Gary “Wheelchair” Guthrie, the jokester of talmage d’amour, used to say that the band played “chair-dance” music. The joke was that they played the kind of music people could dance to even if they were too lazy, too cool, or too inebriated to get up out of their chairs. On a deeper level, Gary’s term was a metaphor for the type of music the group members wanted to make–a thinking person’s electronic music that had danceable beats but could also be listened to and appreciated while standing around or sitting down.
The talmage aesthetic was already in place when vocalist John Hawkins and guitarist Bill Neubauer began writing new songs together in 1981 after the demise of Actual Size, their experimental punk band. Influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, OMD, Soft Cell, Gary Numan, and Joy Division, the two worked with a drum machine and various electronic devices to explore a similar musical terrain. They were soon joined by guitarist and keyboardist Gary Wheelchair, and the three built up a workable body of material before casting about for a bass player. They found one in Seth Bovey, who had been playing in a neo-psychedelic band called Standard Deviation, and talmage d’amour was formed.
When talmage went public in Austin during the spring of 1982, the band members didn’t quite know what to expect out of local music fans. In spite of the city’s billing as the Third Coast, Austin was still the kind of town that favored blues, roots rock, and cosmic country. Even the punks and new wavers of Austin had been weaned on the sounds of the standard guitar/bass/drums line-up, and the members of talmage wondered how they would react to a band that didn’t play power chords on the guitar and used a drum machine instead of a flesh-and-blood drummer.
As it turned out, the group had very little to worry about. Talmage debuted on the weekend of April 23, playing two nights in a row at the Capitol City Playhouse and one afternoon at a street fair on Lavaca Street. At first, the scenesters treated talmage the way they received every unknown band–with a mixture of guarded curiosity and indifference. By the end of the set, however, a few people had wandered out in front of the stage to dance. The second night went even better, with more folks out on the dance floor moving to the band’s atmospheric, beat-driven sound. The next day, talmage played a loose show at the street dance, but the mixed crowd loved them anyway. For days afterward, people came up to the band members and told them they were “the best band in town.”
This scenario replayed itself many times as talmage d’amour teamed up with conventional rock bands for shows and came away looking more interesting and up-to-date, for the times they were a-changing. Raul’s Club, the epicenter of the Austin punk scene, had recently folded and was replaced by the swankier, more dance-oriented Club Foot. Meanwhile, the sights and sounds of British synth-pop and New Romantic bands were all over MTV and the radio, and talmage seemed to be part of this newest wave of New Wave music.
Another factor in the success of talmage was the strength of their songwriting. Unlike many other bands of their type, they did more than just play synthesizer riffs over mechanical beats; they wrote structured songs. Nightclub managers, bartenders, and bouncers were fond of telling the group that talmage played songs with real melodies and vocals that they could understand.
Soon, talmage developed a strong following, performing in such venues as the Ritz Theater, Liberty Lunch, and Studio 29. The band regularly headlined at Club Foot, and they also played the Bonham Exchange in San Antonio and the Hot Klub in Dallas. Some career highlights included opening for Chelsea at the Hot Klub and for Killing Joke at Club Foot.
The band also went into the studio and recorded four of their most well-liked songs–“Race of Slaves,” “39 Slides,” “Papier Mache’,” and “Occident.” These songs were supposed to be released as an EP, but they never made it to vinyl. Talmage also made a video based on “Race of Slaves.” It was directed by Rob Thomas, a graduating senior in the Radio, Television, and Film program at the University of Texas, and the band had its fifteen minutes of nationwide exposure when the video appeared on MTV’s Basement Tapes program on Wednesday, April 13, 1983. Sadly, talmage had split up by then because of internal conflicts.
The years passed, and the band members drifted apart. Then Gary died in 2003; several years later, longtime fan and friend of the band Jeff Campbell contacted Seth while searching for talmage memorabilia to pass on to Gary’s family. Before long, John, Bill, and Seth had decided to reunite for a series of reunion shows, with Jeff replacing the late Gary Wheelchair on guitar and keyboards.
The reformed talmage d’amour began rehearsing early in 2008 with the idea of playing some live shows around Texas and recording some of its material for posterity. A year or two later, Jeff left the group to spend more time with his family, but John, Bill, and Seth soldiered on. A milestone came on August 11, 2010, when talmage performed at Headhunters Club in Austin. After re-entering the Austin music scene, the band played such venues as the Victory Grill, The Elysium, and Emo’s as well as The Cellar in Ft. Worth.
Another milestone came in August of 2011, when talmage d’amour released an album of its original material. Called Ophelia, the CD features twelve of the band’s most well-known and best-loved songs. The trio (by this time, Austin Schell was subbing for Seth on bass during live shows) kept on performing these songs in such nightspots as the Beauty Bar, Green House, and Skinny’s Ballroom. The 29th St. Ballroom at Spider House was especially good to the band, booking them a number of times that year. Then, having become disillusioned with the music biz, John sang his last show with talmage d’amour in February of 2012 at Hotel Vegas.
The next chapter in the saga of talmage d’amour began when Bill and Seth agreed to find another vocalist and carry on. Bill called up a former collaborator of his named Jamie Steward Bancroft and asked him if he were interested in replacing John. Bill and Jamie had met back in the early 1990s while working on a locally produced musical called Boy Problems; Bill had helped to write the music for the production and Jamie was a singer and actor in the show. The two then formed a techno band called Angel by Angel, with Jamie on vocals and keyboards, and wrote a body of original music. Jamie liked the idea of working with Bill again as talmage’s new vocalist, so he jumped on board.
After months of regrouping and rehearsing, the new line-up emerged in April of 2013, playing a show at Chain Drive and then performing at The Elysium on the roster of Convergence XIX, the Gathering ov Bats goth festival. The following month, talmage appeared at Club 1808. At present, the newly resurrected talmage d’amour continues to play new venues and to work on new songs while developing an international following on social media, hoping to introduce an ever-growing audience to their chair-dancing sound.