art of the jam, wreck book, daddy's soul donut, woodeye

an eventful few days. had a pretty cool night with the jamcats at the wreck room wednesday night. the men of the hour were cameron from merkin and jerko dabelic from sunward, who did yeoman work on traps and spacey gtr, respectively. pink floyd's "set the controls for the heart of the sun" was particularly worthy. lucas white from confusatron stopped in after celebrating his 31st berfday with the sardines folks and tried a little keith moon action on the jam-meister's long-suffering drumkit; it may yet recover. this week (4.25), the jamcats will be pre-empted by the stoogeband (making up the date we got bumped from by the burden brothers), with a special jam to follow that will include former members of yeti and a bassplayer to be named later.

got the tee-tiny press run (100 copies only) of wreck room stories: true tales from the home of rock 'n' roll in fort worth as told by the people who were there back from alphagraphics and sold a few of 'em at the woodeye/daddy's soul donut show saturday. i still have plenty left, so if you want one, lemme know. reasonably priced at just a ten spot. you'll thrill etc. i hope i've done my subject justice, and sincere apologies to anyone who's miffed that they weren't included. when one of the editorial considerations is the size of our income tax refund, some hard choices have to be made and it's inevitable that some folks are going to be slighted. mea culpa.

daddy's soul donut sounded great. i'd never heard them back in the day, altho i knew of their name from playing with nick girgenti and frank logan, who loved them, woodeye, and spot most of all. i'd gone to some sportsbar (prolly bronco's) in the mid-cities to see 'em on nick's recommendation, but the game went into overtime and my g-f at the time didn't wanna hang around. i had a connexxxion with them, tho, because jim kisselberg used nicky's fender concert amp for about two years, the same one i used for about two years after i sold my twin. but i digress. jim played great, stinging gtr, and after only ever having seen them in velvet love box, it was strange but good seeing neil schnell standing up and playing guitar instead of bass, and brandon bumpas playing a regular drum kit instead of his massive percussion rig. this wasn't just a reunion show, either -- they're a "real" band again, are writing new material, getting ready to record, etc.

the reunited "ok, ok, uno mas" woodeye were awesome and perfect, on just one rehearsal. go fig. scott davis and kenny smith were already warmed up from playing to 3,000 people with jason eady at larry joe taylor's texas music festival in stephenville earlier in the day, sounding like the pros they are, with scott's backing vocals sounding better than ever. graham richardson had his hair cut short to tend bar at finn maccool's, displaying the ineffable cool that's always made him one of my sweetie's favorite photographic subjects. carey wolff was in great spirits and voice, stalking the stage and sangin' all the songs we came to hear (in my case: "what's the matter with me," "mr. goodenough," "stupid man," "our song," "the fray," "west texas sunset," "how to lose," the replacements' "can't hardly wait"). only non-snazz aspect was the belligerent asshole that tried to call carey out in the parking lot after the show. oh well. as winston churchill said, it doesn't take all kinds, there just are all kinds. carey has a cd release show for i'm still the darkness coming up in may, at bronco's, with velvet love box as his backing band. i never, ever venture out that way anymore, but might have to make an exception to hear carey sing "nineteen years" with such top-flight accompanists. ooh yeah.