scrabble

Homer: Hmm, how could anyone make a word out of these lousy letters?
(The letters in his tray are OXIDIZE.)
Homer: Oh wait, here's a good one, DO.

Fans from Japan

LocK and LOLL!!

Robbie/Pour House

Even before Robbie Fulks and his incredible band played a single note of "Church Folks" or "Raindrops" (great to hear somebody sing it that could actually SING!!), I was a huge fan. And not just because he's originally from Creedmore, NC but because he one of the most talented people I've ever known. Funny as hell, during songs and between, I never wanted the show tonight to stop. Rapid fire.."Alabama's grand, the state..not the band.." (from: "North Carolina is the Cigarette State") has to be one of the best lines I've heard in while. "Billy Jean" (yeah, that one!) done calypso was brilliant and beautiful. What I love about Robbie is that he's always stressing the melodies, the beauty of them, and delivering them in his true, full range voice. He understands what makes a song stick to your innerds!
After about 2 hours of stop on a dime, ass kickin' Country music (and I mean REAL Country music like his tribute to Buck Owens "The Buck Starts Here") they finished the night with a song that he obviously made up on the spot (because the lines were about certain people in the audience) called "Encore". It was just a funky little thing that showed the audience just how easy it was to write a song. About NINE flawless verses just flew out of his ass and right into the mike before we knew what happened, just amazing! And speaking of amazing, his guitar player, Grant, pissed off every other git-fiddler in the house all night long. Left'm in the dust.
What a great band. Oh! ..and thanks for wearing that Olympic Ass-Kickin' Team shirt too, Robbie! See ya soon, Hopefully on your XM radio show!

--
www.olympicasskickinteam.com

quick hits

No! The Oakteam WASN'T playing the Elks Lodge in Clinton, MO. when it collapsed.

Grace and I watched "Cool Hand Luke" Sunday. I forgot how great that movie is. Paul Newman is such a badass and George Kennedy was unbelievable! Make sure you rent it soon. But don't be eating during the egg eating scene like we were.

The TarHeels lost the College World Series on a wide routine throw to first base that would have been the third out in the inning. Like any game with unfortunate loses you can point to many other plays that could have gone our way so I hope that kid doesn't beat himself up about it for too long. We're all still proud of the Heels for making it that far and look forward to watching these guys in the pros.

Thoughts and prayers to (Knobs guitarist) Keith Taylor and his family on the loss of his Dad. "CB" was a busdriver and had lots of great stories...including the one about the "pulpwood truck". Not a story I can tell here, but ask me about it sometime. He will be missed.

I'll prolly go see Robbie Fulks tonight at The Pour House. Damn fool! He better not throw me over his back like he did last time. We were dancing while the band played on and I guess he thought we were jitterbuggin'! By the Grace of God I landed on my feet.

Elks Lodge beatdown!

Yep! We did it! The OakTeam went into the Elks Lodge in Raleigh last night and kicked " 'er how many asses was out there!" It was stupid fun (not to mention profitable) playing for the 40th birthday party of one of (sometimes Oakteam guitarist) Scotty Miller's friends, Dan. Grandma was there shaking a tailfeather and the merch was flying off the table. The bartender couldn't see around the corner so he spent a lot of time out from behind the bar just to check out what all the beautiful fuss was about. I knew we was gonna be on fire when I looked over at our peeaner player Greg Rice during the third song and he already had his hands turned around mashing about 9 keys down at the same time. Scotty, of course played the event and brought the 12 string out for "Inez". Big Daddy as always kicked his fair share of ass and even sang a verse of "Purple GTO" for me. What does this guy NOT do? He drives the van, books the gigs, play his ass off on guitar (AND drums when I come out front) and then has the presence of mind to remember the lyrics to my songs? Amazing. All the girls of course wanted Jack, not only because of his badass bass playing but also because of his fashionable clown shoes. Well, not really Ha ha funny clown shoes but kinda. They really look more like off road bowling shoes. But anyway, to make a long story longer, we had a blast at the party and wanna thank Emma and Dan for having us. I heard Dan on the way out, "That was a great party, honey." Hell, it musta been, some dude was puking behind the bushes!
--
www.olympicasskickinteam.com

