not very disappointed

We at OakTeam Central were not very disappointed at all for having lost out to the younger competition. I mean, the last thing I wanna do is be in a damn Battle of the Bands Bullshit-a-Thon. Honestly, all I wanted to do was go to Vegas on someone else's dime. The GOOD thing though is that we came out of this with a really great video done by our extraordinarily talented engineer Jonathan Lowry,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKX8w6hBtR4
You "StreetTeamers" feel free to send this link to you favorite club!

StreetTeam

Are you driven? Do you love the OakTeam? Well Hell! Be part of the OAKTeamStreetTeam! Get us a gig in your town for a grand or more and get full backstage privilages. Hang out with the band and get anything signed that you choose to expose! Plus half off of all merch! We'll come to your town and rock like ASS! But it's up to you to get us there, StreetTeam!

Weekend Beatdown

Whew! I sure am glad this weekend is oHHHH—Vah!
That damn Chip Robinson came to town from the NYC and pissed off every damn woman in Raleigh! First of all, I committed to playin’ a practice show at Slim’s about a month ago. Well, I din’t know then that there would be another band playing till 12:30am at the time! So we go on at 1am Saturday morning and rocked like ASS! A few beers later, I’m out the door. But still! It’s 4:30 or something when I go to bed! Get up the next morning at about 9:30am to take Nathan to Tae Kwon Do class at 11am. I get to the gig at Moore Square at about 5pm, after stopping by Slim’s to pick up my drums. Deep South Entertainment who put together this NightRanger/Backsliders/5Star show were great about providing our every need…and shouldn’t have. Tons o’ iced down Heinekin mini-kegs were there for the taking.
And we took….and we took..and well, you get the picture. By the time Chip and I hit the stage, we were lit up like ..like…like..what’s that band’s name that sets their pubic hair on fire? Oh, nevermind, so anyway, we play the gig in front of what would eventually be about 5,000 or so… we get done about 9:30pm and next is NightRanger..excuse me a second..I’m putting in this CD that Robbie Fulks sent me of the XM show that the OakTeam was on last week…OOoooohhhhHHHH My God!!! We are KILLIN” IT!!! Shit y’all, we do not suck!
..anyway, so Chip and Dave and Greg and Skillet and Mark have to do a gig at the Pour House (across the street) later and it’s 12:30 or so when they go on..and by that time Chip is shitfaced and all hell breaks loose and he’s tellin’ the crowd how much he hates them and he’s grabbing girl’s asses and he’s stickin’ his tongue down their throats and just about anything he can do to piss folks off..(this is all word of mouth, btw) They then commence to tearing the stage apart limb from limb.
THEN! At 3pm the next day we’re (the OakTeam) doing soundcheck for the Camel Cigarette (ewww!!) Promotion show at The Pour House. Uhhh…Ouch! My ass is draggin’ and I seriously am hoping that a storm comes along and knocks the power out to the place or it accidentally burns down or something and the gig gets cancelled. (Shit! this XM thing is rockin’ like a bitch! Good God A’Mighty!!) Shotgun Romance goes on at about 6:15 and no one (even myself) is offended by a single note (a good sign!) of this really cool bluegrassish getdown, Tres Chicas is next and with songs like “My Love Is as Deep as Your Pockets” and Bobby Womack’s “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody” you can believe that there ain’t no suckin’ going on there! I’m laying upstairs on the couch and decide that there ain’t no way in hell that I’m gonna getta nap and and so I start check around cuz I’m aching and I want a couple of Advils but no one is packing. My buddy Raymond, has Back and Body Ache Goodies. “OK, let me try’m” (famous last words) I soon become rubber-body Terry and decide that this might be the night I try to drink DURING the gig! And ya know what? We pulled it off. Chris brings me up a Margarita and every pull I take from that straw helps my throat. We get looser and looser, but in a good way. It was a great gig afterall, even though it was a Sunday night and I didn’t wanna be there.
Thanks to all, that voted for us on the Fox50.com thing. Unfortunately, we lost out to the Dave Mathews rip-off band (who’da thunK that?) whatever they were called… At least, we didn’t lose to the band with the Cookie Monster singer!

