(Guest review by
Gary
Pig Gold) (
MVD) Very
late one evening in the very late 1980s, my oldest pal Doug and I were
dejectedly roaming the Canadian television airwaves when we suddenly chanced
upon footage of these two guys playing music out on someone's porch.
Our collective jaws – to say nothing of the remote – immediately
dropped.
It seems we'd stumbled upon a movie called Athens, GA: Inside/Out. The two guys
playing the incredible music turned out to be Chris "Crow" Smith and,
on starry Silvertone guitar and vocals, Dexter Romweber. When a graphic across
the screen reading "Flat Duo Jets" eventually appeared both Doug and
I realized, among several other things, that we had a New Favorite Band.
Now, at that particular time and place, the only context
within we two could possibly place the Jets' exquisitely torn-down sound was
Montreal's own Deja Voodoo (perhaps our second
favorite band) and, of course, the almighty Cramps. Well, as it turns out, 1990
actually brought the Flat Duo Jets all the way to our home and native Toronto
to open for none other than Lux, Ivy and Co.! Naturally, Doug and I were there
…along with the one and only Martin E-Chord who, by the way, actually fronted
Dexter dinner money for a post-set hot dog out on Yonge Street that momentous
evening.
Dex still owes Martin $5 (Canadian) for it, by the way, but
nobody whomsoever should be counting at this point.
Shortly afterwards I found myself moved to New York City,
tracked down a few actual FDJ cassettes of and for my very own, and even ran
into Dexter one afternoon at some New Music Seminar showcase he and Crow would
later be performing at. Soon the Duo would secure the dreaded Major Label Deal,
appear on Late Night with David Letterman,
and I certainly wasn't the only eager fan(atic) betting on these two to any
minute forever banish the Smashing Pumpkins and hopefully even Green Day from all of our lives.
But then?
Nothing.
So, what in gawd's name happened to the Flat Duo Jets? Where
did our heroes Crow and Dex go? And why did Celine Dion, and not them, sell
over 20 million records worldwide during calendar year 1998 ??
The answers to these, and a multitude of other earthly
injustices are vividly contained within the eighty-minute mélange of rock and roll which is Tony Gayton's Dexter Romweber: Two Headed Cow,
available on DVD courtesy of the fine folk at MVD Visual.
From its very opening Busch can-framed sequence of Dex
pontificating upon JFK and the Three Stooges, clear through its concluding
title-song sequence (which even hearing and
seeing isn't quite believing), this "eighteen years in the
making" as the disc box boasts – yes, director Gayton has been faithfully
trailing his subject matters ever since shooting that historic Inside/Out footage – illustrates perhaps
better than any film since 200 Motels
that, absolutely, touring can make you crazy.
For it seems that above-mentioned Cramps roadshow somewhat
reluctantly launched the FD Jets upon several years of brutal,
ultra-low-budget, terrestrial-only haul-assing which, as Dex recalls, set him
off upon his own personal journey of "toying with madness.
"I can't say no to managers and I can't say no to the
band and I'm sort of locked into this thing so, you know, I say ok, I'm gonna
go do this tour." Two Headed Cow's
cantankerously claustrophobic, monochrome, literally-in-their-faces footage
perfectly captures Crow and Dex's nocturnal crawls across post-Reagan America,
carrying guitars through all-night inconvenience stores, tumbling in and out of
pizza-encrusted flea-pit motels, and in Dexter's case spending most every
single semi-waking hour burning through a trough of back-seat literature that
only serves to heighten the general mis-awareness of it all.
Errol Flynn, John Barrymore, Hermann Hesse, Knut Hamsun,
Jerry Lee, Elvis, Rimbaud and eventually Baudelaire: such are the fabulous
figures of infamy duly name-checked by Dex as his self-confessed
"fucked-up role models that I'd come to be later. Real heavy-duty fuckers.
