“The Sea Of Tranquility Fest will be Saturday at the Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY. The "Sea Of Tranquility" is an online website with videos and reviews and there's a whole community around it which is led by Pete Pardo. During the quarantine part of COVID, there was a "Sea Of Tranquility virtual festival to help raise money for the ASPCA COVID Outreach and this is kind of an extension of that; this is the live version," explains Epic Tantrum bassist Greg Ross as he and the band prepare to join The Pat Travers Band, Vanilla Fudge, Nektar, Chris Caffery, Andy Powell, Rick LaBonte and Nektar in a return to an old school type of festival featuring diverse acts, a Q & A and more. "Pete sort of helped curate the bands that will be playing and the idea was to create an event that reflects the diversity of this year's Tranquility fan base and what they cover. So, during the afternoon they're doing live versions of the panels they do, they will be reviewing a record, they have a thing called the Hudson Valley Squares where like nine of them get together and review records so, it's trying to encompass the world of Sea Of Tranquility but live instead of online. Epic Tantrum got involved because Pete is a big fan of the Epic Tantrum album and he wrote a really, really nice review of it and I reached out to him just to say thank you and we started talking and that's kind of what led to us being involved in the virtual event and now the concert.”
One of the acts is the ever-present Vanilla Fudge; yes, THAT Vanilla Fudge who continue to churn out remakes of old standards and in ways that nobody else can. Legendary drummer, Carmine Appice recalls some of the earlier days of music festivals and offered his take on this one and the length of their set.
“We were just always a heavy band but we were the first American prog-rock band because you look at our songs; we go in and out of time signatures just like prog bands do but I have to look at the contract but we’ve been going out and doing an hour and 15 minutes and if it has to be shorter, we’ll cut a few things out," he said with surety. "That’s the way festivals used to be years ago. When we did festivals you’d have Crosby, Stills & Nash and then you’d have Led Zeppelin, then you’d have Vanilla Fudge and then you’d have Jimi Hendrix; they’d have all different kinds of music. That’s why they’d have festivals and now they don't do that, they put all the same kind of music on a festival gig. Everything has a label, back then it was all rock; how would you label Jimi Hendrix? What would you put him in? Vanilla Fudge? Crosby, Stills & Nash; harmony group? Deep Purple, Janis Joplin; we were all on the same show. So, it's gonna be interesting; I'll just say that because we haven't been on a show that has had so many different levels and different types of music. We went out with Pat Travers and Cactus and it is the same kind of music and we recently did a gig with a Deep Purple cover band; a Deep Purple tribute which is kind of cool because we used to have them open up for us. We did a gig a couple of months ago with a Led Zeppelin tribute band so, yeah, it's an interesting time of music because right now, all of the pop music is really shit; excuse my French. I got a Billboard Magazine because Cleopatra, my record label that I have my instrumental band on and King Cobra, I’ve got Vanilla Fudge on there and I've done a lot of tributes with them and I know the owner very well; they're celebrating an anniversary so, me and Pat Travers and my guitarist Fernando, we bought a half-page ad to congratulate them in Billboard Magazine and my manager Bruce sent me a copy; I looked at it and it is so different. The number one record was by Nicki Minaj and she's got a picture of her and she's wearing a lingerie outfit and their congratulating her on the number one record; it's more about how you dance and how you look; it’s not about the music anymore. I looked at those other charts and I didn't hardly know anybody; on the singles charts anyway. Years ago, it would be, oh that sounds like Zeppelin, that's from Janis, that's Jimi Hendrix and now they all sound the same; it’s all instrumental computer music and somebody singing the vocal that sounds just like some other guy. I know I probably sound like the old man but you know it's the truth. Even in the ‘40s when we were coming up and in the ‘50s; you’d hear music and say, oh that's Bo Diddley, that's Elvis Presley, that's Little Richard, that’s Chuck Berry, that's The Cadillacs or that’s The Ronettes because you could hear the difference and then it continued through the ‘60s and the ‘70s and the ‘80s and the ‘90s with Nirvana and all that stuff. So, I started getting into this pop music which has taken over the country and the rap music and it's all the same; you know?”
“Being a small band," added Ross; "Carmine has obviously had some pretty big hits in his life and Vanilla Fudge had a bunch of hits; it's a different time. So, places like Sea Of Tranquility are vital for bands like us and people like you who cover the non-mainstream stuff are so vital for the survival of and helping get the word out for bands like us.”
Many may not have realized but "The Fudge," as they are sometimes known, have been performing together in earnest since the late '90s and early 2000s. Recently, an album they recorded of Led Zeppelin songs has surfaced and it sounds as if it was done only days ago; such is not the case according to Carmine.
“Yeah, we just put it out but we did it 2005, we put out on a label that's called Escapi Music in Sweden and just as they released it, they went out of business. So, we just held onto it and we sold it at concerts and then just before COVID we made a deal with Golden Robot and it was that album but the rest of it was going to be us doing Supreme's songs and we were calling it, "Supreme Fudge" but the only song that we did on that was "Stop In The Name Of Love" with Tim on it before he passed away and that was the first song we recorded and I recorded it with Tim in 2002 and 2020 when I went to the NAMM show out on the West Coast. I got Tim on it and then COVID hit and that was the end of doing an album and so they have that album and little by little they're releasing a single here and a single there and everybody is telling me they're releasing the whole album; I didn't even know it's being released, they never told us. It is coming out on September 28 or 29 or something like that. Like I said, we did it in 2005 and we did it analog and we did it then like we do them now. We do “Dazed and Confused” and “Babe I'm Gonna Leave You” in our show and they've been in our set since 2010.”
