The Ocean Blue, formed in Hershey, Pennsylvania in 1986, is an American indie pop band that combines melodic guitars and synthesizers. Its core original members included David Schelzel on lead vocals/guitar, Steve Lau on keyboards/saxophone, Bobby Mittan on bass guitar and Rob Minnig on drums and vocals.
Its current line-up includes David Schelzel on lead vocals/guitar, Oed Ronne on keyboards/guitar/vocals, Bobby Mittan on bass guitar and Peter Anderson on drums.
The band's sound may be best described as jangly guitar-based modern rock. Influences include such bands as The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, The Chameleons, Echo & the Bunnymen and New Order. The Ocean Blue's earliest shows always consisted of a healthy dose of covers by these bands. To this day, The Smiths and New Order covers still punctuate concert encores.
Early career
The Ocean Blue (their name influenced by the opening line in the poem "The History of The U.S." by Winifred Sackville Stoner, Jr.), first met in junior high and cut a series of demos while in high school, with friend Scott Stouffer sitting in on drums. They managed to get two of their earliest recordings, "On Growing Up" and "Wounds Of A Friend", included on Lancaster's local Christian Radio Station WJTL's "Preliminary Hearing" cassette compilation in late 1986. The compilation also included very early work from friends and mentors of The Ocean Blue, noted local artists and alternative rock legends, The Innocence Mission. Another school friend Rob Minnig, would join as permanent drummer in 1987, and the classic line-up of Schelzel/Lau/Minnig/Mittan would continue through 1994.
Sire Record Years
The Ocean Blue's members were just teenagers and still in high school when they signed a three-album deal in 1988 with Sire Records, at the behest of Sire founder Seymour Stein. The Ocean Blue's self-titled album debuted in the fall of 1989 and many listeners were surprised to learn that the band wasn't British. The first single release was the song "Between Something and Nothing", an Echo & the Bunnymen-inspired rocker which hit the modern rock top-10 in 1989. Their busy calendar included an appearance on one of the first episodes of "Club MTV with Downtown Julie Brown". The follow-up single "Drifting, Falling" was also a top 10 hit, and featured a video of the band in various locations in and around their hometown of Hershey. The band's two videos received massive rotation on the fledgling MTV show "Post-Modern MTV". The band later joined labelmates The Mighty Lemon Drops and John Wesley Harding on the 1990 Laugh Tour and EP, to which they recorded and submitted "Renaissance Man", a cover of the 1982 hit by New Wave Christian rock band The 77's. All of this promotion helped the band sell over 150,000 units of the record.
After a lengthy tour and time in the studio, in 1991 they released the lush and dreamy sounding Cerulean. It had two hits in the modern rock platform. "Ballerina Out of Control" was a #3 hit on the Modern Rock chart, and "Mercury" followed at #27. Both featured videos that fully displayed the band's deepening atmospherics. Cerulean managed to sell 175,000 copies just as the grunge explosion of late 1991 hit and changed the music business. During this time, drummer Rob Minnig and his brother Pat Minnig began to hone their song production and mixing abilities, which would later be reflected on the next album and its b-sides, which the band chose to produce themselves.
The final Sire Records release came in 1993 with Beneath the Rhythm and Sound. This album saw the band adding more lavish sounds but still riding on the same formula that had gained it such a following. "Sublime" received top 40 airplay, with a video filmed amongst the steaming, geothermal geysers of Iceland. The album sold over 100,000 copies. There was no second single that had the charting stature of "Sublime", but the Peace and Light EP released in 1994 helped wrap up the Sire contract for the group.
Before the close of 1993, the band contributed songs to the Eric Stoltz film Naked in New York. Originally, the group was asked to cut a new song, and the band wrote and recorded "City Traffic". For reasons unknown, the song was scrapped and instead two other tracks from their third album were included instead. The song still remains in the band's vaults.
For the duration of their 1993/1994 tour in support of Beneath the Rhythm And Sound, the band toured as a five-piece with newly added second guitarist Edward 'Oed' Ronne. Westwood One Radio Networks also recorded the group's June 20th, 1994 concert in Ventura, California for a promotional CD. To this day, it is the band's only official live album. After getting a spot on ABC for new bands and playing the usual late night shows such as Conan O'Brien, it seemed as if the band had made it.
During this time, keyboardist/sax player and original member Steve Lau had begun to make his intentions clear, he was becoming more interested in the music business and wanted to move from Hershey to New York City. Further issues arose within the band, when Lau publicly came out that he was gay. In a 1995 Out magazine interview, he claimed that his homosexuality was the reason for his departure, as it had caused friction with the more conservative leaning members of the group. Concurrently, the band had also been looking for a reason to include friend and touring guitarist Ronne in more of the band's songwriting. It seemed a good match as Steve wanted to leave the group and Oed wanted to join.
