This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 4, 2012 - Last weekend, a trio of bands from St. Louis’ rock’n’pop past got together at Blueberry Hill’s Duck Room. But this wasn’t a night of reunions, per se.
The Lettuce Heads have been getting together for occasional gigs for at least a decade, combining sharp songwriting and impeccable harmonies. The Heebie Jeebies reunited earlier this year, obviously enjoying themselves enough to carry on for at least one more show. Rounding out the bill was the Painkillers.
First reforming for an April 15, 2011, show at Off Broadway, the band’s had right around a dozen shows since, while being perhaps the most unlikely band of their era to come back together.
A Webster Groves-based group of some renown in the ‘80s, the band splintered. Even as all four members of the group’s classic lineup continued playing in active groups, no sense of a comeback was brewing. And then there was no chance, as vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Jeff Barbush died. All that was left was the memory of their well-crafted live sets and an eight-song tape, “Painkillers,” that showcased their rangy new wave abilities.
But things would change and I confess to a small, luck and very special role in that. In late August 2010, I started shooting out some silly ideas I’d had, but not executed, just to see if any had life in the world outside my head. I’d begun listening to some tapes and a cassette of Jeff Barbush’s songs were in heavy rotation.
“The tape that got the most play in recent weeks,” I wrote, “is a mixtape of songs by Jeff Barbush, who headed up bands like the Painkillers and the Deadbeats… . The tape was given to me, if memory serves, by Marcia Pandolfi, whose brother Carl was a member of the Painkillers. That group, as I’ll ramble on about to anyone, is primarily responsible for my caring about pop music, at all, as they practiced two-doors-down from where I spent a chunk of my teens. Just as I was ready to absorb local rock, a local rock band was playing on the block.”
Shooting the piece around, I was surprised to hear from Joe Schwab, the owner of Euclid Records, who’d already begun building a label, Euclid Records ... Records. Also a fan of the group, he was interested in re-releasing the cassette as a limited run CD, but with an expanded tracklist, liner notes and photos. The surviving members were curious: keyboardist Pandolfi, drummer Jack Petracek and bassist Mike Martin. He secured an OK from the family of Jeff Barbush. I signed on to write liner notes, while pop fan Bill Michalski, too young to have seen the group, but touched by their music, headed up the album art. It wasn’t an immediate result, but things did move quickly.
So much so that the band played that Off Broadway show, rounded out by additional musicians. Tim McAvin, who’d played with Barbush in the wonderful and underrated Deadbeats, was in for some vocals, while Sean Garcia, who’d played for years with Martin in Tinhorn, essentially slipped into Barbush’s role of guitar and primary lead vocals. They played that night. Then a few more times. And then, something pretty interesting and unexpected began to happen.
Old band, new band
When you walk into Euclid Records and are told that Joe Schwab’s “in the basement” you know it means he’s shoulder-deep in pricing, methodically working his way through thousands of albums. On Monday afternoon, he was examining a large cache of white-label, ‘80s-era 12-inch singles. Even though a lot of the music was unknown to him, he knew a few would be money-makers, enough to make the time well spent.
He agreed to an impromptu interview and noted that the Painkillers had been morphing. Playing at the store during this past spring’s Record Store Day, “the band played all-new stuff, which was surprising. And especially because Carl was playing guitar.”
Schwab said the band’s pop songwriting of the earlier days isn’t always hinted at in the newer material, but he understands why the group’s changing and morphing under the same name.
“I don’t think the music sound like the Painkillers, personally, but it’s cool,” he says. “They like playing together. It makes sense to keep the name. It’s the right thing to do. Even in a small market like this, you’ve got a bit of a trademark.”
For Petracek, the band is almost like a new one, in many respects, trying on different sounds as they go, looking to determine what a long-range “sound” might feel like.
“We’re definitely doing a lot of new material,” he says. We’re “throwing stuff in the pot, then playing those out right away. Why the hell not? We’re getting a feel for a direction that seems to work best for us. We’re not afraid to do that, whoever writes the song, in whatever style and feel. It’s obviously going to take a certain shape because of who we are as musicians, in general. But once we’ve got a big enough pile, we’ll focus on the direction that works best for us. We haven’t ever sat down and said ‘this is what we’ll sound like.’ Nothing’s pre-planned. You tend to be forced that way. If a song doesn’t work, they can always go play it with one of their other bands.”
Primarily, that comment is squarely focused on Pandlofi, though Martin also stays busy with acts like The Deciders. In addition to teaching full-time at Webster’s The College School, Pandolfi plays in five bands. But that’s still a crazy amount of time spent rehearsing, if not gigging. Add in jobs, kids, adult life...
As Petracek says, “It’s been a little tricky, but it’s worked out. We don’t get a whole lot of rehearsal time before a show. We use Dropbox and do homework on our own between rehearsals. Carl definitely has a platterful, but this is all second nature to him. The one thing, too, is that we’re able to do shows as a three-piece. We did a Gazebo show without Mike, then played the Duck Room show without Sean. That gives us a little extra flexibility in how we can do it. Ideally, though, it’s the four piece. That is our key.”
Music, yes, friendship even more
When talking about the new-look Painkillers, Pandolfi mentions something interesting. The first time around, he and Barbush were at the musical core of the group. Petracek was a neat fit, as he was the hottest drummer at Webster High, a perfect complement to the emerging group. Martin came aboard and had to learn the bass; he wasn’t involved in all the recordings and was something of the odd man out. He rectified his sideman status quickly when leaving the group, forming a powerful unit in Three Foot Thick (with Petracek) when the Painkillers splintered.
For Pandolfi, already busy with his other projects, this version’s all about goodwill. He also says that Garcia, an amiable sort, was a linchpin in getting things rolling again, as “his voice is smooth and sweet and he really knows how to control it. And he plays a great guitar and knows how to work that giant pedal board.”
At first, the Painkillers were, in some respects, going back in time to cover their own material, and the tracks they covered back in the ‘80s. Now, little time is spent working on that material, the stuff featured on their brilliant, 21-track CD retrospective. Practices, songwriting ... all of it’s pointing in a new direction.
“The very first rehearsal without Jeff was weird,” Petracek admits. “But then when we were playing, and … there was so much chemistry. Carl’s so happy to be back with us, because there’s no dictator trying to mold one thing. It’s like we can do anything we want and see what happens. We’re comfortable with our own skins and abilities now. That feels good. There’s no band BS. Everything’s good, and practices are fun. We can come in with a song, never rehearsed or played before, and it’s really close to done when we leave after a few beers. There’s just a comfort working with these personalities.”
Like Schwab, I’ve caught some gigs and thought, “Wow, there’s another track I’ve never heard before.” And I’ve longed to hear this song, or that, from their back catalog, cuts that are disappearing from their playlists. But it’s obvious that this is a whole new bag, a new chapter for a talented group of guys who deserve to recapture whatever they wish this time around, especially after the tragedy of losing Barbush far too young. New songs, old songs, recordings or no, the Painkillers are a band again. And that’s kinda cool.
“It’s great that they’re still out doing it, keeping it going,” Schwab says. “I’m happy to see that.”