Ernie Buck (EB) and Greg Beshers (GB) – perhaps next time they’ll come back as the EBGBs
This weekend sees the (another) last stand of a band, a duo that wasn’t always a duo, that was truly of its time, a time that has come and now gone, at once timely and timeless, in time and out of time. LengPleng invited the Uncomfortably White Brothers onto its balcony office for an exit interview.
LP: The last time the Uncomfortably White Brothers were featured in LengPleng was in August of 2019.
EB: Wow, heady days, eh?
GB: Wait – why has it been so long since LengPleng has given us a feature?
LP: There was some coverage of your previous farewell gig in Kampot, remember, a few months ago. But the middle of 2019 were innocent days even for the Uncomfortably White Brothers.
EB: They were.
LP: That’s what we call an open question.
GB: A lot has happened.
EB: Correct. Next question.
LP: You’ve had a lot of sidekicks that have come along for the ride.
EB: Yes, it started off with actually employing psychics, but it didn’t work. Mystic Meg was the first on our list, a very knowledgeable woman.
GB: Great with the horoscopes, moon charts, sea charts…
EB: She is great with her charts. Unfortunately not chart positions, she was no good with those predictions, so we fired her – out of a cannon. She bounced twice, she’s fine now. After that we thought why not just try…
GB: Sidekicks.
EB: Yeah, you’ve got it.
LP: And have they been generally kicking you in the side, or is it…?
GB: There was a band in Baltimore, an almost band that never quite broke nationally during the hair metal phase, they were called Kix.
EB: A powerful name.
GB: Don’t close your eyes was the name of their hit, I think. Great power pop metal with lots of hairspray. Kix. So sidekicks, yes, we’ve had quite a few. Who was the first drummer, was it Antti [Siitonen]?
EB: Antti, if you’re out there, if you’re reading this, you were our first, and we still think of you.
GB: Fondly.
EB: Yes. We gave you our flower, and you nurtured it.
GB: Jim. Did we play with Jim Wilson?
EB: Jim stepped up, yes. On percussion.
GB: Jesse Ricketson on drums.
EB: Before Jesse it was James Atkinson on keyboards. And Jazz Johnston on keyboards.
LP: There was something about the Js going on in that period.
GB: We didn’t even realise it, yes.
EB: The Js were getting passed around like nobody’s business. They shouldn’t call them green rooms, should they?
GB: I forgot that. Who else?
EB: Antti, Jim, James, Jesse, Sal [the most recent drummer, Salvatore DiGaetano]. We can count Marianna [Hensley] as well, cumulative time on stage with us would be over an hour.
GB: What’s that band that had 56 ex-members, Hawkwind or something. I couldn’t even name you a song title but I know that they had 50 plus ex-members. [Inaudible]. Save that for the blooper reel. So that’s seven. Two that are still here in town.
EB: It’s more of a case of who’s willing to indulge.
LP: To grapple with the dark night of the soul that is the UWB?
EB: To indulge in ill-planned flights of fancy, or inadvisable promotional endeavours.
LP: Like the UWB branded condoms?
EB: That was good. We also did a photo shoot at a hostess bar for Valentine’s Day on one of those streets.
LP: I’ve never been in one of those.
EB: I hear they exist.
GB: I play in one three nights a week.
EB: These things raise questions with close friends and relatives, but…
GB: Turn into the skid.
EB: Exactly. They taught me that in the ambulance service, and I’ve carried it through.
GB: I thought your opening question might be: why did you announce a last gig, and now why are you coming back for just one more.
EB: That’s a good question.
LP: That is a fair question, I’ll put it to you.
EB: We intended for the Kampot Craft Beer Festival to be our last gig. We were done with this – me living so far away, Greg being prodigiously busy many nights of the week, we figured it’s best not to try and string something on that would suffer from us not giving it our full attention. We amicably decided…
GB: It just ran its course.
LP: This is not about artistic discord?
EB: Or personal hatred – we’ve always risen above those petty disdainful feelings. And we have maintained that through our contractual obligations.
GB: This is truly a going away show, where we thought the last one was, because at that time Ernie was going to work on staying in Cambodia. Now he and the family are going back to England, so I think this is truly the last one. Until he gets back.
EB: It’s definitely the end of a chapter. I don’t for a second envisage that this will be the last time we ever do this shtick on stage together.
