Opie Hendrix

By SARA CRESS
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Opie Hendrix isn't his real name. You probably guessed that. The "Opie" part is due to his red hair and the "Hendrix" comes from a rant, many years ago, about Jimi Hendrix not needing to read music to be a rock star. It was only natural for Stephan Buchanan's friends to dub him Opie Hendrix.

"I've tried to change it, but nothing else sticks," he says. "After trying and trying, I said, 'Screw it. I'm Opie Hendrix.' It's catchy. Looks good on a T-shirt."
Hendrix moved from Indianapolis to Houston in 1992 to attend the Art Institute of Houston. Though he left the school about a year later, he had fallen in love with Texas and wasn't keen on going back to a city where, as he says, "they still think Sammy Hagar is king."
He adds, "I just got to loving it here. I was a fish out of water, but Texas ain't like no place out there."
It's a good thing he stayed. It's hard to imagine Hendrix's grand, hilarious personality anywhere but in a state filled with such people (think Kinky Friedman). Hendrix is part hick, part hippie. He sings his "maximum C&W" brand of music (a takeoff of the Who's "maximum R&B" idea) while sporting long hair and Chuck Taylors. His favorite bands include Willie Nelson and They Might Be Giants.
While some performers put on an outlaw persona along with their hat and belt buckle (think Toby Keith), Hendrix is the real deal: a guy doing things his way, everyone else be damned.
"Waylon and Willie and Hank Jr., they were all outlaws because they didn't play the game or follow any sort of rules," he says. "Baby, if I want to sing Björk in the middle of my set, by God, I'm going to do it! If I want to put a backward guitar track on a total country song, I'm going to do it."
Opie Hendrix and the Texas Tallboys' San Jacinto, the follow-up to 2000's Smashed Hits, is a great, crazy ride. It opens with a 44-second intro that's more of a Tom Petty impression than a song. Can't Even Yodel is classic C&W. Little Party and It's My Life are modern Americana. You Don't Care channels both Robert Plant and Junior Brown. Really. Things Gotta Change is a sexy blues-rocker.
"I want people to take my record out years from now and it won't just be a Rubik's Cube, like, 'remember when that kind of music was in?' Hopefully, somebody will take out San Jacinto 20 years from now, pop that puppy in, and it will still be just as relevant as it is now."
There's one song on San Jacinto that sticks out, for better or for worse. My Favorite Waitress is not only mildly offensive ("she's got big boobies/likes dirty movies") but also extremely catchy. That's the kind of combination that makes you famous, and since Opie Hendrix and the Texas Tallboys — guitarist Don Chachere, bassist Warren Martens and drummer Matthew Meeks — play a lot of shows that aren't always traditional music venues, this kind of attention-getter is a blessing.
"If you listen to that song it's really, truly a love song," he explains."But it's just crass enough to make the chuckleheads in the bar pay attention."
Since San Jacinto was released in 2003, Hendrix's bassist and dear friend Pat Sullivan died of a heart attack. Hendrix says his next album, Chupacabra, will deal with this loss and won't have any "silly songs." But, just as They Might Be Giants knows how to write a heart-wrenchingly sad song cloaked in the happiest of sounds, Hendrix believes that being sad doesn't mean writing ballads.
Daddy's Demons, which will appear on the upcoming album, is about hereditary alcoholism.
"You should see these people hear this song! Yelling out 'I'm getting drunk and belligerent!' But if you listen carefully it's about what an awful person I can be when I really let the negative forces take control."
He hopes to release Chupacabra this fall and will be spending a portion of this summer on tour, stopping in Nebraska and Kansas this month; then Kentucky, Indiana, and Nashville in July. Along the way, Hendrix will continue to do the exact opposite of everything fans might expect of him.
"One of these days, I'm going to do a Frank Sinatra show. I'll go all out with a big band behind me. There's so much I want to do and I think life's too short not to do all of it."

- Houston Chronicle

"Opie Hendrix talks about his favorite waitress and other dangerous pastimes"
BY JOHN NOVA LOMAX
john.lomax@houstonpress.com

