Olivelawn Isn’t Looking for Greener Pastures : Punk rock: The band seems content to play for its small-label listeners, but it’s heading the bill at Bogart’s nonetheless.
The members of the punk rock band Olivelawn were sitting over lunch in a sunny corner of a salad bar restaurant, debating a question that goes back to Ecclesiastes: Is there really nothing new under the sun?
If you’re talking about rock ‘n’ roll, there isn’t, said Mike Olson, the band’s singer.
“There’s nothing left to be done. Nothing,” he said. As Olivelawn’s lyricist, Olson has laid out his theory of musical repetition in a song called “Piltdown Man.”
I’m not sure why I’m here, let alone what I’m doing.
Someone else has done it too many times before.
I’m getting used to feeling slow and boring.
I’m a retro man, but at least I know it.
Guitarist Otis Barthoulameu begged to differ (he’s just “O” to those who know him as a friendly, burly, gruff-voiced, stubbly faced and ubiquitous presence on the local punk-alternative rock scene. If Olivelawn isn’t playing, O is likely to be helping out other bands as a roadie, a guitar technician or a photographer (he has shot album covers for Don’t Mean Maybe and Big Drill Car). O pointed to Sonic Youth, with its unusual system of guitar tunings, as an example of a new development in rock.
Olson wasn’t going for it. He said he can’t hear Sonic Youth without thinking of its noise-dealing ‘60s precursor, the Velvet Underground.
Olivelawn is a band that apparently doesn’t need full agreement, a unified philosophy, or even regular proximity in order to function. The four members are scattered across three counties. Olson, 21, lives in Huntington Beach. Drummer Eddie Glass, 21, lives in La Mirada in Los Angeles County while O, 29, and bassist Johnny Donhowe, 25, both are based in San Diego County, where they hold photo jobs with a skateboarding magazine.
Because of its far-flung geography, the band practices sporadically, members said--although they’ve finally agreed to settle on one rehearsal studio in Garden Grove and begin to play together more regularly. At this point, it makes sense for Olivelawn to get a little more serious. With the recent release of “Sophomore Jinx!”, the follow-up to its 1990 debut album, “Sap,” Olivelawn now has two strong albums that sound like a potent amalgam of punk heroes Black Flag with ‘60s precursors like the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, the Stooges and the Who. After a little more than two years on the local club scene, Olivelawn has begun to step up in stature: It will top the bill at Bogart’s tonight, its first headlining slot at the Long Beach club. On July 8, Olivelawn will play its first headlining show in Los Angeles, topping an all-San Diego bill at the Whisky in West Hollywood.
While O and Olson might argue over whether all rock bands are doomed to repeat the past, Olivelawn’s members have no qualms about wearing their influences. This is a band whose latest release sports a cover that’s a direct copy of the cover of a ‘60s-vintage album by the Ventures.
“I don’t even try to do it,” O said of his obvious stylistic borrowings from Hendrix, and the direct guitar quotes from the Who and Love that found their way into the song “Mom’s Farm.” “It just comes up in the way I play guitar. I really like blues a lot, and Hendrix ruled.”
“You can’t do anything new, so you might as well take something you enjoy and put your own stamp on it,” said Olson, whose singing--or, to be more precise, drawled yelling--sounds a lot like Mick Jagger might have if the Stones had come along in 1977 rather than 1962. “Just go for it, and if you’re accused of thievery, it’s tough luck.”
“The best thing to do is not think about it; just play,” offered Glass, the skinny, stringy-haired drummer who these days is playing with just one foot, having broken his right ankle recently after stumbling on some steps. “If I’d done it skateboarding or something, I’d feel a lot better,” he sighed.
Most bands would be fretting, at the very least, over the prospect of having to play important dates with a maimed drummer. Olivelawn figures it will do what it always does. The band makes no claims to live precision, nor does it profess grand ambitions.
“We can wing it,” said Olson.
“We’re just a punk rock band, that’s all we are,” added O.
Olivelawn began when O, who covers the national skateboarding scene as a photographer, hooked up with a professional skateboarder and amateur bassist, Neil Blender, in the fall of 1989. The guitarist, who grew up mainly in Huntington Beach, had been around the Orange County punk scene from its late ‘70s beginnings. O cites such local-scene sources as Jim Kaa of the Crowd, Rikk Agnew of the Adolescents, and, most of all, Ron Emory of T.S.O.L. as inspirations for his own heavy, slashing, but melodically engaged guitar style.
