Asylum Street Spankers

It takes considerable balls for a band to face a packed New York City club and play an entire show without a single mic or amp on stage. It takes even bigger cajones to ask that crowd to sit down on the grubby, cigarette-strewn floor for the length of two entire sets. But for the Asylum Street Spankers, it was just business as usual.

The Spankers are a ten-member-strong collective of musicians from Austin, Texas, that specializes in a hybrid mix of swing, jazz, country and lounge. The band members, ranging in age from twenty to fifty-something, include (among others): a portly old ukelele and guitar player in overalls named Pops; an even older, skinny cat with a clarinet and cool beat poet's rasp; a blond siren with a huge tattoo on her back and voice that moves from Betty Boop to Bessie Smith in a heartbeat; a guy with a huckster suit, shades, kazoo and Sammy Davis Jr. vocal chops named Mysterious John; and a long-haired washboard-and-harmonica-playing loudmouth named Wammo. Then there's their real gimmick: everything, including vocals, is delivered completely sans amplification. "Music," proclaimed Mysterious John, "the way God intended it."

That's assuming, of course, that God's got a stoner sense of humor bluer than Cheech and Butthead in a barrel of skin mags. The Spankers do a lot of things very well, but they excel at lowbrow bawdiness. Pops sang about funny cigarettes and Whitehouse politics, wherein "you gotta go down to go up." Wammo, who earlier had pointed out that his parents and family doctor were in the house, invited audience participation during a sing-along about his scrotum. Mysterious John hammed through a paean called "Fanny," which closed with the band leaping into the chorus of Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom." And during the last song of the evening, "Shave 'Em Dry," Christina Marrs grabbed her crotch through her long black dress and salaciously boasted, "I got fat from fucking!"

Juvenile? Hell yes, but the Spankers pull it off like vaudevillian pros and back it up with serious musical talent. For every tribute to sex and drugs, there was a straight-up tribute to giants like Benny Goodman, Al Jolson, Django Reinhardt and Hank Williams. Several of the bandmembers took turns on lead vocals, but the standouts were Marrs and clarinetist Stanley "Cool Pops" Smith. Marrs stands out on one level as the lone female in the bunch, but it's her extraordinary vocal range that stole the show tonight. She would sing one song in twee sex-pot caricature, and belt out the next in a full-bodied, sultry roar which made it perfectly clear why the Spankers get along just fine without microphones. And when Smith took the spotlight to blow a solo, sing-speak a verse or even just snap his fingers to the beat of the stand-up bass and brushed snare drum, the shenanigans ceased and the Spankers snapped into class. It was announced that Smith would be leaving the group in the immediate future, and his loss to the band will be a great one.

That's not to say Smith's departure will cripple the band. Not by a long shot. As evidenced tonight, there's too much inventiveness in this group to go around for it to hang together by any single talent. The opening song, "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie," was all about Marrs' high, sweet voice and ukulele, until Wammo cupped his hands over his nose and mouth and began to scat like a warbled old 78 record being piped in straight from either Mars or 1925 while the band kicked in behind him. Things would only get weirder as the Spankers went on to play for two and a half more hours, but after that opening flash of inspired, lunatic brilliance, the rest was all gravy.

RICHARD SKANSE
(April 22, 1999)