Photo Don Miller

ScorTy Morris (centre) and his band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are currently touring North America. Trumpeter
Glen Marhevka (third from left) says the band has developed more depth on their new CD This Beautiful Life.

rveyors hit town

phn Goodman
“This Week Editor
_ PlngO@nsnews.com

COOLSVILLE party
bands Big Bad Voodoo
Daddy (BBVD) and the
Blue Hawaiians make a
stop in Vancouver oa
Monday night at the
newly reopened
Commodore. th
bands live repu

precede them.

The Blue Haivaiians have
been called the best tiki rock
band in the world while
BRVD has been setting musi-
cal trends since they hit the
stage earlier in the decade.

The formula for Big Bad
Voodoo Daddy's success is no
seeret — it’s attitude. “Our
stage performance is closest to
punk,” says trumpeter Gien

* “The Kid” Marhevka on the
phone from New Orleans.
“There is no lying back, we
give 110%.”

Marhevka joined BBVD in
*95 — the band began several
years carlier with frontman
Scotty Morris, drummer Kurt

- Sodergren and rockabilly
bassist Dirk Shumaker. When
the trio decided to add mem-
bers their ad in an L.A. news-
paper set the agenda —

“Musicians wanted for a band.
Sound: Duke Ellington, Jimi

- Hendrix and Tom Waits on
acid in a jacuzzi.”

Their polyglot-philosophy
survives and thrives to this day.
“I come from a jazz back-
ground,” says Marhevka, “but
everybody in the band listens
to something different. 1 grew
up listening to Mile Davis,
Chet Baker — all the jazz
greats.” Once he joined
BBVD his education had just

. begun.

: The musicians have their
chops down and take their

- heavy horn artillery through

changes at breakneck

The whole BBVD experience
is kept together by Morris
who can make you believe in

modern ji singing his
heart out in front of a 1940s
jump band.

The approach sounds
.familiar cnough to, get a nod
of recognition but: ‘that famil-
iarity is deceptive.
_everything on
This Beaitifiel ]
material written by Morris. Far
from being # rétro band

BBVD come across like
Southern Californian zoot
suiters surfing through a sub-
lime time warp.

And everybody's enjoving
the ride. Last January BBVD
was invited to play as part of
the Super Bowl’s half-time fes-

“When they told me
We were going to be on it I
couldn’t believe it,” says
Marhevka. “When I look back
that will definitely be one of
ghe highlights. The Super
Bow! show was a thrill.”

*~ p@n their current North |,

American tour BBVD are trav-
élling on a double bill with
label-mates the Blue

Haw: aiians, “We played ar the

House of Blues here in New
Orleans last night. Ir sone of
my favourite cities,” says the
horn man. The band stayed an
extra day to enjoy the club
ambience in the birthplace cf
ja

The decade has been good
°9 BBVD — they made a
splash on the Swingers sound-
track and can be heard every
week playing the Third Rock
fron the Sun TV series theme.

No matter what BBVD try
they come out léiging good.
Even growing up has left them
unscathed. “ ns Beautiful Life
is a more mature album. We're
older and there’s more depth
to what we're doing.”

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