R.I.P., Temo

By Robert Wilonsky Fri., Jan. 30 2009 at 6:35 PM

Categories: Music

That picture you see here is from my 1983 Thomas Jefferson High School Document yearbook. It's of a guy named Tim Watson -- or Temo, as most knew him throughout much of his life. Figured I'd share it, since Tim happens to be the subject of Jeff Liles's Echoes and Reverberations piece for DC9 this week. That's because Tim died last week in a motorcycle accident in Austin, and his funeral, packed with familiar faces, was yesterday, on what would have been Tim's 42nd birthday.

Tim was a year ahead of me in school, but I'd known him most of my childhood; he grew up a couple of blocks from me. Always seemed 10 years older -- couple feet taller too, even without the Mohawk he started sporting his sophomore year. He annoyed the jocks, intimidated the underclassmen and amused the teachers -- that's what happens when a guy skirts the school's no-shorts policy by wearing, well, skirts to class.

I spent the better part of my freshman year at TJ being schooled by Tim on the finer points of American hardcore -- JFA, Dead Kennedys, Fear, all the bands whose logos were stickered over every inch of his skateboard. By the mid-1980s, he'd become a permanent fixture in Deep Ellum just as it was transitioning from ghost town to Thrill City. The Class of '85 TJ Patriots had a real way of making their mark on Deep Ellum way back when -- and a bad habit of leaving too soon. Only last April, Tim's classmate and Da Nu Man drummer David Bindler died in Los Angeles of a bleeding ulcer. Said an old classmate earlier this week, "I miss my friends."

So, yeah, anyway. Read Jeff's piece.

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