HWS Calendar Highlights |
Fri Nov 16: The Go-Getters/The
RevTones/The Badmen @ The Uptown |
Sat Nov 17:
Wendy DeWitt & Tommy Thompsen @ Little Switzerland |
Sat Nov 17:
77 el Deora/ Crowsong/Tom Armstrong @El Rio |
Sat Nov 24:
Devil Makes Three @ The Independent |
Sun Dec 2: The Pine Box Boys/ Bob Wayne &
the Outlaw Carries @ Thee Parkside |
Fri Dec 7: Jesse Dayton/Charlie Roman & his Teenage Werewolves @ 23 Club |
Mon Dec 10: Red Meat/Eileen Jewel
/Axton Kinkaid @ Rickshaw Stop |
|
NEW HICKS WITH STICKS CLUBS PAGE
The
Hicks with Sticks Clubs
page has been updated to include more places to find live music, club pictures, more descriptive information
about the clubs, and more links to club calendars, maps and MySpace pages. The number of live music venues that HWS now lists has expanded from 30 to 50 and 15-20 more are on the way.
As before, twang fans can find who is playing where on the HWS Calendar page, and then the new Bands and Clubs pages can provide additional information about the music and the venue.
Sonoma, Marin and San Francisco are the best counties to find places to
play. In general though, the new Clubs page will make it easy to find places to play like the Black Cat in Penngrove, The Old Western Saloon in Point Reyes Station, The Bistro in Hayward,
St. James Gate in Belmont, or the newly licensed Cafe Royale in SF.
The East Bay needs more twang life, so HWS has listed the Clayton Club east of Concord, The Bistro
in Hayward and Champa Thai in El Sobrante. Twang music in a Thai restaurant in El Sobrante? Why not? The Polka Cowboys
play there every month. It has a stage and good dance floor. The Santa Cruz area is doing well for live music, but the Highway 101 corridor between San Mateo and Gilroy is hurting. There's the
Blank Club in San Jose, St. James Gate in Belmont and... ? We need to start a fund where, say, a $1 contribution will help a poor music-starved Peninsula dweller get out and boogie.
HWS will announce future additions to the Bands and Clubs pages in this newsletter which is yet another reason to subscribe and get the newsletter and calendar to come to you.
HICKS WITH STICKS ON THE RADIO
 Hicks with Sticks
will be back on KALW as a guest on Peter Thompson's Bluegrass Signal airing on Saturday October 20th, from 6:30 to 8:00. KALW broadcasts on 91.7 FM and on the web at www.KALW.org.
Bluegrass will take the day off as Peter Thompson and Jose Segue present Bay Area twang music released in 2006-2007 by bands like Red Meat, Axton
Kinkaid, Loretta Lynch, Joe Goldmark and the Seducers, the Pine Box Boys, Rhythm Rangers, Big B and his Snakeoil Saviors and Jinx Jones.
Bands wondering if one of their songs will air need to connect HWS with your CD or an MP3. Airplay can't be guaranteed, but we can't play what we haven't got, so get in touch.
SEVEN MORE NEW AND RETURNING BANDS
What was reported as a rumor in the last issue of HWS News is true: The Bootcuts' maternity leave ended when they brought their three-gal front line to the Makeout Room
on September 15th. They'd gathered some rust, but a few more shows and they'll shine like new. Www.myspace.com/thebootcuts.
The J. Byrd Hosch Trio has emerged after years in hibernation. Ms. Hosch is
a veteran of the '90s twang outfit, The Kountry K's where the "K" stood for "Kan't," as in "Kan't forget to give the band a name that can appear in print."
Hosch's voice, Texas drawl and her songs are built for country music. The return of the Bootcuts, J. Byrd Hosch and Starlene (as noted in earlier newsletters) have all been engineered by guitarist
Misisipi Mike Wolf (Misisipi Rider, Bootcuts, J. Byrd Hosch Trio, Starlene). It's best to act real busy whenever you're hanging around Misisipi Mike unless you want him to put you in a band.
Valerie Jay, who was also on a two-year maternity leave, has announced the first shows signaling her return. Http://valeriejay.com/bio.htm. But enough of former bands coming back; how about the newer ones?
Old truckers never die; they just get a new Peterbilt. St. Peterbilt
describes itself as "a double clutchin', scale jumpin', mile makin', tailgaitin', possum squashin', cop dodgin', pinballin', jackknifen', gear bustin' sort of a band." Git yer 18 wheels on at www.stpeterbilt.com...
The Christine Theberge Trio with Vic Estrella (San Francisco Cattle Company)
on squeezebox has just begun its rise to stardom. Theberge has been working up her chops at The Riptide's popular Monday open mike. Find
her trio at
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=245 559756.
Lariats of Fire
continue their rise to stardom. They're full of fun and perform with their drum kit tangled in a genuine lariat of fire. Find them "giving the finger to modern pop-country" at www.lariatsoffire.com.