“We don't play big giant tours anymore and go out for 30 or 40 days," he continued. "We go out for weekends; we're doing this weekend and then we got the weekend after that for three days and then the weekend after that for three days and then we go back. I'm staying in New York; we have an apartment there. I'll leave on September 29 and I'm back on October 23 unless the hurricane screws up this trip. I don't think we can reschedule this with the festival because you know that Pat Travers is in Florida too and I just talked to Pat and those other three bands may have to be the ones and if so it's too bad but I'm looking forward to playing this; I never saw Nektar and the others, so I'm looking forward to it.“
Well, The Fudge and bands such as Nektar and Pat Travers may not tour as extensively as they once did but festivals such as this create opportunities for them to reach their fan base as well as for bands such as Epic Tantrum and acts like Rick LaBonte to reach generational audiences.
“We are a band that is a little different every time you see us," says Ross. "We're not a jukebox, our songs have a structure but there's improvised parts and it's always a little different. I know this; it'll be very guitar heavy because I have two brilliant guitarists that I play with so we try to let them take the lead as much as possible. There'll be a couple of new songs and hopefully it'll just be a really exciting fun way to get the show started. Rick LaBonte is going to be first and then there is going to be the Q&A with Andy Powell from Wishbone Ash which will happen right up on the stage and then we'll play, then Pat Travers and Vanilla Fudge and Nektar. So, it'll be a lot of music and it'll be a lot of fun and if you're a fan of progressive and heavy music and sort of non-mainstream rock]; this this will definitely be the place to be.”
Never one to shy away from speaking his mind; Appice expressed his thoughts on still performing with his Vanilla Fudge band mates and the current state of the music business.
“We’ve been playing since 2005 like I said and before that I played with me, Tim and Vinny from like 1999 until now and then we played with this guy Bill Pascali who sounds like Mark and doesn't play as good a keyboard as Mark but he sounds like Mark. So, we're playing from 1999 to 2005 with that band and we did a lot of stuff; we did a DVD with an orchestra and it's called, “When Two Worlds Collide” and that's on YouTube and we did an album called, “Then and Now” and we went to Europe a bunch of times, we went to Japan and we've done a whole lot of stuff with that band. In 2005 we put the original band back together with Tim, Mark, me and Vinny and we played a tour with The Doors and since then we've been playing and then Tim got in a motorcycle accident and didn't want to play on the road anymore and we got this guy Pete Bremy who has been playing with us for 10 years now and we've been playing with this combination for 10 years. So. it's not like we just got back together again it's been like playing the way we always played; we’ve known each other 55 years and we are comfortable with the songs and we do new songs that we release. I mean, we released “Stop In The Name Of Love” by The Supremes last year and that arrangement has Tim on it and I put new drums on it in my studio and by the time we released that last year, we were the only band from 1968 or 1967 with four original members that released new material and nobody heard it because of the way everything is set up today. There's no radio for Vanilla Fudge. There is video of it on YouTube but when we play it live people go freaking nuts because unlike new bands that play new material; when the audience is hearing it, they're familiar with it and nobody plays new material anymore; right? I went to see Rod Stewart and he has a million views on his new song and I went and saw him, we hung out backstage and he said to the audience, “We’ve got this new song out but most people that want to come to my shows want to hear the hits; am I right?” and everybody shouted, yes! They never played anything new. I went to see KISS the other night and they didn’t play anything new and that's the way it is but with Fudge the songs are songs they know; we screwed around and screwed them up and they like it (laughs). So, at the end of a new song they’re cheering with big cheers. So, with us doing a new record it doesn't pay to do a new record, we could just as easy be doing a song and put it in the set 'cause nobody; I mean with that video we might have and I haven't looked at it in a long time but it might have 15 or 20,000 views and that's nothing split around the world. “Do Ya' Think I'm Sexy” has 212,000,000 views and it went up 10,000,000 views in a few months and that's the difference and you don't get paid any money anymore. I mean, Peter Frampton had 55,000,000 views of something and he made $1,700; it’s a freaking joke.”
So, as the old guard settles in playing "The Hits," the new guard struggles with an ever-changing music industry and fighting for audiences or just to be heard. With that in mind; where does Epic Tantrum go from here?
"We put out our album in January of 2020 right before the pandemic started so it was really not a great time to put out a debut album," said a reflective Ross. "So, we've kind of just been writing and trying to record new material and hoping to get back out on the road. We had plans to do a lot of touring in 2020 or a lot of shows in 2020 I should say and you know once the pandemic started that kind of blew up and this is actually going to be one of our first shows outside of Syracuse which we're excited about. Hopefully, we'll have some new material out early next year; it won't be an album but our goal is just to kind of release EPs and just keep putting stuff out more frequently rather than waiting until we have 10 songs or something like that. So, I don't know for sure because the way music has changed and how it's released; I think we're going to focus on just kind of recording EP's and just putting them out onto the streaming platforms and then eventually taking enough of that material and turning it into a physical product but so much of music is consumed by streaming now that you know it doesn't make sense to wait until we have 10 songs written for an album and the songs we write are pretty complicated and hard to play and it's a bit of a challenge. So, it's nice to just get them recorded and feel like OK, now we can move on and kind of focus somewhere else because otherwise we'll probably just keep tinkering and changing those songs over and over and over again. So, it's kind of a good way to keep moving and putting out more music so that hopefully by early next year we'll have an EP out. I know once we've recorded everything it's just a question of getting it all mixed and all that stuff; I know EPs aren't as exciting to fans of progressive rock and stuff like that but it just seems like a better way for us to keep moving forward.”
To discover more about the October 1 Sea Of Tranquility Fest, please visit https://www.seaoftranquility.org/index.php.
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