Glass, a buddy of Blender’s, came in as the drummer. Olson had grown up in Seattle and moved to Orange County in 1988. “I moved out of Seattle literally a month before it became important” as a nationally noted breeding ground for rock bands, he said. Olson got to know the other members of Olivelawn while working as a clerk at a record shop in Westminster.
“We’d go in the shop and there was this long-hair mutant kid who wanted to sing, and we let him,” O said. Donhowe, O’s longtime friend and co-worker, joined the band when Blender dropped out after a few shows. Olivelawn named itself after a mortuary near Glass’s house.
The band also recruited a well-known record producer--Jack Endino, the Seattle-based musician who turned out early independent-label recordings by Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Nirvana, and other icons of the influential Northwest rock scene. O said he approached Endino when the producer’s band, Skin Yard, played a show at Bogart’s. Of Olivelawn’s two albums, “Sap” features catchier songs, while “Sophomore Jinx!” finds the band emphasizing volume and crunch. “We just made Jack put the guitars up louder,” O said.
“Sap” included a cover of “Future Now,” a revolutionary call-to-arms originally done by the MC5, a ‘60s forebear of punk rock. But Olson says Olivelawn has no political agenda to push.
“It’s incredibly dated now. It’s silly,” the singer said, adding that the band decided to do the song for “strictly musical” reasons.
“I’m the last guy in the world you ever want to ask about politics or the state of the country,” Olson said. “I don’t want to vote, I don’t want to partake in anything that’s going on. It’s really depressing to watch the news. I’m the most cynical guy you’ll ever meet. I seriously feel complete hopelessness.”
Olson adds his lyrics after O, the main composer, works out the music with Donhowe and Glass. On “Sophomore Jinx!” Olson’s original aim was to write a concept album around “a half-baked idea about a guy who kidnaps a rock star and keeps him locked in his basement,” hoping to soak up the star’s identity as his own. Olson said he wound up not having enough time to carry out the concept fully. In the end, the album wound up interspersing dark songs of revulsion, like “Hate,” and “A Season in Hell,” which was inspired by the Randy Kraft serial killings, with songs based on those familiar punk themes--venting frustration and declaring individuality.
One song, “Major Label,” mocks the idea of playing rock for mercenary reasons. With albums out on Nemesis and Cargo Records, small, independent labels run by friends of the band, Olivelawn says it has no interest in getting in on the major label sweepstakes that punk-based alternative rock has become. O and Olson both run their own grass-roots labels (Rekkids and Standard Recordings, respectively) that issue vinyl singles by underground bands. As a matter of principal, O said, Olivelawn will never release a record of its own that is not available on more affordable vinyl as well as the two dominant formats, cassette and compact disk.
“We’ve had about half our (album) sales on vinyl, so obviously people want it,” O said. “We’re not a techno band. We recorded our last album on 8-track. Vinyl sounds better. Pops and hisses--that stuff rules. It makes you feel like you’re alive.”
So far, Olivelawn has played mainly in Southern California, with rare touring jaunts up the West Coast. Whether to tour nationally is a source of debate within the band, and so far O has held a veto. Having traveled as a roadie for T.S.O.L. and other bands, the guitarist says he isn’t interested in experiencing the hand-to-mouth existence of the touring small-label rocker. “Not having a place to stay and not sleeping and not having enough money--I’ve done that already.”
While that could limit Olivelawn’s ability to broaden its audience, career advancement isn’t a primary concern. “I’m not in it to be a rock star. I don’t want to make it my career. The whole idea behind the band was to have fun,” O said.
Olson, who recently finished his sophomore year as a film major at USC, had hoped to tour during his summer off from college. “It’s fun to play live. I’d like to tour. I have no problem about sleeping in a van and driving all night.”
“I’m 29 and he’s 21, that’s the problem,” said O. “I’ve done it a thousand times already. I’d rather sit around and play video games.”
Clearly, Olivelawn has its divisions and disagreements. But Glass said the band can function despite them.
“We’ve never hung out with each other. We just play. I think it’s better, because when we do get together, it’s like a volcano exploding, a lot of energy. When we lose the energy is when we’ll stop playing.”
Olivelawn, Rocket From the Crypt and the Women play tonight at 9:30 at Bogart’s, in the Marina Pacifica Mall, 6288 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach. Tickets: $8. Information: (310) 594-8975.
