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Going to see a hot new rock band on tour used to entail braving drunken mobs and jockeying for position close to the stage. If you're a fan of Pittsburgh's up-and-comers the Dharma Sons and had the right Internet access this summer, your job was made a lot easier. The Dharma Sons were selected as one of the leading bands on the Digital Sight/Sound Virtual Tour 98, a 10-city tour online at www.Virtual-Tour98.com, hosted by MTV's Tim Beggy and sponsored by DSS, one of the premiere digital music download service providers. From the website, fans of the band were able to watch, listen, print out band stickers and purchase copies of the band's latest album, Fit.
The Dharma Sons, who played a New York ASCAP showcase last year, have released three independent albums, the latest being Fit, which received a rave review in Billboard in January of this year. "Front man Rick Bayne is quite the matinee idol-in-training, says Billboard, "though you will first be knocked out by his empathetic lyrics and throaty performance. Buy this album. Play this album. And be happy that you were among the first to embrace a band that actually deserves the dollars in your wallet."
The year was 1995. It was a cold winter night in a small club in Indiana. Two local bands, Planet Earth and Neena Foundry, had finished their sets for the night and decided to get onstage together for an improvised encore. Unbeknownst to the crowd, they were witnessing the birth of Old Pike. Earlier this year in Austin, Texas, not long before they took the stage to play their powerful brand of soulful roots rock at ASCAP's South by Southwest showcase, Old Pike was signed to Sony/550 Records. As far as "overnight" success stories go, that's not too shabby. The band has enjoyed opening for such acts as Ben Folds Five, the Old 97's, Blue Mountain and Soul Asylum. They are currently finishing up their major label album debut, with Jim Scott producing (Tom Petty, Whiskeytown, REM), for release in early 1999, when everything "Old" will be new again.
"I was about 7 years old when I built my first instrument, a sort of marimba made of bamboo and part of a tree trunk," says West African songwriter, arranger and performer Andre Manga, leader of the band Dumazz. "I didn't know what kind of scales I was playing but it was a very cool thing." The lure of making sounds from whatever he could get his hands on, inspired the young Manga to pursue a life of music. Not surprisingly, his talent progressed rapidly. By the age of 17, he was playing bass with the Cameroon National Orchestra. Although he was then offered a job playing bass and touring with world music sensation Manu Dibango, Manga decided to continue his studies in Gabon, West Africa. There he recorded a dozen albums with African artists such as Hilarion Ngeuma, Tour Kone Daouda, Angele Asele and Jean Claude Naimro. In 1988, he moved to Paris to finally work with Dibango. He also assembled a team of Cameroonian musicians to record for Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints album. In 1994, he co-produced several tracks on Dibango's star-studded album Wakafrica, featuring King Sunny Ade, Peter Gabriel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Sinead O'Connor and several other world music stars.
With a growing affinity for jazz, Manga moved to Los Angeles and founded Dumazz (a combination of the Cameroonian word for the baobab tree, a symbol of wisdom, and the word jazz). "The mission of Dumazz is to break down the boundaries of jazz, pop, Afro and funk, " says Manga, "to make the music speak for itself." Now people can hear the music itself with the release of Dumazz's debut album, Mother Rhythm, on Narada/Virgin Records.
PlayBack
: October - November - December 1998
ASCAP PlayBack
