Article published June 21, 2009
Rejuvenated Commander Cody rides into Toledo with new band
By ROD LOCKWOOD
BLADE STAFF WRITER
A conversation with George Frayne - better known as boogie woogie booze-rocker Commander Cody - veers all over the place like a Hot Rod Lincoln careening down a country road.
One minute he's carrying on about his new album, "Dopers, Drunks and Everyday Losers," and then he's talking up his artwork displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which slides into an unapologetic appreciation of marijuana before he's hooting and hollering at a chipmunk outside who's about to become his cat's lunch if he doesn't skedaddle.
Always entertaining, more than a little self-deprecating, smart, and just plain wacky, Frayne's every bit as unhinged as his musical alter ego would suggest. He's equally grounded in the world of art and sound and must be the only rocker who actually posts his curriculum vitae online without irony.
After all, Frayne has a master of fine arts degree in sculpture and painting from the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan.
"I'm probably the only musician who actually stayed in art school," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to promote his upcoming Toledo show Friday.
"I stayed in [the University of Michigan] for the whole six years. My major was sculpture and my minor was painting and all I had to do was weld stuff together and paint stuff, so it wasn't hard. I'm good at it and I had a full ride at Michigan and played in frat bands on the side."
That was in the mid-'60s, and Frayne with his band of country/blues/rock misfits known as Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen was primed for fun. So he quit his job as an instructor of art at Wisconsin State University and landed in Berkeley, Calif., effectively trading in a career as a professor for one as hippie musician.
"It was worth it! It was worth it, holy mackerel!," he said, cackling. "Berkeley California and San Francisco in '69, '70, '71, are you kidding me? That was the definition of fun."Halcyon days
Despite the wild nature of those times, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen actually were at the forefront of an important movement that provided a key evolutionary step in country rock that ultimately paved the way for The Eagles. Using a pedal steel guitar in a rock band, while singing songs that appealed equally to truckers and hippies, and then mixing it up with a melange of drug and road references, made for an unholy marriage of Buck Owens and the Grateful Dead.
The band's first album, "Lost in the Ozone" in 1971, contained songs that are still highlights of Cody's live set, including "Seeds and Stems Again Blues," "Wine Do Yer Stuff," the title track, and probably the band's most well-known song, the scorching boogie gearhead rocker "Hot Rod Lincoln."
The group's second album, "Hot Licks, Cold Steel & Trucker Favorites" was equally successful, and it kicked off a run of releases up until the late '70s that were either underground country rock classics or live albums that captured the band's blistering concerts.
By the late '70s the tank was on empty, and Cody broke up the band a few years later.
Frayne is typically unsentimental about the band's later music, as his description of his albums released on the Arista label indicate: "...really, really horrible... Billboard magazine said they were dreck and I'm not going to argue with them."Second chance
So Frayne, 64, settled into semi-retirement from music, touring and playing small joints regularly, but focusing most of his creative energy on his artwork. After years of working in a pop art format and having some of his sculptures displayed prominently, including a clever rendition of Secretariat that is at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, he hit upon doing portraits of musicians.
The works of artists such as Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and others sold well and sparked a commercial renaissance for Frayne. At the same time, he formed a band that he said reaches the level of musicianship of the Lost Planet Airmen and he wanted to honor them by making a CD, his first in nearly 20 years. And "I needed to prove something."
Specifically, there were songs in his catalog that Frayne felt needed to be updated and given new life. So the band re-recorded classics including "Seeds and Stems Again Blues," "Wine Do Yer Stuff," and a few from those "horrible" late-'70s albums while tossing in some covers such as John Hiatt's "Tennessee Plates" and the Hoyt Axton-penned "No No Song," that was a hit for Ringo Starr.
They all came together with a theme of "Dopers, Drunks and Everyday Losers," released this year on the Blind Pig Records label.
"My concept for the album fit perfectly because I took all the loser songs and put them in a portfolio," Frayne said.High side
Despite a couple of serious car accidents that nearly killed and crippled him, Frayne has continued working. He tours enough to play 80 to 100 shows a year.
He said his current band provides him the kind of musical buzz that reminds him of his original work.
"There was a super high of music and getting on stage and being in the presence of really great musicians playing really great music where everyone's really all playing the same thing at the same time - that was the original band.
"And when I broke them up it took me a long time to get that feeling back, but I've got it back and it's like a sine wave... so right now we're coming back and riding on the high side of the sine wave."
It's good-time, illegal smile music with plenty of references to getting stoned, drinking adult beverages, and partying, for which Frayne makes no apologies.
"The first thing you have to do if you're going to sober up is get away from me," he said. "I'm not an alcoholic, but if we're going to be in a bar playing bar music, I'm going to fit right in. I don't drink at home at all."
The band's sound fits that format perfectly, he said.
"We're a rock and roll band that has a steel guitar player rather than a giant swing band that has to turn it down," he said.
Frayne said he's proud of the legacy of Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, but he never dwelled on the fact that the band fell under the radar for a decade or so.
"For awhile I thought no one had any recollection of [our music.] But right now on the roots country chart we've been number one for the last three weeks," he said.
"That's really terrific because back then I didn't get much credit and I made a couple of lousy moves, a couple of bonehead moves of my own in this period of time, and I'm really happy to be back in the swing of things."
Commander Cody will play at DeSimone's Clubhouse, 1633 West Laskey Rd., Friday at 8 p.m. Call 419-866-8977 for tickets, which are $12 for members of the Black Swamp Blues Society and $15 for the general public.
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