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FOX AUSTIN's
"Good Day Austin"
Oct 23, 2007
Host - Joe "Elvis" Bickett
Dino and half of the band play "Amor Nada"
at 7:30 in the morning...
Sorry, no Jam + Jelly Gurls before noon. It's in their contract... |
The Austin Chronicle
Feature
Thursday Oct 25, 2007
"General Lee and Me"
My life and dirty times as a Jam & Jelly Girl with Dino Lee & the White Trash Revue
by MARGARET MOSER
It's nearly 1am on a sweltering summer night in 1985. I'm lying on my back on the main stage of the Doll House, one of Austin's sleaziest titty bars. Straddling me is a 6-foot-5-inch man wearing a wrestler's mask, black leather, and a strap-on sex toy that rhymes with "Bilbo" but is better known as "General Lee."
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Photo Courtesy of the Rollo Banks Archive |
Three of the club's dancers, all topless, join me and the other three Jam & Jelly Girls, who aren't topless. The packed house is cheering us on as I simulate oral sex with Dino Lee to the brassy punch of showstopper "Everybody Get Some." This has been a rough night because I've had a huge fight with my husband, Rollo Banks, over this show and its location. Right now, though, I'm afraid of getting splinters in my back.
"Put your feet on the rock!" Dino demands, and the Jam & Jelly Girls coo the line in response. Sweat stings my eyes so I can't see. I open them long enough to see Dino lowering himself on me as I'm wiggling. General Lee bounces, strapped on upside down.
Many rock critics hear the siren call of rock & roll, and too many have answered it. Of the ones who do, precious few ever achieve the status of, say, Lenny Kaye with the Patti Smith Group, in which the result was as visceral as it was musical, or Lester Bangs, whose musical career was more notable than substantial. True to legend, in most cases it's irresistible.
I certainly answered it. From early 1984 to late 1986, I was the longest-running Jam & Jelly Girl with Dino Lee & the White Trash Revue, the 12-plus-person shock-rock-funk-punk-Tex-Mex showband that ruled Austin. During those years, I performed at the then-premier music conference, New York's New Music Seminar, recorded background vocals on a real vinyl record, and was in the band that stole the show from Austin's New Sincerity acts on MTV.
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The late Rollo Banks wooed Jam & Jelly Girl Margaret Moser from the audience and became the JJGirls' biggest cheerleader, 1986.
Photo by Martha Grenon |
We drove to NYC in a wreck of a rec vec and to L.A. in Asleep at the Wheel's tour bus. We were Band of the Year at the Austin Music Awards (I didn't tally the votes back then), beating out all kinds of local acts like Joe Ely, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Johnson. We were in Spin and Rolling Stone, and during that time, we became the bestselling nightclub act in town. Of course when White Trash met career crash, the neon dream became a nightmare of train-wreck proportions.
Still, if the public loves a train wreck, it loves a good homecoming more. Dino Lee was nearly indestructible, even when he was self-destructing, and he played it like The Terminator. Now, he's baaaaaaaaaack.
Early Trash
I don't really remember how I got to be a Jam & Jelly Girl. I met Dino when he moved here from Los Angeles with Los Whirlybirds in 1983, back when I wrote the Chronicle's gossip column. After the rockabilly quartet imploded, he began planting the seeds of White Trash.
When he invited me to be a Jam & Jelly Girl, I said yes. This was strange, since I'm not a musician, singer, or dancer, but Dino probably thought I'd be good publicity for the band. What he wanted was a group of chubby girls onstage who would shimmy and shake shamelessly while providing occasional vocals. What he got was me.
As it happened, he didn't need me for publicity, because within six months of our first show in 1984, we were selling out Liberty Lunch and the Ritz. That began a meteoric rise that made Dino and company the hottest draw in Austin. In the midst of the New Sincerity era, stocked with the likes of Michael Hall's Wild Seeds, the True Believers, and Doctors' Mob, WTR's music was rude, crude, and politically incorrect. There was something to offend everybody, including the band.
It was also unbelievably catchy and well-played. Early on, the band played material from Dino's Whirlybirds days, solid rockers like "Ultimately Bored" and spot-on Latin numbers "Rosa Maria" and "Cumbia de Sol" along with the hugely popular "Beer Party" and "Everybody Get Some." Very quickly, Dino developed a love for bottom-heavy funk, bringing about such songs as "Wayne Newton Is a Dyke?" and "Sex Change."
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Posing for Band of the Year in 1986 with some of the Trash crew (l-r rear): John Mills, Kari Puckett, Dino Lee, Margaret Moser, John Keller; front: Mike English, Hector Muñoz.
Photo by Martha Grenon |
In a move that hinted at his future as Mr. Fabulous, Dino added Tom Jones' "What's New Pussycat?" We also covered Junior Walker's "Shotgun," Van Halen's "Jamie's Cryin'," KC & the Sunshine Band's "That's the Way (I Like It)," the Isley Brothers' "Fight the Power," and George Jones' "A Good Year for the Roses." In between came original oddities à la the punky "Live for the Flesh" and the "Bad Boys" rap. Somehow, all these disparate genres gelled together seamlessly.
