The Basin Street Sheik Bio Pages

Chap 1: Teetotalin' Kumquat Bush
guitar bizarre, kazoo, wazoo, tambourine, ductape, howling

Teetotalin' Kumquat Bush was born in Kwixdrawmagraw, Texas, just a spit from the Louisiana border in either 1916 or 1961.  Then again it might have been 1691 or 9116.  We may never know for sure.  What we do know is that the man known as T.K. Bush, The Teetotaler, or 'Teeto' to his friends (more on that later) is one of the most unheralded, underrated, and underhanded blues men ever to sell his sole to the Devil.  It was a filet of sole actually, back when Bush owned and operated his world-class kosher deli 'Smells Like Fish' (more on that later).

 He was named Reginald Kumquat Bush by his parents Ebenkanezer and Polyglot Bush and raised to be a circus sideshow freak.  His extra body appendages-13 toes, 5 nipples, etc.(more on those later)- made him an instant hit during his pre-teen years.  Known as "Lil' Reggie-the Boy with Extra Parts", he got his first chance at freedom three years later while performing with Dr. Quickly's Vile Human Freaks and Horrific Oddities Traveling Road Show.  While stopped in Memphis, Tennessee, Bush and his best friend in the show, Eggy the Seal Lady escaped the horrible rein of their tormentor Dr. Quickly.  A coffee advocate, he insisted on his performers drinking it, bathing in it and even receiving daily coffee enemas (more on that later).  Bush rode Eggy down the mighty Mississippi river to New Orleans, LA where they stayed at the St. Charles Hotel.  Bush, vowing never to drink coffee again, began drinking herb tea.

With his new moniker, "Teetotalin'" Kumquat Bush took to the streets of New Orleans like a shucker takes to an oyster and promptly found himself in jail for stabbing a very wealthy socialite of the time, Dame Heaven S. Tamergatroid.  "I was just tryin' to see if dem boobs was real", said Bush in later years.  He was released moments after the trial in which the two lawyers began a bloody knife fight while arguing the particulars of the case.  Both lawyers died in the melee, to which Judge Roy Bob Boondocks replied, "Anyone who can cause not one but TWO lawyers to get body-bagged outta my courtroom is okay by me."

After the trial, T.K.B. met the Dame for tea and it was love at first sight.  A whirlwind romance ensued and Bush and Tamergatroid eloped (odd for the time, as she was sixty three years his elder.  More on that later (well.better not) and soon were on the H.M.S. Tamergatroid (I told you she was wealthy) heading for the Dame's castle in Birmingham, England.  He would never see Eggy the Seal Lady again.

"My years in England were rough", said Bush, "but I learned what it was like to get your willie stuck in your zipper, and I started to drink coffee again." Always the non-conformist, Bush stopped drinking tea after he found that, in England, "Everybody was doing it," he explains."It got me so angry that one day during high tea at Dame Tamergatroid's, I was so mad at seeing so many tea drinkers, and they never been through what I been through with the enemas and all, you know?  Anyway all these tea drinkers just got me panties inna uproar so I spilled tea on everybody in the place.  Just walked right up and poured a little on all of them.  They were all laughing!  They thought it was some quaint U.S. custom.  They got that famous expression from that night".

Indeed, the next day the society paper 'The Birmingham Bitch' had the headline 'A SPOT OF TEA WITH BUSH' and within the week, even the Queen was overheard asking for "a spot of tea" in the afternoon.  As Bush told me later, "It was the darndest thing."  After three stormy months, Dame Heaven S. Tamergatroid divorced Bush after discovering that in fact he was not the Duke of Wein but enjoyed the movies of the Duke, John Wayne.  It was during his years rummaging the trashcans of Birmingham that Bush found his life's true calling.  "I knew there wasn't a lot of money in being a derelict," Bush said later," but it was something I liked and was good at."

Teetotalin' Kumquat Bush now had a profession and a group of like-minded people to study his craft with.  He explains, "The 'Rob Your Kiplings' were a strange group.  Derelicts every one of 'em.  And these guys were the bottom of the barrel" said Bush.  His days now consisted of lollygagging, bumming around and inventing parlor games, which was a popular vocation at the time.  His games sold poorly, the most popular being 'Divorce by 2 by 4' which sold three sets and brought on five lawsuits.  He did however come up with the "Get Out Of The Dungeon Free" card for the game "Machiavelli", a precursor to Monopoly.

