Horton Hears a Wu:
A Journey into the heart of a beautiful beast
And so it begins...

Many weeks ago at some indeterminable and hazy hour I was visiting Seattle glass magician Jason Lee at his studio (you can check out his marvelous wares @ www.headies.com). As we are both modern music connoisseurs Jason and I frequently trade notes on newly discovered bands, especially those who pose a new take on any given musical genre.

After a lengthy session break Jason fired up his torch, donned his protective shades to prevent sunburning his retinas and returned to work in the orange glow. I strolled away from the heat of his work area and perused his always well stocked and often rotating collection of bootlegs. I thumbed through the box of tapes and CDs looking for hidden gems that I had not yet heard. Phish... Disco Biscuits... Trey solo... Victor Wooten... The Big Wu... Wait a minute, who? I recognized the name immediately as a reference to the volcano in Steven Spielberg's least known film Joe Versus The Volcano. Yes, it was a Spielberg film, though he may not admit to it these days, but feel free to look it up. I was intrigued and borrowed the several generation old analog tape to listen to in the car. The tape contained several of the most sincerely rendered Grateful Dead covers I had ever come across as well as few notable originals. I was impressed enough by their sound to pursue this Big Wu and see for myself what this Minneapolis based jam band had to offer.

Several weeks later, I caught a Big Wu show at the Cabooze- a home turf haunt of the Wu- in Minneapolis during a cross country venture. It was a Tuesday night (7/14/99) and I was immediately struck by the sheer volume of bodies already in the room the room during the open band's set (Allset). By the time the Wu hit the stage, it was officially packed. The energetic clamor about the venue led me to believe that the rest of this crowd new what to expect. It would be more accurate to say that they were salivating like Pavlov's dogs at the dinner bell and soon I would understand the source of their kinetic anticipation.

The Big Wu took the stage amid shouts and hoots too numerous to discern from one another. They opened the show with "Two Person Chair" a high-energy, jammy, care-free Jason Fladager original. By the time they were half way through "Peurto Rico" I was just another writhing body in the sweaty crowd. I already felt part of the family- a notion clearly held by the majority of the Wu goers that evening. It was also on this night that I first met Jason Fladager and Big Wu manager Paul Hagen. It was in talking with Paul before the show that I first saw that there was clearly more to this band than just the music. Paul spoke of them and their music with not only respect, but with passion- not at all the used car salesman that flood the independent music management market. In our brief conversation he went from slightly awkward yet amiable to animated and excited.

Towards the end of their set (they customarily play two set shows), the Big Wu broke into a pretty little song, which I would later learn was "Boxing Day"; it was then that I witness a phenomenon I had only seen occur in the audience of shows by Phish and Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. A young man had been groovin' his night away not far from my perch at the bar and by the second note of this tune he was reaching to the sky- mouth agape- and cackling with euphoria. He was at once elated, entranced, and visibly grateful.

**Author's note: check out a biography of the Big Wu @ www.thebigwu.com/bio.cfm

A Northwest Invasion...

At the Cabooze show I learned that the Big Wu was planning their first trip to the great northwest. After the dates were official I immediately contacted The Rocket- a Pacific Northwest music and entertainment paper- (www.musicuniverse.com) and wrote a brief preview mentioning the Big Wu's three local dates. While I would like to just smile and take the credit for the unprecedented crowd that showed up at the Highliner in Seattle for two free sets of Wu, it probably had more to do with the large population of transplanted Minnesotans who happen to now inhabit the Puget Sound area. Apparently they hadn't forgotten their home town band.

I arrived at the Highliner about an hour early and found Jason Fladager hauling amps in the front door. He was visibly weary. I reintroduced myself and we talked briefly about the current tour which was nearing it's end. "So, Jason," I began, "is it cool if I plug into the soundboard."

He laughed softly and threw this rhetorical at me: "What soundboard?" As it turned out, the Highliner had no PA system of their own. And the Big Wu was not traveling with such a set up of their own at the time. After little deliberation, the band began loading in their normal stage set up in a tiny corner of the restaurant/bar except, in lieu of a PA, they simply turned their monitor speakers outward and played their two sets without the benefit of being able to hear themselves through their own stage monitors- a daunting task for any live outing.

