Recollections recorded in 2001 • Last updated April 2012
What was it?
Club Whatever was a free music and performance show that my friends and I hosted on the West Mall of the University of Texas (Austin) campus every Friday night for part 1990-91. We welcomed both bands and individual performers, playing any style music.
How did it start?
Frieda (Fred) came up with the idea, but her original idea was something like how we could manifest a progressive society through the creation of a new radical social paradigm which would free our minds by breaking down barriers and building community in unique and dynamic ways, etc. etc. That was all gibberish to me -- I didn't understand any of it, so it was hard to implement. Now, a free music show -- THAT was easy to understand. So that's what we wound up doing.
What's up with the logo?
The logo on this web page isn't related at all to the original Club Whatever (I just created it for this page), except that Fred came up with the "?!" for the unofficial slogan of CW. I think she found out later that it was already a logo for something else, but I don't remember what.
How was it managed?
Early on, we got three students to create Club Whatever as an official UT student group, so we'd be able to have the shows on campus. My roommate Stuart the Maniac had the two essential pieces of equipment: an ancient PA and an almost-as-ancient van, the latter of which he bought in a police auction after it was seized from a drug operation. It was an ugly, huge orange van that said "A&J Carpet Cleaners" along with a big phone number. He didn't remove the lettering, so he drove around advertising for a company that didn't exist.
Anyway, Stuart made fliers, and I handled booking. That mostly meant inviting anybody I heard about who might want to perform. There weren't any auditions: If you wanted to perform, you did. Our next-door neighbor, Wild Man Dave, also helped load and break down equipment, as did various other friends from time to time, including Stuart's future wife (and future ex-wife) Carey, and the late Forrest Jackson.
What was the crowd like?
Very sparse, usually. Thirty to forty people was a crowd; it was usually much less. We didn't have professional lighting, so we either had very weak lighting or none at all -- so it never looked like a show once the sun went down; we were often playing in the dark. And if we ever did try to use any lighting, it would usually draw too much power (since the PA was running off the same circuit) and trip the breaker.
What was the performance history?
The reason we still have this schedule info is that Stuart kept most of the fliers that he made for the shows. Note that the first few shows were on the East Mall, in the late afternoon, before we moved to the West Mall in the evening.
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First Show (Unknown Date) This was on the East Mall, before
we moved to the West Mall.
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There were other shows between the first one and the 4/6/90 show, but we have no records of them. |
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8/3/90 |
There were other shows after this, but Stuart hasn't dug them up yet. |
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Any interesting tidbits from the shows?
First Show (Unknown Date). Stuart: The couple of days before the first show, I spent sequencing six songs I'd have something to play. I was kind of ambivalent about whether I was going to play, but I decided to go at the last minute. There was a really cool percussion jam going at first. Michael and Freida made a cool flyer with the Statue of Liberty in the Blender.
We made the Statue of Liberty in the blender because I found both those pictures in my clip art program, and I thought it would be funny to have those two conflicting images together. I swear, the profound political statement that most people would assume when looking at that image didn't even occur to me until years later! I was quite naive.
Our very first show was on the East
Mall, during the day.
4-6-90. Stuart: I believe this was the first show with an organized lineup. It may have even been the first show on the West Mall.
4-20-90. This was a happening time. Earth Day was about to happen again for the first time in twenty years, and we were all pretty excited. The night after this show, we had what I think was the first naked bike ride on Guadalupe, with about eight of us. One of the participants would go on to become a NY Times bestseller author. Stuart got arrested when he wiped out and his chain got stuck, and he wound up spending Earth Day in jail. I have his answering machine message from jail, which I'll put up as an MP3 if I get around to it.
4-27-90. The cops shut us down, either for being too loud, or because we forgot to bring our permit, or maybe we forgot to renew our permit. Stuart used this to good effect for the following week's flier, which read, "Banned last week! Now back by popular demand!"
6-22-90. We held this CW indoors, in Batts Auditorium, and there was nearly no audience at all. We really depended on drawing in the passers-by outside. I have no idea why we held this one indoors.
6-29-90. Godzilla on Ice makes its debut.
