Charlie and Byron This Weekend

I need a good show. After the week I've had so far. I need to see music that will set me right in the head. Looks like this weekend will be it. Mr. Robison at the Dog Friday and Mr. Berline at the Double Stop Saturday. I don't think I've seen Charlie play in at least 3 years. The time is right. And Saturday? I'm ready for some pickin' and a grinnin'. Here's you a little taste of what goes down above the little fiddle shop in downtown Guthrie.

Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' bout folks. Oh, I turn 35 Saturday. Crazy. If you see me out buy me a shot. I need it.

Rock-N-America Best and Worst

Whew. Three full summer days of rock n roll will take a toll. But I trudged through the Zoo. All in the name of metal. I'll just give a bullet point list of the weekend.

• Best Side-Stage Show - Bullet Boys (LA Guns gets a mention here for holding court too)
• Most Cuss Words in a Show That Didn't Allow Cussin' - Faster Pussycat
• Most Talkin' - Dokken
• Biggest Disappointment - Slaughter
• Bands That Redeemed Themselves from Previous Shows - Cinderella and Ratt
• Biggest Stage Presence - Scorpions
• Coolest Moment - Lita Ford singing Close My Eyes Forever in the middle of rain, thunder, and lightning
• Best Drum Solo - Scorpion's Kottak Attack
• Still My Favorite Band - Cinderella

Take a shower. Call your mother. Your life is in shambles.

Sons of Bill. Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers had a tough time following that band of brothers from Virgina. I've come to the realization that if i see any musician from the Appalachian area, they're alright. Sons of Bill is no exception. Its good to see some fresh music and sounds around here. We need more influence to grab from. I highly suggest all Texas friends go see them when they open for Randy Rogers on July 3 at the Ft. Worth Stockyards. You won't be disappointed.

The Peacemakers show was a Peacemakers show. There was a guy that dressed and acted like Steve Larson on stage. There was Patron, Mekong, and Makers involved. I had fun. I didn't get arrested. And I lived to tell the tale. There is no photographic evidence of the night other than the picture of the strange "Bottle from Bangkok". Ate at Big Truck Tacos before the show for the first time. Good eats. I had "The Fifth". They don't tell you whats in it. The recipe changes everyday. I was pleased. Have a great week everybody and go grab you some Sons of Bill.

Blogger, I've Neglected You

I ignore you for sometime and I always return to find new fun features you can do. I know Google is your daddy but I forget how integrated you can be. You can show where I am through Google Latitude; show my pics I post in Picasa; and now I find you can post to Facebook and Twitter. All by sending one little email. I've been figuring out how I will keep everybody updated when we go on our trip to Boston and Maine in July and it looks like you're it. People may not come to the actual blog, but if I write more than 140 characters they will have to, to get.... the rest of the story. You have gotten prettier with age, Blogger. I do still love you even though I don't spend much time with you. Maybe, I'll start shooting you and email and you can do all the leg work so i don't have to pull up an app just to post things. You should be my diary. My ideas (even though I don't have many). My chronicles. Hell, I even used that in the title. We'll see how you handle the types of posts I put. See how well you translate them to Twitter and Facebook. Since that's where most people hang out these days. Let's have some fun again shall we? And let people know you still exist.

America is turning into Idiocracy

Seriously. I walked into Arby's here in Stillwater for lunch and was greeted by two huge self serve kiosks. We're really moving to where we never interact with people. First, movie tickets. Then, movie rentals. Now, fast food? Really? Come on.

 

Hey man, gimme a pump.

