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Tuba band hunts holiday venue photo by Jim Craven By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune W hen 30 to 50 tuba players have gathered for their annual Christmas concert in Medford's Rogue Valley Mall, their oompahs vibrated with enough force to jiggle glass and shake patrons' fillings in the mall's dentist office. That's how Mike Knox and his tuba-playing brethren had a blast. "It's like a big, male voice singing in the shower - it's hard to sound bad in the mall," Knox says. But it's even harder for tubas to sound softly in there - so the tubas' foghorn-like bellows of "Jingle Bells" are no longer welcome at the mall. Knox and his eclectic group of tuba aficionados, known as the Rogue Valley Heavy Metal Music Society, are now in tuba exile and face canceling their traditional Christmas concert if they can't find a suitable replacement venue soon. And it's not like they're asking for much. They need room for up to five dozen tuba players and their 15- to 45-pound instruments, chairs, music stands and seating for a few dozen of the society's tuba "groupies" on Dec. 8, the date the heavy metalers had planned for the mall. Oh, and it must be rent-free because these bass-blowers are broke. And it has to be indoors (you try putting your lips to an icy tuba). "It's too much metal to be dealing with when it's freezing," says tuba-blower Kathy Graves, a media librarian in Yreka, Calif. "We have to play indoors." So far, the heavy metal-maniacs have found no takers, leaving Graves to believe mall managers have stolen their best Christmas present by banning the brass basses. "It sounds kind of Grinchy to me," Graves says. But mall managers insist there's no garlic in their souls. They say they are simply answering the steady complaints from mall tenants tired of getting blown out of their own stores by all the musicians who hold court each holiday outside J.C. Penney. "It's wonderful," Jill Ditty, the mall's senior marketing manager, says of the 90-minute tuba concert. "The only problem is, it's loud." And loud doesn't sell, if you're one of the merchants in the mall area housing the community musical entertainment. Merchants complain about not being able to hear their customers over the offerings of most musical ensembles, and not just the tuba society, Ditty says. "Our first obligation is to the tenants who pay rent to be here," Ditty says. After last Christmas, the mall banned all instrumental groups from playing there, allowing only the softer-sounding choirs sans amplifiers. We're trying to strike a balance," Ditty says. "We certainly wish the tuba-players the best." Graves' wish is to find a new venue by Thanksgiving, thereby giving her enough time to notify the society's 100 members where to go for Dec. 8. If not, these blowers of big brass will be in disharmony again, missing their rare holiday chance to step from their musical back seats into the spotlight - even if it's just 90 minutes of "Away in a Manger" segueing into "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." "To play music where we get to play the melody is pretty special to us," says Graves, who picked up the tuba 18 years ago at age 39. "We have a ball, and it would be a shame to lose that." And the Rogue Valley will miss a chance to appreciate these traditional band wallflowers for their own beauty, Knox says. "People don't think of the tuba as a melodious instrument, but just a lumbering thing," says the 52-year-old Knox, who has played the tuba since he was a Jefferson School 8-year-old entranced by his Tubby the Tuba record. "People don't realize it dances, it sings." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.