The NERVEBREAKERS: "Mental Shakedown: Laurent Bigot gets the full story of these long-lasting Texas punks" from UGLY THINGS #30

 The NERVEBREAKERS: "Mental Shakedown: Laurent Bigot gets the full story of these long-lasting Texas punks" in ten pages from UGLY THINGS #30

When The Swingin' Cornflake Killers recorded "Man From Mars" & "Jekyll & Hyde" in Mike Haskins' garage...

Hey dig this, here's a clip that Mr. Honky-Tonk Jukebox posted to his Instagram @thehonkytonkjukebox, saying "Some Rockabilly from Dallas @t.texed with his Man From Mars song..."

Listen at: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Co0S5qVjJCO/

We, that is me, one T. Tex Edwards, plus The Swingin' Cornflake Killers, who at that time were comprised of Tom Battles (RIP) on guitar, Paul Orr on bass, & David Lee (RIP) on drums, with an able assist from Phil Bennison AKA Homer Henderson (RIP), who contributed an outer-space guitar break, set up our gear one afternoon in Mike Haskins' garage right off lower Greenville Avenue in Dallas Texas, back in the early 1990s. Mike recorded this gem of a tune on his home gear & captured lightning in a bottle. Hold it, maybe that was what we were drinking...

Back cover of the Jekyll & Hyde b/w Man From Mars Honey Records 45 single.
Photo by Clinton Bell (RIP).

Butch Paulson, the man who wrote & first sang "Man From Mars".

Anyhow, this here tune was written by a cat named Butch Paulson, who originally sang it backed by The Motations, on a 45 released by Virgelle Records, located in Seattle Washington, back in 1961. Dallas scenester, Mr. Bill Logan, had recently, back then, just started his Honey Records label for releasing music from some of his favorite people like the aforementioned Homer Henderson & me. Thanks Bill. Complete audio of "Man From Mars" can be heard at: https://at.tumblr.com/t-tex-edwards/audio-man-from-mars-t-tex-edwards-the/5ota8uascggx

Butch Paulson's original 1961 single of "Man From Mars" on Virgelle Records.

Jim Burgett who originally sang "Jekyll & Hyde".

On the flipside, or should I say the 'A' side, is a groovy tune called "Jekyll & Hyde", originally sung by Jim Burgett (from Ceres California, near Modesto). The first incarnation of "Jekyll & Hyde" was titled "Split Personality" on Go Records from 1961. Later in 1961, Go Records issued the song under the title "Jekyll and Hyde”. We erroneously credited Jim with writing the song on the Honey Records single, but further research has discovered it was actually written by a fellow named Pat Boniface, who I could find no information on other than songwriting credits on five different singles, two of which were by our man Jim Burgett. 

The first incarnation was titled "Split Personality" on Go Records from 1961.

Later in 1961, Go Records issued the song under the title "Jekyll and Hyde" by Jim Burgett.

 

The aptly named Cricket Taylor, a local Dallas blues songstress, contributed background vocals on our version of "Jekyll & Hyde" along with another young lady who's name I can't remember. Help me out, Cricket. Audio of "Jekyll & Hyde" can be heard at: https://at.tumblr.com/t-tex-edwards/audio-jekyll-hyde-t-tex-edwards-the/s1r9760ugv0o

Front cover of the Jekyll & Hyde b/w Man from Mars 45 single from Honey Records.
Artwork by John S. Hancock (from Amazing Hancock Bros.)

P.S. I still have some copies of the Honey Records single available on eBay at: https://www.ebay.com/itm/150491956720

The first song on the first Tim Buckley album that amazes me to this day...

Happy Birthday to Timothy Charles Buckley III, born on February 14, 1947. "I Can't See You" is the first song off his first album from 1966. From this album sleeve, he may look like just some random folksinger. The latest in a never-ending line of folkies at the time. But from the first crashing notes it becomes evident that no, this isn't your average 1960s folkie. Yes, it's semi-electric folk, but there's also jazz, punk, & avant-garde elements here, in a tenor singing (his high school friend) Larry Beckett's beautiful poetic lyrics. And as he did for the rest of his life, Tim Buckley broke the rules. Leading off this, his very first Elektra Records release with not the most commercial radio-friendly tune of the collection, but the least.

