The Alchemist, March 9, 2010, Volume 3, No. 114
Vol. 3, No. 114
2010 Alchy Award Winner:
Best Electric Performer
Mark France
Last year’s winner for Best Electric Performer has been all over town lately with Xenat Ra, but there is a good chance you’ve seen him before. Mark France has been a part of the Corvallis music scene for years. Decades, actually.
“Almost thirty years,” that’s how France describes his years playing guitar.
Currently the man owns seven guitars, counting in a five-string bass, a student guitar, a seven string, and a classical.
“My main one is a six string Ibanez my parents got me in junior high,” France said.
There’s a good chance on any day that you’ll find him with a guitar in his hand. Besides the three local bands that France currently plays with, he has also been giving guitar lessons at a shop in Albany for a long time.
“I’ll take days off, but typically I like to play a couple hours a day,” France explained, “It depends what you’re working on: practice, learning songs, recording. There’s a lot you can do with your instrument.”
Instrumental bands are more France’s forte. He and Xenat Ra bandmate Dave Trenkel formed the instrumental band Minus with drummer Henry Franzoni back in the early 90’s.
“I played a lot with Dave in general prior to that,” France added.
Minus falls somewhere in the category of an electronic jazz band that mixes in funk and dub. The group managed to turn out two CD’s during their run; the first was a self-titled improvisational album, and the second, Dark Lit, was composed beforehand but still contained some improvisation.
“It just lost steam. It’s unfortunate but I’m really proud of the CD we put out,” France said of Minus and Dark Lit, “It captured us musically at a good point.”
Several other projects took France around the Pacific Northwest during this time, especially the release of “Matador’s Mistake,” that France recorded on with the band Thousand Pieces. Many of the projects were through Seattle connections such as singer/songwriter Aiko Shimada and composer Christian Asplund.
“I used to spend a lot of time up there,” France commented.
These days he has mostly been playing with local groups. The name you’ve probably heard the most is Xenat Ra. If you’ve thought the name is confusing, well, join the club. It may not help much to know, but the name is a mix of three other names: jazz composer Sun Ra, Greek composer Xenakis, and Frank Sinatra.
“I joined them about a year ago and enjoyed seeing them before,” France said.
The band was first a trio known as Top Dead Center with Trenkel, J.D. Monroe aka The Turntable Enabler, and Matt Calkins; the latter two France had previously played with in the band Eleven Eyes. France and unique rapper Monk Metz joined to form Xenat Ra, which France describes as a fusion band.
“Which can mean anything,” he explained, adding, “It’s a jazz-rock band, not a bebop band.”
Xenat Ra plays mostly original music, but when there is a cover it’s likely of musicians such as Charles Mingus or John Scofield.
Walk the Plank is a mostly instrumental trio that France plays in with Page Hundemer on bass and Brian Bucolo on drums. This jazz group has been together for about three years, and has played the likes of Sahalie’s and Calapooia Brewing in Albany.
“We improvise a lot,” France said, “Sometimes it’s over a steady beat.”
His third current group, El Kabong Orchestra, has been around the longest. While not his average band, they have a singer even, El Kabong is a fun group. They play sporadically, though. The last time was at The Peacock in mid-December, the annual “Non-President’s Ball.”
The odd thing about all three groups is that none of them have a website you can just jump to to find their next show. You may have caught one of his bands playing lately, but it seems now they are all taking a short break from the stage, so you’ll have to keep your eyes on the fliers around town to know when you can catch this Alchy Award Winner next.
“I think there are people in the bands I play with that deserve it more,” France said of the award, “But it feels good.”
~Robin Canfield
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