Now a complete derelict, Bush decided to try New Orleans again.  "I figured, go to where the real pros are", said The Teetotaler, "I wanted to find a higher echelon of derelict."  His dreams were answered when he won a ticket in a poker game for a trip back to America.  Boarding the H.M.S. Titanic, he had no idea what was in store.  "I saw the movie, it wasn't as bad as they made it out to be.  Tragedy and all, sure.  But I made it back alive so 'F' the poor sods that didn't".

Once back in New Orleans, T.K.B. found life as a derelict much tougher than in the U.K.  "It was like, everybody was better at it than I was.  I knew I'd never make it in this town unless I found a different and unique way to completely waste my time.  That's where the Sheiks come in."

Bush met gutbucket player Metry Fats in a gutter near a corner of Toulouse on Basin Street.  According to Bush, "I woke up on a huge gob of a man and underneath him was Fats.  We got to talking and I found out that he was familiar with the game 'Machiavelli'.  In fact he was once the local champion.  We went looking for some coffee and found Whispirin' Lu and Salty asleep in a gutter two doors down.  Salty was hung over.  I liked him right off.  Lu didn't say much.  He kept picking what he called 'fire worms' out of his beard.  I didn't see any.  He's a strange one, that one."

Things only got stranger for the four when they happened to find Jerry Grette disemboweling a dead cat he had found next to them in the gutter.  "I think it was Lu that knew 'im", recalls Teeto.  "Jerry's a purist.  Only real catgut for his Ax.  But he could never stand the thought of killing 'em.  Luckily he was a true derelict and hung out near Ching Pow's Chinese Food Emporium.  They always had a dead cat or two.  No meat but good guts.  It got to be where his violin would get to smellin' pretty bad, though."

With Jerry in tow, the five continued down Basin Street for coffee.  "We were in a bad part of town," recalled Bush.  "Hookers and drug addicts on every corner.  The smell of vomit and urine everywhere.  Got to be where you'd be thankful when the wind shifted and you'd get to breathe the fumes from horse droppings, just for a change of pace.  Come to think of it, I quite liked it."  This then, is the fateful moment when the band found their name.  Teeto recalls, "Well we were on Basin Street and so we knew how to spell that.  And I think it was Lu who said 'Basin Street stinks'.  We all liked that but thought we should have an even nastier name because we were all such ruddy derelicts.  I mean we were the worst.

"We happened to keep seeing these used condoms all over the street.  It was really disgusting but we were energized by the pure filth.  Jerry said we could be the Used Condoms of Basin Street which we thought had a good flow but might get confused with the group United Catholics for Better Schools.  Luckily Salty had fallen over again and was close enough to read the label of one of those discarded condoms.  We stood him up and dusted him off and he said it. 'Sheiks'."

And so it was.  With a name, all the boys needed to do was figure out what to be.  A literary society?  A basketball team?  Perhaps open up a beauty salon.  They didn't know.  T.K.B. continues, "I think it was Lu who said we should visit the man with the goat.  He and his friends used to make fun of the man when he was a kid but as he grew older he came to realize that the man with the goat was just like me n' you.  A freakin' derelict.  We got to the door and we heard a loud caterwauling coming from inside.  It was the sound of a man killing a goat.  We knocked and the ungodly sound died down.  Who should open it but me old nemesis Snappy Piranha Fish, the owner of the deli across from mine back in Texas.  I told you about the time I sold my sole to the Devil didn't I?  Turns out it wasn't the sound of a man killing a goat at all, but Snappy singin' his little heart out.  We shook hands and talked about the old fish wars as we called them.  Man those were good times.  By now the others were all inside and I think it was Lu who said, 'We need direction'.  Snappy said, 'Go to Hell' and we knew he was a Sheik."

But how then did this new gang of miscreants become the world famous jug band that we know and love today?  Teeto shares some insight, "It's all a haze, really.  I remember I think it was Lu who suggested we give Salty something to do with his hands.  He always had the shakes and twitches really bad and it bothered us to no end.  We stole a set of knitting needles and some yarn from an old lady at a bus stop (more about that later) and gave it to him.  But he kept poking himself with those needles then didn't he?  I think it was Lu who tore the piece of corrugated roof off of Marie Leveaux's house to make that rub board for him.  He's either drinking or scratchin' on that thing since.  It was then that we decided to sell the beauty salon and start a band.

And what a band.  We all know the stories.  The chart topping hits, the world tours, the incident with the greased warthog, and the list keeps growing.  As long as they keep making the mayhem they call music, The Basin Street Sheiks will live on in the hearts of those who have absolutely nothing better to do, with no prospects.
 

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