The Second Coming

Tenderloin also made the papers in the summer of '97 when Locke decided to shake his cock at an oncoming security guard during an odd and (oddly enough) never-repeated show at Worlds of Fun. "These security guards were beating on these kids, wanting them to sit down," Locke says. "Two hundred kids dancing, having a good time, and these security guards were just on fire. It's a rock show -- if people can't dance, then why are we even here? I got cuffed as soon as I got offstage and ended up doing community service at Rockhill Manor, a mental ward up the street from where I lived."

Which didn't end up being all that bad. A friend (not affiliated with the ward) supplied Locke with Marinol (pharmaceutical marijuana), and Locke played harp and guitar to equally sedated patients for the duration of his service.

Unfortunately, Tenderloin, like Sin City, also had to come to an end. Its last show was in November of '99. Endless touring had taken its toll. "I was coming home after three weeks on the road with 50 bucks and a sore liver," Locke recalls. "Touring is hard on relationships, hard on everybody in the band, because that's a relationship, too."

Locke went on to create Parlay with local musicians Claes Lillig, Rob Veatch and former Tenderloin bandmate John Cutler. Parlay, though just as potent and locally popular as Sin City and Tenderloin, never achieved the same national level as Locke's other bands and called it quits in 2001.

His next move was to pack up and head to Florida with his girlfriend. He built a house with his girlfriend's family and worked their cattle farm, at first unable to fit into the local musical milieu. "I tried, and it's like these fat white guys with Panama hats, you know, like playing the blues," Locke says, coating the last phrase with sarcasm. "And to play the harp meant that Panama hat came off and was switched for a Blues Brothers hat. Bullshit. I would love Florida if there weren't any people there."

His career took a unique turn down south, however, when he got gigs playing old-timey chitlin' blues in the middle of cotton fields in Mississippi and Alabama.

"I was touring with this old blues artist, James Peterson," Locke says. "We were going to these old blues clubs in the middle of nowhere, no white people around. I would stay in the van or backstage until it was time for me to come out and play harp. I mean, I'm in old, rural territory, and I'm a fat white guy covered in tattoos ... it would be easy to give the wrong impression. Once I played, though, shit was cool. We never had to stay in a hotel once. We always stayed at people's homes. It was great."

Now, five years after retiring, Locke is back. But why?

"I'm going back to work! I'm going to give music another go," he says. "People don't realize ... KC is such a diamond. I really felt a new musical energy here, thank God. Rock and roll is in the air again. You've got bands like the Architects, and the Golden Hearted Whores with their new demos ... it's the same kind of feeling like when Cretin 66 finally got their album out. That kid at El Torreon, Nic [Aldrich], he recorded those Whores demos, and he did it right -- they're that good. They're perfect. I'm jealous as hell."

Reunited with Cutler and teamed with Lyle Wells and Bill Gillfoil (who goes by King Punk Rock Salami in the Pornhuskers), Locke is calling his new band the Missouri Bultaco Association, after Spanish motorcycle racers. It may take the scene some time to adapt to, um, the MBA, but as an appetizer, Tenderloin is reuniting for a show Saturday at Davey's.

"I came back to play music," Locke says. "This new band is more creepy blues. I'm really going to try and sing more, be more midtempo. It'll be yet another slice of pie. And the Tenderloin reunion show is going to be the kickoff. I told you, I'm a lucky man. I've still got connections ... I think people remember me."