Each week, The Perfect Chord looks back at albums you may have missed when they dropped, or miss now that they’ve faded from memory. This week’s glimpse into the crates:
Follow For Now – Follow For Now
By September 1991, Living Colour were two-time Grammy winners, Bad Brains and 24-7-Spyz were both incubating major-label contracts, and Fishbone’s The Reality Of My Surroundings was garnering Sgt. Pepper comparisons. After forty-plus years of being relegated to “also-ran” status in a genre they created, Black rock musicians were finally receiving the popular attention and acclaim afforded their white peers. It was into this promising environment that Atlanta-based Follow For Now, named for a Public Enemy lyric and fresh off an infamous New Year’s Eve headlining spot at their hometown Roxy Theater, released their self-titled debut album.
It flopped.
It wasn’t as if no one noticed—Rolling Stone gave the album a four-star rating, and other national publications bestowed similar plaudits—but Atlanta critics and fans heard its slick, radio-friendly production (courtesy of Donna De Lory producer/future Crowded House drummer Matt Sherrod) and took a pass. Admittedly, the band featured on the album wasn’t exactly the frenetic act the future dirty south was accustomed to seeing live; Chrysalis, the band’s label (also home to Pat Benatar, Billy Idol, and Huey Lewis, among others), had decreed drummer Bernard “Enrique” Coley’s odd-metered beats to be too radio-unfriendly and had replaced him on the recordings with an uncredited Sherrod. While Coley remained with the band—and continued to be an integral part of their legendary live show—Follow For Now nonetheless couldn’t sustain any national inertia after the album’s failure and broke up three years later without releasing another. It’s a shame, too, because Follow For Now, for all its over-polished faults and by-the-numbers (albeit competent) drumming, is actually a fantastic—even promising—debut.
Despite the album’s admitted slickness (the over-compressed guitars and keyboards render it difficult to distinguish the individual performances), the band’s energy couldn’t entirely be contained. From the first notes of propulsive opener “Holy Moses,” Follow For Now establishes itself as a Rock album, with frontman David Ryan Harris conducting a swarm of guitars, keys, and drums with a preacher’s charisma and a crooner’s aplomb. Harris, fellow guitarist Chris Tinsley and keyboardist Billy Fields make the most of what little sonic space they’re allowed to occupy with their instruments—“Temptation” and “6’s and 7’s” swing with just enough soulful funk and rock grit to be memorable, and the rhythm section (Bassist Jamie Turner and, of course, Sherrod) turns in mostly sturdy—and occasionally memorable performances.
Three songs fall into the latter category: first, the band’s cover of Public Enemy’s “She Watch Channel Zero,” despite the vocals being far too loud in the mix, rocks in ways the original (which even had a Slayer sample) never does. Immediately after the cover, “Time,” the only song to feature Coley’s drums, makes the most of a slow arrangement to spotlight Turner. The album highlight, however, is “Evil Wheel,” featuring the entire band (and Sherrod) racing at post-punk speeds, with Harris spitting social-political commentary (“the evil wheel keeps rollin’/the destruction bell keeps tollin’/can’t build a nation on food stamps”) and Fields’ keyboards soaring above the mix. The overall effect energizes to the point at which it becomes clear why Chrysalis signed the group in the first place; even Sherrod’s drumming sounds more inspired.
The album ends on a heavy, angry note with “Milkbone,” whose somewhat-silly lyrics disappear beneath the band’s onslaught and leave the listener on a sort of cliffhanger. Indeed, the song feels less like the end of an album and more like the last song of a headliner’s main set, with the silence after the end more like the anticipatory moments preceding a frenzied encore. In that moment, the tragedy of the band’s dissolution (due in no small amount to their label’s inability to market them in the wake of the grunge explosion) feels deeper than merely the loss of another band.
Fortunately, the talented musicians were able to find their own happier endings. Coley eventually found himself involved with 24-7-Spyz guitarist Jimi Hazel’s Black Angus, while Fields joined Arrested Development. Tinsley continued playing music until a thumb injury derailed his plans (scuttling a potential Follow For Now reunion in 2008). Harris, perhaps forecast by his featured role on the album, had the biggest musical success, as both the frontman for the Brand New Immortals and as a solo act. He also served as musical director on Dionne Farris’ breakthrough album Wild Seed, Wild Flower (whose biggest single, “I Know,” was co-penned by William DuVall, another Atlanta Black rock musician presently fronting the reunited Alice In Chains) and later as a sideman to both Dave Matthews and John Mayer.
Still, the legacy of Follow For Now lingers, as do rumors of a band reunion. Whether or not it will happen (particularly in the wake of Tinsley’s injury) remains to be seen, but the demand—at least in Atlanta—certainly exists. At the moment, the band’s only legacy outside their home is their lone, at times befuddling full-length, and the promise of a band whose energy never quite broke into the mainstream.
A. Darryl Moton is a high school debate coach, preschool bus driver, Black Iowan, and numerous other things that make you doubt his sanity. He’s currently bumping the new Helms Alee record through his headphones in Portland, Oregon.
