Gimme Cover
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The haze of cigarette smoke mingles with the winter air of the bar. Then a hum sparks through the dr...The haze of cigarette smoke mingles with the winter air of the bar. Then a hum sparks through the drafty room, and a group of five stringy-haired, grunge-clad men take the stage.
A cigarette dangles from the lips of the guitarist, who is also sporting a black top hat and a Jack Daniel's T-shirt. The blond head-banging bass player is wearing a cut-off CBGB muscle shirt.
"You know where you are?" the lead singer screeches into the microphone, swaying and lifting his left forefinger toward the crowd. "You in the jungle, baby."
Rock stars? Not quite. These are what Chuck Klosterman dubs the mock stars, copycat stand-ins for crowd-pleasing originals, and there's an onslaught of them hitting the Iowa City music scene. Evenflow, a Pearl Jam tribute band, and Nevermind, a Nirvana representation, are set to play the Yacht Club, 13 S Linn St., on Saturday at 9 p.m.
This isn't just an Iowa City thing - approximately 3,000 such bands are registered on tributecity.com, a site dedicated to tracking tribute bands.
"We're more impressed by the quality of the tribute bands than anything," says Yacht Club owner Scott Kading. "They never miss a note. The guitarists, everything - they grew up listening to this stuff, and they're perfect. It's incredible."
Tribute bands: striving to fully embody someone else. Look like, act like, sing like, play like, and drink just like the originals.
"I'd say I'm a lot like Brad [Nowell]," says Chris Gelbuda, the lead singer and guitarist for the Sublime tribute band Second Hand Smoke. "I mean, I'm husky. And I like to get drunk when I play."
The first time I call Gelbuda, he is a little preoccupied.
"Can I call you back? We're going to need a minute to find a spot on the beach here," he says. Five minutes later, my phone rings. "All right, I'm ready to talk. We're all settled in, just like a Corona commercial."
Twenty-three-year old Gelbuda is talking to me from Puerto Rico. Second Hand Smoke has four shows to play in and around San Juan, where the market for tribute bands is huge, appealing to both tourists and locals. He says that if the group were an original band, it would never be able to play shows such as these.
"A lot of people think tribute bands are bullshit," he says. "I don't think they'd say the same thing if they were where we are right now."
So they learn the songs, talk the talk, and wear the same beer-stained clothes. But why would some spend all this time playing other people's music? The No. 1 perk: Walk into a bar, and a tribute band doesn't need to find its own fans. A decent tribute band automatically has them.
That's the appeal - music aficionados want to hear songs they already love. Why pay to hear some subpar original band eke out shaky tunes about the members' ex-girlfriends when you can go listen to a couple of fellow diehard fans flawlessly pump out your favorite songs?
After its début show in Iowa City in February, Second Hand Smoke's music exploded on the tribute scene.
"It was packed," Gelbuda says. "People were practically hanging from the ceiling. We thought, 'Man, we gotta do this more consistently.' "
Seeing that Sublime is not around anymore, Gelbuda's main goal is to be a Sublime tribute band for the hard-core fan, not just the kids who memorized the words to "What I Got." The band members researched the specifics of Sublime's live performances, wardrobes, albums, and attitudes, and the members have everything except the token Dalmatian.
Gelbuda and his band found a lot of these hard-core fans in Iowa City, and Second Hand Smoke plans to return to the Yacht Club in late September.
"People really have an urge to see this stuff live," Gelbuda says. "To a lot of younger kids, it's almost retro now."
Flash back to 1993, when the genesis of a different tribute band was taking place.
At age 15, J. Gil faced a dilemma.
The future Nirvana tribute-band member had $40 in his wallet, and he had a tough decision on his hands: buy an identical guitar pedal to Kurt Cobain's, or use the money to see Nirvana play at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.
"Luckily, I skipped the pedal," says the now-29-year-old Gil, who has been playing guitar for 16 years. "I was fortunate enough to get to see Nirvana before Cobain OD'd."
Gil and his two younger brothers, Alex and Sam, form the Nirvana tribute band Nevermind.
Playing in a tribute band is kind of a double-edged sword," Cobain-model J. Gil says. "At times, I feel really guilty for what we do. We didn't write or record this stuff. I'm just a passionate fan singing along with everyone else. When we get in that room, we're all on the same page."
He may just be a passionate fan, but he's a fan who intends on sounding and looking just like Cobain. Mirroring the band adds more points to the show, he says, and he's always on the lookout for tattered jeans and cardigans.
The guys from Nevermind have taken the concept of replication and run with it. Nirvana toured in 1993 with a pair of female anatomical models with angel wings, setting each on opposite sides of the stage. Prices for used look-alikes started around $1,500, and after 10 *years* of surfing the web for similar props, Gil "found the next best thing": female mannequins.
"I found some angel wings at a costume shop," he says. "It all cost around $900. Granted, they don't do much, but people do notice. I'd still like to add guts and all kinds of organs, but that's another huge task in itself."
Looking the part is only half the work.
"To really do this music and do it right, people need something to watch," says 17-year-old Des Moines resident Richie Lee. Lee performs as Buddy Holly, Elvis, and Richie Valens. "Anybody could just go listen to a jukebox. I move around; I intrigue them. You've gotta really put on a show for them."
Before a tribute band can begin to conquer these kinds of small details, it needs to learn the repertoire. That repertoire can be rather daunting, especially if the original band is still pumping out albums.
Pearl Jam's entire inventory totals somewhere more than 200, including all the songs it covers.
"We never make a set list," says Eddie Vedder-double Steve Lopez of the Pearl Jam cover band Evenflow, which has been successfully touring since 2001. "A lot of people are just *Ten* fans. A portion of the fans are hard-core and want to hear anything Pearl Jam ever played. We feed off the crowd. We're out there advertising for Pearl Jam."
The last time Pearl Jam came near Iowa City was, well, never. Thus, fans who don't have the opportunity to see the real thing can still enjoy the pseudo version, with a few minor mutations.
"I used to have hair down to my shoulders," Lopez says - one can sense sincere remorse in his voice. "I cut it, just like an idiot. But I'm growing it back now. It's taking forever."
It's not easy living up to these musical idols.
"I think Anthony Kiedis is an amazing performer," says Iowa City resident Matt Grundstad, the lead singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute band Lunatix on Pogostix. "It's been a real challenge for me as a vocalist to sing with his intensity. I've learned a lot by studying what he does. Learning how to play other people's music helps you develop the skills to write your own stuff."
These methods are far from anything you'd find in a music-theory textbook, but for now, tribute bands are hell-bent on giving a show worthy of mock stars.
"We love it because people are just rocking out," Gelbuda says. "By the time we finish a song, people want to get up onstage and sing with us. The fans are psycho - no, they're rabid. In such a good way."
E-mail DI reporter Ann Colwell at:
ann-colwell@uiowa.edu
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