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Tom ''Satch'' Kerans left his first Boston band, the Catalinas, to pursue a teaching career. (Erik Jacobs for The Boston Globe) |
Scene & Heard
Blast from the past is ready for second act
It's not rare, unfortunately, for a promising musician or band to burn out or fade away after early success. Most eventually move on to other pursuits if not dreams, other ways of giving meaning to their lives. Considerably less common is the musician who vanishes for the better part of a decade and - years after settling into an entirely different identity and new set of priorities - reemerges with some of the best songs he's ever written.
This is what happened to Tom "Satch" Kerans. His first Boston band, the Catalinas, went to the WBCN Rumble way back in 1987 (losing to Mark Sandman's pre-Morphine outfit, Treat Her Right), attracted major-label interest, and hammered away at the North Shore club circuit for years before Kerans finally pulled the plug. Somewhere along the line, he admits, the music stopped being worthwhile, or even fun.
"I was in my early 30s and wanted to put something else together and have a day job," says Kerans, who plays at T.T. the Bear's on Tuesday. So the singer-guitarist went back to college, studied at night, got his teaching degree, and landed a job as a special-education instructor at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School. He even began hosting an informal "guitar club" with his students.
"Going from being a musician to getting up really early every morning to teach was an adjustment," says Kerans. "But five or six years ago I really got back into writing again. I stopped worrying about whether I was too old to do it. I just wanted to do it. I felt freed up."
The Catalinas, he says, were "like a marriage that went on too long. We were going through the motions and didn't realize it."
Kerans no longer settles for going through the motions. In 2004 he self-released a vibrant solo debut, "Elliot Street," a jangle-infused power-pop collection that recalled early Tom Petty and Dwight Twilley.
Last year's more rustic follow-up, "Riverboys" (co-produced by old Rumble nemesis Billy Conway of Treat Her Right and Morphine), nodded in sound and temperament to his longtime heroes Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, as well as ex-Dream Syndicate frontman Steve Wynn and Mark Knopfler. At the collection's core was a clutch of sturdy melodies and classic pop structures.
Kerans is now working on a batch of new material with ex-Papas Fritas guitarist-turned-producer Tony Goddess at Goddess's Bang-a-Song recording studio in Gloucester.
"I think what he does best is write hooks," says Goddess, who bonded with Kerans over a mutual appreciation for the underrated '70s guitar popsmith Twilley. "I find [Satch's] stuff really catchy. To hear a guy who can really use a major and minor chord in a good way and come up with hooks that stick in your head, I just dig it."
Like most of his solo work, the bittersweet title track to "Riverboys" is an affecting portrait of the lives Kerans saw around him growing up in Danvers, a town roughly 20 miles north of Boston.
"It's based on these guys that lived in my hometown in the late '70s," says Kerans, who now lives on Cape Ann. "They'd be hanging out in bars, and there was probably alcoholism and depression. They weren't married, they didn't work steadily, and they hung out together. I remember seeing them in the alleyways of town."
The name "Riverboys" references the Danvers and Porter rivers that run through his hometown, as well as Springsteen's "The River" and the Joni Mitchell song of the same name. Meanwhile, the quietly harrowing antiwar ballad "Your God" took on a special resonance when Kerans learned a young soldier he once had as a student had been killed in Iraq. "That was the first time the war actually impacted me in that someone I knew directly was taken over there," he says. "Now, when I'm singing ["Your God"], I think about families who are maybe going through that."
The kind of music Kerans is interested in making now is a far cry from the days of the Catalinas' gritty garage rock and cover tunes. So are the reasons for making it.
"When I was in my 20s, it was all about trying to get a record deal," Kerans says. "It was always rejection, rejection, rejection. But now, without expectation, I just enjoy the process, and the more I enjoy it the more I write and the better I get. You wonder whether you can do it or not, and then you realize you can. It's a cool feeling."
CAT POWER OK, so no Chan Marshall or Pussycat Dolls. But next Wednesday's fund-raiser at T.T. the Bear's to benefit the no-kill cat shelter Kitty Angels, which rescues and provides food and shelter to stray and abandoned cats, features a pretty purr-fect lineup (sorry, we had to). For a donation of $10, you get the Sharp Lads; the Russians; ex-Dropkick Murphys guitarist Rick Barton; the New Alibis; Jeddo Stars; Jason Dunn, of this year's Rumble winners, the Luxury; Bo Barringer and Jen Grygiel of Meandjoancollins; VulGarrity; Milquetoast; Paul Janovitz; the Peasants's Pete Cassani; Caged Heat; Birds Make Birds; and Jeffrey Simmons. The show, hosted by the Somerville artist-management company and record label Twisted Rico and Red Car Records, starts at 8:30 p.m.
Know something cool on the local music scene? E-mail Jonathan Perry at roughgems@aol.com.
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