64Dances

Til the Cows Come Home

Rock 'n' Roll Nebraska

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Part five

Part six

Part seven

Bart Becker: Writing

Last Set at the Pressure Drop

By Bart Becker (excerpts)

I Can't Help It If Im Lucky

This all started right around Easter with a song I couldn't get out of my head "Casanova" by LeVert. I was sitting on a green park bench singing it when he sat down next to me and struck up a conversation so familiar you would have thought we knew each other from kindergarden. It couldn't have been even five minutes before he turned and said, `"Hey, Sweet, knock me a kiss." After that we just kept on going. I can't help it if I'm lucky.

Try a Little Tenderness

At Tiny's Fruit Stand, a disintegrating tin and plank juke joint, it is after hours, which means only that we stop drinking Brand B or Blue Ribbon what we call "legal" and start on the homemade white shine "corn" or "jar." This is Tiny's idea of protocol; she won't serve the lightning during business hours. She is huge, beautiful, and counting cash at the bar with her stoic boyfriend Dimples; "cute" is the word women use about him. A couple of half-drunks with bleached bouffant hairdos start singing pretty harmony on "Try A Little Tenderness," Tiny makes that delicate little movement with her mouth, and pulls Dimples in close.

Guy Shot at Him, Got Me Right There

"It was on a Sunday afternoon at the Pressure Drop. Band was playing Messin With the Kid, fight break out. Everybody was running, I ran, too. Guy shot at him, got me right there."

"Jesus Christ!

"Bust that big leg bone. Laid me up for about six months, then on crutches. I ain't doing too bad now. Leg give out now and then."

Hot Hot Hot

The Pressure Drop was hot, hot, hot. Cuban music, barbecue, Red Stripe Beer, lime slices, rubber flip flops, day-glo summer undershirts: by the time you made your way across the sweaty room, there's no telling what might be sticking to you. The room was packed hip-on-hip with sweet-tempered hillbillies and the tape came on Best of Don Cornelius Soul Train, Earth Wind and Fire, Teddy Pendergrass, and KC's "That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it." That ended and the stereo cranked in with the Clash's "London Calling." People were feeling so good that a bunch of women went out on the porch to shoot off their guns at the moon. Back on the patio, the only glow was a string of Tiki-god lights and ripples of heat lightning way across the prairie. A big argument started up inside. When it died down, somebody cut the main lights in there and Nat King Cole came on the box singing "Mona Lisa." What a night to fall in love!

Corrugated and Buzzing Hot

The air was corrugated and buzzing hot. We were out under the grape arbors, eating cold fried chicken and throwing the bones on the ground. Even the old people had on bikini shorts and undershirts, and wet white hankies tied around their heads. The baby twins, the most domineering little nippers since Rosemary's Baby, had quit playing in the Water Wienie and were just sitting bare-assed in the mud drinking warm orange pop. Nothing moved. Then the radio played "I Heard It Through The Grapevine,'" my sister flopped on her back to do the Alligator, and the little kids careened around her in those crazy tight circles, screaming the way they do.

I Asked So He Told Me

I asked, so he told me: "You're never gonna guard your heart. You'd better make other plans." When I finished welding we sat and stared at the truck. There was a crummy little record player in the garage and he put on an old jazz album of Ben Webster playing sad, beautiful saxophone ballads. About a minute into it I started sniffing and bawling. He knew what was up because he just dug around in the cooler for another couple of beers, and when the record finished he turned it right over and started the other side

I'm Gonna Talk A Whole Lot of Shit, But I Ain't Gonna Drink Any More Liquor. What Are You Gonna Gain?

