Austin Fanzine Project

FEET

ME & MY FREAK FRIEND SHANE W/ HIS FAVE BREW ON THE FRONT OF RUTH MY TRUSTY AUTOMOBILE (SPRING 1994)

-Yep, Shane's foot is the one w/ the fishnets...

NUCLEAR WAR (tm) UPDATE -->

Apparently, the Nuclear War people have decided not to put out a fourth edition of the game, at least for now, but they are relaeasing booster packs of cards. Get 'em! (Here are a couple of the new ones.)

Speaking of geeks - and that is what we're talkin' about here - the Oblivians are the fucking coolest bunch of geeks around! Geeks from Memphis, music to my ears. Garage geeks from Memphis. Nothin' better. Mm, mm, mm.

The Geek List

the Oblivians Chepo and Ryan Peek-a-Fuckin'-Boo Buddy Holly Dave Nickerson Steve Martin (x2)

Our friends from Columbia, Missouri arrived around 7 pm and we all headed down to Ellen's Soul Food for the best friend chicken I've ever had (besides my mommy's of course). Then, with out bellies so full we could hardly more, we headed down to Barrister's for the first night of the Dixie Fried Backalley Brawl. Amazingly, we ran into [Casey]] of Make Room fanzine fame, another proud Texan who had journeyed north to worship at the garage rock altar.

The entrance to Barrister's is on an alley, which makes it easy to take a between-band breather with beer in hand. Memphis seemed to have a lot of unenforced laws and the open-contained law was one of the, (Another curious Memphian alcohol law is that you can't sell a container of beer larger than 38 oz- that's right, folks... no 40s.)

Inside testosterone surged through the air. An ancient big-screen TV was showing clips from early 60s-ish sexploitation films. People were shooting pool, buying records from the merch table and drinking beer. The crowd was much livelier than the typical Austin crowd, and there were a lot more girls out!

The first band was the Hate Bombs, a classic 60s-style garage band who played more songs about girls than any other band I've ever seen. Everyone in the band sings lead except the bassist who, incidentally, bears a striking resemblance to a young Elvis. I thoroughly enjoyed this set. Next up was AMF (which stands for many things, including Adolescent Music Fantasy). Their drummer, Ross Johnson, who emceed the whole event (and who had played with Panther Burns, Gibson Brothers, Alex Chilton and Pink Slip Daddy) kept demanding that the proprietor "play more nekkid movies." AMF took it slow and easy (they were self-proclaimed "middle-aged, over-weight rock'n'rollers") and they played mostly covers, but there were fine choices like "Drunk Again," "Theme From A Summer Place," and "I Walked With the Zombies." '68 Comeback (or rather Jeff Evans + the Oblivians) was next. Not being familiar with Jeff's stuff, I didn't know what to expect, but I was very pleased with their set.

Then came the Oblivians. I'd only seen them once before (at that horribly ill-attended Thanksgiving-night show at Emo's) and I had almost forgotten how great their show are. I was speechless. Luckily we got some of it on tape, including most of "Motorcycle Leather Boy" as sung very

entertainingly by the guy from Guitar Wolf. These guys fucking shred!!

[The Royal Pendletons]] were next, but it was already 3:30 am and we were all crashin'. So we split.

Saturday, 24 June 1995.

Susan and I went to Brother Juniper's again for breakfast, leaving the boys happily asleep. When we came back to see if the guys had taken all our stuff and split town, we were informed that we would have to change motels again, because all the rooms were reserved for the night. We relocated to the Admiral Benbow Inn which is the scummiest motel in the world . It was clean and all, but there were all sorts of fucked-up people wandering around the whole time and the trashcans were from Holiday Inn and the soap was from Hampton Inn and the "Do Not Disturb" signs were from Best Western. According to Eric Oblivian The Admiral is Guitar Wolf's preferred motel choice. Sure enough, they were staying right down the hall from us.

This was the day I wanted to go out and sight-see. Jeff and I left Susan and Matt at the Inn and set off to see the town. I had planned out a path and we attacked it with vigor. We went to Beale Street to check out the tourist/museum/gift ship aspect. Some of it was kinda cool, but the

The Oblivians rock out in the Bluff City

[Photo: promotional photo for the John Michael McCarthy film The Sore Losers] Promotional photo for The Sore Losers (Mike, Korine, Kim, and Susan)

Kimbrough play. It was kind of funny — nobody in his band could drive, so they had to send a driver down to Holly Springs, MS to bring everyone up so they could play the show. And it didn't really last that long, only about 45 minutes, which is about two songs for Junior.

This Dixie Fried was in a wickedly unsuitable venue, the Center for Southern Folklore in Beale Street. As a center for southern folklore, it's great. As a bar, it sucks mud. Venues being what they are in Memphis, it could easily have been worse, and at least you didn't slip in puddles of sweat like at the downtown Barrister's version of Dixie Fried, mark II. It's just that the place is a museum/information center/coffee shop, and as such isn't real conducive to the laid back, uninhibited feel necessary to listen to a lot of nasty music for hours on end. So while it was all right to watch old Sun sidemen Frank Frost and Sam Carr play in there, since a certain amount of reverence is due to them, it was a pisspoor place to watch the Oblivians, who played a pretty stitled set.

NEW YEAR'S EVE 1997

I ran away from Austin to Memphis on New Year's Eve so that I could salvage my shitty holidays. That means I missed the last New Bomb Turks show here, which I'm sad about, but I got to hear the Oblivians and the Royal Pendletons and a new-wave band play at the Young Avenue Deli. When I arrived in town, Scott met me at the Lamplighter all dressed up, so I was compelled to wear a formal gown (all right, I wore a long, slinky thing from work) and gloves. You know what I like about Memphis? Everyone else was dressed up, too. People are such slobs in Austin.

On this particular trip, Mike McCarthy was kind enough to show me his latest project, Shine On Sweet Starlet, a series of sixties-style clips where ingenues strip for the camera in the comfort of their own homes or favorite bars. The soundtrack should be out this April on Sympathy for the Record Industry, but I'm not sure when the flick itself will be completed. It's a great piece of work — modern naked ladies shot on Super 8 to look like vintage naked ladies. Mike will be shooting his next project this summer — ladies, send GW your headshots [buttshots —ed.] and they'll be passed on.

Dan Ball took some pictures of me while I was there, which I might get to see this year. He's the guy that took all those swirly, arty pictures of the Grifters, the Oblivians and the Clears. I got to crawl around on his piano and couch in a bunch of lingerie, then sit really still for those long exposures. I hope for next year's Christmas card to be one of these photos.

So I figure 1998 will turn out all right since I started it in Memphis. I'll let you know if that helped or not.