A dog walks into a bar and the bartender says: “What can I get you?” The dog replies: “I’m a singing dog. And if I sing you a song, would you give me a bowl of beer?” The bartender says: “If you can actually sing, I’ll give you two bowls of beer.” So, the dog sings “Copacabana” by Barry Manilow – exactly like the record. The bartender laughs: “Hell. You call that singing? Get out a here!”
– DC Duncan
Dog @ Large… “Who let the Dogs out?”
I had joined a preeminent Durango band and we were off to the races. Gary Watkins, affectionately known as “Gary Dog,” had written A History of Dog at Large. The following is a quote from his memoir (which you can download here):
We arranged a rehearsal out at Ray’s and that’s when I first met DC. We set up, and probably 15 seconds into the first song both Ray and I realized that we were playing with the best drummer around. He was in the band and we started gigging right away. We played mostly as a trio but occasionally with Lawrence Nass on keys. We really started nailing our grooves after that and, with the help of DC’s zany on-stage (and off) personality, we gained popularity and quickly developed the reputation of being the best local band around…
Our Christening was at Farquahrt’s on Main Street in Durango – the only 4-night gig in southwest Colorado. The owner, Toby Peterson, was known as an excellent club owner, and rightfully so. Live music was a top priority and he treated his bands quite well. He also owned and operated Farquahrt’s at Purgatory Ski Area, a challenging winter gig. On top of that, Toby provided bands with a nice Condo (plus pool) at the Ferringway above town.
A week at Farquahrt’s started at “Pitchers” ($2.00) on Wednesdays from 5:00 – 6:00pm, one set; Thursdays 9:00pm – 1:30am; Fridays (FAC: Friday Afternoon Club) 5:00 – 7:00pm and 9:00pm – 1:30am; and Saturdays 9:00pm – 1:30am. At Purg we played Thursdays to Sundays with only cocktail sets on Sundays. I can tell you this: Some of the after-gig rides back to Durango were hair-raising events, more like demolition derbies on ice. We blamed the insanity on drunken flatlanders… usually Texans who thought they knew how to drive in snow.
Our rig was an older Chevy Suburban towing a double-axle band trailer. We traveled – mostly as weekend warriors – to clubs all over Colorado, Northern New Mexico and Utah. Some of the gigs north of Durango required crossing Molas, Coal Bank and the dreaded Red Mountain Pass. In the winter these passes were downright dangerous. With no guard rails, one slight mistake could send you hurling over a thousand-foot cliff! (I’m not kidding…)
Scary Red Mountain Pass!
And Ray, our “creative” driver, had a bad habit of asking Gary Dog to take the wheel while lighting up his little pipe! Meanwhile I was in the backseat, cliffside, patching up my relationship with God. And when you add deer and elk to a snowstorm on black ice, your life passes before your eyes at every turn. (There are no atheists in a Suburban at 3:00am!)
Once, in the summer, we played Silverton on Friday, spend the night, and the next day we headed out over Cinnamon Pass to our gig in Lake City. (One time we were headed up a one-way dirt road when we encountered the nerdy Durango Jeep Club. We made them reverse back up the hill. State law: vehicles going uphill have the right-of-way.) After the gig we camped out at Lake Cristobal. The guy who owned the restaurant/bar called the Incontinent Moose (or something like that) could actually sing opera and would join us on some Motown tunes. Luckily NO Barry Manilow.
The three of us were spreading cheer throughout the land and the kiddies loved us. We needed a lot of energy though, so Ray passed out the truck-driver-medicine, bennies, that he nicknamed “beans.” Of course, I was on Zoloft for my b-b-bipolar disorder, but then I’d pop a few b-b-beans and wash it down with b-b-beer. Ray actually called me Captain Zoloft. (Yeah, that was pretty funny – NOT!)
Well, one Saturday night in Cortez while playing drums, I passed out and fell to the floor. So the insane club owner stashed me under a covered pool table and finished the last set trying to play drums. Jeezus! After the gig my bandmates loaded up and hit the road. In a few miles Gary panicked: “Hey! Where’s DC?” Ray snarled: “We’re leavin’ him! Screw him!” So that was that. I was stuck one-hundred miles away from Pagosa. Of course, my angry wife came and fetched me the next day, lecturing me the whole way to Gary’s to pick up my truck. And she had the nerve to call me a man-child? Why, I never! (I should have…)
Around this time, we added a fantastic sax player to the mix. Bob Hemenger had sat in with us at the Bear Creek Saloon in Pagosa and it was an absolutely perfect fit. Now we advertised Bob as “Nasty sax on a Saturday Night!” He soon became my close friend.
Bob Hemenger
Not long after that we added our home town radio DJ, Harvey T on keys. Lovable Harvey Twite was a big boy – over 375 pounds of pure joy. Harvey said that if somebody told him to haul ass, it would take him two trips! When we played Farmington, Harvey was quite familiar with every one of the “all -you-can- eat” restaurants in town. And boy, they knew him. When they discovered Harvey in their midst, they automatically put up a CLOSED sign at the entrance. He’d eat three or four plates of food and wash it down with Diet Coke. (Go figure.) Then he’d stand at the salad bar grazing like a starving woolly mammoth.
So now Dog @ Large had three Pagosans and only two Durangutans in the band!
Dear Harvey was a far-right wingnut and had a bumper sticker on the back of his Bronco that announced “Rush Limbaugh for President!” I ordered a bumper sticker that read “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar” and secretly stuck it over his sacred Limbaugh bumper sticker. He actually drove around for weeks not knowing he had a sinister sticker plastered on his rear (so to speak). A friend of his finally pointed out the vile slogan defiling his SUV: “That’s an insult!” A sad Harvey beseeched me for sympathy: “DC, what kind of person could do such a thing?” I put my hand on his shoulder and said: “You know, Harvey, it takes a special kind of person to do that kind of shit.” He agreed wholeheartedly.
