By Robb Frederick
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 25, 2002
ekoostik hookah enjoys the community of concerts
The Birkenstocked noodlers in Ohio's ekoostik hookah have been on tour for 10 years now, building each week's work on four nights in a Ford.
"Some nights you look around, and you think, 'What the hell am I doing?'" says percussionist Johnny Polansky, home for a day of house cleaning and dog walking. "I'm with six guys, driving 18 hours to play three. What's that all about?"
(Cue the music, a college-bar mix of cascading guitar and keys, the songs stretched to accommodate the indulgent solos that draw Relix readers.)
All that road-tripping - including tonight's show at M - rouses fans for the band's spring and fall Hookahville blowouts, three-day tent festivals that have featured Bob Weir, Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthrie and Dr. John.
They had the first in 1994, in the woods behind keyboardist Dave Katz's Columbus-area home. Eight hundred people showed up, and Katz got enough money for a new well.
Last year, with Weir, Guthrie and David Grisman onstage, hookah played to a crowd of 15,000.
"The spring show is the first big gig of the year," Polansky says. "It's a chance for people to come camping and kind of get the winter out of their systems."
Between bands, and back in the campground, it's more a meeting of the like-minded.
"To us, a show is more than people coming and looking up at a stage while you play," Polansky says. "It's more of a gathering. People come to see the show, but they also come out to talk to people. Each one of us, no matter how big the show, goes out and floats in the crowd. It's a really friendly, communal environment."
Polansky, a native of Washington, Pa., lived in Shadyside during his years at the University of Pittsburgh. He played in Ras Prophet and the Spiny Normans, then went over into Ohio.
"If you cut my veins, I bleed black-and-gold," he says. "I love Pittsburgh. But being a musician in Pittsburgh is one of the most difficult things I've experienced. The industry there is not the strongest."
He did some session work in Columbus, and sat in with Hookah on New Year's 1998. He felt the fit immediately.
"That gig was really special," he says. "Right away, it felt like I had a voice, and I had something musical to say with these guys."
They've traveled together ever since. They'll play Jamaica in April.
Polansky has adapted to the neverending tour.
"Some people go into a cubicle every week for 10 or 20 years," he says. "That would grate on my nerves. I might get tired after we're on the road for nine or 10 hours, but if you really believe in something, it's easy to put your heart into it. If you really, truly love it, it's not that hard."
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