Yep, I was there and the weather was terrible. I know we need the rain but I hate it and it's depressing. Sister K and I arrived around 3:30 to make sure we were there early enough to get wristbands before they sold out. We left right afterward we got them and went to Mai's on Milam to have some Vietnamese food since we both were starving. We got back in plenty of time to see the first band, Banjo and Sullivan tribute. Don't know if any of you have heard of Rob Zombie but he's the one that had Jesse Dayton record the music for the movie The Devil's Reject soundtrack. Two Hoots and a Hollar followed them. They always put on a good show that makes you want to get up and dance...too bad I didn't feel like it. Then it was Red Volkaert, the guitar player from Merle Haggard's band. They also put on a good show and I was quite surprised. It seems like I've heard of him before but not really sure of my sources. Maybe it was someone that had seen Haggard recently... CC Adcock hit the stage next. I liked him at first but then the show that he put on in the VIP section with the 2 women and the camera after he played was too much. I got sick of the flash in my face while I was trying to watch the next band and I think there was some drama going on there also. You know that I can do without drama in my life or watching someone else's drama. The next band, Los Skarnales, I could've done without. I know they're popular but I'm not even sure what kind of music that this was. I've heard it called ska but wtf is that? It sounded more like Mexican Punk Rock to me but then again, I'm no music critic...just a listener of all types of music. Last but not least, was the reunion of the Road Kings. They had the place hoppin'. I managed to get through the crowd and take a few pics of just about all of the bands mentioned but only had 2 pics left by the time the Road Kings hit the stage. I'm not sure of how they turned out but I'll have them developed tonight and post possibly tomorrow. Anyway, that Jason Burns on a pink stand-up bass beats all I've seen in a long time. All in all, we had a good time. Saw 6 bands for $20 bucks, saw some neat cars but I didn't see anyone getting tattoos like Jesse mentioned. Where was that going on?SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!!!!!
3 Cover Bands ~ 2-23-06
Yes, it's true. I went to the Continental Club on Thursday night with Sister K and my friend Carrie B. and we saw 3 cover bands. The first band was a Beatles cover band. The second band covered B-52 songs and the 3rd band covered Duran Duran songs. Thank gawd there was no cover charge...and I forgot to mention the yankee idiot that kept trying to talk to me and trying to speak Italian (or so he said) to me and others. First, he told me that they quit serving him at the bar. Then he told me that they had caught him doing a line in the restroom and wouldn't serve him. Then he told me that he'd just ate a handful of Loritabs and would calm down in a few minutes. Then he told me he was a cop and just doing his job and wanted me to toast him. I told him to go away. I don't like or drink with cops...
I wound up going alone since Sister K couldn't go. Jason B. was within a 100 mile radius of Houston so she HAD TO go see him. I don't blame her. I would've went too if my name was on the guest list. Since it wasn't, I went to the Big Texas Dancehall http://www.bigtexassaloon.com/ alone. I met up with Super Dave and there might have been 50 people in attendance. I blame this and all other small attendance shows in Houston on the radio. Houston radio, to put it bluntly, sucks. They can only play what is dictated to them by Clear Channel/Infinity/Cox Communications or whoever it is that owns them. There are NO independently owned radio stations here and it really sucks because there is so much local music that is not being heard that it's pathetic. Me personally, I'd rather support an artist that is struggling to make ends meet but is a damn good musician rather than one that has a bazillion dollars in the bank and sings pop country/pop/rap crap or anything that is played over and over again on the radio. Why give my hard earned money to a millionaire? What's up Houston radio? When are you going to quit sucking? OK...I'm babbling/rambling again. Back to the original subject...The opening band was someone I'd never heard of before Aaron __________and the Dog & Pony Show from San Marcos. Don't ask me, I can't remember his last name although he was very polite and came up to me before the show and introduced himself and was happy to be at Big Texas Dancehall...a first time for him. I listened to them for a few minutes before I spotted a friend of mine, Dan Johnson, Jarrod Birmingham's steel guitar player. Dan coaxed me backstage into the green room (why is this called the "green room"? Most of the rooms are never green...) and as I was headed in that direction, Super Dave showed up. We went back with Dan and hung out for a few minutes chatting about this, that and the other and watching Jack Osbourne kick box on the blaring TV. After the first band was over and the DJ started playing the crap they usually play (nashvegassucks), we left from backstage and found a place in front of the stage. I've seen Jarrod a few times before but last night, they performed for a crowd of about 50 people like it was 5000 people. Brian Rung, Dan Johnson, John and Billy Joe were tearing it up on stage!!! Brian makes me smile...whenever anyone stepped up front to take a pic of him, he smiled. I think I took some decent pics that I'll post later on. We stayed until it was over and then Dave and I both purchased his new CD, No Apologies. You can hear a couple of the new songs here: http://www.myspace.com/jarrodbirminghamIf you get a chance, don't miss Jarrod Birmingham when he comes to your town. Make sure you purchase a t-shirt and the new CD also. SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!!!!!
