Singhs carry on with Cleve on sideline
Brother Cleve is indeed living the life of a monk these days. The veteran Boston DJ is going stark raving mad in quarantine for an illness that has doctors befuddled and Cleve's life - beyond a good book - on hold. This is especially frustrating today as the Singhs, the band that the former Del Fuegos and Combustible Edison member plays keyboards for, is throwing a private party to celebrate its third album, "Supersaturated," the following night. If there's one thing Brother Cleve hates missing, it's a good party.
"I wish somebody could tell me what it is," the 53-year-old Medford native says of his mystery illness. "We thought we knew, but now we don't know again. Both of my arms are completely scarred from so many blood tests."
So far, he's been diagnosed with malaria, dengue fever, and a hitherto certain decision of tuberculosis. "I have all the symptoms: sleeping 18 hours a day, fever, rapidly losing weight. Not that I didn't need to drop a few pounds," he jokes. Now that diagnosis isn't sticking and it may turn out it's side effects from prescribed medication, perhaps making the quarantine unnecessary.
Today is a good day, though. Cleve (few know his real name) sounds quite lively, just a little exasperated because the CD-release parties in New York and Boston - including tomorrow night's show at Church - are going on without him.
"We had a cardboard cutout of him on stage, but we really missed him," says Singhs frontman Miki Singh after a recent party at Umbria. The band - which also includes blues guitarist Peter Parcek, drummer Steve Scully, and bassist Marc Hickox - decided it was much easier to rearrange the songs for a four-piece than rehearse a replacement.
"We did a lot of the songs as a twosome, too, just me and Peter on acoustics," continues Singh, "which is a format I like. But we can play the songs easily as a four[piece]."
Cleve, an MIT graduate who now lives in Dorchester, retired from his successful software company in 2000 to live on St. Bart's, in the French West Indies, and concentrate on music. "Oh, my God, where would we get our drinks from?" he jokes. Well, half jokes. In fact, Cleve is also a master mixologist, credited as an auteur of the mid-'90s cocktail revival.
More important than the perfectly shaken cocktail right now is launching the Singhs in the United States, where the band is less well-known than in India and Europe. After six years as Dragonfly, the group decided the name had to go.
"Do a search on the stupidest name and it's taken," says Singh. The band's snappier new name fits the album's sound, which is reminiscent of highly produced Robert Palmer-style '80s pop rock. That was the era when Singh started playing around Boston in a guitar-and-drum-machine outfit called Modern Man.
Before Singh arrived in Cambridge in 1981, his father's diplomatic job landed him in Sweden, Madrid, Moscow, Saigon (around 1973, when the Vietnam war was raging), Bogota, and Uganda during Idi Amin's murderous rule. After attending boarding school in the Himalayas, he arrived at MIT and "ended up getting stuck in Boston for 20 years," he says fondly. Singh says music isn't a rich man's hobby for him, but a second career that he takes very seriously.
"It's been a lot of work. This record took over three years to make," he says. It's a lengthy sojourn that makes it all the more painful with an essential member missing. But Singh hasn't given up hope of them performing at Church tomorrow as a five-piece.
"The quarantine issue is the problem. If they lift that and he feels better, he's with us for the Boston show. One good thing, though," Singh says, "Apparently he's lost lots of weight and is feeling really good about that." 