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GGD in concert tonight at The Ted / article
« on: Feb 7th, 2007, 7:56am » |
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Goo Goo Dolls in concert tonight at The Ted
By MALCOLM VENABLE, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 7, 2007
IN 1986, the Goo Goo Dolls were an obscure, scrappy punk band out of Buffalo, N.Y. One had to be fully "indie" to have even heard of them and even more cutting edge to actually go see them play.
By 1993, the trio's songs "Name" and "Iris" (the latter from the Meg Ryan film "City of Angels" ) had made them mega-stars. They had gotten so big that it became common for critics to poo-poo Goo Goo. Today, they're 40-something rockers who've mellowed - a mood particularly reflected on their largely tender new effort, "Let Love In."
But for the Goo Goo Dolls, who take their name from an ad in True Detective magazine, a funny thing happened on the way to middle age: They've looked up to find legions of new bands, each one with a name odder than the next and a purposefully, almost affected indie slouch. It's almost exactly what they were doing 20 years ago.
"That's weird to watch," said Robby Takac, the group's bassist. "When you get a chance to grow up through most of the music that formed what seems to be popular with kids, your b.s. detector is pretty well honed. There's not enough originality in what I'm hearing today. It's a very well-constructed version of many things I can identify very quickly, and that freaks me out."
Not that the Goo Goo Dolls haven't had to deal with the same kind of criticism. When they broke out with 1990's "Hold Me Up," they were punished for being mere copycats of the Replacements, the rowdy punk group from Minneapolis. The Dolls fully acknowledged the Replacements' influence in 1993, when their album "Superstar Car Wash" featured a single written by Replacements' leader Paul Westerberg. Since then, however, Dolls works have leaned toward the soft, particularly after the acoustic ballad "Name" from 1995's "A Boy Named Goo" landed in the Top Five. In a style they would more or less continue with 1998's "Dizzy Up the Girl," Dolls had shifted from menacing musical toughs to mainstream pop rockers.
The formula proved to be smart - with the 3 million copies that "Dizzy" sold as proof - yet they set out to alter their style with "Let Love In," their eighth effort.
"As a guy that's been listening to this band longer than anybody, it feels like we were breaking out of the old process," said Takac. "We sort of felt like we were starting to self-censor before experimenting with things. We felt like we'd done it enough times together where we know what works and what doesn't, and that's sort of a dangerous place to be in."
Fed up with Los Angeles, the musicians went back to Buffalo to record this record. They spent many cold 12-hour days writing material. Producer Glen Ballard oversaw sessions, prodding the guys out of their comfort zones.
"The thing that I think was valuable," Takac said, "was to have this guy we respect say, 'You've done big songs and made some big records. You've been around a long time. Give yourselves a break, have some fun and make this record.' "
As the Goo Goo Dolls have matured, so have their sound and crowd.
"You'd have had to have an inside line to be at a Goo Goo Dolls show 20 years ago," Takac said. Now, "Those soccer moms pulling up in the minivans still have the nipple rings they had when they came to see us in 1986. I've met three generations at a show. I can't explain it, but I'm glad it happens."
• Reach Malcolm Venable at (757) 446-2662 or [email protected].
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=118925&ran=29740
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