(CBS) It sounds more like something from the old West than modern day San Francisco. It was dusty. It was musty. It didn't smell real good. This is a true story about buried treasure. Deep in the basement of a non-descript warehouse, down a maze of back alleys, Bill Sagan discovered what amounts to a goldmine. "It was 25 feet high in height, below ground. Part of it was below ground," said Sagan. "And there were, I thought, hundreds of thousands of items that were in there. And truly there were millions of items." It was a rock-and-roll treasure trove--millions of original photographs, posters, documents and much more of forgotten artifacts from an unforgettable musical era. "We've been told that there exists no other trove of rock-and-roll history that is anywhere near the size of this anywhere else," said Sagan. To explain where this lost treasure came from we have to travel back more than 40 years to a time when San Francisco was at the vanguard of the rock-and-roll revolution. And leading the charge was one man, Bill Graham. From the first concert he staged at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore auditorium in 1966, Bill Graham became one of the most influential figures in music history. Many say he literally invented the concept of the modern rock concert. "Bill Graham did something that very few people do," said Sagan. "He started an industry. Live performance music in music halls. Rock-and-roll. He broke these bands. If Bill Graham hadn't been there, would Janis Joplin have been as big?" In 1969, Joplin herself certainly appreciated him. In a 60 Minutes interview, Joplin said: "Graham really understands musicians, and that's really important to musicians. Most promoters don't care anything except 'two 45-minute sets, $6,500 dollars.' They refuse to relate in any other terms." From 1966 to 1991, Graham's company, Bill Graham Presents, put on more than 20,000 concerts worldwide. Everyone who was anyone played for him--Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Santana, U-2. You name it. The list goes on forever. And for nearly 30 years Graham saved EVERYTHING he could get his hands on from every concert he ever put on. "Bill Graham was a pack rat," said Sagan. "I think Bill Graham just put everything down in that storage area and was going to keep it forever." For Graham, forever didn't last long. In 1991, on his way back from a concert, he was killed in a helicopter crash. While his memory lived on, memory of his archive began to fade. Over the next decade, ownership of Graham's company changed hands several times. But no one took the time to sift through all that "junk" in the basement, until 2003, when the latest owners decided to sell yet again, and Bill Sagan bought it all. He said: "And one day--I believe it was 25, forty-foot trucks--truckloads took the product from their building over to our building." Sagan and his staff kept their find a secret while they catalogued every item from what they now called Wolfgang's Vault. Wolfgang Grajonca was Bill Graham's given name. Now they've opened it up to the world and put most of it up for sale on their website, wolfgangsvault.com. First there are the photographs. "I thought there was maybe a half million to a million slides and negatives," said Sagan. "As it turned out, there's probably is closer to a million and a half to two million slides and negatives." There are posters by the thousands, the psychedelic artwork that went up weekly in San Francisco in the 60's. "We have more than 500 posters that are so rare that their retail price would be in excess of $15,000," Sagan estimated. "There were drawers full of tickets from decades of concerts." Graham seems to have kept every contract he ever signed. But he had one more big surprise in store, and only after he bought the collection and started going through boxes did Sagan discover what may be the most valuable asset. "There are nearly 7,000 tapes of 7,000 different performances,' said Sagan. "And the reason I say nearly is because we haven't counted them all and we haven't looked at them all." Graham didn't just save memorabilia from the concerts, he saved the concerts themselves--rare, high quality recordings of legendary concerts that haven't been seen or heard, in some cases, for 40 years. Just to give you an idea of what Sagan discovered: The Who's last performance of their rock opera, "Tommy," before drummer Keith Moon died at age 26, and the last concert ever from the British punk-rock pioneers The Sex Pistols. Bill Graham's cameras had captured most of all the big names through three decades of rock. The Allman Brothers, Chicago, Lenard Skynard, Peter Frampton, Bob Marley. And more concerts were discovered on audio tapes. On the wolfgangsvault web site, fans can now listen to previously unreleased versions of some of their favorite songs. "It's tough to do your job because it's so tempting to go down and just listen to audio or go look at video," said Sagan about opening up all the boxes. "I could spend all day doing it every day." So remember the part about this being a goldmine? We weren't kidding. Sagan reportedly paid $5 to $6 million dollar for all that stuff. "In my opinion it's worth a significant amount more," said Sagan. "It certainly is in excess of $50 million. It's probably in excess of $100 million." Sagan grew wealthy running a couple of healthcare and insurance companies. Now he sees himself as part businessman, part guardian of a legacy. He says he'll never sell many of the rarest, most valuable pieces, like Bill Graham's personal poster collection. "It's not for sale. It won't be for sale." But most of the rest is up for sale, and Sagan has identified his market: people much like him, members of a nostalgic generation who have some money to spend on memories. "Thank god for Baby Boomers who want to relive that good part of what they remember of their youth. And thank god for good music."©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/
