Left to right: Eric Parson, leader of Skinny Ricky and the Casual Encounters, Rachel Lavender and Stephanie Kashino.
Eric Parson’s current eight-piece, ’60s-inspired soul band, Skinny Ricky and the Casual Encounters, plays pretty much the exact opposite of the music that he was writing while attending UCSC eight years ago. As a student in the music program, he not only deconstructed every nuance of every note, he played all those complex musical arrangements alone.
“That’s a really incomplete musical experience, to just record by yourself, at home,” Parson says. “I love the music program. It meant everything to me, but I decided to swing the pendulum in the other direction, and go from the more intellectual, theoretical side to a more intuitive, feeling side of things.”
Parson had contemplated starting a soul band for a while, but it wasn’t ’til he was prodded by KPIG DJ “Sleepy” John Sandidge to play on his show “Please Stand By,” which Parson had been engineering on since 2007, that he gave it a shot.
“He didn’t even know that I had a degree in music, because I don’t boast about that kind of shit,” Parson says. “I just learned quickly to say yes to opportunities that someone else is giving you.”
The problem with agreeing to bring his band onto Sandidge’s show was that he didn’t have a band. So he got on the phone with every musician friend he could think of. The result was a band Parson dubbed “Skinny Ricky and the Best Policy,” which was Eric Parson on vocals and four friends backing him up on guitar, bass, drums and keys. They wrote and performed two ’60s-inspired soul originals. Listeners loved it.
It was this experience that inspired Parson to form an actual band. Since the Best Policy were all too busy with other projects, he quickly got on Craigslist and found new bandmates, including backup singers and a horn section. He called the band, “Skinny Ricky and the Casual Encounters”—a shout out, of course, to Craigslist itself.
The idea to play specifically ’60s-style sound came about because over the past couple years Parson had already fallen in love with ’60s soul music, particularly the lesser-known artists. His obsession yielded a blog called “Old Soul Music,” where he’d share all his rare finds with the world.
“It was the process of obsessively digging through recordings to find the cool soul recordings that people didn’t know. I found that material far more interesting than the material that was coming out of Stax and Atlantic. The best material is usually like one of two singles that some dude recorded, and that’s all he ever did. It goes deep. It’s really important, high-quality music. It’s just a part of me now,” Parson says.
At first, Skinny Ricky and the Casual Encounters—who will headline the second annual “Shake, Rattle and Roll” event at Aromas Grange on Saturday, Oct. 5, a fundraiser for Anzar High that will also feature Los Morros de GTO and the Atomic Aces—played mostly covers (obscure ones, of course), but they gradually wrote several originals. They are now at the point where three-fourths of their set is original material. Parson uses his extensive knowledge of soul to pull bits of influence from every regional variation that was happening in the ’60s, though by and large, they play down-tempo ballads. Parson has a surprisingly intense, soulful baritone voice—particularly for an obsessive record collector/music theory student. There are hints of his knowledge of music theory in the arrangements, but the groove of the music is all feeling.
By and large, the artists in the ’70s, he feels, lost a lot of that rawness.
“A lot of the major groups got cheesy and kind of overdone. The ’70s happened, you know? You had Tower of Power and Earth Wind and Fire where everything got super crazy, like top-tier precise by studio musicians,” Parson says.
Currently, Skinny Ricky and the Casual Encounters are completing their debut album, which will have 10 original songs. Parson has applied his engineering skills to the project, and is recording it himself, too.
“It is a lot of work to put on yourself, but so far so good, and I’m pleased with the results,” Parson says.
Skinny Ricky and the Casual Encounters plays the Aromas Grange in Aromas on Sat, Oct. 5, at 6pm.