OAKBackAssSliders

 

 

 

We had a great time backing Chip and Danny up as The Backsliders this weekend. These awesome pics were taken by Carina with my camera. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge the battery before our show in downtown Raleigh on Saturday night opening for NIGHTRANGER!! Yes, That NightRanger! There was a great crowd for that thing, prolly at least 5000 strong!

thanks Kami!

http://www.fox50.com/contests/8684162.html

I promise you of all the bands listed, they are the ones who deserve your vote to help them out. You are welcome to view all the others but I guarantee that after you do, you will agree with me that these guys should win this contest. Not only are they great guys but they also play the most remarkable rock-n-roll - good, solid, simple, real rock-n-roll you can dance to and have fun going to a show to see!

Terry Anderson can write a dang song and he has the music industry awards & recognition and Billboard hits to prove it. He can also sing and play the drums like the devil plays the fiddle, while his band sets the stage on fire - all infamous musicians with enough talent and background for me to fill a novel with, much less a bulletin.

And they have been playing in the best bands since before most of the other musicians in the contest were potty-trained. The band features Dave Bartholomew (OAK Team, Tres Chicas, The Bleeding Hearts, The ViBeKiLLeRS) on guitar, Jack Cornell (the Woods) on bass, Greg Rice (OAK Team, The Cartridge Family) and the infamous Terry Anderson (The Fabulous Knobs, the Woods, Georgia Satellites, Backsliders, OAK Team, Yayhoos) on drums. Terry also toured with the Backsliders (playing at Downtown Live at Moore Square in Raleigh on Saturday, July 28) during their last tour and played drums on one of their albums.

They also will be playing on Sunday night July 29 in Raleigh at the Pour House if you'd like to see them perform in person. I can promise you that you will have a blast at this show. I've seen people who have been afraid to even switch their beer from one hand to another in 5 years dance and smile and laugh and sing and shout and be-bop at every OAK Team performance I've ever attended!

And if that in and of itself is not worth 5 seconds and a click of the dang mouse, I just don't know what is!

-Kami Periman

Vote Vote!!!

Vote like HELL, Vote!
Here's what you gotta do...

Go to http://www.fox50.com/contests/8684162.html
vote for the OAK-Team
Delete your browser's history
Delete all off-line files
Delete cookies
close the browser
REPEAT!!!!!!!!

..OH! and tell your friends too!

We wanna go to Vegas!

ecuador revisited

 

No sooner than Will was back from from his mission trip to Honduras, he's back out the door this weekend and on a plane to Ecuador. Last year a lot of my friends were super kind and contributed to his expences. Anyone wanting to do so this year is more than welcome to send a check made out to:
New Hope Worship Center
in whatever amount they choose and send it to our address:
POBox 642
Bunn, NC 27508
I know he will appreciate it greatly, as he did last year..

Ecuador undoubtedly was an experience in which God was at work in many people’s hearts and lives. Not just the people of Ecuador but also our group of 180 plus people. Signs, wonders and miracles were seen all week and I have never experienced God like this. I’ve seen demons cast out of people, miraculous healings, and other works of the Lord, but never anything like this. Tumors disappeared, people that were physically unable to walk were able to walk again, broken hearts were mended, and hundreds of lives were written in the Lamb’s book of life.

This was my first ever missions trip. The trip was an outreach to save lives and minister to children and adults in a country where Roman Catholicism was practiced. We all came with a heart unprepared for what God had to do in our lives. But after we saw one thing, and then another, are mind was made up, God can use anyone in anyway he chooses. Many of us had been spiritually drained because little problems, things in our way trying to stop us from seeing why we came. But darkness cannot prevail against light. We couldn’t let the enemy step in to destroy us. When one of us was down, not in a positive attitude, one would always be there to encourage us, talk to us, or just put a positive attitude out for us to absorb. Without our unity, we would have been taken out. We worked as a team.

Over the course of 3 days, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we visited a total of 7 schools, 3 Wednesday, 1 Thursday, and 3 on Friday. On Thursday we also visited a foundation where kids that had no place to go, no money to afford school, or the parents just didn’t want them around went. That was the most powerful place. The kids just wanted your love. Kids would hold on tight to your leg, as if you were their dad or mom. All they wanted was love. That’s all they wanted. We played duck, duck goose with them and showed them tricks with string and they were just amazed. They just loved being with us. And we didn’t want to leave.

