Chavez

Chavez is a a band from the mid-1990's that isn't appreciated nearly enough. I tracked down all their recordings when I was working for a Service Employees local in 2005, nine to ten years after the release of the last album, the powerful Ride the Fader (1996). Besides Ride the Fader, Chavez put out the Gone Glimmering LP (1995) and the Pentagram Ring EP (1995). A compilation from all three recordings called Better Days Will Haunt You was released by Matador in 2006.

I found used copies of the compact discs online. I had always been a big fan of Bullet Lavolta, of which guitarist Clay Tarver was a big part. I thought if Clay Tarver was playing guitar for Chavez they had to be good. Matt Sweeney fronts the group (his Superwolf (2005) album with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy is a favorite of mine; I used to love to listen to it on the 5:30 AM bus ride to work).

The problem I had was that for some reason I could barely hear the Chavez discs. I was still using a Sony Walkman. (I held on for far too long, spending a ludicrous amount of money on batteries.) A girlfriend finally took pity on me and bought me an iPod nano. When I loaded the Chavez discs into my iTunes and listened to them on my iPod earbuds there was a dramatic improvement in sound quality. I could hear things that were just not there before. 

After I was laid off and looking for work in the spring of 2011 I did a lot of running. And I found that whenever a Chavez song shuffled on I immediately got an energy boost; it was significant. I took note. Finally, I think halfway through last year, I removed all the Chavez from the nano touch that I used when I went running. When it died last month, I loaded Ride the Fader onto the new 7th Generation nano.

Walking home up the hill from the train station this evening I was reminded why I kept Chavez on the iPod for so long. This is "The Guard Attacks" from Ride the Fader: