Larry Sloane, Music Critic, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Almost exactly one year ago the good old "sweet-rock" band Chrome Pie gave a concert in Seattle, at the Paramount NW Theater, accompanied by a fresh new start-up band called Squatch & Friends, mostly interesting because their vocalist was a Bigfoot. Yes, Adam Leroy Forest, already world-famous as the Baby Bigfoot of Monroe, later to be known as the Singing Sasquatch had formed a band with three of his old high school friends. Sounds promising, right? S&F had played in some bars and taverns around the Monroe area, but never in a professional capacity. A lot of excellent bands never get that lucky break it takes to launch a musical career, but this could have been their break-through concert. So what happened next was a freakish mix of unlikely coincidences and absurd happenstances. CP was recording some of their own performances for a planned live-concert album, but not necessarily their warm-up band's. Their sound guy, Don Tennison, was adjusting the video recorder and took a sample of S&F's first song-- liked it--and just kept recording for his own collection, capturing everything. So the original take existed by sheer luck rather than intention. And then there was the concert itself. Adam began talking about how "music is magic" and then proved it with his voice. I was there, and never had I experienced anything like it before-- his voice so powerful and yet so smooth, the songs so appealing, so erotic. I was hypnotized. Then he started talking about His People-- Bigfoot, the Nokhontli-- and I swear I could SEE them onstage. At home I've got the concert DVD set, which I must've listened to about a hundred times by now, through my very high-end stereo and I can almost relive that magical feeling again. Almost, almost-- but if I smoke a joint... This concert took place outdoors on Friday afternoon at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, Washington. Adam & Friends once again with their same old Chrome Pie buddies. But it wasn't the same old music. They have been touring the USA, playing almost every night for the last three months and you could hear it. That first recorded concert had never been rehearsed, it was just spontaneous jamming. It sounded good, was definitely magical, but eventually-- amateurish. Now don't freak out or get mad if you're a dedicated fan-- like me. Hey, I'm not calling them amateurs now, I meant then, at their first collaboration. Because now you can clearly hear how much they've perfected their sound. And their stage presence-- much more professional. For the last three months S&F and CP have merged into one bigger band they labeled Chrome Squatch and toured the USA giving very well-received concerts everywhere they went. Now they've re-visited the Seattle area and done it again. Another well-received concert, that is. When they started to play Adam's I Like To Run it hit me like a musical freight train, that same overwhelming magic-- only improved. Of course I'd smoked a little weed to fine-tune my appreciation, and apparently so had much of the audience. It wasn't just Adam being a shaman, I could see that the whole band was along for the ride and we could all share the raging love going on between Adam and his friends, each of us being one of them. Last year I'd seen them at another show in these same fairgrounds in Monroe, where they are village locals. I wrote a critique about how the I-love-you looks between Adam and beautiful Melly had disappeared, totally gone, and how sad that made me. This time I saw those love-looks in the eyes of everyone onstage and maybe the entire audience. That Bigfoot is obviously beloved! Since last year, with the release of the double DVD live concert album, S&F has become extremely popular and CP has achieved a renaissance: top of the charts, awards and nominations, accolades, etc. Adam became even more popular when he abruptly disappeared into the forests of the Cascade Mountains, ostensibly to do battle with some formidable Bigfoot antagonist, returning three weeks later with five other Sasquatches, whom he introduced to the public media and the entire world. This was teriffic PR. They had many new songs to offer, Adam not being the only capable song writer in that group. Old hit-makers Scott Richter and Charlie Madison also produced some nifty new songs, after being "in a creative vacuum" for the last few years (according to Charlie). Lust For Me, Please and Can't We Just Surrender? are now top-streamers on Spotifoon, as is Adam's cosmically poignant Tell Me Of Your Fantasy. As for me, I don't seem to be able to criticize S&F as a professional music critic should: I like their magic too much. Guess I'm just another star-struck fanboy. Larry Sloane, Music Critic, Seattle P-I
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