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May 1, 1997 * Vol. 7, No. 17

It's a Mystery to Me

The Mystery Dates open some new musical doors--and don't come up with the dud

by Randall Brown

"I'll show it to you," offers singer-songwriter Rob Russell for the third time, speaking in the strictest Jim Morrison sense of "showing it." A machine-gun laugh punctuates his offers, and whatever else he finds amusing, which is a lot of things. His band, the Mystery Dates, and I are sitting around a late night coffee shop, getting hopped up on the establishment's hot brew and sinfully sweet confections. Amidst Russell's lewd offers, the band's digressions into rambling, argumentative film critiques, and interruptions by obscure Canadian blues man Debozo Hawkins (the band's musical and spiritual mentor), I'm trying desperately to get a grip on this country-rock band of college-educated professionals who, until just recently, called themselves The Rent Boys.

It's a difficult task that's not made any easier by Russell's giggling "like a fool" (his description), British-born drummer Rich Sewell's heavily accented English, guitarist Robert Alfonso's monk-like silence, and bassist Curt Rode's embarrassing adulation of the aging Hawkins, who seems anxious for Russell to go ahead and show it to us. To Hawkins' chagrin, Russell decides instead to make broad, thoughtful musician-type generalizations about the nature of the band.

"We're the greatest rock 'n' roll band that nobody's ever going to hear," he declares.

Hawkins offers a more humbling assessment. "These boys are fools," he says.

Somehow, then, between the coffee and confusion, the tables are turned. The band begins quizzing me about their sound. "So are you surprised by our new direction?," asks Rode. "Does it seem...natural?"

"Do you think we're as good as we think we are?" he queries. And I have to say that I do.

Their name change, inspired by the unfortunate red-light connotations of their previous nom de plum (and some suspicious e-mail from Guadalajara), coincides nicely with a shift in their musical focus. The Rent Boys were a bouncy, upbeat country-rock thing, leaning to the "rock" side. Imagine The Band filtered through the Minutemen. The Mystery Dates are also a bouncy, upbeat country-rock thing, though now leaning to the "country" side. Re-filter the sound through a Gram Parsons sieve, throw in a grain of salt and a round of Master's degrees, and there you are.

All things considered, the Mystery Dates fall firmly into the "damn good songwriting" school. They aren't relying on any gimmicks, they're playing it straight, and it comes out, well, damn good.

"We're a band that's allowed our direction to be somewhat organic," says Russell. "We never decided 'We'll be an alt-country band,' we just wrote songs that we liked, played 'em the best way we knew, and it just so happens that people started saying 'Hey, you guys are a country band--but the good kind!'"

"I think Debozo wants to read something," interrupts Rode.

"I'd avoided that whole Flying Burrito Brothers/Gram Parsons thing forever and ever," admits Russell, disregarding Rode's announcement. "I guess because I thought that was just too easy. It sort of had a stigma attached to it. Then I was teaching a class, the history of rock 'n' roll, this summer, and I started re-listening to things I'd never really listened to."

"I'd always hated country," says Sewell. "But I was always listening to really bad country. Now we've been described as 'real country.' And I'm comfortable with that."

"This band is about joy. We are good, wholesome family entertainment," continues Russell. "As long as you don't mind songs about suicide, strippers, or killing your ex-wife."

"I was now entering on my fifteenth year," says Hawkins suddenly, reading from some sort of diary, "when the worst of ails befell me in the loss of my tender, fond parents, who were both carried off by the small pox, within a few days of each other. First my father, which hastened the death of..."

"Thank you, Debozo," says Russell, wresting the conversation back from the annals of obscure blues wisdom. Talk turns to their constant regional touring, surprising at first since the band members live in separate cities--Russell and Alfonso in Johnson City, Rode here in Knoxville, and Sewell in Clemson, SC. But instead of being a detriment, it makes for instant "regional act" status--they're a local band across multiple states. They are particularly pleased with a recent show in Bristol, their first gig there under the new name, and one of the most successful shows they've ever had.

"Going in, Robert said, 'This place is a pit, we're never playing here again,'" laughs Russell. "Then two hours later it was 'Man, that was the greatest show.' It was like we changed our name and all of a sudden, nine million good-looking girls showed up."

"Yeah, we had a great show, and I think we deserve all the money and the praise that we're getting," says Rode. "But I think the lesbians were just free that night. They had nothing else on their schedule."

"These boys are fools," repeats Hawkins, his insight barely audible over Russell's latest round of laughter. "But that's no one's business but their own."

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