To the proprietors of the Vatican, “Lower” Washington St., Houston, Texas:
I write this evening to express my sincere thanks to you for providing me with some of the most important formative events in my musical life.
December 12, 1992 comes to mind, first and foremost, as the day that started with the marathon that is the GRE (an exam I have not made any use of whatsoever since that time) and ended with a rollicking, ear-splitting Mudhoney show. It was the perfect way to set back on edge what had been numbed through hours of beyond-pointless oval filling. I came home feeling used and heavily bruised, and that’s what I was looking for. It happened in your joint.
Yours was the club where I witnessed my first and only Freedy Johnston show as well. Opening for They Might Be Giants, Freedy started with a drearily loping acoustic version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The punk mosh kids in the front (who apparently didn’t have anywhere better to be that night than They Might Be Giants/Freedy Johnston) screamed bloody murder; Freedy’s response was the only appropriate one, a repeated chorus of “fuck you.” That he went on to play a formidable set with his band was a real testament to Freedy Johnston’s skill as a performer and songwriter. Again – your joint.
There was also the Material Issue show, though I was definitely not there for Material Issue but instead for Too Much Joy, who signed our undergarments and bought us beer even after we accosted them on the way out of the Mexican restaurant across the street. I think the above speaks for itself. Once again – your joint.
I can’t say I was always terribly impressed with your ability to run a rock club. The TMBG/Freedy Johnston show? You remember selling too many tickets at that one and having the fire marshal shut you down? I do. But honestly, it became pretty much a wash when TMBG soldiered on with their cover of “Frankenstein” for as long as they could get away with it – even after the horrid, horrid fluorescent lights came on.
So for all those experiences in which you had at least an indirect hand, please accept my belated thanks. I am the dork I am today in part because of you.
——
To the Wurlitzer family/estate, North Tonawanda, New York:
I would like to express my undying gratitude for your electric pianos.
Also forgive me – 10-year-old me could never have known that the pianos I thought were simple, cheap factory cookie cutters were from the same line as those used by seminal artists like Ray Charles:
and later foundational bands for me such as Supertramp:
and that you would be able to draw that same line all the way to 2009 and beyond:
The principle behind the use of the Wurlitzer in both cases may very much be the same – expense. I’m sure my piano teacher had a lab full of Wurlitzers because they were not extremely expensive (certainly not like regular pianos). Ray Charles may have had the same motivation initially.
But I’m not sure he could have understood the appeal of the rasp in the bass lines he pounded out. They are what provide the underpinnings for the other songs – the sense that there’s an electric buzzer going off in the back of your brain every time the keyboard player gets below a certain note. The Wurlitzer was never meant to be a highly amplified instrument, so it likely had the cheapest speakers the Wurlitzer Company (now fully owned by highly undistinguished piano manufacturer Baldwin) could reasonably put in.
The buzz created when Ray and others mashed on these lower keys was what set the whole electric piano world on fire. The distorted buzz of a speaker driven beyond its capacity is the sound that launched a thousand pop music ships. So for making the fateful decision to keep your equipment cheap, I thank and salute Rudolph Wurlitzer and his family.
——
Other unlikely sources of inspiration will follow in the coming weeks. For now, consider me inspired – maybe some of my rudeboy friends can become president.
Thank goodness.
