EXCERPTS from the MIKE McCARTHY INTERVIEW
Here’s a lil teaser from the Mike McCarthy interview we just did. IF you wanna read the whole thing (trust me, you will), be sure to order yourself a copy of Get Dorked when it becomes available real soon!
* * * *
It’s rumored that you worked at Sun Studios for a period of time. If so, how did this come about? Do you have any strange stories of finding Charlie Feathers’ booze bottles behind a radiator or Jerry Lee’s gum stuck under the piano bench?
Ya know, i just saw an article in the LA Weekly about Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee sharing a bill, now in their later years. Can you imagine that?
Yeah, I saw that too. It’s pretty weird.
Well, ya know the whole reason why Jerry Lee lit his piano on fire was to upstage Chuck Berry. Back when Jerry Lee was opening for Chuck Berry, he wasn’t too happy with that so he lit his piano on fire and when he was walking offstage said some pretty discouraging remarks to Chuck. But now to see them on playing again is so funny.
(for those who don’t know Jerry Lee and Chuck shared a bill in New york in 1957. After an argument of who deserved the headlining slot, Jerry Lee lost the argument. while opening the show he threw his drink into the belly of the piano, put a flame to it, walked off stage and past Chuck to which he said “top that, nigger!”. the rest is rock ‘n’ roll history.)
Yeah, I just recently saw that documentary on Chuck Berry called ‘Hail, Hail Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and I thought it was pretty funny to see them sharing civil words about each other. Especially since it’s always been pretty well known that they’ve had a tiff with each other.
Yeah. But you asked about Sun. I worked at Sun for 3 years, 4 months, and 5 days. It was great, I had a really good time but it was time to move on. But being in that room where rock ‘n’ roll was created is unequaled. There’s an aura in the room, I guess you could say.
Yeah, it’s got mojo.
But back when Charlie Feathers died in ‘98, a bunch of us went down to his funeral in Holly Springs, Mississippi and the only thing i’ll say is that it was a typical Baptist funeral where the preacher had to make a big deal about getting saved or going to hell, so you’re kinda left wondering if Charlie went to hell at the end of the service because he had a healthy distrust of organized religion. So we were outside standing around and shooting the breeze outside of the funeral and this black snake was crawling through the crevas towards us. we got outta the way and watched it crawl into the basement of the church. I’ll never forget that. I thought that was a pretty incredible thing to happen.
* * * *
Yeah. It’s funny you should mention Tempest Storm. We were just watching a collection of her tease films the other night.
Well, we were in Nashville at a show that the burlesque troupe Panty Raid put on and we were staying at the house of a lady named Katie Kay and she has a shop in Nashville called Katie Kay’s Western Style Ranch Dressing where she sells country music fashion. So she was hosting us at her house and she was also hosting Tempest Storm at her house. I tried to take a picture of Tempest in the kitchen in the morning when she was making breakfast and she refused cause she didn’t have her make up on. Now, this is an eighty year old woman who’s still beautiful but I say ‘ok, ok, i won’t take your picture’, but I realized in there was a lot of kitsch in Katie Ksy’s kitchen like an Elvis potholder and a Bettie Page refridgerator magnet, and i’m looking around thinking, ya know, Tempest had sex with the potholder and made a movie with the refridgerator magnet. Ya know, it was kind of a weird moment.
* * * *
If that don’t rope ya, I dunno what will! There’s plenty more where this came from! Keep an eye peeled for our announcement on when to order!