Subcommittee is in session
With roots in Sussex County high school, musicians take eclectic path to success

By REBECCA SCHMOYER
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

It all began at Lenape Valley High School in the late 1980s.

That's where Bo Bailey, who moved to Byram with his mother when he was 12 years old after spending part of his childhood on a cattle ranch in Oregon, befriended John Scherer and Shannon Woods. The musicians discovered they shared an interest in punk, reggae and ska music and began to write songs together.
"We wanted to create music that inspired others to think, act, move and question, like so many bands did for us," said Bailey.

The friends would part for college, but later reunite, later adding Doug Pearsall on bass and Alex Zox on saxophone. They formed the band Subcommittee, a Sussex County-based group that has spread across northern New Jersey by word of mouth and now seems poised to reach a broader audience.

This year, the group released its second CD, "What Goes Wrong," and has enlisted a new agent. Subcommittee recently signed a performance deal with Budweiser's National Bud True Music that will bring it to large venues around the Northeast, including Giants Stadium on Nov. 1, before the Jets game.

Much of the band's appeal is that it doesn't fit into any mold. The group will blend funk, reggae, jazz - just about anything - and come up with a risky tune that is often danceable.
"Any style of music we like, we'll try to attack and see if we can pull it off. Bossa nova, rock, funk, swing, even bebop," said Bailey, the band's 31-year-old frontman.

Veteran producer Charles Johnson, who has worked with Kool and the Gang, Chaka Khan and Lauryn Hill, took notice over a year ago that the band was drawing large crowds while playing original songs.

"Jersey is dominated by cover bands. Subcommittee are appealing to the same masses of people through their original music. They are playing most of the same clubs as cover bands, but doing all originals.

"They are constantly working. That's one indication they have that vibe and style that really goes over with the public," said Johnson, who produced the band's 11-song CD in June 2003.

Originally a four-member group known as Death Cookie, it first played live in 1993, opening for a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion concert at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, N.Y.

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Who: Subcommittee
Who else: Particle Zoo, Mindspent
Where: The Stanhope House
Why: CD release party

[Photo to Right: Shannon Woods is a vocalist and guitarist for the band Subcommitte.]

One foot toward the door - and on this recent Saturday night there was a line to get there - lands you on a porch front, no different from some of its neighboring homes. One foot in the door transports you to a storied musical enclave, the walls and floors of which have absorbed countless original sounds and processed hundreds of artists since the Stanhope House opened its doors and stage to performers in 1960.

The circa 1790 former residence maintains its old-charm structure and serves as home to area musicians such as Subcommittee, Particle Zoo and Mindspent.

Harmon-ease: Particle Zoo jumpstarted the night, revving the crowd with its post-punk, garage flavor, reminiscent of The Ramones, as evidenced in its alternative spin on "Eleanor Rigby," a Fab Four "Revolver" remake off its latest album, "Go-Go."

In addition to the punk- funk revival of the musically fittest, the North Jersey foursome instilled a whoa factor, wrapping up with the harmonious "Duluth," vocals finely tuned to the pitch-ranges the singers aspired to and successfully attained.

Just when the crowd thought it had adjusted to cruising altitude, Mindspent took the pilot's seat and put on the fasten seatbelt signs. The winds took a strong turn from garage punk to a collective mix of blues, rock, metal and jazz, the mixed genres a precursor to Subcommittee's arrival.

Yours for the shaking: You can't judge a band by its cover, especially if it doesn't play any. But you can measure band appeal in feet, as in the pulsating floor, generated by dancing fans, some, such as Don Vorek of Sparta and Rachel Atfield of Vernon, perfecting their Latin moves depending on the beat.

And with Subcommittee, a simmering melting pot of musical cultures, that beat is ever-changing. One minute it could be Latin such as "Burning," or the next Latin/jazz/funk as in "Missing One," where seemingly out of nowhere a trombone and [saxophone] surface and dominate.

About bass: Horns too. The current Subcommittee formed in 1995 and, in addition to Latin/jazz funk, also draws upon reggae, rock and punk influences. Although The Stanhope House has served as Subcommittee's mothership, the band and its fans have taken to stages in the tri-state area and Eastern seaboard.

Calling its own shots: On this recent Saturday night, the band even had its own shot, the Subcommittee - raspberry vodka, cranberry juice and Tabasco sauce.

Ellen Wilkowe can be reached at ewilkowe@gannett.com

Subcommittee: Breaking Barriers
By Joe McDonald

In today’s world of ultra-homogenized rock music trends and crass corporate marketing, you can still find an inspiring number of musicians whose individuality and dedication to artistic purity remains unaffected. These folks aren’t satisfied with nostalgia, fashion or hype. They inject vitality and integrity into the collapsing veins of our modern culture. Subcommittee, emerging from various sections of North Jersey, is one of these bands. After repeated exposure to their spastic live shows and Machito’s Wonder, the band’s first release, I had a few questions for committee-head, Bo, as to what makes this hard-to-describe band tick.