WTR wasn't the first show-band on the Austin scene. Balcones Fault was to the Seventies what we were to the Eighties, and even the Uranium Savages qualified as antecedents, with their costumes and auxiliary members. Nevertheless, the Jam & Jelly Girls concept later shook its pompoms in Satan's Cheerleaders, while WTR echoed in Bob Schneider's horn-driven naughty boys the Scabs.
What helped make the band so powerful was the sheer number and variety of musicians who played with WTR during those years. Early guitarists included Big Guitars From Texas' Frankie Camaro and Joe Ely refugee David Grissom, later of Storyville. Poi Dog Pondering's Bruce Hughes, now of the Saxon Pub's Resentments, Joe Ely's Mike Robberson, D-Day's John Keller, Band From Hell's Troy Dillinger, and the Big Boys' Chris Gates numbered among the band's bassists. The Mothers of Invention's Jimmy Carl Black, Mike Navarro from Joe King Carrasco and 3 Balls of Fire, and Hector Muñoz from the True Believers and Alejandro Escovedo all held down the drummer's stool at one time or another.
Veteran accordionist Ponty Bone and Michael Ramos, who's put in time with both Paul Simon and John Mellencamp, played keyboards. The horn section was no less notable, from Austin stalwarts Mike Mordecai and John Mills to Mark Wilson (Burning Spear), Nathan Gates (Big Boys), and Smokey Joe Miller (Joe Ely). Unintentionally, WTR became a local all-star act.
Jammin' and Jellyin'
In a band that size, what's a few more bodies? The Jam & Jelly Girls were part of the original concept of WTR, our motto being "never underestimate the power of cleavage." I was a charter member, as was Alice Berry, my longtime friend and onetime roommate, who'd sung with the Trouble Boys and went on to Hillbilly Frankenstein, El Vez, and Clouseaux. Lisa Gamache from Max & the Makeups and Skank was also one of the early JJGirls and so too my friend Amy Bullwinkle. Yet another girlfriend, singer-songwriter Kim Miller stepped out of her folkie shoes to shake with us, as did Kari Puckett and Lisa Moore toward the end.
Every time a JJGirl left, I trained newcomers with steps and hand gestures lifted from old Shindig! and Hullabaloo videos. Toward the end, when there were but two JJGirls, we were completely coordinated in that old-school girl-group way. Never at any point had we been warned that we'd be expected to sing, dance, play percussion, and hold up 3-foot-tall letters spelling D-I-N-O, huge penises, and an 8-foot-high vagina as part of the show.
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Dino Lee takes a flying leap onstage at Fitzgerald’s in Houston, where the White Trash Revue got banned because the audience stripped naked, 1985.
Photo by Ken Hoge |
Part of the fun of being a JJGirl was that it was like Halloween all year round. Dino's theme shows offered us the chance to dress up like harem girls, schoolteachers, Roman wenches, cancan girls, Spanish dancers, pirate queens, cowgirls, nuns, slumber-party teens, torch singers, voodoo mamas, and cheerleaders among other looks, not to mention the array of lingerie items plus various and sundry nontheme outfits assembled.
Being a JJGirl taught me unexpected joys, such as learning to costume myself fully in the back seat of a car in the dark, put on stage make-up using streetlights and a rearview mirror when it was freezing outside, and don fishnets over sweaty legs in a gas-station bathroom in 100-degree heat. I learned to climb steep stairs in spike heels and navigate across muddy parking lots with those same heels sinking in. I gamely hoofed it on asphalt with potholes, unforgiving concrete dance floors, and wooden stages with uneven planks and ripped-up carpet.
We girls had a fabulous time together on tour, a rock & roll slumber party. There were pillow fights, late-night gossip and giggling after the lights went out, fixing one another's hair, trading of make-up and perfume, secret girl rituals, and teasing the boys. One glorious night in Los Angeles after the Club Lingerie show, where we'd opened for Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Alice stripped the "tee-tee pad" – one of those cheap, white, quilted mattress protectors – from her bed and threw it around the room as the rest of us gleefully joined in with ours.
The day we left SoCal, Dino ordered limousines to take us to the airport, because with so many of us, it was cheaper than individual van rides. We were thrilled: riding through Hollywood, driven by a chauffeur! We crammed into the stretch and began preening for whoever was looking at us rock stars. No one was. It dawned on us that we were in the one place where limos outnumbered civilian vehicles.
The JJGirls' biggest cheerleader was my ex-husband, the late Rollo Banks. In fact, the hardest aspect of Friday's reunion show is not being able to call Rollo to tease and cajole him into visiting Austin for the occasion. The JJGirls had their own groupies, especially in Houston, but Rollo used these shows as a way to court me. Later, when we were married, he loved to draw Dino and created several posters and ads for him, including the famous design of Dino as a skull face with outsize Woody Woodpecker hair. Yet, just when I thought he was gone, Rollo showed himself.
