Place And Memory 3 B

Placeandmemory3b Jeff Smith: So it was cut that it was kind of always a "go to place," and uh, a place for young bands and you know, original bands to try out their chops so... :10 Do you think it had an influence on how the scene shaped? I mean I've been completely impressed by, I don't know, the depth of the music scene here. Just like how many bands and the kind of like also the crazy amazing names of like San Antonio bands.. [laugh] :28 Yeah there have been some funny ones. But um.. The uh, it just it, you hear about a bar, like this sort of seminole bar, music scene bar, that has like a seemingly open booking policy... :45 Right. And amazing that, how does it work that a bar that where anybody can play whatever the hell they want to ends up becoming one of the most important bars, music bars? I mean not just here but also in the region and the country. 1:01 Well that goes back to what I was saying that Ram wasn't a self styled music critic. He's like "Are you gonna show up and play? I'll put your name on the calendar," so umm.. there wasn't, there wasn't really any room for a whole lot of posturing I guess around here during all that time. People forget really how slow the communication used to be in the United States compared to the music scene in England or in Los Angeles, or even Austin for that matter. And you didn't create a buzz by getting your name in this paper and that paper. You just created your buzz by going out and playing. And so.. 2:01 Right. It's true that it's almost easy to forget but that it was totally different 5 or 10 years ago. 2:03 Right You know then further back. Umm.. well in that day and age I mean I guess, it's going to come up a couple of times. 2:15 You know and I'm only 45 years old and I can remember booking a show by sending a postcard to somebody. [laugh] So. Do you think umm... do you think folks make too much out of it or that it was as important as people think it was? 2:45 Well, uh, in the grand scheme of things I suppose it wasn't that important, but it was important to all of us. Why was it so important? 3:05 Well it was a gathering place, uh, but there again you can't separate the importance of "Taco Land" or the value of "Taco Land" from Ram. How so that way, as a gathering place? 3:33 Well it was just a place you could bop in and you knew you'd always see somebody familiar and you could have a very budget conscious experience of and um just an easy going atmosphere. So it didn't really matter whether there was a band playing or not.

Describe a night where there wasn't a band playing. 4:15 Walk in the door and say hi to Ram. And he'd throw some music on the juke box and he had a pretty small collection of music that he played repeatedly over and over and over but it was good stuff and so he was self aware of his role as an entertainer in his own right but he understood that people came there to see him and be engaged by him, but on the other hand, he wasn't doing parlor tricks for anybody. He was, it was a combination of him trying to have a good time and encouraging you to have one. And normally there was some kind of mystery bottle of whiskey floating around. I'm sure you've heard about that already. Sometimes it'd be a bottle of tequila/bourbon mixture in a plastic bottle with some herbs down in the bottom. Um. and other stuff and that was called the Pisto. I'm not even sure exactly what that means, but it's called the Pisto. 5:43 Do you remember the first time you saw him with it or did it change over the years or anything? 5:45 Um.. I don't believe I ever saw the herbs early on but you know, say it'd be like 3 or 4 people would throw in their pints of whiskey, and they'd throw it all in a jug and everybody would drink out of it all night. That's [inaudible}. 6:11 Being a bourbon purist, I found it pretty disgusting really but I wouldn't say I was above drinking it. And what band or bands have you played in there? 6: 40 Uh, that's a pretty difficult question, um, probably played in 7 or 8 different bands there over the years. Probably played there a total of 50 or 60 times. Something like that. I couldn't tell you exactly. Did you ever bring other musicians to Taco Land? 7:10 Yeah I booked quite a few road shows there over time. Um, The Minute Men, Tex and the Horse Heads, Screamin' Sirens, umm I couldn't tell you all of them exactly. And what bands did you play in? 7:35 The Bang Gang, The Hickoids, Wounded Turkey, The Dumb Dumb Boys, Texacala Jones and Her TJ Hookers, The Swish Bucklers and probably a couple of others I can't remember. Who were some of the regular faces around there? 8:11 Well it used to be an old guy that helped him clean up quite a bit. His name was Sepe. You're probably heard about him before. Earlier today. 8:35 I hadn't seen some of the folks in so long, I'm having trouble remembering. Uh Red, what was his name, Weto? Umm.. haha. Umm, Yvado. Sorry I'm kind of stumped at the moment. It's okay. So as a musician, what was different about playing at Taco Land? 9:20 Well it was sort of a situation where you didn't play there if you were worried about the money, you just kind of held on and got ready for a fun ride.

