best solo

I think the best solo prolly ever on a recordin’ of mine would have to be Mike Krause’s solo on “Count On It”. It’s track #9 on the “You Can’t Bite me with a Monkey in your Mouth” thingy. #2 would HAVE to be Scott McCall’s solo on the next track, #10-“Disconnected”. Now this is all contingent on the fact that we all agree that the best EVER solo is the one that Big Al does on “Mr. Busdriverman” (PS- my most favorite song ever that I ever wrote!)..and that excludes any of David’s solos! Speakin’ of David…that’s him on the Pops Staples parts on “Disconnected”, very probably his last recording. But then I start to think about Big Al’s solo on “Bad Enuff to Crawl”.
Uhh…!!!It’s too much to figger out!!!!! Just drink…and dig it!!

keef does otis

never thought I'd see the day, Keef sings the second verse here with a bunch of other stupor stars. I especially like the performance of "ROBEAT" Cray!
Can't turn you a loose

Happy 80th, Pops!

more on the show..

I think I'm gonna have to borrow Nathan's Carrie Underwood CD, I keep humming those tunes. The arrangements are insane. They all have like 5 different parts that all seem to go together, pre-chorus, pre-bridge, pre-guitar lick, guitar lick, pre-pre-chorus...crazy but...pretty damn cool. Check out this movie (shhhh...I wasn't supposed to do this!)
Nathan sings with Carrie movie

Some girl from Charlotte holds this up in the audience and Keith loves it so much he brings her up on stage...after the 3rd song!

Rollings Stones?

On the "Rolling Stones stage" at the end of the catwalk that went through the crowd.

Much to Nathan's delight, Carrie comes back out and sings Petty's "Stop Draggin' my Heart Around" w/ Keith.

Brad and Keith. I really got to know Brad Rice on the 2 month tour I did with The Backsliders back in '98. He's a great, easy going guy and funnier'n shit! He kept me in stitches on stage!

Introducing...from RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA!...

Rockin' Birthday

 

Nathan and I spent his 12th birthday last night hanging with my friend, Brad Rice at his (relatively)new gig with Keith Urban. We had a blast. Of Course, Nathan came for Carrie Underwood's show and she didn't disappoint him OR me, really. I quite liked it actually. We didn't get to meet Miss STARtime (bus to dressing room to stage to bus, flanked by bodyguards) but I bought him a shirt and a poster and caught some good pics and a cool video (shhh...!) of her.
Speaking pictures, this is one of Brad singing a number for the crowd, Keith holding the mic. It was hilarious. As Keith introduced the band they would respond by singing the HELL out of some '80's hit. One guy brilliantly NAILED some Journey song (I honestly can't name ONE!) and another sang "Hot Blooded". When it came up Brad's turn to sing he did us all proud with a nasally and very hick rendition of John Anderson's "Swingin'"
"Her name was Charlotte Johnson...."
Awesome! Thanks for rockin' our world Brad!

Grandma's outhouse

Well it happened, I got up and went to church this morning. “Whah” you say? But, it’s Saturday. Yep, our septic pipes are all clogged up and at 6:30 this morning nature called so I went across the street to answer. Last night our house had somewhat of a gastric explosion and the toilet backed up, the tub filled up and one of the pipe in the basement was spewing all over drums, tools and whatnots. I quickly ran out and relieved the pressure via a pipe that had mysteriously been sticking up in my backyard until my neighbor, Chick one day showed me what it was for. I unscrewed the cap and it was like Yellowstone Park back there. Shit started blowing out a mile high. Sometimes I hate living in an old house. I wish it had come with an outhouse, a two-seater like my Grandma used to have out in the chicken pen. That always disgusted me. First, you had to walk the length of a football field to go to the bathroom and then you had to walk though all that chicken shit to get to it. Let’s put it this way, I didn’t go out there IF something was gonna happen, I waited until WHEN it was gonna happen!

I warned ya!

Read the disclaimer on the back of my second record, folks! This applies to ALL my records. Got this from our friend, Steve Boyle, videographer to the stars...oh, and us!:

I've put over 20,000 miles on my new 2008 Toyota Yaris since I bought it in late November (it had 5 miles on it when I bought it). Using Nashville as a hub (home) I've driven to Dallas, Knoxville, Atlanta, Macon, Charlotte, Raleigh, St. Petersburg and Sarasota many times. On the way back from seeing you guys last weekend, I was groovin' (no - screamin' !) to Thunderbird on the CD. Loud enough to miss my exit out of Winston-Salem (where I grabbed a quick B-Roll shot of Mitch Easter's house). I thought I was back on I-40, instead I was turned around and back into the W-S city limits. This I didn't notice, since I had Thunderbird on repeat. Who did notice was a State Trooper who pulled me over and gave me a ticket for doing 80 in a 60 mile zone. When he asked my why I was speeding, I just smiled and was happy for the good time. This is my first ever traffic ticket.
Thanks for the great music.

