|
On November 18, 2005, Wannabes,
one of Austin longest-serving and finest power
pop band's celebrated its 20th anniversary with
a suitably beer-drenched show at the venerable
Hole in the Wall. At that show, the band, which
has earned near-legendary status among fans
for their mix of great power pop songs, irreverent
wit, and highwire live shows, was joined by
MIchael Comiskey, its original frontman. This
is his exclusive story of the band’s early
years.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * *
The Sun’s
Up, I’m Not:
The Inside Origin Story of Austin’s Wannabes
By Michael L. Comiskey
It has been a commonly expressed sentiment
that the 1980’s were not good years for
music. This is a fallacy, but now as the “20
year cycle” of entertainment trends has
cast its follow-spot on them in the new millennial
dawning, everything 80’s is back, including
the musical dross that drew critical fire to
the decade in the first place( Men Without Hats,
The Hooters, Thompson Twins et al). However,
from someone who experienced adolescence through
young adulthood in the 80’s, I submit
that rock n’ roll and pop music were incontrovertibly
thriving in heretofore unknown and exhilarating
ways. There were even acts which used the often
maligned synthesizer in volatile and artful
ways (Split Enz, New Order, The Cure, early
O.M.D.). Music lovers were still reeling and
punch-drunk from the combination of the Athens,
Ga. scene and the mighty Minneapolis happenings,
when the media sent out its purse seines to
drag in some new catch—some new college
town to be ludicrously labeled, trumpeted, royally
feted, and subsequently shelved in dust. In
1985 the town being prepped for debut in the
media’s grand ball was Austin, Texas.
I knew nothing of Austin yet, but I would soon
know plenty. In
the fall of 1985 I first moved away from home.
There were now 1200 miles between my upbringing
in the inner city of Tampa, on the Suncoast
of Florida, and my new home beyond the Gulf;
Fort Worth, Texas is known as “Cowtown
USA,” which is seemingly a world away
from Tampa culturally, but they’re not
as dissimilar as one might think. Both are hot,
humid, urban southern towns with Spanish language
heard and seen everywhere, which was a great
joy to me, as I spoke and loved Spanish. I had been given a scholarship for theatre,
and an attractive aid package to attend Texas
Christian University. Having just graduated
from an all-male Jesuit college prep school,
I was more than willing to go anywhere else
to fledge myself in first freedom.Clark Hall, Third North wing was where I alighted.
I was right back in an all-male environment,
but at least the campus was brimming with girls.
Resident Assistants were granted their own rooms,
but due to overcrowding I was being placed in
a room with our R.A. He was an affable guy and
unstintingly hospitable, despite my unintended
imposition. His dad was the head football coach,
and I grew up loving football. He was into underground
music, and was elated to see the impressive
vinyl collection I’d amassed. He gladly
helped carry my Peaches Records crates up the
three flights to our room. We hit it off instantly.
His name was Steve Wacker, and
he would eventually introduce me to a key figure
in the formation of my first real band, which
at this writing is the legendary Austin act
known far and wide as the Wannabes. It is their
impending 20 year anniversary that compelled
me to write for the first time about our seminal
years together in Fort Worth, prior to their
august tenure as Austin’s kings of supercharged
pop. (I am also honored to have been invited
to perform the old material with them on November18,
a literal twenty years from the night of our
inaugural set. We will be at Austin’s
venerable dive The Hole in the Wall, kickin’
the shit at midnight, so come on out for a hoot
and holler.) But, my discursiveness has wound
us away from the tale at hand, so I take you
back now to Cowtown 1985. At eighteen I was, and remain to this moment,
what I have termed “music obsessive,”
and unabashedly a rock n’ roll addict.
I had purchased my first guitar at fifteen through
a classified ad sold to me by an out-of-work
mechanic for $40, hard-shell case included.
It was a no-brand Strat copy that weighed in
more like a Gibson with a Bigsby and had greasy
fingerprints indelibly marking the fretboard.
I knew nothing about playing, but cobbled together
enough chords by myself from songbooks to be
a passable garage-style guitarist. I had been
a good singer since my earliest memory and had
played ukulele at age six.One afternoon some guys from down the hall
in the dorm dropped by after hearing me jamming
in my room. We were all acquainted, on some
basis, as denizens of the same dorm-wing. They
thought it was cool that there was another musician
on the wing and were keen to suss out what I
was about. They were impressed that I had gear,
albeit nothing flash to be sure. I had two foot
pedals, the ubiquitous MXR Overdrive and an
Arion Stereo Delay, and an amp that wasn’t
even grounded, so it picked up Latino radio
from Tampa Bay to Cowtown. That wasn’t
the only hilariously salient feature of the
amp; though I’d purchased it in Florida,
it was called the “Texas Twister,”
and its control plate was adorned with a tornado
graphic. The two of them were both amused to
no end by this. One of the guys sang in a frat band called
The Skam, specializing in alternative pop songs
of the day. The other kid lived next door to
him and was a bass player. This latter character
was lank and rangy, a witty Texan with a perfect
narcotic drawl from somewhere that was apparently
nowhere called Grapevine, one of the “Mid-Cities”
between Fort Worth and Dallas. His name was
Michael Darby, but he had acquired a nickname
during freshman orientation when some upperclassman
who was signing us all in said Darby looked
like Hunter S. Thompson and gave him a Hello-My-Name-Is
sticker reading “Hunter.” The nickname
stuck, and so did our bond over many records
and many beers. He would come down to my room with his bass
rig to jam, though I was way out of my league,
skill-wise. He could adroitly tear through every
Geddy Lee bass line, while I was only able to
tackle my own few songs and bits of some covers.