On those three days, we also had children’s crusades in which we had dramas, and did songs in which the kids could interact and dance around. These crusades we a lot of fun and we had the opportunity to build relationships with the kids.

Las Vegas, baby!

Hey, I know y'all fiddin' to thank weez all swazy and shit, but don't judge too harshly just yet until you hear us out. Now I know what everybody thinks of American Idol and the whole corporate bullshit contest thing, and you know that ain't what weez about. But we IS about going to Las Vegas if'n we gits the chance! So our man Jonathan Lowry, who engineered the last couple of records, put together a great video of us performing "You Know Me". Funny enough, when we played it this past Saturday night, the video synced up perfectly with the live record and with a few other bells and whistles..magic! It's really great, and funny as shit. So I think it'll be up on the local Fox station www.fox50.com waiting for your vote starting at noon on Thursday. The time to vote is short. You only have until midnight Sunday night to get us there. We'll have a computer at the show at the Pour House on Sunday for y'all to vote from if'n you ain't done it already. This is way stupid and can only get stupider with your help! So vote vote vote! Weez just stupid enough to pull this thing off!

You missed it!

You missed it, didn't you? Damn you! I knew it! Have I gotta tell y'all every damn time something cool happens? You're supposed to be on top of this shit! The OAKTeam's badass performance at The Old Town School of Folk Music aired yesterday on XM channel 12 and where the HELL were you? Prolly doing something stupid like working, right? Well, don't let it happen again! You got 2 more chances, so don't screw up and miss it again. Ya here me?
Wednesday at 2 am, Saturday at 11 am (all EST) Listen to it, damn it!

watch out!

 

..I'm dangerous with a guitar in my hands!

Rockin' Slim's

 

 

 

Thanks to Bryan Cody for holdin' on to my camera for me!

cheep cheep!

After soundcheck yesterday at Slim's, Dave dropped me back off to get my car. Just beside it was this birdie. As I walked up I was sure that he would fly off. When he didn't I asked him if he was alright and he said "cheep cheep!". I didn't really know what he meant by that so I asked if he was hurt "cheep cheep cheep!" OK dude, what's going on here. I squatted beside him to take a closer look. He didn't appear to be hurt and yet still wouldn't fly off.
I know, I'll get my camera and take a picture of him, afterall he had some really cool hair. As I get down to his level he jumps at me as to peck my hand. I jumped back, stood up and stomped him to death. Noooo! I didn't do that. Who do you think I am, Michael Vick? No, I just said "OK! whatever dude, hop around wherever you go but it's gonna take a longer than flying there!" I got in my car and drove home. As I was closing my door he had some smartass comeback for me "Cheep cheep!"
You little shit!

Nervous Betty

Poor Betty. Nervous Betty works at the post office in Bunn and is always overwhelmed. She’s about 60 years old, has an Oakland Raiders football helmet for hair, has glasses that she can’t keep on her nose, she’s about 4 foot eleven and I won’t comment on her sexuality but her girlfriend looks like a truck driver. She drives an old Ford Aerostar that has a plate on the front that says “Mountain Mama”.
Betty has a hard time with technology. Her main job is to help get the mail into the boxes during the week, hardly ever taking command of the front desk. But on Saturdays, she is the only one there. Granted, they are only open from 8:30 till 11am on Saturday mornings but she’s the one that has to deal with the barrage of folks who can’t do what they need to do during the week. I would be one of those people. During the week the post office is open from 8:30 till 4pm, which doesn’t work for me. I’m out the door by 8am and usually not home until almost 6.
So I’m in there this morning to get a package. Nervous Betty has a line out the door. The computer has her completely befuddled. She was keying in some money orders when she typed in the wrong numbers on one. She’s on the phone crying “I ain’t never doing no more money orders!” blah blah blah to her supervisor or whoever she was crying to.
Some dude in line ahead of me actually utters a sound, something about being in there for 10 minutes already. Betty is quick to interrupt her conversation, “I’M SORRY SIR, THINGS HAPPEN!” After about 15 or 20 minutes I decide to head back home and try again later after a short bike ride. Things had cleared up by then and I didn’t want to ask about how the problem was resolved. Poor Betty, Mountain Mama.

what was it?

