|
American made
By Corey Stulce
The Telegraph
December 9, 1999
Caption: Les Reader of Mind Gangsters in the studio. Right: The cover to the Mind Gangsters' latest CD release 'In the Line of Fire'
WOOD RIVER -- Langston Hughes, in his poem "A Raisin in the Sun," once inquired what happens to a dream deferred.
Les Reader has the answer: it gets stronger with age.
Reader and his band, the Mind Gangsters, an "outlaw" band of sorts, have recently gotten a distributor and released a CD titled In the Line of Fire, but Reader is not new to the music game.
He and his bandmates Gary Will and Don Mitchell have been playing together for more years than Reader would like to say. He said the sound has always clicked and now the people are starting to listen.
"We're getting a strong following, slowly but surely," Reader said. "But I feel better about it, because it's a smarter following."
The Mind Gangsters are planning a CD release party Thursday, Dec. 23, at the Eagles Lodge in Wood River and an after party at The Marquee at 302 South Main. Admission is free.
"I'm feeling good about this CD," Reader said. "You work all your life to do something like this. I feel like I was given a gift. My job is to get out to the people what I'm hearing in my head."
He said there is something anyone from 9 to 90 can relate to on the disc. "I've found the spirit of America in my music," Reader, a Vietnam veteran, said. "I'm an American and I've been through it all, and I think everybody can relate to that."
Reader has traveled all around the country finding his sound and has met some musical greats like Willie Nelson and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys along the way.
While Reader was staying with Wilson for a stint in the '80s, they wrote a song together, "Lovin' You Is Heaven," which was recently published.
Reader said he considers Wilson to be the "greatest American rocker." One of the songs on In the Line of Fire is called "Carl's Song" and is dedicated to the memory of Brian's brother Carl Wilson, also formerly of the Beach Boys.
Reader grew up listening to the Beach Boys, Hank Williams and Creedence Clearwater Revival, all of whom he considers influences. Recent influences include Kurt Cobain and Green Day.
He calls Mind Gangsters' sound a cross between Steely Dan and the Grateful Dead, a sort of country blues rock fusion.
Reader's patience and determination with the music business may finally be paying off. Health problems kept him from appearing at Farm Aid last year, but he has kept a positive outlook.
"I was mad and depressed for a while, but I got over it (and realized) I've gotta do what I can do."
He knows the only way to go global is to start local. "It's better to build them slow and have them strong than build fast and have them dissipate real quick," Reader said. "I think that's our advantage."
Instead of drying out like a raisin in the sun, chances are, Reader's going to explode.
|
