Friday, July 28, 2000SOUND CHECK: Demons play serious blues
By DOUGLAS JORDAN
Vini Savino says the blues saved his life.
After an accident left him in a wheelchair and in a great deal of pain, the 47-year-old New York native was considering a way out.
"I literally had the barrel in my mouth," he said, taking a swig of Jack Daniel's,"then I looked over at the guitar my wife had recently given me and thought, 'Why don't I try this instead?'"
In some ways, Vini Savino died that night, and Vini Demon was born. Though Vini had been playing music much of his life -- he began playing guitar at age 9 -- he had been out of it for some time, working as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital in Atlanta. Then it happened.
"One of the patients tackled me, as a joke," Vini said. "It screwed up my vertebrae. The doctors told me I probably wouldn't walk again."
Vini threw himself into the blues, intensely listening to such pain-wracked legends as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and Freddie King, trying to replicate what he heard with the guitar given to him by his wife, Francesca.
"The blues is on the surface very simple music," Vini said. "But it's nothing without the feeling. You can learn the notes, you can even play them. But if you don't have the feel, you have nothing, just a collection of notes."
Vini, who now walks again, formed Vini and the Demons a year ago at the Common Grounds Coffeehouse. The band appears tonight on the Gainesville Community Plaza, as part of Gainesville's Summer Showcase.
The group consists of Vini Demon on guitar and vocals, Skibo Demon (Dave Krukowski) on harp and bones, Evil Demon (Evan Garfinkel) on drums, Joey Demon (Salvatore Prizzi) on guitar and vocals, and Tom Miller Demon (Tom Miller) on bass.
Sitting with the band after a blistering three-hour set last Saturday at Common Grounds, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of their devotion to the blues not just as music, but as a way of life.
All five were wearing suits drenched with sweat.
"The blues is the only true American form of music. It's born out of struggle, of pain, of emotion," Vini said.
"I never even knew the blues until I joined these guys," said Miller. "I used to think of it as what you played to warm up before playing 'real music.' But after I heard them, I was devastated. It has completely changed my life."
Miller may be remembered by many as a former member of Gainesville band NDolphin, or for his run at a city commission seat some years ago. While Miller is known for performance art and publicity stunt shenanigans, he is also a talented musician and insists he is dead serious about Vini & the Demons. "I would die for this band," Miller said.
These guys view the blues almost as a religion. All five carry "mojo bags," given to them by a local voodoo priestess, and start each performance with a ritual toast of whiskey, in honor of the many bluesmen that came before them.
"That's why we wear suits," Vini said. "We do it out of respect for the great blues artists of the past."
The band has encountered the inevitable criticism that they are white men playing traditionally black music, Vini said.
"The blues, in its true and purest form, is a sacred thing," he said. "It doesn't matter whether you're black or white, it's all about the emotion. We have all suffered, and that's what this music is about."
Their show last weekend was ample evidence that this is a band that means it. They play the traditional standards, leaning heavily on Muddy Waters and Freddie King, and pour their souls into each note as if their lives depended on it.
Perched high in the corner of the packed, smoke-filled room watching these guys play their hearts out, I felt almost taken back in time. The room, and everybody in it, seemed to have a common vibe, and as far as I could tell, nobody left while the band was onstage.
- THE GAINESVILLE SUN