{"id":5161,"date":"2014-01-30T05:29:06","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T10:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=5161"},"modified":"2024-12-09T10:06:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T15:06:00","slug":"the-brotherhood-phi-volk-interview-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2014\/01\/30\/the-brotherhood-phi-volk-interview-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brotherhood \/ Phil Volk Interview, Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Three<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Kopp:<\/strong> We’ve talked in the past about the relatively few live dates that Brotherhood did. On those dates, which songs from the pair of albums did you perform live, and how did they differ from the studio versions? <\/span><\/p>\n

Phil \u201cFang\u201d Volk: <\/strong>We had to stick with songs that could rock, and were simple enough to pull off live, as well as show that we were really just a kick-ass rock band. Our first Brotherhood <\/em>album had confused our \u201crock image\u201d a bit, because it was very theatrical and thematic with lots of big productions and orchestrations. It was our Sgt. Pepper<\/em> approach). The songs we pulled from the first album were: \u201cClose the Door,\u201d \u201cDoin\u2019 the Right Thing,\u201d \u201cWoman Unkind,\u201d Ice Cream,\u201d \u201cSomebody,\u201d and our single, \u201cJump Out the Window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the second Brotherhood album the obvious choices were: \u201cDon\u2019t Let Go,\u201d \u201cFamily Tree,\u201d \u201cDeep Blue Sea,\u201d \u201cWhen the Chips Are Down,\u201d \u201cBack Home Again,\u201d and of course, the covers: \u201cCalifornia Dreamin\u2019,\u201d \u201cRose Garden,\u201d and \u201cWhen I Get Home.\u201d Some of these songs didn\u2019t work as well live, because the background vocals were weaker than the album sound, or the rock and roll energy was missing on some of the medium tempo songs like \u201cIce Cream\u201d or \u201cDoin\u2019 The Right Thing.\u201d It was hard to stretch out on most of these songs because the arrangements were fairly tight and set.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia Dreamin\u2019\u201d gave us some opportunity to open up, as well as the bluesy stuff like \u201cDeep Blue Sea,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Let Go,\u201d and \u201cFamily Tree.\u201d We had to throw in some Paul Revere and the Raiders<\/strong> material, especially the songs I was known for: songs like \u201cBaby, Please Don\u2019t Go\u201d and \u201cGet It On.\u201d We also threw in some other cover tunes like \u201cSeason of the Witch\u201d and \u201cCatch the Wind\u201d by Donovan<\/strong>, and \u201cOut of Sight\u201d by James Brown<\/strong>. We always managed to dip into our roots with some songs by Ray Charles<\/strong> (\u201cWhat\u2019d I Say\u201d), Fats Domino<\/strong> (\u201cHello Josephine\u201d) and Little Richard<\/strong> (\u201cLong Tall Sally\u201d).<\/p>\n

Bill Kopp: <\/strong>The booklet that accompanies Brotherhood: The Complete Recordings<\/em> features photos that show organist Lee Michaels<\/strong> onstage with the band. How many gigs did you do with him, and how did his presence change the sound of the group? <\/span><\/p>\n

His only studio presence was on the second Brotherhood album, where he played the organ on \u201cRose Garden.\u201d He used to hang out at our sessions on a regular basis, and he would often jam with us in the studio between recordings, or when the engineers were on lunch breaks, or when there was down time.<\/p>\n

Other friends would join in, like David Crosby<\/strong>, as well as members of Jefferson Airplane<\/strong>, who were recording in the studio next to us. Lee would often show us some of the stuff he was writing, which led to Drake and I producing a couple of his songs.<\/p>\n

As far as gigs go, he performed with us a couple of times when the gigs were local, in the Los Angeles area \u2013 a couple of college gigs is what I recall. I wish he would\u2019ve joined Brotherhood, but he wanted a solo career, and he eventually found his niche, and made some hits. Drake played extensively on a couple of his albums. Lee and his wife, and Tina and I would often play tennis together.<\/p>\n

A few years after all this happened, and Brotherhood had broken up, and we all started losing touch with some of our music friends, something kind of bizarre happened. I got a call from Lee\u2019s drummer, Frosty<\/strong>, who had played that iconic concert with Lee at the Hollywood Bowl when they were at their zenith. Frosty wanted to come over to my house and demonstrate the Kirby Vacuum System. No lie…this was for real. I asked him, \u201cFrosty, are you still playing drums?\u201d He said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m selling vacuums!\u201d He wasn\u2019t kidding. So we made an appointment, because I sort of felt sorry for him, and I couldn\u2019t understand why this stellar drummer was selling vacuums. He said he was making more money selling vacuums, and that he was excited to demo the product for me. This all felt a little surreal to me, but nonetheless, he showed up at my house wearing a suit and tie, looking very business-like, and he proceeded to give me one of the best vacuum demonstrations I\u2019d ever seen, bar none. He was as good at vacuum demos as he was at drumming. He blew me away! It was like a one-man show! He was so entertaining, I couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t buy the vacuum, because I didn\u2019t have enough bread. I was an out-of-work musician! What irony!<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/em><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Three… Bill Kopp: We’ve talked in the past about the relatively few live dates that Brotherhood did. On those dates, which songs from the pair of albums […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62,64],"tags":[427,1668,1796],"class_list":["post-5161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","category-reissue","tag-brotherhood","tag-paul-revere-and-the-raiders","tag-real-gone-music","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5161","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=5161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28670,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5161\/revisions\/28670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}