Vini and the Demons sends the blues
screaming into the year 2000

By Christopher Weingarten

 

The first night Vini and the Demons ever graced a stage together at Common Grounds Coffeehouse looked like a typical evening of blues music and alcohol consumption. Cigarette smoke formed an impenetrable haze over the nondescript crowd. Five guys in matching suits confidently donned their respective instruments.

"The heart of the Demons is traditional blues," coyly remarked frontman Vini Demon.

 

But the sound they would produce that evening didn't sound or feel like traditional blues. It was much too raw, cacophonous and brutal to be compared to the "traditional blues" that Vini traces to Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. It had the anarchic spirit of punk rock. It buzzed and wailed with reckless abandon and volumes that could shred the tympanic membrane of a seasoned Slayer fan. This was not like any "traditional blues" I've ever confronted.

 

"Picture Robert Johnson with a Stratocaster," Vini explains. "Don't you think he would have cranked it?"

 

This desire for unfettered emotion combined with Vini's encyclopedic knowledge of blues is the genesis for his quest to carry on the deep-rooted tradition of what most consider the most profoundly American music in history.

 

"We're not fucking around," says Vini, a credo for the Demons reiterated countless times in our conversation.

 

Vini and the Demons is a group of blues enthusiasts who proudly play "the Devil music" after forming brotherly relations at Common Grounds Coffeehouse. Vini Demon, Joey Demon, Tom Miller Demon, Reggie Demon and Virginian blues instructor Skibo Demon play the blues for the beauty inherent in its emotional capabilities.

 

"The blues incorporates all of the life experience in it's most pure and raw sense," said Vini. "It's never going to change. People are the same. The blues is about people."

 

Besides sharing the same surname with Vini, Joey Demon shares a similar mindset.

 

"I feel every word I sing, whether I've been there or not," says Joey.

 

"That's why it's so successful," adds Vini.

 

This emotional connection has spiritual connections with Vini who speaks frankly about cathartic energy of his music in ways that sound more like a religion than a series of gigs.

 

"People never die if you keep them in your memory," said Vini. "How powerful and emotionally charged is it to present this music? We believe these people are right in the room when we play."

 

Vini tells me about a series of frightening experiences relating to these blues spirits that occurred during Demons rehearsals. Due to the nature of these events, the members of the Demons now carry "mojo bags" charged during a celebration-of-the-dead ritual by a blues-loving high mistress.

 

Needless to say, Vini won't allow these events to recounted in the press, but I can guarantee they'd make you shit your pants.

 

"We're not carrying these mojo bags for a joke," Vini says. "Trust us."

 

In fact, nothing about Vini and the Demons sounds like a joke. From the way Vini tells me that they all wear suits to invoke the same respect that people have for tuxedoed opera events to the way Joey explains how they all use the last name "Demon" because they transform into different people after hitting the stage.

 

With this same focused energy and attention to tradition, Vini lays out the purpose and future of his Demons bluntly and concisely "The goal of Vini and the Demons is to help bring the blues into the 21st century." "We're not fucking around" indeed.

 

-- Independent Florida ALLIGATOR / 12/02/99