Bloodkin Blues

BLOODKIN SAILS WITH LYNYRD SKYNYRD

2010-01-29T04:27:00.000-08:00

Back on January 14, Bloodkin opened for Drive By Truckers at the 40 Watt Club in Athens GA. My buddy James asked me to submit a piece to Swampland about that show, but I never got it together––I got busy preparing for a cruise to Cozumel, “Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man Cruise”, which featured several legendary old-school Southern Rock bands bands playing onboard the ship, as well as quite a few more obscure, grassroots type bands...of which Bloodkin was one. It was the 4th year Skynyrd has hosted a cruise of this sort, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

As for the Bloodkin/Truckers show at the 40 Watt, let me just say for the record, it was one of the best rock n roll nights I’ve experienced in quite some time...both as a performer and as a spectator. The Bloodkin set that night was, in my mind at least, right on the money; particularly cool was our cover of Vic Chesnutt’s “Isadora Duncan” featuring Todd McBride on lead vocal. Before our set, “Camp Amped” took the stage––they’re a collection of young musicians who participate in the Camp Amped program run by Nuci’s Space in Athens. Camp Amped is a summer day camp for youth that focuses on the kids’ interest in music; the show at the 40 Watt was like the All Star kids from that program, putting on their first show in public. They rocked hard. It was a joy to behold.

Then of course after the Bloodkin set, the Truckers blew the roof off the joint, as usual. I had a wonderful time sidestage with my wife, Kristy, just taking in a show by a great band, a treat I don’t get to indulge in too often––it’s like the old saying about working in a restaurant; when you get off work you usually don’t want to go out to dinner, and the same holds true for musicians––I don’t get to see as many great shows as I’d like, ‘cause when I get home from the road, I’m ready for time with the wife and kids...

So that’s the brief recap for the show I didn’t write about. Following is my journal for the cruise I did write about––here we go––as they said on the boat, “Can we get a big HELL YEAH!”

January 21, 2010

3:00 PM

onboard the cruise ship Inspiration,

docked in Tampa FL

Kristy and I just got settled into our cabin here, and the rest of the Bloodkin guys have found their rooms elsewhere...we’re playing the “Lynyrd Skynyrd Simple Man Cruise,” five days onboard, to Cozumel, Mexico and back...which will mark the first time I’ve ever been to Mexico. Eric Carter and I used to talk about beating it to Mexico and having crazed adventures in the tradition of Kerouac and Burroughs. (Well...I didn’t exactly plan to shoot my wife in the head like Burroughs did down there, but maybe just write some “Mexico City Blues” or something.) But those trips never materialized.

Also back when I was touring with Moe Tucker, and Sterling Morrison was also playing in that band and at the time he lived in Texas, he and I were making vague plans that “sometime” I’d come down and visit, and he’d take me into Mexico to see some ancient Mayan ruins––but then Sterling got sick and died, and so that trip never happened either.

Now, when this cruise docks in Cozumel, they’re offering a ferry to mainland Mexico, and a hiking trip to see some Mayan ruins. So. Kristy and I are planning to go...for me, I guess it’s better late than never...

January 22, 2010

10:15 AM

en route to Cozumel

This morning we’re just about smack dab in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico; tomorrow morning we’ll be docking in Cozumel. Last night was foggy and wind-whipped––this morning is bright and clear and the sea a shimmering royal blue––out our cabin window the view is half that royal blue, then the sky above the far horizon is more a pale milky bluewhite–-the sea and the sky, simple and gorgeous.

Earlier Kristy and I walked to the extreme forward observation deck and faced front, watching the nose of the vessel slicing through the waves, extreme wind making us lean to maintain balance...

Last night Bloodkin played our first set of the cruise, on the Lido Deck––but no, we didn’t play “Lido Shuffle”, though the thought did cross my mind. It was a fair set to a fair crowd, picking up steam as we rolled along––the first time all six of us (with both Tonks and Martino at the same time) have played together in several months. Cool to get all the spices a-bubbling in the same pot together again...but I look forward to tonight’s latenight set in the Candlelight Lounge...I think last night we tuned the engine, tonight we’ll rev ‘er up.

Last night we all wandered around separately after our show, and took in various courses of the Southern Rock Orgy––Lynyrd Skynyrd, .38 Special, Molly Hatchet––whew. The Molly Hatchet guys seemed to be having a genuinely great time, stepping over the line into Spinal Tap territory, but they damn sure were having fun, and eventually so did I. All their fist-pumping jumping-jack histrionics, preaching support for “the troops” then waving their Confederate flag, with much pride and (seemingly) liquor-addled zeal––but their giddiness was kind of contagious.

January 24, 2010

6:35 AM

en route back from Cozumel to Tampa

Just waking up, and just watched the sun rising from the sea out our cabin window...Kristy and I will head up for breakfast in a few minutes.

Last night our whole entourage took in The Outlaws out on the Lido Deck... “Green Grass And High Tides”, “Ghost Riders In The Sky”, and a bunch of songs I’ve never heard, but, man, they were excellent...I’ve certainly never “studied” them before, but they have more of a pop songwriting bent than most of the old-school Southern Rock outfits, mixed in with an absolutely top-shelf dual-lead-guitar attack and precise vocal harmonies...I was duly impressed and have decided to quit Bloodkin and follow The Outlaws around on tour. (But seriously, I was regaling my bandmates last night with a tangent about how “The Outlaws are the Bloodkin of old-school Southern Rock”:

They never made it quite as big as some of their brethren bands; they have a tendency toward minor-key songs with relatively “heavier” and more “artistic” lyrics, and these songs build from a simmering, brooding beginning to a thunderous and wicked lead guitar climax (compare “Green Grass And High Tides” with, say, “Quarter Tank Of Gasoline”, for example)...their current lead singer also plays rhythm guitar, like I do, and of course Skynyrd and Hatchet and .38 Special have the frontman vocalist who usually doesn’t play an instrument...

Of course I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek about all this, but there’s a grain of truth...and Eric Martinez confirmed my enthusiasm for The Outlaws, telling me “They smoked Skynyrd”...but I’m not sure the other guys in our band were convinced.

