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Wendy's WWADReady to Rock Again?
Just when you thought it was finally over, it starts back up, the never-ending circle of
rock-n-fucking-roll. Like Corri & I were saying just the other day, as we stumbled into Casino at 4:30 in the afternoon, neither of us having showered or even changed clothes from the previous night’s rock-n-roll debauchery, “It’s like South by Southwest, year round…it just never stops”. & in the city of rock-n-roll, the live music capitol of the world that Austin is, it really doesn’t. Every night of every week there’s something going on, some fucking show to see…somewhere. & part of that never-ending circle of rock is the incessant touring the musicians must do to keep afloat & spread the rock-n-roll word. So just when you thought the Dixie Witch Tour Chronicles were finally over, they have started back up again. This time the tour is one big one, with no time off between the East & West coasts. This tour was scheduled around the CMJ (College Music Journal) Music Festival that takes place in New York City every year around Hell-oween time. Trinidad claims that it’s “kind of like the Billboard of Independent Music”. Fortunately the Austin trio, Honky is going to accompany us part of the way. Then the bands will split off, & the Witch will keep going to the West Coast, where they will team up with Camarosmith. As luck would have it, I get to sell merch for all three bands & ride with all three. & no…I’m not fucking scared!

Day 1
Thursday October 16th

Left with Dixie Witch to team up with Honky down in New Orleans for the first show of the tour. As we were still 35 minutes outside of Lake Charles (with about 230 miles to go) at 6:30 at night & with an 11:00 set time, we were off to a great start. Claytallica joked that we were “pulling a Honky”, although exactly what “pulling a Honky” means or implies still has yet to be defined. In fact, Honky was already down in New Orleans, having gone down a day early…to make sure their van would make it ( it had broken down on a New Orleans trek two weeks previously), &, according to Pinkus, “to make sure they could get Bobby Rock out of the house.”

We finally arrived at the Mermaid Lounge, right before Honky took the stage. As we emerged from the van we were immediately greeted by Danny Nick & Andy Langer (bass & drums respectively for Suplecs) & the Hazard County Girls, who put the bill together & were supposed to be the headliners. Because we were so fucking late, however, the Girls decided to switch slots with the Witch, allowing them some time to chill out & get their collective drinks on. That was fine with me since I had just woken up, having slept only two hours in Austin the night before, after witnessing the rock-n-roll mayhem of Gorch Fock at Room 710. Honky, the ever-consistent most badass trio from Austin, is headed up by founding member Jeff (J.D.) Pinkus of Butthole Surfers, Daddy Longhead, Danny Barnes Experience, Helios Creed (on the Activated Condition album, so-labeled according to Pinkus, “because we all activated our conditions when we recorded that record”), Skinny Leonard (“the best band that never was”), the Ohio Haters, Jack Officers, P.W. Long (the Real Foot album) & the present day Areola 51 (also starring Brett Bradford from Scratch Acid & drummer Max Brody of Pink Anvil, Sangre de Toro, & Ministry). “Oh yeah,” Pinkus adds, “& one solo show”. Also present is Austin guitar god Bobby Rock of Def MF’s, Blow, Dino Lee & his Love Johnson (he played with Dino Lee for 7 Years), Band From Hell, Screw, Lava, Stupid Drama (“It was me & Nasty Nathan”) Nosebleed, Shitjackers, & Gahdzilla Motor Company. “Oh yeah”, Bobby Rock had to add; “I was also in that 80’s metal band called Dancyr. It was metal faggotry, but I did it”. Replacement drummer for Lance Farley, Kenny Wagner (formerly of Sunnshine, Halfway to Gone, 60 Watt Shaman, & Four Walls Falling...“for all the hardcore people out there”) just came down from Richmond, VA (while still maintaining his
apartment there), to learn the songs & hit the rock-n-roll road. Although they had only practiced six times with Kenny, they totally nailed their set.

