You probably know all about the two big nostalgia acts on this weekend’s Intonation bill: the 60s power trio Blue Cheer is stopping here for a rare performance, and acid-damaged Texas rocker Roky Erickson will play his first gig outside his home state in more than two decades. But there’s a quieter comeback happening early Sunday afternoon that may be of just as much interest to local music fans. Bill Dolan, the guitar whiz behind the mid-90s band Five Style and its successor, Heroic Doses, will play a set with two of his old musical foils, bassist Matt Lux and drummer John Herndon.
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Dolan first started playing in Chicago in the late 80s as a guitarist in the punk outfit Speck. He moved here in 1992 after the band broke up, sharing a loft with producer Brad Wood, an old Rockford acquaintance, and Leroy Bach, who was then leading Uptighty. Through Wood, Dolan got to know Sub Pop Records honcho Jonathan Poneman and passed him a tape of Speck demos. Soon after, Poneman offered him a contract. “Five Style was really kinda cultivated by Poneman saying, ‘I’m gonna give you some money to record, go and put some people together,’” Dolan says.
With Five Style, Dolan came up with an inventive mix of genres, giving Meters-inspired instrumental funk a postpunk spin. The original lineup featured Herndon and Lux, who was soon replaced by Bach. By 1995, when they released their self-titled debut, keyboardist Jeremy Jacobsen had joined the fold. The album received positive reviews and sold respectably, but then things just sort of ground to a halt. The group didn’t officially break up, but Herndon was increasingly busy with Tortoise and Jacobsen with his solo project, the Lonesome Organist.
Varicocele soldiered on, playing a handful of gigs in early 2005, but the death of Goldsmith’s brother derailed the project indefinitely. After a brief detour to LA, where he jammed with various musicians–“I was feeling it out,” Dolan says–he returned to Rockford last fall and hooked up with drummer Micky Rosenquist and bassist Karl Ropp of the Snaggs, a pop outfit fronted by Holland Zander, daughter of Cheap Trick singer Robin. That lineup has played three Chicago shows since September–the first, at the Hideout, was billed as a Heroic Doses gig–but Dolan also decided to look up his old bandmates Herndon and Lux. Since December the three have been rehearsing a mix of new songs and Varicocele material, and those tunes will make up their Intonation set. “It’s slightly bluesy,” Dolan says. “Johnny says it’s kinda jam-bandy, but I don’t know if that’s true. It’s got some roots elements with some jazz undertones, but it’s still me playing.”
When: Sun 6/25,1:30 PM
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Yvette Marie Dostatni.