This morning after dropping Averly off at daycare, I saw a kid riding his bike to school with pegs on the front fork only. None on the back. I wondered if he had those on there to do tricks or give other kids a ride or a pump. I discussed it with Melisa. I remember when when I got my first pair of pegs for my bike. They were called axle extenders and were pretty thin. I explained to Melisa how I don't think the manufacturers realized kids gained weight as they got older and thus the "extenders" usually ended bending and were a complete bitch to get back off. But they were the easiest way to give another a pump. I could never do the riding on the handle bars. Either me sitting on them or doing the driving. It was to difficult to steer and see and if you hit something, guess who is the one to hit head first into said object. Another way I remember to give a pump was one kid sits on the seat while the other one stands up and pedals the entire way to the destination. This was difficult for both as the one on the seat didn't have anywhere to put his feet and you couldn't hold on to the pedaler since he was constantly going up and down pedaling. All you could do was try to hold onto the back of the seat to keep balance. The pedaler gets extremely tired from constantly standing up working with the extra payload. Then came the pegs. The perfect solution for giving another kid a ride. Stand on the back with hands on shoulders while the owner of the bike could sit and pedal away. I wonder if kids still do that. I know now about every kid has a bicycle. Do the ones that don't still get a pump from kids that do? And where did that term come from? When I need a ride in a car, from now on, I'm gonna say "Hey, gimme a pump to the store."

I hope I don't have to wear this shirt for real

Remakeoverandout

Playing with the new Blogger template designer. They finally added controls to tweak your layout and such and not rely on so much knowledge of css (of which I have none). So, the look will probably change a bit for a while until I finally get the combo of colors/pictures/layout I like. Made a new little logo too. Probably won't change that other than the colors sometime. At least I finally got to design something for myself. Hardly get to do that. But I guess that means business is good. If you haven't heard already we're heading to Texas tomorrow. Been a few years since we've been down there sans kid. Averly will be staying at GG's in Ardmore which she's super excited. Gonna be hitting our standard Austin hangouts; Magnolia, Momos, Mother Egan's, Saxon, Oasis, Red Eyed Fly, plus or minus other venues. But tomorrow its "Gruene" lights, blue skies and straight ahead.

The "We'll See" Attitude

My buddy Poncho presented a good question about the "we'll see" attitude to music and albums being released in these times. Why have people come to this? What's changed from before? Why are we critics and not just fans now? Well, here's what I wrote back to him in an email:

"That's a very legitimate question. And it can't be answered over a damn tweet. You got it right on about being a critic instead of a fan. Music in general is over saturated with the internet. I download shit right and left and you most really doesn't hold my attention. I just get a taste and go, eh, its alright, and then just archive it away. And artists that have a really strong first release usually bomb on their sophomore effort. I'll give you some examples starting with the first band I think that started this way of thinking for me, Nickelback. In 2000 I absolutely loved them. I was so into the Red Dirt scene, I never listened to anything else. I thought rock n roll I enjoyed was gone. Lost to grunge or whatever. Then I heard them on MTV2 of all places. Bad ass. Bought their first label release and their album before that released on an indie label. I started telling everyone about them. Then they got a little softer, commercialized and over produced until they aren't even a band to me anymore. Other examples of bands that have changed there sound and been turned off to are Jack Ingram (he went mainstream and sure, makes more more and I'm happy for him but I don't like it), Shooter Jennings (had a great first release and now he got a little too weird for me with his "creativeness"), The Lost Trailers (again a great first release and went mainstream). Now there's other people that have changed their sound and I have no idea what for. Robert Earl Keen's latest release I'm no fan of. He's gotten a little too weird for me. I could go on and on but the point is now, I keep trying to find something to keep my attention. Kevin and I have discussed this before. It does suck that we're critics now instead of fans. And I'll say we're pretentious at that cuz we think we listen to so much we think we know whats up..... sometimes. Anyway, this brings me to the Drive By Truckers. I'm pretty picky and choosey with their stuff anyway. I only like one or two songs of their previous albums. I WANT to be a bigger fan but they just haven't got to me yet, hence the "we'll see". Well they are still about par for the course. Only liked a couple of songs. So enough of me rambling now. Hope that clears up some things."

So, yeah. Everyone's a critic.

Appropriate Song

Right now....

