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STREET BEAT
PROFILE
by Ernie Thomas
Northwest Indiana’s Sound
Gypsies were steamrolling to popularity, building quite a following
and reputation for themselves in the late 1990s with a rather lively
show of alt-pop covers. Then
the law stepped in to put a stop to their ascent to local greatness.
You see -- law -- is
the chosen career of co-founding member Matt
Villicana. His voice may be used to argue court cases by day, but by
night he is using it to warble tunes by the likes of Zwan, Dave
Matthews, Violent Femmes, U2 and other WXRT-style artists.
“In the spring of
1999, Matt was offered a good position out on the East Coast, so that
kind of put a screeching halt to the Sound Gypsies,” remembered
bassist/acoustic guitarist Rene
Garcia, a school chum of Villicana from their youthful days at
Roosevelt High School in East Chicago.
“We were both students of music director John Trimmel and were
in the school band together,” Garcia
continued. “Back then, Matt played alto saxophone.” There was a
short-lived garage band back in 1982 called Axis, but it was not until
well after leaving the hallowed halls of Roosevelt that the two friends
really hooked up to rock ‘n’ roll, according to Garcia.
“Matt went off to
law school and while he was gone, he had taught himself to play
guitar,” he recalled. “Once
he came home [in 1993], we got together and realized we knew about a
half dozen songs together. One
night we went to sit in on an acoustic open mic night at Georgie K’s
in Highland. Ronn
Barany was hosting that night and afterward asked us if we had any more
material. Matt told him we
did, even though we didn’t.”
That white lie on
Villicana’s part pushed the duo into high gear. “Ronn invited us to do a whole night there like a week
later, so we had to learn a lot more material, real fast,” he laughed.
Despite their best efforts, there was no possible way to learn
four hours of music in a week’s time.
So they resigned themselves to learning half as much and invited
a popular Highland-based musical duo at that time (The Fuzzy Choda) to
split the night with them. The
plan worked so well, that the pairing of the two acts became a steady
thing for a while. “Matt & Rene”
billing they used on that first open mic night was dull in comparison to
The Fuzzy Choda, so borrowing from the pages of a Jimi Hendrix
biography, the two music loving lads became The Sound Gypsies.
For two years they
played the pub circuit, eventually landing a house gig hosting a summer
jam night at the now defunct Ronnie B’s in Merrillville. In 1995, the acoustic scene was drying up and it came time to
plug in. Assembling a full on electric band, proved challenging.
“At one point we
were actually a six-piece band with percussion, violin and Matt playing
sax,” said Garcia, noting that Villicana still plays a considerable
about of sax in their sets. “People
seem to really like seeing a sax in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
Not too many local bands have a sax, so it kind of makes us
unique.”
Meeting lead guitarist
Colin Peterson in November of
1996 at a Ronnie B’s jam night proved fateful, as did meeting drummer Aron
Schuhrke three months later.
The quartet not only
survived the closing of Ronnie B’s, but thrived once forced to venture
into other area venues. They
were composing original music and contemplating recording a CD of their
own, at the time they got sidelined in 1999.
Upon Villicana’s
return to the region in January 2002, the original four reunited to give
the Sound Gypsies another go ‘round.
“We’ve spent most of this time regaining lost ground,
rebuilding a following, and letting people who used to come and see us
know we are back in action,” said Garcia.
“Right now, we have
about nine of our own songs that we do,” said Garcia, estimating that
about 15 percent of their set is original music.
The band plans to start recording those songs and others which
they are currently working on, by early summer and have a 10-12 song CD
completed by the year’s end.
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