'07 in review: quickie version

 

Well, there’s just a few minutes left in 2007 and I can’t really say that I’m gonna miss it.
But man, there’s was some outrageous rock and roll being played on me and my friends behalves this year. Sheesh! I mean, just unreal! First of all, I got invited onto Delbert McClinton’s boat in January and met a bunch o’ great and stupid people on the way down to Puerto Rico and back. Big Al, Jim, Steve and I rocked the boat as much as you can imagine, but for only one show. Hopefully, we’ll get to play more this year on the way to Baja.
In February, The Yayhoos rocked the shit outta Spain for 2 weeks before headin’ to England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Finland, Sweden and then back to Spain again.
Probably, the most fun I’ve ever had in Europe.
In March, The OakTeam went to Atlanta, Macon and Florida for some Spring Training rock. At Monty’s party is where Big Bad Big Daddy Dave Bartholomew jumped into the pool on the last note of the last song of the night. It was priceless, and a lot more fun than that time when I served up them X-rated popsicles to my Grandma’s quiltin’ buddies.
In June we went to Ashville and ate rock hard veggie hot dogs at the ballpark before playing three sets between a bikini contest. Later that month we went to Cleveland and rocked Cindi and ‘em at the Beachland Ballroom and then had a stupid great gig at Ron’s 10th Anniversary show at Route 33 Rhythm and Blues in Wapakoneta, OH. Back home in just enough time to re-pack, it was off the next weekend to Portugal and Holland with The Yayhoos again. Weekend in Europe! No Sleep! Oh, wait a minute, maybe THIS was the most fun I’ve ever had in Europe!?
Back home the next weekend, The OakTeam played in 100 degree heat, facin’ the sun in Hillsborough on day they called “HawgDay”…and IT rocked like ass!
In August Dan showed up to work on Keef’s record, in September we rocked The Pour House and in October we had a weekend practice at the beach at some ignunt place appropriately called The Dive.
Early November, we killed’m in Chicago, Cleveland and Lexington (where we had friends over from England that danced like I remember how folks do sometimes.)
My dad went into the hospital for open heart surgery and David went into a nursing home. David passed and my dad just barely survived. I was going AND coming, and not know whether to laugh or cry.
December’s highlight was getting my dad back home and celebrating David’s life on our birthday Christmas night at The Pour House. That show really finished the year on an UP note in an UP and DOWN year! I’ve got some great new songs that I’m holding out on ya that I hope to get out by the end of ’08. Hopefully by then Bush will be all packed up and ready to hide out for the rest of his life in Texas. And we will rock even louder!
Have a rockin’ new year y’all!

The Empire bites back!

Hey! Get off my back! Doesn’t everybody take pictures of themselves in the bathrooms of fancy restaurants?

 

Our friends, Monty Warren and the lovely Miss Michelle took Grace and I out to eat Saturday night to an exquisite and most fabulous dinner at Second Empire on Hillsborough (soon to be re-named “Hansbrough”) Street. The service was kooky great. All of our meals were brought out at the same time and “presented” to us like a new baby. Of course the food was out of this world, Grace and I got the Snapper which was blackened perfect on the outside and surrounded by lentils and black currants. And trust me, the key lime pie is to die for and it’s enough of a slice to share, which is plenty. A whole slice would just overpower your senses send you into a coma!
The aforementioned bathrooms were awesome but I couldn’t figger out why my hands weren’t lathering up. I squirted and squirted and and rubbed and rubbed…nothing. They smelled nice though. I went back later and saw that I had been using the mouthwash squirter instead of the soap, Man! Mouthwash?
Now that’s fancy! Thanks once again to Montrelle for a great night of food, fun and friends!

