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The ruthless efficiency of our consumer culture in co-opting anything organic and true is the subject of "Colonized," one of the first new songs in more than four years from the San Francisco Bay Area's beloved Mother Hips.
Ironically, for more than a decade the roots-rockers worked overtime trying to market their own music. The industry, for the most part, wasn't buying. Despite a brief, two-album run with Rick Rubin's American Recordings in the mid-Nineties, the band toiled for years on the road-warrior circuit, self-releasing two of its five albums and building a fiercely devoted following, one set of ears at a time.
Those ears are now ringing with word of mouth that the Mother Hips are back together after an extended hiatus.
Singer-guitarist Greg Loiacono, co-founder and co-songwriter with his fellow frontman Tim Bluhm, opted out of the group two years ago, leaving Bluhm, drummer John Hofer and bassist Paul Hoaglin to pursue side projects. But now the Mother Hips have officially reunited, with an EP and single due in November on New York-based Camera Records and a spate of West Coast dates beginning October 28th in Santa Barbara. The band also has plans to play New York and other eastern cities in February.
"We never weren't a band," says Loiacono, "even though we might not have ever played again." Raising a family and working toward certification as a chemical dependency counselor, the singer says the past few years of freedom from the touring grind have helped him renew his appreciation for his band's timeless, fine-tuned brand of California soul.
Recent steps toward reuniting, including a couple of hometown gigs in June in which the band covered Neil Young's classic album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere in its entirety (available for download at motherhips.com), have helped make the band's new commitments feel considerably less "job-ish," says Loiacono. "It's back to what it used to be when we were teenagers," agrees Bluhm. "We're a lot less serious about our ambitions. I hope that's part of getting older and smarter and wiser. You realize all those contrived goals are not as important as enjoying yourself and your friends."
The band now books shows only when they feel right. "The money and the amount of fun -- you balance those out," says Loiacono. It's a marked improvement, he says, over "having to take shows because you have to pay to fix the transmission in the van."
Even Bluhm, the band's peripatetic co-leader -- famous among fans for living on the road, surfing, camping and conducting what appears to be the ultimate California lifestyle -- has settled down somewhat. He now spends summers leading backpacking excursions in Yosemite National Park. "The rest of the time," Loiacono jokes, "I don't know what he does, but he does it."
Before the Mother Hips begin recording the full-length follow-up to 2001's critically acclaimed Green Hills of Earth, Bluhm and Loiacono will lay tracks for a new duo album, their second as the Ball-Point Birds. Loiacono also plans to release an album by his current side project, Sensations, featuring Hoaglin on bass and former Cake drummer Todd Roper, in a matter of weeks.
The new Mother Hips songs on the Red Tandy EP run a familiar gamut, from the vintage late-Sixties harmonies of the title track (like the young Bee Gees, Loiacono says, "pretty darn poppy") to the more psychedelic "Blue Tomorrow" and Bluhm's straight-ahead guitar rocker "Colonized" ("in the vein of Tom Petty's 'Refugee,' maybe," Loiacono suggests).
For the two songwriters, who started the group in the dormitories of Chico State in the early Nineties, the long break has helped improve their relationship and reconfirmed what they have together. "Greg and I sang together for almost fifteen years," says Bluhm. "I just realized what a special connection we have, both personally and musically. It's nice to be reminded."
"We don't spend nearly as much time together as we did," says Loiacono. "There are things I definitely miss about that -- although when we do get together, it hasn't gone away or diminished at all. It's like when a grade-school friend comes back, and all the old humor comes up . . . Both of us agree there's not a better person to be singing with. It hits a really deep level for us."
Mother Hips tour dates:
10/28: Santa Barbara, SOHO
10/29: San Luis Obispo, CA, Downtown Brewing Company
10/31: Mill Valley, CA, Sweetwater Saloon
11/11: Chico, CA, LaSalle's
11/18: Crystal Bay, CA, Crown Room Crystal Bay Club
11/19: Davis, CA, G Street Pub
12/2: San Juan Cap, CA, The Coach House
12/3: Folsom, CA, Powerhouse
12/16: San Francisco, Great American Music Hall
12/17: San Francisco, Great American Music Hall
12/31: San Diego, The Casbah