The term "schema" is defined as "a pattern imposed on complex reality or experience to assist in explaining it, mediate perception or guide response." In other words, we sort out the seeming chaos of a football game by knowing that the Texans are all the guys in red, white and blue and the Cowboys are in blue and silver.
But no fancy terminology can explain the jarring juxtapositions of people and roles you find every night at Earthwire studios. The realities are too complex for mediated perception -- it's like a nonsensical fever dream. Frizzy-haired New Jack Hippy Guy Schwartz chats with über-indie MenMechanical front man Brian Taylor while a Freddy Fender record plays in the background. Young street rappers chill with aging literary poets. Noise rocker and original punk Don Walsh of Rusted Shut was recently seen freestyling with an ad hoc posse of honest-to-God rappers, for chrissakes.
Another such Earthwire collision is the recent jam partnership forged by alt-country/Southern rocker Opie Hendrix, veteran blues bassist Schwartz and street poet Kool B, a young, less-pissed-off Gil Scott-Heron. The result? Country blues jazz rap. "That was something completely different we got going there," says Hendrix. "We were jamming, having fun, and all of a sudden -- bang! It made sense."
Hendrix, B and Schwartz will be collaborating again October 5 at an invite-only after-show party following the Rudyard's "pre-release" party of Hendrix's sophomore album, San Jacinto. If the six-song sampler is any measure, the album is plenty eclectic. In addition to Hendrix's Texas Tallboys band -- bassist Pat Sullivan, drummers Albert Storo and Steve Candelari, fiddler Marty Starns and visionary steel guitarist Susan Alcorn -- people like Greg Harbar of the Gypsies and Chris Hirsch of Lonestar Bluegrass guest on the record, too.
And Hendrix's opener at Rudz is no slouch in the oddity department, either. Psychedelics Express -- featuring Rebel Crew turntablist Joe B., jazz percussionist Citizen Doug and blues harp player Cap'n Krunk -- will bring their electronic update on the blues to the opening slot. "Talk about a diverse show, that's gonna be wacky-doodle diverse…I don't want to be quoted on that 'wacky-doodle' part," says Hendrix. "They're gonna come up and do that weird techno blues stuff, and then we're gonna come up and do our thing."
Racket recently spent an evening with Hendrix trying to find out exactly what that "our thing" was. First, he observed Hendrix broadcasting his Earthwire.net show Straight Jacket Junction, which is billed as "three hours of maximum C&W with the will to be weird." Talk about truth in advertising. The show starts out a fairly straightforward deep honky-tonk show -- plenty of Pride, Coe, Paycheck, Willie and Cash. Suddenly, he's slapped on a platter of the Kronos Quartet's Elvis covers. Then there's some Zappa, and a Hendrix Mix of the Firesign Theater and Ozzy Osbourne playing simultaneously. Bill Monroe, the Andrews Sisters and the Captain and Tennille make appearances, too. Where there's a will to be weird, Hendrix shows the way.
Through it all, the red-haired, freckle-faced Hendrix sits in the control booth sipping on a big bottle of cherry Gatorade and smoking pungent hand-rolled cigarettes that come his way from time to time. His image is about 45 degrees different from your typical Texas-based alt-country artist. Instead of boots and a snap-button shirt, he favors Dickies overalls and sensible navy-blue canvas slip-on shoes that your grandfather would wear after work. Judging by his threads, and also his more Southern as opposed to Texan taste in music, he seems a little more like the type of guy you would meet in the Nashville underground rather than the one here, a little less huevos rancheros, a little more biscuits with sausage gravy. If you're looking for Houston's answer to Mojo Nixon, call off the dogs -- here he is.
As it happens, Hendrix doesn't even hail from south of the Mason-Dixon. He's from Albany, Indiana, a town so small he uses Muncie to try to place it. But as anyone who has been there can tell you, rural Indiana is Northern by geography alone. The accent is Southern, and so is the taste in music. Hendrix was born there 32 years ago as Stephen Buchanan and grew up on a steady diet of Elvis, the Beatles and Hee-Haw.
Hendrix moved to Houston in 1993 to become a bluesman. He spent the next five years woodshedding at the old Boat Yard, where he landed his current nom du rock. "I used to be easily riled up," he remembers. "The guys in the Hairy Fish band that used to play there used to say, 'Hey, there's Opie Hendrix,' and it really used to piss me off."
Buchanan sat in with other artists for a few years then got a band. As a joke, he told Boat Yard owner Dennis Marshman to bill them as the Opie Hendrix Experience. "Dude, there's a couple of things I wish I could take back," Hendrix says. "I don't know if I regret it or what, really. It's a blessing in disguise, I guess. A lot of people would come in just to see what an Opie Hendrix was."
He was a blues slinger then. Not anymore. "I got sick of playing mediocre, half-assed blues for drunken audiences," Hendrix says. "There are legends out there -- and then there are cats like me. I mean hey, I like to consider myself a picker or whatever, but sometimes you gotta quit kidding yourself and say, 'Look, I could spend my whole life trying to bend that note in two, but Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabes are coming age 14 now."
After releasing an EP in this blues-rock vein, Hendrix released the alt-country Smashed Hits in 2000, from which KPFT DJ Roark Smith has been heavily spinning the rollicking rocker "Yellowhammer." "We didn't know Smashed Hits was gonna do what it did," Hendrix says. "It was just an example of 'Goddammit, I turned 30, I'm gonna make a record, and I'm gonna make it my way.' And some weird things happened. I didn't get any Grammy nominations or anything like that, but I did get some radio play."
Hendrix is hoping to build on the small success of Smashed Hits with San Jacinto. First, about that title. Is Hendrix a Texas history buff? "Dude, if you wanna know the God's honest truth, I named it that just 'cause it sounded so ZZ Top," he admits. "You know? Degüello, Fandango, San Jacinto…"
And there's a bit of extreme Top-style songwriting on the album, too, though Hendrix is even more leeringly crass (in a good way) than the tiny aged combo from the land of the bluebonnets. Here's a sample of lyrics from "My Favorite Waitress": "She's got big boobies / likes dirty movies / she can suck a golf ball through a garden hose / shaves her beaver / I'll never leave her / just get her wasted and it's anything goes."
The description shows this waitress is also capable of "[driving] you all the way to crazy and [making] you walk back home."
Other highlights include a perfecto cover of the Fleetwoods' 1959 doo-wop No. 1 "Mr. Blue" (complete with wah-wah chorus by a vocal group Hendrix has dubbed the Moron Tabernacle Choir), the heart-tuggingly pretty, Mexican-tinged "Pale Blue Eyes" and -- throughout -- the stellar, ambient steel playing of Susan Alcorn. Her impromptu intro to "Mr. Blue" will shiver your timbers.
Hendrix hasn't quite finished the album, and he's hoping this show will help to that end. "As you know, Capitol hadn't picked it up yet, and I have to pay for this album myself and raise a family and all that," Hendrix says. "Basically, this is a benefit for Joe Omelchuk, the sound guy at Rudyard's. He engineered the album. He worked really hard on the album, and he's not like, 'Dude, where's my money?' But that day will come."
The gig is also a showcase debut for M. Martin's Earthwire Records, the label arm of his Webcasting outfit, on which the official debut of Little Joe Washington is slated for imminent release, as is a rerelease of the Schwartz/Hendrix/Kool B collabo. Invites to the after-party will be available to all comers to the Hendrix gig.
Hendrix is hoping to have San Jacinto out by the end of the year. He's also hoping to elevate Houston's perception of him somewhere close to the current reality. He clearly ain't the half-assed blues cat of the old Boat Yard days. "I want this to be my 'Hey, look at me!' show," he says. "I'm really gonna swing for the fences on this gig."
Should be a wacky-doodle dandy evening, for sheezy.
- Houston Press