Somebody said that somebody said…

...that I wasn’t a very good drummer because all I do is play “four in the floor”. Four in the floor is when you play the kick drum on 1, 2, 3, and 4 and the snare on the 2 and 4. OK, I give, I’ve been playing drums for thirty nine years, much longer than he’s been alive, but I’m just gonna take his word for it, I suck. I ain’t got it right, ain't GONNA git it right and at this point in my life I should just give up,despite HOW many people move their asses when I play.
No, no, wait a minute…now that I think about it, I remember that time that I was cutting a track with Marti Jones, when Don Dixon (her husband/producer) put a metronome on the track after I was done recording it, sans click track. It was astonishing how the metronome, once set, never wavered from the beat on playback. I was as true as the setting the sun. And let’s see… that was about 21 years ago, so I’m pretty sure I haven’t gotten worse.
Look, Goddamn it! Number 1: I DO play other beats but it’s ridiculous to even go there, it ain’t about the damn stupid ass beats you play! It’s about the song, dumb dumb! Don’t play the drums, play the song! If the song wants to be driving and pumped up, maybe the four in the floor is exactly what it needs. If the song is sassy, swing that bitch! If it’s sad, drag it! Jeez! Rock stars! Get it together! It ain’t about you or me, it’s about the damn song! Fuck being a good drummer! LIVE the fuckin’ moment on your instrument, whatever it is…don’t act it!
That’s when it works!


So there…

Willa Stein pics

Willa Stein pics
Check these out! These are all like some kinda perfeshunal picture takin'!

Thanks tons, Willa!

Awww..

How sweet! Carina and dem made me my own vanity plate!

 

Carina's pix

 

 

Jack and I rocked the night in David's shirts!

 

Jac Cain made us sound purty!

 

David's guitar was in the house!

the gift of Gamba

 

What do you see here? Just a normal 'ol bottle of Gamba, engraved and signed, huh?

 

Now look at it beside a regular bottle of rot gut.

Thank you'unz Monty!

In yo face! Larry!

 

When our friend Donna from Greensboro came down Tuesday for the Pour House Birthday show she gave me a great gift also. She spent the night with us and just before retiring she gave me a really cool Elvis birthday card with a gift card inside to Wal-Mart. Hell yeah! My head was spinning at the possibilities of a $50 Wal-Mart free-for-all! Let's see I could be nice and buy my family stuff with it, naaaah! Bah humbug to that! I decided to selfishly waste it on myself. Hopefully, I could pick up some wind pants for riding my bike in the cold weather and maybe a few other choice items. Then it occured to me that maybe I could find one of those tall tool box thingys. I knew it would cost a little more but maybe they would have something close to that price range that I might would pitch in for. Ya see, my buddy Larry came over Sunday to help put in my new dishwasher and I was embarrassed that every time he would ask for a certain tool it would take about 10 minutes for me to find the damn thing. Hell, a dishwasher...don't you just pull out a cabinet and slide it in? Tools? Who knew? We (he) finally got it in after about an hour had accumulated of me just looking for tools. So anyway, to make a long story longer, I DID find a tall tool box thingy and I'm in the process of loading that sucka up with every tool I can find in my house, car and out in the yard. And it only took about 30 minutes to find the tools to put it together with! So IN YO FACE, LARRY!

Thanks Gigi!

The reviews are in!

Hey Terry!

Last nite was fabulous! Took mom to finally hear you & she loved the show. It was awesome to see so many of your fans & fellow musicians at the club. What a weird drive over, the town was completely desolate and deserted; everything was closed, grey & it was bone chilling outside. Got down town, still nothing, then turn the corner onto Blount Street & saw cars lined up on both sides of the street as far as you could see & around the block. How sweet it must be to know that they were all there to hear you. You certainly are loved. YOU AND YOUR BAND ROCK! Happy Birthday, Happy New Year & all the best to you, Grace & the family.

-Gigi

Pour House of Love

 

“Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup! Buttercup!”
I went over to check on my dad Christmas Eve and he was in the middle of his Speech Therapy. He has to do a lot of “hollerin’” to help both his throat and his lungs get back to normal. “Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola! Coca-Cola!”
Sheesh! I was glad when that was over with! He’s getting better albeit very slowly.
Chrismas morning, Nathan gave us a break and slept in...’till about 8am. We got up and had coffee with “Grandma”, Grace’s mom. She Japanese (still!). She’s been in the states for hell…40 years I reckon, and we still can’t understand a thing she says. In her defense though, a lot of her friends down in Fayetteville are Japanese so she has no real need to learn much English. We visited my dad later in the day and he was nodding off watching the long drive golf competition, so we headed back home and packed the Caliber full of drums and got our ass up the road to the rock show.
Last night was even better than I had hoped. It was an unbelievable night of Rock and Roll and love. It was so great to see so damn many people, many old friends, there to remember David, hear his songs and dance all night to both his and my tunes as well as the few covers we did. The place was pretty packed and very rockin’!
I DID see a few tears being wiped during Jack singing “Worse for the Wear”, Dave singing “Sign of the Times”, Rod Abernethy singing “Watch my Head”, Jeff Hart singing “Sand”, Robert Kirkland shoutin’ “Who Let the Cat out of the Bag!”, Grace singing “Let’s Talk” and my renderence of “Keep Pumpin’” before we gradually morphed into The Olympic Ass-Kickin’ Team set. It was an easy transition too since David and my songs always did fit pretty well together. So much so that I almost tangled the words to “Some Other World” with a few lines from “Keep Pumpin’”!
The folks loved Dave’s backwards guitar effect on The Beatles “All Too Much” and Greg’s shenanigans all night long.

