Ants on the Melon
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Tuesday night I drove up to Gruene Hall for my first Two Ton Tuesday of the year. Two Tons of Steel is a really awesome band, and I appreciate them more every time I see them play. On Tuesday they started playing around 8:00 or shortly thereafter, and played until after 11:30 with only one break of 20 minutes around 10:00. It’s amazing, especially considering how high-energy their performances are anyway.

I watched the show for a little over an hour, during which they played my favorite Two Ton song, “You Know” which is on their Transparent CD. After an hour or so I headed over to the CD/shirt/merchandise table to see what was available, and as I was standing there I heard someone call out my name. I turned and looked out the door and standing there were Edwin, Annalie, Dirk and Annie. Apparently they were up there to celebrate Annie’s birthday along with Brett and some other rackers and friends. I stayed outside and chatted with everyone until almost midnight and then headed home. I hope to make it to as many Two Ton Tuesdays as I can this summer, I just love being at Gruene Hall.

Earlier this week I heard a song on KNBT that I really liked, but I never heard the DJ say the name or artist. It had something to do with an “Okie from Muskogee.”

This evening I was riding in my trucking listening to KNBT again and they had guests in the studio performing live on the radio. I really liked what I was hearing, and eventually they said the guests were Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez. The DJ asked them to play one more, and requested “Angel of the Morning.” I know this song from The Pretenders and I really like it, so I was excited to hear these two perform it. Well, before he began playing Chip told the story of how he wrote “Angel of the Morning” around the same time in the 1960′s that he wrote “Wild Thing.” Huh? The person who is singing these soft folk songs is the same person who wrote “Wild Thing?” Anyway, they started playing “Angel of the Morning” and I was amazed. I had long since arrived at my apartment, but I was still sitting in my truck to hear the remainder of the song. After it was over the DJ announced that Chip and Carrie were about to head over to Gruene Hall for their performance. It took less than a second for me to decide that I would be driving to Gruene this afternoon.

I arrived up there around 7:30 or so, grabbed a Lone Star and found a spot to stand and watch the show. There were not that many people there, but a decent Sunday evening sized crowd, which is the way I prefer it. Along with Chip and Carrie were John Platania with his strat and another guy playing an electric bass. As it turns out, the guy playing bass had never heard any of the songs he was playing, Chip met him that afternoon, and he did a very good job, it was quite impressive. John is an amazing lead guitarist and kept a metal slide on his pinky finger the whole show, he played some beautiful riffs.

The crowd was really into the show and very enthusiastic, but things got even better when the band starting playing “Wild Thing.” As they starting playing this song I had no idea which direction it would go. Would they turn rock-and-roll? Would they play a calm and quiet version of it? No, it was like something I had never seen. The song lasted probably 8 or 9 minutes with Chip slowing it down to talk to the audience and then turning it back up to get everyone to sing along. At one point Carrie lit into her fiddle and played about 25 second lead. I immediately got cold chills, it was probably the most awesome 25 seconds of live music I have ever seen: a hot fiddle leading a folksy-bluesy version of “Wild Thing.” I would love to find out that someone was recording that.

Anyway, they played a few more songs and then Chip says that the next song is a good way to end the set. As soon as they started playing I recognized the song, it was the one I had heard on KNBT earlier in the week! It’s named “I Wasn’t Born in Tennessee.”

I came home and ordered 3 of Chip and Carrie’s CD’s from Amazon.com.

Chip, Carrie and John all have interesting histories. Chip has been a songwriter, a professional golfer, and a professional gamber (so successful that he was not allowed in any Atlantic City casinos). Check out each of their profiles:

• Chip Taylor
• Carrie Rodriguez
• John Platania

If they are in your area I would definitely recommend seeing them.

