music
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Slim Hanson, guitarist and vocalist of Hellcat Trio, grooves to blues rock rhythms during a recent gig at Hockenbury's Tavern, 1016 Massachusetts St.
Inset; Chubby Smith, vocalist for his self-titled band, sings with rockyblend style at Rick's Neighborhood Bar and Grill. 632 Vermont St.
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By JL Watson
Kansan staff writer
Slicky Leisureman has always been torn between the urban nightclub scene and life-threatening outdoor adventure. It's only fitting, then, that he hosts "The Rockabilly Express" on KJHK
It's rebellious
From the small sound booth, amid dozens of old
rockability LPs, to his private collection, Leisureman spins the likes of Johnny Cash, Southern Culture on the Skids and Social Distortion for anyone who will listen to his 12-3 p.m. Saturday show. The music that is once tagged with an alternative label is growing in popularity.
"Most of the time I just slap stuff on and go," Leisureman said. "That includes country swing, early rock, blues, hillbilly rock and that sort of thing."
Leisureman said that rockabilly was not just a blend of country and rock.
"There's a lot more to it than that," he said. "It's about psychabilty, cowboy punk, surfabilly and all that stuff. You might wonder, 'Why would I be interested in the Dead Kennedy,' the Butthole Surfers and evolutionary blue grass like Arkansas White Trash?' It's because it's real rock n' roll. It got the same soul."
Leisureman doesn't play an instrument but contributes to the rockabilly lifestyle just the same.
"I feel fortunate I can bring some of this to the world," Leisureman said of his program. "I have all these friends who are musicians, writers, poets, this or that, and I feel fortunate to do this instead of just being a tag-along. I'm just a messenger."
Bringing the gospel of rockabilly rhythms to the public includes sporting a greaser haircut, a black leather jacket and booking live acts for the show.
Most Saturdays, while Leisureman prepares the fishing report and sings along with the tunes, a local band warms up in the room next door, preparing for an in-studio performance.
Kansas City's Hellcak Trio was a recent guest. The three members, guitarist Slim Hanson, drummer Sean McEniry and bassist Al Trout, don't tout their sound as rockabilly but serve up generous portions of swing tempos in minor keys and jump blues just the same.
"A lot of the music we listen to at home is prehistoric by most people's standards," McEniry said. McEniry said musicians from the 1940s influenced the Hellcat's sound.
"We haven't rehearsed in months." Trout said.
"We learn it in one session, then play it. We train wreck it a couple of times, and eventually it works out."
The Hellcat's play their own brand of music and attribute their success to their ability to improvise onstage.
Hellcat Trio has influenced local bands, such as the Spam Skinners. The members of the two bands are friends and share the same attitude about the music they play.
"I remember seeing Reverend Horton Heat when there were 15 people in the bar," he said. "Now, it's pickin' up everywhere. I never thought there'd be a lot of people diggin' this stuff."
Trout said he remembered when forms of rockability weren't as popular as they are now.
"We're not into bein' popular. We're not into makein' money," said Spam Skinners bassist John Cutler. "For us, it's a way of life. If there wasn't a music scene, we'd play on the back porch."
porch.
For Cutler and Spam Skinner members Jef.
frey Lee Wrighteous,
Bill Colburn and Kory
Willis, there is no definite description of the music they play.
"It's sensabilly, irresponsably, flexibility and insensability. Wrighteous said. All the members of the Spam Skinners have, at one
time or another, hung up their wingtips and retired.
All eventually came back to the rockabilly scene.
"I figure if I wasn't out playing guitar then I'd be at home playing guitar, so I might as well be out playing guitar," Willis said.
"Yeah, we do what we do for the art," Wrightone said.
"Actually, we do it for the beer," Colburn said.
Actually, we don't for the beer. Conduit isn't said.
Whether it's the music or the atmosphere, local rockabilly fans embody a lifestyle that includes as much fun as possible.
"Most of the true fans are gun shootin', meat eatin', beer drinkin' folks who want to have a good time," Leisureman said. "We're basically just good 'ol boys and girls at heart."
Good 'ol rockabilly boy Chubby Smith leads his eight-piece orchestral through a variety of rockabilly styles.
"We started out as rockkability and stretched into other genres," Smith said. Smith has been leading his orchestra for over two years and has no plans to give up the music.
"Ihope to suck it 'it ill bleeds," Smith said. For Smith, satisfaction comes from audience response.
"Ilike seein' a gob of people at the show," he said. For local rockabilly musicians, the concurrent theme is variety, ranging from bluesy harmonica to hard-rockin', heart-pounding stand-up bass. If black boots, byrcleam and an attitude go along with the image, then it's all part of the fun.
"We have to do our own stuff," said Hellcat's Hanson. "If everybody was still playin' Elvis, where would we be?"
NOVEMBER 16. 1993 PAGE 9
KULife
People and places at the University of Kansas.
Dash from court costs defendant nine more months
In a Redmond, Wash., courtroom in September, defendant Larry Michael Key broke free and dashed out the door upon being sentenced to 60 days in jail for violating previous drunken driving sentences, but Judge Will O'Roarty leaped from the judge's bench in hot pursuit, his judicial robe flapping behind him. The judge pursued Key out of the building, down the street and into a supermarket, where a clerk and police captured him. After bringing Key back to the courtroom, Judge O'Roarty tacked on nine more months.
In October in Austin, Texas, landlord John Mattingly Jr., 26, served an eviction notice in court on his grandmother, Dorothy Webb, 85, for non-payment of rent. Said she, in court, "I guess I'm not dying fast enough (for him)."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported in October that the mummified remains of an Australian aborigne who died in 1884 would soon be sent home. The body had been forgotten — stored in the basement of a Cleveland funeral home, which closed in August. The man, Tambo Tambo, came to Cleveland to appear in a show, throwing boomerangs, but died of pneumonia and none of his colleagues claimed the body.
Familial law
Sounds cruel and unusual
California Attorney General Dan Lungren proposed in October that the state measure the pain-killing attributes of cyanide gas in order to demonstrate that the gas chamber is not "cruel and unusual" punishment, as contended by the American Civil Liberties Union in a recent lawsuit. Lungren proposed that the state put rats in pain by "colon balloons distension" — inserting them until the rats squeal — and then administer cyanide at different doses to see if the pain subsides.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the Novel Cafe in Santa Monica, Calif., recently featured Kopi Luwak, the Sumatran coffee reputed to be the most expensive in the world, at $130 per pound. According to the cafe's owners, a certain kangaroo-like Sumatran animal eats only the "riptest, best" coffee cherries, then digests and excretes them, after which natives pick, wash and process the beans into Kopi Luwak.
Whatever happened to Tambo
Now that's a filter
Invasion of the toilet squirrels
In February, a squirrel apparently fell into a small vent on the roof of Kim Richardson's home in Lawrenceville, Ga., and got into the plumbing pipes. Richardson reported that she discovered the animal when she sat down on the toilet and felt a scratching on her derriere. She "almost died," she said later. The squirrel had drowned by the time help arrived.
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