LP: Rather like Bob Passion.
GB: We haven’t left and come back.
EB: Well, I’m leaving to come back. I’m dragging you down into the mire here on this one. And that’s part and parcel of this duopoly that we insist on impressing upon the people of this fair city.
GB: I think they just like to see you roll around on the floor.
EB: They do.
LP: I think that’s a big part of the appeal. I like to see you rolling around on the floor.
EB: I have checked with various health professionals. I feel I know what my limits are, and I feel I will probably exceed them, but that will be okay. If the blood is spurting out stick a damp cloth on me.
GB: Sal is a trained medic.
EB: As am I.
LP: There you go, two medics in the band is good forward thinking.
EB: We could almost call ourselves Doctor and the Medics. But you’re not a doctor, and there’s already a band called that.
LP: Obviously Ernie has his solo career that he’s working on. Greg, you have other things to do, and you are constantly coming up with the name of your next solo record. [Note: current frontrunner is Secondhand Bacon].
EB: Half the reason why we exist, I think, is Greg wanting to put names to things and then we decided to make it actually exist as well as just being a name idea.
GB: I play three nights a week regularly, plus extra gigs.
LP: And you’re writing that rock opera.
GB: No, I gave that up. It became more of a rock tone poem. Except it’s with blinking lights.
EB: Truthfully that’s part of the reason we split up. I won’t abide him trying to go out on his own.
LP: You played a lot of gigs in places that don’t exist anymore.
EB: We had that effect on venues.
LP: Do you have any memorable gigs that you did in places that stand out?
EB: For perverse reasons one of my favourite gigs will always be Bouchon at Halloween. That was beautiful.
GB: That was James Atkinson’s only gig, wasn’t it?
EB: We had a few rehearsals and maybe only that one gig. We kept saying we were going to get him back when we had a gig that were going to pay the three members, never had it. Then when we finally had an opportunity we thought this venue would be better with a drummer, rather than another melodic player.
Anyway, Bouchon were having a specifically non-Halloween, non-costume party, but somehow we showed up in Kiss make-up.
GB: I’d seen something – probably on Facebook – about Bouchon’s Halloween party. Then as we were ordering a drink Ernie started laughing and read the sign on the bar that said anti-Halloween party. I just didn’t read the fine print.
EB: It was super explicit that it was not a Halloween gig. We were blacklisted after that. We’ve been there in various other semi-professional capacities. That will always be a highlight, because I enjoy things that make other people incredibly uncomfortable. Not in a sadistic way. But if someone is uncomfortable over something ridiculous I find that ridiculous. I’ve been on stage naked before. I once wore a bin bag as a nappy with a top hat, the bin bag came away as I was walking across the stage, people started whooping and I thought they must be really pleased to see Edward Tudor-Pole from Tenpole Tudor on stage after all those years. It turned out they were applauding a different pole. Maybe that’s your headline.
GB: The poles, are they really that opposite?
LP: Do you feel that you’ve had guardian angels on your shoulders throughout this time?
EB: Definitely. I feel that that was later found by a chiropractor to be a slipped disc. On the surface it felt like an angel – something small, fat and cherub-like sitting on my back. Of course all the greats, Mr Whippy, Ronald McDonald and Walt Disney have been watching over us.
GB: Cher.
EB: She’s not dead, but sure.
GB: She saved that elephant. They let her into the country to save the elephant.
EB: The elephant didn’t kill her, though.
GB: She’s Cher, she can do anything.
EB: Cher and Cher alike, yes.
GB: That’s a great question.
EB: I don’t know how to answer it though, that’s the problem.
LP: You would have to think that Al Green had been hovering around, getting into it and then tut-tutting at the more overt….
EB: I’ve always liked to think, if he were dead, would he watch over us, and I feel that answer is probably. For a time. For that you can stick a tick in the win column. He might have watched us for a moment and thought that’s awful and then walked away. It’s better than him not knowing who you are. Iggy Pop once watched me playing drums from the side of the stage, I didn’t know he was there and he was gone by the time I got off the stage, so I assume he wasn’t impressed with it. If I was really that good he probably would have stuck around to chat.
Stick around to chat with Ernie and Greg when the Uncomfortably White Brothers play Oscar’s on the Corner this Saturday night.