The Evan Goodrow band remains a constant
presence on the New England funk scene.
Goodrow on guitar and vocals, Carl Benevides
on saxophone, Rick O’Neal on bass,
and Phil Antoniades on drums have gelled
into a tight but playful and danceable
quartet of upscale musicians.
On their new "24 Hour CD"
the Evan Goodrow band demonstrate their
creativity and talent with a challenging
method to recording their material.
The band spent 24 hours straight recording
this album in a fan’s house with
a producer they had only just met. This
discipline forced the band to squeeze
out a lot of boogie in a tight schedule.
They have mostly succeeded.
It’s "OK For Girls To Dance
With Girls" has a funky guitar
riff pouring over an aggressive rhythm
section. That pretty much sums up the
CD’s entire strategy. Play a lot
of tasty guitar leads and plenty of
exciting, blistering saxophone lines
on top of a non-stop groovin’
bass and drums and throw in Goodrow’s
soulful, upper register vocal. The result
is nine tracks that scream with talent
and make you want to dance at the same
time.
On "Sexy Lady," Goodrow grinds
out a hooky guitar groove while his
rhythm section makes it something you
can move to by manufacturing a faux
swing beat out of their thick grooves.
"Song About Love" finds Goodrow
playing a funkadelic guitar lead while
Carl Benevides’ sax shots explode
out of the speakers and become the icing
on the cake for the rest of the tune.
Goodrow sings like a man who has grown
up in Detroit or Memphis. His soulful
approach to the microphone reminded
me a little bit of George Clinton when
he made the mother ship connection.
"When I Come Back To You"
features Goodrow getting hip on solo
acoustic guitar. A simple progression
allows him to fill in the space with
his voice, singing in an emotional,
soulful pitch, proving he can do his
vocal thang by himself as well as with
his band. This tune provides a nice,
mellow break in the action so that the
band can make a strong return on "When
I Touch You." Giving up some more
funk riffing, Goodrow’s high pitched
guitar breaks bleed with emotion while
the progression funks forward. And that
is how he makes it work. Goodrow’s
success as a soul music composer stems
from his progressions.
Goodrow can write a song that moves
forward with a plethora of grooves and
rhythms, a process that seems to take
place before even he injects a piece
with emotive guitar, sax, and his James
Brown influenced vocal approach.
"Get Back," a slower,
mellow groove number, has an old-fashioned
soul quality that reminds me of Stax
ballads from the 1960s. If the EGB show
this groove thang more on their down
tempo pieces, then their closing number
"C Minor Groove" closes the
case. "C Minor Groove" has
sax lines that dominated this song which
is quite literally the band groovin
in C Minor. This eight minute work has
many nice nuances on guitar and sax,
but it is the way the rhythm section
finds its pace and opens the space for
vocals, guitar, and sax that keeps the
energy going for a long time.
The band didn’t just make a CD
during those 24 hours inside a fan’s
house. They also videoed it for an upcoming
DVD. I’m sure the DVD will provide
the same glimpse into how this band
gets it together. Goodrow and Benevides
are the mind, heart, and soul of this
band. But O'Neal and Antoniades are
the balls.
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Evan Goodrow is an ideas man. Get the
crack guitarist and marvelously soulful
singer rolling, and he’ll fill
your head with blueprints for band success,
well-articulated concepts of how today’s
music industry works, and discussions
of everything from crowd dynamics to
ideas for offbeat reality TV shows.
That type of neuron frenzy comes out
in his playing, naturally, and the Boston-based
Evan Goodrow Band-- expands it that
much more.
The EGB returns to the intimate Paradise
Lounge for the next three Sundays. It
will graduate a month later to the Lounge’s
big brother, the Paradise Rock Club,
for a headlining spot March 25.
The four-piece EGB is commonly billed
as a funk combo, but that’s a
pigeonhole, excluding its serious soul
band inclinations, and heavy rock and
blues glazes. It also only hints at
the band’s proclivity toward dance-band
mayhem and the sexed-up engagement of
its live outings.
Goodrow and his group like to keep their
ideas lamp burning, and one of their
craziest ever birthed their most recent
album, ‘‘24 Hours.’’
The title tells it all: the band made
a goal of recording, cutting and mixing
an entire album of new material in an
uninterrupted 24-hour block.
