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Value for your Rock ‘n’ Roll Dollar
An interview with Joe Jack Talcum of
The Low Budgets
By Bob
Ignizio |
Joe Jack Talcum is probably best known as the guitarist
and sometimes vocalist for The Dead Milkmen. In fact one of his rare lead
vocal performances resulted in that band’s biggest hit, “Punk Rock Girl”.
The Milkmen were sort of my “gateway drug” to punk rock when I was a high
school student in the eighties, and I saw the band live at least a half
dozen times. It was at the last show on the last tour of The Dead Milkmen
that the series of events that would ultimately result in the formation of
The Low Budgets began. Joe says, “It just so happened that the club we were
playing at caught fire upstairs in the air conditioning. No one got killed
or anything, it wasn’t a fire that burned the place down. We got to the
club after everyone was evacuated and saw everyone out in the streets. We
had to wait outside; we didn’t even know if we were going to get to play at
this point.”
While waiting for the blaze to be extinguished, a fan
by the name of Chris approached Joe and struck up a conversation. The two
exchanged contact information, and when Chris moved to Philadelphia to go to
college he got in touch with Joe about starting a new band, The Town
Managers, with Chris on vocals and Joe on guitar. “We did a little bit of
touring but at the end of 1999 our drummer decided he’d had enough of music
and wanted to take a break,” says Joe. “Chris and I decided to form another
band, but this time with me playing organ instead of guitar. This bass
player named Dandrew joined, and he found a drummer named Steve. It jelled
pretty well, so we kept at it.” Chris took over guitar duties as well as
singing, and by the winter of 2000 The Low Budgets were ready to bring their
brand of garage rock econo-tainment to the world.
Joe still enjoys playing guitar at home, but in The Low
Budgets he sticks to playing his vintage Teisco keyboard. He says, “The
concept of this band was to be garage rock ala sixties ‘Nuggets’ kind of
bands. So many of those bands had cheesy sounding keyboards. I went
shopping for an old sixties vintage keyboard and got the only one that was
in my price range. It’s kind of like if you couldn’t afford a farfisa or a
Hammond back in the sixties you would go to Woolworths and buy the Teisco.
I got mine off Ebay and no one bid against me.” What could be more
perfect for a band called The Low Budgets? Although Joe does sometimes miss
playing his axe in a band situation he says, “I got used to playing the
keyboard and that’s fun too.”
Speaking of fun, Low Budgets’ bass player Dandrew has a
knack for finding unusual ways of enjoying himself. Joe says, “Last time we
played in Arlington, WV he broke into a construction site and started a
steam roller which he drove into a ditch and couldn’t get it out.
Fortunately no one investigated. The thing that he stopped doing, which is
fortunate, is he used to have a penchant for getting on top of the highest
thing he could find at the end of a show and then jumping with his bass onto
our drummer. Our drummer was becoming quite furious.”
Having already achieved a fair amount of commercial
success with The Dead Milkmen, Joe says he’s more concerned with just having
a good time with his current band than seriously striving for a second shot
at fame. Joe says, “We’re kind of lazy. Up until booking this tour we
never went out of our way to book a show in Philly. Shows come to us via
other bands, except for the shows that Chris puts on in his basement. It
sort of became a show space for lack of any other spaces for all-ages shows
in Philly. Besides that we just play the shows people ask us to play.”
It’s not that the royalties from “Punk Rock Girl” have made Joe a
millionaire. In fact, he even has (gasp) a job. It’s more a case of just
wanting to play music for the fun of it.
That hasn’t stopped The Low Budgets from releasing
their music to the public, though. So far the band has released a few 7
inches and one full length CD, ‘Go For Broke’, that was co-released by the
Philadelphia based Akhenation and Schuylkill labels this past spring.
They’re also working on material for the follow up, some of which is already
in their live set. Joe says, “Our plan is to start working more on new
songs in September. I’d say we have about half an album right now.” One of
those new songs even features Joe’s trademark slacker lead vocal stylings.
Just don’t expect Joe to sing lead on too many other songs. He says, “We
decided Chris was the singer. I wasn’t into doing the singing.” Chris also
handles most of the writing chores, although Joe has made a few
contributions. “I do a little bit,” says Joe. “I’ve contributed lyrics
here and there, and sometimes Chris will play a song and say he needs
another part, can you think of something. I did write an instrumental
completely on my own that’s on the album. I also wrote the song that I
sing, but we haven’t recorded that yet.”
While The Low Budgets are their own band, it’s still
hard to escape the legacy of The Dead Milkmen altogether. For the most part
Joe doesn’t seem to mind. The last time The Low Budgets played Cleveland,
he even sat in with opening act The Squirts (Cleveland’s own) for a rousing
version of the Milkmen classic “VFW”. Joe says, “I find that a lot of the
kids that like the Low Budgets know the Milkmen and think it’s cool, but a
surprising amount don’t know who the Dead Milkmen are. Some say they’ve
heard of the Milkmen but never got into them. And some like the Milkmen and
they like us, too. I think of all the bands that I’ve been in since the
Milkmen the Low Budgets are the most apt to cross over with Milkmen fans
because we have more of that sense of humor going. The other two bands I
was in were a bit more serious.”
But what about The Dead Milkmen? I know at least some
of you reading this are dying to know if there’s any chance of a reunion.
The answer is yes, but not on any sort of major scale. “We might do a
reunion but we probably wouldn’t tour. But I wouldn’t put it out of the
question that we’d play a show in Philly,” says Joe. But wait, there’s
more. Joe says, “One thing that’s happening is, since this is our 20th
anniversary, Restless is releasing a CD called ‘Now We are 20’ that has our
original demos and previously unreleased junk plus a DVD that has all our
videos and live footage. Yesterday all four of us went to a studio in the
suburbs and looked at all the DVD footage and recorded a commentary.” Hey,
Philly isn’t that far from Cleveland. But in the meantime, be sure to check
out The Low Budgets as well. In keeping with their thrifty image, the band
has several songs available on their
website for free download so there’s really no reason not to.
The Low Budgets play The
Beachland Tavern on August 13th with Global Chaos and Johnnie 3.
Visit the Low Budgets
website.
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