SF BAY AREA TWANG BAND BOOM KEEPS BOOMING
Past issues of Hicks with Sticks News
have documented the great SF Twang Band Explosion of '06-'07 and this one continues the trend with another seven bands. That's seven beyond how many that are already on the HWS Bands page? Take a guess. The answer is at the end of this article.
 Diablo's Dust, a duo featuring Tom and Sarah Kilts, has evolved from the lo-fi indy folk world to the lo-fi indy twang world. True, not everyone would call this progress, but
Hicks with Sticks does. Tom Kilts is a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, banjo and mandolin, and, since his feet needed to be kept busy, two percussion instruments as well. He also
writes the songs and sings. All that's left for him to do now is to rock on his chair a little to get it to squeak to the rhythm. Their Internet info can be found at www.myspace.com/diablosdust
and their CD is available at
http://cdbaby.com/cd/diablosdust. Thanks to multi-instrumentalism and strong song writing, Devil's Dust avoids the problem that traps a lot of duos: namely sounding the same song after song.
  There is life east of the Oakland Hills, so
start spreadin' the news that the Great Suburban Desert between the Oakland Hills and Mt. Diablo, formerly the Diablo Valley, has been officially re-christened to honor their native daughters, The
Heartache Valley Girls. Whether playing as a duo or with a rhythm section, these sweet thangs are out to break your heart, willing to let you break theirs, or ready to team up with you to break
Satan's heart. If they get a crack at them, they'll break God's heart and his kid's – you know, the one with all the annoying followers – too. Discover their master plan to found a new heartache-based religion at www.myspace.com/theheartachevalleygirls.
 Spinout
is a rockabilly band also bringing life to the "Least Bay," as Heartache Valley native, comedian Johnny Steele, likes to call it. They are a bass, drum, guitar trio aiming at a Sun Records-era Elvis
thing – though maybe too clean a version of it
. They also have rockabilly arrangements of '80s tunes, two of which, Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," can be found at www.MySpace.com/spinoutrocks
. They've also posted an easy listening version of Elvis's "Good Luck Charm," plus their take on the Stray Cats'
"Rock this Town." Fellas, fellas, fellas! We need another rockabilly band covering "Rock this Town" about as much as we need another gal country singer warbling "Crazy."
  The Whiskey Richards cite Madonna; Hanks I, II, and III; and Led Zeppelin as their influences, and they're actually right
about the Hanks. This seven-piece band is aiming to be "The Champagne of Honky-Tonk," which seems a little contradictory for a "whiskey" band, but whatever. Of course
there's the fermentation process to go through, so it will be interesting to see how The Whiskey Richards pour in a year or two. Find tasting samples now at
www.myspace.com/thenewnewregulars.
 Thursday 7/26 saw the debut of
The Lovin' 44s at Amnesia. This 6-piece acoustic-flavored country band is fronted by Nicole Solis from the Barefoot Nellies and Sean Magee, one of Amnesia's
owners. If their name sounds familiar, think Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues." The Lovin' 44s are in the new band ramp-up phase of their career, so when
the audience called for an encore, it was almost as if they were smelling blood. What encore? The band had just played every song it sort of knew, but like
seasoned pros, the 44s went for it. They really did launch their career by playing every song they barely knew and one they didn't. Www.lovin44s.com
  The Fancy Dan Band
is a four-piece honky-tonk outfit out of Oakland with a Sun Records hillbilly sound and a darned fine tailor. The question behind the clothes is whether this is a vanity project or will
the music be there to back it up? The band's MySpace page does have a blog entry calling for a toy maker who can make a Fancy Dan action figure, which suggests that this Fancy Dan, and
there have been so many, will either be a legend or a gimmick. Time will tell. There's no need to rush to judgment when we can hear for ourselves at the Makeout Room on 8/28 or at the Parkside
9/16.
