By Michael Corcoran

Two things happened in Austin in June 1995 that would have impact on each other until the end of the year — and never again after that. I started working as the pop music critic for the Austin American Statesman at the same time Austin’s alternative rock station 101-X debuted as part of the KLBJ group. Station general manager Scott Gillmore and program director Sara Trexler took me and Don McLeese, who was moving from pop music critic to city columnist, to lunch. They asked if we wanted to be the new station morning team, which would’ve been the biggest disaster in radio history. Morning commuters would’ve been ramming their cars into the sides of buildings, just to get that guy with the annoying Midwestern accent and Mr. Mumbles Ya-know to STFU!

Besides, who wants to get up at 4 a.m. after you’ve been reviewing Foo Fighters at Liberty Lunch until 1 a.m.? The opposite of a booty call, excuse me hotline bling, is an alarm clock going off before the sun comes up. Don and I didn’t even need to discuss it.

I suggested Gibby Haynes, demented lead singer of the Butthole Surfers, instead. The Dallas native and Trinity University alum has a quick, twisted, brilliant mind and I had just heard his hilarious stream-of-consciousness announcing of the SXSW softball tournament, so I knew he’d be perfect for radio. Or, let’s just say I knew it would be original.

I said let me go and talk to Gibby, and so I drove way out of town — I think it was Dripping Springs or Driftwood — and picked him up and we went bar-hopping. Gibby was 100% sober at the time, just getting back from rehab, so we drank non-alcoholic beers at a few places with names like the Thirsty Frog, and talked about 101-X and this radio opp. Gibby was way into it. His father Jerry Haynes was Mr. Peppermint, a Dallas kiddie TV show legend, who also acted in movies and had a radio show for a while, and Gibby had a fascination with the world of broadcasting.

So, the next day I called Scott or Sara and told them that Gibby, whose band had not yet broken through to the mainstream with “Pepper,” was very interested. They took it from there. I don’t know how Robbie Jacks, Gibby’s original morning sidekick, got involved, but it was only a week or two later that the Gibby and Robbie Morning Radio Show hit the airwaves like a very effeminate ton of bricks. Sounding like a gay Richard Simmons, Robbie must’ve been quite a jolt for the farmboys in Giddings. The show was just too outrageous — or the outrage was too real — because the decision was to move Gibby, solo, to nights.

The sober Gibby was no longer, though he was still sharp, even as he got more and more “out there.” I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to list all the outrageous moments of Gibby’s six months at KROX (whose “new rock alternative” slug became code for crack cocaine), but, really, the thing that stands out for me was not the two-hour interview with Mike Watt or the drunken remotes from the Butthole Surfers’ sessions in New York for Electriclarryland. It was having Gibby on the radio night after night. The greatest absurdity was the consistency. Every night, without fail, we’d get about four hours into the mind of Gibby Haynes. Sometimes we’d laugh and sometimes we’d wince and eventually we got as sick of “Murder Was the Case,” Beat Happening, “Teenage Kicks,” Freddie King’s “Goin’ Down” and other Gibby faves as we did the “puke chunks” featuring modern rock mainstays Alanis Morrissette, Live, Tripping Daisy, and Hootie and the Blowfish. “My testes are in my bottom end,” he’d say, introducing a song the station required him to play, but I’d say the playlist was about 60/40 in Gibby’s favor.

McLeese and I settled for a Sunday music and talk show called Critical Mass, but after I moved back to Dallas in November ’95 I was replaced by Andy Langer and he eventually took over the Sunday night slot and launched The Next Big Thing, which I think is still running.

For awhile there they moved our show to Thursday night, right before Gibby. As me and Don were leaving, Gibby and his cohort Sean were carrying in a cooler of beer. God knows what else went on in that studio, in a big office building that stood where the Armadillo World Headquarters was torn down, but Sean finished a lot of shows. It was messy radio and it was beautiful to come home to after a day full of shit.

One day Gibby took me aside and said he’d been listening to our show and we really needed to step it up. “You can’t just wing it, man. You’ve gotta sound more professional.” I know I sucked at radio, but having Gibby tell me was a sign to maybe come back when I knew what I was doing. But my time at 101-X wasn’t a complete wash-out. I did get Gibby Haynes on the air.

Scott Gillmore eventually did forgive me.

This week we’ll be reliving Austin radio’s gory days, with daily doses of Gibby’s KROX show. Some are with Robbie and some only Gibby, but they’re all ot of this world!
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