By Kevin Brown
PART ONE
The history of the Nukeabillies begins long, long ago:
First, this is my history of the Nukeabillies. I’m sure
Steve Newhouse would tell it different, and so would Tom Wise, Any Boller or
some other past Nukeabillies.
So keeping that in mind, here’s how I see it:
I first saw Newhouse playing electric guitar in a band in
fall 1972. I was in the 12th grade then. Or was it fall 1973?
Anyway, he was in a band called Diesel Smoke and Dangerous Curves, which opened
up at the Power Center
for Phil Ochs.
The band was great—5 piece, female lead singer Lorna
Richards with a steel player and Newhouse on harmony and he sang a couple I
believe. Anyway, the band was great and Newhouse was particularly entertaining,
trying to grab the crowd’s attention with Chuck Berry duck walks and corny
antics including overplaying while Lorna R. was singing, which caused her to
roll her eyes—little did I know I’d soon be feeling her pain, as it were.
So I moved to Ann Arbor in Sept. 1974, was already a big
Buck Owens/Merle Haggard fan, started liking Gram Parsons and the Flying
Burritos, found a band also into the Burritos and we started playing out as the
Grievous Angels. One of the spots we played a ton was an old Newhouse haunt,
Mr. Flood’s Party. Steve joined the Grievous Angels onstage a few times, we
commiserated, and even traded a letter or two when I moved to Nashville
in 1977 and he went to New Mexico
to pursue a PhD in sheep raising (no kidding).
AND NOW I’m getting to the point—I moved back to Ann Arbor
from Nashville in August 1978, and Newhouse had just moved back as well, and
already had a Sunday afternoon regular gig at Flood’s—did I want to join in?
Why not.
I can’t remember that well who was there early on. But I
believe I got Tom Wise in pretty quickly on bass (Tom was a Grievous Angels fan
who had his own band while I was in Nashville),
and there was a guy Bill who played the on-stage piano. May have been Eric
Nyhuis on drums (Nukeabilly drummer today) but Buzzy Klingenberger may have
been the drummer then (he was also the drummer in the 1990s).
No wait—Dave Levitt was on bass then (former bassist with
Lorna Richards post “Diesel” band, Diamond Rio)—Tom Wise joined maybe a year
later.
Soon, a pianist/singer named Andy Boller was coming around
begging to guest on a couple of songs each Sunday. After a few weeks, Andy had
basically elbowed Bill out of the piano spot, and added a raucous side (like we
needed another raucous side) to the band, along with great piano chops—sort of
Jerry Lee Lewis meets Hendrix on the keyboard.
BAND NAME: We had gone by “The Bad Taste Band” (Dave
Levitt’s idea) but I thought that sucked and wouldn’t have it. Newhouse didn’t like “The Steve Newhouse
Band” so we tried to think of another name, and I came up with “The
Nukeabillies.” A NAME I NEVER LIKED AND HATE TO THIS DAY, but it stuck.
It was around that time where we started getting night gigs
and better gigs, including Rick’s American Café where we actually were so
successful we were banned because people raised too much hell when we played.
We also broke the record there for most beer sales in a night.
Actually, the best band name I thought up ever was “The Wild
Sheep Riders (Chris Goerke actually suggested “Wild” when I came up with “The
Lonesome Sheep Riders”) but everyone else prefers “Nukebillies”—what do they
know anyway. The time was 1993-94, when me and Newhouse decided to get the band
back together (we last played in 1983). We played as “The Wild Sheep Riders”
into say 1997-98, when the band stopped playing again and I started with
Corndaddy. When Newhouse, Goerke, Eric and I started playing again in recent
years, Chris and Steve said they liked “Nukeabilles” so we’re cursed with that
name.
Ho ho ho. End of Part One.
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