During a CD-release party two weeks ago at the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture for Dino's new Anthology, I went looking for the guest of honor. He was standing next to his van, turned the other way. Emblazoned across the back of his leather jacket was a painting of the classic Dino Lee skull face. Rollo had made it to the show after all.
The King of White Trash
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The JJGirls pose at their first gig, Austin’s Top Hat, 1984: Margaret Moser, Lisa Gramache, and Alice Berry.
Photo by Martha Grennon |
We couldn't have gotten away with WTR had it not been for Dino's astonishing talent. His bandleading was on par with any orchestra. His singing was – and still is – almost matchless in Dino's ability to turn from Tom Jones to George Jones in a flash. And his songwriting remains remarkable, reflecting music rather than pushing its envelope.
Onstage, his effect on the audience astounded. Tall, handsome, charismatic, and hypnotizing, he was always ready with a quick retort that might sound astoundingly stupid and hilarious all at once, then follow it up with a riveting vocal performance. His very presence incited the spotlight-crazed, alcohol-fueled, Dino-possessed fans to climb up onstage to join in the fun. Drunk girls eager to show off their personal jam and jelly would grab our percussion instruments, and we'd have to snatch them back while they then ran to Dino and dry-humped him. The guys danced around in a frenzy, and sometimes we girls had to fend them off. Everyone wanted a piece of the show for themselves.
Dino's reinvention as Mr. Fabulous in the Nineties surprised those who remembered him for his outrageous Eighties stunts, like being carried out in a coffin or parading onstage with a flaming pig's head. It didn't surprise me. I'd met his mother, Joanne, an attractive brunette who once sang at Sneaky Pete's with the Art Graham Trio. I also met his father, a horse breeder who rushed backstage in Houston and tipped all the band members with $100 bills. I knew Dino had been singing Sinatra since he was 5. I knew that the "King of White Trash" was a persona, just as Mr. Fabulous is, and that behind both of them was a practicing Catholic with traditional values, who recently became a father.
Working with Dino, I was afforded the opportunity to think about music in a different way, like song-sequencing for live performances, how to make a stage entrance, and where to end a set. Dino is a master of this conceptualization, and watching him was a lesson for which there is no syllabus. Over the years and in these days of high-concept tours and stage shows, I look at the details – who thought of the gel colors on the lights, who decided on the set order, who picked the stage-wear, who hired the band – and I think of Dino.
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Dino Lee, 1984 – no fear, plenty of guts, and a lot of eyeliner
Photo by Martha Grennon |
It should go without saying that band dynamics involved friendship, flirting, fighting, playing, and sex. It's difficult describing the sexual tension that occurs when you cram a lot of men and a few women together for long periods of time in a vehicle, the "metal firecracker" Lucinda Williams appropriately dubbed tour buses. We spent a lot of time together in an atmosphere in which sex was celebrated with good humor through music. "Things" were bound to happen, and sometimes they did.
Not with me, though I will cop to covert couch snuggling while driving through the black Arkansas night on the way to New York. I also enjoyed the parties after the first few roadshows but soon tired of drunk talk. I noticed Ponty Bone usually excused himself and returned to the motel to relax and watch TV. I thought that sounded better than drinking myself stupid, so we began excusing ourselves after the shows, saying we were married. To other people, of course, but we thought it was funny and spent many an early morning watching TV and talking until the others straggled in.
Dino and I didn't flirt, either. We were dad and mom, boss and employee, and never did that twain meet. I listened to the band's relationship woes, counseled on career paths, and managed the band's publicity while he charted our course as the musical brains of the act. I was also de facto assistant road manager for the last year or so, making the motel arrangements. Performing with Dino Lee was an experience of monumental proportions.
And in the End
I probably should have quit the band much sooner than I did, but the truth was that being onstage with hundreds of people cheering was incredibly intoxicating. Okay, so they were cheering Dino, but we still took great pleasure in being part of the show. That was the ultimate lesson of WTR: that it wasn't about us as individuals. It was about the band as a whole, especially Dino.
Still, something had changed by 1986. Maybe the joke had worn thin. "Once you put the clown nose on," Rollo used to say, "it's hard to take it off." The fun of touring hadn't gone away, but it had diminished, and hotel fever set in. I remember a Dallas show so exhausting that Kim and I stumbled into our beds about 4am, wishing for hours of uninterrupted sleep. At 6:45am, the maids gathered outside our door and chattered noisily in Spanish, even after we asked them to be quiet, por favor.
Before the caravan rolled out back to Austin later that morning, Kim and I gathered packets of fast-food condiments – Taco Bell sauce, Chinese mustard, and ketchup – rolled back the covers of my bed and laid a dildo in the center. We covered it with the condiments, neatly folded the sheets and bedspread back over it and left it for the maids. That was my last show with the band in Dallas.
