Blaine Reininger: A European Rockstar, a Pueblo Native
The multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of the legendary cabaret no wave band Tuxedomoon, reminisces about his life in Pueblo, KDZA radio, the local music scene, and the advice he never took from Sammy Lucero
By Lisa Wheeler
Blaine Reininger is probably the most famous ex-Pueblo resident most have never heard of. While his roots run deep in Southern Colorado, the former Fountain Elementary, Risley Junior High, East High grad (1971) bailed Southern Colorado in 1976, and never looked back. Forming the globally renowned band, Tuxedomoon, in San Francisco (described as a mash up of post-punk, jazz, funk and tango and reviewed by music critic Simon Reynolds as an “aura of jaded elegance”), the band signed with Ralph Records (home to another successful experimental band, The Residents). The band’s single “No Tears” is described as ‘one of the best electro-punk hymns of all time” by the Athens (Greece) News. Relocating overseas, where Reininger and the band continue to have a huge fan base, Tuxedomoon recently wrapped up a sold out, 12-nation, European tour. He’s also morphed into a stage actor, recently completing a run at the Greek National Theatre, playing the role of The Devil, in an adaptation of Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita,” directed by his wife, the Greek actress, Maria Panourgia. He currently resides in Greece.
You started playing music pretty young, right?
I started music at the age of six, with a singing teacher named Miss Atkinson. We did recitals all over the place. I particularly remember a recital for the Eastern Star, for which they gave me a piece of fruit cake with whipped cream. I date that as my first professional engagement. I guess that was 1959.
I took up violin at the age of nine, first being taught at Fountain School by the bandmaster of East High, Mr. Dixon, who didn’t really play violin. He went from school to school teaching. I took up guitar after I first heard The Beatles and there was no going back. My teacher was named Mrs. Vroom. She had a studio on Orman Avenue, with her own record-cutting machine, and an amazingly slobbery little bull dog you could swing around on the end of a towel gripped in his teeth.
My next violin teacher was a guy named Bert McKinnis, who lived down on East 3rd Street. He did his own fiddle work, ate raw garlic by the clove, and taught me a new word at every lesson. He told me to “Hitch your wagon to a star.” He was an enormous inspiration and the grandfather I didn’t really have. I wept when he died.
Tell me about the Tycoons, your first group.
The Tycoons were formed in 1965 to play at the Fountain School talent show. I was, of course, already a fixture in this show. I was in it every year from 1959 on. In 1965 I was in it three times, the most satisfying of which was with that band.
The members of the Tycoons were me on guitar, John “Kutz” Pagnotta on drums, Roger Calloway on guitar. His brother Steve was a noise in the rock scene already, and Sammy Lucero on guitar.
Encouraged by our teacher, Jerry Rosen, we all wore matching white shirts and bow ties. We played “Watermelon Man,” and an instrumental version of “Lucille.” We tried to pay some girls to scream for us, but they just took our money and didn’t scream. We played a church gig or two and then disbanded.
I will never forget Sammy Lucero telling me, when we were all getting ready to leave Fountain School for Risley Junior High ‘If you keep playing that violin when we get to Risley, you can’t be in the Tycoons no more.’
I replied ‘Sammy, ‘I’ll take my chances.’”
What music were you listening to? What was starting to influence you?
In junior and senior high, I started to listen to psychedelic bands, inspired by what I heard by the Beatles, and the other stuff on KDZA radio. That radio station was amazing. I was inspired by the local music scene — bands who released records, which actually got played on local radio.
I formed the first band after the Tycoons, the Sands of Time, which had some success in the junior high world. We were pretty psychedelic. We pooled our resources in order to buy a Univox fuzz pedal from Ready Music on Main Street for $12. At this time, the great divide in the local band scene began to appear, with many Latino bands calling themselves “soul” and our type “psych”. There were often violent confrontations over this division.
I jammed with a guy named Gary Csogi out in Boone, who is now a prominent session drummer in Las Vegas for a while, but the first real professional outfit I joined was called Lime. The drummer Mike Green (later of the Junk Yard Band and briefly with The Crew), asked me to join. The other guys, Don Debay and Ed Chapman were 20-years old, so I thought I had landed with a bunch of men. I played bass with them, having decided that I was only an adequate guitarist, but a killer bassist. We toured around Colorado. I really thought I was hot stuff.
