RECENT SIGHTING: SANTA
FE, NEW MEXICO, 2001
This occurred when ex-Angry Samoan (co-founding member of 13 years
and co-singer/songwriter ) Gregg Turner, having endured a painful
four or five years of sour peace-&-love vibes a la the Santa
Fe music scene (gruesome Joan Baez, Jim Croce, Boz Scaggs and
Eagles emulation -- don't even ask), finally sampled a ray of
sonic encouragement. Friday night, in the lounge of the Chinese
restaurant smack in the heart of the most boring and dreary art
gallery tourist district in O'Keefe-ville, kindred spirit Tom
Trusnovic was routinely beating the hell from his kit of skins
behind the lead vokes of Russell "Matt" Miller in a
3-piece combo called the Floors. This was not "Hotel California"
comfort for the masses and Trusnovic's animal rhythms behind the
drums marked impressive territory. He was a little out of synch,
a little wild, maybe even a little disheveled in the manic fever
pitch of his passion and groove; but he was a veritable hydrogen
bomb of enthusiasm and energy. All of this manifested as a more
than hopeful first apparition of 3-chord life, the first blood
drawn (and drained) in an otherwise dead in the water full of
itself music scene where musicians routinely trade shameless cliches
and well-worn prototype in much the same way used car dealers
pedal sour lemons . Swiftly, Turner, who long had abandoned the
idea of investing in any continued type of rock'n'roll resurrection
[still recovering from a semi-Angry and maybe too Samoan punk-rock
tenure and feeling no need to recycle this or any other type of
recognizable "sounds-like" format (the feeling was that
the entire genre, hippie-to-reggae-to-rap-to-rock had become,
in general, as predictable and boring as, say, professional baseball)]
swallowed the necessary crow (and better judgement) and commenced
rudimentary slog-throughs of material that they both dug: 13th
Floor Elevators, early Kinks, Sonics, Mouse and The Traps (Tyler,Texas
60's Dylan-psych) - you get the idea. Not a new idea, for sure,
but in the privacy of one's own garage it needn't become a public
embarrassment. But Trusnovic, who wanks on a 6-string as violently
as he thrashes on a snare, soon was showing Turner the "correct"
key changes to "Til The End of the Day" and so forth
and then it was apparently just a matter of tyme before "better
judgement" fell flat on its proverbial face and Turner decided
that they ought to become The Blood Drained Cows and bastardize
their garage-rock conceit once and for all. Maybe this was back
in 1997. Blood Drained Cows because, well, here on the high desert
mesa in Northern New Mexico, it, uhm, happens (four blood siphoned
cattle found in the hills of Penasco, 20 miles north of Santa
Fe, rectums surgically removed as well as tongues and genitals
with "laser-like precision;" so said the article in
the Santa Fe New Mexican the following day). "Couldn't give
a rat's ass about the missing cow butts," notes the studied
Turner (now a practicing math prof at a local four-year college)
reflecting on the choice of the name, "but I figured we could
at least make a case for playing some shows around Halloween or
down in Roswell when they celebrate their spook-show [flying saucer
anniversary] each July." Was it then merely a continuation
of this exploitative sci-fi nightmare of a B-movie band that they
enlisted Matt Miller (Floors lead singer) to play bass? - grandpa
Miller owned the ranch where the critters s'posedly came down
in a fireball back in 1947… If not, you'd not gleam otherwise
from the UFO-skeptically cranky bassist: "It's all a bunch
of baloney." So this nucleus of true believers, now formally
answering to the mutilated moos of The Blood Drained Cows, cycled
thru the rounds of local venues in town, not necessarily converting
Arlo Guthrie disciples to the ranks of the "Talk Talk"
music machine. Nonetheless, they eventually recorded a CD out
in Cave Creek, Arizona at Iguana Studios with producer (legendary
punk-rock performer/archivist and ex-Angry Samoan in his own right)
Jeff Dahl . Featured here are "adrenaline-charged" covers
[review, 12/99, Psychology Today] of the Elevators' "You're
Gonna Miss Me" and the Samoan's "I Lost My Mind"
(the latter with rhythm and lead vacuum cleaners replacing axe-leads
in the break), as well as originals that stretch from retro goon-garage
cries of hormonal retribution ("Caveman" where issues
of "low self esteem" are replaced by troggloditic revenge)
to poppy chick yearnings ("Allison") , bad antihistamine-trip
warnings ("Medication (The Actifed Song)), romantic nuclear
solitaire ("A-Bomb Love") and even one about detached
dead-person arousal("Why Must I Be a Necrophiliac In Love").
That about sums it up. Did we mention the noisy pops and scratches
that are imbued in the CD wafer fabric from beginning to end?
"It's our SOUND," says Turner not in the least apologetic;
still the verdict's still out whether this has endured as an aesthetic
attribute . "If I had my way, the scratches would've taken
over the whole thing, tunes would fight for the right to be heard
- and there'd be many choruses and versus as casualties."
But most agree that he's lost a screw or two along the way, and
this should be, for the most part, ignored in the same vein as
a poorly posed differential equation. Released at the end of the
summer in 1999 on XXX Records, numerous press clippings applaud
the "different-ness of the stable of tunes and viability
of the sound and genre-workout above and beyond treading on normal
turf" [Cosmopolitan, 11/99].
That was 2 years ago and it should be mentioned
that these Blood Drained Cows, to this day still feeling pretty
drained and bloody and so forth (and Turner likewise waxing apologetic
about trudging through rock/roll per se as the default broadcast
wavelength) are now on the verge of grazing in the next recording
pasture. This time they've recruited mentor and rock'n'roll's
smartest man, Andy Shernoff, songwriter/bass player/mastermind
of NYC's The Dictators, to produce a 2nd effort to be released
by XXX somewhere at the end of 2001. In addition, the Cows have
just recruited a secret weapon: electric autoharp virtuoso "Wild
Billy" Angel, formerly Wild Bill Miller (no relation to Russell
"Matt" Miller) . Wild Bill supported Roky Erickson in
his initial comeback bid in the late 1970's in San Francisco with
his band The Aliens. Billy, a close friend of Roky dating back
to the late 60's, x'd paths w/Turner on many occasions back in
the late 70's when Turner became a type of de-facto publicist
for the ex-13th Floor Elevator Roky in his comeback effort fronting
the Aliens; when the Blood Drained Ones played San Francisco last
October [2000], Wild Bill and not-so-wild Gregg shared an odd
reunion when Bill was invited to take the vacuum cleaner lead
that night in "I Lost My Mind" - a lone Hoover had been
plugged in on the side of the stage anticipating sympathetic musical
hands. The entire crowd just lost it when, cued to take the lead,
the former Alien pounced on stage, instinctively snatched the
machine's suction attachment and simulated sucking his brains
out of his ear before hunkering down on a speaker monitor to generate
way-out vacuum cleaner feedback! Apparently the club owner, concerned
for the well being of his PA, went absolutely ballistic , lunging
at Wild Bill and headlocking him off the stage. Thus passing this
requisite cattle baptism, Billy has gained his hoofs and now grazes
a higher pasture, home on deranged (thanks Don!) as a 4th Blood
Drained Cow. The liaison of both Shernoff and mr. Autoharp to
the Cows field of cud dripdrains with irony. Or maybe not at all:
The Angry Samoans have always cited the tunes of Shernoff and
Roky Erickson as seminal guiding lights -- now full circle 20-some
odd years later, before old age closes the door on everyone, The
Blood Drained Cows bear witness to this re-invigoration of continuity
.
(Grungey pops and scratches, now, as this bio fades out ……)
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