Jesse Sublett (born May 15, 1954) [1] is a musician and writer from Austin, Texas. As a musician, he is best known for his long-running rock trio, The Skunks. His essays and journalism have appeared in a wide range of publications, and he is also known for his mystery novels featuring a bass-playing sleuth named Martin Fender. [2]
Jesse Sublett was born in Johnson City, Texas, where he was valedictorian at Lyndon B. Johnson High School. He attended Southwest Texas State University for two years, then moved to Austin in 1974. [1]
Sublett founded The Skunks in January 1978 with bandmates Bill Blackmon and Eddie Munoz. Soon thereafter, The Skunks and The Violators (a band that included Sublett on bass guitar along with Kathy Valentine (later of the Go-Go's), Carla Olson, and Marilyn Dean) made their Austin debut at a University of Texas area club called Raul's, [3] [4] marking the beginning of the punk/new wave scene in Austin. [5]
Sublett left The Violators after six months to concentrate on the Skunks, and the Violators disbanded thereafter, but the Skunks recorded numerous singles, E's and LPs, and played across the US, including the punk meccas of New York City, CBGB's and Max's Kansas City. Sublett sang and played electric bass in the band. He also wrote most of the band's original material. [6] Munoz left the band at the end of 1978 to join the Plimsouls. With his replacement on guitar, Jon Dee Graham, the band saw some touring success as headliners and as opening act for The Clash, The Ramones, and John Cale. [7] The band more or less disbanded in 1983, [8] but more recently have performed annual reunion shows at their favorite Austin club, the Continental Club. [9]
Sublett is credited with naming the "New Sincerity" movement of alternative rock bands that arose in Austin from about 1985 to 1990, and who were perceived as reacting to the more ironic outlook of punk rock and New Wave bands. He used the phrase during a casual conversation with his friend, local music writer Margaret Moser. Moser began using the term in print, and it ended up becoming the catchphrase for these bands. [10] [11]
Sublett played in numerous other ensembles over the years, including Secret Six, Flex, and a stint playing with ex-Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and Carla Olson, as well as a band called World's Cutest Killers featuring Kathy Valentine, Kelly Johnson (Girlschool) and Jebin Bruni (Public Image Ltd.). [8] [12] Sublett currently performs in various club ensembles, variously known as Jesse Sublett's Big Three Trio and The Murder Ballad Show (the latter featuring his longtime collaborator and friend, Jon Dee Graham). His most recent musical performances feature his upright bass work, a grittier vocal style and an ongoing fascination with the work of Howlin' Wolf and various jazz, blues and traditional composers. [13]
Sublett began writing seriously in the 1980s. His first novel, Rock Critic Murders, was published by Viking Penguin in 1987, followed by Tough Baby and Boiled in Concrete.
Sublett's 2004 memoir, Never the Same Again: A Rock 'N' Roll Gothic, [12] relates the story of hi girlfriend's murder when he was 22, his career with The Skunks, and his battle with throat cancer. Writing in the Los Angeles Times , critic Marion Winik described the book as "riveting" and chose it for the Times' list of "most surprising new books". [14] Austin Chronicle critic Greg Beets described it as "a gripping memoir that never feels forced or emotionally manipulative... Sublett's prose remains rich, fierce, and humbling." [15]
"Adaptation," Sublett's 2008 piece in The Texas Observer , chronicles his years-long work researching and writing a book about the Austin underworld of the 1950s-1970s, centered largely upon a group known as the Overton Gang. [16] Sublett's nonfiction book on the gang was published in 2015, titled 1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital. The Austin Chronicle called it "a remarkable piece of scholarship" that "makes you think that Sublett should be hailed as an Ellroy-level master of modern crime writing." [17]
Sublett's essays and journalism pieces have appeared in the New York Times , [18] Texas Monthly , [19] and elsewhere.
Sublett's adaptation (written with director/producer Stephen Purvis and Tom Huckabee) of the Austin play In the West was produced as a feature film entitled Deep in the Heart (of Texas). [20] [21]
Sublett has also written extensively for non-fiction television, contributing to numerous series on The History Cannel such as The Great Ships, Search and Rescue, and Boneyards: The Secret Lives of Machines." A two-hour documentary, The Killer Storm (chronicling the so-called "Perfect Storm" of 1991), which Sublett wrote, aired on the History Channel in 1999 and also premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. He wrote the original book for a stage play called Marathon which debuted in 2007 with music by Austin-based singer-songwriter Darden Smith. [22] In 2009, however, Sublett asserted his sole authorship of the play and announced that future productions would feature his own original score. [23]
Broke, Not Broken: Homer Maxey's Texas Bank War, by Broadus Spivey and Jesse Sublett, published in 2014 by Texas Tech University Press, is one of several works co-authored by Sublett. [24] Armadillo World Headquarters: A Memoir, by Eddie Wilson with Sublett, published in late March 2017, tells the history of the famed music hall affectionately known as "the 'Dillo" which served as an Austin music industry stage and incubator of Austin culture far beyond the decade it was in existence (1970-1980). [25]
Sublett has also written a history of the Texas Turnpike Authority. [26] [27] His papers are collected in the Southwestern Writers Collection of the Wittliff Collections of Alkek Library at Texas State University–San Marcos. [1]
The 13th Floor Elevators was an American rock band from Austin, Texas, United States, formed by guitarist and vocalist Roky Erickson, electric jug player Tommy Hall, and guitarist Stacy Sutherland. The band was together from 1965 to 1969, and during that period released four albums and seven singles for the International Artists record label.
