Yesterday morning in the pre-dawn hours, I got a gut-punch that really hurt. I was making my rounds and saw that Dexter Romweber, the crucial American Roots Rocker [and so much more] had unexpectedly died last Friday, the 16th of February. It must be said that Dex was never a poster child for health and vitality. A gangling, wiry youth; he had moved into middle age of what never seemed an easy life on a selection of medications selected to help smooth things out. For a guy who started out in his teens already seeming like a grizzled 45 year old unsung Rockabilly genius given a hot date with a time machine, it was difficult to imagine Dex as an actual elderly man since he had always been an Old Soul trapped in a body out of time, and now we’ll never have to. He’s already left this planet.

SOMETHING GOOD FROM MTV [FOR ONCE]

While it’s appropriate to excoriate MTV for any number of musical sins, I will be the first to admit that for the first few years at least, the good managed to outweigh the bad on the fledgling cable channel. I can lay my first exposure to Dexter at MTV’s feet, thankfully, with an appearance on an episode of I.R.S.’s The Cutting Edge” devoted to the Chapel Hill, NC music scene. The 20 year old Dex was a riveting raconteur whom the camera loved as he spoke about his life and played a riveting gut-bucket Rockabilly/Blues number with his buddy Chris “Crow” Smith as Flat Duo Jets. The music sounded like something from 30 years earlier, not 1986. I played that tape I’d made of it for one and all for the next month. Whatever Rock ‘N Roll was, this guy had it in spades! And at a time when the genre was on heart-lung life support. [p.s. It’s officially dead now]

I waited for the next surfacing of Dexter with bated breath, but it took until 1990 for Dexter to resurface, but when he did it had incredible impact! The Cramps, an early influence of his, had wisely picked Flat Duo Jets to open for The Cramps triumphant tour of America in 1990 on the “Stay Sick” tour. Giving incredible value for money as this 25 year old attacked his guitar with the same gusto that headliners The Cramps attacked the very idea of good taste itself. A match made in heaven. I next saw Dex in a solo appearance in 1994 at the Beefstock Festival [night 2] in Athens, GA at the Atomic Music Hall on my first trip there where friends of mine road tripped up there with me to see The Hate Bombs play at this Garage Rock festival. I had wondered what had happened with Flat Duo Jets, though Dexter was a master of his favorite model guitar; the Sears Silvertone with its lipstick tube pickups. He managed to coax every sound he needed out of that beast with nary a pedalboard in sight. Above all, Dexter didn’t need any “effects.” He was the living, breathing “real thing” from the get-go.

By the time it was the mid-90s. I was attending shows with my loved one and a friend of ours chanced to loan me the first Flat Duo Jets CD. It was a revelation! Hazy memories of the Cramps show where they were touring for the album on Dog Gone Records didn’t capture the ferocious intensity of that beast! The best cover I’d ever heard of Louis Prima’s epochal “Sing Sing Sing” with the three members effectively subbing for a full jazz orchestra. With drummer Crow effectively channeling Gene Krupa on the Big Beat. But that was nothing on Romweber’s scorching fretwork on songs like “Pink Gardenia” or “Chiquita!” offered! The latter still slays me every time as I often forget to breathe when it’s playing. I got a fire lit under me like, pronto, to seek out those scarcely seen Flat Duo Jets CDs. It took a year or two but I eventually caught up.

Better still, Flat Duo Jets were still a going concern and then got a berth in the Garage Rock circuit that meant that they played Orlando, FL 2-3 time a year. Keeping us very active with amazing shows to take our breath away. We never failed to notice how two people could make such a large sound. We never missed them! It was obvious that our local Orlando trash rock hero, Aaron Jarvis [who played at our wedding party in 1996 with his own power duo, The Vodkats] had learned everything he knew at the feet of the man the man. Even Dex’s penchant for Benny Joy covers. In the mid-90s, one scorching show at the Go Lounge Garage, the merch table had the new album, “Safari.” This one was a deep dive through the band’s cassette tape archives with a mind-stunning 34 tracks [19 on LP] ranging from medium-fi to tracks recorded on a tape deck in a school restroom with the janitor memorably cutting the rockin’ session short. It’s one of my top Flat Duo Jets albums with a handful of Romweber originals sitting comfortably along side the program of covers that ran the gamut from George Jones, Buddy Holley, and Bond Themes, to Fringe Rockabilly denizens such as Hasil Adkins or Marty “The Phantom” Lott.

From 1995 to 2000 we saw several Flat Duo Jets shows a year. We were spoiled. I’d pick up Norton Records 7″ers at the merch table as it was little wonder that the feisty Rock N’ Roll label were drawn to such players who valued instinct and passion over calculation and compromise. But following the band’s stint on Norton, the least likely scenario happened as R.E.M. producer Scott Litt was awarded his own label as distributed by Geffen Records. And Flat Dup Jets came as close as they ever would to the Big Time. Litt and local Chapel Hill hero Chris Stamey co-produced the album “Lucky Eye” which sported string sections [!] where needed to allow Dexter the best possible setting for his heart rending turns at balladry; of which he was as much a master of as his feral Rock N’ Roll workouts. His theatrical baritone crooning was as powerful an asset as his unfettered guitar playing. The album was wonderfully produced and the material was as diverse and well-crafted as ever. Even Crow got a rare lead vocal on the closing “Little M.” But all of this was pearls before swine, as usual. The album didn’t manage to move any more units than normal and at a much greater cost than usual. After 15 years of staying afloat but not much more, the band was torn asunder by the issues that came with a higher budget grab at the brass ring.

NEXT: …Solo/Duo