The only band I’ve seen on the cruise so far who outgunned The Outlaws were Hill Country Revue, who I caught the previous night in the Candlelight Lounge. They played right before the Bloodkin set, which turned out to be sparsely attended; we indeed revved ‘er up a notch, but were thwarted by competing performances, mainly a “Skynyrd and Friends” type jam session at the other end of the boat...such is life.

But Hill Country Revue features Cody Dickinson on guitar, and any music I’ve ever heard him or his brother Luther play, has always been righteous and rockin’...no surprise, as Cody and Luther are the sons of the late Jim Dickinson, a monumental icon of American Music, who was a brilliant producer and bad-ass keyboard player...he also happened to be a personal hero of mine, but that’s a whole other song and dance. The point is, the Revue killed it that night, they were no-nonsense downhome boogie n swagger, catch ‘em anytime you have a chance and I guarantee they won’t disappoint. They’ll make you feel like you just knocked back a swaller of pristine Mississippi moonshine then got kicked in the head by a supernatural muse of a mule.

I haven’t yet caught my old Athens acquaintance Kevn Kinney and the rest of the Drivin N Cryin boys, but I’ve received rave reviews, heard tell they’re in top form and rockin’ harder than ever, which I’m certain is true. Hope to catch them later tonight.

9:40 AM

So yesterday Kristy and I ventured onto the island of Cozumel. (Our guided tour to the Mayan ruins was canceled “due to not meeting the minimum number of participants.”) So Kristy and I were left to our own devices.

We quickly made our way through the tourist-trap giftshop strip mall that’s built right around the dock, and got out into the streets proper. We talked to a few folks at guided tour stands, and before long we secured the services of a very helpful taxi driver named Elias. He gave us a personalized tour of the island...we saw picture-perfect stretches of beaches, I was fairly stunned at the raw beauty of the undeveloped sand n surf, amazing scenery, and if I can use the term “vibe”, it just won me over, and I really want to return to Cozumel someday and bring the kids along. We saw great “kiddie pool” areas on the beaches, little wading pools naturally barricaded from the surf by rock formations, little Mexican kids happily frolicking in the crystal clear blue water...one such “kiddie pool” was about half a mile from a thatched-roof establishment called “Hotel Ventanas Al Mar”, a ridiculously scenic spot...Elias told us the hotel was used frequently for location shoots for Mexican films and TV, and I could see why. I’m fantasizing already about staying there a week or so, long enough to really absorb some of the spirit of the place, a big family vacation by the sea with the wife and kids...

On a beach called “Punta Sur” Kristy and I came across a huge iguana, sunning himself atop a 6-foot stack of stones, and he was so still and poised and perfect, that at first I thought he was some sort of stone sculpture...but he was real, alive, seemed ancient and mystically wise and the undisputed steward of that shoreline. He reminded me of the great Tennessee Williams short story/play/movie, Night Of The Iguana––the Reverend Shannon guiding his tour group through Mexico to the End Of The Line––and now in Cozumel I was seeing the scenery of that story come to life.

Then later we came across a cool, no-frills little beachside bar called “Senor Iguana’s”, so of course I had to check it out. It was one of several joints we saw that struck me as beautiful places to get lost––slow, even timeless, little Mexican cantinas––where the barflies just appear like driftwood, suck down a few Sols and just gaze down the shore dreaming, hypnotized by the waves rolling in and out forever...

We also noticed tiny concrete dollhouse-sized shrines along the road, turned out to be the Mexican equivalent of “crosses by the highway” in America, little memorials to people who have died along that particular stretch of road. These little shrines are variously painted, inscribed with the name of the departed and facts about their life on Earth––I stopped and photographed one such shrine to a man named Hector Arredondo.

So the bottom line is, Cozumel struck me as incredibly scenic and “fun in the sun” gorgeous, but also somehow a little sad at moments, but genuine, and possessing some kind of secret I’d someday love to come back and investigate.

But for the time being we’re back on the boat, with one more full day and night of heavy-duty Southern Rock awaiting us. And do I love Southern Rock? Well, officer...you got me dead to rights. Rock n roll sure did save my life at a pretty young age, transformed me into a better person than I otherwise would have been...and to quote Duane Allman, “The term ‘Southern Rock’ is redundant.”

It all traces back to the South musically...jazz, blues, and rock n roll are fruits of a weird hybrid of cultures slammed together in an unholy stew of slavery, flight from religious persecution, desperation and fear and courage, and all manner of extreme circumstances...and those cultures sifted together and became One, more than the sum of its parts, and that’s when the music was born.

January 28, 2010

3:00 AM

Athens GA

Back home now, and man it’s great to get back to our babies and beagles. The trip was pure rollicking good times, but I’m so grateful that at this point in my life I have so much to come home to. I’m a lucky man.

So the last day of the cruise turned out to be the coolest day of all. We did a Bloodkin meet and greet in the afternoon, which was kind of interesting. One woman who came through the line for autographs and photos told me she lives in Ripley, West Virginia, which is where my mom lives, and where I grew up. Small world.

Also that afternoon I finally caught a set by Lynyrd Skynyrd. First time I’ve ever seen them play. They were smooth and fine, layin’ down those classic sounds...halfway through the set Johnny Van Zant went off on a tangent about supporting our American troops overseas, kind of a gung-ho patriotic speech, and also he explained why every American needs to keep a loaded pistol in a drawer by their bedside...I don’t exactly agree with Skynyrd’s politics, but I sure do agree with the classic music they’ve been making all these years. It was cool watching them...they have a presence, powerful, just walking out onstage they put a charge in the atmosphere. Toward the end of their set they played “The Ballad Of Curtis Lowe”, which is my alltime favorite Skynyrd song. Then they concluded with “Sweet Home Alabama”, and it was something to behold...I was maybe 15 feet from the stage, out on the Lido Deck, a beautiful clear day as we floated back ‘crost the Gulf Of Mexico...memorable.

At 10:00 that evening we played our third and final Bloodkin set of the cruise, in the Candlelight Lounge again...and the third time was our charm; it was easily our best performance and best crowd. It felt good, and I was kind of sorry we didn’t have more shows stretching out in front of us, just when we were hitting our stride.