"Good Fortune" - Todd Snider

The Letter Going Out Today

NTB = Non Technical Bastards

So I write this on the way back from our surreal Valentine's trip to St. Louis. This isn't the "fun" post but the post of all the car drama we went through with the ass clowns at NTB. We start with us on the way to Anheuser-Busch Brewery. We pull up to a stop light at 18th and Gratiot. I step on the gas, the car hiccups and dies rolling through the intersection. I immediately cut the wheels and hope to coast to the side. It doesn't happen. I tell Melisa to get out help push. We get it to the side and still can get it to fire up. I call a tow truck and Melisa calls around to find if any mechanic is open. Twenty minutes later, the truck arrives. He gets the car on the flatbed and Melisa said she finds a place about twenty minutes away. NTB in Bridgeton. This is the biggest mistake we make right here. See, my mother-in-law has a contact in St. Louis and she us this lady's number "in case of emergency". Well, she called her and while we are hauling out car to NTB, she says her brother-in-law is a mechanic but he's not open on Sunday. That's cool, this may not be a big deal. NTB may just fix something loose and it'll fire up. Well this lady says if they can't fix it to haul it to McCausland Service. Right on. We'll be cool. Fast forward to NTB's "diagnostic". They say there's two sensors that could be out. The crank and cam positioning sensor. Cool they get it ordered and we think we'll be out before our 7pm Valentine reservation at White Castle. Well, time passes, and it passes. They replace both these sensors and the car still won't fire up. Time passes further. We're at like 4 hours now. They come and say "we took a look at the timing belt and we thought it was ok, but we looked at it further and it's not grabbing anymore". Shit. A stripped timing belt. I know that's not cheap. Time for a rental car to get to White Castle. At this point nothing else can be done that evening. We make the decision to wake in the morning and try to get a tow truck to take the car to McCausland's. Mother Nature decided to rear her head and drop about five inches of snow that night. Yeah, good luck getting a tow truck in a timely manner. We call Bill at McCauslands and discuss with him about pricing and yadda yadda yadda and decide to let NTB do the work. Bill also suggests a new water pump while they're in there. What the hell. I know those go out too. It's gonna be about the same price at either shop and we save a tow. Now, NTB manager says they'll have no problem replacing the belt. They've done it plenty of times. So they start to work on the car and go all around St. Louis killing time. About 2 pm, NTB calls me and says "did my tech explain to you the differences in the four cylinder engines?" At this point it literally sounds like he's making up shit. I have some knowledge of how an internal combustion engine works. This guy is telling me a valve broke and has fallen into the engine! Ummm. What? Dude, I barely stepped on the gas when the belt stripped. I wasn't redlining down the highway when it happened and through a rod up into the valve. It was a very quiet engine dying. Well we show back up and the mechanic guy says he's barely getting any compression off the number three cylinder and the valve is the problem and they don't have the capacity to fix it. They try to get us to go to a mechanic they know to fix it the rest of the way. At this point my car has the fucking alternator, power steering, spark plugs removed and engine mounts loosened! Seiously? They leave all this unassembled to "save us labor costs". All this time we've been visiting with Bill and he tell us red flags are all over this thing and these guys are in way over their heads. So we are fucking pissed. Car still won't start, it's in pieces and worse off than before. At 4pm we tell them to stop everything and we're hauling the car to McCausland's. We know we're now staying another fucking night and get another hotel, rent the car for another day, and tow our car to the other shop. NTB says they'll only charge us for parts and just one hour labor. They have been working on our car about nine total hours. I don't mind paying for parts. I know they gotta pay the parts guy (those sensors were free). Whatever. I'll deal with NTB when we get home. Bill doesn't think anything is wrong other than they installed the timing belt wrong and the engine is out of time. So today Bill's guys work on it for about three hours and they have it running. Those dipfucks didn't know how to put on a timing belt right. Now Bill tells me they have to reassemble all the shit these guys took off that didn't even need to be. One of the bolts on the crank sensor was loose and wasn't working. They only left three of the four spark plugs and the guys at McCauslands had to figure out where all the appropriate bolts went. So here we are. All the was wrong with it was the timing belt. Yes we saw it and a good chunk was stripped. I do have a new water pump which we voluntarily repaced since all that shit was out anyway. Jason and Bill at McCausland's hooked everything back up right and the car runs like a top. NTB, you cost us a day and half and about $500 extra dollars. Fuck you. You will be hearing from us. McCausland's Service Center, you are the shit. Thank you for getting us on the road in what should've been four hours of time in the first place. Fuck you again NTB. Fuck you in your ass.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Miami,United States

Steve Earle's Rockinest

I can make Steve playlists all day. He plays more types of music than I can think of. I figure I would start with this little gem of a list right here. This is at his most rock-n-roll. I love it. Steve Earle makes me want to air guitar all day.

