The Second Coming

Indie heavyweight Steve Albini was once asked by an interviewer in Belgium to complete an acrostic alphabet of rock and roll. His list included Dick Dale for D and heroin for H. When he came to the letter K, Albini declared, "K is for Kansas City, home of one great rock band, the Sin City Disciples."

That someone as revered and loathed as Albini thought of our town in correlation with music (even if he meant that there was only one great band) was pretty significant. And about Sin City being a great rock band? Well, that was just the truth.

The Sin City Disciples roared onto the KC music scene in the summer of 1986. They were high-octane blues-punk, loud, ferocious and raw. They thrust their sound upon audiences, pelting attendees with insane, twisted, dirty and inexplicably sexy performances. Front and center was the crazed harmonica of Ernie Locke, a man whose appearance can't be ignored even when he isn't sweating his ass off on a stage. Flinging his tattooed slab of a body about while his pants fell down, caressing his gnarly gut like a mink coat, Ernie was an eye-popping rock-and-roll spectacle.

"Yeah, I embrace my fat," Locke says. "Shirt comes off, it scares people. It does make people sick or it makes them laugh. And I don't have an ass -- I got it from my dad, who wore overalls his whole life. My pants fall down."

But it wasn't just the showman antics that evoked strong reactions from audiences. Like John Popper on some serious uppers, the high-voltage harp playing bursting from the depths of Locke's girth was sheer rocket fuel. The entire band picked you up and slammed you on the ground.

"Sin City was an amazing thing that will never be touched by anybody," Locke tells the Pitch while idly strumming a guitar. "I mean, when I was doing it, I couldn't believe it ... the fucker just blew up. At the Crossroads in Lawrence, we had to put a picnic table up on its side, and I had to brace my foot against it while I played, to hold people back."

The original Sin City lineup included Locke, Don Byrom, Dave Olds and Paul Estapar, a mix of musicians born of late-night, drug-induced jam sessions spent listening to Howlin' Wolf, Butthole Surfers and Sonny Boy Williamson. After Estapar and Olds were ejected, the second lineup, including Jon Paul (of local Buddy Lush Phenomenon and Big Iron fame), Dave Hogerty and Brett Engle, took off like wildfire. After a performance at Austin's South by Southwest Music Festival, the group proceeded to tear it up across the country, with Locke occasionally taking on the role of "Elvis Cooper," a hybrid of Alice Cooper and Elvis Presley who threw Skittles into the crowd and brandished a laminated turkey leg.

"There was always a crazed, psychedelic edge to Sin City," Locke says. "The Butthole Surfers were a huge influence on us, and everyone was on acid back then." (The Pitch can confirm the verity of this last remark; our first encounter with Sin City, at the tender age of 15, came amid an acid-drenched audience at the now defunct Oasis.)

But after a long and established career pumped with constant touring and a huge following, Sin City disbanded in the summer of '92. Don Byrom moved on to become a train conductor. "Donny said, 'The trains are callin' me, Ern,' and that was it," Locke says.

Fortunately, the demise of the old gave birth to the new. Ready to make every audience its bitch was Locke's next project, Tenderloin, born in the fall of the same year. Both a progression of the Sin City sound and a new creation altogether, Tenderloin hit as hard as its predecessor. Its lineup included brothers Brock and Gray Ginther (of the Homestead Grays) and Guy Stevens.

The band auspiciously landed a contract with QJMP, producer Quincy Jones' Warner Bros. imprint. In no time, it was touring with the Supersuckers, Wayne Kramer and the Reverend Horton Heat, among others. The lineup changed through the years, adding bassist John Cutler, followed by Kirk St. James and Taz Bentley of the Reverend's crew. After Tenderloin was summoned to cover "Shotgun Willie" on the Willie Nelson tribute album Twisted Willie (alongside the likes of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Jello Biafra), Locke played harmonica on The Tonight Show with the Supersuckers and Willie Nelson himself.