Who the hell is Pinche Gringo, you might ask? Well, aside from obviously being some “fucking American” rumored to be living in Mexico (he’s originally from Greensboro, North Carolina), he used to play drums (maybe still does?) in The Spinns, an excellent, raw garage-punk band that played a show here once at the fabled Frederick’s Music Lounge. Pinche’s real name (and the name he went by while in The Spinns) is Josh Johnson. I’ve also seen him referred to as Duke Rattler, and his DJ name is DJ Charming Snake (check out his excellent podcast called ECHOES From the VAULT that we’re planning on adding to the stable of shows offered at the GaragePunk Podcast Network). But right now he’s on tour as the Pinche Gringo One Man Band, offering up primal garage/broken blues slop a la Hasil Adkins or Reverend Beat-Man… dirty, soulful, trashy and rawkus. And he’s bringing his act to St. Louis, appearing live at the Way Out Club this coming Wednesday night, November 19. Here’s a purdy cool video of Pinche doing his thing live in Mexico not too long ago:
By the way, this show is the same night as the Andre Williams doco at the Tivoli, but don’t worry… you’ll have plenty o’ time to hit that AND still make it down to the south side for this hoppin’ show. I know cuz that’s exactly what I plan on doing myself.
3 comments ↓
I don’t know what the hell happened, but I went to the Way Out Club last night (got there about 10:30 p.m.) and there was no one in sight and the doors were locked up tight. That was a bummer.
It sucked… I was on the road playing marracas/keyboards/drums with Pinche Gringo on this tour. Showing up to the way out club was a huge kick in the balls for us. Appearantly the “local support” cancelled and when we showed up people were showing up to go to the bar which was mysteriously closed. We called the “gentleman” who owns the club who said (without appology) that he just “figured we weren’t coming” and went home. Wtf? it was a wednesday…? why would you close at all? We wandered around the city begging to jump on bills before we begrudgingly drove to chicago to make our next date.
Ha, there was no “local support”… I’d been watching the Way Out’s Myspace page for a couple of weeks and no other bands had been booked, or, if they were, they never added them to their calendar. Also, that very same calendar listed Pinche Gringo as going on at 10:45, which is precisely why I arrived when I did. You would think the owner would know this, right? And would have stayed around at least until then to see how many people showed up. But even if no one did show up, I mean, why close up shop? You own a BAR. A bar should be open for drinkers (don’t they have regulars?) every night, not just when there’s music booked. I don’t know… this is just really weird and does not bode well for the Way Out. Maybe they’re getting tired of running the place, who knows.
Leave a Comment