find at www.TakeCountryBack.com

"This is mind expanding country music. It's about driving fast and taking chances. It's just flat out fun."

That being said, everyone's favorite cosmic cowboy, Opie Hendrix, is definitely one of those artists who needs to be experienced first hand. Trying to find words to even attempt describing him to the uninitiated are, at best, pretty difficult to round up, because there are just too many aspects to the man to cover. I shall however, give it the old college try, and hopefully not screw it up too badly.

In reality, Opie is actually Stephan Buchanan, born in 1970 in Albany, Indiana. He headed to Texas in 1993, with aspirations of playing the blues. He hung around and sat in with other bands, which is where he got the moniker, "Opie Hendrix," after someone cracked "look, there's Opie Hendrix." The "Opie" came from his appearance- a mop of red hair and freckles, and the "Hendrix" came from his fancying himself a guitar slinger with an admittedly quick temper. The name stuck, though at first he was none too happy about it. Then after he got his own band, as a goof, he told the owner to bill them as the Opie Hendrix Experience, which he decided would at least provide a curiosity factor and bring people in, if only to find out just what an "Opie Hendrix" was. At any rate, Opie eventually ditched the blues when he figured there were enough Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabes out there, and he felt he wasn't good enough to really bring anything new to the table that would get him any kind of real recognition, let alone fame.

Opie went from playing the blues to playing country- his way, and in 2000, at age 30 he released Smashed Hits. Opie may have felt he was nothing special on the guitar in the blues genre, but be assured he's a very gifted and skilled guitar player. Hendrix's Texas Tallboys band, bassist Pat Sullivan, drummers Albert Storo and Steve Candelari, fiddler Marty Starns, and steel guitarist Susan Alcorn are an amazing group of musicians, and combined with Opie, deliver the music with intense ferocity.

