<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When an article about Jim \u2018Kimo\u2019 West appeared in <\/span>Guitar World<\/span><\/i> magazine\u2019s April 2023 issue, parts of his story sounded real familiar.\u00a0 It occurred to me that I just might have talked about him some in a previous <\/span>From the Vaults<\/span><\/i>, so I started backtracking through my index of titles.\u00a0 I was just beginning to think \u2018maybe I only thought Weird Al had appeared in this space\u2019 when it finally showed up.\u00a0 <\/span>FTV:\u00a0 Weird Al<\/span><\/i> did get some ink way back on 2-14-15.\u00a0 I am doubly glad I started logging titles from the get-go – better to have proof of what has gone to print than relying on my memory when more than 400 of these ramblings have come and gone over years. \u00a0 Eight years later, enough time has passed to safely revisit Al but this time around, we will focus on the four guys in his band.\u00a0 Considering the variety of musical genres Weird Al visits in his parodies, it takes a band of immense musical talent to pull off a live helping of his Weirdness\u2019s greatest tunes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The logical one to start with would be drummer Jon \u2018Bermuda\u2019 Schwartz as he has the longest tenure with Al\u2019s band.\u00a0 The two met at the <\/span>Dr. Demento <\/span><\/i>show on September 14, 1980.\u00a0 Al was there to record <\/span>Another One Rides the Bus<\/span><\/i> and reportedly drafted Schwartz to add a \u2018drums\u2019 to back up his accordion – which Jon did by beating on Yankovich\u2019s accordion case with his hands.\u00a0 With no inkling where it would lead them in the future, Schwartz told him after the performance, \u201cYou should have a band, and I\u2019ll be your drummer.\u201d\u00a0 After more than four decades, \u201cBermuda ” (his nickname coined by Al) says, \u201cI neve knew there\u2019d be any kind of longevity like this.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost unprecedented for any group to stay together and continue to do well with its same members for 40-plus years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jon Schwartz was born in Chicago and grew up in Phoenix.\u00a0 With pop radio artists (including The Beatles) as his inspiration, he began drum lessons at age 9.\u00a0 When the family relocated to Los Angeles a few years later, Schwartz decided to become a professional drummer.\u00a0 Jon followed the typical path for drummers-in-training playing in marching bands, junior symphonies, school orchestras, and theater arts productions.\u00a0 Not long after completing high school, Schwartz was playing regularly with a few bands.\u00a0 The Weird Al band is his primary gig, but in their off time, he continues to record with other artists such as Jim Silvers, Rip Masters, Ray Campi, and Idle Hands (among a long list).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Schwartz enjoys photography and assumed the role of \u2018band historian\u2019.\u00a0 With an archive of photos and detailed records of their travels, he is able to provide inside intel on their world travels.\u00a0 He has published two coffee-table books of his photographs covering the band from 1983 to 1986, and also from 1981 to 2006.\u00a0 Jon says he began losing some interest in photography around 2006 when film was giving way to digital production:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not as rabid about it as I was before, but on the other hand, it doesn\u2019t cost me anything (taking pictures on his smartphone).\u00a0 I don\u2019t ever hesitate, if I think there\u2019s something I might use in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On the road with Al, Bermuda haunts thrift stores, pawnshops, used record stores, and (of course) drum shops.\u00a0 He seeks out Indian restaurants as well.\u00a0 Off the road, he spends time taking day trips with his wife Leslie and their dog Nigel.\u00a0 He spends his home time designing web pages, surfing the net, listening to music, and playing in several local bands.\u00a0 Looking back, Jon says, \u201cI wish I could tell you when I met him, I saw stardom in his future and my future.\u00a0 I had o idea what the future held;\u00a0 he had no idea.\u00a0 It felt like a fun thing.\u00a0 I\u2019m a little surprised it\u2019s gone as well as it has.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bass player Steve Jay has been with Al since they recorded Yankovic\u2019s debut album which came out in March of 1982.\u00a0 Jay was born into a musical family and was composing and playing music early on.\u00a0 He landed a record deal while still in his school and toured with his band Covington Tower throughout the Southeast, including a performance at the fabled 1968 Miami Pop Festival.\u00a0 While majoring in music composition at the University of South Florida in Tampa, he studied and performed with many notable composers and musicians.\u00a0 His work in musical theory (he authored a widely read article <\/span>The Theory of Harmonic Rhythm <\/span><\/i>(1990)) and his earlier work with the Avante Garde movement of the early 1970\u2019s would eventually earn him USF\u2019s Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award for music.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Steve studied in West Africa from 1973-75 where he first connected with world music.\u00a0 After studying and performing with master drummer Isah Hamani and his group of drummers (known as \u2018griots\u2019), he ventured to the heart of the continent.