In May 1986, Rollo and I went to Las Vegas for a little jaunt. When I returned, the band was in complete chaos. Dino had played a set without the revue at the Ronnie Lane benefit at Steamboat, and all hell had broken loose. Amid reports of heckling, drinking, and insults, a scuffle ensued, a glass was thrown, and Dino was hit in the forehead to the tune of 27 stitches. When that glass shattered, the WTR magic went with it. He was Cinderella, and the clock had struck midnight.
I stayed with the JJGirls a couple more months – long enough to play the New Music Seminar in Manhattan. We had a prime showcase slot at a famous venue – the Cat Club – with a packed house. We Girls dressed like a punk version of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, with bushy black wigs, fringe vests, toy six-shooters, kids' cowboy hats and boots, and stick horses. We were a bigger hit than I knew. Rhino Records wanted to sign the girls but not the band.
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The once and future King of White Trash, Dino Lee, and his supplicant Jam & Jelly Girl Margaret Moser, 2007
Photo by Todd V. Wolfson |
Tension between Dino and me was pretty high at that point. I was the only remaining member of the original lineup, and all my girlfriends were gone. My husband now hated Dino as much as he hated my doing the shows, and that brought extra unwanted pressure. And what more could I do? I wasn't a singer. I wasn't a dancer. I was a complete ham, but that had been traded on as far as it could go.
Lisa Moore, the last JJGirl I trained, met a limo driver and had a date with him that last night in NYC. We also had the official NMS badges to go clubbing with and were on our way out when we ran into Dino and the band. Standing under the awning of the Mansfield Hotel near Times Square, Dino collected the band badge that Lisa had, which he had every right to do, but it left us without a way for her to get into clubs. Seething, I climbed into the back of the limo and opened the window. As the smoked glass receded with an electric purr, I stuck my head out.
"Fuck you, Dino! I quit!" The limo pulled away from the curb.
The next day, I packed my suitcases and flew home as planned. I'd hung up my Jam & Jelly fishnet hose for good and didn't care if I ever saw Dino Lee again.
One More Time
When Troy Dillinger floated the idea of a reunion in May, I didn't have to think twice about saying yes. It wasn't that the bad memories had faded but more that 20 years later, I counted the experience as one of the best of my life. Luring Kim and Alice back was no trouble. Trying to go through routines in high heels was frightening. And we made Dino swear he wouldn't make us dance around gigantic reproductive organs.
During a late-night rehearsal recently, Hector Muñoz and Mike Navarro beat the Dino jungle drums in pulsing tandem. David Beeson from Broken Teeth pointed his guitar neck at them and sprayed metal-heavy chords across the room toward Dino. I slouched beside Ponty Bone and Mark Wilson to listen. When the song was over, Dino grinned at me.
"Guess what, Margaret."
"What, Dino?"
"I found General Lee."
The return of Dino Lee, his White Trash Revue, and the Jam & Jelly Girls hits Antone's, one night only, Friday, Oct. 26. And that ain't whistling Dixie.
The Austin Chronicle
Reviews
Dino Lee - The King Of White Trash
Anthology Vol. 1 (Poly Fab)
by Greg Beets
Dino Lee was white trash when white trash wasn't cool. While it's certainly possible to celebrate this reissue of his mid-Eighties waxings as a defiant dildo in the face of the New Sincerity nonmovement, a city that birthed the Uranium Savages was already well-lubricated for a White Trash Revue. At heart, Lee's strength was his (ahem) sincere dedication to full-bodied showmanship. Even back then, there was always a hint of Mr. Fabulous beneath the naughty lyrics and onstage antics. Backed by a formidable band, Lee's musical arsenal runs the gamut from soul-stomping sing-alongs like "Beer Party" and "Everybody Get Some" to steroidal cow-punk throwdowns like "Stud Pony." In between, Lee busts out a Tex-Mex-fueled "Rosa Maria" and an extra-twisted rendition of the honky-tonk heartbreaker, "A Good Year for the Roses." This celebration of bad taste reaches an apex with the anti-overpopulation anthem, "If U Can't Feed Em, Baby Don't Breed Em" and slithers down the other side with "Wayne Newton Is a Dyke?" Once an image like that worms its way into your brain, you'll never shake it out.
*** 3 of 4 Stars
University of Texas
"Daily Texan"
Oct 25, 2007
A Truly Trashy Show Band
By Patrick Caldwell
Troy Dillinger was a mere pup of 17 when he first encountered the White Trash Revue, the wild show band that dominated the Austin club scene in the mid-1980s. From moment one, he knew he had to get in on the fun - and he wasn't even supposed to be there.
