Bassist, Band United in Nick of Time


By Steve Pennhollow The Journal Gazette, 10/27/00


In March, bassist Scott Jackson decided to leave Rosemary Gates, the band he helped found, and return to school.

The parting was amicable, but the timing couldn't have been worse.

The band was in the midst of recording its first full length CD.

"We were really broken up about it," says guitarist Jim Stocks. "We didn't know what to do."

"Finding another musician to connect with – members of the band have known each other ten years – was not going to be an easy task," says guitarist Mike Archbold. "We were not looking forward to the process."

The band needed someone who could step into the Rosemary Gates odyssey midstream – someone who could bring his own flavors to the mix without spoiling the stew, someone who could speak the band's language without seeming like a tourist. In short, they needed a miracle.

In walked B-Funk, a.k.a. Bryan Bankson. Bankson's bass slapping skills are something of a local legend. He is one of those musicians who has bands camped out on his front stoop waiting to audition for him.

He's also a humble sort of guy, who downplays the aforementioned flatteries.

In April 1999, Bankson came off a national tour with the band Radio Daze and he was tired in many ways.

"It felt like it had all become too much like work," Bankson says. "It wasn't anybody's fault; it's just where I was at the time. I just thought I'd come back and get a day job for a while."

Musically inclined friends tried to get Bankson to end his self-imposed exile, but – for the most part – he ignored their requests.

Then, last spring, he met with the desperate members of Rosemary Gates.

Bankson freely admits that Rosemary Gates didn't necessarily play the sort of music he was into (B-Funk is a fan of trip-hop and urban grooves), but he says there was just something about the integrity of the band and its music that called to him.

"They played me a couple of original songs and they were really strong. And I appreciated their down-to-earth attitude. They were likeable people. They didn't sound like a local band. They sounded professional. There was just something there."

When Bankson decided to join the fold, he wasted little time.

"He stepped up and played with us in an ungodly amount of time," Archbold says.

"B-Funk is our angel," Stocks says sincerely.

"That (explicative) learned 35 songs in one week," Archbold says. "Some crazy cosmic thing happened."

It is a crazy cosmic thing that has been captured on Rosemary Gates' debut CD "Shine." The band will break bottle over the bow of the new project at Columbia Street West on Saturday. The CD will be available in local stores starting Sunday.

One doesn't have to be an ardent Rosemary Gates fan to acknowledge that "Shine" is an impressive piece of work. The sound and design are all first rate; there is little to indicate it wasn't produced and packaged by a major label.

"We wanted to do a no-holds-barred, no-expense-spared, high quality recording," Stocks says. "We didn't want to cut any corners. We wanted to make the sort of album that, after we finished the final mixes, it blew us away. We went in knowing that we would never make our money back."

The Rosemary Gates sound is pure modern (as in Millennial) rock: Vocalist Christian Schult boasts a basso profundo and stage presence that bears comparison to other brooding crooners like Jim Morrison or Eddie Vedder. The band combines Bono's love of drama and lyrical crypticism – with Lenny Kravitz' neo-psychedelic soulfulness, Bruce Springsteen's work ethic, an appreciation for fuzzy guitars, fat drum and bass parts, and a knack for pop hooks.

In performance, the band is adept at cramming a big arena-rock sound into a tiny space.

The band hopes all this toil and trouble pays off someday with a major label deal, but it is hard to mistake the immense sense of satisfaction the band is already wallowing in.

"The band has given me a renewed sense of what I like about music," Bankson says. "I had lost sight of it."