So if you weren't playing there for the money, what were you playing for? 9:45 Just to have a good time. One of the best places? 9:55 Well as somebody who's played in quite a few dive bars all over this country, that was one of the only ones I was in a hurry to go back to and play. Is there anything I'm not getting? I want to make sure people know about Taco Land. 10:25 I can't really think of anything else off the top of my head right now. If.. if ug. 10:53 [laugh] You're tanking off too. It's rubbing off on you. I guess one of the most ironic things about the way he died is that for all those years he had all those bands coming through there, keeping him up all night, ruining his health while he was partying, and if one those shitty bands had been there on the night he died, he'd still be alive probably. I find that pretty strange. Because of the band, he'd be there? 11:28 Well it would have removed the opportunity for the folks who murdered him, so.. How'd you find out? 11:40 My girlfriend was had gotten up to go to work and she said, "Oh no, it looks like they shot Ram," and um it was confirmed pretty quickly after that. I saw him back a lot of people down I never would have imagined he would have got shot in his own house like that. It just uh totally blew me away. And what, everybody seems to have a slightly different account of it.. Do you know what happened that night? 12:19 Uh, well I was in there the night before. I was putting up some fliers for a show. I took off before the swindle started for that night. Um, so what I know of it is that depending on who you know and what court records the people you know have access to, there was 2 and probably 3 people involved in the robbery. Uh that uh, it was sounded like some kind of crack binge gone awry to me and the guys took the opportunity that there was no one in there to try and rob the place and probably Ram probably goated them, I'm guessing. "Question" 13:27 Right, and uh you know, the guys fucked up and did something real stupid and killed 2 people and seriously injured a third person over nothing. And that's the really sad part of it and umm, you know after it happened. It's real, I'm not a death penalty guy but when it's personal like that, well your quest for vengeance is maybe heightened but..... executing 2 useless motherfuckers doesn't bring back 2 good people. And.. So there were 2 other people working that night? 14:22 Right. Sunshine and uh?

14:24 Doug, Gypsy. That's a shame. 14:28 Yeah and it was just, it really was over nothing. Over such a trifle of money and just disgusting really. So was that 2005? 14:54 I believe so, yeah. What's the impact for bands, how have bands had to change and react and stuff? 15:13 Well oddly, it uh no disrespect, but I think it actually had a positive effect on the music scene here. People had to go out and find new places to play and uh that wasn't the end all for them anymore. "We'll just go play at Taco Land." And some new venues sprung up and um, so um fortunately, yet unfortunately, it in some ways had a positive effect. What do you say to explain to people why this loss was significant? 16:17 Well and that's a difficult thing to explain but you've been by the building but you've seen that it says "Air-condition" is painted on the front. That's "Air-condition" not "Air-conditioned" with an "ed" on the end. And I always like to think that there is an air condition there, that it's the "mcguffen," the unknown of what, uh there was just a special vibe there. And it's not something you can quantify, or maybe put a name on, but it was just a very special vibe and even some very lackluster bands were capable of creating magic there and in concert with uh ambiance that was already there. Yeah let's talk about that of course. [laugh] 17:28 I've been working on that for awhile. Trying to come up with the indescribable, but um. I guess that was a lot of the magic of the place, was even a band you could go see at 49 other places, if you happened to see the 50th show at Taco Land, you had some magic. That's pretty good. Was there anything I haven't hit on? 18:06 I don't think so other than just that I miss Ram. Did you take many people over the years and introduce them to the place? 18:15 Oh yeah, yeah. Who was their first time there, what was for you like special about taking somebody there for the first time? 18:31 Well it was kind of one of those things where you could pull somebody's leg, like if they say "I want to go get some Mexican food," say, "Well lets go to Taco Land" because of course there normally weren't any tacos there. Um or if you had a girl you wanted to scare a little bit you could take her there or if you had some hard drinking buddies, you could take them there and they would appreciate the place. Well thank you for the music. 19:10 Oh absolutely. We started this website and started adding...