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Media Credit: Caleb Miller
Dino Lee of the White Trash Revue belts out a tune with fellow bandmates. The White Trash Revue creates a blend of music that incorporates, among other genres, rockabilly and punk. |
"I snuck into the Continental Club - I looked like I was legal. Dino was up on stage, and the place was packed, and he'd only done three shows. It was crazy," recalled Dillinger. "He was on stage, and the whole band was dressed up, and he was swinging raw meat around and singing about tits, and the whole thing was insane, so I decided I had to play for them."
And play he did, joining the White Trash Revue as a bass player after approaching frontman Dino Lee. Dillinger's first gigs with the band came on tour, serving as a baptism by fire for the barely-of-age local musician.
"I was 18 when we went out on tour," Dillinger said. "My first night we were playing a total crazy-ass bar in Louisville, Kentucky. People were spitting and throwing shit. I got hit with a quarter-full bottle of Michelob and didn't see it coming. I think I had a hard time drinking Michelob from then on."
Precisely that kind of madness was par for the course in the shows of the White Trash Revue. Led by singer Lee, who sported a distinctive pompadour, the 15-member-strong band played in costume, with elaborate stage routines and rowdy, booze-and-sex-focused lyrics. After more than a 20-year hiatus, the legendary local group reunites with a one-night-only show at Antone's with all the old hijinks and energy intact.
"It's pandemonium. We've got big foam rubber dicks, and it's just like a sideshow exploding. It's a really musical experience, but it's also a really intense visual experience," Dillinger said. "It's not just a bunch of idiots running around. I've seen a lot of folks that can put on a big show and run around, like GWAR, - they put on a hell of a show, but their music sucks. This stuff, the songs are really good, they're fun. The whole thing is pretty tight."
The White Trash Revue began when rockabilly and punk musician Dino Lee found his way to Austin in the early 1980s. Enamored with the city, he attempted to transplant his popular Los Angeles-based band, The Whirlybirds, in Texas. But Lee developed a vision in his head for an entirely different kind of band.
"Well, what I wanted to do was take different people that had never played together from different walks of life, different genres of music, put them in the same room together and see what kind of music would come out of it," Lee said. "I wanted to see if the sparks would ignite, and they did."
And so the White Trash Revue grew to incorporate a vast array of musical talents and styles, and, as a veritable "who's who" of Austin, artists were drawn to the band. Chris Gates, bassist for popular local punk act The Big Boys, signed on. So did Ponty Bone, accordion player for country artist Joe Ely's band. A guitar player from an Indiana surf band also joined. Before long, the star of Dino Lee had brought Austin's finest into his orbit, creating a band whose unusual sound - a mixture of Latin grooves, horns, punk rock, country and rockabilly - was wholly unlike anything else to be found in the Austin music scene.
Further distinguishing the act were the Jam and Jelly Girls, an all-female entourage of shimmying and singing, costumed backing vocalists. Inseparable from the rest of the band, they were a crucial component of all the shows and accompanied the White Trash Revue on tours.
"Dino came up with it. He readily admits that he had heard it somewhere, some obscure soul review in L.A., and he just thought it was such a good name that he took it with him," said Margaret Moser, longtime music journalist for the Austin Chronicle and the lead Jam and Jelly Girl, who headed up the outfit and trained the girls. "Having been a child of the '60s, I watched a lot of 'Shindig!' and 'Hullabloo,' and that was what I brought into it."
Austin responded warmly. The White Trash Revue routinely sold out popular local venues, such as Steamboat, Liberty Lunch and the Ritz - venues they ultimately outlived. The band swept the Austin Music Awards, defying more obviously popular musicians, such as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson. Their album brought them considerable acclaim in Europe, where they played to thousands. They figured prominently in the famous MTV special on Austin that first exposed Daniel Johnston to the nation at large.
While the band's name may not be readily recalled to a generation raised on Bob Schneider, the White Trash Revue left an indelible impact on Austin's live music scene, encouraging the existence of future show bands, such as the Scabs, the White Ghost Shivers and the Flametrick Subs with Satan's Cheerleaders.
Meanwhile, its various players drifted elsewhere, establishing their own footholds in Austin's scene. Lee developed a new persona, Mr. Fabulous. White Trash alumnus Harry Munoz went on to play with Alejandro Escovedo and the True Believers, while Dillinger became a local fixture with his Austin Swim performances and his "Dirty and Hairy Film Festival" DVD release. Moser remained a force in her own way. For two decades, a reunion looked unlikely.
Fortunately, the stars aligned just right.
"I didn't really want to do it," Lee said. "Some of the ex band members talked me into it and offered to help me promote and put it together. In the old days, it was pretty much myself riding around on a bicycle and putting flyers on telephone poles. This time around, I had some help. The other band-mates talked me into it, and that got me enthusiastic - it was more of a group effort. It just didn't feel right if it was me as the cheerleader."
"What was funny was, back then, we were all young, we were all just f***** out of our brains most of the times," said Dillinger. "The band was kind of an excuse for us to just party. So we've had all this time to get better as musicians, and now it's pretty awesome, because, before, the music was an afterthought. Now, the music's pretty tight."