7-6-90.
Stuart: "Somebody told me that Mike McLaughlin wanted to be billed
as Tree Boy. At the time, Tree Boy was a name mentioned in a personal
ad in the Austin Chronicle; the same ad ran week after week. So I
billed Mike as Tree Boy. It really pissed him off, but hell, I
thought he had approved."
7-13-90.
The late Wulf Zendik (1920-1999, pictured at right) was at this show. Stuart:
"We had
checked out Wulf at [Taos Co-op] the week before and we asked
him if he wanted to show up. He didn't stick around long, but we all
had a big jam with Wulf on the mic after he said his
thing." More on Wulf below.
Who performed at Club Whatever?
This is all I can remember. If there's an act listed in the schedule above that's not listed below, it's because I don't remember them.
Box of Miracles.
This performer found this page in Nov. 2010 and wrote: This is
Kelly "Sky" Reed one of the original solo electronic musicians that
performed at the west mall for Club Whatever. I was just
recollecting some of the old time and started scouring the internet to
see how much was out there still about my electronic music project, Box
of Miracles, and low and behold I found your site. I would love for you
to update your page to include a short bio about the project as it was,
and make a connection to show where I am now as a musician, today I've
formed Hipnautica, and I'm just as prolific as ever...
having gone from
my solo electronics to now being the composer, creative director, and
visionary behind one of Austin's most diverse music projects. I
call us more of a collective than a "band". I would be honored if
you would take the time to update your site. I will be glad
to provide a short write up to include a what was Box of Miracles and
what is now Hipnautica,
to show how things progressed and connect the support of Club Whatever
to my music these days. It was thanks to you supporting my music
way back when that helped keep me inspired and fueled the beginnings of
bringing my dream to life. Today I have incorporated over 40+ different
musicians and I'm very excited about the fact that much of my music
today stems from those humble beginnings back in the 1990's... and to
have a written published online correlation "paper trail" of this would
be very cool for the record.
Bug Wonders. The only thing I remember about this band was that they had a really cute, tiny blonde drummer. I wanted to talk to her, but couldn't think of anything to say.
Catastrophe Ballet. And man, what a catastrophe. This was probably the only band that gave us a hard time. I don't remember their exact complaint, probably that they couldn't go on at the exact time that they expected because we were running late. Hell, what did they expect, it was a self-produced free music show with a tiny audience. Geez. Steve Savage of Listen adds: "My former band Diamond's Edge played this show and my drummer Jim Blythe did attempt to kick the Catastrophe Ballet singer's ass."
Chad Himmel. A singer-songwriter, who sang his stuff in an annoyed, deadpan manner that was hilarious. One song was about Frankenstein, which ended with, "Mary Shelley, what a babe." Our favorite was "The Criminal": "I am a criminal / I have no home / I wander on the highway, til the sun goes down. / I sleep / in a cardboard box / on the side / of the highway. / My only friend is the sun." We took to calling him Chad "The Criminal" Himmel, but I don't think he liked that very much.
Chad found this site and wrote to us in April 2002: "Good to see Club Whatever memorialized and all online. It's much appreciated. Fer what it's worth, there's some more early 90's Chad music (with Rob Nelson) and artwork at klangworks.org. Rob Nelson also played one night at CW I think maybe in August 1990. Folk music crap. I booed and then someone else said "GET THE FOLK OFF THE STAGE!", and I don't think he's ever forgotten that. I have two pictures of CW somewhere. There probably of me, but they prob'ly show other people, equipment, audience, stragglers, I don't know. Let me know if you want me to make jpgs or something."
Dandelion Invasion. I became friends with one of the members of this band (Billy Thogersen) eight years later when I moved into the House of Commons co-op, and lived with him for a couple of years before I found out that he had been in this band. I don't remember this band beyond the name, though.
Earthkeepers. Two guys, two acoustic guitars, and a gal (no drummer), singing environmental songs with striking three-part harmonies. Five years later, out of sheer coincidence, I would buy a house on Romeria Drive virtually across the street from Glen Harcrow, who had bought his house with his wife Kristin Johnson just a couple months earlier. Earthkeepers wound up opening for my next band, King Cheese, circa 1996.
