Teen Club

Rock Reconstruction would eventually include members, Barry Bynum on guitar, Craig Connally on bass, Mark Marlow, guitar, Denny Wiggaman, lead vocals, Ed Sullivan, Drums (we had two drummers for quite awhile), David Bynum, band manager and me. We played wherever we could. Somehow we managed to get some frat party gigs in Austin even though we were way underage. Even though there was that huge difference in age between the band and the college audience, they still loved us. Our constant rehearsing was paying off.

One of the venues that we frequently played was the Teen Club that was held at the city park in San Marcos. The lady that ran the teen club was pretty strict and frequently walked out into the crowd of dancers with a ruler and measured the distance between them. Rock Reconstruction was probably her worst nightmare. At the time, we were all doing drugs of various kinds and even kept a bottle of whiskey tied to a rope and floating in the cold San Marcos River that ran next to the building that the Teen Club was held in.

I’ll never forget one of the last nights we played at the Teen Club. By that time we were starting to draw a pretty good crowd. I don’t know if it was the whiskey (probably) or what, but Denny launched out into the crowd during one song that we were jamming on and proceeded to lead the entire crowd in a giant swirling circle, all the while banging on a cowbell. I had borrowed a friend’s Ludwig drum set that night and I remember him sitting in front of the drums watching me play and begging me to kick them off the stage a-la Keith Moon of the Who. I obliged and sent drums flying out into the audience. Chaos ensued and that was pretty much the end of our run at the Teen Club.