IN FLIGHT — Mavis members (left to right) Dave McElroy, Frank Brown, and Ken Buono. (Photo by Dave Hamill)

By MIKE BRENNER
Big Shout Magazine, July 1989

“I’m sick of apologizing for being in a pop band,” Flight of Mavis singer/guitarist Frank Brown says, frustration evident in his voice. “Pop songs are why I got into music in the first place. I love pop songs.”

“Grunge bands are so ‘in’ these days, “FOM bassist Dave McElroy agrees. “Everyone’s looking for the next New York Sonic Youth band. It pisses me off when we get criticized for playing pop because t makes us sound like fluff — and we’re not fluff.”

It’s surprising to hear such acidic words coming from one of Philly’s leading practitioners of guitar-driven, big pop songs. Fro an observer’s point of view, the three members of Flight of Mavis — Brown, McElroy, and drummer Ken Buono — shouldn’t have anything to complain about. In just a year and a half, the band has worked its way into a weekend headlining spot at many of Philly’s top clubs, played to the unrestrained approval of crowds from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, and had their self-titled debut album released and last February and charting as far away as California and Vermont, as well as being a favorite on WMMR’s Street Beat show. As of this writing, the album was #1 at Auburn University in Alabama.

Flight of Mavis seems to be fighting against something that’s totally out of their hands, however — being pigeonholed.

“A lot of critics will listen to the album, hear a strummed guitar and a melody, and go, ‘Oh, another R.E.M. band,’ and tune out,” says Brown. “We’re really just trying to write great songs and not worrying about what style it sounds like.”

One listen to the LP is enough to realize that the songs are great and that if comparisons are to be made, Buddy Holly is probably more appropriate than Stipe & Co. The album is 10 songs worth of soaring pop, from wild-eye rave-ups, to wistful sketches of more naive times. According to the band, recording the album itself was one of those “naive times.”

“We just had no idea what we were doing, jut totally clueless,” laughs McElroy. “We had never recorded an album, used a producer who never produced before, and really rushed it.” The band recorded all the rhythm tracks in less than two days and finished mixing in less than two weeks after first stepping foot in West Philly’s Third Story Recording. They did all this while still working day jobs. But despite the rushed circumstances, the band remains happy with the 10 songs that comprise the album.

“Oh yeah, I really like it,” says Brown, the primary songwriter, “But we didn’t get to put any hand claps on it. What’s a record without hand claps?” While the absence of hand claps may not be thought of as a glaring omission, some notice was give to the lack of guitar solos, which adds to the sparse, lonely feel of many songs.

“I used to do that kind of stuff when I was younger in cover bands,” Brown says. “But if the songs don’t need solos, then there’s no reason to do them.”

“I get kind of disgusted with that kind of musicians,” adds McElroy. “The kind that plays some part that doesn’t work in the song just for the sake of playing the part. I like playing songs: I don’t play bass just to play bass.”

Besides their attitudes on musicianship, the band also shares a deep love for record collecting and finding the newest releases and bootlegs from bands like the Silos, NRBQ, and Young Fresh Fellows. It was this vinyl fetish that brought Flight of Mavis in contact with the Record Cellar, a store in Northeast Philly that specializes in hard-to-find records. The connection would eventually provide management, a label, financial backing, and the kind of help most bands never get.

“We would always go in there because they had NRBQ albums,” says Brown. “They didn’t even know we were in a band. we just thought the store was great and liked the people a lot.” Before long, the Cellar’s Neil Drucker and Pat Feeney were given an early FOM demo.

“We just gave it to them as a joke, just to see what they thought,” recalls McElroy. “When they said they wanted to make an album, we just laughed, but they kept saying it. And we kept laughing.”

Drucker and Feeney backed FOM’s entire recording and put the album out on their own label, Record Cellar Productions. They also put the band in contact with Al Fichera, another Record Cellar regular, who wound up producing the session after becoming enthusiastic about the demos. One wonders why a small store would do so much for a then-unknown band.

“The more we listened to the early demos, the more we recognized something special going on,” recalls Record Cellar owner Drucker. “We’d play them in the store, and people kept coming up and asking us who was on the stereo.”

Originally, Drucker and Feeney — who had never done anything like this — planned on doing an EP, but as Brown and the band kept creating more songs, an entire album began to take shape.

“We decided we wanted to do something that we could send out nationally,” says Drucker, who along with Feeney, spent long hours in the studio watching their project evolve. “We did a full-color cover and went over budget, but we did have fun with it.”

One particularly fun moment was when special guest Kenn Kweder, at the insistence of producer Fichera, elicited a gut-wrenching scream during the song “You Got It.” The control room, according to Fichera, was in hysterics for the rest of the night.

“They were so efficient in the studio,” says Feeney, Cellar manager and the first of the two to hear the band. “They just knocked stuff out, and it was coming off so good that the production went to the next step.”

The next step for the band, however, remains unknown at this point. They plan to keep playing as much as possible, especially out of town; a second album is a hazy possibility in the future. The search for a bigger label is also a future goal, but the three band members are firm in their desire to do the right things at the right time and concentrate on improvement.

“I used to write songs in the garage at my house,” says Brown, smiling. “My dad would say something like ‘What were those dogs howling about last night?’ That doesn’t seem to happen anymore, so I guess I’ve gotten better.”

“We’ve gained a lot of confidence,” says McElroy. “”We just want to get the word out.” A recent showcase concert at the Chestnut Cabaret, sponsored by the Philadelphia Music Foundation helped them toward that goal: this month’s Big Shout Showcase is another step in the right direction.

Fight of Mavis is a band that’s finding acceptance and critical acclaim playing the kind of music they unabashedly love. If things continue to go well, the band may soon find that their message has gotten out faster and farther than they ever dreamed. And that, even for a pop band, would be nothing to apologize for, either.