J.W. Americana
Written by: Harold Schelling
5:24 p.m. CST, May 11, 2005
Last weekend, at a prominent bar in Houston called Rudyards
I saw a rockabilly/ punk-band that completely blew my mind in terms song
originality and stage presence. The band is called J.W. Americana, and they are
not a political organization trying to democratize some Central American
country of human rights violations, but a Texas rock trio who have been on the
Houston music scene for quite some time.
I was particularly impressed how tight this band was,
especially considering that "punk rock" has had predominate influence
in both their music and way of life; the band is every bit as serious about
their performance as Leonard Bernstein was with the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra.
J.W. Americana is about the music. They have a devout
following of loyal fans that are as colorful in every way as the band members
themselves and who apparently seem to know the lyrics verbatim.
If the group "Social Distortion", met with
"Public Enemy", "Johnny Cash", "Tom Waits",
"NSYNC", and "New Edition" and if they joined together to
form a large musical ensemble and said "Let's start from scratch and see
what we come up with?" It might be something like that of J.W. Americana.
The group romped about the stage in an audacious manner and
into the audience goading the fans to cheer and experience the music, and it
took very little out right encouragement to get the audience going--the music
told them what to do. It was a rockabilly "shin-dig". Americana were
reminiscent of the "rock'n roll" super-group "The Police" each
band member fighting for supremacy of the stage and at the same time playing as
a one unit, as a band, complimenting each other musically while at the same
time, stressing their individuality as musicians.
Americana's song "Tony the pony" is a terrific
piece of musical craftsmanship. The bass and the lyrics are "All the
rage". The song starts off with Doug revving into bass solo and then
ripping right into rockabilly like vocals. Doug let's out a fierce,
banshee-like shriek in the middle of the song and the club shakes, and the
audience goes wild as they feel the raw power of the band. The song is
spectacular, filled with rock& roll rhythms that make your heartbeat double
skip and it also shuts down most all artificial mechanical cardiovascular
mechanisms.
J.W. Americana has been able to generate a unique,
sensational, sound through their diverse background of musical influence. Their
rigorous experimentation with modern and sometimes unorthodox forms of music is
pervasive in all of their songs.
The band members themselves are just ordinary--more than
regular people, who could blend in with nearly any crowd they walk into. They
enjoy a good conversation with just about anybody who is willing to give them
the "time of day". In fact, the members of J.W. Americana are so
friendly that you could take these guys to the zoo with you, or you could
easily imagine these band members wrestling around in your living room floor
with your Golden Retriever—good people who enjoy life's simple pleasures like
watching football, cooking barbeques, or extracting the venom from the teeth of
a ten foot Egyptian King cobra snake on rugged terrains near the worlds edge.
At the concert, Kosmo ripped into
several bass solos with their songs "Pizza" and "We're going to
Fight" bringing the crowd to almost frenzy in both acclamation and
fanatical cheering.
Kosmo easily has the presence of a prominent cult leader as
he has a huge fan base in Houston, Thailand, and five eastern bloc countries.
The bands song, "We're Gonna
Fight" is an anthem that has many different takes on life, it resonates of
a rallying song, awakening the people and challenging them to understand that
there is more to life than the 9 to 5, and that our individuality still exists,
and if there is still one part of ourselves that hasn't been taken, than we can
fight to keep that organ or artery and say "That this day was our most
magnificent moment in time!" That we still kept part of ourselves through
all of life's soul-deadening experiences.
At the concert you can meet people from all walks of life:
former deadheads, gangster rappers, ravers, polka yodeling four H club members,
classical music aficionados, promise keepers, and "fire-eating"
mariachi players. It's a melting pot of musicians, artists, bankers, public
works employees, and diplomats. A good time had by all and they all get down at
a "J.W." show.
In the audience, deep in the heart of this Texas crowd, is a
fun group of people jumping and dancing around—this is "the heart of the
maelstrom". Bodies float across the crowd like driftwood of an old
shipwreck, the flotsam and jetsam of the of the "party-harders"
surfing across the unknown and suddenly plunging down towards the depths of the
concert hall hardwood floor as if some saloon dwelling shark yanked him below
the surface of hands.
Sometimes you see a person thrown across this wave of hands
like saltwater marlin performing oceanic gymnastics only to knock over more
cups of beer creating a sea-like spray of Miller Light and Bud Ice all over
everybodies shirts. The song Pizza is playing and the crowd roars and
you think that this audience has just received orders to begin paramilitary
operations from the band, "Storm City Hall then onto Austin and then catch
Dallas in a pincers movement spearheading towards Cowboy Stadium then the state
is ours. Yeah! Pizza!"
Up front by the stage, there are a
group of attractive girls who have seemed to have grasped the concept of
"getting down" with great music and they are not too shy about being
rock'n rollers who embrace the true spirit of the music while they do their
thing with some very tight shirts and very tight jeans. "Lord have
mercy" I yelled out, but nobody could hear me, in fact I couldn't even
hear me but I could hear the band playing their nostalgic piece,
"NRA". The song seems as if were created in the spirit of an old
Irish folk song with people waving their hands above their head singing along
with the song with a pint of ale in their hand.