inspection

Here's a dumbass law for ya. I had my truck inspected a few weeks back and it failed because of a broken tail light lens. So I finally get
the new thing in there and take it back to the station. Get this, they
can't just look at the brand spanking new tail light lens and put the
sticker in the window. They have to put it ON THE RACK and look at it!
It has to be on the rack and elevated to be legal, how about THAT
one?! Hey Mr. Lawman!! You're killing me with this shit!

--www.olympicasskickinteam.com

(sent from my email)

drunk night pics

diss be our shack..wid the Baptist Church in da background...walked around drunk last night taking pics of our neighbors houses...




This is the house next door to us. "Miss Thelma" used to live there 'till one night she up and died on us. She used to leave notes on our door like "tell your husband to clean out the ditch!" She was a ball of fire and didn't give a shit what anybody thought about her. She was 83 when she died. Come to find out there was NO bathroom in the house! Jasper (small world alert!..Jasper is the dude who bought my Dad's Cadillac..you know, the one on my 2nd record!) and Louise inherited this lovely architechtural masterpiece and sold it to Gil, the Canadian. Gil "fixed" it up and tried to re-sell this piece o' shit for a stupidly high price. It didn't sell so he built a huge barn out back which made the price go up more and made more people NOT want it!
So THEN! He tried to scam the county into making it a home for wayward boys. Personally, I'm really glad THAT didn't work out!




This trailer is next to Thelma's old house. These people are just plain weird. They named one of their kids, Mack, after the TV show "McIver". Need I say more?


These folks, "Chick" (real name..Leland) and Janet, we think of as our second parents. They live directly across from us, our driveways meet. Janet is a retired school teacher and "Chick" used to have 200 acres of tobacco that he farmed with his best friend, Clee. Clee is black, and much like "Chick" would give you the shirt off of his back. All are awesome people! You might remember me tellin' you about "Chick" coming back from San Antonio talkin' about "The Alimony". There's a million stories about him like that. Just beautiful!




This house is next to "Chick" and Janet's house and faces Thelma's old piece o' shit. C & J lived there when they first got married. A lady in Fayetteville owns this bungalow and her gay son comes up from Miami about every 3 months to hide out from spies, international espionage or some other WILD story that he comes up with to BORE THE HELL OUT OF ME WITH!! I cut his grass because I park my beautiful lawnmower in his barn but one day he caught me held me at bay with his stupid shit for about an hour and a half!! "Just kill me", I was thinking over and over! Bad times, Bad times.

diss is...

...a cuttin' sumbitch!

Back!

ShhheeeeiyyT! It sucks not having a computer! Grace walked in tonight with ours, back from the shop and Nathan yells "Hello, Old friend!" ..of course NOT referring to my wife!! Sorry for my absence but I'm sure you all have better things to do than to hang out up in here!
My ass is draggin' 'bout right now anyway tryin' to catch up on my shitin' ass paint jobs. I'm 'bout 10 days behind (cuz o' them damn YAYHOOS!!!) on my work and it's hotter'n hell down here in North Carolina! But I like sweatin', git all dem poisons out!
Well, much to my "who gives a shitness", the Carolina HURRICANES won sumpthin' and dass nice...but I still got a few beef's w/ hockey...#1..they used to have ties. Is it a competition if there's a chance you BOTH could win/lose? That's gonna take a while for me to get over. #2...there's only three quarters! Must be sumpthin' about the Canadian exchange rate! and #3...It's just too damn fast fer my country ass to follow! I'm about 3 or 4 passes behind when I watch that shit on the TV. Hell, they done scored and went to commercial 'fore I could figger out what just happened!
Go TarHeels in the College World Series!!!

shhhhh.....

shhhh....I'm in the Bunn library. Our computer blowed slam damn up and I gotta come here to check Email. They only give you 30 minutes so I gotta go. I'll tell ya about the social services lady coming to our house, seeing the worst band ever and Will getting his license later. Oh yeah...and about the "Jesus, Ann and Bobby" license plate I saw.
I GOTTA take a picture of that!

