Crispin at Arlene's Grocery 2009

Dylan Bangs profiles the legendary band headlining the G!MME A WR!STBAND! party in NYC at the Knitting Factory on October 24.

Chekhov’s Wig is a Duran Duran tribute band. You might be forgiven if the first thought that popped into your head was the idea of note-for-note reproductions of classic tunes by a group of gentlemen in ruffled shirts, teased hair and too much eyeliner. But Chekhov’s Wig is something altogether different.

Formed in late 2006 by four friends who originally met because they were fans of Duran Duran, Chekhov’s Wig was never going to be a proper tribute band with replica costumes and replica sounds; even if they had the musical skills to pull off carbon copy renditions of Duran Duran songs, it wouldn’t interest them in the slightest. Tribute bands come in many different colors, and to the members of Chekhov’s Wig the highest tribute they can imagine is to completely re-imagine the music of one of their favorite bands. After all, that’s what Duran Duran themselves have done when they’ve performed cover songs.

It’s a philosophy that’s worked well for Chekhov’s Wig, four music fans from different parts of the world with often widely disparate tastes that come together in a wonderful noise. Influences from art-rock to Krautrock, punk to funk make it into the mix, giving fans a whole new way of appreciating Duran Duran’s songs

(L-R) Mark and Les at Arlene's Grocery 2009

The band’s first gig was in the summer of 2007 at the now shuttered Baggot Inn, one night before Duran Duran’s fan show at Hammerstein Ballroom. Fans turned out in droves, surrounding the tiny stage and dancing from start to finish. The night was such a resounding success that Chekhov’s Wig experienced the rarest of New York City occurrences: Extra drink tickets from a visibly grateful barkeep.

Chekhov’s Wig was formed in late 2006, after a request for some live music by Sheila Germain, who hoped to build upon a successful theater screening of Duran Duran tour documentary Sing Blue Silver and subsequent party thrown earlier that year. The 2008 version of that event, which took place at New World Stages in NYC, was a much grander affair, and featured Chekhov’s Wig on a stage in the middle of the complex’s vast lobby.

The roots of Chekhov’s Wig can officially be traced back to an early morning visit to a NYC pub to catch a football match over a proper English breakfast. Fittingly, it featured one of Birmingham’s EPL clubs.

“Chekhov’s Wig was conceived watching a Villa game,” said English bass guitarist Les Leeson, who grew up just outside Birmingham in the town of Stourbridge. “I even remember that we were playing Watford. It was a draw; we should have won.”

Chekhov's Wig at SBS 2008

By the time the last pint was drained, Chekhov’s Wig had been formed: Mark Smith, who grew up in the suburbs of Dublin, Ireland, would sing lead and play guitar; Carl Mello, a Boston native, would be the other guitarist; and joining Leeson in the rhythm section was New York drummer Crispin Kott. The band’s conceit of paying tribute in a non-traditional way freed them up to be themselves rather than pretend to be someone else. It also allowed for the twin-guitar attack to fill in space and sound on Duran Duran songs often occupied on the originals by distinctive keyboard sounds.

“Once we decided on the four of us, I didn’t want to have to go out and recruit a ‘Nick Rhodes,’ you know?” said Smith, a sentiment echoed by Mello.

“I love that I’m in a Duran cover band with NO keyboard player,” Mello said.

Don’t take that to mean Chekhov’s Wig don’t love and respect Rhodes or the rest of Duran Duran; it was that music, after all, which brought them all together in the first place.

Carl at the Baggot Inn 2007

Kott wrote extensively about his love of Duran Duran here on G!MME A WR!STBAND!, but he certainly wasn’t alone. Mello began playing guitar at the age of 12, inspired by the music of Duran Duran he fell under the spell of that same year. For Smith in Dublin, being a Duran Duran fan was like drawing a line in the sand.

“Duran Duran was such an important band for me as a youngster,” he said. “I really liked their music, but when you’re a kid whatever band you pick as your favorite is going to become part of your identity. That’s how I met earlier friends, because we liked a band that other people didn’t always like. Not everyone liked five poncey guys in makeup and cravats. I’m sure the experience was different for people in different areas. Here (in the U.S.), they maybe came across as having a little bit of cache because they were foreign and cool. We didn’t have that in Ireland.”

