Postcards: Double Dip – Perpetual Groove @ Brooklyn Bowl Review and Photos + Matt McDonald Interview

This past Saturday night marked the return to New York of longtime Perpetual Groove keyboardist Matt McDonald for the first time since 2008, when he departed the band, until coming back into the fold during the band’s New Year’s run. The quartet did not disappoint. McDonald and his band mates played a two set affair with song selections culled from the band’s oldest and newest compositions, and featured the most poignant of encores. PGroove kicked off the performance with a recent entry into the band’s repertoire, Holy Ship, which showcased bassist Adam Perry on rare backing vocals, and was a great way to ease into a the show. By the end of the evening, attendees at the sold out performance, held at Brooklyn Bowl, were treated to a retina-blinding and ear, heart and soul-piercing relentless explosion from the Georgia-based band.

[All Photos by Mitch Manzella]

As the first set rolled on with a deliriously dark cover of the Butthole Surfers’ Pepper, my first true feeling that the PGroove of old was back was during the middle of Stealy Man. Led by his signature sonic swirls and knob tweaks and twirls, McDonald and guitarist Brock Butler guided the band through several verses of TV on the Radio’s DLZ. A powerful reminder that the band was an impulsive, improvisational group at heart, I couldn’t help but pump my fist and bang my head, quickly forgetting that it had been almost four years since I had seen McDonald with his band mates at Amberland in 2008, the band’s annual Memorial Day festival, which marked Matt’s last shows with PGroove until late 2011.

“I guess this is a time we can be very clear about this. We chose not to renew a contract. We didn’t fire anyone. On our end there was no ill will. We just didn’t see why we were giving [our management] so much fucking money.”Matt McDonald

But, as McDonald would tell me the following night in an exclusive, in-depth interview on my couch, the second set was the best one he’s played since his return, and possibly one of his “top five ever.” Yes, it was that good. The closing stanza featured some of the biggest songs in the PGroove arsenal including the Mr. Transistor opener, the catchy TTFPJ and another fine addition to the group’s catalog, Man with All the Answers. The set spilled well over the boiling point in no time at all and came to a raucous end with the tune that always represented McDonald’s time in the band – Robot Waltz. Perpetual Groove closed out the show with their signature hand/rock gestures thrown in the air at the song’s conclusion, and was mimicked by nearly everyone of the 837 paid patrons in attendance at the sold-out show.

However, following the relentless onslaught that PGroove brought throughout the two sets, we were quickly reminded of just how nice a bunch of guys these Athens boys are. For the encore, the quartet debuted a cover of Dawes’ A Little Bit of Everything. They dedicated the song to longtime fan and friend, Chris Cartelli and his wife Audi. Chris is a recent cancer survivor and to simply watch him in the loving embrace of his wife during this tune, was incredibly special. The parting tune, Only Always, also a very poignant song, left the Cartelli-dedicated show and encore with the inspiring message:

All the saddest things I’ve seen
Don’t come close to what has been
All the great things left to be
Things that keep me in between

Make sure to download this second set and help support Cartelli in his newest venture – Rocking Out Cancer.

The day after the show I spoke with Matt McDonald about his return to Perpetual Groove. Matt was extremely forthright about his experience in this revealing interview.

Hidden Track: This has got to be a surreal kind of feeling. When we spoke the last time, you told me about how your return to the band came about, but now that’s it’s been a few months, and you’ve actually been back, tell me what that’s been like?

Matt McDonald: Yeah, I think when we talked last time, it was the right when the news broke about me coming back versus having been back. It’s nothing short of amazing, almost every night, definitely every week. Jam Cruise was super humbling in this very warm welcome back. At the same time it was only the third and fourth shows back with the guys, so it was definitely still kicking the cobwebs off, working through some stuff, but I would say it’s been kind of been tiered.

There was a Ziggy’s show in late January, early February down south where I felt like that was the first whole show, start to finish that we really hit it. And then, there’s been several shows since then. We did a two night run in Charleston where both shows were fantastic. Several really good shows – I feel like it keeps getting better. I think last night, here in the city, especially the second set, might be the best PGroove set I’ve played. Definitely since coming back, maybe in my top five ever. I felt the second set last night was pretty fire. We were all really inspired, and everything going on with Chris [Cartelli], and that whole thing, and seeing old friends…and sold out shows always help.

