We headed back out to the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival again this spring.
It was good to see everybody, as usual. It was extremely wet by the second day, but a very good time again.

We played on Fri. right after the huge rain storm began, the power even went out once, somehow it gave the whole thing a more communal feel. stomping and shouting and splashing around.

That was cool for the first few hours, then it just got annoying and wet.

We also played the Kraken Bar, which we had never done before. It was a pretty cool time. They allow dogs and we like dogs. I will say their muzzles were all supiciously wet, alcoholic dogs, maybe?

We headed down to Florida, to hit the same old suspects, plus a couple of new spots. Always good to see the folks at the Ale and the Witch and the Belle Isle Yacht Pub and Will's Pub, of course.

We did Bryan Childs 9 Bullets radio show in Tampa, which he claims will soon be called the Sad Bastard Song Club. Then we drank a lot of craft beers with said Bryan Childs at a place called Southern Brewing Company, I believe. Really good beer and neither one of us likes craft beer.

This caused us to be late for our show at the 8th Avenue Pub in Safety Harbor, but I think we still pulled it off o.k., despite having to play the whole night, which means, covers(not my favorite thing) and more work. Luckily our buddy Animal jammed along with us and we made it through.

Thanks to everybody who helped on this run and everybody who didn't can piss off.  Another one's coming soon.

We had a really good time at the Monday parades and got up at 5a.m. to roll out early (don't ask). Right as we were rolling up on the bridge we saw Zulu rolling from the Convention Center parking lot, pretty cool.

The ride home consisted of me being pissed about having to drive first, even though I didn't have to be back, rain, hail and a lot of singing ridiculous songs.

I won't say it was easier travelling with 3 people instead of two, but it did lead to a couple of hilarious situations. I doubt we'll do it again for a bit, but who knows.

 So, back at Dave's house in Lafayette with Boomswagglers...We did some jamming and some dog chasing and some discussing of the best ways to steal free continental breakfast oatmeal packets at hotels.  We stayed up until very, very late. We then crashed on the floor at about 6 in the morning. It was at this point I told World's Worst Merch Girl that she left all the merch $ on top of the table at Artmosphere and I had to pick it up. Also, she carnied some dude out of $75 by crying about losing her phone, even though it was in her purse next to mine.

We were going to stay for a while and see Chubby Carrier at the Cajun Brunch, but I got paranoid about how long it was going to take us to get back into New Orleans on the Sunday before Mardi Gras. We took off around noon and headed for NOLA on Highway 90 through Cajun country. The day before we took I-10 and made it in 2 hours and 15 minutes. On Sunday, we made it back to the apartment 5 and a half hours later. We drove all around Uptown, everything was blocked, but we got to see some giraffes at the zoo. Finally, I had to go over to Claiborne, jump on the 10, drive down Esplanade and back up Royal, across Canal, down by the Convention Center and finally over onto Prytania and back to the house. Exhausting. All my fault, for missing one turn in construction, but still e


 I jumped out of the car and headed for Box O' Wine, one of my favorite parades. I came back to the apartment an hour later, wined-up and ready to get cleaned up and go back to Bacchus. Even though I stood on the sidewalk and "out of the way" I still got plenty of wine sprayed in my mouth, something about the way I present myself, I guess.


After the big Bacchus parade, we walked Mary home and I took Brock and Sami around to try and get him something to eat (vegetarian bs). Juan's closed down as we went in, so I took them up on St. Charles to see the clean up and find something else. I think they were pretty amazed at the level of trash and the level of clean up. We ended up eating at the Trolley Stop, so tough to have to settle for that (sarcasm heavily implied) the wait staff was highly entertaining, as ever, and we wandered home to bed stuffed and listening to people scream about Lundi Gras.


TBC...

We hung out with the Taylor's and Mary and watched a few parades on Friday night. WWMG and I even managed to get to Tracey's for a Po' Boy after we arrived that morning. They were pretty much out of everything except roast beef, but, if you can complain about a roast beef po' boy from that establishment, you truly have a messed up outlook on life. Brock slept, so that was a lucky thing for him (vegetarian, meh).

We headed out fairly early on Saturday for Lafayette, because I was looking forward to seeing Dave Riot and being back in another of my favorite places to play, hang out and drink. We got into town right after the kids parade and were able to park right outside the bar. Sometimes we are truly blessed.
We headed over to a house party, with an amazing selection of craft beers, so completely lost on all three of us. Everyone was, as usual, really awesome to us. We headed back to Artmosphere in time to get in on the night parade. Brock and I drank many beers and probably some shots. WWMG was in the street acquiring beads(no, not like that perv).

