Dear Friends,
Happy Monday, all. I can’t believe it is the start of another week already. I mean, weeks start. This a concept I have been grasping for a while now, but it seems crazy that we are creeping up on the end of August already. Time flies, as they say, and right now, it is flying by fast.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over twenty years since we began doing Pinky Tuscadero’s White Knuckle Assfuck. I’m going to try and lay out what I can remember from the early days of the band and I’m sure I will get stuff wrong. It may be hard to believe, but a lot of beer went into the making of Pinky.
A lot.
Many Newcastle Brown Ales sacrificed their lives for that band. I salute them here.
*****
Pinky was five dudes. Jeff, Lance, Eric, Drew, and myself. That is the first thing that should be written, I suppose. It was the five of us. Originally, though, my first recollection of what became Pinky was conversations with Jeff and Lance about a band they wanted to do called Weiner Pickle.
Yes, you read that right.
Jeff and Lance can chime in here, of course, but if memory serves, they started talking about doing something kind of in the vein of Ministry around 1999 or 2000. The name was going to be Weiner Pickle. Drew (AKA Andy) and I did the Smug band together with our friend, Casey, in 2000, and when that fizzled, we talked about doing something else and Drew mentioned that Jeff and Lance wanted him to join their band.
Eric and I had become friendly after playing some shows together with Hillbilly and his band, Fluidrive, and had talked about jamming together at some point. I can recall a night a Hollywood Alley where I mentioned that I had some friends looking to start something heavy and fun and he said he was down to give it try. I had a place to practice at my ex-wife’s parent’s lamp factory, so we set up a jam. We were all pretty excited about it, I think, and it was a great excuse to hang out and drink beer. I also had to put out there that I was not going to be in a band called Weiner Pickle.
Because of the beer drinking, the timeline is a little fuzzy here. I feel like we had been jamming for a bit and realizing that we had something kind of cool before the words “Pinky Tuscadero’s White Knuckle Assfuck” rolled off my tongue one night while driving down 7th Avenue after leaving the Emerald Lounge. While I don’t miss feeling like I had smoked a pack of cigarettes (and I don’t smoke cigarettes) each time I went there, I do miss that place and had several really good times there.
We were feeling pretty loose, though, that night and heading to Lance’s, maybe, to drink some more or to another bar, and we were talking about what we should call the band and those words just jumped out of my mouth. It wasn’t a pre-conceived thing at all. They just appeared and sprung off my tongue. I explained to the boys that it was actually a feminist statement because Roz Kelly had been screwed over by ABC when they chose to move forward with Laverne & Shirley instead a Pinky Tuscadero spin-off of Happy Days, hence the white knuckle Assfuck.
The name just happened. I think everyone was onboard pretty quickly, too. As I mentioned, the most important thing was that we were having fun. The first batch of songs came together quickly and since we had a name we agreed on, we started thinking about playing a show.
If I remember correctly, the first show we did was at Hollywood Alley. I’d like to say we played that one with Sons of Serro but could be wrong about that. It was 20 years ago, mind you, and I wish I could say for sure. We certainly played with a lot of stoner rock bands over the years.
Our sound was definitely leaning in that direction. When people would ask about Pinky, I would always say it was “Big, dumb rock” and it was as if Queens of the Stone Age, Dayglo Abortions, and Ramones had a baby. I think the Ramones reference was more because of the songs being simple, somewhat repetitive, and pulverizing.
With three rhythm guitars, we were heavy. Jeff, Lance, and Drew all had a nice, heavy tone with their guitars and amps and with Eric and I manning the bottom end, it was a big, heavy sound. Once we did start playing live, we started building an audience quickly. It was nice, too, to be part of that kind of thing because Hillbilly’s audience never really built quickly. It was more of a slow and steady thing.
I had to hear a lot from people that they liked Pinky better and that was okay. I was definitely proud of what we were doing and was okay with people having a preference. Luckily, there wasn’t ever a true feeling of competition, I don’t think, between the bands. We did a fair number of shows where I would do double-duty, as well. I didn’t mind at all and nobody from either side complained about it. Either way, looking back, I was very fortunate to have two fun outlets for my creativity.
One of the great things, for me, about Pinky was that I was not the only one bringing riffs to the table. With Hillbilly, I was bringing the ideas in or starting the jams that would become songs way more often. By the time Pinky came along, that was kind of a given in HD. It was great to get stuff from everyone else, though, in Pinky. Even Eric would occasionally start out playing a drum beat that would morph its way into a song.
We collaborated a lot on each other’s riffs and that was great fun.
See you tomorrow.
Yikes...this is not a very clean copy of our first promo pic.
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