Joe, Butch, Torgo, El Camino, and a Low-Rent Cujo

I used to like Joe Ely a heck of a lot. I'd bought Lord of the Highway on CD back in the late 80s when I worked at the record store in the mall. I'd heard some of Bruiser's Jason and the Scorchers stuff some years before, but really this was my first exposure to that sort of roadhouse rock with country flair and some punk attitude. Everything on there was good, though I swear the sax on "Letter to LA" (Toland's favorite) was sharp. And there was David Grissom, plowing his way through it all with great peels of distortion.

Soon after I moved to Austin, Ely's Live at Liberty Lunch came out. It's probably his best record, and it'd been recorded in the city I was then calling home, at a club where I drank many a Shiner Bock. "Barbecue and Foam," "Me and Billy the Kid," and "If You Were a Bluebird" (with the venerable Butch Hancock)... all good stuff.

I saw Ely live, finally, long about then. It was at some festival I think. And at some point during his set Ely invited Hancock up on stage with him. It was a fine show.

Shortly thereafter I was fortunate enough to be a work study at KLRU, the station where Austin City Limits is taped. I've mentioned it many times, of course. I was thrilled to lug gear for the bands who came through, many of whom meant quite a bit to me.

Funny, at one point I got to listen to some old ACL audio recordings long about then, and one was a Joe Ely show from 1979 or so. And at some point in the show Ely invited Butch Hancock up on stage.

It became sort of a running joke with MOBB and me. Whenever Ely is mentioned, to this day one of us will burst out with, "Why looky there--it's Butch Hancock!"

It was clear to me that Butch should have just had a semi-permanent place in Joe's band. In a way I guess he did, or maybe still does.

***

Various musicians have always come and gone through Ely's band, and at some point he hired a "flamenco" guitarist. Seemed like a fairly natural idea I suppose, what with Ely's Texas/Mexico borderland flair popping up here and there.

I honestly cannot remember the guitarist's name, except that it was one word. Tonga, Tevya, Toto... I've always just called him Torgo.

***

So I'd already left audio engineering behind when Ely was scheduled to record an ACL. I still worked at the station, down on the first floor in traffic. The entrance closest to my office was in the alley.

But as I came to work that day, some bozo's car was parked right in front of the door. It was a beat up El Camino. Not much parking is allowed down there, and certainly that car shouldn't have been blocking the door.

In fact, in the back of the car was this big yellow mutt, yapping it's head off for no reason. The car being in the way was bad enough, but now I had to deal with some low-rent Cujo.

I slipped past, grumbling to myself.

My office had some sort of de facto control over a bit of alley parking, and as I walked in I saw a man pleading his case to park out there. He was tall, pot-bellied, had long, stringy blonde hair on the sides of his head, and was bald on top. He looked and smelled like he wasn't altogether familiar with Irish Spring, and he spoke with some sort of Euro-trash accent.

"But I'm mit the Joe Eeely bahnd!" he pleaded to my boss.

"I don't care!" she barked.

I don't know how they worked it out, but the car was soon gone.

***

I went upstairs to watch some soundcheck, and damned if that trashy guy with the El Camino wasn't Torgo, the new hotshot guitarist with Joe's band.

It just didn't work. It screamed WRONG from top to bottom. His playing was too much, it stuck out, and he was altogether on the wrong wavelength to be in this band.

I went to the taping that night, and you should have seen it when Torgo first took the stage. He wasn't a reg'lar member I guess; during one particularly dusty-sounding number he was summoned to join the band.

And he took the stage dressed... well, like a pirate. I mean... he had a puffy white shirt unbuttoned to the top of his guitar (which quite conveniently hid his watermelon-sized belly), black pants, pointy boots... He had a bandana atop his head that strategically covered the parts that didn't actually have hair. If he squinted in the mirror just right I'm sure he thought he looked like he had lots of great hair under there.

(Note: I'm not making a bald joke here. I have too many bald/balding friends for that. I'm just saying that this man clearly had a big issue with it, and the way he dressed just screamed it).

And as he stomped and picked and really tried to muster something exotic, it just seemed to me like all of the air went out of the show. I could swear that even Ely looked pained to be watching this spectacle. I could be wrong.

I won't get into just who's legit enough to really be a flamenco guitarist or anything, okay. I will say, though, that this guy, despite his flying fingers, just screamed POSER.

Needless to say, I didn't think the show was very good.

***

Some weeks later I was at a light down near Congress. Maybe at Riverside or something. I was just minding my own business with the windows down, and I heard this sound from far off. It rattled around in my head, sort of coming to me from a direction I couldn't place at first. Happens with sirens too, the way you sit there for a moment, wondering which direction it's coming from.

And the noise was...

...barking.

Lots and lots of barking.

And as I sat there waiting for the light to change, Torgo and his El Camino and his incessantly yapping, low-rent Cujo blew through the intersection.

I've not seen them since.