\u00a0 His archival field recordings were released on three highly acclaimed Nonesuch Explorer Series albums (<\/span>Africa:\u00a0 Drum, Chant, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Dances of the World<\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 A winner of three Peabody Awards, Jay has scored more than seventy episodes of PBS series and has contributed original music to feature films and commercials.\u00a0 In addition to his work with Weird Al, Steve has performed and recorded with artists as diverse as Wayne Shorter, Victor Wooten, Hugh Masekela, Alex Acuna, and the \u2018farther of reggae\u2019 Joe Higgs, to name a few.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How Jay got involved with the Weird One is also pretty typical for a bassist looking for work:\u00a0 he answered an ad in the newspaper and auditioned for Yankovic.\u00a0 Recording and touring with Al is his most high profile gig, but he has also managed to squeeze out 11 solo albums of bass driven songs ranging from, \u201cHigh voltage and hard driving and delicate with endless wavelengths in between,\u201d according to the biography on WeirdAl.com.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The third original piece of Al\u2019s band has also been with him since the <\/span>Weird Al <\/span><\/i>album came out in 1982;\u00a0 guitarist Jim \u201cKimo\u2019 West.\u00a0 One can get a glimpse of exactly how good West is by noting he is profiled in the June 2023 issue of <\/span>Guitar World.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Perhaps the article\u2019s author, Adam Kovac, sums Kimo up the best in his opening paragraph:\u00a0 \u201cIn the professional guitarist realm, versatility is overrated.\u00a0 The greats are the ones who become extraordinary at one thing:\u00a0 it\u2019s hard to picture Stevie Ray Vaughn releasing an acclaimed noise-rock release – or Scott Ian dipping his toes into blues rock.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s Jim \u201cKimo\u201d West, a guitarist who, for 40 years, has taken on genre after genre, style after style, constantly evolving with the times, with his playing being heard by millions.\u00a0 And he\u2019s done all this in relative obscurity, because it\u2019s hard to get the spotlight when your frontman is not only one of the most beloved pop culture icons of all times but also perhaps not technically the best – but arguably the most famous – accordion player in an extremely specific genre of music.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jim West was born in Toronto (he still retains his Canadian citizenship) and grew up in Tampa, Florida.\u00a0 He discovered his older brother\u2019s guitar in a closet at age 12 and by sixteen, he was playing professionally.\u00a0 West studied visual arts in college but dropped out to pursue music full-time.\u00a0 Like Steve Jay and Bermuda Schwartz, he settled in Los Angeles where he met Weird Al and joined his band.\u00a0 Besides his travels with the Weird One, his passport stamps show him to be a traveling man who has made stops on at least five different continents.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kimo\u2019s time gigging in cover bands was good training for what he brings to Al\u2019s music.\u00a0 As he told Kovac, \u201cI really have a broad range of musical tastes, and I can appreciate so many different musical styles and different guitar styles, so it is something I really enjoy doing.\u00a0 And then trying to nail a particular feel or vibe and tweaking the sound is a challenge, but it\u2019s a fun challenge, you know?\u201d\u00a0 Backing up Weird Al means recreating guitar sounds that include Eighties glam, bubbly pop, punk rock, folk and everything in between.\u00a0 West continued, \u201cA lot of the sound is in the player\u2019s fingers.\u00a0 For example, when we do Al\u2019s mashup of [Dire Straits\u2019] <\/span>Money for Nothing <\/span><\/i>with the <\/span>Beverly Hillbillies <\/span><\/i>theme, when I play that live, it\u2019s Mark Knoppfler.\u00a0 So you\u2019ve got to play that fingerstyle or it doesn\u2019t sound right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With the satirical biopic <\/span>Weird:\u00a0 The Al Yankovic Story<\/span><\/i> coming out, the main focus has been on <\/span>Harry Potter<\/span><\/i> star Daniel Radcliffe\u2019s performance as Weird Al.\u00a0 The \u2018maybe we are embellishing the story a bit\u2019 parts of the tale (spoiler alert:\u00a0 the band is shown rescuing Al from the toxic, evil clutches of Madonna and having a gun battle with drug kingpin Pablo Escobar), will surely make it fun.\u00a0 Oddly enough, it sounds like the guys hired to play Al\u2019s band are going to be the sleeper stars of the film.\u00a0 The film is primarily about Al, but it pays fitting tribute to the people who have stood with him throughout his career.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of Kimo West\u2019s passions has become Hawaiian slack key guitar.\u00a0 He was first introduced to the music (which employs open guitar tuning to produce some beautiful, haunting melodies) on an early tour to the islands.\u00a0 Jim describes his attraction to slack key guitar:\u00a0 \u201cThe music just\u00a0 touched me and it just felt so much like the place.\u00a0 The music sounds like the way the place looks;\u00a0 it just feels like it is coming out of the earth.\u201d\u00a0 Besides his series of slack key album releases, his 2021 solo album <\/span>More Guitar Stories,\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>won a Grammy Award for the Best New Age Album.\u00a0 When he isn\u2019t enjoying his first hobby (guitar), he is also an avid fan of scuba diving, snorkeling, and fishing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The newest band member, keyboardist Ruben Valtierra made his Weird Al debut in October of 1991 with Dr.