Janice Durham Ran Off To Find Her Love: Music

Who is The Janice Durham Band? Janice Durham, vocals, acoustic guitar Michael Nakagawa, electric and acoustic guitar Philip Craft, drums Dean McMaster, six-string fretless bass Would you want to get out of a small town like Leavenworth, Kansas - home to three federal prisons and a Hallmark Card factory - bad enough to do something completely against your belief system? Janice Durham did.

"Joining the Navy was the only way out of town!" Durham explains, seeming a bit surprised herself at her choice. "But it got me out and into the world."

Durham says her desire to sing has always been with her, but she didn't really get a chance to perform until she was stationed with the Navy in Japan.

"There was this lieutenant who played bass, and he was looking for others to play music with," Durham said. "I made myself do it. I wanted to perform but was shy. We learned about seven Top-40 songs and he thought we were ready to play a four-hour officers' dance."

Durham and the band's guitar player tried to stall for time at the gig by playing some acoustic Beatles' songs, she says, but finally the rowdy crowd of sailors demanded a band so they played the same seven songs over and over again throughout the night.

After her military service, Durham moved to Seattle on the advice of a friend and began playing in various bands. She eventually decided to go it as a solo performer about two years ago, but needed musicians to help her make her first demo tape.

In the end, Durham liked the musicians she found so much she kept them as her band.

"I really wanted to set up the band myself so I wouldn't be bombarded with other opinions on how to play my music," Durham said. "These guys are great musicians and really respectful of my music and what I want to do."

Durham's music is quietly intense. Her soft-sounding, yet blunt lyrics come clearly through the pounding rhythms. She's a balladeer who rocks.

"Of course my songs are personal, but they're not all about me," Durham said. "I think it's usually that way for the artist initially. Then when that's cleared away, there's room for other influences - what I read, what I see. I really have no idea what my `sound' is. I can't see myself from the outside. I can only experience from the inside, what the sound feels like to me, and go with that."

Durham's lyrics reflect that introspective eye. They seem to have a searching quality; she works through a dilemma as the song progresses.

"I think I like `Red Shoes' the best," Durham says of a song off her recently-released CD titled "Just Hanging Around."

"It's about being surrounded in a negative environment - everyone makes you feel you're wrong, and you doubt yourself - but you ultimately get this understanding and then freedom. Another song, "Walking in Your Sleep," is about how our society keeps people so busy with work that we're too tired to be activists, or spend time with each other, or really live life." Where to catch Janice Durham: Saturday night at Lockstock & Bagel, 4522 University Way N.E., 634-3144. Are you in a local band? If you'd like to be considered for Sound Check, send a cover letter telling us about your band and your upcoming gigs, the name and daytime phone number of your manager or contact person, a tape and a photo to Sound Check, c/o Jan Even, Seattle Times, PO Box 70, Seattle WA 98111.