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And His Band Plays On

Clay Tarver

In August of last year, Kenny Chambers, formerly of the well-known Boston band Moving Targets, replaced Brennan. After their first show in their new incarnation, in November at T.T. the Bear's, Bullet LaVolta signed a contract with Taang! records, a small independent label. Two weeks ago, after a few months' delay, they released their first record. They were recently invited, as one of Boston's best 24 bands, to compete in WBCN's Rumble.

Tarver plans to spend the next year or two in Boston and on tour with the band, but he does not see himself headed for rock stardom. "It's not an attempt to try to make it in the music business," he says. "But I want to do it as well and as seriously as I can. Not being in school will give me a chance to concentrate on doing music really well."

The Boston music scene, explains Logue, has a lot to do with the music "intelligentsia," students from Harvard, Emerson and MIT who sport "the Allston Beat look and whose bands break up because one of the membners is going to law school," Instead of denying its Harvard affiliation or faking an anti-intellectual stance, Bullet LaVolta's performance style celebrates the fact that Harvard students can be real musicians.

Bullet LaVolta's not-quite-punk style evolved in part from Tarver's Texas childhood. "It combines the newest, most underground music I heard once I got to college with the shitty music I listened to in Texas," Tarver says, a bit nostalgic for San Antonio.

Tarver places great value on his Texas roots, defining himself as a Texas-bred boy. His family has lived in Texas for eight generations and he very attached to San Antonio. A city where Mexican and American culture are closely integrated, San Antonio is bigger than a small town but without a big city's alienation. Explains Logue, "Clay is really tied to all that."

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This attachment is clear in Tarver's senior thesis, which he wrote about an educational issue fought out in the San Antonio public schools. "I wanted to write something about my home," Tarver says. "It's where I'm most comfortable and where I have the most invested." His thesis explored two cases which challenged Texas' educational financing methods, raising the question of whether education is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution.

Texas schools are funded according to a minimum foundation system, whereby each district is allotted an amount per student which is supplemented on an individual basis according to the property taxes the district pays. Thus, the districts with little or no valuable property receive far less money per student than property-rich districts. In 1968, a group of parents who felt their children were being cheated out of a good education charged that this financing system discriminates against the poor. The Supreme court judged that poverty could not be a cause for discrimination, but also stated that the right to education was not guaranteed constitutionally.

In 1987, another group of parents brought the same charges against the state and won. A specific restructuring plan has not yet been worked out, but Texas has agreed that it is unfair that the children of Edgewood, a lower middle-class residential district with low property values, receive an inferior education. One possible remedy under consideration is allotting funds based on sales tax instead of property tax.

In the 20 years between the two cases, a powerless group of parents evolved into a well-organized interest group with access to political resources. Tarver's thesis investigated "how people got involved in this sort of social movement and how it changed them," he says.

Eventually, Tarver says, he may pursue similar studies in the form of documentary films. Although he admits he may go to film school, he adds he is turned off by the fact that "everyone and his mother wants to go to film school now." For now, Tarver's ideology of cultural activism is at times hidden by his almost sullen silence--and his hair. On first impression, his quiet confidence crosses the line into arrogant rock stardom, and it is difficult to reconcile that image with that of the boy from San Antonio, Texas. Logue--who has lived with Tarver for three years--recalls the first time they met freshman year. "I was sitting outside playing my guitar, when Clay came and took it from me, without saying anything, and started to play. I looked at him and said, `That's pretty good, Clyde,' (that's what I thought his name was). He looked back, sneered and said, `My name is Clay.' I said, `Give me back my fucking guitar.' "

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