*** YEAR 2005 ***
12/31/05 Happy New Year everybody! We still haven't sold our house in Nashville, but that's okay cuz we like it. We finished the rough cut of our movie and are still hoping to close a record deal soon among other endeavors and prospects...stay tuned! We played Vickie's birthday show at the Radio Cafe and had a nice time. We had the best Go Plug Yourself show of the year as we said farewell to The Sutler. We're looking forward to having it at The Basement in 2006. 2005 brought us some amazingly crazy and wonderful friends from all over, especially Lexington and Bowling Green, KY, where they must put something in the water. We were confronted by an angry booker from the Bluebird, we lost a few fans due to our politics, our song got called "the theme to the Bush impeachment" by a famous DJ, we got more press, and even found time to write a few new tunes. 2006 looks promising as we continue this crazy journey! Have a happy and prosperous 2006, everyone!
6/14/05 Yeah, I've been getting things ready to roll! There's so much more to do. Once we're out of the house and back to living in "Homey" everything will smooth out again. (Yes, we're moving back into the RV and selling our cute little house in Nashville. We're not leaving Nashville, though! We just want to be more mobile right now. Meanwhile I've run myself ragged doing production stuff on top of getting the house and RV packed and ready. I've still got to register the RV...it's way overdue. Oh, and going to Lexington again this weekend which I look forward to. I'm excited to be visiting Colorado again, it's been way too long. I hope we get to L.A. but it's not really looking like it yet.
I am really looking forward to "permanently" moving back into the RV in some ways, though. You can hear the rain on the roof, even if it's a little drizzle. It's very romantic. There's no yard maintenance like there is in the house. I've enjoyed the garden more than anything, but maybe this will make me practice guitar and write more. It's a beautiful thing to sit on the bed in the RV with your guitar and the big windows wide open blowing the fresh air right through with the smells of a different place than you were in the day before.
My vegetables are looking great. We got a lot of killer lettuce and radishes and now beans are coming in. Next year it'll be great for whomever is living here. I hope they keep the garden and compost pile going. And the birdbath full of fresh water. I'm listening to them splash around now. I really had never realized they were such active bathers! I'm rambling now about my compost pile and birdbath. I think I must be in the mood to write. Perhaps I should turn to my private journal now. Toodle-loo! Did I just say that?
6/12/05 It's a rainy day here in Nashville and all is quiet. I thought I could paint my porch today but not a chance. I have the Eagles song, Somebody's Gonna Hurt Someone, in my head because we learned it for the Sin City Social Club show last week. What a hoot. Audly from the Black Crowes got up and played with us but I don't think he knew the song so well. He played the wrong chords on one part and took the guitar solo from Dan who stole it right back. It was pretty funny. I think Dr. Dan lives for that kind of "musical confrontation"...he's used to playing with the jazz/blues cats who challenge each other all the time and have fun with it. I'm sure Audley didn't mean anything by it. Everyone was pretty toasted by the time we got to play our song, too. Everybody but me, of course.
5/27/05 Hey, we're on our way soon to play this weekend in Lexington KY. It's a fun time there at Mia's (120 S. Upper St., around the corner from The Dame). We always have such a good time. I just hope my drummer and bass player stay reasonably sober this time and don't piss off the club management.
3/7/05 Happy Birthday Kenny Aronoff! We love you and miss you.
Just got back from our monthly weekend gig playing at Mia's in Lexington, KY. Woody Mauldin was on bass and we brought Marco Giovino with us to play drums. Playing at Mia's in Lexington is always a very interesting and fun time. Boy, do they like to party down there. It's really starting to feel like a second home to us, too. Much like the folks in Evansville, IN, they're folks of like-minds and they always make us feel right at home.
2/27/05 Well, we didn't win the award in Evansville last week for Best Performing Artist at the Synchronicity VIP Awards, but that's okay because we were excited just to be nominated! We feel so proud to be included in such a fantastic art community. Plus, they took us in a limo for a killer Italian dinner and then dropped us off on the red carpet with flashbulbs popping and everything! It was so way cool...the kind of thing people like us live for.
