"We can't not play, in order to be happy in our lives," said Melissa Roberts Weidman of the musical group she belongs to, Is We Ain't, along with Chris LoCascio, Todd Johnson, and Jim Royce. "We're just a group of local folks who love music and are in the process of figuring out how to have creative growth and satisfaction as musicians, playing in front of live audiences, while at the same time balancing jobs and families."
The name of the band, formed three years ago, refers to the fact that the musicians don't want to be pigeonholed by any one style of music. "Is we blues, is we jazz, is we rock, is we pop? Is We Ain't!" said Ms. Weidman, of Antone Avenue, East Falmouth. The band prides itself on its "sheer determination and raw energy, no matter what the size of the audience. We don't hold back," said Mr. LoCascio, a resident of Falmouth.
He and Ms. Weidman also perform as the duo Flipside, named for their fondness for the "B" side of records (remember those old 45s?). That other side of a popular record sometimes had a song that was more interesting, a little unusual, not so mainstream, and therefore appealing to the creative musicians.
The two met when they were both playing in Joe Sutton's Safe Sextet Band, "a legend in its own time," chuckled Ms. Weidman. When that group broke up, she and Mr. LoCascio decided to start their own band featuring "a lot of improvising and picking songs that we just loving doing," he said. "We wanted everyone who joined the band to be able to choose songs that they like to do, rather than having one person dictating everything."
It turned out that their tastes in music are similar, leaning toward the blues; their CD collections overlap quite a bit. "Chris is much more advanced than I am as a musician; I consider him a teacher and a mentor to me," said Ms. Weidman. "I feel very blessed to get to learn from him."
"The idea of the band was also to provide a good atmosphere for people to grow," he explained. "Melissa was the one with the good voice, but I wanted to provide an opportunity for people to sing who normally wouldn't sing; singing is such a personal thing… so we created an environment, in this room [his home recording studio], where it was encouraged. For instance, I don't have a great voice, but when I sing I feel great."
Another important aspect in forming Is We Ain't was "ample opportunity for people to improvise," said Mr. LoCascio. "I want people to be able to express themselves, to improvise within the framework of a song." The band members particularly like the blues, which lends itself well to jamming. "This is the band I've been waiting for for a long time," he said.
Is We Ain't has performed all over the Cape; in Falmouth at Grumpy's, Firefly, Roo Bar, the Nimrod, and Woods Hole Community Hall, as well as in Chatham, Orleans, and Provincetown and at weddings and private parties.
Todd Johnson, 42, plays harmonica for Is We Ain't and is a master craftsman/carpenter living in Woods Hole. Marstons Mills resident James Royce, 39, is the group's drummer and is a senior landscape architect partner with Stephen Stimson Associates Landscape Architects in Falmouth. Ms. Weidman, 52, is the communications manager for Hospice and Palliative Care of Cape Cod. Mr. LoCascio will turn 54 this month; a former social worker who taught on Penikese Island, he now runs his own house painting business, Chris LoCascio Painting. He's been involved with bands since he was 15.
"I identify myself as a musician who paints for a living. I'm a musician first." He is also a piano teacher, giving lessons to all ages of students in his Prospect Street home.
The group's song list includes rock and R&B favorites like "Mustang Sally," "Some Kinda Wonderful," "Wooly Bully," and "Dancing in the Street," along with boogie woogie dance numbers such as "Lollipop Mama" and "Thanks a Million." Blues tunes "Tupelo Honey," "Stormy Monday," "Dock of the Bay," and "Give Me One Reason" are popular, along with upbeat blues like "Riding in the Moonlight," "Big Boss Man," Let Your Hair Down," and "Kicking in My Stall." Original songs written by band members are "Root Canal Blues," "Let's Do It Again," "Disposable Income," "Bag of Bones," and "Just Being You."
Is We Ain't also plays some instrumental tunes for dancing, including "High Compression," "Cow Cow Blues," "Shoe Shine Boy," "Sweet 16 Bar Blues" and "Ain't Gonna Whistle Dixie." The group's own instrumentals are titled "Uptown," "Autumn Blues," "Can't Stop," "Smaltz," and "Is We Ain't."
Ms. Weidman and Mr. LoCascio have collaborated on writing songs for a CD, "Flipside: Along for the Ride Together." They plan to give the CD, free, to family, friends, and fans in the audience. "Playing in the band [Is We Ain't] is wonderful, but songwriting and performing as a duo is also a great outlet, as far as our interpretation of music and loving to play," said Mr. LoCascio.
"The CD is sort of a community collaboration," added Ms. Weidman. "We've invited great guest musicians, a lot of them young people, to play with us on several tracks." Their intention is not to send the CD off to major record labels, but to preserve their music for posterity.
Ms. Weidman explained, "My mother was a professional opera singer, but I don't have a single recording of her voice; she died when I was 18 so my kids never heard her sing. It's a great regret. Having a CD is like publishing a book; that's the equivalent for a musician." Mr. LoCascio agrees. "Someday, long after I'm dead, one of my descendants, or my sister's, will be able to say to their five-year-old budding musician, 'You had a great-great-uncle who was a musician and songwriter on Cape Cod, and here's his CD.' That might inspire him."
Another interesting project in which the two are involved is a program called "Working the Blues." "My background in my professional life is as a facilitator, trainer, workshop leader, and consultant," said Ms. Weidman. "And ham," added Mr. LoCascio mischievously. She laughed.
"I'm always looking for ways to integrate my creative life with my professional life… so we developed a workshop called "Working the Blues: The Blues as a Learning Metaphor." We did it for the Business and Professional Women's Club of Cape Cod at its annual meeting and recently for the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Conference at the Sheraton in Hyannis. It was very well-received.
"It's essentially about structure and improvisation and the parallels between the standard blues form and how groups operate in the workplace. You don't have to be a musician to understand it. It gives people the opportunity to experience what improvisation is about, as a team, and then talk about how that would play out in the workplace: the standards you can't change, like the hours, the product, the hierarchy; but where is there room for personal voice? How do you allow that to be heard, and how do you listen to others?
"We got a lot of great feedback from the workshop, and it was a lot of fun."
Although an excellent singer, Ms. Weidman didn't want to be "just the chick singer" in a band; she began taking lessons on the bass guitar and now plays the instrument well. She even participated in a week-long "bass camp" in Tennessee, one of four women and 61 men. "I like to be always growing and learning," she said.
Further information about Is We Ain't and Flipside and their performances may be obtained online at www.isweaint.com and www.flipsideduo.com.