Yayhoos/Aug.

Git yer drankin' boots on!!

AUGUST16 Lexington KY
17 NEWPORT KY SOUTHGATE HOUSE
18 LOUISVILLE HEADLINERS MUSIC CLUB
19 HARRIMAN TN MUCKLEWAIN FEST
20 Nashville The End
21 off 22 RALEIGH NC THE POUR HOUSE
23 BETHESDA NEIL YOUNG TRIBUTE (we'll be doing a mini
set of all Neil Young Songs)
24 ARLINGTON IOTA CAFE
25 CLEVELAND OH BEACHLAND BALLROOM
26 WAPAKONETA OH RT 33 RHYTHM AND BREWS

I LOVE this pic!!

Manager of the Dark Horse Brewery in Marshall, Michigan. I didn't realize all Hell was breakin' loose behind him!!

Roscoe Bonham

 
...@ the Merc. 

Wendy and Glen

 
..from England! 

Mercury

 

..rockin'!! 

2nd Hammer Run

The four misfits lovingly referred to as The Yayhoos have a job to do. As we told the DJ at an interview recently. .”We’re just trying to change the world three and a half minutes at a time”. That’s our job. And we have to come together occasionally to give those snippets of three and a half minutes to the people. Sometimes misfits have to join forces to be accepted.

6/5/2006- After a hectic morning of grabbing everything I can think of on my way out the door, I pour myself onto the plane. “Whew!” AirTran has a hub in Atlanta and it is cheaper for me to fly south to the ATL and THEN to NYC to meet the boys for the next “Hammer” run. The flights aren’t that bad, just time consuming. When I get to LaGuardia my Dominican cabbie is chatty, but cool. He informs me all about the Cirque d’ Sole which has set up shop just acroos the east river. We have to take the FDR (highway) because the BQE (Brooklyn Queens EXPRESSWAY) is at a standstill..and the clock is running. I drag my shit which includes a heavy bag of clothes, a cymbal /snare bag and another smaller bag (that I throw over my shoulder to take incidentals to the club with) up the 3 flights of spiral madness to Roscoe’s apartment. After a few deep breaths I talk to Dan, who has just flown in (along with Keith) the day before from Europe, on the phone.
We decided to meet up over at Tompkins Square Park just see each other and say “Hey”.
We met over by the dog area where this one dog had us in stitches cuz while all the other dogs we’re playin’ together, fightin’, humpin’, whatever. This one dog was in training for the marathon or something. He was just running around the perimeter of the fencing with all of the energy he had and after about 20 times around he stops right in front of us (well me actually) and takes a huge dump! “Nice”, I say. His owner comes over and says, “It’s a sign of respect” and I’m thinking “Well, shit on you too then!”.

Dan and I part and everyone makes an early night of it cuz we know we have a long way to go tomorrow.6/6/2006- Roscoe and I pick up Keith and Dan in front of the 11th St. Bar around 8:30 am and all of the gear is situated for the 2 day trip to St. Louis. Everybody gets in and I start yelling like a 3rd grade Hillbilly “Weeez on tour! Weeez on tour!” Dan says, “Uh, not so fast there pal, the car hasn’t moved yet.” “Oh!” I say. Roscoe lightly puts his foot on the pedal and we start to roll, “Weeez on tour! Weeez on tour!”
We stop along the way in Pennsylvania and I pick up a real nice pair of sunglasses. Right about that time Greg Rice from the Ass-Kickin’ Team calls and says, “I just heard you guys doing “Love Train” on Sirius. Cool, I’m on the radio and I gots me a new pair of shades with un-scratched lens.
We stop again later just out of Columbus, OH at Outback Steakhouse where we can have us one of them “sit down meals” (and Keith and I can have drinks!). You see, the seating arrangements are pretty set in the Suburban that we roll in. Roscoe and Dan take turns driving and the rhythm section sits in the back taking turns driving them crazy! It’s like Mommy and Daddy up front and the kids in the back.
We finally stop in Richmond, IN, just across the state line and spend the night in a beautiful Motel 6.

