Local rockers pack house for high-intensity show

More than 80 people packed into the smoky, underground bar to see local rockers the Chevy Chasers, Tex Mexner and Fulbone tear the house down. The crowd was rowdy, the Pabst Blue Ribbon flowed freely and the music was so loud it made understandable conversation impossible. In short, there was everything necessary for a rockin’, drunken good time.

Self-described “blue-collar band” Fulbone took the stage first, starting the show off nice and loud, exploding into a fast-paced heavy rocker. After working four hours at a job you despise, like I did, this band will definitely wake you up and snap you to your senses. They demonstrated a fairly diverse range of talent, going from rap/rock songs of the Rage vein to angry, heavy songs like “Alstott” to sentimental, laid-back tunes. But it was still early, and although the members of the band did their best to incite the crowd into action, most either played pool or sat at tables, except for a small group of crust punkers standing lazily in front of the stage.

Fulbone is made up of Ryan Langhurst on lead guitar, Jason Laskodi on rhythm guitar/lead vocals, Adril Harvey on the drums and H.W. Bores brings up the bass guitar. The band has been around since ‘97, playing venues like the Newport, Ruby Tuesday, Little Brothers and Bernie’s. The band had their song “Alstott” (named after Tampa Bay fullback Michael Alstott) picked up by ESPN in January of 2000, to be played during a highlight show.

“He really influenced us because he has the same identity that we’re trying to form with our band,” Langhurst said. “He’s a tough guy. He runs over people, real blue-collar.”

Fulbone has an album to be released this fall, called “Halt,” and you can check out this and other info about the band at fulbone.com.

Judging by the size of the crowd, the main attraction of the night had to be the Chevy Chasers performance, hands-down. Everyone there, aside from a few barflies, packed themselves like sardines in front of the stage, with some yelling “Chasers! Chasers!” in a drunken cheer even as the band was tuning up.

“All right we’re the Chevy Chasers from Toledo! Here we go with a rockin’ set!” shouted drummer Matt Carter, sending a cheer through the mob as the band kicked off with a cover of the Who’s “Teenage Wasteland,” only to change it up in the middle and switch to the Chaser original “High’s Cool.”

While playing their song, “Please, Be Our Friend,” the Chasers mellowed out the crowd and caused a scene that I’ve never before seen at the Distillery, and possibly never will again. As the keyboard churned out a cheery tune, the sweaty, intoxicated crowd started throwing their arms around each other, swaying and singing along, rather than knocking each other down and tossing beers.

The Chevy Chasers are made up of bass guitarist Sean Wright, Jim King on the keyboard, new addition Ben Merrel playing the guitar, Matt Carter on drums and Dan Watson, who would only describe his position as “jack of all trades.” Local music fans might recognize Jim King and Matt Carter, both of who were in the now-defunct punk band American Cocktease.

“Originally, the Chasers were going to be a one-show deal,” King said. “It ended up going so well, we decided to keep going.”

The official Chevy Chasers web site will be up soon, and it would’ve been running by now but “our webmaster is afraid of us,” according to Carter. The group ran into problems when the band’s web designer, referred to only as Trevor, quit the project. The Chasers felt he was taking too long to get the job done, so Carter called him up and jokingly threatened him.

“We had someone working on our web page and I called up with a death threat, just joking around,” Carter said. “I called him, doing an Adam Sandler impression, and said ‘finish the web site or I’m gonna kill you’ and he quit--now he hates us.”

The band dedicated “Please, Be Our Friend” to Trevor during the show.

The Chevy Chasers have recorded a compact disc, which fans can purchase for $5 by sending an e-mail to thechevychasers@hotmail.com, and can sign up to be a part of an online mailing list at the same address. Members of the mailing list can get the CD for only $3.99. According to the band, anyone who orders a CD and lives in the Columbus area will have the pleasure of having at least two members of the band hand-deliver it to their house.

Tex Mexner had to take the cake for wildest band of the evening, its members jumping around the stage while belting out a type of music that can only be described as fast and furious. The crowd hadn’t thinned out too much, but as the lead singer jumped into the audience and started slamming around, some of the more squeamish fans retreated.

“I can’t tell you how good it makes me feel to see all you here!” lead singer Paul Price bellowed breathlessly between songs.

The crust punks were slamming around, beer cans were getting tossed, and several fans had hoisted themselves up, grabbing exposed pipes in the ceiling. At one point, Price collided with a hanging stage light and nearly split his skull when it swung down on its cord. He was attempting to agitate the crowd, and it was working perfectly, while the band just kept getting more intense.

Then, everything went black.

Apparently two of the microphones were broken during their set, and the sound technician, who owned the mics, pulled the cord on the show.

A shouting match then erupted in the sound booth as members of Pitfall, who wanted to play next, and Tex Mexner tried to figure out what was going on.

The sound technician, identified only as Jeff, was upset that his mics had been broken, shouting that he’d warned the Tex Mexners to take it easy.

“I feel bad it happened, but we offered him a part of our cut,” Price said.

Tex Mexner is Bo Davis, drums, Gary Morkassel on bass, Adam Smith with the guitar and Paul Price on vocals.