{"id":21367,"date":"2021-08-03T05:30:12","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=21367"},"modified":"2021-07-30T09:29:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T13:29:59","slug":"thirty-years-with-the-mother-hips-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/03\/thirty-years-with-the-mother-hips-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirty Years with the Mother Hips (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a> \u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Tim Bluhm concedes that the Mother Hips fan base isn\u2019t as large as the following of some other groups, but he believes that their followers\u2019 loyalty more than makes up for their numbers. \u201cThey\u2019re very dedicated to what we do,\u201d he says. But that doesn\u2019t mean that they accept everything uncritically. \u201cWe get feedback from them about what they like,\u201d he says, \u201cand what they don\u2019t<\/i> like. They\u2019re very vocal.\u201d And that feedback isn\u2019t ignored. Bluhm says that fan reaction influences the Mother Hips\u2019 musical direction \u201cprobably more than we realize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s not as if the band is conducting focus groups to figure out what creative avenues to pursue on each successive album. The reality is more subtle and nuanced. Greg Loaicono says that in part, the Mother Hips sometimes use their live performances as a testing ground for new ideas. \u201cEspecially early on when we were on the road so much, our sound checks were rehearsals for new material,\u201d he explains. \u201cThen, we\u2019d play a lot of those new songs live, before we\u2019d record them.\u201d By the time the band arrived at a studio session, the nature of the songs had been influenced by the crowds\u2019 reaction to them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are songs that we started playing live,\u201d Loaicono says, \u201cand we\u2019d realize, \u2018Oh, well: the way that started wasn\u2019t great. We need to figure out a better intro.\u2019 The crowd gave us in-time feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can tell right away when the crowd isn\u2019t into something that they\u2019re hearing,\u201d Bluhm says. That kind of real-time quality control is something that the Mother Hips take seriously. And because of live performance being sidelined for a year and counting, \u201cwe don\u2019t really have that any more, right now,\u201d Bluhm says. \u201cNobody<\/i> does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touring the country for years affected the kind of music that the Mother Hips would go on to make. So, too, did a move in the \u201890s from Chico to the vibrant cultural hub of San Francisco. But relocating to the big city didn\u2019t change things that<\/i> much. \u201cThe road was really our home,\u201d Loiacono says. \u201cWhen we\u2019d come home to San Francisco, it was only for maybe a week or two at a time. Since we started touring, we were just \u2018in the machine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bluhm agrees. \u201cWe were traveling so much,\u201d he says, \u201cand we were at that age where the whole concept of living somewhere and having a home had no significance; it didn’t really matter.\u201d He says that most of the factors that influence the kind of music he writes came to him early. \u201cSome strong threads keep showing up, and I think that they come from the music that we worshiped when we were forming our musical identities.\u201d He chuckles as he makes an admission: \u201cI still try to copy the same songs that I was trying to copy when I was 20 years old!\u201d<\/p>\n

But San Francisco did widen the band\u2019s perspective. \u201cWe\u2019ve never been a super social band,\u201d Loiacono admits. \u201cBut we met a lot of people there. We made some really good musical friends. It felt like we were part of something larger than our little Chico bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Very early on, the band caught the attention of producer and label head Rick Rubin; he signed the Mother Hips to his American Recordings label, which would release 1995\u2019s Part-timer Goes Full<\/i> and Shootout<\/i> from 1996. \u201cThat was definitely the first \u2013 and arguably the most important \u2013 push we ever had in our careers,\u201d Bluhm says.<\/p>\n

With the benefit of hindsight, Bluhm says that he and his band mates \u201cdidn\u2019t even realize how big of a deal it was. We didn\u2019t have the perspective,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe just started a band, made a record, and got signed to a major label. We were just like, \u2018Oh, cool! That was easy.\u2019 We didn’t have an idea of how rare or valuable that opportunity was.\u201d American Recordings gave the Mother Hips significant tour support. \u201cThey also gave us some pretty healthy recording budgets to make those two records,\u201d Bluhm says. \u201cWe reached a lot of people. That’s really what took us out of our little regional bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another turning point followed on the heels of the American Recordings deal. The Mother Hips were added to the H.O.R.D.E. tour lineup, bringing their music to an even wider audience. The band would take part in two H.O.R.D.E. tours in 1994 and \u201895. Loiacono and Bluhm recall being thrilled to be on the same bill with the Black Crowes, Sheryl Crow, Wilco and Blues Traveler.<\/p>\n

To be continued \u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One \u2026 Tim Bluhm concedes that the Mother Hips fan base isn\u2019t as large as the following of some other groups, but he believes that their followers\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,62,64,73],"tags":[4605],"class_list":["post-21367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-indie","category-interview","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-vinyl","tag-mother-hips","cat-39-id","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21378,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21367\/revisions\/21378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}