I first heard Buckley at 13 years old, early in 1968, when my local Dallas "underground rock" station KNUS, the first of it's kind in Big D on the FM side of the dial that played at least one album cut from almost every new LP release of the time, & practically none of the Top 40, that dominated AM radio back then. It was where I first heard The Velvet Underground, The Jeff Beck Group, The Red Crayola, Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera, Condello, The Ill Wind, & on & on. I'd save up my lunch money allowance all week, & on the weekend head over to Preston Record Center & pick out an album by the coverart & what I'd heard on KNUS radio. One week they were playing Tim Buckley's long epic, "Goodbye & Hello", the title song from his more psychedelic second album. So that was what I picked out to purchase with my hard-hoarded cash & was first introduced to the varied music of Tim. For some reason I never went back to this first album until much later in the 1970s. Maybe it was that folksinger cover. After the obviously drug-induced cover photos of "Happy Sad" & the likes, that first album coverart never struck my fancy until I later realized just how brilliant & different Tim Buckley was. But once I finally did investigate further, Wow!

But on to my own musical career. When I was finally putting together my last & possibly final musical project in 2017, my damaged hearing required a lower volume, different approach that started out as just a trio with my pals Eric Hisaw & Dan Hoekstra on guitars, & turned into a combo simply called The T. Tex Edwards Group, when we later added JJ Barrera on bass & Shawn Peters on drums. It had started out as a songwriting project with Hisaw. After years of mainly playing covers of semi-obscure 60s Brit & off-kilter C&W nuggets, I wanted to see if I could still write some meaningful songs like I had years ago with Mike Haskins in The Nervebreakers & Click Mort in The Loafin' Hyenas. I had started writing things down during a month-long rehab torture at Austin Recovery, & upon my release, contacted Eric about possibly getting together & putting some music to my scribblings. We cranked out a few songs & added a Tim Harden tune, a Bob Dylan song, along with some reworkings of some of my earlier Nervebreakers & Loafin' Hyenas originals. Plus this song from Tim Buckley, that I absolutely fell in love with upon my first listening all those years ago. When we later recorded our batch of originals, this song, (along with Gary Stewart's "Single Again"), were the only two cover songs that we recorded at those sessions. Hopefully sometime soon, those recordings will see the light of day...

A new 1981 version of Tex & the Saddletramps record "Slave Lover" in Will Clay's Cumberland Avenue basement

Todays Memories confronted me with an old youtube from Tex & the Saddletramps. "Slave Lover” is a great song written & originally sung by George Jones on his 1963 Mercury Records album ‘The Novelty Side of George Jones’. An album that I ran across & immediately loved, early in my fandom of the Possum. Once Mike Haskins & I reassembled Tex & the Saddletramps, which had started out as a rockabilly/C&W-sideband from The Nervebreakers in 1979, a couple of years later with original drummer Russell Fleming, Key Kolb on guitar, & Donny Ray Ford on bass & backing vocals, this is one of the first tunes I wanted to do. A very uptempo tune with lotsa stops & starts about a poor henpecked guy forced to cater to his lover’s every whim & command.

Tex & the Saddletramps - Slave Lover

‘The Novelty Side of George Jones’ on Mercury Records 1963

A short while later, five or six songs were recorded by Will Clay, a saxophonist & all round funny guy who loved to laugh & crack jokes, who Mike & I had known since he was one of the younger guys that used to come hang out at rehearsals for the pre-Nervebreakers band we were in called The Idiots, circa 1974. The other 3/5 of The Idiots went on to form a local band called The Toys. Will had set up a little recording space down in the basement of a house on a hillside on Cumberland Avenue, just down the street from the Dallas Zoo in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. Coincidentally, right down the street in the other direction from Lee Harvey Oswald’s famous Beckley Avenue garage apartment. Where “the shadows pointing every whichaway” photo of Oswald holding the rifle allegedly used to kill the president was taken. A photo whose authenticity had been questioned by the first wave of conspiracy theorists for decades.