After we left the Mardi Gras, we (Sister K, Cousin B and Joe Schmoe) had already discussed going to see Eleven Hundred Springs at the Armadillo Palace since they wouldn't be on stage until at least 9:30 or so and Jesse Dayton should be through around 8:00 PM. Seems when we got there, the men folk had completely forgot the conversation and were whining. "Go sleep in the truck (and they did) and when I get ready to go, I'll be right out!" is always my reply to the men folk when they are whining and want to go home. I've used that expression for decades... We managed to get them inside the bar and then they disappeared when they found out it would be 10:00 before the band played...so we had a 45 minute wait...big deal. The band hit the stage around 10 PM and were sounding damn good if I have to say so myself. It was different seeing Rocky playing bass but due to Steve's motorcycle accident back around the first part of January, Rocky is the replacement for the time being. Steve should be back on his feet in 4 months or so I was told. The place wasn't packed but it was crowded enough so that there weren't any table so I had to sit at the bar. Do you know how hard it is to sit at the bar and NOT drink? Didn't think so... I had a chance to talk to all of the band before the show, was introduced to Rocky and I've got to say these guys are some of the friendliest people that I've ever met from the Dallas area. (Please make note Dallas folks) We had to leave after the first set due to Sister K's belly being full of Jim Beam and the men folk sleeping in the truck but I had a good time. It was good to see a real country band, one with a fiddle and a steel guitar player. Since I didn't have a drop to drink that night, I was able to purchase a CD and Matt sold it to me. He amazed me. How did he know which CD I didn't have?
SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!!!!!
Need I say more? We went down to the Galveston Mardi Gras with the intention of seeing Jesse Dayton but because of the cold weather, he didn't play. I ran into some people that I knew from my skating days and had fun with them for a few hours. Same old stuff going on at the Mardi Gras in Galveston this year...beads, boobs...you know, the usual.
Sister K, Cousin B and I went to Fitzgerald's Friday night to see Wayne "the train" Hancock and Hayspeed Hayride. I'll have to admit I had a hard time determining what I was going to do that night since there were several of my favorites in town. After I talked to Sister K about our predicament, we decided to go for a change. Change is good. There was an opening band upstairs (can't remember their name...maybe Carl Haynes) and they left a lot to be desired since they only practice when on stage. The next band that played was Highspeed Hayride. http://www.highspeedhayride.com/ I'd been to see them several times and liked them so we got there early enough so that we wouldn't miss them. Cousin B was very impressed and was going to make sure the next time that they hit Nacogdoches, he's there. (I think he even told them so) I liked the fact that they (for the most part) played their own music...not cover tunes like they have to do in Lake Jackson in order for people to show up at the bar. Ok, I'm not talking bad about Lake Jackson but they're pretty much in the "suck" category as far as music that you hear on the radio and what is actually out there to listen to. When Wayne hit the stage, all hell broke loose. There were people dancing and singing along (me included...ok I wasn't dancing except in my heart) like this was the best shit to hit the stage in years. There was one drunk guy in a red shirt that was finally escorted out of the bar by the bouncers because he was having such a good time...he was funny at first but after watching him for about 30 minutes, his drunkenness got on my nerves and I was glad he was thrown out of the bar. We ran into Super Dave there and he bought us all a beer...too bad I wasn't drinking but Sister K managed to drink it for me. Need I say that it was day #27 of me not drinking? Now if only I could kick the cigarettes... SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!!!
25-year-old song says cowpokes 'Fond of Each Other'
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Country music outlaw Willie Nelson sang "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" and "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" more than 25 years ago.
He released a very different sort of cowboy anthem this Valentine's Day.
"Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)" may be the first gay cowboy song by a major recording artist. But it was written long before this year's Oscar-nominated "Brokeback Mountain" made gay cowboys a hot topic.
Available exclusively through iTunes, the song features choppy Tex-Mex style guitar runs and Nelson's deadpan delivery of lines like, "What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?" and "Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out."
The song, which debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern's satellite radio show, was written by Texas-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette in 1981. Sublette said he wrote it during the "Urban Cowboy" craze and always imagined Nelson singing it.
Someone passed a copy of the song to Nelson back in the late 1980s and, according to Nelson's record label, Lost Highway, he recorded it last year at his Pedernales studio in Texas.