“Virgil & the Gun” by DC Duncan alias Captain Rumbelly
Our music was becoming much more sophisticated. We were doing unusual cover tunes arranged into our own eclectic style. We took songs like “Summer in the City” and gave it a power reggae groove that made it much more danceable. I put a bossa groove with a strong back beat on CCR’s “Running Through the Jungle.” Gary Dog wrote a cool tune called “I Love My Country” and I gave it a straight soca beat and man, did that cook. And don’t forget his groovin’ song: “She’s Got the Beat!” written for his beautiful daughter, Nicki.
We did The Band, Grateful Dead, Stones, Allman Brothers, many more. Sometimes we appeared on stage with a whole horn section that really blasted the crowd into another universe. We also used an array of sound effects. For instance: the jet plane taking off on “The Letter” by the Box Tops.
Was that an orgasmic woman I heard in that last song? Why yes, it was.
Our high-energy stage show was quite kinetic – and humorous. We were the ultimate party band. We played private engagements including weddings (and divorce parties). We did a Halloween party at the Bear Creek Saloon and our buddy Diamond Dave brought in a casket and put it on a stand with a fake corpse inside. The crazy bartender, Andy, got on top and the whole thing came crashing down. (Diamond was pissed.) Later on, somebody set our damn tip jar on fire! By the end of the night the whole place was trashed – including the band.
I stayed at Gary’s house quite often. It was a joy being around his young kids, Nicki and Zak. They called me Uncle Deece.
One day Zak had a chewable vitamin lodged in his throat. I administered the Heimlich Maneuver on him and finally had to turn him upside down to dislodge it. I wasn’t a hero though – I was the one who gave him the goddam vitamin!
Gary Dog’s wife, Suzy, was our number one fan! Simply put, she was a party girl. At late night, post-gig parties she’d seek out the hot tubs. We called her “Jacuzzi Suzy the Hot Tub Floozy!” One day I hitched a ride with Suzy and Zak. I needed to drop by the Strater Hotel to use the fancy men’s room. I told Zak I was going to the office to do some paperwork. He was fascinated that I had an office at the prestigious hotel! (I like to impress little kids.)
DC & Mose Allison
Previously I had been venturing down to Santa Fe to record on Jerry Faires’ album “Dogs Bark . . . The Caravan Moves On” (Silversmith Records) and others. In Durango I recorded Gordon Headlee’s “Windswept . . . Strange Territory” (Emerald Lake Records). I also played jazz at the Lost Pelican on Main Street with Lawrence Nass. We did the Trimble Springs Jazz Festival, featuring Mose Allison. Mose and I had a mutual friend in Dallas drummer, Bart Patey, so we hit it off quite well that day. And man, did he have some stories.
In 1995, I started work on my biker album: “The Adventures of Captain Rumbelly and the Panhead Pirates”. We recorded at the Bunkhaus Studio on a ranch called Coyote’s Revenge outside of Bayfield. My buddy RT Thompson, a Navajo guitar slinger and his sidekick, the Professor, did a great job. (I practically lived there.) The album is ribald, to say the least. Songs include “Don’t Cuss, God Dammit,” “The One-Eyed Warrior,” and “Shit Happens” sung by Ray Dog. (Not an album you’d play for your dear old granny.)
I sent a Rumbelly cassette to my Presbyterian deacon dad, Spike. Later I called him and asked what he thought of the album. He told me it was “disgusting.” I said, “Yeah, but did you like it?” He said, “I laughed my ass off!”
He actually put up a Rumbelly poster in his garage for all his friends to admire while listening to “Wham Bam, Thank You Ma’am!”
The Dogs were asked to submit a song to a community compilation album called Partners. All proceeds went to various charities – hopefully the Durango Dog Shelter! The song chosen was Gary’s: “Woman in Love,” a great tune with some tight harmonies. Enjoy!
“Woman in Love” written by Gary Watkins
We would play in Ridgway, and in the summer would stay at Orvis Hot Springs. The place was a nice spa with rooms, tubs, camping, and a large mineral pond – clothes optional. Of course, alcohol and glass containers were forbidden around the greater pool area.
One night, after the gig, the band finally made it back to Orvis. When we pulled into the parking lot, it was crowded with cars. It seems that someone at the club had invited everyone to party with Dog @ Large at the serene Orvis Hot Springs . . . clothes optional!
The place had been invaded by an army of disorderly drunks who had taken over. It wasn’t our fault… well, maybe it was. We got up in the late morning to find a note on the windshield of the Suburban: “NO DOGS ALLOWED!” We had been evicted and from then on, we had to camp out at the nearby State Park. Party poopers!
It was another crazy Friday night in Durango; we had finished a long six sets – and encores – at fabulous Farquahrt’s. I had stayed for a nightcap and then said “see-ya-later-bye!” I headed to Gary’s house on foot, only five blocks away. A squad car pulled up and the cop asked me where I was headed. I told him I was going to my family’s home at the end of Third Avenue. “Say, officer,” I said. “Can I get a ride?” The cop smiled and said: “Sure. Hop in.”
In a few moments we pulled up in front of Gary Dog’s. I thanked the cop, then asked if he would turn on his flashing cherries – you know, just to announce my arrival. Believe it or not, he did.
I got out of the squad car and noticed someone peering out their bedroom window, probably Gary. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. HA!