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biography
Jan King gets it done. Whether it’s flying in the face of a dismissive
boyfriend or acquaintance who didn’t take seriously her determination
to become the crackerjack guitar player she is – she put that
same determination to work to become an expert auto mechanic inspired
by the same kind of derisive dismissal – or to change the world
by teaching guitar and attitude to children, many of them economically
and otherwise challenged or disadvantaged, in and around the Chicago
area. She has all kinds of students but, also a former board member
for Girls Rock!
Chicago, she takes a special pride in the ones with the biggest obstacles
to overcome, particularly when one of those obstacles is being a female
in the male-dominated world of guitar playing, an attitude that, with
so much evidence to dispute it, would be ridiculously outdated even
if was ever the least bit valid at all.
Jan had already been in a band or two as a singer before she even learned
to play guitar. Wanting more control over her music she put her fingers
to the grindstone and made herself into a damn fine player; an exceptional
one, boyfriends and roommates often finding her fast asleep with the
guitar still plugged in and strapped on after hours of practice. That’s
probably one of the things that drew drummer Tami Peden and bassman
Keith Wakefield to form a new version of her band Medicine Ball. Tami’s
first band gig in fact was with Jan in Puss
‘N' Boots.
"I
met Jan back in 1986. I was hanging out in San Francisco with my friend
Lynn and her friend Gene who was an Orchids (an earlier band of Jan’s) fan. One day we got a wild hair up
our asses to drive down to L.A. because he knew this Jan King woman who
was starting a band called Puss
'N' Boots and he really wanted to meet her. We ended up hanging
out with her and Steve Hunter at their apartment. I was pretty shy at
the time but I'm sure we hung out and talked about music. About 6 months
later my friend Lynn and I moved to L.A. to attend Musicians Institute
and we hooked up with Jan again (There's a rum soaked all-nighter in there
that I'll save for another time). Lynn and I were roommates and at some
point and during the summer of 1987 Jan called us up because her bass
player had just bailed out. She had her big first P'N'B gig coming up soon and wanted to know if we knew any blond female
bass players. Lynn (not blond but a guitar player) was out of town but
I told Jan even though I was a drummer I played a little bass if she wanted
to give me a shot. I played bass with P'N'B for about 3 or 4 months until our drummer quit and now nearly 23 years
later the rest is history. I've played with Jan in various bands including Crying Blue Sky,
Fetish, Medicine Ball, Cane
Corso and Shrieking Violet. Puss
'N' Boots and Crying
Blue Sky played the LA scene and recorded extensively from
1987 to 1994. Crying
Blue Sky had a brief stint in Minneapolis before moving to
Chicago in 1995. I toured Europe in 2003 with Wanda Chrome and the Leather
Pharaohs and played around the Chicago area over the years with Unibrow,
Sugar Spin and Lethal Poetry. My God is Jimi Hendrix and my drummer influences
are Phil Rudd, Neil Peart, Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker, Matt Cameron
to name just a few. I also teach drums to little (and big) up and coming
rockers."
Wakefield,
originally a sax player, has a background in Jazz but became a bass
player (“I worship at the church of Jaco Pastorius”) drawn
to rock and funk through the influence of Bootsy Collins, John Paul
Jones, Victor Wooten, & Stanley Clarke.
"I
met Jan and Tami while I was playing bass in a band called Salamander
Red. I'm going to guess it was early 1998, but it could have been 1997.
Tami would probably remember better. They were in a band called Fetish
at the time. We were sharing a gig at a total dive in the "Wicker
Park" neighborhood of Chicago called "Big Horse". Sadly
"Big Horse" does not exist anymore.
Not long after that, Salamander Red broke up and Fetish had renamed itself
Medicine Ball. The Fetish bass player had to leave town for family reasons.
So Tami contacted me to let me know that they were looking for a new bass
player. I agreed to do it, I think for a limited time because I already
had other projects that I was working on and I didn't think I could commit
for the long haul. After a year and a half, I moved on to concentrate
on jazz and jazz fusion. But instead I got married and started a family!
I had always felt bad about not sticking with Medicine ball. So when they
approached me about rejoining, I signed on."
As
for Jan King, her life story reads like a creation of Dorothy Parker,
Charles Dickens, and William S. Burroughs. That’ll be for the
book. Professionally she has enough résumé for someone
twice her age. Originally from Austin, Minnesota (“Just like Austin,
Texas only on the other end of I-35) she wrote and sang the featured
track “Chains” (later covered by Soul Asylum among others)
on the influential compilation album, Big Hits of Mid-America, Volume
III, from Minneapolis label, Twin Tone Records.
Relocating to L.A. she recorded a self-titled album on MCA with the Orchids, Kim Fowley's follow-up
to the Runaways. Later she fronted her own bands and worked as a solo
artist, and contributing, to many other artists' projects. It was around
this time she met and sang for country/folk/rock singer/songwriter and
bon vivant Phil Lee. With whom she toured in 2009. She’s also
down film music and scoring with one-time partner, Steve Hunter and
she performed the song “Fading
Away” for the movie, Pet Sematary II.
In
1988 she formed, fronted and played guitar for Puss
'n' Boots, an all-girl band which morphed into the band Crying
Blue Sky. In late 1995 she moved to Chicago, forming a new band, Medicine Ball and recording their
CD, Super Karmic Sweepstakes Winner, for HTS Recordings out of Little
Rock. In 2000, she and Tami formed Cane
Corso with Chicago native, Steve Gerlach, and recorded their CD,
Loud At Any Volume. In 2005 Cane Corso gave way to Shrieking Violet-also
with Tami – but with Keith now available in 2009, she realized
that her heart lay with the bluesy, heavy textured rock and roll that
characterized Medicine Ball and the next phase of that band was underway.
Jan
King is a combination of Jimi Hendrix, Tallulah Bankhead, Mother Maybelle
Carter, Henry Stanley and Amelia Earhart and with Tami and Keith in
Medicine Ball she- and they- will rock you with a rumble that starts
at the top of your skull rumbles down through your chest and gut and
through the very best parts of you. Oh, and they’ll make you shake
your ass too.
(Rick Allen; February 27, 2010)
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