Regardless of their technical difficulties, The Big Wu played a show that delighted the Minnesotans and won a handful of new fans from the locals. It was a perfect example of how the Big Wu handles adversity on the road. They were handed exhaustion and a lack of equipment and they pulled off a show that all present will attest was tight and groovin'. Shortly after that evening, I contacted Jason again and expressed my interest in going on the road with them for a few days in order to write this article. The dates were posted for their tour which began in January of this year and I arranged to meet up with the Big Wu and travel with them for three days back to Seattle. The task of recalling all that occurred and conveying the twisted reality of it all is one that I welcome:

On the Road...

My trip with the Big Wu began in Seattle. The night before I was to leave, I was up 'til the wee hours watching Keller Williams spin his magic into the hearts and minds of Seattle's jam band fans who packed the Rainbow to see him. I caught a nap before the sun came up and picked up my rental car and barreled down I-5 to Eugene. I finally tracked the Big Wu down at the Best Western in Eugene, OR where I also grabbed a room for the evening and had a few minutes to meet the rest of the band members and crew. Al answered the door and I had no idea who I was. I later discovered that this was the pitfall of communicating with the band solely through Jason who while extreme affable is not always the most organized individual in the land. That night was the 54th show of their 2000 tour and they were to play two free sets at the WOW Hall (3/29/00) as part of their Snapple tour. The Big Wu was actually on two simultaneous tours; they were playing their own regular club gigs and they were playing free shows under contract with Snapple as part of their college tour promotion. "Mixing music with corporate sponsorship sounded a little fishy to me at first," Jason said of the issue. "But after meeting the two Snapple reps, Ray and Molly, who came on tour with us, I was put at rest. Snapple paid us pretty well and we got to play on college campuses all up and down the west coast. All for free," said Jason in retrospect. "It was a way in which we could 'git our music out there' and so we did. Basically, it was a concoction good for everybody."

I was struck by how much tighter they sounded than when I had seen them play last. But the tedium of tour and poor routing- long drives and late nights- were beginning to wear on the Wu, but they managed to pull off a solid show. "Good set," I said to keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Al Oikari. He rolled his eyes," It was O.K.," he said matter-of-factly. "I'd say it was a C-." If the Big Wu can be road weary and play a set like that, I thought, I can't wait to see these guys go off. It was during this first day in Eugene that I met the full touring cast and crew.

The Players...
First the band. The Big Wu's three founding members were it's guitarist/vocalists Jason Fladager and Chris Castino and percussionist/vocalist Terry VanDeWalker. Jason is a song writer, a Phish head, and a seeker. But first, he is a family man. He usually only stops talking about his wife, Carrie, and his two young daughters when he's seeking out venue pay phones to make pre-show calls home. Just that he's willing to separate himself from them during these tours is a testament to his passion for music and his love for his band.

Chris is the poet; a musician/song writer with introspection and depth yet he places a care-free grin where many others of the same description often end up as dark, doomed, self-destructive characters.

Terry, the cherubic kit drummer, is as soulful and smooth as they come. Everything he does seems deliberate, yet in all way, unimposing. "I think we are prolly the same kind of people," says Jason of Terry. "Sensitive musical freaks indeed."

The rhythm section is rounded out by Andy "I ain't no goddamned hippie" Miller who would just assume bang his head to Ozzy than cover the Grateful Dead. The only thing he enjoys more than smoking and drinking is drinking and smoking... and playing his bass in packed smoky venues full of drunks.

Keyboardist extrordinaire Al Oikari joined the band in '96 and has since been a powerful factor in getting the Big Wu out of Minneapolis and into venues all over the country. He plays every instrument known to man including a beautiful slide guitar that he tears into on songs like "Red Sneakers". Al is still looking for his long lost relatives in Seattle The Big Wu's touring envoy, on this tour, was also carrying road manager Jack Lawrence, soundboard engineer Andy Frey and back-up, Jed, Snapple reps Ray and Molly, and part time documentarian/freelance enforcer, me.