JM: What was the catalyst that took you from being a music fan to where you are now, actually writing and playing in a band? What made you realize that it’s important?

Bo: It’s difficult to locate a specific instance that made me say, ‘I’m going to be in a band,’ but I think at an early age my greatest influences were punk and hardcore bands that were from or came to New York – 7 Seconds, Government Issue, Reagan Youth, Agnostic Front, False Prophets – that make me think differently about the world and people and social situations, and I realized that music was a very powerful and immediate vehicle to reach people. I was very lucky to be exposed to a lot of cool and intelligent music that was conscious in one way or another, whether it be politically or socially conscious or just conscious of the unspoken elements in music that make it a way of thinking and acting justly . . . as the act of playing music well is itself an act of reciprocity and justice. It takes compassion, patience and the willingness to communicate. It was through music that I learned how to think and learned to have the desire to think. Also to touch the untouchable realms of meaning that music is privy to.

I noticed in the live show, there are a lot of mixed elements occurring almost simultaneously. How do you want the package to be perceived? What’s the most important thing for you to get across?

Well, there are a number of things I want people to walk away with. I want people to experience a real vital energy and a fearlessness that breaks through certain social habits of kind of putting on fronts and not really letting loose. I want people to come out and converse and conspire. I want people to feel free to be themselves and move – or not move, as the case may be – in whatever way they want. I mean I’m up there jumping from instrument to instrument like a freak, and there’s not any form I dance with or endorse, you know, so . . .

So you’d be happy if people came out and got nothing more out of it than dance music?

Oh sure, I think that’s fine, because it does work on other levels. You can later read the lyric sheet or come and talk with one of us. People will at times catch a word or two that means something to them and take it further. One time a guy caught the word ‘dialectic’ in our song ‘1+2=12’ and was really excited that I used it that way because he was a student of Marx or Hegel or something. I like it when people take what they hear in the music and want to take it further because they can come and talk to any one of us and we all have very distinct and different opinions and that’s what’s at the base of our music, too. You can hear it in the internal conflicts and resolutions of our ‘sound,’ which makes blatant references to many elements.

Such as . . .?

Well, there’s definitely funk in there. There’s jazz. We’ve called ourselves punk jazz because we’re a bunch of punks trying to learn jazz.

You could say jazz fusion.

Sure, jazz fusion. I mean it’s all kind of rock n’ roll when it comes down to it, too, right? We’re really a rock band that wanders around other genres a lot. People like to say ska and reggae based on certain rhythmic structures and especially the instrumentation with the horns. And in other respects there’s also a heavy Latin element. I would like people to walk out feeling differently about these categories. And I don’t mean that we try to mix them together in a homogeneous way. We live in a pretty fragmented and segregated world and I want issues of, say, race, culture and language to be questioned and re-questioned.
I’m really into Afro-Cuban music an I don’t want to disrespectfully be the kind of person that just picks and chooses from any culture at whim, as has been the case forever in the appropriation of styles as it relates to relations of power. But especially being from this area – there are a lot of different people, languages, ways of thinking, tastes, etc. and we are in dubitably influenced by all of it – at least I am. And why should that not come out in the things that we do? And why should we not put this on other people who don’t want to listen to anything but the same old shit that they safely feed us? Very simply, we try to imitate the things that we like, and in the process we find our own sound which is a dialectic, synergistic, maybe even schizophrenic approach to playing and discovering oneself.

Schizophrenic?

Better to be a schizophrenic strolling down a street than neurotic on an analyst’s couch! That’s a quote from Giles Deleuze.

Have you ever thought about the long-term contributions of the human race, especially on the individual level? Do you think any of this really matters?

Well . . . I would say that contributions have to matter because this is the material that history, and likewise the future, is made of. This is unavoidable. I guess the issue is that some contributions are more covert. I think we can safely say that certain people have had more impact than other people. But I also thin that this is mandated by how history is written and what we collectively remember.

I think it’s better to have a big impact on a few people rather than a minor impact on a lot of people, which is the irony with a lot of pop groups that have come and gone – I mean the so-called super groups – they just kind of disappear after a decade, and now we laugh at them. I think that to have a real lasting impact on just one person is far more worthwhile.

That’s a cool dichotomy, I’ve always said I would rather have a small and devoted following of people worldwide who choose to support us not in spite of but because of the changes we are bound to go through. I embrace change, just as I want to reject the idea of the lasting impact of one person.

All I can think of is when I’m 75 and they fucking nail my coffin together, what did I leave that is worth something? What have I done that has affected somebody else’s life in a positive way? That’s why my whole thing is.

