Elaborate staging only Clash highlight
Daily Beacon review
March ??, 1984
By Patrick Allen and Linette Porter
Hi, I was looking at your site on The Clash with regard to the discussion of the March shows in 1984 where Tav Falco's Panther Burns opened.
The band and its entourage seemed to like the group, from what Tav said, but the fans who showed up didn't. That's not very unusual for a different sort of band to be booed. This happened to Throwing Muses opening for New Order in about 1981 in Tampa. They were certainly not a bad band to hear and shouldn't have been booed but it has no bearing on whether they were a good band. It's just about attention deficit with some sorts of fans who are dying to see the main act on occasion.
The details described in your page on that show reflect a basic misunderstanding of who the Panther Burns band were and what sort of music they played. They most certainly were not a "rockabilly band". I played in the group myself on some road dates from 1984 to early 1990 and I know.
Alex Chilton, unfairly maligned in the page as "not knowing the songs" and inaccurately described as "drafted", knew the songs better than any other member in the band. He invented the group and was the regular lead and rhythm guitarist. He was totally sober and hadn't been drinking at all since 1981 when he moved to New Orleans and quit drinking. At the time of The Clash shows, he had just been recording in the studio with Panther Burns on the tight album Sugar Ditch Revisited. The band played blues, country, rockabilly, soul, rhythm and blues, and other styles in a raucous, somewhat unhinged, loose rock and roll, Memphis-tinged style.
Alex learned under the tutelage of Sun Records guitarist Sid Manker at first but later learned a lot of Stax styles, having played on numerous billings with Stax greats while in the Box Tops as a singer.
Alex was only "drafted" in that he had to be talked into doing the gigs because he wasn't particularly interested in that tour but once he agreed, he had no problem doing the gigs. He did both of them and had been playing with the band since 1979 because he created the group and founded it.
Alex is one of the greatest Memphis guitarists ever, comparable to Steve Cropper and certainly acquainted with Cropper personally. It is sad that the Clash fans were not listening with the ears open. Tav, the lead singer and other guitarist, however, was not a musician so much as a performance artist, so sometimes he would start on the wrong chord or beat and the band around him would have to compensate.
To blame whatever rough way Tav's primitive and primal guitar playing (on his distorted Hofner electric) sounded like at that show on Alex is unfortunate. Alex was quite an excellent guitarist technically and could play any style, including baroque and classical. Check out the Big Star box set sometime for an example of what he could do (4th cd in the set is him live). The Sugar Ditch Revisited album is typical of his playing at the time of the Clash show. It is a panther burns album. Alex produced Panther Burns in the Dec. 1986 sessions for The World We Knew and several other later albums. He last played live with Panther Burns on stage in 1998 in New Orleans.
Alex Chilton played BOTH the Nashville and Knoxville shows with the outstanding New Orleans bassist Rene Coman (now with The Iguanas). The main drummer for the band, Ross Johnson played both shows. You had the best, most technically proficient and creative lineup, the premier rock lineup for panther burns at both shows. Unfortunately, The Clash fans were not interested in that sound, and that's ok. I will read whatever Vince White had to say as well, but he also notes he was not sober at Clash shows he particpated in except for one show at the end of a tour, so I imagine he had other things to think about. I've ordered Vince's book.
Tav Falco does not remember any "keyboard player" for either gig. The information posted by the person posting there as though an expert is simply false and reflects someone whose attention was on the main act, not the opening act.
The issue with the booing -- they did not get "booed off the stage" or retreat in any way. The band made a statement by moving after six songs into ending the Knoxville gig with a blistering extended version of "Bourgeois Blues" which went on for longer than normal. I asked Tav about this in email, and Tav stated that the audience sounded like they were about to riot because of the powerful sound system, and the audience members seemed to be moved to fistfights among themselves, which made the band feel as though they had accomplished quite a lot in moving an audience to passion. The Clash's part of the show was anticlimactic after that spectacle in Knoxville.
The sound system was quite loud in Knoxville and Panther Burns used it to pepper the audience with feedback and distortion. The band seemed to view it as a victory and were proud of handling the adversity. They didn't mind being booed and were exhilerated by it. It reflected poorly on the audience, who came across as not very sophisticated in the UT venue.