Snapple sure did their homework finding the right two people to work with the Wu. Ray is one of those mellow people who just doesn't rattle. Even, cool, and personable always. His expression was more often than not saying, "Ain't nothin' but a thing." And Molly, well Molly was the only thing sweeter than those tall bottles of sticky sugar water that she and her compatriot were slingin' to the students.

The man with the master plan- in fact the only one of the crew who actually knows what town they happen to be in each day- is Jack. While I hate to differ my powers of observation and description to a movie character, Jack is just to similar to Jeff Bridges' character in The Big Lebowski. Jack is the Dude. That guy that just fits right in there. He's just the man for his place and time.

Punk rock sound man Andy "Spike" Frey is never far from his all black wardrobe, his spiky head do, and that scowl that barely covers up his baby-faced smile. Rebel without a cause, without a band, but a solid sound man and one hell of good man. And then there was Tennessee Jed. A young sound man who's blinding foot funk and disagreeable scowl still obscures the image of his personality.

On the road again...

The morning after the Eugene show, we loaded up the two vans and headed up I-5 toward Olympia, WA. It was both Terry's and Jason's birthday's. Jason had just turned 29 and Terry 27- a very dangerous age by Rock 'n' Roll standards. I wished Jason a happy birthday and shared a birthday morning bowl with him. I sat in the front bench seat of the van with stinky Jed; Andy Miller drove, Jason rode shotgun and Jack and Andy Frey were sprawled out semi-conscious in the back.

We listened to Zappa, Zeppelin, and then to part of the Phish NYE 2000 marathon set. Jason grins as he listens intently to the music. Phish is playing "Boogie On Reggae Woman".
"Let's play this one tonight," Jason says, spinning his grin toward Andy.
"Ya know," Andy begins, "I've heard Stevie play that one and I've heard Phish play it, and I've heard us do it. And the only one who should ever play it is Stevie." He pauses.
"But that's just my opinion," he laughs, "We can play that one tonight." Jason continued to listen intently to the music. Now Phish was into the long jam in "Roses Are Free". Jason began to smile. "I've listened to this part many times," I said. Jason continued to smile at the music. He turned his head toward me slowly. "They're just too far ahead," he said with a smile, "no one can ever catch up. The way they jam.... As far as playing off each other and the way they communicate on stage. Man, listen to the tone that Trey gets out of that guitar." The pensive creases again appeared on his face. "They're just so far ahead."

Everyone had gotten more sleep the previous night than in quite a while, myself included, so the mood in the van was bright. The day was bright as well; sunny with warm thick air that whistled through the van. A cel phone began to ring and the search for which one t was began. Andy answered. "Hello? Jack? yeah he's asleep. Oh, O.k. ... Hey Jack." There was nothing coming from behind me.
"Maybe we should let him sleep," I offered, "He looked really hung over this morning."
"He always looks like that," Andy said with a chuckle. "Here, give him the phone." I passed the cel back. Jack took it and sat up. I had never before seen anyone ever go from dead hung-over passed out to on the phone and in business mode... well, coping mode anyway. The news was good. It seemed that the noon Seattle show was going to be bumped, reducing the show load for the three day period from four shows to three. There world directly became an even groovier place.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again. The noon time show was back on and it was out of reachable hands. The van was suddenly heavy; deflated, wounded. The trip had just gotten visibly harder. Conversation became minimal.

