Max Creek

by Steve Boisson

Max Creek keyboard player Mark Mercier gets annoyed when people
refer to his group as a Grateful Dead clone band. "Though we've kind
of earned the title," admits the spectacled, bookish looking musician.
"We try to imitate the aura of the Dead, well, not really the aura, just
the feel of a familial concert. But then it's a very Deadish thing; they're
the ones who sort of copyrighted the sound."

It's no small coincidence that every Max Creek fan I met during a recent
show in Cambridge MA had seen the Dead at least 25 times - splinter
groups included. Though the band played a few Dead classics such as
"Sugar Magnolia" and "Me And My Uncle," the Dead sound permeated
throughout all their covers and originals. Guitarist Scott Murawski dangled
Garcia-like frills against a cacophony of dueling drummers. Murawski's "If You
Ask Me" dissolved into a suspended jam, which turned into "Who Do You
Love." Spirited listeners sashayed across the floor, dancing solo to cosmic
chordal collisions. Despite their salient debt to sixties San Francisco rock,
however, it would be unfair to dismiss Max Creek as musical methadone for
Dead addicts in withdrawal.

"We've always been doing our music and some Dead and other people's
music mixed in," explains bassist/vocalist john Rider. "Around the mid seventies
the agents decided we were a Grateful Dead clone band. Every clone band in the
world was around then. The Doors clone band. The Steppenwolf clone band.
Although we were not doing a Grateful Dead clone, we were presenting a
stylistic situation much the same as theirs. It's a style, just like bebop or cool
jazz." The band started fourteen years ago when Rider was a trumpet student in
Connecticut. "During my last year in college I decided I wasn't going to make a
lot of money playing trumpet so I switched over to bass, which enabled me to
sing and write songs and get into a band." With his newly acquired bass, Rider
joined drummer Bob Gosselin in a band that was playing charts in a local strip
joint. After accompanying strippers for a couple of months Rider, Gosselin and
Guitarist Dave Reed moved to Washington MA to perform in a bar partially
owned by Arlo Guthrie. They began writing original material, and son afterward
keyboard player Mark Mercier, (Rider's college roommate), replaced Reed. In
time the vacant guitar slot was filled by Scott Murawski, an under-age rocker
breaking away from an adolescence steeped in heavy metal(*). "Somewhere
along the way," continues Rider, "somebody said, 'Hey, the Dead play a lot of
the songs you guys play like 'Goin' Down The Road' and 'I Know you Rider' ' -
though we weren't playing them like the Dead. We were more of a
country/bluegrass band. So we started listening to the Dead, going to shows, and
we started playing similarly."

As most musicians will attest, "playing similarly" to the Grateful Dead is
not easy. Murawski, who handles both rhythm and lead chores, has developed a
reverence for the Dead's guitarists, particularly Bob Weir. "when I first started
listening to the Dead I was very impressed with Garcia," says Murawski. "But
after a while I realized that weir was creating most of the textural things. When I
turn up the right hand channel on Europe 72 and listen to Weir I can still get
blown away."

Mercier holds similar respect for Brent Mydland, the Dead's keyboard
player. "I don't know, and I'm not sure if Brent knows, what a keyboardist's real
place is in the Dead. Brent doesn't have any problem in an acoustic situation
because he plays a spectacular piano and he's a great organist. but sometimes
you can tell, stylistically speaking, that he and Garcia are coming from two
entirely different places. I feel bad for him because he's a fine musician and
sometimes he doesn't get a chance to show his chops."

Because there's no Weir-like rhythm player between Max Creek's lead
guitarist and piano, Mercier gets plenty of room to stretch out and play.
Instrumentally, he shares the limelight with Murawski, dashing off fluid, blusey
solos as well as eerie, ethereal organ vamps during the band's spacier moments.
Their Dead-like sojourns in search of the lost chord appeared highly inspired on
the night I saw them. Drummers Bob Gosselin and Bob Fried (sic) created taut
rhythmic tensions while Murawski and Mercier probed melodic possibilities, with
John Rider's sprite bass lines keeping it all together.

"It just falls into place sometimes and other times it's just a mess," says
Rider. "The arrangements are very loose. they just go where they go."

"When you've played together fourteen years, a very subliminal
communication develops," adds Mercier. "The best times are when it's almost
like the music is playing us."

The individual vocals are effective though not elegant. rider sings in a
throaty style similar to Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), and Mercier croons in a
clipped baritone reminiscent of Weir. The harmonies, however, are especially
expressive, particularly during vocal showcases such as Robbie Robertson's "The
Weight."

Has there been any feedback from any of their heroes?

"You hear all kinds of things," remarks Rider. "People have told me that
they saw Phil Lesh wearing our T-shirt. When we played with Bobby and the
Midnites Bob Weir came up to us at the end of the night and said, 'Good job,
Scott.' Rob Fried knows Mickey Hart, and usually visits him backstage when
Mickey's in town. A lot of times Rob doesn't see the show, he just goes to talk
about percussion because percussionists have this unspoken bond of friendship."

Because of their busy schedule, which includes dates in most major
Northeastern cities, the band has not seen the Dead often in recent years. They
play more Dead covers on the road than when they're home in Hartford CT, as
their hometown following has grown familiar with their originals.

Fans outside Hartford can enjoy homegrown Creek by purchasing any
or all of the following albums: Max Creek, Rainbow, and Drink The Stars - all
manufactured and distributed by Wranger Records, a label created by Max
Creek.

There's little difference between a Creek Freak and a Dead Head: both
are intensely dedicated groups with no middle grounders - which proves that the
San Francisco "style" is a boundless fuel for fanatics. I believe there's enough of
us out here to support many more bands on a mission like Max Creek's.

(*note: Actually Scott had a brief stint in the band before Mark joined.
Mark was brought in to replace Dave Reed while he was sidelined with
appendicitis. Mark stayed on when Dave returned. Scott soon rejoined and the
band continued as a quintet until Dave Reed's departure.)

Copyright Relix Magazine. Used with permission of Relix Magazine.