Vaudeville

1991–1998

originally published December 20, 2006

Back in the '90s, Vaudeville enjoyed a unique presence here in Athens. The band was, in real terms, a noisy rock group, but outside of that, its sound was obliquely defiant in terms of category. The duo of Don Chambers and Arthur Tarratus and three separate drummers would eventually embrace angular, melodic music, but the band's beginning was anything but obvious.

Vocalist Chambers recalls the very beginning: "I met Arthur in 1987 while living in Atlanta," he says. "I started coming to Athens on weekends to play music with him [and] moved to Athens in 1988 to go to graduate school. I think we played our first show at the Downstairs in 1989 under the name Cursing Alice." Acutely aware that an acoustic guitar duo could quickly find itself tagged as a "folk" group, the pair played purposefully percussive tunes and, subsequently, lost their share of fingernails and blood, which legend holds was never cleaned from their guitars.

Arthur Tarratus remembers things only slightly differently. "We broke a lot of guitar strings in Cursing Alice," he says. "I think our first show was at the Rockfish Palace. Bill Mallonee had a show and because it was Christmas week and very few people were still in town, the show was going to be low-key, so he invited us to open and graciously began to prod us out of living rooms and into clubs. And I think we started breaking strings from that first show on."

At The Time

The duo quickly tired of this setup and wanted to branch out electrically. "We recorded a three- or four-song demo, but grew tired of acoustic guitars. You can only take so many lost fingernails," says Chambers. "When we formed Vaudeville, the idea was to keep it stripped down, but louder and quieter, too. We loved the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Captain Beefheart, but Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday, too. We wanted it all. Larry Acquaviva joined the band; I switched to bass and Arthur to a Telecaster. We played locally and in Atlanta, opened for Widespread Panic at the Georgia Theatre. After a few years, Larry moved to Texas and Andy Baker joined the band."

It's this lineup that sticks in many minds as the "classic" arrangement of Vaudeville. "I met Donnie through a mutual friend at Kinko's," says Andy Baker, whose band Bliss was nearing its end. "I started going to see Vaudeville play before I joined up with them… I wasn't really a drummer, but somehow I tricked them into thinking I could do it. I practiced on my own a lot and managed okay."

Vaudeville could regularly be seen playing local venues such as the 40 Watt Club and the now-defunct venues Rockfish Palace, Frijolero's and Downstairs. As comfortable playing with national acts as locals, Vaudeville played many a cheery gig with Athens bands such as Five Eight, Ceiling Fan, Elf Power, Vic Chesnutt, Harvey Milk, Jack-O-Nuts and internationally famous bands like 10,000 Maniacs. "My favorite show was Halloween, 1998," says Chambers. "When we put on an art show and party in the Quality Warehouse [now occupied by Farm 255]. We hung 50 scarecrows from the ceiling and played at 3 a.m. to a crazy crowd of people fueled by unknown substances and dancing at the top of ladders."

Baker, who was becoming an in-demand recording engineer, left the group in 1996. Brad Morgan replaced him and the band recorded the album Into the Burlesque. "We recorded our only full-length CD with Jeff Capurso producing/ engineering," says Tarratus. "Brad played drums. We tracked the whole thing at the 40 Watt on a couple Sundays, finished it up at Jeff's house. That album got some college radio play. I think we were huge in Waco, TX, but we never got to play there."

Why The Split?

The breakup of Vaudeville is fuzzy but a common-enough scenario: after working hard for several years, without attendant rewards, the members started to focus on other things. "Being young, we were always hoping for a record label and money to tour. When, after seven years, that never came, we lost energy," says Chambers. "We all had day jobs and high hopes, and couldn't see any other choice but 'getting signed' as a measure of success. When that didn't happen, I think we all were ready to move on and try something new."

He says, "It was a blurry end. We never played a farewell show, never really said it was over. Arthur went to Spain to study flamenco guitar; I started writing on my own for the first time in 10 years. By the time Arthur got back, Brad had joined the Drive-By Truckers."

Tarratus says, "I could write 23 pages to say 'I don't really know [why].' We used to play a song called 'Breathe' at the end of our set. It seemed at home there. That was a song that refused to let me meter out my emotions. It was like, 'spend it all or get off the stage before you start.' So, at the end of the song, it felt very natural to just set the guitar on a stand, or against the amp, and let the tone hum cushion the re-entry. Sometimes the soundperson would let the hum go on for a nice while.  Vaudeville feels like that for me."

These Days…

Since the split eight years ago, Arthur Tarratus worked at Cycle World and out at the Kawasaki/ KTM shop. He spent some time visiting the Dominican Republic and is currently working for a mission endeavor to Colombia. Andy Baker joined robot-rock band Servotron after leaving Vaudeville, went on to cofound Chase Park Transduction, record numerous acts at his home studio and served time in Athens bands Producto and The Glands.

Larry Acquaviva has made music via his projects Slaphappy and Acquaviva and has continued to be a creative - if low-key - force since his return to Athens several years ago. Brad Morgan drums with Drive-By Truckers. Don Chambers spent a good amount of time as a bartender at the Flicker Theatre & Bar and started playing solo shows around 1999. He released his debut Back in the Woods, recorded with The Fountains, in 2002. "I think Goat formed around 2003," he says of his current band. "I don't keep good records."

Gordon Lamb

That Beat in Time is a biweekly feature examining dearly departed local acts worth digging up.