"Who the hell is Timbuk3?"

How an unknown Austin band leapfrogged its way onto MTV and the charts

MTV came to Austin in July 1985 to devote a full hour to the local music scene for its Cutting Edge program, and when the taping schedule was released there were all the expected bands- True Believers, Zeitgeist, Poison 13, Dino Lee, Wild Seeds, Tailgators, etc.- plus one no one had ever heard of. Even worse, Timbuk3 were Yankees! And their rhythm section was a programmed ghetto blaster! The uproar could drown out a Glenn Benavides drum solo.

The married couple of Pat MacDonald, 33, and Barbara K, 27, had moved to Austin from Madison, Wis. only nine months earlier. So much for paying your dues.

Of course, by the next year when their single “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” was on MTV six times a day, everybody in Austin was talking about how they were onto Timbuk3 early and knew they were gonna make it big.

Their first fan in town was songwriter Blaze Foley, the homeless “drunken angel,” who saw them at an open mic at Soap Creek #3 on South Congress and got them a gig at the Austin Outhouse. “Blaze really talked us up with his friends and we had a full house,” said Pat, from his Holiday Music Motel in Sturgeon Bay, Wis. The couple and their infant son Devin were living out of their van for the first couple months in Austin, but found a small house near the airport to rent. Frequent overnight houseguest Foley babysat when Timbuk3 had out-of-town gigs. “He was great with Devin.”

Timbuk3 with Blaze Foley at Austin Outhouse 1985. Photo Chuck Lamb.

Besides the Outhouse, the duo and their jambox played for tips at Maggie Mae’s, rating a glowing review in the Statesman. “We were so proud of our first press,” he said. This charming duo didn’t start building a following until Steve Hiltz booked them into the Hole In the Wall in early ‘85. One night, studio owner Ed Guinn (ex-Conqueroo) caught their act and offered to record a demo for free at his Lone Star Recording on 12th St. under the Terminex bug. “Two of those tracks we recorded with Ed made it to our first album (1986’s Greetings From Timbuk3).” Another one, a tripped-out cover of Willie Dixon’s “I Just Wanna Make Love to You,” was included on an Austin band sampler cassette Joe Nick Patoski, the journalist who managed True Believers, made for Cutting Edge producer Carlos Grasso.

Austin-based music critic Ed Ward was also influential on The Cutting Edge coming here. He was in L.A. when I.R.S. publicist Cary Baker invited him to a screening of an earlier episode, which spotlighted North Carolina bands like Let's Active, The dB's, Dexter Romweber and the Connells. Afterwards, an unimpressed Ward said, "that’s no scene! You wanna see a scene? Come to Austin!" Grasso took note and started planning a Texas sojourn.

“Everybody was real excited about MTV coming to town,” said MacDonald. “We didn’t think we had a shot, but you never know.” Timbuk3 had a gig on Sixth Street at a place called the Roadhouse and Pat made a poster that expressed wishful thinking when he tagged, “As seen on MTV” at the bottom. It just so happened that the Cutting Edge producers were in town scouting talent before the shoots at Liberty Lunch and South Bank. “Barbara went in to the Austin Chronicle office (on 28th and Rio Grande) to drop off a poster and Carlos was there. He remembered us from Joe Nick’s tape and laughed at the ‘as seen on MTV’ joke.” When Pat and Barb played at the Roadhouse the next night, Grasso was in the audience. “I hadn’t met Carlos, only Barbara did, so when she said ‘he’s here,’ I said ‘don’t get nervous or I’m gonna get pissed,’” MacDonald recalled, masking his own jitters. “We played really relaxed that night,” he said. “It felt good up there, playing basically for Carlos.”

Grasso came during the middle of three sets of originals. “Based on what I just heard,” he told the couple during the break, “I’m gonna put you on the show. And I have some clout with the label.” Grasso was creative director of I.R.S., which produced The Cutting Edge for MTV with some of that R.E.M. money. When he found out Timbuk3 had one more set that night, he left and came back with label president Jay Boberg. The third set was even better than the previous two. As Boberg helped them load out that night, Pat and Barb knew they were on their way to bigger and better. The boombox had been a financial necessity, as they couldn’t afford a rhythm section, but it became a million dollar gimmick.

Pat and Barbara at the Beach in Jan. ‘86, the week they signed with I.R.S. They just wanted to be part of the scene.

The MacDonalds would soon be making enough money to fix the van’s suspension that had been messed up by driving the rocky road to Woodshock ‘84. They didn’t play at Hurlbut Ranch- they just observed this wild community they craved to be part of.

“I’d bought the Rank and File album in Madison,” Pat said of his entree to Austin music. “And then I saw them on Austin City Limits and thought, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty accommodating scene.’” Another connection was Dan Del Santo’s Professors of Pleasure, who’d coined “world music” and explored the same juju sound Barbara had become good at playing on her Howard Roberts guitar. Pat recorded a song with Del Santo called “Land of at Least a Dozen Dances,” about a DJ who goes off the grid, which proved prophetic when the former KUT DJ skipped bail for Mexico after a 1992 marijuana bust. He died in 2001 at age 50.

Timbuk3 had a hard time getting booked here in the beginning, when gigs were easier to come by in DFW. “We were true outsiders,” said Pat, “but if there was any resentment from the local music scene (about taking a slot on the The Cutting Edge) we didn’t hear it. Everybody was really nice to us.” Glass Eye put them on their bill at the Beach, with Daniel Johnston doing three songs (at $5 per) in the middle. They became part of the scene- but not for long.

From the October ‘86 release of Greetings through ‘88’s Eden Alley, also produced by Dennis Herring, things were crazy for Pat and Barb. They played sold-out shows all over the world, but didn’t forget their Austin roots, with Ms. K wearing Martian’s Black Cat Lounge t-shirt on The Tonight Show. In June ‘88, the MacDonalds returned to the Hole In the Wall, with “Fred and Wilma” on the marquee fooling no one, as the line went down the block. Blaze Foley had been 86ed from the joint for one drunken outburst too many, but Timbuk3 got their old babysitter back in as their opening act.

We’d watched the Fabulous Thunderbirds hit the Top Ten with “Tuff Enuff” and Stevie Ray Vaughan break out nationally as the new guitar hero, but seeing an alternative act from Austin hit the big time was especially gratifying, even if they did “steal” the MTV slot everyone at the time thought belonged to the Commandos.

True Believers and Zeitgeist both ended up with major label deals- on EMI and Capitol, respectively- but Timbuk3 was the only Cutting Edge: Austin act to get in regular MTV rotation.

Pat and Barbara split up in 1996, and he moved to Barcelona for eight years, while she stayed in Austin and recorded three albums under her own name (compiled as Crossing the Red Line.) She currently lives and performs in Germany.

Timbuk 3’s nuclear-wary hit single, the most misunderstood song on MTV besides “Born In the USA,” has been making dumbasses put on sunglasses at parties for 36 years. Their JVC jambox is on permanent display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.