Pet sounds: It's all about the Bunnymen

Echo & the Bunnymen's long march continues at House of Blues

By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
December 8, 2005

In the 1980s and stretching into the early 1990s, England began cranking out a particular style of alternative rock that called for chiming guitars, emotive high-tenor vocals, compact jangly rock tunes.

Along with bands like U2 (up through 1983's "War"), the Church and the Cure, Liverpool's Echo & the Bunnymen led a pack of British bands forging a new sound that spawned a generation of kids wearing eyeliner with hair in their eyes (think Ally Sheedy's character in "The Breakfast Club," but with more makeup).

Known for its unusual name and the distinctive vibrato-filled vocal style of Ian McCulloch, the band's roots were in the meeting of singer McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant as teenagers in Liverpool. The group – sick of answering mundane questions about the Bunnymen name – made up a story about the band's drum machine, "Echo." The tall tale made a lot of music journalists a bit red in the face after the news came out.

"Yeah, that story is rubbish," Sergeant has said about the fictional story of the band's naming. "We used to tell the press we got the name from the drum machine, but that was just to shut people up, you know? We just wanted a name that was completely different, and Echo was just a word we liked. Now, Bunnymen, there was an idea behind that, of these weird, spirit, bunny things that, like, existed only in folklore. There's one on the cover of our first single, 'Pictures on My Wall.'"

Fueled by strong support in the UK and on American college radio, word began to spread quickly about Echo & the Bunnymen. Mixing neo-psychedelic dreamy eclecticism and solid songwriting from McCulloch and company, the band scored Top 10 albums in the United Kingdom (1981's "Heaven Up Here" and "Porcupine" and 1984's "Ocean Rain") while gaining a foothold in the American market.

Plucking crisp guitar lines – awash with delay and reverb much like the early work of U2's the Edge, Sergeant created sonic landscapes while McCulloch's lyrics and voice set Echo & the Bunnymen apart from the glut of 1980s New Wave British bands.

The band's 1987 eponymous album – featuring songs like "Lips Like Sugar" and "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo" – gave the guys from Liverpool their biggest audience yet. The release afforded the opportunity to work with one of the band's heroes: Doors organist Ray Manzarek.

McCulloch left the band in 1988 to pursue a solo career and released a couple of solo discs ("Candleland" in 1989 and "Mysterio" in 1991). Original drummer Pete de Freitas died in a 1989 motorcycle accident. Sergeant and bassist Les Pattinson forged on with new lead singer Noel Burke and released "Reverberation" in 1990 to little popular response. "Candleland" produced a hit in "Proud to Fall" (it reached No. 1 in the United States on the Modern Rock charts), but in retrospect it feels empty without Sergeant's deft guitar licks.

Echo & the Bunnymen's cinematic songwriting style found it's way to the big screen along the way, most memorably in "Pretty in Pink" ("Bring on the Dancing Horses") and "The Lost Boys" (with the remake of the Doors' "People Are Strange"). Later, "The Killing Moon" found its way into 2001's "Donnie Darko," along with 2004's "The Girl Next Door."

In 1997, the surviving Bunnymen (McCulloch, Sergeant and Pattinson) reunited to record "Evergreen," which found the band stumbling through 12 over-orchestrated mundane tracks. Said McCulloch of joining his mates again: "It's not so much a reunion as the second half of a very long march."

Echo & the Bunnymen took a more stripped down approach in 1999's "What Are You Going to Do With Your Life?" The album exhibits a strummy carefree attitude to the band's brooding early work. On 2001's "Flowers," McCulloch and Sergeant revisit their 1960s psychedelic influences, evoking the Animals and the Doors.

From the sparkling, glistening high guitar notes of "Stormy Weather" – the first song on Echo & the Bunnymen's 2005 album "Siberia," the English band recaptures the ethereal alternative pop music of it's heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.

All the while, McCulloch's voice provides depth and contrast to the four-minute pop songs. Twenty-seven years after first creating Echo & the Bunnymen, McCulloch and Sergeant still know how to make songs that sound relevant and sincere. The two bring Echo & the Bunnymen to the House of Blues tomorrow night for a trip down memory lane.

"The only way for me to live forever is through great songs," McCulloch said a few years ago. "And that's what I intend to keep doing during my songwriting life – just to go for timeless greatness."

Chris Nixon is a San Diego writer.

The essential Echo & the Bunnymen

"Crocodiles" (1980, Sire): First albums are always fascinating to revisit, like finding yourself at an archaeological dig excavating the roots of an ancient civilization. If the band sticks around long enough to develop its own sound, you can trace it all back to the debut disc. In "Crocodiles," we find Ian McCulloch searching for his trademark vocals. Sergeant's great guitar lines are almost absent, smothered by layers of pianos and keyboards. Songs likes "Do It Clean" are dead ringers for a U2 cut. This is not the greatest Echo album, but an interesting study nevertheless.

