The Very Last Weekend at the Wreck Room
This was the week I had been dreading. We knew it was coming for almost a year, and it still didn't seem real to me: the closing of the Wreck Room, our beloved clubhouse, playground, and living-room-away-from-home. My sweetie and I had our wedding reception there. I played there every Wednesday night with Lee Allen for the better part of two and a half years. I celebrated two birthdays there on stage with Stoogeaphilia. The Wreck had more character and characters than any other local rock dump. But the gentrification and yuppification of the West Side finally forced Brian Forella out after ten great years of serendipitous chaos. The Wreck became what it became because of the different little knots of people that coalesced there: a locus and focal point for all manner of creative (and sometimes illicit) activity. Hopefully they'll all find their way down the street to Brian's new spot at the corner of 6th Street and Foch (currently 6th Street Live, soon to be renamed Lola's). And it'll start again.
The real hero of the Wreck Room story is Brian. Sure, Carl Pack was the iconic face of the joint, Andre Edmonson gave the Wreck its sound, and Jesse Sierra Hernandez's artwork (and later, Ray Liberio and Calvin Abucejo's) gave the room its look, and everyone who ever tended bar or worked door there contributed to the its world view and aesthetic, but Brian was the one who poured his sweat and treasure into it (often with the proceeds from other, more lucrative enterprises) solely because he loved the music and the creative people. Seeing the writing on the wall, he bought 6th Street and announced the Wreck's closing right around the time his mom Veronica was diagnosed with cancer.
Over the next six months, he worked round the clock, trying to fix up his new bar and close his old one, spending hours taking his mom to doctor's appointments, sitting with her in the hospital, being an advocate for her care, making sure she took her medications and managed to eat something when she was home. I'd see Brian and notice that his hipster's goatee had grown into a full beard; this was a cat who couldn't take time to shave. "I'm cleaning 6th Street because I can't afford to pay anyone to do it," he'd tell me. "My personal life is falling apart." Thankfully, Veronica is recovered now; she's cancer free and back at work. "I had 25 years of perfect attendance," she told me, "but they wouldn't give me credit for it because I was in surgery on the very last day." I remember seeing her sitting in front of the Wreck after the worst of her illness had passed. Brian and his brother Brendan were throwing a football in the middle of 7th Street. "You boys get out of the street!" she yelled at them in her unmistakable New Jersey accent; you could easily imagine the same scene taking place 30 years ago. It was good to see Brian and his girl Stevie in the place he made during its last few days. Hopefully everyone who was there showed him some love and respect.
I was sorry we missed the Great Tyrant/Shaolin Death Squad/Addnerim show on Thursday night. Great Tyrant's drummer Jon Teague, who worked door and ran sound at the Wreck for five years as well as drumming in Yeti (one of a handful of resolutely underground "Wreck Room bands," along with Ohm and Sub Oslo and the Underground Railroad, to garner international recognition), has turned me on to more great music than anybody I can think of, and his band's ongoing development is one of the most interesting music stories in this town right now. (That's what makes it fun following bands you can see in places like the Wreck, where you can see the musicians sweat and feel the sound moving your clothes around: you get to hear the music grow and change over time and feel like a participant.) But work commitments, combined with a need to conserve money and brain/liver capacity, kept us home that night.
Friday night, Goodwin played (along with Osocloso and Buttercup, both of whom I missed), and we made it there as soon as I got off work and had something to eat. The scene was chaotic when we got there. Apparently, 6th Street had been shut down for non-payment of taxes, and the bands that were scheduled to play there were going to play on the small stage in "Wreck West." When I asked Brian about it, he said it was a mistake and would be resolved by Monday. That at least meant that both Wreck bars would do good business. (For the past few months, "Wreck West" had been closed more often than not.) A little chaos factor never slowed the Wreck down. In fact, it seemed somehow appropriate.