Nelson has appeared in several Western movies and sings "He Was a Friend of Mine" on the "Brokeback Mountain" soundtrack.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
First off, let me tell you about Mo's Place. The guy that owns the place (I would assume his name is Mo) is a very friendly man, he's always smiling and making people feel welcome and the people that work there seem to be nice and very friendly also but the place smelled like ~ well it was either a garbage can (or possibly the whole dumpster) or puke to put it nicely. Ok...maybe it was not the WHOLE bar that stunk. Maybe it was only on the side where we were sitting but we weren't the only ones who smelled it. I caught the waitress going for the Lysol as soon as she walked around the corner and got a good whiff of whatever the smell was...
Then, it was the booty-call music that they play before the band starts...wtf? This is SUPPOSED to be a COUNTRY bar. If I wanted to hear that crap, I could've stayed at home and listened to what the children listen to...my children are over 18 so I can't tell them what to listen to but to put it nicely (again) it fucking sucks!!! Fat chicks and cowboys dancing to booty call music was entertaining for a few minutes but after that, if I would've been drunk and full of pills, I would've escorted some of the people off of the dance floor and I'm sure (knowing me) that someone would've been insulted. http://www.mosplacekaty.com/ I talked to a stranger at the bar and he didn't know what to make of it but when Jason hit the stage, he was loving the place. Go there if you're brave enough or hungry...the food was pretty good. I was also quite insulted that when I made a request to the DJ for some Hank III, he didn't have any. Again, this is a COUNTRY bar with NO country music other than the Nashvegas crap they played (need I say Big & Rich suck and give country music a bad name?) and every now and then, he played something that I liked. Check out the above link for Mo's Place...there's a picture of him on the 1st page!
Back to the original story...
Sister K picked me up at the house because I was full of pills and refused to drive. Me driving to Katy full of pills would not have been a pretty sight. We got there early enough to get a seat AT THE BAR since we found out when we got there that you can reserve tables. I knew I was in no shape to stand around all night so we made plans to leave early and get a table but knowing what I now know about Mo's Place, I should have removed the "reserved" from the table and took over. Jason hit the stage around 11 PM or so and he sounded better than ever. It's amazing what not drinking and over indulging does for a person. (I now know from 1st hand experience...this is day #25 for me) The set list will follow:Somewhere In The MiddleBack To YouDirty Fightin LoveTelephone RomeoMexico Or CrazySong For YouTruck Stop DiariesFallin With StyleMaryTennessee WhiskeyDrinkin SongPearl Snaps/Good Ol BoysHankCopper Head RdThunder Bird WineProud Souls PoniesencoreTakin It As It ComesSome Where Down In TexasMy Baby Loves Me When I'm StonedSUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!!!!!
How could I have forgotten the last show that I went to and the last one that I'll be going to in awhile? I don't really have much to say about the show since I was somewhat sidetracked by my pain in the neck but it was good to see Cooder Graw again and see some of my Beaumont friends.
SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC!!!!!
Yep, I was there and the weather was terrible. I know we need the rain but I hate it and it's depressing. Sister K and I arrived around 3:30 to make sure we were there early enough to get wristbands before they sold out. We left right afterward we got them and went to Mai's on Milam to have some Vietnamese food since we both were starving. We got back in plenty of time to see the first band, Banjo and Sullivan tribute. Don't know if any of you have heard of Rob Zombie but he's the one that had Jesse Dayton record the music for the movie The Devil's Reject soundtrack. Two Hoots and a Hollar followed them. They always put on a good show that makes you want to get up and dance...too bad I didn't feel like it. Then it was Red Volkaert, the guitar player from Merle Haggard's band. They also put on a good show and I was quite surprised. It seems like I've heard of him before but not really sure of my sources. Maybe it was someone that had seen Haggard recently... CC Adcock hit the stage next. I liked him at first but then the show that he put on in the VIP section with the 2 women and the camera after he played was too much. I got sick of the flash in my face while I was trying to watch the next band and I think there was some drama going on there also. You know that I can do without drama in my life or watching someone else's drama. The next band, Los Skarnales, I could've done without. I know they're popular but I'm not even sure what kind of music that this was. I've heard it called ska but wtf is that? It sounded more like Mexican Punk Rock to me but then again, I'm no music critic...just a listener of all types of music. Last but not least, was the reunion of the Road Kings. They had the place hoppin'. I managed to get through the crowd and take a few pics of just about all of the bands mentioned but only had 2 pics left by the time the Road Kings hit the stage. I'm not sure of how they turned out but I'll have them developed tonight and post possibly tomorrow. Anyway, that Jason Burns on a pink stand-up bass beats all I've seen in a long time. All in all, we had a good time. Saw 6 bands for $20 bucks, saw some neat cars but I didn't see anyone getting tattoos like Jesse mentioned. Where was that going on?