 

Everyone was in RARE form and many many thanks to everyone involved for making my birthday party one of the best ones ever and very happy indeed, especially Ron Bartholomew, Terry McInturf, Roger Gupton, all those who sang and of course, them OakTeam boys. Extra love for Jac Cain, always the trooper behind the soundboard, going above and beyond as usual! Shout out to that damn Monty Warren, for not only giving me the most unbelievable present ever, but also for rockin’ like ass! with his band of Lutie, Barry and Joe. If you missed it…well….you missed it!
A LOT of love was in the house!

Special thanks to Raymond Goodman for these pics, I'm sure there will be more...

Merry Christmas everyone!

Be careful what you ask for!...

 

OK OK!

I give! In my last blog I mentioned buying tickets in advance for the Pour House show Tuesday night. I admit it! It was a marketing ploy intended to create frenzy and to get folks excited about the show. Truth is there are NO advance tix and you just gotta get there early. So just do that, we'll have a chance to hang out and catch up longer that way. I'll be upstairs getting a chiro adjustment and massage.

Woods related

 

Well, tonight was our first night of rehearsals for the big Pour House Christmas night throw down (have you bought your tickets yet?) celebrating both my birthday
(# something-dy one) and the life and music of David Enloe. Some of what we did tonight made me cry but not because I was sad, more that I was frightened! Some things were a little rough around the edges, but that’s why you practice, right? I’m sure it will be fine by Dec. 25th. Tomorrow night, more rehearsals with my wife stopping in to go through her song. I hate to tell everything I know (but you wouldn’t know it from all the damn bloggin’ I do…which sometimes puts me in weird situations when I’m telling something to someone who reads my blog...I get this response: ”I know, I done read about it!”, leaves not much else to talk about.) so I’m just gonna let you to find out Christmas night who’s singing what. I CAN say that there will be a gradual transition into The OakTeam set. The night will go as follows:

8pm: Monty Warren
(and his bunch o’ misfits playin’ his cool songs from his new DoubleNaught Records release, out next year)

9pm: Sports Alternative

10pm: David/Woods Tribute, OakTeam

There was more discussion tonight about The Woods box set. You know it’s gonna be 4 cd’s right? That’s sick. But I’m telling you it’s all stuff you HAVE to have! Disc one: All 16 songs from the first record, “It’s Like This”. Like I said before, The Demon record and the Twin Tone record had different songs on them, but taken from this same batch of 16. Disc two: This will be what should have been the second and honestly, better Woods record. It was recorded at Jamie Hoover’s Washateria one long weekend and was definitely the best recordings that we had ever done, plus a couple of tunes we did at Reflections Studios in Charlotte with Don Dixon. Disc three: Live stuff, including the Chicago 24 track gig at Park West. We’ll sift through TONS of other gigs too. Disc four: Insane outtakes that you will love and need just to understand how much fun we were having back in those days. Crazy jams and EP records that we made under assumed names that most folks haven’t heard are what this disc will be about.
We’ve researched the cost including the booklet with pictures, info and names of donators and it’s up around the 5 to $6K dollar amount. Only 1000 will be made and THAT’S IT! I, through this blog, will be among the many sources to let you know when and where to send your pre-order/donation dollars. It could be soon!

