Tonight’s selections from Denton, Texas’ Riverboat Gamblers’ second full length, 2003’s Something to Crow About. 13 songs in 28 minutes. Punk rock energy with arena rock chutzpah. Sometimes ya just wanna rock ‘n’ roll.
Okay, this album was unleashed last year, but I gots to say something that needs to be said. Not in quite some time have I had my ass go into spastic, rock’n’roll-induced fits upon seeing a band for the first time like it did when I saw The Riverboat Gamblers this past May while Yvonne and I were out visiting my sister Julie (NYC’s resident kick-ass party rocker, and she drink’n’drives a pretty mean Schwinn Stingray alongside her main cohort, Tim, too). While out there for Joey Ramone’s Annual Birthday Bash, The Riverboat Gamblers happened to be playing that Friday a coupla days later. And under the strong recommendation of our own Todd Taylor, we made our way out to The Knitting Factory to see what was one of the best sets I’ve seen in some time. To say you need to grab their records or see them is a severe understatement. Not to peg their sound, but it’s in the same ballpark of experiencing the beautiful, awesome power of The Who, The Candy Snatchers, and the MC5 simultaneously in a new and fucking brilliant way. To simply put it, I’m gonna quote Phast Phreddie Patterson for this CD review the same way he was quoted for his review of the Ramones’ self-titled debut back in ‘76: “Anyone who doesn’t like this record is an asshole.” Perfectly put, Mr. Patterson. — Razorcake
What's What
You need to knock 'em back pretty briskly to keep up with the Riverboat Gamblers, which as anyone who's seen their live melees will attest, is precisely the point. The Denton fivepiece gives new meaning to the word "unhinged." Even so, their second album, Something to Crow About, flies by so fast there's barely time to cop a buzz. Take a slug of Lone Star, and before you know it, "Let's Eat" and "What's What" have rocketed past like they've got warrants out on 'em. "Rattle Me Bones," "Hey! Hey! Hey!," and "Save You" leave a similar vapor trail. In other words, there's nothing but raucous, scowling Texas punk rawk here, peeling out of the speakers like a Boss 302 in a Whip-In parking lot. — Austin Chronicle
Rattle Me Bones
MerGold: How have things changed since you started the band? Have your goals been met and are there new goals?
Mike Wiebe: “I mean it’s you know it’s completely different. I mean we were little babies when we started. I know the band’s over like 25 years old I think. The band can rent a car. You know, the (band) living on its own, can vote and drink and everything.
Honestly my goal is just like I just want to see the band name on a screen-printed poster. I want to have a 7-inch out like that was that was the big goal or whatever.”
MG: What was scene like back when you started?
MW: “So, (back) then you know, we were in Denton, TX. It was really just like playing these house shows mostly, and the scene was really big and booming then. Right when Green Day was like blowing up and Rancid and all these bands.
My friend calls it the “Gilman Gold Rush.” It was something to sign all these punk bands. It was just this really exciting fun time to be a band in Denton Texas because Denton, this little suburb outside of Dallas where there was like one or two clubs.
So, there’s all these old houses that everybody lived in kind of, you know, just college kids and we were just throwing these house shows, and it became this really kind of like underground famous place to play a show at the time for touring bands. Touring bands, a lot of times, they would skip Dallas. They would skip a club show in Dallas to play Denton because – especially punk bands would do that – because that was such a popular place. It was just kind of like this known fact that like if you come, you do a show in Denton. A lot of times like this you’re like, you know, a smaller touring punk band. It’s going to be the best show of your whole tour and the word kind of got out.
So, between all the houses we were living at, there was there was just plenty of opportunities to play and like kind of cut chops as it were. And so, we were just kind of like playing shows all the time and setting up shows and kind of making connections for when we were going to go out, ultimately later.
I would say, I mean, I would think this started up when I was like 20-ish, you know? Probably 20, like 19, 20… This is, this is before Something to Crow About. But yeah, this is maybe even before the Gamblers, like when the scene was just kind of getting started. But we were all in different bands and you know? Fadi [El-Assad] and I were in a band together and then some of the other guys, we all, everybody kind of just started playing in multiple bands. And sometime, you know, over the course of a couple years, we all started Gamblers together.” — Austin Chronicle (2023)
Ice Water
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Saw the Gamblers live at Gearfest in Austin twenty years ago. I’d never heard the band before but that show immediately made me a fan. Similar sized venue to the one in the video below. This video is an accurate account of what it’s like to see them live in front of an energetic hometown crowd (the Gamblers moved from Denton to Austin in 2003).
Save You / Sparks & Shots
I honestly had no idea how either X or Henry Rollins would be able to follow them at Stubb's that night. The Gamblers clearly absorbed everything MC5 and the Clash taught them, but with more demonic energy than either in their prime. And Wiebe put life and limb on the line every night.
"I was on a real mission, back then," he acknowledges. "It had to be a more intense show than everybody else. Sometimes that was more like, 'How can I physically hurt myself rather than sing alright.' I had a lot of injuries. I was constantly in and out of the ER with some kind of new break or laceration or something."
"It was like that onstage, and honestly it was like that offstage," chuckles [Fadi] El-Assad. "Recklessness was sort of the engine that was powering the band at that time."
Last to Know
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WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Zac Efron, Jason Mantzoukas, Queens of the Stone Age
Jimmy Fallon: Billie Eilish, Claire Foy, Rebecca Shaw, Ben Kronengold, Gracie Abrams
Stephen Colbert: Greta Gerwig, Andrew Scott
Seth Meyers: Tracee Ellis Ross, Mike Birbiglia, Marcus Gilmore
The Daily Show: Taraji P. Henson, guest host Kal Penn
LAST WEEK'S POLL: WHAT TYPE OF FOOD ARE YOU GOING TO EAT TOMORROW?
American 29%
Chinese 12%
Indian 18%
Italian 12%
Mexican 6%
Other 18%
π 6%