Lavender Hill Express, the Band of 1968
Local supergroup dominated the scene while the Elevators were out of order
Of the early Austin rock bands who survived by playing frat parties, the Wig and Baby Cakes probably came closest to the 13th Floor Elevators intensity. Featuring Johnny Richardson and Benny Rowe on guitars, the Wig’s 1967 single “Crackin’ Up” (written by drummer Rusty Wier) is crate-digger gold, chosen for the noted Pebbles compilation of ’60s garage rock.
Baby Cakes, with Bergstrom airman Don Lupo on bass, preacher trainee Pat Russell on drums, guitarists Layton DePenning and Leonard Arnold, and Phoenix transplant Chuck Bakondi on prancing vocals, did spot-on covers of British Invasion bands. The Cakes were managed by DJ Dave Biondi of KNOW-AM, the big Top 40 station in town, who took their name from a hep radioman’s patter (“What’s happenin’,’ Baby Cakes?”)
Members of the Wig and Baby Cakes joined forces in 1968 to form Lavender Hill Express, the hottest rock band in town while the Elevators were in post-Easter Everywhere uncertainty, with Roky Erickson undergoing electroshock treatments at Hedgecroft Hospital in Houston that summer. Singing drummer Wier, keyboardist Gary P. Nunn (replacing Johnny Schwertner), bassist Jess Yaryan, and guitarists DePenning and Arnold, packed the Jade Room at 1501 San Jacinto every Thursday night, and the New Orleans Club on weekends. Wier had the soul voice to sing all the Stax and Motown hits so big with white collegians at the time.
The original Jade Room was on the Drag near the corner of 25th Street, opened by Doc and Marge Funk as a cocktail lounge in 1955. The couple, who moved to Austin from Oklahoma in 1945 to take over the St. Elmo-tel, also owned the Flamingo Lounge on Lake Austin Boulevard with a more Vegas-y format.
The Jade moved to San Jacinto on the southeast side of campus in 1962, with weeknight entertainment provided by jazz trios or cheesy vocal groups like the Four Maldehydes. Playing on weekends was “6-piece colored combo” the Rhythm Kings, a jazz/soul group of moonlighting Black high school band directors, who got the college kids and Bergstrom airmen dancing. Led by L.C. Anderson’s Alvin Patterson on trumpet and singing drummer LaRue Banks, the group featured sax player James Jordan, who taught at Columbus Colored High School before a move to New York to manage his cousin Ornette Coleman. The former Jade Room sideman was the director of music programs for the New York State Council on the Arts from 1976 until retiring in 2005.
Doc Funk died of a heart attack in 1964, so he didn’t witness the Jade’s rock ‘n’ roll heyday, which red-headed Marge, then 52, lorded over with an authoritative manner that earned her the “Dragon Lady” nickname (to go with the club’s Far East décor).
The Spades, led by Roky Erickson, were the club’s first big rock draw in 1965, helped by KNOW playing the “You’re Gonna Miss Me” b/w “We Sell Soul” single. The Travis High combo also played Le Lollipop, a short-lived, Shindig-inspired club off Riverside, and Swingers A-Go-Go near North Loop.
Roky was recruited to join a former Port Aransas skiffle band called the Lingsmen in late November ‘65, and “Roky and the Elevators” debuted at the Jade two weeks later. Marge kept a strict dress code that prevented long hair on men, so the band moved over to the more wide open New Orleans Club in Feb. ‘66.
Baby Cakes and the Wig became the hot bands at Marge’s joint in ‘66, but their popularity was nothing like when they joined forces- DePenning and Arnold from the Cakes, and Wier and bassist Jess Yaryan from the Wig. Keyboardist Johnny Schwertner was formerly in the Reasons Why from Bell County. They took their name from the 1951 British bank heist film Lavender Hill Mob, starring Alec Guinness.
Since Marge Funk gave the bands the door, the Lavenders were making good money. But some of the other groups were practically playing for free, so the local musicians union had their members boycott the club until Funk could guarantee $35 per musician, per night. That hurt the Jade, as did a riot outside the club on “Soul Night,” November 28, 1971, when police were pelted with debris when they tried to arrest two men fighting on the sidewalk. The billy clubs came out swinging, as two dozen cop cars screeched onto the scene. Officers hauled nineteen to jail amid charges of police overreaction from witnesses. The incident was in the news for days, with the NAACP getting involved.
Bulldozers from the Brackenridge Urban Renewal Project, which leveled 144 square acres from San Jacinto to I-35 took down the Jade in early ’72. Also gone, in late ‘71, was the New Orleans at 1125 Red River, wrecking the local rock club scene, though the building was moved to Symphony Square.
Many in the Jade cover band scene ended up in progressive country bands, putting that rock influence with the twang, but nobody made the transition better than Rusty Wier, whose “Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance” was 1975’s party song of the summer.
As the Lavender Hill Express derailed, Wier quit playing drums and started woodshedding on guitar. "He locked himself in a room and practiced and practiced,” said John Inmon, who played with Wier in the folk-rock trio of Rusty, Layton and John. “He was a natural entertainer, so he could get his music across, but it took him awhile to get good." Rusty established himself in the 1970s as an outlaw folk singer with rock 'n' roll eyes and a trademark black riverboat gambler hat.
"There's this myth about the hippies and the rednecks meeting at the Armadillo and passing joints and Lone Stars to each other," said Inmon. "But the rednecks and hippies were the same people. That was Rusty Wier. He was a redneck son of Central Texas, but he was also a hippie."
Another fantastically great chapter, Michael. I would add this detail: Le Lollipop was on Lakeshore Blvd, that spur that runs along the river. The address was 1818 S. Lakeshore. Now it's condos. Not sure if the place was leveled before the condos or not. But it was the private club at a swinging new apartment complex when it opened.
Rusty Wier I meant to write.