Hazel waits patiently outside T.T. the Bear's Club. At 36, she's no youngster, but she's a classic beauty and still gets her share of appreciative stares. Hazel is, of course, a custom-modified 1956 Chevy schoolbus, The Olivz's band-vehicle extraor-dinaire.

In fact, The Olivz commitment to The Bus is pretty much the only thing that distracts them from their music. Since they got together in 1986, Leo Ganley, George Chambers, Bill Boyd and Sean Sumner have concentrated on playing their own brand of alternative rock to the exclusion of everything else.

Leo Ganley, lead singer, says, "We've got to do this because we don't have a choice. We've given up a lot to do this...the chance to take high-paying jobs, relationships with people who depended on us, our cars, our health insurance, everything and we're on a mission, definitely."

What he's talking about is The Olivz raison d'etre--songwriting. Since 1986, The Olivz have recorded more than 100 original songs, totalling over 500 hours of 16 track studio time. They spend most of each day working on new music, and you get the distinct feeling that they'd live in the studio if they could.

They play only original songs. "We don't have a set list for tonight!" yells Leo as the band launches into an hour of rollicking Olivz tunes. The band likes to tailor its sets to the mood of the audience. With that kind of spontaneity, Ganley adds, "we can touch the crowd when we jam."

Tonight, the crowd is even closer than usual, dancing around the amps and leaning over the mike stands like an amoeba poised to engorge the band. The Olivz "regulars" sing along with Ganley's clear, Micheal Stipe-esque tenor. People slam dance. There's a brawl. It's chaotic, but tremendous fun.

George Chambers, lead guitar, belts out The Olivz tumbling melodies with a kind of blaring precision. He's fond of decibels--lots of them at once--but adds that "there's more to it than just sheer energy. There's melody too."

As for drummer Sean Summer, well you can't argue with a guy who cites muppet drummer Animal as one of his personal heroes. Sean smacks drums like a hyperactive kid demolishing sandcastles.

The best thing of all is that you can hear each instrument individually. The Olivz swim against the Nirvana-inspired grundge rock current of blur and amplifyer feedback. "Our music has balls, but our sound is clean," says Chambers.

The sound may be clean, but the Olivz lyrics are on the harsh side. Ganley cringes at the very mention of what he calls "mushy romance shit. Metal ballads. Aaarrgh!!!" Sometimes the lyrics are sarcastic, and other times they cross the line to snide. The Olivz only sliver of sentimentality is reserved for the subject of music itself, in lyrics like "God don't like on movie show/the people there live in make pretend/God loves his radio."

Ganley describes the band's musical development between mouthfuls of potato chips. "We've had the same goddamned focus forever. We write music because we don't like what we hear on the radio, and we've just grown up. We're still thesame goddamned band." He turns to George. "Aren'twe?"

"Yeah, but we're much better musicians than wewere before," says Chambers.

It was George Chambers who came up with theband's name. "It means nothing, so you can'treally equate it with anything." he says. "Iactually hate olives." Ganley explains, "There'sno baggage. You can't hate us for being TheOlivz."

When asked about life outside the band, TheOlivz wax vague and hedonistic. Sean tries "tokeep an open mind. Any woman will do."

Bill Boyd, bass player, is pensive and to thepoint. "Sex, music more sex. The moment.Coca-cola."