{"id":798573,"date":"2019-08-15T17:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T23:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/music-scene-the-b-52s-bruce-hornsby-and-more-to-play-in-summit-county\/"},"modified":"2019-08-15T17:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T23:04:00","slug":"music-scene-the-b-52s-bruce-hornsby-and-more-to-play-in-summit-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/music-scene-the-b-52s-bruce-hornsby-and-more-to-play-in-summit-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Scene: The B-52s, Bruce Hornsby and more to play in Summit County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
For 40 years, The B-52s have been bringing a new wave dance party to clubs, ballrooms, theaters, arenas and amphitheaters around the country. The group plays at the Dillon Amphitheater on Saturday, Aug. 17. Visit DillonAmphitheater.com to purchase tickets.<\/strong>
Courtesy Joseph Cultice<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

For 40 years, The B-52s have been bringing a new wave dance party to clubs, ballrooms, theaters, arenas and amphitheaters around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just like to keep the energy high, get the audience on their feet and have a good time,\u201d said singer Fred Schneider, who\u2019s also been known to bang on a cowbell. \u201cI\u2019ve never heard any complaints about our live show. Never.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that show aims at getting people up to dance, even if it\u2019s in a stuffy concert hall where patrons usually sit and appreciate the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople usually stand up anyway,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cWe\u2019re not a sit-down band.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the band\u2019s catchy combo of dance and surf music, filled with unusually tuned and played guitars is irresistibly danceable. And quirkier songs, like \u201cQuiche Lorraine\u201d and \u201cMesopotamia\u201d will bring smiles and even more fun.<\/p>\n

That sound and the songs, Schneider said, come from the combination of elements brought by each member of the original B-52s lineup: singers himself, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson with Cindy\u2019s brother Ricky and Keith Strickland on guitars.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeith and Ricky were very original musicians,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cRicky had three strings on his guitar, sometimes four. He was very creative. He liked Joni Mitchell a lot and used open tuning. He was really admired by a lot of guitarists. Keith plays a variety of instruments and he\u2019s amazing at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote poetry in high school and college that was sort of surreal and humorous. I brought that aspect to the lyrics,\u201d he said. \u201cKate liked folk music and played guitar. Cindy liked to sing. She\u2019s a creative poet, too. We all brought that together.\u201d<\/p>\n

They brought it together in Athens, Georgia, in 1976, legendarily jamming for their first time after sharing a flaming volcano drink at a Chinese restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was visiting from Atlanta,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cI was really bored living in Atlanta. I decided, after we jammed and saw all my friends, to move to Athens. Then we got together to jam (regularly). There was actually nothing to do in Athens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Really, nothing to do in Athens? The usual view of Athens in the late \u201970s is it had a thriving music community that produced bands like R.E.M. and drew others to the college town.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot at all,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cThere was no scene whatsoever. We had to play the folk club. They didn\u2019t want us until we sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quintet\u2019s first gig came on Feb. 14, 1977.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some friends who were having a Valentine\u2019s party and they asked me if we\u2019d play it,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t even have a name yet. I told them \u2018We have a gig if we want it.\u2019 We took it and played the same set twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking its name from a \u201940s beehive hairdo that resembled the nose cone on the B-52 bomber, dressing thrift-store chic and delivering its humorous, quirky music, the group played in Athens and Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Then it ventured out to, among other places, New York, where it played now legendary clubs CBGB and The Mudd Club, becoming the first Athens band to get national attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen record labels started coming to Athens and Atlanta trying to get us to sign their crappy contracts, we knew something was going on here,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cOnce we signed with (Warner Bros. Records), it was \u2018Here we go.\u2019 We\u2019ve had a good run and we\u2019re still going strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the middle of that run, 1989 to be precise, came \u201cLove Shack,\u201d the band\u2019s biggest hit \u2014 a song that Schneider saved from being abandoned during the recording process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t let it go,\u201d he said. \u201cThey were sort of giving up on it. I thought \u2018We\u2019ve got to do something with this.\u2019 Don Was (producer) came up with the idea of putting two parts together. It wasn\u2019t anything brilliant. But it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed it worked. But \u201cLove Shack\u201d was far from an instant hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cRadio wouldn\u2019t take it at first except for college and independent, which is why we always have time for college and independent now,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cI don\u2019t think our record label knew what to do with it. We had to beg radio stations to play \u2018Love Shack\u2019. Now you can\u2019t get away from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider can\u2019t escape \u201cLove Shack,\u201d \u201cRoam,\u201d \u201cRock Lobster,\u201d \u201cPrivate Idaho\u201d or any of The B-52s classics. That, however, doesn\u2019t bother him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend more time thinking about stage patter than I do about whether I like this song or not,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to say something that can get people to go \u2018What is he talking about?\u2019 And then come out with a song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, four decades in, The B-52s are at a musical peak, reached through hundreds of performances over the years.<\/p>\n

The B-52s shows will include all the songs that fans want to hear and dance to. What they don\u2019t include is new material. The band\u2019s most recent album was 2008\u2019s \u201cFunplex,\u201d the disc on which it changed its name from The B-52\u2019s to The B-52s.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that and getting better at what we do. Especially after voice lessons I learned quite a few things,\u201d he said. \u201cMy voice has gotten quite powerful after that. We work well together.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For 40 years, The B-52s have been bringing a new wave dance party to clubs, ballrooms, theaters, arenas and amphitheaters around the country. The group plays at the Dillon Amphitheater on Saturday, Aug. 17. Visit DillonAmphitheater.com to purchase tickets.Courtesy Joseph Cultice For 40 years, The B-52s have been bringing a new wave dance party to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 05:15:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}