couple laughs

Moving the Studio has been insane. Tons of expensive,
heavy delicate stuff to move with care or else pay the crazy price to get it all fixed. At one point when 5 of us
were trying to jockey around the console I blurted that it only took 3 of us last time we moved it to which
Timbo replied
"yeah, well, we are 8 years older now"!

So in the middle of this crazy move (lots of stuff out of the basement and into storage, other stuff into the new studio
that looks at the Williamsburg Bridge) I accepted a gig at the Rodeo Bar playing guitar with Mike Ferrio's band Tandy.
I love playing with Tandy. I like to listen to Mike play and try to fit in with the story. The stories are good. The music can
be tricky. Mike plays with a bunch of different people. At one point bassist Skip Ward explained the Tandy music
to me over some Rodeo Bar quesadilla's. "He does one thing 3 times then does another thing". This helped me greatly
as far as decoding Tandy songs goes.

Now the Rodeo Bar. The Rodeo Bar can be fun but first you have to get in there which means you have walk the happy hour douchebag gauntlet. The Rodeo Bar Happy Hour Crowd is very rough. They are young people with jobs that must have
great pressure 'cause they need to drink a lot after work and talk real loud before they go home. They speak english
but they don't understand phrases like "excuse me" or "pardon me". They look at me with my guitar, pedalboard
and amp and go "Look, he's got a guitar" but they wont move. Sorta like they are shocked to see a greenskeeper in the
clubhouse at night.

I never go to a NYC gig with more than I can carry in one trip. This means that after I make it through the bar and then through the rest of the happy hour Cowboy Theme Park I can set my stuff on what used to be the stage at the Rodeo Bar.
Stressed by the failing of communication (pardon me etc) I usually sit down and commence to overeating peanuts.



The Rodeo Bar is one of the only 2 set gigs that I do. I've never played there with my own band but I've played guitar there with a bunch of other bands. It usually gets pretty fun by the 2nd set.
So last week when I was there with Tandy they cleared all these tables up front and a bunch of guys in real cowboy hats came in. I'm talkin real XXXX Beaver hats. Resistol, Stetson. No wire in the brim cheap ass Cowboy Theme Park type hats but real headgear. These guys were polite. One of 'em tossed a hundred dollar bill on the stage and asked if we could do "Copperhead Road". Now I've played Copperhead Road probably 200 times with the songwriter Steve Earle in his band all over the globe but at that moment I just had to laugh thinking of my own often repeated phrase "I couldn't play that song if 15 World Champion Bull Riders came in and threw a hundred bucks at me". Why? Cause I wanted to hear Steve play the intro on that mandolin of his I suppose? Made me laugh.



Any damn way, while having a good time on the gig I started to hear something rather interesting coming out of my trusty Fender Pro Jr amp.
After a while I realized that while playing Tandy songs for the World Championship Bull Riders I had blown my Eminence Patriot "Rajun Cajun" speaker. It was sounding pretty cool though. The guys remarked it sounded like Bo Diddley. I was wishing my friend the Hound was at the gig. He might have actually liked this tone.
I laughed again.