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Pit Crew
jimmy rolle (dawayne peltworthy) - guitar / vox
yale kaul (gary sanchez) - drums
hank (nyung hanj dung) - guitar
shane graff (chocky redneck) - bass
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On a wintry Missoula night at an employee party at Westside Bowling Lanes and Fun Center, Gary Sanchez found himself bowling an uncharacteristically lousy game. Polishing off Falstaff Light #8 of the night, he scratched himself intimately and observed that he must be distracted. Staggering over to the table where Nyung Hanj Dung and DaWayne Peltworthy were eating Jalapeño Poppers dipped in ranch dressing, he voiced his epiphany thusly: "If only," he lamented, "we could pool our vast musical talents. What we need is some sort of all-star jam!"
"Nah, fuck that," Dung chimed in. "You really want to get into a fourteen-minute guitar odyssey with [name withheld for sake of privacy]?!?"
"Yeah, I hear ya, fucker," answered Sanchez.
Whereupon Peltworthy, who had been amusing himself by putting entire ashtrays in his mouth suggested that they enact a musical tribute to Fu Manchu, the band that is a hero to all. Now, this had not been the first time that such a venture had been drunkenly proposed, so the matter was chalked up to inebriation, and nothing further was spoken of the matter for some months.
When the topic arose once again -this time under soberer circumstances- the level of seriousness in the room was palpable. Dung knew from the unseemly glint in DaWayne's eyes that this time around, he meant business, god damn it! This project would reach fruition or, by God, we might as well all hang up our instruments. (As a side note, it's worth mentioning that in Missoula, the ratio of drunkenly-proposed bands to those that ever come to fruition is something like googol to 1.) DaWayne, in his inimitable fashion, was so excited about the prospect of paying homage to Fu Manchu, he could talk of nothing else that night.
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Incidentally, this was not the first time that Sanchez, Peltworthy, and Dung had enjoyed sonic congress. Roughly 1.72 years prior to this arrangement, there had been an impromptu drunken session at local bassist A.J. Stone's rustic getaway cabin in Missoula's scenic Butler Creek area. This veritable meeting of the minds culminated in Sanchez toppling backward off of his drum throne into a full ashtray as the others jammed on James Gang tunes. Needless to say, this particular session bore no musical fruit. However, it was painfully obvious from that night forth that there did exist a nonzero musical cohesion between the three future Tra-bang members.
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This cohesion was finally put to the test on March 1, 2000 at the Missoula headquarters of Bevel Studio. Enlisting the bass services of local rock legend Chocky Redneck, they were, at long last, convened for the inaugural mission of Tra-bang Mark I. (The band name, incidentally, stems from a misheard phrase, spoken in Vietnamese, by a childhood friend's grandmother). There was a serene silence as the band set up, followed shortly by an unruly display of sheer amplified power and low-end rumble as they lurched into "Eatin' Dust" off of the Fu Manchu album of the same name. They subsequently rolled through other two classics of the Fu Manchu canon with nary a hiccup along the way. It was clear that this task would not require a great deal of musical choreography; all the members have soaked up so much 'Chu over the years that they can regurgitate nearly any of their riffles from their memory banks.
The true test of Tra-Bang's mettle shall occur on Friday, June 2nd in the year of our Lord 2000. The purpose of this mission is two-fold: the first is, of course, to blast the typically sedentary Jay's crowd into subservience; the second, more insidious task at hand is to procure virginal brides for the two unmarried members (determining precisely which ones those are is left as an exercise for the show-goer). Any shows beyond that will be sheerly for entertainment value.
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