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Keyboardist Greg Kurstin doesn't have a rock star industry ego bone in his body. His "aw shucks" hands shoved in his pockets style and humility make for the perfect disguise. He could be that quiet guy standing next to you at the show -- his show -- checking out the opening act, and you just wouldn't know it until he took his place on stage. Although he maintains the same everyman attitude when he performs, the disguise is forced to fall away as soon as he starts playing and his musical prowess becomes evident. His name may not be household even to music fans who've inevitably heard or seen him play, but within the music community it's a well-known fact that the guy's got chops.
Ask the bands he's collaborated with -- the Red Hot Chili Peppers (on Californication) Jane's Addiction (at the most recent Coachella) or even better yet the Barenaked Ladies , who called him back in 1998 the day before they left for tour to see if he could fill in for Kevin Hearn, who had fallen ill with Leukemia. "I had to learn all their songs in one day," Kurstin remembers.
The Ladies dig him so much that they started playing the Action Figure Party album before their set. Finally, they decided they just needed to get him on tour. Instead of adding Action Figure Party as a third opening act, they decided to build an exclusive side stage for Kurstin and his not-quite-permanent-yet lineup. There they perform a pre-show forty-five-minute set, then follow it up with two twenty-minute sets between the main-stage acts.
Still not convinced? Ask the list of guests on Action Figure Party's debut eponymous album (Blue Thumb): drummers Jose Pasillas (Incubus) and Brian Reitzell ( Air, Redd Kross), percussionist John Molo (drummer for Hornsby / the Other Ones/ Phil Lesh and Friends), RHCP bassist Flea, Dr. Dre/Eminem bassist Mike Elizondo, violinist and bassist Daniel Shulman ( Garbage, Run-D.M.C.), Buckcherry guitarist Yogi, trombonists Gabrial McNair (No Doubt) and David Ralicke ( Beck), Cibo Matto buddies Miho Hatori and Sean Lennon... the list goes on. Kurstin's personal phone file reads like a rock & roll who's who.
"Some of these people, like Flea, aren't used to taking orders," says manager Yonnie McKeever. "Yet," he explains less as a salesman than as a fan, "when they came into the studio and Greg said, 'I want you to play this part exactly like this,' they all did. They admire him that much."
The danger inherent in emphasizing these high-profile cameos, of course, is that too many people might rely on the name-dropping and lose sight of the real picture: the sheer groove of this jazz/jam/funk/rock hybrid. Sure, someone sits in occasionally when AFP hit the road, but checking out Action Figure Party with the express purpose of trying to catch one of these folks pretty much misses the point. After all, the songs were Kurstin's before his famous friends joined in with a bit of bass or a little turntable scratching. And, make no mistake, they're still his when he takes the stage.
"It's a lot of fun because a lot [of the material] was written for the studio," he says. "The songs get a new life when I go live. We get to stretch out some of the sections, adding new arrangements and making new steps. I'm starting to add new instruments like the vocoder. The horns have been trying new lines . . ."
The trippy funk album opener "Everybody Ready," the bouncy fuzz rock of the self-titled "Action Figure Party," the soulful "Pong Baby," and smooth electro-jazz of "Gamera" all translate perfectly in person. In fact, the only time the live show doesn't "live up to" the album is during "Clock Radio," where Beck-tronica meets Santana "Smooth"ness. Miho Hatori's background vocals on the tune are just too prominent (and precious) to be accurately replicated by an all-male band. In all fairness, though, when the petite singer herself made an appearance with the group at New York's Knitting Factory in May, even she couldn't pull off a decent reenactment; it's possible that the studio arrangement (for which she's credited on the album) is too complicated and it simply can't be done.
While trad jazz purists might want to stick to the closing number "Flow," jam and alternative audiences should find the entirety of Kurstin's eclectic experiment plenty appealing: genre mixing, set list switch-ups, improv solos, but nothing that hits the thirty-minute mark . . . yet.
"Once you get into it it's fun to take it different places, especially when people are dancing and they just won't let us stop," Kurstin says. "I'll try to end a song and they'll say, 'No, keep going!' We're composing on the spot at times."
It's this spontaneity that Kurstin thinks makes the band an especially solid live draw. "When people come see us they'll see that they're getting something unique, and every time they come again they'll get something different."
ROBIN A. ROTHMAN
(August 7, 2001)