Baltimore Backtrack: Pooba on WTMD

Pooba - Steptoe T. Magnificent, center.

Pooba – Steptoe T. Magnificent, center.

As part of last night’s “Baltimore Hit Parade” show on WTMD (Towson University, 89.7 FM), host Sam Sessa interviewed Baltimore’s legendary Punk Godfather, Dave Wilcox (aka Steptoe T. Magnificent) and played a live track (“Top of the Pops (Bottom of the Barrel),” a psych-punk variation on garage-rock standard “Louie Louie” with Hendrix-esque guitar solos courtesy of the late, great Kraig Krixer) from the 1972 Read Street Fun Festival by one of his early in-you-face rock ensembles, The Great Pooba Subway.  Former HARRY publisher Tom D’Antoni later had Pooba headline the legendary “End of the World Show” at Johns Hopkins University in 1973, an event attended by John Waters, Divine, Edith “Egg Lady” Massey and tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE. Wilcox currently fronts Chelsea Graveyard, which plays several Pooba chestnuts from days of yore. Following is Sessa’s review of Pooba. – Tom Warner (Baltimore Or Less)

Baltimore Backtrack: Great Pooba Subway & Pooba

By Sam Sessa

Baltimore experimental band Great Pooba Subway, performing at the 1972 Read Street Fun Festival. )Photo by Morris Denmark)

Baltimore experimental band Great Pooba Subway, performing at the 1972 Read Street Fun Festival. (Photo by Morris Denmark)

In the history of the Baltimore music scene, few bands have been as bizarre and irreverent as Great Pooba Subway.

The group was founded by David Wilcox, a Baltimore native and Maryland Institute College of Art student who wanted to have his own band — but couldn’t play an instrument or sing. But he wasn’t going to let such minor details stop him.

Wilcox brought together a group of like-minded artists with similar talents under the name Great Pooba Subway — a parody of Grand Funk Railroad. Great Pooba Subway was less of a band and more of an exercise in sound and performance art. Band members would trade instruments on stage, because none of them knew how to properly play — except for one.

“We had a drummer who was actually an excellent drummer,” Wilcox remembered, “trained in paradiddles and jazz or whatever. So as long as there was a beat going, we were a rock ‘n’ roll band.”

Great Pooba Subway’s first major gig was the Read Street Fun Festival in 1972. The band was backed by Marshall amps and a troupe of 10 dancers. They were introduced as being from England, and performed in front of a crowd of thousands.

“People actually told me years later that it affected their lives — and they were being completely honest with me,” Wilcox said. “They had never seen anything like it before.”

Affected their lives in a positive way?

“Well maybe not necessarily,” Wilcox admitted, “since a lot of them were on massive doses of LSD and had to be taken home to their parents.”

Great Pooba Subway carried on for about a year. They once played a cafeteria at the University of Maryland Baltimore County at lunchtime. They also performed for the opening of some John Waters films at the University of Baltimore.

After a while, Wilcox decided to make Great Pooba Subway more of a legitimate group.

“It wasn’t really working,” Wilcox said. “People were hating us. And we weren’t really getting too many more callbacks, like ‘Oh yeah, let’s get these guys.’”

In 1973, Wilcox formed Pooba, a six-piece with two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboardist and Wilcox as singer. They delighted in antagonizing anybody who was crazy enough to see them live. [Pooba featured the late great guitarist Kraig Krixer, 1951-2011.]

“Well there were way, way too many drugs, I think,” Wilcox said, “and we were an adversarial type of band. We used to throw things at the audience. Tampons with ‘Pooba’ written on them — perfumed tampons. We passed out air sickness bags.”

One of Pooba’s most memorable gigs, Wilcox said, was at a club by the Washington Monument called the Schoolery.

“We decided to let off some Roman candles and M-80s, and the carpet caught on fire and the manager had to be held back by, like, six of our roadies to prevent me from being killed,” Wilcox said. “He assumed I was in charge or something.”

Neither Great Pooba Subway or Pooba formally released an album, but Pooba did have a song on a compilation record, “The Best of Baltimore’s Buried Bands.”

Pooba's "Poison" appeared on "The Best of Baltimore's Buried."

Pooba’s “Poison” appeared on “The Best of Baltimore’s Buried” (Balto-Weird Records, 1979).

In 1975, Wilcox moved to California, where he lived for 18 months before returning to Baltimore. He was in a string of bands, including Pooba II and Rock Hard Peter.

When Roger and Leslie Anderson took over the Marble Bar in the late 1970s, they and Wilcox formed the Alcoholics. When the Alcoholics broke up, Wilcox was in Not the Alcoholics, Problem Pets and a group named Pang Pang, who never performed live but recorded all of their rehearsals for nine years.

Wilcox still performs, in the group Chelsea Graveyard, and even plays some Pooba songs. How would he describe Pooba to someone who never saw them in their heyday?

“A tribute to poor taste,” he said. “That was on our business card. That pretty much summed it up.”

See also:

Baltimore Sounds

Baltimore Sounds

The (original) First Annual End of the World Show”  (Tom D’Antoni, Oregon Music News)

“Kraig Krixer, R.I.P. (1951-2011)” (Accelerated Decrepitude)

Steptoe Speaks!” (Tyler Vile, Punk Globe)

“Pooba” entry in Joe Vaccarino’s Baltimore Sounds

 

This entry was posted in 1970s, 70s Rock, Baltimorons, Entertainment, Festivals, Marble Bar, Mount Vernon, Music, Nightspots, Punk / New Wave and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to Baltimore Backtrack: Pooba on WTMD

  1. thanks: " STEPTOE T. Magnificent" !! says:

    I love how some of the facts and dates slip and slide around. Like any TRUE legend, it just keeps getting bigger and better with each passing year ! We must’ve been doing something right !

  2. Mr. Jimijam says:

    Do you have a complete discography of pang pang for my book ‘music history of the dmv’ and I would like it added to pang pang’s entry…thanks

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