I’ve been meaning to write and tell y’all about something but I can’t remember what it was. Let’s see now, was it about Nathan’s friend that he met at 4-H camp, Zenqueesha?
No, I don’t think it was that. Maybe I was gonna tell ya about how much I’ve been listening to Todd Rundgren’s “Something/Anything” record lately and that I have decided that it might be and probably is the best Pop record ever made? That’s a subject that I could go on forever about but I don’t think it was that. It was something real important. Was it about Big Al threatening to come this week to write songs for a record we’re trying to get together before the next Delbert Cruise? No. Maybe I was gonna tell ya about how the local college radio station,WKNC has been playing the shit outta “Raindrops” lately? Wait a minute! I know! It was about how hard I’ve been working this week de-constructing a house in the 90 plus heat! Nah, that ain’t it. Nobody gives a shit about that. I’ll remember it one day, maybe by the time The Olympic Ass-Kickin’ Team plays at Slim’s Saturday night. Hey! That’s it. I was gonna tell ya that! Saturday night, on the 21st of July! OakTeam at Slim’s, yeah that’s the ticket! Whew! Glad I remembered, that would’a worried the shit outta me all day.

weekend at the beach

After picking up Nathan from 4-H camp we stopped off at the Colonel's Taco Bell..

..and then went to the beach. Our friends, Barry Herndon and his wife Blair were kind enough to let us hang out at their place at Atlantic Beach and drink Margaritas all weekend.

With Will in Honduras, Nathan just had 'ol drunk Mom and Dad to play with in the sand..

The neighbors were nice and had purty houses!

Breezy

OK, so we’re sitting in the Amsterdam airport and Dan tells me this story. It’s about a neighbor/musical friend of his who caught another neighbor/musical friend of theirs in quite a compromising position. The houses on Chattahoochie Dr. in Atlanta were designed like and probably were slave houses. Big room in the front of the house, dining room with bath off the side and straight back is the kitchen and a door off of THAT is the back screened-in porch. Seems that someone was playing “Breezy” by George Benson and spending an afternoon laid back naked and pleasuring themselves when someone else was about to knock on the front door. OooPs! Think I’ll come back lay-tah’!
What the hell was in THAT head! Oh so wrong!

all of'm!

In an unpresidented (like the USA!) move I'm giving everyone a look at ALL of my pics...the good, the bad and the ugly are right here:
portugal/holland pics

Ole'!!

The new bullfighting ring in Lisbon..

 

vitalis

Y'all drank that stuff? Hell, we put it on our hair!

 

Yayhoos excellent adventure

I rolled onto my 3:40pm flight to Philadelphia in route to Lisbon, Portugal with my hands free of luggage thanks to my new $5 travel tool belt purchased from Wal-Mart just days before. It was loaded with all of the essentials. Let’s see, I had a contacts case with solution in it, my camera, my cell phone, passport, wallet, my travel itinerary and the 2 most important things I needed for my overseas flight, AdvilPM and earplugs. The screaming baby in front of me rendered the plugs priceless as they were in my ears even before taking off.
Upon arriving in Philly Roscoe called to say that my travel companion to Europe would be taking another flight and that I would be flying alone. Dan’s flight from Nashville was cancelled just an hour before take-off so he had to scramble to find Becker’s number to make other arrangements. Becker is our super-agent travel dude who is the definition of “Mr. Git-R-Done”. He got right on the case but unfortunately the alternate route would send Dan through Chicago, then London and THEN Lisbon, putting him getting there some 6 later than originally planned.
After the in-flight meal of spicy penne pasta I popped in the AdvilPM and tried to get comfortable. Yeah right. It was more of a case of “ya can’t get there (to sleep) from here”. I fought with that little pillow they give you for about 2 hours before finally knocking out. It was only after accidentally dropping that wieldy little puffball that I was able to rest. With only about 45 minutes left till touchdown I was awakened by the steward handing me some kind of industrial strength Twinkie called “Dave’s Buttermilk Bar” and a cup of coffee. My body is already seeing the sunlight and giving me that “Wha..? Huh..? It’s 1:30 in the morning and we’re already up?” thing.