Peachy: That's what fucked them up.
Butcher: Hey, that's all right, man. That's the best whiskey. Pucky was telling me that Sam just drank, you know, he didn't eat. Drink and not eat did him in.
Peachy: I don't know. He died of a heart attack. Sittin at the table.
Butcher: Well, I'm bullshittin. That's just what I heard.
Peachy: His wife had fixed dinner for him, he was sittin down to eat, he just fell dead.
Butcher: Huh.
Peachy: Scared her. Cause they started saying that she poisoned him. Cause they didn't get along good.
Butcher: Don't give her no more.
Lee Baby: Hey, Peachy, you like to jive.
Peachy: I was just gonna cuss. I gonna said when they come to Omaha we fucked em up.
Butcher: We had a time.
Lee Baby: Yeah, we went down to Florence's. Some heaven sent stuff there.
Butcher: That shit.
Lee Baby: Isn't that smooth?
Butcher: It don't matter. You know how it goes. Fast.
Peachy: He said, she was sitting down, what her name? I forget her name now. Anyway, he said that she love me. Talking about Daddy Rabbit. Said Daddy Rabbit might be down.
Butcher: Hes down there.
Peachy: I know it. Said, I went home, and I got clean.
Butcher: He's clean. He got on a three-piece suit, man. He got on his sunglasses. He's talking some Hollywood bullshit. He's everywhere.
Lee Baby: I never seen a man meet so many people in one day.
Butcher: I bet right now he got some girl over in the booth.
Lee Baby: He do that everywhere.
Peachy: Ain't nowhere we go he that same way.
Butcher: That man, that what you call a whorish man. I ain't kidding, that what you call a whorish man. Yeah.
Peachy: Naw, you don't call that whorish. You call that a cockhound.
Butcher: But he got women in Omaha the same way.
Peachy: Daddy Rabbit said when he was here before he was here as a dog. And I believe he still got some of that dog in him. That man know he crazy about the women.
Butcher: That's him coming now. Talk about the devil, he always appear. That motherfucker. Got on his Hollywood clothes, talking his Hollywood shit.
Daddy Rabbit: Anything you want. Ain't nobody told me you all was coming up here. Nobody said, 'Daddy Rabbit, we going upstairs. Left me down in there and I don't like this bullshit.
When the bush shake, get goin.
Butcher: Daddy Rabbit, you didn't try to take my friend's woman, did you?
Daddy Rabbit: No, goddammit. I don't have no one. A girl down there a little while ago say, Daddy Rabbit? I say, What the hell would you call me a rabbit?
She said, It's on.
Said, Yeah, you want to talk about it? She said, No. I put it out.
Butcher: He always talking shit, buddy. Talk more shit than anybody.
Daddy Rabbit: She said, Daddy Rabbit.
Butcher: Hey, I gotta go now, you gonna blow my high, man. Oh, man.
Daddy Rabbit: Hey, I'm not lying. She said, 'Daddy Rabbit?' I said, Yeah. Said, They call you Daddy Rabbit? Yeah. Where you get that shit? She said, Hey, wow, I see you picture up there.
I said, I didn't put it up there. She say, Well, it up there. I said, Yeah, I know it. I saw it.I'm not lying. So she said I said, Hey, man.
Butcher: Every time I get a high going that sucker there blow it.
Daddy Rabbit: I talk to her a bit. I said, 'Hey, honey, I tell you what, we can drink some, I said, since you don't smoke. She said, Well, I'm high now. I said, What are you high and you keep drinking this motherfucking beer? I said, You driving? She said, No, I'm not driving, she said, I'm riding my bicycle. I said, 'Well, you might break your motherfucking leg.' She said, Scuse me?
Butcher: Blow my high, man.
Daddy Rabbit: Hey, gonna blow my whole motherfucking cool. She says, 'I got a date.' I say, Where your date at, honey? Your date in the building anywhere? Cause I don't wanna blow your date just sitting here talking to you 'cause your date might wanna be talking to you.' She says, 'No, he's supposed to come by my house and pick me up. We're gonna go to the movies. Movies?' She says, 'Yeah.' I say, 'Who you gonna see?' She say, 'No, we just going out for a movie. I met him up in the Zoo Bar and we started talking and everything. He supposed to come by and pick me up.' I said, 'Hey, you never saw my picture did you?' 'No, where you playing?' I said, 'Remember this picture,' I said, 'I was playing this picture, "Get 'Em If You Can and Catch Em All." She was kind of high, she said, No.
Lee Baby: What time is it, Peachy?
Peachy: Eight o'clock.
Daddy Rabbit: You feeling all right?
Lee Baby: I feel nice.
Daddy Rabbit: You do. I'll see goddam about an hour if you feeling all right. I just got started.
Lee Baby: Time the whistle blow, we'll just be gettin in it.
Daddy Rabbit: I ain't started either.
Lee Baby: Yeah, but I can last.
Daddy Rabbit: We gonna do this together.
Peachy: You all fuck around and get drunk.
Lee Baby: When we left last time I was drunk.
Daddy Rabbit: That right. Tell em, Sheik.
Lee Baby: Daddy Rabbit was drunk.
Daddy Rabbit: I was drunker than a one-eyed Russian.
Lee Baby: He said, Hey, Sheik. I got out, got back in again and lit me up a cigarette. Woke up again, the sun had rose up.
Daddy Rabbit: You know what Sheik-Daddy told me. Said, 'Daddy Rabbit, you kind of wobbling.' He said, 'Pull this motherfucker over. I was high, I admit. When he said pull over, I just pull over. I didn't say I could drive. We drove from here to Omaha in two hours. We was there. Not in the suburbs or nothing. We were already there. We were sitting at Florence's drinking whiskey at 3 o'clock.
Lee Baby: That right. I said, 'Stop by my house.
Daddy Rabbit: Joe Feeney pulled up and we looked at his watch. He pulled a half pint of Crown Royal. I'm not lying. Ain't nothin' to worry about. We going to live it out, that's all.
Peachy: You better get downstairs. Show starts at 9 o'clock. By his clock. His clock 15 minutes fast.
Lee Baby: Lady who works down there said 13.
Daddy Rabbit: By her watch?
Lee Baby: No, by the clock.
Daddy Rabbit: So what time we start by his clock?
Peachy: Nine o'clock. It'll be a quarter til.
Daddy Rabbit: Quarter til by mine.
Peachy: Yeah.
Daddy Rabbit: Oh.
Peachy: And stop at 1. 12:45. But, see, it's 1 o'clock by his clock.
Daddy Rabbit: It'll be a quarter til on mine.
Peachy: Right.
Daddy Rabbit: I bet you I ain't gonna miss a motherfucking key tonight. Not nohow. I'm gonna bullshit but I ain't gonna drink no more. I'm gonna talk a whole lot of shit but I ain't gonna drink no more liquor. What do you expect out of life? What are you gonna gain?

