on Saturday Night Live. A month later, Vivid and “Cult of Personality,” the second of which went on to win three Video Music Awards and a Grammy, respectively peaked at no. 6 and no. 13 on the Billboard album and singles charts.
Late that summer, Living Colour joined the Rolling Stones on their Steel Wheels tour. For a group used to playing densely packed clubs, opening for the biggest band on the planet in quarter-full football stadiums was exhilaratingly strange. “We were a tiny speck,” Glover said. “We felt very small.” Added Reid: “It was important for us to do. But it also plucked us out of our natural development.”
It was, however, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. During one day off, Reid spent hours walking the streets of Boston with Stones drummer Charlie Watts. Reid also often hung out with bassist Bill Wyman in the backstage game room, where they played snooker and table tennis. “Bill Wyman,” Reid said, “was a master of parlor games.”
The tour wasn’t all fun and games. In October 1989, before Living Colour’s four-night run with Guns N’ Roses and the Stones at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Reid and Calhoun gave a live radio interview. In it, they were asked not about their own music but rather “One in a Million,” the noxious GNR track in which lead singer Axl Rose infamously rails against “faggots,” “niggers,” and “immigrants.” Unsurprisingly, Reid and Calhoun explained that they disapproved of the song. “You should call all assholes out,” Calhoun said. But both were incensed that they had to answer for Rose’s lyrics.
“You know what’s frustrating about that?” Reid said. “At no time did anyone ever say, ‘Well, you know that Slash is black.’ Nobody turned to Slash and said, ‘Yo, man, how do you feel about ‘One in a Million’?”
Before Guns N’ Roses’ first set at the Coliseum, Rose and his entourage confronted Muzz Skillings backstage. Glover is convinced that Axl saw the bassist’s dreadlocks and thought he was Reid. “Muzz got surrounded by a bunch of goons,” Calhoun said. Rose, who’d apparently heard Reid and Calhoun’s interview, proceeded to defend himself. “First thing out of his mouth: ‘You got a problem with me, man?’” Skillings told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “So then he goes on, ‘It’s in the media that I’m some sort of racist, man. … I ain’t no damn racist.’” On stage that night, Rose yet again verbally exposed himself.
”When I use the word ‘nigger,’ I don’t necessarily mean a black person,” he reportedly said. “I don’t give a crap what color you are as long as you ain’t some crack-smoking piece of shit. All you people calling me a racist, shove your head up your fucking ass.”
The next evening, Living Colour responded to Rose’s tirade. “Look, if you don’t have a problem with gay people, then don’t call them ‘faggots,’” Reid told the crowd. “If you don’t have a problem with black people, then don’t call them ‘niggers.’ I never met a nigger in my life. Peace.” At that moment, the band launched into what Calhoun called “the best version of ‘Cult of Personality’ ever.”
After the set, Keith Richards came to Living Colour’s dressing room and shook Reid’s hand.
To Reid, the post-Vivid years felt like the climactic scene of a heist movie. “They’re trying to open this vault door,” he said, “and then all the sudden, it opens, and they go, ‘Holy shit, what’s on the other side of this door?’”
For Living Colour, waiting on the other side wasn’t stratospheric fame but rather the impossible task of topping their debut. Released in August 1990, Time’s Up featured guests like Queen Latifah, Doug E. Fresh, and Little Richard. The critically acclaimed album peaked at no. 13 on the Billboard chart. The next year, as the Seattle scene was beginning to explode, the band was part of the first Lollapalooza lineup. Also on the diverse bill: headliners Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T and Body Count, and Fishbone. Living Colour, Tom Morello said, “helped usher in the alternative rock era by not looking like or sounding like they were supposed to.”
But in late 1991, Skillings left the group. Doug Wimbish replaced him and played on Stain, which hit record stores in March 1993. It was Living Colour’s last new full-length studio album for a decade. “There was a lot of pressure on us,” Reid told New York in 2009. “My first marriage was breaking up; Living Colour was touring, but communication within the band was spotty. The problem with men is, we don’t have a language for emotion. We’ll curse at each other but never really talk.” They broke up in 1995, but reunited after the turn of the millennium. Shade, their latest album, came out in September. Currently on tour, the band is still proudly defying the perception that rock music, whatever’s left of it at least, belongs only to white dudes with long hair.
“We hope we can have the same chance they did,” said Jarad Dawkins, the drummer for Unlocking the Truth, a metal trio that appeared on The Colbert Report when they were middle-schoolers. “They’re like our uncles, pretty much.” The band, whose members are African American, toured with Living Colour in 2014. Naturally, the young group discovered “Cult of Personality” by hearing it on the soundtrack of a video game.
Today, the song remains a rock radio staple. It’s appeared in three versions of Guitar Hero. Former WWE wrestler CM Punk used it as his entrance music. It’s a stadium anthem. And its message, well, is frighteningly relevant. Thirty years later, it’s clear that Vivid as a whole was one of the late 20th century’s most prescient albums. “I’m incredibly grateful for that,” Reid said, “but it’s also incredibly disheartening.”
Most of the clubs that reared Living Colour have been renovated or razed. Right Track Recording is closed. Calhoun, whose custom bass drum is in the collection of the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture, recently visited the neighborhood where the group rehearsed in the late ’80s. Con Edison, he remembered, used to dig 20-foot holes there and leave them exposed. The area, the drummer said, “looked like Vietnam after the war.” Now coffee shops have arrived. Rents are on the rise. It’s the same cycle the group was talking about in 1988 with “Open Letter (to a Landlord).”
“Shit hasn’t changed,” Glover said.
These days, Reid looks back on Living Colour’s rise with a mix of pride and incredulity. He’d like to be a bit more specific about how he wrote the songs on Vivid, but his cherished little red notebook has been gone for years. He accidentally left it on the subway.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121101753
Living Colour: Keeping The Music Alive
One of the most recognizable guitar riffs recorded in America belongs to Living Colour. The band's 1988 hit "Cult of Personality" regularly makes "100 Greatest Songs Ever Written" lists and won the group Grammy Awards. But what made Living Colour unique was that all of its members were black in a genre — hard rock — dominated by white musicians.
Behind the Sun
Not Tomorrow
For Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid (far right), if the music isn't the centerpiece, everything falls away.
For a time, the band broke up, but it regrouped in 2000. Spearheaded by guitarist Vernon Reid and vocalist Corey Glover, Living Colour's latest album, The Chair in the Doorway, is an unapologetic homage to American hard rock, with a bluesy twist.
In an interview, NPR's Guy Raz wonders if "Cult of Personality" was a mixed blessing. Written in one session and performed at CBGB just a night later, Vernon Reid says the song has had an amazing life.
"Many artists have a rueful feeling towards their most popular song," Reid says. "I actually still love the song, 'Cult of Personality.' It's really so much more relevant now then it was then."
Living Colour doesn't sell out arenas anymore. The band plays small clubs and sells fewer records. But, compared to the literal mobs of attention in those early days, Glover says he welcomes the change.
"What I'm doing and how it's going right now is so much better for me, because there is no pressure," Glover says. "There is no fishbowl experience."
The years have also given the band wisdom. With age, Reid says "the music becomes even more crucial as a motivating factor." For Reid, if the music isn't the center, it falls away — he says he's seen it happen with many older musicians.
In this interview, Glover talks about the surreal experience of recording "Not Tomorrow," a song about his dying mother. The band also weighs in on being an all-black hard-rock group in a white-dominated genre.
"It didn't start with us," Reid says. "It won't end with us."
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1574200
Vernon Reid and Corey Glover of Living Colour
NPR's Tony Cox talks with pioneering African-American hard-rock band Living Colour's founder and guitarist, Vernon Reid, and singer Corey Glover, about their music career and new CD, Collideoscope.
Related NPR Stories
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113063272
Review
Living Colour: On A Life Of Self-Sabotage
A pioneering rock band that came out of New York City's downtown scene in the late '80s, Living Colour briefly possessed a rare combination of massive popularity and political relevance. But by the mid-'90s, it had been dropped by its record label and the group members were fighting with each other; they eventually broke up and failed to release another album for 10 years. It was during this period that founder/guitarist Vernon Reid came up with a line that would stick with him for years to come: "Toss my keys in the river so I can't go home again." This act of self-sabotage seemed to perfectly represent what was going on with his band, and he finally uses those words in "Burned Bridges," a song from Living Colour's new fifth album, The Chair in the Doorway.
Tuesday's Pick
- Song: "Burned Bridges"
- Artist: Living Colour
- CD: The Chair in the Doorway
- Genre: Rock
In "Burned Bridges," Living Colour reflects on the futility of throwing everything away in an effort to start fresh.
The rest of the track plays off the line, as the narrator announces plans to engage in every act of self-destruction he can think of. "Burned up my phone book," Corey Glover, who co-wrote the song with Reid, sings. "Threw away my watch and wallet / Gonna strip it all away / Gonna throw it all away." In his bitter delusion, he sees these acts as a way of starting fresh: "I've given up everything just so I can live." The song features a nimble, jittery bass line that serves as foreshadowing for its cathartic blow-out later in the song, during which Reid lets loose with one of his screeching guitar solos and Glover offers a final, more realistic self-assessment: "I've burned every bridge I've crossed / and now I know I've lost it."
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113940030
Living Colour: Getting 'Behind The Sun'
From
Living Colour In Studio On WNYC's Soundcheck 9/11/09
Living Colour's performance on Soundcheck produced several memorable moments. But I'll always remember it for something that didn't happen.
More From The Session
Living Colour In Studio On WNYC's Soundcheck 9/11/09
Living Colour
Best known for the 1988 MTV hit "Cult of Personality" — and for making African-Americans more visible in mainstream rock music — Living Colour visited WNYC a few days before releasing The Chair in the Doorway, its first album in six years. Its members were gearing up for a string of U.S. club dates, followed by a European tour.
They kicked off the session with the new song "Behind the Sun," about the state of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. As singer Corey Glover bellowed, "We're still here, you're still there," it was clear that his rich rock voice hasn't mellowed over two decades.
The band turned in an emotional performance at the end of the show, which aired live on the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Living Colour — long based in New York — played "Flying," based on the events of that day in 2001.
"It's really a love story that takes place in the last minutes of two people's lives," says Living Colour's founder and guitarist, Vernon Reid. The group dedicated the performance to the victims and survivors of the attacks.
By any radio producer's standards, it was a momentous day. But, as I mentioned before, it's what didn't happen that mattered to me: Vernon Reid didn't recognize me.