6/7/2006- After a shitty breakfast at Bob Evans (“I’ll have your rubber cheese omelet!” must have been what they thought I said!) it was on to STL. The one good thing that happened at Mr. Evans’ joint though was the purchase of two small instruments. Keith and I decided that we would secretly buy a harmonica and a kazoo and give a surprise concert in the back a few miles down the road. About 40 miles later I looked over to Keith and counted on my fingers “one, two, three..” BWAAAAHHHH! Bzzzzzzz! WeeeHaaahhh!!Bzzzzzzzz!Bwahhhh!!Bzzzzzzzzzz!...as we swung into 2 different melodies. Dan and ‘Scoe didn’t know what hit’m! But I think they liked it cuz they spent a long time laughin’ about it.
We got to the “You can’t there from here” Hotel out by the airport around 2:30 or so. After a brief rest, a conjugal visit from Dan’s wife, we headed over to the club. We got the gear in the club with help from volunteers and set up. In the process I sit my new shades in the window sill never to be seen or heard from again.
First on the Twangfest bill for this evening was Walter Clevenger and the Dairy Kings (who, to this day will not let me forget about the time they were in Raleigh and had to drive me to the hotel as I puked out the window down the side of my BMW!). They did half of their set before asking me up to sing “You Got the Look” from the Nick Lowe tribute, LOWE PROFILE. They did it a half a step lower than the Ass-Kickin’ team does but I quickly adjusted..like the pro that I am! ( he! he!) Our set was after the Screamo Bluegrass experiment known as The Avette Bros. and the people seemed to like’m pretty good. In the words of Frank Zappa though, “I for one, cared less for them”. We played purty and everything, well everybody but Keith, he sucked! Said so himself! We fought through it though. It wasn’t his fault actually. The stage nor the P.A.had ANY low end except for when he hit B flat and then this roar took over the stage. Very weird!..and a bit disconcerting for our hero. We made it though, again like the pros we are!
We stayed up a bit late at the after-party back at the hotel but didn’t hurt too bad the next day.

6/8/2006- Bad directions the next morning sent us on a wild goose chase for the radio station in St. Louis, WDHX. We ended up in front of the Fox Theater downtown and we just KNEW that was not where we were supposed to go. So we asked a nice older gentleman wearing one of them POLICE outfits where the road was. He very nicely pointed us in the opposite direction. So Roscoe, seizing the opportunity to turn around makes a U-Turn right then and there. A very not-so-nice plump black lady wearing the same outfit starts blowing her whistle and screaming her head off. “What are YOU doing?” She has steam shooting straight out of her ears when she walks over to the passenger window where Dan is sitting. She starts a tirade that begins, “Before you put your foot on that gas pedal….” I didn’t hear much after that but Roscoe in the drivers seat over there..”Thank you”, She was all “Blah blah blah at full volume and he was like “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you” This lasted about a minute then Roscoe continued his U-Turn and sped off. Good thing he did too or we would have had to tape our segment. We got there in time to play live though and it was really great. 4 songs, 20 minutes rockin’ like hell!Quick lunch and on to the In-Store. The people there got a treat as we didn’t play together, we just handed the guitar off to the next guy as the others sang along in black girl fashion. When Keith started it off I jumped up there with the harmonica. In no time, he changed keys and started writing a song on the spot. It was really great and I was taking the solos on harp! It was hilarious.
Dan and I had an unbelievable Indian dinner upstairs at the hotel. Some of the best Indian food I think I’ve ever had and it was great because it was on the 11th floor looking out over the blue runway lights of the airport. It was nice in a very non-“Brokeback” kind of way.
6/9/2006- On to Chicago, it was about 86 degrees when we left St. Louis. We could see ’57 Chevys occasionally when we ran beside the old Route 66. Pulled into the lot over at Fitzgerald’s and got out. Brrrr!!! It was freezing! Probably 60 degrees or lower and starting to rain.
Oh! It was so nice to have a really good sounding stage and a good soundman and it made all the difference for the show. After Healthy White Baby played a really great set the crowd was just drunk enough to receive the ass whoopin’ they had been waiting for.
When all was said and done it was the first really great show with the new songs and set.
A sense of achievement, finally. It was a great crowd, friends and E-mailers made it feel like we were just jammin’ over at a buddy’s house!

