Wednesday, July 02, 2008

b'day weekend recap

finally starting to regain some of my hearing. as mentioned earlier, boris ruled, and now i can listen 'n' better appreciate the japanese vinyl copy of smile that's taken up residence on my turntable. not only are they my fave currently working band, but as i told jon teague, they've actually changed the whole way i think about playing music. seriously.

the li'l stoogeband played till teague couldn't play no more at the chat room. i got to see lotsa friends old 'n' new, and richard hurley, gtrist extraordinaire and proprietor of trophies of distinction, did a fine, fine, supafine job on sir steffin's plaque (a fender "stoogecaster," complete with stoogeaphilia logo on the headstock, inscribed, "sir steffin ratliff, champion guitar strangler, stoogeaphilia, 2006-2008." we're sentimental that way.

steffin, of course, will be welcome to join us for a toon or a set anytime he feels like it, but for now, "marquee moon" sleeps with the fishes. i find it appropriate that we played it for exactly a year: broke it in on my b-day at the wreck room (r.i.p.) last year and played it eight times before retiring it. talk at stoogeprac has centered around maybe "going across the pond" and adding some damned and roxy music to the set, with our new mystery gtrist. altho the next coupla shows will prolly feature only one gtr (um, that'd be me). film, as they say, at 11.

fool that i was, in my inebriated state, i attempted to destroy my equipment at the end of "little doll," so my son-in-law's tele and the hughes & kettner will both require some repairs before we play again on august 14th. and this morning i woke up with a big zit by my nose. so much for aging gracefully.

our egos fueled by decent coverage in the fw weekly, the musos in PFFFFT! -- actually PFFF(FF)T!, for reasons detailed below -- assembled at the li'l chat room the following night, with jeremy hull subbing for matt (who was heading back home to tennessee for the 4th of july holiday). as it happened, jeremy was unable to find a sub for his regular sunday night gig with the galen jeter orchestra, so he didn't show till about 11pm. in the meantime, we played a bassless set with tony on synth and me playing his strat and vox in place of my ailing equipment. (thanks, tony.)

after timely pause, jeremy showed up and the second set commenced, but while we were playing, clay was taken ill; he suspected someone had spiked his drink. there was also an altercation involving a guy who (unbeknownst to me) had been hitting on my wife, who luckily knows how to deal with drunk assclowns in bars. eric harris from yeti showed up again and we took a break to allow him to tune up from B or whatever the band he's playing with now tunes to.

teague was in the house and i asked if he'd play the last set due to clay's incapacity (which woulda made it a kind of yeti reunion, doncha know), but in the event, clay recovered sufficiently to be able to play. we were glad to hear he was ok, and there was some good chemistry between him and jeremy in spite of all the weirdness.

jeremy fit in fine, eric played beautifully, tony is getting more control over the gretsch, and i've decided i need to start bringing the li'l roland to these gigs, rather than the h&k. the lower volume actually worked to our advantage (go fig). and we had the best crowd we've had since the inception of this thing (including a dude from nashville who said he'd read about us in the fw weekly and considered our performance the high point of his trip to dfw). for which we prolly owe the paper thanks.

our "long-distance guru" karl poetschke is going to be in town next weekend and had been urging me to book a gig, but as it happens, i'm working late saturday and have the day off sunday, which means i can actually attend the fw weekly awards soiree, which i intend to do in the jumpsuit of the asian media crew, just so that i can deliver matt hembree's acceptance speech _when_ he is selected "most valuable player."

meanwhile, i have a spiffy new pussyhouse propaganda t-shirt courtesy of ray, some movies to watch courtesy of my middle dtr, a gift card from half price books courtesy of #1 stoogeaphilia fan amy, and a copy of derek bailey's improvisation to read courtesy of other arts impresario herb levy. so there.

in the fullness of time, my sweetie will post some more of her pics from the weekend on her photo blog (as will i on myspace whenever _that_ shit will cooperate).

ADDENDUM: forgot to mention the art show metrognome collective mounted at the chat that gave folks something interesting to look at while we played. you can see some of the pieces in the pics on the stoogeband and PFFFFT! myspace thingies.

1 Comments:

Blogger Jake said...

Happy B-day and 4th. Enjoy the blog. FYI, not sure if you've seen Juno but the Stooges are mentioned.

9:19 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home