I know what you mean, and I’ve wondered that too. But I think I’m more interested in what we do now, I guess.

You mean life is for the living.

Yeah. Somewhere along that line – I don’t know how it happened – I just became really into the idea that the real direct, active element of playing music as an act of communication and as the embodiment of a relationship between one or more people is enough in itself. I think it’s very possible that we could do some really radical stuff and never be known for it, but yet inspire somebody else to do it. And I have to accept that that’s good enough and that recognition happens in my own soul and in the people around me. I can’t let myself care whether people remember me for it or not after I’m dead. It’s not why I do it anyway.

What you’re saying is that the most important goal of an artist is to pass the torch along and not to leave the mark of personal identity.

It’s the flame on the torch that really counts and not whose fingerprints are on the handle, right? I’m not saying that recognition is not an important thing. I’m just saying that recognition does happen if you’re worthy of it and you can look closely enough around you. Enough people encourage me to play and this is why I refuse to stop. Of course if recognition means that I could life semi-comfortably doing this, then that’s a different issue entirely. But, hey, who lives semi-comfortably anyway?
It seems to me that struggle is part of our existence and whether I’m humping furniture all day or playing music all day, I still have faith that what I’m doing is worth it, even if I’m not remembered for it. I’m in too deep, anyway. It’s how I make peace with myself and others. Sometimes it’s difficult and sometimes it seems impossible. And sometimes you just have to throw punches blindly and hope that you hit somebody in the eye.

A lot of people feel that politics don’t have a place in music, and I think it’s pretty obvious that you guys use music as a vehicle to express some political concepts. Do you think there is anything to the notion that music should stay pure in that sense, and be free of any sort of agenda?

Good question. I personally adhere to the notion that all art is political, even if it is apolitical, and carries with it connotations, implications, inherent logics, and ways of thinking, etc. I’m happy to say that the Subcommittee does not have a political agenda and this is part of our politics. Our opinions in the band very greatly from one member to another, and I think that’s what makes the songwriting and general direction and point of view so multifaceted and fertile. I still say, though, that all art is political. Listen to ‘Alabama’ by John Coltrane and tell me that there isn’t an implied politic – and there is not a single word! The Backstreet Boys or N’Sync are political as well, they just happen to be the politics of the enemy. If the Subcommittee has a political agenda, it is in the sense that we try to bring differences to the forefront and open up a space where these things can mingle in a productive way.

Obviously when subcultures get co-opted by The Man™, many times they’re exploited and discarded and no longer seem to have the relevance they once had. Do you feel there is an inherent danger in dealing with large corporations for the purpose of distributing music, or that it takes away your credibility?

I think that whenever fashions and trends are mandated from above for the purposes of generating capital, and perpetuating mediocrity and egomania . . . then, yes, there are inherent dangers. On the other hand, as musicians, we fell that being made accessible to a wider audience is the ultimate goal to attain. If attaining this goal means getting cool haircuts and homogenizing our songs, then it wouldn’t really be us that is being made more accessible, now would it? There are plenty of other people willing to be co-opted. I wouldn’t call this inherently evil, it’s just not what we’re about. Negotiating is the necessity of living and trying to survive in this world, but if we build our own shelter we won’t have to rely on big money to survive. I guess this is the idea. We’re the only ones who can take away our credibility.

MusicHead Magazine: 

Where this Jersey band's song collection will take you! Starting out with "Singing Blake Through Chinatown," a trade-off of a Mr. Dynamite J. Brown groove & a smokey jazz sway (yes, they have the horns to effectively pull 'em off) you go headlong, with little warning into shape-shifting excercises in ska, Latino, funk, swing, thrashy punk and urban rap. Great display of chops, something for nearly everyone.

-Dennis King, Pissing in the Passaic

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Listen.com:

Jazzrocking, funk-reggae, punkjams. Collegiate festival goers of the world unite! This is music to hackeysack and frisbee toss with after pulling countless tubes off a well-stickered Graffix while the dorm's R.A. is on a break.

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Amazon.com Reviews:

Dude1:  "These guys are intriguing as well as musical. They challenge conventional thinking and drive sounds of musical non-conformity. Seeing them live is the best way to soak in the jazzed out funk-odelia, but if you're unable to get out this will definately please your musical palette. To put it as brief as possible: These guys ROCK!"

MusicFan:  Not only polished but pickled too.   This is the thing- you listen to something coming from a place and give it enough attention and that place might just wack you in the face. Like a big jar of hamburgers the meat of the matter is the funky beat and the swelter of positioning is within the likes of fishbone or lets say ike turner getting turned on by the women he almost destroyed while he full knows that there is no way he could possibly get tinaed.

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Daily Record, Morris County, NJ
December 22, 2002
By Robert Hicks