Godzilla On Ice. This was my punk band, which I started only because I was eager to play Club Whatever like everybody else was doing. I played guitar (badly), Wild Man Dave played bass. For our first several shows we used a drum machine, then we got a drummer, Beverly, who just started playing drums in her 40's because she always wanted to be a rock drummer. We played the same 7-8 stupid songs I wrote every week, such as "Grandma Was a Lesbian", "Masturbate My Tears Away", and "Wheatsville", and occasionally played naked. We ended our set with a disco medley that I played on keyboards, which I guess was a precursor to the retro band I'd start in the late 90's, King Cheese. We never played a single show outside of CW. We made a demo tape, and if I ever get around to it, I'll put the MP3's up here.
Hollywood Indians. Formed by some guys who moved to Austin from the East Coast to play music. They had a fearsome postering campaign, alternately slamming or praising Austin Chronicle music columnist Ken Lieck. Not to be confused by the late 90's punk band of the same name. Some of their members went on to form the acclaimed Orange Mothers.
John Bell (aka Ninja Emerald). John deserves a page all to himself. His family supports him because he's just a little too weird to hold down a regular job, yet his weirdness is hard to describe. He was one of the top-rated chess players in Texas at one point, and during the CW days he weighed well over 300 pounds. A few years later, he'd lost more than half that, slimming down to around 150, though he has no earthly idea how that happened. Anyway, John would usually sing a few numbers (like Weird Al's "Yoda", or "Wild Thing"), in a ridiculously deep baritone, and without any apprecable sense of rhythm, while I backed him on keyboards or guitar. I saved some of the crazy messages he left on our answering machine, and I'll try to put them up here as MP3's some day.
Kjel Anderson / Skifflefish. A guy who lived a few houses down from us. I don't remember his music too well. He added some other players and then named the band Skifflefish, then shortened it to Skiffle. [On 9-26-01, Kjel ran across this page and wrote: "Hey there! Found your reference to my performance on the web. I am alive and well in Alameda, California. Here's my website. Cool page, thanks for keeping track!]
Listen (formerly The Q Community). Rodger Venue started out by singing and playing his original songs by himself on keyboards, and then later added his girlfriend as a second vocalist and Steve Savage (John Stephen Kuhns) on guitar. Rodger's songs were kind of dark and serious, and had a Euro-pop flavor. Many of the fliers list "Venue" in addition to The Q Community, but I don't remember Rodger playing separately from his band. Maybe my memory's bad. By the way, I'm not sure what "The Q Community" was supposed to mean, but I do know that it's not a gay reference. / Incidentally, Steve tried to form a "Supergroup" composed of Listen, Godzilla on Ice (and possibly Stuart the Maniac & the LAZRPIXLS, I don't remember), to go to L.A. and get a recording contract and be famous, after talking with a producer out there. On Steve's scoping trip he was introduced to a lot of famous musicians, such as John Entwistle from The Who. It turned out that the producer wasn't really interested in all of us, just Steve himself, though even the "just Steve" idea didn't wind up panning out either. Oh well. ( Rodger Venue, Steve Savage)
Mike McLaughlin. Wild Man Dave's brother, played electric guitar and sang by himself. I remember him doing a Hendrix song, and "Just Got Paid Today" by ZZ Top. I suspected him stealing my bike from the front porch of my house. Stuart: "Somebody told me that Mike McLaughlin wanted to be billed as Tree Boy. At the time, Tree Boy was a name mentioned in a personal ad in the Austin Chronicle; the same ad ran week after week. So I billed Mike as Tree Boy. It really pissed him off, but hell, I thought he had approved."
Russ Somers. The singer-songwriter and his guitar. He had lots of good stuff. Ten years later I still remember "Mary Ann" (about lusting after the Gilligan's Island character) and "I Got a Letter from Ed" (about winning the sweepstakes). (email)
Stuart the Maniac and the LAZRPIXLS (aka Barefoot Stu). This was Stuart performing his original songs by himself on keyboards and vocals, accompanied by MIDI sequences he created at our house at 3404 Cedar St. Stuart is a brilliant songwriter and an incredible keyboard player. Many of his songs are available for free on his website.