Daniel Dale Johnston was an American singer, musician and artist regarded as a significant figure in outsider, lo-fi, and alternative music scenes. Most of his work consisted of cassettes recorded alone in his home, and his music was frequently cited for its "pure" and "childlike" qualities.
The U.S. state of Texas has long been a center for musical innovation and is the birthplace of many notable musicians. Texans have pioneered developments in Tejano and Conjunto music, Rock 'n Roll, Western swing, jazz, punk rock, country, hip-hop, electronic music, gothic industrial music, religious music, mariachi, psychedelic rock, zydeco and the blues.
Austin's official motto is the "Live Music Capital of the World" due to the high volume of live music venues in the city. Austin is known internationally for the South by Southwest (SXSW) and the Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festivals which feature eclectic international lineups. The greatest concentrations of music venues in Austin are around 6th Street, Central East Austin, the Red River Cultural District, the Warehouse District, the University of Texas, South Congress, and South Lamar.
Kathryn Valentine is an American musician who is the bassist for the rock band the Go-Go's. She has maintained a career in music through songwriting, recording, performing and touring as well as additional academic and creative pursuits. Valentine was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in October 2021 as a member of The Go-Go's.
Douglas Wayne Sahm was an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in San Antonio, Texas. Sahm is regarded as one of the main figures of Tex-Mex music, and as an important performer of Texan Music. He gained fame along with his band, the Sir Douglas Quintet, with a top-twenty hit in the United States and the United Kingdom with "She's About a Mover" (1965). Sahm was influenced by the San Antonio music scene that included conjunto and blues, and later by the hippie scene of San Francisco. With his blend of music, he found success performing in Austin, Texas, as the hippie counterculture soared in the 1970s.
Armadillo World Headquarters was an influential Texas music hall and beer garden in Austin at 5251⁄2 Barton Springs Road – at South First Street – just south of the Colorado River and downtown Austin. The 'Dillo flourished from 1970 to 1980. The structure that housed it, an old National Guard Armory, was demolished in 1981 and replaced by a 13-story office building.
Club Foot was a large live-music venue in Austin, Texas, in the early 1980s. Located downtown at the corner of 4th and Brazos Streets, it had a reputation as a punk rock venue for its support of local and touring punk bands, but it also booked a wide variety of other types of music.
New sincerity is a trend in music, aesthetics, literary fiction, film criticism, poetry, literary criticism and philosophy that generally describes creative works that expand upon and break away from concepts of postmodernist irony and cynicism.
Jon Dee Graham is an American musician, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas, United States. Graham was named the Austin Musician of the Year during the South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in 2006. He was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame three times: as a solo artist in 2000, again in 2008 as a member of The Skunks, and again in 2009 as a member of the True Believers.
Raul's was a live music nightclub at 2610 Guadalupe Street in Austin, Texas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which started off as a Chicano music venue, but then specialized in punk rock music. The location is near the University of Texas campus.
Inner Sanctum Records was a record shop in Austin, Texas. The retailer was variously cited as the first indie record shop in Texas and, at the time of its closure, the oldest in Central Texas.
Carolyn Wonderland is an American blues singer-songwriter and musician. She is married to comedian and writer A. Whitney Brown.
The Skunks are an American three-piece rock band formed in 1977 in Austin, Texas. The band debuted in early 1978 at Raul's, quickly became a mainstay of the Austin music scene. They rapidly expanded their fan base beyond early punk/new wave into clubs whose audiences crossed the spectrum, including the Armadillo World Headquarters, the Continental Club, Dukes Royal Coach, Club Foot, Liberty Lunch, and many others in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Skunks music channeled classic rock influences, such as The Rolling Stones and The Who, with 1970s cult figures such as the New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground.
Bill Narum was an artist, illustrator, and Texas counter-culture icon known for his work in popular entertainment, and for being one of the few non-natives to have lived with the Tarahumara tribe of northern Mexico in Copper Canyon.
William Dale Wittliff, sometimes credited as Bill Wittliff, was an American screenwriter, author, and photographer who wrote the screenplays for The Perfect Storm (2000), Barbarosa (1982), Raggedy Man (1981), and many others.
The Katherine Anne Porter House is a historic house located in Kyle, Texas. It was built in 1890 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The house is the childhood home of writer Katherine Anne Porter. It was restored and turned into a short-lived museum at the instigation of Tom Grimes, then-director of the Texas State University MFA program.
Carla DeSantis Black is a writer and advocate for women in music. Sometimes referred to as “The Gloria Steinem of Rock,” she is the founder of ROCKRGRL Magazine (1995-2005) and MEOW - Musicians for Equal Opportunities for Women (2010-2013).
Lawrence Leo King was an American playwright, journalist, and novelist, best remembered for his 1978 Tony Award-nominated play The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which became a long-running production on Broadway and was later turned into a feature film starring Burt Reynolds, Charles Durning, and Dolly Parton.
Margaret Moser, or Margaret Moser Malone, was an American journalist, music enthusiast, critic and historian, groupie, and backup singer. She was best known for her work as the director of the Austin Music Awards (AMA) in the South by Southwest festival and for her career in music journalism and criticism, which lasted more than thirty years. Moser also supported young artists, helping them get started and finding appropriate venues where they could play. She has been called the "patron saint of Austin music" by the Paramount Theatre.
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