Fringe benefits

V Majestic's secret handshakes

by Michael Caito

Without Medicine Ball, V Majestic and Flydaddy Records there may never have been a Terrastock Festival, so it's a tribute to the hard work of organizers Mark Stone (Medicine Ball bassist), Robert Jazz (V Majestic frontman) and Newport's Flydaddy Records that it went off at all. If it wasn't for some unforeseen folderol by the local carabinieri and cohorts, they might have had more success raising decent coin for Nick Saloman and Phil McMullen's British psych/neo-psychrock music mag. Recent e-mail correspondence with Jazz lent insight into the upcoming trek of Medicine Ball and "the V" to San Francisco, where both bands reprise musical roles from the international festival held in Olneyville last spring.

This time around, Jazz explains, things are different. Well, besides the fact that it's 3000 miles away, it's a far more costly nut to make for the Rhode Island pair, and nobody can run over and inhale internationally-respected hot weiners between sets. The re-inclusion of these two bands means Rhode Island is again well-represented artistically, so it's fitting that these emissaries will receive a rousing bon voyageon Saturday.

Q:Why isn't ska psychedelic?

A: Because ska is black and white, and psychedelic is pink and green.

Q: Where can one find the Ptolemaic Terrascope?

A: Terrascopes find you, you can not go looking for them.

Q: How will this Terrastock be different for you?

A: I will only be enjoying Terrastock as a performer and not as an organizer -- therefore my ratio of happiness and mind-altering relaxation vs. stress and annoyance will be quite different (I probably also speak for Mark Stone and Kevin O'Leary of Flydaddy, but don't hold me to this).

While Terrastock was a wondrous experience, you'll notice that none of us, by choice, have anything to do with the organizing of Terrastock West. While I think it's great to do it again in S.F. and I'm excited about it, I also think it could have remained a one-off event.

Q: How has your debut record fared?

A: The V Majestic disc has just gone to a second larger pressing. The new pressing has advanced artwork with a booklet featuring some retina-damaging graphics. We also have the Flydaddy bar-code on the back, so we are now completely immersed in numbers, codes and secret handshakes.

Every single review of the record we've gotten is a really good one.

We are going to properly service the album with this new printing, meaning large mailings to press, radio and whathaveyou.

Q: How has it grown on you?

A: The subjective burn-out subsided, so I listened to the album while out of my mind recently and thought, this really is a good first album -- a fine fucked-up adventurous song-cycle, if you pay attention.

Q: Any new studio work coming out?

A: We did a split single with Medicine Ball to commemorate and sell at Terrastock West. Believe it or not, we are also now putting together a 10-CD limited edition box set to sell at Terrastock, through Flydaddy and through distributors. This is only about 700-plus hours of the total V. experience. After we get back and think up some new secret handshakes, we'll think about the next studio album.

V Majestic and Medicine Ball perform on Saturday at the Century Lounge.

HEAVY C'S. Like Italian master of bel canto Vincenzo Bellini before him, Gaetano Donizetti sought to span the oft-wide chasm separating music and theatre. Frequently, over the years, the major dish of Donizetti was that he wrote haphazardly due to creativity-snuffing deadlines. Patron and impresario both were impatient lots, and ya gotta eat, so Donizetti blasted through 73 operas in his life, the most enduring of which was 1835's Lucia di Lammermoor, based on the work by Sir Walter Scott. La Fille du Régiment, put up tonight (4/9) by the touring company of the New York City Opera, proved a star-maker in the `60s for Pavarotti, who decimated house after house at the Metropolitan in New York with his tenor Tonio. "Ah mes amis" is an omigod apogee climaxed by nine high Cs in a row, a bit of operatic brass ballsiness which by itself prevents Donizetti's Daughter from being sung too often.

For all the superficiality strictures heaped on Donizetti's canon, hardcore operaticians recognize the vitality of his position, especially given subsequent works by Giuseppe Verdi, whose early craft bore too-eerie similarities to Donizetti's style, and who blatantly ripped off Donizetti in Aida's Grand Chorus. One performance only, tonight, with low-dough rush tickets available starting 30 minutes before curtain at Vets. Supertitled for the Francophobe in you.

On Friday there's a listening party at the Century for the latest Big Noise Records opus, Digital Side of the Moon. This time it's five CDs and again it's genre-nonspecific, with emphasis on several blends of rock, folk, and blues. I'd find the one with the Comic Book Super Heroes track, and maybe the re-mix of a 1981 song by Michael Paradise which features late legend Paul Murphy on lead guitar and backing vocals in a Phil Greene-remastered cut by the band Backtrax. Other notables include Young Neal, Slow Drive with Arna, Cold Zipper, Rock Hunt semifinalists Satellite Elvis, Mill City Rockers, Christian rockers Brethren, Jonee Angel's new band Alphajerk and, well, about four more CDs.

Lynchpins:LL Cool J hits the Civic Center on Saturday with a host of up-and-comers; reggae godfather Burning Spear's '97 release Appointment with His Majesty (Heartbeat) finds the elder statesman in fine form again with his Burning Band, especially on their tingling paean to Jerry Garcia "Play Jerry." To listen to him in 1998 is to realize the global appeal of reggae far away from Jamaica, and certainly far away from that fateful day when, with the encouragement of fellow St. Ann's native Bob Marley, Spear ventured into Studio One. As far-flung as reggae's tendrils now spread, Majesty brings it all back to tiny St. Ann's with reflections on the work of another famous native, Marcus Garvey. Seven Grammy nominations later, the spirit shines anew at Lupo's on Friday night. The Met has a week chock-full of quality, with the Rebecca Hart Project Saturday, Showcase Showdown and Brooklyn Steamer on Sunday, State of Corruption on Tuesday and Ether on Wednesday. It's all good. Future shock: Duke Robillard and Kristin Hersh at the Call May 2 and 13, respectively.