In its decade-plus of recording and touring, Richmond, Va.-based punk outfit Avail has come to be known for two things much more than any others. The first is a subtle but unique Southern sensibility that comes across less in the band's music than in its overall vibe and methodology. And the second is a brand of volatile, sweaty, blitzkrieg-fun gig that even pedestrian live-music aficionados might remember forever, and inspires die-hard fans to follow the quintet around the country, like they were some kind of tattooed, high-octane anti-Dead.
"Avail is and always has been a live band," affirms second vocalist/human electrostatic generator Beau Beau. "Our records have never captured anywhere near what it's like to see us live."
While their recorded output is far from shabby, Beau has a point. Avail (Beau, vocalist Tim Barry, guitarist Joe Banks, bassist Gwomper and drummer Ed Trask) doesn't tour to promote their releases — they put out albums so fans will have something to hold them over between tours, and so they'll have new stuff to bludgeon them with live. The best Avail sets are akin to a rugby match without the competition or homoeroticism: two camps on equal footing, engaging each other for the sheer joy of testing their own physical boundaries. And often, as in sporting events, exceeding them.
"It happens all the time, as a matter of fact," says Beau. "Right now, because of the cold, my legs don't work correctly. I can't walk right. Before I get to the show and I'm doing pre-show shit, I'm going 'there's no way.' And then the first song starts, and it just goes away. Then, after the show, I'm going, 'what was I thinking when I jumped off that monitor?!'"
The group possesses an innate ability to transform shows on big, barricaded stages into the punk scene's largest basement shows, but often eschews massive venues in favor of the in-your-face feel of smaller clubs and all-ages grottoes. A typical Avail tour generally includes locations of all sizes, from the highest-capacity theater available to VFW halls, and the quintet is committed to creating the same intimate, crowd- involving atmosphere at every stop. A typical Avail trek also generally includes surprisingly disparate bills, often running underground rock's gamut; they're currently touring with mohawked gutter-punks The Casualties, a fairly jarring combination.
"We've always tried to make it so it's interesting to go and see the bands. It's never three Casualties or three Avails or three emo bands," says Beau. "We try to make it worth your money to come."
The dedication to keeping eclectic DIY shows and electrifying performances on the menu has won the band a wildly diverse following, from fans of straight-up rock 'n' roll to the more adventurous mall-punks to over-30 scene dropouts for whom Avail is among only a handful of reasons to call the babysitter. The loyalty they engender is nothing short of astounding, and their unclassifiable fanbase has bred for Avail a proud sort of outsider status within the punk community.
Where bands often form their own cliques, or are lumped together by fans, microcosms within the punk/indie macrocosm, Avail is a bona fide iconoclast, not California-style, not straightedge, not pop-punk and headed for a major label, not old-school and on their way out. They didn't set out to become such a thing, but a long tradition of doing it their own way has brought a certain pleasure with it. The idea of willful secession from punk de rigueur also dovetails nicely with "the Southern thing," a characterization Beau considers more perception than reality.
"It's really kind of funny," he says. "We're not striving to do or be anything, but we've been seen as this kind of Southern punk band for so long, people kind of look for it now. It's not something we were looking for."
But then again, Beau is perhaps the band's most dyed-in-the-wool old-school punker. He mentions countless arcane, out-of-print acts in passing as if they were household names, and pointedly praises the lifers at our own Skatepark of Tampa. For him, Avail's bombastic essence may far outweigh its more rural rudiments.
While the latest Avail release is unarguably their most blistering, hardcore-influenced offering of semi-melodic compulsion since 1994's Dixie, it's also called Front Porch Stories and seethes with Richmond's singular amalgam of Rust Belt and backwoods. The intro to "West Wye" features the band's most overtly Southern riffage yet.
"Yeah, there, we were definitely striving for that," says Beau of 'West Wye,'" adding with a laugh, "The guy that actually played the intro is in this band Lamb of God, and they're this crazy, crazy metal band."
As frenetic, anthemic and downright, well, punk as Front Porch Stories is, the disc is unlikely to change anyone's mind about Avail and the Southern context. It definitely will change some minds about the notion of their records never quite matching up to their shows, however. The album's production perfectly balances the aggression and performances with a studio-wrought depth; it might not sound exactly like Avail live, but it does sound excellent, weighty and cohesive, without coming off as overly slick.
"We had an amazing, amazing producer in Brian Paulson," raves Beau. "He's done so many other bands, Hüsker Dü, the rock 'n' roll stuff coming out of North Carolina, Touch and Go. He could get the cool fullness of a real rock sound, and also break it down and make it really raw."
Front Porch Stories should be much more than something to hold Avail fans over between tours. But if that ends up being the purpose it serves, that's fine, too. Playing live is what Avail does, and the band has "already surpassed any of our expectations, ever," according to Beau. So all that's left to do is deliver the shows fans have come to expect. Until it kills them.
"There will definitely be a time when I can't hear anymore, or walk anymore, or have had another surgery on my feet," Beau says. "But by that time, hopefully we'll be too old to do it anyway, or have already sold out, became the next big thing, sold a million copies. Taken the money and ran."
Music critic Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jan 22-28, 2003.