When I saw a post for a Jan. 31 show at The Brass Rail titled “A Celebration of and Farewell to Cliff,” I took notice. 

And when I saw the lineup of city favorites like Squirrel Cage, Pete Dio and The Old & Dirty, and Left Lane Cruiser, as well as White Trash Compactor, I just had to do a story.

At a recent Squirrel Cage show at The Rail, vocalist/guitarist Johnny Revers commented on the passing of his friend Cliff, who was in a “band doing what no one else was at the time.” 

With that in my head, I reached out to Squirrel Cage’s Mitch Fraizer for more information. He in turn got me in touch with Revers, who in turn got me in touch with “Cornfed,” half of the duo Cornfed Johnson.

Next up, what was Cliff’s last name? Since veteran rockers are on a first name basis or go by a nickname with everyone, that was a little bit harder than expected. 

But after speaking with Cornfed and digging up a 2005 album review of the band Drunken Fishermen, I was able to nail down his full name as Cliff Gaither.

Setting themselves apart

With that critical piece of information obtained, it was time to talk to Cornfed about his band Cornfed Johnson.

“Back in probably ’96 I had an idea for a band that I came up with when I lived in Texas,” he said. “It was a little odd idea. So, it kind of took me a while to come up with someone. 

“Well, I used to work for Wooden Nickel back in the day. One of the girls that worked there, we all loaded up in her apartment one night after work and there was a guy there playing his acoustic guitar, playing this folky kind of country kind of stuff that he was writing himself. I was like, ‘I betchya I could start a band with this guy.’ ”

That guy was Gaither, and they would start a band although they had a different name initially: White Trash Compactor.

“That was the original name of Cornfed Johnson,” Cornfed said. “Then (Cliff) was making fun of me for listening to something country, and he said something ‘Cornfed Johnson,’ and I was like, ‘Dude, the f— is that? That needs to be the name of the band.’ ”

Memorable live shows

If you find the name a bit odd, well, you should have seen their shows.

“It was like punk rock blues,” Cornfed said. “Our live shows were pretty much Hee Haw. It was pretty much like punk rock Hee Haw. That’s the best way to describe it.”

Two-man acts were not as prevalent as they are now, but that was hardly what separated Cornfed Johnson from the rest of the field.

“We’ve played on beat-up on old gear,” Cornfed said. “We had like hubcaps for cymbals. I used to scream through a snare drum. I’ve never seen anyone before or after do that.

“We switched it up as much as we could. I played drums and sang, but I didn’t just play drums. Cliff played drums with his feet and played guitar like the one-man band. Scott Biram was the only other person doing anything remotely like what Cliff was doing.

“Within the two-man band in which there wasn’t none of, he was doing a one-man band thing that no one was doing either.”

In a band that was (sorry for the pun) marching to their own beat, their shows were something to behold. When asked about their shows, Cornfed recalls Whatzup did reviews of underground bands, with Cornfed Johnson among them.

“They did pretty basic reviews of everybody until they got to us,” he said. “It pretty much said, ‘The best way to describe these guys is that it seems like they spend a lot of time at farm auctions. If you see them live, you’ll laugh your ass off.’ I was like, ‘That’s the best review ever.’”

Capturing a sound

Gaither had moved back to Texas in recent years, so Cornfed says he had kind of lost contact to a degree. However, when he heard about Cliff’s passing from a heart attack in October, he wanted to do something.

“Just a little thing to let his family know that we’re thinking of him,” he said of the show, with all proceeds going to Gaither’s mother.

And the show was not haphazardly thrown together. Instead, Cornfed had a theme in mind.

“I wanted to kind of try to capture maybe a little bit of what his sound was like: Not just have a bunch of his friends play,” he said. “Kind of, within bands in this town, try to come up with what he would sound like. It’s more about what he sounded like, his kind of influences. Left Lane and the stuff Pete is doing with the Old & Dirty — that’s big Cliff right there. And the noisy rock that is Johnny (Revers of Squirrel Cage). He and Johnny listened to a lot of the same stuff.”

Cornfed will also be doing his thing as White Trash Compactor.

“If you come out on the 31st, you’ll get a little bit of what Cornfed was all about,” he said. “I was probably the one that brought the noisy to it. White Trash Compactor is noisy.”