Slam Tour Diary 6/8/1990 We actually arrived in Austin the afternoon before the show and our roadie, Nic Close, immediately disappeared to join friends at a swimming hole outside of town and we won’t see him again until it’s time to load into the gig at Liberty Lunch. The rest of us look for a good barbecue restaurant and check out the city, where we’ve played once or twice before.
Tonight’s show has us opening for The Silos, and I have a number of reasons to be excited about that: the band features both Walter-Salas Humara, an early member of the Vulgar Boatmen, a favorite band of mine, and bassist Graham Maby, the original bassist in Joe Jackson’s band. Now when I was a young lad, about a decade before this tour, I was just learning how to play the bass and there were a group of English bassists who were everything that I aspired to be: Bruce Thomas, Bruce Foxton, and Graham Maby. They were flashy, fast, and busy; everything that I would never become, but I loved their inventiveness and inspired playing. One of my first bands had covered ‘Sunday Papers’ and I loved playing his part (tho I’d get quite lost when it came to the solo bit at the end of the chorus).
Anyway, we met up again with NIc at load-in and he told us about his adventures the day before: He’d been out to this swimming area (probably Barton or Krause) and learned that the city was thinking of closing it down to public access. He was pissed off that they would do this and went with his friends after swimming to testify at a public hearing on the matter at City Hall. He said the hall was packed with people opposing the closing and he waited in a line to speak, delivering his speech to the council well after midnight and, after that, they all went out drinking. He was sporting a sleeveless ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’ t-shirt and we thought he was gonna leave us right there and become a permanent Austinite.
The Liberty Lunch was if I’m remembering correctly, had a roof that only covered part of the club. something that fascinated our band full of northerners. We played our set and some of our old friends from the Reivers came backstage to say hi. The Silos went on and I was glued to the side of the stage, watching Mr. Maby play. His playing was a lot more restrained in the Silos than it had been in Joe’s band, given the nature of the songs, but it was still fun to see a real-life hero in action. Afterward, I was extremely nervous about talking to him but finally went up to him and told him that I admired his playing. Or at least I’ve convinced myself that I did, who remembers these things? Tomorrow: No Day Off! Dallas gig with one of our favorite bands.
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