Back in the day: Mumbles circa 1984-1986
Up from the Ashes
Whatever happened to the mighty, mighty Mumbles? SEEN guest contributor Kareem O'Wheat has the skinny.
Wichita, Fall 1997. Ken Haug had the flu. John Eberly was on the wagon, and Dale Stuke and Buddy Truesdale could both care less. Six months before this two-night stand at the Rock Island, an ashtray of a club on south Oliver (R.I.P.), The Mumbles were on their way to fortune and fame in Nashville, TN. The tour bus driver would stop at truck stops and be asked what famous country star he was haulin' around. "It's a punk rock band," he would drawl, just to see the look on the guy's face. They would spend a week recording eighteen original tunes at "The Money Pit," a state-of-the-art studio owned by the president of Sony U.S.A. Gold records lined the walls, by the likes of Randy Travis and Travis Tritt (everybody down South loves the name "Travis").
They returned home expectant that the tapes would be mixed and shopped around record labels in New York and L.A. But guess what? It never happened.
Back at the Rock Island, the first night's gig was white-hot. John Eberly played his sax against Kenny's Hendrixized guitar lines like PeeWee Herman fresh from a peep show wank (J.E. was dressed up like Pee). The next night, a Saturday (Saturn Day), the band dressed in black. Some drunk dude taunted John E. from the side of the stage and eventually lunged at him before being carted out by management. Shadows merged with smoke and stage lights. J.E. slipped between worlds like a shaman while drums and bass whipped against heavy metal guitar. There was a palpably violent vibe hanging in the air. It's all on videotape somewhere, languishing in somebody's vault like the Nashville tapes, jostling with other rock and roll flotsam and jetsam.
That was The Mumbles' last show. A long way from their debut in 1984 at tiny Woody's Back Door, a club then "famous" for hosting shows by the Roach Egg Invasion, the first punk rock band to emerge in Wichita after the Embarrassment's rise and fall. Woody's was big on atmosphere, thoughÑ for example, a frontal nude photo of his ex-wife figured prominently on the mirror behind the bar. Other clubs (all now either parking lots or blues venues) The Mumbles played at included The Spot and The Coyote Club. They did several "Bashes" too, benefits with other bands like Klyde Konner and The Blivets for the After Midnight show on KMUW radio.
Few people know the catalyst for the demise of After Midnight: it came the night a DJ interviewed John Eberly about his extra-curricular musical activities while spinning an album he played piano on with German band Doc Wor Mirran. The LP contained mucho expletive deletos. The DJ got fired. The station manager went with a taped format. John E. made other records with Doc Wor MirranÉ
Over the next ten years or so, The Mumbles recorded a lot. They released Live in the Shed in 1984. Other recordings would follow (check Yesterday's "alternative" section of cassettes if yr lucky): Dead in the Shed, Devil Box of the Gods, Raydean, Conversation, Paint It Black, and Buzz were some of the many original tape releases. Like Spinal Tap, The Mumbles went through many, many drummers after original member Ron Stallbaumer wised up and split. Andy Gregg played on Raydean, Steve Bell joined during the Conversation period, and Mike Coykendall (of Klyde Konner, and recently Old Joe Clarks fame) played drums on Buzz, also engineering the recording and contributing a song to the set.
There were side-projects and various incarnations, including the Mumbles lineup appearing as The Cutthroats (twisted C&W), The Beef Twinkies (free-jazz), PAX (power trio w/J.E. on drums), and many solo tapes by band members John Eberly and Ken Haug (they would also produce at least one project, "Donnie & Eileen"Ñ industrial noise collageÑ as a duo).
John Eberly did a wigged out evangelist/preacher/singer/guitarist with Joel Sanderson's (Demolition Kitchen) organ/drum accompaniment in a project called The Eberly Brothers (tapes of the E-Bros are still available via the demolitionkitchen.com website). John played a couple of gigs with the members of Klyde Konner in a band they called The Eberly Farmers. John played bass and sang in 626 with Blivets drummer Britt Rosencutter and former Embarrassment/Big Dipper guitarist/singer Bill Goffrier. John and Britt would go on to play together in Bucket, with Charlie Maxton (The Blivets) and Eric Cale (Rhythm Rangers).
About 1992, John split for the country 45 minutes NW of Wichita, raising a family and teaching art history at Hutchinson Community College. He became the director of an arts non-profit, the Hutchinson/Reno County Cultural Commission, and pursued a career as a graphic artist. Last year (2000) he received a commission to produce a series of paintings for an office building project in Kansas City, Kansas. The University of Michigan State's College of Arts and Letters' online publication Esoterica is currently exhibiting five paintings from the series. By accessing their website, you can see one of John's paintings used for the cover of Esoterica, vol. III. John E. has also recently been named a contributing editor at Ariadne's Web magazine, a Martinist publication he has been contributing articles to for several years now.
Last summer, when The Bees played in Seneca, Kansas at a local club called Spanky's, John E. sat in and sang a couple of old Mumbles/Cutthroats tunes he wrote way back when ("Rosey" and "Timeclock"). The Bees are a funky Wichita trio made up of Ken Haug on guitar, Dale Stuke (former Mumbles bassist) on drums and vocals, and Marc Colcord on bass/vocals. Ken Haug also currently plays in Mother Four Car.
In the Fall of 2000, after playing on and off again for several years with Hutchinson/Reno county bands 40 Acres and a Mule and The Chymical Cooks, John dusted off his microphone and sunburst Telecaster and formed a new band, The Skeletones, with Juan Gonzales on bass/vocals and John Parker on drums. The Skeletones play regularly at The Crazy Horse (call 316-665-1077 for information) in Arlington, Kansas, and have enough original tunes to record sometime soon.
Rumor has it that the original two-track reels of the Mumbles Raydean sessions (recorded by Martina McBride's husband John in 1989) have been unearthed and will be transferred to CD in the Spring of 2001. Although The Bees and The Skeletones have never appeared on a stage in Wichita, that may change this Spring and Summer.
Keep a lookout for these rare rock n' roll birds rising from the flames.
John Eberly/The Skeletones can be contacted via email at
Ken Haug/The Bees can be contacted at kahaug@cs.com
Kareem O'Wheat played with Klyde Konner offshoot The Tanglebrains, and can be seen as the character "Danny" on ABC-TV's "Norm" (no, not really).