The House Gig Ain’t Up

Steve Molina knocks ’em dead every night.
If he’s not hitting the highest note Steve Perry ever laid down on an eight-track recorder, he’s busting their nuts.
   “Did any of you all ever hear a song I wrote?” he asks a Saturday night crowd that’s hidden mostly in the shadows of The Cantina. A fake wolf hides on a fake bluff. And a Santa Fe sky seems at a perpetual twilight, the bar’s innate black and purple shadows reflecting off sandstone walls and a Southwestern ceramic-tiled bar.
   “It’s called All My Exes Change Their Sexes.”
   The drum roll hits on cue. The crowd’s laughter is like a quick roar, like everyone was briefly but roughly tickled.
   That’s Steve Molina, a 38-year-old keyboardist and singer who can play anything he hears. And like a prodigy blind poet, Molina can’t read a lick of music.

PLAY IT BY EAR, SAM
I already knew Steve couldn’t read music. We were in high school choir together, me and Steve. I remembered Steve vividly, though I hadn’t seen him in more than 20 years when I ran into him at The Santa Fe a few weeks ago. When I saw Steve, I had a high school flash back. I suddenly wanted to practice some Schubert. Since Steve was one of the few choir students who could play a piano, he could really help you unravel a tricky piece of music by hacking out the notes one by one during morning or afternoon rehearsals. What I didn’t know about Steve, though, was that he came from a family of musicians. His mother, a piano teacher, met her match with Steve, who refused to take the time to learn to read music, and instead used that time for playing, nailing almost everything his ears could take in.
   Now, his four boys are all musicians, experimenting with pop sounds, but learning classically.
    In high school, Steve was one of those kids you might have known who everyone just knew had all the talent in the world. There was never any question of who they were going to be in the future. Steve just had the talent. That was clear. Why should anyone, especially high school students, give the matter any more consideration? 
    Steve has kept that weird, automatic form of respect rolling apparently for the last two decades. At the Santa Fe, regulars love him because of his wizard-like talent which lets him improvise an early Madonna song, or even something by Blue Oyster Cult. 
   But the real trick is, he can take a song you already know and make you fall in love with it all over again. Or want to rock to it again. Or laugh or cry. Or sing along.
    Santa Fe partner Albert Rego, co-owner with his wife Sony and founder Fred Harms, said he’s glad he inherited a relationship with Clueless. For one, because Steve can really belt out a Journey song.
    “I’ll admit it. I have Journey CDs at my house,” Rego offered, a solid 6’ 1” and usually in a suit.
  
      AN ELEVEN-YEAR RUN
Clueless’ fans are a discriminating crowd to be sure. Doctors. Developers. Entrepreneurs. But also artists. Teachers. Mechanics. And RGV visitors who’ve taken the time to research their dining and nightlife.
    At McAllen’s Santa Fe Steakhouse Cantina, where Molina and his band Clueless have held the stage Thursday through Saturday for 11 years, he enjoys a rare musician’s sanctuary. With the three-album contract breaking new musical acts to pieces. The demands of touring. The dangerous vanity of being a celebrity. To many musicians, it’s a blessing to find a spot that welcomes you, as opposed to trying to break into an uninviting  and morally challenging music industry.
   Man cannot break the system, but only break himself against it, a political corrections officer in a Franz Kafka novel once said, I think.
   Having a house gig, for a musician, ensures you won’t break yourself against the system, but instead thrive where your music is appreciated.
   This fortuity of being a house band is something that all of Clueless’ musicians understand.
   Tom Bynum, bass player, said he definitely understands. Strangely enough, I knew Tom from childhood, too. We went to junior high together, and were in a weird group of twelve-year-olds who were at the forefront of their disciplines, mostly computer programming. Tom was like the bouncer. Not a mean or big guy at all., but a kid who just seemed to stand a little tougher than the other guys, like he understood what pride was all about.  
   A bass player all his life, Tom has made the rounds in the local music scene for two decades. ... Blues, Rock, Country. You name it, he’s been in a band that played it. He was with Los Blues Guys, a house band at McAllen’s España night lounge for years, playing with Eddie De La Garza. “That you have the standard house gig is a pretty big deal for a musician,” Bynum said in an interview during a photo shoot ... still looking serious as hell, just like when he was in junior high.
   
THE CLUE
I wrote a song called Fifteen-Minute Love,” Steve mentions to the crowd.
   The clatter of drinks and chatter compete.
   “What do you do with the other fourteen-and-a-half minutes?” Steve asks with a punch line finish, drum roll again on cue.
   There’s no mistake the band’s done this before.
   Some of Clueless’ very first fans are in the house this Saturday night. They’ve been trying for eleven years to stump Clueless with song titles they won’t know. But Clueless can usually belt out at least a few bars of every title thrown  ... even tonight’s request for the theme song of All My Children.
   Steve remembers when Clueless was just him and a baby grand piano in an almost empty Cantina. People returned to hear him play. They kept coming, and the crowd grew.
   He added band members one by one, until Clueless became an incubator for some of the region’s best talent ... musicians who have built a reputation among themselves and who can interchangeably jump from set to set, band to band.
   Rego said that he understands Clueless is a set-musician phenomenon. “These musicians enjoy being around others who are like minded ... they attract to the band like to a magnet,” Rego offered.
   “We recognize their contribution greatly. But we just love their music ... Eleven years is a long time for a house band. You could say it’s living history.”
   Or living music history, part comedy, part nostalgia ... complete in itself. And getting better with time, like the worn-in instruments of the band.

See STN’s Calendar on Page 24 for Clueless show times.

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