After we played our set in the Lounge, Drivin N Cryin played the latenight show...first time I’ve seen them in about a year, and they were on it, inspiring. Kevn Kinney’s new song “(Whatever Happened To The) Great American Bubble Factory” speaks what I feel in my heart about the condition of America today––as opposed to Skynard’s “God & Guns” viewpoint––(but hey, music’s more powerful and more important than politics anyway)––but “Bubble Factory” is a brilliant song, another in a long line of brilliant songs Kevn has written over the years (his little introduction to the song summed it up: “I bought a little bottle of soap bubbles for my granddaughter and noticed it was made in China. I thought, What the fuck is wrong with America? Can’t we even make bubbles here anymore?”) I’ve been listening to him, solo and with Drivin N Cryin and with other bands he’s worked with, since about 1987, right after I first moved to Athens––he’s been one of the mainstays on my musical landscape, right up there with Athenians like Vic Chesnutt and Widespread Panic––so hearing Drivin N Cryin play again that night was like catching up with an old friend.

LISTENING TO A LOT OF LITTLE: MEMORIES OF VIC CHESNUTT

2009-12-25T22:38:00.000-08:00

Those of us who showed up in Athens during the 80’s are starting to feel our age. A few years back we lost Porn Orchard’s Ted Hafer, back in 2002 we lost Bar-B-Q Killers’ Laura Carter and Widespread Panic’s Michael Houser, and earlier this year Pylon’s Randy Bewley, among others. Also this year we lost three members of the extended Widespread Panic family; Forrest Vereen, Wayne Sawyer, and Denise Jordan. Now on Christmas day, we hear that we’ve lost Vic Chesnutt, who by nearly universal consent amongst the Athens music community, was the best of us.

Vic was born in 1964, and raised in Zebulon, Georgia. He was partially paralyzed in a car wreck at the age of 18. In the mid-80’s he moved to Athens and formed The La-Di-Da’s with Todd McBride, who would later co-found The Dashboard Saviors. Before too long the La-Di-Da’s split; by 1990, Vic was releasing a debut solo album, Little, produced by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, and in ’92 McBride’s band released their own debut, Kitty, produced by R.E.M.’s Peter Buck.

During the 90’s Vic went on to ever-wider exposure with the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity Of The Situation, an album featuring a variety of bands and solo performers, including R.E.M., Soul Asylum, Cracker, and Madonna, performing covers of Vic Chesnutt songs. The album benefited the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a non-profit charity benefiting professional musicians unable to afford medical care (Vic would continue to speak out about health care reform, and struggle with health insurance problems, for the rest of his life.) In ’96 Vic also had a cameo appearance in Billy Bob Thornton’s film Slingblade. These events amped up Chesnutt’s career, and he went on to release 17 albums, by my count, including collaborations with musicians and writers such as Widespread Panic, Lambchop, and Van Dyke Parks, who famously wrote the lyrics for the Beach Boys’ Smile.

I used to hang out with Vic a little bit back in the late 80’s...I remember one night during a party at the house on the corner of Prince and Harris, Vic and I were talking and he’d heard about another party a few blocks down the road...somewhere on Meigs Street...and he wanted me to push him over there in his wheelchair, across some pretty uneven, cracked stretches of pavement...so we started out, and my girlfriend Paige came with us too. She was wearing a long sparkly silver ballgown type outfit, and she was struggling to keep up, because now Vic kept yelling at me, “Faster, man! Faster!” I was literally running, had his wheels kicking gravel behind us as we flew, and then Paige stumbling along behind us with her long platinum blonde hair and high heels...it was hilarious, a bizarre Athens scenario of the sort that...well, back then, happened practically every night. And it was just the sort of thing Vic would do.

Then flashing forward to 2002, Vic, Jerry Joseph and I played Michael Houser’s 40th birthday party. I say with no small sense of abashment that Mikey often called us his three favorite songwriters, and that birthday party was one of the proud moments of my life. Less than a year later, at Mikey’s funeral service, I sat and cried while Vic pulled himself together, went up front and played a song. And now I’m sitting here listening to the wind and rain whip around outside my window, and suddenly remembering that only a few nights ago, I stopped by my bandmate David Nickel’s house, and as I stuck my head inside the door I said, “What’s that music you’re playing?” David said, “It’s Is The Actor Happy.” One of the few Vic releases I’ve never owned or at least lived with for awhile...so I guess my point in all this is, it’s just dawning on me how twined through my life Vic’s musical presence has been...

Because I, like lots of other folks around the world, really came to know Vic best through his music. In day to day life we were only acquaintances, but in the realm of music we were contemporaries, born the same year (he was 23 days younger), and as young songwriters back in the day we cheered each other on (that’s a time-honored tradition in the Athens music community, one I believe still exists, one I hope always will). I remember once telling him some other newer band was trying to use my band’s name, and he shook his head and said with sincere disgust, “Those fuckin’ bastards.” We talked a few times about getting some kind of band or project together, but it never happened, though we did share the stage a few times (the old Bartab extravaganzas at the Georgia Theatre, things like that). And I used to go see him nearly every Tuesday night, the summer of ’88 I believe, during his residency at the old 40 Watt (in the space that’s now the Caledonia Lounge)...one of my favorite moments was when someone yelled out, “Free Bird!” And there was an electric piano set up onstage, so Vic rolled himself over to it, and with one hand pounded out a simple version of the descending chord progression, and at a painfully slow tempo sang the entire fuckin’ song. It was beautiful. It was in your face. It was rock n roll. Vic of course was a major league poet, but he also had a strong streak of absurdist punk rocker running through him...he certainly didn’t take shit from anybody. (I’m also reminded of a story told me by Todd Nance: Vic had played a show with Live, who that night covered one of his songs, and afterwards asked him what he thought of their version. Vic replied, “I think you guys need to practice some more.”)