We played with BoomSwagglers, from Austin and that's a whole nine, or ten blog posts in its self. Really good folks and they know how to get in on a party.
I sat in with them on a few songs, not sure how that went, but everybody seemed fine with it. Then the party really got started, back at Dave's house.

To be continued...

Well, we've been having a good time. Brock and I and "the Worlds Worst Merch Girl"  (WWMG from hear on out) headed out and did the whole deal.

We went down to lovely Springfield, MO hung out with a lot of our friends and saw the timeless Jonathon Richman.  What an awesome show. When the show is so good Lou Whitney's standing on a table, you know it's good.

The next night we played with the NightHawks, always good to see those fellows. Also, all the other folks that make up the whole Outland, DugOut scene. It was especially cool to run into our buddy Doug from the Ben Miller Band and various other projects, nobody is quite like that guy. We'll get to see them again at Shakori Hills and just thinking about it makes me happy.
WWMG misplaced the merch $, but I found it, still haven't told her where.

The next day we took off for Memphis. We had never been to, or played the P&H Cafe before, it turned out to be cool. The other band didn't show, but we got a really nice reaction. We played a pretty long set, talked to some people and sold some stuff, then headed out for NOLA that night. I think we may have spent almost as much money playing video mini golf as we made, but man that machine is addictive (thanks Matt Woods).

The drive was fine I did a few hours, Brock did a few hours and I drove the last hour and a half. Maybe my favorite drive in the world, rolling into NOLA with OZ blaring the Brass Band Half Hour. We hit NOLA about 7:30 a.m. and started to drinking.
To Be Continued...

We are getting pretty excited about the next run we're making.
Like listening to Professor Longhair and ReBirth excited.

Louisiana during Carnival season is just something you can't explain.

Talked to our buddy Will Walker the other day and we're booked for 
Orlando again in April, so awesome. Will (Will's Pub) and Dave from the Belle Isle Yacht Pub are in a competition to see who can make us feel most at  home in the city with big (Mickey) ears.


So, keep your eyes on the usual spots and your ears open. We may be right next to you before you know it, in one way, or another (creepy).

We've had a good winter so far, had some fun playing with the cast of characters for the Bocomo Ramble on New Years Eve and playing Steve Earle songs at Mojos. I guess all we have to do is tell people we're not playing our own songs and hundreds of people show up.

We just got back from a weekend spent in Springfield, with our buddy Matt Netzer,  it's always a good time. We also played a really long show for a 417 magazine event called, "Whiskey Fest". 1000's of bottles of whiskey sitting around to be tasted for free. Suprisingly, it was a fairly low key event. We only saw a few stumblers and nobody puked in the ballroom, as far as I could tell. It seems like a dangerous idea to give people tons of free whiskey, but the fairly high ticket price and a classy atmosphere seemed to keep most people under control.

I can't say I was too unhappy to see 2012 go away. It was a tough year on a personal level, but hell, maybe they all are.

We did put the new recording for sale online recently. It only has 9 songs in the online version, for reasons you'll have to ask us about in person, but it's still a good thing to have, I think.

Anyway, we're heading out to do a few shows the week before Mardi Gras in February and we'll be doing another "big long run" in April. Summer should bring some new recordings. The details on that stuff will be here, or on the Facebook page Brock runs, or both.

I've been reading a lot of speculation lately.
This, or that, scene is dead. You can't do such and
such now, etc.

I guess I've heard most of this shit before. I guarantee you
somebody said "Roots Rock" (somebody else's name
and capitalization) was dead when the Long Ryders broke up.

Basically, it goes like this, there are a fair amount of bands, 
duos and solos out here, writing songs and getting in cars
 and vans and driving to shows and playing them.
They're doing it as often as they can and as close to and
far away from home as possible.

Sounds like a scene to me.

We drove across on Tuesday to get some good New Orleans time
in and boy did we.

It was a pretty light turn-out at the Neutral Ground, but it is a pretty
out of the way coffee shop type joint, so oh well.

We sold a few things and made a bit of money, plenty to get us off
to Lafayette.

As usual we mad good use of our time in New Orleans and ate well
and enjoyed ourselves before heading out.

Orlando, night 2.

You know, it just doesn't get any better than this.
Beer, sake bombs and people who really appreciated
what we do.

I don't think there's  much better that can be done for
a touring band like us. Just awesome.