Music

Remembering Mex-Econo: ‘The irreverence was fun and infectious.’

By John Harper / Correspondent

Chris Campbell and Wayne Sawyer had one thing in mind in 1986 when they launched Mex-Econo Restaurant and Bar in Kill Devil Hills.

“We just wanted to open a Mexican restaurant,” said Sawyer, now retired and living in Currituck County. “There wasn’t one at the time on the Outer Banks.”

But after a couple of years Sawyer left the building, and locals Bob Shook and Michael Geissinger joined Campbell, who died in 2019, as owner-managers.

And that’s when the restaurant-bar made a radical left turn.

Mex-Econo became an underground club that was wide open, and its mythology looms large 26 years after it closed in 1994. It was a place unlike any other venue on the barrier islands at the time, hosting bands from all camps playing original music, serving offbeat cuisine and featuring unique décor.

Mex-Econo (or “Mexis” as regulars called it) quickly became a space where freaks, geeks and hippies could commune.

The building, near milepost 8.5 on the beach road in Kill Devil Hills, now houses Jack Brown’s Beer & Burger Joint.

A mannequin-hand doorknob at the main entrance was probably the first clue that patrons at Mex-Econo were in for a walk on the wild side.

The dimly lit interior featured booths on risers, a display of vintage vacuum cleaners, album covers on the walls, an open parachute on the ceiling, pool tables, an enamel-tiled bar and a 1970s-style disco light.

Mex-Econo Restaurant and Bar in Kill Devil Hills was a place unlike any other venue on the barrier islands at the time, hosting bands from all camps playing original music, serving offbeat cuisine, and featuring unique decor.
Photo courtesy Michele Desgain

The floor was concrete, and the ceiling was low, which made it challenging for band sound engineers.

“I’d describe it as thrift-store chic,” says local radio DJ and program director Mark St. John, 55, of Nags Head, who was regular customer in the early years of the club. “There were a lot of odd and unusual people. … It was a place you could really let loose, be yourself and have a great time.”

Another frequent visitor at the beginning was Ben Sproul, 53, who now works in marketing for a real estate company and serves as the mayor of Kill Devil Hills.

“It was OK to be quirky and weird,” he says. “The irreverence was fun and infectious.”

And that feeling never went away for Sproul, who hosted two Mex-Econo reunions when he operated the Pit Surf Shop in Kill Devil Hills.

Dave Grohl – yeah, that Dave Grohl – of Nirvana and Foo Fighters hung out at the place in the early ‘90s when his family owned a house in Corolla.

Patrons looking for grub could munch on such delicacies as spam nachos, hot-dog chimichangas and “killer shark tacos.”

Music was the major calling card for the club, which gained a national reputation for its willingness to present bands employing a wide variety of styles and sounds: punk, alternative, blues, funk, rock and jam.

Hundreds of acts played the relatively small, 320-capacity venue over the years, including Southern Culture on the Skids, GWAR, Dillon Fence, Left Wing Fascists, The Jayhawks, Flat Duo Jets and Kenny Neal, an acclaimed blues guitarist.

“It was the golden age of the Outer Banks music scene,” says Dominic Carpin, 59, leader of the Cashmere Jungle Lords, the Richmond, Virginia.-based “southern-fried, salsa-surfabilly” band that rocked the house dozens of times. “Whenever we played, there seemed to be mayhem.”

**The band Gad Fly plays Mex-Econo in 1992.**
Photo by Robyn Dunmore provided courtesy of Scott Perryman.

Cover charges ranged from $5 to $10, according to John Howard, 60, of Southern Shores, who started working as a bartender and band-booker at the club in 1988.

But he added: “No one was turned away, Chris (Campbell, the Woodstock attendee who co-owned the bar) would trade for just about anything, including ash trays and meat necklaces.”

Often, there was a mosh-pit and musicians diving into the crowd.

“Your feet were pitch-black if you were shoeless,” remembers Julia Scheer, 57, of Kill Devil Hills. “And you were covered in sweat from dancing and mosh-pitting.”

“It was just such a sense of community,” says Laura Perkins Tripp, 54, who worked four summers there and now does marketing in Richmond,. “Every night was a big scene.”

But in 1994, it was the end of the world as they knew it. Like sand in the ever-present winds here, the mood on the Outer Banks was shifting. It was becoming more of a family destination. Plus, bands and operating expenses were getting too expensive.

