ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512150106
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
HERE WE ARE ...
With Radar Rose, Roanoke's self-described ``peace love do-gooder rock band.'' You might have seen its posters around town, the ones that people steal to hang on their walls, posters plugging the group's upcoming gigs or a goodwill benefit. (It seems Radar Rose has never met a cause it didn't support.)
The band even has its own mission statement, of all things, although it's less mission statement than challenge.
Yet, for all of the posters, the benefits and the altruism, this peace love band-on-a-mission may be one of Roanoke's most under-appreciated assets - deserving, if not the cover of Rolling Stone, at least a spread in the local newspaper. This week, the band releases a new self-produced CD of original songs, titled ``One Dozen Live Roses.'' It sounds like Melissa Etheridge meets Jethro Tull meets Indigo Girls meets Dave Matthews, or something like that - and it shows the band in its element: in front of an audience, trying to change the world.
jane and sonny ...
There wasn't always a Radar Rose to save us from humanity. At first, there was only Jane and Sonny.
Jane Gabrielle Hicks ws born in Baltimore in 1964, but grew up mostly in Richmond. By age 8, after a folk singer visited her school and sang ``Where Have All The Flowers Gone,'' she knew what she wanted to do with her life.
``That's when I became aware of war, and knew it was a bad thing,'' she said. ``I wanted to do the same kind of thing.''
She joined her first band, the Sensational Slag Sisters, in college and stayed with the group until 1985, when she moved to near Birmingham, Ala., and met Sonny.
He was born John Horace Campbell III in Leeds, Ala., in 1949, but he has always been called Sonny. His musical background includes a stint in the high school marching band, but it wasn't until he was 30 that music became a passion. That's when he started joining friends in weekend front-porch guitar-picking sessions.
Jane and Sonny met at one of these gatherings in 1989 and were immediately impressed by each other.
``He played bass, guitar, piano,'' Jane said. ``I thought he was very talented. I thought he should join my band.''
``I liked her songs. I liked her energy,'' he said. ``I tried to get her to date a friend of mine.''
As it turned out, it was Jane and Sonny who ended up together. They are now married.
They called their first band Hip Hix, but they changed to Radar Rose.
Sonny came up with the name. He said rose refers to the color of Jane's hair and radar was chosen because they wanted to be forward-looking, to see beyond the normal scope of things.
This early version of Radar Rose mostly covered rock songs but played them like bluegrass. At the time, the group included a banjo player. In 1990, after dropping the banjo player and adding a mandolin player, they moved to Richmond.
They started writing their own songs. The mandolin player left. Other players came and went. For a time, Jane and Sonny performed as a duo.
They thought about moving to New York or Nashville or Atlanta, but Roanoke beckoned. Jane had connections there from her days in Alabama, when she worked for Norfolk Southern in a job that often brought her to Roanoke.
Those connections continued when she and Sonny moved to Richmond and occasionally booked shows in Roanoke. They liked what they saw. Unlike Richmond, where musicians and bands seemed much more competitive, in Roanoke there was more of a spirit of helping each other out.
``So, we pursued Roanoke as our next step,'' Sonny said of their move here in 1992. ``I don't know why. Trying to play original music, it probably didn't make any sense, but that's what we did.''
Then Mike ...
While Roanoke was casting its unlikely spell over Jane and Sonny, it also was digging its hooks into Mike Balkom.
He was born in Lemon Grove, Calif., in 1958, and his fascination with the drums came from a desire to be like Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. He got his first drum kit by age 8, and gave his first concert soon afterward - at dawn, at the bottom of his driveway, in his pajamas.
Self-taught, he was playing professionally by the time he was in high school. He lived in New Orleans for a time, where he tried unsuccessfully to become a street musician. Then he lived in Lake Tahoe, where he also tried to break into the entertainment business. About the closest he got was one elevator ride with Glen Campbell.
He also met his wife in Lake Tahoe. She was from Roanoke, and they moved here in 1982. He has worked as a mechanic since then, and before Radar Rose he played in several area bands including Negative Junior, Barnstorm and Hot Tin Shack.
He met Jane and Sonny one night in 1982 when he backed them up for a couple of songs at the Iroquois Club in Roanoke. They connected immediately.
``I don't remember what they played,'' he said. ``I just remember looking at them and I could tell they were musicians. I mean real musicians. They stuck out.''
Then Anastasia ...
Jane, Sonny and Mike thought the next logical step would be to add a lead guitar player. They posted ads for guitarists who were ``into peace love do-gooder music.'' They tried out a few, but none suited, so they decided to look for a female singer instead.
``I wanted more woman energy in the band,'' Jane explained. ``That way, it ceases being a chick singer backed up by a band. It becomes balanced. It becomes more of a team.''
Enter Anastasia.
She was born Anastasia Mooney in Lewisburg, W.Va., in 1972, and her musical dreams date back as far as she can remember.
``I always wanted to be a singer,'' she said. ``I used to stand in front of the mirror and pretend I was a rock star.''
Growing up, she sang in the choirs at church and school, and played flute. She migrated to Roanoke in 1990 and got serious about music two years later. She still remembers the date - May 28, 1992. It was when she saw the Indigo Girls in concert.
``I was like, I could do that.''
The next day, she used her rent money to buy a guitar.
Her induction into Radar Rose came a year later. Again, the site was the Iroquois Club, this time at an open-mike songwriter's night that was attended by Jane. Anastasia had written a pair of songs and mustered the courage to perform them. It was the first time she ever sang and played guitar in front of an audience. Again, there was a connection.
