We had a blast. We rolled in fairly early in the afternoon and had a few cocktails. The bartenders fiancee', who went to school at MU, was celebrating the end of her first year of veterinary school. Hilarious. The venue is very well put together and a pleasure to play. We stayed with our buddy Matt Woods, the real Matt Woods and headed out early for Nashville. Add Comment We drove up from Florida to find finals week at MTSU, or whatever they call it now. So, meh. Nice place though. We took a 2 lane highway across from one side of the state to the other. It was kind of a long boring drive, but we saw a police monster truck. Yes, that's right, a police monster truck. If only I had the fast twitch phone response to get a picture. The show was o.k., not too many folks, in a very small place. Everybody was very nice though and we did sell a couple of things before we headed out. We made the drive back to Bradenton that night, as the rest of the Johnson siblings were rolling in. We made the relatively short drive, from Bradenton to Orlando. It turned out to be a pretty cool night, Will made it a free show. We did two sets. We had some people who really enjoyed the show and bought some things, I think we'll be invited back. Will and other folks kept taking us down the street for shots. Will's is only a beer bar. I learned there that Abita Amber is now available in cans. Who knew? At the end of the night, thanks to the worst 44oz. fountain drink I've ever purchased, I was able to put out a fire on the street in front of the bar. Surely, without me, all of Orlando would have been lost. Somebody needs to remind the local punks that lighting fires causes you to pee the bed. Anyways good time, hope to go back in the fall. We rested most of the day then headed up to St. Pete . The Ale and the Witch is a small place that uses the interior courtyard of a several story building, with bars and restaurants, as their venue. Brett, the owner is a good guy, who seems to like us a lot. That means we like him a lot too. The lady who we were "special guests" of Jun Bustamante, played some banjo songs and then a young man played a few songs, then we went on. We played pretty well, I thought. The show was over by 11, so Animal packed us over to the Ringside Cafe (seems to be a pattern developing) and we ended up onstage with Dennis Stadelman from Cope playing bluegrass songs. I'd say he's a pretty good banjo player. The Stanley brothers were well represented in that set. After that we called it a night. Also, congratulations to Animal and the future Mrs. Animal. We drove in a monsoon and I mean a monsoon, from Ocala to Bradenton. I cannot over state the amount of rain descending, crazy, mean Old Testament God amounts of rain. We all know how that guy was. We hit Bradenton a couple of hours late, but we made it. The BlueBerry Patch is a truly unique place. Clyde, the man who books the joint is one of the coolest people in the world. We played a couple of sets to a fairly full audience, got hugged a lot and then headed back down the road. I don't think we even broke anything, or offended anyone. We left CoMo at about 8pm on Thursday night, to arrive in North Carolina at the time we thought best.The drive took about 15hrs. I drove the dark and Brock drove the light. We were once again impressed with the organization and basic kindness of everyone involved with the festival. I don't think there were quite as many people as in the fall, but still a lot. We played twice, Friday at 5 and Saturday at noon. It was an excellent time and everybody that stopped by seemed to enjoy it. We packed up fairly early Tuesday and headed for Florida All right, we're back up and running. We just got done doing two shows w/Adam Lee and J.P. Harris. Always a pleasure. Both bands will pretty much country your face off. It was a good winter, we played several shows, made our first run to Chicago and met a lot of new folks. In a few days we leave for a run through N.C. and points South. We come back into Missouri to play our first Blue Note show. So, lots of things going on. We are going to be recording a full length, whatever you call it these days, over the summer. For the first time we will be turning over a lot of the recording control to someone else. I will be updating this blog throughout these events, although there will be radio silence during the Shakori Hills Festival. Come out and see us. We're getting very, very good at Cadillac repair. Little stuff, nothing big. Our winter has been slow, but semi successful. We've played some shows, but only the ones we really wanted to and that's very nice. Now, though, it's time to get back to work. We're ramping up to release a full length record at the end of the summer and take our first steps outside the U.S. It seems like a long time from now, but it's not. We're heading out in April to go back to Shakori Hills in NC and through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama to boot. We're also taking our first Nebraska trip. Lots of miles, lots of fun and hopefully a bunch of new friends. Hope to see everyone soon. Bri has been making videos for some stuff. He did one for Soldier's Song. Here it is... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw2__70ufFY Give him some eyes. | AuthorSpeck ArchivesMay 2012 CategoriesAll |
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