2010

As Barry Manilow sang, “Looks Like We Made It.” We’re a mere two days away from the first of four God Street Wine reunion shows in the band’s hometown of New York City. We recently spoke with GSW drummer Tom “Tomo” Osander about the upcoming shows, what led to his departure from the group, the future beyond the four gigs and plenty of other topics.

[Photo by Robin Roo]

Hidden Track: How much rehearsal time do you guys plan to spend re-learning the material for the four shows?

Tom “Tomo” Osander: Everyone’s been relearning songs on their own for the past few months. I fly in to NYC a few days before the Gramercy shows and we’ll be rehearsing for a couple of days then. A lot of this stuff is ingrained in the brain and muscles from so many years of doing it but there have been some surprises; what’s this section or did I really sing on this song? In one case I even blanked an entire song. I had no recollection of a tune called Chop. Selective memory or something!

HT: How will the setlists for these gigs be chosen?

TO: Lo devised a fairly democratic method of choosing tunes to work on. Basically we had a master list of our entire repertoire over the years which came to about 130 songs not including covers. Each of us then grouped the tunes into songs we wanted to play, song we should play and songs we didn’t want to play. These lists were then whittled down to form a “Top 65”, again not counting covers. The idea being that we’d have very few repeats from night to night, everyone would get to play a good share of their favorites and Lo got to exercise the math side of his brain that’s been at ease for the last while while he’s been dissecting the ins and outs of New Orleans history.

Temporary set lists were put together from that 65 plus a few covers and these are what we’ve been working on to see how they sit. When we get together next week we’ll get a better grip on what’s working and what, if any, don’t seem to be up to snuff. At that point we can rejig the set lists for the four nights. READ ON for more of our interview with Tomo…

The next issue of the Village Voice comes out tomorrow and the cover story hits home – a profile of the Nitrous Mafia and the destruction left in their wake.