AVAIL, THE DRAFT @ The Atrium, Santa Cruz, CA 1/23/07 Show Review by Guest Contributor
“We’ll never get to see Hot Water Music. But tonight we got pretty close.”
My friend Matt said that when the bouncers started herding the audience out after AVAIL, and he nailed it. We won’t. We got ¾. After Chuck Ragan left HWM to focus on notorious band-killers "family life" and "solo work," Hot Water Music was buried for good. But the honesty is still there. Hardworn and baring its brittle teeth. No slight to AVAIL, but THE DRAFT was the band I came to see on this long-awaited Tuesday night. And did they deliver.
If you want to be valedictorian at UDIY it’s always good for credibility to load and tune all the instruments yourself. And that’s what THE DRAFT did. While breaks between bands typically involve the guitar and drum techs tinkering for what seems like a millennia before a curtain swishes, your hope swells, and… it’s another roadie, the band did the grunt work themselves. There was no hot knot of anticipation cinching inside because you could see the band all along, you could even talk to them if you wanted, but no one did. They were just there, quiet and industrious, and before long Chris Wollard shuffled his way up to the mic and spoke into it smoky words. “I feel pretty weird tonight,” he said. He pointed to drummer George Rebelo. “I stayed up till six last night with this guy playing poker. Taking his money.” To a casual listener that might explain his cement mixer voice, but he always sounds like that. That was part of HWM’s charm, that they were weary from navigating the labyrinth and slaying the minotaur (or playing cards) but they still had more than enough juice to play you a song. That mettle has been passed on as their dominant trait to THE DRAFT.
The first song up was “New Eyes Open,” the lead-off track from their Epitaph debut, In a Million Pieces. Right away I was struck by the words in the alluring chorus: “That’s what I like about it/ It’s not so complicated…” Even if an unnamed girl is mentioned, it’s hard not to think this echoes the transformation his band has borne, and maybe for him, at least at this time, it fits. From there they moved into my darling, “Not What I Wanna Do,” and the dancey “Let it Go,” which hangs on the sinew of Jason Black’s spry and funky bass lines. I like how he doesn’t use a pick, usually the preferred prop for punk performances. I think it makes for a more limber bass player, freed from serving as only the skeleton to songs. Guitarist Todd Rockhill also deserves credit for ably filling the big shoes abandoned by Ragan. And big he is: imagine if Manute Bol played fullback and had a handlebar mustache. I know. Thankfully he does nothing to cloud the palpable chemistry already established between the HWM exes.
Next came “Bordering” and “Wired,” the latter being the heads-above the highlight from the set. It was on this song that those familiar unanimous voices could be heard, this time handled by Wollard, Black and Rockhill. Crowd fists were raised like lightning rods to take the flow of energy in the room for their own. After “Wired” came an odd swamp jazz interlude manned by Black and Rebello before “Stop Wastin’ My Time,” which I believe is either spankin' new or was excluded from even the vinyl version of Pieces. The rest of the set was made up respectively of “All We Can Count On,” “Out of Tune,” “Alive or Dead,” “Lo Zee Rose,” and even a few bars of “Margaritaville.”
I know people who call themselves ardent fans who are praying the members of THE DRAFT fall flat on their grizzled faces. That the other Hot Water Philes won’t “buy” this incarnation, ghost, rip-off, IMPOSTOR. I think there’s very little to buy, and everything to feel. They think “We’ve retired all your jerseys, and it’s time to get that accountant position you’ve always dreamed about.” Not so. Screw snuffing the flame. The passion isn’t gone. Not one iota. Just give them a chance, Cruel World, okay? Let them find a way to shed Hot Water Music’s long and daunting shadow.
While many of their contemporaries from the mid-90’s punk rock boom have since limped out to pasture, or have let themselves be gimmicked or adulterated, or have gradually become unrecognizable (I’m looking at you, STRUNG OUT), AVAIL has stayed hungry. Lead singer Tim Barry has an outlet with his solo work, which probably keeps the group songwriting less divergent. He will actually be looping back through Santa Cruz again in a few weeks with DRAG THE RIVER, and if I catch that, I’ll at least be able to pick him from a crowd. Because when AVAIL started setting up, I assumed he was the squat cartoon man with the cylindrical beard and limbs bedecked and blackened by tattoos. The one I had seen pictured prominently in Fat Wreck Chords’ "Short Music for Short People" compilation. The one who methodically checked to make sure everyone was ready to go, and remained onstage while the band played “Southbound 95.” But apparently this decoy was Beau Beau, the roadie/manager/cheerleader that’s always been there. For a few songs, I thought he was allowing this other much taller gentleman to sing for him, whose face bruised red when he ratcheted out the words. After my slow gears spun long enough - drrrr….I wonder who this guy sings for? He makes for a pretty commanding frontman - I finally figured this guy was Tim Barry. Then I wondered what the point was to have this gap-toothed imp mugging on stage, choking the spotlight from Barry and his cadent lyrics. Beau would act them out with half-cocked moronic dances and gestures, and seldom contributed anything constructive other than a few gang vocals. I tried to see the obviously good-natured whimsy at work, but I could only see him as a distraction, an egregious scene-stealer. When he led one overzealous fan away who had clambered up to the mic wanting to duet with Tim Barry, I couldn’t help but think, “What’s the difference?”
I mentioned Barry’s impassioned delivery, but the rest of the band were no slouching mannequins either. Drummer Ed Trask didn’t stiffly tap his kit; he beat the bejeezus out of it. He also gets bonus points for intermittently flipping his sticks while playing. Bassist Gwomper and guitarist Joe Banks rocked and gyrated in the slim spaces the Atrium stage allowed. Their set left no album out, and for completists, it progressed as follows: “Deepwood,” “Fix,” “Who Agrees,” “August,” “Taken,” “West Wye,” “Virus,” “Heron,” “Rest,” “Model,” “Black and Red,” “Sanctuary,” “Simple Song,” “Clone,” “Lombardy St.,” and “For Christy and Al.” Ah… the prehistoric days of one-word song titles, before we got to the farce of “I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)” and its ilk. I was admittedly only familiar with the Over the James material, but the crowd was clued into their whole discography, judging by the ever-churning circle pit. At one point during a song Barry huffed off the stage and stalked through the crowd, everyone keeping their eyes off him and on the band before he jumped head long into the maelstrom. They ended with “Scuffle Town,” their sardonic ode to Richmond ala “Moon Over Marin” and the crowd ate it up with ladles. What encore? The crowd was tipsy with spent adrenalin and likely other intoxicants, and didn’t ask for one. The band had ripped through 18 songs. Next stop Anaheim.
Reviewers note: Special thanks to Mr. Rockhill for writing the entire DRAFT setlist down on my sketchpad, because they had played without one.
