 Originally published May 12, 2005 by Jedd Beaudoin BEEN A LONG TIME COMIN': John Eberly gives his first live performance in almost two years Saturday night at John Barleycorn's. Saturday, May 14 will see John Eberly perform live for the first time before a Wichita audience in nearly two years. Backed by Local Band — featuring Britt Rosencutter, Tom Page and Jon Eaton, who formed the nucleus of the band on Eberly's 2004 solo outing Imagination, the former Mumbles front man is set to get back to the boards. He last performed with The New Embarrassment Singers at a CityArts event nearly two years ago with members of Local Band and aside from a solo show earlier that year it had been, in the singer's words, "years," since his last live venture with former Embarrassment and Big Dipper member Bill Goffrier in 426. "I'm not a big fan of doing live stuff," the soft-spoken singer admitted during a Sunday afternoon interview at Watermark Books. "I always enjoyed it when I did, and the guys from Local Band are a trip to play with. They're like punk rockers who take [what they do] to another level of professionalism. You walk in the door and you know they're going to be able to get what you want them to do — and what they want you to do. They're great. There's no egos," he said. He'd known Rosencutter for years, which made the drummer a natural choice when he began assembling players for the Imagination sessions, which marked the first time that the singer-songwriter entered the studio with the idea of making a CD. In years past he'd made several solo cassettes on which he'd played all the instruments. "But with this," he said, "I felt that I had a really strong group of songs and that I knew a lot of good musicians and people who knew how to record." The project took roughly two years from start to finish as Eberly traveled from his home in Hutchinson to the Lawrence-KC-Topeka region and then to Wichita and Wellington. In all, he involved some of the biggest names from the past and present of the Wichita music scene — including Joel Sanderson (another longtime collaborator and friend), Mike Coykendall (of Klyde Konnor fame) and Goffrier. "I wasn't in any big hurry to do this. I wanted to do something where if I never did anything else, I could look back on it and say, 'Well, that's fine. I feel pretty good about this album.'" Recorded by Page and released on his Toptone imprint, the album is ultimately a collaborative effort. "Tom's real good about big pictures," Eberly said. "I don't typically sit down to write a song. I get some things that just drop, but that doesn't mean they're always good. I've got probably 300-400 fragments of songs and out of that batch probably 20 percent of that stuff ever even begins to evolve into what you'd call a song. But with Tom — and Britt — I can bring pieces in and they'll guide it. That was the core of it. We'd do things and then Jesse Howes and Jon Eaton would come in and add things to it." "I think that my input is ultimately minimal," he continued. "People like Tom page and Joel Sanderson really bring that big picture element to it. And," he said, "Britt's really good about adding that one piece that will center things just right. He's really good at the coloring of it. And I trust all of those guys." Imagination also serves as a reminder of the Air Capital's rich musical history. And Eberly, a long time participant and observer of the scene is quick to point out that the present seems as good a time as any for the music scene in the ICT. "Tom was saying that you could transplant a bunch of this scene to Chicago right now and blow people away, but I think that you could do the same thing to Lawrence," Eberly said. "Wichita is nothing to be ashamed of. Some people make apologies for it, but my god we've got Split Lip Rayfield, Mike Coykendall… it goes on and on. But I don't think it has to be anything beyond the scene. If you've got ambitions beyond this, great. Go for it. I've done that. But in the meanwhile, enjoy it. It's fleeting." Eberly noted that his return to the stage will mark a period during which he hopes to perform live more often — if not all the time. The Mumbles, he pointed out, had a very specific live ethic. "You can be that band that plays every weekend because people do go out," he said. "Or you can be that one band that does it once in a while so that people go away from the show saying, 'Hey, I saw you there,' or 'Were you there?' That's what we wanted to do." And Eberly will probably continue in that tradition, though there's likely to be a few surprises along the way — including an oft-discussed Toptone Review which would include various members of various Toptone acts (with Local Band again forming a kind of core there). It might also include some collaboration with another Eberly cohort, Juan Gonzalez. "We built our own group of people who came out to see us in Arlington, Kan. In fact some of the songs on the Imagination CD grew out of that. And it's just accidental that those people aren't on the record," he said. "But, yeah," Eberly said. "We'd like to do some more stuff. If the clubs will have us. And I just got some new tires on my jalopy out there, so I might be more willing to drive back and forth between here and Hutch." Catch John Eberly sitting in with Local Band Saturday night at John Barleycorn's 608 E. Douglas on a double bill with the King Snakes. The doors are open after dark but we hear tell you'll want to get there just a little bit before 10 p.m. to get the most for your money. Eberly will also have copies of the fine Imagination on hand for sale. |