Deniz
Tek
Live at Megalopolis,
San Diego, August 1, 1997
The following feature appeared in Foster Child
fanzine in January of 1998.
If you like a good
gig now and then there’s generally a lot to complain about here in San Diego. The
number of decent bands that have ever come from here won’t use all your fingers to
count, and what’s as bad is that a large percentage of touring bands either skip the
town in favor of playing an extra date in the LA area or else they play here on Thursday
or Sunday night. And lately, there’ve been so few good bands on tour that I’ve
not been to a live show in nearly a year, since the Nomads were last here.
But last night, for
one of those rarest of rare times, we got treated to something that you won’t get in
New York, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago or anywhere else (well, OK, LA got 8
shows to our one, but nobody else got any). Deniz Tek, the fireball guitar player and
songwriting muscle behind the legendary Radio Birdman, played in our town. Second time
he’s done it in the past three years, as a matter of fact. Of course, the fact that
he lived in nearby Coronado and surfed our shores many, many times doesn’t hurt us.
The show was
organized like a get together of a local cell of urban guerilla subversives. E-mails from
the north. Faxes buzzing around town. Friends calling friends. Oh, sure, it was in the
local "what’s on" paper, but your chances of finding it were just about nil
if you didn’t know to look. Not under the concert listings. No ad. Just a small
mention lumped in with a long list of nowhere bars like Harbor Nights, who have the Nitro
Express with Jake Crawford to wow the Quality Inn crowd wandering in after a day’s
work at the sub base. But there it is, in 6 point font: "Megalopolis, 4321 Fairmont
Ave, Deniz Tek and Radio Budman, rock." They got that last part right,
at least. Never did see the Budman, though.
Now Megalopolis is a
club worth a few words of description. It’s a place that isn’t known for having
lots of world reknowned bands, although from time to time someone organizes a cool show
there. The Fastbacks have played there, the Vacant Lot, Moral Crux, and a handful of
others. Usually it happens when some local band wants to have a bill with some out of town
friends.
But bands don’t
make money playing at Megalopolis. How can they? The place is as small as your living
room. OK, that’s an exaggeration; it’s as small as your living room and your
breakfast nook combined. A 3 piece band takes up a quarter of the space in the room.
Twenty people and the place feels like it’s jumping. I pulled up a seat at the
bar…sort of an average seat. But if I had held up this page while sitting there, Tek
could’ve read it while he played. Assuming they had the lights on a little brighter.
When I arrived, some
local band was playing to four of their friends sitting at a table in the middle of the
room. Not another soul was there. I stood outside the club and soon several friends showed
up and we hung around talking for a while. A few minutes later and Tek and his band
arrived and proceeded to load in their gear. They’d played an "in-store"
show at a record store in LA at 4 that afternoon, and hadn’t left LA until 8 PM.
What’s more, that morning they’d been in a recording studio working on some
backing tracks for another LA band. So they figured to be a little burned out when they
hit the stage.
Wrong. After a few
minutes of taping down set lists and guitar pedals, the bass player stepped up to his mike
and respectfully announced "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Deniz Tek". I’m not
sure if there were any of either in the crowd, but it didn’t matter. The band cranked
into "Condition Black" from the great Outside CD and we were rolling!
Tek is one of a
handful of guitar players around who is clearly in another league. Watch him play and
you’ll soon realize that it’s just different when it’s Tek holding the
guitar. At times his right hand moves so fast that it isn’t even a
blur…it’s like watching your mom’s sewing machine hem a skirt or something.
His hand just disappears, it’s moving so fast, yet he has an amazing level of
control, hammering up and down to just get one string some times, two another, then three,
and finally a full chord. He uses feedback, wah-wah, and a whammy bar to great effect, but
he doesn’t over use any of them. In person, Tek’s not very tall and he’s a
pretty lean guy, too. His hair is cut conservatively short, and except for black leather
boots he dresses pretty much as though he just got off work. Although he’s well into
his 40s, he looks almost exactly like he does on the twenty year old cover of Radios
Appear. When he plays a particularly emphatic chord he stands with his feet wide apart
and hunches over his guitar, which hangs loose from his neck just inches off the floor.