Here is a photo by Vern Evans of saxophonist Will Clay sitting in (actually standing) with Tex & the Saddletramps at a Lower Greenville Avenue Street Dance. There's Ron Gulley & Michael Brown leaning on a vehicle, with me singing & James Flory on bass & Paul Quigg on guitar & Russell Fleming's drums...

"Slave Lover” was the first tune we recorded there & it turned out the best, with right on the money playing & strong backing vocals from Ford. That version of the band soon splintered & our original bassist, Linda Shaw came back into the fold. But the raw, tinny sound captured on Clay’s ancient analog equipment had a certain charm to it. Years later in 2009 long after Will’s passing, Mr. Bobby Beeman, onetime bassist of the legendary Stick Men With Ray Guns band, ran across a third generation (maybe that’s why it sounds sort of tinny) copy of the sessions & contacted me about posting them to youtube. Which is where they’ve sat until the present. With the ease of uploading & posting old tapes to Bandcamp that I recently discovered, Mike Haskins & I are working on a Tex & the Saddletramps collection featuring the tunes from the Cumberland sessions, plus several more from a session that produced “Move It!” at the late Songbird Studios on lower Greenville Avenue in Dallas, & a few songs that Rocky Langston (RIP) recorded for release on his ‘Steel Rok Presents’ cassette. Sort of the Tex & the Saddletramps album that never was…

Here are some photos of the lineup on "Slave Lover" at a Flykiller party in a warehouse in downtown Dallas (not sure who took these photos). First here's Mike Haskins with Donny Ray Ford in background:

Next, here's me with Key Kolb in the background:

Russell Fleming under the Flykiller logo:

The "Slave Lover" lineup of Tex & the Saddletramps at a Lower Greenville Avenue Street Dance in front of Curtis Hawkins' Stack O' Tracks record store:

Tex & the Saddletramps find a home at The Lyon's Pub in Dallas

Ahhh, the Lyon's Pub!!! Tex & the Saddletramps straddled some eras. First gig as a rockabilly/C&W side-band from The Nervebreakers was opening for Joe King Carrasco and The Crowns at Big D's little punk hangout, DJ's. Then lots of gigs followed at The Hot Klub. As that fizzled out, alot of the Hot Klub bands transitioned over to the new wavey Ground Zero, off Upper Greenville Avenue, (DJ's had been at Lowest Greenville Avenue), but not us. Somewhere in the middle of all this Mike Haskins & Bob Childress left The Nervebreakers & the Saddletramps to form Bag Of Wire with Curtis Hawkins & Clarke Blacker. Paul Quigg & James Flory (from the band Superman’s Girlfriend) replaced them in both bands, & then both bands ceased to exist. Sometime in 1982, I met & started jamming with a cat named Key Kolb. Well, one thing led to another & we got together with Mike Haskins again & started a new Tex & the Saddletramps, recruiting the supremely talented Donnie Ray Ford to play bass & bringing back Russell Fleming, the only Saddletramps drummer through all these incarnations. Ford was more self-destructive & an even worse drunk than I was. So one Sunday after a gig at the tony 8.0 bar in which Ford had repeatedly grabbed the microphone slurring & cursing, BOTH guitarists called me separately & said, "we gotta find another bass player." The original Saddletramps' bassist, Linda Shaw, was given a call & she consented to return to the fold. Kolb soon left too & it was back to the original Mike, Linda, Russell & I. Sshhuuw! Enough background info...

Tex & the Saddletramps at Zebo's "Rockabilly Night"...

So we bounced around playing gigs wherever our manager, Curtis Hawkins, could scrounge one up. Out of town we played in Denton, at The Bowery in Oklahoma City, or Steve Dean's AusTex Lounge in Austin. In-town, at the aforementioned 8.0 Bar, "Rockabilly Night" at Zebo's, & the old Circle Theater on the infamous Harry Hines Blvd, a spectacular old movie theater, where I had attended movies on Saturday afternoons as a child, that had been converted into a massive hard rock/metal bar. Where after one set, they asked us to not play our scheduled second set, just take a less-than-agreed-upon amount of pay & leave...

