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"Big Sugar in dub," reads the marquee, but is it Big Sugar or not? And what is "dub"? If it ain't rock 'n' roll, man, there'll be hell to pay.
These are legitimate concerns. This band has gone through recent odd mutations that include acoustic blues on banjo (at the folk fest) and French versions of hits on an EP called Chauffe a Bloc, meaning "heat up the party," more or less. Alkaline sounds suspicious.
"Relax," says Big Sugar boss Gordie Johnson (the best-dressed rock musician in Canada). Alkaline is, in fact, a new and improved version of Big Sugar. In addition to the band's four musicians (with yet another new drummer, Al Cross, who was actually the original drummer), there are three horn players, a DJ and an additional guitarist. An expensive entourage, to be sure, but as Johnson says, "We're only in it for fun."
Dub, he explains, is a technique in reggae whereby the soundman becomes a fully functioning member of the band, giving new meaning to the term "loose nut behind the board." Promising a three-hour show, Johnson says fans should be able to recognize a lot of Big Sugar songs (the same cannot be said of Alkaline's recent album, Extra Long Life), plus lots that no one has ever heard live before.
"I don't expect people to sit through three hours of drum and bass," he says. "We've been doing this live anyway. People have heard us do I'm a Ram or Joe Louis and we go into a Steel Pulse song or whatever. It's not completely uncharted territory for our fans. Plus, I'll have my whole guitar rig with me, my stack of Marshalls and my double-necks. It's great for me because I actually get to play more guitar, to take my time and play huge soundscape-y guitar passages as I see fit."
Messing with the Big Sugar stew is just a survival strategy. If the band played "stoner rock" all the time, they'd get bored. There are many raw ingredients that go into Big Sugar - rock, reggae, blues and Hank Williams vocals - so, Johnson says, "we've got to go out there and stoke the fire up a little bit and dig into what we love about music and the origins of the music that we love."
Johnson is halfway into the next Big Sugar album, but recently took a "holiday" to produce Stew, the new CD from Wide Mouth Mason (in stores July 25). Wide Mouth opens for the Guess Who next Wednesday.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MORE BIG SUGAR PROJECTS:
Big Salt-Lick - country
Great Big Sugar - Celtic rock
Enormous Sugar - heavy metal
Big Sugar Substitute - techno
Little Sugar - children's music
Brown Sugar - Rolling Stones tribute
Big Sugarcube - acid jazz