LOVE it!

Another singing drummer does a Big Al song.

In defense of Buddy

I found this website of this guy, Emmett Ientilucci. Evidently, he enjoyed putting up audio of Buddy Rich rants. There are many. I think this letter from Ross is a pretty good explanation of why the world's greatest drummer lost his cool.


Emmett,

Hi, I have been looking at your site and I wanted you to know that Buddy Rich wasn't at all the way you have him portrayed, as a "prick". I played trumpet and stood next to him every night for almost three years from 1975-1977. We had a great band that loved and respected him and he was 95% a sweetheart the whole time. The only time I saw him as he sounds on the tapes is when he had a bad back, or a band full of young guys who couldn't play well but thought they could, who showed disrespect towards him and thought they were too good to be there. I went back later for a few weeks and the band was like that. He and I were both miserable. Steve Marcus and Buddy and I sat together on the bus one night and he asked what he could do to get the band back to a high level. He was frustrated that yelling didn't help. It only made the lousy players band together and feel persecuted while continuing to suck.
I know that tape sounds funny to most people, but to the people who knew him to be unbelievably generous, (I could tell you stories) funny, loving and a whole different kind of drummer than any other on Earth, that tape hurts because we hear his pain and confusion as to how guys can suck and not know it.
I'm sure you appreciate his playing or you wouldn't have bothered to design such a great site! (I'm from Buffalo originally. Are you in Rochester? We probably have mutual friends,) Anyway, I just thought you should know the real Buddy.

p.s. I played with Barry Kiener (keys) for most of my stay with the band. He was amazing. Not only could he play his ass off, he could remember what rooms everyone stayed in on any date of any year. (one of those freakish kinds of memory) We all loved him. Buddy was absolutely crazy about him. Anyway, keep up the good work with your love of music and I'm glad you didn't mind my spouting off about Buddy.

Sincerely,
Ross Konikoff

Dylan Thang

"Theme Time" is a weekly radio show with the records chosen to fit a particular theme -- "mother," "baseball" and "tears" are some of them -- with Dylan playing and commenting on the various tunes.
Only three selections are from this decade: the White Stripes' explosive "Seven Nation Army," Mary Gauthier's downcast "I Drink" and The Yayhoos' country-soaked "Bottle and a Bible." Among the major figures from earlier years are Joe South ("Walk a Mile in My Shoes"), the Clash ("Tommy Gun"), Merle Haggard ("Mama Tried") and Bo Diddley ("Mona"). Read the rest of the story here:
LA Times

shine a light trailer

rolling stones you tube
You'll get a SMALL taste of what the movie is like, but you really have to HEAR it(6 channels)and see them in all their 30 ft. tall glory! My favorite part of the movie is on the trailer, look precisely at the 2:09 mark when Keith spits that cigarette out. It's slower on the real thing and seriously badASS!

Stones/DG to the rescue!

So Grace and I had a blast tonight at the IMAX showing of “Shine a Light”, the new Rolling Stones (and best by far, in my opinion) live show put to film. It’s the old IMAX recipe of boost the guy on screen up in the audio mix and boy did we get a lot of treats featuring Mick and Keith, warts and all, y’all. It was an absolute joy and reminded me again of why I still love playing rock and roll, besides the fact of…as Keith puts it…”My luck hasn’t run out yet!” Highlights include (believe it or not) “Just My Imagination” (soulful as a MoFo!), "She was Hot, "Buddy Guy on “Champagne and Reefer” and if it were up to me...an Oscar for the lighting, Jeez! It was just beautiful!
Afterwards, our friends Larry, Bob and Carina joined us at Sushi Thai for our late sashimi dinner. The conversation was the usual fare of stupid things we had done, whether together or not. The waitress was new and when Grace and I ordered a bottle of Kenwood Merlot she asked “white or red?” Uhhh…OK…so it’s gonna be like that, ehh?” The food was awesome though and as we were leaving Larry shared an interesting story. It seems that a fellow he worked with knew someone who had hired a hooker. Well, the crack-ho wouldn’t do the dirty deed without some sort of re-enforcement on his behalf and he had showed up without. Sooooooo…what’s the next best thing?
A Dollar General bag, of course! He used a damn plastic grocery bag. OMG! Dude! You are so wrong for that! But! Once again, Dollar General to the rescue!
Go see that movie, yo!