He’s a picture of concentration on stage.
On vocals, he seems
much more comfortable and much more consistent than he used to be, but it’s clear
that Tek regards the guitar playing as the important activity he’s involved in and if
he doesn’t get back to the mike in time after a solo or a big chord, well, hey, no
sweat. The PA at Megalopolis isn’t the best, anyway, and it’s pretty unforgiving
if you aren’t right on top of the mike.
"Condition
Black" winds to a close and Tek pauses to survey whether the sound is working.
"Can you hear OK in the back?", he deadpans. The people in the back are mostly
dead from the volume of the blast that has hit them, and they don’t reply. Tek shrugs
and after a brief introduction the band heaves forward into "Lunatics At The Edge Of
The World" from the new Le Bonne Route CD. Now there’s time to start
paying attention to the other guys in the band. The bass player’s name is Todd Eagle,
and he’s about the same height as Tek, but less slightly built. He has short curly
red hair, wears sweat pants cut off just below the knee and a tank top shirt. On his bicep
there is tattoo of the Radio Birdman logo. He plays an odd looking Ibanez bass with a tiny
body…it looks like a worn out kitchen broom. He bounces up and down enthusiastically
on the right side of what passes for a stage as he plays, and does a solid job of backing
vocals to boot. It’s clear that he is somewhat in awe of Tek, yet he’s an
exceptionally capable player in his own right. Later I asked Tek what the scoop was on
this fellow and found out that he’s from Billings, Montana and has been conservatory
trained in bass and percussion. He’s played in a bunch of unknown jazz and funk bands
in the past, and has been playing with Tek for about a year now.
The drummer’s
name is Tony Horton; he’s a young guy…looks like he’s barely old enough to
get in the club at all. He has a wild shock of surfer blond hair that goes in all
directions. He thrashes his kit with manic energy, his left hand rising up to eye level
before each snare hit, and he plays with lots of crash cymbal action. As he plays, his lip
curls into kind of a sneer that would’ve been great in a late 70s punk band. The guy
is really good, but I prefer the punishing ride style with less crashes that Nik Rieth
uses on the CDs. Still, some of the tracks from Le Bonne Route are pretty
challenging for a drummer, and there’s not many who could do these tracks justice at
all, especially having only been playing with Tek for 3 months. Tek says that Horton is
also a Montana local with virtually no band experience. It’s kinda humbling since
he’s better than damn near all the drummers in San Diego. Put together.
The band plays
several tracks from Le Bonne Route: "Ze Good Way", "Tubular
Dreams" (which we were admonished not to confuse with the Celibate Rifles’
"Tubular Greens"), and "Away From Here", where the bass player took
over the vocal lead. All these tracks power and seem to connect much harder live. Then
there’s a cover of an old and funky sounding song called "Undecided" by the
Master’s Apprentices. (I asked Tek about this song later, and he told me: "It
came out in ‘66 or ‘67. That band was mostly great. They had a string of hits in
the 60’s, notably "Wars" or "Hands Of Time".")
After this there Tek
introduces a new song as having been written by Todd Eagle. Cry from the crowd:
"Who’s he?". Eagle steps to the mike and says in a modest tone:
"He’s the fellow on your right". The resulting "Good Citizen" is
a funky but energetic workout that’s pretty different from Tek’s stuff but
actually fits well with the Master’s Apprentices tune. This song winds down, and by
now Tek and Eagle are both pouring sweat. Horton has been soaked since the first song.
It’s a hot August night, and the club is stifling even though it isn’t that
full. Tek grabs a pitcher of beer, and being without a glass, proceeds to drink straight
from the pitcher.
Then someone yells
out for "New Race". Tek replies, "I think we can do that one. But
don’t tell Rob!" And they proceed to blister the place with the old Birdman
classic. The whole thing is made that much greater by the fact that Jay Wiseman and Mike
Stax and half of the other guys who used to play in the Evil Eyes are in the crowd. They
played "New Race" at almost every one of their shows. I told this to Deniz
afterwards and he seemed flattered and then said he was extra glad they’d played it.