Despite the departure of Lau, the band ended his era on a high note, with a live cover-version of The Smiths classic "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" as on the Peace & Light EP. Peace And Light would feature the only recordings of the five-piece The Ocean Blue released to the public. Steve Lau exited the band in late 1994, and Oed Ronne was brought in full time. Lau later became a record executive with a Sire records subsidiary known as Kinetic, a label specializing in indie dance music. (In the latter years, it appears that these childhood friends had somewhat buried any ill-will. Lau was spotted by many fans at the groups' October 2000 New York City Mercury Lounge concert, and in the spirit of good cheer, David Schelzel and the Ocean Blue directed accolades to Steve from the stage.)
Subsequent career
By 1996, gone was the light and airy synthesized sounds of the band, and in was more guitar driven music thanks in part to Oed Ronne. Mercury Records picked up the band and released See the Ocean Blue that fall.
See the Ocean Blue was released to lukewarm results despite Ronne's renewed input. At the last minute, the company cancelled plans to film a video for the second single "Slide", and never really promoted the album at all. Despite a nationwide tour, it was a victim of the global record company mergers and purges of that engulfed late 1996 and early 1997. Literally overnight, numerous bands worldwide were dropped by their labels. These record company politics and shakeups also left one of the band's idols, Morrissey, without a record deal for over seven years.
In 1999, after three years of downtime, the band recorded and self-released Davy Jones Locker through their website. It was a breezy album reflecting nearly every style of their careers, and for the first time it featured lead vocals by David, Oed Ronne, and even drummer Rob Minnig. Because of its indie status, it received little airplay.
Two EPs, Denmark and Ayn were released by March Records in promotion of the album and tour, and each featured three new b-sides. The band was producing new material at a great pace, with over twenty songs recorded in just over a year.
Finally in 2001, Davy Jones Locker was resequenced, remastered, and re-released on March Records. Again, little fanfare and touring was put into promoting the album. March Records marketed both the album and the EPs, but the band's dedicated fan base had seemingly moved on. Growing weary of touring, around 2000 or 2001 Rob Minnig decided to leave the group after fourteen years, and Peter Anderson (a friend of the band from Minneapolis, Minnesota) was brought in for live shows and eventually permanent recording work.
As the band members are now in their mid-thirties, their music has taken a backseat to their professional jobs and families. In 2004, the band self-released the EP Waterworks via their website. A diverse collection of music is found on this six-song disc, again showcasing Schelzel and Ronne's keen ability to craft '60s-inspired pop-music, with Bobby Mittan's basslines and Peter Anderson's rapid-fire drumming. The Orange Peels' Allen Clapp also contributes music and production to the EP. In 2004, the group toured select dates around the nation, even adding The Owls' saxophonist Brian Tighes as an homage to Steve Lau's sound.
In 2005, to reciprocate, Oed Ronne and Peter Anderson contributed to Allen Clapp and The Orange Peels' album Circling The Sun. In October of that same year, David Schelzel entered the studio to record a solo version of Adolphe Adam's 1847 Christmas classic "O Holy Night". This song was available only as a digital download via the band's website for the 2005 holiday season.
In late 2005, the Ocean Blue's entire five studio album catalogue and the Waterworks EP became available for purchase on iTunes, as well as the band's first four videos.
On June 1, 2006, the Ocean Blue's Schelzel/Mittan/Ronne/Anderson line-up played its first ever South American concert, with a show at Teatro Rajatabla El Llonja, Barranco-Lima, Peru.
In July 2010, the Ocean Blue's long-unreleased 1993 studio track "City Traffic" was uploaded to You Tube, with an accompanying homemade video. The song was originally intended for release with the Eric Stoltz-starred film soundtrack "Naked In New York", but was dropped in favor of two other songs from the band's third album.
In December 2010, the band's website announced that a new record may be released in 2011. The website also offered a free Christmas download of a newly recorded cover version of the ancient Basque Carol "The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came", by David Schelzel and Don Peris.
DJ Mark Says...
"I became a fan of The Ocean Blue in the late 80s after hearing one of their songs on a Sire Records sampler. I was immediately charmed by their simple, pure arrangements and wistful style. I hope you enjoy this exploration of the career of a band whose fame never approached their collective talent for songwriting and performance."
acknowledgements: wikipedia.com; theoceanblue.com
No comments:
Post a Comment