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...

The story of The Loafin' Hyenas first club gig at Raji's in Hollywood when Lux Interior & Rob Ritter showed up

 This photo that came up in yesterday’s Memories is from when the Hollywood, California band that I was in, The Loafin' Hyenas, played our first club gig at Raji’s, the epicenter of Hollywood underground bands at the time. I think this was 1988. At that point the band consisted of myself on vocals, former Cramps guitarist Click Mort, a wild cajun gal from Beaumont named Dionne Sparks (now Neva Trejo) on fiddle, & the former rhythm section from the band Blood on the Saddle, Ron Botelho on bass & Hermann Senac on drums. This is the lineup that recorded our first single “Scatter” (about Elvis’ chimpanzee) b/w “Move It!” (a reworking of one of my earlier songs from Tex & the Saddletramps days) that was one of the early releases from Long Gone John’s Sympathy For The Record Industry label (SFTRI 008). Hear the song "Scatter" here: https://at.tumblr.com/t-tex-edwards/t-tex-edwards-ch-dld-bft-brit-omm-audio/riw8sqxa1sfx

And what a night it was. I don’t remember much from our performance, but I do remember who was there in the audience that night. In the photo below just to the left of the speaker cabinet (& darkly in the first photo), you can see original Gun Club bassist Rob "Graves" Ritter in sunglasses (yes, after dark AND indoors) sitting on the floor with his friend Tim Farris from the band Celebrity Skin. Rob was our favorite & the first bass player Click & I recruited for The Loafin' Hyenas & he jammed with us once when we were in the early stages of writing songs & putting the band together. But Rob was too busy at the time playing reunion gigs with 45 Grave & soon joining the band Thelonious Monster, to have enough time to devote to our project. He did return toward the end of The Loafin' Hyenas & contributed some beautiful bass lines to our only album, THE LOAFIN’ HYENAS on Patrick Mathè’s New Rose label out of France.

Also that night Click had invited his old bosses from The Cramps, Lux Interior & Poison Ivy Rorschach, who surprisingly showed up & crowded into the stuffy basement room at Raji’s where the bands played. I remember Lux pointing out in conversation afterwards in his humorous goofy manner, “Hey, we’re both lead singers with three letter names that end in ‘x’ Lux & Tex!”. I had invited Chip Kinman from Rank and File, a band that I admired & had opened shows for a couple of times back in Dallas at The Hot Klub, who also showed up.

The next photo is still-my-sweetie Karen Kritter & I, in one of Raji’s booths.

Then this last image is a flyer made by Click Mort. I don't remember if this was the same night as the one that I'm describing in this post. But it would make sense since Lux produced the first Mad Daddy's LP...