Goodwin had only had the date for four days, after the Theater Fire had to cancel out. (Before that, Sorta had been scheduled to play, before their frontman Carter Albrecht was killed in a stupid, wasteful incident over in Dallas.) I have a funny relationship with Goodwin. They're the band that made it fun for me to be a fan again. I'd become a jaded-ass mofo over the years, but seeing them for the first time, wearing numbers on their clothes and equipment and playing to eight people (including the other band) on a weeknight, I was reminded of something Pete Townshend said, that rock 'n' roll isn't about rebellion, it's about triumph (and not only because of guitarist-songwriter-evil dictator Daniel Gomez's leaps and splits). I met my wife at a Goodwin show (at another venue). Our first "big date" was on February 3rd, which is also the title of a little-played Goodwin song. We saw them play their CD release party at the Wreck; I won't soon forget the expressions on their faces when the curtain went up and they saw the packed house.
They've been taking their sweet-ass time finishing their sophomore CD, but they've been busy: Daniel and drummer Damien Stewart with busy work-related travel schedules, Daniel and his wife with a new baby, frontguy-KTCU radio personality-FWAC honcho Tony Diaz with a new marriage, bassist Matt Hembree with four other bands. (Tony and Matt have also been rehearsing for the last hurrah of a reconstituted Bindle; in a just universe, it would have been part of the spate of reunion shows that took place in the run-up to the Wreck's closing.)
On this particular night, Goodwin was looser than usual, to the set's benefit. There was no setlist; Gomez called 'em as they went along and kept things moving, stopping only when he had to tune. Their signature stage moves looked, not rote, but comfortable. "Sticky D" Stewart's added a few new tricks to his trick bag, like hitting his cymbals from underneath and spinning one of them against a stick during a quiet interlude; his flashy flailing, once the most visually compelling element of a live Goodwin performance, now has competition in the form of Hembree's hyperanimated rocking-out, running back to the amp to make feedback, falling on his knees a la Hendrix at Monterey, culminating in The Removal of The Shirt (joined, this time, by Tony and Daniel). Standing up front, Jon Teague and I agreed that we brought out The Beast in Matt (in Stoogeaphilia). Sure, there was a fair amount of clamblow -- a flubbed part here, a missed lyric there -- but in the end, the energy and sense of Moment won out. And yes, I was the asshole that yelled for "Airport" and "March." They played 'em, too. It was wish fulfillment at its best. All the bands I saw this weekend played their hearts out to honor the Wreck, and I think Goodwin's was the best set I've ever seen them play.
Friday night was headlined by the mighty Me-Thinks, pride of Haltom City (even though most of them live in, um, Oakhurst), along with Leroy the Prophet and Blood of the Sun (which includes a couple of other Haltomites). Blood of the Sun have been touring Europe and recording with ex-Ted Nugent frontman Derek St. Holmes; unfortunately, we arrived just in time to hear them conclude their set with Grand Funk's "We're An American Band." For the occasion, I was suited up in the gray jumpsuit Sir Marlin Von Bungy (Me-Thinks guitarist and smoke machine operator) provided me with to do photog duty with the Asian Media Crew, whose true function, Bungy sez, "is to get in our way and make us uncomfortable on stage." I found that the jumpsuit, while still organ-grinder's-monkey size, isn't nearly as uncomfortable when I don't try wearing it over other clothes.
Depending who you believe, the Me-Thinks (in an earlier incarnation as Hasslehorse) were either the first or second band to play the Wreck. They've had a challenging year: First came the resignation of their longtime drummer/songwriting secret weapon Will Risinger, not long after the release of their magnum CD opus The Me-Thinks Present the Make Mine A Double E.P.. Trucker Jon Simpson (who also kicks the traps in One Fingered Fist and Barrel Delux) had already supplanted Will on the thumper throne when Will switched to second guitar the previous year. Since Will bowed out, Barrel Delux frontguy Mike Bandy has added his guitar to the mix. Last April, the Fort Worth music community was stunned when the Me-Thinks' rehearsal space in Haltom City, which they'd occupied for 13 years, was burglarized and all of their equipment -- Sessions Music owner John Zaskoda estimated around $40,000 worth -- was stolen. Ever resilient, they re-equipped and went on to play their first-ever Dallas show, opening for their heroes the Loco Gringos (who get a shout-out in "Burnout Timeline" on the double EP).
