Have you done the rockabilly dance with Fatt Katt and the Von Zippers? By N.L. Belardes

Last night I went and hung out under the big yellow Bakersfield blue-lettered arch. No this isn’t one very squished down version of the McDonald’s golden curves but the replica of the once famous sign arching over old route 99. And no, I didn’t have a picnic but I did have some garlic chicken pizza inside the Crystal Palace. Yes I was out to do a write-up. But why not eat food and have a good time instead of just hanging out and hiding in the shadows the way a novelist does? I decided to be a little more high profile and brought the whole family and spent the big bucks and listened to rockabilly greasers Fatt Katt and the Von Zippers jam to country, rockabilly, rock, Latino rock and some fine original tunes…



Now just who is Fatt Katt and his sidekick Von Zipster Zippers? Fatt Katt is a cool guy named Lorenzo with thick black specs, arm-filed tattoos, and a pleasant demeanor who talks country/rockabilly/greaser history like he’s lived it from the initial zoot suit riots of LA’s yesteryear streets, where greasers were born from Chicano boys not necessarily wearing pinstripe suits… Introduced by red hat Queen Maha, Fatt Katt went on stage right at 8:00, not a second after, and played for a little more than forty-five minutes in a first set of some whalloping tunes that had the crowd roaring and the people dancing. I saw red hat ladies, country folk, bar folk, and line dancers all madly stepping to song after song… I heard mostly covers, but all with a rockabilly tinge and flair, and that was a real treat from crooner Fatt Katt, Les Paw on bass, big-haired Styx on the stand-up drums, guitarist old-timer Billy Ray Rock’it who had a really kickin’ 3000-dollar Setzer guitar. There was Elvis, George Jones, Buck, Stray Cats, and a whole lot more…





When they took a break I went over and met the band. I found out their original song Londontown Girl was written by Fatt Katt in 1984. Just how long have these guys been around? That’s an unknown. Fatt Katt Lorenzo talked greasers, old timer country blues musicians and the really dynamic history of the Bakersfield Sound. “It wasn’t just Buck, Merle, and Old Red. There were a whole bunch of guys playing in lots of Honky Tonks, and many of them jamming with Buck and helping the whole scene have a far-reaching Bakersfield sound. There were a lot of people involved.” We talked about getting together with an old timer or two and really exploring the topic…



Fatt Katt then talked about the Rockabilly Hayride he promotes, where “greasers come out of the woodwork” to come and see 4-6 bands jam some rockabilly coolness in the Bakersfield sunset. He asked if I would help promote. Well of course. Let’s do a podcast and talk all about it!



About that time either Styx the stand-up drummer had grown bored with me hanging around or he just had to release some music from his veins because he said, “Let’s go play some music!”

And did they. The second set was clearly Styx’ time to shine. He stood on his drums while Les Paw smacked the symbols and Fatt Katt crooned like he’d just stepped from a heroic Stray Cats video from yesteryear. And don’t think they didn’t play the Stray Cat Strut from the old Stray Cats. They did and it was my favorite song of the night. Fatt Katt did a kitty cat howl while Les Paw made his bass sound every bit as good as that old stand-up bass from the MTV video I remember so well…





And then there was Sonny Rodriguez. Flown straight in from Las Vegas on a Buck-chartered jet, and with impeccable timing, Sonny hit the stage to tear up the bongos to a Latin-rockabilly beat that would have had Matt Munoz begging to kiss the stage. It was that good. Ok, so that was a fun little slapstick gimmick, but then sometimes you have to play with the audience in order to play to the audience, right?





I hear Fatt Katt and the Von Zippers have played the Crystal Palace 46 times. Now if we could just see alt country band, Norfolk open up for them it would be the perfect night of alternative country sounds… a little Fatt Katt, a little Norfolk with Peter Prevost on guitar, some Les Paw smacking down on the bass for Fatt Katt, some James Ratliff vocals with Norfolk, some rockabilly-haired Styx jamming to his red rockster drums, pounding out the Katt tunes like he was born from a rockabilly sound himself… what a night I am envisioning. Let the new Bakersfield experiment in sound go forging new paths for bands to work together, to cross promote…

What a great sound from a high octane rockabilly band. I really loved Fatt Katt and the Vonzippers and plan on seeing them tear up the tuneville set here in Buck City, especially when they focus on jamming out the tunes of their own original numbers, which I might add, are a great blend of rocking rhythms with a hint of Latino flavor, just to spice it up…

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Friday, June 24, 2005. You can leave your response.