Then the Hazard County Girls took the stage. Christy (vox/guitar) asked if anyone was hungry, having an abundance of the legendary delicacy, a batch of her special-made pumpkin spiced cookies for audience member consumption. I was so buzzed/preoccupied with selling merch for the Honky Witch, & trying to take pics (with no batteries as it turns out) that I forgot to grab any before they were summarily scooped up. During their set, a black & white dramatization of Alice in Wonderland was projected overhead, only seeming to enhance their scary doll-like appearances & the fucking rock of one of the only cool chick bands on the planet (sorry bitches but I have a natural aversion to girls in general, & especially girl bands). The Witch fucked up a few times during their set, not having practiced in a month. They also suffered a complete power outage that lasted a good five minutes. Then there was this irritating drunk dude (actually a friend of our bros in New Orleans) who first started shit with Pinkus, then with Kenny, and then with Bobby Rock. By the time Bobby arrived at the merch table with the dude in a full-on-headlock (after he fucked with Kenny a second time…still with no response from the non-existent security), I already had my arm drawn back and was about to clock the asshole myself. When I saw Bobby Rock’s Honky hat band hit the floor, I went and scooped it up immediately, knowing its disappearance might cause the potential loss of supernatural guitar powers. Kenny’s take was, “After the dude fucked with Pinkus, then with me…for the first time…I went to the bar, I chilled out, got a gin and tonic and…as soon as I got it…Boom! He knocked it out of my arm.” Although the fool never got-knocked-or-even-kicked-out, he managed to bite Bobby Rock on the upper inner arm, leaving a nice purple-pink-blue bruise, and left two lengthy claw marks on Kenny’s inner forearm from the elbow to his wrist. Kenny wondered aloud, “Let’s see how we can start this tour off?”

After the show I took off with Honky to the place they were staying, all of us too tired and burnt out to make our way out of the warehouse district and down to the Quarter. Kenny and I took off to a 24 hour po’boy shop down the street with Kenny quipping, “They better be serving breffast”. As we entered the pink building, we observed that they only served breffast from 6:OO AM to 6:OO PM. Well we ate there anyways (even though it cost us at least $4 more a piece) and had a super surreal experience, with a cop inside watching us the whole time, a crackhead next to us yelling at a video game, a homeless dude talking to me about absolutely-nothing-that-made-remotely-any-kind-of-sense, and a white-trash-redneckweirdo who kept wandering into a back room that warned Beware of Dog. As we stumbled back to the pad I noticed that the sidewalks and streets appeared really desolate. “It’s good when the streets are empty here,” Kenny informed me. “If you see people out this time of night, take off running. Of all the places I’ve been, Detroit and New Orleans are the places where I know to be really aware.” That survived, we made our way back to Pinkus’ friend’s crib…and crashed.

Day 2
Friday October 17th
The next day we took off for Atlanta, stopping in Slidell for some breffast. “Word to the Waffle House”, as Bobby Rock said…in response to my, “Word”. This ended up being highly amusing, as the Waffle House experience usually is (Curt wants to do a reality TV show that takes place in said establishment). We were greeted by a waiter who Pinkus claimed appeared a “little light in the loafers”, adding, “We may have a way gaiter”. “Yeah, he’s really flying below the gaydar”, Kenny chimed in. Bobby Rock wondered how many millipeters it took to make a peter, and Pinkus responded, “Ten. I’m at about eight right now.” Then we hit the road for the Star Bar in Atlanta listening to the tunes of Hayseed Dixie, this band that Kenny thinks is from somewhere on the southeast coast (Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee have all been possibilities to this point), doing country cover versions of ACDC songs like Hell’s Bells and Have a Drink on Me. Meanwhile, Pinkus figured out the books and wrote the night’s set list on pages from a porno called Fifty and Over, featuring, yeah you got it, women over fifty. Kenny, who lived in Mobile, Alabama for a while, described the drug trade between New Orleans and Pensacola, elaborating, “This whole corridor from New Orleans to Mobile to Pensacola has a bunch of sketchy motherfuckers. When I lived in Mobile I never met so many sketchy motherfuckers. Oh yeah…what time is it?” Pinkus responds, “2:35, and you know what that means!”, as he holds up a Jack Black flask with Jim Beam in it. “Any one?” Well I took him up on it, as did everyone else in the car. Pinkus told Bobby Rock, “You need some whiskey…you’re driving”. So that’s how it started, the next seven hours of smoking kind bud, rocking out, and sipping on Jim Beam. Pinkus, who hails from the South himself (having grown up in Atlanta), observed, “You can’t make this part of the country look ugly, no matter how poor you are”.

We stop at a gas station in Alabama where they serve livers and gizzards, made to order, and came out with a variety of item (not including livers and gizzards, mind you)…from ice cream to jerky to chips to candy bars. Then we sipped some more whiskey. I realize how much more comfortable I am in this van where I can sit up straight in a comfortable chair (in the Witch van we sit on a plywood bench because the back seat had to be removed in order to free up space for their equipment); have such benefits as an ashtray and a cup holder (accessible only to those in the front seat in the Witch van); and watch videos and bad Alabamian TV. “I should show you something pretty funny” Pinkus intros, “My sky diving video”. It was a video of Pinkus’ first solo skydiving experience where the instructor almost killed him. “See watch. Right here I break away. Then the guy comes right back at me and hits me, see Boom!” Pinkus narrates. “Then he sends me spinning, I steady out then, Boom! He hits me again and sends me spinning
again”. That’ll teach you how to respond in times of crisis!