On Feb. 11, 1992, I handed Reid what has come to be known in some circles as The Worst Demo Tape Ever. I was a 15-year-old fanboy who, along with the three other members of a well-meaning hard-rock outfit called Three Part Brain, attended a lecture he gave at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
At the conclusion of that lecture, I bum-rushed the stage and pressed into his hand a cassette. It contained a handful of choppy original songs and covers, all recorded on a broken boom box. Trust me: This tape is painful to endure. At one point, I attempt to play a harmonica, having owned said harmonica for about six hours.
Seventeen years later, I'll admit it: I was scared to death that Reid would somehow identify me in the WNYC lobby and scream, "It's him!" Then I would be hauled away by some kind of Bad Musician Police, after nearly two decades on a Most Wanted list.
That didn't happen. Instead, Living Colour gave one of my favorite performances on Soundcheck, and I remain a musical fugitive at large.
Living Colour celebrates 35 years of Black rock at Ardmore Music Hall
A rocking personality
by Vena Jefferson
During the late 1980s and early ‘90s, there was this contemporary revolution, a cultural renaissance going on in Black music. Artists were sampling, bending, and fusing rock, jazz, soul, funk, and hip hop—with a message. Whether it was verbal or visual, the messages rocked philosophical conscious thought and political activism. Along with Spike Lee films, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art, African medallions, “Fight the Power,” Queen Latifah, Arrested Development, and Cross Colours clothing, you can’t conjure vibrant images of this era without the band Living Colour. Now, they’re on their way to the Philly area, for a show at Ardmore Music Hall on December 21.
An undeniable sound
In 1984 New York City, guitarist Vernon Reid formed Living Colour, an iconic Black rock band whose fusion was influenced by free jazz, funk, hard rock, blues, and heavy metal. The band’s lyrics range from personal to political and challenge stereotypical mentalities. After its original formation, the band solidified its best-known lineup with Corey Glovers on vocals, Will Calhoun on drums, and Doug Wimbish on bass.
The group’s foundation in diverse musical genres, political engagement, and straight-up New York City-style give Living Colour its undeniable sound. With soundbites of Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy over hard-hitting drums, unforgettable guitar riffs, and Glovers vocals, “Cult of Personality” won a 1990 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. This song evokes the use of propaganda and mass media to lure everyone to follow one idea or one person for commercial gain.
“That man can play!”
While Living Colour was about to make history at the Grammys, I was leaving my small-town home in Pennsylvania, on my way to Temple University. I was ready for my education, but music and art has always been my connector to the greatness of Black life in America. My grandparents were musicians, and music and dance were always a part of my life. My grandfather was guitarist, a steel-mill operator, and a champ on the local billiard circuit. He could have been any character right out of an August Wilson play. He was always willing to share his knowledge of music with anyone who wanted to learn. I remember sitting with my grandfather on the couch and watching Living Colour’s now-infamous 1989 Arsenio Hall performance. My grandfather said, now that man can play! Since then, I’ve followed this band, the music, and the message.
Breaking barriers
Four Black men presenting hard rock in a mostly white business was a difficult challenge in the mainstream industry. But it was the right time. Their look, sound, and perseverance were groundbreaking. Coming out of the Bronx, Calhoun grew up with pioneers of hip-hop like KRS-One, and had space to expand with visual artists such as Basquiat and Keith Haring. He never felt narrowed into one genre or mindset, he says.
Prior to their commercial rock success, Reid, Calhoun, Wimbish, and former Living Colour members were playing free and straight-ahead jazz and blues music with various headliners. In fact, Calhoun graduated from Berklee College of Music, received the Buddy Rich Jazz Masters award, and played with B.B. King and Harry Belafonte. In addition to the brilliant lyrics, Reid’s guitar riff in “Cult of Personality” is one of the most recognizable in American history. This song regularly has appeared on lists of the top 100 songs ever written, and Rolling Stone has Reid at number 66 on its 100 greatest guitarists list. The album Vivid is not only an unforgettable recording, but also broke barriers for more alternative rock groups in future eras.
Not the first and not the last
Although the band members have separated and come back together over the years, they have continued to make history individually. These rockers have played as band leaders, composers, and actors. Chances are you’ve heard them on a Mos Def (Yasiin Bey) album, or offering an original composition for choreography by Bill T. Jones. You may have seen any one of these musicians hosting a VH1 show or playing with a global West African act. But one thing’s for sure: whether on individual projects or as a group, these men never stop creating music and paying homage to the artists that came before them. Reid says, “We are not the first and not the last.”
Living Colour in Ardmore
Now, 35 years after its start, Living Colour remains a permanent voice of Black rock. The band is coming to our town, bringing all of the magic with them. I will be at Ardmore Music Hall on December 21, as excited as the first time I witnessed the band’s hard-hitting, soulful sound.
We can look forward to hearing the original hits from Vivid
as well as newer music from more recent albums. The root of Living
Colour's latest album came from a performance of Robert Johnson's
"Preachin' Blues" at the 100th anniversary celebration at the legendary
Apollo in New York City. Shade, released in 2017, “is the sound of a band coming to terms with its shadows and light,” says founder Vernon Reid. “From the blue pulpit of Robert Johnson to the mean red streets of Brooklyn ... Shade is the next chapter of a unique American journey.”
Article Overview
Black rock icons Living Colour will hit the Ardmore Music Hall stage on December 21. Vena Jefferson has been a fan since the beginning.
WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and ACCESSIBILITY
See Living Colour on December 21, 2019 at Ardmore Music Hall, 23 East Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore, PA. (610) 649-8389 or ardmoremusic.com.
Ardmore Music Hall is an ADA-compliant venue. Find more accessibility info here, and don’t hesitate to call or email the staff at info@ardmoremusichall.com in advance of the show with questions about your needs.
About Vena Jefferson
Vena Jefferson is a performing artist, writer, and curator. She's also the chief creative officer of Artvolution Cultural Innovation Project Inc. www.artvolution.org.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Colour
Living Colour
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http://www.livingcolourmusic.com/
Thursday, June 06, 2019
Living Colour in Charlotte and Annapolis this weekend!
Thursday, September 07, 2017
Living Colour SHADE - available September 8th!
Thursday, August 03, 2017
Living Colour, 'Program' - Exclusive Song Premiere
http://loudwire.com/living-colour-program-exclusive-song-premiere/
Living Colour last released an album in 2009, but the band is about to return in a big way. Their new album, Shade, is on schedule for a Sept. 8 release via Megaforce Records and we’ve got something special in store for your today. We’ve teamed up with the group to bring you the exclusive premiere of the new song “Program,” which can be heard in the player at the bottom of this post.
The song starts off with an interview piece featuring rapper Scarface, where he’s discussing rock bands and frantically trying to remember the name of Living Colour, only managing to recall the “Cult of Personality” guitar lick.
FINISH READING: Living Colour, 'Program' - Exclusive Song Premiere | http://loudwire.com/living-colour-program-exclusive-song-premiere/?trackback=tsmclip
Monday, September 12, 2016
NEW LIVING COLOUR Who Shot Ya? Mixtape out now! (Digital download only)
Available now 9/9/16 - digital download only
Who Shot Ya? mixtape includes 3 NEW songs from the SHADE sessions plus Who Shot Ya? remixes
1. Who Shot Ya? (Notorious B.I.G. cover)
2. Regrets
3. This Place Hotel (Michael Jackson cover aka Heartbreak Hotel)
4. Who Shot Ya? (Andre Betts Remix) [feat. Chuck D, Pharoahe Monch, Black Thought, Prodigal Sunn, Kyle Mansa]
5. Who Shot Ya? (EDM Remix) [feat. Niro Barnes & Divine Styler]
6. Who Shot Ya? (Adrian Sherwood and Matt Smyth Remix) [feat. Taz]
Tracks 7-12 are instrumental versions of Tracks 1-6.
Available digitally:
iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/who-shot-ya/id1143656174
Amazon.com - https://www.amazon.com/Who-Shot-Ya-Living-Colour/dp/B01KEDOV84
Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Living_Colour_Who_Shot_Ya?id=Bc6javoiyo4ia5v5okv6gjllg6i
Look for SHADE in early 2017!
http://LivingColour.com
http://Facebook.com/LivingColour
http://Twitter.com/LivingColour
http://Instagram.com/LivingColourOfficial
“Our version of “Who Shot Ya” was initially an organic outgrowth of pure fandom for the work of the brilliant Christopher Wallace. Corey would frequently sing the song during soundcheck, so we worked it up. But tragically Biggie’s question has taken on new and urgent significance over the last year. The amount of people who die on a daily basis because of gun violence is unacceptable in a civilized society. The disproportionate use of deadly force in communities of color is equally unacceptable in a civilized society. It inspired the idea to reach out to some of the most provocative voices in hip-hop to invite them to add their words to the track. We all feel paralyzed as to how we can meaningfully effect change, but at the least we can keep our voices raised in solidarity and not let this plight fade into the background until it happens again.”
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Living Colour 2016 Tour covering Northeast/Southeast US
Living Colour: Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, Will Calhoun, Doug Wimbish are set to embark on a 2 week tour covering some area's that we haven't for a while, meanwhile revisiting a few spots like City Winery Nashville, and Altar Bar in Pittsburgh!
3/30 Howard Theatre - Washington DC
4/1 Tally Ho Theater - Leesburg, VA
4/2 Greene Street Live - Greensboro, NC
4/4 Bernie Worrell FUNKraiser @ Webster Hall - New York, NY
4/5 Revolution Live - Ft. Lauderdale, FL
4/6 The Orpheum - Tampa, FL
4/8 Harmonious Monks - Jacksonville, FL
4/9 Nevermind Awesome Bar - Cape Coral, FL
4/11 City Winery - Nashville, TN
4/12 Mercury Ballroom - Louisville, KY
4/13 Altar Bar - Pittsburgh, PA
4/14 Chameleon Club - Lancaster, PA
4/15 The Loft - Poughkeepsie, NY
4/16 Jewel Nightclub - Manchester, NH
Tuesday, March 08, 2016
Corey Glover Live tonight at the Kennett Flash - Kennett Square, PA March 8th
Iconic artist Corey Glover, who is perhaps best known as the lead singer for the Grammy Award Winning, Multi-Platinum-Selling band Living Colour, will be performing an exclusive show at Kennett Flash on Tuesday, March 8 at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.).
Kennett Flash is located at:
102 Sycamore Alley,
Kennett Square, PA 19348
Tickets range from $40-$45 per person and are available by visiting https://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1094775, but we're offering a buy 3 tickets get 1 free with the code “flashfriends”
And as a sidenote, KSI Crafts - across the street from the venue - is doing a Beer & Cider Tasting just for show goers from 6:30-8pm.
