A few years back, the Refreshments were a band with a decent hit in a song called “Banditos.”
For those who don’t remember the song, the chorus says something about the world being full of stupid people and impersonating Captain Jean Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets.
The Arizona band made a second album then split up. The band split up because the bass player wanted to spend more time with his family, and the guitar player had some unspecified trouble with substance abuse.
Lead singer Roger Clyne declined to continue the Refreshments, saying something about it not being the Refreshments if all the guys weren’t there.
Instead of signing a new band to some kind of national record deal and being bound to the current music fad, Clyne and his new band, the Peacemakers, chose to produce and distribute their music themselves. Clyne drew from other Tempe, Ariz., bands and musicians, including the former Gin Blossoms, to put the new band together.
Since the Refreshments broke up three or four years ago, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers have put together three releases. I think the first was an EP, and it’s unavailable.
The Refreshements were a fun, funny, light rock band. They didn’t fit the scene too well, but it was hard to anything less than love their music, something refreshing as we left Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice in Chains to the dreary, tedious early 1990s.
In my book, they about measured up to their fellow Arizonan Alice Cooper — And that’s tough to do. Alice Cooper is straight up the most interesting, greatest performer. So I wasn’t happy about them breaking up. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been because Clyne announced he was going to put the Peacemakers together.
I figured everything would be all right. The refreshments essentially lived. I tried to get my hands on copies of the second album. The first had already come and gone. I missed it somehow. Then came the second album.
I got on the Internet and tried to order it a couple of times. I had trouble making the order page work. Needless to say, I never got my hands on it. I n December, the Peacemakers announce their third album and that three independent record stores in Eugene and Portland will carry it.
I got on the phone to Face the Music in Eugene the instant I read about it. That was in December. They finally got it in early in March, and I got to hear it.
It’s not the Refreshments.
It’s better. It feels more textured, more real. The music is raw, with a great rough edge. It meanders through and blends full-on rock, relaxed southern rock and country to Mexican ballads, a distinct style that paints a vivid picture of the Southwest.
It’s a little off the wall, but anyone who’s tired of the same old mainstream rock or country will find a delightful refreshment in this Tempe band.
The “non-conformists” who find nothing good in the commercial rock scene and turn instead to the predictable and often mainstream strains of punk and thrash metal can find something wholly non-conformist here.
It’s nice to see a band combine a variety of styles in a new direction, break ground and do it without being weird like Radiohead.