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Neighborhood report

Rebels to reunite for a cause

Pohgoh and three other long-defunct indie bands will put on a show Christmas night to help the fight against MS.

By MICHAEL CANNING
Published December 23, 2005

Life was much simpler on Christmas night 1994 for the young members of Pohgoh. The new band from Brandon played its invigorating brand of indie rock that night at Ybor City's Blue Chair Music record store. Then members packed up their van and set out on their first tour. Seven cities in seven days.

Drummer Keith Ulrey and bassist Brad Richardson were barely old enough to drink. Guitarist Matt Slate and singer Kobi Finley were still enrolled at Bloomingdale High School. Yet in only 10 months together, they were well on their way to becoming a force in the bay area music scene.

Things inevitably got more complicated. Within a year disagreements caused Finley to leave. Singer-guitarist Susie Ulrey (formerly Richardson, no relation to Brad) would replace her, radically changing Pohgoh's sound. Pohgoh splintered in 1997.

But Pohgoh's Christmas night gig became a mostly uninterrupted tradition. Every year, the event featured the same cast of musicians, many of whom moved on to other bands.

On Sunday, former Pohgoh members will take the stage again, this time with long-defunct local bands Scrog, Tomorrow and My Own America. Proceeds will benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in honor of Susie Ulrey, who has MS.

Last week, Pohgoh practiced in a rehearsal room at East Tampa's Bay Area Mini Storage. The members hadn't played together in seven years. But if one looked past what the intervening years had wrought - real jobs, marriage, divorce, parenthood, some extra pounds here, a little less hair there - the old band shined through.

Slate occasionally closed his eyes and rocked his head, an approximation of the full-on gyrating he did as a teen. Bassist Brad Richardson thoughtfully swayed and gazed at the floor, and Keith Ulrey coaxed explosive rimshots from his snare drum as effortlessly as in the old days.

Susie Ulrey had to strike a different pose. She was seated, with her Schecter Daisy Rock guitar sitting idly in her lap and microphone suspended in front of her. These days, she tires quickly.

But her distinctively sweet and pure voice was as steady as ever as she sang the lyrics to the old Pohgoh gem Megaphone Mouth. Between verses she watched her understudy, local scene veteran Mike Waksman, play her guitar parts.

The MS has sapped Susie's hand of dexterity and strength, so Waksman will join Pohgoh for Sunday's show.

MS is a degenerative disease that attacks the central nervous system and exhibits a host of symptoms. That often delays diagnosis for months or even years. Susie's first symptoms, double vision and numbness in her hand, struck three days before she got married in August 2000.

She wasn't diagnosed until October 2001. Over the years, her condition has been a litany of relapses and remissions, as is commonly the case with MS sufferers. Fatigue, numbness of the legs and loss of coordination joined her original symptoms. These days she gets around with a cane. At times she has needed a wheelchair or wheeled walker.

When things are bad, a nurse makes a house call to administer an IV drug treatment. Otherwise, Susie injects herself with interferon every other day to fight the symptoms. After taking time off, she was finally forced to quit her human resources job at Danka in October.

But she has a relentlessly upbeat outlook on the situation. "The focus isn't on, "Oh, this is a horrible thing,' " Susie said. "The focus is more on "What we can do to make things better?' "

For instance, the Ulreys' South Seminole Heights house might be small, but now that walking can be difficult, Susie is glad. "It's literally seven steps from the bedroom to the bathroom. I can reach both sides of the kitchen with my arms."

Living with MS has a given her a rich vein to mine for songwriting material. If she isn't up to working out the notes on her guitar, she switches to the keyboard they recently bought.

Keith Ulrey, a supervisor at Tampa's Rehabilicare medical supplies company, handles most of the domestic chores. When they go to big concerts, "It's almost overly accommodating," he said, raving about the excellent views of Liz Phair and U2 from the handicapped section.

Susie says the biggest downer is not being able to plan for the future. Vacations must be greatly curtailed, and she doesn't know if she'll be able to continue making music. The Ulreys want children but don't know if that's feasible now.

News of the upcoming show has created a strong buzz on the local alternative music scene. It represents the reunion of bands that have been dead for up to 11 years and the bridging of rifts brought by personal discord or the erosive effects of time and distance.

In the Pohgoh rehearsal room, the healing was tangible. The reunion project has dissolved the longtime rancor between Slate and the rest of the band members, spurred by Slate's struggle with his divorce in 2000. "I was ecstatic when I got that call from Keith (to resurrect Pohgoh)," Slate said. "These people really are my friends."

Keith Ulrey, who regularly promotes local concerts in Ybor City, has tried in recent years to get some of these bands on this bill to temporarily reunite for posthumous CD releases. He always got a flat no, he said. That changed when he told them this show was a benefit for MS.

No one in Pohgoh is talking about staying together after the show. The uncertainty of Susie Ulrey's condition aside, both Keith Ulrey and Richardson are happily involved with their own bands now. So are many of the musicians from the other three bands.

But no one is willing to say never, either.

Pohgoh, Scrog, Tomorrow and My Own America perform at 9 p.m. Sunday at New World Brewery, 1313 E Eighth Ave. in Ybor City. Tickets are $10 at the door. Proceeds benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

[Last modified December 22, 2005, 09:27:09]