They rolled into a house offered by
a fan in Sudbury and went to work with
a 20-man production crew, as well as
a chef, a support entourage and a healthy
supply of booze.
‘‘One
of my original ideas was to get the
band into the studio and have, like,
an eight-hour concert. Something crazy,
like, say, the Grateful Dead would do
back in the day,’’ Goodrow
said with a laugh. ‘‘The
album, though, was a mixed bag of a
bunch of ideas. We all had different
ones, so we threw stuff at a wall to
see what would stick, and we came up
with a plan.’’
The goal was 13 songs, and the EGB made
it through nine. It was no small feat.
The tracks themselves are hardly toss-offs;
songs like ‘‘Girls Dance
With Girls’’ and the hefty
‘‘C Minor Groove’’
are some of the tastiest the EGB has
ever yielded.
Throughout the 24 hours, the EGB also
had a camera crew. Goodrow says they
plan to release a DVD of the project.--
An amusing trailer is available for
download at evangoodrow.com.
Goodrow used to rely on a revolving
cast of players, but now his regular
audience knows the full band, which
includes Rick Oneal on bass, vocals,
and cowbell; Carl Benevides on saxophones,
percussion and vocals; and Phil Antoniades
on drums and percussion.
‘‘The
band is so tight now, and we tend to
be spontaneous - we adhere to jamming
very well, and blending, melanging,
everything,’’ Goodrow says.
‘‘I think a band has to
be that way, or else it’s just
not fun. A band has to be hungry, and
any crowd gets into that.’’
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Pretty fly for a white guy. Evan Goodrow's
a soul-singing, jazz-rock-blues guitar-strummin'
guy with a muscular sound. "I am
attempting to use jazz guitar elements
in a dance/soul music backdrop,"
he says. "The vocals and guitar
playing are intricately related as I
tend to improvise and scat-sing in the
chorus," His models? Stevie Wonder's
writing. Donny Hathaway's singing. John
McLaughlin's guitar. Goodrow channels
a musical mood that harkens back to
Motown and Atlantic Records circa the
'60s and '70s. Fronting an impassioned
band that can hop skip from a love ballad
to burning-down-the-house blues, he
and his musical cohorts traverse sets
featuring exuberant renderings of familiar
tunes such as James Brown's "Sex
Machine" and Hoagy Carmichael's
"Georgia" as well as heartfelt
originals with lyrics where Goodrow
shoots for "singer-songwriter depth."
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Next week, the Evan Goodrow Band will
do something reportedly never been done
before: It will record, mix and edit
an entire full-length CD in 24 hours.
Move over “American Idol.”
As if the challenge of that feat wasn’t
enough, the entire session will be filmed
as a potential idea for a new reality
TV show.
“We knew we
were good enough to pull something like
this together,” said Evan Goodrow,
singer, guitarist and frontman for the
jazz funk group. “It could be
the pilot for something bigger. It’s
going to be crazy. It’s going
to be ludicrous, but we’re looking
forward to it. You can’t do something
like this unless you’re a little
crazy.”
Completing an entire record in one day
is an ambitious undertaking, considering
it typically takes months. With such
an involved project, there are bound
to be hurdles - but the group is ready
for them. At noon on Saturday, Jan.
29, the Evan Goodrow Band, aka the EGB,
will begin to play.
At noon on Sunday, Jan. 30, “We
hope we have an album,” said Benjamin
Eckstein, director of the TV crew shooting
the video. “This project evolved
and basically we thought, ‘That
sounds great. We want to document it’.”
Though Eckstein acknowledged the long
hours will prove trying at times, he
said they’ve got it covered. “We’ll
have somebody on caffeine detail at
all times,” he laughed.
Members of the Boston-area band - bassist
Rick Oneal, tenor sax player Carl Benevides,
drummer Phil Antoniades and Goodrow
- have been playing together for a little
more than a year and frequently appear
in Nashua. A faithful fan from Sudbury,
Mass., offered the use of his house
to the foursome during their marathon
recording session.
“We’re
going to build the studio right in the
house,” Goodrow said.