<\/span> Demento\u2019s 20th Anniversary <\/span><\/i>Album.\u00a0 A native of San Rafael, CA, Ruben began classical music studies at age ten.\u00a0 He attended U.C. Santa Cruiz, performed with the award winning Cabrillo College Big Band, and toured extensively with his own jazz\/rock fusion group Rush Hour before he landed in Los Angeles.\u00a0 It did not take long for him to begin recording and touring with Aretha Franklin, Santana, Tom Jones, Natalie Cole, Chic Corea, Tower of Power, Elton John, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many others.\u00a0 Prior to joining Al\u2019s band, he did extensive world tours with Glenn Hughes (bassist with Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Country Communion and The Dead Daisies) and blues icon Charlie Musselwhite.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When not on tour with Weird Al, Ruben keeps active in the studio writing, producing, and recording.\u00a0 He also leads his own popular Latin Orchestra (VLO) that features members of the world\u2019s leading Latin orchestras.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As one can see, Weird Al does not employ a band of hacks to produce his music live.\u00a0 In 2011, there was a TV special produced by Paramount that showcased the crazy world of Al Yankovic live.\u00a0 It features not only the band in full flight, but also the costumes and interludes Al uses to faithfully capture the full effects of his hit song parodies.\u00a0 By the end of the show, the band is clearly sapped because playing the songs alone is taxing.\u00a0 Adding to the physicality of performing, the constant wardrobe changes adds another layer of stress and energy drain.\u00a0 Having watched this entire concert a couple of times, it did not surprise me at all that they changed direction a bit for the 2021 and 2023 tours.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The 2021 tour (<\/span>The Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill Advised Vanity Tour (All Originals) <\/span><\/i>and their 2023 outing (<\/span>The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Vanity Tour<\/span><\/i>) were promoted with the following disclaimer:\u00a0 \u201cThis is a scaled down tour with minimum production (no costumes, props, or video screens) in smaller theaters and more intimate settings, and Al\u2019s set list will be comprised almost entirely of his original (non parody) songs.\u201d\u00a0 The years spent doing the big venue tours with all the bells and whistles have been great, but the Weird One felt it was time to perhaps do something different:\u00a0 \u201cMore like an <\/span>MTV:\u00a0 Storytellers<\/span><\/i> kind of show – loser and more unpredictable.\u00a0 If you are expecting the Fat suits and Segues, this probably isn\u2019t the tour for you to see.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why would Al, who made his name as the best parody artist of all, choose to feature his own original songs and not the hits that made him famous?\u00a0 There are a couple of reasons.\u00a0 First off, Al began adding a few original tunes to each album long enough ago to have amassed a good number of his own songs.\u00a0 Parodies require him to seek the original artist\u2019s (or writer\u2019s) permission and then pay them royalties off his own record sales.\u00a0 Writing his own songs frees him from both of those obligations and provides him with a different creative outlet.\u00a0 Ditching the standard \u2018hits and props\u2019 show allows both he and his band to stretch.\u00a0 Judging by the lengthy tour title and disclaimer, Weird Al is being honest and forthright about what they are doing.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pondering what the future might bring, it doesn\u2019t sound like any of the band members will be hurting for gigs if and when Al hangs up the accordion for good.\u00a0 Sure, there are examples of bands who continue without their original front men or women.\u00a0 Sly of Sly and the Family Stone kind of went off the rails (should he be called \u2018Weird Sly\u2019?) and became so unpredictable, his agents found it almost impossible to book them for concerts.\u00a0 His crack band kept working with a faux Sly (keyboard and singer, but not billed as \u2018Sly\u2019) out front while billing themselves as The Family Stone.\u00a0 I have seen clips of them and they are still a great band, even without Sly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Island Resort near Escanaba recently hosted a show by the <\/span>Central Park Reunion Band.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Forty years ago, they backed up Simon and Garfunkel for their fabled \u2018<\/span>Reunion in Central Park<\/span><\/i> concert.\u00a0 An attendee of the recent Island Resort show tells me the band was very good – and I am sure nobody expected S & G to make an appearance.\u00a0 I doubt Weird Al\u2019s band will find the need to go this route – they are all plenty busy between Al gigs as it is!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video – Here is a little mashup of Weird Al and his band doing their thing live . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When an article about Jim \u2018Kimo\u2019 West appeared in Guitar World magazine\u2019s April 2023 issue, parts of his story sounded real familiar.\u00a0 It occurred to me that I just might have talked about him some in a previous From the Vaults, so I started backtracking through my index of titles.\u00a0 I was just beginning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,12,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2865,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851\/revisions\/2865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}