Ode to a Country Band: Or, Darn It, Holdfast Rifle Company!

Posted on 10/26/09 by   Megan Sullivan

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The Holdfast Rifle Company is slowly but surely winning over the hearts of Santa Barbara musicophiles, and rightly so. But who knew country music could be this cool?

Years ago, I sure didn't. I grew up in the foothills of Northern California, where each town has a smaller and more hillbilly neighboring town to make fun of. Growing up, you could always be happy that you didn't have to live there; as such I carefully avoided all things country, from music to cowboy boots to camping, wary of being identified with anything remotely hick-ish. As a teenager, I took great interest in folk music, and later even alt-country, but I always steered clear of country western.

This, then, is the story of my evolution. This is the story of me falling hard in love with someone from one of those littler hick towns.

Love’s Gonna Live Here

I remember, about a year ago now, this conversation I had with Ralph Lowi outside the Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) music department. It was the beginning of fall and, having graduated from UCSB (University of California at Santa Barbara) two years prior, I missed certain things about student life—namely, my deliberate and effortful concentration on singing. I ran into Ralph after day 2 of my new SBCC voice class and we talked a few things musical. I was singing folk tunes with my friend Ryan Andersen and studying jazz with Isaac Jenkins. Ralph was teaching a course on the history of Rock & Roll, working on a PhD in Ethnomusicology, and frontrunning a country band. A country band! I was intrigued. I’d known Ralph for years through various circles of friends and coworkers, but this was perhaps the first time I’d ever really talked to the guy.

Stay A Little Longer

So this band’s a honky tonk variety called “Holdfast Rifle Company.” Awesome—but a mouthful!—it’s been confused as the Hold Fast Rifle Company, the Coldfast Rifle Company, and worst, by the Santa Barbara Independent no less, the Cold Fast Rifle Company. Brad Reeves, band drummer, and his penchant for nomenclature are to thank for the band’s arresting title. Brad’s been around since the beginning—roughly two years ago now—when he and Ralph would get together and play through songs as a means of helping Ralph through some big love-shit. Having joined the band around the time of a significant break-up, I too can attest to what Ralph has called country music’s ability to lend “some kind of beautiful and accurate expression” to heartache. I had tried yoga and cigarettes and even counseling. I knew Ralph’s words were true: “Nothing else even comes close.”

The guys, at first, never intended to play out. But things started to coalesce as new members came on, and soon it seemed only natural to get the band “out there.” During my time with the Holdfast Rifle Company, the band played shows at the Isla Vista Biko Garage, Cold Spring Tavern, Elsie’s, the Mercury Lounge, and Whiskey Richards. They’ve played some house parties and also at the Creekside Bar on upper State St., where you’ll find some (mostly terrible) country music and line-dancing every Wednesday night.

Honky Tonk Angels

A handful of people have come and gone from Holdfast’s lineup*—Rebecca Riley (bass and vocals; Bad Heart Bull), Ty Hegner (bass; The Hero and the Victor), Gus Lizarraga (bass; Beleza Pura), Ben Wilmore (guitar), Lillie Gordon (fiddle), Kathy Meizel (vocals), Gabe Clark (guitar; The Hero and the Victor, Quiet Giants, Lone Angels) and me, Megan Sullivan (vocals).

When I sang with Holdfast, the lineup was entirely different yet equally sizable and multi-talented. We’d meet Wednesday nights at Brad’s workshop, a few doors down from Muddy Waters café (and music venue) on Haley Street in downtown Santa Barbara. Ralph would arrive first, sometimes begrudgingly, with a hefty supply of PBR. Gabe Clark might be there too, and Terry Luna (on bass) and I would follow soon after. If we were lucky, Phil Murphy or Nick Coventry would join us (on lap steel/pedal steel and fiddle/lap steel) but very rarely would we find all seven of us in the same room. We’d be lucky to pull this off at shows.

Sparkle and Shine

Back to winning over the hearts of Santa Barbara: I’ve been to almost every Holdfast show in 2009, and I’ve yet to encounter someone whose taste in country music has not been transformed by this group’s talent and careful selection of tunes. This ain’t the kind of country you’ll find on CMT or any recent Top 10 chart. This particular country is informed by history and legends; it cuts right to the heart and soul of old-timey, honky tonk goodness.

There’s a huge lack of bands out there playing this type of music. I recently asked Ralph what he’d like people to know about the band: “Uuuhhh… don’t ask for any Toby Keith, I guess… We’re trying to start with a traditional honky-tonk sound from the ground up as opposed to being a rock band that throws in an occasional Johnny Cash cover or a kitsch band that plays washboard and sings about hookers and moonshine. While those seem to be more popular these days, I don’t think any of us have any interest in playing that stuff… Traditional country is a really deep well of emotional and musical expression and it really deserves a sincere full-time effort on the part of its practitioners.”

Price To Pay

In September I joined Holdfast Rifle Company for my last show at Cold Spring Tavern in the fire-struck hills of Santa Barbara. It was a fun, bittersweet coda spent surrounded by best friends and family. Meghan Lehman—good friend, talented songwriter, and first recorded One Night Music artist—was there too. She had joined the band as I left town, consolidating the vocal and guitar roles formerly split by Gabe Clark and myself. I miss the band immensely, but from where I sit and think and write in San Francisco, Holdfast’s evolution seems an exercise in large forward strides.

The video on this blog was taken this summer at Cold Spring Tavern. It features “The Way It’s Supposed To Be,” a song of Ralph Lowi’s I’ve had stuck in my head for months now. Ralph’s songs, in their complexity, succinctness and depth of expression, rival honky tonk classics. And at the risk of sounding absolutely cliché, for me the Holdfast Rifle Company will always be irreplaceable. I’m certain, in some way, I’ll always pine for our Wednesday night rehearsals, that time I first loved the taste of whiskey, those emails from Ralph, song attached, reading, “Let’s do this tune!” My time with Holdfast has sparked a lifetime affair with a genre I never before had the heart to explore. Now, a bit of country, I feel, infiltrates everything I do. I want to sing Kitty Wells off rooftops! I want to reprimand every stranger I hear condemn country music. You don’t know country, I’d say! That stranger would laugh, roll his eyes, even write me off as a country-bumpkin, but I wouldn’t care.

Heartaches and Hangovers

post script I need a country band in San Francisco. Contact me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Plus, my sincere “thanks” to all the following members of Holdfast, as well as past members I’ve had the pleasure to work with. For more information, including recordings and show dates, visit www.myspace.com/holdfastriflecompany.

This blog post was written by

Megan Sullivan