Rest In Percussion, Teresa - by Tim Napalm Stegall
The late Teresa Taylor, working alongside her “twin brother” King Coffey in the Butthole Surfers’ engine room sometime in the ‘80s. (Photo by Keri Pickett. Taken at Tin Pan Alley, NYC, 1985)
“Boy, does this imminent death, coupled with a birthday, really bring the love out. I am overwhelmed by all the messages I have received,” she posted on her Facebook wall the day of her 60th birthday, Nov. 10th, 2022. It was the first news I had received that Teresa “Nervosa” Taylor – who, alongside her fellow Butthole Surfers, had long-kidded the public that she and co-drummer King Coffey were twins – was dying and in hospice.
Four days later, another FB post explained the culprit: “This new doc (has me on a) round-the-clock oxygen tank. She gives me one to five expectancy, end stage lung disease. I don't have cancer or any harsh treatments. I know I smoked like a chimney and this is to be expected.
“My spirits are up,” she added. “I broke my arm when I fell and wish I had something for pain, but otherwise I'm pretty comfortable.”
Self-deprecating to the end, downplaying her pain. That seemed like the Teresa Taylor I met 16 years before.
I can’t claim to be a great friend. I knew her, but not as well as many here in Austin. We only encountered each other after I came back to town in 2006, and I took a job working in a progressive political fundraising call center, Telefund. We worked out of the old ARC rehearsal complex off South Congress, now hilariously calling itself “SoCo” then days. (It might still. I wouldn’t know.) We called on behalf of the DNC, DCCC, and various other bowls of alphabet soup meant to stave off the right wing virus.
I didn’t recognize her at first. She hardly resembled the undernourished blonde wraith flailing away in almost mirror image of King, beneath the veil of smoke, strobe lights, and overlapping 16mm projections of surgical and mechanical disasters. Like the rest of the Butthole Surfers, Teresa Nervosa was fucking scary, when you’re young, impressionable, and trying to take in all this lysergic sensory overload.
But this woman smiled, recognizing a spirit. And I was too stuck in my own world, fearing the worst as my mother slowly died 250 miles away, and I struggled to do well at this job I was not grasping at first.
One day on break, she sat next to me in the parking lot, as others smoked. She wore a New York Dolls t-shirt. “Oh, I think I’m starting to get it,” I thought.
“I used to be in a band,” she began. “We were called the Butthole Surf–”
“TERESA?!!!” I interrupted. I must have looked like a Looney Tunes gag – jaw on the ground, eyeballs bugging out.
We were work buddies from that point.
Still can’t say I got to know her much better. That stint, I wasn’t there long. Mom had a stroke, and I rushed back to Alice to oversee her remaining days – they found metastatic colon cancer not long after. But that’s another story for another day.
I returned to Telefund a few months later, after Mom was buried. Teresa was no longer with the company. But that was kinda the way of that job. It was a gig, something people drifted in and out of when needed.
I never forgot her humble nature, downplaying her Butthole Surferness. It made a bigger impression than those old hellish visions from back in the ‘80s. I wish I’d gotten to know her better. I have so many questions.
I was honored to write Teresa’s Austin Chronicle obituary – please click that link. My deepest condolences to her longtime companion and caretaker Cheryl Curtice, her family, and to the Butthole Surfers, especially her “brother” King. He remarked, “You could make things better by simply walking into the room. Everyone was drawn to your charisma, talent, and wicked sense of humor. I learned so much from you (like how to play drums, and which Robert Altman films to watch). But mostly, you made what should have been tough times fun by simply being yourself.”
“Not sure what else to say,” he added in a personal message to me, “except that I truly loved her.”
Understandable. She was easy to love. Rest In Percussion, Teresa.
Many apologies for slacking in posting the last few days. I am trying desperately to keep up all my normal duties while writing this book. As you can see, I’m not doing terribly well at it. Hopefully, I’m doing better at writing this book. Tune in tomorrow. There should be something here – a record review, or Part One of the Galen and Paul interview. Or maybe not. We’ll see.
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