There are more empty Milwaukee's Best Light cans in The Tim Version's rehearsal space than could possibly be accounted for by four people. They overfill an extra-large garbage can to the point that it looks like a blue-and-silver SnoCone. They cause several white plastic shopping bags to bulge precariously. They line a ledge on the storage room's back wall, between the top of the soundproofing and the underside of the homemade loft. Inside the mini-fridge are cold live soldiers, more of them than the five of us could possibly drink in a couple of hours.A few posters advertising old shows, political protests and favorite bands adorn the filthy carpet lining the walls. Two colorful unexplained wigs rest on a pair of mannequin heads posed at the loft's edge. And everywhere there is musical equipment — amplifiers, speaker cabinets, guitar cases, drum sets both set up and packed into soft-sided cases — paring the available space down to a cramped, vaguely circular pocket in the center of the room.
In that space, the three members of The Tim Version not behind a drum kit crowd each other, raging loosely through a set mixing older tunes with ones from their latest album, the superlative Prohibition Starts Tomorrow.
Ah, the rehearsal space — it's a largely unheralded fringe benefit of band-dom: sanctuary, clubhouse, laboratory. No matter how mature, orderly and responsible a musician's daily life becomes, the practice pad can remain a joyfully juvenile asylum, and most of them resemble the living room of that college freshman in every clique who's first to rent an off-campus apartment.
In the case of The Tim Version, their environment eerily mirrors the band, and the music itself: a crucible of unpretentious, chaotic fun, with a few surprising and seemingly unrelated elements tossed into the mix. It also resembles the places in which this unpredictable Tampa punk 'n' roll outfit feels most at home. The populist, hard-touring quartet has spent far more time cranking out its material in basements, family rooms and stageless all-ages venues than it has on rock-club risers or through wing-joint PA systems.
"If we're not playing a show where there's a La-Z-Boy and a fireplace in view, I feel weird," says bassist Mike Paul after the practice session, from a cracked faux-leather booth in a gritty Seminole Heights dive called The Corner Club.
"I don't mind playing for people, don't get me wrong," adds guitarist/vocalist Russ Van Cleave. "But I don't want to play for a hundred people smoking cigarettes in their Slipknot T-shirts."
"We'd rather deal with 50 dirty kids in a kitchen who enjoy what they're seeing," finishes drummer Shawn Watkins.
That unassuming vibe suffuses every facet of The Tim Version. For several of the band's early shows toward the end of the '90s, they played through tiny practice amps, a shudder-inducing prospect for more image-conscious players. At a recent show at St. Pete's Emerald Bar, they solved a (literally) shocking problem with the sound system's grounding by pulling tube socks down over their microphones. For them, it's all about plugging in and getting it on, and location, aesthetic and sense of entitlement be damned.
Much of the inspiration for the group's methodology came from Gainesville's tight-knit punk community. The Tim Version discovered and fell in with the well-regarded scene a couple of hours to the north when one of Watkins' friends relocated there. They were immediately impressed by its do-it-yourself ethos.
"It was easy to hang out with them, it was fun," says Van Cleave. "All you had to do was have a PA and a place to play, and that's all you needed."
The Gainesville connection influenced more than The Tim Version's operating procedure. The band's thick, metallic guitar tones; compelling, gravelly vocals; and knack for hooky, anthemic chord changes have seen them compared more than once to Hot Water Music and other purveyors of what's known to punk fans worldwide as "the Gainesville sound." While such associations are somewhat warranted, The Tim Version is often much more unpredictable than a majority of its peers. The music is as apt to be shaped by Watkins' abruptly changing polyrhythms, guitarist Scott Laval's countermelodies or Van Cleave's love of bluegrass as it is a meaty sing-along chorus.
Nowhere is the breadth of The Tim Version's sonic palette more apparent than on Prohibition Starts Tomorrow, their second full-length for Tampa-based label A.D.D. The first, Creating Forces That Don't Exist, was an impressive and energetic blast of unhinged rock, but Prohibition improves immeasurably on its predecessor. The disc showcases a band both galvanized and unrestrained by the conventions of punk, alternately using those traditions to an advantage and obliterating them.
Some of the band members seem a bit surprised by the idea that Prohibition is such a giant step forward.
"You really think so?" asks Watkins. "It's not a big departure, really."
"I just think it probably represents us more [accurately] as a band," Laval says.
Van Cleave, with whom the majority of songs originate before being run through the group-input mill, reckons it's just a matter of experience.
"We write songs because it's fun, or at least I hope it's fun," he says. "And the more you write and play, the more you want to draw from different things."
Having fun is definitely a priority with The Tim Version, perhaps second only to the importance of knowing that playing some kid's house can be more rewarding than playing the big stage. That mindset may have engendered some seriously volatile, beer-fueled performances, but it's also earned them friends and fans across the States; and taken them to places they never dreamed they'd go, like Japan, where they toured last fall; and produced a truly excellent record in the celebratory Prohibition Starts Tomorrow; and resulted in a rehearsal space that looks like maybe a little too much fun was had in it.
"It's supposed to be fun," says Van Cleave. "It's an age-old cliche, but if you're not into it for the music, then what's the point?"
"If you're not going to like it, why don't you go flip burgers at McDonald's?" Watkins muses. "Don't play music. Service people in some other, more useful fashion."
Contact Scott Harrell at 813-739-4856 or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2004.