HOME PFDA discography stories listen Press

Pure Food and Drug Act
debuts as exciting rock group

By Jack Hafferkamp

 

The Pure Food and Drug Act, I suppose, is many things to many people. But for those of us who were crammed into Alice's Re-visited this weekend, the words have now taken on an entirely new and exciting meaning.

The PFDA, you see, is a collaboration of the musical talents of guitarist Harvey Mandel, violinist Sugarcane Harris, drummer Paul Lagos, guitarist Randy 'Rare' Resnick and bassist Victor Conte. The group may be relatively unknown, but its Chicago debut certainly indicates that to become a major musical force, all it needs is recognition. The band's got its musical end down solid.

BEING HIP to the old sardine story, I tried to arrive at Alice's, 950 Wrightwood, in time for the exodus of the heavy first set crowd. But in spite of all those Alice's hassles (like over-crowding, bad sound and no place to sit but on the cold, dirty tile floor) hardly anybody left.

 In fact, between sets, the floor squatters didn't even budge for fear of losing their places.

The reason is that Pure Food and Drug makes devastatingly intense music. Lots of bands can cook, but precious few boil over together. And while lots of bands work up to a frenzy, very few can make the froth mean anything. The PFDA does.

THE ATTENTION center is Sugarcane Harris, electric violin's answer to Johnny Staccato. In the past, he has recorded on his own ("Sugarcane" produced by Johnny Otis on Epic, E30027), and worked with Frank Zappa ("Hot Rats") and John Mayall.

To understate, Sugarcane's violin is amazing. He can play it sweet, or cut through like fingernails on a blackboard. When he isn't bowing, he's attacking the mcrophone with his shreik-singing, frantically strumming his fiddle as if it were an electric ukulele, or just hopping up and down like a man who lives completely inside his music.


Sugarcane Harris
and his magic violin.

LESS visually stimulating, guitarist Mandel simply bobs his helmet haircut head, and lays down his own char-acteristically impeccable feed-back sound.

Mandel, too, has been around since the days at Niles West High School. In addition to his own LPs (for example, "Christo Redentor" and "Righteous"), he has played lead guitarist for Charlie Musselwhite, Canned Heat and John Mayall. In short, he knows his ax.

 

 (It was during the stint with Mayall's USA Union that Mandel, Harris and drummer Lagos ¾ who has also worked with Kaleidoscope ¾ first jammed together, and then planned their own group.)

ABOVE the obvious in-dividual talents of Harris and Mandel, however, is the group's depth. During one number, Harris disappeared, Mandel moved to the drums, rhythm guitarist Rare Resnick poured out a really tasty extended solo that actually achieved the sound of a rolling yodel, and drummer Lagos moved out front to beat out a multi-toned tattoo on steel drum.

Several times during the three Saturday evening sets, I heard people remark that the PFDA is the best band ever to have played Alice's. I'm usually not given to such all-out praise, but I do know that I'm certainly going to keep my ears open for Pure Food and Drug's first LP, scheduled for release the middle of March.