Asylum Street Spankers – The Pleasurecraft

July 13, 2011

Yes, but at least it’s a dry heat …. Welcome to Austin! Don’t go thinking the weather is going to be this pleasant for the rest of the summer. This mercifully low humidity can’t last forever. Normally in July the humidity in your car is enough to make you look like Alice Cooper applied your mascara while tripping on peyote buttons. Ever get in your car, close the door, and have the rearview mirror fall off because the glue on the stem melted? Get ready. If you’re not an epileptic or prone to bouts of vertigo, you can have a friend try and hold it in place as you drive, but in terms of driver safety, you might as well just have someone attempt to burn a hole in your retina with a laser pointer. Your best bet is to just not worry about what’s happening behind you and focus on the road ahead – which will probably resemble a Salvador Dalí painting because of the heat waves coming off the asphalt. Don’t trip; that’s the way Texas looks in the summer. If you’re a big pot smoker, you may want to rein in your usage for the next three months. Heat is its own hallucinogenic. Plus, the only thing more disturbing than seeing the highway melting in front of you is getting a wicked case of cotton mouth in mid-July. Hint: If flies land on your tongue and get stuck there, you’re either: A) completely baked, B) in the death throes of dehydration, or C) you’ve actually turned into a frog. If you’re either A or C, you should write your dope dealer a nice thank you note. If, however, you look out your windshield and see Satan himself doing a reverse cowgirl on your hood ornament, you’re not hallucinating. He’s just here enjoying the weather. Think about it: If you had to spend eternity swimming in a lake of fire, you’d probably want to pop out and dry off occasionally yourself. What better place to do that than right here in River City? After all, we have plenty of sunshine and warm breezes and, barring some act of God … like a hurricane, for instance … the forecast isn’t going to change until late September at the earliest. Don’t let your hopes get crushed, but it is unlikely that God is going to get involved even if Satan is riding around sodomizing himself on your hood ornament. God doesn’t get into dick-swinging matches with the devil. Besides, how big of a beaker would you need to do a reliable water displacement test on God’s cock? Is the scientific method even a valid way to quantify the divine? While most Austin musicians lack the confidence to tackle big, tough questions like the preceding ones, former Asylum Street Spankers Wammo and Guy Forsyth are certainly brave enough to try. Both are mightily prolific, talented, and worldly emissaries of the Keep-Austin-Weird aesthetic. If you haven’t seen them perform together, this Friday at the Continental Club may be your last, best chance for a while. Wammo is headed off to Philadelphia, and though he will surely be back to visit, it probably won’t be for a while. The show is titled “Wammo vs. Forsyth” and features songs the two have written together as well as favorites from when they were in the Spankers. There probably won’t be a winner declared, unless maybe it’s the audience. You should make plans to be a part of it.

TUE., FEB. 21, 2006

Although it can safely be said that not all progress equals improvement, generally, over time, society as a whole walks toward the light. We may in the end find that the light we’re walking toward is the glowing fires of hell – or more likely that extra bright patch of sky where the ozone used to be, but at least we’ll have the comfort of knowing that our hearts were in the right place. Faced with the prospect of an uncertain future, many people pine for the road already taken. They look back fondly on the simpler days of yore, especially those who didn’t have to live in them. Their understanding of yore is more conceptual than visceral – which may explain certain unpleasant fashion trends: Trucker hats, leg warmers, low-rise jeans, nearly anything involving rabbit fur or spandex. As the poet George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Well spoken…but there are times when we must repeat the past in order to remember it. Think about it: Renaissance faires, Civil War re-enactments, Star Trek conventions, roller derbies…and there’s a lot of good stuff too: The Asylum Street Spankers for instance. The Spankers are so old timey they don’t even use microphones. They’re so old timey they don’t even plug in their instruments. They’re so old timey one of them probably has typhoid, but rest assured they all have balls – at least metaphorically, because that’s what it takes to bring it without the juice. Saturday night they’ve invited back a group of former member like Guy Forsyth and Mysterious John to help celebrate the release of their new DVD. Matt the Electrician opens. Bring some cash and a sense of irony.