March 30, 1979 Gusto concert review: Tonio K. broadcast live from Stage One

 

One of the more bizarre figures in a strange time. He showed up here one day after the Three Mile Island nuclear plant meltdown.

March 30, 1979 

Tonio K.

          The live concert broadcast from Harvey and Corky’s Stage One began at midnight Thursday with the sound of a mother serving lunch to kiddies home from school. But instead of soup, mom is ladling out Tonio K’s totally inedible debut album, “Life in the Food Chain,” which, the announcer’s voice tells us, is “100 percent polyvinyl chloride, cardboard and music.”

          Tonio K’s live show was the album without the extraneous plastic and paper. After disposing of an unfamiliar number properly, he and his band laid out their songs in virtually the same order they appear on the record. The only one missing in action was the vampire love song, “How Come I Can’t See You in My Mirror.”

          The singer-songwriter from central California confided after the show that he saves that one for a second encore, if necessary. This time around, however, his failing larynx encouraged him to quit after one encore. “I regret that I have one voice to give to this evening,” he quipped.

          For his first and only encore, Tonio K. – real name Steve Krikorian – clued the crowd into the source of his persona, Thomas Mann’s novel, “Tonio Kruger.” “Its theme is that we’re all just middle-class kids tryin’ to get by,” he explained.

          Tonio got by with the mercurial brand of mordant wit which has made him the boldest lyricist to blossom since Warren Zevon. But where Zevon wallows in absurdity, Tonio frolics in it. In a frantic dance tune called “Funky Western Civilization,” he uncorked one of his most incisive verses:

          “They put Jesus on the cross

          They put a hole in JFK

          They put Hitler in the driver’s seat

          And looked the other way.

          Now they’ve got poison in the water

          And the whole world in a trance

          But just because we’re hypnotized

          That don’t mean we can’t dance …”

          What drove it home were the combined energies of his twin lead guitarists – the flashy Earl Slick, a veteran of David Bowie’s band, and former Spencer Davis sideman Peter Jameson. The approach ranged from Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 blues to a classic kind of country rock that harkened back to the pioneering days of the Byrds. This being an early date in this debut tour, the band was tight and the transitions were loose.

          Tonio added rhythm guitar and held proceedings together with his whimsey. A skinny bearded guy in a bowler hat, he wore sunglasses, a bicentennial tie, a black Foghat T-shirt, white suspenders and bright blue sneakers. He and the rest of the band came onstage in baggy white sport coats, looking as if they were a bunch of stags who got thrown out of the senior prom.

          Tonio’s more antic moments included a suggestion that Joan of Arc gave her life for rock and roll, the proposal that crowd yell out their feelings toward disco and the invitation to sing along with the raunchy part of his ironic end-of-a-relationship number, “H-A-T-R-E-D,” which climaxed in a great cacophony of guitars. The show was broadcast over WBUF-FM. The Rochester New Wave group New Math opened the evening.

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IN THE PHOTO: Tonio K. in an undated photo.

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FOOTNOTE: Tonio K. has released eight albums to great critical acclaim and not much in the way of sales. His greatest success has been as a songwriter. He's co-written hits for Vanessa Williams and Bonnie Raitt, did lyrics for Burt Bacharach and composed songs for comedy films. He's also done a bunch of work with T-Bone Burnett. According to Wikipedia, Tonio is one of Weird Al Yankovic's favorite artists.

          No songs in the entry for this show on setlist.fm. Here's what he did a week earlier at Toad's Place in New Haven, Conn.: 

You Make It Way Too Hard

Life in the Foodchain

The Funky Western Civilization

Willie and the Pigman

American Love Affair

Better Late Than Never

A Lover's Plea

The Night the Clocks All Quit

H-A-T-R-E-D

How Come I Can't See You in My Mirror?