The purpose of my email is to suggest that the comments by the person claiming Alex Chilton didn't know the songs are false and misleading information and that it is incorrect to state the band was booed off the stage. They were booed but they fought back with their guitars and thought it was funny to see such boorish behavior. It is also incorrect to state two members left or that a keyboard player was at either show. No one quit or was replaced at those shows. You had one of the most technically capable lineups ever for the band both shows, including a formidable jazz bassist.
I'm not sure I would want this email public (and certainly not my email address) but if you need any letter for publication I could try to write a shorter, tighter version.
FOLLOW UP
Checked with bassist Rene Coman and Tav Falco to make sure I had things correct. Got this info:
1. Alex and Rene drove up to Memphis from New Orleans in advance specifically to do this Clash mini tour and other shows elsewhere afterward. There was no keyboard or other guitar player.
2. I said Alex had to be persuaded to do the tour but that had to do with concern over travel arrangements and not just for the Clash part of what they were about to be doing. Had nothing to do with how anyone viewed The Clash.
3. The Nashville gig went smoothly; the booing incident took place in Knoxville. In Knoxville the band could not hear themselves thanks to a bizarre stage setup involving placing the opening act in front of the front curtain side by side, firing squad style, with only four feet of floor in front of them. There was a miscue at one point on either an open tuning/standard tuning confusion or a song form miscue, and this set off the hostility.
Tav Falco takes issue with the staging being important, so never mind the stage setup re Panther Burns opening for the Clash in Knoxville.
He does not think the stage configuration bothered him or that any miscue mattered. He thinks it was simply the audience's attitude creating the hositile scene and he does not blame anything whatsoever on being able to hear well or not. So even though the firing squad side-by-side setup right in front of the audience in a line side by side might be considered disadvantageous to some (but not to Tav), it did not cause the problem of booing according to Tav (it didn't help, according to the bassist though). Tav regards hitting a wrong note as a normal state of affairs and that usually this wouldn't matter. There are no "wrong notes" anyway in their way of doing things and they were used to improvising to take care of things like that.
So I was going on what another person in the band thought of it but in the end, although the standing side by side was not helpful, Tav was not in the least bothered by it and felt it was a proud moment, felt the sound system was very powerful and has nothing bad to say about the staging or sound system. (The bass player found it disadvantageous but it's not a big deal.) Tav views the sound and staging as "favorable" and a very loud sound system. The Clash setup took up most of the stage and they played even louder.
Tav felt everyone could hear the Panther Burns well and said, "Let's put it this way - it was an audience itching to be violated, and Panther Burns rose to the occasion." He was happy about it in retrospect. He doesn't blame anything on anyone.
4. The band did feel a sense of victory and that they provoked a strong response. The audience wanted to kill them and they walked off smiling. They learned from it you can always walk away from adversity if you meet it with courage and they were proud of how they handled it.
5. Alex rocked at those gigs and every show he ever played. If anything got fractured, it most certainly was not because of Chilton. Tav Falco is a performance artist abusing a guitar, not a guitar player by background. Alex Chilton was a musician his entire life, from childhood. He knew what he was doing with the Panther Burns on every occasion he performed. He was on top of it and stone sober since at least 1981 and this gig was 1984; he'd also just finished recording with Panther Burns and knew the songs extremely well.
Everything else I said to you before was about right. If something is ever needed for me to sum up for your site in any way, or if you need any help on that subject, let me know. There's nothing wrong with noting there was booing at the Knoxville show, but the band wasn't "booed off the stage", far from it. They were booed but they had the last word by playing the extended version of "Bourgeois Blues" to finish the set with a statement.
The song by blues legend Leadbelly goes,
"Home of the brave! Land of the free! / Don't wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie! / I'm in a bourgeois town! I'm in a bourgeois town! / It's the bourgeois blues! They gonna mess with you! / Me and my wife / run around town / everywhere we go, people turnin' us down / I'm in a bourgeois town / I'm in a bourgeois town / It's the bourgeois blues / Spread the news all around."
Played with fierce drumming and ferocious feedback.
The Clash entourage were nice to the band and seemed to like them. I have no idea what Vince White thought but I'll read his book. I am sure he had other things to think about than Panther Burns.