A Me-Thinks show is always an occasion of boozy bonhomie, with the Haltom City-Riverside crew (most of whom seem to play in bands, do art or something else interesting and are proof positive that you can keep your crew from high school together into your 30s and still have jobs and stuff) in full effect, and this night was no exception. (Turns out Will Risinger and his fiancee Dana showed up thinking the Me-Thinks were playing in the middle slot but had to split because they had out-of-town visitors. At least they got to be there for a minute.) One thing I've always liked about these guys is the way they toast each other and their fans on stage. The first time I interviewed them for the paper out at their shed, they got me so inebriated that front Me-Think/master poster artist Ray Liberio thought I might not remember our conversation, so he helpfully provided me with a fake "interview" that was more hilarious than the real one we did (which I took notes on that, I swear, and could even decipher the next day). I've been honored to use their practice pad (and Marlin's amp) for the last year and a half with Stoogeaphilia.
Ray -- Fort Worth's answer to Lemmy -- likes his new Marshall VBA400 with monstrous 8X10" cabinet real much. When Lee Allen used it with the Gideons the next day, he had to back the volume off by half from where Ray had it and he told Ray it was still too loud. But then again, Lee only had to be heard over one guitarist with a Crate, rather than two with Marshalls. It's taken the new Me-Thinks lineup time to jell, but Mike Bandy is sounding better integrated every time I see 'em (he also seemed more sober this time than at any of the previous times I'd seen him as a Me-Think) and the new material is coming along well. The bacchanalian excess of their Fredfest stands aside, I'd have to rank the last Saturday at the Wreck as the best Me-Thinks show I've seen since the very first one, where they opened with three Turbonegro tunes and paused a maximum of 30 seconds between songs.
I missed most of Sunday -- the barbecue (the Sunday afternoon cookouts at the Wreck during football season were always something special), Top Secret's performance (Marcus Lawyer called and invited me to jam, but I had to work; the next time he calls me, I will be there), Veronica Forella's speech (including a moving tribute to Gilbert Vera, who left the planet late last year). I didn't get to see Cadillac Fraf on the roof, but I did get to hear part of his set. When I got there, I noticed that someone (do you detect a hint of self-censorship here?) had painted "God Save the Wreck" on the front of the building, and covered the west side of the building with graffiti. One wonders how long the bringers of gentri-/yuppification will let that stand. The next thing I noticed was Carl Pack with his hair in pigtails, wearing a flannel shirt and no pants. This, I thought, was gonna be a real good Gideons show.
There's now an intriguing possibility that the Gideons, who've reformed sporadically since folding the tent the first time during the Wreck's infancy back in September 1998, are about to become a regularly gigging entity again. Original drummer Terry Valderas (currently in exile in Oklahoma) was back on board for Fred's Fest last May, enabling them to once again play material that was written around his style. Bassist Johnny Singularity, who's been in the lineup since the Y2K reunion, was unavailable for the Wreck's closing week, so Lee Allen, who'd played in a '99 lineup before moving to Austin, was drafted to furnish the low-end theory. With Lee slinging slabs of sound around as is his wont, Chuck Rose is free to splinter jagged shards of guitar noise at will, transforming the Gideons' punk style into something approaching stoner metal. Chuck had been impatient to play and once on stage, he gave the most physical and exuberantly extroverted performance I've ever seen from him (although his eyes remained fixed on his guitar throughout).
During the Gideons' set, seemingly every person who ever wanted to set foot on the Wreck Room stage but never got a chance to, had their moment. There were dancing girls and incoherently testifying guys and William Bryan Massey III, who toted a huge cross emblazoned "R.I.P. Wreck Room" on stage before smashing it and throwing the pieces into the crowd. "God damn, god damn," Carl croaked, "I'm wearing a diaper, Lee's in his boxers, and we've got a god damn Oklahoma drummer." He went on to rant about "god damn Christians or Republicans -- it's all the same" and profess pity for those "who went to church today while we were here in this church of cocktails." Cat always did have a way with words.
