The Lunatic Is on the Drums

Fred Holzman has a cold. It's been dogging him for a week. Earlier in the day, he waited in a long line at the Lake City Fred Meyer shortly after noon to purchase antihistamine, which made him late for a lunch appointment. After taking his medicine on an empty stomach, he vomited all over his shirt, which meant he'd be even later for lunch, as he had to swing by his small apartment near the Fred Meyer to change clothes.

Holzman works nights as the drummer for three bands: the Davanos, Powercell, and N-Sane. Occasionally he fills in on skins for the popular cover band Magic Bus. In fact, all the bands Fred Holzman plays in are cover bands, each includes Joe Shikany on either bass or lead guitar, and one of them plays the Rimrock Steak House on Lake City Way at least twice a week, making the 6'2" Holzman the Rimrock's de facto house drummer.

The bar at the Rimrock is called the Stirrup Room. With its Western mural and thirsty clientele, it would feel just as at home in Wyoming as in northeast Seattle, and it opens at 6 a.m. every morning, serving Vegas-priced breakfasts and pre-shift nips. It's owned and operated by an erstwhile Wedgwood Broiler waitress named Connie Dunn, who refers to it simply as "a drinking man's bar." The Rimrock's morning bartender is Dunn's longtime boyfriend, Chuck, who told Dunn she was "fucking nuts" when she bought the restaurant 13 years ago.

"This place used to be, if you passed out on the floor with two dollars in your hand, they'd serve you another drink," says Dunn, who was a Stirrup Room regular before she assumed its reins.

Shortly after the state's smoking ban went into effect in late 2005, the 60-year-old Dunn put the Rimrock up for sale, but she's fairly insistent upon passing her torch to someone who will maintain the bar's integrity (hence its failure to sell). And while a smattering of younger folks from the neighborhood pop in from time to time, the Rimrock remains one of the last dives to have dodged hipster Seattle's tapeworm-like appetite for authenticity.

All of Holzman's bands start promptly at 8 p.m. and end at 12:30 a.m., with three hour-long sets sandwiched in between. While Powercell and N-Sane play a wide range of rock covers, the Davanos, which features Jerry Battista of the Dusty 45s on lead guitar, is a twangier, more versatile outfit, and of the three bands draws the most consistent crowd to a dark, red-hued room that can feel like sharing a phone booth with George Wendt when there are more than 50 people in the house.

Holzman is a self-taught southpaw who plays on a right-handed kit. Taped to his kick drum is a portrait of the Muppet Show drummer, Animal, to whom Holzman is often compared artistically. Lanky and mustachioed, with stringy hair and an elastic expressiveness to his face that tends to mesmerize his audience, Holzman looks like the long-lost love child of Frank Zappa and Mick Fleetwood.

And here Holzman is on a Wednesday night, saddled with an ass-kicker of a cold that's a wheeze away from turning pneumonic. Nevertheless, every third song or so, he leads the crowd in a shot of whatever they have in front of them (Holzman drinks Rumple Minze). At the culmination of the group tipple, the Davanos sing the phrase "right on" in three-part harmony, a ritual birthed by Holzman. Hence his nickname: "Right On."

Shikany recently replaced John Case, who used to sing lead on a jammed-out, 10-minute version of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer." The Davanos haven't played that song since Case's departure, but still pull off wholly original versions of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days."

Thankfully, Battista is singing lead on the latter, because Holzman is coughing up a storm behind his kit. Still, he doesn't miss a beat—Holzman claims to have never called in sick to a gig. Not only that, whatever malady he might be stricken with does nothing to diminish his effervescent, carnival-barker stage presence.

"He's so entertaining," says Battista, over a preshow meal of steak and potatoes. "And he underplays his talent. I've played with great drummers who give lessons, and Fred's just got that feel. Plus he knows the words to every song ever written."

This includes the chestnut, "You Are So Beautiful (to Me)," which follows the Wang Chung cover. Most crooners would pluck a comely lady out of the audience to serenade, but Holzman instead dedicates the tune to his shot glass as Shikany shines a bright lamp in his face to give the rendition a spotlight effect. Following the last line, Holzman segues into a nonsequitur about Richie Sambora getting a DUI, remarking that whoever was driving behind the guitarist must be "a Bon Jahovi's witness."

Bah-dump-bump.

After Holzman's quip, the Davanos launch into a Pink Floyd medley with Holzman on lead vocals. At one of many psychedelic shifts, during which Holzman yields the microphone to his cohorts, Shikany and Battista alter a lyric from "the lunatic is in my head" to "the lunatic is on the drums."