``She just blew me away,'' said Jane.
This thing we do is ...
Their short answer is: ``Play music.''
But the full purpose is more complicated, which is why Jane was inspired a year ago to write the band's mission statement. It's a document she reads often to remind herself that her convictions reach beyond rock `n' roll.
``I don't want to be somebody who smashes guitars and throws up on stage,'' she said. ``I want to change things. That's what I'm about. My preference has always been that we write and play music that will bring about a better tomorrow.''
She stopped herself.
``This sounds so sappy, but it's real.''
Maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise then that her favorite quotation comes not from John Lennon or Bob Dylan or some other rock icon with a conscience, but from Thomas Jefferson.
``The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,'' he wrote long ago.
``I don't think we've been very vigilant.,'' said Jane.
Riot coming soon ...
They all agree: Something has to give. So, they wrote a song.
How long will you wait to speak?
Are you willin' to die or to bleed?
How long will they crush those that seek?
Who among you will lead?
Riot comin' soon.
On a good night, when the crowd is into it and when there's a legion of like-minded fans in the audience - the band calls them Rose Hips - this and similarly-themed songs can induce an atmosphere like that of a tent revival, with people jumping up and down, standing on chairs, screaming and hollering, ready almost to take up arms.
Not that the group preaches violence or any other radical means.
But it does preach for radical change.
``Whether it's going to be a sixties kind of peaceful thing or violent, I don't know,'' Jane said. ``I don't want it to be a violent thing, but I know that people who are under stress and pushed to the edge often become violent. I mean, look at L.A.''
Who will be our savior from the cycle of doom?
Time to unite kickin' screamin' from the womb.
Jane again: ``Things are very messed up. Women aren't as equal as men. Gays aren't as equal as straights. The poor aren't as empowered as the rich. Maybe there has to be a revolution to bring about evolution, you know?''
Is it rocknroll?
Some say it isn't.
Or, if it is, that it's some sort of trippy-dippy brand that dates back to bell-bottoms, peace signs and the Nixon Administration. But the band disagrees.
``We're not an oldies show, so no, we're not hippies,'' Jane said. ``We're socially aware adult children in an ailing society.''
A better label might be folk-rock - at least that's one they accept.
``It has drums. It has beat. You can dance to it,'' Jane said. ``Yes, it's rock.'' But it's also more than that. It's passion and philosophy and warmth and message. ``It's the feel and sound of the earth and the woods and the hearth.''
It took awhile for Radar Rose to find an identity. As a group, their influences range from Peter, Paul & Mary to Rogers and Hammerstein to Elvis and Black Sabbath. And it wasn't until the others discovered that Anastasia played flute - she mentioned it in passing one day - that the band's unique sound was solidified.
She trades off leads and solos with Sonny, who adds his own unconventional bass lines, while Jane's driving acoustic guitar and Mike's steady drumming keep the pace.
``It just seems to work, I don't know why,'' Jane said. ``We're finally at a point where I can say come hear our band. Our band is great!''
Too good to be true ...
``I like to say we're the difference between Woodstock I and Woodstock II,'' Jane said. ``Woodstock I was real. Woodstock II was contrived and marketed.''
Locally, Radar Rose has played benefits for everything from AIDS to head injury survivors to power line protestors and historic preservation. The band also labors tirelessly at nurturing the Roanoke music scene, most recently by hosting open-mike nights each Wednesday at the Full Moon Cafe.
Outside Roanoke, they regularly play in the Carolinas and Atlanta and they have shared stages with the likes of Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Leon Russell, The Jayhawks, Throwing Muses, Three Dog Night and the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
Whether they can build on this success and become something more than just a local band with good intentions is anybody's guess.
Mike said, ``We're like that kid in class who's got his hand up saying, `Ooh, ooh! Pick me! Pick me! Call on me!'''
They're confident that time will come.
``We know who we wanna be when we grow up,'' Jane writes in the band's mission statement.
And you?
``It's a challenge,'' Jane said. ``It means, look, I've put it on the line, in black-and-white. Now I'm saying what are you doing for the cosmic consciousness?''
Radar Rose - around town
Dec. 20: Open mike night hosted by Radar Rose. Full Moon Cafe. 342-4593.
Dec. 21: Guests on WROV-FM's Morning Show.
Dec. 21: CD Release Party. The Coffee Pot. 774-8256.
Dec. 22: Confeddy's. 343-9746.
Dec. 23: Shirley Thomas Benefit. The Iroquois Club. 982-8979.
Dec. 31: New Year's Eve. The Mill in Floyd. 745-4979.
LENGTH: Long : 235 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Stephanie Klein-Davis. 1. Radar Rose (left to right) is:by CNBMike Balkom, Anastasia Mooney, Jane Gabrielle and Sonny Campbell. 2.
Radar Rose members Mike Balkom, Anastasia Mooney, Jane Gabrielle and
Sonny Campbell at the Roanoke History Museum in period attire,
mimicking some of the lyrics in their songs. color. 3. The band's
mission statement (right). Graphics. 1. Radar Rose's concert posters
are so popular, fans rip them down and them home. 2. For a sample of
Radar Roses's new CD, recorded live at the Coffee Pot in Roanoke,
call Infoline. Roanoke 981-0100. New River 382-0200. Category 7673
(ROSE). color. KEYWORDS: PROFILE