stoogeaphilia @ lola's sunday picnic

i'm a lucky asshole because in stoogeaphilia, i get to play music i've loved since i was a snotnose with all my favorite players that i know on their respective axes. it's the best candy bar your money can buy. last coupla shows we played, i got insensate before we hit and as a result, had no recollection whatsoever of playing the gigs -- not a good thing. so this time i resolved to do better, even turning down an offered pre-set tequila shot. afterward, however, i had some of rat's "root" (evil lao homebrew) and got legless, so i'm afraid i may have to pass on the root next time around. (still love me some ratsamy, however.)

the last time the li'l stoogeband played lola's, it was still called 6th street live, and i've only been there a coupla times since then. 'twas good to see a bunch of old friends from the wreck room -- carl pack, john stevens, billy wilson, michael contreras, ken neal, jesse sierra hernandez, william bryan massey III. it was a little weird seeing ppl in daylight that i normally only see in bar light, as it was seeing stephen massey drinking a beer (he just turned 21) and jamie pack tending bar. the haltom city crew was out in force (the book's finished, just waiting for kat to find time to bind the limited edition), and there were also a buncha my work peeps in the house.

the mighty me-thinks played before us. it was fun watching li'l marlon (wearing his ear defenders -- a must for kids if they're going to be exposed to loud rockaroll music) operating his daddy's smoke machine. they played a good set with a coupla new toons before ray-boy said "i'd hate to have to follow _that_" (which of course he did) and the me-thinks relinquished the stage. we used half of their backline; marlin generously offered to let me play his sg too, but i figured i oughtta play _something_ of my own, even tho i sound the same no matter what i play. number one stoogeband fan amy kadleck was in the house but had to leave before we hit; hopefully she'll be able to make it out to the fairmount for "matturday" (september 16th, matt's b-day).

wizard o' sound andre was in the booth so we had a quality mix; you could even hear the vocals! we soundchecked and everything sounded fine, but as soon as jon kicked off "down on the street," i was getting nada out of marlin's gibson amp. i rechecked all my connections and finally shook the 10-year-old cord running from my tuner to the amp and i started getting signal. katboy pounced on my cord and i lost signal again for a second, but when he bounced back over to the former bindle side o' the stage (now occupied by richard hurley with his stratocaster, super reverb, and new whiteguy afro), i was able to get it working again, which it did for the rest of the show.

at one point i dropped my pick and couldn't see where it was, so i had to carry on playing with bare fingers for the remainder of the song. this morning i woke up with my fingers covered in blood, so apparently i must have skinned my knuckles on the strings while i was playing sans pick. what's funny about that is that after we finished, paul metzger from dave karnes' jazz group (who were playing after us) came up and asked if he could use my gtr, since he'd forgotten his. i told him sure; afterward he could just give it to joey carter (who lives in the neighborhood) and i'd get it back from him. today i sent joey an email asking how metzger liked playing a gtr with stickers and blood on it, to which he replied, "it was better than the invisible/air guitar he had with him."

the funny thing about the stoogeband is how consistent we are -- whether we rehearse every week (which we did for three weeks before our 8.14 fairmount outing) or don't see each other for two weeks (which we didn't between that show and the lola's deal), we sound about the same. trying to get some shows booked in october and november now, since bar of soap apparently sleeps with the fishes.