Watershed

When I once remarked that I liked local band Watershed, a friend of mine agreed that they were good but that all the songs tended to sound the same after a while, and that they weren’t very original to start with. But I don’t know. Though seeing them play live twice and admittedly walking out in the middle of their set the first of those occasions, I have to kind of disagree with his assessment. And I know that they never were considered cool enough among Columbus’s taste making elite, so my support for them is surely a real eye roller. But I still think they were better than many of their massively hyped contemporaries, and I wasn’t alone in believing this. After all, Sony signed them to their Epic label at a time this was considered a very big deal indeed, releasing both a live EP and full studio album by the band.

Three Chords And A Cloud Of Dust, the live one, is a fascinating document just for its liner notes alone. Though owning this CD for a while now, I always forget that it was actually recorded in Columbus, at the Newport Music Hall, on January 14, 1994. The marquee depicted inside the disc has Watershed’s name in lights playing the Newport this particular Friday, with another local staple, Ekoostik Hookah, booked for the following Wednesday. Thank yous take up an entire page of the packaging and amount to a virtual C-bus who’s who of people and places, from music venues such as Bernie’s to the Used Kids record store to popular DJ Andyman at independent radio station CD101, musicians such as Willie Phoenix, hometown heavyweight champion Buster Douglas, and everyone else they loved down to the “sandwich artists” at a treasured Subway franchise. Naturally, the roll call would not be complete without a “fuck you” to Michigan basketball players Jalen Rose and Juwan Howard; meanwhile, at the other end of the emotional spectrum, on an opposite page this EP is dedicated to Terry Paul, who died the morning that show was recorded, without whom “the Newport will not be the same.”

This being 1994, there is no mention of a website. Similarly documenting these times in telling detail would be the subdued, black and white packaging, the presence of Spin Doctors producer Frankie LaRocka as co-helmsman (he had also kickstarted that band’s major label career with a 6 song live EP), and of course the songs themselves. Written by frontman/guitarist Colin Gawel and bassist slash forklift driver (according to the liner notes) Joe Oestreich, brought to life on stage with the assistance of drummer Herb Schupp, true, these aren’t the most groundbreaking songs then in existence, maybe, but certainly are catchy and played with a ton of enthusiasm. They call to mind a mix somewhere between the Smithereens and that loping, distinctly Midwestern take on punk rock – slower, less obviously snotty, but just as angst riddled. Gawel’s voice is perfectly pleasant and serviceable, although I find myself enjoying the moments he passes the torch briefly to Oestreich on a couple of tracks. The best selection of the set is one such number, How Do You Feel, which somehow adds an almost No Depression-esque Americana twinge to the proceedings, has a great opening riff and catchy chorus. An audience singalong in the closing moments doesn’t hurt, either.

They probably could have stood a little more variation in tempo on this selection, but you know it translated even better live than it sounds on here, and anyway, after a handful of listens most of these numbers are going to be stuck in that hummable place in your head exactly as they are. So consider this a job well done. I don’t really get nostalgic much for bygone eras, although listening to this does fill me with equal parts sadness and fascination, that a major media corporation was willing to spend money on these guys, and had faith that they just might be the next worldwide phenomenon.

II.

I have thus far managed to see Watershed twice. The first of these was a free concert at Polaris in the summer of ’95, the other this show two years later at Chelsie’s. After which, having already met all three band members here, a bunch of us climb into separate cars and journey en masse to some house party.

The bash in question would be at Casey’s house on Blake, near campus. Clif is following me, as we’ve driven in separate cars, but when I find a curbside spot just up the street, he is forced to continue driving around. I get out and start looking for 79 West Blake. But my eyesight is horrible, so I mainly just traipse around hoping to bump into someone I know. There’s no hope whatsoever of spotting the address on a house, even from the sidewalk, so it’s a matter of recognizing voices or promising situations or something.

At some point, I pass these four dudes hanging out on a porch. They yell hi to me and I shout a hello back at them, but keep walking. Then one of them hollers, “yo dude! Up here!” and I realize it’s that redheaded Joe guy. Upon retreating and joining them on the porch, I see the address is 59 Blake, which means someone must have given me the wrong coordinates somewhere along the line, or else I screwed it up. But no, it actually turns out to be neither – Joe had just been walking along, and these three guys he’d never met before invited him up for a beer. They’re having a party themselves, and offer me a frosty beer as well. Someone breaks out an acoustic guitar, and Joe is soon strumming familiar cover songs to surprisingly good effect. Then we invite these random characters to the actual party we’d been trying to find, and traipse the few houses up to 79 West Blake.

As we arrive, Clif and one of the twins are sitting on this address’s own dark front stoop, waiting patiently for me to show.

“Man, where the hell you been!” Clif howls, “I was afraid you got jumped or something!”

Our ravenous stomachs respond to the smell of fried beef, and we follow this aroma around to the back of the house, where Laura’s presiding over a gas grill. A handful of her friends sit around a picnic table in the cramped backyard, chomping down on burgers, while the house itself fills up with seemingly every soul who’d been in attendance at Chelsie’s and then some. The person or persons living here is never fully explained but I gather Laura’s boyfriend to be involved in some capacity, as he stands behind the living room bar dispensing drinks, cracking jokes and pouring draft beer into cups from a keg-a-rator, located nearby.

“How do you like your burger?” the other twin asks me, as the four of us are hanging near the back stoop, she and I and Clif and his own targeted twin.

“Rare as hell,” I smile.

“All these burgers are already taken!” Laura snaps, flipping over the current roster with her spatula, “and there’s none left inside, either.”

My theoretical twin slips inside for a moment, shooting me a discreet smile when she returns, toting a few pounds of ground beef she has magically located in the kitchen. As she gets the next batch going for Clif and me and the two of them, the crowd of people filling up the house keeps growing exponentially, but we remain here, sucking in the cool autumn air. In the absence of the otherwise ubiquitous bright white security lights, this block of Blake is shrouded in black, atypically dark. A dimness further enhanced by the thick, dense trees surrounding this place, the murky sky above.

The house is old like nearly every other home on campus, imbued with corresponding charm. Too small to accommodate this many people but they’re doing their damnedest anyway, in this house with Buckeye paraphernalia plastered on every wall, tossed into every corner. Every light in the house is blazing bright, and when I file upstairs to use the restroom the stairwell itself is impossibly narrow and steep, a tricky maneuver even when stonefaced sober.

A whole bunch of people will continue filtering into this party. Though not really knowing anyone else when this night began, I will hang out for long after Clif leaves. At one point I remember standing and talking to the key Watershed duo, Colin and Joe – Gawel and Oestreich, as it turns out, respectively –  in the middle of this bright living room. Then some old dude with a really long beard walks up and gets on this kick about how I look extremely familiar to him. He indeed seems familiar to me as well, though neither of us can place it. Somewhere past 3 in the morning I realize most of the good looking girls seem to have left, and I never really talked to any of them, so I take this as my cue to split.