6/10/2006- Stopped at Quizno’s (my fav!) on the way to Marshall, MI not having ANY clue what to expect. When we got to the Dark Horse Brewery it was surprisingly organized. The stage was cool and there were a LOT of people there! I think over 800 paid for the rock and the Crawfish Boil. Keith and I tried to eat crawfish but they kept telling us that you had to suck out the head and all this gross ass shit and I was like..”Has this town got a Quizno’s?” Kevin (the manager) and the boys there were great though and again the set felt a little tighter so the night was really a lot of fun and we hope to go back soon. AND!! I also got a surprise visit from my old guitar! BUT! The coolest thing about the gig in Marshall was the Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at! Everybody had NAMED rooms…Dan was in the GORDON room, Keith was in the (appropriately named) DICKLE room, Roscoe was in the COMSTOCK room and I was in the CRARY room…really sweet people worked there too! They had the parking lot blocked off for our “bus”! Then we pull up in the Suburban…

6/11/2006- Breakfast (quiche, self-made waffles and fruit) was downstairs at 9am. Roscoe’s Aunt Joan had come from Montreal to witness the rock and she and her friends came over for a cool morning hang before we hit the road back towards NYC. The rest of the day it was pedal to the metal and if we made across Pennsylvania at a descent hour we were going for it. All the way from middle MI to NYC in 12 and a half hours and the answer was “hell yeah!” Especially since Roscoe knew the “back way” into town.

6/12/2006- Two radio shows were the order of the day. The first was by far the easiest, made that way by the completely adept assistants both audio and hospitality-wise. The show was recorded for airing THIS Saturday night on WFUV and it went REALLY well. (I’ll put up a link in the next day or so! You gotta check it out!)
We finished up there about 2pm and tried to solve the Rubik’s cube that is getting across NYC at mid-day. Starving, we had Dan call the studio and order pizza. The guy that got the message, Chris, said that he could tell in Dan’s voice that we were on death’s doorsteps so he ordered 3 cheeses. They were devoured in no time flat by the hungry piranhas.

The interview to follow was filled with one frustration after another to NO fault of our interviewer, Pete who was an elegant, charming and quite likeable (but not in that “Brokeback” kind of way mind you…..not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
It was just one technical difficulty after another, mostly concerning the microphone chord to Roscoe’s mic. But we toughed it out being the pros that we are and after all was said and done on this day we were REALLY glad that we cancelled the photo shoot with Mary Ellen from Saturday Night Live. There should be upcoming weblink info from this interview also.
I was completely beat after this day and went for a long walk up to Union Square and picked up a catfish burrito and a bottle of wine.