 

I run into Roscoe and Keith at the baggage claim belt in Lisbon. They are coming in about the same time as me from Newark. It takes forever to find my luggage since some other nice traveler had already taken it off and set it invisibly behind a pole for me. Thank you, Mr. Helpful!

 

Our beautiful promoter reps met us out by the exit and showed us to the van and on to the hotel. The very giggly Itana and Ines let us know that they were there to take care of our needs so after a nap back at the room and a quick snack with Roscoe at a near by sandwich shop I called and asked them to show me the town. What the hell, huh? After all, I didn’t go to Lisbon to lie around and watch TV. In less than an hour they were there with bells on to take me to the old part of town, Altfama and to the King’s castle. They told me all about the Arabian invasions and other historical tidbits that made the afternoon both interesting and fun. Dan’s flight finally arrived though and we had to go back to the airport to pick him up. I knew he would be in a puddle when he got off of his roundabout journey so I went along to help scoop him up and carry him to the van. He only got about 30 minutes rest back at the hotel as the girls waited outside before hauling us down to the Music Box for soundcheck. When we arrived everything was in order and all of the equipment met our specifications. This made soundcheck a breeze and we were soon whisked away down the street for a fine Portuguese dinner.

 

We all laughed at the pomp and gaiety of the TV coverage (from a coliseum in Lisbon) of the BIG announcement of the “7 Wonders of the World” as we ate. This thing was ridiculous. It took about 2 and a half hours to say what could have been said at a press conference in about 3 minutes. There were fireworks, famous singers and waaaay too many presentations that in a lot of ways made it resemble the halftime show of a Super Bowl. Honestly, it was embarrassing and I was glad that none of the folks back home were subject to this spectacle. Not much time was left before show time so we rushed back to the hotel and took quick showers and headed back to the club. We were to go on at midnight but there wasn’t that rush of last minute patrons (like in Spain) so gig time was pushed back to 12:20 or so. We had a great time blazing through the set and trying to remember the songs that we hadn’t played since February. Being the pros that we are though, we were soon locked into our groove and did a good hour and a half set. Encore was determined backstage to only consist of songs that we didn’t know or had never played before. So one by one we butchered half-remembered numbers from our childhoods much to the delight of our 50 or 60 friends in attendance. Dan finished the night off with a respectable version of Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land”.
It was great not having ANY gear to break down so we were tucked away in our hotel rooms by 3am. The time there was short though as the alarm went off in a mere 2 hours so that we could be gathered up and thrown onto a plane to Brussels.

 

A very groggy bunch of Yayhoos gave hugs to our hosts and were in the air at 8am or so. The 2 hour flight allowed for a little more rest but not much. We were all hoping that a rep from the next gig, a festival show in Holland, would be there, willing and able to get us on stage (an hour and a half away) by our 2:15pm slot time. Tony was that dude. Once we all had our bags he was rushing us to the van and down the road towards the town of Weert, Holland.

 

We arrived with an hour to spare, just in time to be shown our dressing room and to arrange the stage to our liking.
When the clock on the side of the stage struck 2:15 a dude spoke some foreign gibberish before he very excitedly announced..”The SHJAY..HOOS!” I was the only one stage and hit the intro of “Boyfriend” on queue. Bap! Bap! bap! ..and into the groove I went. I was out there for about 30 seconds or so before Keith joined me in front of the crowd of at least 4 to 5 thousand. He commenced to tearing the ass out of the opening bass lines and we were soon joined by Dan and ‘Scoe. The show was inside of a circus tent that was about 20 degrees hotter than the beautiful 70 degree weather that was just outside. Despite our wearyness and lack of sleep (especially Dan who hadn’t slept at ALL since the flight over from Nashville) we rocked’m pretty damn hard in what could have very well been one of our best big stage performances.

 

The set was exactly one hour on the nose:
Boyfriend
All Dressed Up
What Are we Waiting For
Hurtin’ Thing
Oh Chicago
Love Train
Bottle and a Bible
Monkey with a Gun
For Crying Out Loud
Anything/Everything
Getting’ Drunk
Never Give an Inch
…and finally the Swedish national anthem, Dancing Queen.
Soaked, we walked out of what Dan dubbed “The Rock Sauna” and out into the cool air ready to drink. Our friend, Gerben brought an excellent Australian Grenache/Shiraz blend and a couple of bottles of a very nice Reserve Rioja for our enjoyment, even providing wine glasses.

