Sceneazine.com
An Interview With Gary Floyd From The Dicks
by Wendy Wwad
WW: The original Dicks lineup consisted of you,
Buxf Parrott, Pat Deason and Glen Taylor. How did
you guys originally meet / hook up with each other
and decide to form a band?
Were you already friends
that had common interests?
Was there a certain sound /
style you guys were leaning
towards from the get-go?
GARY FLOYD: I was a
regular hanging out almost
every night they had music
at Raul’s. I was drinking a
Ron and getting to be a wellknown face in the little family of punks. I already had a
“poster band”, which was me
saying the Dicks would be playing at some made up club
at a made up address...with other made up bands....I
put up lots of those posters...the help of my dear friend
and house mate Toby was what put it over the edge. He
started doing it even when I wasn’t, so most people either know I was a liar or they thought I was really in a
band. One night I walked into Raul’s and Buxf and Glen
were in there. They
looked more like
escaped cons than
punks, which I liked.
They were from San
Antonio and wanted to move to Austin. We hung out
that weekend and I ended up with them in the band...
Pat came along soon
and we had a show before we knew it.
WW: Why did you
move to Austin? And
where are you from
originally?
GARY FLOYD: I
was from Arkansas.
I had lived in a small
east Texas place most
of my life. I got drafted in 1972 but was accepted as a conscience
objector so I did two years of janitor work in Houston
at Jefferson Davis Hospital. After that I ended up in
Austin living with a dude from high school. Austin was
very cool during this time. I met a hippy and settled in
for a few years....living in a commune of gay communist
hippy men in McAllen, Texas for a few months...that
being as weird as it sounds. I would sit around all day
reading the works of Mao
Tse Tung.
WW: You guys were
in Austin during its formative punk years…
what do you think made
Austin such a hotbed for
creative and unique punk
bands back then (late
70’s / early 80’s)?
GARY FLOYD: Luck
and talent...The Next, the
Skunks, Big Boys, MDC,
Violators, tons and tons
of bands. Everyone was
pretty much a fan of other
bands. There was a fairly
supportive scene going
on. So much talent.
WW: Having watched
the Austin music scene
change over years, what
made it so cool back
then? What do you miss
the most? How has it
changed…for the better…or for worse?
GARY FLOYD: I miss
people like Biscuit. I miss
Glen...others too. I don’t
miss much else...it was a
great time but it was youth happening and we ݕɔ