Leeson, who grew up a stone’s throw from where Duran Duran’s early sound was established, wasn’t entirely aware of what was happening locally until it had already exploded worldwide.

“When the first (Duran Duran) album came out, I was six years old, you know? I lived in Birmingham, and we didn’t have MTV,” Leeson said. “I didn’t even know this band who was living around the corner from me.”

His oldest brother knew, though. And that’s how Leeson became a fan.

“He was a New Romantic, and he used to go down to Birmingham and see them at the Rum Runner,” Leeson said. “He was seeing Human League, Ultravox, all that scene. And he was playing that music in the house.”

Mark in front of the Knitting Factory

Leeson’s brother, now a lawyer, had already planted the seeds by playing Duran Duran around the house. A gift was all it took to see that seed bloom.

“I know exactly the day I became a fan,” Leeson said. “I was 10 years old, and I had a little crap tape deck, a little boombox. My brother bought me a present, and it was Seven and the Ragged Tiger. And that was it. I was loving Duran from listening to the odd couple of songs on the radio, but after listening to that album, total fan.”

Though the guys in Chekhov’s Wig became music fans and musicians in part because of their love of Duran Duran, it didn’t end there. They all moved on to experience music in different ways, and when they decided to go ahead with the Chekhov’s Wig project, they brought all those influences into the mix, deliberately looking for ways to creatively incorporate their styles with the music of Duran Duran.

“I like that we all bring difference influences to the table,” Smith said. “The most important thing was to not sound like a covers band, because there are lots of other bands doing that already.”

Leeson agreed.

“We take Duran Duran songs and totally rework them and put our personality on them,” he said. “People ask what we sound like, and I always say we sound a little bit dark, like Joy Division. Unless you’re a fan, you would have no fucking clue some of these are Duran Duran songs at first.”

Leeson also said that while his playing is influenced by Duran Duran bass guitarist John Taylor, he didn’t want to pay tribute through mimicry in any form or fashion.

“People ask, ‘What, are you ‘John Taylor?’ and I say, ‘No, I just play bass. I don’t dress like him or look like him,’” Leeson said.

Crispin 2008

Kott said that when he began playing the drums at 14-years of age, he knew that he didn’t have the skill or patience to try and duplicate what Duran Duran drummer Roger Taylor was doing, instead trying to find his own niche that incorporated the music he loved hearing on the streets of New York blaring through different radios.

“I love Roger’s drumming, and I think he’s seriously underrated,” Kott said. “But I don’t want to play anything note-for-note no matter how much I love it. I didn’t avoid taking lessons for all these years to be technically on point.”

Smith started playing guitar after learning chords from his younger brother who was taking lessons at the time. Not long after, he had his first public performance.

“I remember being on the double-decker bus going between two friends’ houses, and we were playing ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen live, busking right there in the stairwell,” Smith laughed. “It’s one of those weird little things. At that time in Ireland, everybody was in a band and you’d be tripping over buskers in the street. Everyone wanted to be the next U2. There was nothing else to do. There were no jobs, dude.”

Smith played in a variety of bands while still in Ireland, beginning with comedy-troupe Mangled Ferret and moving on to acts like the Nursery, the Danger, and Superhate, the latter going on what eventually became a permanent hiatus when he moved to the U.S.

Carl at the Motor City Bar

“It was one of those things,” Smith said. “I emigrated to the States and I’m still here all these years later.”

The first Chekhov’s Wig rehearsal took place in what has affectionately become known as the Boston Bunker, a foul windowless, airless room in a vast complex that Mello’s primary band, Halston shares with other bands. Though the concept seemed like it could work, it wasn’t until they actually plugged in and started playing that they realized they were on to something special.

“We developed a sound from the first day we played together,” said Mello, one half of a guitar duo with Smith that from the word jump had an innate sense of how to work together without working against one another, filling in the space beautifully and managing to bring completely different guitar sounds to Duran Duran songs.

“I hadn’t played with a second guitarist in a zillion years, but playing with Mark is just wonderful,” said Mello, who also performs with Halston and Muscle Milk.

