MUSIC

Old-timey endurance

Amid lineup changes, Spankers' popularity remains constant

By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, November 07, 2009

The band that shunned "demon electricity" at is inception 15 years ago plugs into a higher power on its latest record, "God's Favorite Band." It's an album rich with vintage gospel songs, but the title also fits because the modern jug band, which has had nearly 50 members pass through, continues to thrive as if guided by an all-mighty spiritual presence.

Somehow, through it all, the band is still brimming with musical ideas, still injecting punk attitude in their old-timey music. Even after finally adding headset mikes a couple years ago, the Asylum Street Spankers still force folks to clam up and listen.

Dismissed as a novelty act early on and left for dead in 1999, when founding members Christina Marrs and Wammo were the only Spankers left standing, the band has since wowed 'em on three continents and enjoyed a two-week run at Manhattan's Barrow Theater earlier this year. They get national radio airplay on the syndicated "Bob & Tom Show" and are YouTube faves. The former side project has the legs of a Kenyan.

"We've had an angel on our shoulder and the devil on our tail," says Wammo, who wrote the only two originals on the new album, the first ever produced by Marrs.

Although the Spankers were originally thought of as Guy Forsyth's backing band, former role players Marrs and Wammo have stepped up and taken control of "this ever-morphing beast," as Wammo calls the band whose personality shifts with each new group of musicians. But 10 years ago, it seemed as if the pair, once romantically involved, would split up musically as well.

"There was a time when I thought it would be impossible for both Christina and I to remain in the band," says Wammo, whose bawdy, beer-guzzling ringleader role contrasts Marrs' 1920s blues diva persona. "But you know what pulled us through the hard times? We just love this music so much that we're willing to put all the petty differences behind us. I get to sit next to Christina every night and listen to her amazing voice. And I know a thing or two about great singers."

Indeed. Wammo's pop, William Walker, sang baritone for the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1962 to 1980 and made several appearances on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. "Robert Merrill was 'Uncle Bob,' " says Wammo, who spent the first nine years of his life living on Long Island. Both native Texans, Wammo's parents eventually returned to the Lone Star State, where Walker directed the Fort Worth Opera until retiring in 2002. "I had a New York accent, so I got beat up the first day of school," says Wammo. By the second day, he was talking with a Southern drawl.

The band started in 1994, after dreadlocked Quackenbush barista Marrs took Forsyth to the Dabbs Hotel in Llano and they collided with the crazed energy of slam poet/musician Wammo. The original idea was to create a respite from the loud blues and rock bands Forsyth and Wammo played in. A single mom from Houston, Marrs had never been in a band before, but when she joined Forsyth on a busking session on the Drag, she found that her blues-belting voice was a nice match for the Bessie Smith and Sippie Wallace stuff that Forsyth turned her onto.

"I didn't even know Christina sang the night I met her and Guy," says Wammo. "A bunch of us were passing a guitar one way and a bottle the other way, but when it came time for Christina to do a song, she just twirled a flaming baton to Primus."

The fire on "God's Favorite Band" comes from Marrs' voice, as she taps into the spirit of Mavis Staples on "Wade in the Water" and tackles Ernestine Washington on "Each Day."

In the beginning, Marrs couldn't play an instrument; on the new album, which was recorded live at the Saxon Pub, she plays five (though her guitar solo on "Each Day" isn't going to threaten ace axesmith Nevada Newman). Because there's such a high turnover in the group, which has toured for as many as 180 nights a year, Marrs picked up the guitar to show new members chord changes and the like.

The album's gospel direction is nothing new to the Spankers, who introduced the gospel brunch concept to Austin in 1995 when they played every Sunday at La Zona Rosa (which was originally a restaurant). Ever since, the group has mixed a few spiritual numbers in with their Delta ditties, "Reefer Madness" odes, classic crooning and ramblin' country blues.

The band instantly built a following by playing every Wednesday at the Austin Outhouse, then moving to the Electric Lounge after the Outhouse was shuttered.

Then came the "come to Jesus" turning point in 1999. Forsyth (who rejoins the group on "God's Favorite Band," as does clarinet whiz Stanley Smith) left to focus on his solo career and the remaining founders were grasping for something to pull them out of the rut.

"We used to have six singers, but when it was down to just me and Wammo it gave us the chance to be freer and embrace more musical forms," says Marrs. Pulling once again from the town's pool of talented players, the duo cooked up a showstopping cover of B-52s' "Dance This Mess Around," and Spankers Mach II was born. Playing the song as it was originally recorded, but using only acoustic instruments, "Mess Around" is a highlight on the band's 2004 DVD "Sideshow Fez."

The Spankers are reverent, especially on the new album's "Last Mile of the Way," but they also remain offbeat, ending the LP with the religiously cynical "It Ain't Particularly So."

Sin and salvation. A baptism of beer. That the Spankers are rife with contrasts is evident by the two vans the band tours in. One is clean and quiet (Christina's) and the other is littered with fast food wrappers and brown bottles, with Black Sabbath blaring (Wammo's). It's the differences in the two frontpersons that create a dynamic tension, Marrs says.

With growing domestic responsibilities, the band has vowed to cut their touring schedule to about 60 shows a year. But out on the road, rolling into town like a carnival of stringed instruments and big voices, is where they've always made their living.

"We're like gods in Japan," Wammo says with a hearty chuckle.

"We were at such a low point five years into this band," said Marrs, who like Wammo has an infant child. "To think that we're still doing this after 15 years is just amazing."

It certainly helps when someone up there likes you.

The story behind the band's name

Asylum Street Spanker co-founder Guy Forsyth wanted to call the band the Pecan Street Spankers, after the original name of Sixth Street. But Wammo found an old Austin map that showed the road leading to the State Hospital as 'Asylum Street' and they didn't even need to put it to a vote. Spanker, by the way, is old vaudeville slang for a musician who plays with gusto.

mcorcoran@statesman.com; 445-3652