A funny thing happened on my way see Heavy Breathing on Friday, June 28 at the Black Cat—I fell down an open manhole. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt. Unfortunately I wasn’t alone. For who did I find standing over me but England Dan, of England Dan and John Ford Foley fame. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Hard times, very hard times indeed,” he answered. “Where’s John Ford Coley?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, suddenly evasive. “You see, well, the uncomfortable fact is… I had to eat him.”
“Eat him?” I cried. “You think it’s easy subsisting on an all-rat diet?” he snapped. “One’s stomach cries out for a change of pace, and it’s not like you can order Chinese take out from a sewer.” I ran then, and was lucky to find another sewer grate with a ladder, which I scaled with rats hanging off me like Vietnamese clinging to the skids of the last helicopter out of Saigon, the voice of England Dan echoing behind me, “Stay! I haven’t talked to a single human being since I ate John! And you’re so PLUMP!”
Heavy Breathing may just be DC’s most innovative and exciting band. They’re willing to take real musical risks and sound like nobody you’ve ever heard before, which is what rock’n’roll, the best rock’n’roll anyway, has always been about. Heavy Breathing evolved out of long-term DC mainstays The Apes–i.e., Erick Jackson, Amanda Kleinman, Jeff Schmid, and Breck Bunson–who played some 500 shows and released four LPs of prog-metal skronk (think King Kong guitar riffs and the heaviest, most baroque organ this side of The Band’s “Chest Fever”) before going on hiatus in 2008 because, as Jackson told me, “We wanted to do something different.”
They finally hit upon that “something different” in 2010, when Kleinman, Jackson, and Schmid ditched singer Bunson in favor of canned vocals, a risky and ingenious move that has paid off in spades. Meanwhile, Jackson swapped his bass for a guitar and moog, while Kleinman hung up her organ (not an easy thing to do, hanging up an organ) in favor of electric keys and a synthesizer. As for drummer Jeff Schmid, he traded in his drums for an identical set of drums, ostensibly just to have something to do.
Why do I love Heavy Breathing? Because to attempt something completely different in a world of cookie-cutter music is no small matter—indeed, it’s a miracle. Nintey percent (this is a precise figure, provided by my personal statistician Alexandra Lohse) of the rock bands out there are as risk averse as your average mortgage banker, unwilling to take any real chances lest they blow their chance at the golden ring. The sad fact is that most rock bands suck, and most rock bands that don’t suck don’t matter, and most rock bands that don’t matter don’t matter because they have all the originality of a Die Hard sequel, without all the cool exploding shit. Hand him a set of balls, and about the only thing your typical rocker would know to do with them is lick them real loud.
Heavy Breathing plays a fractured, busy, and very groove-heavy species of funk rock driven by Jackson’s power chords and helter skelter guitar, Kleinman’s seemingly infinite vocabulary of new wave, classic rock, and prog keyboard riffs, and the powerhouse drumming of Jeff Schmid, all topped off with lots of programmed vocal phrases and shout-outs, heaps of syntheizer blips and bleeps, and even (I think) a canned cowbell. (You can find it in the canned instrument aisle of your local Whole Foods.)
The band’s eponymous 2012 debut album is one of the most innovative and exciting albums I’ve heard since Sammy Davis Jr.’s Mr. Entertainment (I don’t know about you, but I think it’s amazing how he could sing with just one eye like that.) Just check out “U The One I Want,” which should be at No. 1 on every radio station in the land and begins with drums and a voice that says “I like your style” before evolving into a very funky dance tune featuring ethereal synth riffs, chunky power chords, some explosive drum work, and a canned black vocalist repeating such phrases as “Baby, baby,” “U the one I want,” and my personal favorite, “I’m going to come.” Ditto for the wonderfully groovy and uptempo “Higher Bodies,” a power-chord strewn slice of heavy metal funk featuring great guitar work by Jackson, canned vocals (by what sounds like Pere Ubu’s David Thomas) repeating the phrases “Higher” and “Na na na na na na na na,” and some truly frenetic drum pummel by Sommers, before closing in a caterwaul of noise and canned applause.
Also great is “Minds Alive,” which features perky keyboard riffs, some hushed female vocals, and Sommer’s sniper-rifle precision drumming. As for “Autobus,” it opens with a Teutonic keyboard riff before evolving into a bouncy dance number driven by Kleinman’s high-pitched synth riffs, some fractured guitar by Jackson, and a very cool canned female vocal before ending in a cacophony of electronic blips and bleeps. “Rock Mountain/The Van” opens with an ominous synth riff and voices intoning the words “Inhale/Exhale” before exploding into a a funky groove featuring some very hip male vocals, Sommer’s mad sick drum thump, Jackson’s powerhouse guitar riffs, and keyboards that leapfrog from blip-blop to new wave to prog, proving my thesis that Amanda Kleinman is really Carl Palmer with breasts. As for “Ego Nights,” all I can say is that if it isn’t the funkiest groove since “Green Onions” my name is Michael Franks, and if you tickle my taint I’ll involuntarily break into “Popsicle Toes.”