One detail I was telling you about --- lorette isn't tav's girlfriend now but she was during the period I played in The Hellcats. She later married someone else as did he. She and I started becoming part of Tav's set of friends in the period right after that Clash show. Before then I was mainly writing articles about bands like Panther Burns in a free music publication in Memphis.
This is a bit off the topic, but Joe Strummer was an awfully nice guy. I was also later, starting early 1985, in a group called The Hellcats which was begun at Tav's house, practiced there, and toured with Panther Burns until 1990. Joe Strummer came to see us play twice!
The first time was in 1988 at a little bar. I believe he was doing that film called Mystery Train. Some people affiliated with our band were in it. I think even Tav was in that film.
In 1989 in the fall, Tav Falco's Panther Burns and The Hellcats followed up their summer tour of the Northeast with a tour to Los Angeles. They were also supposed to play in San Francisco but that was cancelled due to an earthquake. So we stayed in Los Angeles a month. One of our shows involved playing at a nice club and Joe Strummer attended. Lorette Velvette, Tav's girlfriend who helped lead our band, introduced me briefly to Mr. Strummer after we played. I didn't know what to say to him, but he seemed very polite and obviously he was being nice to go to something he did not need to go to since he was a star. But I guess he was that nice a person. I think he went with his wife to some big show some place else later in the evening, but I do not recall what it was. I do not remember further details. Just that he was there and spoke and was nice. He was a supportive and nice man. He saw both bands since we were opening for Panther Burns and I imagine I sang backup with Panther Burns. When Panther Burns played southern shows I often played bass in that later period, but not at that show. I only started with Tav two or three months after the show with The Clash.
That's about all I know on my off topic trivia re Strummer. The connection came from the Mystery Train film done in 1988.
As to the guy who posted, he could have had something against Alex or just been unfamiliar with their raw sound. From what i heard there may have been some miscue at the beginning of one song since the style of that band was not to necessarily always sound exceedingly tight but if so it would have only been a moment and they were pros enough to make that work out. Rene had said something about how at the beginning of some tune near the start there may have been a miscue due to not hearing each other well (despite Tav saying no problem with hearing because of the loud sound system) involving either a tuning issue or form of the song -- but they knew how to recover (unlike someone such as me who is not as much a pro as Alex and Rene). They were used to adapting to whatever Tav did since Tav was a performance artist, not a pro.
But from what Rene thought, this slight fumble for a second (not some long fumbling moment) is what launched the booing. Since they had little patience for an opening act. Now from Tav's memory, there was nothing that launched it other than the audience was just of a mind to not listen to anything except a band more like The Clash. Also, the Panther Burns has a different type of sound. I remember he said they didn't want to hear Tina the Go Go Queen and I think that's when he started into Bourgeois Blues, (leadbelly song) which is distorted and rocking, extended. Tina the Go Go Queen is a Stax tune, and it's hard to know if that was just too "different" for that sort of audience to listen to. They had just recorded the song on the album in production then called Sugar Ditch Revisited.
Would you like me to dub you a copy of that album so you could hear what they sounded like then and perhaps a copy of Bourgeois Blues and mail it to you?
I didn't mean to sound ornery but I really do know Alex was not the cause of any miscue. I mainly would like to avoid coming across in public as rude. And to keep my address private. If you need me to summarize something shorter, I will do whatever I can.
You did have a great Panther Burns lineup. I am thinking that that series of March shows alex played with panther burns then and and couple of shows later without The Clash were possibly events leading alex to start focusing on his own solo career more in touring (resulting in No Sex EP and Feudalist Tarts with his trio 1984-85), but he continued playing with Panther Burns on albums and occasional select live shows well into the late 1990s.
Wish I'd heard it. It's a bit legendary.
Hope The Clash didn't mind the troubles the opening act went through.
Nobody in Panther Burns thought anything ill of The Clash. Sorry it took my double checking a few times before I got it right. No one in the band had anything bad to say about anything.
My first emails might have sounded as though they did til I double checked and wrote the later one such as where As i said, Tav said he did not mind the set up. Just that the audience was hostile because they were not there to hear PB. In 1981 I heard PB at Vanderbilt at a show where we were there just to hear Panther Burns. Receptive audience. Again with Alex.
