TCB
By Christopher Gray, Fri., Aug. 20, 2004
kill from the heart
Back in the sunset years of the Cosmic Cowboy era, Austin's Dicks wed punk rock snarl and garage-blues licks to flamboyant singer Gary Floyd's vividly confrontational lyrics about police raids and porno bookstores ("Saturday Night at the Bookstore"). In the process, along with the Big Boys, they wound up birthing the genre known as Texas hardcore. But that was then. Now, 20 years after Floyd left for San Francisco – where he recruited a new Dicks lineup before founding Sister Double Happiness – here comes another "Wheelchair Epidemic." Floyd has put together a new band, playing what Dicks bassist Buxf Parrott dubs "old-style Texas music," and he's invited Parrott's similarly rootsy local oufit Shootin' Pains (featuring original Dicks drummer Pat Deason) up to the Bay area for a Sept. 2 show at the Eagle's Nest, which the bassist calls a "cool gay leather biker bar." From there, a full-scale Dicks reunion was a natural. "We figured, 'Shit, we're all here, let's do it,'" says Parrot. All except for guitarist Glen Taylor, who passed in 1997 and whose boots are being filled by Brian Magee of Prettymouth and Junior Samples Jr. Parrott expects something of an Austin reunion at the Eagle's Nest, as David Yow of Scratch Acid and the Jesus Lizard has already RSVP'd to join the quartet for Lizard live favorite "Wheelchair." "We oughta tell Gary to tell the leather guys it's Texas night," muses Parrott. "They can break out their chaps." Parrott has talked Floyd into an Austin date in early October at Room 710, reason enough to start moshing, but there's also a new CD in the offing. Or sort of new: It's a recording straight from the soundboard of the Dicks' very first show, April 16, 1980, at the Armadillo World Headquarters' "Punk Prom," when they were two weeks old and didn't have a drummer. (Luckily, Deason's previous band had just moved to Philadelphia without him.) Even today, Parrott says he's surprised when youngsters tell him how much they love the Dicks. "I thought when we broke up that'd be it," he says. "But I get these kids coming up to me on the street treating me like a star. I'm like, 'Y'all are silly.'"
