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

The Nervebreakers & the first Cowpunk songs

 

The Nervebreakers performing at The Longhorn Ballroom in January 1978 opening for The Sex Pistols.

Someone recently made me aware of a mention of The Nervebreakers & T. Tex Edwards as "precursors" of the cowpunk movement in the WIKIPEDIA posting concerning "Cowpunk." Can't say I agree with all they've said, but it's nice to get mentioned...

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpunk

Tim Stegall says in this AUSTIN CHRONICLE article:

Raul's in Overdrive: "Have a Good Time, Get in Free, and Drink Some Beer"

1978, when San Antonio's the Next became Austin's Fourth Punk Band and Dallas' Nervebreakers beat locals in a battle of the bands for Chapter 6, Part 1 of the "Austin Punk Chronicles"

"...Preempting the rise of Jason & the Scorchers and Hickoids by eight years, the Nervebreakers were the first cowpunk band, before that designation devolved into a Los Angeles cartoon..."

Source:https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2022-12-23/rauls-in-overdrive-have-a-good-time-get-in-free-and-drink-some-beer/

The Nervebreakers started covering George Jones' "The Race Is On" back in 1979, and recorded it in 1980 for their first album WE WANT EVERYTHING. They wrote & were performing an original tune called "I Don't Wanna Hold Your Hand" in 1979 (although the recording of the song is from much later). Both of which are supposedly the first cowpunk songs.

"The Race Is On" by The Nervebreakers from the WE WANT EVERYTHING album on YouTube:

Source: https://youtu.be/M6-w1d4eaIc

"I Don't Wanna Hold Your Hand" by The Nervebreakers from the FACE UP TO REALITY album on YouTube

Source: https://youtu.be/3c9iQo1jZDs

Four years gone, Scott Walker (born Noel Scott Engel; January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019). You play the hand you're dealt...

Four years gone, Scott Walker (born Noel Scott Engel; January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019)...

I was a moody, alienated outsider of a teen. I didn’t seem to fit in anywhere, or with any of my surroundings. So as one does, I just sort of created my own version of a world in my head. Part of my weekly ritual was going to a discount department store called Woolco & buying cut-outs. Usually records from the previous few years that hadn’t sold well & were punched with a hole through a corner of the cover & sold at a discounted price. Usually 99 cents, sometimes even 49 cents. It was there I discovered many wonders. Among those that appealed to my disaffected, melancholy disposition were albums I bought by The Kinks & The Walker Brothers. 

The photo above is of Scott Walker singing “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” with The Walker Brothers, three non-related Americans who moved to the UK in the mid-sixties & started a band with the fictionalized last name of Walker. (Sound familiar Ramones fans?)

Then one day at Woolco, I ran across a Scott Walker solo album called ALONER, with Scott from The Walker Brothers singing moody Jacques Brel ballads (“My Death”) along with a few of his own compositions like “Montague Terrace In Blue”, over some crazy over-the-top orchestral backing. You can hear them both here:

Then more Scott Walker solo LPs showed up at Woolco, SCOTT TWO & then SCOTT 3 with Scott’s surreal interpretation of “The Seventh Seal” (despite what it sez below, you can watch it here at this link: https://youtu.be/ejiWfG-vOXo):

His dark, thoughtful, alienated music fit my teen angst perfectly. I got interested in new bands & performers to follow, started dabbling in creating songs myself, & moved continually on…

Years later in 1981, I was heavily involved in getting into roots music that I hadn’t heard before, & buying every album of old rockabilly, surf, & primitive blues that I could get my hands on. One day, I bought an import album called JUKEBOX AT ERIC’S that was purportedly comprised of the songs on the jukebox at place called Eric’s Club in Liverpool.

(Read about the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/1995828-Various-Jukebox-At-Erics-Vol-1-Rock-N-Roll). Mixed in between the primitive rockin’ R&B obscurities by the likes of Big Al Downing, Tommy Blake, & Fort Worth’s Ray Sharpe (“Monkey’s Uncle”), was a surf instrumental called “Jungle Fever” by The Playboys that I immediately latched onto: 

A couple of years after that, when I’d moved to Austin & started the band Out On Parole with Joe Dickens, we started playing “Jungle Fever” as a closer at the end of our sets. At that time I hadn’t noticed “Jungle Fever’ was written by someone named S. Engel. That is a young teenage Scott Engel & his high school surf band, The Playboys…

Four years gone, Scott Walker (born Noel Scott Engel; January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019). You play the hand you're dealt...

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 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...

My Brand of Blues, Marvin Rainwater, & me...

Marvin Rainwater was an American country & rockabilly singer/songwriter who was born in Wichita, Kansas. He had several hits during the late 1950s, including "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" & "Whole Lotta Woman," which hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart. He was known for wearing Native American-themed outfits on stage & claimed to have quarter-blood Cherokee ancestry.

“My Brand Of Blues” was one of several gold records he scored in 1959. The other two being "My Love Is Real" & "Half Breed”, a cover version of a John D. Loudermilk song. That same year, he recorded the original version of another Loudermilk song, "The Pale Faced Indian”, which later became a huge hit for Paul Revere & The Raiders under the title "Indian Reservation”.

“My Brand of Blues” has an eerie, tortured love theme & an early Johnny Cash-type feel. I first heard it on a ‘MGM Rockabilliy Collection’ album released in Europe in 1977 that I bought as an import a couple of years later. It was among the first several batch of tunes I suggested to guitarist Joe Dickens when we started putting together the earliest version of the Out On Parole band in 1984. Not an easy song to play because of the almost arbitrary number of times playing the riff before the vocals come in each time, “My Brand of Blues” languished at the bottom of the song list & was performed infrequently. When Out On Parole reformed in the 21st century, the song was revitalized & made the cut for the 2011 sessions that birthed the new DEVIL GET AWAY FROM ME album.

"My Brand of Blues" by T. Tex Edwards & Out On Parole

Listen & Download at: https://ttexedwards.bandcamp.com/track/my-brand-of-blues 

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: