Avail vocalist Tim Barry isn't apologetic about the bands he likes. He owns a CD by Hootie and the Blowfish, but he doesn't think there's anything unusual about his reverence for folksinger Woody Guthrie.
In fact, Barry said his band - a hard-core punk-rock quartet from Richmond, Va. - has been strongly influenced by Guthrie, whom he calls the "first true punk-rocker.""He wrote ultra-political songs, worked on the grassroots level and stood up for the things he believed in. Those are things that people have associated with punk rock," Barry said in a recent telephone interview.
Avail headlines a Thursday, Aug. 22, concert with A.F.I. at Northstar Pavilion (formerly the Cinema Bar), 45 W. Broadway.
Barry said he also admires Guthrie's deceptively simple songwriting, which he has emulated.
"Folk and bluegrass musicians were the forefathers of punk rock. (Folksingers) were the original two- or three-chord musicians," hesaid. "But their music had a heart and soul that really grabbed people."
Speaking of grabbing people, Avail's live shows are notorious for their energy, which has inspired some of the most crazed slamdancing seen since punk's heydays. But Barry admits the band has had its troubles translating its sheer force of will onto vinyl.
"I don't know if it's even possible for us to even do it. There's just something so basically different between performing in front of 100 or 1,000 people and performing while you're in the studio," he said.
The quartet's third CD, "4AM Friday," was recorded over one weekend in an attempt to find a live vibe.
"When you keep doing the tracks over and over again to make them sound right, you lose some of the feeling, the motivation," Barry said. "We don't mind if there are some small mistakes on the records - that's really us, not some glossy studio version."
Still, Barry believes recording songs is necessary to work out some of the bugs, as well as give fans something to sing along to.
"It would be kind of silly of us to keep them to ourselves," he said.
Local punk-rock acts N.S.C. and Blankshot will also perform during the all-ages concert, which starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 and will be available at the door at 7 p.m. It is a Cashmere production.