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
March 30th show in Washington DC
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Living Colour January 2016 schedule
Jan 14th at Potawatomi Casino - Northern Lights Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Ticketmaster
Jan 17th at Dakota Jazz Club - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota Jazz Club tickets
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
December 2015 shows for Living Colour
12/27 City Winery – Nashville, TN - Tickets/Info
12/29 Music Box Supper Club – Cleveland, OH - Tickets/Info
12/30 City Winery – Chicago, IL
7pm show - Tickets/Info
10pm show - Tickets/Info
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Living Colour to open for Aerosmith - Blue Army Tour - this summer
Living Colour are opening act for Aerosmith on the Blue Army Tour 2015
Sat. Jun. 13 GLENDALE, AZ - GILA RIVER ARENA
Wed. Jun. 24 EVANSVILLE, IN - THE FORD CENTRE
Tue. Jun. 30 HIDALGO, TX - STATE FARM ARENA
Tue. Jul. 07 SANTA BARBARA, CA - SANTA BARBARA BOWL
Fri. Jul. 10 SALINAS, CA - CALIFORNIA RODEO SALINAS
Mon. Jul. 13 KELOWNA, BC - PROSPERA PLACE
Thu. Jul. 16 VICTORIA, BC - SAVE ON FOODS MEMORIAL CENTRE
Sun. Jul. 19 FORT MCMURRAY, ALBERTA - SMS STADIUM
Wed. Jul. 22 CHEYENNE, WY - CHEYENNE FRONTIER DAYS
Sat. Jul. 25 MINOT, ND - NORTH DAKOTA STATE FAIR
Tue. Jul. 28 RIDGEFIELD, WA - AMPHITHEATER NORTHWEST
Tue. Aug. 04 GRAND RAPIDS, MI - VAN ANDEL ARENA
Fri. Aug. 07 CANTON, OH - TOM BENSON HALL OF FAME STADIUM
Monday, January 26, 2015
Living Colour February 2015 US Synesthesia Tour dates
Feb 2nd - 6th - ShipRocked Cruise
Feb 4th - Shiprocked Cruise - Stardust Theatre 8:30pm
Feb 5th - Shiprocked Cruise - Stardust Theatre 5:30pm
Feb 6th - Culture Room - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - TicketMaster
Feb 7th - State Theatre - St. Petersburg, FL - Ticketmaster
Feb 8th - Masquerade - Atlanta, GA - Masquerade Tickets
Feb 9th - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC - Ticketfly
Feb 10th - Rams Head On Stage - Annapolis, MD - Ticketfly
Feb 12th - Tally Ho Theatre - Leesburg, VA - Tally Ho tickets
Feb 13th - Ridgefield Playhouse - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield tickets
Feb 14th - Brookyln Bowl - Brookyln, NY - Ticketfly
Feb 15th - Tupelo Music Hall - Londonderry, NH - Tupelo Music Hall tickets
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Living Colour Return To Studio / Postpone Several Fall Tour Dates
NEW YORK, Nov. 13 – Living Colour, the multi-platinum rock band whose music Rolling Stone described as “an intoxicating brew of hard, grinding rock with splashes of funk, jazz, reggae and pop,” have returned to the studio to finish work on Shade, their forthcoming album.
The band has also postponed a number of their fall tour dates in order to spend the remainder of the year working on their sixth studio offering. However, Living Colour will be playing four area shows before the end of the year:
Nov. 28 New York, NY Irving Plaza
Nov. 29 Londonderry, NH Tupelo Music Hall (SOLD OUT)
Nov. 30 Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club
Dec. 1 Philadelphia, PA World Café Live
“While we don’t want to disappoint our fans,” explained guitarist Vernon Reid, “we need this time to finish recording the new album. We will be back in February with new material. We really appreciate our fans’ support and want to make the best record we can.”
Dates that have been postponed are:
Dec. 3 Stafford Springs, CT Stafford Palace Theatre
Dec. 4 Newton, NJ The Newton Theatre
Dec. 5 Ridgefield, CT Ridgefield Playhouse
Dec. 6 Leesburg, VA Tally Ho Theatre
Dec. 7 Hanover, MD Maryland Live Casino
Dec. 9 Nashville, TN City Winery Nashville
Dec. 10 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
Dec. 12 Ft. Lauderdale, FL The Culture Room
Dec. 13 St. Petersburg, FL The State Theatre
Dec. 14 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
-------------------------------------------------
Follow the official website, LC Facebook and bandsintown app for up-to-date tour dates.
As of today, a few dates have been rescheduled from the December portion of the US tour:
Feb 7, 2015 - State Theatre - St. Petersburg, FL
Feb 9, 2015 - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC
Feb 13, 2015 - Ridgefield Playhouse - Ridgefield, CT
www.facebook.com/livingcolour
www.twitter.com/livingcolour
www.LivingColour.com
Monday, August 11, 2014
Living Colour Synesthesia tour - US Fall 2014 (complete)
SYNESTHESIA TOUR - FALL 2014 (US edition)
9/18/14 - The Opera House - Toronto, ONT -TicketFly
9/19/14 - The Magic Bag - Ferndale, MI - TicketWeb
9/20/14 - Park West - Chicago, IL - eTix
9/21/14 - Dakota Jazz Club - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota Jazz Club tix
9/23/14 - Knuckleheads - Kansas City, MO - eTix
9/24/14 - Duck Room at Blueberry Hill - St. Louis, MO - TicketFly
9/26/14 - Summit Music Hall - Denver, CO - TicketWeb
9/27/14 - Mesa Theatre & Club - Grand Junction, CO - Mesa Theatre Tix
9/29/14 - The Triple Door - Seattle, WA - Triple Door tickets
9/30/14 - Aladdin Theatre - Portland, OR - TicketFly
10/01/14 - The Independent - San Francisco, CA TicketFly
10/03/14 - Mystic Theatre - Petaluma, CA - TicketWeb
10/04/14 - Roxy Theatre - Los Angeles, CA - TicketFly
10/05/14 - Belly Up Tavern - Solana Beach, CA - FrontGate/Belly Up Tickets
10/06/14 - Hard Rock Live - Las Vegas, NV - TicketWeb
10/07/14 - The Coach House - San Juan Capistrano, CA - TicketWeb
10/8/14 - The Rock - Tuscon, AZ - TicketFly
10/10/14 - Kessler Theater - Dallas, TX - PreKindle/Kessler Tickets
10/11/14 - The Belmont - Austin, TX - TicketFly
10/12/14 - Warehouse Live - Houston, TX - FrontGate Tickets
11/28/14 - Irving Plaza - New York, NY - LiveNation
11/29/14 - Tupelo Music Hall - Londonderry, NH - Tupelo Hall Tickets
11/30/14 - The Paradise - Boston, MA - TicketMaster
12/01/14 - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA - TicketFly
12/03/14 - Stafford Palace Theatre - Stafford Springs, CT - TicketFly
12/04/14 - Newton Theatre - Newton, NJ - Newton Theatre Tickets
12/05/14 - Ridgefield Playhouse - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield Playhouse Tickets
12/06/14 - Tally Ho Theatre - Leesburg, VA - Tally Ho Tickets
12/07/14 - Maryland Live Casino - Hanover, MD - Ticket sale TBD by venue
12/09/14 - City Winery - Nashville, TN - on sale soon
12/10/14 - Cat's Cradle - Carrboro, NC - TicketFly
12/12/14 - Culture Room - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Ticketmaster
12/13/14 - State Theatre - St. Petersburg, FL - Ticketmaster
12/14/14 - The Masquerade - Atlanta, GA - Ticketmaster
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
Living Colour "Synesthesia Tour" - Fall 2014 (US edition)
9/18/14 - The Opera House - Toronto, ONT -TicketFly
9/19/14 - The Magic Bag - Ferndale, MI - TicketWeb
9/20/14 - Park West - Chicago, IL - eTix
9/21/14 - Dakota Jazz Club - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota Jazz Club tix
9/23/14 - Knuckleheads - Kansas City, MO - eTix
9/24/14 - Duck Room at Blueberry Hill - St. Louis, MO - TicketFly
9/26/14 - Summit Music Hall - Denver, CO - TicketWeb
9/27/14 - Mesa Theatre & Club - Grand Junction, CO - Mesa Theatre Tix
9/29/14 - The Triple Door - Seattle, WA - Triple Door tickets
9/30/14 - Aladdin Theatre - Portland, OR - TicketFly
10/01/14 - The Independent - San Francisco, CA TicketFly
10/03/14 - Mystic Theatre - Petaluma, CA - TicketWeb
10/04/14 - Roxy Theatre - Los Angeles, CA - TicketFly
10/05/14 - Belly Up Tavern - Solana Beach, CA - FrontGate/Belly Up Tickets
10/07/14 - The Coach House - San Juan Capistrano, CA
10/10/14 - Kessler Theater - Dallas, TX - PreKindle/Kessler Tickets
10/11/14 - The Belmont - Austin, TX - TicketFly
10/12/14 - Warehouse Live - Houston, TX - FrontGate Tickets
11/28/14 - Irving Plaza - New York, NY - LiveNation
11/29/14 - Tupelo Music Hall - Londonderry, NH - Tupelo Hall Tickets
11/30/14 - The Paradise - Boston, MA - TicketMaster
12/01/14 - World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA - TicketFly
12/03/14 - Stafford Palace Theatre - Stafford Springs, CT - TicketFly
12/04/14 - Newton Theatre - Newton, NJ
12/05/14 - Ridgefield Playhouse - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield Playhouse Tickets
12/06/14 - Tally Ho Theatre - Leesburg, VA - Tally Ho Tickets
12/07/14 - Maryland Live Casino - Hanover, MD
Saturday, May 03, 2014
That Metal Show presents: Anthrax, Living Colour and more!
Living Colour Releases New Music Video for 'This Is The Life' Featuring Nationwide Protest Footage
Living Colour's track "This Is The Life" off its 1990 album Time's Up couldn't be more timeless. So the rock band brought back the tune along with a new music video Saturday (June 6) that highlights the protests following George Floyd's unlawful murder.
The track offers a glimmer of hope in a seemingly hopeless world infected by racism, praising how one can turn things around for themselves despite the powers that be working against them. And in a montage series of clips from old live performances and peaceful protests that turned violent when police charged their cars at civilians and threw tear gas, Living Colour echoes its 30-year-old words that people have the power to take charge of the life they're living.
"Times Up was released 30 years ago and sadly we're still fighting the same fight... If you don't like the current agenda, it's your responsibility to go out an VOTE!" the group wrote on for the YouTube video description.
