Call me crazy, call me stupid, but I had no friggin’ idea that Zander Schloss’s brother was one of the owners of the Atomic Cowboy. I had a vague recollection buried in the deep, dark recesses of my brain that Zander was originally from St. Louis, before high-tailing it to the City of the Angels back in the early 1980s where he would dabble here and there in acting and later join one of the best punk rock bands of all-time (the Circle Jerks, duh). My favorite among his movie roles? Karl, the “wiener kid” in Alex Cox’s 1987 film, Straight to Hell. He was also in such cult hits at Repo Man and Tapeheads. He hasn’t done any acting (that I know of, anyway), since 2001’s That Darn Punk, a film whose soundtrack includes a few too many Epitaph bands for my liking, but it’s fun nonetheless. But then again, Zander keeps himself fairly occupied these days playing bass with Duane Peters in Die Hunns (as well as the occasional Weirdos reunion) so who knows what the future holds for the wiener boy. Anyway, so someone—I’ve no idea who—set up a Zander Schloss fan page on Myspace recently, which I discovered about the same way I discover most Myspace pages—via a friend request, naturally. So Zander was fresh in my mind the day I watched Bill Streeter’s Lo-Fi Saint Louis vlog post about the Cowboy Cabaret at Atomic Cowboy. Lo and behold, right smack dab in the middle of it, this guy flashes on the screen and he’s actin’ a little crazy, wavin’ his arms around and stuff, and I look at his mug and immediately get that astonished “wait! I know that dude!” look that you often get when you recognize someone but can’t quite place their face right away. He looked sooo familiar… Glasses, curly blond hair, kind of a nerdy-lookin’ guy. Then the guy’s name pops up on the screen: CHIP SCHLOSS. Lightbulb goes off over my head. “Chip Schloss! uh… Schloss? Zander! No… Chip? Who the hell’s Chip? That must be his brother!” Bingo, come to find out (thanks Richard Beckman) it is. But damn, he looks just like his brother. See what I mean?
That’s Zander on the bottom, by the way.
I dunno, I just thought that was kinda cool. I’d no idea Zander had a brother involved in the music scene in St. Louis. Learn something new every day!
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Yes, good old Chip. It’s also worth noting that Chip was the manager of the local group The Unconscious during the Laclede’s Landing heyday.
I first met Chip in 1978 or so, raving to me about Dan Wool’s Wah-Wah pedal, which he had some part in acquiring for the band the Six O’Clock News, which later became the Strikers. He is half-brother to Dan Wool, who scored movies like Sid and Nancy and Straight To Hell with Zander.
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