So, after a final summer season, the groovy disco light was turned off and the owners shook the mannequin-hand doorknob one last time.

The party was over; Mex-Econo was no more.

More than two decades later, Tara Clark-Latino, 50, of St. Petersburg, Florida, still has warm feelings for the funky little shack lovingly described over the years as a dive bar.

“Summer of 1988, I was 18 and it was the only bar that would let me drink without any hassle,” she said. “Booths on risers, thrash bands. I knew I had found home from the moment I walked through the door.”

Postscript | Ravann Rachelle Horton & Sebastian “Sebi” Lopez: A legacy of music and love

By Scott Sechmann / Correspondent

Readers of the Coast often look to us to get information about entertainment, history and other activities they may want to engage in while they visit our little slice of paradise.

I cover the music scene and musicians, primarily. It’s been hard this season. Not just because of the pandemic that lingers, menacingly, in the background, curtailing the live performances that visitors and residents expect this time of year, but also because of hole left in the heart of our music community when it lost a well-known music promoter named Ravann Rachelle Horton, 39, and her 9-year-old son Sebastian “Sebi” Lopez in a tragic house fire in May.

I’d never met Ravann in person, but I knew her through Facebook and by reputation. She always treated me with respect as a musician; that can be a rarity in our business. But on this island and regions stretching to the north, south and west, our tribe of musicians, singers and venue owners knew her well and that the loss is immeasurable.

Nobody knows more than Kelley Grider Horton, Ravann’s mother and Sebi’s grandmother.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of what we’ve lost,” Kelley said in a recent phone interview. “We spoke every day. We video-chatted every day. We shared the same passions. She taught me about being a mother.”

Ravann didn’t have it easy, Kelley said. She struggled every day as a single mom, trying to make ends meet. But she found her niche. As the owner and founder of Ravra Productions, she was responsible for the musicians that played nightly at the Outer Banks Brewing Station. She also booked up-and-coming regional and national acts, as well as internationally known, established artists, at various venues.

Ravann Rachelle Horton, 39, and her 9-year-old son Sebastian “Sebi” Lopez.

Kelley said Ravann wasn’t a musical child. ”She loved to sing. She wasn’t perfect, but she sure would try.” But she had an uncanny, natural ability to recognize and promote talent. Ravann started working for local icon Mike Kelly when she was 18, helping book music and provide advice about bands, according to Kelley. After high school, she pursued an education in theater arts.

Ravann’s altruism is what stands out to me. Working to raise funds for the likes of the Beach Food Pantry, the Dare County Arts Council, OBX Cares and other worthy nonprofits by lining up the musical entertainment. When any of the local music community, be they artists like Mojo Collins, Jesse Fernandez or sound man extraordinaire Chris Whitehurst, were in need, Ravann was there to help turn Outer Banks Brewing Station into a benefit venue to assist those that, on a good day, live on the financial margins.

Because of the generosity of our local community, primarily through a GoFundMe campaign, Kelley has been writing checks to the organizations and causes that Ravann and Sebastian held close to their hearts. As of early this month, it had raised $36,114, well surpassing a $10,000 goal.

“Their passion was to keep things going: the arts, Feline Hope, the SPCA…helping people that need things that they don’t have,” Kelley said.

Ravann was also passionate about children learning music and volunteered to help with the Mustang Outreach Program. Local legend and musician Ruth Wyand teaches the program, which includes live band performances.

Ravann initially got involved by helping backstage when the kids played at the Mustang Music Festivals. Last fall, when Sebi was old enough to be in the program, she volunteered to help Ruth with the rehearsals. Sebi was learning guitar and keyboard and how to interact with other kids as a performing unit. Ruth said he was a leader.

Sebastian Lopez, left, was a student musician in the Mustang Outreach Program taught by local legend and musician Ruth Wyand, far right.

“The other kids looked up to him,” Ruth said. “If he was being goofy, they would be goofy, but if he was serious, they followed his lead.”

Kelley said Ravann introduced Sebi to all kinds of music and bands and people> She taught him how music can set a mood or establish the tone of the day. Sebi could recite lyrics from The Wailers, EarthKry, Bob Marley and Michael Franti, Kelley said.

“He loved Michael Franti because he was so into the environment.” Sebi’s last class project as a band member in the Mustang Outreach Program was on Franti, Kelley said.

