We wanted this to be just like in the ’70s when bands would load all their equipment up on a truck and go play.
That’s what Hector Saldana of The Krayolas told us during a band break early Sunday evening. Casting aside the extensive national media attention focused on the unpretentious band three decades ago and now during the past year or so, The Krayolas trucked on over to the intersection of Nogalitos and Zarzamora to provide one of those puro San Antonio moments. The band enthusiastically offered those gathered at Los Valles Fruteria, the subject of one of their lighter songs, with two admission-free sets showcasing their diverse musical sounds.
The peppy “La Fruteria” is balanced by such songs as a narco-corrido, “Twelve Heads in a Bag;” a song mourning a soldier whose life was lost in Iraq, “Alex;” and a protest song about Arizona’s new immigration law, “1070 (I’m Your Dirty Mexican).” Hap Mansfield recently described The Krayolas’ Americano sound for the San Marcos Local News:
The Krayolas have been kickin’ out the Tex-Mex pop jams since the late 1970s. Their 2010 release, “Americano,” demonstrates that they’ve still got the chops, but their poetry is 30 years better and deeper. Unafraid of confrontation, the Saldana boys’ recent “1070 (I’m Your Dirty Mexican)” deals with the inherent racism in the controversial Arizona immigration bill. On a lighter note, their recent “Fruteria” may be the happiest Tex Mex pop tune ever.
Click here to catch David Martin Davies’ in-depth interview with the Saldana brothers for KLRN’s Conversations.
Note Added on July 25: The Krayolas are paired with a reading by author John Phillip Santos from The Farthest Home Is in an Empire of Fire as part of the Macondo Writers Workshop. The admission-free event will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in Thiry Auditorium at Our Lady of the Lake University on Wednesday, July 28.
“Some men get new wives when they turn 40,” said Lamar. “All I want is an electric guitar.”
He is a practical man. Probably had weighed out the economics of the situation pretty carefully. Happy I made the cut. Probably was a close call.
Even I could see the equation clearly. Amazing I made the cut.
Fine.
Even though I thought I had married an acoustic man who had wooed me sitting on the front porch in the mountains of Virginia listening to records (did I mention we were old?) of the exotic (hey, I’m not from Texas) Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and Willis Alan Ramsey.
My husband kept his electric roots repressed for two decades.
But this is a man who had played the Bonham – not today’s gay Bonham – when it was the USO. Captain Midnight headlined a St. Mary’s Hall dance; that was when the band found out Jeff Richmond only had one harmonica in one key that he played discordantly throughout the evening.
The high point must have been opening for ZZ Top at the Teen Canteen. Neglecting to mention Captain Midnight, Margaret Moser wrote in The Austin Chronicle:
Forget the cute, silly name – the Teen Canteen was the staging ground for San Antonio’s vibrant rock & roll scene, from before the Beatles until the dawn of punk. Owner Sam Kinsey opened the first Teen Canteen in 1960. It moved around to several locations, including a ballroom dance studio, settling at Wonderland (now Crossroads) Mall in 1963. In 1968, the Canteen moved to its last location on Bitters Road across from Northeast Stadium, the place it would occupy until it closed in 1977….
Local bands like the Pipelines, the Outcasts, the Spidels, the Stoics, the Swiss Movement, and the Virgil Foxx Group, plus touring bands of the day such as the Strawberry Alarm Clock (“Incense and Peppermints”) and the Syndicate of Sound (“Little Girl”) played there. More importantly, it was one of the places for Texas psychedelic bands such as Sweet Smoke, Zakary Thaks, Bubble Puppy, Shiva’s Headband, the Moving Sidewalks, and Lord August & the Visions of Lite. ZZ Top played their first gig at the Teen Canteen; others who got their start there include Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Chris “Christopher Cross” Geppart.
Talent, and perhaps a smidgen of nepotism, continued to boost the band’s profile. Band member Galvin Weston, whose royal lineage can be substantiated online, managed to get the band booked on the family’s cruise line. Don’t know why Captain Midnight did not get an offer for a second summer cruise. Surely people our parents’ age were into songs by Cream or Spirit’s “I Got a Line on You?”
Even nepotism must have its limits. Alas, college dispersed the members of Captain Midnight to far corners of the map.
But fast forward past forty.
One electric guitar gets lonely. The first black guitar led to a red guitar. And then a woody-looking guitar. And now a really cool Teye (Guitar men are rolling their eyes in their heads over my superficial descriptions. If Captain, or After, Midnight’s band members want to get the details right, they have to get their own blogs.).
Plus, one does not play the electric guitar alone. Lamar had to seduce our friend Richard Nitschke off the acoustic. And Richard’s first electric guitar seemed to procreate as well (People, ducks, guitars. Does just say no ever work?).
Strangely, it turned out our CPA is an amazing drummer, Karl Yelderman (whose drumsets reproduce like ducks as well), and he brought along bass player Daryl Chadick (with his multiplying bass guitars). Now the band even has a keyboard player, Steve Chase (whose wife must have had his keyboard spayed).
Then there is Claytie. Claytie Bonds has the type of voice capable of singing the national anthem a cappella at a chamber of commerce gathering when she was only nine. She can belt out the blues.
After Midnight Blues Band: Daryl, Richard, Karl, Claytie, Lamar and Steve
You can catch the band this Saturday, April 17, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Alamo City Pizza and the following Saturday, April 24, at from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m. at the King William Fair.
Someone asked me if the band stuff drives me crazy. The answer is no. I love the blues, and, even without nepotism to help, in my unbiased opinion, After Midnight is great.
The blues are great therapy, and, Lord knows, living with me, Lamar needs large doses of that. So I’m standing by my man.
Update Added on September 5: No reunion performance of the members of Captain Midnight is planned for today’s Canteen Fest at Floore’s Country Store in Helotes. The band’s glory days are yet again overshadowed by ZZ Top.
ZZ Top made its first public appearance there. “The scene was that of a drugless rave,” Kinsey said. “We had black lights; we had strobes and overhead projectors. It was fantastic.”
Admission was 25 cents in the ’60s. Imagine “Where the Action Is” and “Hullabaloo” incarnate, albeit amateurish and fresh out of the garage.
Seeing the vintage photo of the Pipelines in the paper made me yearn to see a group photo of Captain Midnight, but, if he ever possessed one, my husband must have destroyed all evidence prior to our marriage.
Postcards from Barton Springs 