Page 36 - the NOISE January 2016

shIndaGGers / PorK torta
>> ContInued From 33 >>
/ hermanItos
by tony ballz
the shindaggers
the allman brothers
The big Shindaggers/Pork Torta/Hermanitos show on Saturday, December 5 at Mia’s was quite the blow-out, one of the most over-the-top events downtown Flag has seen in a while. Then again, I don’t get out much.
My relationship with the Shindags began years ago with me jumping
onstage uninvited and screeching “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill” out of sheer drunk enthusiasm. This eventually led to us dressing up as mummies for a Halloween gig and ended with a mercifully brief three songs (because that’s all the responsibility I could handle) at their farewell show.
And what a farewell show! The side room at Mia’s was gussied up as The Shindaggers’ Lounge, complete with a couch and (unused) turntable, a Shin shrine featuring fake gold record awards, free ladies’ underwear, free Tecate and free pizza! Why? Because The Shindaggers love us, that’s why. And despite that love, there’s no way I’m drinking Tecate (free or not) in a bar that has Smithwick’s on tap. My intestines agree: it’s well worth the money.
Scores of local weirdoes crawled out from under their collective rocks. As I stood chatting with Guy (Galactic Citizen) and stuffing my gob with free pizza, a strange girl approached and initiated a conversation that never ends well:
“Do you know who you remind me of?”
Oh God, I thought, not the guy from The X-Files. Please not the guy from The
X-Files.
“Who?”
“(...) from The X-Files!”
Fantastic.
“Wow, that’s pretty insulting. Isn’t he kind of a loser?”
Miffed, she told me how much she loved that show when she was ten and I asked her what else she loved when she was ten that is still part of her life.
“Well, I still finger paint!”
I said I wasn’t a fan of The X-Files mostly because the two protagonists were
terrible actors and anyone who liked that show had never seen an episode of The Outer Limits or read any speculative fiction. We then got into a semantic argument as to whether HBO counts as television. The conversation ended with her calling me an a**hole and walking away. We avoided each other’s gaze for the rest of the show.
Later, when I was extremely inebriated, a pretty lady approached and said how much she enjoyed my radio program. I offered her a sticker and she smiled and said she already had one. No, I don’t remember her name. Yes, I am planning to go on a diet and get my teeth fixed.
The Shindags played all the hits (I think), like “Look Good, Smell Fine,”“Let’s Go 69,” and all the others I can’t remember. By the time my three songs came around, the stage was covered in beer cans and spew. As soon as I started playing, the empty pizza boxes began flying. I don’t think this was due to my performance; it was probably just the right time of the evening to throw around pizza boxes.
The Tucson supporting bands couldn’t have been better. Hermanitos (featuring former Noise editor Bobby Carlson) served as a reminder of how easy it is to fall in love with a bitchin’ rock & roll chick that plays electric guitar, and The Pork Torta sang all their tunes in Española! Arriba!
Hermanitos’ drummer Jake, who owns a print shop in Tucson, recently acquired a record lathe. So far, everything he has pressed up looks amazing and sounds like crap. Bobby told me Jake had presented him with a new Hermanitos record that, when placed on a turntable, consisted of nothing but three minutes of hiss.
After the show, the Hermanitos’ merch table was covered in Tecate. Jake gave me some of his homemade records he didn’t feel like cleaning off. I was hoping the beer would make them sound better, but they were so disgusting the next day I had to throw the plastic sleeves away, spray the discs down and hang them up to dry, like dirty laundry.
Best quote of the night, from the dude with the Shindaggers panties on his head: “I slipped in my own vomit!”
Second best quote of the night, from a Mia’s employee cleaning up the disaster on stage: “F*cking Shindaggers!”
| tony ballz apologizes for his sketchy memories of the evening’s events.
goodbyes and parted. Duane slowly strode toward the band, his back to the camera. The Brothers, in tune with each other’s vibes, knew by Duane’s gait that something was up. As they all stared, Duane’s eyes twinkled. He opened his hand and showed them what was in it: an eight ball of cocaine.
The man in the alley was Duane’s dealer. They had smoothly pulled the “shake hands and palm off the drugs” maneuver. The Brothers perked up. Without a word, Duane closed his hand, turned around and sat on a road case. He smiled at Marshall innocently as if to say, “OK, I’m ready now.”
The band lost it. Their laughter echoed down the alley and into the street. Jim Marshall’s camera went snap, and he immediately knew he had the keeper.
The front cover of The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East shows all six men cracking up over a private joke. Gregg Allman is laughing so hard his head is thrown back and his eyes are clenched shut. Dickey Betts is looking sideways at Duane admiringly with a “you sly motherf*cker” expression. Duane Allman is staring directly at the camera, hands clasped together in his lap, hiding his stash. His face bears what is commonly known as a sh*t- eating grin.
The Brothers’ instincts proved to be correct. At Fillmore East (released in July 1971) hit #13 and went gold within three months. It is considered one of the best live albums ever made.
Later that year, The Allman Brothers Band’s iconic status was sealed. On October 29, 1971, Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident in Macon. He was 24 years old. On November 11, 1972, bassist Berry Oakley was also killed on his motorcycle, just three blocks from the site of Duane’s accident. He was also 24 years old.
Brothers Forever, the band carried on. Eat a Peach (October 1972), featured three sides of Duane Allman’s last recordings. The LP hit #4 and was certified platinum. Their first full album without Duane, Brothers and Sisters (August 1973), was even more phenomenally successful thanks to Dickey Betts’ “Ramblin’ Man,” which crossed over to AM radio and hit #2 on the Billboard pop chart. Brothers and Sisters sold over seven million copies worldwide.
The next forty years were a soap opera. More money led to more drugs and more ego trips. Gregg moved to Los Angeles and had a well-publicized four-year marriage to Cher. The band broke up, reformed, broke up and reformed again. Bassists, guitarists and piano players came and went. The group dealt with years of drug addiction and alcoholism. When The Brothers were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, Gregg Allman was so drunk he could barely get through his acceptance speech. The incident forced him to finally clean up his act and take rehab seriously.
The Allman Brothers Band enjoyed a popular resurgence in the 1990s, which unfortunately went to Dickey Betts’ head. Their live shows suffered. Control of the group seesawed between him and Gregg until Betts was finally fired in 2000. Twenty- year-old Derek Trucks, nephew of drummer Butch, was hired to play guitar temporarily and ended up staying for fifteen years.
The band’s third resurgence was courtesy of guitarist Warren Haynes, who spent twenty-two years as a Brother. The guitar interplay between him and young Derek Trucks recalled the glory days of Dickey and Duane, and audiences responded enthusiastically, making The Brothers a headline act once again.
Aftera45-yearcareer,TheAllmanBrothers Band played their last show on October 28, 2014, with original members Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, and Jaimoe still on board. They ended their set with the first song they ever performed in public: Muddy Waters’“Trouble No More.” Thus the circle was completed.
Duane Allman is often near the top of the list of rock’s greatest guitarists. After his death, Capricorn issued two anthologies of his session work mixed with Allman Brothers Band highlights. In 2013, Duane’s daughter Galadrielle compiled Skydog, an exhaustively researched 7-CD collection of her father’s work. Galadrielle was too young to remember her father’s voice, but says that Duane speaks to her every day through his music.
• - c. 1969 Gregg Allman
| tony ballz is ringing in the new year. tony@thenoise.us
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