Overcome by the Undertow
by Heidi Matz
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.” —Macbeth
“I’ve come for you/come return with me. Delivery.”
—Andrew Charles Koch
“Look what just washed up on the beach!”
—Unknown
The audience at West Hollywood’s Whiskey a Go-Go is notoriously hard to please, but on this night a rock band called The Undertow is driving the place like a Maserati. People are crowding the stage, undulating, nodding heads, and the stage, men and women alike are transfixed on the slow strip-tease of singer Andrew Koch (pronounced “cook”). For this, the industrially air-conditioned Whiskey is getting sweatier by the minute. The crowd now culminates en masse in a slow sort of dance—a syncopated, Byzantine version of slamming. Then Koch stops the show by lending a twirling young fan his mike.
“You’re so fuck-ing gorgeous,” she bleats into the P.A., throwing back her ringleted head in a strange sort of devotion, “I love youuuu!” She spins away as the audience erupts in howls and appreciative laughter.
“Her response was a gift, a true gift,” Koch explains about the incident in an interview over coffee and cigarettes. “Love is a very powerful thing,” he says soberly. “You know, she told me after the show that she wanted me to bathe her with my hair!”
Apparently this sort of reaction is common for Koch. It’s no surprise. He is tall and striking with torrents of brown hair, cadaverously pale skin and deep wild eyes that glint with something fear-inspiring, yes, even mesmerizing every now and again (“Just don’t look straight at him for too long,” one Undertow follower warned). Ageless and dressed in leathers and boots, Koch, who lives in North Hollywood, is what a fellow bandmate calls “the complete bohemian.”
Perhaps a more fitting description is to say Koch is rock’s answer to the Vampire Lestat—for his countenance, and most of all for his rapacious voice. The thing most striking (or unsettling, depending on how you view it) about this man is his preternatural basso profundo—a copious and guttural sound that fills a room with its own fortitude. He is a talent, and one can’t help but wonder if his artistry is, perhaps… the harvest of a pact with… aw, forget it.
Nevertheless, there always seems to be fires around him. Alternately burning sticks of white sage (“to prepare for going into warfare”), Marlboros, and candles, Koch alludes to a bit of a checkered past. Raised as a strict Roman Catholic from a home “somewhere in the middle of the United States,” Koch served his church as altar-boy. At age 16 he “discovered dance,” going on to tour the world in several modern troupes, most notably as a dancer with Cher in the early ’80s. He has since repudiated his childhood religious background in favor of Eastern philosophies and Shamanism, and his lifestyle is as spare as “the life of a monk.” Married once for about a year, Koch claims that the Undertow is “a marriage five times over.” (He wears a wedding ring in accordance with this belief.) Koch says he owes his lyrical prowess to his band, refusing to take due song-writing credits, averring, “I am only a piece of a pie that is cut into five equal pieces.”
Koch and the Undertow have been together in this line-up for almost two years. With an oeuvre of dark tunes that range from pain-wrought love encomiums to T. S. Eliot-like interpretations of a world gone post-Apocalypse, The Undertow is certainly a forceful entry into this year’s local race for a record deal. Sound-wise, they employ a moodily melodic grunge, courtesy of two noble axemen: Phil Downey and Mike Wilson. The funky and well-integrated bottom section is made up of soulful bassist Eric Holbert and extraordinary drummer Matt Milani. And of course there is Koch, who sometimes weaves delicately appointed percussions into his lilting lineage. It’s a well-blended brew, a solid sonic onslaught that can’t be readily compared to anyone, but if you must, think The Doors, think Soundgarden, think Macbeth, that is, if Shakespeare had written music.
It is often noted how art imitates life, thus it is no surprise how the Undertow members support themselves. Koch works weekends carving turkey sandwiches at the psychically disjoint Boom Boom Room, which he calls “a vortex,” while the other Undertow members work amongst the inmates at a mental health hospital. Guitarist Wilson, a River Phoenix back-from-the-dead look-alike, is employed by Edgemont Psychiatric Hospital “in transportation.” He admits that he feels an affinity for some of his patients, saying, “I’m depressed, a vulnerable person like [the patients].” However, he claims he connects to his feelings mostly when he’s playing guitar. His musical interest dates back to his first record, a “45 rpm of Sweet’s ‘Fox on the Run,’” yet Wilson’s playing is ostensibly leavened with plenty of edgy Hendrix riffs, executing some of his self-declared fury. “The Undertow is so overwhelming, so terribly frightening,” he says, “it’s just so intense that I lose it inside.”
“We’re not a Big Mac,” says guitarist Downey, “our music is not something you eat, you go… it lingers a while.” Downey, 26, who looks like a modern-day D’Artagnan—his Gibson in place of sword—prefers food analogies. His day gig is “Activities Planner” at the same hospital as Wilson, which Downey describes as “fast-food psychiatry.” He is the self-appointed spokesman for the group and though warm and contemporary, he admits that he too has angst and “general rebelliousness,” which he can express legally through his artistry. “I like to take risks—especially in my music,” he admits. Downey, born and raised in the North Valley, loves sports, hates the L.A.P.D. and digs his Undertow. “For some, we may cause indigestion. You know, The Undertow is definitely not for everyone,” he warns, “but it certainly is for me.”
The Undertow appears at various venues across the L.A. basin, including The Roxy, FM Station, and (acoustically) at The Boom Boom Room in North Hollywood. For more information about club dates, T-shirts, tapes, and other various Undertow sundries, call (818) 759-2757. ♦