BY VANESSA SALVIA
The Asylum Street Spankers
perform at Sam Bond’s
Thursday Aug. 14.
Spankin’ Along
Acoustic band driven by doses of ‘inspired lunacy.’
T
he Asylum Street Spankers, an
Austin, Texas-based band, took their
name from the nickname of a street
near the University of Texas campus that
once boasted a row of state mental hospitals
and added “spanker,” slang for a musician
who “can play an acoustic instrument both
loud and well.” This definition of musical
proficiency fits well, as this musical bunch
vowed long ago to never play with amplifica-
tion.
The two original members, Christina
Marrs and Wammo, met at a party at the
Dabbs Hotel in Llano, Texas, in 1994. Marrs
was there not to sing, as she does now, but to
twirl her fire baton. The two became friends
with Guy Forsyth and set out a plan for a
As far as why they incorporate so many
different musical traditions, Marrs says with
so much great music to choose from, why be
passionate about only one type? “I guess we
just like so many different types of music.
We’re not focused on just one passion. We’ve
never been afraid to try a song just because it
was this genre or that genre or this era or that
era. We do have so many musical influences.
We like having the variety and I think it keeps
it interesting.”
The Spankers imbue most of their songs
with an earthy humor, singing about sex and
drugs, beer and scrotums. The musicians you
see listed on the CD will probably not be the
musicians you see on stage. “The nature of
the Spankers is kind of a revolving tour thing.
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The ragtag bunch that makes up the Spankers take their
musical cues from nearly all the genres that have made
American music great over the last century: ragtime, blues,
swing, country, bluegrass, Tin Pan Alley jazz.
band that celebrated the great musical tradi-
tions of the 20th century with no amplifica-
tion. Marrs, just beginning her singing career,
was asked to join in, and the Spankers were
born.
The vision was for an acoustic band with
weird instrumentation — Marrs plays musi-
cal saw, Wammo plays kazoo, sheets of steel,
washboard. The ragtag bunch that makes up
the Spankers take their musical cues from
nearly all the genres that have made
American music great over the last century:
ragtime, blues, swing, country, bluegrass, Tin
Pan Alley jazz. They eschew pigeonholing,
preferring instead to call their vaudevillian
approach “inspired lunacy.” With nearly 10
years of touring and six albums to their credit
they are going strong and show no signs of
stopping.
The Spankers are touring to support the
release of their latest CD, My Favorite
Record, and gearing up for their next. I spoke
with Marrs by phone recently, and found out
a little more about them. There’s at least a lit-
tle humor in everything they do, and the title
of the CD is no exception.“If a DJ plays a
song, they have to say ‘That was the Asylum
Street Spankers from My Favorite Record,’
so it’s kind of a gag,” reveals Marrs.
Wammo and I have been around from the
very beginning. Stanley Smith has been
around almost from the very beginning. Guy
Forsyth was a founding member who quit
about three-and-a-half years later and still
plays local gigs with us. He’s always a strong
presence on our records. But this band is
under a constant transformation,” explains
Marrs.
The ASS have already mastered their next
CD, which is slated for a February release.
The CD was recorded live to two track and
features mostly covers that have been in the
band’s repertoire for some time but which
didn’t fit in on past CDs. Uncharacteristic-
ally, a lot of the songs on this upcoming CD
are newer, such as the Beastie Boys “Paul
Revere,” and Black Flag’s “TV Party.” Yet,
they also reach all the way back to 1898 for
the track “Some of These Days.” “Sugar In
My Bowl” was on the Spankers’ first album
which is now out of print. The song has re-
mained an audience favorite, and this was a
great opportunity to revisit this wonderful,
sexy song. My Favorite Record is a fun and
musically diverse recording, and the
Spankers have a wealth of raucous and risqué
back material. Get a dose of it Thursday, Aug.
14 at Sam Bond’s.
ew
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AUGUST 7, 2003 27