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(posted 10/14/03)
Questions for Tuscaloosa musicians … answers from Dan Electro, the Woggles
These musicians have answered our local music questionairre about the closing of the Chukker.
If you'd like to submit your comments, click here.

The Woggles are a much beloved band in Tuscaloosa.
Here they are at the Chukker in 2002.

Druid City Online ... What was your first experience with the Chukker as a patron? … as a musician?

Dan Electro, drummer, the Woggles ... patron: had gone to see Jason and the Nashville Scorchers play on a flatbed truck to 50 people in the parking lot at Ferguson Center in 1983. Had greased hair, white socks and black loafers on. Then went to The Chukker to see another band but I can't remember who they were. Just remember feeling like I'd found a place the place I'd been looking for.

musician: late Fall 1984. Played a benefit show for the Black Warrior Review under the name Cows in Love with Will Kimbrough, Rob Trucks, Greg Staggs and Rusty Garrad. Will was in Will and the Bushmen at the time, Greg and Rusty were in Casual Love. Rob and I went on to form Even Greenland a few days after that show.

Who is the best and worst band you’ve seen at the Chukker and what do you remember?

The Cynics and The Lyres are the most memorable for me. Those bands are the reason I'm in The Woggles today. The Mortals blew my ears out the night I got divorced. The Mortals still sound like freedom to me. There have been so many nauseatingly horrible bands allowed onstage at The Chukker I wouldn't know where to begin or remember their names.

Name some of the best local bands you saw at the Chukker. Include any information you can remember about those bands.

Club Wig, Sweat Bee, Model Citizen, Dexateens.

Where will you go to see music once the Chukker is closed?

Atlanta

What’s the strangest sight or experience you can recall from the Chukker?

During a batchelor party, I watched a well known Tuscaloosa drummer and Chukkerian grasp a vibrator between his teeth and use it on a legs spread-on her back exotic dancer reclining on stage surrounded by a bunch of drunk guys barking like dogs.

How would you describe the Chukker under its current ownership?

Will and Brooks had their hearts in the right place and tried to make a go of it, maintaining the character of the place, rigging a first class PA and bringing in national and international acts. Unfortunately, they were fighting against a brain dead town with a brain dead city government.

When you hear the name Ludovic Goubet, what comes to mind?

That crazy Frenchman. Loved and hated. Personally, I neither blame nor hate Ludovic. What a lot of people that want to make Ludovic the scapegoat of the Chukker's demise don't realize is that Ludovic, too, poured his heart and soul into The Chukker for a lot of years. But eventually became demoralized by the lack of support from the community and absence of profit. Yeah, his personality might have rubbed some folks the wrong way, pissed off bands---I've heard rumors to that end but he was never anything but square up with any of my bands. The same people that want to complain about Ludovic today are the ones that complained about paying a cover charge, or the doorman let them in free, or they whined and complained to get a few measly dollars knocked off the cover. They were the ones screaming, "Boycott The Chukker." The same ones whining about cover charges today. What they never realized is that The Chukker was a special place, an idea. Somebody had to own it and run it for it to exist but The Chukker belonged to everyman and it was up to everyman to support it. If people had a problem then they should have spent all that boycott energy into organizing a group of people and presenting a list of complaints with the owner and get it changed, for the sake of the survival of The Chukker. The bands and patrons that boycotted The Chukker have only themselves to blame for it's closing during Ludovic's ownership.

What will Tuscaloosa lose when the Chukker closes on Halloween?

An institution, a landmark, tradition, history. The only place in town where you could see bands like The Replacements on their way to bigger fame, play foosball with Ice T's band Body Count when they visited their grandmother for Christimas or drink beer with REM if they were playing a show at Foster Auditorium. Beatniks, bikers, boozers, losers, foosers, rockers, rollers, doctors, lawyers, hippies, poets, musicians, educated derelicts, drag queens and just plain regular folks. All were welcome at The Chukker. I've found no other place like that in Alabama and damn few in the Lower 48. There are some places similar to The Chukker but none that had patrons from all walks of life. When traveling and playing music, be it in the USA, Canada or overseas, there are three things people I meet might mention whenever I tell them I am from Tuscaloosa ... Reverend Fred Lane and his Hittite Hotshots, The Chukker or The Crimson Tide.
Fred Lane hasn't played in years. The Chukker is closing. Last time I checked, the Tide was in the middle of a losing season on the gridiron. And Tuscaloosa sees fit to tear down many of it's historic structures in the name of progress. Can't say I'm surprised at any of it. I'll never understand it.

What do you plan on doing on the Chukker’s final night?

Beating drum, quaffing pint, eating cornbread, raising hell.

Dan "Electro" Hall is/was a member of these Tuscaloosa bands ...
The Woggles, The Irascibles, Opus Dopus, Indoor Samba Picnic, The Copesetics, Wildlife, Cows in Love, Even Greenland

The Chukker closed forever Halloween weekend 2003. Music for the Last Stand of the Chukker was provided by the Woggles, Club Wig, Model Citizen, Sweat Bee, DC Moon and his Atomic Supermen, and The Last Gunslinger. Click here to read more about the history of the Chukker.

click here for the official Woggles website

Dan Electro and his fellow Woggles will play the closing of the Chukker on Halloween Night 2003. Also on the bill are Club Wig, Model Citizen, Sweat Bee, DC Moon and his Atomic Supermen, and The Last Gunslinger. Click here to read more interviews.

see a picture tour of the Woggles from summer 2002

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