Peter Holsapple solo

 

Solo guy. Solo gig guy. I hate Hate HATE that guy! I can count on my two fingers the times I’ve enjoyed myself at a solo guy gig. There’s not many folks that can do it. It’s usually a self indulgent expose, a me-me me-fest that distracts from the musicality and takes away from any coolness that the songs may hold or have in our lives. Nine out of ten times I am over it and ready to leave from song one, as I almost hoped I would be when I went to see Peter Holsapple tonight at the Pour House. My intentions were to go down there, hear my favorite 30 or 40 songs that he wrote and then head on back home, get to bed and then get up and go pick up my dad from the hospital and take him back home to see his doggy, Peaches.
(YEAH! Home tomorrow! Thanks fer y’all’s prayers and shit!)
Well, no such luck. I get there and sound dude extraordinaire Jac Cain buys me drinks so I’m automatically hangin’ around a while but then after a brief soundcheck Peter launches into his set and I soon realize why I REALLY came, on the off chance that this might really be something that I knew it could be. And it was.
I hate solo guy not only because it’s self indulgent but because I CAN’T do it! I mean, who wants to see me up there behind a set of drums screaming my head off by myself? I might could do it to a pre-recorded track but I ain’t the guitar player that most of my friends are. (Actually, that might be pretty cool, me playing drums and screaming my head off…hmmm…but not very musical.)
But that’s exactly what Peter did, NO! not play drums and scream his head off! BE MUSICAL!…and that’s a really hard thing to do by yourself. Well, damn if he didn’t do it. I guess it’s pretty easy to do if you have good songs, can play guitar really great and can sing your ass off. Hmmm. I guess THAT’S why I stayed till the very end and was glad I did! Good songs, good playing, good singing…that’s all we ask. Especially the good songs part…and Peter has plenty of them! Connect the singing and playing to a big 'ol heart…forget about it! Sold!

Nick Cristiano's Top 10 Country/Roots Albums of 2007

Nick Cristiano's Top 10 Country/Roots Albums of 2007

Terry Anderson and the OAK Team, When the Oakteam Comes to Town (Doublenaught). Befitting a band called the Olympic Ass-Kickin' Team, this live set rocks. But it's the kind of good old rock-and-roll that, for all its hook-happy, hick-happy brilliance, is shunned these days by the pop market and the indie hipsters. We're happy to give it a home here.

Mike Farris, Salvation in Lights (INO Columbia). The rocker turns to gospel and, using standards and originals, tells a rousing tale of redemption that mirrors his own back-from-the-depths story.

Eilen Jewell, Letters From Sinners & Strangers (Signature Sounds). The young singer and songwriter brings a Billie Holiday sultriness and a Lucinda Williams plaintiveness to classic country, jazz and blues styles, forging a low-key but alluring brand of Americana that's all her own.

Tim Krekel, Soul Season (Natchez Trace). Long an underappreciated singer, writer and guitarist, Krekel outdoes himself with this horn-fired rock-and-soul gem that can stand with the best of Eddie Hinton and Delbert McClinton. It narrowly edges out the suave, world-weary country-soul of Nick Lowe's At My Age.

Miranda Lambert, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (SonyBMG). Lots of young Nashville stars try to sound tough and edgy, but few do it with the convincing bite that this spitfire brings to her second album. She gets the nod over Sarah Johns and her Loretta Lynn-ish debut, Big Love in a Small Town.

Bettye LaVette, The Scene of the Crime (Anti-). The real crime is that it took this never-say-die soul diva four decades to start getting the attention she deserves. She continues to make the most of it with this killer set on which she is backed by Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers. A close call over Betty Harris' comeback, Intuition.

Billy Joe Shaver, Everybody's Brother (Compadre). It's the gospel according to Billy Joe, as the great honky-tonk song poet expounds on his singular brand of Christian spirituality and again draws from his own (often stranger-than-fiction) life. He barely beats out two fellow Texans, Johnny Bush with Kashmere Gardens Mud and Dale Watson with From the Cradle to the Grave.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd, 10 Days Out: Blues From the Back Roads (Warner Bros.). The young blues-rock guitar hotshot shows plenty of substance and selflessness as he journeys through his native South and shares the spotlight with world legends (B.B. King) and regional heroes. He brings well-deserved attention to such lesser-known treasures as Buddy Flett and Bryan Lee.

Mavis Staples, We'll Never Go Back (Anti-). The gospel
soul great revives some of the "freedom songs" she first sang during the civil rights movement of the '60s as a member of the Staple Singers. And she shows in stark, powerful fashion how these gospel numbers remain relevant today.

Tommy Womack, There, I Said It! (Cedar Creek). The veteran roots-rocker pulls off a tough trick - singing about his nervous breakdown in a way that's engrossing and entertaining. He does it with unflinching honesty and plenty of wit, and the ultimate uplift rings perfectly true.

