Delco drummer fires up funky Lake Street Dive
Broomalls Mike Calabrese was destined to drum for Lake Street Dive, playing The Fillmore Philadelphia Friday.
Was Mike Calabrese from Broomall, Delaware County, destined from birth to be Lake Street Dive's drummer - the guy with a ton of Gamble and Huff in his DNA, channeling the funky beats into his neo-soul band's old-school dance-party groove?
"Ten years before I was born, my parents forged their relationship in a rock cover band called Just Friends during the '70s," Calabrese said during a tour break on his way to Lake Street Dive's sold-out gig Friday at the Fillmore Philadelphia in Fishtown.
"Mom was a singer; Dad played guitar," he said. "When the band broke up, they stayed together. Years later, at family gatherings, Dad would bust out his guitar, Mom would sing, my uncles would bring their guitars, and they'd do the old set list from their cover-band days."
Philly and Motown soul fueled Calabrese's childhood. "Music as a community was how I was raised," he said. "Instead of saying, 'I don't want him to be a musician when he grows up,' my parents were like, 'When you grow up, you should be a musician.' "
Dan and Kathy Calabrese nurtured young Mike with a diet of good vibes.
"Driving with my mom to a dentist appointment," Calabrese said, " 'Sugar Shack' would come on the car radio on WOGL. I'd say, 'Hey, Mom, what is that?' She'd say, 'Bubble gum.' Mom was into poppy stuff.
"Dad was into harder stuff. He would pop in Santana or Jimi Hendrix. I had a major underpinning of Muscle Shoals, Stax, Motown."
And Philly. "My father would say, 'Well, you know there's something called the Sound of Philadelphia.' And he'd tell me about the Delfonics and the O'Jays. He'd tell me about Sigma Sound and the reason why David Bowie decided to come to Philly to record Young Americans."
Calabrese said his Uncle Larry Goetz told him how the whole rhythm thing started.
"My Uncle Larry was sitting around playing some tunes at a family gathering," Calabrese said. "I was maybe 2, sitting on the floor. All of a sudden, Uncle Larry hears this tambourine. I'm rapping away on it in pretty good time. I think my tempo was all right.
"I liked playing with spoons and knives at the dinner table, making a ruckus," Calabrese said. "On my ninth birthday, my parents gave me my first drum set. After that, no matter how many guitars they put in front of me, I couldn't tear myself away from the drums. I was always more attracted to the rhythm of things."
Calabrese was the only drummer in his musical family. "Everyone else was coming from a melodic and chordal standpoint," he said. "So I wasn't a drummer to be a drummer. I was drumming to support the singers and the guitar players and the bass players."
Flash forward to 2004, when Calabrese joined New England Conservatory of Music colleagues to form Lake Street Dive, where he drums to support singer Rachel Price, guitar/trumpet player Mike "McDuck" Olson, and stand-up bass player Bridget Kearney.
So, yes, it was his destiny.
Calabrese might rock his Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt at the Fillmore on Friday like he did at last year's Union Transfer gig and in 2014 at the band's songwriting master class at their alma mater, deep in the heart of Patriots-obsessed Boston.
Eagles T-shirt or not, Calabrese's affection for his bandmates will inform every song.
"When we graduated college, we had to admit to ourselves and to each other that we were into each other and we were into each other's types of music," he said.
"We were college jazz-based back then, so you needed to be cool. You could be into non-jazz music, but it had to be weird and hard to understand."
The bandmates had a life-changing epiphany during a long road trip in the Midwest when they put blind playlists of their guilty musical pleasures on each other's laptops and were shocked to discover that beneath the cool jazz veneer, they all secretly craved soulful rock-and-roll.
"Paul Simon, the Beatles, Sly, Diana Ross," Calabrese said. "It was music we all loved but had never admitted it to each other. So after years together, we finally said, 'Hey, maybe we don't have to be a jazz band. Maybe we can play more backbeats and love songs. Maybe it's better to play that in a bar than avant-garde jazz.' "
Calabrese laughed and said, "We realized that maybe we need to start laying high-energy stuff on people that they want to dance to. And, coincidentally, maybe that happens to be what people will pay money to see."
So Lake Street Dive will bring their high-energy stuff to the Fillmore and Calabrese will deliver the funky beats on Kearney's canine rockers: "Call Off Your Dogs" ("I'm not gonna bite you") and "Rabid Animal" ("You got me running like a rabid animal, like a dog").
And Calabrese will be making the Motown-to-the-max riffs on Olson's "Side Pony," a rump-shaking ode to the sideways ponytail that is their well-received new album's title track, and on Olson's showstopping serenade to whiskey, "You Go Down Smooth," from the band's breakout album, Bad Self Portraits.
When Calabrese isn't conspiring with Kearney - who plays her stand-up bass like she's dancing with it at the after party - to drive Price's sensuous, thrilling vocals and Olson's tasty guitar and trumpet riffs, he's writing eat-your-heart-out-Billy-Joel ballads such as his world-weary warning against getting "Close to Me" and his rousing rejection rocker "I Don't Care About You."
Calabrese hopes the Lake Street Dive beat will go on forever. "We will always get together," he said happily. "We just will never stop playing."
Lake Street Dive at 8 p.m. Friday at the Fillmore Philadelphia, 29. E. Allen St. Sold out. Information: 215-309- 0150 or thefillmorephilly.com.
610-313-8109 @DanGeringer