After the inevitable break-up of Lime, I kept the name Lime alive with a series of bands, playing with members of The 25th Hour, in particular the brilliant and funny Gary Fowler (Kemikol).
The next band of significance was called Wheat, which was an unplugged outfit. We had no drummer and we played a sort of country rock reflecting the sort of thing being done in the early 70’s. We also wrote some really good original stuff, a kind of proto Tuxedomoon, if you will. Two of our members, Brian Ritchie and Donovan McNeilly are still fixtures of sorts on the Pueblo arts and music scene.
After Wheat, I played for a short time with Ron Ellis and his brother, becoming the third Ellis Brother. We played some Holiday Inn-type gigs and that was that.
My next band was called Flying Whale out of Manitou Springs. We continued to tour around Colorado, playing ski resorts. Then I got fed up and split for San Francisco, with the idea of forming a multi-media postmodern electronic outfit. This would have been 1976.
What was the tipping point? Why did you decide to leave Colorado?
Like many young people, I found my hometown boring and lacking opportunities in my chosen field, music, in this case. I first visited San Francisco in 1972. I was overwhelmed. To a Pueblo boy like me, San Francisco was The Emerald City, Gotham, a seething mass of energy and ideas. I went back there in 1973 and saw a performance by The Tubes and members of The Cockettes. I had not conceived that such a wild, joyous, surrealist fusion of theatre and rock music was possible. Here was the antimatter answer to Pueblo’s turgid 1970’s bar band scene. I resolved to move on, and in 1976, with about $50 in my pocket, I did.
What are the pros and cons of being a musician in Pueblo, Colorado?
When I was young, in the 1960’s, Pueblo had a rich and vibrant music scene. Bands like The Teardrops, The Trolls, The Sting Reys, would play the local clubs, make records that got played on KDZA. The members of these bands were local celebrities.
Pueblo School District 60 also had an excellent music program, city wide, presided over by Dr. Duane Strachan. He encouraged young players, organized city-wide orchestras, performances of Broadway musicals. He followed and encouraged my violin playing all through my life, on into college.
There were also a number of clubs where young bands could play, Pinnochio’s, Gaetano’s, The Silver Saddle. The band I was in at 16, Lime, became a regular at a downtown bar called Brothers Two. My later band, Wheat, played The Irish Pub on a regular basis. There was work to be had, back then.
A sort of freeze seemed to settle over Pueblo after about 1971. The vibrancy in the music scene began to thin out. Work was scarce. Original music was not encouraged and live music settled in to the kind of dismal cover band scene that became so prevalent.
It is difficult for Colorado bands to get national attention. Many tried, few succeeded, not for lack of talent. Living in Pueblo gave me the musical education that allowed me to pursue my musical vocation. Without all of the influences and opportunities I have mentioned, my many excellent and inspiring teachers, encouragement on all sides, I would not have chosen this path.
Do you still keep up with folks in Colorado? Any family still there?
My brother lives in Denver. He is a drummer in the local scene, and still plays in Pueblo. His eldest son, Drew already displays the musical gene, which blesses and curses us. The vast hordes of my mother’s family are mostly in Salida. Now, thanks to social media, Skype, and other communication innovations, it has been possible to resume contact with people I never thought I would see again.
Anything you miss about Colorado?
I miss the quiet. The mountains. The Arkansas, Bakelite Mesa at dawn, the arroyos on the East Side. Beulah, Lake Isabel. The State Fair.
In 1984 you recorded Colorado Suite — a four-track, 28-minute mini-LP. I guess you know where I’m going — was this composition inspired by your time in your home state?
I wrote a song called “Windy Outside,” with a New York minimalist composer named Mikel Rouse.
“I’m just a lonesome cowboy, out here on the lone prairie
Just a boy from Colorado, got my git-tar on my knee
Chinook wind blows down from the mountains
Breathes the perfumed breath of spring
See the mountains in the moonlight. Hear that lonesome cowboy sing…
Do you think you will ever come back?
I find myself in that Thomas Wolfe corner, “You can never go home again”. I have been away too long. I have lived a life far away, my family, my love, my treasure are all somewhere else. The few times I have managed to get back, I have been able to see Pueblo with a new view — to appreciate its beauty and its strangeness, after having seen the wider world.
