Black-Eyed Susan

Best Regional Shows of 2000:
1. Lake Trout in October @ Recher Theatre
2. The Recipe in November @ Lava Lounge
3. All Mighty Senators on Halloween
4. Black-Eyed Susan in November @ 8x10

- Lorin Wollen

Black-Eyed Susan
>
> By day, they're teaching schoolchildren and waiting tables. By night,
they're opening for Santana and jamming in front of the masses.
>
> So goes the life of the four guys from Owings Mills who make up the band
Black-Eyed Susan.
>
> "I wouldn't trade what I do for a second to sit behind a desk," says David
Markowitz, 22, lead singer and bass player.
>
> He and other members of the band were in good spirits after a recent gig
at the Recher Theatre in Towson. As they hung around backstage, they
discussed the journey their group has taken since it was formed in 1997.
>
> Only two years ago, Black-Eyed Susan was "way on the rocks" after losing
its female lead singer. A year later, its drummer left. But last year, Adam
Chase, brother of guitarist Matt Chase, joined the group as its drummer.
>
> Black-Eyed Susan is now feeling extremely confident -- a change that group
members largely attribute to the bonding they experienced on a
spur-of-the-moment road trip they took last year.
>
> "We want to get on the road again. We're a traveling band," says
keyboardist Aaron Levy, 23, a University of Maryland, College Park graduate
who occasionally works as a substitute high-school teacher.
>
> Late last summer, the quartet abandoned college or part-time jobs and took
a nearly two-month cross-country road trip, trying to find gigs as they went
along. When they couldn't find a booking, they'd improvise, such as when
they did an acoustic jam session in the streets of St. Louis, Mo.
>
> Black-Eyed Susan made a conscious decision to gear its music more toward
the rock genre after the owner of a Los Angeles club advised the members to
narrow their musical focus. The eclectic style of the band's past ranged
from funk to bluegrass.
>
> Toward the end of the trip, the group had three days to drive from a show
in San Francisco to a gig in Vermont. The reception in New England was so
positive that the guys have played shows in Vermont every month since
October. They sold more than 200 CDs at one show alone last month.
>
> But the shows up north have nothing on their best gig so far: performing
in 1999 before a near-sellout crowd at Merriweather Post Pavilion in
Columbia as openers for legendary rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Black-Eyed Susan has also opened for Santana at Merriweather.
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> The band gives a diverse live show: The guys will play chill-out melodies
one minute and then launch into a seven-minute, Allman Brothers Band-style
instrumental the next. Most of their songs are originals, but they like to
throw in the occasional Jimi Hendrix or Phish tune.
>
> Black-Eyed Susan will be Heading back into the studio "sometime soon" to
begin recording its fourth LP, the follow-up to last year's Rudbeckia.
>
> You'll be hearing plenty more from this band if things continue to go its
way. "Our goal is to spread out all over the world," Markowitz says. "Where
we live is inconsequential."
>
> Next local gigs
> Some time in April. Check www.black-eyedsusan.org.
- Mike Morris