2/21/05 This year has started off great! We've been living in Nashville now in our house for 9 months! Time has really flown by. We're recording our SIXTH record with an awesome band here. Check them out...they're called Fugitive Glue and their CD was my absolute favorite last year. I couldn't play it enough! Go buy it! The FuGlu guys are awesome musicians and great guys, too. I can't wait for ya'll to hear it. Dan's doing killer guitar parts on the CD now and we'll finish up our final vocal tracks soon. Michael Webb is producing and he's great to work with . We've been playing in Lexington, KY, about once a month at this awesome bar called Mia' s and we always have a really good time playing all night while the neighborhood soap operas play themselves out in front of us. If you want to see life, play music in bars, my friend! Mia and Anabeth are the owners and they are the coolest.
The Go Plug Yourself show is getting better and better, too. The guests performers are not only super talented, but funny, too! Since we interview the guests, we get to know them a bit unlike at most singer-songwriter nights where you just get to hear them sing songs. It's a real hoot and I always look forward to our night at the Sutler. I've got to make a new banner/sign, though. The one I've got is falling apart.
*** YEAR 2004 ***
Basically, 2003 was a whirlwind. I think of the year as starting in December of '03 when we had our car accident and our lives passed before our eyes. We lived in the RV until we bought a house in East Nashville in June. We still have the RV parked in the back and take it out when it makes sense. We toured a lot. We got banned from the Bluebird, kicked off the stage at the Living Room in NYC. It all seemed bad until we got FARM AID!!!
STEVE EARLE: Michael Webb won't let me forget this, so I'll tell you the story here. We were in the airport going to Farm Aid when we ran into Steve Earle in line for boarding. First I have to admit that I didn't recognize him...I came this close to asking his name! Thank god I didn't. Anyway, Dan was speaking to him about communism or some such thing and I couldn't help it...I reached up, said "excuse me, you've got a crumb", and I brushed a muffin-crumb off of Steve Earle's face. He looked absolutely horrified for a split-second and for a moment I regretted the infraction on his personal space...then he continued on with his conversation as if it never happened. Gosh, I didn't really expect it to be National Enquirer material, but if we had a Nashville version of the gossip rag, I'm sure this little tidbit would be in there.
FARM AID: Backstage, we ran into Lucinda Williams, whom we had met in L.A. before. She was on fire during her set! She just keeps getting better and better. We were introduced to John Mellencamp backstage by his manager, Bob Merlis, who we know from L.A., too. John was very sweet and he's a handsome stud in person. His performance was electrifying. Bob gave John a copy of our "Abdicate the Throne" CD because "Masters of War" is John's favorite song of all time apparently. We got on stage for the grand finale with Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, ...Jerry Lee Lewis for god's sake! Wow. Farm Aid will remain one of the most special moments of my life for the rest of my life.
We spent the rest of the time hanging out in Seattle and enjoying walking all over town. We went up in the Space Needle, but I felt really uncomfortable up there. I'm not usually afraid f heights or anything, but I felt so vulnerable..it was scary and I wanted down immediately. We paid about $13 bucks each to spend 5 minutes up there. At least we can say we saw it. Wehad a blast taking the ferry back and forth a few times and it only cost $2 bucks. We were laughing hysterically so much all weekend my face hurt.
On the way back home, a guy in the airport said he recognized us and said, "you just played at Farm Aid! I was there!"...very cool. And, on the plane, a woman in front of us turned around in her seat and asked us if we were a band...we said "yes!"....very cool again. :)
WHY WE WERE BANNED FROM THE BLUEBIRD: (because you asked):
Fact is, we did GREAT at the Bluebird! But let me start at the beginning. First of all, the Bluebird is the listening room of all listening rooms. They SHUSH you if you whisper something to your date. Everyone who's anyone has played there. It's an institution of country music in this town even if it is located in a strip mall. Anyway, we were playing at a songwriter in-the-round night. There were three other songwriters and us. The house was packed with tourists in town for a Corvette convention. We always do well when we play for tourists who often love us.
Whenever it came around to our turn, we'd introduce the song like we do, which is oftentimes funny...we can't help it. An old man in the audience even made a remark, something about how he'd offer to take me home, and I responded with "you're too young for me" which caused the audience to chuckle. It was a nice crowd, warm, responsive. Well, as you may know, there are a LOT of singer/songwriters here in Nashville and a large percentage of their songsare sad and sappy...whether good or bad. Well, as we went in a circle, the guy right before us would introduce his song, and it was always a sad tune. I commented once, "man, your songs are all so sad!", which made everyone chuckle once again...even him. So, he did his song which was actually pretty good. He was cute and a good singer, too. Anyway, the next time around, he introduced his next song...if you can believe it, he said "this one's about a little girl in a wheelchair and how the rain is the angel's tears from heaven". I immediately busted out in hysterical laughter! I couldn't help it!! The audience burst out in hysterical laughter too! Everyone in the place was rolling with laughter including that songwriter.
