Steamboat Annie coming to a port near you
One weekend over the summer, I attended an outdoor party that featured a few different local bands. I was familiar with some of them, but there was one band , MusW KDG Wo JHW Wo know EHWWHU – 6WHDPEoDW AnnLH.
6WHDPEoDW AnnLH Ls Dn upEHDW cover band that plays a little bit of everything! They touch on MusW DEouW HYHUy JHnUH, HDcK onH highlighting another strength of the members of the band. They are lead by a rock-solid female vocalist, helly Callan, with her brother, Johnny Callan, on drums and percussion; Josh Bornstein on lead guitar; and recent addition Michael iaster on bass and vocals.
“:H’YH EHHn 6WHDPEoDW AnnLH IoU DEouW sLx yHDUs now, but we’ve been playing together since 1997 in one fashion or another,” Johnny explained.
“In 1996, I formed a band called Gear; at the time, helly and Josh were not in it,” Johnny told me. helly was actually in a country-western band at the time, but moved over to Gear around 1998.
Johnny met Bornstein when they were both students at Temple rniversity. “I would see him carrying his guitar DUounG DnG , knHw LW wDs MusW Wo LPpUHss cKLcks!” -oKnny said. “When our guitar player left, we were standing outside having a cigarette one day and I said, you know, ‘vou play guitar?’”
The addition of Bornstein kept Gear going until about 2002. AIWHU OosLnJ soPH PHPEHUs, GHDU PoUpKHG LnWo 7KH -Lnx, Dn DOWHUnDWLYH Uock EDnG, wKLcK HYHnWuDOOy fizzOHG ouW, Johnny said.
“6oPHWLPH DUounG 2005, WKH WKUHH oI us OHIW 7KH -Lnx DnG GHcLGHG MusW Wo sWLck Ds D WULo EHcDusH wH’UH IDPLOy,” Johnny explained. “We really went out with some acoustic JuLWDUs DnG soPH OLWWOH GUuP pDGs; MusW sWDUWHG UHDOOy, UHDOOy small.”
“:KHn wH GHcLGHG Wo Go WKH WULo, LW wDs WKH fiUsW WLPH I said ‘I wanted to name the band,’” helly said. “I don’t know wKHUH LW cDPH IUoP, EuW , MusW WKouJKW oI LW oII WKH Wop of my head and I thought it was a really cool name…until we started playing out and people started requesting Heart DnG , GLGn’W UHDOLzH WKDW HHDUW KDG Dn DOEuP ouW cDOOHG, ‘DUHDPEoDW AnnLH!’
“To this day, sometimes I still have to explain!” helly laughs. “I still think it’s a cool name!”
The evolution of this band has been dramatic, Johnny explained. “We started out as an acoustic guitar, helly’s vocal by herself and me on a small electronic pad drum set. Then we began to get into sampling.”
Even without a bass player at the time, the band still wanted to play “danceable” songs, so sampling became a necessity. Bornstein had to teach himself how to play bass!
“We went out and bought a bass and Josh started re-
tracks,” -ohnny said. “Then we started incorporating harmonies. -osh and I don’t sing, which was a limitation for the band and we wanted to do the dance stuff which had the big harmony parts and we only had one singer so Kelly learned how to pre-record all her own harmonies.”
“You hear 100 percent all our playing,” -ohnny said, adding that it’s just not all live. “Everything you hear is played by us.”
While the band members are all from the Bucks County/Philadelphia area, they “cut their teeth” in Wildwood, N.-. For the last several summers, the band has played almost exclusively at the -ersey shore. Now, during the “off-season,” the band is making a local comeback.
Recently, the band has played at PasTuale’s in Fairless Hills, Curran’s in Bensalem, Big Heads in Warminster, Hurricane -ack’s in Levittown and Bailey’s in Levittown. The band is not opposed to traveling for a gig, they won’t limit themselves to only one area.
On a side note, -ohnny, who is a teacher at DeVry University, performed in the Battle of the Corporate Bands (his band was made up of fel- low teachers) at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. They played in Florida and Chicago and on Oct. 6, in Cleveland, Ohio for the finals.
You can find Steamboat Annie on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ SteamboatAnnie. You can also find recordings of their songs on their Band Profile on their Facebook page, including songs from Kelly’s original album, “Rust and Rhymes,” an amazing country-western album that really shows off her range and versatility.
If you want your local cover or original band featured in Rhythm & News, send an email to rschnitzer. bln@gmail.com.