On May 25, a Black man in Minnesota named George Floyd died from asphyxiation after a white police officer knelt down on his neck for nearly nine minutes, his death later being ruled a homicide and the officer receiving an upgraded charge of second-degree murder. The viral video demonstrating the cruel, racist treatment of Floyd sparked these protests over the last two weeks, but Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid described what happened as the "most depraved exercise in contemptuous disregard for human life I’ve ever seen" in a tweet from last Sunday (May 31).
Heavy Culture: Living Colour on Their Upbringings, Pandemic Life, and Getting Out the Vote
“As a country, we’re living in a 42-story building but we're only arguing about what's wrong in the lobby and we’re not talking about the other floors."
Heavy Culture is a monthly column from journalist Liz Ramanand, focusing on artists of different cultural backgrounds in heavy music as they offer their perspectives on race, society, and more as it intersects with and affects their music. The latest installment of this column features an interview with the Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun, guitarist Vernon Reid and bassist Doug Wimbish.
Since 1985, Living Colour have blended rock, metal, and blues to form a sound all their own, inspiring many artists along the way. This year, the rock pioneers are celebrating 30 years of their sophomore album, Time’s Up, which yielded such hits as “Type”, “Love Rears Its Ugly Head”, and “Elvis Is Dead”.This edition of “Heavy Culture” spans several months, as we first caught up with the members of Living Colour back in early February on the high seas during this year’s ShipRocked cruise. There, they each went in-depth about their various cultural and musical backgrounds. While we were able to share our separate interview with singer Corey Glover, our conversation with the rest of the band was tabled as the pandemic hit and George Floyd’s death led to nationwide protests. Instead, we ran a series of time-sensitive “Heavy Culture” columns throughout the summer.
Prior to Living Colour playing a livestream event at Ardmore Music Hall in Pennsylvania on October 24th to get out the vote, we caught up with Calhoun to get his take on the pandemic and the presidential election. Here, we present our recent catch-up with Calhoun, and our pre-pandemic conversation with Living Colour’s Will Calhoun, Vernon Reid and Doug Wimbish in the latest edition of “Heavy Culture” below:
On life since the ShipRocked cruise and living with the pandemic
Will Calhoun: We’re not getting on a damn boat anytime soon — I’ll tell you that much! I’ve been adjusting. I don’t think the industry is going to be the same. It’s restructuring and I’m trying to pay attention to what’s going on and trying to be prepared for the next step we’re going to take in being artists. I lost some people, some great musicians, it’s been very challenging. Everything is happening at once — you can’t see people, you can’t go out, you can’t rehearse, you can’t write.
But it’s also been a fantastic time to think about us, especially as Black artists, reclaiming our stake, having more power over yourself, over your industry, there’s no middle person, how we’re going to do our art, how we are going to get paid on our art is going to change. I’m navigating.
On Living Colour playing a livestream show in Pennsylvania to get out the vote
Will Calhoun: We’ve been checking in with each other and just making sure our families are good, we’ve been talking about new music in this new world. This livestream was about us wanting to do something involving this election, involving our rights, women’s rights indigenous rights and picking a place like Pennsylvania which is a swing state, rather than in New York, inviting organizations like iVote and Black Lives Matter to help us promote and get this vibe out about voting. Voting is 60 percent of it, the other 40 percent is your responsibilities as a human being.
The show is a reminder about what’s important to you in life and how you want to live. We have to look at the reality of where we are. Neither party is going to fix all of the things that need to be fixed in four years but our job is to be steadfast and hold people accountable. As a country, we’re living in a 42-story building but we’re only arguing about what’s wrong in the lobby and we’re not talking about the other floors.
On each member’s cultural background and upbringing, and how it influences Living Colour’s music
Vernon Reid: People involved in Living Colour, we have had backgrounds from the South and also the Caribbean as part of our makeup. We have come to music in various ways. One thing I think is common, is our parents were really into music. Music was an important part of our various households. If a household doesn’t have music in it, where does it begin? Being a second-generation person connected to the Caribbean is interesting because there is a real conversation about music that African-American people have that having a Caribbean-American background is different. I wasn’t told about white music. I wasn’t told this music is white music, that wasn’t a conversation.
When The Beatles came on The Ed Sullivan Show, my parents were excited because they lived in London and The Beatles were from Liverpool. It changed the conversation. I grew up with James Brown, The Beatles, Kool and the Gang. I was in charge of buying the 45s. At that time, a song would come on and we had never heard anything like it – like Sly and the Family Stone, when “Family Affair” came on, I remember the distinct memory of “What the hell is that?” He was talking about things you didn’t hear about, a kind of poetry that was different. Things would come on that would shake you up. James Brown would come on with “Hot Pants”, and it was like a stream of consciousness.
Doug Wimbish: To start from ground zero, I was born in 1956. My mom was from the Bahamas; my father is African American from Georgia with some American Indian blood in his family. I have an older brother and younger sister. I’m a middle child, following the footsteps of what my brother and sister did. My mom, coming from the Bahamas – the story of her journey was quite interesting. She was in the service industry and came up, got offered to do a job in West Hartford, Connecticut and brought my aunt with her. Long story short, they had no idea what was going on in America in 1948. It was a different world post-war. Nassau in the Bahamas was still under British rule.
That being said, my mom told me the journey of when she came up in 1948. A guy said he was going to bring her [to the US]. “Here is your papers, you will take a boat from Nassau to Miami and take a train up.” When they took the boat over, they landed in Miami, back then segregation was happening and there was a train car that said color only and whites. My mom said, “Oh we have our own car.” That was the reality of how things were happening at that time. Little did she know she was going to get that experience when she married my father settling in Hartford, Connecticut which had the second-largest West Indian population next to Brooklyn. When people came from the islands, they would go to Toronto or Brooklyn, or they would go to Hartford to be farmers.
Having an older brother and sister, listening to music, hearing things in the ‘60s when I could get my audio frequencies on, I was listening to Chubby Checker with my family doing the twist, listening to Mighty Sparrow coming on. It gave me a sense of the reality of how powerful music is.
My first exposure to an instrument came from the garbage — my next door neighbors, once a year they would throw out gear from the basements. We would ride around the block to see what people were throwing out. I got the mandolin and my sister got the banjo, that was my first instrument. That was a way to make a connection with something you could call yours, borrow instruments from other friends because your family couldn’t afford it.
Here I am now and I had an interest in going to where my mother is from which is in the Bahamas. I would spend some summer vacations in Nassau in 1968 and 1969. Having the experience of going to the Bahamas, getting out of America, being in this British system is completely different.
Coming back to the American system was a balancing act. My experience came from listening and being accepted by the elders I was around. As much as I was in a certain class by my friends, I was accepted earlier with the elders. That is a big thing when you are young, getting that green light. When I got accepted I didn’t take it lightly.
One of my first gigs I got, I was 13 or 14 years old playing a night club. My teacher was a pretty popular person in town. He would teach me his songs when I was taking guitar lessons and he said, “You are ready to do this gig with me; we are going to play this club.” He said his bass player was a pimp so during the Saturday matinee shows he won’t be there. One of my biggest sparks was this — I went to the rehearsal and went to the club. If my mother saw that I was there, she would skin my ass. We started the rehearsal for the matinee show and who shows up? The pimp. He says hey to the guitar player and the drummer, and he gives me this pimp stare that says he is going to run my ass over.
You find ways to deal with ways to be intimidated by somebody but to also stand your ground and be able to separate yourself from the pack. I think, what I realized early is to try to stay free and not get tangled up with the musical police officers. Use every experience in life, whether it be the Bahamas or the pimp, or my brother or sister, seeing Miles Davis at a young age or Sly.
When you are a kid you look at all these things and want to do that. I walked down the musical Indian trail roads my elders did and I was fortunate to have them. Without them, I wouldn’t be here right now.
Will Calhoun: I’m from the northeast Bronx and everyone was there. There were Puerto Ricans, Dominicans — all the Caribbean islands. My influence came from my neighborhood. On my block, there were people from Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad on the same street.
My family came up from the South. My friend’s families came up from Guyana and all the uncles and aunts are our uncles and aunts. The parties in back yards bled into each other. Then our moms, somebody made peas and rice and somebody made fried chicken. It was beyond the music. The first time I saw adults dance was at my neighbor’s. They are Guyanese, I never saw a group of parents dance on one song. All of my friends from the Caribbean, their parents would dance with each other. My Latin friends, a Salsa track would come on and they would grab each other to dance.
For us, this is another kind of vibe. It was the music, the language, the culture, the food, it was a great exchange for people of color. It was nice to just come out of my house and stay on my block and get three or four types of food and types of music. Being a youngster into music, there were other things my friends listened to my parents weren’t, that kind of exchange between jazz and bebop and that kind of stuff before getting to Sly. I didn’t understand the different islands because my mother never divided us. I heard others say things but it was just Ms. Johnson or Ms. Smith, not this person is from that island. In our house, people would just come over.
When you are a kid, you just pick up things being general with the different accents and food. As I got older and went to school, I started to see that vibe but growing up on the block, the culture and music were all hand in hand. I heard things in other people’s homes that I didn’t hear in my house with music. Once I started getting into music, I had the same kind of background with not being afraid to check things out.
Also being a drummer, you want to know where the calypso beat is. Harry Belafonte was my first boss and I went into the gig thinking I knew what calypso music until I got with Harry and his orchestra. He had people from Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana in the band. My neighborhood made it viable for me to get into this.
I did have the white and black conversations because we went to Jewish summer camps and went to school in Italian neighborhoods so there were some clashes some times. At camp, everyone listens to music. They had KISS, Van Halen, and I was the black kid that knew that music. My friends knew Kool and the Gang and Sly and the Family Stone. Fortunately, that wall wasn’t there and it enabled me to get into music, into rock and stuff and not have that ambivalence of what is white and what is Black.
Even in Caribbean music, which can be rhythmically volatile, what is Cuban music? What is Puerto Rican music? As drummers, that is religious, but it was good to have the prerequisite and meet people and eat the food and go to school with those young people which helped me to dive into the music without ambivalence of the sound. I am the product of that environment – the parents and grandparents.
All the experiences growing up gave a solid foundation for culture and music. I had a very hands-on, thanks to my neighborhood, a very tangible experience.
https://www.spin.com/2020/08/living-colour-times-up-interview/
Oral History \
Time’s Up at 30: Living Colour Reflect on Prophetic Second LP
Original members on why the socially conscious album still resonates three decades later
By 1990, New York City’s Living Colour were one of the hottest new rock bands in America following the success of their debut LP, 1988’s Vivid, and a cherished opening stint on the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels tour.
