Sometimes Being Great isn’t Enough
The cautionary tale of the River Roses
By
David Codr
The River Roses had it all. Dynamic-even prolific-performers, amazing songs, a growing number of fans, major label interest...hell, national acts were covering their songs. The Roses were on the fast track to the big time.
So what kept the Roses’ co-frontman Caitlin von Schmidt’s name from being as recognizable as Kim Deal’s? Or the guitar work of Gene Ruley from being imitated by thousands of new pickers? Or singer/guitarist/songwriter Chris Holiman’s name from becoming as recognizable as, well, Chris Holiman?
More than anything else, it was just bad timing.
The River Roses was a four-piece, garage alternative-pop band fathered by the now infamous Tucson music scene of the 1980s. Two very gifted songwriters teamed with two prolific musicians to spawn a band that laid down material that still sounds fresh today, over 20 years later.
The Roses started out like many bands, playing the local party circuit. “Our first official show was a house party,” said singer / guitarist Chris Holiman. “House parties are a great way to cut your teeth before you start charging money in bars. We’d play some house parties to help these college kids pay their rent. There would be 500-600 kids packed in this house and back yard. That was when I realized The River Roses really had a following.”
At the time, house parties were the only place you would see bands that didn’t play country music in Tucson. The music scene was transforming from primarily country to an infant-punk scene along with what would come to be known as alternative. As always, the college age kids championed those new styles of music long before the bars caught on.
The Tucson scene from that period produced a number of extremely talented yet sadly underappreciated bands, often described as “Desert Rock:” The Sidewinders / Sand Rubies, Giant Sand and maybe even Calexico (Even though they came later).
But the Roses sound was intentionally different. “The River Roses were not desert rock,” Holiman said. “We were a pop band and proud of it. If we sounded like Neil Young, it was an accident. We were trying to sound like XTC or The Beatles.”
“I think we were a garage pop band, playing at being tough,” von Schmidt said, agreeing. “I know my own background was heavily in folk and blues, but as a teenager I listened almost exclusively to the Beatles. But I wanted to seem more macho than that, you know? I know I always played with my bass slung really low cos it seemed more punk.”
“We were really into that punk DIY (do it yourself) mentality,” Holiman said. “But our sound was anything but punk.”
Some of the Roses songs had an almost dreamy subdued feel to them, complemented by amazing riffs in just the right places. Other songs sounded more British-garage-folk-pop. But whatever the description, the Roses’ sound was unique.
Helping to forge that unique sound were two of the most gifted musicians the Tucson scene has ever produced.
Gene Ruley was (and remains) an amazingly gifted guitarist (Ruley helped write on some of the Roses songs and went on to play guitar for the Drakes). Many guitar players of his caliber aren’t happy unless there is a solo in each song - not Ruley. While he could shred with the best of them, Ruley’s style was more subdued which complimented the songs perfectly.
The Roses drummer, Peter Catalanotte (aka SplAT Manic) was notorious for the ferocity with which he played, as well as how hard he hit the drums. Caitlin agreed, “I know there were people who came to shows just to watch Gene and Peter, which you can understand if you’ve ever seen either one of them play. I’ve played with a lot of drummers since then, but no one ever came close to Peter.”
With the area bars still stuck in a country format, the Roses continued to build their fan base playing the only gigs they could-at house parties. While the University of Arizona provided a more-than-willing student body, the Roses’ house parties were comprised mostly of local kids. “We never had much of a college following despite the fact that there was a captive audience of 30,000 kids right there,” Caitlin admitted.
“The 818 house, to which I lived next door for a while, was a great, albeit tiny, place to see bands,” von Schmidt said, continuing. “Parties at 818 were boiling hot, sweaty, alcohol and drug fueled miracles. The listeners/dancers would be packed in so tightly that you could barely tell where they ended and the band began. I remember seeing the Raunch Hands there when one of the guitar players climbed out the window and stood playing on the porch where it was cooler, his cord stretched umbilical-like back into the house.”
But unlike the crowded shows at the 818 house, it was a sparsely attended bar show that led to the River Roses first big break.
“Peter Catalanotte (The Roses drummer), and I had a standing deal that we’d go to see any out-of-town bands at Nino’s where the cover was never more than a few bucks,” von Schmidt said. “One night he appeared at my door to take me to Camper Van Beethoven’s first show in Tucson, and they were amazing. After the show the band took a photo of themselves with the audience because the numbers were the same (band and audience). That was the beginning of our friendship with Camper; eventually it was they who put out our first official release, Each and All, on their Pitch-A-Tent label. It was also an illustration of one of our rules for judging bands: any band that plays to five people like they’re playing to five hundred or five thousand is worthy of admiration.”
