Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys were an American
rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...
band from
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.
History
Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys came out of the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
in the mid-1980s (originally from
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
). Lead singer/guitarist Phillip Bury (1954-1992,
known by
stage name
A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...
"Buck Naked") performed on stage wearing only cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, a guitar, and a strategically placed
toilet plunger
A plunger, force cup, plumber's friend or plumber's helper is a tool used to clear blockages in drains and pipes. It consists of a rubber suction cup attached to a stick (''shaft'') usually made of wood or plastic. A different bellows-like desi ...
. Filling out the band were Buck's brother, Stephen Bury (taking the stage name "Hector Naked") and David Wees (known on stage as "Stinky LePew"). Despite its name, the rest of the band were more or less fully clothed on stage.
The band became friends with the band
Primus. Sharing many aesthetic similarities, the latter would make numerous tributes to Bury, in their videos ("
Mr. Krinkle
"Mr. Krinkle" is a song by American rock band Primus. It was released as the third single from their 1993 album ''Pork Soda''.
Music video
A video was made for the single featuring the band performing in an abandoned warehouse as a carnival of o ...
" features a painting, "
Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" features a bass drum head), and in the album credits to 1993's ''
Pork Soda
''Pork Soda'' is the third studio album by the American funk metal band Primus, released April 20, 1993, certified Gold in September 1993 and certified Platinum in May 1997. The 2005 re-issue comes in a digipak and contains a booklet with lyrics ...
''.
The band's career came to an abrupt end in 1992 when Bury was shot and killed while walking his dog in
Golden Gate Park's Panhandle by a cab driver named Michael Kagan, who had for many years fed
pigeon
Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...
s there. According to witnesses at the trial, Kagan had been known to threaten dogs who chased the pigeons, and, on occasion, their owners. Kagan appealed the case to the
California Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sacra ...
, but his conviction for
manslaughter
Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...
was upheld. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, the maximum term allowed.
Discography
* ''Teenage Pussy From Outer Space'' (EP)
* ''Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys'' (1993)
See also
*
Naked Cowboy
Robert John Burck (born December 23, 1970), better known as the Naked Cowboy, is an American actor, singer, songwriter, writer, and street performer, best known for singing regularly in New York City's Times Square. Burck is also a regular in t ...
References
*
*
{{Authority control
Rock music groups from California
Musical groups established in 1986
Musical groups disestablished in 1992
American musical trios