“When we got to Time’s Up, we could reach out to all sorts of people and it was kind of wild,” guitarist Vernon Reid says, noting how the band landed most of their cameo wish list for the recording sessions.
“I mean, we got one of our heroes, Mr. Richard Penniman, who just passed away, to appear on ‘Elvis Is Dead.’ Mick Jagger also appears on that song. The other special guest we had on there was Maceo Parker. So we had Little Richard and Maceo Parker on the same track. Then we had Queen Latifah come through for ‘Undercover of Darkness,’ Doug E Fresh for ‘Tag Team Partners.’ It felt like all these little magical moments we were able to bring together. There was a lot of inside baseball going on with this record. It was amazing.”
But as all four original members (Reid, singer Corey Glover, bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer Will Calhoun) tell SPIN, their acclaimed second LP was more than a good time in the studio. As Jesse Sendejas Jr. surmised so aptly in his recent story for the Houston Press, the album — which turns 30 today — addresses deeper, more serious concerns: “It was actually released 30 years ago,” he writes, “but its themes speak directly to matters of race, police brutality, the value of science, who controls information, even who is the rightful ‘king’ of rock and roll – all topics that have jammed U.S. news feeds since the beginning of May.”
Listening to Time’s Up three decades later — in the context of a new Civil Rights movement pushing up against a global pandemic and a worsening environmental crisis — it’s impossible to ignore the prophetic quality of lyrics to keynote cuts like “Pride,” “Someone Like You,” “Type” and the Talking Heads-evoking “Solace Of You.” On the album’s title track, the band pushed the era’s boundaries by raising awareness of the growing concern over climate change.
“It’s funny because some of the things that happened seemed very quirky at the time,” Reid explains. “Corey came up with the lyrics for ‘Time’s Up,’ and that became the title of the album. It was a little bit of an homage, that song, to our friends in Bad Brains. We all came up together in the CBGB scene in the ‘80s. And at the time we did it, nobody was doing hardcore tunes about the environment. And we just went with it.”
“I was sitting in my apartment and watching the news,” Glover says. “And they were always talking about the ozone layer. It was also the time there was that garbage barge in New York City that couldn’t find a place to stay. So there was always this background noise as to the environment going under, and if we don’t do something [it was] gonna get worse in the next 20 or 30 years. And then I was weird about the places where they were getting rid of the garbage. Based on whatever it was, it was usually on the other side of the railroad tracks, and in neighborhoods that couldn’t do anything about it. It was always in places other people didn’t care about.”
“I remember reading about that,” adds Skillings. “And the fact that governments and corporations were making deals to the detriment of their own population across the U.S. Even though we are American citizens — and proud ones at that — we still felt strongly about the things we thought were wrong. And one of the cool things that Corey did [was writing] those lyrics that delved into things that weren’t being talked about. But he understood that these were things that moved slowly. And like Vernon and Corey said, with ‘Time’s Up’ we were influenced by Bad Brains and really connected to their freneticism and their energy, and we wanted to marry those messages.”
In our nearly two-hour conversation, Living Colour described how their surroundings in 1990 directly informed the direction of Time’s Up — and how the Black Lives Matter movement could use the album and its themes as a guidepost for a more promising future. This is the highlight reel of the chat.
Corey Glover: I remember when I was in junior high school and people were coming in to talk with us about the environment and the need for things to change. So we did paper drives and all this dumb shit that really didn’t mean anything because 30 years later it is still happening.
Vernon Reid: Speaking of which, one of the most powerful things about the song ‘Pride’ that Will Calhoun wrote was when he hits that line, “History’s a lie that they teach you in school.”
Will Calhoun: I went to private schools growing up in the Bronx. Actually, one of my classmates was the late Scott La Rock of Boogie Down Productions. And Scott was very, very intelligent. He was an incredible athlete and an A student. So when we were both in history class, we would talk about things like Egypt and the Black Panthers and things like that. And our teacher — it was a Lutheran school and very conservative — would get pissed and say we needed to stick with the syllabus. But we would always question why we couldn’t talk about the real history of what was going on. Before doing that song when writing Time’s Up, the most challenging thing for me was going to Los Angeles. We had toured a bunch, and I was really trying to stay in New York.
But before I left for L.A., I grabbed some of my old songwriter journals, and I found my high school journal and grabbed it and threw it in the bag with my other stuff. When we got there to L.A., I was running through my old journals, and that line about history came from my time in high school and being in class with Scott La Rock and calling it out because they were not dealing with the real issues that were going on. It was really just a piece of my life and how we’d all go into this classroom to sit down and be lied to, basically. And that happened throughout our entire educational process with history. Our parents were the ones who made sure we had a black history program every February in our school. That was our parents, not the school.
VR: It’s not so much about the state of education, but it’s also about the state of education in teachers. This is a multi-tiered thing that goes back to the founding of the country. You can’t avoid it. And it goes back to things like the vagrancy laws. Vagrancy and loitering were invented after the abolition of slavery. How did they populate the chain gangs? They did so by using people who were out of work. It was not based on actual crimes, but they invented a law that made it a crime to just be walking around. You had to be gainfully engaged.
The other thing about how this all ties in with white supremacy is the discretion of the law enforcement officer, which means equal protection under the law is a sham. We still have this today — the discretion of the officer. All we’ve been asking for centuries, really, is “same crime, same time.” We’re not asking for special treatment. If we get caught with our hand in the cookie jar, fair enough. But judicial discretion and law enforcement discretion means that you get more time for the same crime because you are deemed such by a jury of your “peers.”
Will Calhoun: Ava DuVernay, in my opinion, did a fabulous series with How They See Us, which dealt with the realities of the Central Park 5. And although they were exonerated, there was no real apology. People broke the law to put those five young men behind bars. Judicial people, police officers and the district attorney — they all broke the law. You didn’t need DNA evidence to know those people lied. I was there when they were arrested, and I was at the Abyssinian Baptist Church when they were released and had a service for them. I sat next to those fathers, and it was deep. And in connection to what Vernon was saying, although these things are still happening, that was really a modern case where, in my opinion, at least an apology could have been made.
CG: To a large degree, none of this has really changed, even with the five young men who got arrested. Because authorities still think they had to have been guilty of something. If the reverse were true and it happened to be someone of a lighter hue, like that guy Robert Chambers who killed his girlfriend in the park. When was the last time you heard someone talking about Robert Chambers? That shit happened the same year!
Muzz Skillings: I’ve seen some of the videos the kids are doing on TikTok, and you got all nationalities understanding that Black Lives Matter. They understand that it’s not about the color, but it’s about due process and justice and fairness and just common sense. And they seem really powerful. One thing that I would just like to put out there I would hope that this generation of children would benefit from the council of people from my generation and even earlier ones.
Those of us who understood what happened to the hippie movement of peace and love and how that fizzled out and were undermined. There’s cultural changes around it today that effectively neutralized what they did in the 60s. There are agencies in our culture who are watching this, and they are figuring it out. I’m hoping that this movement learns how the other movements were undermined and neutralized, and if they really go for it and understand the power that they have they could really make a change.
CG: This isn’t the first movement made for active change. We went through this in Ferguson. We went through this after the L.A. riots. We went through this in New York when Eleanor Bumpurs got killed by the police. The point I’m trying to make is that you have to keep the fire stoked. The thing about these movements and why they fizzle out is because there’s fatigue about it. Unfortunately, the system doesn’t want to stop doing what it’s doing, what we are rallying against. Police are still doing what they are doing. The only reason why we have this movement right now is because we are in the middle of a global pandemic and we got people stuck in their houses watching this on YouTube, watching this on TikTok, watching this on Twitter.
We have to put something in place for people to keep their eye on this thing. And I — at one point — thought it was music, but it’s not just music. We had songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s that rally people around certain things. That’s all great. There has to be something that solidifies this idea and crystallizes it in the mind of the body politic. Nothing else will register real change. We can’t change these things with a hashtag. We can’t keep these videos going. We can’t keep these songs. You know, “Pride” and “Someone Like You” are classic examples of talking about where we are.
MS: The first time I encountered police killing people with impunity it just blew my mind. I read a Village Voice article called “Cops Who Kill” — I still have the paper. And it details what went down in Brooklyn, from witnesses and from one of the guys who the cop literally stepped on his head and proclaimed him to be dead. He survived, and was able to give the account about how he just wanted to go in and murder them all. Then I started to see how it was not an isolated incident. I was seeing how it was a pattern. So at the time we made Time’s Up, we weren’t trying to be political. It’s a weird thing. I could be talking about something that happened to me like I couldn’t get a cab. That’s my story, man. Then someone will turn around and ask why we were being so political when I was only telling a story where I couldn’t catch a cab.
We had that forced upon ourselves. We were also coming to terms with discrepancies we were outraged by and we had to express it. That’s what we did: Will, Vernon, Corey and myself. And so with a song like “Someone Like You,” particularly the police verse, I was like, “OK, this is going on, but I don’t want it to be so ham-fisted about it.” Then we tried to put it in human terms: “Police they chased my brother / Policeman license to kill” — I never say he shot him, I wrote, “Oh how I miss my brother / Good shoes are so hard to fill.” That’s what hits the heart, and that’s what I wanted to have happen.
VR: This is part and parcel to why our lives were as such back then. It’s weird, because people would say how we’re this political band. Well, yeah, because politics is a part of life. But we wrote about all kinds of things. Songs like “Undercover of Darkness” and “Love Rears Up Its Ugly Head” were never any less to us. But we also had to have songs like “Someone Like You.” It’s part of our coming of age. We were forced to grow up with these extra things. Girls and cars, we loved all that, too. But when we get pulled over by the cops, we have to worry about the cops’ next move.
CG: We wanted to also talk about where we want to continue in life, and “This Is the Life” did that, right? That song asks us to move forward from where we are now. We wanna know where our tomorrow is and how our tomorrow will advance change. That was our hope in doing Time’s Up. Because we were dealing with the success in the music business and the question of who we are and where we came from. You must not be those kinds of black folks; you must be different. And we had to tell them, through Time’s Up, we’re still black. We were still living in the time of Crown Heights just as the riots were starting there. We were still in the middle of it. We were still getting pulled over and being harassed by the police who then recognized me.
WC: I think also in this capitalistic society, outside of the pandemic which is horrifying enough, people don’t have money. They’re not working. They’re being furloughed or laid off. Even in terms of the music industry. I’ve reached out to my drum company and my cymbal company, and I’m getting emails back mentioning they had to lay off 140 people. They let go some of the designers, the people who design the gear. These are key people. There’s also the reality that people can’t pay the rent. They’re thinking about food. Those of us who have children, schools are going all virtual in many cases, so you got some of this digital stuff that is on the up and up. Even us as musicians, we are teaching online now. And that makes the situation really more, in my terms, severe on top of the pandemic. In terms of systematic change, we gotta push that vehicle over the cliff.
