Long Live the O.K. Club

​Excerpted from Capital City Magazine, 1986. Thanks to publisher Frank Young for giving permission to reprint this interview.
 
This interview was conducted Oct. 7, 1986, at the home of Mr. Don Crenshaw, drummer for the Slut Boys, the originators of the first O.K. Club. Don also painted the artwork which adorns the walls of the club, from which its namesake comes.
 
1920s-1977: Original History
 
The O.K. Club has been in existence since the early 1920s. The entire complex in which it is housed was established by the patriarch of a long-time local family. It’s always had a colorful history.
 
The building initially had two stories. The upper story was destroyed in a fire. The fire extinguished before it reached the roof of the first story, but the remaining structure was in such poor condition that it didn’t pass the city building code. The only way the city would allow re-building was to tear it down to the ground and start over. The owner elected not to do this and was forced to convert what was essentially only supposed to be a floor into a roof. This caused a leakage problem with both water and silt which still exists today.
 
During prohibition the location was a major focal point of much decadence and debauchery. The entire complex was one big dive, consisting of different clubs, bars, juke joints and brothels. There were small holes between the different rooms through which moonshine was passed.
 
If you stand in front of the door to the O.K. Club you can see a major structural crack going all the way up to the roof. This is the site of a long-gone doorway which contained a stairwell leading to the second story, at the top of which was a window. One venerable old story has it that a drunken brawl ensued between two men. One was pushed out the window and landed directly on his head. However, he was in such a besotted state that he merely jumped up and charged back upstairs to continue the fracas.
 
The repeal of Prohibition brought the status of the building back to a more respectable mode. Over the course of the next several decades it ran the gamut of several identities – from a pawn shop to a thrift shop and a grocery store.
 
1977-1983: The Slut Boys
 
Mick Buchanan: So, Donny, how did the Slut Boys first acquire the O.K. Club?
 
Don Crenshaw: Well, one day Ben Wilcox (the group’s keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist) and I were riding around looking for a place to play. Prior to that, we had been rotating between playing at our different parents’ houses, but that didn’t work because we always got noise complaints and had to shut down.
 
M.B.: So you need a place where you could loosen up?
 
D.C.: Exactly. And we passed that place and it had a “FOR RENT” sign and seemed like a part of town where people wouldn’t complain, so we called. We were shaking-nervous when we called because we really needed a place.
 
M.B.: Did the band at that time have the same personnel as now?
 
D.C.: Yes, but we didn’t have a name yet.
 
M.B.: How did that come about?
 
D.C.: This girl I worked with was poking fun at us, singing “Dirty White Boy,” and started paraphrasing it – “Dirty Slut Boy” – and we thought that was great, because it was controversial and had something to do with the sociology of rock-and-roll music and having a good time and making money at it.
 
But one of the big things that went along with it – and this is real important to get straight – is that Bill McCluskey (lead vocals/lead guitar) finally got a guitar tuner and figured out that it wasn’t his ear that was the problem, it was the cheap guitars he was buying that wouldn’t stay in tune. So he got a good one and we had the Club – those two things were the start of when we began making some headway and people started coming down to help us – everybody who was interested in alternative music.
 
M.B.: Before that there was the Train Wreck/Tommy’s and The Pastime and old hippie, country and bluegrass bands…so it turned out to be hangout for people who wanted something different from what was happening on the local music scene at that time.
 
D.C.: Exactly, a very accurate statement!
 
Another thing is, Bill finally had a place to be loud, and Bill loves to be loud. He could go crazy and we could be ourselves and not get hassled. That gave us a lot of confidence.
 
M.B.: Who are some of the infamous people who’ve been there?
 
D.C.: First, there was Iggy Pop, and then there was U2.
 
M.B.: How did the U2 thing happen?
 
D.C.: We were playing one night and they walked in and we didn’t know who they were, we hadn’t gone to the concert, so we kept playing and finally someone told us who they were. So they listened to a few of our songs and then we asked them if they wanted to jam with us. They came up and we all played “Wild Thing.” Then the rest of the Slut Boys got down and I played drums U2 on their song “I Will Follow”. Then I got down and they played a few more of their songs by themselves.
 
M.B.: And that was the basis for the mention in Musician magazine?
 
D.C.: Right! The interviewer asked them what they did in the South and they said, “We jumped onstage in Tallahassee in a place called the O.K. Club and played “Wild Thing” with a local group called the Slut Boys.”


M.B.: So it’s an accurate statement to say the O.K. Club has gotten international press?
 
D.C.: Precisely.
 
M.B.: Was there a Slut Boy philosophy concerning the O.K. Club?
 
D.C.: Keith Richards always said, “If you’re going to be an outlaw, you’ve got to know the law,” so our open-door policy was: no drug dealing and no violence. Anybody who violated it, we would throw out bodily!
 
M.B.: How about the condition of the club?
 
D.C.: It was in good shape, but we had to hang parachute from the ceiling to catch the silt which would seep through when we started to shake the foundations.
 
M.B.: How did the sign come about?
 
D.C.: When we finally got the club it was such a relief to have a place of our own to do our own thing that the catch-phrase became “The O.K. Club,” meaning you could be yourself without worrying about being hassled. It was “O.K.” So I painted the sign as a sort of namesake-logo-slogan. It’s supposed to depict an exotic locale, a French Riviera or Jamaican Bay, something that was totally different from the Tallahassee scene and social climate of the time.
 
M.B.: Don, in summing up, what would you say is the essence of the O.K. Club?
 
D.C.: The essence of the O.K. Club is “The Iconoclastic View.” The O.K. Club stands for iconoclasm: one who destroys religious images or venerations. This is the Bible Belt, and it means one who challenges existing ideals, a place in artistic freedom, one which attacks established beliefs, ideals, customs or institutions – the blundering cruelty of the tough-minded. That’s the O.K. Club we all know and love!
 
1983 to Present
 
In 1983 I was lucky enough to acquire the lease to the O.K. Club and still hold it today. I have tried to maintain the same high standards by which it was originally chartered. Since that time, the Club has played host to a diverse array of personalities such as: Living in Tents, Red Square, Blues Deluxe, Scuzzy White and the Red Hot Peppers, The Party Houndz, SDI, The Minutemen, Love Tractor, The True Believers, Tex and the Horseheads, The Preachers, Terminal Diner, Jumpstreet, The Micronotz, Curt McKenzie, The Casual Ts and Masque. Long live the O.K. Club.