“She taught Sebastian about music and taking care of the Earth – Mother Earth,” Kelley said of Ravann. You hardly ever saw one without the other, even when Ravann was at work. Nine times out of 10, Sebi was there, learning how to bus tables, wrap silverware, cater, greeting people, hosting. He helped backstage with bands, according to Kelley.

“He was a character. He was funny,” she said.

Sebi’s other grandmother, Nina Lipscomb, once asked him if he was rich or poor, Kelley recalled. He responded, “You know, I’m rich in love.”

“That was him – the love that he gave,” Kelley said. “Ravann did that. Sebi was about to make a huge impact on this world. I don’t want him to be forgotten. I don’t want her to be forgotten. I could rave about ‘Rave’ 24 hours a day and it’s not enough.”

Tales of the long-lost Atlantis Beach Club

By John Harper

The next time you’re driving or walking along the beach road near the Nags Head Fishing Pier at milepost 12, stop and listen. Over the surf sounds and seagulls squawking, you might hear echoes of a bygone era on the Outer Banks.

The iconic Atlantis Beach Club, two lots south of the pier, was the go-to place for young folks looking to get their groove on from 1979 to 1995.

Wrecking machines tore the roof off the sucker and made the walls come crumbling down in early 1996 after the building was heavily damaged during a coastal storm. The Atlantis operated for a few years in the space now occupied by the New York Pizza Pub in Nags Head, but this story is about the original.

Full disclosure: I worked as the house DJ in the summers of 1981 and ’82. It was only a rock ‘n roll joint, but we liked it.

**Atlantis’s history is rich with stories, and maybe a few fables, about wild summer nights, flowing beer and top-tier bands pumping out rock, punk, reggae, rap, alternative and blues jams.**
Courtesy photo by Wendy D. Daniels

Atlantis’s history is rich with stories, and maybe a few fables, about wild summer nights, flowing beer – cans and bottles only — and top-tier bands pumping out rock, punk, reggae, rap, alternative and blues jams.

The flat, blue-and-white, oceanfront building, next door to the old Footsball Palace, housed several short-lived nightclubs, including the Rain Dancer and the Oz, which closed in 1978.

Enter Mike McQuillis, a former Navy SEAL and one-time manager of Peabody’s Nightclub in Virginia Beach. He did a few repairs on the building and christened his new nightspot the Atlantis Beach Club, which opened in the summer of 1979. McQuillis left the building in the late ‘80s and it was later owned by Doug Kibler and Jerry Dowless at separate times.

The Taj Mahal it was not.

Capacity was listed at about 300, but numbers often exceeded that. Walls were covered with red shag-carpet, bathrooms were functional at best, the stage was small and the ceiling was low.

“The only time I was there, a horse came in through the back door,” remembered Carlen Pearl of Colington.

There were bars at the back and front of the building and a dance floor, a section of an old skating rink, occupied a space in the front of the stage. Spilled beer often left the floor sandy and sticky. The air-conditioning system, which consisted of four ceiling units, struggled nightly to keep the hundreds of club-hoppers cool.

“Hotlantis,’ man it was hot in there,” said Robyn Dozier, a nurse who lives in Duck. “Fun times, though.”

“I loved how you could just walk out the back door to the beach if you got too sweaty and hot,” said Laura Perkins Tripp, a marketing director in Richmond, Virginia.

But the summer set was not there for the décor; they were in the club to mingle, drink and party like it was 1979.

“It was just high energy,” said Keith Duke, who was the nightclub’s first DJ and second-year manager. “And there was a real sense of community.”

Sunday was designated “locals’ night.” Music was a big part of the club’s allure. The Atlantis attracted some of the most popular bands of the day.

“It was a level of entertainment that the beach hadn’t seen,” said Duke, 66, who these days travels with his wife in a recreational vehicle.

Nantucket, a Jacksonville, North Carolina-based southern rock band, played the club in the early days. So did the Good Humor Band, Snuff, Sidewinder, Bryce Street and Super Grit Cowboy Band.

“We loved it there,” remembered Nantucket lead singer Larry Uzzell, whose band released four albums on major labels. “The stage was kind of small, but the sound was good and the crowd loved us.”

Through the ‘80s and into the ‘90s, the Atlantis was still the place to see and be seen.