Kocka-Mow-Mow

A band of hip hicks called the Noisy Benders was playing in a big red room, and had ambushed a sizable crowd by throwing down some hard hillbilly funk. Boisterous, over-excited, it looked like there were going to be breakages. As bathos it was just drunks trying to walk and think at the same time; as social art it was political optimism and romantic gloom. As entertainment, they were doing "I Enjoy Being A Girl," with the goateed lead vocalist barking in a way that only vaguely resembled English. They sounded like two bands playing in different rooms a block apart.

In a quieter little lounge area, Butcher and Peachy at first thought they'd stumbled across a fashion shoot. But, no, it was just Isaac Christian. Longing, haunted echoistic expressions of heartbreak, it was formulaic and the delivery was a walk-through of scenes he's played before. Butcher raised his eyebrows. "Mmmmmm," said Peachy. "He's moody." They rode down a crowded little escalator behind four guys in tuxedos and orange Cargill gimme-caps. Three of them were the Bushmillers, a band so eclectic that it takes a word as big as "pop" to describe the breadth of their style. They were thinkers whose style demonstrated that they remember the first half of the '60s. The fourth was John "Ebaneeny" Evans, another loud little secret, a Big Guitar whose sound and approach seems equally influenced by Duane Eddy and Hurricane Hugo. Ebaneeny had cut a few albums ("Long Purple Weenie" and "Aunt Fritzi") that were mostly sought out by high-pyro guitar buffs or followers of the Cool Trash path to enlightenment.

Ebaneeny Evans has the habit of rock-instrumentals, not jazz or surf (although there's some crossover), but the kind of stuff that had its heyday from about 58-63 when tunes like "Tequila," "Sleepwalk," and "Peter Gunn" were actual chart-toppers and Duane "Rebel Rouser" Eddy and Link "Rumble" Wray were inventing an echoey, twangy style that still has ripples of influence in edge-walking rock. The bar-band formats he uses are traditional, comprehensible, even trite; then he takes it "outside" with the weirdest, most outrageous sounds you've heard this side of the night shift at a lawnmower factory. John Evans is so far from the middle of the road that he's driving in the ditch. He was sitting in with the Bushmillers tonight. "What are you guys gonna play?" asked Peachy.

