Part I
Somewhere in her subconscious, Sammi knew that horrid ringing sound couldn't be her alarm clock -- that instrument of the devil had left its imprint on her wall several weeks ago when it had wakened her after she had spent a particularly intense night with a bottle of tequila. But what the fuck was it?!? A herd of coked-out cows rampaging through her bedroom? The apocalypse?
As one eye slowly slivered open, she spotted the object of her torture. "Fucking phone," she muttered into the pillow before grabbing it to shut it up.
"What?" she said in a tone significantly less threatening than she felt.
"Sammi! You're awake! Great!" chirped the voice on the other end. "I'm on my way over." Click.
Sammi blinked once and fell back into her pillow. "This is SO not right," she thought. Bethany was her best friend and best friends don't call you at ... what the hell time was it anyway? The only clock in the apartment was in the kitchen. That would mean getting up. That wasn't gonna happen. Grabbing the phone again, Sammi stabbed out P-O-P-C-O-R-N and braced herself for the grating tone of the time lady. "At the tone, Pacific Daylight Time will be seven thirty-seven and forty seconds."
With a groan, Sammi let the phone slip from his fingers and searched her brain for a way to come up with the energy to kill Bethany when she arrived. She was still searching when the doorbell rang 15 minutes later. In fact, she was still searching when Bethany, the designated keeper of her spare key, walked into her bedroom two minutes after that. She only stopped searching when she sniffed the heavenly scent of Sumatran gold and spied the mug from Grounds for Divorce in Beth's hand.
"Morning, sunshine, thought ya might need a little jump start," Beth said as she held the mug out to her friend.
"Don't go all perky on me, girl, I'm trying to decide whether I love you or hate you at the moment," Sammi replied before nursing thankfully at the Sumatran. "OK, now, tell me ... slowly ... why am I awake at 8 o'clock in the morning?"
"Better than tell ya. Show ya." Bethany whipped a newspaper from her '60s retro purse and dumped it onto Sammi's bed before curling into one of her convoluted yoga positions on the floor. "Cover of the entertainment section.
Instantly there was a spark in Sammi's eyes that had little to do with the day's first jolt of caffeine. Pushing the other sections off the bed, she found the entertainment section and the story she was looking for.
All their hot licks aren't musical
Homegrown has audience wanting to do more than just dance
By Jessica Powell
Chico Enterprise-Journal
Jump-starting its set with "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll," "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" and a searing cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll," Homegrown left no doubt about what brought them to Madison Bear Garden Friday night. They don't just love rock 'n' roll; they hoist it onto an altar, sing its praises and whip its acolytes into a worshipful frenzy.
But it's more than just the music that has turned the Bear into a pulsing, roiling side street of chaos each weekend since Homegrown swept onto the stage a couple of months ago and became the No. 1 party band of the nation's No. 1 party school. In a word: sex. And in enough varieties to keep tables full of fans fencing with their fantasies.
For lead singer/guitarist Michael Costantino, the 47-year-old veteran of arena rock tours who is the architect of Homegrown, it's the nearly coal-black eyes, the bristling goatee, the tight, faded Levi's and "groupie bait" attitude. If there's such a thing as a male MILF, he's it.
Guitar-slinging Adam Costantino, Michael's 23-year-old son, is the lanky, laconic grunge slacker. He makes everything look so easy, the stoner grin never wavering even as his fingers blur over the frets, ripping off one incendiary riff after another. Adam need never worry about breaking the G-string on his guitar -- there are plenty of female fans ready to offer theirs to him.
Drummer Justin DiPaolo, the baby of the band at 21, is the darling of dark side set. With biceps bulging from beneath his trademark wife-beater and dripping with sweat long before the first set ends, DiPaolo is the ultimate up-against-the-wall fantasy.
But don't get the idea that it's just the women at the Bear who are having panty issues. Keyboard player Bethany Morgan and bassist Sammi Giannoni -- the yin and yang of female sexuality -- have their own legion of tongue-lolling fans.
Morgan, 22, a tie-dye clad strawberry blonde who adds the crystalline high end to the group's four-part harmonies, has the smile that can cut even through the Sierra Nevada-induced barroom fog. She's the one every guy wants to take home to mom. But not until they've stopped at a motel along the way.
Moms wouldn't want any part of Giannoni. Maybe its the punky jet black hair or the manic energy as she slams bass line thunder off the back walls and howls Merry Clayton-esque background vocals. More likely, it's the "Don't F-- With Me" tattoo on the 26-year-old's hip, clearly visible above her impossibly low-slung and tattered black jeans. There's nothing subtle about her sexuality when she stares down a stage-side fan and uses one hand to cover the "Don't" in the tattoo.
Asked about how big a part sex appeal played in Homegrown's popularity, Costantino took the philosophical road reserved for the band's father figure. "Rock 'n' roll has always been about sex, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Summer of Love, right up to today," he said. "It's a music that is designed to be sensual, to appeal to people's sexuality."
Giannoni was considerably more direct. "If you don't want to f--- by the time we're done playing, we haven't done our job," she said. "And if you don't want to f--- us, we haven't done it well enough."
Based on the crowd's reaction Friday night, they did their job -- and they did it well.
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