Tim Barry just released his ninth full album, Clear Blocks Ahead. He and I had a long, overdue conversation about everything and nothing, but sometimes about that new album.
In part 1 of this three-part series, I brought up my first AVAIL show and found out that it was a lot of you guys’ first AVAIL show too. The response I got from y’all was insane, and then also not. Because we love Tim. Richmond loves Tim. I mean, a lot of communities all over the world do, but we love him the hardest. I wondered at him about that relationship on the phone. I asked him how he responds to the pedestal we put him on. How he navigates that love. It seems that’s not his favorite question. Or at least not the one he’s super comfortable being eloquent about. He starts with an “eehhhh…” and then ramps up into a cogent, humble exploration of that energy in his life.
“Christian, I don’t know how to answer a question like that. It’s impossible for anyone to view themselves like everyone does, from the outside. I’ve realized, for someone that’s been in the public for most of my life, never famous, but around and pretty accessible, that I’m recognized for the sort of phases I’ve lived in.
“So, when people approach me, I can tell where they’re coming at me from. There’s the drunken train kid, which I was. There’s the hardcore punk, which is also where I’ve been. The Americana fan, which is where I am now. Or the proud parent, which I continue to be. I’ve publicly gone through all of these phases.”
“With that said, it’s a complex question. I navigate the world with very little complication in my day. I get up at 5:30 a.m., I make my kids breakfast. I take them to school. I run. I do management for the music. I pick them up from school. We go for a walk at the river, and I cook them dinner. That’s how simple my life is, and I really don’t think that far outside of that.
“I have this weird tic that as soon as I finish something, I’m on to the next project and completely forget about what I’ve just done. I was in between shows a couple weeks ago. I was walking down by the river, and I bumped into Nikki Barton and Darren Brown. They were all like, ‘That Dogwood Dell show was the peak of our summer.’ I stopped, had to pause and think, ‘When the fuck was that?’ It was just a couple months ago!
“But I have done so many things since then, and right now I’m working my ass off on November Fest. After that, I fly straight to Europe. Then I’m doing this special recording at Spacebomb. Then a full U.S. tour. So, I’m constantly on to the next thing. So it’s hard for me to focus or grasp what and how people appreciate me and what I do. But what’s most important, and what I hope people recognize, is that I just really like to use music as an excuse to bring people together.
“If I’m appreciated, I hope that’s what’s being recognized. We can get off the apps and all go to a free show at Dogwood Dell, which is itself an act of resistance against the powers that control the industry and their captive strategy, owning tours, selling $18 beers and such. If we can gather as a community and celebrate not me, not my songs, but celebrate the gathering, that’s what I want to be remembered and appreciated for.”
He doesn’t want you to love him, he wants you to love everyone with him. He is insistent on this point but is quick to change the subject. I feel for him because that is a tricky thing to answer from his vantage point. Adoration looks like a burden when applied to a satisfied ego. It feels like lift when shared reciprocally.
He wants to talk about November Fest, and I want to let him. Talking about himself is his personal collapsing temple of doom, and he rushes to escape it. Regardless, one thing that is plainly obvious is how much he loves us. His specific, granular knowledge of and fascination with Richmond and the people in it has always been obvious.
Clear Blocks Ahead opens with “W.W. Pool.” It’s a narrative, not necessarily biographical, but just secretly relatable. These prosaic songs are personal in ways we can subtextualize collectively but feel intimately. There are so many verses on this album that resonate, but this song has a couple of my favorites. Wanderlust in contradiction to the inexorable pull of Richmond is something I’ve been writing about for decades. He just happens to do it better than me.
No way, no way, no way I’ll ever leave
If we end up drinking, will you fight me for the keys
Hollywood Vampire kisses on the cheek
You have always meant so much to me.
…
A hard dog to keep on the porch
Never really needed much
Just a corner in a little house
Filled to the ceiling with love
…
Never cared what people think
I fight dirty for my family
So November Fest is coming up, and he gets excited to tell me (and you) about it. It’s three shows at the Camel from Nov. 20th to the 22nd that bring his musical and blood family together.
That Friday, the lineup includes Julie Karr, (longtime collaborator) Josh and Bobby Jo Small, Roger Harvey, Lance Koehler, Sally Rose, his sister Caitlin, and daughter Lela Jane. Saturday sees some of those performers return but adds Andrew Alli. Sunday brings everyone back for a family-friendly show in the afternoon to cap off the experience.
We get the opportunity to step into his world that he’s cultivated for decades. This event feels more like going to a family reunion than it does a concert. As he says, “The smaller the room, the bigger the memory.”
Last year, they did a donation drive for Little Hands Virginia, providing kids’ products for families in need. He relates that the city absolutely showed up and created a very successful gifting event/community improvement effort. He gets so animated describing the good that can, does, and will be done. He is knuckles-deep in this effort himself and corrals hundreds of his friends, other musicians, and aligned civic groups to do as much good as possible that weekend.
“If I’m recognized by people in a positive light, it should be clear that this is an accumulation of all that I’ve learned from punk, hardcore, and countercultures all over the world. This is not really ‘punk,’ it’s just how we’re supposed to be.”
“I have this unique relationship with the public, where I can just do it a little bigger. We’re at this breaking point. You have to focus on what’s in front of you. The global scene is just too much, and it will break you down. If you can distribute diapers, feed your elderly neighbors, you can heal us all one community at a time.
“This is how you make Richmond greater every fucking day. You have a choice to complain and be beaten down, or raise your head and smile with a ‘We can get through this together.’ Get off social media and stop arguing with invisible people.”
I couldn’t agree more. Hardcore punk is a mindset for doing the right thing and standing up for those that can’t. It’s not the outfit. It’s not even really the music. It’s being the sheepdog that separates the wolves from the flock. It’s an activist mentality unfazed by opposition. This isn’t owned solely by the DMV-area punk scenes, but it is inseparable from it. The music slaps too, though.
We changed the subject again. Like a lot of us, I’ve seen him become the proudest dad ever over the decades. He wears a lot of hats in his relationship to everything, but “father” is his favorite. He beams as he tells me his daughter Lela Jane has finally found her singing voice and is featured on a couple of songs on the new album. One of my favorite tracks has her joining Tim on the decidedly John Prine-like duet “Wreck-Less.” It’s exciting to hear her vocal quality so in tune with the Americana she’s been raised with.
They complement each other well, and one can only wonder where music will take her in the future. Their synergy is obviously familial, and his pride in her is loud.
Will you wrap a blanket around my shoulders when it’s cold?
Will you hold my hand in the grocery store?
Will you stand beside me, when I’m feeling awful reckless
Will you let me drive and not tell me to slow it down?
The slide guitar and trotting pace of the song seem straight off the Grand Ole Opry stage. Not to get too Vin Diesel Fast and Furious about it, but his appreciation for “family” and unconditional love is refreshing. His invitation to huddle under the same shelter he’s constructed feels like body heat against a cold rain. It serves Richmond a tighter sense of belonging.
This has been the case with nearly everything with his name on it. His music is meant to be experienced together, and against the odds.
I’ve got one more installment in this series I want to get out, but I’ll leave this one here for the moment. Send me your Tim Barry stories at cd@rvamag.com, and I’ll try to incorporate them into it.
Main photo by Nicole Kibert
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