"Heaven Up Here" (1981, Sire): The band's second album finds the four guys from Liverpool sliding into their trademark sound, a real emotional performance from McCulloch. A truly varied record, songs sway from crystalline ballads to sharp-edged New Wave funk a la early Talking Heads. Seemingly all of a sudden, McCulloch's voice has gained a high, haunting timbre. "Heaven Up Here" remains an excellent snapshot of English New Wave.

"Ocean Rain" (1984, Sire): The heavy orchestration of the opening track, "Silver," marks a new era for Echo. But Sergeant's guitar work and McCulloch's gloomy lyrics help offset the floating harmonies, especially on tracks like "Crystal Days" and "The Yo-Yo Man." "The Killing Moon" stands the test of time due to the eerie mix of bittersweet harmonies and lyrics like Under blue moon I saw you / So soon you'll take me / Up in your arms / Too late to beg you or cancel it / Though I know it must be the killing time / Unwillingly mine. Also check out the 1985 greatest hits record "Song to Learn & Sing" for an excellent compilation of Echo's early material.

"Echo & the Bunnymen" (1987, Sire): Like a refrain that tumbles around in your head for years, whenever I think of Echo & the Bunnymen I hear the chorus of "Lips Like Sugar." The thumping beat of "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo" follows a close second. This album is so accessible it's almost too much, all wrapped up in 1980s pop sensibilities. But the self-titled disc still yields a few timeless songs through all the production.

"Siberia" (2005, Cooking Vinyl): Using a phrase like "return to form" turns my stomach, but I'm tempted in describing "Siberia." Gone is the angst of "Heaven Up Here." The fire died out a long time ago. Instead, we get crystal-clear production that doesn't get in the way of a quality collection of songs. McCulloch sounds sharp and Sergeant is riffing in top-notch fashion. This is easily the band's best disc in 20 years.

– CHRIS NIXON

Chitty chitty bang bang bang: !!! in ND

For !!!, funk music still 'charges us up'

By Chris Nixon
December 8, 2005

Three repetitive sounds: "Chk chk chk" or "pow pow pow" or "uh uh uh." You could add "jump, jump, jump" or "jam, jam, jam" to the list. Take three one-syllable words and fill in the blank. The pronunciations are endless and endlessly amusing, much like the improvisational music of !!! – an eight-piece punkish funk band based in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Sacramento.

With a catalog packed with 20-minute dance-inducing jams, the name !!! – taken from the subtitles of the film "The Gods Must Be Crazy" – reflects the octet's outsider mentality. The band combines pieces of punk, funk, DJ culture, retro disco, indie rock and jam band, yet its doesn't fit into any of those scenes.

Transcending genre, !!! creates an atmosphere ripe for audience participation in the form of movement, whether it's people simply jumping up and down or engaging in more traditional dance steps.

"Ultimately, I want the music to make people jump out of their skins when we're playing," said guitarist Mario Andreoni from his hometown of Sacramento. "Whether that means somebody is totally going bonkers or somebody's trying to reach for (stuff) up in the sky, it doesn't really matter to me."

While growing up in Sacramento, the eight band members – John Pugh (drums), Nic Offer (vocals), Allan Wilson (percussion, horns), Tyler Pope (guitar, keys), Justin VanDerVolgen (bass, sound), Dan Gorman (percussion, horns), Jason Racine (percussion) and Andreoni – earned their musical chops playing in punk or rock bands. But, eventually, the guys wanted to make music similar to what they heard filling the dance clubs they haunted.

"When everybody first started, it was all punk music," remembered Andreoni. "But everybody in the band is such a huge music lover. When we were teenagers we always went to the clubs or we always wanted to go to the clubs. We all danced. It wouldn't matter what kind of music we were dancing to, that's what was always on our minds."

Taking elements of early Talking Heads (when that band was a herky-jerky funk band), percussive world music, funk and soul with punk-rock energy, !!! forged its own sound.

Since its inception in 1997, the band has released two full-length discs (a self-titled debut in 2000 and "Louden Up Now" in 2004), along with numerous 12-inch extended play singles and remixes. !!! shares band members with the dance-rock bands Out Hud and LCD Soundsystem.

While the music ranges from indie-inspired disco to noisy experimental rock, funk is the common thread through all !!! music.

"Making funky music is just part of what we do when we get together," said Andreoni. "When we jam and just have fun playing off each other, that's generally what happens. There's still so much that can be done with funk and dance music. So it's still something that charges us up and it's always on our minds."

Citing world music and DJ culture as major influences (Andreoni name-drops Afrobeat originator Fela Kuti and DJs Rub and Tugs specifically), !!! draws upon percussion-driven music from all genres. That's probably why you'll see most of the band pick up a cowbell or various other items to beat on during extended drum breaks in its fiery live sets, including Monday's show at the Casbah in Middletown.

"I think that 75 percent of the band is frustrated drummers," Andreoni said. "After our first drummer left the band – who was just an amazing drummer – we all filled in the blanks while we were jamming. Also hearing as much world music as we do, a lot of the percussion-heavy Brazilian music was a touchstone. After we heard that stuff, we decided we needed to be a seriously percussive band."

Chris Nixon is a San Diego writer.