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by Dave Kirby
His latest CD, Side Streets-Live, his fourth since taking his craft full-time in 1993, draws from live performances from May 2000 through May 2001 at Passim's, the relocated, legendary folk venue in his native Boston. The disc is an impressive recording-excruciatingly clean, detailed and sympathetic to Williams' nuanced and expressive vocals. It has a kind of warmth and intimacy that live recordings sometimes forgo in favor of audience-fueled crackle.
"I couldn't have been more pleased with the way it came out," he said. "The guy who mixed it did a fabulous job with it.
"Passim's is such a special place for me. It's in the basement of this building; basically it holds about 120 people, not a bad seat in the house. I'm really into making contact with my audience, making eye contact, and this place is just perfect for that. And the fact that it's a local crowd, people who know me, just makes it that much better. In some ways, it really captures what I do, maybe even better than the last studio CD I did."
Williams' songs explore themes of redemption and uncertainty, faith and regret, being lost and being found. He seems at home with straight verse/chorus arrangements as with more loosely bound arrangements, and you get the sense that he challenges his listener ever so gently while offering familiar images and hard-won wisdom.
But Williams admits that his craft is songwriting, and that it's not always the most reliable muse.
"I'd say I'm the type who gets an idea for a song, or sometimes just a phrase, and then I have to absolutely focus on it to make it the kind of song I think it should be. There are some players out there who just seem to write tons and tons of great songs, seemingly effortlessly. Pierce Pettis (an old friend) and David Wilcox are like that. I just marvel at how many great songs they can produce.
"I don't write as much as I should. For me, I really have to make it priority and set aside the time to do it."
We wondered how do you make a living as a singer/songwriter, spend a third of the year or more on the road playing coffeehouses and festivals, and not end up writing songs about being a songwriter on the road?
Williams laughed.
"That's a good question, and, yeah, it can be a challenge," he said. "And to a certain extent my last studio CD was a little bit about that. I was listening to it again recently, and it occurred to me that the songs on it, some of them at least, were about getting back to priorities, about keeping things in perspective.
"And I guess I was feeling that sort of thing back then. I do a lot of the business part of this myself, like booking shows and so forth, and I think it' too easy to get too caught up in the whole business end of it and forget about the things that really matter. And one of those things is writing songs. So I'll be taking most of July off-just to relax, take it all in, do some writing and see what happens. And not write road songs. I really think the world could do very well if it never has to hear another road song."
But despite a reasonably successful career-plenty of opening gigs, a solid following back east, decent festival invitations-Williams admits that he's still a work in progress.
"I guess I'd say I haven't quite 'found my voice' just yet. I think I'm close."
We remarked that was the sort of thing that a critic would say.
"Well, when I do find it, I hope to know before the critics do."
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
Diamond Dave vs. Van Hagar
by Alan Sculley
Not David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar.
There's no avoiding that this double bill pits the two former Van Halen singers, who each have staked a claim to being the only legitimate frontman that the heavy metal band ever employed, against each other.
There's no overlooking the many pointed barbs these two have aimed at each other in interviews ever since Roth walked out on Van Halen in 1985 only to see Hagar step into the void, seemingly without missing a beat. If this tour is to be a referendum to once and for all determine which was the mightiest of the Van Halens-the original Roth-led lineup or the Van Hagar unit that consistently topped the charts from 1984 to 1995-Roth seems more than happy to let the people decide.
When it comes to Roth, whose legendary ego and loquacious skills for self-promotion were on blatant display in this interview, there's no mistaking who he thinks will be the real star of this show. "I may have saved Sam from having to do celebrity boxing, at least this season," Roth said.
To hear Roth tell it, he'll not only have no problem overshadowing Hagar's tequila-lubricated, Cabo Wabo-styled on-stage party, he plans to render most any other rock star irrelevant-or at least inferior-by the time he finishes his flamboyant set devoted to his pre-Hagar Van Halen hits.
"I'm at contest with the entire world," Roth declared. "I intend to compete with the fella in Limp Bizkit (that would be Fred Durst), I intend to compete with Snoop Doggy. I intend to compete with Kid Rock.
"Sam just happens to be on the tracks," Roth added, unleashing a hearty laugh. "Nevertheless, any kind of head butting we've been doing in the press makes for great show biz. And it's the kind of altercation an audience delightedly wants to get in the middle of, because you are delivering absolutely the zenith of each guy's performance."
To be fair, both Roth and Hagar are accomplished showmen who plan to give the fans exactly what they want. But what's also fair is the reality that Roth and Hagar need each other-and a tour like this-at this point in their careers.
Hagar has continued to record regularly, but recent CDs such as Red Voodoo and Marching To Mars have found only a modest audience. This is a far cry from the multi-million units his albums with Van Halen (such as 5150, OU812 and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) moved through record store cash registers. As for Roth, he briefly enjoyed success with his 1995 EP Crazy From The Heat and first full-length solo CD, Eat 'Em and Smile. But it's pretty much been downhill ever since, as subsequent albums, such as Skyscraper, A Little Ain't Enough and Your Filthy Mouth, delivered diminishing returns. His most recent effort, a 1998 DLR Band CD, stiffed rather spectacularly, despite getting some favorable reviews.
The fact that Roth has recently endured a pair of failed reunions with his former Van Halen bandmates-guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony-has only reinforced the notion that Roth longs for the glory days of old with his one-time band.
Roth first returned to the Van Halen picture in 1996, recording two songs for a greatest hits album, while Hagar, who was not informed of the pending studio flirtation with Roth, was officially still in the band. A miffed Hagar was soon out of Van Halen, while the Roth reunion imploded over internal tensions after a performance on MTV.
Despite that debacle, Roth and his Van Halen cohorts took another shot at fence mending by recording three new tracks in 2000. Nothing, though, has come of this second reunion. And it's clear that Roth considers this a colossal missed opportunity for Van Halen.
"Eddie Van Halen is guilty of one crime, wasting time," Roth said. "You want to know how valuable a second is? Ask your buddy who almost had a motorcycle accident. Want to know what the value of a millisecond is? Ask the little girl who just got a silver medal. Eddie Van Halen has wasted years, end of story. Besides nobody gives a flat fuck (about Van Halen) if Roth's not in the band."
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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It's a beautiful evening, the crickets are chirping. It's all good." Christopher Williams was backstage at an outdoor amphitheater in Virginia last weekend when we got him by cell phone. It was actually a night off for the Boston-based folk artist, he was catching a gig by some of his friends, and he took a few minutes to talk about songwriting, the road and the perils of life as a folk artist.
Most artists who do co-headlining tours at least provide the appearance of peace and harmony of two bands united for the love of music and the common good of their beloved fans.
