by Jay Allen
SanfordI know, it seems like every day bands are breaking up and the musicians are getting together with other “ex” members of other “ex” bands to form yet another soon to be ex-supergroup. When diverse musicians with completely different backgrounds and experiences get together, the results sometimes be an awful (albeit expensive) noise. However, these musical amalgams can also be quite startling, interesting and popular, as evidenced by the success of bands like Traffic and Asia. The newly formed Cork even melds two completely different generations, consisting of drummer Corky Laing (Mountain), bassist Noel Redding (Jimi Hendrix Experience - see Soundwaves back issue list for the Redding issue) and comparative youngster Eric Schenkmen (Spin Doctors) on guitars.
“We’re on the same wavelength is so many ways,” Corky Laing tells me. “It’s going to be a very rhythmic band, manic music. It’s Cork, so hopefully it’ll float!” The band will be introducing itself in December, playing dates in Canada and doing a whirlwind east coast tour (including New London’s El ‘N’ Gee club) before going into the studio to record. “I think that’s a healthy way to come up with stuff, better than just taking a month off to record. When you’re a small trio, you’ve got to get out there and play, break the songs in. You have to suffer the road and the crowds. The key to rock and roll is desperation, denial and hunger. And we’re pretty hungry!”
For their live sets, Cork will be doing favorites by Mountain, Hendrix and The Spin Doctors, to be sure, and this should bring in a legion of fans. On a given night, you’re likely to be regaled by classic staples like “Mississippi Queen,” “Hey Joe,” “Jimmy Olsen Blues” and perhaps even “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “Eight Miles High.” Three great musicians jamming on time tested tunes, but Laing hopes the new music will catch the crowd as well. “We definitely want to do something that lasts and has direction, but we don’t want to be precious about it. It’s got to be a bit ugly, if you know what I mean. I want it to still sound a little greasy.”
Laing knows a little bit about sounding ugly and greasy. The Canadian born drummer began his career as a teenager by playing onstage with The Inkspots at a summer resort. He initially played with jazz based bands, as well as specializing in Latin and cha-cha rhythms. “I used timbales, instead of tom toms. Then, when the bands I was in started to do more rock and roll, I figured what the hell, it’s all in the eighths. I didn’t have a problem turning off the snare. More drummers probably should.” He met Leslie West while playing in West Hampton, when West was still with a band called The Vagrants. He became close friends with the mercurial, offbeat guitarist, a feat few other musicians seem capable of. “Our relationship is based on trust and understanding. I don’t trust him and he doesn’t understand me!”
Along with Leslie West and Felix Pappalardi, he and Mountain became the prototypal hard rock trio, coming along to further blaze the trail forged by the disbanded Cream (a band Pappalardi played a great part in shaping). Debuting at the Fillmore West in 1969 right before playing the Woodstock Festival, they stomped and bellowed and blew the doors off for two and a half turbulent and productive years, releasing four bombastic albums. It was not a smooth ride. “Felix and Leslie had their differences in terms of positioning, and I had to be like the Henry Kissinger of the band, be the mediator.”
Some great songs emerged from their chaotic collaboration: “Nantucket Sleighride,” “The Animal Trainer And The Toad,” “Stormy Monday,” “For Yasgur’s Farm”...the band was unapologetically crude, abnormally loud and outstandingly adventurous, popular with both hard rock and “progressive” fans. Laing was involved with much of the writing. “We took melodies I wrote and roughed them up a little bit, made them more dramatic. Basically, Leslie would have these great licks. I would put in the fills and then Felix would come in and direct it musically. He’d make the songs bigger and broader, take care of the voicings.” Regarding the band’s best known hit “Mississippi Queen,” he says “I was really influenced by The Band, so that one was my impression of ‘Crippled Creek.’ It’s the same backbeat, see, but Leslie took it pretty far, just came in and ripped it up.”
Mountain called it quits 1972. “Nobody did any harm to anybody else. If anything, we did harm to ourselves. There was a lot of self-abuse. Plus it was the old ladies, it was drugs, it was greed, ego - everything the Russians hated about America, we were living it! When Felix wanted to announce a breakup, I never understood why we couldn’t have just gone our different ways for awhile instead. That made no sense to me. We’d worked really hard to build all that up.”
Laing stayed involved with West. “Philosophically, we went in different direction, but musically we were on the same page.” The duo went to Island Studios in London to record, originally with the intention of forming a band along with Paul Rodgers (Free), Mick Ralphs and Overend Watts. Things were going well until West invited ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce to come in for a jam. “The next time I talked to Leslie,” Laing says, “he told me that his dream was to be in a band with Jack Bruce. I thought we already had a good band going, especially with Paul singing, but Leslie said that Jack could sing too and off it went.” Bruce broke up his own jazz band and thus was born the musical conglomerate clumsily called West, Bruce and Laing. Booted, Ralphs and Rodgers would instead go on to form Bad Company, with Watts moving into Mott The Hoople.