I'll admit that while watching Carl rolling around the stage in a diaper, I flashed on G.G. Allin for a moment, and it occurred to me that the people who kept pushing drinks in Carl's face probably didn't realize that how damaged his liver is. Maybe it's because my ex-brother-in-law, who was just a little bit younger than Carl, checked out earlier this year, the result of a few years of "get-him-fucked-up-and-watch-him-act-weird." Maybe it's because now, in the fullness of time, when I think about the people I know who drank and drugged themselves to death in their 20s in the name of what they thought rock'n'roll was -- or maybe just freedom from pain -- all I can do is shake my head at all the life they didn't get to live. Maybe it's because I'm selfish and I want to see Carl Pack play with the Gideons at the 10th anniversary of Lola's, when Stormie is old enough to lurk in the crowd with a black "X" on her hand, but I hope that he can find a way of performing that doesn't require getting trashed to do it. The new lineup sounds sensational, but I'd rather never hear them again than to have to go to Carl's funeral a year or two from now.
I saw Hardy Bennett, the original Gideons bassplayer, at the market last week and told him about the gig. Hardy's got his own landscaping business now and looks about a million miles away from the life he lived while he was in the Gideons, but he said that maybe he'd fall by the Wreck and "lurk in the shadows" for a minute. I hope he did.
After the Gideons played, my memory gets sketchy. Brian was onstage at the end, raging against the forces of "progress," and I muttered a few inchoate words on mic. Somewhere in there, Tony Addison drove his motorcycle through the bar, there were innumerable bearhugs and love-declarations all around, and I finished the night off dancing on the bar with all the other nutjobs before Jeffrey Siler and his girlfriend (bless them) took me home.
Back at work the next day, after waking up and slamming down a few glasses of water, I felt curiously cleansed rather than hung over. I checked groceries for a lady wearing a KNON polka T-shirt and asked her if she'd seen Brave Combo when they played at the market in September. She said no, that the last time she'd seen them was at the closing of Caravan of Dreams. "Now I won't eat at [I can't even bring myself to type the name of that restaurant]," she said. I told her I understood how she felt.
What I really wanted to say that night was this: All my life, since I was maybe 12 or 13, I've dreamed about being part of a community based around music. I found it at the Wreck Room. Of course there'll be other spots where like-minded folks get together and make something new, but this one is gone. I woke up the next day thinking, "Oh, shit! I think I walked my tab last night! I'd better get down there today and pay it." And then I realized that for the Wreck Room, there is no more "today." What's left are the memories of all the music, all the laughs, all the friendship, all the bad behavior. Those are indelible and will last as long as memory lasts.
The real hero of the Wreck Room story is Brian. Sure, Carl Pack was the iconic face of the joint, Andre Edmonson gave the Wreck its sound, and Jesse Sierra Hernandez's artwork (and later, Ray Liberio and Calvin Abucejo's) gave the room its look, and everyone who ever tended bar or worked door there contributed to the its world view and aesthetic, but Brian was the one who poured his sweat and treasure into it (often with the proceeds from other, more lucrative enterprises) solely because he loved the music and the creative people. Seeing the writing on the wall, he bought 6th Street and announced the Wreck's closing right around the time his mom Veronica was diagnosed with cancer.
Over the next six months, he worked round the clock, trying to fix up his new bar and close his old one, spending hours taking his mom to doctor's appointments, sitting with her in the hospital, being an advocate for her care, making sure she took her medications and managed to eat something when she was home. I'd see Brian and notice that his hipster's goatee had grown into a full beard; this was a cat who couldn't take time to shave. "I'm cleaning 6th Street because I can't afford to pay anyone to do it," he'd tell me. "My personal life is falling apart." Thankfully, Veronica is recovered now; she's cancer free and back at work. "I had 25 years of perfect attendance," she told me, "but they wouldn't give me credit for it because I was in surgery on the very last day." I remember seeing her sitting in front of the Wreck after the worst of her illness had passed. Brian and his brother Brendan were throwing a football in the middle of 7th Street. "You boys get out of the street!" she yelled at them in her unmistakable New Jersey accent; you could easily imagine the same scene taking place 30 years ago. It was good to see Brian and his girl Stevie in the place he made during its last few days. Hopefully everyone who was there showed him some love and respect.
I was sorry we missed the Great Tyrant/Shaolin Death Squad/Addnerim show on Thursday night. Great Tyrant's drummer Jon Teague, who worked door and ran sound at the Wreck for five years as well as drumming in Yeti (one of a handful of resolutely underground "Wreck Room bands," along with Ohm and Sub Oslo and the Underground Railroad, to garner international recognition), has turned me on to more great music than anybody I can think of, and his band's ongoing development is one of the most interesting music stories in this town right now. (That's what makes it fun following bands you can see in places like the Wreck, where you can see the musicians sweat and feel the sound moving your clothes around: you get to hear the music grow and change over time and feel like a participant.) But work commitments, combined with a need to conserve money and brain/liver capacity, kept us home that night.
