waltertore
1238 posts
Mar 29, 2011
11:12 AM
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I was doing some thinking back today. I am off for the week(spring break) and Marty Racine came to my mind. Marty was the longtime music writer for the houston chronicle. He took a liking to me after I walked in his office in one of my lame suits and asked him to make me famous. Those were some fun days. I did a google on him and found these articles in the chronicles archives. Back then there was no youtube or the massive documentation that goes on today. I was suprised to find these articles still available and after reading them am thankful to be alive and still of sound mind. Maybe some of you that dig reading historical stuff will find them of some interest. Walter
feature story marty did on me when I walked in his office
houston juneteenth
I met evan via our gigs together at the black cat lounge
evan johns and the h-bombs story
I spent some good times backstage at these shows including reconnecting with los lobos(we did a tour together in europe when they were still landscaping for a living) and dwight yokum(he used my 63 caddy in the guitars cadillacs old hillbilly song video
t-birds riverfest
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,600+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Mar 29, 2011 2:04 PM
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bonedog569
292 posts
Mar 29, 2011
5:52 PM
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From the 'juneteenth' article:
"H.K." Tore, the beatnik of boogie, who is not so much a musician as a poet of rhythm.
You're a classic Walter! - fun reading the articles. What a great time to be playing music in Austin. For all you doubters of the Tore legend- here's the proof ! ' )
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waltertore
1239 posts
Mar 30, 2011
5:24 AM
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hi bonedog569: I am glad you enjoyed the articles! Heck playing and hanging with guys like Lightning and my NJ upbringing made for a good combo. Things were a lot looser back then. Music was more vibrant and people were more willing to take a chance on a Walter Tore. Nowadays the music scene is on life support and sticking tight to tried and true stuff. Very sad to see such a decay. Back then you could still walk into the biggest music writer in Houstons office and tell him to make you a star and he would! It was the same with recording studios. Many would give me free time to record on off hours. Good luck with that today. Charlie Comer the publicist for the stones and SRV dug what I did. He said he would love to promote spontobeat but first I had to get a label to sign me. He said he was too busy and too old to start a new concept from the ground up. That was the same puzzle I faced on all music buisness fronts but there were still people in the system that would take a chance if you looked hard enough. Most music business people just don't want to embrace new ideas. They like rehashed ideas with new buzz words. It sells easier. I fought with the austin american statesman for years to list me in the spontobeat catagory in their live gig calendar. They continually responded "no one else is doing it so how can we start a new genere label?" I said someone had to start the word rock and roll, country, jazz, etc. Be an inovator and do it! They never did. So when I listed my gigs with them I would put them one week under country, the next blues, the next rock, and the next jazz. I also was constantly in need of a drummer. The owner of the black cat lounge booked me every friday and saturday when I was in town. Many nights it was just me and my longtime bassist james"rock bottom" dupree. We had an ongoing ad in the austin chronicle(music mag) saying drummers show up at the club with sticks. The owner had a kit there for us. 50% of the time we tried drummers onstage and if they were good they played the night and if they weren't we booted them off sometimes a few seconds into the song. That is how we found ken cooke a young teen who had never played in a band before. He left me to play/record with james harman. He moved to LA and was with him for many years.