As for the show, which I arrived at one minute before it was slated to begin with a rodent or two still clinging to my back, it was as good as I expected, although I could have done without Kleinman, wearing a red mask and a blond wig, attempting to warm up the crowd with some humor. Unfortunately Kleinman is no David Lee Roth (who is?), and her comedic schtick left me thinking much more highly of the loathsome Dana Carvey. She finally retreated behind the keyboards, a programmed voice intoned, “We are Heavy Breathing. You are now in the now,” and the band launched into “Pleasure of Witch,” with Sommers—whose hyperactive and cymbal-heavy drum style involves bringing the drum sticks high over his head and kicking the shit out of the bass drum, making him as fun to watch as Keith Moon—providing a funky syncopated beat, followed by Jackson playing some very quirky guitar riffs and Kleinman throwing in some squealing synth noise, programmed male vocals, and canned cowbell. DC audiences are notorious for imitating pillars of salt during shows, but “Pleasure of Witch” (and the rest of the band’s songs) actually got them moving, albeit (you could tell they were out of practice) like zombies being zapped with pulses of electricity.
The band followed with “All the Children,” an uptempo monster of a song featuring some very frantic guitar and T-Rex power chords, lots of blips and beeps, and cool vocals, then went into “If U Know the Rock” from a brand new EP, “I Know Vol. 1,” that Heavy Breathing handed out free at the show. Slower and featuring lots of crystalline synth riffs, there was absolutely nothing “rock” about “If U Know the Rock,” with the exception of Sommers’ barbaric drumming and a few canned screams, provided by a black male vocalist with a voice bigger than Liechtenstein. Then came “Rock Mountain/The Van,” which opened with gigantic drums, some great power chords, and a funky synth riff that had Kleinman dancing behind the keyboards before evolving into a gargantuan groove that sounded like a collaboration (oh, if only) between Funkadelic and Black Sabbath.
“Gimmie Mine,” the opening track off the new CD, opened with some baroque keyboards. Then the drums kicked in, a canned vocalist repeated the phrase “Gimmie gimmie,” and Jackson threw in some power chords and Kleinman played a repetitive keyboard riff topped off by some by some squealing synth. Next up was “Autobus” with its big power chords, repetitive canned female vocals, and superfunky drum work, all accompanied by Kleinman’s catchy and fast new wave riffs and lots of space age blips and bleeps. Then came “Bad Vibes,” also off the new EP, which opened with a pretty melody, a shocker for Heavy Breathing. It was also more complex, with lots of chord changes, and wasn’t as groove-oriented as the rest of the band’s repertoire. In short it was more prog than funk and made for a nice change of pace.
Heavy Breathing then went into the great “Higher Bodies,” a propulsive body-rocker that opened with some canned vocals, big drums, and dissonant guitar before busting into the biggest, funkiest groove–which included some very amusing (at least to me) prog keyboard runs by Kleinman–they played all night. As for show closer/encore “Eazy,” it disappointingly sounded nothing like the great Lionel Richie. Instead it opened with some smash bam drumming followed by a big guitar riff before kicking into a midtempo groove featuring wailing black male vocals, a vaguely Middle Eastern keyboard riff and some cool keyboard runs, and some righteous power chords.
As I stood at stage front listening to “Eazy” and admiring the band’s low-budget smoke machine, which emitted approximately as much smoke as your average cigarette, I came to the conclusion that while necessity may be the mother of invention, pure pursuit of the new is its father. As for Heavy Breathing, it always seems to have a surprise up its sleeve. For example, Jackson told me the band plans to “record two new songs with our original singer this summer for a 7-inch.” Just then the song ended with Jackson doing an impressive series of Pete Townshend’s patented bent-leg sky leaps, and I left with a single rat, who told me he enjoyed the show as much as I did, still clinging to my back.
The next day I returned to the open manhole with an order of Kung Pao shrimp with eggrolls and a package of Oreos. England Dan’s demented eyes lit up and he commenced to devouring the Chinese with his bare hands. Afterwards, we talked for a while. He said, “We were huge! We played small amusement parks! We could have been bigger than Seals and Crofts! But we lacked the courage of our convictions. Now you take Heavy Breathing–” “You’ve heard of Heavy Breathing??” I asked. “I live in a sewer, not outer space,” he snapped. “Anyway, they have what we always lacked–balls.” With that we both fell silent. Then England Dan began to sing, and I joined in, and the sewers of Washington, DC resounded with the echoes of “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight.”
Photo: © Craig Hudson Photography from the band’s Facebook page.
