As I drove to WERU’s Full Circle Fair music festival in Blue Hill, my 22-month-old daughter looked sleepy. By the time I reached the parking lot, she was out. Going by the rule that you never wake a sleeping toddler, I was still in the parking lot when Pattycake 600, the first band, took the stage.
Even at a distance what I heard sounded great: full of energy, yet with crisp tempo changes that swung from reggae to jazz to punk. It was reminiscent of the Police when they were still having fun. I looked at my fair guide; Pattycake 600 was three Deer Isle teenagers.
In a way, it was pretty much inevitable that Jake Adams, Paul Conte and Cyrus Dworsky would form a rock band; it was in their genes. Adams’s father plays bass in local symphonies and Conte’s father teaches at a music school. And the trio has been together for years, sharing play-dough before picking up instruments.
Conte moved off-island to Orland when he was eight, but kept in touch with the others. He started playing guitar when he was seven and got his first electric guitar at 11. Adams got hold of a snare drum for school band as a last-minute replacement for another instrument.
“His eyes lit up,” said Josephine Jacob, Adams’s mother.
Soon the two were playing in a room above the garage at Adams’s house. Adams eventually pulled in Dworksy to play the bass and Pattycake 600 was off and running, playing a few local gigs.
The trio soon got the attention of the Deer Isle School’s music teacher. She connected them with Kevin Mania, another music teacher who owned a recording studio nearby. While the group was still in junior high, Mania helped them record their first CD over a weekend. Conte said the results were rough.
“It was a lot of good enough,” Conte said.
They sold the CD to friends at four bucks a pop and funneled the profits to buy more recording time for their second album.
Then, Adams contacted Portland-based Reindeer Records owner Louis Philippe. Philippe invited the trio to perform at his annual youth Rock-Off event in Portland.
There was one problem: transportation. No one in Pattycake 600 was old enough to drive and it wasn’t possible to get a ride down to Portland. But Adams sent Philippe regular updates of the band. Philippe had forgotten about the band completely, but soon became intrigued by Adams’s communications.
“I finally said, `Who are you?’ ” Philippe said.
Adams sent Philippe their recordings; last year, Philippe came to Deer Isle to sign Pattycake 600 to a record deal. He funded the band’s third disc, “Someone Try and Stop Us,” an album filled with silly and self-deprecating songs like “Rock is What I Do” and “Cyrus Broke His Bass Today,” as well as sharp pop-punk hooks.
But promotion was a problem, due to geography and the band’s impatience to grow musically. Philippe said the band stopped playing songs on the album shortly after it was released in favor of newer songs with more of an indie rock feel.
“They were just very naïve about the whole industry,” he said.
Conte said the band went to Portland to do two shows organized by Reindeer Records, but both were poorly attended.
“There was only, like, three people,” Conte said of one show. “It’s kind of awkward.”
Conte admits Pattycake 600 suffers from a lack of ambition when it comes to self-promotion.
“Right now it’s just whatever happens,” he said. “We’re not seekers.”
So the band has the somewhat dubious distinction of having been signed and let go by a record label while still in high school. Philippe said he still wishes them well and would like to work with them in the future.
Pattycake 600 has carried on without record-label backing, recording two CDs independently. Dworsky said Conte has become something of a master at recording equipment. The trio gives their CDs away and posts the music online on MySpace.
The new material recently drew the attention of Maggie Overton, music director of community radio station WERU.
“I’m a huge fan,” Overton said. “I really like the indie rock sound. I think it has wider appeal…and “Cyrus Dworsky” is the best rock name possible.” q