As I waited for the elevator that takes you up into the massive House of Blues complex, I watched a couple arguing. The wife, a middle-aged women with a glow-necklace sunk into the folds of her neck and mascara running down her cheeks was wailing, “No, no,” over and over, as her husband, in standard cowboy getup, was yelling in a thick, southern drawl, “I don’t care what you want. You’re drunk, and I’m taking you home. You can listen to his damn CD in the car.” I didn’t see the rest, because the elevator arrived, but I hope she told him to shove it, and went in to see the long-haired redneck play.
Simone Kern: Oh, those flowing locks.
Long-haired is right. Over the course of his career, David Allan Coe has accumulated a fountain of neon-blond hair that falls to his knees and a gray beard, braided with string, that reaches his belly-button, at least. He wears a Britney-style headset and plays a black, flying V guitar (it's rhythm guitar these days; Coe lets his oldest son, Tyler, do most of the rocking out for him.) He’s fat and bent and doesn’t move around much anymore, swaying side-to-side on his stool as he strums. With all that personality and hard living on his sleeve, he’s awesome to look at but not much to watch. His voice has lost some of its earlier snarl, but it’s still delicious to hear live.
Tyler Coe is the dream of every teenage girl who’s ever worn a Pantera shirt. With long, greasy, metal-kid hair, this chip off the old block shreds his solos on a Gibson SG. There’s something genuinely touching about the father-son pair, who you can bet have not had a typical Sunday-barbecue, fishing-trip-and-football relationship. When Coe introduced his son, the crowd made a collective “awwww,” and he went on to play a song about getting to know your kid again after being a crappy dad for a long time.
Simone Kern: Tyler Coe
David Allan Coe was born in Akron, Ohio, but we can claim him as a Houstonian -- he refers to himself as such in Willie, Waylon & Me, lumping himself in with the other two Lone Star “outlaws”. In the seventies, he made a living playing weekly shows at hole-in-the-walls in Pasadena and Deer Park. One fan, Toby Belt, first saw Coe in 1979. “When I was three years old, my daddy took me to see him play at G’s Icehouse [in Deer Park]. Now I’m 32, and I’ve gone to every one of his shows here since.”
The crowd was (no big surprise here) predominantly male, white, and over thirty. There were some passionate female fans though, like the woman leaning out over the balcony and screaming.
Simone Kern: I LOVE YOU, OLD MAN. WOOOO.
Coe stuck to his big, less-offensive hits, like You Never Even Called Me by my Name, and Take this Job and Shove It, as well as some familiar covers. One fan who has seen DAC many times told me that there’s a difference between his sets at big venues like the House of Blues, and at small venues, where he plays his “older stuff,” like, for example, Cum Stains on the Pillow, among others far more offensive.
If you search for Coe songs on the internet, you’ll find a lot of heinously racist tracks which were actually written by Johnny Rebel, but get wrongly attributed to Coe. DAC actually wrote many songs that are pro-civil-rights, that mock racists and racism, and he even recently released a song “Fuck Anita Bryant” for opposing homosexuality. What it comes down to is DAC just loves to say shit that pisses people off and offends them. Most of it is hilarious, but you may think he goes too far. On most of his albums, there’s a few tracks you’ll want to skip over if your uptight vegan friend is in the room (actually, just put on some Animal Collective and make her happy.)
None of the fans I met pretended that DAC is still the cutting-edge, hell-raising, prison-shanking rebel that he used to be. At the end of the show, DAC said farewell, and as he was walking offstage, the steel guitar player grabbed a guitar and started straight-up rocking out with young, darling Tyler. It was like a passing of the torch, although the five-minute song didn’t quite convince me that young Coe is ready to step into his dad’s shoes.
Still, awwwww.
nice article!
It was such a fun show!
"Single Father" is not a song about a man reconciling with his son after being a poor father. His guitar is one of Dimebag Darrel's Razorback models, not a flying V. If memory serves (and should it not always?) the lyrics to "Willie, Waylon and Me" contain the line "My name is David Allan Coe and I'm from Dallas, Texas", not Houston. This is not nitpicking, mind you. When inaccuracies of the type that have plagued my father's career from the start are brought to my attention I feel it my duty to say what I can to restore truth to the matter, no matter how small or insignificant the forum.
If anything, Simone, I would hope the end of the show would convince you that I would never do something so foolish as attempt to step into David Allan Coe's shoes. But, clearly, if you missed the significance of what was happening onstage that night, particularly the performance of "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms" you and everyone there were lucky to see, I shouldn't expect more from you than fawning over my appearance. But the best advice I've ever heard came from my father's vocal chords in the words "if you're big star-bound, let me warn you, it's a long, hard ride." While he may not have been the man who wrote that particular song, he is the man who looks at me every night we perform it and throws the word "son" in the middle of that line.
You are not ready for what I will do to your world.
Damn, I just got schooled.
But more importantly, I can’t believe Tyler Coe read my blog! Did your dad read it too? Sorry for the mistakes.
And frankly I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do to my world. Will it involve a solution to global warming? Emus? Explosives?!?!
I couldn't say exactly what Tyler Coe is going to do to your world but I bet it involves Googling his own name.
hahahaha
Worlds and planets are two different things. The earth can take care of itself. It should be pretty apparent by now that human beings can not take care of the earth. Hell, I have sincere doubts whether most of us can take care of ourselves or each other.
My father did not and probably will not read this article. If he did he would likely take it further than I and point out that "Fuck Anita Bryant" is in no way a recent release of his and in fact was released on one of the same two albums that have cause him so much grief over the years due to a brutal lack of humor in some folk. Nothing Sacred, I believe. He might give you some points for spelling his name correctly.
And, Joe, I usually don't need to Google myself anymore. Though there are still some lonely nights on tour... Joking aside, I will shamelessly confess to searching my own name to find this article in order to comment on it. I knew it would be faster as any search engine will obviously yield far less results for Tyler Coe than David Allan Coe.
Chances are (Joe's a man who likes to wager and every little bit helps, right, Joe?) I'll not be checking back here for any responses to what I've written. Anyone who'd like to further this conversation can contact me at myspace.com/whenithitsmyblood, which is also where they can confirm that I am a complete narcissist if not a solipsist to boot.
Don't be silly, of course you're coming back. Hi.
Like you said, Tyco, there's a ton of misinformation floating around about your dad on the internet. Yes, I stumbled onto the wrong release date for "Fuck Anita Bryant." Also, I got the name of your dad's guitar wrong. Sure looked like a flying V to me. Cut me some slack, this is my first big concert review. I'm still getting the hang of this stuff.
In my defense, as far as "Single Dad" goes, try re-listening to the first couple lyrics from a non-you standpoint, and you'll see my interpretation is fair. Your "Willie, Waylon, & Me" beef is syntactic. Sure, claiming Coe for Houston is a stretch, but we're a Houston events blog, we're gonna be a little Housto-centric.
Houston, Dallas. Let's split the diff and say he's from Akron.
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