Each and All turned out to be a blessing and a curse for the River Roses. Once released, the amazing album started to generate major label interest. But putting the album together strained the relationship between Holiman and von Schmidt who had dated prior to the band’s creation.
While both were talented songwriters, Holiman and von Schmidt had different approaches to writing. “I almost always write the chords and melody first,” he said. “Then I’ll find some words that work. Most of all, don’t be afraid to write a bad song. I have what I call ‘house songs.’ Songs I write, play around the house, but after a few days decide I don’t like.”
“Caitlin was a much more classic and commercial song-writer than me,” Holiman said. “She just wasn’t as prolific. I think in the end it was my competitive spirit that kept her from bringing more songs to the band.”
“Chris probably doesn’t know this, but in fact I wrote tons of songs and I threw them away,” von Schmidt said. “I only brought songs to the band when I was very confident of them, partly because I felt like the quota of songs I would be allowed to play was very low.”
“Chris was a more complex songwriter,” Caitlin said. “He was into what I always thought of as ‘jazz’ chords, which I didn’t much care for. But I usually loved his songs. Although I remember when I first brought Black Velvet Postcard to the band and Chris and I had a fight because he didn’t think the song should end on a chord that wasn’t the tonic. We could be so serious about things back then!” [A tonic is the first degree of the major or minor scale; the note which denotes the key. The chord on that degree of the scale, usually described as chord I. -Ed.]
But the songs von Schmidt brought to Each and All turned a great album into a gem. In fact, it was her song, “Black Velvet Postcard,” that was covered by Camper Van Beethoven both in concert and on a compilation album.
Major label A&R reps took notice of the River Roses potential following the release of Each and All . “I have it from people I trust that major labels were interested in the Roses, but lost interest after [Caitlin] left the band for New York,” Holiman said. “At the River Roses reunion show (Sept 2005) I realized how much Caitlin was kind of the star of the band, if not the main singer.
“I was told sometime later that we were having major label interest at the time that I left and that Chris never told me ‘cause he didn’t want to interfere in my love affair, von Schmidt said. “Kinda wish I’d been given that information at the time, but like I said, I’m happy now and all of what went before led to here.”
While Caitlin leaving the River Roses may have ended the (at the time unknown) major label interest, the band continued their journey with the addition of Sean Murphy on Bass.
“On tour for Each and All, we opened for Camper Van Beethoven at John Anderson Ford Amphitheatre (across from the Hollywood Bowl) to around 2,000 people, Holiman said. “John Convertino and Howe Gelb from Giant Sand came down. John still remembers how hard Peter hit those drums. We could only play during the intermission at the Hollywood Bowl. Some symphony was playing and the sound traveled across the freeway.”
Rough Trade offered to put out our second recording, but I’m sorry to say we turned them down because we wanted a bigger label,” Holiman said. “Very dumb move on our part. Well, very dumb move on my part. The guys in the band always deferred to my leadership, but my choices weren’t always the best. I was the ‘leader’ of the band. That meant that the management fell to me as well. That was probably our biggest mistake. There are a lot of bad stories in show business about managers, but they are very necessary.
“That is so true,” von Schmidt said. “Musicians, by nature, I think, make very bad business people. There are exceptions, of course, like Howe Gelb, but we were perfect examples of that. None of us had a head for business or wanted to be the person who dealt with the crap end of it, the getting of shows etc. Chris did most of it, bless his heart.”
The River Roses second full-length release When We Fall was released in 1990 on Rich Hopkins’ (A member of the Sidewinders) San Jacinto label. Although When We Fall sold well in both Europe and the UK, it failed to generate the label interest of Each and All.
“I think we were always interested in songwriting and recording,” Holiman said. “So making records is always what we wanted to do. Strangely though, after Each and All came out and some bigger labels became interested in the band, we stopped working up new songs. I think we felt like we should stick with a tight set of tried and true material. In the end, that lack of growth is what stopped the band moving forward. Rough Trade and Pitch-A-Tent did a really good job getting Each and All to radio and getting it reviewed, but id have to say our limited national touring really hurt more than anything. Working with a label can be great, but you as a band have to hold up your end.”
We asked Holiman what lessons today’s bands can learn from the River Roses. “If I could do it all over again, I would let Caitlin sing more songs,” he said. “I would of moved to LA when I was 24.We would of had a manager besides me. I would have worried less about getting ‘signed.’ Most of all we would have toured more.”
Chris Holiman and Caitlin von Schmidt were kind enough to grant us permission to post a few of the Roses songs as MP3s on the Music Phone Book’s website.
Related links:
Chris Holiman & the Downtown Saints www.holiman.org
Caitlin Von Schmidt: www.caitlinvonschmidt.com
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