When Vic released Little in 1990, well, a lot of walls came down for a lot of people who heard it, including me. It reaffirmed a whole universe of options as far as songwriting. I spent one of my best Athens summers in the early 90’s listening to a lot of Little, in a rented house on King Avenue with another girlfriend named Leah––I recall long afternoons in that living room with the wood floors and high ceilings––those cool but rundown old rental properties that everyone I knew lived in back then, very Southern and very charming and very infested with cockroaches and mice. But I’d just sit on the couch and knock back a vodka and lemonade, and listen to that record, while Leah floated around the house in one of her peacock-eye patterned sundresses––we were young and careless and filled with possibilities.

And across all the years since, Vic put out so many great records, I mean not one of them was a notch less than great, and his artistry certainly grew and deepened over the years––his most recent releases, At The Cut and Skitter On Take-Off, truly contain some of his best songs ever, and “Flirted With You All My Life”, a kind of lovesong to death, is particularly overwhelming given current circumstances––but my personal favorite remains Little. Of course my opinion has everything to do with the romanticized memories, the time and place that record came into my life––but if Vic had never written another song after “Isadora Duncan”, I think he would have left behind a perfectly respectable artistic legacy.

well I dreamed I was a-dancing with

Isadora Duncan

in a silver cafe

it was a cafe that was not at all near here...

The simple, aching beauty of the melody, the stripped-down-next-to-nothing production that held the jewel-like lyrics in a kind of bas-relief spotlight...it just made me happy to hear, not that the songs were necesarily “happy” in subject matter of course, but they were executed with such precision and craftsmanship and care, I remember thinking, “Yeah, it’s possible...it can be done, after all...despite all the obscenities perpetuated by the music business, maybe you can just say ‘fuck all that’ and pursue your art.” It was a liberation, and it was plain gorgeous fun, getting a good buzz on as sunset approached, spinning that piece of vinyl over and over, making decisions about which rock show to attend downtown later that evening...it’s a cool memory, from a cool little crossroads of my youth.

Thanks, Vic, for providing the soundtrack to that memory, and so many others.

11:00 PM

Xmas Day, 2009

Athens GA

"BLOODKIN BLUES" WILL NOW BE POSTED ON SWAMPLAND.COM

2009-12-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

Click image to visit Swampland.

Well, my old buddy James Calemine, who writes the Mystery & Manners section over at Swampland.com, offered to let me post my blog ramblings on the Swampland site––actually he offered about a month or so back, and I’ve kept him waiting far too long for my first entry––but he’s known me for nigh on to twenty years now, and he’s certainly aware of my inconsistencies. But I’m grateful to him and all the good folks at Swampland for the chance to be published on their fine, stylish online blog/magazine...it’s an honor.

So where to begin? My online ramblings are wildly erratic in terms of subject matter, length, and probably quality...I’m liable to go off on a tangent about pretty much anything that comes to mind...but I guess tonight I’ll start close to home and talk a little about my band Bloodkin, and some upcoming music events here in Athens, Georgia.

Tomorrow night, or technically tonight I guess, Bloodkin is playing a Christmas “empty stocking” benefit at the Office Lounge, a bar I’ve not yet visited, but about which I’ve received some pretty favorable reports. We’ll see. Also playing this benefit will be Dodd Ferrelle (the organizer of the event), Workhorses Of The Entertainment/Recreational Industry (another band featuring Bloodkin’s own William Tonks; also the Workhorses feature Ben Reynolds, another fixture on the Athens musical landscape, and a former member of the mighty Chickasaw Mudd Puppies)...plus Dave Blackmon, and I believe David Barbe, and I’m sure lots of other folks I’m failing to mention. I’m sure it’ll be a fun night, and it’s all for a good cause.

Then tomorrow night, Saturday the 19th, Bloodkin heads to Alabama to play the 10th annual Great American Xmas Party, at the Strutting Duck in downtown Auburn...in previous years this event has featured musicians such as Patterson Hood, Tishamingo, and Jeff Sipe, and we’re proud to be involved this time around.

Speaking of Patterson Hood, he’s now on the board of the Classic Film Festival, an annual event taking place at the Classic Center here in Athens; this year the festival will run March 25-28, 2010, and will screen such classics as Double Indemnity, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, and (I’m particularly excited about this one) a midnight screening of The Shining. Patterson has asked me to play an acoustic set at the fundraising event for this year’s festival––no date announced yet for the fundraiser, but I’ll keep everyone posted.

Other than that, most of the activity in Bloodkin land continues to center around working on our upcoming “box set” release...it’s titled A Long Hustle. Taken from a line in Taxi Driver, where De Niro as Travis Bickle says, “It’s a long hustle but it keeps me real busy.” (There. Another movie reference for all you rabid film buffs out there). The compilation currently consists of 125 songs, the equivalent of 7 CDs, or about 8½ hours of music. My big notion about this project is to sell the whole thing as a digital download for $1.25. Yep, a buck and a quarter. A penny a song. Of course our manager and everyone else associated with the music industry tells me I’m completely insane. But hey, if they’re only just now discovering that, they haven’t been paying attention. And I think selling such a monstrous 20-plus year compilation for such a low price would actually create a bit of buzz and publicity, and I think a lot more folks out there would wind up hearing the music, which is the whole idea...but I’m open to suggestions. What do y’all out there in cyberspace think?

You can leave your comments right here on the site, or just bend my ear at a Bloodkin show...hope to hear from you soon.

Daniel Hutchens

WATCHING TOO MUCH TV FOR MY OWN GOOD

2009-12-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

Yeah...I watched the President’s address on the tube tonight; 30,000 additional troops heading to Afghanistan, if I heard correctly. I don’t know any solid answers, but I’m wildly suspicious of any military actions at all in this world these days; I never see any true results except useless deaths and hateful accusations aimed at the folks on the other side who call God by a different name. It saddens me. It’s Obama’s war now; we can’t continue to blame it all on Bush. I remember reading a Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone during the Presidential election, which examined the biggest $ contributors to both the Bush and the Obama campaigns, and it turned out the same people were funding both campaigns. Taibbi said something to the effect of, “Maybe Obama will surprise us all and take a bold new direction...but I doubt it.” (Paraphrasing there). Yeah...my suspicious side grows stronger and sharper the older I get.