Tentative Imbeciles. Punk band led by Fred's then-boyfriend, Zak, a fellow Earth-First!er. Their big hits were "Baby Carriage" and "UT Up My Ass".
Wild Man Dave Show. Wild Man Dave was our next-door neighbor, and bassist in my band Godzilla On Ice. I don't remember exactly what the Wild Man Dave Show consisted of, but I remember that Stuart composed a killer theme song for it (Joy and Sorrow), which is a dead ringer for the style of the old Tonight Show theme.
Wulf Zendik. In 1969 Wulf founded Zendik Farm, an anti-establishment commune, which is still around today even after his death in 1999. Their philosophy sounded attractive to a young hippie like me at the time: be self-sufficient and resist the "Death Kultur" (the American mainstream). But when a friend and I saw Wulf's talk at a local co-op we were a bit uncomfortable about how he gushed both about how sexually attractive his 16-year-old daughter was and also about how there was nothing wrong with incest, and the taboo against it was just one of the many problems of the DeathKultur. Hmm. [Update: A former Zendik tells us: "Wulf's story The Oraculum includes a monologue in which a young woman proudly recounts losing her virginity to the one man whom she still holds to be her true love: her father. I understand that Wulf did play with the idea of deflowering [his daughter] Fawn himself but in the end couldn't bring himself to do it. "] We didn't know it at the time, but Zendik was/is actually a full-blown mind-control cult. Members sign over all their worldly possessions when joining, groupthink is enforced, and undying devotion to the group's philosophy is demanded. (See critiques by former members here, here, and here, as well as articles in Washington City Paper and Free Voices.) Anyway, Wulf was an old, crazed hippie, and so we thought he'd be perfect for Club Whatever, and invited him to come and rap.
Who's Who in Club Whatever organizing
Frieda. Commonly known as Fred, Club Whatever was her idea, but her original idea was something about creating a new society, not just a free music show. We didn't really understand any of that, so we just took the music show idea and ran with it. Fred didn't have too much to do with CW after serving as the inspiration for it.
Stuart the Maniac. Stuart was the heart and soul of CW. He made it happen with the PA and the van, he made wacky fliers every week, he wrote the theme for The Wild Man Dave Show, and he was one of the star CW performers. He lived on Cedar Street with Michael Bluejay during the CW years. (visit Stuart's website)
Wild Man Dave. WMD was Stuart & Michael's next-door neighbor on Cedar Street, and played bass in Godzilla On Ice with Michael. He also hosted the Wild Man Dave show.
Michael Bluejay. Known as Michael Fabrizio during the CW years, he lived with Stuart on Cedar Street at that time. Played in Godzilla On Ice with Wild Man Dave, and booked the bands for CW. And created this web page. (MBJ's website)
Rodger Venue.
In order to be able to hold these shows on the campus, they had to be
sponsored by a UT student group, composed of at least three
students. Frieda got that ball rolling, and Rodger lent his name as a founding member as well. Rodger also helped book bands, helped manage the stage, and made fliers.
Carey. Started hanging out with Stuart during the CW years and helped with the show on occasion. She and Stuart married in 1993, and WMD and Michael played the music for their wedding. Carey & Stuart parted a few years later. (By the way, before Carey and Stuart got involved, Carey did kiss me once. On the mouth.)
Forrest Jackson. A good friend of Stuart's, he'd lived at the House of Commons vegetarian co-op with Stuart in the early 80's. (Stuart helped start the co-op in 1981.) Forrest attended many shows and helped out on occasion. He died in early 2001, of heart complications, in his 30's or 40's.
Reader mail
"Michael, Just found the Club Whatever page via Google. It brought back memories. I went to several of the concerts on the West Mall. They were only a few blocks away from my apartment on Rio Grande. I really enjoyed them. Thanks for putting them together. It was great to have live music so close to my apartment every Friday night." -- Mark Bowron, mathematrucker(at)yahoo, Sept. 2, 2006