At the songs finale, a melee of
Winchester and Remington shotguns went off in tribute to the ongoing spirit of
the song, a dismembered finger blew past my face, and the smell of heated
sulfur filled the room. A husky man holding up a shot javelina by it's feet,
raised it above his head and the crowd gives another accolade of
approval—"anything goes here" said a guy next to me, like I didn't
understand that already. Moments later I could smell the sweet smell of a Texas
Mesquite Barbeque mixed with the aroma of Milwaukee's Best, and burning
gunpowder.
This was a fun concert to say the least. The more I listened
to the music and absorbed the atmosphere, the more I respected cavemen. I
jealously thought how much fun they must have had after killing and roasting a
saber tooth tiger and frying it over an open fire. Why hadn't I come to one of
these shows sooner? I glanced across the crowd and I saw that it is difficult
to determine who is having more fun at the show, the band or the audience, I
think the janitor was, I saw him go into the men's bathroom accompanied by two
hot looking girls wearing dominatrix gear, a lama, and a mop, but there was
more than a festival atmosphere in the bar.
Within the crowd, somebody just started a pit bull fight in
the crowd and security is taking bets or is this "again" my imagination
playing tricks on me?
"Who brought in the wolverine?" a guard says.
"It's against dog fighting regulations not to match a pit bull against a
wolverine?"
"So man", says a black gentleman wearing an all
black leather outfit, " I guess what your saying is that your pit bull
just isn't up for the task against Muffer my wolverine?" A momentary
pause by the security guard occurs, and then the animals are released and the
fight begins, but can't seem to see how the fight is going, I think the animals
turned on their master's, I saw a hairpiece fly off security guards head and
into the crowd and somebody is passing a disgruntled pit bull across the crowd
it's barking and biting in mid air and another wave of Bud light rolls across
the audience, well come to think of it, that was Milwaukee's Best.
At this point I can't stand up, and
all beer tastes the same to me at this stage of this spiritual musical event. I
feel the power and positive aspects of numbness of the mind and I relax and
listen to Rodney Elliott's guitar rifts as he moves across the stage like a
golden glove middleweight prizefighter.
L.C. Dupree (Shane Lauder) is
drumming up a storm. His only sense of timing seems to be on the drums which
supposedly had been measured to perfection by Scientologists at M.I.T. who
desired to perform this research in the field of percussion harmonics for
purely scientific purposes, but that is entirely a different story, one of
which I might explore in some later write-up.
L.C. Dupree plays his drum-set like
some artistically talented Viking ship galley foreman, enforcing a large group
of forced labor oarsmen to row to the beat, but it sounds far better, in fact I
would say that Dupree could keep up with the best drummers of "rock'n
roll" history. He may very well have a black velvet self-portrait of
himself hanging in Cleveland at the "rock'n roll" hall of fame
someday.
An old lady get's up on a table,
it's my neighbors grandma, and she is dancing on it to the song "Tony the
pony" which really sounds "Out of this world great" I rush to
the grandma, and I am overcome with joy and I put twenty dollars in her
panties, and everybody cheers." "Go! Go! Go!" "I'm gonna
call! Call! Call! Call that pony Tony!" I had more than my cheap thrill
for tonight. This is more than a concert; it's more like a combination Ringling
Bros circus, Maxim Swimsuit expose, and a jailbreak all rolled into one
"organized riot". Tonight is a night to remember and it's not even
halftime yet.
The song "Big Black
Cadillac" is being played and at random moments, bodies are still being
passed across the crowd from one end of the club to the other like a disjointed
conveyor belt--a couple of them didn't appear to be moving and the band plays
on. I believe that this to be a normal occurrence and that thousands people die
every years in concerts. I briefly imagined the next day's headlines,
"Death at J.W. Americana concert" on this victim's tombstone it could
possibly read, "Danny loved to stage dive at Americana concerts". He
understood the risks and said it was worth the price for hearing great music at
a decent club of a band with questionable judgment—well maybe that's a bit
extreme.
J.W. captures the essence of Punk
Rock in its purest form, they suck it out and absorb the power, and share its
revitalizing qualities like that of a premium organic shampoo. They are like
the fresh scent of herbs and spices. The feeling one get's from one of their
shows is that "I am still alive!" and that this is sensational music
I am listening to, and that there are some things that the corporate world
cannot suck out of me, like my liver!
It looks as if there is a strong
independent music movement is taking shape in this country and J.W. American is
leading the way.
A major record contract seems to be within they're grasp and until they are granted that magic legal
document saying, "you made it to the big time and you can live off your
royalties"--"They're gonna fight!"
Written by Harold Schelling.
Harold Schelling is a freelance
writer and works for a major record company which specializes in putting
together "boy-bands" and "teen chic idols" for major radio
networks so they may Lip Sync less than mediocre music to the general
population. He is scared of J.W. Americana because he believes that they will
re-institute quality music to the mainstream public.
Top photo created by Rodney Elliott.
Concert photos taken by Harold
Schelling.
Copyright © 2005 by Harold Schelling