Partiers and wreckage-makers. They became second, third, and fourth selves in
me." Which leads one to think that there always was much, much more than just old Eddie Cochran
and Coasters riffs spinning round this man's most remarkable mind, doesn't it?
Or, as he helpfully explains elsewhere, "Going out and
hell-raising I think is really, and to a degree, a positive thing. Madness is merely the door open to the
supernatural."
Nevertheless, despite mopping the floor with a
d-u-m-b-struck Paul Shaffer on Letterman,
being floated by none other than David Geffen for the Scott Litt/Chris
Stamey-supervised Lucky Eye, and
remaining just so damned good a band
that despite all attempts, subconscious or otherwise, to derail the star-making
machinery, the Flat Duo Jets were poised to become, at the very least, the White Stripes and/or Black Keys they would later
only spawn and – now this is putting it mildly – influence. Sure, rarely do the
brave, crazed, pioneering innovators of any artistic signpost receive the
credit, to say nothing of the cash, those who later water down and recast reap.
But the 1999 dissolution of the (in Dex's perfect words) "relaxed brotherhood"
between he and Crow not only left our New Favorite Band in splinters, but it
turns out cast Dex "broken open," betrayed, and falling into a dark
night "trek into some sort of semi-psychotic spiritual odyssey."
Most unexpectedly but quite perfectly, Gayton's film now
becomes more colorful, yet more grainy, serving only to heighten the fitful
play of Two Headed Cow's second half.
We hear Dex label these since as "years of that bizarre desolation,"
but in his ol' pal Baudelaire's own words, perhaps this particular Angel of
gaiety was simply tasting the grief, the shame and remorse and sobs and weary
spite, to say nothing of the vague terrors of the fearful night that crush the
heart up like a crumpled leaf.
Cut to today:
Veteran expert on reversibility Exene Cervenka cites, and proudly
salutes, the "extreme case of musicality" carried by Dexter Romweber,
while far less poetically Neko Case refers to him as a "Winchester Mansion
of sound or something." Sheesh.
Anyways, I'm much much more
than happy to report that the last time I caught the grand new Dex Romweber
Duo (alongside his utterly brilliant drummer/sister Sara) in full action a few
years ago, the man remains every single inch the towering, blistering,
all-encroaching talent he ever was as a keen young Jet. Why, after the show he
even offered to pay back Martin for that long-ago hot dog as well. Good guy.
So much so that he even just agreed to answer, for you and
for me and for Roctober, each and
every one of my
EIGHT QUESTIONS For
DEXTER ROMWEBER
1. "Munsters"
or "Addams Family": Which one's for you, and Why?
Addams Family. But I always loved the way Lily looked. But
the Addams Family is just darker. Weirder.
2. Who in the world,
living or dead, would you most like to play a game
of "Twister" with?
Vanessa del Rio – 80s Latin porn star.
3. How many Sid King
& The Five Strings records do you own?
None.
4. If you had been
working the front gate at Graceland that night back
in '76 when Jerry Lee Lewis
showed up, shotgun in hand, to "put that
damn Elvis outta his
mis'ry," what would you have done?
Tell Jerry Lee to "Go for it!"
5. "Ginger"
or "Mary-Ann": Which one's for you, and for How Long?
Ginger – because she's such a red headed bitch. For as long
as it takes.
6. What single song,
living or dead, do you most wish you'd written,
and Why Didn't You?
"Nowhere" by Benny Joy. I'm good, but not that good.
7. Whose Silvertone
1448 would you most like to be reincarnated as?
Big John Taylor's. Hottest guitarist in the 50s South.
8. In 2000 words or
less, Your Hopes, Aspirations and Goals, musical
and otherwise, for your
life and your country?
To practice as much as Jimmy Page. To have as much money as
Led Zeppelin. To have perfect health. To cruise down a sunny highway, with my
beautiful girlfriend. To sit with Johnny Cash in the afterlife – and talk about
the best ways to not become a total wretched fuck up.
