Standing: Jim Whisenant,
Carol Defeciani (Kip McCloud),
and Sandy Zaragoza
Squatting: Diane Heffner
Although competition was fierce in
this vinyl edition of Demo Derby, Augusta Furnace emerged
victorious with their EP Rumble Strip (Community 3). All
three tracks are full of surprises, from the diversity of musical
reference points--punk, classical, avant-garde, jazz--to the
song structures, which refuse to stick to the straight and
narrow.
Despite its arty French moniker, "57 Rue
Fantastique: is a straightforward rocker. Or so it would seem.
Carol De Feciani's strong, Chrissie Hynde-like vocals, Sandy
Zaragoza's yowling guitar, and gutsy yet sophisticated reed work
on both sax and clarinet by Diane Heffner get things going in a
comfortable groove, when suddenly a tempo change leaves you
suspended in mid-air with only a fragile guitar-sax bridge to
support you.
The boisterous "New Blue Rock" is a study in
controlled disarray, with Heffner's hefty baritone sax lurking
ominously in the mix and Zaragoza's brassy guitar constantly
threatening to transmute into a sax. In "To Be Happy," De
Feciani underscores the uplifting sentiment of her singing with
passionate accordion embellished by Heffner's lilting clarinet.
The arrangements are concrete without being constricting, no
hamper to their controlled creative process.
The main writer for the band is actually Diane
Horstmyer, who lives in Vermont and works with Augusta Furnace as
a correspondent. "She basically considers herself a songwriter,
though she occasionally does solo gigs, just her and her guitar,"
De Feciani explains. "She will send me a tape and say, 'Here's
what I've been working on. What do you think?'
"Basically it'll just be her in the kitchen
with a regular old tape recorder, singing and playing her guitar. Then I listen and see whether I can come up with an arrangement
or a basic idea for a groove or something. The rest of the band
make up their own parts. I could play you what the song starts
out like and then play you the finished product, and you wouldn't
think it was the same thing." -- Sandy Masuo, Boston
Phoenix, April 10, 1992
Posted 3/2/2002
Carol Defeciani, now known as Kip McCloud, served with distinction in the much-admired Boston band, Quivvver, and is currently singing her silky-smooth vocals with a fine country group, Lucky 57. The names of the other band members did not appear in our computer files until now. We would love to hear about the more recent exploits in music of Diane Heffner, Jim Whisenant, and Sandy Zaragoza.If you have an e-mail address or a postal address for Sandy Masuo, the author of this article, please get in touch. -- Alan Lewis
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