Friday night, Goodwin played (along with Osocloso and Buttercup, both of whom I missed), and we made it there as soon as I got off work and had something to eat. The scene was chaotic when we got there. Apparently, 6th Street had been shut down for non-payment of taxes, and the bands that were scheduled to play there were going to play on the small stage in "Wreck West." When I asked Brian about it, he said it was a mistake and would be resolved by Monday. That at least meant that both Wreck bars would do good business. (For the past few months, "Wreck West" had been closed more often than not.) A little chaos factor never slowed the Wreck down. In fact, it seemed somehow appropriate.
Goodwin had only had the date for four days, after the Theater Fire had to cancel out. (Before that, Sorta had been scheduled to play, before their frontman Carter Albrecht was killed in a stupid, wasteful incident over in Dallas.) I have a funny relationship with Goodwin. They're the band that made it fun for me to be a fan again. I'd become a jaded-ass mofo over the years, but seeing them for the first time, wearing numbers on their clothes and equipment and playing to eight people (including the other band) on a weeknight, I was reminded of something Pete Townshend said, that rock 'n' roll isn't about rebellion, it's about triumph (and not only because of guitarist-songwriter-evil dictator Daniel Gomez's leaps and splits). I met my wife at a Goodwin show (at another venue). Our first "big date" was on February 3rd, which is also the title of a little-played Goodwin song. We saw them play their CD release party at the Wreck; I won't soon forget the expressions on their faces when the curtain went up and they saw the packed house.
They've been taking their sweet-ass time finishing their sophomore CD, but they've been busy: Daniel and drummer Damien Stewart with busy work-related travel schedules, Daniel and his wife with a new baby, frontguy-KTCU radio personality-FWAC honcho Tony Diaz with a new marriage, bassist Matt Hembree with four other bands. (Tony and Matt have also been rehearsing for the last hurrah of a reconstituted Bindle; in a just universe, it would have been part of the spate of reunion shows that took place in the run-up to the Wreck's closing.)
On this particular night, Goodwin was looser than usual, to the set's benefit. There was no setlist; Gomez called 'em as they went along and kept things moving, stopping only when he had to tune. Their signature stage moves looked, not rote, but comfortable. "Sticky D" Stewart's added a few new tricks to his trick bag, like hitting his cymbals from underneath and spinning one of them against a stick during a quiet interlude; his flashy flailing, once the most visually compelling element of a live Goodwin performance, now has competition in the form of Hembree's hyperanimated rocking-out, running back to the amp to make feedback, falling on his knees a la Hendrix at Monterey, culminating in The Removal of The Shirt (joined, this time, by Tony and Daniel). Standing up front, Jon Teague and I agreed that we brought out The Beast in Matt (in Stoogeaphilia). Sure, there was a fair amount of clamblow -- a flubbed part here, a missed lyric there -- but in the end, the energy and sense of Moment won out. And yes, I was the asshole that yelled for "Airport" and "March." They played 'em, too. It was wish fulfillment at its best. All the bands I saw this weekend played their hearts out to honor the Wreck, and I think Goodwin's was the best set I've ever seen them play.
Friday night was headlined by the mighty Me-Thinks, pride of Haltom City (even though most of them live in, um, Oakhurst), along with Leroy the Prophet and Blood of the Sun (which includes a couple of other Haltomites). Blood of the Sun have been touring Europe and recording with ex-Ted Nugent frontman Derek St. Holmes; unfortunately, we arrived just in time to hear them conclude their set with Grand Funk's "We're An American Band." For the occasion, I was suited up in the gray jumpsuit Sir Marlin Von Bungy (Me-Thinks guitarist and smoke machine operator) provided me with to do photog duty with the Asian Media Crew, whose true function, Bungy sez, "is to get in our way and make us uncomfortable on stage." I found that the jumpsuit, while still organ-grinder's-monkey size, isn't nearly as uncomfortable when I don't try wearing it over other clothes.