Www.myspace.com/fancydanband
 Twang Ditty
won a regional country music talent search sponsored by Colgate (the toothpaste maker, not the college) that was held at the Mystic in Petaluma on July 22nd. Now say what you will about
talent and awards shows, at the end of the day all that matters is who won. So congratulations, Twang Ditty! Listening to their tunes on MySpace reveals that the
band does have some winning chops. The question is whether they will grow beyond the Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Buck Owens
standards that mark the births (and the crib deaths) of many twang bands. Hear for yourself on 8/23 at 4th Street Tavern in San Rafael, and on 9/30 at the Black Cat in Penngrove. Www.MySpace.com/TwangDitty
Taking a look back to January 2006, here is a list of new bands like the Sure-Fires; bands that have changed their sound
to twang since 1/1/06, like the former all-bluegrass Burning Embers; revamped & renamed bands like
Johnny Dilks and his Country Soul Brothers; twang zombie bands that died years ago, then returned to life like Matt Lax and the Nearly Beloved; solo projects like Pete Bernhard from
Devil Makes Three; and bands that started and ended between January 2006 and August 2007 including The Hank Maninger Trio. This list continues with the San Francisco Cattle Company, Starlene, The RevTones, Rhythm Riders, Sure-Fires, Sweet
'n Lo's, Jeanie and Chuck's Country Roundup, Burning Embers, Chrome Johnson, Hotsy Totsy Hillbilly Jazzbos, The Billy Boys, Misisipi Rider, Big Bad Wolves (who went through an early name change from
Jack Spade and the Two Deuces), Doug Blumer and the Beerhunters, Little White Lie, Glenn Earl Brown Jr. & the dICKENS, Matt Lax and the Nearly Beloved, Laughing Gravy, Pete Bernhard,
Texas Steve and the Git Gone Trio, Kemo Sabe, The Pendletons, Moonshine, The Porch Burners, Charlie Roman and his Teenage Werewolves, Runaway Truck Tramps,
Lariats of Fire, Highway Robbers, Robber Barons, Octomutt's Country Cousin, The Hank Maninger Trio, Porkchop Express, Fireball Mailmen, Plain High Drifters, Axton Kinkaid, Trouble Boys, Jason Overton,
Crooked Roads, Johnny Dilks and his Country Soul Brothers, The Whoreshoes, Badmen, and the Blue Note Cats. That's 41 new bands
since January 2006, most of which are listed with 68 other twangin' bands on the HWS Bands page, plus the seven above, and a more waiting in the wings like Howdy!, Chickwagon
which has been off-again-on-again since 2005 but never really broken up, The Bootcuts whose reunion is still in the rumor stage, and a half-dozen others challenging our memory bank at the moment.
GROWING THE BAY AREA TWANG AUDIENCE
We have the bands, second in number only to Austin. Now we need to get
Austin-sized audiences into the clubs before the Great Twang Explosion goes bust.
Hicks with Sticks has beefed up the Bands
page to include more information about 68 working Bay Area twang bands. This should increase to 75-80 bands by the end of the year. The
Clubs page is being similarly upgraded. It currently lists 40 venues; the new clubs page should double that. Once the new Clubs page is complete, we'll be emailing all of the bands to point them to
where to find the clubs and all the clubs to point them to where to find the bands.
It would be nice to tap into the pent-up demand in the audiences this site does not
reach. HWS regularly hears, "I'd go to more twang shows but I don't know where to go." They get a Hicks with Sticks flier and they're off, but this approach is slow.
Another option is to get more information into the press. The Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, East Bay Express and daily papers have been silent about twang, but
is that their fault or ours? How can they print anything if they're not being sent anything?
Another endeavor is to get a better understanding of what draws the
non-HWS audience to shows. So far, this effort has yielded a combination of revelation and mystery. Consider the Gourds/77 el Deora show at Slim's on
8/4. 77 el Deora had it all over the Gourds in singing, musicianship and lyrics, but the Gourds' audience seemed to value a bit of hillbilly shtick as much as the music.
The Gourds have devolved from a decent alt-country band into a Lynard Skynard meets the Grateful Dead party band. They're not a bad
band at all, but they are a crafted band. They throw a surprisingly "safe and sane" party. But, if a party is what people want, why aren't they filling Slim's for locals like the
Royal Deuces, Whoreshoes or half-a-dozen other good-time outfits on the HWS Bands page? Is it that the HWS party audience thinks Pabst and Jim Beam while the Gourd's audience prefers Heinekens and
Jell-o shooters? Www.TheGourds.com
Or, the Whale is another revelation/mystery. This Bay Area band materialized out of the Craig's List haze barely two years ago to become SF Bay Guardian darlings.  They opened for Devil Makes Three
at The Independent, and they are headlining at the Great American Music Hall on 8/25. They are an enjoyable, full-sounding Americana band that describes its music
as "a stew." It's a stew that appeals to a younger audience that doesn't care about the difference between "country" and "country-influenced" music. They see a
banjo and a pedal steel and those are country enough. This audience should be open to more twanging bands, but how to get them from an Or, the Whale show to a Plain High Drifters
show is a mystery. Check out Or, the Whale's country song "Threads" at www.MySpace.com/orthewhale
, then try to find where they hid the country that the Bay Guardian claims to be hearing. |
UPDATES ON THE CLUBS
The club news starts on a regrettable note with the closing-down of the Sweetwater Saloon in Mill Valley.
