Press >> Georgia Straight

When he was only 19 years old, Jamie Perry, aka Bocephus King, moved to Nashville to try his hand at songwriting. What the hell was he thinking?

"You know, the older I get, I really don't know," he says, running his hand through his light-brown, tousled hair. "I don't know why I did it; I don't even know how I did it. I couldn't have planned it: I took a Greyhound bus and the trip itself was an epic, bizarre journey."

The budding songwriter quit after four demoralizing months at a Nashville sweatshop. His tunes, other hired hands told him, were too "Bocephus"-simple, three-chord Hank Williams songs that jus wouldn't cut it in a Garth Brooks world. This was around 1990, when the term alt-country had yet to be coined. So Perry left the country-music capital for New Orleans (twice), New York and Montreal, with pit stops in between at Point Roberts, where he grew up.

Life in the small American border town had a profound effect on the music he would make, as did the popular Point Roberts roadhouse the Breakers; it's no exaggeration to say Perry was raised in a bar.

Tonight, though, Perry has elected to meet for mineral water at a Commercial Drive Italian caf?not far from the barbershop used in the Bocephus King video "Mess Of Love".

"My mom started working as a waitress at the Breakers when I was six," the musician recalls. Under a few days' stubble, the fidgety, 31-year-old bears a resemblance to comic actor Ben Stiller. "We used to clean up the Breakers on Sundays as a family."

Proud of his working class, blue-collar origins, Perry fills the lyrics of his songs with a barfly's-eye view of the world. Drinking establishments near the border have played a role in his life in more ways than one; it was while ducking flying ashtrays at Ladner's Smoking Frog that he learned to entertain as opposed to simply perform. His dedication to giving people their money's worth has helped boost the reputation, both here and abroad, of Bocephus King (the band) as a live act not to be missed.

Still, the group has been criminally overlooked in Vancouver. Although stories in Italian magazines like Buscadero (where, on a cover from last summer, Perry's bestubbled countenance glowers over a smaller photo of a band called Donna the Buffalo) mean Perry is recognized on the streets of Milan and Como by music fans, at home the band still plays small venues such as the Railway Club (where it appears on Friday September 21).

Why this should be is a bit of a mystery, although the old adage that Canadian acts have to be accepted elsewhere for people at home to take notice probably has something to do with it. Certainly, the albums can't be blamed; The Blue Sickness, Bocephus King's most recent record, is one of those rare things: a disc that is solid throughout, with nary a duff track in sight. The tracks not only touch on everything from melodramatic balladry to rock to pop to jazz, blues, R&B, and country but they also deliver powerful hooks and memorable lyrics.

What the songs have in common, besides the limber grooves of a group of hot Vancouver players calling themselves the Rigalattos, is Perry's grizzled voice- most often compared to that of Tom Waits-and his fondness for story songs about down 'n' outers, hustlers, hoods and hookers. Perry himself shies away from the titles of songwriter; he prefers to see himself as a movie maker.

Admittedly anxiety-ridden by nature, the front man says films are among the few things that calm him down. Listening to the narratives in The Blue Sickness or his previous record, A Small Good Thing (names after a Raymond Carver short story), the influence of motion pictures becomes apparent. Nowhere is that more obvious than The Blue Sickness' opening track, "8 1/2 ", which borrows its title from the Federico Fellini film of the same name and begins with Ennio Morricone - style spaghetti-western guitar.

"He's one of my big heroes of all time," he says. "If I could use the little fame I've acquired in Italy to do anything, it would be to meet him." Perry's next chance to meet the composer comes in October. Following a few dates in Holland with his new band (long-time guitarist Paul Rigby will be joined by recently enlisted bassist Jeremy Holmes, keyboardist Mike Kenney, and drummer Barry Mirochnick) the Tsawwassen resident embarks on a solo promotional tour of Italy, his fourth time performing there but the first on his own. He'll then start work on a fourth Bocephus King album, which he expects to record in Point Roberts following disappointing experiences in professional studios.

"It's going to be called All Children Believe In Heaven," Perry says. "The title is based on a Kerouac quote from Dharma Bums, but it's not meant to be a hippieish, Beatish statement. I want to take a shot at making something that sounds epic. I just want to make the biggest thing I can make, as beautiful as I can make it. I've ended up with nothing but heartaches, headaches, and nervous breakdowns from trying to make something to fit into other peoples' expectations."