yellow payges, explosives

speaking of bomp, i was surfing their mailorder today for the first time in awhile and noted that they're stocking some japrock items nowadays, as well as reished discage by the yellow payges and the explosives.

cowtown gtr eminence bill ham once blanched when i approached him after he played a jazz set at the moon and mentioned that the payges' single "crowd pleaser" usedta get played on the radio in noo yawk when i was a snotnose. the yellow payges were a buncha el lay yardbirds-who wannabes that employed ham (who'd played in the haltom city-based garage-snot outfit the nomads) and fellow fort worthian bob barnes (who'd done the same in paschal high's pride the elite) when they cut their '69 album for uni and made this cringe-inducing appearance on crappy teevee detective show the name of the game. sorry, bill.



the explosives were my favorite local band when i briefly lived in austin at the ass-end of the '70s. they later gained notoriety as roky erickson's backup band (after the nervebreakers bailed on the honor) -- see the clip below for a 2007 performance -- but they were one of the more musical outfits in a nascent punk scene that also included the more exalted huns and big boys. their dark secret was that drummer "steady" freddie krc and bassist waller "sonny" collie III (a.k.a. wc3) -- who sat out the most recent spate of gigs with roky because he's "not a comeback-oriented musician at heart" -- were moonlighting from jerry jeff walker's band. a few yrs back i revisited the continental, site of many explosives gigs back in the day, and wondered how such big times fit in such a tiny room.