Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 66: The Updated Good Beer Guide to Louisville (1996).
We shouldn’t attempt to fashion the elusive silk purse from a sow’s ear, which is to say that Christmas has seldom been “the most wonderful time of the year” for me. There comes a time each holiday season during an otherwise random conversation about sports, movies or the ongoing decay of Western civilization when someone looks at me with palpable dismay.
“Roger, you’re such a Grinch.” My response has never varied: “Thank you very much.” After all, I was raised to be polite.
The roots of my longstanding Yuletide antipathy might be traced to Freudian conceits, Jungian counter-thrusts, references to childhood toilet training habits or the sheer pervasiveness of psychological repression stemming from residency in the USA amid all these crazed theists, but in truth it’s far simpler.
The gist of it is the original, defining moment in every American boy’s life — not when it becomes clear that he’ll die without the saving grace of having been able to hit a curveball, but the sudden, gut-wrenching discovery that in spite of the incessant, shameless propaganda fed to kids by adults, who’d assured us that a regimen of excruciating behavioral self-regulation would be rewarded by a gaudily costumed fat man parking his tricked-out sleigh on the roof and descending the chimney, that nope, in the end, it was nothing more than a shameless ruse.
Or, when the truth finally hits you: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist. At all. More radicals have been created during this precise moment of magnetic illumination than by any number of Marxist texts or consumer boycotts.
Our house didn’t even have a chimney, and you’d think this might have made me suspicious, but I remained oblivious far longer than was defensible. When the shameful day of infamy arrived and my school mate chided me – “c’mon, sucker, don’t tell me you still believe in Santa?” — I did much more than merely shake Santa’s fictitious grip, cold turkey, there on the spot.
I irrevocably disavowed the whole contrived Christmas spectacle, because even at such a tender age, eyes at last pried wide open, I could see the dominoes falling as the previously sacrosanct Santa myth vaporized in plain sight, because if the grownups could mislead us about Santa, where would it end?
They might also be fibbing about those other edicts demanding compliance and conformity, from the civic foundational edifices of religion, patriotism and obedience, all the way to the commandment forbidding jaywalking. Trust had evaporated, and I felt all alone.
The worst of it was sitting in my room, cross-legged on the cold tile floor, experiencing the devastating frustration of grasping that I was, as yet, far too young to properly drink my way through the rampant disappointment. Santa’s unused cookies and milk were the best I could do, and then, as now, I udderly DETEST milk.
Ah, but later, as an adult, it became my habit to spend the Christmas season descending by successive stages far, far into my cups — and this attitude dovetailed perfectly with pub ownership and a concurrent access to “free” beer, which I was learning to consume with a ruthless proficiency that sometimes surprised even me.
Naturally I’d rather scrub toilets, peel potatoes or drink Miller Lite than decorate the business for Christmas, but at least my Grinchly greeting to onlookers was backhandedly sincere: “Happy Holidaze.”
However in 1994 something unexpected happened that shook my faith in faithlessness, becoming the sort of Christmas tradition that even I could enjoy, and not merely grudgingly tolerate while inebriated.
This came about because I love music and always came perilously close to worshipping anyone who can play an instrument, sing or carry a tune in any fashion (in fact, I still do — worship them, not carry a tune), so when it became clear that for whatever serendipitous reason Rich O’s was becoming an occasional hangout for a group of professional musicians from the Louisville Orchestra, I was thrilled.
Some lived in Southern Indiana, others had reason to put in weekly appearances during the school year at Indiana University Southeast down the street. Double bassist Sidney King was the ringleader, and we hit it off, even though Sid talked about fly fishing more often than music. Sid came into the Public House fairly often; judiciously, of course, and sometimes he even ate food.
I’m just kidding.
Sid and I used to have long chats about the importance of bringing “formal” music to the masses where they drink, riffing on the notion of Paganini standing atop a table in a dive somewhere in Europe two centuries ago and orchestrating happy hour with his bow. It never came to much, both because that’s the very nature of a pub chat, and the usual complications of funding musical performances at a pub that can’t pay musicians what they’re worth were abetted by the musician’s union. I relied on Sid to grease whatever wheels needed lubrication.
From Sid and his entourage I learned that symphony orchestras have their hierarchies, power dynamics and rivalries, as with any team or group. While this isn’t to suggest that the double bassists coming to Rich O’s were cultivating a Hell’s Angels vibe, they definitely veered toward eccentricity and iconoclasm — in short, a perfect fit with everything we were trying to stand for.
One thing led to another, and as Christmas approached in 1994, an idea was hatched that led to the unprecedented cultural phenomenon of the Butt-Head Bass Quartet’s annual pre-Christmas shows. Where did the idea originate? Surely with Sid himself, although precisely which of the three co-owners was drinking with him when it happened is lost to his-or-herstory, and it matters not one jot.
With Public House space at a premium, the first imperative was to determine if the square footage existed for four grown musicians to play enormous instruments without cracking one another’s ribs while in motion. We’d have to rearrange seating, but yes, it could be done. We were assured that the necessary musical arrangements existed, or could be created.
In fact, double bassist and composer Dave Anderson subsequently wrote “8 Yule Loggs for Rich O’s,” a staple of the Butt-Head shows for years to come: “This is a piece I wrote a number of years ago to do with my good friend Sid King for a holiday celebration in a good pub! I have updated a few things and even added a movement and this new version will soon be published.” (2010)
Other than that, we hoped it would be a busy night, and indeed it was. The concept probably outgrew the pub after that first year; it was packed such that we found it hard to serve the throngs. There was a core of bassists (cover photo), augmented by new arrivals as the years passed.
Other musicians and performers came and went from the program. Each year it would be a bit different, while retaining the spirit, and conviviality never wavered, even during stressful times. Weeks in advance, we’d be asked when the Butt-Heads were coming to town. One tries so hard to foster community, and sometimes, community just goes and fosters itself.
Eventually the peak Butt-Head moment passed, and while the show invariably was wonderful, at some point it became more difficult for Sid to stock the larder with available musicians. The Butt-Head Bass Quartet’s final show in its original incarnation was its tenth, coming in 2003. More recently, there have been revivals in 2019, 2021 and 2022, as with reconstituted rock bands heading out for one more reunion tour. If only SoIN had a Glastonbury.
There’s nothing at all wrong with that. As of this writing, it’s impossible to predict if or when a comeback appearance materializes — and we’re all better off that way. Let it be a surprise, and cherish the occurrence all the more.
Let’s run it back full circle. My indifference to Christmas is the stuff of legend (since I was a kid, anyway), but I’m eternally grateful for “The Butt-Head Yuletide Atrocity Decade.” Thanks to everyone who played, to the servers and employees, and to the audience.
My Paganini demon fiddling fantasies may not have come to fruition on a nightly basis, but the Butt-Head Bass Quartet proved that “classical” music need not always exist solely in a concert hall.
Next: The advent of the ACBHOF (2024) recalls a diminuendo in BREW (1996).
