Hicks with Sticks will be a guest on KALX’s Why Baby, Why at midnight tonight.  Follow the link and tune in over the airwaves or via the Internet to hear the latest from Red Meat, The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, The Whiskey Richards, The Famous, The GoldDiggers, Chop Tops, The Mission Three and Kathy Kallick.  We’ll also play 2009 favorites from Bay Area Bands plus a set of music from bands that toured the Bay Area recently, were easy to miss, yet are bands you need to know (’cause they’ll be back) like the Lucky Stars, Ten Foot Tall & 80 Proof, Old Death Whisper (Damphools) and Five Deadly Venoms.

KALX DJ Meaty Paws is has his own show and is one of the rotating DJs for Why Baby Why.  He’s started booking HWS onto Why Baby Why every time there’s a fifth Tuesday in a month.  Our last show was at the end of June, the next will be in November, but for now tonight’s the night.

KPIG says, "Adios, SF."

KPIG is leaving its San Francisco post at 1510 AM.  In an Internet-published farewell, KPIG’s marketing main-man, Ed Monroe wrote, “…we came up short on 1510AM in SF, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.”

Ed, (facepalm) you guys didn’t try much.  Advertising?  Advertisers?  KPIG-SF promotions?  SF events?  Marin/EB outreach?  General schmoozing?   The station produced Tim Lynch’s one lonely Saturday SF radio show.  Lynch backed Bay Area bands to the hilt, and thanks for that, but his job was programming, not marketing.  Oh well, it might have been a losing battle from the start since local radio is a fairly dead concept among the Digital Generation.

Corporate radio cooked its own goose in the ’90s by dumbing itself into insignificance.  iPod technology drove in a few nails as did XM radio, the Internet, and services like Pandora that build personalized play-lists based on each listener’s clicks of  “like.”  KPIG was one of very few that survived the Great Radio Quality Purge due to a millionaire multi-station owner who happens to be a KPIG fan.  (Another “thanks” for that.)

But by the turn of the century, broadcast radio as an entertainment option had become an afterthought among youth married to programming its own.  The Pig’s homey, self-programming DJs couldn’t compete in a market where people think in terms of  hearing what they want when they want to hear it.  The plug gets pulled Sunday, August 15th.

Stay Away Joes

New bands form and others fade away.  Uphill Both Ways is one of the new bands with a smooth, sometimes rocking, sound and samples that can be heard here…   The Stay Away Joes are a new rockabilly group with song samples on their MySpace page…  Small Gas Engine, which has the heart of a counrty band, wants you to listen to their songs and explain to them what kind of band they are…  The Mighty Slim Pickens will be taking a break following the departure of bassist Roxanne Chicoine.  If anyone knows a female stand-up bassist who likes to slap it around, get in touch…  Lady A and her Heel Draggers have at least one more show scheduled, but we hear that it may be followed by an extended break which would be regrettable as this band seemed to be hitting a stride…  Li’l Anne and the Tune Wranglers may be on extended hiatus as well. This band emerged from the Sweet ‘n’ Lo’s and was on a roll until the departure of Danny Santos. Belle Monroe, who plays guitar with her own Brewglass Boys, stepped in to play stand-up bass and sing, but she’s one busy gal.  Meanwhile, Li’l Anne, who has been at it steadily since the S & L’s, is thinking maybe she needs to take a break from the music biz…  It looks like the Shut-Ins are going the way of the Bootcuts as a band that can abide and endure for decades by playing rarely.  Mike Roper (uke, vox) has been devoting more time to Cheetahs on the Moon and Gayle Lynn and the Hired Hands, while John Poultney (guitar, vox) has become inspired to do original material.  Let’s hope these boys still have a few more Riptide Xmas specials in them.  Theirs is the only Hicks with Sticks-approved Xmas special on the planet.

Hobo Gobbelins

Larry Bob Roberts has been presiding over the first Tuesdays Americana shows at El Rio for about two years and presented his last one this month.  Roberts’ strength was in finding bands that are somewhere on the Americana spectrum but not necessarily in country, rockabilly of any other easily identifiable niche.  The Hobo Gobbelins who closed the run are a case in point, consisting of an uncertain mix of Americana, klezmer, Irish, old-tyme, Slim Cessna, sea shanty, and any other inspiration that comes in over their transom.

