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Rex Mantlepiece begins recording at area radio station
 Tre Baker // I got a job at this radio station during the middle 1990's. Being the low man on the totem pole, I would get paid six dollars an hour to be the warm body inside the building on weekend nights, a requirement made by the F.C.C. The station basically ran itself with Clinton conspiracists and colon cleanser ads in the wee hours, so I got to messing around in the recording studios. Back then we still had eight-tracks and reel-to-reel machines as well as a full 88-key synthesizer that composed car dealership jingles during the day. I'd pretty much just stand there all night, hitting Middle C while scrolling through all the sound effects it made.
I was still a smoker then, and one night while taking a break, this dude staggered across the front lawn of the station. There's a popular nightclub down the street, perhaps the Largest Gay Danceteria in the Mid-South, but this shadowy figure came lurching toward me from the cellphone headquarters. We shared a bottle between us, and once I told him about the studio upstairs, I couldn't get him out.
Rex Mantlepiece stayed there for six hours that night, and came back for the next twelve Saturday ... (More)I got a job at this radio station during the middle 1990's. Being the low man on the totem pole, I would get paid six dollars an hour to be the warm body inside the building on weekend nights, a requirement made by the F.C.C. The station basically ran itself with Clinton conspiracists and colon cleanser ads in the wee hours, so I got to messing around in the recording studios. Back then we still had eight-tracks and reel-to-reel machines as well as a full 88-key synthesizer that composed car dealership jingles during the day. I'd pretty much just stand there all night, hitting Middle C while scrolling through all the sound effects it made.
I was still a smoker then, and one night while taking a break, this dude staggered across the front lawn of the station. There's a popular nightclub down the street, perhaps the Largest Gay Danceteria in the Mid-South, but this shadowy figure came lurching toward me from the cellphone headquarters. We shared a bottle between us, and once I told him about the studio upstairs, I couldn't get him out.
Rex Mantlepiece stayed there for six hours that night, and came back for the next twelve Saturday nights. Apparently, he had a lot inside that he had to defuse. I was more than happy to just open up the mic's and wax-on, wax-off on the production console. What Mantlepiece would come up with wasn't the greatest sounding music I'd heard, but it sounded a helluva lot better than 125 versions of Middle C. We'd share another bottle and smoke on the levee. He'd tell me all about hitching a ride down from Fergus Falls, and I'd tell him all about the great bands that called Little Rock their home. Once winter came, Rex Mantlepiece stopped coming around as much anymore.
Sometime in 1997, the radio station purchased this machine that could burn CDs. I promptly took the tracks that Rex had composed and made a few copies for friends of mine like Colin Brooks and Chris Burnley. One thing led to another and before I knew it, newly published messageboards appeared on the minty fresh internet filled with missives directed toward Dear Rex from destitute men who sympathized with his cover of "When You're Hot, You're Hot", lovers who consummated their mornings with his version of Carole King songs, and EVERYONE just plain ol' adored his hit, "Reason Y".
It was a lot for the dude. I didn't see him that much anymore. As I've said before, I think that he still had the burn, but he wasn't crazy about the natives dancing around his fire.
Despite all that, he came out with three more albums of material: One fifteen-minute E.P. consisting of fourteen completely sampled tracks, some remix thing that he did with some other D.J. in the market, and one final album in 2002 that was completely organic. I even got to play guitar on one of the tracks. (I don't know how to play the guitar.)
I haven't seen Rex Mantlepiece in quite awhile. I do know however that had there never been a cadre of musicians who showed the way unknowingly from afar, Rex may have never been brave enough to stagger across the lawn that night eleven years ago. (Less) 
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Chris Burnley
