Wednesday, April 6, 2011
BY STEVE JANOSKI
BUTLER — It's been 45 years since Vinny Martell first started burning up the stage with the psychedelic acid-rockers Vanilla Fudge — and all these years later, he's still at it, bringing his guitar chops to the Butler Church of the Nazarene's "Fusion Café" on Kiel Avenue on April 9.
Martell, 65, will be playing the band's old favorites like "You Keep Me Hangin' On" while mixing in some classics from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and the Mamas and the Papas while backed by Peg Pearl on keyboard, Russ T. Blades on drums, and Vanilla Fudge bassist Pete Bremy of West Milford as well.
The Butler performance will be the latest in a string for the very active Martell, who has been touring with the original lineup of Vanilla Fudge (minus bassist Tim Bogert) on what started out as a "Farewell Tour" but has ended up becoming quite the event.
The band has been playing gigs at venues like the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park and B.B. King Blues Club and Grill in NYC, and has sold out a number of them. On March 28, a performance of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" put the band back in the national spotlight.
For the ever-humble Martell, though, the best part of the show was meeting another celebrity that night — UFC superstar Brock Lesnar, who was also appearing on Fallon's show that night.
"He's a nice cat," said Martell "I told'em I really dig watchin' him fight."
Martell even got a picture with the 6-foot-3-inch tall, 280 lb. Lesnar, who he said was "very big" but "very cool."
The performance went off without a hitch — a quick search on the Internet will reveal that the band tore up the stage with as much fury and flare as they did back when they played "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1968.
Martell said that one thing had changed since those days however — his waistline.
"It looks like I gotta' go on my diet and lose about 25 pounds," he joked. "Whenever I go on TV it puts 20 pounds on me, I swear."
The band is supporting their 2010 offering "Box of Fudge," which is made up of two albums and two live performances, including a New Year's Eve 1968 performance at the Fillmore West that the band didn't even remember had been recorded.
The tour has been going well, and, for once in the band's rollercoaster history in regards to friendships, everyone has been getting along.
"Everybody wants to make this happen, so we're taking it easy on each other, and we're being receptive to each other," he said.
They've also been playing their first album in its entirety, a thing they've never done, in a tribute to the fans who have followed them for so long — Martell said that fans have been coming from literally all over the world to see the band with original vocalist and keyboardist Marc Stein and Carmine Appice on drums.
Martell said a few people from Germany had flown to New Jersey to see the performance at the Stone Pony, and then gone to the B.B. King Blues Club show as well.
Another loyal fan flew over from Italy — he'd seen the band on TV in 1968, and finally made his way to the U.S. to see them live.
"It's tremendous to get that reception," Martell said. "We have some super-duper fans, and we got fans from Europe that blow our minds."
This is why the band makes such a point to sign every autograph and take every picture with the fans that they can; it's the bands way of saying "thanks" after all these years.
"We applaud you," he said.
The guitarist has been involved with a range of other things in his free time, and, as a veteran of the U.S. Navy, he is extremely active in veterans' affairs.
He often plays benefits to help homeless veterans, and said that the subject is one that strikes near to his heart; he was even born on Nov. 11.
"I want to bring attention to that," he said. "There should be no homeless vets— they signed that (line) to give their life for this country."
That's this guitarist's creed, one might say — keep on playing, for any cause, big or small, whether it's doing a show at the VA hospital in Wilmington, DE, or playing music at his mother's nursing home.
And in between, of course, there's the big stuff. Like Vanilla Fudge.
Martell said that he hopes the tour keeps going, because "we're having a lot of fun out there."
But, if it has to end, as all things do, Martell said he believes that his band left a lasting impact on the music industry as the "pioneers of heavy metal."
"We were the first guys to come out with the big amps, and our idea was that whenever we went out on stage, it was like a war….you wanted to be as emotional, and get as much feeling out of it, as you could," he said. "You wanted to blow the walls out of that place."
E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com
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