The
Winsome Griffles might have broken the rule about never naming your band while holding a bong, but they've got the number
one song on the Hicks with Sticks October Hillbilly Hit Parade. Check out "Your New Stupid Boyfriend" at www.myspace.com/winsomegriffles. |
NEW RHYTHM RANGERS CD
The Rhythm Rangers
had some prophesy working when they titled their new CD "Not Out of the Woods Yet" because while it works musically, it's in the woods conceptually. The band is lead by Kevin Russell (Modern Hicks, Under the
Radar, Mark McLay & the Dustdevils, Laughing Gravy) and if you're asking, "Who are all these bands?" you've seen the problem. Russell is good at forming bands, but developing them has been another story.
Musicianship is what carries the Rhythm Rangers CD. Russell, Dave Zirbel (guitar, pedal and lap steel), Blair Hardman (bass) and Ric Cutler
(drums) all play like the veterans they are, so get them into a studio and they will make music. But can they make a CD? Musicianship alone is not enough. A band needs to practice together, perform together and figure out who and what they are before jumping into the studio. There's simply no clear musical direction to the dozen cover tunes on this CD. As for the covers themselves, somebody in this band needs to figure out what the band can add to a tune rather than, as it appears, doing these songs for the sake of doing them.
These guys are pros. They'll figure it out. This is also the type of band whose second CD eclipses their first.
MABUHAY GARDENS LIVES? Y'GOTTA BE KIDDING!
The announced re-opening of SF punk's legendary Mabuhay Gardens has pinged the Bay Area's collective consciousness, but we might want to take a deep breath before ripping our t-shirts, sticking safety pins
through our cheeks and rushing down to the club. Recall that it was thirty years ago today Sgt. Punker taught the bands to play, and a lot has changed in three decades.
If this year's 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love (dubbed the Summer of Love Handles by some) had nothing in common with 1967, what could the 30th anniversary of the Winter
of Spittle expect to be? Punk was raging in 1977, but by 1987 it and Mabuhay Gardens had been relegated to the cultural sidelines. The Mab sat quietly and eventually reopened as the Velvet Lounge.
Then it sat empty again to reopen as 443 Broadway, which until now has offered a mixed bag including disco on Thursdays and Saturdays.
443 Broadway is nothing like the Fab Mab. 443 Broadway is clean, it has a velvet rope and guys with two-way radios keeping order at the door, and it does
not have a single bathroom fixture that has been smashed by an untamed youth. Alas, the punks of yore are turning 50 now, and the punks of today are their cell
phone addicted, wirelessly connected, G. W. Bushified kids. Punk "rebellion" in 2007 comes with a very tiny "R".
As to why we need a faux Mabuhay Gardens, The Exploited got it right three decades ago with their song, "What's the Point?"
The born-again Fab Mab trick was tried in 2003 but Dirk Dirksen,
the original Mab's Master of the Chaos, put a stop to that. Now they're going for it because Dirksen (may his ghost haunt these shameless promoters' sleepless nights
forever) has moved on to the Great Gig in the Sky. In what may be the ultimate statement about the taming of punk, the faux Mab's blurbage is on MySpace.
www.myspace.com/mabuhaygardens.
ALL THE NEWS THAT PRINTS IN FITS
  77 el Deora's show posters are the most
frequently swiped from clubs, and for good reason. Cafe Royale will have Maurice Tani's hillbilly noir art on display throughout October with the opening reception on Thursday, October 4th...
The Porch Burners have broken up after just a few shows. Porch arsonist Rich D'Amour wants to put Humpty together again, but this time he expects it to be a rockabilly band where the players actually
know the songs. Sounds like a mighty tall order for rockabilly, Rich... Val Esway of Loretta Lynch has ended her run as the booker at the Starry Plough in Berkeley. The venerable but
struggling club has been stripping down to the essentials to make ends meet. HWS is calling on our East Bay pals to go see 'em
and buy some beer. "Sometimes you don't know what you got 'til it's gone."... In other club news, the Makeout Room has done some remodeling that included
spiffing up the bathrooms and bringing in new, comfortable chairs. They've also stopped live events on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and have been
staging some early, as in starting at 7:30, Saturday twang shows... It looks like El Rio will be offering twang on the first Wednesday of every month starting with Lariats of Fire/ Winsome Griffles
on October 3...  The mighty, and still free, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival returns to Golden Gate Park on the first weekend in October. It's
another astonishing line-up with five stages hosting dozens of bands including Gillian Welch, Guy Clark, Steve Earle, The Knitters, Los Lobos, John Prine, Bill Kirchen, Charlie Louvin, Dave Alvin, Del McCoury and
Doc Watson.
http://www.strictlybluegrass.com ... Fliers have been mailed for Viva Las Vegas
#11, the annual Easter Weekender for the west coast twang tribes. The bands aren't wonderful, but they're plenty good enough because this event relies less on the drawing power of big names and
more on the hot rods, vendors, rockabilly burlesque, tiki pool party and the all-around fun that make the event an event in itself. It's still a good deal too. All
four days are only $77.50 if purchased before March 21st. At less than $20 per day, nobody at VLV is getting "burned," man. www.vivalasvegas.net
... Get your steel guitar video fix at www.youtube.com/JoeGoldmark where Joe Goldmark and the Seducers have seduced YouTube.
|