I drove up to Austin tonight to see The Gourds perform a free show at Scholz Garten. After a long day of training at work, I was pretty tired and I was not sure that I wanted to drive up there, but I am sure glad I did. Of the 5 times I have seen The Gourds so far, this was probably the best show yet, and they didn’t even play any of my favorite songs. There were lots of people dancing (to Gourds music?) and the crowd was completely into the show, which, I realized tonight, is a key ingredient for a great Gourds show. As soon as they started playing tonight I remembered why they are my favorite band. The songs are almost always upbeat, the type that your foot starts tapping to and you can’t make it stop. They played a lot of electric stuff tonight, which normally I don’t like but tonight it was perfect for the setting. (“electric” Gourds to me is when Kev plays the electric guitar ) They jammed on several songs, and hopefully the show will make its way on Casa Huevos Negros.

Around 10:30 I was following 2 pickup trucks down I-35 back to San Antonio when I popped over a hill and saw that traffic was completely stopped ahead in all 3 lanes. The trucks in front of me quickly shot over to the right shoulder, and, sensing what they were about to do, I followed behind them. We drove along the shoulder for about a quarter of a mile until we could see that an 18 wheeler was blocking all traffic, and the cops had arrived on the scene. At that point the truck in front of me turned right into the huge ditch/field that separates the interstate from the access road. Once again I followed behind him, which turned out to be an excellent move because I was back on the interstate in about a mile. It was a strange feeling to be on a completely empty interstate while there are 3 full lanes of traffic going in the opposite direction, but that’s ok because I made it home from Austin in a little over an hour.

I drove up to Dripping Springs, Texas this afternoon to see Hot Club of Cowtown play at the Legends of Texas Swing Music Festival.

I arrived about 5 minutes before Hot Club’s first set was scheduled to start. There were two stages set up at the festival, so I went over to stage 2 and sat my chair down in an empty spot up front before the show on stage 1 finished. They played their first set from 5:15 to 6:00, and it was amazing, as expected. After the first Hot Club set Asleep at the Wheel performed on stage 1 from 6:00 to 7:15. They are pretty entertaining, but I saw them a couple months ago at the San Antonio Rodeo, and it wasn’t much different this time. The second Hot Club set was scheduled to start at 7:15 and last for 30 minutes. When they went on stage they asked Johnny Gimble to play with them, so he did. We lucked out because the performer that was supposed to go on after them on stage 1 was not ready in time, so instead of playing for 30 minutes Hot Club played with Johnny Gimble for an hour. I was able to record all of I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby on my camera. (That file is 101 MB, and is about 5 and a half minutes of video, just so you know. ) I also took some pictures of Elana, Whit and Jake on stage. Overall this was a terrific show and I was sad to learn that they will not be playing together for much longer.

Afterwards I drove up to Waterloo Records in Austin and picked up Hot Club’s Ghost Train and Two Tons of Steel’s Transparent, both of which seem really good.

Chris is in town for Edwin and Annalie’s wedding, and he called me earlier this evening to let me know that Two Tons of Steel would be playing at Rebar tonight. I saw Two Tons perform twice last year during “Two Ton Tuesdays” at Gruene Hall, and I remember being impressed. But wow, somehow I had forgotten how amazing their lead guitarist is. I’ve seen a lot of really great guitarist, but this Dennis Fallon guy has got to be one of the best out there. I stayed for about an hour of the show tonight, but my stomache was really hurting, so I left around 11:30. If you live in the south Texas area, make it a point to see a Two Tons show.

Back in early April I attended a California Guitar Trio concert at the One World Theater in Austin. During the show one of the performers pulled out a camera and took several pictures of the audience from the stage. As it turns out, they do this at every show and they post the photos on their “Road Cam.” In this picture you can see Avie, me and Dave on the fourth row back on the right side. Pretty cool

I went out to Floore’s Country Store on Friday night to see Eleven Hundred Springs put on a great show. There wasn’t a huge crowd, which is great because I was able to keep my seat at a table near the front and have a full view of the band for the entire show. My only complaint is that the (somewhat new) fiddle player kept cutting off the pedal steel player. Other than that it was a terrific show, and I can’t wait for them to come back. They are playing at Floore’s again on Friday July 8th, and on Saturday they are inviting anyone and everyone to join them to float down the Guadalupe River and afterwards there will be a party with the band. It sounds like it could be a pretty good time.

