1990

Harry Dean Stanton and the Repo Men
Tivoli Hotel

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

With a distinguished list of flakey, downbeat movie roles to his credit, Harry Dean Stanton has moved from screen to stage for a whistlestop tour with his band the Repo Men. Comprising Jim Leslie on bass, drummer Stephan Mugalian, Jimmy Intveld on lead Fender and Nashville cat, Billy Swan as frequent lead singer, songwriter and general factotum, Harry Dean’s band is more like the Wild Bunch than anything as new wave and urban as repo men. As in Peckinpah’s movie these guys are time bandits, crooning old Tex-Mex, goitre-trembling rockabilly that’s older than the Thompson gun. Leastways, that’s where Harry Dean and Billy hail from. The rhythm section looked like LA musos who still can’t believe how they got there. Guitar ace, Jimmy Intveld, on the other hand, played like he was being paid by the yard.

It is weird to see Harry Dean Stanton in the leathery flesh since his touring garage band is something straight out of the movies. Stanton has been the genius of the cameo role – as sidekick, cop, crim, father, he was always precise, edgy, memorable. Then came the lead in Paris, Texas and he finally got his due- after all those years with Corman and Peckinpah, and movies like The Missouri Breaks. And Cisco Pike, a B-Grade number by Bill Norton with A-Grade work from Gene Hackman, Kris Kristofferson- and Harry Dean, as a strung-out mandolin player who overdoses the way musicians used to do in 1971. It was a scary, poignant performance and it made you look out even more for Stanton’s name in movie credits.

On stage at the Tiv, Harry Dean Stanton, mixed art and life impeccably. Hitching on their guitars the Repo Men could have been a West Texas snake-handling sect, rattling out a Chuck Berry soundalike -All Right in the Morning, then Mama Ain’t Got no Shoes and the holy roller, When I Get My Reward. At about this time Billy Swan broke a strang on his gittar and began to look a bit agitated- especially since he was upfront for the first of many of his own numbers. Harry Dean was looking sardonic. “We don’t have no spare gittars,” he mumbles, “we’re a cheap band.” Droll. He’s seen a few things, has Harry. He’s looked into life’s uglier orifices. Eventually an extra guitar materialises after Harry Dean has gallantly lent his axe to Billy for his country pop number, I’m Living My Life.

Time for a Mexican moment. Harry Dean’s thin tenor is matched with some of his desultory strumming and for a minute there you start to imagine kids setting fire to scorpions. Jim Leslie who had so far spent his time demonstrating his one-finger bass technique took the lead with a whiney number dedicated to his musical daughter, Amanda Lynn. Things picked up with Driving Wheel and some hot licks from Jimmy Intveld. Even the rhythm guys stopped wondering when Harry Dean was going to change chords.

In a moment of vocal adventure Stanton sang Blue Bayou just the way Roy Orbision would if he was reincarnated as a coyote. Cancion Mizteca followed, another Mexican ballad, sung by Harry Dean on the Ry Cooder soundtrack for Paris, Texas. Still on the Mexican theme, the Repos tried a four part harmony that came perilously close to landing at four different airports. A long likeable version of The Borderline brought the set to a close and the band ambled off.

The crowd at the Tiv know a good time when they are having it, so the Repo Men were recalled for five more – corkers including Billy Swan’s million seller,
I Can Help, the Arthur Crudup classic, It’s Alright Mama, Dylan’s Knockin on Heaven’s Door from the Pat Garrett soundtrack and finally a full-on rocker, with Intveld leading the Repos through Bright Lights, Big City. Harry Dean looked mighty pleased in a quiet kind of way. So he should. I wouldn’t have missed it for pesos.

“Time Bandits” The Adelaide Review, No.76, May, 1990, pp.20-1.