"Ah, the usual rockabilly, blues, and country routine," said Ebaneeny, turning his Cargill cap backwards, and slouching away behind his compadres. "Yeah," said Peachy admiringly. "It's gonna sound like swamp mahogany cut with a dull chainsaw. Rough stuff."

They peeped in on Vi Dal and the Sassoons, outdoing themselves at buffoonery, from the top of their high-pile waterfall hairdos to the tip of their nylon-socked toes. In another ballroom, the Cool Jerks were revving up their version of the Dinks "Kocka-Mow-Mow."

Peachy and Butcher walked down a hallway to some kind of meeting room where Stop The Presses: young white guy plays flashy blues-rock guitar! They walked past five accordion-squeezing geezers who were working on a wheezing tornado of danceable polka-blues who's every move is designed to let the bon ton roulet; calypso and whose main objective is to get your rear in gear; a studentish piano player with a bushy hairdo and long tail hanging down his neck, scholarly glasses, regular student-bohemian clothes playing a not-quite-domesticated lovers-rock full of sexy wiggles; a high and lonesome bluegrass duo, effectively if phonily, rural; and an undeniably beautiful ballad singer who can really open up your heart, if not always her own. This latter was Virgie Senchal, whose confused, vulnerable, scale-climbing crescendos were always fun to hear. The joint was packed and it was slow going.

"Christ," Peachy mumbled in one particularly sardinian hallway, "It's so tight in here that by the time we get out I'm going to be wearing somebody else's makeup." When they did finally pop out into fresh air, they found themselves at the edge of a crowd gathered at the lip of a plank stage. "Hello. We are a group of Cameroonian journalists," said a friendly fellow, indicating four or five other people who seemed to be enjoying the whole spectacle greatly. "I am Stephen Saahkem. Do you have youth gangs here in Nebraska?"

Butcher felt the responsibility to make the visitors stay an exciting one, so he made a halfhearted attempt to play Bad Youth. He offered something he knew little about: the Crips, the Bloods, the Black Gangster Disciples, colors, hand signals, and he made up a drive-by shooting epidemic. Saahkem countered with a notorious Cameroonian gang called the Just Funky Kings, or JFK; their "colors" are sweatshirts emblazoned with the late American president's image.

"Let me buy you a hamburger," Butcher said, his brain doing its Tourist Bureau routine, and Saahkem agreed. At the burger stand, a guy who looked like Gaillard Sartain was frying them on a grill.

"One hamburger," said Saahkem as confidently as could be expected. "How would you like that?" asked the cook.

Saahkem stared confusedly.

"Medium?" asked the cook.

"Oh, size. Yes, medium."

Butcher didn't know quite what to do next so he said something about the Israeli-Palestinian affairs, racism, the Israeli hardline. "Arafat is always portrayed in our papers by his nose," said Saahkem.

"His nose?"

"Always 'No this. No that.' Always 'no."

Just then the Bushmillers jumped onstage, Ebaneeny grabbed a microphone and yelled, "We had a hard time getting here. Now you're gonna have a hard time getting rid of us."

These Stolen Porsches

I power up behind the speed-limit taillights of station wagons and gas-savers, downshift with a little hiccup of near-stall, then rip around them. There's a flask of gin in a little door pocket and I shove a tape into the machine. Robert Johnson sings out from 1936, moaning about hellhounds on his trail. These stolen Porsches: you never know what you'll find in them.

Givin It Up To Daddy

The Pressure Drop on a weeknight. I think you get the point. I said, "To you, my name is Lou," then somebody yelled, "Peachy, you're on your own, I'm going home." He said, "Lou, what time you leave this gig?"

I straightened up his drink and my red wig, fixed my makeup. He stared in the mirror. I said, "What makes you think I'm working here?"

Black mesh stockings, crooked at the seam, he said I looked like I was 17 and ready to go steady; a yo-yo queen if he ever seen one. A stir of rain and snow was in the air. Radio played 50s R and B, he had one hand on the wheel and one on me.

"Too bad a ride like this can't last," he said to me sadly. Took a curve a little fast. Givin' it up to Daddy.