It’s nice to once again have a guy in the oval office who can string together a coherent sentence and all, and I was certainly proud of the racial hurdle we all finally cleared when Obama was elected (watching Aretha Franklin sing on TV during the inauguration was the moment when I personally got a little teary-eyed)...but I find myself being reminded of George Carlin’s rants about voting, where he said he just stayed home on election days and jacked off, and then at least he had something in his hand to show for his efforts...unlike all the naive sheep who went out and voted. Or the Bill Hicks bit about how the Democratic and Republican parties were like two hand puppets, the same ventriloquist with one hand up each puppet’s ass. Or so many memorable lines about politics in America from the great Hunter S. Thompson, such as: “Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all...It was pitiful...I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him 'Mr. President,' and then I felt ashamed." Or: “Bill Clinton does not inhale marijuana, right? You bet. Like I chew on LSD but I don't swallow it."

Yeah...but Carlin, Hicks and Thompson are all dead now, and there are precious few of their kind left to us. They were masters at ripping down the “decent” veil of political hypocricy and shining a cold, hard (though I’ll admit not always sober) light in the faces of our so-called leaders.

Ok, enough of that. Had to get it off my chest. I’ll take a break here, and next time resume with some ramblings of a more lighthearted nature. Hopefully.

IN MEMORY OF FORREST VEREEN AND JIM CARROLL

2009-09-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

These past weeks––in fact months––have been a wild, harsh, emotional rollercoaster ride crashing into a lowflying helicopter...our dear friends in the Widespread Panic camp lost another family member; Forrest Vereen (son of Gary Vereen, Panic’s longtime road captain) was killed September 8 in a motorcycle crash...Gary asked Eric Carter and I to play a few songs at the post-funeral gathering, which of course we did. Singing “Amazing Grace” with the whole congregation singing along, accompanied by EC’s raw, spiritually ablaze slide guitar, was a weird, obviously sad, but redemptive and necessary moment, at least for me...one of the purest examples I’ve experienced of how music can soothe and empower and help one maintain, through even the lowest of times. All our love continues to go out to the family.

On September 11 news came down the wire that one of my and Eric’s longtime musical/literary heroes had also passed away. Jim Carroll, author of the famed Basketball Diaries, among many other books, and the mind/heart/voice behind one of the great rock n roll albums of all time, Catholic Boy, died while working at his desk, at his home in Manhattan. This news, maybe because of its proximity to another, more personally close-to-home loss, really hit me hard. I wound up writing a tribute article to Jim Carroll, which was published online at Aquarium Drunkard, our friend Justin Gage’s nationally lauded music blog, transmitted from Los Angeles. If you’re interested you can click here to read my article: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2009/09/27/jim-carroll-watches-the-earth-recede/

Meanwhile the band kept playing. September 17, we gave an “acoustic” Bloodkin performance at the Melting Point in Athens, opening for the great Leon Russell. It was cool to open for Leon and all, but the stage was really crowded with his equipment, and Eric and William Tonks and I were all standing basically on top of each other, so it was a little awkward playing. I found myself really missing our rhythm section, Aaron Phillips and David Nickel. We made up for it in spades the next night...

Bloodkin “acoustic”, opening for Leon Russell at the Melting Point. Leon Russell photo by Daniel Peiken for AthensRockShow.com

...When we played the Loco’s in Savannah, the middle set between openers Junkyard Angel and closers Stewart & Winfield. I was just in the mood on this night, partially because of the aforementioned previous night’s acoustic show, sans bass and drums, and maybe partially due to watching the opening band Junkyard Angel’s fine, flowing set...whatever the reason, when Bloodkin took the stage, we never missed a beat. Or if we did I didn’t give a shit. It was the most fun I’ve had onstage in awhile.

The following night we played the 12th annual GRAM PARSONS GUITAR PULL in Waycross, Georgia. Before our set, we were privileged to watch country music legend Charlie Louvin perform with his band of silky-smooth Nashville pros...(at least they sounded Nashville, I guess they could be from Switzerland for all I know.)

Charlie Louvin at the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull, Waycross GA.

Aaron Phillips, Daniel Hutchens, David Nickel. Gram Parsons Guitar Pull, Waycross GA.

Waycross photos courtesty of Bob Holmen & Ashley Andrea.

Anyway...we also took in the set by fellow Athenians (but Waycross natives) The Bearfoot Hookers. They gave a torn-n-frayed, celebratory performance, climaxing with about 10 of their friends onstage variously singing harmonies, playing trombone, etc. ...good clean fun.

Our set was latenight and a little anticlimactic, after some of the family crowd had headed on home for bed...but it was still fun and there was still an enthusiastic crowd gathered down front. It felt right, winding up at a Gram Parsons tribute...another fallen hero, of whom I could write chapters and chapters about how he’s influenced my life and music...but that’s a cauldron of elixir best brewed another time.

So...yet another installment documenting life’s careening ups and downs, and how music is the only church I’ve found yet that makes sense to me at either extreme...y’all take care out there, and we hope to see ya at a Bloodkin show real soon.

NOTES ON THE PASSING OF JIM DICKINSON (written for Swampland.com)

2009-08-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

The ﬁrst time I ever met the great writer/music historian Stanley Booth--at his ʼ92 Atlanta Rythm Oil book signing, where, introduced by James Calemine, I asked Mr. Booth as naively as possible: “So have you ever heard of Jim Dickinson? Weʼre trying to get him to produce our ﬁrst record.”

Stanley Booth kinda smiled, rolled his eyes, and said, “Oh yeah, Iʼve heard of him. I think heʼd be a pretty good choice to produce your record.”

After reading Rythm Oil, and taking note of the numerous references to Jim Dickinson therein, I felt a little foolish. But also I felt a little justiﬁed. Because, after all, my band had been negotiating with Capricorn Records about recording our ﬁrst record, and when Phil Walden asked me, “So who would you want to produce it?”, I said without blinking, “Jim Dickinson.”