6/13/2006- With time to kill before the 2:30p load-in at the Mercury Lounge I did some more sightseeing and window shopping and then met up with the boys back over at Roscoe’s at 2. The soundcheck was a breeze due to people knowing their shit, us included…pros that we are.
We all had a quick nap and when Dan arrived back over to Roscoe’s to do the setlist thing he was over an hour late. I made him some coffee in ‘Scoe’s French press and we came up with this…(you gotta decipher the code!)
Waitin’ 4
Boyfriend
Monkey
Never
B&B (I’ll give this one..Bottle and a Bible)
Dressed up
Hurtin’
Jesus
Cryin’
Rain
Love Train
Chicago
U&Me
Drunk
Roam

encore……..
Everything/Anything
Top
DQ

Aside from the loudmouth up front who kept singing louder than us the crowd was pretty well behaved. I wanted say “Hey Bitch! You wanna get up here and sing everything for us?”) Damn dude! Give us a break, it’s hard enough to remember the lyrics without you shouting some other shit at us! Anyway, a GREAT GREAT GREAT!! time was had by all. People came from near and VERY far, Glen and Wendy from England and were not in the least bit disappointed.
We loaded the shit out and took it to Brooklyn, to Roscoe studio. I had a few more drinks before cutting the lights out when the clock read 2:00.

6/14/2006- 8 o’clock hurt my feelings cuz I knew what I had to do. Git in a car at 9am and ride to LaGuardia, git in a plane and fly BACK to the ATL and THEN back home.
I plugged into the XM radio on the plane a realized why The Yayhoos haven’t hit it big yet. We just don’t suck bad enough to be big. I ain’t saying everything on XM sucks, I’m just saying that most of what I heard on that thing didn’t quite measure up to the 4 misfits that get together every once in a while just to change the world 3 and a half minutes at a time!
My wife and kids were a very welcome sight.

it must be the boots!

 

Roscoe's boots from a girl in Holland. 

Wild sip!!

 

Dan takes a "wild sip" in Chicago before the gig. His first drink (on purpose!) in 25 yrs. I say "on purpose" cuz he grabbed Keith "water" in Europe recently and it was nothing but vodka! I guess he musta liked it! 

Mr. Moneybags..

 

...gettin' a little rest. 

HaaaAAAY!!!

Living every day in fear that the time could soon come that Raleigh, North CackyLacky could be known across North America as "Hockey Town USA", I have been busier'n shit this last week out with The Yayhoos. From today's fight to get from one side of NYC to the other to appear on separate radio shows to all the way back to last week when Eric got fussed out by a traffic cop in St. Louis (pretty hilarious!) on the way to another radio performance, we haven't had the time to stop and tell anyone how much fun we've been having. There have been many memorable moments from this trip though and I promise to fill in the blanks (the good, the bad and the ugly) sometime Wednesday when I return home, complete with pics....

travel advice

 

OK...so..y'all know I'm headed out wif the "Hoos" again tomorrow..and I wanna offer up a little travel advice fer yer asses if'n ya eva get yo asses off the couch and go do something!!! Travel advice tip #1...Dress REEEEALL stoopid!!
That way people is either afraid of ye..or feeling sorry fer ye!! 

Go Team Go!!

 

The Ass-Kickin' Team was on fire at the The Pour House last night. We tried something new with the set. We had a master list on stage and Dave and I called the next song out to each other as the last song was ending and if not for the feet of my snare stand trying to walk away we wouldn't have even taken a breath between ANY of the 16 or so songs we ripped through. I had to stop for about 30 seconds to duct tape them bitches down but the insanity continued as Greg was playing piano with his feet, ass and anything else he could beat them keys with! Dave, at one point was spinning around like a skater on ice. It was a totally out of control and relentlessly rockin' beatdown that again went un-noticed in the rock and roll history books but at least the few that were there (mostly because it was a Thursday night and game 7 of the hockey play-offs were going on) will talk about it, and probably for a long time!
It was pretty much the OPPOSITE of the picture above. 

MB-B&A

Upstairs before...babyshit peach...

 

Downstairs after..some taupy poo-poo neutral something or other...