Hookah's home grown
by Dave Kirby
Tracking down Ekoostik Hookah guitarist/songwriter Ed McGee for a 15 minute road phoner wasn't the easiest task. Evidently, a couple of the band's cell phones were out of commission, and McGee and the rest of the band had their hands full setting up a sound check at a Pittsburgh club and grabbing a hold of a free pay phone.
Still, McGee seemed to take this all in stride.
Once connected, we had a chance to talk a little about community, live and studio songsmithing, and what just may be the best gig any jamband will do this year.
"The great thing about being on the road so much is getting a chance to see friends in other cities," McGee says of the band's 200-plus shows per year. "Yeah, it's a community, but that word really has a meaning for us. You do get to see familiar faces wherever you go to play, but people also help you out. If your van breaks down, someone knows a mechanic who can work on it late at night. If you finish a gig at midnight, someone will invite you over for a hot meal."
I mentioned a chat I had last month with John Paul Jones, during which time he recollected touring with Led Zeppelin, and how he hated being moved about like a touring museum piece-carefully, quickly, efficiently, and more or less out of the reach of the audiences. I suggested, maybe times have changed, with the paradigm now being much more fan-based.
"I cannot imagine a band not wanting or needing to build a community for themselves these days. It's just so important. However, I'm probably the one guy in this band who wouldn't mind having a written schedule sometimes," he laughs. "Seems like I'm the one who's always worried about getting everybody together for the studio time, or getting a sound check done or setting up interviews-someone's still sleeping, someone's playing pinball, someone's gone off to eat."
McGee joined the band in 1996, when the band was five years into a mostly localized tenure and having problems with their current rhythm guitarist and songwriter. For some fans this meant a departure from their original Dead-cover, hippie-band roots, for others a chance for the band's tight and smart musicianship to graduate to a higher level.
McGee has seen the growth in the band's fan base, especially in their own twice-annual local festival, Hookahville, a band-hosted two-day party in the rural Ohio countryside held every Labor and Memorial Day weekend. What started as an outdoor party for their local fans in 1994 gradually matured into a major regional festival with 12,000 people, and guests including David Crosby, Jorma Kaukonen and Willie Nelson.
"It probably represents a milestone for us every year-we more or less plan things around it," McGee says. "By the time the spring show comes around, we're already planning the Labor day show, and vice versa. It's quite separate from what we do the rest of the year, in terms of touring and playing live, but it's a nice opportunity for us to play for the local folks and old friends.
"We always like to do something special at Hookahville. It's the same as having friends over for a barbecue-you always like to break out the special sauce, right?"
But before this year's event, the band will be taking three days to play for a Spring Break crowd in Jamaica, on Negril Beach. Tough life, huh?
Hookah cuts a pretty standard jamband vibe onstage. But McGee says that the band has also come to respect the CD process.
On their latest offering, Seahorse, hippie grin groove songs sit beside some confident songwriting-such as the Radiators-influenced grind of "Bone," and the broad, epic sweep of "Alexander II."
"Making a CD is a real art, a discipline," McGee says. "It's something that you have to learn, I think. When we're in there, I listen to the other players in the band, and I can really hear how good they are, all the nuances of their playing that you miss sometimes when you're onstage, concentrating on your parts. It's nice, because you really get an insight into what makes the band work, and how everyone fits together."
