The Jesus Lizard Book. The Jesus Lizard
(now here—no, over there—buried in the crowd, hanging from a rafter—hey, I think he might be unconscious) could easily leave one thinking that the words weren’t important, but they were. What I’ve always liked about Yow’s lyrics, going all the way back to Scratch Acid, is that he was never afraid to display his emotional state, whether it was one of vulnerability and regret or agitation and anger. He was just as likely to use metaphor (“Fly on the Wall,” “Cold Water,” Scratch Acid’s “Owner’s Lament”) as he was to use a more journalistic, descriptive style (“Pastoral,” “Mistletoe,” “Then Comes Dudley,” “A Tale of Two Women”) or a straight-up, personal, first-person narrative (“Boilermaker,” “Thumbscrews,” “Seasick”).
He also had some plain old great lines that are permanently fixed in my memory: “Like dust with boots on” from “Zachariah”; “A glow from her hip ignites from shapes she sees” from “Monkey Trick”; “Lies—Placidyls—why don’t you set up a camera to record your own death, dear” from “Blue Shot”; and “Make me another boilermaker” from “Boilermaker,” a simple line which rides the rhythm of the chorus in a direct, repetitive manner . . . why, almost like someone asking for drink after drink . . . but even in this simplicity, the words themselves have a sound and a percussive pattern that overrides the literal meaning—and that’s what makes a great rock lyric.
To sum up, I’ve felt (no, known!) that Yow’s lyrics were as good or better than any of his contemporaries.
DUANE DENISON
Man, oh man. Sometimes, we would communicate with each other by just making noises. No words. No words needed. David Yow and I just understood each other, on a large scale, and down to a microlevel. I have seen more unusual things whilst in the presence of this man than most would experience in a lifetime. A most generous soul, he is a true individual, a character, and a lunatic. No one else could have done what he did as the singer in this band. I have no idea what it’s like to try singing a song while being manhandled by a crowd, flipping over and over, with hands in your face, being pushed and pulled in a hundred directions. David knows what that’s like. He did it countless times with fanfare and class. I felt the most compassion for him at the end of our set, when we were in our dressing room, both of us covered in sweat. I would look over to see him, usually bleeding from a few places, with a look on his face that was pure exhaustion. He had given everything for the performance. It didn’t matter where the show was. You were going to get your money’s worth, even if you didn’t like the band.
MAC McNEILLY
In the last year or sothat Scratch Acid was together, it felt like we were at the brink of achieving my personal holy grail: being able to make a living playing music. Then the band blew to pieces in May 1987, leaving me at loose ends and depressed about my prospects. It was humbling to have had such a near miss. I went back to the University of Texas that fall and resumed work on an accounting degree. I played with a few bands, but none of them felt like more than an excuse to get together and drink with pals. I reconciled myself to the end of my music career.
In the second half of 1987, Duane approached David Yow about playing bass for a musical project he had in mind. Duane had written the music for several songs, and wanted to record them at a studio where he had some time that was already paid for by his previous band, Cargo Cult. David demurred, pointing out that he wasn’t much of a bass player, and suggested that he sing instead, and that Duane get me to play bass. Duane came over to the apartment where David and I lived on Franklin Boulevard and played the songs for us, while I figured out bass lines on an acoustic guitar and programmed the drum patterns that Duane suggested into my Roland 707 drum machine. I was impressed by Duane’s musicianship.
We rehearsed a few times in Austin. Duane knew of a house in East Austin where the tenants had moved out without telling anyone, so the electricity was still on. We showed up at the empty house and let ourselves in. I recorded live versions of the songs on cassette with a little Sony boom box. I liked the songs. It was good to be excited about music again. It seemed like just a project, though, and no reason to think I shouldn’t keep working on my accounting degree.
Meanwhile, Rey Washam, the drummer in Scratch Acid, had gone to Chicago to start a band with Steve Albini. I knew Albini from the couple of times he had set up shows in Chicago for Scratch Acid and let us crash on the floor at his apartment in Rogers Park. Plus, I was a fan of the Big Black records. He and Rey were looking for a bass player, so Rey got in touch and asked if I’d be interested in moving to Chicago to play with them. It was an exciting offer. I knew both of those guys were talented, and that the band would automatically get to go to Europe and release records, if only on Albini’s reputation. This would be, at last, the band I could earn a living from. Also, I’d just come through an ugly and disheartening end of a relationship, and getting out of Austin seemed like a way to put it behind me. (To varying degrees, the unhappy ends of relationships played a role in moving to Chicago for all four members of the Jesus Lizard.)
They were going to call the band Rapeman. It was an unconscionably stupid name. It bothered me a lot, more than I had the guts to say at the time, but I couldn’t walk away from the opportunity to get back into a real touring rock band. I made a cynical calculation, swallowed my pride, and decided to give Chicago a try. In my musical career, it is the only decision of which I am genuinely ashamed.
In December 1987, I flew to Chicago with my Memphis bass, and lived on Albini’s couch for a few months while the three of us tried playing as a band. Things seemed to be working out, so the following April I went back to Austin and packed my things into my Subaru station wagon. David Yow, also looking for a change of scenery, threw his stuff in the car, and we headed for the Midwest.
DAVID WM. SIMS
When I moved to Chicago, I took the cassette I had made at our rehearsal in the empty house in East Austin. I really enjoyed listening to it in the car. The songs had a lot of potential, and it bothered me a little that nobody else was likely to hear them. I kept in touch with Duane in Austin, and when Rapeman broke up in November 1988, I proposed that we record an EP.
The best thing to come of my Faustian affiliation with Rapeman was that it left me with enough money to pay for the Pure recording. Duane and Yow were dead broke, and it’s tough to get a record label interested when you’ve never recorded or even played live, so I fronted the money.
We recorded Pure on sixteen-track at Studio Media in Evanston, Illinois. The drum machine was an Alesis HR-16, which is still in a closet at my apartment. Duane flew up to Chicago and played the red Yamaha SBG500 guitar that he used before he started using Travis Beans. It was a budget version of a guitar he’d seen John McGeoch play on a 1981 Siouxsie and the Banshees tour. Jim Ellison of Material Issue loaned a fifty-watt Hiwatt combo amp for Duane to use. All the music was written by Duane.
Pure has some interesting ideas and a few great moments. It’s evocative of a very exciting time for me. Creatively, we were figuring out how the band was going to work, and things were wide open with respect to what we could do. We went on to make better records than this one, but I really enjoy hearing it, even while I don’t really expect other people to like it as much as I do. Touch and Go did end up putting out the record and reimbursing us for the recording costs. The owner, Corey Rusk, wasn’t crazy about Pure, but he thought the band could make much