Recently my sister Lisa sent me a box of CD’s I had left up in Salt Lake City. Some of the CD’s had songs I had been dying to listen to again, and some of the CD’s I had, quite frankly, forgotten I owned. Yea! New music to listen to!
Score one for early Alzheimer’s.
So I have been using all this new music as a backgroud for when I write, with good results. I also had an idea for this blog; I shoud write about the CD’s- most of which are by talented, but unheard of artists- to keep up my reviewing chops. For starters I am going to profile one of my favorite songwriters, and a huge influence on my writing: Tonio K. I’ll skip the usual bio, except to say that when asked for a bio from his first record labe, Mr. K submitted a verbatum copy of Louis Armstrong’s bio.
I had read an article on Tonio in Circus Magazine back in 1978. It was accompanied a photo of the man standing in a drained pool wearing a gas mask. He was funny and smart, and vitriolic. I felt like a bobby-soxer.
I searched out his record, “Life In The Foodchain,” at the local stores but to no avail. He was not a ‘commercial entity’ yet. So one day I asked my sister Lisa (who was, damn her, old enough to drive) to take me over to the Underground, a convenient name for an underground record store specializing in obscure aural delights. They had a promo copy of “Life…” that had a sticker affixed to the front with blurbs from those wonderously anonymous industry types that got paid to write blurbs. One of them went along the lines of “If Bob Dylan met the Clash…”
The song titles leap out at me; the second track was something called “The Funky Western Civilization,” “How Come I Can’t See You In My Mirror?” The next to last track was called “A Lover’s Plea.” Sounds pretty mainstream, right? The last track was titled “H-A-T-R-E-D.” It’s one of the funniest love songs I have ever heard.
I brought the record home and put it on the old stereo. I had to use headphones, on account of no one else in the family interested in ‘Rockin’ the fuck out!,” and it was a fortunate occurance. Stereo Review called it ”The greatest album ever recorded!”*
It is, and It’s not. But we’ll get to that later. Right now I’m getting to the act of putting the stylus down in the groove and having Tonio and his comrades slam into “Life In The Foodchain,” Tonio’s dolefull delivery of the first verse setting up a punchy chorus of rousing guitars and sing-along lyrics. Underneath the city block-sized hook was a deft layer of insanity: lyrics such as “It’s kind of like carving the turkey/kind of like mowing the lawn/everything gets to a certain dimension/winds up on a customer’s plate and then gone…”, backed with football chant vocals, barks, and a screaming sax.
Then after the songs over there are these weird, sped-up voices that sound like an old, familiar cartoon I can’t place. Then the next song comes bursting through the headphones like a tidal wave. It was the like Ted Nugent on Quaaludes and…Acid. The sing features a guitar riff so wide you could drive a Mac truck down the middle. “They put Jesus on the cross/they put a hole in JFK/they put Hitler in the driver’s seat/and looked the other way”
Then comes the guest appearance by Joan of Arc, who delivers a rather important message about, well..how Tonio K. (Steve Krikorian by birth) was the original Armenian Heavy Metal absurdist. Sorry, System Of A Down.**
The liner notes, which are the lengthiest, and funniest, I have ever read don’t list the individual performers on each track. However, I am guessing that So by the time the song wind up its frenzied, horn-fueled, stacks upon stacks of Marshall Amps take on modern culture, I couldn’t figure out if I needed to stop smoking pot, or to smoke some more pot.
The third track, “Wille and the Pigman,” is great to listen to if you are stoned. It has almost a spoken-word poetry by way of East L.A. circa 1977- vibe. “American Love Affair” does the rock-country ’70’s thing while mocking it behind it’s fringed back. One of the songs, the rockabilly-inspired “Better Late Than Never,” was an more orthodox composition, and Tanya Tucker’s cover of it hit the Billboard Country charts.
So far his was a great album when I first heard it, and the songs for the most part still hold up, but the last song wasthe one that sealed the deal for me. “H-A-T-R-E-D” starts off as a John Denver-ish finger-picking ballad for about a minute until Tonio goes from Romeo to Rambo. Literally, there is an explosion and some scattered gunshots in the song. I picked the needle up and placed it back in the groove right before “H-A-T-R-E-D” several more times, soon joining in on the chorus;
“I’m so full of h-a-t-r-e-d
I’m bitter and maligned
you’ve got me
p-i-s-s-e-d off
I’m angry most of the time
why don’t you
g-o t-o h-e-double”l”
you tramp
you philandering bitch
I’m going to
k-i-l-l one of us baby
when I’m sober I’ll decide on which“
Of course, it is all tongue-in-cheek. Tonio ends the song with the aside, “but then again, maybe with the proper counseling, we can work this out..” as the sound of smashed guitars wails over a discordant organ pumping out the riff to “Louie, Louie.” That Tonio K- he’s a born romantic.
I have been a big fan of his ever since, and wound up buying everything he ever put out, albums such as the New Wavey “Romeo Unchained,” with its shoulda been a hit “Impressed” (later a minor hit for Charlie Sexton) and the rollicking look at a certain Pentacostal ritual: “I Handle Snakes” (“One man lays down 10%/Another man trembles and shakes/ I save my money/I handle snakes, y’all..).
Eventually Tonio’s more mainstream songs started to find their way to artist like Bonnie Raitt (“You”), The Runaways (“Saturday Night Special”), and others. What better testament to his writing ability that the fact that Tonio co-wrote ”God In Louisiana” for former Sex Pistol guitarist Steve Jones, and “Love Is” by Vanessa Williams & Brian McNight.***
Tonio released records sporadically, mostly due to record label indifference. His vocal style was more Frank Zappa than Frank Sinatra and the songwriting thing was paying the bills. However he did release a couple of great records along the way; “Yugoslavia (Love Songs of the Heart)” and “Ole” feature more of Tonio’s acerbic humor and unbridles passion. His work is that of someone searching for a light in these “New Dark Ages,” which happens to be a title from his collection of rarities “Rodent Weekend.” Remember the movie “Summer School” with Kirstie Alley and Mark Harmon? I don’t admit to it, either, but suffice to say Tonio’s “I’m Supposed To Have Sex With You” was the funniest part of it- even though it is barely audible in the movie.
Tonio K has, as I mentioned, been an inspiration to me for a long time. Receiving his CD’s sparked me to get this blog done. However, I had to stop to add a coda to it. Recently I was told that my friends in Sparkler Dims are going to be playing a benefit for Brent Engles, who recently underwent surgery and cannot pay his mounting medical bills. Brent is a long-time fixture on the local music scene, and at one time owned Underground Records. There are no accidents in Art. I had to write this blog, not to get my chops back, but to urge you to help out a great friend of Music.
The benefit is being held at the Beauty Bar on Fremont Street on April 23rd. Show starts at 7:00. Bring your dancin’ shoes and wear your heart on your sleeve.
*Stereo Review, 1978
** And Danzig. Hail!
***One of Tonio’s collaborators was Steve Schiff, who also wrote “Don’t You Forget About Me” and was once a member of the band 1994: (who I will profile next).