Hunter encouraged me, often more confident about
my own abilities than I was. (I had been ousted
from my high school band Ice 9 by my best buds,
in favor of a proper guitarist with proper gear.
Incidentally, their new lead singer was a friend
of mine named Andy Smith, who is, the reason
this article is appearing on Pop Culture Press.com
at all. Cheers, Andy! ed- Thanks for rekindling
those halcyon days of pubescent new wave glory.
No, I still don't own a white jumpsuit.) Darby had a band at Grapevine High called
Humans from Toledo, and his buddy Jennings Crawford
from that group often came out to Fort Worth
to party. They were far more musically skilled
than I, and I learned a great deal just hanging
out. Hunter and I traded LP’s, and he turned
me on to many bands I still cherish. He was
the only person I knew, or still know, who had
a Lime Spiders’ record, which played nicely
along with Flip Your Wig, Tim, and other more
well-known outcast classics of the era. He also
held knowledge that was far more intriguing
to me than even Lime Spiders, heaven forbid.
He was hip to all of the musical happenings
around Texas and would invite me along to journey
in his ’67 Dodge Dart into the belly of
the beast, Dallas and the not-yet-gentrified
industrial district of Deep Ellum, so named
because it was deep down on Elm Street, mimicking
the black dialect pronunciation of “elm”
prevalent there when it was a haven for bluesmen
like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson. There were only two clubs down there in that
primordial time, Theatre Gallery and Circle
A Ranch (with the "A" spelled with
the anarchy symbol). Later would come the first
Club Clearview and The Prophet Bar, just before
the district was subsumed beneath waves of neon
and top-shelf margaritas. Jennings would join
us occasionally to see Three On a Hill, The
End, or The Trees. Once Hunter and I saw Scratch
Acid at Circle A Ranch, watching from behind
chain-link fence. Without anything but their
sheer performance, they truly frightened me,
and I couldn’t have been more pleased.
Theatre Gallery was so small and casual that
we were able to meet bands that played there.
I sat briefly, enjoying a Corona with the Replacements'
Paul Westerberg during The Trees opening set
on the Tim tour. Hunter did much the same with
Bob Mould on Husker Du's Candy Apple Grey tour.
Eventually, Darby came to me one day with a
seemingly hair-brained and hilarious plot he
had hatched with a couple of other musical ne’er-do-wells.
We had met Mark Carney, a drummer from St. Louis
who lived in the dorm next door. Carney was
ne’er-do-well number one. Some frat boys
tried to co-opt Darby, Carney and I into a cover
band with them. After a brief jam, we realized
that they didn’t need us to do The Plimsouls
“Million Miles Away,” but we stayed
chummy with Mark, who had a wild streak in him
that manifest outside of his drumming. Enter ne’er-do-well number two. Steve
Wacker had introduced me to his pal Rob Thomas,
who played football for the Horned Frogs under
Steve’s dad. Rob was a big kid, but not
a stereotypical football player by any stretch.
He played bass and guitar and was a writer and
English major. He sported a Bowie/Vapors-style
mullet, which I had worn many times over since
junior high. (Among his many other projects,
Thomas is the successful creator and executive
producer of the UPN Network’s show Veronica
Mars). Hunter told me that he was forming a band
with Rob and Carney to appear in a Battle of
the Bands, and they wanted me as frontman. It
was to be called Madonna Wannabes and was to,
among other bits of sonic malfeasance to feature
a cover of “Material Girl” with
lyrics rewritten by Hunter to reflect his desire
to have carnal and financial pleasures bestowed
upon him by some wealthy woman. The whole scheme
was designed to rankle the ranks of fraternity
bands and their fan-base. It was just punk-rock
enough to be worth doing. The showdown was being put on by Students to
End Nuclear Proliferation (S.T.E.P.) as a fundraiser.
They called it Frog Follies, and it was to be
held in the student center ballroom. I agreed,
though we had a very brief period with which
to cobble together an act, and Hunter was left
to devise a set-list....
Read More
back to top |
