Javelina
- Story by Kevin Stewart-Panko
Philly noisemongers find brotherly love in the want ads
“Really? That sort of thing still happens?” It’s been a long time since your faithful ink-spiller has been on the other side of the press/musician dyad, but I honestly didn’t know dudes in bands looking for other dudes to join their band still posted random ads in retail establishments, hoping someone with the right musical and personal fit will stumble across them. All you hear these days is “MySpace” this, “Facebook” that, “recommendation” this and “I heard from a friend” that. So, the antiquated laughs were probably flowing like a corner store-bought four-pack when ex-Lickgoldensky bassist Herb Jowett came across such an ad, only to realize he knew the folks on the other end.
“Philadelphia’s really weird; it’s just a real hard time finding people to play with,” the four-stringer explains from his day job driving the city’s mean streets. “[In Javelina], we all kind of knew each other. Our guitarist/vocalist, Mike, and our drummer, Erik, used to be in this crusty hardcore band called Otophobia. I actually tried out for them while I was in Lickgoldensky, but found I couldn’t do the two band thing. So, I answered this ad and it turned out it was Mike and Erik. They knew our other guitarist/vocalist, Ryan, we got together, drank some beers, started playing and it came together.”
The coming together of band members from the crusty side of extreme music and deliberate shit-disturbers Lickgoldensky may be the personal conflict equivalent of unattended gasoline cans and a drunken blowtorch operator. On one side, you have those whose previous bands were likely threatened thrice daily by someone’s eating habits, while political expression on the other could be described, mildly, as “libertarian anarchy.” However, Javelina have internal peace and harmony down to a very basic formula.
“The only thing preconceived about this band,” Jowett says, “is that we all love Buzzov-en.”
And you hear Buzzov-en—a lot of it—on the band’s self-titled Translation Loss debut. Javelina also pick, choose, use and abuse influence from the grime, sludge and filth of metal and punk’s most unwashed forefathers: Eyehategod, Cavity, His Hero Is Gone, Kylesa and Black Flag, with the whole package wrapped up in their “until we have nothing left to give” philosophy.
“Yeah, that statement is a part-truth, part-sarcasm,” laughs Jowett. “We’re four goofballs who are constantly cracking jokes and laughing, but we do take this band very seriously. We are certainly all a little older and can’t hop in a van and go for two months at a time, but we are going to try and do as much as possible.”
Fair enough. But does a man who drives for a living really look forward to hopping in a van for two months?
“Um, no,” he says after some deliberation. “My back will hate me after all those drives and sleeping on floors, but I love being on tour.”
