There’s a really weird vibe hovering in and around the coffeehouse.
Down on
Barton Springs Road there’s a motor crash. Two cars traveling in
opposing
directions just couldn’t seem to agree on who should get first go at a
coveted
left turn. Back on the second floor, a friendly writer guy is nervously
embarking upon his first interview in more than five years with an
actual rock
band. He views rock bands as so much hot air buoying the gondola of big
egos
and shallow ambition.
Enter Gals Panic, who surround the reticent guy at a shaky wooden
table. He
clutches his notepad and whirring microcassette device in one hand and
an iced
latte in the other,
watching the musicians taking confident gulps
of their
respective powder pink and neon green sodas.
The members of the quartet speak to him of their adventures in the
music biz.
A young man known as Jeremy “Jerm” Pollet is the image of loquacity. He
is a
nice Jewish boy from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the offspring of
two
lawyers and, appropriately, the band’s manager. But not only is he the
band’s
manager, he’s also a member – the guitarist. He was at one time a road
manager
for transvestite diva RuPaul who he calls “A sexy guy,” and has just
completed
work on a degree in English at the University of Texas, but will not
reveal his
final GPA. “I’m afraid we’re gonna be on the road somewhere and some
club
manager’s gonna ask for my GPA and we’re gonna lose the gig,” says Jerm
in a
mildly self-effacing tone. But Steve “Six Million Dollar Drummer”
Austin, a
Florida State man himself, pipes-up, “Weren’t you Magna Cum Laude?”
On one end of the table, perhaps too consumed in his soda to speak,
is singer
Lance Fever. Mr. Fever is a man of short physical stature, standing
somewhere
in the lower five-foot range. In this mellow context, his height is
obvious.
But when on stage, his presence and control of the crowd is so
all-encompassing
that he seems much, much taller. He takes on an entirely different
persona in
his rude boy leather jacket with a Texas flag plastered across the
back,
sounding like the quintessential NY bad-boy rapper though he actually
hails
from Lubbock. He and Jerm worked together at Olga’s Kitchen in Barton
Square
Mall a couple of years ago. “Before we were bandmates,” recalls Jerm,
“We were
dough-puck hockey rivals.”
Sitting opposite Mssr. Fever is bassist Cardinal Connor. He is from
Mississippi, and adds only a few words to the conversation in his
syrup-tinged
accent. When one holds such high sway in the Catholic Church, one
doesn’t
really need to say much. The writer finds the men charming and without
pretension. Their intelligence is refreshing. Some nice Southern girl
would
certainly do herself proud to take them home to momma. I’d bet they’d
even
clear the table after dinner and help wash dishes.
“Everything is Skar-mageddon and the Ska-lars. If O. Henry were
alive today,
he’d be toasting for a Ska band.”
– Steve Austin
But below the surface, the men of the Panicking Gals are not without
their
points of contention. Some anguish is detected. Cardinal Connor’s teeth
gnash
like a corn mill upon the mention of a certain three-letter word. Jerm
wheezes.
Fever and Austin drop back in their chairs as if they’d just heard that
Nestle
had bought out all their mechanical (songwriting) rights. There is a
question
of identity.
The unsuspecting writer says, “Ska,” in an ill-fated attempt to
describe the
band’s sound. “Hey,” blurts Austin at the writer, then adds in an
authoritative
tone akin to a parent calmly but sternly reprimanding a child for
cursing on
the playground, “we try to avoid that word.” “There’s just something so
ingenuine about that scene,” adds Jerm.
Austin then jumps back in with his patented Six Million Dollar Man
Doing
Something Athletic Sound FX, and works himself into a good, honest,
vein-popping lather: “The kids who are often in on ska have this idea
that they
are onto something that no one else is, like it’s some big underground
thing,”
he explains. “I think it was convenient for us to call ourselves a ska
band
when we went out on tour. We could call up clubs sight unseen and try
to book a
show and they’d say, `don’t know if we can book you,’ and we’d say,
`Oh, we’re
a ska band,” and they’d go `we gotta couple of ska bands on Thursday,
you’ll
fit fine.'”
“One guy recently called us a combination of Devo, the Beastie Boys,
and Dead
Kennedys,” Jerm adds, “That’s the description I’ve been using recently
[while
booking]. I think that’s accurate. We played some ska fests. Those guys
are
like robots in the audience. They’ll dance to anything. They don’t
listen to
the music. I felt depressed after the shows.” Says Fever: “I like ska
music a
lot. It’s a matter of being pigeon-holed and saying that that’s the
only thing
we can play and that’s the kind of band we are. That’s not the way it
should
be. The Clash played a lot of ska tunes and no one called them a ska
band.”
But GP do seem to like the punk scene though they don’t want to be
called a
punk band. “We played a bunch of shows with Rancid,” says Jerm, “I love
punk
kids, punk shows, and punk music. Punk kids aren’t afraid to make fools
of
themselves. I think they are very enthusiastic and very real. You don’t
get
that at ska shows.” Jerm says he needs a three-word phrase as a
marketing tool
to quickly characterize the band for busy club owners. But how does one
describe GP in three words? In the same way that House of Pain is
called an
“Irish Rap Group”?
“What we’ve been calling ourselves lately is Homeless Astronauts,”
he says.
“It’s a real thing about space that we’re creating, ” says Fever,
“We’re
sending ourselves via this CD (I Think We Need Helicopters) and
transmissions (including director Steven Soderbergh’s The
Underneath, in
which the band appears in a club scene) out into space and trying to
become
bigger spirits.”
The writer glances at his note book, and in a moment of inspired
hyperbole
scribbles three words:
Coolest Austin Band. n
This article appears in July 7 • 1995 and July 7 • 1995 (Cover).