MS: So it’s an opportunity to catch people and pull them into something that could evoke long-lasting change. People who have had their paradigm shifted enough in a visceral way, to go back to the norm may not even be possible. And in terms of the kinds of change we are talking about, that is actually an opportunity because that’s the mindset to change. That entrenched behavior and entrenched expectations about what you are gonna get out of your life that you thought you were gonna get. Now that’s been shattered, and a lot of people are much more sensitive now and open to like, “OK, maybe we can have a larger systemic change that creates equanimity across the board.”
http://www.thewaster.com/interview/living-colour-behind-the-sun/
Behind the Sun
Back in the Saddle with Vernon Reid of Living Colour
Words by Alex Napoliello
New York, New York — It’s nearly
midnight at the Highline Ballroom in Downtown Manhattan. A sold out,
young, lively crowd awaits the highly anticipated weekly Roots Jam. Some
fans have an idea of who is about to take the stage, but the majority
has no clue what they are about to witness. Front man Cory Glover, lead
guitarist Vernon Reid, and the rest of Living Colour storm the stage
boasting smiles on their faces and projecting an encompassing euphoric
glow. The crowd seems a bit confused considering LC has been out of the
spotlight for quite some time. Glover approaches each member, exchanging
handshakes and hugs. The excitement in their eyes appears as if the
hard rock legends are taking the stage for the first time. However, it
is clearly evident that the band’s present chemistry and energy is
decades in the making.
Glover approaches the mic and says, “I want to talk right down to earth in a language that everyone can understand.” LC busts out their classic ’89 hit “Cult of Personality,” and the crowd erupts. The confusion that once existed in the fans instantly vaporizes and is replaced with a full understanding of what is about to take place on the Highline Ballroom stage.
“I always try to be optimistic. The reaction to the album so far has been really gratifying. People are going to have to discover it. But, I think rock music still has a place. The whole idea of niche and movements in music is very powerful. If people take on what the band has been, the fact that we’re still a band after a break up, after losing a primary member, after all the time, there’s something to be said for that”, says Reid.
The album he is referring to is the newest creation by Living Colour, The Chair In The Doorway, which is set to hit shelves Sept. 15. Nearly six years has passed since LC released their fourth album, Collideoscope, and a little over 20 years since their hit single “Cult of Personality,” reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, after tonight’s opening performance at the Highline Ballroom, it is clear LC hasn’t skipped a beat.
www.livingcolour.com
“It’s been a long time since we’ve made a record. The idea for The Chair In The Doorway had been present with us since we were doing press for Collideoscope. The title basically derived from Cory Glover”, Reid adds. “We went to see the opening of Spider Man II and Cory said, ‘you know, the problem is the chair is in the doorway’. Jump cut years later, I turned to Cory and said, “you know that thing you said about the chair being in the doorway, that’s the title of our next record.”
The Chair In The Doorway brings forth all that Living Colour stands for and more. “It’s the first time we ever had a title before the completion of the album and that just kind of sends us into a journey. It was a funny thing because it’s (the title) concrete and abstract simultaneously. The chair in the doorway is a physical reality, but the meaning of it is totally abstract. And that’s what attracted me to it. It’s (the chair) the thing no one will talk about”, proclaims Reid.
The first couple tracks “Burned Bridges,” “The Chair,” and “DecaDance,” are dark, raw, and loyal to LC’s early grunge feel. The lyrics explore the existing ideologies in our culture, which many gracefully ignore. “It was really all about this idea of everybody gets up and puts on this mask, plays the role. The cop, schoolteacher, fireman, prostitute, and the chef have their role in their mind that they’re already playing. The idea that the waiter considers himself a waiter, but he’s not a waiter. But, when he puts on his waiter uniform, he plays the role of a waiter. And if your sitting at this table you expect him, whether he is a poet or a play writer, to fulfill the role of the waiter. That is kind of what the song “The Chair” is all about”, explains Reid. “The Chair” focuses on the external illusions of life, however “DecaDance” explores the inner thresholds of one’s self, the addiction to thrill seeking and greed, which plagues our culture as a whole.
According to Reid, “We are living in a culture that is completely addicted to sensation. It’s almost because we’ve become addicted to fear. There are so many movies now about ultimate disaster. Disaster is like a mainline drug. Andy Warhol said everybody is going to be famous for 15 minutes. People are clamoring for the first 15 seconds and desperate for the next 15 seconds.”
The single off LC’s latest effort, “Behind The Sun”, is lighter and more upbeat than the previous tracks. “Behind The Sun” has the potential to be as ground breaking and moving as “Cult Of Personality.” The album finishes strong both musically and lyrically. It dives deep into the underlying metaphors of today’s culture, while maintaining the in-your-face guitar solos and lyrics that have become the trademark of Living Colour.
“In a way, The Chair In The Doorway is an unintended concept album. Everything in it fits. All four of us had songs that didn’t make it onto the record, that would have pulled the record in a completely different direction,” Reid offers, “I had written this song that I thought was really good and I was really pissed when it didn’t make it onto the record. Now I am so glad that it didn’t, we really came together in a way that is very satisfying.”
The politically motivated motif that runs through The Chair In The Doorway is nothing new to Living Colour. The band has been striving to write songs that get to the exact nature of all the evils in our culture since the late 80’s. They capitalize on relaying the frustration of the people through Reid’s heavy, guitar shredding and Glover’s uncanny lyrics and vocals.
“When “Cult Of Personality” came up, there was nothing like that, nothing quite as heavy or as aggressive. The fact that every time that song plays, the first thing you hear is the voice of Malcolm X. It’s very confrontational. When it came to talking about fascism, I chose Mussolini over Hitler because I didn’t want to have Hitler’s name in the song. I wanted to make the point that Mussolini had a cult of personality. Stalin is shown in the video. We got the hook from Khrushchev. What is it about these people that millions of people say, ‘I will follow’. He adds, “This song was about stuff that was really heavy. It went against the grain in several different directions, but it caught fire. It worked.”
Living Colour’s lyrics are not the only thing that went against the grain in the late 80’s. The overall image of the band defied the stereotype of a typical rock n’ roll band. An African American rock group is not something that was plastered on millions of televisions sets around the world. In 1989, Public Enemy, MC Hammer, Slick Rick, and De La Soul are a few of the names that were associated with African Americans and music. However, according to Reid, “Hip-hop was something we embraced.”
And they did just that. After the departure of primary member Muzz Skillings, LC adopted Doug Wimbish who was most noted for his funky baselines in the classic hip-hop track “Rappers Delight.” Drummer Will Calhoun and Wimbish also played with Mos Def. And in 1990, Queen Latifah made an appearance on LC’s second album, Time’s Up. Although Living Colour was receptive to embracing the image they defied, Oprah Winfrey apparently was not.
Reid laughs before diving into a story about Oprah Winfrey. “The thing that stuck in my craw was Oprah Winfrey. When LC broke out, she had a show about racial identity. I never met her and she never invited us on the show. But, when “Cult Of Personality” hit, she actually made it a point to show a clip and say something about black men playing white music. And even till today, that’s still stuck in my craw because she got it so completely wrong.”
Living Colour is the final piece in a puzzle that creates an overall image of rock music as whole, as well as, African American rock bands. LC paved the way for more contemporary culturally diverse groups such as Rage Against The Machine and T.V. On The Radio. Living Colour also served as a bridge from hardcore/heavy metal to grunge in the late 80’s early 90’s. It’s hard to ignore the influence that LC had on Nirvana, the Stone Temple Pilots, and Pearl Jam.
“I know for a fact that Tom Morello (lead guitarist for Rage Against The Machine) said, ‘when I saw you guys come on, it kept me going'”, says Reid. After all that’s been said and done, Living Colour isn’t finished with their journey. After the release of The Chair In The Doorway, the band plans on touring the U.S. and hitting some overseas spots as well. LC comes to the Highline Ballroom Oct. 30, this time they are headlining.
Reid offers, “Living Colour is part of a mosaic that keeps expanding.
It’s a wonderful thing to have different people, with different ideas,
and different backgrounds coming together. It doesn’t matter the color
of the people. It doesn’t matter that Boy George wears make-up. When he
goes karma, karma, karma, karma Chameleon, you’re in there, like it or
not.”
INTERVIEW: Living Colour’s Vernon Reid Navigates the Shadows and Light
[Read Andy Healy’s review of Living Colour’s Shade here]
Climbing onto a tour bus that is etching its way across the US, Vernon Reid, acclaimed guitarist of Living Colour, is in a reflective mood. For a band that has toured heavily since they first burst onto the scene in 1988 with their breakthrough debut album Vivid, Living Colour has been able to observe the pace of social change in America over the years as they’ve zigzagged across the nation. This reflection on the current state of the country is a constant theme on their glorious new album Shade that examines cultural divisions, a growing landscape of gun violence, and a need for change and unity.
Generously taking time out of his busy touring schedule with the band, Reid spoke with me about the new album, the legacy of Living Colour and what it takes to remain a vital force in a changing musical landscape. Full of energy and insight, our conversation reinforced that Reid is still the passionate artist that invaded our speakers with the signature guitar riff of “Cult of Personality” nearly 30 years ago. The decades of writing, recording and performing haven’t dimmed his enthusiasm for his art. Creativity and passion course through his veins, through his every being and this comes through in his tone of voice and the rapid-fire trains of thought he follows. He is as much a fan of music as he is a musician, with a jam-packed jukebox knowledge of music history.
On the day of our conversation, the tour bus was headed for Charlottesville, Virginia, a city that has become a flashpoint for both the narrow-minded ideology that divides us as well as—or perhaps more importantly, the hope and acceptance that can unite us. It was with this journey ahead, and the road that is still to be travelled, that Reid shared so much.
Andy Healy: First off, congratulations on the release of Shade. I know it was a long 4-plus year journey to make this album, but for fans it was well worth the wait. Can you give us insight into how the album came to be, and how it developed and progressed during that time?
Vernon Reid: You know, it was a very mixed bag. It was like six steps forward, three steps back. There are things on this record that survived from the initial recordings and then there are things that had come later on. And it took a really long time, but at one point it felt very rushed. We recorded enough tracks to make a record, but the record didn’t feel right. It was missing stuff. I give Will (Calhoun, drummer) a lot of credit for knowing that. He was like, “This is not right.”
