Music – Page 17 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Texas Freak Show

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I’ve been playing music for a long time now. Not conventional music, either. My band is eclectic and has almost zero commercial potential. Still, we have managed to sell a few thousand CD’s with a modicum of effort and enjoy a small but enthusiastic following.

Our primary outlet these days is festival performances, primarily the Texas Renaissance Festival each year.

While playing these festivals one thing became obvious. Bands with unusual instrumentation enjoyed much larger audiences and sold more product than those who lacked said unusual instrumentation. I’m talking about bagpipes, hammer dulcimers, hurdy-gurdies and the occasional glass harmonica.

I actually coined a term for this.
I call it the Freak Instrument Principal.
Any band, no matter their overall actual talent, that sported a freak instrument was going to do much better than a band that did not feature a freak instrument.

You can see this in action if you pay attention. There are two bands at faire that I like a lot. Cantiga and Wyndnwire. They are beyond talented.
But check out their shows. Not a huge crowd and a small but steady trickle of CD sales.

Then check out The Rogues or Tartanic. Piles of people gathered around clapping and hooting and buying CD’s hand over fist.

Are The Rogues or Tartanic better or more talented than Wyndnwire or Cantiga? Not by a long shot. But the sheer bombardment of sound combined with men wearing dresses compels people in a way that other bands will never be able to compete with.

The Freak Instrument Principal does seem to have a counterpart in politics. This is exemplified in the upcoming election for Texas Governor. I’m talking about Kinky Friedman and his bid to get on the ballet for 2006.

Yup, it’s the Freak Candidate Principal.
Should he be governor? I honestly don’t know.
I kinda lean towards no on this.
Will he become governor? We’ll see.

He’s compelling. He’s outspoken. He’s probably crazy. The idea of Kinky being elected to public office has a “theater-of-the-absurd” appeal that just might get him to his goal, not because he’s suited for the job but because he is so ridiculously NOT suited for the job. And many people here in Texas seem to think that concept qualifies him in and of itself.

He’s not the first one of his kind.
Jesse “The Body” Ventura was elected Governor of Minnesota, Arnold Schwarteneger was elected Governor of California (even though Gary Coleman was far more freakish) and let’s not forget they guy who was the original freak candidate…

Who could have known?
The important thing is, we know now.

Vote wisely!

Saturday night

A pleasant evening at the 3700 S. Main Entertainment Megaplex.

Got chill with Mitch Pauls, England James and Peter King of the Light Rock Express at the fabulous Sig’s Lagoon before their set at The Big Top.

Thomas has created such a cool space. That’s him in the second pic with Trey standing to his left.

The main attraction was Sharon Jones performing with The Dap Kings at the Continental Club. Old school funk. It was a very nice groove and a heck of a Saturday night.

Saturday night

In 1965 Roy Head’s song “Treat Her Right” was at the top of the charts.
While back-to-back Beatles hits kept Roy Head out of the number one spot, “Treat Her Right” was a worldwide hit.

Archie Bell’s “Tighten Up” topped both the pop and R&B charts in 1968.

On Sept 3rd, 2005 these two musical legends appeared at the Continental Club with The El Orbits as the opener followed by The Allen Oldies Band and then a mix of the members of both served as the house band for Archie Bell and Roy Head.

I didn’t get pics of the El Orbits but here is a great shot of Allen Hill getting goofy with The Allen Oldies Band. All those great 50’s rock and roll songs set the mood for the evening.

That’s Landis Armstrong on the far left, Mikey Trafton on the bass, Allen Hill on vocals, my good friend Jim Henkel playing the sax (that guy can play ANYTHING!), Joe Earthman also on sax and David Schoenbaum playing the Farfisa organ. Invisible behind Allen is the one and only David Bebee on the drums.

Guess what? Allen’s got a fever! And the only prescription..

You guessed it! MORE COWBELL

Before long the stage was reset and the band was in place for Archie Bell.

Notice the very talented Allen Hill has switched to the bass guitar.

He did not disappoint. This Houston native still had a ton of soul and put on a most memorable performance.

His set was followed immediately by Texas’ own Roy Head.

You will note that Jim has moved to the guitar, his primary instrument and it’s none other than the Dazzling Pete Gray playing the piano.

40 years later Roy Head still knows how to put on a show! Incredible energy!

The climax of the evening was when Roy Head and Archie Bell teamed up to sing “Got My Mojo Workin'”.

To top off all the great music there were some good friends in attendance who hung out, shared drinks, sang along, danced and just generally contributed to the good vibe of the evening’s festivities.

And now the obligatory picture of myself and the performers.
I look just a tad insane in this one. I’m just crazy for live music!

Puppets? Or evil on a stick?

Ren Faire rapidly approaches.
My band is playing again this year.
Four shows a day for 8 weekends!

Over the last few years Cynthia has taken to replicating the band in puppet form and putting on shows while we play. Each puppet character is hand made with a hand sewn costume.

This is her from last year with a puppet of herself holding a miniature puppet of me.

This year she has added to her puppet arsenal many supporting characters including members of Istanpitta. EJ the Piper, a devil, an angel and many more on their way. Sometimes, late at night, I can hear them skittering across the hardwood floors laughing and laughing…

Road Trip!

There are maybe 5 or so artists on my “must see at any cost” list.
Right up there at the top is Adrian Belew.

Adrain Belew is a phenomenal guitar player. He has performed with some of my favorite bands and musicians; Frank Zappa, David Bowie, The Talking Heads, King Crimson, The Tom Tom Club, Jean-Michel Jarre, Laurie Anderson and Paul Simon.

I’ve seen him play with King Crimson and with Zappa on the Sheik Yerbouti tour. The last time I saw him was with The Bears at Rockefellers many years ago.

When my band mate and friend Joe told me Adrian had formed the Adrian Belew Trio with Mike Gallaher on bass and Mike Hodges on drums I was quite excited. When we found out he was touring plans were set in motion.

At the time we checked his tour schedule his only date in Texas was at The Granada Theater in Dallas.

Granada Theater

This meant one thing…ROAD TRIP!

Tickets were purchased on line and we got second row center seats. On Sunday Morning Joe and I took off for the show.

The Granada is a great place to see a live show. It’s small, cozy and intimate. Our seats were spectacular.

There was an opening act called Bagg. A local Dallas jam band similar to Moses Guest and Drop Trio here in Houston.

Bagg

They were good. I know they must have been very excited to share that particular stage this night.

But the main attraction was what we were all here to see. It was worth the drive and the wait. Adrian Belew did not disappoint. He played some of his new and older solo work as well as a few very choice King Crimson songs including Three of a Perfect Pair and Thela Hun Ginjeet.

Adrian Belew

After the show Adrian signed autographs, talked to his fans and mugged for the cameras.

Adrian Belew and me

What a great night!

Musical time travel

Seeing Beetle at the Big Top last night had the look and feel of what it might have been like to see The Beatles at the Cavern in Liverpool back in the day.

The Knitters put on a fine show at The Continental Club which also hearkened to a bygone musical era.

Gosh, I recall listening to X way back in the early 80’s as I was sowing the seeds of my musical dissidence.

Saturday night

Los Skarnales at the Continental Club

More pics here.

Rather random encounters

It was most unexpected to see my friend Sahira open up for Beans Barton and the Bipeds at Dan Electro’s on Saturday.
She’s a great dancer and member of Urban Gypsy.

I think my favorite was a duet dance she did with another member of the troop that was set to tune of Dueling Banjos.