Bobby Rock (who has been driving since the Waffle House in Slidell) points out the Hank Williams Memorial, aka The Lost Highway, as we make our way towards Montgomery and the ultimate destination. “It’s 4:40. And you know what time that is,” Pinkus states. “What time?” Kenny asks. “It’s time to smoke”, Pinkus replies, “I get bored, and I want to drink and smoke” as he passes me the flask again while Kenny loads the pipe. Then Pinkus advises me to check into getting an e-mail function for my phone, claiming that it only costs him $5/month for all his e-mail, as he flips on the weather channel. I relax as the sky darkens and rain falls intermittently. Its super dark for being only 5:30 in the evening, and the Witch calls to say they won’t make it to Atlanta until around 9:00 (which really means 10:00 or 11:00). I wonder? Is that “Pulling a Honky”? And the wind whips Bobby Rock and the rest of us around the lane. We pass this place called Bocephus Was Here, this “strip mall style thing” according to Pinkus, where they have one of Hank Williams’ cars. And we smoke more weed.

Since there were only two bands that night at the Star Bar, Honky took the stage pretty quickly (at least it seemed quickly, although Father Time might disagree) after our arrival in Atlanta (which meant around midnight). Then they tore through a killer set, with Kenny seeming to fit right the fuck in.

 

Pinkus dedicated a song to his folks, who had come out for the show. His mom, “Pops Pinkus”, wore her Honky shirt with pride, while his dad, “Jo Jo the Monkey”, wore a Trojan Magnum shirt that Pinkus had given him with equal pride. Pinkus told the crowd, ‘My Mom’s here folks. She’s out in the audience, and she drinks vodka on the rocks. So get her hammered…she likes that”.

When introducing Kenny, Pinkus announced, “This is our new drum-mer, and it’s his fourth gig with us. He’s American by birth andSouthern by about fifty feet”.

And the jokes kept coming.

Pinkus (again), “Yeah, this is my divorce song, and Bobby’s going tosing it for you. It was called South of Heaven until this band calledSlayer came along and ruined it. Now it’s called House of Seven”.

Pinkus adds, “Well I was going to ask more for whiskey in the monitors, but my whiskeys just keep multiplying.”

Bobby Rock - “My dog just had puppies too”.

Pinkus - “Our pussy drummer needs a water”.

Bobby Rock - “Well as long as it’s pussy juice”.

During the show Austin’s own Jeremy Thompson (Nashville Pussy, ex - Phantom Creeps) arrived and I knew we were in for a long night tonight. Also present was my friend Melissa (having recently moved here fromNew Orleans), a bunch of Pinkus’ high school friends, and Buster the Human Blowtorch from the Impotent Sea Snakes (now out of a job since the Great White fiasco). The Witch didn’t take the stage until around 1:30 AM, after thinned out quite a bit. The rockers hung tough though.

After the show we just had stayopen until 4:00AM in this benevolent city. So we went to this killerpool, booze and food joint called the Highlander, where we were welcomed with blasting Iron Maiden. Then off to Jeremy’s toy-junk-pornofilled apartment for more debauchery. There was some guy therenamed Shane who claimed he had played with my old band, theSkatenigs, ten years earlier. However, I had trouble rememberinghim…as he looked like total shit.

At one point, as Jeremy and Pinkus kept talking and talking cracking me and Melissa the fuck up.

I began to notice that Pinkus and Jeremy were-either-so-fucked-up-themselves-or-we-were, or as we were all fuckedup as “seen-through-the mysterious-‘them’s’/ ‘their-own’-drunk-ass-eyeballs” as Pinkus put it…that the dynamicallyfucked up duo seemed almost mesmerizing. Or maybe I was just really fucked up.And, of course, that was right before I passed outAt eight motherfucking AM.To be continued…

Rock n Roll Q & A with Brent Hinds (guitar/vox) from Mastodon

Q. Who are your favorite bands / greatest influences?

A. Melvins, Neurosis, Thin Lizzy, Phantomas.

Q. What is your definition of success in rock-n-roll?

A. Being able to make a living playing music.

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