It’s super awesome. I won’t lie, it’s a little tricky, like this run was the first time I was out all week. Not just a weekend warrior, but I think it was ten or eleven days that we just wrapped up. Honestly, it was super fun. I kind of like being on tour and being on the road. I think if I had to go another full week I might be like, “Eh,” but I definitely have another couple of days in me.

HT: We were talking about work earlier. How has this been working out in terms of the schedule, not just in terms of you, but the other guys as well?

MM: It’s definitely better than tours of past, but I do think we’d mind going out for a couple of weeks versus the weekend warrior thing. Like even this one, Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday, then we played Thursday, Friday, Saturday in Virginia, where we could have done a Tuesday or a Wednesday night towards Virginia coming from here [NYC], and taking a couple of days off here in the city. But, Adam also wants to get home to [his son] Davis, I want to get home to [Matt’s son] James, go into the office for a couple of days, which I need to do, check in, and let them all know I still work there technically! [Laughs] I think somewhere in the middle is going to end up being the final answer.

Doing the every weekend, weekend warrior thing won’t work out, where we do a month of the weekend thing and then go do a two-week run where it makes sense, then take a week and a half, or even the second half of the month off. I mean, we could have more rehearsal time. In April and May, that’s one thing that is really cramming our schedule.

HT: Leading up to Amberland?

MM: Right. We’re writing a bunch of new songs. I know for a fact that Adam, myself, Albert and Brock all have two new songs a piece. So, that’s eight new tunes just on those, and I think there’s more than that, truth be told. But, we also don’t want to debut all the new stuff all at once because we’ve done that in the past and it doesn’t really work out. You know, playing these weird sets where we want to play the new stuff, and the audience is like, “Oh, I don’t know this.” So we are going to try and take our time with it. There’s also a couple of new covers that we are super-stoked about that are going to take some real work.

“Until someone can show me why I should give them $100,000 a year for something that I’m pretty certain we can do on our own, until that day comes and they can say, ‘we can get you this, this and that,’ then we are not signing shit with anyone.”Matt McDonald

HT: How much have you guys been rehearsing now versus before you came back?

MM: Before I came back, we were trying to get it in as often as we could. It’s just with the reality of our schedules, it can be really tricky. But what we have been really good at this tour is how to utilize sound check as rehearsal time now. So I would say we are getting at least an hour a day. The improv part, fortunately, as soon as I came back wasn’t really the problem, it was just the execution and stuff, but the improvisation has also been better and better.

HT: So you would say sound check is one of the biggest differences in terms of you actually utilizing that time to actually be productive now?

MM: For sure! We get the levels right and everything, and then we are like, “Ok, Let’s practice.” It might be one song, or it might be two or three songs. The Dawes tune we did for Cartelli last night, Brock and I had run it at my house a few weeks ago, and then we ran it both nights for sound check in Boston. The second night in Boston, since we didn’t have to set up and most levels were where they were from the night before, we actually just rehearsed, and ran it until we got it right.

Everyone is just way more mature in every facet. So that means we are able to talk to each other without getting emotional. Where I think in the past we would have gotten a little bit emotional…Another member last week didn’t like the way he played a certain song and definitely brought it on stage there, whereas a few years ago we’d probably moan, now it’s just everyone talks and says: “Well, I did this or it got in my way” and the rest of us say, “Well, it definitely was infectious, your enthusiasm totally dipped, and it affected all of us.” But instead of people getting upset about it like we used to, they just talk about how we can work through it together and we just let it go.

HT: A more mature PGroove!

MM: We’re just getting old! [Laughs]

HT: Between you and Adam having babies, that’s got to be the biggest game-changer.

MM: It affects Albert and Brock a lot, too. They are around the kids all the time because the kids are around Adam and I. The weight of responsibility and the lives that we are responsible for is very palpable and everyone is very aware that it’s not just us in our twenties getting to jerk around, go out and be a rock band and have fun. Now, it’s more than ever before – a career. Maybe we should have all had kids when we were younger! [Laughs] I know for a fact that both Brock and Albert feel a huge amount of responsibility for the kids and I think that’s part of the reason we are all taking it as seriously as we do now.

HT: In terms of management, things have also changed. It seems to be this time around, you guys are managing yourselves.