 

I hit the trailer with the showers in it and became human again. The bands were served dinner at 5pm and after we stuffed ourselves “Boss” took our very worthless asses to our fine hotel in Eindhoven. Not only was it a nice place, but the “awesome factor” got immediately raised when we heard the music to our ears, “four rooms”. I threw my stuff down, put on my Earnhart cut-off pajamas and was gone upon entering mine, crashing HARD. I woke up a bit restless a few hours later but managed to fall back to sleep and still make the 5:20am van call.
The no-name dude who picked us up wasn’t overly friendly. He drove with the care of an old grandmother, seeming more concerned about getting a ticket than getting us to the airport on time. Roscoe and Keith barely made their flight. The lines at the Continental counter were out the door and there was less than an hour before take off. Dan and I went ahead and got in the US Airways line even though it wasn’t to open for another 20 minutes or so. We were glad we did too because that line also got very long very fast.
When the ticket/baggage counter did finally open, someone made the mistake of waking the hair lip professional jet skier with the really loud fingernails-on-chalkboard voice. He made sure that everyone in the airport knew what he did for a living and his philosophies on life and how to live it. We survived both him and the ticketing and after Dan had a “smokey treat” we found a cool little place in the Amsterdam airport to hang out and eat at, Sandwich Island. It was a pretty popular joint as it took Dan almost 30 minutes to get our coffees refilled.

 

On the flight back home to Philly Dan I got split up and I had the luxury of the exit aisle, giving me a lot more leg space. The Richmond, VA couple beside me we nice so it was a pretty stress free ride even though it was 7 hours and 42 minutes long.
Dan and I met back up and helped each other get through customs, then the line to declare items bought overseas and finally security. There was not much time before both of our flights (which had to be “Becker-ed” again since our flight from Amsterdam was 3 hours late) were boarding. Dan had to do three legs again, flying first to Charlotte and then back into Nashville. Mine was a straight shot but since it was July 4th weekend even this flight was a bit delayed. We must have sat on the tarmac for an hour before taking off.
After it seemed like the sun was never going to go down, I finally started to see it fade. I was feeling the stubble on my face again, having shaved just that morning. Man, what a long day. I told a girl next to me who was flying to Raleigh from Paris, “Look! The sun’s going down!”. “I feel your pain”, she says.

 

My lovely wife who had been circling the airport for about 30 minutes was glad to hear my call from the plane that I was safe on the ground. She suggested sushi and I was all about it. We picked it up, plus a six pack and headed back to Bunn. It hadn’t rained, Nathan was away at camp and the dog wasn’t dead but it was still sure nice to be back home.

pix from trip

Here's some pix from our weekend in Europe. More pix and a complete report tomorrow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Camp Challenge

 

OK, so not only am I off to Europe this weekend but our little one Nathan is off to camp on Sunday, gone for a week away from home by himself for the first time. I won't be here to see him off of course, so I wrote him a letter to put in his bag:

Nathan,

This week you are going to Camp Challenge and that’s a really good name for the things you’ll be doing. Every day you’ll be faced with another challenge to overcome.
MeMa always told me that I was smart enough to do anything that I wanted to do and I know that you are too. If you want to grow up and cure cancer, then you can. If you want to grow up and be President, then you can (only, by the looks of who’s in there now, just about anybody could be President!). These are BIG challenges though and it takes a LOT of knowledge and life skills to be able to achieve them. This week’s camp is about learning life skills and I know that you can conquer any that they put in front of you.
You have already met other challenges before, both in Tai Kwon Do and in school, and you’ve passed them with flying colors (no matter what Miss Walsh says!) so you are up to the task. Remember that it takes a lot of these little challenges to be able to achieve your big challenges later in life.
Mom and I KNOW that you can do this and that is why we want you to go, we want you to prove to yourself that you can do it. We believe in you and are very proud of you already no matter what so take this opportunity and make the best of it, for yourself!
Meet these challenges HEAD ON (apply directly to the forehead!).

We love you very much!

-Dad