Ballroom Blitz
Howard Iceberg bops in the spotlight, breezy as a bar-worn shirt hung on the line to air out overnight. He chews his gum and strums his guitar, which is strapped at his waist, back down, its strings aimed at the ceiling: a six-string acoustic forced to live under the rules of mountain dulcimer. Iceberg steps to the mic and drawls another of his funny, disarming, poetic and profound lyrics, of which he has approximately 7,000.
There’s something magical going on at the Record Bar tonight, but whatever it is, it’s not Iceberg. Nor is it Chad Rex, Iceberg’s acoustic-bearing sideman for the night.
And it’s not Pendergast, who, a little while later, will play its own version of an Iceberg tune, “The Hurtin’ Kind” — showing it no mercy, in fact, turning a front-porch ballad into a wild, drunken, cold-cocking monster. Pendergast fucking rocks, but that’s not it.
Nor is it the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Brewer & Shipley, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band or any of the many groups and people whose memorabilia is up for auction.
It’s not even stately old Stan Plesser, though it’s his once stately and old Cowtown Ballroom — its 1971-74 incarnation, anyway — that we’re here to remember. And it’s not Joe Heyen or Tony Ladesich, the two filmmakers whose documentary, Cowtown Ballroom: Now That Was Special, we are eagerly throwing our funds at.
It’s not the Flying Burrito Brothers, who provided Heyen with his first Ballroom experience — one that was bolstered by a hit of acid taken in Volker Park. Nor is it Van Morrison, who either had his foot touched by a fan or his body nearly pulled into the audience, depending on who you talk to, and subsequently stormed off the stage the only time he played the Cowtown. Nope, it’s definitely not him.
What it is that’s making tonight awesome: the people.
Old, not so old and way old, they have come like ebullient children to bask in memories of an era when rock and roll was about the people, too, and when concerts, even big, big ones, never cost more than $10.
There’s old hippie David Schenck, the owner of record store Zebedee’s RPM, and young whippersnapper Mike Webber, who used to work at Caper’s Corner, the record store owned by Ben Asner, brother of the famous Ed.
There’s Penny Villadares, rock-and-roll storyteller (find evidence at her site, rockandrollstories.info) and mother to the night’s auctioneer, Brodie Rush. Villadares, who used to cater big concerts in the ’80s, blows me away by giving me a beautiful poster depicting a ticket-stub collage assembled and photographed by Village Records’ Corky Carrel, also present.
The people here are great. They are rock-and-roll people from way back, and it’s like they’re forever high.
Plesser understands exactly. “What made it so special was the people,” he says of the Ballroom, though he might as well be referring to the whole era as it played out in Kansas City.
“There’s something alive here in the music — there’s vibes here leftover from the ’20s,” he tells me and the other people standing around this local rock patriarch, while the band Mad Libby rips out a cover of “Helter Skelter” onstage.
As for the documentary itself, we get to see a five-minute preview of Now That Was Special, which is still being put together from 50 hours of interviews and 5,000 photos. But from that preview, which features interview clips with Chuck Haddix, Plesser, Villadares, Danny Cox, Roger Earl of Foghat, a local eccentric named Randy “Rat” Kratschmer and others, I can tell that the film is going to be a fine, fun contribution to local history.
Talk of Kansas City’s musical background invariably centers on the old jazz days, but here’s proof that something just as vital, if not as local — most of the memories involve out-of-town bands — happened here with rock and roll.
The night ends with a band of old-timers, White Eyes, taking the stage to rumble through classic covers: “Down by the River” by Neil Young, “Paint It Black” by the Stones. The Eyes are aged, and their leader, wearing a vest over a tie-dyed shirt, may be the most grizzled dude of the night. But they still have it — maybe not like they did when they opened for the Burrito Bros. in ’71. But, hey, that was 37 years ago, man. Or was it yesterday?
To learn more about the film and to find out who all played the Cowtown in those years, see cowbr.com.