Opie is also a very strong songwriter, who writes about love, heartbreak and everyday life, infusing his sometimes off kilter songs with healthy doses of clever tongue in cheek wit and humor, while still showing reverence to the pioneers both past and present. Vocally, he's above average, and emotes a lot of personality with a thick twang- even when he rocks. His "maximum C&W" as he prefers to call his music, takes you on a wild and woolly ride, from two-steppers to headbangers, from swaying ballads to hillbilly twangers.

"Everybody But Me" is a loping country/blues tune, with some pretty funny lyrics bemoaning life in general. Opie declares, in the 44 second long "You Don't Care," a song that starts out as a country ditty, and ends as a blistering proclamation, that no one really cares about him. "Loneliness" is a swaying, dreamy ballad, reflecting on how one gets to that point in the first place. The honky tonkin' "Ballad Of Becky and Jason" is a "white-trash" romance gone bad. "The Pretty One," is a real standout with a distinct western flavor, and the delivery evokes a little Johnny Cash at times.

The country to the bone "Fifty Dollar Bill," is a riotous honky tonk tale, about how nice it is to find money, and then trying to decide what to do with it- when you owe so much money to so many people. Do you do the right thing and pay off a debt, or give in to the urge to just go out and blow it on some fun. "Yellowhammer" is killer, headbanging, guitar roaring, rock'n'roll with a twang, in the finest tradition of Jason & the Scorchers. "Texas (Bold As Love)" raises a glass to the greatness of Texas, where in the chorus of which, he proudly states: "If Texas ain't a state of mind/Then you can kiss my bare behind/Look where you like/And you will find/There ain't no place like Texas/My Texas..."

A couple of covers are up next. Opie gives a truly heartfelt, honky tonk rendition of Little Feat's "Don't Bogart Me," with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Lowell George would've been very proud. In what would seem an odd choice for anyone other than Opie (and Joey Ramone), he takes on the standard "What A Wonderful World." However, he gives it the sound of an old time record, scratchiness and all, and even tosses off a couple of Louis Armstrong-like growls, and it comes off as a downright charmer. The disc closes with Opie showing his totally outrageous side, with the rocking rave-up "Elvis Was..."

Smashed Hits definitely delivers what it promised- mind expanding country music. It's traditional, it's modern, and it's futuristic, all at the same time. Impeccable musicianship, smart songwriting that pokes fun at life while still keeping within the boundaries of tradition, and most of all it's delivered with a passion and irrepressible energy that's rare these days. Don't let Opie's somewhat left of center, unconventionality scare you off. Opie Hendrix marches to his own drummer, a bona fide, one-of-a kind original, and that's something that's sorely lacking these days. If you're the adventurous kind, and long for something that's not the same old thing- something with a lot of honesty and passion, give Opie Hendrix and Smashed Hits a listen. Both deliver some of the best music you'll ever hear- maximum C&W that's just flat out fun.
- TCB Weekly News

February 10, 2004

by Scott Chaffin

I've been sitting on this last piece of found musica for too long, so I'll just knock it out here for you while I sit and listen to it. I found this one on my desk when I got back from Minneapolis a week or two ago, a present from The Wife. I finally got to listen to it on my drive back from Austin last week.

It's really hard for me to say just how much I like this album, and how much I dig Opie Hendrix. There's really nothing wrong with it that I can find (except for one slow song that I just can't abide by). I'm already on record as saying that Opie's nothing short of a Texas musical genius, and this CD just makes me believe that even more. He's an awesome guitarist, and I love to hear him wail. So, let me just kind of take this track-by-track, if you don't mind. I've got all that under the MORE button, so click it.

But really...you should just trust me on this one and go buy it right frikkin' now. You will not make a mistake by snagging Smashed Hits at the same time, my friends.

It makes me sick to my stomach that Houston gets to claim the Opester & the Tallboys. You swampy sonuvaguns better go support him -- there will be no [crosses fingers] Camus quoting. You might get a Hendrix replay and walking on the bar while playing the guitar, but not Camus.

1) A 30 second intro that cracks you up...

2) Can't Even Yodel - a nice little "saloon by the train station & a broken heart" song about drinking, sorta shuffly and blue. Good pedal steel guitar here, and some superb fiddling, too. I want to hear this one out under the stars. And Opie does a passable yodel in there, too.

3) Little Party - heh...a good "caught you in the middle of doing wrong" in classic Ft. Worth Stockyards country music style. I can just see the hats twirling the rhinestone jeans around in a sweet, well-practiced two-step. Lopes along beautifully, has a good honky-tonk piano plinking along in there, and the chorus a great sing-along (the dog is the only one who agrees with me.)

