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Illinois Entertainer

Wise Fools Pub, Chicago Friday, May 24, 2002

By Mark Fitzgerald Armstrong

Freekbass | Lisa G. & Montage

Half of a decade ago, as the classic soul vs. new soul debate was in its infancy, a Bootsy Collins-nurtured Cincinnati band called Shag introduced new soul to Chicagoland in Elbo Room's then cramped basement of a concert hall. The sound -- like Bootsy's original take on glam rock in his post James Brown and George Clinton era -- was characterized by bass guitar and snare drum as kick-ass but seductive as the French apache dance, whiteboy saxophone, flute, and vocals led by a massive babe that bade everyone to be spiritually beautiful together. Not very visionary management, attrition, and a weariness of wanderlust contributed to Shag's amicable breakup by the late 1990s, but an endearing funk rebirth has emerged out of those ashes.

Freekbass rocked the set on a somewhat-cramped stage for nearly two hours for its umpteenth DePaul-Lincoln Park performance in promotion of a second album Body Over Mind (Bootzilla/Gemini), immediately filling a Wise Fools Pub that had been sparsely populated much of the night. True to when he was Shag's anchor with that monolithic, mutron bass guitar, Freekbass the man still has an affinity with garish, nouveau mod clothing influenced by Papa Bootsy's era and string work that annihilates resistance in the most reticent. Sean McGary's daredevil guitar work recalls a time when Bootsy, The Rolling Stones, and Def Leppard were far younger and on fire.

Freekbass' fellow Shag survivor, Joodi, is possessed in his work on synthesizer, Moog, and sax (and his Coltrane-esque rifts on sax can be especially possessing). Beta-17, bald and painted up in platinum hue like Marvel Comics' Silver Surfer masterminds a keyboard work that gives the entire band the robotically up-tempo ambiance of electric boogie. Swift, as the brattiest wunderkind for Freekbass the band, outskills Shag's killer skin beater, Johnny Miracle, by shifting from rhyming to vocalizing while hitting those licks.

As the opener for Freekbass, Lisa G and Montage demonstrated why Madison, Wis. goes head-to-head with Lawrence, Kan. and Austin, Texas as a Great Lakes hornets' nest of stunningly innovative urban sounds. Get beyond how well-stacked and voluptuous the crown-rowed Lisa is and find a frontwoman with enough skills on guitar to backup Prince or her Dairy State compatriot Eric Benet and enough soul vocalizing skills to sing a duet with Chaka Khan. The spectacled Asian fellow on side vocals and keyboard was the band's second most impressive stalwart before the stealthy bass guitarists strumming backup.

The Memorial Day weekend lineup of Freekbass and Lisa G Montage was the makings for a concert tour where both bands would complement, rather than outshine, each other in a communion of funkiness.