“It is possible to make a record
anywhere you want to make it and have
fun with it,” added Antoniades,
who has been involved with the project
since its inception. “My role
has been to see if we can put the whole
thing together,” he said. “Maybe
something will happen with it . . .
I know the band can do it, and I know
the producer can do it.”
The band, producer, recording team and
film crew each represent a piece of
this 24-hour puzzle. For the completion
of the CD to be successful, the pieces
must interlock perfectly, explained
Antoniades. That’s why he asked
Fran Flannery, who has garnered acclaim
working with bands such as the Goo Goo
Dolls, to produce the album.
“He draws things out of people
they’ve never done before,”
Antoniades said. “He’s drawn
things out of me I’ve never done
before.”
The band is counting on that talent
to help it accomplish its mission. For
starters, Flannery will choose nine
or 10 songs from the bank of 30 or so
original tunes Goodrow has written.
“Evan’s kind of a prolific
writer,” Antoniades said.
He added that Flannery’s choices
will be based on what he believes is
doable, given the time constraints.
The autonomous decision is in the best
interests of all involved, Antoniades
explained. “The band is often
way too close to the music,” he
said.
Though the deadline for making the CD
rapidly approaches, Goodrow admitted
none of his songs are completely finished.
“I think I’ll probably
be rewriting up till the day before,”
he said. “When (my) songs get
recorded, it’s sort of a snapshot
of where the songs were at that time.”
But, he added, once they’re on
tape, that’s it. “When I
release a record, I kind of leave it
behind. I’m always looking forward.”
Aptly titled “24 Hours,”
this newest compilation will be the
band’s fourth, following on the
heels of “Fly,” which was
released in May. Goodrow said he hopes
to release “24 Hours” as
a CD/DVD combination this summer.
Always looking to do something new and
different, Goodrow said the EGB got
the idea for the upcoming album while
watching an episode of “American
Idol.” The members got talking
about the lack of a band equivalent
of the popular reality show and decided
they wanted to be the first to fill
that gap.
With four major sponsors on hand and
some industry magnates shopping the
finished video to networks in the Hollywood
arena, the EGB may just pull off what
it set out to do.
Eckstein is responsible for keeping
the filming on track. He said the most
difficult part for the band will be
having the camera on through the entire
creative process. In addition to giving
the audio recording their all, the frousome
will have to make sure they are “on”
and engaging for the cameras.
“It’s going to be an adjustment
for them,” said Eckstein. “We’re
coming from different ends of the spectrum.”
However, everyone has a common goal
in sight. “Ultimately we want
to make a great record and make a great
show about it,” said Eckstein.
Bring on the filming, said Goodrow -
the band is ready for it. Playing shows
all over New England, including a standing
monthly gig at Skol, 112 W. Pearl St.,
Nashua, has given the EGB the experience
it needs to impress an audience, live
or otherwise. The band will next appear
at Skol on Saturday, Feb. 12.
“Our live show is really important
because we wind up incorporating the
audience” said Goodrow.
The EGB will bank on that charisma to
get the attention of an industry already
chock-full of reality TV. Do the members
have the next “American Idol”
on their hands? Anything is possible.
The band has the will. Now it is just
hoping it has found the way.
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It's unbelievable that given the scenario
the Evan Goodrow Band emerged themselves
into when recording /Twenty Four House
CD/, the band was able to produce such
a complete, passionate and technically
brilliant album. This record is fun,
soulful and energetic at the same time.
Throughout its nine tracks, and especially
the first and last tracks, ("Girls
Dance With Girls" and "C Minor
Groove") are the perfect examples
of what the EGB are able to accomplish;
songs to make you dance, groove, and
move.
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Evan Goodrow draws on a different source
than most CDs sent to The Noise. He
grooves with the likes of Curtis Mayfield,
the soulful singer/songwriter of the
'60s and '70s, and has a backing band
that shows pride in their ability to
stick with what has come before them
in the genre of blues/soul music. The
one place where the disc takes a turn
towards jazz/rock is on the Steely Dan-sounding,
"It's Probably Me," and it's
surprising to find out the song was
written by Gordon Sumner, err, Sting
(the only song on the CD not written
by Evan Goodrow). Keep the groove alive,
and maybe Bostonians will start involving
their body to the music in some way
other than moshing---it's called dancing.
