South African power rock trio Skollie takes the stage at the Falcon in Marlboro on Saturday, April 13, bringing together three old friends whom you may know from their other endeavors. Guitarist/vocalist Blondie Chaplin (the Flames; vocalist and guitarist with the Rolling Stones; early-‘70s member of the Beach Boys, including lead vocals on “Sail On, Sailor”), drummer Anton Fig (the CBS Orchestra on Late Show with David Letterman; played on records by Kiss, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Madonna and many more) and bass guitarist Keith Lentin (HAMMAK, a popular band in Cape Town, South Africa; and Spider, a New York City-based group, both of which also included Fig) have known each other since long before they came to America.
“We sort of ended up in New York in the ‘80s, and we played together on Paul Butterfield’s last record,” said Fig. “We hit it off and decided to start doing some music together, and we got Keith Lentin to play bass in the trio. We had a band then and did a couple of records, and have maintained a friendship since then.”
As their dance cards continued to fill up in the late ‘80s and through the ‘90s, Fig and Chaplin didn’t get to play music together as often as they’d have liked, but that began to change a few years ago. “We hadn’t played for quite a while, but we’d do sporadic gigs here and there,” Fig said. “And Blondie and I decided fairly recently to do some duo gigs. And that worked out really well.”
The duo – with Chaplin on acoustic guitar and Fig on a hybrid percussion set – will open their show, after which they’ll plug in and be joined by Lentin to reform Skollie (South African slang for a lowlife). “We found that if we kind of start off acoustically and morph into the power material we used to play, that made for a nice show,” Fig said.
Though the trio has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages before tens of thousands of people, Fig said that there’s nothing quite like playing in an intimate setting like the Falcon. “It’s just different,” he said. “You’re very, very close to the people and you get a more immediate response. When you play a big place, you see the front row and you don’t see anything behind it, and the sound of the people is one collective sound. When you play in a smaller place, you can kind of almost pick out individuals more. It’s more immediate. It’s like sitting in someone’s large living room.”
“The Falcon is a great place to play,” he added. “They’re really good to the musicians, the food is great, and the people that come there really come to listen. They’re on the honor system, and they pay on the way out, and that makes us want to do a really good show for them.”
Skollie at The Falcon, Saturday, April 13 with support from jam/rock trio iS. Dinner begins at 5:30 p.m., with music starting at 7 p.m. Reservations at (845) 236-7970 or www.liveatthefalcon.com.
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