"Here I am" - Steve Earle - El Corazón

"The Unrepentant" - Steve Earle - I Feel Alright

"Ashes to Ashes" - Steve Earle - Jerusalem

"Johnny Come Lately" - Steve Earle - Copperhead Road

"F the CC" - Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now

"Taneytown" - Steve Earle - El Corazón

"Before They Make Me Run" - Steve Earle - Steve Earle & The Supersuckers

"CCKMP" - Steve Earle - I Feel Alright

"N.Y.C." - Steve Earle - El Corazón

"Breed" - Steve Earle - Sidetracks

"The Other Kind" - Steve Earle - The Collection

"The Devil's Right Hand" - Steve Earle - Copperhead Road

"Time Has Come Today" - Steve Earle - Sidetracks



Here's a zip file for you too - Steve Earle's Rockinest (link will only be active for a week)

Nine years ago today....

We remember January 27, 2001, and Kendall Durfey, Bjorn Fahlstrom, Nate Fleming, Will Hancock, Daniel Lawson, Brian Luinstra, Denver Mills, Pat Noyes, Bill Teegins and Jared Weiberg. Remember the 10.

Cody Canada - On a Cloud

Got your tickets?

Yeah I got 'em. To the gun show tomorrow at the OKC Fairgrounds. My dad is working out there. We'll see how many Mall Ninjas are running around. Then its off to the Wormy Dog to watch the Stragglers play. I'm ready for my "once a month good live music" fix. I miss seeing a lot of it. Don't get me wrong. I love being a responsible family man. Keeps me out of trouble. :-) But I miss discovering new bands live. Kinda boring finding new music online. Lame-O. And its always fun raising a little hell while your out. There may be some of that tomorrow night. I miss those guys. Mainly for their conversation. The show is just a plus. Roger's "wit"... if you call it that. Grant's plan to be off the grid if the world goes to shit. Jason and Brad's "crazy" music they like to hear. Not what you think people in a "outlaw band" listen to. And I don't read books but I enjoy those guys telling me about them. They should do audio books. Jack Kerouac, brought to you by The Stragglers. They could read and inject their opinions throughout. It could be some funny educational shit right there. But I, digress... Sunday, taking the family up to Stillwater for the wrestling match. Hitting Joe's before for my father-in-law's birthday. Should be lot o' fun. You know I've been in Stillwater since 1995 and have never been to a wrestling match. Feels weird. Anyway, I leave you with the song of the day. See y'all tomorrow. Time to rock-n-roll.

Charm City Devils - "Let's Rock-N-Roll"

Calico Jack Rackam

This guy is a musical enigma to me. I stumbled across him a few years back while Googling Drunk Alice (a Wayne Hancock reference to his upright bass players bass). Yeah I know. Weird. But this guy's band was call Drunk Alice. Sweet. I thought I'd take a listen. Holy shit, I fell in love. Blues-rock-folk. Every song was well written and like taking a trip through a story book. One favorite song of his popped up on the ol iPod recently and I decided to look him up again. There's not much info out there. Found a few pages and found out he has renamed his "band" Fair Clara and has an album on iTunes (which I promptly picked up). Fair Clara is also on Facebook with a ton of videos Calico has posted. I'm telling ya, this guys voice and songwriting talent blows me away.... sincere with a little whimsy. I think he'd do just fine getting a few gigs around our musical neighborhood. Anyway, here a few links. Take a look and listen:

Where he recorded the Drunk Alice Sessions
Reverb Nation
On Facebook
On iTunes

Oh, and here is that favorite tune I was telling you about.
Calico Jack - "I Miss You"