The club's owners and landlord have had a delicate relationship since 2004 when the club was left clinging to a month-to-month rental agreement. Now the building's owners have announced plans to renovate and
raise the rent. This spelled the end of Sweetwater at its location of 30 years, but the club is looking into a new home. Learn more from the Marin IJ article at http://www.marinij.com/ci_6547808
.
In happier news, the 23 Club
in Brisbane is back after 10 years of mismanagement. The newest owners have installed a 32 channel sound system, booked a reasonably full line-up of shows, are advertising regularly
and, for the first time ever, they have a web presence at http://www.myspace.com/the23club. The club recently hosted an all-day
twang and R&B extravaganza featuring SoCal bands, but much of the regular twang booking is being handled by Tyler Terrell's Hotdamn! Productions at
www.myspace.com/hotdamnproductions666.
 In mixed news, the Parkside is struggling to hit its stride under new ownership. On the plus side, the food
and service have been upgraded from rock bottom to average; but on the minus side, unimaginative booking and main speakers that have been blown for at least two months, are keeping the club
floundering in the punk rock tar pit that the previous owner dug for it. Hicks with Sticks produced a Misisipi Rider and Starlene show for a Parkside
Twang Sunday in July, but backed off producing more shows until the club gets its PA and booking politics together. Two weeks later, 77 el Deora played
there, but only sort of, since the broken down PA squelched much hope for a real show.
The Knockout, long a supporter of twang music, is re-evaluating its booking of
rockabilly shows. The bands have been hot and the beers have been cold, but the no-show rockabilly audience has been colder. Booker dX will keep booking
alt-country and keep first Saturdays, which are usually bluegrass showcases, but rockabilly ain't payin' the rent.
Hicks with Sticks went on a scouting mission to Niles just east of Fremont in the
southeast bay to find The Florence, a club that should book rockabilly but didn't know where to find the bands until we pointed them to the HWS Bands page.
We arrived to see about 40 Harleys parked in front of the club comfortably filled with an audience of half locals and half biker dudes and mommas. It was a
friendly crowd that was there to relax with veteran bluesman Ron Thompson. This place is a natural for rockabilly. The club has no web page, but Yelp.com
has a short profile and contact information at www.yelp.com/biz/NOFGueoSevvTEIky9lyIxw. Ask for Rick.
Benders, which was closed because of a fire in October of 2006, is still boarded up and showing no signs of life. A
few benefits were held after the fire and the web site had announced plans for a comeback, but that's easier said than done. It'll take more than a humble barkeeps to cross
swords with the mighty San Francisco Planning Department, alas.
It's been Cajun dance night at the Eagle's Hall in Alameda every Friday since
forever, but no more. Apparently the hall was not licensed to sell liquor from their small bar, and upon closer inspection, the place turned out to be a fire trap.
Fortunately, the old out-of-code wiring never caught fire, which would have been a disaster with 250 people expected to escape via one steep, narrow
staircase. HWS was on hand for the kickoff party at the dance's new home in Alameda's Bayside Pavilion, and while this former disco space had neither the
funky charm, PA, lighting or stage of the old venue, the fact that the toilets flushed and death was not lurking behind the walls freed everyone have a good time with Geno Delafose.
The Baltic
seems to be closed again, which spells another end to live music in Point Richmond. Point Richmond, at the eastern end of the Richmond-San Rafael
bridge, is convenient to SF, the East Bay and Marin, and the Baltic itself has a lot going for it, but this secluded district remains unknown to most of the Bay Area's population.
Finbar Divine's
in Petaluma joins a few other Irish and brew pubs in Sonoma County that offer live music. Others include the Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, Murphy's Irish Pub in Sonoma, Sebastopol
Brewing Company and the Ace-in-the-Hole Cider Pub which are both in Sebastopol. Www.finbarspetaluma.com, www.russianriverbrewing.com, www.sonomapub.com, www.acecider.com and www.sebastopolbrewing.com.
 The Dog's Bollix, on Clement near 6th in SF, doesn't have much of a profile – no advertising or web site –
but it does have live music and the club books twang. Unfortunately, they had a bit of a smash-up recently when a belligerent, intoxicated customer threw a bar stool into the back bar,
just like in the movies. He was arrested and now faces several charges, just like in real life.