Sometimes I Take a Notion, Lord, To Jump In The River And Drown

The bar clock was reading 12:55 as the band exited the stage and Chet stepped to the microphone. "Goodnight. Thanks. We love ya. We gotta go. Ya beautiful. We the Cool Jerks. We see ya next time. The crowd's general noise was augmented by rhythic clapping and stomping and shouts of "More, more."

The band members, some with towels over their shoulders, jumped back onstage, there was a quick consultation, and they broke into "The In Crowd." During the song, the clock turned over 1am and Hollywood Doug flipped on the house lights. "It's time to go. We'd love to stay, but we got curfew," Chet said at the end of the song. "We'll close it up with a blues." Okie Dokie and Darla climbed back onstage it was starting to look like phonebooth stuffing and Otto started a straight blues, "Leopardskin Pillbox Hat." "It bounces on your head like a mattress bouncing on a bottle of wine," Chet rasped, and in the next verse Darla answered that she didn't mind his cheating but "You didn't even make her take my leopardskin pillbox hat off her head."

In the middle of this Peachy walked into the bar, reached down into her boot and pulled out her gun, smiled, raised it over her head and Kerrannng! blew a hole in the ceiling. The crowd wheeled around from the stage, saw Peachy with the smoking gun and the adrenalin level spurted one more time at the sight of the Grammy-winning sharpshooter. The bartenders were scurrying around clearing the tables. In the middle of the tune, Chet waved the band to take it down. "Lemme take a minute here to introduce the band. We're the Cool Jerks. On bass guitar, my very good friend Clem Terry. On drums, beating the skins, Mutt Jefferies. Over here on my right, on saxophone, winner of tonight's best dancer trophy, Croix George, and sittin' in tonight on sax, Yano Yanoshek. On trumpet, the women's pet, the men's regret, Patton Too-Tall Mambo-Man Jefferies. On lead guitar, also Best Dressed for the fourth night in a row, the one and only, the fabulous, the marvelous, the great, Otto Byron, what a man. Special thanks to Good Rockin Okie Dokie Arbuckle for helping out on guitar, and how could I forget the unforgettable what ia your name again? Darla Delgado on vocals. Ain't she something. We're the Coooooooool Jerks. Cool Jerks! Cool Jerks! Thanks for the memories. We couldn't have done it without ya. Goodnight. Drive safely. Walk safely. We see ya next time. That's entertainment! Let's Go!" The song thumped to an end. The bartenders were trying to shoo people out the door. The band members put down their instruments except Otto moved back to the keyboard and Croix George hung onto his sax. Chet and Darla sang acapella, "Sometimes I live in the country Sometimes I live in town sometimes I take a notion, Lord To jump in the river and drown." The organ and sax backing swelled and the crowd, now sated, sang along with the chorus of "Irene Goodnight." The dance floor emptied, people streamed for the cold fresh air outdoors. After two verses of Leadbelly, Chet, Darla, and Otto left the stage without a further comment. The TV up in the corner above the bar was playing a tape loop of the Grammy Awards, with the sound off. Linda Ronstadt was onscreen, her mouth moving, her eyes darting. The graphic said "Accepting For Peachy Delgado." Then a picture of Darla, lip-syncing "Life Turned Me Out" on "Party Machine," came onscreen with the label "Peachy Delgado." Man, what a mix-up that had been. Croix George moved away from the microphones to the middle of the now deserted dance floor and, solo, off-microphone, raised his tenor sax and played a beautiful, tender "Harlem Nocturne" as Tweety Tang and Hollywood Dog started upending the chairs onto the tables. Peachy looked at her coffee cup half full of brandy, sang to herself a Billie Holiday tune, and then a Luther Vandross, put her gun in her lap and stared out the steamy big front window through the adult weather, at things that happened in another time, another place.

God Its Hot, She Breathed

The elevator groaned to my floor, but going down instead of up, of course. The door lurched open a few inches, stopped to gather its strength, and then banged apart. A scooter delivery guy right up front by the control panel was staring down at his squungy shoes and at the opposite corner, lounging against the back wall and ignoring everything, was a red-haired woman in the state of planned dishevelment that can pass for style with the right wardrobe. I smelled magnolias and gin. "God it's hot," she breathed.