The 1980s saw the White Trash Revue marking a sharp contrast from the rest of the Austin scene with the grubby jeans, greasy-haired punk rock thrashers dominating the day. Today, with a scene focused heavily on bespectacled middle-class indie hipsters, they stand out just as distinctively. Obviously, the time was right for a reunion. If the rollicking rehearsals and performances for local TV are to be believed, the band has never been better.
"The second time around people are receiving it. They're getting it this time around," Lee said. "The band sounds better now than it did 20 years ago - I'm not exaggerating. So, for me, that's exciting, because the music is more important to me then anything else. Even though the shows were nuts, the music was always the most important to me."
Austin American Statesman
XL-Ent
Oct 24, 2007
Recommended
Friday: Dino Lee and the White Trash Revue at Antone’s.
By being the most un-Austinlike Austinite, Dino Lee pretty much owned “the little town with the big head” in the ’80s. A shock rocker who always had a top-flight band, Lee’s music was a mix of funk and rock back when the Scabs were still fresh wounds. But the thing that really set Dino and the White Trash Revue apart from all the other acts of the so-called New Sincerity movement (besides his two-foot pompadour) was that he was unashamedly ambitious and pushed the envelope of bad taste so far that it required extra postage. There was nothing like him in Austin. And there was nothing like Heidi Narum jumping onstage in catgirl tights. The White Trash Revue (including a horn section and the Jam & Jelly Girls) will get back together for one more show on Friday. $12-$15. — Michael Corcoran
KUT-FM
Oct 26, 2007
Austin Music Minute
By Laurie Gallardo
This evening marks the return of the artist known as the King of White Trash, the Sultan of Schtick, a man of low-rent Las Vegas style. Dino Lee will take to the stage tonight for a gargantuan rock and soul extravaganza at Antone's with his White Trash Review, and the Jam and Jelly Girls. Dino Lee and the White Trash Review - Featuring the Jam & Jelly GirlsFriday, October 26 @ Antone's
KOOP-FM
Around The Town Sounds
Oct 24, 2007
Before he was the suave Mr. Fabulous, he was Dino Lee with his White Trash Revue, the sleazy Vegas-style bandleader channeling rockabilly, punk, Elvis, and James Brown funk with equal aplomb. His first two albums were just re-released this month on one disc, the first ever domestic and CD release of this material. For a couple of good retrospectives of Dino's wild and brazen career, you can check out this link. The White Trash Revue reunion show is October 26 at Antone's.
*If you only check out one link from today's Tasty Tangents, you may want to make it Dino Lee's myspace page, where you can scroll down to a video of Dino Lee in full glory in the '80s. However, the hidden treasure of this video is that in the foreground in the first musical segment is one of the band's Jam and Jelly Girls, and this sex vixen is none other than Kim Miller, whose gentle Joni Mitchell-influenced folk has just come forth on CD again after a 10-year hiatus. Dino Lee's White Trash Revue and Kim Miller's new CD bookend the second set of today's show.
CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE Sept/Oct 2007
LOST SOULS: Bands That Died Too Soon
By SLEAZEGRINDER
Las Vegas, or mental asylum?
Austin, actually. Dino Lee was a crazed Elvis-meets-James Brown sleazeabilly
mutant with a nine-piece band of fist-fighting trailer park rejects called The
White Trash Revue. While most of his brethren in the 80s Austin punk scene were content to thrash out noisy odes to teenage angst in grubby jeans and greasy hair, Lee sported an 18-inch pompadour, dressed like a Roman
centurion and concocted stage shows that crossed Caligula with a Wild West Rodeo. His 1985 album The King of White Trash, a wild mix of Tex Mex, soul, swing, punk and high-octane rock'n'roll, was his definitive album of that era.
Well, that sounds like a million-dollar idea.
It was. Until it wasn't. In 1986 Dino Lee agreed to playa benefit for multiple
sclerosis at local Austin club. Dino was supposed to go on early, but got pushed
back to after midnight, and by the time he hit the stage he was drunk, surly and
looking for a fight. He got one. In fact he got several. Dino And The White Trash
Revue battled the rowdy Austin audience as they threw fists and beer mugs at the band. Dino barely escaped alive. After that night, the legend of Dino was over.
What happened next?
Dino moved to Hollywood, where he took a stab at an acting career. He played
himself in 1987's splatter-comedy Blood Diner. In a film already lousy with
outrage, Dino took things even further over the top, sodomising a cow on stage
while his zombie Hitler band blared away behind him. He also appeared in a weirdo puppet movie called Population 7 in 1987, and as Mad Fag in shock-comedy Gross Out in 1991. And that's it. The acting thing didn't really work out.
But then...
Then Dino reemerged in 1992, Except he wasn't Dino any more. Now he was Mr.
