Songs for Sixty Five Roses

For two years after college, I worked at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill in the mid-80s. One of the bigger music clubs in the Carolinas, the Cat’s Cradle has been a bona fide rock and roll institution for two generations of music lovers in our state.

Now in its (at least) fourth location, the Cat’s Cradle is still going strong in downtown Carrboro, just west of Chapel Hill.

During the time I worked there, all manner of up-and-coming bands came to the Cradle to play. I saw local favorites such as the X-Teens, the Fabulous Knobs and the dBs play there as well as national acts such as Los Lobos, the Violent Femmes, the Replacements, Alex Chilton and Delbert McClinton.

Allie poses by her daddy’s Marshall amp.

The big touring bands usually played at the Cradle on the weekends while the smaller and local acts were given the Tuesday and Wednesday slots. For a brief period of time, two of the better local acts were the Pressure Boys and Rick Rock.

The Pressure Boys were a dynamic ska band—probably the best the Southeast has ever produced—featuring a singer named John Plymale. John and I worked together as fellow DJs at UNC’s student radio station, WXYC-FM, and floated along in the same music-obsessed crowd in Chapel Hill.

Rick Rock was a power-pop three-piece featuring my housemate Andy Church on bass. The band was led by a guitarist and singer named Rick Miller (not the Rick Miller from Southern Culture on the Skids, he lived down the street...but that’s another story). Nuclear power plant worker Chip Shelby anchored the band on drums.

Rick Rock was a short-lived enterprise, mainly due to Miller’s wandering ways. He now lives in California and produces music under the moniker Parthenon Huxley, or P. Hux for short. While Rick Rock was together, however, it produced one pop gem of a single with “Buddha, Buddha” on the A side and “Sputnik” on the flip side. Both songs were featured on a compilation album of North Carolina bands called Mondo Montage.

Two decades and many miles later these bits of post-college trivia converge with the release of the new benefit CD Songs for Sixty Five Roses. After fronting the Pressure Boys and the Sex Police, John Plymale found his musical niche in the nineties and beyond by becoming a recording studio producer for the Meat Puppets, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Countdown Quartet and many other cutting edge acts. He, like many of us wild club-going music lovers from the eighties, kept his finger on the pulse of what’s going on—even while growing up and starting a family.

John and Allie Plymale at Overdub Lane Studios.

For John, the gravity of being a father and family man hit home in a most serious manner about a year-and-a-half ago.

“To call June 8th, 2004 a day of mixed emotions is an understatement,” said Plymale. “Just hours after celebrating the birth of our youngest daughter, Betsy Jane, our 2 ½ year-old Allie Marie was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis.

“My wife Amy and I went from elation to devastation. We were shocked to learn that we were carriers of the CF gene as there was no family history on either side. We were also deeply saddened to discover that the median age of survival of CF is only 33 years.”

John and Amy quickly adjusted to Allie’s new regimen of medicine and twice-daily physical therapy sessions. But they wanted to do more, not just for Allie, but for everyone effected by the disease.

“Amy encouraged me to use the relationships I’d built over the last twenty years playing and producing music to try and create something positive out of this situation,” said Plymale. “After a few discussions, the idea of a North Carolina covers record arose.”

Thus was born the new benefit album Songs for Sixty Five Roses. As most doctors know, “sixty five roses” is how most kids pronounce “cystic fibrosis” around the age that many of them are diagnosed with the disease.

Plymale enlisted the help of dozens of North Carolina musicians for an album of songs first created by other North Carolina musicians. Thus you have an album on which Caitlin Cary performs Goner’s “Battleground Park,” Portastatic performs Ryan Adams’ “Oh My Sweet Carolina,” and Southern Culture on the Skids takes on The Moaners’ “Everybody Wants My Baby.” It’s a fantastic concept made even better by all of the musicians’ determination to do right by their favorite artists, even when the songs are morphed from one genre to a completely different one.

In fact, there’s something for everyone on Songs for Sixty Five Roses. Pop lovers will rejoice to see Chris Stamey and his dB cohorts reunite for a modern version of their own dreamy song “Nothing is Wrong.” And Americana fans will bask in Tift Merritt’s take on Stillhouse’s “It’s the Shame” and the Two Dollar Pistols neat reworking of Superchunk’s “Driveway to Driveway.”

Plymale himself gets into the action by cutting a powerhouse acoustic version of Metal Flake Mother’s “Mr. Flavor.” There’s also a couple of big name artists’ classics redone on a beautifully small scale such as Will MacFarlane’s version of James Taylor’s “Shower the People” and Athenaeum’s sweet harmonious take on Randy Travis’ “Forever and Ever, Amen.”

For me, the highlight of the disc has to be former Squirrel Nut Zippers Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher getting together with former Ben Folds Five bassist Robert Sledge for a rousing acoustic version of the little-known Rick Rock classic “Buddha Buddha.” This time, I’m telling you guys, the song’s going straight to the top of the charts!

Let me be quite clear about one thing, Songs for Sixty Five Roses is the best compilation album of any kind I have heard in years. Even if it had nothing to do with a good cause, I would have gladly purchased it. The fact that it helps the CF Foundation is gravy on the biscuit, so to speak. Every one of the 18 tracks is a winner. I’ve enjoyed listening to the artists I’m already familiar with and eager to find out more about the ones who are unknown to me (Will MacFarlane, Greg Humphreys, etc.).

The fact that all of these musicians lent their time and support to this project is testament to the heart of North Carolina’s talent pool. Listening to this labor of love makes one proud to live in a state where there are so many working musicians who care about much more than album sales and MTV appearances.

“Amy and I could never have imagined the overwhelming support that we’ve been shown by this crazy, music loving community,” said Plymale. “We hope the money raised will help develop new treatments and possibly a cure for this awful disease.

“As parents, we need to know that we did everything we could to help our loving daughter. She is such a kind, gentle soul who deserves to live a long, wonderful life. We are doing this to help make sure she does.”

Songs for Sixty Five Roses hits the stores on March 21st. Proceeds from the sale of the album are earmarked for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. You can pre-order your copy, or find out more about the project, through the website www.songsforsixtyfiveroses.com.

A special benefit concert will be held at (where else?) the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro on March 31st featuring many of the artists from the CD. To find out more, or to order tickets, visit www.catscradle.com.