RTC interview

 

After watching a Korean horror flick, Jack and I were interviewed by Steve Boyle yesterday afternoon for more footage to be included on his “Return to Comboland” documentary. The film gets its name from an LP of the same name put together back in ’85 by our friend Godfrey Cheshire (who also has a new movie out, btw). The record included songs from North Carolina artists “trying to make it” back in the day, “Battleship Chains” by The Woods among them. (This release also made it possible for The Sat’s to record it without asking but that’s another story altogether, water under the bridge as they say). Steve’s documentary will go into more detail about the bands from the ‘80’s in this area and how it really was the golden age of NC music. He’s also interviewing The DB’s, Mitch Easter, Glass Moon, Don Dixon and others from Arrogance, our fellow remaining Fabulous Knobs, The Spongetones, The X-Teens and more. Steve’s pretty well connected, so he’s hoping for a nationwide release on cable or at the very least NC’s PBS stations.

leveled

Another Bunn skyscraper goes down!

 

Biscuit batter up!

Nathan and I went to the Mudcats game last night. Grace was gonna go but she was somehow wrangled into babysitting one of Nathan’s friends whose mother wouldn’t answer her cell phone (‘till 9pm…hmm). Anyway, we got there and realized that they were playing the Montgomery Biscuits. Oh, this was gonna be fun. What a great logo they have, a biscuit with eyes and butter as the tongue. So Nathan being Nathan and me being me, we spent all night tryin’ to outclever each other heckling them. “Butter up!” I said. “You butter catch that ball!” he says. “Put another biscuit on the plate!” I yell after a strikeout. And his favorite, which I stole from Pedro (on the I-95 South of the Border billboards), “I never sausage a team!” I thought he was gonna piss himself. I'm sure they had heard'm all, but it sure was fun for us! We stayed till the end of course we lost 2-1. I was also disappointed (but not for him) that Rex Rundgren, son of Todd, was no longer playing for the Mudcats. He’s moved up to triple A Las Vegas with the Dodgers. It’s gonna be another great summer of baseball!
mudcats!

wunc

speaking of radio...Videographer Steve Boyle, pee-naner player Dave Adams and me will we on NPR, (91.5 FM...I think!) WUNC in Chapel Hill (UNC's radio station!) on Friday the 11th, at noon. Hosted by Frank Stasio on a show called "The State of Things". Check it out. I'm sure we'll be discussing something that I know nothing about. Probably music. Sheesh!

wknc

Greg did the homework on this, WKNC (NC State's radio station)likes us pretty good..
Wed 9.Apr.08 11:52AM The Woods Battleship Chains
Wed 2.Apr.08 11:21AM The Woods I Am The Place
Fri 28.Mar.08 6:37PM The Woods I Am The Place
Wed 26.Mar.08 12:43PM The Woods Sometimes
Mon 18.Feb.08 5:40AM The Woods Sometimes
Wed 13.Feb.08 6:41AM The Woods Its All Too Much
Fri 8.Feb.08 7:38AM The Woods I Am The Place
Sun 3.Feb.08 7:44AM The Woods Battleship Chains

Wed 2.Apr.08 12:25PM Terry Anderson and the OAKteam* Rehab
Thu 13.Mar.08 8:47AM Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass-Kicki Purple GTO
Thu 28.Feb.08 5:49AM Terry Anderson and the OAKteam Check Please
Mon 18.Feb.08 12:42PM Terry Anderson and the OAKteam Inez
Fri 8.Feb.08 2:46PM Terry Anderson and the OAKteam Rehab
Mon 4.Feb.08 5:45AM Terry Anderson and the OAKteam You Know Me

salad on a stick

For a long time now I’ve been trying to figger out what I’m gonna do in my later years, when they come (he he!), to make money and I think I’ve finally found it… salad on a stick. Yep, I’m gonna help pow’ful Merka fight the battle of the bulge by driving around in a used taco truck at construction sites and workplaces handing out salads like they were ice cream cones. I’ll get a bunch of tongue depressor sticks and shove’m into the bottom of a heads of romaine lettuce, cram some peppers and onions in the top, a couple of slices of tomato, some salad dressing…”$4.50 please!” It just might work, I’ll make at least $2 a piece of the deal. I’ll also offer varieties of dressings and toppings, some mini-baguettes with real butter, hell…I’d buy it! Not only that! ..but I could also sell my CD’s outta that thing too! I can see it now, Big ‘ol “SALAD ON A STICK” on the side, “Battleship Chains” blasting on that little horn speaker on the back. So watch soon for it…www.saladonastick.com.
Oh wait….how much will gas be? I might have to re-think this thing.