4) Golfing & Gravy - a folky, fun little thing, full of aphorisms and metaphors, strung along with what I've come to consider a typical Opie style -- bright notes peeking out, kinda poppy, but fun -- a real toe-tapper & head-knodder. Great line: "gotta keep singin, even when no one's dancin..."

5) Beautiful & True - slow love song -- UGH! But wait...there's a nice accordion, and a cool San Angelo mex-tex sound back there. It's got a name, but I can't recall it. Sounds like Family Dance Night at the VFW in Brady...

6) You & Me - good "we're both a couple of drunks, so let's get drunk, get together, and have some fun" song.

7) Suddenly Susan - a whole 45 seconds of noodling on the guitar. Whatever, Opie.

8) Mr. Blue - this is the kind of song that makes Opie a madcap musical genius. It's a dang 1954 doo-wop song, complete with pedal steel guitar and falsetto backing vocals. Hilarious. "Call me Mr. Blue/wah-wah-oooooh." You just hafta grin.

9) Texas Love - starts out like slow Bob Wills tribute, then kicks into a shit-kickin' mandolin-pickin' stomp, then drops back to Bob. Opie and the band jam through all the gears on this one, and it's weirdly beautiful.

10) My Favorite Waitress (aka, Big Boobies) - every damn radio station in the land should be playing this one at least once an hour. If you don't grin and jump around and sing along at the top of your voice with this one, you're clinically dead. You gotta love the chorus:
She's got big boobies
Likes dirty movies
She can suck a golf ball through a garden hose
Shaves her beaver
I'll never leave her
Just get her wasted and it's anything goes.
An instant classic, my friends...mix tape fodder for generations yet to come.

11) Two Swinging Doors - slow song -- the only punch-out song on the whole disc. It's good country blues, but it ain't my style.

12) You Don't Care (Slight Return) - this was on Smashed Hits, and it really is a slight return. I'm glad he re-issued it or re-did it or whatever it is. I love this song, mucho. Adding a tee-tiny bit of surf-y guitar in there jazzes me, too. Great line: "Someone slipped me cocaine/Must have been in that powder I was sniffing" Yeah, it's a dope song, which goes agains my grain, but it's a funny song. I've had women who busted me down enough to gobble up a pile of reds, I reckon.

12) Shoulda Known Better - the Ghost of Waylon Jennings haunts this song. It's uncanny, and it's awesome. I kept hitting the re-do button on the CD player and listened to this about 10 times in a row. Opie brings in a guest lead vocal on this one, one Capt. Mike Bly to play guitar and sing along with him. The song's one of those "fish out of water" deals, with crazy drunks covered in weird tattoos and stinking of cheap perfume: "when she smiled, she was pretty/in that scary kind of way". Waking up in the car with a grotesquely swollen head, police tappin on the window -- aw, hell, just buy it and listen to it. This song is worth the price of admission alone.
If I'd known then, what I know now
I'd have never learned what I know now
Hehehehehe. Gorgeous.

14. Things Gotta Change - another durn style-change: Texas blues, with a by-God organ snakin around in the background. It feels like I've been listening to this song for a hundred years in a thousand smoky bars with a million cold beers in my hand, and it always just pole-axes me how gorgeous the blues can be. I get all wrapped up in the Texas honky-tonk stuff, and rightly so, but I will never stop loving the blues shouters. Not never.

15) It's My Life - ack...slow song. Opie! Son! Put this at the beginning of the album. It's bluesy - girlfriend done left him, and he's all angsty, and getting drunk & misty. Blech. Purty, but not for me, bud.

16) If I Had A Girl Like You (I'd Shoot Myself) - this is such a classic punky Americana midwesterner song, and it rocks your lame ass. Very 'Mats circa 1992, which could quite easily be where it came from. I swear I've heard this song before, but it's not even listed as a song, and there aren't any credits. Officially, it doesn't exist, but my gosh! it's a great rocker. I just wanna pogo around and play air guitar and be a big scowling screaming punk when this one's on. If anyone knows the provenance of this song, let me know.

There you go. What I dearly love about this CD is the fact that it covers a lot of great styles that I enjoy, and Opie does it with typical Opie flair. I wish to hell that more people knew Opie Hendrix and the Texas Tallboys. I've seen him several times, but it ain't enough. He's one guy I'll stop down for and make an effort to catch when he comes to town. When I miss a Dallas show, I'm always sad, because I know I missed a good show. And in my books, Opie is one of the good guys when it comes to musicians. I genuinely like the guy, and I don't say that about many musicians I meet.

- The Fat Guy