Music Travels When American musicians get the cold
shoulder at home, they often get a warm welcome overseas
sfgate.com
James Sullivan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, November 27,2000
When Mr. Big played in Japan earlier
this year, the band filled arenas.
It had an album at No. 1 and a single
at the top of the charts, too. Hundreds
of fans showed up at the airport to
send off the musicians.
When they arrived back in San
Francisco, singer-guitarist Eric
Martin waited at the baggage claim
carousel. A guy standing next to him
did a double- take, then ventured a
guess: "Dude, are you in a band?"
Eight years and dozens of pop trends
after Mr. Big's power ballad "To Be
With You" reached No. 1 in America,
the band remains a superstar act
overseas. Here, the players can't even
get recognized.
It's a not-so-dirty secret of the rock
world: When the market for your
music dwindles in the states, you go
elsewhere. American audiences might
think you've fallen off the face of the
earth, when in actuality you've just
sneaked off to another corner of it.
Superstars such as Journey, Joan
Baez and Carlos Santana (before his
"Supernatural" comeback) have
prolonged their careers considerably
by cultivating the overseas market.
Mr. Big's case is an extreme example:
In Japan and other foreign markets,
the band is a juggernaut. Here, it's a
little red wagon.
Three weeks ago, Martin headlined at
the Sweetwater in Mill Valley. Sixty
people showed up.
"That was a good gig," he says
gamely.
The big-in-Japan syndrome turns the
typical pattern of rock stardom upside
down. "For most U.S.-based rock
bands, their bread and butter is in the
States, " says Greg DiGiovine, a
management consultant with the
Santana organization. "The classic
example is the Dave Matthews Band.
They're huge here, but they do
nothing elsewhere." The Grateful
Dead, one of the most successful
touring bands of all time, drew a
European audience that "paled in
comparison" to its following in the
United States, he says.
Santana's cross-cultural appeal made
the group a natural international
commodity. Before joining the
Santana team, DiGiovine watched the
guitarist keep his career afloat in
Europe, Asia and South America
through nearly two decades of
commercial indifference in America.
RIDING OUT A SLUMP
"There's no question that what was
keeping Carlos vibrant and active was
his constant touring overseas,"
DiGiovine says.
Even with that track record,
DiGiovine says Santana needed some
convincing to go on a European
promotional tour when
"Supernatural" came out. The record
has now sold 23 million copies
worldwide,
11 million of those in the United
States.
Historically, certain styles of
American music have gained more
respect in Europe than at home.
Generations of jazz and blues
musicians, for instance, expatriated
themselves for work, among them
Dixieland clarinetist Sidney Bechet,
pianist Bud Powell and folk-blues
guitarist Big Bill Broonzy.
Foreign audiences often welcome
classic rock bands long after they've
worn out their welcome in America.
Oddly enough, the group America has
been doing enormous business in
Asia in recent years. The last
performance it gave in the Bay Area
was at an amusement park.
And San Francisco's indie-rock
community made an exodus in the
mid-'90s to Germany, where Barbara
Manning and Chuck Prophet enjoyed
audiences they couldn't find here.
Two weeks ago, the singer-guitarist
who calls himself Preacher Boy
touched down in San Francisco for
24 hours, playing a well-received pair
of sets at Biscuits & Blues. Now
living in Denver, Preacher Boy spent
the past few years in the U.K., where
his latest records have been feted. He
recently toured Europe with Eagle
Eye Cherry, and the two co-wrote a
half-dozen songs for Cherry's
forthcoming album.
"It was very frustrating working
here," he recalled, sitting in the club's
office moments before taking the
stage. "I was in a real pigeonhole."
SHUNNED BY RECORD
LABEL
Signed to the local blues label Blind
Pig, Preacher Boy (born Christopher
Watkins) felt obliged to live up to the
traditional slide-guitar image he first
affected. But his songs were
increasingly eccentric and difficult to
categorize, and his relationship with
Blind Pig became "mutually
disagreeable."
"Rock clubs wouldn't touch me," he
says, tipping back his crushed cowboy
hat. When he began performing in
Europe, he says, "I was very intent on
busting previous impressions."
Living abroad, it became easier to
define America's "cultural tunnel
vision. " Preacher Boy pointed out
that the fire-and-brimstone Denver
band 16 Horsepower headlines
4,000-seat theaters in France and the
Netherlands but usually draws a
fraction of that here.
"That's a classic example," he says.
"You go wherever people are going
to pay attention to you."
Forty-five thousand people were
paying attention to Mr. Big on the
millennial New Year's Eve, when the
band shared the stage at the Osaka
Dome with Aerosmith.
You take your stardom where you
can get it, agrees Eric Martin. "I've
gone into hotels where they have a
band in the lobby playing your song.
It's an exciting feeling."
Lately, there has been some modest
Stateside stirring going on in the Mr.
Big camp. The band recently finished
a small-club tour of the East and
Midwest
--"in a van," Martin noted, "with each
of us taking turns driving."
STATESIDE INTEREST
"To Be With You" is set to resurface
on the soundtrack of the new Nicolas
Cage movie, "Family Man." And two
of Martin's early solo albums have
just been reissued on CD.
Still, it's safe to say that a full-blown
Mr. Big revival isn't exactly
imminent.
"I'd like to play more in San
Francisco," the affable Martin says,
"but they're just not having me. The
fish ain't bitin.' "
Whether or not his band can reclaim
some of its home turf, Martin says,
one thing will always bridge the
cultural divide.
"Whether it's the American dollar or
the yen," he says, "it still spends." |