Then, in the time it took to make it right we went through a bunch of changes. We went through a management change and stuff. The weird thing is that at the end of the process—it was a really long process, I get tired just thinking about it—I’m amazed with what we produced. The record feels like a coherent conversation. The original principle, the idea of Shade, managed to survive despite all of the setbacks. And that’s something I’m very proud of.
AH: So what made you all want to get back and record another album?
VR: It really started with the title. We had the title before we even knew what it was all about. Shade was there, but what did it mean? It’s another aspect of color, the way Vivid and Stain and Collideøscope are aspects of color, but it didn’t have a theme yet. Like The Chair in the Doorway came out of something Corey (Glover, vocalist) would always say about how something that is meant to be in one place is in the wrong place and how people don’t talk about it. That record is about something, so we had to figure out what Shade was about.
And it turned out we got invited to play the Centenary of Robert Johnson at the Apollo Theatre. We kind of showed up at the Apollo on the day of the thing, and I was listening to the original version of “Preachin’ Blues” and the Derek Trucks version, and then Corey just kind of walked in and said, “Put those words on that riff” and we literally went on stage and did it.
The reaction to it was visceral, we had a standing ovation, and that’s when I thought to myself, this is about blues. We didn’t want to make a blues record, but the blues are going to be a theme and a thread. The first thing we recorded was “Preachin’ Blues” and we had kind of done it, and had it. Then when we started recording with (Shade producer) André Betts, we recorded it again. It wasn’t until the fourth time we recorded it that we actually had it.
It’s one thing to say, “It’s a blues vibe” but it’s “how do we thread the needle?” The reason that Shade works is because we didn’t work with a blues producer, we got a hip-hop producer. So there was an inherent tension between his experience and our intention. And somewhere between the things that worked and the things that we accomplished, somewhere in the negotiation, we created something newer that was a different narrative.
Like with having (Notorious B.I.G. cover) “Who Shot Ya?” on the record one hundred percent fits in. Even though “Who Shot Ya?” is not a blues thing, the meta narrative of Biggie Smalls, that’s like blue’s folklore. The cruel irony of a song like “Who Shot Ya?” and what ultimately happened to Christopher Wallace is the reason why it fits in with the heart of what this record is talking to
AH: One of the interesting things I noticed, and I’m not sure if this was a deliberate or conscious choice, was in covering Biggie and Marvin Gaye on this record you were linking two artists who were victims of gun violence. Was that something you were conscious of in choosing those two songs?
VR: Not at all. Things like this don’t work if you think about them deliberately. If we were too literal in the interpretation of the idea I think we would have killed it. Again, if we had said “Oh, we have to get together with a really skilled Blues/Rock producer” then it would have become “Oh, well that’s no blues.” It would have become THAT conversation. It would have become “what is, and what should never be.”
The fact is we didn’t have that and we kind of had to stumble a bit and then decide does this specific song feel a part of it. There were songs that I was very, very set about having on the record that in the final analysis I’m really happy, very happy, they didn’t get on the record. There’s nothing on the record that takes away from the conversation that initially inspired what Shade was going to be. That’s kind of a miracle.
AH: And not something that’s easy to stick to, I would assume.
VR: It makes me think that everything—an album, a movie, a play, a painting, a sculpture—everything that we see that’s artistic, that works, is a miracle. Because it’s not a function of skill, it’s not a function of ability, because plenty of people with incredible skill or ability will destroy their own work. The ego destroys it. The need to control the outcome.
One of the things that novelists talk about is how they want to kill a character but the character won’t let them kill them. And that sounds bananas. But now, after this experience, I one hundred percent get it. That’s allowing the power of the narrative to have more power than our ego. That’s one of the things that’s very sobering. If it was easy to make work that you’re proud of, that you can be happy to look at, we would be bombarded with amazing art all over the place. A lot of amazing art comes from people who have no skills at all.
It’s how we deal with all kinds of things—failure, trauma, success—that’s what makes the experience worthwhile. It’s funny, Humphrey Bogart talks about how when he saw the script for Casablanca he thought it was ridiculous. They kind of went and did it, but they were like this is ridiculous, and they made a classic.
That’s how I feel. The process of going through the experience of making Shade and actually being able to listen to it, and really enjoy listening to it, is amazing because a lot of what it took to make Shade was not enjoyable.
AH: One of the great elements of Living Colour is despite, or maybe in spite of, a perceived rigidity in music genre formats by radio and even labels, you’ve always been about going where the music takes you—whether it’s drawing from jazz, blues, rock, metal, funk—and making it your own. Do you think music these days is too safe, too boxed in? Or do you feel, sadly, it’s always been that way? Do you think there’s greater expression these days or is the game still the same.
VR: I think it’s all over the place. One major difference is the line between art and entertainment got crossed at a certain point. You know, at one point you’d have separate worlds that would come together and collaborate. A singer like Dionne Warwick would get together with a lyricist like Hal David and a composer like Burt Bacharach. It was her voice, the words of Hal David and the music of Burt Bacharach that make those records work, that makes them timeless. Dionne is not a singer like Aretha Franklin, but those same songs with Aretha singing would have been amazing but wouldn’t have been the same. Like “Anyone Who Had a Heart” would be a very different song if it had Aretha singing. It’s the timbre of Dionne’s voice that makes it work. A song like “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” I mean, to me—like people talk about whether music is political or not—but to me “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” is one of the most powerful critiques of American capitalism ever put on record, but nobody thinks about that as a protest song. They think it’s a ditty. But in that lyric, the death of the American Dream is baked into those lyrics.
A lot of music that influenced me was experiential music in the sense that the whole idea of the music was to transform the listener’s experience. So Jimi Hendrix, Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, the later period of The Beatles, all of that music was about transformation. Even a particular era of James Brown, all of that music had one thing in common: transformation. You start the track in one state of being and you end the track in a different place in your life, in your mind, in your body. That’s my framework. Those are my values, those are my core values.
Today, we’re kind of going back to a 1950s, pre-rock & roll era model where everything is predetermined. The feeling you’re going to feel, the vibe, it’s all predetermined. There’s no risk. The tracks don’t speed up. If you listen to a track like “Oh Happy Day” by The Edwin Hawkins Singers, it gets faster at the end of the song than it does at the top. So the whole idea of music taking on this ecstatic, transformative function has been consumed by capitalism, it’s been consumed by thinking “it doesn’t fit.”
You still have a lot of musical excellence but it’s in support of a craft. It’s in support of the proper way to do this, the proper way to do that. That’s certainly happening in guitar playing. There’s a lot of amazing guitar playing but a lot of it kind of dovetails into the obsessive-compulsive culture we have. We’ll play a video game for hours, a kid will spend 20 hours figuring out the pattern to play it perfectly, but that’s not transformative. We’ve become a culture that removes risk.
People now jump to the end, all the time. People can’t see a movie without knowing if the hero is going to live. It’s crazy. When people saw Psycho, their minds were blown. Killing off Janet Leigh early in the film, Hitchcock took a huge risk with that but that was part of the idea of transformation. At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, it’s a real cliffhanger. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Like Han Solo is frozen in carbonite, you find out that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s Dad and he cut off his hand. People were freaked out at the time. And that made that film.
It’s hard to make that happen. It’s unsettling. Transformation is unsettling. That’s what [as a country] we’re dealing with right now. The fear that I’m going to be a different person. Or this country is going to be different. This whole thing that “Oh, we’re afraid of the other, the refugee, they may change us.” “Oh, we’re afraid of change.” America’s always been about change. It was built on change.
AH: You’ve always had a socially conscious dimension to your work, and with the formation of the Black Rock Coalition back in 1985 you were at the forefront of tackling discrimination and non-too subtle racism throughout the music industry. When you look at the current state of the music industry, do you see change, see hope, or do you feel the same struggles are being faced?
VR: Well, change is incremental. One of the things we want, we want to be the heroes of our own movies, and “ta-dah,” they’re ripping us off. That’s the way it goes down. Part of the persistence of racism is also, as well as being institutional, it can be a family value. And part of the ask that we have, we’re asking people to repudiate the culture of their family. That’s also with sexism, that’s also with homophobia, that’s also with all kinds of ethnic tension. It’s not just black or white, it’s the Indian and the Pakistani, it’s with the North and South of a region. So if a family or a group is invested in a certain reality then to walk away from that is a big ask. Now, that’s not an excuse, it’s a reality.
You know, there have been people who have been part of right-wing organizations that have disavowed them and said, “You know what, this doesn’t work” because at a certain point they were able to finally talk about the pain that they were going through. They were able to finally say, “Well, actually I couldn’t come out to my Dad so I became this person.” I heard an interview with a guy who was a member of an alt-right group but was in the closet, and he wound up in a situation where he was putting the blame on the other, on the Black, on the Latino, on the refugee, on the outsider, when the problem was within himself. And at a certain point he had the strength to deal with the problem that was within himself. In other words, again, transformation is hard.
The fact that the Black Rock Coalition persists and people are still involved and want to move the stone, that says a lot. And there has been change, but it has been incremental. It hasn’t been enough. There are things that I see that are wonderful. I think that’s great that that’s happened.
Like one of things about Living Colour, we’ve always had to deal with it. We’ve never been fully assimilated into the mainstream. We’ve had some mainstream success, but even when he had that success people were still giving us the Hairy Eyeball. We’ve been getting the Hairy Eyeball the entire time of our existence. We got the Hairy Eyeball at CBGB, we got the Hairy Eyeball when we got the Grammy.
But still, people are having that outsider conversation about rock & roll. That’s why when Scarface talks bout “Find me another black rock band” (on the intro to “Program”) and he sings the riff to “Cult of Personality,” I mean it’s funny, but it’s not funny.
AH: I think that’s very pointed because as a listener, it does open up your eyes and you start questioning, “Why aren’t there more?” You know it's like when Funkadelic sang “Who says a rock band can’t play funk? Who says a funk band can’t play rock?,” it points to the longstanding division in art that shouldn’t be there. It seems everybody is so invested in aligning certain music to certain audiences that people miss out on a whole lot of stuff.
VR: Part of it is who controls the levers of power. Who controls what defines it? You know the history of rock & roll is kind of bogus. When people talk about the history of rock & roll, the “officialdom,” it doesn’t include Parliament-Funkadelic. It doesn’t include the Isley Brothers the way it should. The Isley Brothers have had one of the most important careers in rock music, they crossed over, they crossed the line of R&B, soul and rock & roll. They embodied all of those things. But you don’t hear that, that’s very seldom discussed. I mean, point of fact, the Isley Brothers were incredibly influential to The Stones, incredibly influential to The Who, you know they were an influential band in that way. But that’s about who’s telling the story.