An idea so old, it's new. (T Max) -THE
NOISE
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E
When we met, Evan Goodrow’s infectious
attitude influenced me to drink more
than I intended to, bum cigarettes off
the bartender (which I rarely do) and
dream about living the rocker lifestyle,
which includes staying at the houses
of women I meet on the road to musical
freedom.
Goodrow is 29. Goodrow is lively. Goodrow
has wandering eyes at the bar, and a
knack for creating music that screams
of sex and fun.
He is living what many of us would consider
the perfect lifestyle.
And he’s not complaining.
Goodrow is the dictator, as he calls
himself, of the Evan Goodrow Band. It’s
a Boston-based band that tours up and
down the East Coast, specifically in
Boston, New York and New Hampshire.
If you want to talk about an absolutely
fun musical experience, you ought to
make reference to the Evan Goodrow Band.
That is evident in the band’s
latest album release, 24 Hours, a reality-TV-like
experiment in the art of recording an
album.
The band set up shop in a fan’s
house (in Sudbury, Mass.) for 48 hours,
with a 20-man production crew, friends,
fans, a master chef, alcohol and God
knows what else.
In 24 hours, the house was transformed
into a studio. For the next 24 hours
after that, Goodrow and his mighty bandmates
fought through alcoholic stupors, zombie-like
trances due to lack of sleep and the
pressure of a deadline to record a miraculous
album. It took them one day to record,
mix and clean up an album that comes
off sounding like an absolute masterpiece
in blues, jazz and R&B. They did
all this in one day, videotaping the
whole affair.
“We play live so often that we
knew to have people in the house with
us would change the whole vibe of the
record,” Goodrow said from Del
Vaudo’s in Nashua one evening.
“There’s a huge party going
on that you didn’t even know about.”
That party included his saxophonist’s
drinking too much, preventing him from
playing the saxophone properly in some
songs, such as “Sexy Lady.”
Goodrow had to fill the song with keyboard
solos to make up for the lack of sax.
Goodrow has come a long way from his
teenage years, when he was told he had
no musical talent. Guitar is his bread
and butter, and it’s a tool he
uses masterfully. But, as stated before,
he is the dictator of his band. He writes
the sax lines, the bass lines and the
drum lines. Sure, his bandmates give
it their own flavor, but Goodrow supplies
the ingredients.
With phone in hand, he continually text
messages a mysterious person. This makes
me curious about his rock ’n’
roll lifestyle.
“So, where are you going after
this?” I ask him.
“Nowhere … home. Gonna watch
a movie,” he says, and winks at
me as if to say, “Know what I
mean?”
He eyes a girl at a bar and says, “Is
she looking at me?” Then he goes
back to text messaging, while simultaneously
flirting with a fan of his, who happened
to be at the restaurant as well.
His life is far from routine. Thursdays
through Sundays he’s on the road,
performing with the band. Other days
he’s booking future gigs. He’s
the manager, supervisor and go-to guy
for the Evan Goodrow Band.
Each morning he wakes up and writes.
He studies Buddhism, calls music his
yoga, prefers to drink wine over anything
else and uses the term “cats”
when talking about other musicians.
He comes off as egotistical, but he’s
far from it. He’s comfortable
with himself and what he’s done
with his life. He’s not about
the limelight. He once tried a solo
career but felt empty with the results.
“You need the drums, man,”
he said. “There’s something
non-sexy about just someone with a guitar.”
But, feeling comfortable in my own manhood,
there is certainly something sexy about
Goodrow’s music, when combined
with his band. It’s fun, it’s
complex and it’s simple. Some
of the guitar riffs Goodrow spills out
are mesmerizing, while other times his
simple electric rhythm fills in perfectly
with the band. His voice is strong and
full of range —he’s James
Brown, Stevie Wonder and Dave Matthews
wrapped into one package.
And he knows what he has is unique.
Rock may soon be dead, Goodrow said.
But that’s fine with him. Because
“when the bottom finally drops
out, people are gonna look around and
that’s where we fill a niche.”
The Evan Goodrow Band is made up of
Evan Goodrow, vocals/guitar; Rock O’Neal,
bass, vocals, cowbell; Carl Benevides,
sax, vocals, percussion; Phil Antoniades,
drums, percussion.
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