Tex & the Saddletramps posing in front of the Circle Theater on the infamous Harry Hines Blvd. (Left to right) Mike Haskins, me, Linda Shaw, & Russell Fleming...

Finally we ended up at the Lyon's Pub, in a kind of shabby older building on Yale Blvd. across Central Expressway from SMU. There, we found a home. A place that actually liked us, ALOT. At our first gig there, we learned the local Rugby team, the Dallas Harlequins, drank there after practices & games. They whooped & hollered with wild abandon, & swung from the light fixtures hanging down from the ceiling during our set. It was there I met some really fun gals who both worked & hung out there, a redhead named Carol Box & Dallas Alice, whom I'm still friends with & correspond with to this day. It was at the Lyon's Pub that I first met Bubbles Cash's wild offspring, the mohawked Keiley, that I ran with for awhile back then. She was probably then underage, but I never asked. I remember one night she & Bobby Soxx & I were stopped by the cops, with me driving. Bobby & I were experienced enough to "yes sir/ no sir" to all their questions, but Keiley was pissed off that we'd gotten pulled over. They found a tomahawk in her purse & arrested her on-the-spot. Which left Bobby & I to have to drive over to Keiley's mom's apartment & inform her, "Bubbles, your daughter's been hauled downtown for a concealed weapon." 

Things were going well with our regular gigs at the Lyon's Pub. We got some of our old punkabilly crowd, but also regular folks too. Add in some bikers & rugby players & we generally had a good time. Until one night right in the middle of one of our sets, a gentleman in a suit approached the stage, flashed a badge & cut us off mid-song. He was from the TABC, the state alcoholic beverage commission & they were closing the bar down. He informed us that "this gentleman here," pointing at one of his cohorts, "will watch you unload your equipment from the stage & out the back door. Do not remove anything else from this bar, just your own belongings. Do not finish your beers or take them with you." I later learned we were lucky. When they shut down a bar, they generally padlock the doors & can confiscate everything in there. We were lucky they let us leave with our gear. I later heard that Chris, the bar owner, had been passing around one alcoholic beverage license to several other bars at different locations, to have on hand for scheduled inspections. How that worked, I don't know, but that was the end of the Lyon's Pub...

(Special thanks to Curtis Cottrell for brightening up the first & third image)

"Formerly Street Queen" the first Nervebreakers original song...

"Formerly Street Queen" was the very first song I wrote with my Nervebreakers songwriting partner Mike Haskins. I am guessing that was perhaps 1975 or ’76, when I was around 21 years old. “Formerly Street Queen” is an excellent example of it’s time & what is now referred to as “proto-punk,” with alternating fast & slow parts topped off with an epic-sounding final long section, building up to a resolution with a spaghetti-western turn at the end.

My old band from that era, The Nervebreakers, have a new/old album (FACE UP TO REALITY) released last year by Freddie Krc’s SteadyBoy Records, filled with original songs written & performed during the band’s late ‘70s heyday, but never documented & recorded until a 2009 band reunion. Got that? New in 2022, but recorded in 2009, but composed before 1980. "Formerly Street Queen" is included on this release.

Please check your local record store to see if it’s in stock. If you don’t find it there, I have some available here on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/155359139433

The ‘street queen’ illustration included here was one I lifted from a social media post, with no attribution listed for it’s source, that I ran across recently. Since we had a song with that in the title I posted it to Facebook with a link https://youtu.be/OHUHncPED2w to the song. Lo & behold, the wonderful Miriam Linna of Norton Records commented & informed me: “That image was hacked out of Bad Seed mag!” Bad Seed was a famous groundbreaking fanzine she & her late husband, Billy Miller, put together many years ago. So I quickly inserted in my posting the real source for this image that you see here, with apologies. Miriam’s one of the coolest, cutest dolls around but I know you don’t wanna get on the bad side of the original “bad seed."