How Deke Dickerson found one of the last cans of Poontang

True scion of the soil Deke Dickerson—no relation to Dub, as he says country guys always ask first—brings dignity and nobility to his guitar the way fierce captains renewed morale on listing ships and his newest album can not disappoint; King of the Whole Wide World—with a title track featuring digitally applied 78 crackle, the first sample ever to appear on a Dickerson venture—adds new accents to the great American guitar vernacular on songs that hop off Buck Owens (“Do You Think of Me?”) and Solomon Burke (“Make Way for a Better Man,” as rousing as “Home in Your Heart”) and Bob Wills (“Misshapen Hillbilly Girl,” with vivid lyrics nestling nicely with what I know of Wills’ purportedly sharp sense of humor). Deals like these were realer only 50 years ago, and Deke speaks now from outside Medford, Oregon, the town most likely to survive total nuclear war, at which news he laughs grimly. He will be playing Saturday at the Real Boss Hoss rock & roll blowout with an all-star frat-rock band (line-up including Ghastly Ones, Phantom Surfers and Chris Barfield!) and playing at the Blue Café with his trio (drummer Chris Sprague and Social Distortion bassist Brent Harding) on Sunday.

How did you discover the world of records made by armless musicians? 
I don’t know how many records there are, though I do have a couple. But I’ve been collecting photos. The first one I ever saw was Ray Myers, the truly inspirational armless musician guy. I thought, ‘Jesus, how can this guy play steel guitar with no arms?’ And strangely enough, I kept finding more and more photos of musicians without arms. It blows my mind, but it’s definitely an actual subgenre of the vaudevillian music era.

What else do you have hidden away to reveal on your website?
I’ve got a whole ton of stuff. I’m such an obsessed nutjob when it comes to collecting stuff. The next is a catch-all category called ‘Things That Should Not Exist.’

Which is your favorite? Or least favorite as the case may be?
Oh no, I have great affection for these things. I don’t put them down or ridicule them. My favorite example is a can of ‘Poontang’ that was sold by the Treniers in the late ’40s or ’50s. They were packaged to look like a real can of food! I found it at a whorehouse in Butte, Montana. It’s a place called the Dumas Hotel—it was a whorehouse in the Old West days and was the longest continually operating whorehouse in America. It didn’t close until like 1982. But the really wacky thing—the entire town of Butte is connected by underground tunnels, which is how the businessmen would go to the whorehouse and not be detected. During World War II, the government said the tunnels had to be filled in because it was a security risk, so they closed the bottom level. And some guy bought the place in the late ’90s and was the first guy to peel back the wood, and the basement was still set up like a whorehouse. Women had left behind condoms, whiskey bottles—there were still nighties hanging on the walls. And they had a trash chute, and they continued to throw stuff in the trash chute after they sealed the basement. . . .

Don’t tell me you went digging around in the oldest whorehouse trash chute in North America.
I didn’t, but this guy did, and he found the Treniers-brand Poontang in the rubble. I offered him $75 for it and left with my can of Poontang. That’s the sort of thing that’s gonna be on the next section.

Did you ever think about opening Deke’s Roadside Wonder Emporium when you finish all this touring?
Trust me—I’ve been scheming on that for years.

DEKE DICKERSON’S ALL-STAR FRAT BAND AT THE REAL BOSS HOSS BLOW-OUT WITH NIKKI CORVETTE, THE A-BONES AND MANY MORE MR. T’S BOWL | 5621 ½ FIGUEROA ST | HIGHLAND PARK | FRI-SUN 8PM | $12-30 | CONTACT VENUE FOR AGE RESTRICTION | MYSPACE.COM/REALBOSSHOSS | AND THE CHURCH PRESENTS DEKE DICKERSON WITH KARLING ABBEYGATE AND THE CATHOUSE THUMPERS THE BLUE CAFE | 210 PROMENADE | LONG BEACH 90802 | SUN CONTACT VENUE FOR TIME | $10 | 21+ | THEBLUECAFE.COM

Tags: americana, buck owns, deke dickerson, Music, poontang, whorehouses