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Vice Blog

NEW YORK - FOOT PATROL'S IN TOWN

Back when Texas's acid-punk (Butthole Surfers, Crust, Ed Hall, Helios Creed) scene was in full swing, a lot of the musicians from those bands worked at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired between tours, including Teresa from the Butthole Surfers, aka that girl featured on the Slacker movie poster who tries to sell Madonna's pap smear in the film. And it was some of those very strange people who first discovered TJ Wade, a pre-teen blind prodigy who could instantly play anything he heard on keyboards.

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TJ would compose lofi funk soundtracks on a keyboard as

MC Terroristic

, and then rap about which girls he likes and which teachers he wanted to blow up, stuff like that. His lyrics regarding teachers were really, really mean, and very, very funny. He also loved

the Ruins

, and covered a lot of their songs too. So…some of the acid-punk pioneers/blind school employees recorded his first album for him on the sly (because you can get fired for encouraging kids to sing about how much they'd like to kill teachers), and soon he was getting offers from major labels to work with musicians like Christina Aguilera and Alicia Keyes.

But as soon as he could, TJ Wade broke away from the major labels so he could write about his passion: an intense, all-consuming foot fetish! And not just about feet in general, but a crazy passion play about how he's an officer of the law dedicated to incarcerating the sexy, stinky feet of beautiful women and subjecting them to harsh punishment of toe-sucking, foot massages, and manicures. The band's called Foot Patrol. To bring this cop theme home, the drummer plays with gavels and wears a judge's robe, and a cross-dressing police officer does a mix of buhtoh and go-go dancing. To make it even odder, sometimes TJ goes in drag as Crissy, the undercover police officer infiltrating the world of foot fetishism. All this is really just a long way of saying that Foot Patrol is one of best bands I've seen in a long time. (Their recordings are good too, but they don't really put across how inspiringly crazy and awesome they are on stage.) They're already a huge deal in Austin, selling out shows and being featured constantly in local press. But for the first time ever you can see them in New York City. They're playing three shows next week: an all ages show at the Highline Ballroom on Saturday, August 8, with my band Flaming Fire, and two over-21 gigs at Goodbye Blue Monday and Union Pool. I highly recommend you come to that first show though, not only because I'm playing it too but because it will be done by 10, perfect for people who think they're too old to stay out late. PATRICK HAMBRECHT