It's 11:59 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 1999, in the Portland, Maine's State Theater. Rustic Overtones singer Dave Gutter, halfway through a long, sweat-drenched set, doesn't bother telling his band to stop the music, but instead starts yelling the obligatory countdown on top of the current, unstoppable beat.
"Ten, nine, eight " -- the audience couldn't care less about the upcoming unofficial beginning of the new millennium. "Seven, six, five, four " and Gutter seems impatient. "Three, two, one " and the audience cheers and yells '2000!' Gutter points behind him and sings '1999,' then points straight ahead: '2000!' Everyone cheers again, and then the band is suddenly back into the song. It doesn't seem to matter that the Christian odometer has turned over; all that matters is that thousands of us are packed into a beautiful old concert hall listening to the best rock band ever to come out of the state of Maine.
Fast-forward to late May 2001: Rustic Overtones are about to release their major-label debut. "Viva Nueva" (Tommy Boy) is full of so much catchy, eclectic energy that beginning with the album's release on June 5, Rustic -- as every good Maine kid calls them -- might just be the Next Big Thing.
Rustic Overtones are a ska/funk/punk/soul-tinged rock group that has a huge following in their home state and other parts of the Northeast. Their success is due mostly to their last album, 1998's "Rooms by the Hour," released on the indie label Ripchord Records. They are a sextet that includes, in additional to the usual singer, guitarist and bassist, two saxophonists and a keyboardist who favors the Hammond B-3 organ, which creates the vibrato sound found everywhere from gospel music to the Doors to, more recently, Eels.
The band has a devoted following at colleges around New England, and their live shows are renowned for their combination of energy and precision. (In fact, the band played a little-publicized fraternity show at Dartmouth this past Green Key weekend.)
Rustic are also a textbook case of an artist getting the run-around from a record label. The band's loyal fan base was overjoyed when it was announced in 1998 that Rustic was signing with big-name Arista Records. With the signing, it was hoped, would come national radio airplay and sales and maybe even stardom.
But the timing was bad. Arista was undergoing major management shake-ups. The band recorded an entire album's worth of songs in 1999 and 2000, but the label was reluctant to put its full marketing muscle behind a new band at the time, so the band blocked it from being released into almost certain obscurity.
Instead, Rustic asked to be released from the two-album contract they had signed with Arista. In exchange for a one-percent share in any future profits from the album, the label gave Rustic back the rights "Viva Nueva," which was then tentatively titled either "Volume Up" or "This is Rock and Roll." The only Rustic release on Arista ended up being a promo-only EP containing six songs, including four from "Viva Nueva."
But Rustic Overtones were lucky: Kurt St. Thomas, an A&R man for Arista and ardent Rustic supporter who left the label about the same time the band did, signed them to a new deal earlier this year with the slightly smaller -- but still well-established -- label Tommy Boy Records.
The fittingly titled "Viva Nueva" (pidgin Spanish for "New Life") includes several tracks recorded and produced by the band itself in their hometown of Portland while in record-company limbo, and a slew of songs recorded in New York City and produced by longtime David Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, Barenaked Ladies producer Dave Leonard and Rustic Overtones themselves.
The album also features guest vocals from two very different but very impressive performers: Funkmaster Flex and David Bowie.
"Viva Nueva" is a masterful effort. From the opener, a radio single called "C'Mon" with the band's trademark strong horns and driving beat, to the eclectic, ironically space-age Bowie collaboration "Sector Z," the album runs the gamut from soulful, slow jams to effortless, Phishy jams, to irresistible funk, to semi-hardcore punk.
"C'Mon," "Love Underground" and "Check" (a re-recording of the band's biggest local hit) are the kind of songs that make you pound your steering wheel so hard you could break it, while "Hardest Way Possible" (another re-recording), "Baby Blue" and "Valentine's Day Massacre" exude effortless soul.
The band cites influences from 60's and 70's soul to 70's and 80's punk, and it shows. Rustic Overtones combine musical genres with a dexterity that has been achieved in mainstream music only by the Dave Matthews Band, and their sound, like Matthews', is shaped largely by a wide range of instrumentation and by tight, funky beats courtesy of drummer Tony McNaboe, Rustic's answer to DMB's Carter Beaufort.
The main criticism of "Viva Nueva" has been the usual allegation of over-production, the same charge leveled against Dave Matthews' most recent album, "Everyday." While it's true that the new album is crisper and less organic than anything Rustic has recorded in the past, that's mostly a good thing. "Rooms by the Hour," the band's last album, was a hit-or-miss affair: opening tracks like "Feast or Famine," "Check" and "Hardest Way Possible" were superb, while later songs came up short, sounding decidedly unpolished.
That is not the case with "Viva Nueva." Skilled producers have added to, not detracted from, Rustic's sound. All the way through, the album oscillates between the poles of soul and punk, passing through miles of fascinating, uncharted territory in between.