“The party never stopped,” said Laurin Walker, 51, of Kill Devil Hills. “It was like the Wild West.”

Walker served as a bartender, one of usually six on duty nightly, at the club from 1988 to 1994.

“I saw some insane music,” she said. “Everybody wanted to play there.”

The Atlantis was both a launch pad for up-and-coming bands and a stop for classic-rock groups on the East Coast circuit.

In the former category was a little act called the Dave Matthews Band. The Charlottesville, Virginia-based band played their first out-of-state gig in 1992 at the Atlantis.

The Dave Matthews Band was one of many to play the Atlantis Beach Club in its heyday.

“I believe I have a cassette tape somewhere of Dave begging for floor space and complaining about the leaky ceiling,” said musician, sound engineer and record producer Scott Franson of Kill Devil Hills.

The Dave Matthews Band also performed back-to-back shows in 1993.

Derek Trucks, who played with the Allman Brothers Band and now tours and records with his wife Susan Tedeschi, also played the funky little bar in the early ‘90s.

Other bands that rocked the house during Walker’s tenure were Widespread Panic, 311, the Awareness Art Ensemble, Edwyn Collins and Burning Spear. The Atlanta Rhythm Section, Blue Oyster Cult, Edgar Winter, Dickey Betts, the Outlaws and Pat Travers also gave memorable performances at the club.

Almost 25 years after the original Atlantis closed, people still fondly recall those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer at the gathering spot. When asked about the memories, most smile or blush.

Several mentioned the last-call words of the Atlantis’s legendary bouncer, Collis Gallup of Manteo: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Beyond the Music | Tim Reynolds on guitars, drums and the DMB

by Scott Sechman

October 2, 2020

Before I arrived on the Outer Banks, I knew that Tim Reynolds, the guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band, lived and played here with his band, TR3. Being a California musical snob, I wondered what could have possibly brought an internationally renowned guitarist to this tiny strip of beach off the North Carolina mainland? After I moved here, that question was rendered moot. I knew.

What I didn’t know was that a couple of local guys were his band members. I discovered that when I went to the Outer Banks Brewing Station one night and caught part of their show. Since then, Reynolds relocated to Florida, but his connection to the Outer Banks remains strong. TR3’s drummer, Dan Martier, lives here still, and Reynolds did a solo livestream fundraiser for the Dare County Arts Council in late May. He participated in “Music Unites Us,” a benefit concert supporting the art council’s North Carolina Veterans Songwriting Workshop.

I caught up with Reynolds by phone in March. The topics ranged widely and wildly. From the COVID-19 pandemic, which was just taking hold here in the U.S., to his Martin guitars, and his early collaborations with Dave Matthews.

What has been the hardest part of dealing with the pandemic?

This COVID-19, we’re still all in a state of shock that this is actually happening. Can’t do anything. Wait it out. Stay home. Stay healthy. Wash my hands and just practice a lot. It helps me feel normal. I play a lot of guitar, as you can imagine.

What have you been doing during the shutdown?

Part of my existence is thinking about COVID for some of the day, but not all day. You can look at your phone all day until your brain explodes with all the information, so my general rule is get your information and try to stay updated, but I’m not gonna look at TV all day with CNN on, that’s for sure.

Have you started or completed any projects?

I was getting ready to rehearse for an acoustic tour, so I’m a man in rehearsal. I practice like crazy. So, I was already in this routine. It feels weird not to have to practice for something. But I still wanted to learn some covers and write some music. So, I had this tour coming up. But now, I have six months to write and hopefully, play again.

What concerns you going ahead?

There’s an old Buddhist saying, “Be ready for death … it’s the first thing you know is gonna happen.” It’s just a reality now. It’s just a crazy situation. I guess crazy isn’t the right word. There’s a massive unpreparedness, in general. Nobody ever thinks about something like this happening and it takes everybody by surprise. Then a certain amount of people don’t think it’s real. They think it’s a conspiracy and use that as an excuse to say, “(screw) it,” you know?

When you play solo gigs, do you use a looper? (Note: a looper is a device that allows a musician to record music in real time and then play it back during a performance; it often fattens or enriches the sound.)