So I had to be a walking door to door salesman for my music. I worked hard and was able to book over 200 gigs a year for 20 years. I lied, told the truth, whatever, to get in the door but my music was always uncompromised. Rennisance Records in austin signed me to a live record deal. They sent a mobile state of the art truck that followed me for a month of gigs in austin. Shiner beer sent free kegs to them all. We went all over austin putting up fliers on poles and on cars advertising -cheer with free beer. In austin when there was a free keg, the hardcore music base came out in droves. The Texas Alcohol Beverage Control (TABC) got on me saying you can't advertise free beer. Well after a month of recordings we were ready to make the record. A whos who of austin sat in on those sessions. The recording truck was state of the art using multiple ADAT machines. They look like VHS tapes. The owner of the label Austin Adams mysteriously disapeared. Then we found out he was diagnosed with inoperatable stomach cancer and was seen by a trucker driving his car at high speed off a cliff. He was a Vietnam vet and was in constant pain with injuries from the war. The stomach thing was too much for him. I finally got a hold of his family and they said they cleared out his office. I asked about the tapes and they said "they were music tapes? We tried them in the vhs player and they just were static and snow so we threw them out." I have a couple cassesstes somewhere that they did off the board one night but I have no way to convert them to cd. A funny story I say! Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,600+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 8:04 AM
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Hobostubs Ashlock
1457 posts
Mar 30, 2011
5:52 AM
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that was a cool artickle,You can play a barre chord now Ive seen you do it ;-)
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Hobostubs
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waltertore
1240 posts
Mar 30, 2011
6:55 AM
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Hobostubs: You are right. I learned a few over the years. I have always brought instruments I am learning to my gigs. Heck, I was in austin, guitar gunslinger capital of the world at the time, and was playing my guitar after only a couple years at in. I remember David Holt, David Grissom, and Charlie Sexton, at my gigs. They use to sit up close and laugh alot. I finally stopped and went up to them and was ready to bust their jaws over the room. These guys were world reknowned guitarists and were having their fun watching me plunk on a funky old guitar. To my amazement they said they were laughing because they were digging my stuff. Man was I floored. They said what I did at times they never would think of. Morale of the story- keep doing what you are doing. You have a very primative funky sound that the high brain players never will touch just as you will never touch thier stuff. Kind of makes for a good friendship I have learned. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,600+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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Hobostubs Ashlock
1458 posts
Mar 30, 2011
7:50 AM
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Thanks Walter
My Karate instruter who also was a professional bass player off and on,Saw me trying to play the guitar years ago,And he gave me some advise I still remember,He said( Keep it simple)I thought,well thats easy thats all I can do;-)
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Hobostubs
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waltertore
1243 posts
Mar 30, 2011
7:05 PM
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good advice Hobostubs! I got a couple of bootleg cds in the mail from a guy that were taped off the board at tramps in NYC of Lightning Hopkins with me on harp. I listened to them tonight. The sound quality is terrible but what memories it brought back are priceless. The one thing that really hit me was the audience interaction. They were shouting and conversing with Lightning, egging him on and did he go on! Those guys taught our generation how to interact with the audience and make them a part of the bands sound. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,600+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
Last Edited by on Mar 30, 2011 7:06 PM
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JTThirty
116 posts
Mar 31, 2011
3:29 PM
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I read a ton of Marty Racine's articles back in the day. No one wrote blues reviews and covered the blues scene in Houston very well until he came along. Do yo know where he's gotten off to, Walter. Hope he's still with us.
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Ricky B
www.bushdogblues.blogspot.com
RIVER BOTTOM BLUES-A crime novel for blues fans due out late 2011
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waltertore
1247 posts
Mar 31, 2011
4:54 PM
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JTThirty: I have no idea of his whereabouts. I left austin 96 and I think he was still writing his column. Marty was old school. You could walk in his office and he would see you. I didn't play alot in houston. My main connections there besides Marty was the owner of Rockefellers and jerry lightfoot and I heard he died. Maybe we met in houston? Rockefellers and Fitzgeralds were my main gigs there. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,600+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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htownfess
260 posts
Apr 01, 2011
2:19 AM
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JT, Walter, apparently Racine's at the Ruidoso News in New Mexico now; if you search his name at www.ruidosonews.com, looks like you can turn up his email address. He wrote a story about Jerry Lightfoot's passing that you can find at this link:
http://www.houstonpress.com/2006-09-28/music/a-lighter-shade-of-blue/#
Racine and the late Bob Claypool at the Houston Post were both terrific supporters of local music of all kinds--not into the hipper-than-thou trip that afflicted their successors, just out to turn the public onto whatever good thing was happening. Recently the local music coverage in the big Houston paper has gotten very good again, although for TX roots music, I doubt the thrill of various things coming to fruition in the early 80s will ever be repeated.
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waltertore
1248 posts
Apr 01, 2011
5:32 AM
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htownfess: thanks so much for that link! I am going to email Marty when I finsh here. I will let you all know what transpires. The austin roots music scene was a once in a lifetime thing like all the big music eras saw- SF with the 60'rock, NYC with the folk scene,etc. I have yet to see one of the big scenes come back to life like in the heyday. The sad thing is there is no big scene today. Up till Austin, when 1 died another seemed to pop up somewhere else. Young people today simply do not prioritize live music as past generations have. I was on the phone last night with my 85 year old mother. She still loves to talk about being a Sinatra groupie back in her teenage years in Hoboken NJ. Walter
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walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year.
" life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
2,600+ of my songs
continuous streaming - 200 most current songs
my videos
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