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It ain’t easy being the opening band. Often joined to a bill that bears little resemblance to your band’s own style, long miles from home, only the early dregs of an audience to perform to, frequently no sound check and on and on it goes. I think it’s especially hard for jambands to be an opener simply due to the nature of the music they make, a heady concoction brewed from improvisation, fermented in extended solos and a tireless quest for The Groove (capitalized like The Truth or The Way since the lower case doesn’t carry enough oomph to really convey the philosophical weight The Groove holds for jam-based bands). I admire any group that can distill what they normally play in two 90-minute sets a night (as Schfvilkus had proceeding this date) into a 60 minute burst.
Starting right on time so as not to lose a minute of their allocated slot, Schfvilkus hit the well worked wooden stage at Berkeley’s Starry Plough pub. It’s the kind of joint where lefties and working folk gather to discuss the state of things while guzzling an array of beers. There’s rib sticking pub food, a dart board and the silent television above the bar seems to always flash some sporting event. Or worse the news, which sends the regulars into virulent diatribes against the State. More than once have I seen someone shake their fist in the air when the President’s face flashed on the glass teat. It is a loud, chatty, liberal haven and as such there’s a lot to compete with if a band wants to be heard.
Schfvilkus unloaded a solid funk number to start. It’s the kind of sturdy material that one keeps in their trick bag for crowds just like this. It’s soulful enough to pull a head nod out of even the creakiest of cranks sitting at the bar. A gaggle of UC Berkeley coeds discusses getting up to dance but then head outside to talk on cell phones and share a single cigarette amongst the four of them. None of the clinking glasses or restless crowd or aimless college girls deters the band from their appointed mission. They came to play music and by gum that’s what they were going to do.
From Nashville, Schfvilkus share a fan’s delight in blenderizing styles. While the aforementioned Groove looms large in all their compositions, they have a way of seamlessly taking a 90-degree turn into wholly different genre and then just as seamlessly returning to restate the original theme. The best piece of the handful of tunes they play on this balmy California Summer night begins as a fractured funk rumble a la MMW's “Bubblehouse” that nose dives into a succulent dub section full of sonar guitar from the sublime Chris Grainger. Like some aquatic machine surfacing from fearsome depths, the band pulls out of the echo rich sea of sound into a beautiful evocation of ’60s rocksteady rhythm. Out of the warm reggae feel they quick step back the original hard, modern funk that began this tiny musical trip. I wince thinking how much longer they might have traveled had they been the headliners.
Besides their obvious musical chops, I’m struck by what fine performers Schfvilkus are. They move to the sounds they make and let themselves laugh freely. They are fun to watch and in time I suspect they’ll hone that part of their act, too. There’s a hint of the Talking Heads manic precision lurking in Schfvilkus and I hope they explore it further. As Chris tells me later in the evening, they understand that people have come out to be entertained. Yes, the music is paramount but there’s also the audience’s enjoyment to be considered.
Their bassist, Joseph Maloney, clowns with the crowd all night while keeping the bottom end nimble and fast. Even after their set he works the room with a jovial ease I normally only associate with the cocktail set of the 1950’s. I like him intensely almost instantly. His warmth is infectious even if the exceedingly lovely quartet of students seems immune to his Southern charms.
What keeps catching my ear during their set is the way they know exactly when to push a tune into overdrive. It’s a pleasant excess that’s frequently missing from jammier bands. Clever changes and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” length compositions are all well and good but sometimes a fella just needs to freakin’ rock, dude. Right when you need it to something rises in a tune like a musical Tsunami. Only the band Particle possesses this same kind of instinct. What Schfvilkus do isn’t quite as polished or extended as Particle though that may be a factor of their abbreviated stage time.
I make it through all of headliner’s Left Hand Smoke's set and while their brand of roots rock is nice enough I’m still hungry for more of Schfvilkus’ sounds. Their highly musical DJ (Viper) with his vocal stabs and saucy scratching lingers in my head. The warm hot breeze of their new sax player stays with me. And this desire to hear more, to know more of what a band has to offer is the silver lining of the opening band. In being limited to a Whitman’s sampler of one’s repertoire it’s hard to know if anyone will get what you’re trying to lay down as a band. But sometimes the taste makes a few people hungry for more.
The next morning after the show I throw the windows and doors open to my apartment and crank up Schfvilkus’ latest disc, Genrealization. The horn arrangements from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones sax player Jeff Coffin are crispy like vintage Tower of Power. I catch snippets of tunes I heard the previous night on this fun record and imagine what they’ll do with this music the next time they come to town. This kind of reverie is the clearest sign they made an impression on me. That’s the challenge and the potential reward to opening bands. For all the hurdles in the way of it you might just make a new fan.
Dennis Cook
JamBase Bay Area Correspondent
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