I use a looper sometimes, but mostly I just play songs. What I’ve been doing the last couple of years is I set up three or four different times in a night where I’ll just do a little looping. Mostly as a transition between songs because I really just like to play music. And I did more looping before they had looping machines that looped in time. So, I don’t really use a looper that plays in time. I like the challenge of trying to make it work by just dialing in the thing. Because it’s also fun just to be ambient. But mostly I just practice the songs, learn new stuff, and try to develop this style that I’ve been working on a long time. It’s just what I do. I’m good at playing bass, but I also play guitar. A lot of my solo stuff has bass lines and melodies. My solo record was just acoustic straight up, recorded at Ed Tupper’s Nags Head apartment.

What kind of guitar do you use?

I use a Martin D35. I have two of them. One always stays with Dave. The first one I got, I cracked it, right after because I was trying to do all that ”making sounds” by hitting the body of the guitar. Because I can play drums and I cracked it. So, I said, “Well, I’ll leave that to the guitar players that do that all the time. I’ll just go back to playing the guitar.” Now if I do anything like that, it’s very soft. (Laughs). You can take a slide and just whack the bridge and it’s really loud and you don’t have to hit it very hard. You get a really big click or just hit it with the palm of your hand softly and you get a “poof.”

But the cracked one is actually in great shape because it doesn’t go on tours in a van like my other one. I got the second one because I had to send the cracked one to the factory. So, it sounds the best of all my Martins. I got it in ’95. Not super old, but it’s kind of getting to a sweet spot, sound-wise. I have another one that I use and have taken it out on my solo tours, since ’96. It looks like moon craters on the face of it, from making weird sounds. I used to wonder, “Why does this moon crap keep happening on this guitar?” Then I realized, “Oh, it’s you trying to make this loud bass note sound by whacking the guitar really hard. I’m the one who did that.”

How did you come to play with Dave Matthews?

A long, long time ago, Dave worked at a place called Miller’s in Charlottesville (Virginia) and I used to play there every Monday night. He started bartending. That’s how we met. He was also doing a lot of theater at the time. He was like a local star in theater. He already had a following, as it were. We hung out one night and went in his basement, ate cookies and recorded (stuff). I thought, “Wow, this guy is really musical.” He didn’t even play guitar at the time. Well, he did, but I didn’t hear him play guitar. We were just messing around with drum machines, making weird, spontaneous recordings just for the fun of it. The first thing he did on an instrument, he played the piano. I was like, “Damn. It’s like Paul McCartney.” When he started the Dave Matthews Band, I said, “Oh, he plays guitar, too!” That was about mid to late ‘80s in Charlottesville. I didn’t know anything about drum machines, but I wanted to go hang out with him because I knew he did. He knew how to mess with one. So, we made some recordings and it was really a lot of fun. That’s kind of what started our musical friendship.

Even though you recently moved, you’re still strongly associated with the Outer Banks. How did it happen that you came to live here?

About 13 years ago, my partner at the time moved to North Carolina, so I moved, too.. I played there before, years and years ago. In the ‘80s. So, I knew about the place. I really wasn’t that much into beaches. But it was good, and that’s when I started playing with DMB more full time. But up until that year, 2007 or 2008, I’d only done one brief, couple-of-months tour with the band and then just only played with Dave. I recorded on all of their earlier records up until 2008, and we started doing all this when I moved back to the East Coast. It just seemed like a good fit to start doing that.

How did you hook up with Dan Martier for TR3?

A friend of mine got us together because I was looking for some musicians to play with when I moved to the Outer Banks. I was doing solo gigs. I started doing electric solo gigs with a drum machine. It was really just a very simple machine. Bass and drums called “Rhythm Tracks” by Zoom, which was almost as easy as working a cassette player. You just had to work out how to sequence the bars. Which I spent a couple years way into that thing because I’m a closet drum nut, so to be able to play drums was really cool. So that was a peak for me. I also realized this is fun and it’s a listening experience, but visually you stand on stage and press a button and you’re playing something you created, but there’s no air being moved except for the guitar. But, as soon as I did one gig with Mick (Mick Vaughn, bassist for TR3) and Dan, I think it was the second gig, we recorded it. I started listening back to it going, “Listen to all this music that’s not coming from a machine!”

Transplanted to the Outer Banks from the wilds of the L.A. area, singer-songwriter Scott Sechman has shared stages with Bill Medley, Tom Rush, Al Wilson and the Grass Roots during his ongoing music career. He has also contributed to Mojo and various online outlets.