DWAYNE STOMP WAS BORN in Lintpick, Louisiana, in the 1950s.* His father, Wayne, made what living he could selling military secrets to the Soviets. Since the elder Stomp held only the rank of Army cook, there wasn't much market for his information. (He would often bitterly claim, "the stupid Russians don't realize that an army travels on its stomach!") Somehow, the family eked by.
Because of Dad's line of work, the Stomps had to move frequently. In addition to living in 17 parishes in Louisiana and 9 different counties in Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas, young Dwayne grew up in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, always feeling out of place in the northern towns. The locals would encourage this feeling by beating young Dwayne senseless on a weekly basis. "Something about his face," a childhood friend explained.
Dwayne got his first guitar on his 12th birthday, though his father refused to buy any strings for it until Dwayne was almost fourteen. Still, this didn't prevent him from practicing six hours a day for two years. It is this early, stringless, tuneless, playing that accounts for much of Dwayne's unique style.
Dwayne married for the first time at seventeen. Then, again, at eighteen, and finally settled down with the "love of my life" at age 20. She left him after two weeks, carrying another boy's child. That's when Dwayne ran away from home for good.
Dwayne spent the late '60s playing in barely-adequate bar bands ** along the east coast, usually leaving the groups, and town, just ahead of the police.
DWAYNE'S FIRST BREAK came when he was working as a janitor at the famous Record Plant recording studio. Late one night, he snuck into a studio to "fool around." While recording a series of "blistering solos," he managed to erase the master tape of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water." He was fired immediately, but an assistant engineer kept a dub of the solo and six months later Dwayne was invited to play on a Spooky Tooth session.
Asked to leave the recording session because of his aggressive drunkenness, Dwayne stumbled into another failed session-man, drummer "Spud" "Skank" Noonan, who was lying in the alley behind the studio. Immediately, they decided to start a band. Almost immediately, they decided to get something more to drink.
While attempting to rob the liquor store, Dwayne and "Skank" met Tommy "Low Balls" Holliman, an itinerant bass player, who was also attempting to rob the liquor store. Thus, in the paddywagon on the way to the police station, was Blacktooth formed.
After receiving suspended sentences, the trio began practicing in earnest and in Holliman's mother's house. Realizing that their sound was "too huge" for the battered equipment they possessed, the young men fell upon a plan to finance both a really loud sound system and their first album.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Holliman hadn't been able to keep up the payments on her homeowners policy and, while she wasn't completely killed in the "accident," relations with her son were strained, to the point that the band was forced to find a new place to practice.
Deciding that the "shortest distance between two points is prob'ly illegal anyway," Dwyane and the band broke into the Record Plant and, recording secretly between 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning over the course of a month, produced the premier Blacktooth album, Butt Nekkid.
The cover, a Polaroid self-portrait of the band "mooning" the viewer, was banned in every state in the Union, save Louisiana. "Hell," said Parish Sheriff "Buzz" Weamer, "we seen that sad sight before."
"That was like a concept album," Dwayne would later comment, though he never elaborated on what exact "concept" was intended, and critics never noticed. What was clear was the almost-hit song, "Jackknife." An instant anthem among "Wildcat" truckers and other scofflaws, it debuted at number 99 on the Billboard Hot 100 and over the course of three weeks moved all the way up to number 93 before falling into oblivion.
Blacktooth, the band, would take a while longer to reach that destination.
DWAYNE STOMP IS CURRENTLY TOURING UNDER THE AUSPICES OF A 15,000-HOUR COMMUNITY SERVICE PLEA BARGAIN.
For further information contact:
Roadie
Over Productions, P.O. Box 2810, Merrifield, VA 22116
** Among the bands: Raw Nerve; Cavity; Abscess; The Depraved; Stink; Dirty White Trash; The Love People.
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