PS- since I’m not feeling T-51, please refer to me in the future as T40-11, pronounced “T forty leh’m”. I don’t really feel 51 and 40-11 seems to flow a little better.

early spring

Last week at Monty’s we were “rehersin’” when we broke into song…well, namely, “Band on the Run” songs. “Jet” was great fun and “Let me Roll It” sounded EXACTLY like it. I got the double stabs and everything. We were listening to it on the way down. It’s one of Greg’s favorite records ever. Can’t say as I blame him, THAT is some singable shit!
I never realized that there were railroad tracks in the middle of the basketball court at the AlamoDome. I just saw a train from KU go through last night as mow my team DOWN! THAT was embarrassing! BUT! I’ll ask you local rivals, don’t you wish your team was in the Final Four? ...and Hansbrough was on your team? Awesome year comes to an end. I could make myself cry if I wanted to. Ehhh…it’s just a game.
…AND if that wasn’t depressing enough, we (uhh...Grace) started doing our taxes today. I mostly cheered her on…and drank.
Uuuugh!
I think I’m gonna go see the Mudcats play this week. It IS early Spring and the crack of baseball bats is in the air.
Hey, check out these pics from my yard..and shit….

 

 

 

 

E.Tubb '65

Jack got me this great 2 CD set called Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadours, The Complete Live 1965 Show. It sounds great and the show is loose and funny as hell. The band is absolutely smoking hot crazy good and can obviously play anything.
I'd love to cover "Drivin' Nails in My Coffin'", that one could really be a rocker. But my favorite line on the whole thing is when someone asks Ernest "Hey Ernest, what y'all got down there in Texas that y'all are all fired up proud of?" ET sez-
Don't y'all worry about what it is we got, you just worry about how much we got OF it!"

shape up, MySpacers!

Somebody kept asking me about my MySpace page, ”What the hell’s wrong with it?” “Hell, I don’t know!”. I just looked at it and its dumber’n shit looking. “Photos removed by Photobucket” all over it. I guess I was spammed again or something. It ain’t like I’m gonna keep the thing up to date or nothing. MySpace is ignunt.
People put the stupidest pictures of themselves on that thing. All of them thongs and ropes and whips…oh! I mean, all them pictures of themselves dranking and misbehavin’ and shit. It’s just wrong. Now y’all behave! Put some purty pictures of yourselves on there, preferably some “Glamor shots” or some pix with your Grandma or something! Now THAT’S the one that’s gonna make Mama proud, not the one of your “secret” tattoo or that dark image of you naked.
And don’t talk about how much you love to be spanked….
…you either girls! It’s just gonna start a bunch of talk in church.
You’re an adult, so resist the urge to play along and let your freak flag fly.
I mean it! Put them clothes back on and act like you got some damn sense! I wanna see pictures of you working hard behind your desk, hugging your kids and/or working in your yard. We gotta do better, people!
We gotta be strong! We live in Pow’ful Merka!

remember when...

...I used to pitch for the Vero Beach Dodgers?

 

last year/FLA

 

van talk/FLA

 

The van talk on OakTeam tours is so damn stupid, you people would just not believe it. Whether it was our ramblings about Russell Crowe’s “tater tot” (to which, I left a note for our hotel maid of such a rumor and even wrote a rap song about it) or about the adventures one of our friends who used to “thumb” to gigs or stupid crap we’ve seen on YouTube or listening to really great/bad CD’s by artists like The Sugar or whatever…it’s always usually hilarious.
Scheming marketing angles is sometimes the topic in eVANgeline. “Hey, let’s have our own radio show that transmits around the van so that when people driving around us tune in to the numbers ON the van they can hear our music and find out where we’re headed to play!”
Once this weekend we discussed the possibility of random “River dances” on the side of the road. And guess what, it happened. Dave pulled over on the way to Monty’s Saturday and never said why.
Me--”What?”, Dave—“You know”.
Six seconds later we’re ALL, including Paul (our merch dude) on the side of the road…hands on hips and legs a’ flailing! Yet another reason why I hate playing my hometown, we don’t get to hang out together as much. Great teams really love each other, and we always seem to have a blast on “tour” (even if it is just one gig). I’d venture to say we’d all just hop in the van and ride around the country together for a while just for the hell of it, whether we had a gig or not. Sometimes it’s just fun to hang with the boys, ya know?

PCP review

The Olympic Ass Kickin' Team
When the OAK Team Comes to Town
Doublenaught
The best-named band in the land led by the incomparable Terry Anderson
offers a 21-track should-be greatest hits collection recorded live in
the studio. Anderson, a frequent songwriting partner of Al Anderson
(no relation), is a black belt in the bad-assed roots-rocking power
pop perfected by masters such as NRBQ and Rockpile. His twisted sense
of humor is obvious on songs such as "Daddy Had a Wreck" and "Mr. Bus
Driver Man" as is his love of booze on "Feel a Drunk" and
"Thunderbird." But he also can do non-cheesy love songs with ease:
"Yesterday Clyde Virginia" and "Sunday Dress." On the latter, bassist
Jack Cornell's perfect vocals are enough to make Eddie Hinton smile in
blue-eyed soul heaven. Fun and well done from start to finish.
-Andy Turner