East Coast pals:
the Fleshtones headlining a Columbus, Ohio gig with Joe Harvard opening.
No,
the Fleshtones aren't from Boston, they are a stone Manhattan outfit.
They are truly an archetypal New York City band, as much as the Ramones
or the Dolls ever were. There are strong links between the martini kings
and the home of the Baked Bean, however, both in terms of their sound
and its roots in garage Americana and in less definable, more synchronistic
areas. During the 1988 Mardi Gras celebration the Fleshtones were part
of the crew assembled to join the parade as members of the Lyons Marching
Club. It was Jimmy Ford, New Orleans native and manager of North Carolina's
DB's who was host to this horde of rockers joining the cajun
chaos. Prominent among the revelers were Will Rigby, Peter Halsapple
and Chris from the DB's; the inimitable Monty Lee Wilkes; all of the
Fleshtones; the Hoodoo Gurus; Billy from, and the "Ladies Auxiliary":
the Bangles. Greg "Skeggie" Kendall and I drove down to N.O. from Boston,
joining ex-Flies, then-Titanics leader Nat Freedberg who was already
there. We took Nat home with us when we left, tag-team driving in a
non-stop 25 hour pedal-to-the-metal trip that left my Aerostar for dead.
Skeggie and I got to pick out the costumes for the parade for everybody,
and the bonding process was completed with Jaegermaester libations.
I dubbed this crew the Mickey Rat Auxiliary Chapter of the Lyons Marching
Club. If you look hard you can see Skeggie and the rest marching along
in one of the Hoodoo Gurus videos.
One
highlight was the disappearance of a marcher who shall remain unnamed.
Several revelers decided to drop acid for the parade- I didn't, as just
being in New Orleans for Mardi Gras is plenty enough like tripping
for me. So this unnamed person was marching along and it was really
hilarious, it was his first time on LSD and he was doing all those stereotypical
things that you'd expect: reaching out for invisible butterflies, saying
"ooooohhhh wowwwww" a lot, etc. After three hours or so of marching
someone suddenly says "hey, where's 'you-know-who'?" We look around
and the guy is gone, he has simply disappeared. About 20 hours later
he shows up at the motel totally spent, a real mess and a half. Turns
out he was so spaced that at one juncture in the Zulu parade- which
is the one we marched behind -something like three thousand of use turned
right and he alone turned left! He wandered into one of the many unpredictable
and perverse parrish neighborhoods around New Orleans and suffered numerous
bizarre events before finding his way back.
I myself carried two baby bottles full of Jaegermeister in a holster around
my waist, trading paper flowers for a kiss with any willing damsel and
hurling my dubloons and beads into the crowd with the other marchers.
I'd never even heard of Jaegermeister before we arrived at a bar in New
Orleans at four am to find a dozen people dancing on a pool table. The
waitress asked if I'd like a drink and I said give me what they're
drinking. She returned with a plastic cup full of this weird, medicinal
witches syrup that I later learned was made from fermented cabbage and
whose name means Master Hunter, which explains the mystical stags illustrated
on the label. By the time we assembled for the parade at five a.m. I'd
been up so long slugging Jaeg with Skeggie that photos taken that day
show my face as a soft grey-green. This is the sort of nonsense that makes
brothers of men, that and seeing Jimmy Ford spraypainting a pair of sneakers
chrome silver at dawn after staying up smoking weed and Master Huntering
for two straight days. I shall always feel that I share a spiritual bond
with everyone that marched that year- Fleshtones included. Later I sent
Peter Zarimba some of the photos of the band in the purple executioner
outfits Skeg and I picked out for them. Still later I got ot open for
the 'Tones at Stache's when they came through Columbus during the time
I lived in Ohio. As they marched around the club prior to and after their
set, beating a drum and chanting, I knew that I wasn't the only person
whose psyche had been recast by my Mardis Gras experience
One
highlight was the disappearance of a marcher who shall remain unnamed.
Several revelers decided to drop acid for the parade- I didn't, as just
being in New Orleans for Mardi Gras is plenty enough like tripping
for me. So this unnamed person was marching along and it was really
hilarious, it was his first time on LSD and he was doing all those stereotypical
things that you'd expect: reaching out for invisible butterflies, saying
"ooooohhhh wowwwww" a lot, etc. After three hours or so of marching
someone suddenly says "hey, where's 'you-know-who'?" We look around
and the guy is gone, he has simply disappeared. About 20 hours later
he shows up at the motel totally spent, a real mess and a half. Turns
out he was so spaced that at one juncture in the Zulu parade- which
is the one we marched behind -something like three thousand of use turned
right and he alone turned left! He wandered into one of the many unpredictable
and perverse parrish neighborhoods around New Orleans and suffered numerous
bizarre events before finding his way back.
I myself carried two baby bottles full of Jaegermeister in a holster around
my waist, trading paper flowers for a kiss with any willing damsel and
hurling my dubloons and beads into the crowd with the other marchers.
I'd never even heard of Jaegermeister before we arrived at a bar in New
Orleans at four am to find a dozen people dancing on a pool table. The
waitress asked if I'd like a drink and I said give me what they're
drinking. She returned with a plastic cup full of this weird, medicinal
witches syrup that I later learned was made from fermented cabbage and
whose name means Master Hunter, which explains the mystical stags illustrated
on the label. By the time we assembled for the parade at five a.m. I'd
been up so long slugging Jaeg with Skeggie that photos taken that day
show my face as a soft grey-green. This is the sort of nonsense that makes
brothers of men, that and seeing Jimmy Ford spraypainting a pair of sneakers
chrome silver at dawn after staying up smoking weed and Master Huntering
for two straight days. I shall always feel that I share a spiritual bond
with everyone that marched that year- Fleshtones included. Later I sent
Peter Zarimba some of the photos of the band in the purple executioner
outfits Skeg and I picked out for them. Still later I got ot open for
the 'Tones at Stache's when they came through Columbus during the time
I lived in Ohio. As they marched around the club prior to and after their
set, beating a drum and chanting, I knew that I wasn't the only person
whose psyche had been recast by my Mardis Gras experience
