San Francisco Chronicle
February 18, 2001
Mother Hips hope 'Hills' marks band's rebirth
By James Sullivan
Chronicle Pop Music Critic
An
egg is perfection. A broken egg is just damaged goods.
The Mother Hips have found a way. "Green Hills
of Earth," the California group's fifth album, is the perfect egg.
The Mother Hips -the little band out of Chico
State that was once one of the most promising bands in the Bay Area
- have been damaged goods for years now. Their major-label deal went
south. They've burned bridges, burned up a van and brought bodily harm
to themselves with their reckless behavior.
Not exactly a household name, the band has built
a following throughout the West that's as loyal as dogs. But the Mother
Hips have also struggled for years with image - specifically, that they're
a "jam band." For some music fans that's an asset, but for many others
it's a four-letter word. Those who fall into the latter category tend
to dismiss the Mother Hips out of hand.
If anything at all is right in the crazy world
of music, "Green Hills of Earth" will change all that.
"We're so sick of being called a jam band,"
says Tim Bluhm, the singer-guitarist who shares the band's spotlight
with fellow singer-guitarist Greg Loiacono.
It's an uncommon moment of grousing from this
lanky lifelong surfer, who is as soft-spoken as his eyelashes are blond.
Loath to trot out the old musicians' lament about being "pigeonholed,"
the band members just went out and made a record that is sure to confound
their critics. They mark its release Saturday at Slim's, and there's
plenty to celebrate.
After getting dropped by Rick Rubin's American
Recordings, where the band was a label mate to Johnny Cash and the Black
Crowes,the Mother Hips made a conscious move toward pure "California
soul" on 1998's self-re- leased Later
Days." Sold exclusively on the road and through word of mouth, the
record went a long way toward changing the perception that the band
was just another hippie throwback.
With the new album, the Mother Hips have cut
a deal with Future
Farmer, the wonderful indie label (Jackpot, For Stars) from the
Central Valley that was started with seed money from a skateboard business.
The move is shrewd from both sides: It gives the band the kind of indie
cred that can't be bought, and it gives the label some substantial new
heft.
None of which would matter if the record wasn't
a stunner. "Green Hills of Earth" is a humble, small-scale masterpiece,
one in which the musicians - in addition to Bluhm and Loiacono, there's
the longtime bassist Isaac Parsons and drummer John Hofer, who joined
four years ago - are clearly doting on one another's considerable abilities.
Brimming with echoes of the Byrds, the Kinks,
Fairport Convention and (as the group loves to note) the early Bee Gees,
the album combines the garage-band exuberance and baroque flourishes
of the British Invasion with the open-air feel of the best California
rock.
There's also a rare compromise on the age-old
Beatles/Stones debate: Tim and Greg, as they're known to fans, sing
like angels and play like the devil. The whole package makes "Green
Hills" come off like a long-lost album classic that could only have
resurfaced in 2001.
This band knows a little something about being
out of time. "Sometimes I so badly wish I was born lOO years ago," says
Bluhm, who lives out of his truck, camping in the Western wilds or surfing
in Costa Rica when the band is not on the road (which is often more
than 200 nights a year).
"I like to imagine the San Francisco hills with
nothing on them, or L.A. when grizzly bears were still walking around."
The historic Wild West has an obvious allure
for Mother Hips members, who are fond of gold-mining images and named
one of their albums Shootout
As if to vault themselves as far from their
own problematic image as possible, the band members took the name of
their new album from a futuristic Robert Heinlein story. "It's about
a musician in outer space who sings songs to people who used to be from
Earth," Bluhm explains. By contrast, the Mother Hips were once headed
in the other direction: They readily admit they were well on their way
to hell.
"It's no secret," says Bluhm.
"It had to go one way or the other," says Loiacono
- "a full lifetime commitment to hard drug use, or stop." So the band,
well-known for its indulgence on the road, simply stopped cold turkey.
"I don't have any regrets" about the excesses,
says Bluhm, who can't help smiling as he says it. But seriously: "We
never worked so hard as when we were loaded. We were in the zone."
The two musicians are sitting in the tidy white-walled
living room of the Mission-style apartment that Loiacono and his newlywed
share in Oakland. The building, he says, is famous for once having Peter
Fonda as a tenant.
Over green tea and a plate of breakfast pastry,
the brotherly band mates share a knowing laugh about their rowdy days
together. Was there a specific incident that brought on their clean-living
vows?
"How about the one where I thought I was having
a heart attack?" Bluhm blurts, setting down his mug. "We were, like,
trotting around our hotel room in our underwear, sprinkling water on
ourselves."
The laughter dies down. The thing that hurt
most, Loiacono says, was that the band nearly lost sight of the sheer
joy of singing together.
If
you have broken eggs, how do you make them whole again?