“Those two sound amazing together,” Kott said. “I sometimes forget what I’m supposed to be doing in rehearsals because I’m so bowled over by the guitars.”

The rhythm section also came together quite fluidly. Crispin hadn’t really played in ages before that first rehearsal, though he did continue to absorb rhythms as always, allowing influences like funk, hip-hop and Afrobeat to increasingly inform his style. And before Chekhov’s Wig, Les hadn’t really ever taken the bass guitar seriously. Any concerns about that going in were quickly forgotten once he picked up the bass and settled in.

“Les immediately became one of my favorite ever bass guitarists to play with,” said Kott. “He had an innate sense of groove that I noticed right away. He’s so reliable, and when some sloppy attempt at a Keith Moon fill goes horribly awry for me, I know I’ll be able to find my way back without too much damage because Les will be there.”

(L-R) Crispin and Les at Arlene's Grocery 2009

“Les never picked up a bass until the Wig, yet makes far less blunders than the rest of us,” said Mello.

Leeson, too modest to even call himself a musician, recalls a number of early attempts at mastering a musical instrument back in England.

“I just bought things and found out I couldn’t play them,” Leeson said. “I actually had a bass guitar for two years when I was a student, and I didn’t tune it because I didn’t even know you had to tune it. It was mainly used as a coatrack. I sold that and bought a keyboard and just played ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind,’ and then I sold that. I actually wasn’t too bad at drums…actually, I was useless. And then I came here and obviously I had to learn bass guitar very quickly.”

Kott had similar humbling experiences as a teenager with the guitar, keyboards and even singing before settling in behind the drums. He went the standard garage punk route in high school (the Psychotic Circus, the Ungrateful Living), had a brief foray into Beefheart-lite (Shirgo-Head and the Prellgian Waffle) and was in his last serious band in college – Flo-Tight Funk – before the eventual tension left him happy to just play music on rare occasions just for the sake of making some noise with friends.

“The problem with being in a band is that musicians are assholes,” Kott said. And when you get a group of assholes together in a small room to make a big noise, it can only work for so long before you’re consumed with irrational rage. That rage is magnified by how bad musicians smell, too. I’d been through that and hated it, so I knew I didn’t want to be in a band again unless it was kind of low key, and even then I’d only play with people who were already friends.”

“I’m shocked that Crispin hasn’t been poached by hipster Brooklynites with funk pretensions,” Mello said. “You can have him when WE’RE through with him!”

This brings us back to Chekhov’s Wig, a band that pays tribute not only to the music of Duran Duran, but to friendship itself. That friendship extends to the band’s fans, who’ve traveled great distances to Chekhov’s Wig shows; they sing along to songs like “New Religion,” “Girls on Film” and…well, we can’t reveal all their secrets.

Mark pondering on the stage at the Knitting Factory

Chekhov’s Wig will play their final show at a party hosted by Gimme a Wristband at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on October 24, just one night before Duran Duran returns to Madison Square Garden. The setlist Smith, Mello, Leeson and Kott have been crafting is a closely guarded secret, one they aren’t willing to even let me have a peek at. They did say they believed Duranies at the party will be pleased with the choices, some of which are songs Duran Duran themselves haven’t played in a long time. There might even be a few they’ve never played at all.

“Any fan that’s followed the band or has occasionally popped in is going to find something in our set they’re going to like, and I think they’re going to be surprised by some of our choices,” Smith said. “And we’ve really changed the setlist since our last show, as well.”

Chekhov’s Wig may be coming to an end, but it’s still much more sweet than bitter.

“I think we all feel like we’ve accomplished what we wanted with this band,” Kott said. “I love these guys like they’re my brothers, and I’ve been so glad to be able to have excuses to spend lots of sweaty time with them, getting blisters and ruining our hearing.”

— Dylan Bangs is a NYC-based music writer

For more information on Chekhov’s Wig, visit…

www.facebook.com/pages/Chekhovs-Wig/15041385244

@thechekhovswig

Click here for tickets to the final Chekhov’s Wig performance at the G!MME A WR!STBAND! party in NYC 10/24