Fabulous, a velour-jacketed smoothie who channeled Sinatra and Dean Martin.
And he's still wowing 'em nightly back in Austin. Fabulous !
FROM WHITE TRASHY TO UTTERLY FABULOUS
THE REMARKABLE REINCARNATION OF DINO LEE
Austin, Tex.; Nov 14, 1996
Austin American Statesman
Mr. Fabulous, who conceived his Casino Royale to recreate the mood of a Vegas showband circa 1967, knows that it's all about working the room, getting the crowd into the show by making them part of it. Sometimes the tall, slender, debonair crooner strolls among the tables during his set, engaging women in suggestive chit chat (``All those curves, and me with no brakes``) and singing into their eyes. He also launches into requests like ``New York, New York``- the ``Free Bird`` of lounge life- knowing that overdone classics are what the people want to hear. Ending the first set with a jubilant medley of Tom Jones hits, from ``What's New Pussycat`` to ``It's Not Unusual`` to ``Delilah,`` Mr. Fabulous epitomizes almost every cliché about show biz perennials- He gives and gives and gives and when there's nothing left to give... he takes a break.
But, then, Mr. Fabulous is never really off the clock. When the music stops, the singer entices folks to join his fan club, then lets the room work him for a change. On this particular night at the Top of the Marc- one of three resident gigs Mr. Fabulous and Casino Royale have every week (Friday at the Bitter End and Tuesday night at the Continental are the others), the Fab one sidled up to the corner of the bar, drank club soda and greeted well-wishers like the couple from Dallas who've been to Vegas ten times and yet they've never seen anyone sing Frank (Sinatra) like Mr. Fabulous. Then there was the nightlife vixen in a skin tight dress who just had to ask: ``Is it true that you used to be in a punk band?``
On hearing this, Mr. Fabulous launches into a tirade, wink-wink, about how he would never be associated with that degenerate music. Give him Cole Porter over that loud, obnoxious nonsense any day. ``Whose spreading these vicious lies?`` he says, in a fake, self-important ``Sunset Boulevard`` tone. When the woman walks away, satisfied that the ``denial`` answered her question, Mr. F says, ``It's not that I'm ashamed of my years as Dino Lee, but this new thing I'm doing is all about romance. I don't want it to get around that my show used to have naked chicks eating raw meat and having simulated sex.``
It's ironic that Dino Lee, a tireless self-promoter who was once the town's biggest nightclub draw, spent the better part of the '80s beating his name into the consciousness of the Austin music scene and yet now seems to want the memories would go away. As the self-proclaimed (and unchallenged) King of White Trash, Dino staged spectacular tributes to Caligula, pioneered the merger of rock 'n' roll and pro wrestling and pretty much stole the show when MTV's ``Cutting Edge`` devoted an entire one hour program to Austin in 1985. Being Dino Lee was a double-edged sword, however, and the singer/ bandleader knows that to reminisce about the good times, when he was truly the titan of the town, is to also confront some of the ugly violence, backbiting and in-fighting which Dino Lee left in his wake.
``Way back in the beginning of the White Trash Revue, Michael Hall wrote a story about me in the Statesman,`` Lee recalled. (He still goes by Dino when he's offstage.) ``And the gist of the article was that everybody loved Dino Lee. We had everybody at our shows, from punk rockers to blues fans to funk people and everybody loved it because there was nothing else like it. I was the wild showman in the midst of the 'new sincerity' movement.``
Indeed, while most of the other bands featured on the ``Cutting Edge`` show-including Zeitgeist, Doctors Mob, True Believers, Poison 13 and Timbuk 3- acted shy and humble during the interview segments, Dino seized his moment on national TV. When host Peter Zaremba thrust a mike in front of Dino, with a crowd of more than 2000 looking on outside the Doll House strip club, the front man shot into a spiel about the new depraved and culturally deprived society he was leading-``the New Las Vegans.`` This was years before the lounge revival, but then Dino's vision was much more apocalyptic than finger-snapping. He was more apt to fill his martini glass with the blood of young virgins.
Lee held a special place in the hearts of Austinites because he seemed absolutely fearless. He always came through when the lights were on and someone said ``Go!`` Back when it was uncool to want to be successful, Dino was absolutely brazen about his ambition and you had to love such honesty. Dino Lee did it so we wouldn't have to.
But as his popularity grew, so did his detractors. ``This town is the capital of the backlash and I always felt that there were a lot of people who wanted me to fail,`` Lee said. ``They had to find something about me that they didn't like, and after the Steamboat incident, they went, ``A ha! That's why we don't like Dino. He drinks too much and starts fights.``
What happened at Steamboat on May 25, 1986 is what ended Dino Lee's honeymoon with Austin. It was a benefit for multiple sclerosis in Ronnie Lane's honor and although there were six or seven other acts on the bill, the crowd was mainly there to see Dino Lee. ``I was supposed to go on at around 10, but when the club owner saw all the people and all the drinks that they would buy, they pushed me back way past midnight,`` Lee said. Dino started drinking along with everybody else and by 1 a.m., when he hit the stage, not only was he plastered, but several guys in the crowd were wickedly inebriated. Things got ugly when Dino, with his outrageous pompadour combed down limpy, strapped on a bass and, backed by a pick-up band, started playing such songs as ``Stud Pony,`` ``Everybody Get Some (But Don't Get Any On Ya)`` and ``Wayne Newton`` without any theatrics. Where were the props? Where were the girls? Where was the horn section? Dino's fans started booing.