After that, it’s
back to the Outside CD for a good version of "Rough Slide Drag", and then
Tek announces that the next few songs they are going to do are better with another guitar,
so he introduces Art Godoy from the charmingly named LA band the Exploding Fuck Dolls. Art
and the rest of the Dolls had backed Deniz on his previous tour of San Diego, so his
presence was not a huge surprise. Art straps on his Gibson and plugs in. The next song
starts with a rolling drum beat and a slinky guitar lick over a brooding bassline.
It’s "Hand Of Law", and proves to be the high point of the set. The ebb and
flow of this song works superbly in a live show, although some of the subtle guitar parts
from the recorded version are lost. Still, it highlights Tek’s mastery of dynamics in
a song…from the quiet part the tune rings into some huge power chords and then a
punishing chorus, from which it descends back into the intro piece again and then repeats
the cycle once more. By this point Tek is drenched from the exertion he’s putting
out, his hair plastered to his head and his shirt completely soaked. The level of
commitment and intensity apparent in the effort of the whole band is stupendous
considering that they’ve either been playing their instruments or driving in a car
all day long. But they clearly are enjoying every moment of it, despite the fact that Tek
has known the success of playing to thousands in shows in Australia and that they are now
playing to 20 people in a rinky-dink little bar in east San Diego, despite the fact that
none of the 20 people had to pay a cent to get in and the band won’t earn a penny
from it, despite the fact that tomorrow they have to go back to LA, do another in-store
show and play another gig, and then do it again the next day, these guys are
playing as though their lives depend on it. This, my friends, is true alternative
music…music that exists for a reason other than to make money for some fat industry
mogul in Los Angeles.
After some
discussion, they decide to scrap a cover of "I Got A Right" from the set list
because Deniz feels his voice isn’t up to it. They blast into "Blood From A
Stone", the powerhouse lead song from the Outside CD. Horton seems a little
tired at this point and he doesn’t try to play the ride beat that propelled the
recorded version. It loses a little as a result, but it’s still great. And then
we’re into the closer, the song "Outside", which Tek also used to finish
his 1994 show here. This song is as good as any he has written, maybe even his best, but
it’s hardly known at all because of the relative lack of success his solo CDs have
had compared to his Radio Birdman work. It’s a simple song. Anybody can play the
chord progression in it. But few can put the feeling into that chord progression that
makes this song the monster it is. A devastating ending.
And with that, the
show ends. No encores, no bullshit. The fans gather around and express their admiration.
Tek is genuinely grateful to everyone for coming and for their plaudits. He’s
grinning from ear to ear…it’s clear that despite his years in the military and
then in Montana as a doctor that he’s missed playing in bands and is really feeding
off the chance to do it again. Hopefully the opportunities increase.
As an epilogue, I
asked Tek a few questions later and found that the reason for their appearance in southern
California is that they are recording two songs for an album by the LA band the
Streetwalking Cheetahs (think hard where that name might have come from...if it takes you
more than 10 seconds turn in your punk union card). The Cheetahs are doing an album of
cover songs, including two of Tek’s. In Deniz’ own words "they are trying
to get as many original old people on there as possible." Somehow thinking of Tek as
one of the "original old people" seems a stretch. At any rate, the
Cheetahs’ record company paid Tek to come down to record, which didn’t make him
break even for the tour, but at least helped a lot. It’s typical of the state of
things that a bonafide icon like Tek would only be able to get the cash to play some live
gigs because the record company for one of the bands that learned their
rock’n’roll lessons from him fronted it for him. That’s life, I guess.
Set List:
Condition Black
Lunatics At The Edge Of The World
Away From Here
Ze Good Way
Tubular Dreams
Undecided
New Race
Good Citizen
Rough Slide Drag
Hand Of Law
Blood From A Stone
Outside
Tour schedule:
7-30 Foothill in Long
Beach
7-31 Coconut Teaser Hollywood
8-1 Megalopolis plus In Store at Headline Records in LA
8-2 Club Mesa in Costa Mesa plus in store at Rhino Records in Claremont
8-3 Bar DeLuxe Hollywood plus in store at Melrose Music in Hollywood
8-4 Doll Hut Anaheim