Eventually, everyone settled down and we went on with the show which was great. When our turn would come up, people in the back were actually standing up on the pews to see us! Afterwards, a lot of people wanted to sign our mailing list and buy our CD! We made money! It was awesome!
It was such a successful gig for us. We made around $200 bucks! So, a couple of months later, I thought, "hey, why don't we book the Bluebird again. We did so well there!" But when we called up to see if we could do it again sometime, this is what they said,"ya'll are so talented and we love you. We'd love to keep your picture to hang on the wall when you become famous. But you're too aggressive and in-your-face for our crowd, so we can't book you here again. Sorry." Apparently, their audience buys CD's and signs mailing lists for acts they hate. We've been frozen out! Cut off from our livelyhood! And this is one of the very first gigs we'd ever done in Nashville. I was furious for a while. I couldn't believe it. It was beyond obvious how much the crowd liked us...I guess we just don't fit in. The story of my life.
WHY WE WERE KICKED OFF THE STAGE AT THE LIVING ROOM IN NYC (because you asked):
We got to the Living Room about an hour before we were to start our set (which was to be at 10pm). First of all, do I have to explain what a pain-in-the-ass parking and load-in is at that place? But we're pros, so we take that in stride. So, we haul all of our equipment in there and we're waiting to take the stage, watching these two guys doing a horrible comedy/music routine. I'm telling you, not one thing was funny about them, they were awful but we didn't have a problem with that. We watched respectfully standing in the back. Some of our friends/fans showed up to see us, they took a seat and watched the unfunny duo, too. 10pm came and went. 10:30 came and went. We were getting a little antsy. After all, we drove all the way from Nashville, hired a pro band, and our friends were in the audience being subjected to this god-awful act as they waited for us to play.
Finally, Dan asked the sound guy if he was going to give them the "one more song" cue (like most clubs in the country do in order to keep things running smoothly and to be fair to the performers and the audiences.) The sound guy was a very sweet kid and said that he doesn't really do that. Dan asked if there was a manager, or a stage manager, or someone he could talk to. Our friends had told us they had to leave soon and kept asking when we were going to play! It was already running an hour late and the duo didn't look like they planned on leaving the stage anytime soon. The sound guy told Dan to ask the waitress if there was a manager. So, when Dan asked the her if there was a manager he could speak to, she was immediately pissed at him for asking and told him there was no manager. Dan explained that someone should tell the current act on stage to finish up and tried to explain our concern. Then she said there was a manager but she's at home with a baby and she can't call her at home. She got so mad at him for pushing the subject that she lashed out at him telling him to chill out and don't worry about it. He told her that most professional clubs give the performers a cue to end if it's running over. Well, that really got her goat and from then on it was downhill. Then she said that there WAS a manager, he's the doorman. Now they just seemed like lying crazy people. It was about then that the duo ended their act and we finally got to set up our equipment on stage.
We did our first song and the sound was awesome. We sounded great and were so relieved to finally be playing music. We introduced the second song, "Last Night was the Last Straw", and Dan dedicated it to "the beautiful waitress", which is what we always do on that song, btw. That nice dedication prompted the beautiful waitress and the bartender to both raise their middle fingers at us from the back of the room! I was a little surprised at the amount of hostility coming at us by now. We ignored it like the pros that we are and went on with the show..the audience had no clue about any of this. So, the third song was "Flame", a beautiful love song. Dan dedicated the song to New York women. This prompted the waitress to scream out at us from the back of the room, "why don't you dedicate it to short men!" Clearly meant to be an insult. Again, we ignored it and played the song which sounded awesome. At the end of the song, the soundman came up and said to me, "they asked me to tell you to stop now". I said, "you mean one more song or right now?" He said, "I'm sorry, they want you off the stage immediately. I don't know why." So, I said, "okay." We packed our stuff and left...but not without further intimidation.
