The Dino Lee Incident

Steamboat Reunion stirs memories of "The King of White Trash"

One of Dino Lee’s depraved theme shows was a salute to Caligula. Photo by Niles J. Fuller. Courtesy Briscoe Center.

Every region of the country seemed to have an outrageous show band in costumes, with naughty lyrics and lotsa grinding on funk numbers. And a lot of the frontmen were regular guys offstage. Dino Lee was different. An L.A. transplant, who came to town circa ‘81 with the Whirlybirds, he was 100% focused on his White Trash Revue- in promotion and performance. Making sure every local show was an event, he was Pussy Time Barnum, a horny huckster who’d amassed quite a following.

But the one time he performed as mere musician at a Steamboat benefit for Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces, it didn’t end well. Here was my Austin Chronicle report from the scene:

“Omigod!  Dino’s bleeding!”

“I haven’t played the bass in six fuckin’ years, but Ronnie Lane inspired me to play the fuckin’ bass tonight!”- Dino Lee at Steamboat on May 25, 1986.

I don’t need to see the videotape.  I was there.  Dino was drunk.  Everyone was drunk. The alcohol-induced hostility fluttered through the club all night. At one point I moved closer to hear Stephen Doster and I got an elbow to the ribs; one of my friends horsing around? I turned around and there was this big guy biting his bottom lip blue and hoping I’d say something. 

Something sinister was in the air that night.  Dino hit the stage as very few have ever seen him.  His massive pompadour was combed down Shemp-style, and a few hecklers took issue with that.  He was not in some outlandish costume, just his kick-around pinstripe suit.  And he wasn’t a wild, prop-waving frontman, but a bass playing vocalist.  Longtime Lee-watchers loved this rare look at Dino without the pomp in that circumstance, but a few unpleasables continued to razz the lack of dildoes, buxomy females and flagrant festoonery.  Twenty minutes into the set one ringsider yelled “You can’t play the bass!” and Dino launched into a ten-minute tirade freckled with obscenities.  It started with his acknowledgement of Lane’s four-stringed inspiration and made its way through well-intended but cloudy telethonese about multiple sclerosis.

The catcalls persisted and Dino baited the hecklers with pornographic suggestions.  A few guys moved angrily to the front and hoping to avoid further trouble, the club cut the P.A.  Without the weapon of volume, Dino lost control and kicked an offending detractor.  He grabbed for his mike stand and the fellow wearing Dino’s footprint on his chest reared back and fired a cocktail glass at Dino’s head, connecting.  A couple of bystanders were also cut by the exploding glass, while the thrower ducked back into the center of the crowd.  As the blood poured down his face like he was a cover subject for Wrestling Monthly, a blindly-incensed Dino raised the mike stand over his head, ready to swing wildly, as if the entire audience was the culprit.  Bandmembers and Steamboat personnel quickly wrapped themselves around Dino and escorted him from the club as blood soaked through the towel he held in front of his face.  After the ambulance took him away, we stood on the sidewalk outside Steamboat for a long time, reeling from the ugliness of the episode we had just witnessed.  In the fantasy-filled, fun-seeking circle we run in, not much is real.  But violence is real.

That’s Lonnie Mack and Tommy Hancock (C) with Dino Lee. Photo by Bill Leissner.

A couple of Dino’s bandmembers expressed embarrassment.  Guitarist Mike English was formulating the lead to the letter of resignation he would type up the next day.  Some club regulars wondered if Dino was finished in Austin.  Others said that he’s like a spoiled brat who needs to learn to take responsibility for his actions.  Meanwhile Dino Lee was at St. David’s taking 24 stitches of responsibility.

 How prevalent in the assessment of personal qualities is it to find that someone is so good in some categories, yet so lacking in others?  It’s as universal as perfection is not.  The thing we love about Dino Lee is his bravery.  We all could be Dino Lee if we only had the guts.  Dino can get up in front of 2,000 people in a three-piece plaid suit with a Cutting Edge microphone between him and Peter Zaremba and explain the New Las Vegans concept like a visionary wino.  Can you? At the Austin Music Awards show of ’85, the stilted introductions and shy, nervous acceptances were ready to bore people out of the Opera House.  Then Dino Lee came out and made a spectacle of himself, and suddenly the night became special.  Dino Lee does what has to be done, with no fear of embarrassment, failure or physical harm.

The flipside to this great quality of bravery is what happened at Steamboat.  That’s not the first time Dino has displayed a lack of control that led to an ugly scene.  But I’ll still take the total Dino Lee package.  I hate violence.  It makes me sick.  But even more stomach-turning at times is the lack of violence.  I’ve been victimized by drunken, obnoxious assholes, and so have you.  And I have to grind my teeth when I think of some of the things they’ve gotten away with.  I’ve seen assholes at the nightclubs terrorizing girls and shouting Southern Rock requests to intimidated bands.  They steal your movie enjoyment by talking at the screen and laughing at serious films they don’t understand.  They get coarse, boisterous and rude at restaurants to rob you of a nice meal and pleasant conversation.  They get away with it every day because it’s not against the law to be an asshole, and most people are afraid that confrontation will lead to violence.  In the case of the Steamboat incident, it did, and it got bloody.  Dino Lee refused to be the victim of assholes.  He challenged them, then lost control and instigated the violence.  And he’s wearing a scar for it.  That’s that.

(Note: the last we heard, Dino was living on a farm in Oregon.)