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Dammit Boys: grown up with same old rocking noise

Factoid: The Dammit Boys will be performing at 10 p.m. Thursdays at PK's with Last Vegas.

Carbondale's musical history is full of bands that have come and gone. But the list of bands that have come, gone and then come back indefinitely is virtually non-existent.

However, one late '90s Carbondale rock act has broken that mold and has come out of storage, tuned-up, waxed, buffed and ready to go careening down the Strip.

The Dammit Boys, which has reformed five years after its initial break-up, now consists of Mortimer Bustos on vocals and guitar, Dave Marquis on bass and Timothy Beatty on drums. Proving to be more than a mere reunion show as many had thought, Dammit Boys are continuing in this new formation, playing at 10 p.m. Thursday at PK's with Last Vegas. "It started out of me playing bass for so many years. I played bass for like 15 years and I kind of got tired of my ideas not being heard," Bustos said.

After the band he'd been in, Action Man, broke up while in Chicago, Bustos started a garage rock band in called The Cryptones. Bustos was listening to a lot of garage rock at the time and was influenced by groups like The Sonics. But he also listened to a lot of surf music and heavy metal, and incorporated elements from all three when he returned to Carbondale in 1997 and formed the Dammit Boys.

"That band did real well, and I became such a horrible drunk that I had to go to rehab which caused me to miss a very important show and they said 'f*** you'," Bustos said of his time in The Cryptones and what led to their break-up. "I moved back down here from Chicago after I got sober, started Dammit Boys, and started immediately drinking again, but not to the caliber I had been."

Although his thirst for sauce may have dwindled, Bustos's hunger for the rock has remained strong. The Dammit Boys cultivated a large area following all the way up to '99, at which time the group released its first and only studio recording, "Aunt Acid." The Dammit Boys also released two live recordings, one from PK's and another from Booby's.

Although 1999 might've seemed promising, being the year they released their first recording, it was also the year the group saw the end of its successful four year run. When each of the other two original members moved away, Bustos opted to end the group, and moved to Texas for about a year. Upon returning to Carbondale, he co-founded the Fighting 407, as well as the Bourbon Knights and a plethora of side projects and musical curiosities which have all run their course, leaving only Bourbon Knights remaining. That is until original Dammit Boys bassist Marquis moved back to Carbondale from St. Louis.

"We now have Tim, which is going really well," Bustos said. "The man adds a new dynamic to the band."

Beatty is known throughout the area as the drummer who strips down to his skivvies to beat the skins in the Hateful Dead. As for Marquis, Bustos considers him the anchor of the group. While Bustos is able to venture into a mystical rock odyssey, while Marquis "drives the boat with the guy in back going crazy on the rum."

"If we were the three stooges, he'd be the Moe that would never hit anybody," Bustos said of Marquis. "Tim's definitely Larry. He's naked Larry. Imagine Larry listening to a lot of Melvins. I'm more like the Moe that goes crazy and slaps people and pokes their eyes out."

Since their reformation in the past month, the Dammit Boys have written four new originals and now cover Alice Cooper's "Black Ju Ju." One of the songs, "Rock 'n' Roll Bitch-slap," is about the group's dissatisfaction with President Bush, and another is about a moth that makes people high when they sniff the powder on its wings.

"I was taking a shower, a moth got in the shower with me and I started freaking out," Bustos said. "Then I was like, 'I wonder if I sniffed its wings if I'd get high. Oh, No! The moth is on my toe,' so I immediately had to write a song about it."

However, the group still has 45 minutes of its set devoted to their older material, which is something Marquis hopes to move beyond eventually.

"The stuff that we're doing now seems like we're striving to be more atypical," Marquis said. "It's getting to the point where a lot of our older songs don't really fit in anymore. Hopefully we're just going to write a lot of new stuff. After this show we're going to go through out material and see what works and what doesn't, and go from there."

According to Bustos, the Dammit Boys are going to do some touring, possibly including a week-long stint with fellow Carbondale rockers It Burns.

"The idea is, just like any other band, to play shows; get a record done," Bustos said. "Hopefully some crappy label will pick it up and give us $3 to make our next recording, or give us gas or a slice of pizza when we're on the road. Dave makes excellent Martinis so that'll be nice."

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