virginia Groove

fter waiting a tense twenty minutes for Pat McGee to call me for a phone interview scheduled for 10 a.m., I started wondering whether getting stood up would affect my perception of his self-titled band and its new CD, Shine.

Then, the phone rang. An apologetic Pat proceeded to explain the frustrations of his faulty cell phone. After talking to me for forty-five minutes about the band, the new CD and some crazy adventures on the road, he apologized just one more time.

Though I had always sensed it, it was then that I realized that this Richmond-based band-whose members are known to go out and party with their fans after a show-are truly real in their music, lyrics and manners. Heading for Duke today, the Pat McGee band has an opportunity to display their raw energy and gritty, unique sound which, fortunately for them, has not been compromised by the switch from self-released CDs to a production deal with Giant records.

Pat McGee started out as a solo artist. Tirelessly touring at a multitude of venues and colleges in Virginia, he gained a devoted fan base hooked on his energized acoustics and songs that could somehow speak to every single person in the crowded bar. After adding five band members, selling 100,000 CDs, and keeping up an insane regimen of hard-core touring, PMB has gained an almost cult-like following.

Although fans constantly try to put their fingers on the magic of PMB, it is nearly impossible to ascertain exactly what makes PMB's music so infectious-and makes one leave the band's music in the stereo for months, whether it be the live CD, General Admission, or the studio album Revel. Pat McGee's pre-band solo effort, From the Wood, is equally charming.

However, Shine sheds even more light on the way PMB's perfect blend of simple delivery with a profound and complex meaning can create such an amazing result. More polished and mature in lyrics, musical arrangement and instrumentation, Shine, produced by former Talking Head Jerry Harrison, might just be the band's chance for a radio breakthrough.

Take the disc's second track, "Rebecca," for example. As the first song Pat ever wrote-and the band's trademark song both at gigs and on their records-its earlier versions haven't done too badly. Fans always ask for it, the guys play it last, and they've produced and performed so many variations on the tune that it never gets old.

"It was the first thing that popped in my head, and it was very simple..., very easy to write," McGee said. As obvious as the lyrics might seem, they're really not. While many ask McGee if he is singing about an ex-girlfriend, he explained that during college, "I was performing so I couldn't be as hammered as the next fraternity guy down the block. I would just see all these different girls, whether they came up to me at a bar drunk and just told me, 'Man you suck' or whatever it was. 'Rebecca' is like five or six different people that I would think about" Along with the catchy lyrics, the song is also a trademark example of PMB's exhilarating groove, with a chorus that hooks the listener from the get-go.