Chavez 'Ride The Fader'

Chavez (no, not Hugo!) was a Matador band in the 90s, and their cds have now been brought back into print, with an accompanying dvd chronicling the band’s work. “Better Days Will Haunt You” is a fully remastered (what isn’t these days?) double CD-plus-DVD, and is billed by Matador as ‘…a tribute to over-completeness and deluxitude‘. While only churning out 2 albums, they had some great songs, and rocked out live. You can (should) take a listen to some Chavez studio fun on Matador’s audio page; the flowing tracks, “The Guard Attacks / Unreal is here” is a great showcase for what the band had to offer. I saw them open for Guided by Voices in ’95 in St. Louis, and lead singer, Matt, filled in on bass for GbV in the late ’96 era of the band when current bass player had to return to Dayton to continue his law practice. However, one thing that will always stick with me is the video of theirs to ‘Unreal is here’, where they lampoon the music biz in wonderful fashion. Either I love the song because I love the video or the other way around, no matter, both are great.