The Vagabond Loafers, the Malaga Castle, Click Mort, and how The Loafin' Hyenas began…

The Vagabond Loafers: Mikaleno Amundson, Pip Plyler, T. Tex Edwards

The Vagabond Loafers (name borrowed from a Three Stooges episode) were the first combo I was involved with after moving to Hollywood. Mikaleno Amundson was my weed buddy who lived across the hall when I first moved out west & I lived with Texas Terri Laird at the Malaga Castle for a spell. Mikaleno was a guitarist & former sailor. He'd talk about life on the big boats. We had in common a love of Chris Spedding's guitar playing & smoking weed. He had been around Hollywood for awhile & done time with Christian Death & one of Sky Saxon's later bands.

Afton Arms AKA The Happy Malaga Castle in Hollywood, California

A bunch of the Austin expatriates hung around each other out there in Hollywood. I met lotsa former Austinites I'd never known in Texas & of course a few that I did know before. Bassist Pip Plyler was one of those I hadn't known before, but Terri knew everybody with her ongoing vivacious personality & hair cutting skills. So Mikaleno & Pip & I starting jamming around with a succession of drummers & only played a couple of gigs with our combo that Mikaleno dubbed The Vagabond Loafers. Alot of guys from my generation grew up watching the Three Stooges on television & like Mikaleno, became obsessed with them. This photo is from Raji's, at a benefit for my by-then ex, Texas Terri, who'd run up some hospital bills & needed help. I don't remember much of that night except that I, for some reason, felt compelled to do a somersault cartwheel entering the stage upon the first notes of us starting our set with my song "Move It!"

The Vagabond Loafers at Texas Terri benefit at Raji's in Hollywood: Mikaleno Amundson, Pip Plyler, T. Tex Edwards

I'd met one Click Mort awhile before this when he came over to Terri's for a touchup on his hairdo. Click had played with The Cramps for a few months a couple years before this & hadn't played much music since. He was in the crowd that night & when he saw my acrobatics, he thought, "that's the guy I want to be in a band with." So when The Vagabond Loafers fizzled out in the coming months, he approached me about getting together & making some noise. We were gonna call our new band The Laughing Hyenas, but then we heard about another band from the midwest calling themselves that. Well, we were definitely loafers & no-counts, so we borrowed that part of my former outfit's name & became The Loafin' Hyenas.

Click & I started to hang out & "lock horns" as he called it, & choose a few covers to begin with & then write some of our own tunes. We both knew former Blood on the Saddle drummer, Hermann Senac. Then we tried to recruit Click's favorite bassist, Rob Ritter who'd formerly played with The Gun Club. But he was too busy at the time, so Hermann suggested his old buddy Ron Botelho from Blood on the Saddle to play bass. I'd met Dione Sparks (now Neva Trejo), a crazy cajun gal from Beaumont (through Texas Terri again) who could saw the fiddle & sing in French, the whole bit, so she was the next addition. She turned out to be not-so-crazy after all, but a real sweetheart. But eventually she didn't live up to Click's high standards of what he wanted in a bandmate. A trait he must have picked up from his old bosses, Lux & Ivy. Click had recently met a young fellow from Northern California named Tom Blaylock, who had been in a band up there simply called Yo. Tom played the fiddle & mandolin, so he took Dione's place. Ron was the next to draw Click's ire. So a couple of different guys played one-offs on bass with us in our later period. But when we eventually got around to recording our only album, Rob Ritter was available, & our original choice completed the circle...

The Loafin' Hyenas (photo by Margot Reyes) with Tom Blaylock, Rob Ritter (RIP), Hermann Senac, Click Mort (RIP) & yours truly...