The 52 Week Club is the brainchild of Willie Tea (The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit) and Tom VandenAvond that challenges its members to write a song every week for a year.  It’s free to join and about as simple as them picking the topic and you writing the song.  The line up so far is: Week 1: The Scout, Week 2: Sandpaper, Week 3: Baked Treats, Week 4: Them Travelers, and Week 5: Basking in the Cold Concrete.  You can catch up by writing one song about a scout who was sandpapering his baked treats while traveling and tanning over cold concrete.

Whisky Richards Debut EP

Chase Christie, braintrust for the Whisky Richards, gets to have it both ways.   He wants the band to sound good and have fun, and their self-titled EP/CD does just that.

Kicking off with a country-rockin’ working man’s anthem, “Steel Drivin’ Man,” the band fires on all of its six cylinders — drums, bass, rhythm, lead guitar, harmonica and fiddle — to remind us that the workin’ man “don’t get no breakfast in bed.”  Things slow down for “Kentucky Don’t You Know,” an idealized snapshot of the Bluegrass State, then they pick right back up with the easy-rollin’, self-explanatory “Hard Drinking without You,” followed by the instrumental “Curley’s Dream,” and closing with the fifth and final song, another drinkin’ tune called “Bottle Gone Dry.”

This is everything a first EP should be.  It showcases the band’s bopping country side while providing space for a ballad, instrumental and opening rocker.  They can be proud of this calling card.

“Hard Drinking without You” video.

The songs are mainly coves like Buck Owens‘ “Cadillac Lane” which jump-starts the CD, and all have been reworked in the band’s style.  They are also songs, with the possible exception of “The Wayward Wind,” that have not been over-covered, so this CD is less of a rehash and more of a “snakeoil confection” to coin a term.  Patsy Cline and others have done “The Wayward Wind” as a ballad; Big Ben and the band do it as a dance tune.

Big Ben Beuttner handles most of the vocals, yet he has made room for the band’s other singer Adrienne Pfeiffer who delivers on “Three Cigarettes and an Ashtray,” one of the CDs two ballads along with “Abilene.”  Jennifer Jolly and David Phillips bring great presence to the tracks on piano and lap steel respectively, as does the Snakeoil horn section.  Ben’s got himself a big band and he’s a-gonna use it.

The packaging is “information impaired” as their site which is somewhat limiting because it would be nice to credit the fine production that went into these songs.  No matter, it’s the music that counts here and count it does.

The new Venues page can work together with the new Bands page for fans who find a band they don’t know playing at a place they don’t know.  Simply read their respective descriptions to get a general idea about “who” and “where,” then follow the links to learn more.  There are choices of links to follow from the Bands page (Facebook, MySpace, videos, etc.), but the one link for each entry on the Venue’s page goes directly to the venue’s calendar.  This will be handy when looking for bands whose musical styles are outside of what HWS traditionally covers.

The bands themselves have always used the Venues page to troll for gigs which will be easier now that each description contains information about the types of bands that have played a particular venue.  Plus a new gig-trolling feature has been added at the end of the Venues page.  It is a list of places that don’t book roots Americana, but probably would if somebody would get in touch.   This feature is about getting venues like Beale Street in SF and St. James Gate in Belmont on a band’s radar.

Future plans are to build a list of venues beyond of the greater Bay Area; like The Palms in Winters, the Cow Track in Oakdale or the Caspar Inn just north of Mendocino.  There really is no need to think nationally for touring.  The Venues page lists about 50 places within a 2-hour drive of SF and there are plenty more, as we hope to show, within a 2-4 hour drive.  Playing to new faces is what this upcoming feature will be about.

There are 67 bands listed representing western swing, honky-tonk, alt-country and rockabilly, and almost all are within the Sonoma, East Bay, Santa Cruz triangle.  The greater SF Bay Area is second only to Austin in the number of these bands.

Updating the Bands page is never done, and there are still a few more links and bands to add, and to delete since a few of these bands haven’t been playing nor have they officially broken up.  In future we’ll add HWS reviews of their CDs and links to the bands’ Facebook pages.  Fortunately, we got around a bug that had been preventing the Bands page from being updated, but unfortunately we had to get to work and actually update it.  Now band browsing fans can burn some hours getting to know who’s who.

No License, No Music

UPDATE 5/20: According to Knockout partner dX the former Friday night Jay ‘n Bee Club record hop will be moving there on Sundays.  The Knockout already has two related shows: “Lonely Teardrops” every second Sunday which features vinyl-spinning DJ’s and live bands, and the all-vinyl “Shuckin’ & Jivin’” every fourth Sunday which features DJ Dr. Scott and Jay & Bee DJ Okie Oran, so it will be easy to roll everything into regular Sunday shows.  The good news is that this opens the door to live music along with the DJs.  The bad news is that, being a school night, it will be missed by those who were coming to Jay ‘n Bee from as far as San Jose and Santa Cruz.

