Austin Fanzine Project

THE GREAT ROCK-N ROLL MASSACRE '94

It all started with the Motards/Drags/Fells show at Electric Lounge on 19 August. I got this crazy start and ended up going to the show with my now-roommate. When I showed up, Susan was there which was really weird cuz I took her to the bus station two days earlier and I didn't expect to see her again for a month or two. It turned out that she met up with this chick in Houston during her layover and ended up staying for a couple of days and spending all her money or something and coming right back home. So blah, blah, the show was great, the Motards were rowdy-imagine! and the Drags blew me away- I'd never heard/seen them before (partly cuz they're from Arizona)- and, of course the Fells were just beautiful. The only weird thing that happened was that CJ from the Drags jumped on me and then gave me a 7". Oh, and people kept asking Susan if we were sisters, a thing that hasn,t happened to us in a long time.

But then, on Sunday night, after being denied Susan's mom's car (a really plush Jeep-Trooper thing with a CD player and AC and all), we headed for San Antonio in my fucked up '73 Superbeetle, Ruth. Now, when I got Ruth a few years ago, I would drive her to Houston a lot to go visit my mommie, but she I haven't dared to take her out on the open road in some time. She performed beautifully! She really came through for me.

And after tons of confusion and a brick plate special from a Furr's Cafeteria in San Marcos, we got to Taco Land who had said over the phone that the Inhalants/Drags/Fells show was indeed happening there ..... 2

on the drums during a set. I believe it was Mr. Greg Oblivian's time when the machine fot switched on, leading to Mr. Eric Oblivian's departure from the stage. Mr. Jack Oblivian had been performing a song when Mr. Greg Oblivian began an impromptu hymn to the virtues of the drum machine. "Ladies and gennleman, I just wanna tell ya, this drum machine . . . my favorite thing about this drum machine . . . is that . . . as I'm sure you all agree . . . the best thing . . . is that . . . you don't gotta play 'em yourself. Ya just TURN 'EM ON!" Mr. Jack Oblivian said, "Hey, waittaminnit, Greg Oblivian, this is my song!" Mr. Greg Oblivian had, by then, completely derailed the rock'n'roll show and Mr. Jack Oblivian's guitar rapidly became another noisy element of this weird techno-garage stew. He soon fled for the comfort of the dressing room, guitar in hand, to make noise from its confines. Mr. Greg Oblivian continued to harangue the crowd from onstage. "Ladies and gennelmen, I don't blame my parents for the way I turned out, I blame s'ciety!" He eventually followed his bandmates into the dressing room, mike in hand, to finish his "song." It's worth mentioning that at this point some 80% of the crowd had left, leaving only an amazed and baffled minority. Finally, Jack quit hitting random chords on the guitar and somebody must have distracted Greg from the mike, for all that he could be head was the tinny thump of that five-dollar drum machine. Hands down, the Geek Weekly show of the year for 1997.

Grifters 10.30.97 Fitzgerald's (Houston) and 10.31.97 Electric Lounge

Over the years I've emphasized the crappiness of the Grifters' Austin shows compared to those they've played in Houston. Jennifer and I experienced a near perfect pair of shows in Houston a couple of years ago, one at Goat's Head Soup and another at the Urban Art Bar with the Strapping Fieldhands, and on both tours the Austin shows haven't come near to their Houston counterparts. I have no idea what in the hell causes this. The Grifters are much loved in Austin and they even have a groupie home base of sorts here. A ton of people go out to see them when they play. In Houston this past October, there were about fifty warm bodies in the whole damn bar. Margaret and I felt like we had our own personal Grifters show all to ourselves! Hey, maybe that's what I like about those Houstonshows — but really, this one was truly fine. Full Blown Possession is much more to my liking than Ain't My

Lookout was and hearing all those tunes live only reinforced my opinion. Of course, they also played "She Blows Blasts of Static," which got me more excited than a roomful of nearsighted Jewish boys. The set was short but sweet, with plentiful traces of that old Grifters feeling present. You know, the way that their good shows feel like watching late afternoon sun coming in through the blinds, illuminating dust and making everything look warm and liquid. Speaking of warm liquids, we got to take Tripp out to the Show Palace Halloween night since it was his thirty-first birthday. Margaret and I dressed as an angel and a devil and once we had a buzz on, we went around giving candy to strangers and asking them which one of us they would pick if forced to choose between good and evil. Before the show, the guys came over to dog in my clothes for some Halloween outfits, and somehow got into the wigs. Oh, man, did they look "rock." The show was a good one, of course, being in Austin it wasn't as great as the Houston shows, but they were in good form and overcame the embarrassment of sharing the bill with a Kiss cover band with aplomb. Margaret and I had a catfight on stage during "Last Chance Re-Entry," as we acted out the battle between busty good and lusty evil for the audience. You know, if you think about it, that's really what the Grifters are all about, you know, good and evil, like, in the context of two large-breasted sisters pulling each other's hair and rolling around on the effects pedals.

? and the Mysterians 2.8.98 Electric Lounge

The coolest thing about this show is that there was a good three months of anticipation before it finally went off. The band was accidentally booked to play earlier, but were reconfirmed later, and ended up playing after most people had totally given up and assumed that their original listing in the paper was all a hoax. In the months before the show I had all manner of daydreams about what the live show of this legendary late-sixties garage band might be like. When I got to the Electric Lounge that night I immediately got this nagging feeling that something a lot weirder than what I had imagined was going to happen. I was right -- too right. First the middle-aged-tie-dyed-t-shirt-wearing guys started comin' in. Not many of 'em, mind you, but man, it was cool to see 'em starin' around, taking in the modern rock scene and crowd. Then came the middle-aged Latino men and women. They were definitely there to rock. Next I saw the merch table. They