Depending who you believe, the Me-Thinks (in an earlier incarnation as Hasslehorse) were either the first or second band to play the Wreck. They've had a challenging year: First came the resignation of their longtime drummer/songwriting secret weapon Will Risinger, not long after the release of their magnum CD opus The Me-Thinks Present the Make Mine A Double E.P.. Trucker Jon Simpson (who also kicks the traps in One Fingered Fist and Barrel Delux) had already supplanted Will on the thumper throne when Will switched to second guitar the previous year. Since Will bowed out, Barrel Delux frontguy Mike Bandy has added his guitar to the mix. Last April, the Fort Worth music community was stunned when the Me-Thinks' rehearsal space in Haltom City, which they'd occupied for 13 years, was burglarized and all of their equipment -- Sessions Music owner John Zaskoda estimated around $40,000 worth -- was stolen. Ever resilient, they re-equipped and went on to play their first-ever Dallas show, opening for their heroes the Loco Gringos (who get a shout-out in "Burnout Timeline" on the double EP).
A Me-Thinks show is always an occasion of boozy bonhomie, with the Haltom City-Riverside crew (most of whom seem to play in bands, do art or something else interesting and are proof positive that you can keep your crew from high school together into your 30s and still have jobs and stuff) in full effect, and this night was no exception. (Turns out Will Risinger and his fiancee Dana showed up thinking the Me-Thinks were playing in the middle slot but had to split because they had out-of-town visitors. At least they got to be there for a minute.) One thing I've always liked about these guys is the way they toast each other and their fans on stage. The first time I interviewed them for the paper out at their shed, they got me so inebriated that front Me-Think/master poster artist Ray Liberio thought I might not remember our conversation, so he helpfully provided me with a fake "interview" that was more hilarious than the real one we did (which I took notes on that, I swear, and could even decipher the next day). I've been honored to use their practice pad (and Marlin's amp) for the last year and a half with Stoogeaphilia.
Ray -- Fort Worth's answer to Lemmy -- likes his new Marshall VBA400 with monstrous 8X10" cabinet real much. When Lee Allen used it with the Gideons the next day, he had to back the volume off by half from where Ray had it and he told Ray it was still too loud. But then again, Lee only had to be heard over one guitarist with a Crate, rather than two with Marshalls. It's taken the new Me-Thinks lineup time to jell, but Mike Bandy is sounding better integrated every time I see 'em (he also seemed more sober this time than at any of the previous times I'd seen him as a Me-Think) and the new material is coming along well. The bacchanalian excess of their Fredfest stands aside, I'd have to rank the last Saturday at the Wreck as the best Me-Thinks show I've seen since the very first one, where they opened with three Turbonegro tunes and paused a maximum of 30 seconds between songs.
I missed most of Sunday -- the barbecue (the Sunday afternoon cookouts at the Wreck during football season were always something special), Top Secret's performance (Marcus Lawyer called and invited me to jam, but I had to work; the next time he calls me, I will be there), Veronica Forella's speech (including a moving tribute to Gilbert Vera, who left the planet late last year). I didn't get to see Cadillac Fraf on the roof, but I did get to hear part of his set. When I got there, I noticed that someone (do you detect a hint of self-censorship here?) had painted "God Save the Wreck" on the front of the building, and covered the west side of the building with graffiti. One wonders how long the bringers of gentri-/yuppification will let that stand. The next thing I noticed was Carl Pack with his hair in pigtails, wearing a flannel shirt and no pants. This, I thought, was gonna be a real good Gideons show.
There's now an intriguing possibility that the Gideons, who've reformed sporadically since folding the tent the first time during the Wreck's infancy back in September 1998, are about to become a regularly gigging entity again. Original drummer Terry Valderas (currently in exile in Oklahoma) was back on board for Fred's Fest last May, enabling them to once again play material that was written around his style. Bassist Johnny Singularity, who's been in the lineup since the Y2K reunion, was unavailable for the Wreck's closing week, so Lee Allen, who'd played in a '99 lineup before moving to Austin, was drafted to furnish the low-end theory. With Lee slinging slabs of sound around as is his wont, Chuck Rose is free to splinter jagged shards of guitar noise at will, transforming the Gideons' punk style into something approaching stoner metal. Chuck had been impatient to play and once on stage, he gave the most physical and exuberantly extroverted performance I've ever seen from him (although his eyes remained fixed on his guitar throughout).
