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Avail
By Scott Harrell
Richmond, Virginia-based underground institution Avail exists for the show. They’re one of those rare bands whose recorded output, as good as it has been, serves more as means than end; Avail doesn’t tour to promote their records, they record so their fans will have something to tide them over between bouts of sweaty communion. The quintet has honed their visceral, cathartic set over a decade of nearly ceaseless travel, and calling them a great live band is like saying that Liberace was a little bit flashy. They’re often followed for weeks at a time by eclectic pods of supporters, an almost unheard-of occurrence in DIY circles, where many bands, much less their fans, can barely afford the trip.
For all their status as indie inspiration and theater-headliner, Avail is often perceived as existing outside of the punk scene at large, a genre unto itself. Maybe it’s the group’s unabashed love for all forms of American music, from bluegrass to folk to country to good ol’ rock and roll; all of these contribute to Avail’s completely individual, yet still undeniably punk-rock, sound. Maybe it’s an eastern thing – fellow Right Coasters like Elliott, Hot Water Music and Boy Sets Fire are often thought of as equally iconoclastic. Certainly, the band’s hometown environment is a contributing factor, and as strong an influence on them as any musician or style. Richmond, a poor, working-class rustbelt town remarkable only for it’s tired, Industrial Revolution-hangover vibe and unbelievably high murder rate, is inextricably intertwined with every element of Avail’s sonic identity, but reveals itself particularly in the personal, observational lyrics of vocalist Tim Barry.
“I think our surroundings influence the sound and the words that come out one hundred percent,” confirms Barry. “It can be traced through all the records. It’s weird. Even the song titles, I know on our last record, Over The James, the river that runs through Richmond is the James, and I swear to God we didn’t realize it, but it seems almost like a concept record, if you’re from here. The song titles are almost exclusively Richmond things; there are so many influences.
“I think that if people are writing from an honest perspective, or without an intended goal of sounding a specific way, there’s no way you can’t be influenced by what surrounds you. That goes for all of us, the songs and the mood we create. If I’m singing about something personal, whether it be a friendship or a relationship, it’s definitely something that’s immediately around me, or if it’s something that’s more sociopolitical, that generally tends to be shit that goes on around here.”
Barry, who, along with guitarist Joe Banks, relocated Avail from the Washington DC bedroom community of Reston, Virginia in 1990, contends that his band shares similarities with others in their hometown scene:
“Richmond has a definite style that we’re a part of, which is rock-based. People sing, but it’s punk-influenced, as well, and I think that comes out.”
While the fivesome (rounded out by bassist Gwomper, new drummer Ed Trask, and vocalist/go-go dancer/cheerleader BeauBeau) shares a love of American roots music, Avail’s tuneage is by no means twangy, or the least bit southern-fried. Their latest, One Wrench, is perhaps their heaviest disc to date, a gnashing, careening affair that gives up as much old-school DC punk and hardcore as it does melody, energy and gut-level emotional purge. Barry agrees that the backwoods touch is a light one, shaping the band’s output in subtler, more aesthetic ways.
“I try not to analyze it, because I think that it does, to a certain extent, and I don’t think I realized it until in retrospect, after listening to some of the records, that the way we grew up listening to different styles of music actually somehow got into the Avail style,” he muses. “I don’t know how it seeps in there, I don’t even know if it’s very obvious, but sometimes we’ll catch it. All that comes out, but straight up, whether it be bluegrass, southern rock, country, folk, punk, hardcore – all that shit is three chords. That’s all it is. All we’re doing is playing the same three chords as everyone else; it’s just how you approach it.”
Avail is currently plying their inimitable approach on the Vans Warped Tour, the wallet-chain set’s answer to Summer Crafting Camp. The southern gentlemen signed on for a week last year and, finding both charm and challenge, agreed to a slot for the entirety of this season’s American jaunt. They are, however, well aware of the disparity between Warped’s all-day-in-the-sun carnival atmosphere and hitting a beer-soaked cavern stage well after dark in front of their own, more varied and generally older, crowd.
“An Avail headlining show, we’ll say down in Florida, gets a pretty eclectic mix of people, everyone from MTV-type folks to straightedge people to straight-up hardcores to the chaotic drunk punks; it’s a pretty good mix. I don’t know what the mix will be like [this year] on the Warped Tour,” concedes Barry. “I do know that a lot of the people that come out to Avail club shows don’t come out to Warped Tour shows, obviously because of the environment, a lot of it has to do with waiting in the sun all day. Being outside and watching bands in the middle of the day, all day, is sort of the antithesis of the vibe that you get in a club.”
But instead of preaching to the converted, he looks forward to the symbiotic possibilities of Warped. This is perhaps the eclectic tour’s most attractive and philanthropic feature: that some bands get to play for kids that might otherwise never be exposed to them, and said kids are treated to bands that might otherwise remain outside their realm of experience.
“That’s why we made the decision to do it last year, to see if it would turn new people onto the band, and it worked. It succeeded. There’s a lot of fresh people out there who really want to know more about different kinds of music. And if it weren’t for the Warped Tour giving us an opportunity to play those kinds of shows, and let people know that there’s all kinds of other stuff going on, they would never find out. It’s awesome,” Barry agrees.
“It’s fun to challenge yourself, to try to figure out new ways of making yourself as accessible to the people who are hanging out every day. You can still, on the stupid-ass big stages with beefy security guys and a barricade, thrive on making it entertaining, making everyone have fun.”
THE END
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