Find this article at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/12503551.html

assembling The Woods Box set

After looking feverishly for the past few weeks, I found the multi (24) track of The Woods show at Park West in Chicago in my very own closet. We opened, and then later played with Marti and Don for the CD Don later released entitled “Chi-Town Budget Show”, I remember hanging out with R.E.M after the show.
According to the track sheet the show was on March 22, 1988 and was engineered by Mark Harder and Tim Powell for Metro Mobile Location Recording Company.
The set list went like this:
Sign of The Times (DE)
Sand (DE)
Next Rain (TA)
Girlfriends (TA)
Watch My Head (DE)
I Am The Place (DE)
Dreamboy (TA)
Sometimes (DE)
Yesterday’s You (TA)
This last one seems to have run out on this reel and ended up on another, oh well…

Here are the tracks including mics:

1: Kick drum…421
2: top snare…57
3: bottom snare…57
4: HiHat…SM81
5: Rack tom…421
6: Floor tom…421
7: Overhead left…SM81
8: Overhead right…SM81
9: Bass DI (direct input)
10: Keys DI
11: Stage right Gtr DI
12: Stage right Gtr Mic…57
13: Stage left Gtr Mic…57
14: Stage left Gtr DI
15: Lead Gtr…57
16: Stage right vocal…EU N10YM 357 (that’s what it looked like anyway)
17: Center vocal… EU N10YM 357
18: Stage left vocal… EU N10YM 357
19: Xtra Vocal… EU N10YM 357
20: Drum vocal…757
21: shotguns (room mics)
22: shotguns
23: PZM (another room mic)
24: open

Ohh..this is exciting! I remember it was a REALLY good show too!

GOTTA have it!

gerbil shirt

midgets and blowouts

I think it was about the time that my friend Carina and I were eating lunch and saw the midget, DOH! little person, trying to reach the pay phone that I realized that this was not a normal day. I first got a hint of that notion when my coffee slid over and spilled on my leg earlier that morning on my way to work, but I never got the feeling at that point that the world was as off kilter as it was. I thought, maybe I could make it through without too many strange occurrences. When we returned back to her house (which incidentally, was where I was working) after lunch there was her neighbor on a ladder, with no shirt on, putting up Christmas lights. Something about that seemed odd. I mean, it WAS 80 degrees yesterday and even I myself wanted to lay out and catch a few rays, but Christmas isn’t usually a summer attire kinda deal, ya know? So I finished up and headed over to see my dad in the hospital. On 540, a minivan in front of me and one lane over had a blow out. The driver held it together pretty good, slowing down quickly and getting off of the highway OK, but still there was shrapnel from the tire flying everywhere. Again, not something you see right in front of you every day. Finally got to the hospital and my dad was sitting there disgusted about something. He accidentally had pulled his feeding tube out a few inches when it got caught on his wheelchair arm as he was standing up. This not only disrupted his feeding schedule but it also made him sick to his stomach and he foe’d up. So that whole thing was a mess, especially when it took so long for radiology to come and get him to make sure the tube had been replaced correctly, some 5 hours later! He was starving by that point and it put him about 2 and half hours late being fed. Old folks, especially my dad are VERY put out by having to wait. He is an extremely impatient patient! I got home safely close to 9pm and nothing else stupid happened, so I guess it wasn’t THAT bizarre of a day...except for the coffee incident, the midget thingy, the no shirt neighbor in the Chritmas spirit, 80 degrees in December, the blowout and the feeding tube accident. These days, that’s a pretty normal day in my life actually.

Speaking of odd feelings, for some reason I can’t or won’t delete the name “David Enloe” from my cell phone or Email contacts. Still hanging on, I guess. It’s gonna take a while.
Speaking of David, we are doing a tribute on Christmas night as we open the TA/DE Birthday show at The Pour House. We have some of our best and most talented friends coming by to sing and play his songs. Rehearsals are next week but Dave B., Jack and I have already run through most of what we’ll play. They are really great songs but without David’s fingers doing the talkin’ it’s not gonna be the same. No slight against Dave B. or anybody else that’s gonna play guitar for that matter, everybody is different and David was REALLY different! It’ll be great though and a WHOLE lotta fun, even through a few tears. I hope every fan who can will make it down that night and help us celebrate his life and our own lives with a lot of great music.

Bunn Parade '07

I was really excited about the Bunn Christmas parade this year, especially after going to bed at 4am the night before, after The Backsliders Raleigh show. Nathan HAD to go "Will is in it!" OMG!

