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   You can't take the Buffalo out of Robby Takac

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Topic: You can't take the Buffalo out of Robby Takac (Read 446 times)

Shannon
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You can't take the Buffalo out of Robby Takac
« on: Nov 20^th, 2006, 12:11am »

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Bialczak online
Monday, November 20, 2006
By Mark Bialczak
Staff writer
You can't take the Buffalo out of Robby Takac.

Sure, he has a nice place in California. Yes, the bass player loves traveling the world with his Goo Goo Dolls band mates Johnny Rzeznik and Mike Melanin.

But talk about Buffalo - heck, get him going about Syracuse, where the Goo Goo Dolls play in the Landmark Theatre on Sunday night - and the rock musician gets worked up. His speaking pace quickens. His voice gets a little louder. He loves the people in the place in the world where he grew up.

"I think that Upstate New York has had and always will have an incredible cache of amazing musicians and artists," says Takac, who started the punk-inspired band with Rzeznik in their hometown of Buffalo 20 years ago, shortly after Takac graduated from Medaille College.

"You can apply that to not just music as well," Takac says. "People in general, there are an incredible cache of people there. Even if you're not the best, you're going to work the hardest at it. I always felt that way about that part of the world."

Two of hisfavorite people still live in Buffalo: his parents, Bob and Kathy, who will drive to Syracuse for Sunday's show at the Landmark.

Inspired by a work ethic, Takac started Good Charamel Records in 2003. Like Ani DiFranco's older and better-known Righteous Babe Records, the label is based in Buffalo. Takac has signed and recorded Buffalo-area rock bands Juliet Dagger and The Last Conservative, and solo artist Terry Sullivan.

They record at Track Master studios, where the Goo Goo Dolls recorded their first three albums, "Jed," "Hold Me Up" and "Superstar Car Wash," and returned to lay down the tracks for their latest and eighth CD, this year's "Let Love In."

"It's about as Buffalo as you can be and still be a record label," Takac says. "I love it. It's a challenge every minute."

The label has offices in Los Angeles as well as Buffalo, logistics that lighten Takac's role as owner, producer and talent scout. Nevertheless, he says, he loves every minute spent at Track Master.

"It's actuallymore of a completion of full circle than you can imagine," Takac says. "Having the (Good Charamel) bands in those (studio) rooms again is exciting for me. The folks at Track Master are exactly the people who helped us back then."

"Armand Petri, who produced our first records, is there. It's been amazing for me to come home and spend time with people I know."

Good Charamel has a national distribution deal and workers who have helped chart widespread tours for the label's three artists.

Takac says watching young bands ache for and work hard to duplicate the success the Goo Goo Dolls have found with Top 10 songs "Name," "Iris" and "Slide" has opened his eyes.

"It's an amazing jolt. I recommend it to anybody who's selling many, many records," Takac says. "It's a good perspective to view your own life through."

Takac says he always has his ears open for new talent.

Asked about the Syracuse scene, he returned to the Goo Goo Dolls' early punk leanings, rattling off the name of 1980s punk band The Catatonics. "But I don't know too many Syracuse bands," he says.

So he broadened his advice to include aspiring musicians anywhere.

"I'd tell them to just stay true to what they're doing," Takac says. "To write songs and don't sign contracts with people until you know what you're signing. Sometimes people say, 'That can't be what it means.' If they feel that way, it probably doesn't. So don't sign it."

Takac says that young bands should feel empowered by the new technology that gives them the ability to record and distribute music digitally. No longer, he says, do a handful of major labels hold most of the cards in the business.

"Music is in flux," he says. "(Young artists) have the leverage. Everybody's got the same shot now," he says.

Mark Bialczak can be reached at [email protected] or 470-2175. His blog "Listen Up" is at www.syracuse.com/blogs/listenup.

http://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/enter tainment-1/1163844246178190.xml&coll=1&thispage=1

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