``The whole thing was billed wrong,`` Lee said. ``I never agreed to bring my whole show. It wasn't feasible with so many other bands, plus I didn't like Steamboat. I turned down an earlier offer of $3,000 because I didn't like the club, but it was a good cause so I thought I'd show up and put my two cents in and everything would be cool.``
But everything was far from cool. Dino started yelling back at the crowd. He kicked a heckler in the face, then swung his mike stand at another. And then a glass came flying up to the stage, cracking Dino square in the forehead and opening a red gusher. The force of the shattered glass was so great that it also cut a band member and someone at the side of the stage. Dino went to the hospital where he took 27 stitches. The next day his guitarist resigned from the band and the whole town was buzzing.
Dino's White Trash Revue kept going, but it was never as fun after the Steamboat incident. Violated by the very people he had worked hard to attract and disgusted with the almost gleeful retelling of his fall from grace, Lee became bitter with the fair weather fans of Austin. In 1988 he moved back to Los Angeles, where he acted in B movies and wrote a script. He also had a heavier, funkier band called Luv Johnson, which featured Billy White and Bobby Rock on guitars and a horn section containing veterans of Earth Wind and Fire.
In '92, Dino was back in Austin, trying to drum up excitement for Luv Johnson, but it just wasn't happening like it used to. After being stiffed on his guarantee after a show in San Antonio, Lee decided to retire from the music business and concentrate on trying to get his script, ``Jonah: A Hero's Life,`` made into a movie.
It was an out-of-the-blue phone call from Cedar Street musical director Jon Blondell in Oct. '95 that brought Dino Lee back to the music business. Blondell had an idea to turn Sundays at Cedar Street into a night of swingin' standards and he knew that Lee could really sing Sinatra songs, so he asked him to sit in. After two weeks of guest appearances, the night belonged to Dino Lee, as he was originally billed.
``One of the guys at Cedar Street used to make a big deal when I showed up, calling me 'The Fabulous Dino Lee.'`` he said. ``One time I told him, 'How did you know my first name was Fabulous?`` and it kinda grew out of that. There's too much associated with the Dino Lee name, so I decided to go with Mr. Fabulous. Dino Lee would play to all these young boys hopped on testosterone, throwing bottles, whereas Mr. Fabulous plays to beautiful women throwing kisses.``
Fans of Dino Lee from his ``White Trash`` days would be surprised at just how straight the Mr. Fabulous show is. There's a little bit of blue humor, but it's strictly from the days of the Dean Martin TV show, where Dino Lee's earlier act was more influenced by the films of John Waters. Dino-philes will also be shocked at just how well the former sultan of shtick can belt out the songs of Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Tom Jones and others. ``In the old days, people would always come up to me and rave about the show, but no one ever said, 'I like your voice' or 'You're a good singer',`` Lee said. ``So it's especially nice to hear those compliments today. I'm finally enjoying music for the sheer sound of it. When I started singing songs like ``I Concentrate On You`` and ``Summer Wind`` at the Cedar Street it was like putting on an old, comfortable pair of shoes that I'd misplaced for years.``
Before Mr. Fabulous and before Dino Lee there was Bobby Bird, Dino's real name, whose mother Joanne Bird was a popular nightclub singer in L.A. and still sings occasionally at the Dresden Room. She used to play Sneaky Pete's on Sunset Strip with the Art Graham Trio, and sometimes young Bobby would also perform. ``When I was around five years old, I'd get up there and sing 'Hello Dolly!,`` ``You Do Something To Me`` a couple other songs, plus I'd do impressions. Jimmy Cagney and John F. Kennedy were my main ones, but they're basically the same voice with just a twist,`` Lee said.
``That style of entertainment has always been dear to my heart and growing up we went to Vegas every single weekend.`` As a kid he saw Sinatra at the Sands and the experience weighed heavily on his decision to become an entertainer.
``I was a teenager when punk rock hit, then I had a rockabilly band (The Whirlybirds) for awhile, then I did the various big rock extravaganzas, but I never stopped digging Sinatra and that whole ``Rat Pack`` attitude,`` Lee said.
``I love his singing, of course. His phrasing is impeccable and he gives the story he's singing so much emotion. But probably the main reason why I love Sinatra is because he's a fighter. He's had so many ups and downs, been counted out so many times, had his reputation stomped on, and yet he still comes back swinging.``