 

 

 

 

finding positives

It’s hard to imagine that positives can be found in the events of the past month concerning the health of both David and my dad. Obviously, my dad is on the road to recovery, albeit the BACKroad, and that’s the number one positive. But it has been a treacherous trip for him, as many times he appeared to be taking a wrong turn. His lungs are still very weak from being collapsed and then full of fluid, ultimately becoming pneumonia. The story of his hospital stay will stick with us for a while and not just because it was so hairy but also because we got to see and meet people that really cared. His nurses, techs, doctors, therapists, all of them, were born for the jobs they do now. None of them appeared to have settled on being what they are or hellraisers or misfits that just decided that that was the only job they were cut out for. They obviously live for their jobs and want more than anything to do it right and make their patients as comfortable as possible. It was kind of eye opening really, especially when you see in other walks of life how little many folks care about their jobs. Granted some of those jobs aren’t as important as being a doctor or a nurse but damn, is it too much to ask for a little service? These people give it and live it.
I never once felt sorry for myself for having to visit and sit in the hospital and wait it out with David and my dad. Afterall, they didn’t want to be there a LOT more than I didn’t and they were both having a hellish time. Truth be told, I was glad to be there spending time with David. We all knew we had a very short time with him and as long as he was still talking he was, for the most part, being wry, being a smartass and being David and oddly we all loved that about him. There were times when he was a bit out there but after a good rest he came back. Finally, it was just too much of a struggle for him. It was so amazing to see the love from all of David’s friends and family, especially the local musicians that were influenced by him and really respected him. Some of them took it even harder than I did. Still, I’m getting hugs from those touched by him. It has, in a weird way brought many in the Triangle music community together.
Sitting and waiting for my dad’s outcome was therapeutic in that I got to spend a lot of time with my sister. We both live very busy lives and hardly EVER get time to sit and just chat about stuff. Like many siblings, were are different in many ways, but we always get along and love each other very much. We spent many hours together and that had missing in my life and hers for a while.
And finally, one of the positives I appreciated most from it all was the feeling of life. You get into ruts in your day to day and start to become numb to all of the emotions that are involved in LIVING. This past month has shown me that I can still cry and that I can still laugh through the tears. It’s not the way I wanted to realize that but sometimes that’s just the way it happens, the way it HAS to happen, grabbing you where you are the most vulnerable.

Backsliders 506

If you thought The Backsliders rocked Friday night at The Pour House, you should have seen us at Local 506!

 

 

 

 

?answered

I got up with them Twin Tone boys and axed dem the question many of y'all been axin' me..."How can I get that stupid-ass Woods record they put out back in 1986?" This is the reply I got back from Paul (no, not Westerburg, he don't OWN the label, he was just on it)...
"It's Like This" is available both in vinyl and as a custom burned CD from the twintone.com web site... we will be adding the project to our iTunes listings in January-February 2008

Even though it has a lot of that 80's style (I shutter to mention the word) REVERB (eeeewwwww!)on it, it actually is a pretty good record, some GREAT songs! If I was you, I would purchase both the vinyl AND the custom burn of it.

$6 haircut

I gotta $6 haircut yesterday and I paid too much. I was tryin’ to spend a little father/son time with Nathan and we decided we’d get spikey haircuts together. Now, he’s got a FULL head of hair being eleven and not yet wounded by the world, all stressed out and shit. His shit looked great, mine…not so much. All MY haircut lady did was complain about her neck and how bad it hurt. Waaaa Waaa Waaa!!! Damn bitch! Loose your best friend and get your dad some open heart surgery all in the same two weeks! OK never mind, you wouldn’t understand. Just like you didn’t understand my explanation of the rock star haircut that I wanted! Ya know, ya can’t even be a rock star anymore. Nobody gets it! You can cry until you’re blue in the face about how good you are, “I swear, I’m really good, would you please have a listen at this buttrockin’, bumpin’, fun and funny tune I wrote!” “Too dumb!?” “OK, check this out I can write smart shit too!?” “Need a song with heart? Listen to this!”
Oh, it’s maddening, but after a while you just give up, you play the songs you love, even put them on in the kitchen, drink wine and dance to them late in the night, and you just hope and pray that what you believe is true, that you DON’T suck and your shit is the best shit that has ever been recorded. Even if it’s not, it is to you!
Then all you got to worry about is your hair!

