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The
Valley Advocate - September 19, 2002 Bombpop I'd start to wonder if maybe Henning Ohlenbusch has too much time on his hands if that weren't entirely impossible.
"We're gonna have a fun show there," Ohlenbusch says. "I just designed an activity page." An activity page? "You know what an activity page is. Like something you tear out of an activity book. It has a maze and some complete-the-sentences. And those are gonna be left for people at their tables, with the hope that they'll leave them behind so I can scan in their drawings and whatnot." Scan them in and load them up on the School For The Dead Web site, that is. And why not? They've got the space, and it might be fun. Ohlenbusch isn't kidding about this stuff, either. Or at least I don't think he is. I've missed my share of Henning's jokes in the past. But he's really not the type to make stuff up just to screw with me. Neither is he some hipster jackass who'll do things like create activities pages as a way of sneering at his own fans. In the end, Ohlenbusch is just kind of a strange cat. I haven't learned all that much about him in the few years I've known him, but you pretty much pick up on that aspect of his personality right away. There are a few other things I can state with relative confidence. Ohlenbusch is mostly quiet, for example. You can't miss that. Spend just a little time with him and you figure out that he's smarter than most people, though you get the sense he doesn't realize it. Or if he does, he's also smart enough (and nice enough) not to make an issue of it. He's unrelentingly funny and unaffectedly quirky. He's also a very talented songwriter. And that, from my perspective, is the most important thing about Henning Ohlenbusch. Well, that and the fact that he's doing something with his songs these days. There was far too long a stretch when he seemed content to let his compositions sit while he played a backing role to Russell Brooks in the Aloha Steamtrain. Ohlenbusch brought his songs to the fore for the first time in quite a while last year with a solo album, Henning's School For The Dead. And now, with only one more Steamtrain show to go before Lord Russ blows town, Ohlenbusch is making the band named for that record his primary musical outlet. It's a good thing.
Let's start with School For The Dead, which is in the early stages of recording its first record. The band is also planning to use the first three or four songs it records for the forthcoming record on a chain CD. The idea there is to harness the energy of the kind of people who get off on turning their friends on to good music. Ohlenbusch plans to ID as many of those folks as he can, burn several copies of a four-song EP and hand the discs out in stacks. "What I'm hoping to do is just seek out the right people, people who I think would like the music, who are enthusiastic about music and then send them each five CDs and ask them to keep one and pass the others along," he explains. Seems like an idea with legs to me. To Henning, it's nothing more than necessity's child. "Interactivity is the thing," he says. "We need to get people involved in the band, because we don't have the money to really promote it." Hence another of SFTD's current pursuits, living room concerts. Although the band has already performed two of the free shows, Ohlenbusch tells me at first that he isn't quite sure how to explain them. "We don't know what we're doing," he says. But, in essence, the band "offers to play at someone's house and all we ask for in return at this point is that they can provide at least 15 people who are interested in listening to some pop music." The tricky part, he says, is getting people to understand that the band isn't offering itself out to play house parties for free. "It's not a party. It's not background music," he says. The band is there to play a concert and they expect those in attendance to pay attention. "It's like movie night. You know how some people get together and rent movies? This is people getting together and seeing a band. In their living room."
All five SFTD members -- Ohlenbusch, bassist Max Germer, guitarist Tony Westcott, keyboardist/guitarist Ken Maiuri and drummer Brian Marchese -- contribute to the Rockumentary (which can be accessed through the band's Web site, www.schooolforthedead.com), and the content can, at times be incredibly fun to read. "Just back from the Music For A Cure concert, which is not a benefit for Robert Smith's botox injections," Germer offers on his return from a fund-raiser event. Or Maiuri finds a way to make the most of a disappointing trip to Albany (using grammar of the Web): "so: why was the fuze box show such an excellent time, then, despite the shrieking sound/miniscule audience/debilitating late-night drive home (i got home at 3 a.m.)? "1. crown's fried chicken (conveniently located next door to the club) had aMAZing french fries "2. more importantly, we played great. (like brian already said, much more succinctly.)" There are a dozen new posts a day at times, which is more a function of the fact that everyone in the band has some kind of writing background than anything else, but it still projects busy. And the projection is accurate, for virtually everyone in the band. Certainly for Ohlenbusch. In addition to SFTD and (for a few more weeks) the Steamtrain, he hosts the open mike night at Harry's in Northampton (now Harry-oke night, which finds Ohlenbusch and Maiuri providing live accompaniment to singers of all stripes). And, of course, there's a day job, since no one around here makes his living in music. It's no wonder the guy spends his free time designing activities pages for concert goers. He probably figures they'll lose interest between sets if they don't have something to keep them occupied.
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