It’s been a busy few days, fun though.

Brandon and I got together on Wednesday evening for our regular ritual of pizza, cigars and beer on the porch, followed by a documentary/movie. Last time we finished watching the series of episodes in The Elegant Universe, so Brandon suggested that we continue the tradition with Band of Brothers, an eleven part series that follows “The story of Easy Company of the US Army Airbourne Paratrooper division and their mission in WWII France during Operation Overlord.” (quoted from the Internet Movie Database) Brandon had been telling that this was a great series, and after seeing the first episode I am anxiously waiting to see the next one.

Thursday I had to get a few cavities filled, which is normally not a fun thing to do. Dr. Ngo makes it all okay though, he is awesome. Chris recommended Dr. Ngo to me, and after having a bad experience at another dentist in town I decided to go see him. I was very impressed. If you live in San Antonio and do not have a dentist, you should consider making an appointment with Dr. Ngo.

Last night I went over to Pepper and Ethan’s house for dork card night. Ethan and I teamed up to out-dork Jason and Josh, although in real life our dork powers are no way near as strong as theirs.

Tonight I am going up to Floore’s Country Store to see Eleven Hundred Springs lay it down. I’ve been listening to their stuff a lot lately, so I’m really looking forward to the show.

I returned to San Antonio today after spending the last 5 days in New Orleans. A few months ago Mandi called me and said that she was planning to give Tate tickets to Jazz Fest for Valentine’s day, and she wanted to know if we would be interested in meeting up with them there. I am always looking for an excuse to go to New Orleans, so when Mandi told me they were going to be there for Jazz Fest, I bought the tickets right on the spot. Tate had no idea that we were coming, so while he was grabbing their luggage, Mandi called me where I was waiting in the rental car across the street from the airport. She told him that their hotel shuttle would be there in 5 minutes, but instead we picked them up!

We spent a lot of time hanging out and eating at restaurants throughout the city, it was a lot of fun. Mandi booked a suite a the Prytania Park Hotel, which turned out to be really nice. Chad let us stay with him on Thursday night, and we stayed at Prytania Park with Tate and Mandi on Friday and Saturday nights.

James joined Tate and me on Friday for JazzFest while the girls shopped on Magazine street. I had some great Jambalaya for lunch that day, and then I discovered fried plantain, that stuff is great! Later that night we had dinner at Figaro’s Pizzeria, a nice little Italian restaurant that I used to eat at every Sunday when I lived in New Orleans.

Ken flew in on Saturday from Oklahoma for his first visit to the Big Easy. After picking him up from the airport we all caught the Dave Matthews Band show at Jazz Fest. It had been raining that morning, so the venue was a little messy, but not bad enough to deter the DMB fans. After the shows we drove back down Carrollton avenue and met up with Chad for dinner. It was really great having that many friends from all over the place at dinner, it’s not too often that stuff like that happens.

Chris had been telling me about this band Mofro, and I was excited to see that they were playing at The Maple Leaf, a bar close to where I used to live. Tate, Ken and I showed up at 11:00, when Mofro was supposed to go on, we paid our $20 covers (a bit expensive, but i really wanted to see this band), and go inside. There was a band play who obviously wasn’t Mofro, but I figured they would be finishing up soon so we just stood there and tried to ignore the idiot fratboys who were dancing like idiots in front of us. The band finally finished up, and I said something to Tate about Mofro when the fratboy in front of us turns around and informs me that they aren’t going to be going on stage until 1:00am. This was a serious bummer, as we were all dead tired and probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place. So, after paying $20 to see 5 minutes of drunken college idiots dance to some local band, we decided to ditch the effort and call it a night. BOOOO…

The weather on Sunday was much better, but the bad news was that we had to take Tate and Mandi to the airport after lunch. It really sucks when good times have to end, but so it goes…. After dropping them off at the airport, Ken, Alana and I rode over the Maple Street P.J.’s Coffee to get a snack and check email. Once we were sure that the Internet was still moving along, we got back in the car and headed to our third day of Jazz Fest. We met up with Justin and Traber at the Trey Anastasio show, which was really good. I tried to get some more of that tasty fried plantain, but the lines were too long, sigh. We made a couple stops at the Blues and Gospel tents before finally calling it quits.