My choice was based on Dickinsonʼs legendary production credits with Big Star and The Replacements--two bands who had deﬁnitely achieved heroic status to me––and of course there was the near-mythic story about Dickinson playing piano on the Stonesʼ “Wild Horses”...hey man, that was enough for me. Over the years since then Iʼve discovered so much more about the man and his music...but my gut-level preference of him as ﬁrst-choice-for-producer seems in retrospect a bullseye. Unfortunately the project didnʼt pan out...but he has always remained the highest order of musical hero to

me.

Back then I spoke with Jim Dickinson on the phone a few times; I had mailed him a few of my bandʼs early demos...about 10 songs or so, with different drummers playing on different songs...a few of the drummers were great, a few not so much. And of course Dickinson picked out the bad apples immediately: “Y know on [such and such a song], that drummer? You ainʼt bringing him to the sessions are you?”

“Naw, man, he was just ﬁllin in for the demo...”

“Good, ʻcause his right foot donʼt know what his left hand is doing. But I love your songs, and I love your partnerʼs [Eric Carterʼs] guitar playing.”

Amen. Good enough. The man knew his rock n roll, and loved it, and cared about it. And I think my favorite quote of his ever, I actually saw on a recent Swampland video post, an interview he did a few years back:

(Talking about recording/producing) “Itʼs not childʼs play. Itʼs serious. You are making a ʻrecordʼ, itʼs like the caveman with his handprint on the back of the wall. Why do we do this? I know! Iʼve sat there and thought about it way too much. We do this because we fear death. It is a search for immortality, thatʼs the reason we record. Itʼs the primal urge of mankind, to freeze time and alter it.”

BACK TO DENVER

2009-08-13T02:01:00.000-07:00

So we just got back home to Georgia from our recent trip out to Denver and Steamboat Springs...the first time the full Bloodkin band has played Colorado in prob’ly 3 or 4 years...a long time. We all flew out to Denver last Thursday morning, were met by Mr. Martinez at the airport and shuttled to our old standby Denver digs, the La Quinta on Park Avenue West, right across the bridge from Coors Field...not the fanciest hotel on the planet, but it’s always worked out great for us...very convenient, walking distance to the ballpark, like I said, and just a short drive to downtown Denver and all the clubs we usually play, and also just a short drive from Martino’s house...so it’s cool. In years past, I’ve spent weeks in that La Quinta, used it as a home base from which we’d head out on little mini tours of Colorado and beyond, then return to the La Quinta for a few days, and head out again...that sort of thing. It’s become a Bloodkin tradition.

That first day, Thursday, we checked in and crashed for a few hours, then that afternoon we headed over to the MoBoogie loft to film some live performances with our old friend (and honorary bandmember) Bill McKay sitting in on piano. Bill used to live in Atlanta, and used to go on the road with Bloodkin semi-regular, back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. He’s on the team, and it was great to see him again, and of course to play music with him again too...he’s a top shelf keyboard player, piano, organ, whatever ya got. I’ve played with him more recently, little acoustic runs I’ve done out in Denver in the last year or so, but this was the first time he’s hooked up with the full band in quite some time.

MoBoogie is a website venture that has various bands come up and perform in the company studio, and the MoBoogie staff films the performances then posts the videos on the website...it’s a cool promotional tool for the bands, seems to work out real nice for everyone involved. Nice people too down there in MoBoogie land. [Check out a clip from our recent visit by clicking here.]

Then Thursday night we played a show at Owsley’s in downtown Denver. The show itself was great, a really good turnout, lots of old friends in the crowd, and we played well, with Bill McKay sitting in again (and our good friend Mark Brut helping out with guitar tech duties etc.)...but there were all kinds of weird conflicts and melodramas backstage. Another band showed up and had a whole different notion of the show than what we’d been told...the other band wanted to share the stage with us, share our equipment, as opposed to playing a separate outdoor stage, which is what we’d been told would be going down...but we were flexible and agreed to share, go with the flow and all that. But after we gave an inch the other band decided to try for the whole 99 miles. They insisted on playing a later time slot than we’d initially agreed...they said they had folks driving from Atlanta to see them and these folks wouldn’t be arriving til about 10:00 PM or so (which turned out to be absolute bullshit)...but again, we conceded, tried to be the nice guys. So the opening band played a long and later opening set, with about 6 people standing in the club watching them, while about 100 folks milled around on the deck outside, waiting for the Bloodkin set. Ah well. Another night in the rock n roll business...

But then we finally got into our set, and everything was cool...again, it was a pretty high opening night of the run, with Wild Bill banging on the keys, and Martinez back in tow, wailing away on his Stratocaster, and the whole band really locking into some knockout grooves. But after the show is when the shitstorm really started rainin’ down...

The owner of the club, who was supposed to be there to pay us, was nowhere to be found...he owns several other venues in town, plus he was putting on a whole festival during this week, in fact our appearances were billed as part of the whole festival...so, he was obviously very busy, running all over the city, dealing with bunches of bands and festival crises and so on...which is fine. But he’d left word with the staff at the club to just pay us half what we had been guaranteed for the night, and he said he’d “settle up with us later that weekend.” Which in the music business is just unacceptable shady bullshit, especially when the money is available to be paid, which in this case it most definitely was...they’d raked in the cash on this particular night. So, we made phone calls, and said we wanted to be paid our full guarantee, and the owner said he’d be heading over to see us soon...and so we waited a few hours after we were done playing. Sitting backstage just stewing, exhausted, fed up.

When the guy finally showed up, he was surly, evasive, weird...he eventually sat down at the bar and dumped out a mound of cash and started counting through it, then handed our bass player David half of our guarantee. David asked for the full amount, and the guy started calling David “retarded”: “That’s just retarded! You’re retarded! I’ve never heard anything so retarded!” Things got heated, a big shouting match ensued, David kicked a metal chair across the room and injured his foot, the club owner’s dumbass drunken doorguys started threatening violence...etc. etc. etc. We hustled David on out of the club, not wanting some kind of ugly police hassle or whatever, and as we were kinda pushing David out the door, the club owner was following right behind us, literally jumping up and down and shouting, “You’re so retarded! Fuck you, retard! Hey, retard, I said! Hey, you’re fuckin retarded!”...I couldn’t believe this guy, he was reverting into a 3rd grader right before my eyes, namecalling in the schoolyard...in all the storming chaos and screaming and anger, we wound up leaving without even taking our half pay...we left without a dime. But then the next afternoon we called the guy up, and he paid in full right then and there around lunchtime, no questions asked...bizarre. Hey, nobody ever said the music business was gonna be easy...or pretty, or fair, or even halfway sane...we all figured that out a long time ago...it’s “A Long Hustle”.

