In 1972, The Who, Yes, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and Genesis were all turning the raw rebellion of rock ‘n’ roll into art. Only a decade later, MTV was born, the seed of punk rock began to blossom and art rock was given up for adoption.
I don’t know how rebellious Blind Man’s Sun are apart from a musical standpoint, but I do know their visionary music is the antacid for the fast food that MTV churns out. There will be no throwing these boys against the channel’s wall to see if they stick. Instead, Blind Man’s Sun independently have released two double discs in three years: 1995’s ambitious self-titled effort and this year’s vibrantly theatrical follow-up, Of the Spheres.
The band was born in 1994 while its original members keyboardist/vocalist J.D. Daddis, bassist Bob White, vocalist/guitarist Marco Femino, guitarist David Chiappetta and percussionist Kevin Romanski were studying music performance and business at Syracuse University. About a year ago, drummer Darren Gage, who is pursuing a master’s degree in music at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., joined Blind Man’s Sun. Around the same time, the band moved to nearby East Brunswick, N.J., to be more centrally located.
Live gigs became more plentiful, the band became even tighter, but with six cerebral, eclectic composers, it became a challenge while recording Of the Spheres — partly with Dan Archer of Phish fame and partly with Greg Frey of Ween fame — to find a cohesive sound. By allowing each other to orbit a variety of musical space, they succeeded. Now comes the task of expanding a grass-roots East Coast following, while turning a deaf, dumb and blind industry onto their big batch of tunes.
Imagine if Pete Townshend, Peter Gabriel and Frank Zappa got Kurt Weil, George Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim really high and convinced them to join a rock band. Now who is going to get a band like that? A band that closes each hour-plus disc that comprises Of the Spheres — the largest studio recording ever produced by an independent act — with half-hour rock requiems.
Kids!
Kids, singing right along with the deepest of Blind Man’s Sun’s literary lyrics and grooving to the most far-out sections of their mind-boggling mix of jazz, calypso, techno, funk, zydeco, country, gospel, psychedelic and progressive rock and musical theatre.
Townshend once said, “The Kids Are Alright.” For long a time — most of my music journalism career actually — I wasn’t so sure. But with swing, jazz-groove and jam bands on the rise, I feel much better about the direction young people are willing to go with music, real music, not just the cookie-cutter rebellion corporate deems appropriate. Listening to Blind Man’s Sun, I’m convinced that, unlike, say, government, business, media and prison labor, rock ‘n’ roll can be as big as it wants, as big as it needs to be. Fuck ‘em if they don’t get it.
I get it and that’s enough for me. But that’s not enough for the band, so I got with them at their rented house in East Brunswick. At the time, manager Michael Chiappetta, David’s brother, was shopping a five-song EP distilled from the poppiest moments on “Of the Spheres”: the hippie-spirited jam of “Juggling Om,” the Rage-Against-the-Machine-on-Broadway nugget “So I’m Singin’,” the zydeco stomp of “Hampton,” the whimsical “Sprockets” and the Bob Marley-inspired, funky fun of “Lion.” OK, so maybe the mythological epic “The Hero’s Requiem” and “Indescartion,” a Descartes-inspired battle between the mind, soul and heart, are a bit much for MTV, but they both could work on the theatrical stage. When was the last time a rock ‘n’ roll band brought that much to the table?
