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Week of 17 September 1999 Vol. III, No. 6 Feature Article Dante to Dickinson Alternative quartet maps new territory with mix of musical, literary styles By Hope Green How to describe the haunting, intricate music of the Cambridge-based band Firemask? Perhaps it would be helpful to start with what it is not. "We wouldn't like to call it alternative folk. It's just alternative," says the group's poet-vocalist Sebastian Lockwood (CAS'76). "It's not trying to emulate what you would see in the past, with Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac just reading their poetry with a band behind them. It's not that at all," adds percussionist Doug Muchoney, a research assistant professor in BU's Center for Remote Sensing. What one does hear on the compact-disc recordings of Firemask, a quartet that also includes guitarists Greg MacKinnon (MET'99) and Andy Zimmerman, are African drums, dissonant cello chords, and electric guitar blending rhythmically and hypnotically with a stream of spoken poetry. Literary references from Dante to Emily Dickinson abound in Lockwood's moody, British-accented recitations. But none of this is intended to scare nightclub audiences away. "We have a real desire in our music to be unexpected and yet be intelligible," says Lockwood, who teaches literature, anthropology, and business communications at Lesley College. "I mean, we could get really avant-garde and edgy, but we also want to be accessible." Firemask came together in 1996. Lockwood, already part of Cambridge's poetry scene, had known Zimmerman for many years. Zimmerman, a Boston-area sculptor by day, jammed every Thursday night with MacKinnon, a software engineer. Social connections brought the foursome together, although at first Muchoney was taken aback to learn what performance style his bandmates envisioned. "I was horrified," he laughs. "I wanted to work with a garage band, not a conceptual one!" Fortunately, he was open-minded. He comes from a musical family and had lived twice in Africa, studying traditional drums in Ghana and Niger. In the quartet's early days, he was pleased at how the sounds from his prized collection of hand drums and cowbells complemented the spoken poetry and guitars. Eventually he added a more standard drum kit, and rock guitarist Zimmerman, who was classically trained, brought in his cello. Sebastian Lockwood (CAS'76) (left) and Doug Muchoney, a research assistant professor in BU's Center for Remote Sensing, sample new drums at the Guitar Center music store. The pair are members of the alternative band Firemask, along with guitarists Greg MacKinnon (MET'99) and Andy Zimmerman. Photo by Vernon Doucette It was not long before the group played at Passim and Zeitgeist, both in Cambridge. Other bookings soon followed. Last April the band released its first commercially produced CD, Dead Reckoning. "Future jazz" is one way the group labels its hybrid music, which fuses jazz, rock, international, folk, and even classical styles. Unlike beat poetry with its ba