After the show we drove over to Covington to have dinner with the Taurman’s. It had been a really long time since I had seen my third family, and there was no way I could go all the way to New Orleans and not make a trip over there. As usual they had this amazing dinner for us, including my favorite artichokes. When we finished eating dinner we all went out to the famed back porch and talked for a while, consuming pound cake and coffee like it was going out of style. It was really great seeing them, and there is no way that I can go another year and a half without making another trip out there.

Earlier in the day we decided with Ken to get a double room at the Prytania Park Hotel for Sunday night. So after leaving the Taurman’s we made it back across the lake to the hotel by about 10:30. Ken had never seen the French Quarter, so I took him down there for the standard tour: Bourbon Street, Jackson Square, Cafe du Monde, etc. And that was pretty much the end of the trip. Alana and I woke up extremely early today to catch our flight back to Texas, and I should have gone to sleep hours ago.

I can’t wait for Jazz Fest 2006.

The last two shows of Cornyation were performed tonight, and once again it was a lot of fun. Alana’s family came to see the first show last night, and they had an extra ticket so Todd came along and sat with them. Dave and his friend Kay came to see the second show tonight, which was probably the best show. Dave was wearing his kilt, of course. Even more strange was that he wasn’t the only person there wearing a kilt, but then again, it is Cornyation.

Since Alana was performing in the act with Johnny and Jesse, they invited me to be a part of their group. The theme of the group’s skit was “Labor’s Love Lost”, which involved Willy Wonka and his Umpa Lumpas battling Walmart. My role was to help move the large prop centerpiece onto and off the stage, and to help with whatever else was needed backstage. I had a blast working with everyone in the group, they were all a lot of fun. Between the first and second shows our group was told to stay in our dressing room. We were not sure what was going on, but we all went back and waited. Before long a large group of people appeared and presented our group with this year’s Spirit Award, and a huge trophy. Apparently the Spirit Award is chosen by the winner of the award from the previous year, and it goes to the group that is having the most fun and who puts on the best show. It was an honor to be a part of the group and to see everyone do so well. Johnny and Jesse deserved to win, they put together a great act.

Cornyation is held at the Empire Theater in downtown San Antonio. The Empire Theater shares a common underground dressing area with The Majestic Theater, which is around the corner on Houston Street. The walls of this underground area are filled with paintings of the different acts that have performed at the Majestic and Empire theaters. The paintings are signed by the actors and actresses who performed in the shows, and some are really impressive. I took some pictures of these walls so that everyone else could see what is down there. Some of the works of art are really creative, and my favorite has to be the one for Seussical the Musical. Notice how the cat’s hat is actually painted around a duct that is coming out of the wall, it really catches your eye when you walk by it.

I got home around 11:30 tonight and decided to restring my new mandolin. I’ve become a big fan of Elixir strings, both for my guitars and mandolins, so I bought a pack with my new mandolin last week. I’ve been playing along to Garcia and Grisman this evening, their music is so sweet.

So at some point on my way home from work today I decided I wanted to buy a new mandolin. A few months ago I had been over to Guitar Tex and played a Kentucky mandolin like the one that my grandfather has. I really liked the action on this mandolin, and told the guys there that I would probably be back for it at some point. So today I quickly ran by and bought it, it was only $195, which is not bad for a pretty decent mandolin.

Chris Blumentritt was in town tonight and a bunch of us got together at Rebar to hang out with him. I miss having Chris around, nobody else really seems to be into good music since he left. I stayed around till about 11:15 until I had to come home to pack for our trip to Maryland tomorrow.

We are flying out at 10:00 tomorrow to go to Maryland for the weekend to see some of Alana’s friends get married. Todd helped me find a sports jacket today at Goodwill that I can wear to the wedding, otherwise I would have been in big trouble.