A coupla months back I posted a link about how the Red Elvises were coming here to Austin two nights on one weekend. I resolved to go see them because I see, in their celebration of stupidity and hedonism, a kind of kindredness of spirit.

So I planned to go see them at an Austin bar named Jovita's.

A band with such serious Slavic Fratboy Cred can't be taken lightly for someone who fears what may happen in the afterlife, so I dressed for the occasion. I wore a silly embroidered red western shirt (one of those I call my "Brokeback Mountain shirts"), a black cowboy hat, and a gold lame tuxedo jacket I bought on impulse one day on eBay when I decided I had to have a gold Elvis tuxedo.

I got there before the band or the crowd did and was able to secure a table adjoining the stage on the right side. So while I was sitting there folks from the band started to show up - the red haired Russian babe who does the stripper moves while playing keyboards, the blond local Austin babe on the second guitar, and the younger Russian guy from the Dallas area. I sat at the table with my token one Lone Star (I'm not much of a beer person) and waited for things to develop.

Anyway, while I minded my own business this guy with sort of leaden gray curly hair stopped twenty feet from my table and was grinning like a lunatic and staring at me. He pointed at my jacket (folded over my arm at that point, since this was warm Austin weather) and said "What's that?" I told him it was a tuxedo jacket from an Elvis tuxedo I got on eBay. He smiled and said "I like anything shiny," then left.

He came back in carrying a softshell case with one of the most visible emblems of the Red Elvises, the huge red balalaika (or however the hell that's spelled), the big triangular three stringed bass guitar you see when the Red Elvises play on videos, movies, or pretty much in the United States. So the guy who had just spoken to me was not some drugged out local Austin stain in cargo shorts, it was Oleg Bernov of the Red Elvises in his civilian clothes.

They set up for a while. Oleg and Igor (the guitarist and primary singer) and the other Russian guy from north Texas discussed the lighting in Russian. I could conclude, therefore, that the whole Russian angle was not a put-on, though at lower volumes their accents are harder to notice (I didn't notice Oleg's when he spoke to me). Then Oleg went in the back and put on a suit that looked like leopardskin pajamas modified to form a suitlike performance costume, and on his way to the stage clinked his beer on my Lone Star bottle, saying "Drinking Lone Star, huh?"

So they started their set, not at all deprecating the size of the club (I'm sure they've played larger venues - check YouTube) and I sat there about four feet away from Oleg Bernov and his big red three string bass guitar. He smiled a lot at people in the audience - he had the look of someone delighted to be where he was doing what he was, unlike a lot of prima donna musicians I've known and/or played with over the last 25 years.

When it got to "Closet Disco Dancer," I felt I would be doing the Red Elvises as disservice if I did not put on my ridiculous gold lame Elvis tuxedo jacket, so I did during the stupid disco-pointing part of the song (the Red Elvises will make the audience participate - there is no escaping). And I noted at one point during the song Oleg turned back to look in my direction, saw me in the jacket, and smiled much more grandly than I had seen at any time in the night.

So the short version of the story is: I dressed so badly at a Red Elvises gig that it made at least one member of the band happy. It would please me to no end to see Oleg, now that he no longer dyes his hair red, appear on stage in just such a jacket; then I could make outrageous claims of lowering the tone of the Red Elvises and tempting them into greater heights of bad taste in clothing.

Oh yeah, they rocked. They were better than my favorite band. And unlike 90% of the acts I see (or try to avoid seeing) here in Austin, they did not launch into half an hour of left-wing diatribes. The closest thing to a political speech was Oleg pitching sales of their CD behind the stage. He said "Viva capitalismo."

Labels: America Rules, Red Elvises, Viva capitalismo

Sometimes there's things actually worth seeing here in Austin, instead of (say) the geek on 38th street near Guadalupe who comes out every Sunday around noon to protest the people who went to church.

The Red Elvises strike twice here, Friday and Saturday night! And the big question is "what to wear?" I'm thinking a theatrical western shirt and a gold lame jacket.

Labels: Red Elvises