Sturm und Twang

Lewis & Clarke explore uncharted territory at the banks of the Delaware Water Gap.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Nov 13, 2007

PROUD PARENTS: Blasts of Holy Birth, the new CD by Lewis & Clarke — (L-R) Eve Miller, Russell Higbee and Lou Rogai — is out now on Rogai's La Société  Expéditionnaire label. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Lou Rogai calls the area he's from Appalachian, but not Appalachia. It's Kittatinny Ridge, on the Pennsylvania side of the Blue Mountains.

"There are no Roscoe Holcombes on porches," he explains with a laugh. "There are still casualties and characters lurking around in the trees up there, but they are for real, no romance."

It's a beautiful place to live, work in landscaping and make genuine, rough-hewn folk music — a purer strain than the psychedelic freak-folk you'll find in the city. His band Lewis & Clarke's new CD, Blasts of Holy Birth, isn't hokey or hillbilly-ish, either. There are shimmering strings and Rogai's tender, whispery vocals. The music and lyrics are gorgeously rustic, spacious, somnolently elegant and entrenched in the woodsy surroundings that inspired them. Rogai seems to crave connectivity in everything he does.

Natural and interesting textures have always appealed to him. Everything in both fields — musical and landscaping — is about achieving harmony through placement. "Keeping the idea of balance in the front of your mind and let nature rule your design rather than you trying to rule nature — it works in music and life."

Rogai says "nature's rule" guided him in making a musical version of the Taoist text "The Secret of the Golden Flower." He took on the meditative/scientific tome of Chinese philosophy when the responsibility of new life came his way — a baby boy named Julian Pompeii Rogai. He's the reason Rogai wrote the lullaby "Crimson Carpets" with its bits of familial advice and fantasy scenarios. "This was the realization that a lineage of my own being was about to begin, the bloodline, a welcome mat of deep crimson ... a magic carpet," says Rogai.

"There's a map of stumbling blocks that plagued my family, traits to be aware of, ones to embrace and ones to overcome. Some of it rhymes, too, and you can hear the boy if you listen close."

He likes the idea of family figuring into everything he does. Like his La Société Expéditionnaire label, which espouses the virtues of hard work and self-preservation. "The label is a means of sharing and shaping what the group makes, an exercise in self-sufficient community and sustainability in a world of drones," says Rogai. He's proud to include the softly swinging Black Swans and their Change! CD into his fold. "The band wants nothing," says Rogai. "But only on their own terms." Plus when they met, the Black Swans and Rogai both showed up in Ford Tauruses. You can call it synergy, or call it bull.

Having Eve Miller and Russell Higbee (of Rachel's and Man Man, respectively) join Lewis & Clarke makes for an even happier family.

Rogai sees a deeper dimension at work when it comes to their involvement. Russell's a Delaware Water Gap native and a kung fu instructor. They grew tight through landscaping before they started collaborating on Blasts of Holy Birth. "He ran away with the circus," says Rogai of Higbee's joining with Man Man. "But we keep the candles lit for Russell." As for Miller, she and her husband do a children's music project called Homespun. She teaches Buddhist meditation classes. Between the kids and the prayer, Rogai believes he was fated to work with her.

He knows connecting newborns, label mates and band members sounds new age-y and heavy. So what? "You have amazing and multidimensional different people in tune with their spiritual sides, and although the clutter of the world gets in the way and our own egos, we could share this in music," says Rogai. "All spokes lead to the same hub."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Fri., Nov. 16, 8 p.m., $10, with the Black Swans and Friends and Family, First Unitarian Church chapel, 2125 Chestnut St., 866-468-7619, r5productions.com.

 

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