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The New London Day - February 9th, 1986
Reproduced below is an article that was published in The New London Day, a local newspaper in New London County, CT.New London-based band branching out
The Reducers: Steady progression
by Michael Cray (Day Staff Writer)(Originally published in The New London Day 2/9/86)
NEW LONDON - Years of playing local gigs in small bars here and throughout the Northeast is paying off for The Reducers.Rocking along toward bigger success and more widespread recognition, the New London-based band is branching out. With its driving beat and stirring guitar work, the band has gained attention in national publications and recently released its third album, "Cruise To Nowhere", on it's own Rave On label.
The Reducers are also included on two recently released compilation albums. One, "The Towers of New London" on Vinyl records, features 13 new bands from the New London area. The other, on Epic Records, is titled, "Epic Presents the Best Of The Unsigned", and features 10 bands from around the country that have not signed contracts with a major record company.
The Reducers will soon head out on an extended tour - their third in a year - that will take them through the Midwest to Ann Arbor, Mich,; south to St. Louis, Mo., Chattanooga, Tenn., Georgia and back up the East Coast. The upcoming three to four-week tour will include 25 gigs, the largest tour the band has staged, and will cover between 4,000 and 5,000 miles, a grueling trip at best.
Rigors of touring aside, the past two years have been a steady upward progression for The Reducers, who formed in 1978 and have been one of the leading rock bands in the region ever since. Between drawing packed houses at the few local clubs that still offer live rock in the region, the band has also been a voice calling out for more places for rock bands to play, particularly for audiences under 21 years old, in southeastern Connecticut.
Once considered the house band at the now-defunct Ba Ba O'Reilly's, The Reducers have since become almost synonymous with the Annie Club, the former El 'N' Gee Club which is about the only place in the area that consistently presents rock and new bands.
The band members - Peter Detmold and Hugh Birdsall on guitars, Steve Kaika on bass guitar and Tom Trombley on drums - are all 30 years old, grew up and now live in the Waterford-New London area. They have been making an impact on the rock scene in the Northeast without a major record label or agent, but they have had inquiries from big record companies.
Just about every major label has contacted us. We've had people write and call us - Epic Records, all the major labels. But we haven't had any real (contract) offer yet," said Detmold, adding that the band is not concerned about signing with a large company. "We're always willing to consider an offer but we're happy to continue on the pace we're going at," he said.
After eight years of scratching and playing gigs in mostly small clubs, juggling their music with part-time or full-time jobs to make ends meet, but staying true to their basic rock sound, band members have recently been able to support themselves as full-time musicians.
"It's a lot of hard work", said Detmold. "It's only in the past year that we've been a full-time band. The money is picking up."
Detmold said that when the band first formed they weren't really expecting an extended career.
"I think we never really expected to be doing it eight years later. I think we thought of doing it a few years and having some fun. We didn't expect to be doing the records," he added.
Detmold, who like Birdsall has a weekly radio show on the Connecticut College station, WCNI, said the group's audience is mostly in the 15 to 30 year-old age group and drawn from college campuses, with a few older, diehard rock fans mixed in. In New London, the band's shows at the El 'N' Gee routinely draw a loyal, sell-out crowd of fans ranging in age up to 40 years old, or more.
The Reducers are not into labels or convenient terms such as new wave or punk to categorize their music.
"We're just a rock 'n' roll band. We're not interested in labels," Detmold said.
The group has produced only one music video, and that was at the request of their part-time agent. Detmold says the band prefers to rely on being a solid live band, emphasizing its music and songs, and not a visual style.
A major turning point for The Reducers came about two years ago when they decided to take a creative break and stopped playing for what was intended to be a three-month period, but was prolonged to more than six months after bassist Kaika was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. The layoff gave the band time to create new songs, practice together and refine their music. When they came back to live performances, they returned with a new fervor, playing even more aggressively - if possible - than they had before.
Since the layoff, the band has been turning out albums regularly and has begun steadily expanding its playing area. With the help of an agent, Ken Evans of Bethel, Pa., they now play regularly in New York City, where they have received critical acclaim, and have regular dates elsewhere in New England.
Last year, following and appearance at The Ritz, a popular Manhattan nightclub, The Reducers received a ringing positive critique from Robert Christgau, the lead rock critic of the Village voice. The band and its albums have also been regularly reviewed in the Boston Globe, which, in an article last month, called The Reducers' second album, "Let's Go", the best locally produced album for 1985. The Globe also had high praise for the latest album, "Cruise To Nowhere".
The no-frills, straight-ahead, blues-based sound of the band has it cruising smoothly now. But there have been some dissapointments. Last summer, the band was scheduled to be featured in Rolling Stone magazine, the bible of rock music. The publication had included The Reducers in an article, complete with a photograph, of the top 10 new bands in the country. The article was pasted up and ready for printing when, at the last minute, apparently because of space limitations, the page devoted to The Reducers was cut out.
On the plus side, the band sold out the first printing of their first two albums - 2,000 copies of The Reducers, their first release, and 5,000 copies of Let's Go - and are receiving reports of brisk sales and good reviews of their third album. They have recently reissued the first two albums.
What lies ahead for the band? More touring and, sometime next summer, a return to the studio to begin work on a fourth album.
"We've got to write for recording now. We want to keep our name in people's ears," Detmold said. Meantime, the band is ready to hit the road, traveling six or seven hours a day in their black van, towing a trailer loaded with amplifiers, speakers and equipment.
"People think touring is all a blast, but it's a lot of work, too. When we get back from a tour we like to take about a month off," Detmold said.