Hand of Glory

Hand of Glory—Far From Kith & Kin (Skyclad, 1989)
Hand of Glory—Spank the Nun: A Devil's Dozen from Skyclad (Skyclad, 1990)
Hand of Glory—Like a Nightmare: Live from Berlin (Skyclad, 1990)

Even with its driving rock pulse, Hand of Glory somehow carried an ancient aire about it, tackling stark evils as though they'd risen from sulfurous fissures in the backwoods earth. Although largely forgotten today, the band put out two well-received albums and toured Europe twice. The first album, 1990's Far From Kith and Kin, included the tune "Ball and Chain," whose video at this link shows the band in action.

Hand of Glory was part of a fascinating continuum of music history, boasting alumni from well-respected punk/post-punk and "New Sincerity" bands from Austin (Rey Washam and Tim Swingle, respectively), and serving as a stepping stone in the prolific music career of Bill Anderson (Poison 13, Ballad Shambles, Joan of Arkansas, the Horsies, the Meat Purveyors, Cat Scientist) and the literary career of Joe Doerr, whose 2003 book positioned him firmly in the top tier of the world's emerging poets. I'll give a fuller accounting of Rey Washam later, perhaps in a spotlight on his wonderful '90s band Euripides Pants, but here's a closer look at the careers of other members of the band.
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Hand of Glory's bassist was Tim Swingle, a member of Florida punk band F, who put the anchor down in Austin on what was supposed to be a cross-country drive from Florida to California with Dottie Farrell, who also stayed, having her own future destiny as a member of two Austin bands with a punk/noise esthetic, Swine King [CD review] and the still-active Punkaroos [myspace] [review of their 2002 debut CD]. Before Hand of Glory, Swingle was a member of Doctor's Mob [band interview], a hard-but-melodic guitar band in Austin's New Sincerity scene [New Sincerity link 1] [link 2] [link 3]. I've found no internet references to further music projects involving Swingle since Hand of Glory, but in this 2002 Doctor's Mob interview, one of his former bandmates said he remained in the Austin area and now has a contracting company.
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Front man Joe Doerr had briefly joined his slightly older brother Steve Doerr in the latter's quintessential Austin roots rock band the LeRoi Brothers [myspace] [Trouser Press bio] for their second and third albums, Forget the Danger, Think About the Fun in '84, and Lucky, Lucky, Me in '85 (whose "Fight Fire with Fire" also made it onto Hand of Glory's Here Be Serpents). Doerr's next stop was the short-lived rock band Ballad Shambles which featured mostly the songs of band member Michael Maye, who died in '97 from cancer, an alumnus of the original Evan Johns and the H-Bombs. Ballad Shambles released one recording, a self-titled ep in '88. Hand of Glory arose from the ashes of Ballad Shambles, featuring Doerr and his Shambles bandmate, guitarist Bill Anderson.

Doerr is once again getting attention on both sides of the Atlantic, but this time for his literary career. Doerr pursued higher education in literature which included Notre Dame's Creative Writing Program (which in a listing of recent successes from their program attaches the date '98 to Doerr, presumably the year in which he studied or graduated from this program). Notre Dame-related sources also say he studied as a graduate under the tutelage of John Matthias [photo of Doerr at Poetry at Notre Dame Panel, 2005, honoring Matthias's retirement]. In 2003, after having had several works of poetry and critical reviews published in various journals and anthologies, his first book-length collection of poetry, Order of the Ordinary, was published by Salt Press of Cambridge, England. It has received several outstanding reviews in the U.S. and abroad for its rigor, creativity, and intellectual complexity, and, in the eyes of these reviewers, places him high in the pantheon of emerging poets [review 1] [review 2] [review 3]. At some point Doerr returned to Austin, as I found a 2004 reference announcing his scheduled participation in an Austin poetry reading which also mentioned that he was building his West Austin home. Also, St. Edwards University listed him as teaching a course in Literature and Philosophy in the fall of 2006 as part of their Freshman Studies program. The most recent internet references came from this year, where a couple of the Continental Club's newsletters mentioned him performing again with the LeRoi Brothers! I don't know when he returned to their fold, but these announcements are backed up by the LeRoi Brothers myspace page mentioning Joe Doerr as a member of the band and featuring numerous photos of him playing with the band (there's also a live band photo featuring Joe Doerr on this Continental Club newsletter).
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Ballad Shambles also included guitarist Bill Anderson, a Radio-Television-Film graduate of the University of Texas who was raised in a Maryland suburb of D.C. and came to Austin from California in '82. He was a roadie for Austin's legendary funk-skate-punk Big Boys, a band which included Washam for a while. Anderson tasted his first fame as second guitarist in a band which grew out of the Big Boys, Poison 13 ('84-'87) [myspace fan site] [band at label site] [bio at band member Tim Kerr's site] [videos from February '06 reunion show], a blues-drenched punk band whose hybrid formula of punk with blues and other roots sounds would be emulated time and again in Austin over the years (Jack O'Fire, Lord High Fixers, Big Foot Chester, etc.). By the time of Poison 13's demise, Anderson was already a member of Ballad Shambles, which, as mentioned earlier, also included vocalist Doerr, who along with Anderson and others was a founder of Hand of Glory after Ballad Shambles had run its course.

Anderson has continued on as the most prominent alumnus of Hand of Glory on the Austin scene. In fact, before the group disbanded, he was a mover and shaker in two other prominent local combos, Joan of Arkansas [video], fronted by the distinctive singer Jo Walston, a band he joined in '91 in its early days, and the Horsies, each of his three bands pursuing completely different musical paths. Joan and the Horsies had overlapping memberships (in '91-2, three members of Joan of Arkansas - Anderson, Sheri Lane, and Brant Bingamon - teamed up with two members from the chaos rock outfit Happy Family - Julia Austin and Rich Malley - and one from the "ol' timey" Muleskinners - Kristy Knight - to form the Horsies) and were both fronted by fun women singers (three of 'em in the Horsies). Joan of Arkansas took a rustic approach (that would grow into Anderson's next big project with Walston, the bluegrass-heavy Meat Purveyors), whereas The Horsies were a dance band influenced by the bounce and slinky guitar lines of Afro-pop, releasing two albums in the mid-'90s. Later in the decade as a member of Big Foot Chester [link 1] [link 2] (one of Howlin' Wolf's nicknames), Anderson would return to the blues-with-punk-attitude of Poison 13, and put out two albums with Chester. The Meat Purveyors formed in '96 and, except while the band was temporarily dissolved in 2000 and 2001, continued until very recently (their "last gig ever" was in November in New York City as bassist Cherilyn DiMond has moved to Maine). The Meat Purveyors hooked up with Chicago's Bloodshot Records through DiMond's connections with label mainstay Jon Langford, releasing several wonderful albums and affording Anderson the opportunity to tour and perform with the label's Neco Case and Langford and record some of Anderson's songs with Langford's Pine Valley Cosmonauts. Although the Purveyors have been laid to rest, Anderson marches on with Cat Scientist [myspace] [website] [band at label], an alternative pop rock band with echoes of the Horsies and Talking Heads in its sound whose 2006 debut has been featured several times on Around the Town Sounds. The groundwork was laid starting fall 2002, and the band began playing out about a year later. Anderson, as usual, is keeping some familiar company, with Horsies bandmate Brant Bingamon on board.