The Bamboo Hut, a tiki bar, and one of the more
comfortable bars in North Beach, has begun booking some twang on Wednesdays. It's difficult to know if this will be long term. The club's manager
was quick to point out that this is a seat-of-the-pants effort. Thursday nights are solid with danceable, DJed old school R&B from Maximum Productions.
http://www.maximumproductions.com/home.html#hifi
Caribbean Gardens,
a club in Burlingame south of SFO, regularly stages a variety of DJed nights with techno, salsa and more in their mixes. They're trying
to get some live twang working, but it's been a fitful start with the Burning Embers having to cancel, Cari Lee and the Saddle-ites being cancelled, and
Misisipi Rider playing as a duo to a thinly populated audience. The club's sound system gets two thumbs up, but their PA and their clientele seem built for
pre-recorded music. There's a question about whether any live music can work there, but it's a welcomed try and HWS will list 'em as long as they keep bookin' 'em. Www.caribbeangardens.com
The Seahorse Saloon in Pacifica (www.seahorsesaloon.com/index.htm) has been booking rock and blues, but is open to twang as Doug Blumer and the Beerhunters and Dave Crimmen have discovered.
That's enough for now. Okay, band leaders, time to make some calls.
"FAIR USE" VS. COPYRIGHT PUT TO THE TEST
A brief history. During the 20th Century, the concept of copyright was invented, then became the intellectual property salvation of the little guy, then got bought out by Disney to assure that The Mouse
and his pals would never reach the public domain.
"Fair-use" remains the one crack in the corporations' copyright armor. Taking a snip of something and inserting it as part of
a larger work, like a mix-master using a brief audio bit as part of a larger composition, is protected by "fair-use." The fuzzy part about fair-use is how many snips equals a lawsuit.
A new documentary
War Made Easy uses snippet after snippet of news footage to show how the media cozies up to the military during times of war. According to a Chronicle
story, the film uses 90% archival footage, of which 60% was paid for, while the remainder was claimed under fair-use.
The broadcast media themselves are split on this issue. All claim copyright
ownership to their broadcasts, which some will only license for profit. Others keep their rights, but do not charge a fee because they see their reporting
embedded into serious works as a plus to their news organization's prestige. However, suppose said serious work uses big media's own footage to lay a Michael Moore
-sized smack-down on the media itself? Well, you can see how that might touch a nerve.
Find the Chronicle story at
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/17/WAR.TMP, and the American Bar Association's "Related Stories" links at www.abajournal.com/news/documentary_tests_fair_use.
ALL THE NEWS THAT PRINTS IN FITS
 
Anyone who missed tipsy Dale Watson at 12 Galaxies on 7/30 missed a major blab-fest. One of his blab-a-thons forced two of us to escape to the taqueria cross the
street where we ordered burritos, waited for them to be prepared, brought them back to the club, and still found him going on about the same nothing in particular. Watson
needs to figure out which side of the line he wants to walk: Texas country outlaw or 12-step dropout. Many before him (and brother we could name you a few) have found mixing the two unworkable in the long run, and
Dale, it's been a long run... Mill Valley has had a set-back for both of its musical institutions. Beside Sweetwater Saloon, Village Music
will close on 9/30 due to high rent costs. Read their farewell letter with sale news about the store's collectibles at Www.villagemusic.com/closingLetter.html.... Another fine music outlet, Down Home Music in El Cerrito, has opened a second store in West Berkeley's 4th
Street Shopping district. Has "down home" gone "uptown" by adding a location in the heart of Berkeley's yuppie preserve? You bet it has, but isn't it great to hear about an independent music store actually
opening?... Ray Riddle is a Kentuckian who has a new CD out on a Bay Area label, InLine Productions. He's backed by Bay Area musicians Maurice Tani of 77 El Deora on lead guitar,
Tyler Terrell formerly of ¼ Mile Combo on vocals, Dave Zirbel of Johnny Dilks and his Country Soul Brothers on pedal steel, and Rick Quisol from the Royal Deuces
on drums. His Bay Area CD release parties are 9/7 at 4th Street Tavern in San Rafael with the B-Stars, and 9/8 at 23 Club in Brisbane with Texas Steve and the Git Gone Trio...
The unsinkable Rick Quisol will also be hosting the 18th Annual Hank Williams Birthday Tribute at The Knockout in SF on 9/20. This event is guaranteed to be the finest Hank
Williams you-sing-it-backed-by-a-live-band karaoke west of the Pacos... Now for a bit of twang theater. The Stetson Manifesto is a modern western with
an anti-corporate theme that features the music of Tennessee Ernie Ford and Jimmie Rodgers. This solo piece will be playing five Fringe Festival shows between 9/6 and 9/15. |