ORIGINAL POST 5/9: DJs Tanoa “Samoa Boy,” Okie Oran, Sergio Inglesias and Rockin’ Raul Castro had a good thing going with their Friday night rotation at the Jay ‘n Bee Club on the Potrero side of SF’s Mission district, but all that has changed as of Friday, May 7th after The City’s music police dropped by to remind the club that it needed a cabaret license for DJed events.   The club is in a quiet neighborhood and a window rattling birthday bash held the weekend before likely prompted complaints to City Hall.

Knowing they’re onto a good thing, the DJs are looking to set up shop elsewhere.  Places like Club Waziema, near The Independent on Divisadero; or Homestead, formerly the Welsh bar Dylan’s, at 19th and Folsom are about the size and environment they want.

Turning to radio news, Hicks with Sticks and KALX are looking into another Why Baby, Why local music showcase in June.  Why Baby, Why is the station’s weekly Americana show that doesn’t have a regular DJ.  KALX’s twang-friendly Meaty Paws reserves a Why Baby, Why slot for new, local releases about once each year.  Airplay for any band isn’t guaranteed and HWS has most of the current releases, but one guarantee is that we can’t play what we don’t have, so if a band has something that HWS doesn’t then it is welcome to get in touch.

Whiskey, Sun Records and “good things come in threes” are American icons (or clichés) so imagine the Whiskey Richards, Real Sippin’ Whiskeys and Whiskey Pills Fiasco, playing at an alcohol recovery center near you.  As for Sun, artwork from recent releases by Porkchop Express, The B Stars and the Whiskey Richards (scoring a double!) tells the story.

Vinyl is the only thing missing in the authenticity department of their CD, Behind the Barn with the B Stars, but this is a small point.  The sepia and Sun Records motif of the artwork, the pilgrimage to Wally Sound recording studio in Oakland, and a producer like Lee Jeffriess (Big Sandy, Johnny Dilks) are enough to tell us that something traditional is afoot.  Think Lucky Stars for a contemporary reference or Lefty Frizzell for an older one.

There are minimal present-day references among the original songs by band leader Greg Yanito and bass man Eric Reedy.   One such is “Ink Free Baby of Mine” which celebrates untattooed women, a theme that would have never occurred to Frizzell.  Guest appearances by keyboard maestro Carl Sonny Leyland liven up four tracks, particularly “Pretty Baby” which introduces a tasty power boogie boost into the midsection of the CD.  “Trouble Free State of Mind” is a standout track that celebrates California, and it’s a tune where Yanito wanders dangerously close to a full-blown yodel.  Perhaps there are yodels and more tricks of the voice waiting for the next CD; that’s the promise of things to come from this one.

The playing is the CD’s strongest suit thanks to a bare minimum of studio and production frou-frou which freed the band to be itself.  The arrangements are clean, the presentation is straightforward and the CD’s release was timed to be harvested at the band’s current peak.  It’s a tasty plum well worth the pickin’.
MySpace
Video

The Hustlers pull it off by calling reinforcements into the studio.   Chris Binnings the lead from Stompy Jones adds his voice to “Let’s Rock and Roll” and the piano is supplied by renowned SoCal keyboardist Carl Sony Leyland to rachet up the romp factor even further.  Local keyboardist-at-large Noam Eisen plays on Charlie Rich’s “Right Behind You Baby” and a Hustlers’ original “One More Night.”  Pedal steel, back up singers, tenor sax and an accordion are scattered among the other tracks to provide variation while staying true to their boppin’ roots.

The 14 tracks are split between covers and originals, and interestingly the covers are consistently stronger than the originals, no doubt because tunes like The Searchers “Wow, Wow Baby” from 1958, have had 52 years of seasoning where the Hustlers, who played their first show in December of 2008, have barely had 52 weeks to season their material.   For example, “DeMarco’s 23,” a tribute to the venerable Brisbane honky-tonk, could benefit from something, perhaps more emotion or more mystery, to arouse the listener’s curiosity in a way that,  say, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” does.   Their sexy “Cream Puff,” on the other hand, could never have been sung in the 1950s, but in 2010 Señor Castro, the song’s subject matter expert, can dive into it head first.  If you ears, feet and nostalgia genes are looking for a favor take them for a spin Across the Dial.
HRH site
MySpace
Video – “Wow, Wow Baby”