STREET BEAT: Local Band Profile

by Ernie Thomas

Take four rock ‘n’ roll buddies from a high school cover band, add two decades of seasoning, a few false starts and a few dozen original songs. Then let things simmer for about two years to add consistency.  

That’s the recipe which created a tasty double-decker musical entree that goes by both –– Acoustic X and Electric X –– depending of course, on if they are playing with or without a side of “juice”.     

Both versions feature the collaborative songwriting and dual guitar/vocals of Chris Sulcer and Darren Locasto. 

 Most of the 25 or so Chicagoland dates logged during any given month are performed by this stripped down strumming duo. About a third of the shows feature the full band –– drummer Mark Price and bassist Curt Durham –– who rock up the rhythm while Sulcer and Locasto swap nylon strings for steel ones and turn it up. 

The four musicians of Electric X first hooked up in 1983 at Portage High School.  “We put together a band called, Enticer,” said Sulcer.  “We played all the cheesy cover stuff that was popular at the time.” 

After high school, Locasto and Sulcer began writing and performing together.  That is what eventually evolved into Acoustic X, which Sulcer explained is short for their original name –– Chris & Darren’s Acoustic Experience.   

In the late 1980s, when acoustic crooning was not completely scratching Sulcer’s musical itch, he put together a club cover band called T-Bone, with his old Enticer band mate, Price, which fared well for a few years.  

Sulcer and Locasto later both hooked up in 1999 with the short-lived electric funk-rock outfit, Dr. Groovenstein. When that project fell apart, they rang up Price and Durham and transposed their ample songbook of soft rock ballads to electrified rockers.   

 “Acoustic X has around for a while, if you’re talking about Darren and I playing together unplugged, but we only started doing Electric X in early 2001,” said Sulcer.   

 “In either format, we have a couple hours of original songs,” said Sulcer, who added that a typical show is a 60/40 split between covers and originals.   “We have about 24 originals that we’re comfortable playing out.”   

Those songs have been preserved for posterity on their 1999 debut disc, Welcome To Malden and their latest CD, From Otis With Love.    

Both albums are whimsically named after tiny Northwest Indiana towns.  “They’re the kinds of places you have to go through to get to somewhere,” mused Sulcer.  “It’s our way of giving these little dots on the map a little recognition.”  Successive CDs will carry on the tradition.    

Whereas the first disc was a hodge podge of electric and acoustic songs simply credited to “Chris & Darren," the new CD is an official Acoustic X release.  It is a much more cohesive and mature collection that flows well.  

 “I’d like to see us do a full electric album next with the full band, but we have to pay off this new album first,” laughed Sulcer.  “It’s hard to say when that will happen though.  Some shows you only sell one CD, but then at the next show you might sell 10 or 12.”    

                The band can presently be found on the web at –– www.ElectricXRocks.com

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