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Friday, October 18, 2002

By Ed Masley Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

Opek guitarist Daryl LeRoi Fleming steps out with a solo project.

	Daryl LeRoi Fleming plays one of the hand-made Michael Parekowhai guitars as part of last summer's Ten Guitars exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum . (Curt Chandler, Post-Gazette)

On the eve of releasing his debut album as a solo artist, local guitarist's guitarist Daryl LeRoi Fleming, who's worked with everyone from Watershed 5tet to Boxstep, says, "I don't know if this bears out on the album, but I think, for me, the pivotal time in U.S. history is the Federalist era of 1789-1800."

And the weird thing is, it does bear out -- on one or two songs anyway.

One is an actual campaign victory song for Thomas Jefferson, written in 1802 with dark new lyrics added as an afterthought by Fleming.

The other, "Motherthumb," contrasts the sexual dalliances of Thomas Jefferson (who liked his slave girls young and slim), Ben Franklin and Aaron Burr with "mama's boy" George Washington, concluding, "While these men were out there getting hot and bothered, the country was the only thing that Washington ever fathered."

		Music Preview DARYL LEROI FLEMING WHERE: Club Cafe, South Side. WHEN: 7:30 tonight TICKETS: $7; 412-431-4950.

The Jefferson victory song is one of three campaign songs on the album, running from the 1800s to the unofficial Jimmy Carter campaign victory song.

"I started playing with a few old tunes," the guitarist explains, "trying to modernize them, and then, the whole thing kind of developed around the idea of being somewhat historically themed but at the same time vaguely contemporary, hopefully."

One thing he didn't want to do, he says, is pigeonhole himself as the history channel of the local music scene.

"I didn't want it to become a novelty," he says. " 'Oh, he's doing history rock.' I mean, I think that's kind of cool in a way, but I don't want to have to fall into that. When I started doing this stuff, people were like 'Oh, you could take this into schools' or 'You could do corporate presentations.' But after I started writing a few tunes like that I'm like, 'Screw it, I don't want to have to stay in one thing.' "

And he doesn't.

"The M Train," for example, is about a "port authority-assisted suicide" in New York City.

"History is just one thing that interests me, and I think I should be able to sing about that and then in the same breath, sing about some guy jumping off the subway train in New York City," he says. "You can't tell sometimes what I'm singing about, but that's what one of them is about. I had to get off the damn train. They call them jumpers. It's a frequent occurrence."

What holds it all together as an album is a combination of the storytelling nature of the lyrics, Fleming's raspy, aching vocals and the earthy, traditional nature of the playing and production, with Fleming's acoustic guitar fleshed out by everything from pedal steel to strings and tuba.

"If you were to say 'Is there anything you want to say,' " he says, "I would say that the producer [Mike Goodis] had more of a role than in any other project I've worked on. We made a lot of decisions together and he had a really good ear in the studio, directing everybody. He's kind of a multi-instrumentalist. So there was a good deal of collaboration in that sense. It's almost like it's our record."

Then, with a laugh, he adds, "But it's my name, dammit."

Technically, he doesn't have a Daryl LeRoi Fleming band (although he is in two bands at the moment -- the avant-jazz Opek and Boxstep, a literate mini-orchestra he's joined on slide guitar).

But there's a band and a whole lot of guests on the album. And his show tonight at Club Cafe should test the limits of the stage, with a rotating lineup whose members range from former Rusted Root percussionist Jim DiSpirito to guest vocals by Evan Knauer of the Cuff and A.T.S. and OPEK lead guitarist John Purse. Jesse Prentiss of Ritual Space Travel Agency will open the show and join the cast of thousands during Fleming's set to sing the vocal harmonies that Crisis Car's Korel Tunador sang on the album.

"I'm hoping there's no more than six or seven on the stage at one time," Fleming says. "But what the hell? Opek's played at Club Cafe and that's, like, a 13-piece band, so I don't see why we won't fit."

So where, exactly, do you find a campaign victory song for Thomas Jefferson?

"Mel Bay, man," he says with a laugh. "I went scouring old Mel Bay books. You've gotta go through 20 to find a song you feel comfortable with or enjoy."

But it's the only place to go if you're looking to celebrate Jefferson's victory over tyrants.

Ed Masley can be reached at emasley@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1865.