So then the next night we were playing another one of this same guy’s clubs! So we knew what to expect going in, and we weren’t disappointed...we showed up for soundcheck, and another band was already there setting up onstage, and we had been switched from headlining to opening! And this wasn’t even any kind of revenge for the previous night’s clash, ‘cause the other band told us the club owner had called them the previous week and made the switch! He just hadn’t bothered to tell us! Amazing...we were kinda pissed of course, but again, we’d been expecting some sort of bullshit...so we sent out Facebook messages and made phone calls, did everything we could to alert our fans of the switch...then we played the opening slot in front of a pretty packed house, and it was a really fun rock show, lotsa people dancin drinkin and raisin hell, another wild sweaty revival throwdown at the old Church of Bloodkin...[click here to hear a taper’s copy of the show]...

and then we finished and packed up and left; on this night we’d insisted on being paid before we played. Martinez stayed behind to check out the other band, and told us the next day there weren’t more than 5 or 6 people in the club for the “headlining” set...again, just weird, more than anything, even from a business perspective...this club owner freakazoid just didn’t seem to want the Bloodkin crowd to hang out and spend too much money in his clubs. His loss.

(Oh by the way, I forgot to mention, earlier that second night, before the show, we went to see about four innings of the Rockies/Cubs game over at Coors Field...a truly great place to see a baseball game, as I know I’ve written in my journals several times before. Rockies prevailed on this evening, though I can’t recall the final score.)

Third night, we played a private wedding party up in Steamboat Springs...not too far down the road from where Miss Kristy and I spent our first winter together, over in Keystone! But anyway, the party/show was very cool, there were tapers in the house even at this wedding reception! Kinda funny...but great. We played two pretty cool sets, and encored with “Heavy With Child”, a request from the groom. Don’t know if that means anything about his marital situation or not...but a good hard rockin time was had by all.

Sunday morning Aaron and David flew back to Georgia, and Eric and I had the night off. Then Monday night we played a final show--back at Owsley’s! It was a “Michael Houser” tribute show, on the seventh anniversary of his passing...Eric & Eric and I played to another big crowd, with Chad Johnson sitting in on drums, Fleeb on bass, and Bill McKay on keyboards again...a great pick-up band, all extremely gifted musicians, and cool folks to boot. We played a few songs we actually wrote for Mikey back when he passed: “Is That All There Is?”, which Eric Carter wrote, and “The Music”, which I wrote. We also played “Kingly”, which Stevane McKay said made her cry. Another good night, and no hassle getting paid, and so we said goodbye to all our Denver friends and the next morning headed for the airport. Said and done.

NEW PROJECTS FROM ROMPER STOMPERS & BLOODKIN...& FAREWELL TO MS. DENISE

2009-08-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

a few a hours ago I got home from another Romper Stompers recording session down at the Panic rehearsal space, with Todd Nance and I overdubbing various parts onto basic band takes we recorded a month or so ago...the stuff is sounding really great and full and we're all excited, and one big reason the sessions are going so well is longtime Panic soundman Chris Raybold, who's engineering the sessions, and doing a damn good job of it...but the proceedings tonight were tinged with sadness, overshadowed by some bad news: longtime Panic employee/dear friend William "Gomer" Jordan's wife, Denise, passed away yesterday morning...she'd been struggling with a terminal illness for a few years...sad, sad news...she was a very sweet lady, and always had a kind word and a funny remark when one would encounter her backstage at a Panic show, or downtown in a bar, or wherever...fare thee well, Ms. Denise.

but we kept on plugging at the recording work tonight because, well, it's such a cliche to say "It's what she would have wanted"--although that's true--but mainly, I mean, what the fuck else can you do? best to forge ahead with what you love doing, put in an honest day's labor, all that kinda mess...I don't know. staying busy really sometimes does help you through the tough times.

also I talked on the phone today (okay, technically yesterday) with David Barbe...we're planning on going into his studio in October for a week of basic tracking on the new Bloodkin album...my working title for this new project is "A Long Hustle", as I've mentioned previously...I have 16 songs cued up, demoed, ready for the band to rock 'em into outer space...I'm anxious to get started. because time's short, my friends.

ATHFEST WEEKEND

2009-07-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

It was quite a weekend for the Bloodkin camp here in Athens. Last Thursday night we attended the Flagpole Athens Music Awards ceremonies downtown at the Morton Theatre...and lo and behold we won! “Best Album Of The Year”...really an unexpected nod from the old hometown, and honestly a bit of an honor. Meant a lot to me. We all made our way onstage, and I took the microphone, and thanked our manager Peter Jackson, our producer David Barbe (“who for the last ten years and seven albums has somehow put up with our shenanigans”), and Linda Phillips and everyone at Nuci’s Space, who were instrumental (along with all the Bloodkin bandmembers) in saving Eric Carter’s life last year.

