Benefit for Terry Trash
Club Congress, Friday, Sept. 7
A local musician recently suffered a life-threatening railroad accident, and once again, Tucson’s music community got together to throw a benefit to cover medical costs. This time, it was for the seemingly indestructible rockabilly upright bass player Texas Terry Trash, the ultimate tattooed, pompadoured, downtown bad boy.
Club Congress–which coincidentally hosted a panel discussion about setting up a local musicians’ health-care system at the HoCo festival last week–hosted the event, and the eclectic lineup reflected the cross section of people that have come to know and love Terry, as wild as he may get.
The Stripper Killers, a local punk band that harkens back to the ’80s Los Angeles punk scene, started the night off with a bang, leading into Al Perry’s sarcastic surf-cowpunk. Meanwhile, haircuts were being provided next door by Patti from Dapper Grooming Lounge, with all proceeds going to Terry.
I missed the newly formed Fort Worth, but did catch another local super-group, Found Dead on the Phone. They’re keyboard-free these days and sounding much darker, though they’ve still got that Thin Lizzy/Iron Maiden doubled-up lead-guitar thing going on, sounding less and less like the Twilight Singers and more like a sinister version of U2.
Changing gears again, Tom Walbank brought the Delta blues to the proceedings, setting up Terry’s biggest fans of the night, Al Foul and the Shakes, a band Terry played with on and off. In between serving up a steaming plate of retro rockabilly (while answering the question: What would have happened to Elvis had he never been introduced to the Colonel, his pharmacist and deep-fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches?), Al treated us to many tall Terry tales. For instance, the first thing Terry did when he woke up at the hospital was cop a feel of the female nurse. Nice.
Great American Tragedy closed out the night with a surprisingly tight set of Motorhead-inspired rock, no doubt thanks to hell-raising lead singer Miguel Carter taking things easy for the evening.
Throughout the night, a video loop of Terry on a stage at Foul’s Mammoth, Ariz., residence played overhead, showing Trash stumbling around, trying to play his rubber-band stick bass, his hands electric-taped up during the performance. It was classic Terry–though it was bittersweet to think he’d probably never play the homemade instrument again.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2007.
