Apollo Creed's Club Sound Can Be Summed Up: Funk

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Apollo Creed with Full Circle, The Backstage, 2208 N.W. Market, Ballard. Tonight and tomorrow, 9:30 p.m. $5. Information: 781-2805. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Thank Leroy for The Backstage's new weekend lineups.

Cindy Payne, who books bands for the popular Ballard club, says the new weekend booking policy is all the idea of some guy named Leroy who lives in Ballard in a little house by the canal. He drives a Ford Falcon and likes to keep things simple. He longs for the good old days when he could go to The Rainbow Tavern on the weekends and hear the Dynamic Logs play some down and dirty rock-'n'-roll dance music.

That seemed like a good idea to Payne, so The Backstage is going to be bringing in the kind of bands that encourage movement instead of invoking catatonic attention. Every Friday and Saturday, beginning this weekend, will be dedicated to a couple of acts that inspire interaction. "And it's cheap, too" adds Payne.

This weekend the headliner is Apollo Creed. Perhaps A.P.'s business card one-word slogan best sums up what this eight-piece band does: Funk.

"That's really what we try to play," says guitarist Gary Stutz, "That seminal funk, R&B thing. I've always been a major Tower of Power fan, but when I first started playing for a living in the '70s, an eight-piece horn band was a luxury I couldn't afford."

Stutz got out of the live music business in 1986, but returned when he met Creed keyboard player Jason Staczek in 1993. "We put together the dream band and went to work. Since then we've played 85 or 90 gigs," says Stutz. "We're almost working too much. But I think the timing for us was right. I think people are wanting to get away from all that angst-ridden material. I went to see Bootsy Collins at RKCNDY both times he was there and it was packed with people who looked like an alternative audience. And they loved it!" In that light, it doesn't seem odd that Apollo Creed has also been booked by that club.

The band has grown quickly, assembling enough original material for a four-hour show. Stutz says the current lineup is very solid, although they did go through a lot of drummers.

"We've had four. It was almost like Spinal Tap, you know, exploding drummers? Then we no sooner got Mark Arrington, then we went right out and recorded a tape." The five-cut cassette is "Live At The HOL" and is a pretty fair indicator of what the band is about: Fat, solid sound with very danceable grooves and words that don't get in the way.

"It's jelled a lot more since then," says Stutz of the October recording. "Everyone is pretty happy with the direction the band is taking." The other members of Apollo Creed are Mr. Lawrence on lead vocals, Emmanuel Del Casal on bass, Randall Davidson on alto saxophone, Scott Adams on tenor saxophone and Chris Littlefield doubling on trumpet and flugelhorn.

"And there's no computers or synthesizers or drum machines or any of those kind of special effects in the band," insists Stutz. "Jason plays a Hammond B3 and a Hohner clavicord, which is state of the art for like 1966, which is how we want it." Stutz adds that while it is a funk band, everybody has some jazz background.

Stutz also had nothing but compliments for the Backstage's new policy, in fact, he said he felt honored to be the first band to do the back-to-back weekend nights.

". . . It's just so great to get to play that place. I mean, just about everyone I've ever wanted to see in a club I've seen at The Backstage."