And on the other side of it, within African-American culture it’s very frustrating how we won’t support art forms like jazz and blues. I mean, rock & roll is very obvious. It’s by a bunch of white guys with long hair or whatever, right? That whole thing. But turn around and see what has happened to jazz or what has happened to blues in terms of who actually goes to that? And it’s the same thing that’s going on. And there’s no argument about the blues, or is there? And that’s part of the issue. When people talk about “who stole the soul,” well we had a part to play in it.
Yes, the record companies play a part too, but part of it is that there’s conflict between the urban and the rural ways of thinking about things. There’s conflict between different regions like the East Coast-West Coast problem. Everybody in that problem, most of them were black or brown. And because of that problem we lost some of our greatest poets and artists, including Jam Master Jay and so many others.
AH: So to that point, with many of the great artists passing away in recent years such as Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Prince, Chris Cornell, and Tom Petty, does it give you pause for the influence you have had as a musician? How does it affect you as a fellow artist?
VR: All of those people…it’s shattering to lose that greatness. I have to say the sense of loss goes back very far for me. Years ago there was a musician who influenced me a great deal. An unknown musician to the public, but his name was Arthur Rhames who was from Brooklyn. He was a multi-instrumentalist. I play about a tenth of the guitar he used to play and he played saxophone and piano…ridiculous. And when he passed away due to complications from AIDS, Living Colour had just got put on. Hearing him play changed my life. Hearing what he went through, his experience, transformed my way of feeling about gay rights and gender issues. He set an incredibly high bar in terms of musical excellence, and his life told me that the world is random and crazy and the best people don’t always get a shot. And I don’t care who you are. Whatever skin you’re in. I’m telling you there are ten Shakespeares that we’ve never heard of, twenty Jimi Hendrixes that never left home. That’s the savage reality of human life, the human condition. So you know, we’re privileged.
Whatever else it is, Living Colour exists because of random things. There was a lot of hard work, but there was a lot of luck too. It was multiple layers. And when I think about losing Michael Jackson, and Prince…I mean it’s hard to even say it. And Chris Cornell…it’s just so brutal. But you know the thing is, all of these people—from Janis Joplin to Aaliyah—all of them made a mark. And the fact that we know their names and can hear their music, that is the gift they gave to us. And who knows what the gift will give in time? You know a new child will hear stuff like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and it will change their life.
When somebody comes up and says to the band, “I was five years old when I heard ‘Cult of Personality,’” that’s profound. You know, when we were in the studio, when we wrote that song we weren’t thinking about five-year-olds [laughs]. And as far as what people are going to say after the story is done, you have very little control about that. People are going to be arguing over people’s work forever. People come into vogue, people go out of vogue, and they come back in vogue. We’re here. We’re working. We’re saying what we’re saying. And the rest of it, afterwards is not up to us.
I know that hearing Chris Cornell’s voice is a painful thing, and I would say the same about Raymond Jones, but most people don’t know him. I wouldn’t be a musician if it wasn’t for Raymond Jones. He played on Chic’s “Good Times,” the track that some people say started hip-hop. You know, that’s life.
AH: Vivid, your breakthrough debut album will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year. When you look back on your career, what advice would you give Vivid-era Vernon Reid?
VR: Oh God. I’d say to him, put some money into Microsoft [laughs]. This computer thing is going to be around for a while.
AH: Anniversaries always make people nostalgic and make them wonder where the time has gone. When you look back on Living Colour’s career thus far, what are you most proud of? And is there a song from the canon that remains the “favorite child” for you?
VR: When I think about Time’s Up, I’m amazed at what we got away with. Time’s Up is a like a concept album, and I’m really proud of how that record came out. It was of its time, but also ahead of its time.
If I had to pick one song…it’s funny but I have to split it. One has to be, and it’s obvious, but one has to be “Cult of Personality.” But not because it was a hit. I come back to the day we wrote it. We wrote that song in one session, in one rehearsal. And we played it the very next time at CBGB and it was instantly “wow.” That was very great.
And I think the song “This Is the Life” (from Time’s Up) is a song that is one hundred percent real. That song came out when the band’s fortunes were high, and as the band’s fortunes changed, that song still has a powerful resonance. A more powerful resonance. You know, I think in another life, who knows if I would even be here? A whole other set of circumstances could have happened that would have led to me not being here. You know, be careful what you wish for. So it’s a split decision. “Cult” for the day of creation and “This Is the Life” for its utter reality.
You know, our very next gig is in Charlottesville, Virginia and there’s all this stuff that happened, but I’m looking forward to it. I think about Heather Heyer’s Mom, and she talks about how proud she is that she raised a daughter with an independent mind. And that’s all part of it. My daughter—she’s 14 and a terrific person—is going to become a very powerful person. She got the better part of her gifts from her Mom, but it’s a privilege for me to be a part of her life. I’m going to be part of her life forever, and that’s a gift.
And going back, it’s weird to be around and Prince is not around. It’s crazy. We were born in the same year and it’s so funny, when I would listen to Prince’s music I would hear something and I’d be like, “Oh yeah, he was listening to Sly Stone the same time I was listening to Sly Stone. Except Prince is an actual genius” [laughs]. Or hearing 1999 and I can go “Oh, you were listening to ‘Mysterious Traveller’ era Weather Report the same time I was.” One hundred percent. That’s exactly what you’re hearing, you hear that influence.
I don’t know man, it's a privilege to live on a planet [with these artists]. I wasn’t around to see the great Charlie Parker doing his thing. And I got to meet Prince. So I feel very privileged. You know, a lot of people struggle to make a career of music, so I feel privileged, ‘cause it didn’t have to happen on any level. And I really take that to heart.
AH: Living Colour has toured pretty consistently over the years, even when there have been gaps between studio releases. When it comes down to formulating set lists, with such a strong canon of material to now choose from, has it become easier or harder to decide what you’re going to play?
VR: It’s a challenge. We’re four different individuals and we have a core group of songs that we play, but it’s great to work new songs in. We’re starting to play “Program” (from Shade) and that’s a very cool thing. I think we’re going to play “Inner City Blues” tonight (at Charlottesville) and I’m really looking forward to that. The good thing is we have so many songs that we can give some a rest. We haven’t played “Time’s Up” for quite a few shows and the last time we played it, it felt really fresh, and part of the thing is we can start pulling songs out and sub in.
AH: Your music transcends so many different styles and genres. So what do you listen to? What would surprise people to know that Vernon Reid listens to?
VR: Gosh, you know I’m a weird guy in that I like pop music and I like completely avant-garde music. You know a well-crafted pop song works for me. My consciousness has expanded to include extreme avant-garde like Ornette Coleman, Jon Thorne’s music, music that’s on the outside edge.
One of my all-time favorite pop songs is KC and The Sunshine Band’s “That’s the Way (I Like It).” I love that song. And if you listen to it, it’s got one of the best bass lines, a crazy bass line. It’s a song that’s not about anything, but it’s pure. You might think it’s mindless, but it achieves this Zen purity because it’s purely mindless. And it doesn’t pretend to be about anything other than what it is in the moment and that’s an incredible thing.
Even though we’ve had conflict, I love Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction. “Sweet Child o’ Mine” is literally perfection. I’m a weird dude in that I’m a punk fan and I also love Yes. I think Yes is a great band. You know, there was a time if you were a fan of Yes or Rush you had to apologize. I got to see Yes live recently, they were great. Maybe “Hoochie Mane” is my guilty pleasure [roars with laughter].
Photo: Travis Shinn
AH: So as our name suggests, Albumism is all about celebrating the art form that is the album. So what are your five favorite albums of all time?
VR: You know, as soon as I answer this question I’ll regret it. I’m sticking with albums that affected me when I was young. John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things, Ornette Coleman’s Dancing In Your Head, Santana’s Caravanserai, Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys. Wow, as soon as I say it I want to take it all back, because right now it’s a split decision between Weather Report’s Mysterious Traveller and Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop, as that was the first album I bought with my own money.
Now I’m ignoring Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, Mahavishnu Orchestra’s The Inner Mountain Flame, The Beatles’ The White Album, so it’s brutal. It really should be the top ten. Sun Ra’s Angels and Demons at Play. Earth, Wind & Fire’s Last Days and Time. Man, it’s a gang of records.
AH: So with Shade finally released, is there a sense of relief, like “finally, it’s out there!” Or is there part of you that is like, “Great, done. Now on to the next one?”
VR: Right now, the response from fans has been fantastic. They are really taking it on and spreading the word of mouth and it’s been great. I’m very happy about that. The reviews have been really good. People are getting what we’re talking about.
AH: So will we need to wait another four years for the next album?
VR: [Laughs] Well I don’t know about all that. It’s intriguing to be back in this cycle. We need to get back to the West Coast, a bunch of things we need to do. I’m excited about it.
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Living Colour: Keeping The Music Alive
One of the most recognizable guitar riffs recorded in America belongs to Living Colour. The band's 1988 hit "Cult of Personality" regularly makes "100 Greatest Songs Ever Written" lists and won the group Grammy Awards. But what made Living Colour unique was that all of its members were black in a genre — hard rock — dominated by white musicians.
Hear The Music
Behind the Sun
For Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid (far right), if the music isn't the centerpiece, everything falls away.
For a time, the band broke up, but it regrouped in 2000. Spearheaded by guitarist Vernon Reid and vocalist Corey Glover, Living Colour's latest album, The Chair in the Doorway, is an unapologetic homage to American hard rock, with a bluesy twist.
In an interview, NPR's Guy Raz wonders if "Cult of Personality" was a mixed blessing. Written in one session and performed at CBGB just a night later, Vernon Reid says the song has had an amazing life.
"Many artists have a rueful feeling towards their most popular song," Reid says. "I actually still love the song, 'Cult of Personality.' It's really so much more relevant now then it was then."
Living Colour doesn't sell out arenas anymore. The band plays small clubs and sells fewer records. But, compared to the literal mobs of attention in those early days, Glover says he welcomes the change.
"What I'm doing and how it's going right now is so much better for me, because there is no pressure," Glover says. "There is no fishbowl experience."
The years have also given the band wisdom. With age, Reid says "the music becomes even more crucial as a motivating factor." For Reid, if the music isn't the center, it falls away — he says he's seen it happen with many older musicians.
In this interview, Glover talks about the surreal experience of recording "Not Tomorrow," a song about his dying mother. The band also weighs in on being an all-black hard-rock group in a white-dominated genre.
"It didn't start with us," Reid says. "It won't end with us."
