 Royal Crown Revue got its start in 1989 when vocalist Eddie Nichols, tenor saxman Mando Dorame and guitarist James Achor first met on the bustling Los Angeles music scene. It was a mix that matched their far-flung points of origin, with Nichols hailing from Manhattan, Achor from Ohio and Dorame from Watts. As the group grew, so, too, did the push-pins stuck in the map: drummer Daniel Glass sailed in from Hawaii, baritone saxist Bill Ungerman blew over from Oklahoma, Veikko Lepisto shook off some Twin Cities frost and trumpeter Scott Steen rumbled over from the Bay Area. All seven had already logged time in a variety of other groups, playing everything from skiffle, punk and soul to rockabilly and swing. The RCR's swingin' thing continued to take shape over the next few years, adding and subtracting members as they honed a sound that begged, borrowed and shoplifted from virtually every era of American music, in the process creating a style completely their own. It was an audience-friendly approach polished and perfected by perpetual gigging, playing anywhere and everywhere that people got together to get down Ç rent parties in San Francisco, snowboard keggers in Lake Tahoe, Chinatown punk palaces, even a heavy metal festival in Phoenix. To this day, the Royal Crown Revue books upwards of 200 dates a year, including extended stints across the Big Pond for a growing mob of Euro-enthusiasts. It wasn't long before Royal Crown fever brought the band to the attention of Hollywood movers and shakers, drawn as much to the group's sharp-pressed fashion sense as their dance-enhancing sounds. The group caught their first big break appearing as themselves in the Jim Carrey-starrer The Mask, performing one of their original tunes, "Hey Pachuco!" Remember the scene? The rubberfaced guy and starlet extraordinaire Cameron Diaz defied gravity and logic in a morphed-out dance sequence while the band played on. The exposure led to another round of seven-night-a-week appearances before they were brought to the attention of Warner Bros. Records legendary producer and A&R man Ted Templeman. Signed to Warner Bros. in the spring of 1995, the group got to work almost immediately on their debut album, with Templeman twisting the knobs. Taking time away only to play one-off shows, the Revue continued cutting tracks through the rest of '95 and into '96. The result is Mugzy's Move, an album that delivers on all the energy and excitement of Royal Crown live...and then some. Aside from their new and improved version of the abovementioned "Hey Pachuco!," Mugzy's Move spotlights such RCR originals as "Zip Gun Bop," "Datin' With No Dough," "Trouble In Tinsel Town" and "The Rise And Fall Of The Great Mondello." Also featured, a rendition of the Bobby Darin classic "Beyond The Sea," the Willie Dixon perennial "I Love The Life I Live" and a standup version of "The Walkin' Blues." It's a sequence of songs that tells a story, sets a mood and brings home the irrefutable reality that these guys have that thing that separates slavish tribute nostalgia acts from cutting edge contemporary ones. Royal Crown Revue. It's a state of mind, a point of view, a reason to believe and the place to be...no matter where you are.
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