Woods box set?

I said in my eulogy that the tragedy of David’s death is that more people haven’t heard his music. That is referring not only to his great songs but also to his wonderful guitar playing. We have tons of evidence of his brilliance put to tape and are in the process of collecting them from studios and producer type friends of ours. On the way from Don Dixon via Mitch Easter is a session we did in Charlotte’s Reflections Studio C back in the day. On the way from Bill Lloyd (upon Dan’s approval, which I couldn’t imagine being a problem) is the 5 song RCA session we did in Nashville and the real ass kicker is the stuff we did at Jamie Hoover’s Washateria Studio down in Clover, SC. That's the record we did in 3 days, consuming 2 half gallons of Jack Daniels Green. That stuff is mixed but there’s a chance we might bake it, dump it to digital and screw with some more, who knows. In one form or another it’s gotta come out, it's definitely the best thing we ever did. Add to that the tons of live stuff we have, including our show as Bo Diddly’s backup band and hell...you got a damn box set! I’m not announcing this yet, but it’s in the works. Funding could be an issue so at the proper time we may ask for donations in exchange for having your name emblazoned, forever in Rock history, prominently on the cover somewhere, and the CD's of course. Please comment and let us know if you think this might be something you’d be interested in. The music is pretty damn unbelievable, and some of it can be heard on The David Enloe Memorial MySpace page.
‘at sumbitch rocked like ASS! Let’s tell the world about it.

terrygram

DAD MUCH BETTER STOP STILL CAN’T SWALLOW STOP MAY COME HOME THIS WEEKEND STOP IN REHAB NOW STOP THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR PRAYERS STOP WHY AM I TALKING LIKE THIS STOP DAMN THIS IS IGNUNT STOP OK STOP I MEAN IT! STOP STOP!

My bad!

I wanted to apologize for not calling everyone personally and telling them about David’s passing. You have every right to call me up and cuss me with your “Why didn’t you tell me!” rant. You are right, I AM supposed to know who the people are that haven’t read my blog and inform them of everything I put on here. In my defense though, I’d like to say that during the days after David’s death while trying to work at least 6 hours a day, visiting my dad for 1 to 3 hours twice a day, posting blogs and ANSWERING 40 Emails a day, you somehow seemed to have slipped my mind. I realize that this blog thing has only been up for about 3 years now and it takes a while for these things to catch on. So please accept my apologies, and continue to feel free to call me and cuss me out for not keeping YOU personally informed about everything you need to know. My bad!
Should I call and tell you about the Backsliders gigs this weekend, Mr. Uninformed?
They are Friday night at the Pour House with Jeffrey Lee Foster and Saturday night at 506 (also known as “5 or 6”, referring to the mount of people that usually show up to that place) in Chapel Hill for those of you who actually read my blog.
I promise I’ll call the rest of you.
Sheesh! Git yo head outta yo ass, people!

Preacher Terry

 

Thanks Carina! (But how rude! taking pictures in a funeral!? Girl! where was you raised!?)

from Godfrey

I got this from our dear friend and New York film critic, Godfrey Cheshire this morning, I loved his thoughts on Keef and Chuck...

Though I sadly was not able to be with you all on Saturday in Robbins, I am sure you know I was with you in spirit. I read Grace's wonderful email and Terry's incredible eulogy and felt in a way that I had been there; thank you so much for those words. I regret that I did not hear Terry's in the church, and also that I wasn't there in the backyard afterwards to hear all the stories -- I might've added a couple myself! I agree with those who have praised you all for the love and care you showed David in his last days; such friends are among the greatest of treasures. I can't still really get my mind around his loss. He is the first one to go from that great era of music which we were all a part of and which remains such a terrific memory of fun, creativity, intelligence, love and generosity for me. I shall always be proud to have had a connection to it, and grateful for the wonderful friendships included.
I can't believe that Chuck Berry and Keith Richards outlived David. Not only doesn't it seem FAIR, it hardly even seems POSSIBLE. But such are life's strange surprises. You guys will be in my thoughts for some time to come, and I look forward to seeing everyone on Christmas Night at the Pour House.
thanks and much love,
Godfrey Cheshire

Thank you so much for the love Godfrey, like many others who couldn't make it, we felt your spirit. You are a really big part of that incredible era of North Carolina music history and we will all always be indebted to you for all you did. I'm sure that when we get together on Christmas night the stories will flow like the beer from the taps. I look forward to it as it will help the healing because much like you mentioned it hasn't sunk in yet for us either.
Thank you for your love for David and us, we will definely have a toast to him on that evening, or as we would always say
TAKE A DAMN DRANK!
Love, Terry

FabKnobs '07

 

The gang was all there...

on YouTube now..

