THE CUTTING ROOM: Interview with Their Teeth Will Be Of Lions

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Every week, I go out and interview a band (or two) and we usually speak for an hour, 90 minutes or more. I fill my notebook with scribbles and/or load up a voice recorder every time. Yet, with the confines of print media, I have to somehow scramble all of that down to about 1,000 words or less. Much of what doesn't make it into print probably wouldn't interest most readers, but a lot of it is interesting for music geeks like me. So, this is some of what didn't make it into print:

THEIR TEETH WILL BE OF LIONS

Before we get started here, I have to apologize for the several days with no post. I wasn't feeling well over the weekend and into the beginning of the week and have been busy the past couple days. So, there you go.

Now, on to this Kalamazoo six-piece band that plays a style of music I've decided to call funcore, robbing the term from the Kalamazoo-Grand Rapids musician's co-op the band founded with bands Reinventing Yesterday and Designer Virus.

I've written in the past about where I think music is going, pointing to the Ann Arbor band My Dear Disco's DanceThink philosophy as a possibility. With the clutch of music available online, from every genre, every country, it seems logical that the next new wave of industry-shifting music will be a mutant breed of two or more genres focused in a new direction.

Their Teeth Will Be Of Lions is on that track. They take something very deep and personal and scary and weird and insane and pump it out with a dance beat and a funk guitar rhythm. It's disco and rock, 80s-style snyth pop and Red Hot Chili Peppers-style funk.

I don't know if TTWBOL is going to take us over that next line, but I think the style of music they're making will.

But the main thing I want to talk about here is FunCore, the co-op. This, undoubtedly, is key to the survival of local music in any city anywhere, but especially in southwest Michigan, where the bands keep coming but the venues keep leaving.

FunCore bands help each other with promotion, booking and recording. They help venues stay open by bringing in the fans. Once a month, the bands do a show without getting paid and fold the money back into the system. Anything to keep the scene alive.

There was a time where a kid could pick up a guitar and find anywhere to play and plenty of people to listen. When music was part of the revolution and not challenged by Internet, television, CDs, DVDs, mp3s and even cell phones. But that time has come and gone. Now, it's up to the bands to save it themselves.

While nothing's formal, Battle Creek has its own share of co-ops. The B.C. rock band Lykin (also on the forefront of new music, I think) has worked very hard for nearly a year to help Planet Rock, Battle Creek's only rock venue and the only venue that'll let just about any play at least once. Lykin frontman Bhaan has organized several all-ages Sunday shows, keeping high schoolers in sound surround and giving bands one more day to play. He's thrown several benefit shows for the venue and on Sunday will host a show to raise money for Dan, the sound man.

At Gary Fields Comedy Club, it's the same story with the blues. The Tuesday night jams draw several local blues players — probably a dying breed — but also dozens  of local fans. It makes me smile to drive down Michigan Avenue late at night and hear a finely-played Detroit Junior tone coming up between the concrete and brick.

Personally, I give credit to these people and all of the region's major players for trying to protect something so precious. But there needs to be more. Like small towns clamoring for collaboration for economic growth, musicians should team up for their own prosperity.

Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and bands from everywhere in between should partner together, seek grants, which are out there and used every day by art galleries and music schools, and get a movement going.

TTWBOL vocalist Glenn Willis said he hopes to expand FunCore into Battle Creek later this year.

Demand success.

NOTE: Check out Thursday's WOW for the full story on TTWBOL. Click here to read my full interview with Willis. Click here to watch a video of the band playing "People Like Demons."