A World of Bad Vibes...
We rolled into Olympia with several hours to kill before show time. Olympia, WA is a strange little town with enough pent up grunge punk energy for decrepit metropolis and even on a day that's not as gray and eerie as the one we arrived on, there's always a weird uneasiness about the streets there. This day was particularly strange. When it was finally time to load in, there was a very odd little dark skinned man- indiscreet of feature- standing by the back door very officially, clad in some form of military surplus garb complete with beret. He trotted up to several of us on more than one occasion and looked at us sideways with a quirky smile- saying nothing- before trotting off again. Later, just before the Wu's set, Jason and I would see this man- through the curtained windows behind the stage- disappear groundward while some EMT's came to his aid. Again, before the show began, I was talking music and life with Chris when we were pulled from our conversation by what can only be described as some sort of mutant that would make even the X-Men recoil in horror. Up walked this charicature of a tall, gawky, skim-milk-blue-white-skinned, knuckle-dragging, Vanilla Ice. This goofy kid wore an over-sized Bulls jersey- probably to draw attention away from his enormous round facial features- and had a long greasy pony-tail clipped to the scalp, high above where the side burns should have been. His speech was pure highly rehearsed street mixed was some horrible bastardization of freestyle rapping. His gestures were painfully forced grandiose. It was only possible to keep from laughing because of the sureality of his very existence. And he talked/rapped at us at such a pace that he must have been used to having whole conversations pass without the benefit of another's speech. We managed to escape toward the soundboard area, but shortly after Chris would be trapped between the awful rhyme sputtering Vanilla and the now locked gate to the load-out door. I had been out back digging around in the van for my camera bag, but now I was taking notes furiously as Vanilla flailed back and forth from feeble rhymes to his plain awkward ranting speech:

But I don't need ta impress,
No needs ta stress,
'Cause I gots da bess,
And can play da press. Ya know what I'm saying, man? 'Cause my boyee DJ Crayola is spinnin' tonight cross town.
It's gonna be crazy live,
I ain't talkin no jive, yo,
'Cause life's always fly
In Da O-L-Y.
Yeah, he's a bad muthafucka, yo. We got all the mutherfukers down here in Oly 'n' shit.... An he went on like this. He was trying convince Chris to "lay down some backup for his dope shit". Very Strange.

This marked the first occasion I had heard the Big Wu play "Save Our Ship" live, which has since become one of my favorites. "SOS" is a powerful original, performed in movements, the middle third being an exploratory addition to the song which is never quite the same, but always flowing and washing about between the bookends of verses. The lyrical imagery is stark and vivid, solemn and hopeful. "'SOS' is about leaving the safety of some place and making your way," Chris begins of the song. "It's about the adventure of life versus the struggle of it; gambling and hoping it will pay off. Whether it's in a Ford F-350 or a ship out at sea."

And again...

Shows over. Load out. Back in the vans and on the road by 3:00am. The Big Wu had to be at UW in Seattle in the morning to set up for a noon Snapple promotion show in the cafeteria. By the time we got into Seattle, it was just after 4:00am. Some crashed in the van, some at the hotel room that Ray and Molly had and some on various couches and available floor space at my apartment.

After a few short hours nap it was time to head to the University. The noon cafeteria show should have been dubbed, "Dance with the Dead"- and not in reference to any favorite cover they may have played. Jason looked like it wouldn't require that stiff of a breeze to knock him out of his chair. Al was all business, but with heavy eyes. Terry often drums with his eyes closed, but on this day the ever-present joy-of-life smile that accompanies his beats was difficult to locate. He was concentrating. Chris was just lost to the world. His fingers moved along his guitar and his voice was clear, but no one was home. And Andy looked pretty par for his course.

I found Jack at the merch table faithfully penning the set list as it happened. He was giddy; exhausted and tickled pink about it. Jack once traded his services to the Wu for couch space and now he was at the helm of their daily destiny.

After that set, everyone had a few good hours of napping, except me. I was busy giving a statement for an accident report.

What happened?...

My three days on the road with the Big Wu felt like three weeks. Looking back, I had to check my notes and car rental receipt to be sure, but it was only three days. In the world of touring which they inhabit they speak a language of fortitude that I do not comprehend. I'm ashamed to admit how beaten I was after my short stay. But I am not the road warrior that these guys are and I hope to God that I never am. The Big Wu is a band on the run. I've found that to know them is to love them... and to fear for them.

It seems that this is where I should think up some cute and tidy ending to this story, but the story of the Big Wu is just getting under way and to conclude would be to speculate. And I would prefer to let time tell this one.

The Big Wu is now gearing up for their annual Family Reunion- a three day festival of music and on site camping: Memorial day weekend Friday, May 26 through Sunday, May 28. For more info check out www.thebigwu.com


-Jack Chester - jackc@seanet.net