Oregon daily emerald., January 25, 1985, THE Friday EDITION, Image 9

Oregon daily emerald
arts & entertainment
january 25, iWBb
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To many Eugene music buffs, “music
with a message” has meant music with
overtly political overtones — not the
sort of light, danceable fare one
associates with a night out on the
town.
And to aficionados of rich, hearty
soul and rhythm ’n’ blues, the area has
historically offered little — Coun
try/Western and punk or heavy metal
“driveway rock” seem to predominate.
Enter Shakubuku.
Leader Willy Dee explains the five
member band's two-fold mission: “The
kind of music we play — soul, rhythm
'n' blues — isn’t heard around town
much. We want to expose the black
kids in town, and others, to it.”
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Dee and Shakubuku carry a message
with their music, too — a simple,
universal message that’s expressed in
the band’s very name: Shakubuku, a
Japanese word expressing “a positive
attitude toward life.”
“Above all,” Dee says, referring to
the band’s audiences as well as the
group itself, “we’re out to have a good
time.
“We’re recognized now as one of the
few bands around Eugene with a black
leader, and one that plays black
oriented music,” Dee explains. “We’ve
been playing around town quite a bit,
and now we’re finally getting recogni
tion for it.
for people to catch on,” Dee says. “We
really work hard. . .”
Shakubuku has to work hard if it is
to maintain a standard Dee defines as
“giving a full night’s worth of
entertainment.”
“We usually lean more toward soul
and reggae,” Dee says, adding
laughingly that "... we were sucked
into reggae by popular demand.”
Dee says that about 30 percent of the
band’s music is original material. Some
original tunes have local hooks, such as
“Garage People,” a tribute to the
“average Eugenean” written and per
formed by keyboardist Holly Warren.
Shakubuku performs songs by such
artists and groups as Van Morrison, the
Bee Gees, the Temptations and Phil
Collins — “Whatever’s good and has a
nice message,” Dee explains. “When
we do ‘cover’ material, though, we try
to put our own style to it.
“We try to cover stuff by lesser
known groups, too — things that help
project where we as a band are coming
from,” he says.
In addition to music, a Shakubuku
show features such “extras” as
breakdancing exhibitions and comedy
routines during band breaks. “We hope
to keep the time rolling and keep
peoples’ interest up,” Dee explains.
Lorian, a comedian from Las Vegas,
acts as the band’s master of ceremonies
and warm-up act. Her informal style
and interaction with audience helps to
enhance the feeling of community that
permeates a Shakubuku evening.
Shakubuku itself resembles a small,
diverse community. “We come from
different backgrounds,” Dee says of the
band members and Shakubuku *s
unisexual, multicultural nature.
Dee, Shakubuku’s lead vocalist, also
plays rhythm guitar. He is a native of
Chicago and has lived and worked in
Hawaii and Seattle. He has also per
formed as a street musician, both alone
and in a duo act.
Dee also claims a University
background — he was the EMU
Cultural Forum’s 1983-84 folk/rhythm
’n’ blues coordinator.
Lead guitarist and back-up vocalist
Willie Smith, a I,ouisianan, brings a
country-style background to
Shakubuku. Smith performed in
Portland, Eugene and southern Oregon,
sometimes six nights a week, before
joining the band.
Other band members are Warren and
drummer Skip “Dr. Rhythm” Falken
bach, originally from Buffalo, N.Y.
Handyman “Karmichael,” the
group’s lone native Oregonian, serves
as bassist, back-up vocalist and elec
trical engineer.
“Ultimately, what we want to do is
get our sound together into a recording
package of original material, perhaps
an opening act for a major band tour,
hopefully our own tour,” Dee says, in
outlining the band’s hopes for the
future.
"If these things don’t come to pass,
we'll still have plenty of self-fulfillment
from playing our music,” he adds.
A Shakubuku show is a fulfilling ex
perience. The band’s stage demeanor is
dynamic and positive. In his leader
role, Dee helps set the tone for the
stage show through his on-stage ex
pressiveness. He dances, he gestures,
he croons, he shouts. Dee is a
showman, but a showman with a
message — in the music he plays for
joy and entertainment, or to teach and
enlighten.
Toward these ends, a typical
Shakubuku performance (such as that
held Nov. 23 at the W.O.W. Hall)
might include such diverse numbers as
Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Keep Your
Head To The Sky” and Gil-Scott
Heron’s post-election homily, “Man
date, My Ass.”
There are few “wallflowers” at a
Shakubuku performance — it’s virtual
ly impossible not to be moved by the
music onto the dance floor. Children
cavort about. Teenagers and adults
“work out” with dance steps ranging
from the jitterbugs of the 1950s, to the
Mashed Potato, the Swim, the Pony
and the Hustle of the ’60s and ’70s. A
child in an electric wheelchair glides
around the dance floor, circling the
other dancers, smoothly and freely.
This child is a living example of
what Dee says Shakubuku is all about
— a positive attitude, joy, and most im
portantly, “Freedom for all people.”
“The style of music we’ve chosen is
one that we have to work a bit harder
From left to right,
this is Shakubuku:
Smith, Falkenbach,
Warren, Dee and
Karmichael.