During the Gideons' set, seemingly every person who ever wanted to set foot on the Wreck Room stage but never got a chance to, had their moment. There were dancing girls and incoherently testifying guys and William Bryan Massey III, who toted a huge cross emblazoned "R.I.P. Wreck Room" on stage before smashing it and throwing the pieces into the crowd. "God damn, god damn," Carl croaked, "I'm wearing a diaper, Lee's in his boxers, and we've got a god damn Oklahoma drummer." He went on to rant about "god damn Christians or Republicans -- it's all the same" and profess pity for those "who went to church today while we were here in this church of cocktails." Cat always did have a way with words.
I'll admit that while watching Carl rolling around the stage in a diaper, I flashed on G.G. Allin for a moment, and it occurred to me that the people who kept pushing drinks in Carl's face probably didn't realize that how damaged his liver is. Maybe it's because my ex-brother-in-law, who was just a little bit younger than Carl, checked out earlier this year, the result of a few years of "get-him-fucked-up-and-watch-him-act-weird." Maybe it's because now, in the fullness of time, when I think about the people I know who drank and drugged themselves to death in their 20s in the name of what they thought rock'n'roll was -- or maybe just freedom from pain -- all I can do is shake my head at all the life they didn't get to live. Maybe it's because I'm selfish and I want to see Carl Pack play with the Gideons at the 10th anniversary of Lola's, when Stormie is old enough to lurk in the crowd with a black "X" on her hand, but I hope that he can find a way of performing that doesn't require getting trashed to do it. The new lineup sounds sensational, but I'd rather never hear them again than to have to go to Carl's funeral a year or two from now.
I saw Hardy Bennett, the original Gideons bassplayer, at the market last week and told him about the gig. Hardy's got his own landscaping business now and looks about a million miles away from the life he lived while he was in the Gideons, but he said that maybe he'd fall by the Wreck and "lurk in the shadows" for a minute. I hope he did.
After the Gideons played, my memory gets sketchy. Brian was onstage at the end, raging against the forces of "progress," and I muttered a few inchoate words on mic. Somewhere in there, Tony Addison drove his motorcycle through the bar, there were innumerable bearhugs and love-declarations all around, and I finished the night off dancing on the bar with all the other nutjobs before Jeffrey Siler and his girlfriend (bless them) took me home.
Back at work the next day, after waking up and slamming down a few glasses of water, I felt curiously cleansed rather than hung over. I checked groceries for a lady wearing a KNON polka T-shirt and asked her if she'd seen Brave Combo when they played at the market in September. She said no, that the last time she'd seen them was at the closing of Caravan of Dreams. "Now I won't eat at [I can't even bring myself to type the name of that restaurant]," she said. I told her I understood how she felt.
What I really wanted to say that night was this: All my life, since I was maybe 12 or 13, I've dreamed about being part of a community based around music. I found it at the Wreck Room. Of course there'll be other spots where like-minded folks get together and make something new, but this one is gone. I woke up the next day thinking, "Oh, shit! I think I walked my tab last night! I'd better get down there today and pay it." And then I realized that for the Wreck Room, there is no more "today." What's left are the memories of all the music, all the laughs, all the friendship, all the bad behavior. Those are indelible and will last as long as memory lasts.
posted by stashdauber at 8:20 PM
6 Comments:
Nice write-up. I've always been more of a 6th Street Grill, aka Live, aka Lola's patron than the Wreck although the old band did play there a couple times. Hopefully the re-re-located 7th Haven will be worthy.
Dang, I wish I coulda been there, but I had a DJ gig in Indiana that weekend and I gotta go where the money is, but thanks for the play by play. R.I.P. Wreck...
Eric Hermeyer
Amen, Mr. Ken.
Thank you for so eloquently stating all that we of the Wreck thought but could not put into words.
You nailed it, Stash. Good work.
Thank you, Ken. I never fully joined the Wreck Room crowd, and feel that I missed out on so much, so many memories. I still wish I could have been there, but your writing at least gives me a glimpse of what it was like. Thanks.
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