You may have caught Chocolate Watchband’s uproarious shenanigans in Riot On Sunset Strip and The Love-Ins. Maybe you dug their take of the Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” which sounds more like the Rolling Stones than the Kinks due, in part, to lead singer David Aguilar’s more-than-passing similarities in voice and manner to Mick Jagger. And you can’t ignore Chocolate Watchband’s place in garage rock and Bay Area psychedelia. Maybe Bill Graham could have helped them achieve more success — we’ll never know. Though they didn’t quite hit the heights of the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and their San Jose rivals the Count Five, that hasn’t stopped occasional Chocolate Watchband resurfacings, including an album for 2019 called This Is My Voice.
It might be easy to dismiss new material by a 60s band like the Chocolate Watchband, and it was tempting to do just that. Really, what sort of album could Aguilar, guitarist Tim Abbott, and drummer Gary Andrijasevich, three members from the 1960s, along with guitarist Derek See and bassist Alec Palao, put together that would come close to capturing the Watchband’s youthful exuberance from 50 years ago? Without the daunting demand to score hits or steal the thunder from the hippest hit-makers and taste-makers, Chocolate Watchband have birthed a record of pure sincerity and heart, with just enough jagged edges to make it a little more audacious than a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
A raunchy, blaring guitar launches “Secret Rendezvous” before Aguilar hangs his rusty lungs around the huffy and puffy melody. Pushed forward by a brassy undertow, it’s a sassy start to an album of evolving dimension. The bluesy “Judgement Day” solidifies the intensity without going overboard. There’s a psychedelic sheen, a Pink Floyd glow, floating around the title track. It basks in a swaying cadence that glides right into Frank Zappa’s disturbingly topical “Trouble Everyday,” the best of the four covers on the album. There’s little need to revisit Music Machine’s “Talk Talk,” Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” or the Seeds’ “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine” if you’re not going to make them your own. Here, they’re more like tributes than valid contributions.
It’s the original songs on This Is My Voice that make it worth a spin. In addition to “Secret Rendezvous” and “Judgement Day, Aguilar’s “Bed” is an odd, sly pairing of the singer’s pining vocal and sliding guitars, unabashedly delivered without pretense or remorse. Abbott leads the way on the instrumental “Bombay Pipeline,” boiling in an infectious stew of sitars, acoustic guitars, and punchy percussion. It’s up to “‘Til The Daylight Comes” to end the album, so it opens with a Donald Trump sound byte and builds into a protest song with a twist. Instead of unleashing vitriol, Aguilar seeks to inspire with a simple message of optimism. Held to a perspective of wisdom and waywardness, Chocolate Watchband have crafted a record of equal measure, balancing a carefree attitude from the past with an acquired maturity for the present. This Is My Voice is definitely worth the trip, no matter where you land on the spectrum.
~ Shawn Perry