Anyway...it was fun. It was great having Kristy by my side for the victory...a cool night out. And then Saturday afternoon, I played a short Athfest show with The Romper Stompers, my band makin’ music for kids, which is comprised of myself, Todd Nance, William Tonks, and Jon Mills...a good clean 100〫workout, with my wife Kristy and our kids Amberly and Z.S. all looking on...(though Amberly mainly stared at the bubble making machine)...

then that same evening at 7:50 PM Bloodkin took the main outdoor stage, right in front of the 40 Watt, and we played a hard, fast 40 minute set, kind of our triumphant weekend capper of a set, in front of somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 folks, a sea of faces floating around Washington Street in the late June humidity...and it was a meaningful moment, for me at least, probably the most visibility and approbation we’ve ever received here during our 20+ years in Athens...it was nice. But honestly, the set flew by like a windstorm, and a lot of the time I was just trying to catch my breath between sung phrases in the sauna-like atmosphere...but there were also moments of intense power cranked out by the band...the opening thirty seconds or so of the first song, “Wait Forever”, the manic thunder of “You Better Pray”, and right at the end, the climax of “Henry Parsons Died” come to mind...

so now the weekend is over, and it’s like the final exclamation point on BABY, THEY TOLD US WE WOULD RISE AGAIN...and today I find myself completely fulfilled, mission accomplished, and over it, and ready to start work on the next record...which in a way I’ve actually been working on for this whole last year, right here in my computer room, banging out a batch of new songs and recording them on my iMac, and I mean I’ve put in hundreds of hours right here in this chair and I’ve sprouted a crop of songs I honestly consider to be my strongest ever...but now it’s time for the very difficult second step, which is transplanting those songs from my home studio to the band, and to a pro recording studio, and on to the live performance stage...and the main obstacle is (again) finding the money to make the record. That’s always the big puzzle...I’ve always managed to solve it in the past, but it’s always a long hustle...and that’s just one of the reasons I want to call this next record “A Long Hustle” (a phrase I copped from the movie Taxi Driver)...but I’ll get more into the nuances and symbolisms and inspirations of this new batch of songs another time I sit down here to write.

NOTES ON THE BLOODKIN SHOW AT SMITH'S OLDE BAR (March 28)

2009-03-29T03:58:00.000-07:00

Sitting here at my desk musing about the Bloodkin shows this past weekend, Friday night in Augusta and Saturday night in Atlanta. Both good shows I guess you’d say, but the one in Atlanta was truly special, to me anyway.

It’s always strange how each member of the band has his own perspective on each show we play...sometimes one of us will think it was a great show, and another will think it sucked...but in this case, I think we’re unanimous. This was just a high and mighty Bloodkin performance, a flash of lightning cleansing out the dreariness of constant travel, hotels, etc., that sometimes tarnish the original spirit of what we’re doing...

We played at Smith’s Olde Bar in Atlanta. One of our old haunts; we’ve been playing there off and on for probably at least fifteen years, and I’d guess we’ve probably hit that stage maybe 30 times. And it’s had its ups and downs for us through the years...

but this recent Saturday night was a high water mark. Who can say why? So many stars and moons have to align just the right way for a really great show to occur...the band has to be in just the right headspace, the crowd has to be really amped up and ready to rock, the equipment all has to function correctly, etc. ...it actually all comes together in just the right way pretty rarely. Usually it’s more of a struggle, and you fight for any ground you gain there onstage.

But on this night I honestly knew we were unsinkable, from the very first chord I hit in the intro to our opening song, “Wait Forever”. I just felt it, some weird electricity coursing through my vox amp into my rickenbacker guitar then through my fingers and all into my bloodstream, then back out again and on out the amp speaker out to the crowd, and then back again, and again and again and again...and every piece fell into place as we went along...when the full band kicked in it was like a jet lifting off from the runway smooth but powerful, all systems go...when I sang the first words into the microphone I was just inside the words and my voice somehow, not straining to hit notes or thinking about proper phrasing, not hardly thinking at all, just feeling the song rush through me like a positive premonition...organic, true and whole, in and out my body like breathing, which is the flash of transcendence every singer/musician is always looking for, every performance. But you don’t catch it often. Like Robin Williams says, live performance is “emotional hang-gliding”...you can soar beautifully and feel really fulfilled sometimes, but sometimes you can also crash. Anyway...

(So a friend of ours, and a dedicated taper of local live shows by kinda obscure grassroots bands like us, Sloan Simpson, taped this show, and has already posted it online...so as I write this, I’m sitting here looking at his post, and reading the setlist, ‘cause I honestly get kinda tranced when I’m playing and could never remember the setlist on my own. But seeing the list written out prompts my memory.)

Second song was “Little Margarita”, always a fun kickstart song to play early in the set...upbeat and kinda catchy, invites the crowd to come closer to the stage...then “Easter Eggs”, also catchy but darker, dark pop, a little tinged with sorrow, though I don’t know if that translates to the crowd live, but for me anyway that’s how that song feels...it’s pretty bouncy and poppy though.

Then I picked up my Gibson acoustic SJ200 for the fourth song, “Ghost Runner”. I like alternating electric and acoustic guitars during the shows, but lotsa times the acoustic is a challenge...acoustic is much harder for soundfolk to handle and mix correctly than electric, and also it’s completely out of the player’s control, ‘cause (at least the way I wire it) it’s running completely through the P.A. I have no amp I can turn up or down onstage, or whatever...I’m entirely dependent on the sound personnel, front of house and monitors. And oftentimes they either can’t mix the acoustic right, or don’t consider it important enough to give much attention to...but on this night, it was dead on the money. Sounded great, at least where I was standing. Full and rich, percussive but ringing with enough note to sustain the chord structure of the song...really cool, and once again, I didn’t have to think or worry, just felt the sound and played and got lost in the soaring tangle of the band.

And by the way, the other guys in the band were (and always are, when things go right) mostly responsible for the success of the show...I just kinda lay my lyrics and melodies atop their sonic architecture, and they’re the really brilliant musicians who make it all happen. And on this night they were just locked in tight and perfect as a basketball...and all I had to do was bounce it along down the hardwood.

Next up was Eric Carter singing “My Name Is Alice”, his harrowing country song ‘bout being “down at the bottom of my favorite wishing well”...He sang it well and true and Willie T provided cool tasteful dobro parts, as ever...

Next we did “A Place To Crash”, and so started the show with six straight songs from the new record...not a bad way to kick it off in my humble opinion.

I won’t continue with song-by-song gory details, but rather mention that the crowd in the house on this night was great, generous, ready for anything...including an old friend named Jill who danced her ass off front and center all night long, probably distracting everyone from watching us at all, ‘cause she was shakin it down proper...but that’s okay, in fact it’s what you want when you’re playin a rock n roll show. Beauty and fire, beauty and fire...