MM: I guess this is a time we can be very clear about this. We chose not to renew a contract. We didn’t fire anyone. On our end there was no ill will. We just didn’t see why we were giving [our management] so much fucking money. And, there was a lot of unilateral decisions being made without the band’s consent, which wasn’t ok. And, I can only speak for myself and not the rest of the band, I was never in contract with anyone else when I came back, except for the band Perpetual Groove.

I felt that a lot of the branding was being hurt by who they had at the helm at that time and the marketing of the band and branding was being hurt. But what really bothered me – and once again, I can only speak for myself – was the unilateral decisions being made without the band’s knowledge. So we said “contract’s up. We are not going to renew it.”

Now Adam, Albert, Brock and myself run Perpetual Groove. We are really excited. Crissa Requate is our new publicist. She’s awesome, she’s the best. Chad [Denney] will always be our booking agent. He cares about us. And everything else we can kind of handle for now. Do we want to manage ourselves forever? No. But for right now, until someone can show me why I should give them $100,000 a year for something that I’m pretty certain we can do on our own, until that day comes and they can say, “we can get you this, this and that,” then we are not signing shit with anyone.

HT: I think that kind of makes sense, and goes back to the more mature stuff you were talking about.

MM: Well, it’s a different world than ten years ago when we started this, with social networking alone. Now Crissa is going to start taking the reigns on that and we’ve been handling it up until now, and it’s been going fine, but she’s going to know how to make it even better because she’s someone we trust. There’s been all sorts of people like you and Scotty, David Shehi, all sorts of people because they love the band have helped keep our names out there, but it all boils down to people we trust, and people we know we can trust, and it is a super short list. And when it comes to the management position, there is no one we trust except ourselves.

Since it’s our career, and it’s our band, and it’s our branding and everything, we are going to be the ones who run that ship. I know it’s caused a little bit more rumbling than we ever intended it to, just because other bands are like, “Whoa! You guys aren’t using ‘management?’” And we’re still able to go do great shows and go play nice venues – some nicer than others of course – but that’s just the nature of the beast. We are still able to go out there and have a career. Now, we don’t have to be like “Hey, what’s going on with this? How come we didn’t know about this?” The fact of the matter is we are aware of just about everything going on because it has to come to us.

HT: I think it’s a fresh start not only for you guys collectively as band with you back again, but management is just another aspect, new publicist and so on. But in terms of things going forward, you guys are going to be the ones calling the shots.

MM: Right. Which it probably should have been for a while, but I just don’t feel like any sort of previous representation had our best interest in mind. They were just looking to make their buck, and don’t give a shit as to how they are going to make their buck, and they probably didn’t care too much about us either.

Everyone has a pretty balanced way of looking at this. And with email and iPhones and all this stuff, I don’t need somebody to tell me anything. They can just send me the question themselves. But we feel really empowered by it. Everyone has very definitive roles in what we do on our day-to-day to help manage the band. What’s most important is when an email goes out to the four of us, and it’s something where the four of us have to chime in, even if you don’t necessarily agree with the route we are going, we made it very simply “majority rules.” We will listen to everyone’s argument, but majority rules, which works out perfect.

If there’s a split, then we’re probably going to let it sit on the shelf for a couple of days and talk about it face to face, since it’s something we can talk about via email. Or we are going to bring in someone like Chad to give us more a perspective as to why or why not and full range of options about something. But, I can say with great confidence that hasn’t happened once yet and we are three and a half, four months into this. And it just keeps getting better for us.

HT: That’s awesome. The last thing is wanted to talk about is Amberland. This will be the first one for you since ’08 when you left the band. What do you think will be different about this Amberland and what we can expect from the “new” PGroove going forward?

MM: People have heard us talk since me coming back about how this going to “evolution.” And I think anyone that’s been paying attention to the shows the past couple of months can already hear that. There might be similar touches from a few years ago, but I would say that the aggressiveness and confidence, and quite honestly the knowledge that we play with now, is really starting to shine through. So I think this Amberland will not only show that in the way that we are playing as far as the improvisational aspect is concerned. A lot of the new songs that are going to be written are going to sound like PGroove, but it’s not going to sound like PGroove that you have heard before. Because we are not writing songs the way we used to before, because it goes back to us growing as people, as musicians, and most importantly, as friends.

That whole fearlessness now, that was never available before, of being able to say what you mean without someone getting overly emotional about it, is huge. It’s just easier for everyone to focus on the bigger picture now. No one’s taking themselves too seriously.

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