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Tulsa World / Spot Magazine
April 21, 2000
by Thomas Conner
Sometimes It's Hard, To Be A Woman
Calvin's heard all this before. He's got headphones
on, tuning out Mom and Dad with a smile. He's listening
to "Weird Al" Yankovic instead. He thinks
"Weird Al" is a genius," his mom
says later, rolling her eyes.
"We call him 'Weird Cal'".
It's a sleepy Sunday afternoon, and Mom and Dad
are on stage at Wherehouse Music in midtown. The
two kids can only go to Grandma's so much, so they're
in tow today - staring noncommittally at the familial
rock band before them, sucking on slurpees, sleeping,
occasionally dancing. The other boy, Sam, 9, has
been absent-mindedly applying hairspray all afternoon
from a bottle in his pocket. By the end of the gig,
his hair is so solid he could play football without
a helmet.
Such is the life when your mom is Tex Montana.
Career moves
Tex is many, many things - but she's a woman, so
that almost goes without saying. She's a hard worker,
building furniture and running her own home business
through the Web. She's a loyal and loving mother,
corralling the two boys from school to shower and
back again. Mmost nights, she's a hard rocker, too
- the namesake of Tex Montana's Fireball 4, a Tulsa-bred
foursome plying feisty clubgoers with a torchy,
twangy take on rock 'n' roll.
Juggling these roles, Tex is keenly aware of her
status as a modern woman, not to mention the ironies
of women in the testosterone-fueled modern-rock
workplace. Tongue firmly in cheek, she titled the
band's new CD debut, "A Woman's Place is In
The Home." She proudly carries the banner for
"chick rock," echoing on a local level
everything the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde has ever
declared about teh ability of mothers to rock as
hard as fathers. Two years ago, before headlining
an all-female rock show called "Girls! Girls!
Girls!" at the Cain's Ballroom, Tex declared,
"I am a girl. I'm proud to be a girl and I
think it's an asset. I don't like it when someone
tries to minimize that as if it's a handicap because
it's not. Not if
you're cool."
It's hardly been a handicap for Tex, whose way-cool
profile has percolated slowly during her nearly
20-year tenure in Tulsa rock. The boys, though -
not yet teenagers - could take it or leave it.
"I don't think they think about it much,"
Tex said. "It's like, some kids say, 'My dad's
a doctor'; they say 'My mom's in a rock band.' Most
of the other kids go, 'Yeah, right.'" (Still,
several months ago, Tex was invited to a school
career day, stealing the fire from the petroleum
geologist at the next table.)
The Fireball Four is partially a family affair.
Tex is out front, while husband and father Billy
Berkenbile (a Tulsa World page designer) plays drums.
They've played together since 1985, and have been
an item even since "Billy fired me from the
first band," Tex said. Dennis Dusenberg has
played bass with them in various incarnations throughout
the two-decade term,
though the guitarist is a fairly new face : Springfield,
MO native and noted singer-songwriter Jeff Graham.
Sometimes they plant the kids in the crowd for extra
cheering, sometimes they stay at Grandma's.
"We conveniently bought a house three doors
down from Billy's folks," Tex said. "I
don't think the band could exist without their help
with the kids."
Crank it up - and out
But wait just a minute.
Motherhood, cute kids, a frame house in an east
Tulsa suburb just down from the in-laws - this is
rock 'n' roll?
"Me, America and apple pie, right?" said
Tex in a later conversation.
"It's not like I'm writing my songs about my
kids' first day at school, though, I mean, 'Love
Turns To Hate,' 'Stupid Girl,' pretty much all these
songs on the CD are about (messed)-up relationships
and bad decisions... I feel like I'm a very sane
person, you know? But I see people around me and
have to say, 'Why are you doing that?' Maybe it's
part of being a mom - you want to run everyone's
life. That's where the songs come from, and I think
you have to grow up a little bit to write some good
songs."
"A Woman's Place Is In The Home" features
nine songs that ably sum up Tex and her music -
loud, fast, no fancy tricks. The entire album was
recorded and mixed in one day last October by the
Skeleton's Lou Whitney in Springfield.
"We were bound and determined that when we
left the studio that day, we were going to have
something," Tex said. "How many bands
do you know who say, 'We're still in the studio'?
It's so easy to get caught up in the process and
not just pound out the songs. If you've got the
songs, you just go in and play 'em. Lou said we
had the songs, so he just pressed "record,"
and we played 'em. Four of the tracks on the CD
are first takes."
To celebrate the release of the CD, the Fireball
Four has spent the last month playing nearly a dozen
concerts in and around Tulsa. The "tri-city
tour," as Tex called it, culminates this weekend
in an all-star party, a "Textravaganza"
featuring numerous guest singers joining Tex for
some surely
colorful duets.
"I knew I wanted to do something like this
when I saw (the TV concert) Sheryl Crow and friends,'"
Tex said. "I think it'll be really fun, and
we wanted to get people who were our friends. I
mean, you know how musicians are always saying to
each other, 'We ought to do something together?
Well, here we go."
So long, little girlies
Before the band launches into its second set at
Wherehouse Music, Calvin and Sam take the stage.
With prompting from Graham, Calvin shouts into the
microphone, "I'm talking 'bout a revolution!"
Sam helpfully holds up a copy of "A Woman's
Place Is In The Home" and encourages the smattering
of shoppers to buy one for $10. Calvin does his
best Vanna White to assist his brother and push
the product. They're not fools. They know who buys
the groceries at home.
Despite only a few hours' sleep the night before
after a Stillwater gig, Tex dives into the next
batch of songs with renewed fervor. The whole set
sounds like Lucinda Williams cranking out "Pretenders
II" for teh sheer hell of it, and Tex gives
away her motherhood without softening a single edge.
One hard-hitting song is called "As the World
Turns"; in another, Tex promises someone "I'd
make the bed for you....if you turned out to be
the one who cares about me." Suburban bliss
never rocked so hard.
"Whooo-boy!" Tex cries after one scorcher.
"That song alone separates me from all teh
waifs in the Lilith Fair lobby, don'tcha think?" |
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