They were guys with day jobs (i.e., some money). Two of them worked for the City of But who they really are is not important here. This is how I found them.
Mad Dog and Chuck Wrenn operated the Rockline. You called the Rockline number and heard a recording of Mad Dog and Chuck reading a list of what band was playing where that week, along with some jokes. Mad Dog worked out of a little office in Scott’s Addition, promoting bands, writing screenplays, inventing gag gifts, doing voiceovers and commercials. He did weekend gigs as a local DJ on various stations. We both had fax machines (uncommon and expensive back then...they used thermal paper rolls!), and since I’m shy, I preferred faxing people to calling them.
He was always in and always faxed back right away, so he was a valuable asset. He clued me in on the Scariens. He said it was a father and son band. Not too many around like that.
He was always in and always faxed back right away, so he was a valuable asset. He clued me in on the Scariens. He said it was a father and son band. Not too many around like that.
I found them at Twisters, playing a show that began at midnight with an onstage haircut. The haircutter was Angie, a girl I would have more dealings with three years in the future when she was living in a rented cubicle in an art space and would come to my Carytown apartment to use my shower. She looked like the child of Cher and Jeff Beck and she was everywhere on the scene for many years. For someone who seemed constantly on the brink of homelessness, she always looked dramatically fabulous. (Another story for another day.)
The Scariens’ lead singer, “Huk L. Bury,” wearing a fire engine red suit, told the audience Angie’s subject was “having the evil cut out of his hair.” The Scariens had a loyal following that I described then as “people who needed to be accompanied by Big Nurse.” Later, after I became one of The Scariens’ loyal following myself, I would get to know these people. A more adorable motley crew you couldn’t ask for. One guy, I recall, got hit by a car while bicycling across the Lee Bridge
The Scariens’ act was, in short, a hocus pocus collage of lyrics, one song sang over the music of another, new lyrics laced into familiar songs, and medleys that went everywhere. “Bury” told me all songs basically have the same chords, so all are interchangeable. (You can extend that philosophy to politics as well.) Costumes were a mix of Middle Eastern garb meets
At a Bidder’s Suite (used to be in a basement on the 900 block of E. Grace St.) acoustic Scariens show, I met a Scarien relative, Anne Thomas Soffee, whose knowledge of the past and present music scene would be endlessly helpful. Sometimes she could even be persuaded to write something for the Journal when you could get her away from the Useless Playboys shows.
Some of our adventures in the mid-90s would find their way into her bellydancing memoir, Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love. There was even talk of making the book into a movie.
Some of our adventures in the mid-90s would find their way into her bellydancing memoir, Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love. There was even talk of making the book into a movie.
The Scariens knew how to work the media. Not only did they have their own newspaper, they got on the Internet early and there are remnants of them everywhere. They also videotaped performances and got them on public access television on constant rotation, so in future issues of the Journal, I had letter-writers complaining about the onslaught of Scarien concert footage on their TVs. And this was long before YouTube. (I’m surprised I can’t find any Scariens on YouTube now.)
Earlier this year (2007), “Kareem Awheet,” the Scarien drummer, died. Conquering yet another new wave of communication, the band lives on at MySpace.
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