“Our sound was a lot rougher than Mountain’s. Like ‘Why Dontcha,’ I wrote in just twenty minutes and we jammed fiercely on it. We were flowing with ideas. We actually stayed together longer than Mountain had!” After two studio albums and a 1974 live record, however, this band also passed into the ether.
Laing and West also played together on two Leslie West solo albums, “The Leslie West Band” and “The Great Fatsby,” touring behind both of them. Then there was the Mountain reunion, initiated by Felix Pappalardi in 1974. Laing joined up, though he couldn’t be present when a live album was recorded in 1975. “I was sick, I got hepatitis in Nantucket. I ate some bad clams or something. It was too much money for them to turn down and they said ‘what the hell, we’ll do it without Cork.’ I was never crazy about that record.” (It was finally released in 1977, to lackluster acclaim).
Laing moved on to numerous projects, including a 1977 solo album “Makin’ It On The Street,” on which he also played guitar and sang. “Eric Clapton came down and played, Dickey Betts, Pete Carr, Clyde King - it was a great experience.” Half of the album was co-written with novelist Frank Conroy There was also a “lost album” recorded around 1978 with Ian Hunter. They called their short-lived band Pompeii. “We played with people Mick Ronson, Lee Michaels, Steve Hunter, Paul Butterfield, and we had Todd Rundgren producing.” Their record label back burnered the album’s release and it has gathered dust on a shelf ever since.
Through the eighties, Laing worked behind the scenes on various projects, including a Broadway show with Don Imus and performing with Kinky Friedman, Meatloaf and others. His band The Mix recorded for Word Of Mouth Records, and there was even another Mountain album with Leslie, 1983’s “Go For Your Life.” “But we were too generic, trying to be too commercial. I quit in 1987. Leslie was at his worst, doing a lot of drugs. He was all paranoid and becoming a real character so I just walked out on that one. It was getting boring.” He also became involved with music publishing, as well as running Polygram’s Canadian A&R department in the late eighties.
In 1993, plans were underway for a Mountain boxed set, with West and Laing set to record several new songs for the project. “We were in London, all ready to go, but we couldn’t find a bass player! Our manager Jim Davis suggested that we bring in Noel Redding, but we were all ready to leave for home. So we left the tape there and Noel came in to play some tracks, and it was just great! A real hip-hop shuffle.” This new Mountain embarked on a U.S. tour, which is where your erstwhile reporter caught up with them in San Diego, at a club called Banx.
Says Laing, “I got along with Noel very well, but Leslie just tore him up, was really belligerent to him.” This was obvious to me while I was visiting with Noel after the set. Laing was clearly upset and it was evident that nobody wanted to even be in the same room with West, let along ride up to L.A. with him for the next night’s gig at The House Of Blues. In fact, my girlfriend Heather and I ended up giving Noel and his lovely lady friend Candace a lift to L.A. for what would turn out to be Noel’s last ever Mountain gig. “Noel’s a lovely man,” says Laing, “a gentleman. Very easygoing. But Leslie was just really arrogant toward him. Luckily, Noel didn’t hold anything against me and we kept in touch.”
At New York’s Electric Ladyland Studios, in Fall 1995, Noel introduced Laing to Eric Schenkman, who’d just recently come to prominence due to his work with wonder kids The Spin Doctors, for whom he’d written most of the songs on “Pocketful Of Kryptonite.” “When he found out who I was, he was very friendly. I thought maybe it was just sort of a jive thing, but then we ended up staying in contact over the next year. He invited me to jam with him on The H.O.R.D.E. tour. When we jammed in New Jersey, everyone really seemed to get into it, especially the audience.”
While working on a proposed solo album, Laing called in Schenkman to play, and then Noel Redding was invited to join the mix (a recent Noel Redding Band lineup had included another Spin Doctor, Anthony Krizan). Laing says it was soon evident that the trio had the makings of a solid band. “I do a lot of the writing, and Eric’s already put in quite a bit. Plus we’re picking up a few songs from other people. Noel usually comes in afterward to do his bit, but it’s on stage where we really have to boil it all up together and see if it’s soup.”
I’m anticipating some pleasant noise this time. The proof, however, will be in what they produce. Look for an album by Cork on Warner Records’ Viceroy label sometime over the next year, and be sure to check out this newborn band as they emerge from their chrysalis on the road. It’s too soon to say whether it’s soup yet, but it should at least be a blast to see these disparate and talented players putting their talents together. It sounds like they’re having a lot of fun with it, and this bodes well that it’ll be fun for us, too.
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