David Enloe Tribute

 

DE eulogy

People were very sweet at David's funeral today, telling me what a great job I did with my tribute to David. Many of them wanted a copy of it so here it is:

David Enloe was my brother and my best friend. We were Mutt and Jeff, Abbott and Costello, Lewis and Martin, Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards. We called ourselves The Dimmer Twins. We didn’t have the glimmer that Mick and Keith had, but we were sure trying.
Everyone here has great memories of David. Being his friend since the fourth grade, band mate since high school, roommate in college and on the road in bands with him for years, I literally have hundreds of “David stories” to tell. We used to do some really stupid stuff, and all in the name of entertainment. Once, we spent the whole school year in high school standing at the same corner in the hallway during our lunch period. The same corner, the same time, every day, for a year. In college we fought over whose turn it was to wash dishes… for three weeks. Finally, we put them all in a box, walked out the back door and one by one threw them all into the woods and then went out and bought more. Don’t ask me who washed those. On one boring Sunday afternoon, he asked me “If there was anything in the world that you wanted to do right now, what would it be?” “Fly to New York”, I answered. He walked over the phone and called Delta. “When’s the next flight to New York?” he asked. Then I heard him say “20 minutes? HOLD THAT PLANE!” Now, we lived on the opposite side of town, 30 minutes away from the airport and hadn’t packed yet, but we got on that plane and stayed in New York for the entire following week…mostly trying to figger out how we were gonna get back home. We finally had to borrow money from my crazy aunt in New Jersey. I put off calling her as long as I could.
The list of memories is long, but like many of you, I will remember David mostly for his music. That will be and should be his legacy. I know we must have stayed up a thousand nights together, listening to, studying and many times writing music. David craved music like it was food for his soul. He taught me a lot about music. He taught me what good music was, what real music was. It was through David that I saw how powerful music could be.
Have you ever been to a concert (or in many cases here today, performed at a concert) where there were literally thousands of people singing together as one? Or I’m sure that here in this church every Sunday morning the entire congregation sings with one powerful voice it’s praises to God. That’s the power of music. David felt that power and lived for that power. He wanted desperately to use that power to bring people together with his music. He wanted to feel their joy, their happiness and their love for life…through his own music.
That’s a powerful feeling, and it’s an overwhelming feeling of love. Music IS love. And much like being in love, band mates and members of musical groups share their hopes and dreams and through their love of music they create children…songs. SONGS are the children created by the love of music. And our pride in these songs is almost as strong as the pride we have in our real children. And like our real children, we send them out into the world to try to change the world. Music is THAT strong. And unfortunately, (As we all feel now) much like love, when the music is over…it hurts. And it’s a deep hurt.
Music meant a lot more to David than to most people. It was more than just the noise they put between the news, weather and traffic report. It was more to him than something to hum along to while he shopped. When music was bad it hurt…or it “hurt his feelings” as he would say. And when the music was good, it excited him, like a war had ended, or he had just gotten a new car or he had just met the most beautiful girl. It meant everything to David.
We would often talk about the “music business” and David always said “it’s the business that’s killing the music”. And we see now, in these times, what he meant by that and how right he was. More and more, the music became about the packaging on the outside instead of the quality of the music on the inside. It became all about a pretty face instead of what was really pouring out of someone’s heart. With his music, David wasn’t afraid to open his heart and show everyone what was inside. It was love.
David loved people. He loved his family, all of his fans, all of his friends and he very much loved Susan and Will. I feel very blessed that David’s last words to me were “I love you”, and I’m sure he told many of you the same thing.
Certainly David’s death is a tragedy, at such a young age he had so much more love and music to give. But I will argue that his life was a success (look around you) and that the real tragedy is that more of the world hasn’t heard his music, or that more musicians don’t play their music with the same passion as David played his.
So go home and play David’s music, turn it up, laugh and cry and feel his joy.
Feel his love. Feel his life and feel the power of his music.
And while you’re listening…git ya hair up!

At this time I’d like to read some of David’s favorite passages from the bible.
From John 14:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you; I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am.”
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”