Underrated Band of the Week: Chavez

I’ve been listening to a lot of mid-’90s alt-rock lately. The Jesus Lizard, Shellac, Jawbox, that sort of thing. About a week ago, a friend asked me if I’d heard of Chavez. “Vaguely,” I said, then checked youtube to remind myself.

I found the music video for Break Up Your Band, which starts with a standup comedian who seems to be getting big laughs with the word “yes.” He then introduces “the men of Chavez,” who play the song to accompany a succession of male strippers. The audience is composed entirely of middle-aged women. I had seen the video before, giggled and thought nothing more of it. This time I liked the music. I really liked it. I wanted to hear more.

“Damn, that’s actually pretty good,” I said.

“I know,” my friend said.

He knows these things.

Medium story short, a few days ago I bought Better Days Will Haunt You; a 2CD anthology of both Chavez albums and various singles, b-sides and compilation tracks. I ripped the tracks to my computer in a lossless format, separated the bonus tracks from the original albums (as is my wont) and transferred them to my Personal Portable Digital Music Player for Convenient Listening.

I haven’t listened conveniently to much else this week.

Chavez — Top Pocket Man

And you can listen conveniently to Better Days Will Haunt You on Spotify, if you care to.