I would drive around the block while Dan would bring out a piece of equipment at a time. Every time Dan went in or out, the staff would attack him verbally and were even physically threatening...like standing right up in his face screaming, just short of actually pushing him. The doorman said, "you insulted the waitress and you need to apologize to her!" So, Dan said, "okay, I didn't mean to insult her. Where is she so I can apologize?" Then they'd say, "You can't speak to her! You have to leave!" They were almost not letting him out of the door, standing in his way to make it difficult for him to carry his amp and equipment out. But he kept his cool. Crazy.
*** YEAR 2003 ***
Oh, my...what happened to 2003?! Missing...will be replaced soon
*** YEAR 2002 ***
11/9/02 Bloomington, IN - We had a few extra days to get to Texas and decided to stop in Bloomington, Indiana, which we heard was a cool town. We parked Homey at Lake Monroe RV park...they're some nice people there. Then we rented a car for a few days and did some driving around to meet some people. John Mellencamp is from these parts, so I know there's some great musicians around here. We aim to meet some...maybe this'd be a nice place to record some stuff for the next CD sometime. Jake, from Farm Fresh Studios, was immensely helpful and told us to check out Soma Cafe, maybe they'd let us play while we're in town. I got my hair done in the mall while Dan checked email at Kinko's. We went to Soma and booked ourselves to play there Friday night. Yay! We heard there was a cool club called Vertigo in town where some cool Americana bands would be playing Thursday night, so we checked it out. We met some very cool local folks and Mark, a local promoter, who invited us to play Friday night...if the other bands already on the bill wouldn't mind. We barged in and interrupted Jim's train of thought at the local public station, WFHB. But Jim was very cool as he placed our CD in the "new music" bin at the station and played our record, announcing the Friday night gig...groovy! We did an on-air appearance and played some songs for the folks at WJAA, a radio station in the nearby town of Seymour, too. Once again, the radio people we meet are always very supportive and cool. After the gig at Soma Friday night, we headed over to Vertigo again to catch some more local bands....and Mark arranged for us to play between the bands' sets...it was great! What an awesome reception we got from the local crowd. Truly some genuine folks here. They do not party lightly in Bloomington! Dan wasn't totally thrilled when an ex-con (I know cuz he told me and I know one when I see one anyway) asked if he wouldn't mind if he took me a spin on the dance floor. He was a perfect gentleman and not a bad dancer for being several dozen Pabsts ahead of me (which anyone would be cuz I'm not drinkin'). Overall, we loved Bloomington! There's some awesome food here, too! I always love a town where more than one restaurant has heard of tofu. We're on our way to Dallas, TX, now via Nashville and Memphis. We're gonna go to the "largest indoor RV showroom in America" tomorrow (geez, I can't believe we get excited about this stuff!) then we'll head out. I think we're gonna stay in the RV park across the street from Graceland!! Whoooohoooo! I'd love to see it before Nick Cage gets his paws into that real estate and closes it off or something crazily eccentric like I would.
10/17/02 Ithaca, NY - had a great time spending a few days at Dan's alma mater (is that how you spell it? I wouldn't know). Anyway, it was really beautiful and for a day or so we dreamed of a nice cabin in the woods there....but I really doubt we can take that kind of cold for very long. I guess you never know, though. Anyway, I think Dan excorsized some demons from his past. We spent a couple of extra days here just cuz we were having such a great time with Steve Brown and his lovely wife, Barbara. We nearly gave their neighbors a heart attack when we drove up in the rig and parked on their street. It seems the neighbor's parents recently moved into an RV permanently and she thought they had just shown up! We knocked on her door to ask if she would mind us parking there for a couple of days and she had been frantically running around the house cleaning up and throwing clothes on. Cracked me up.
10/1/02 NYC - the Rodeo Bar was great! It was the first time Jerry Jemmott and Richard Crooks had never played together before. It's always awesome to get such great musicians together. Especially legendary players like these. By the way, for you Betty Dylan trivia lovers....music legends Carol Kaye and Bernard Purdie played together for the first time EVER in the studio to record songs that are on our "Flame" and "Brand New Key" albums! Truly, we are making history.
9/29/02 Betty Spawns a Marriage!!! Our friends, Mia Roberts and Dave Kilner, were married on September 29th, 2002. We met Mia when she came to our first show at the Roxy when we opened for Suzy Boguss. She was an immediate fan and became a fast friend. Dave has been one of our bass players for a long time and was the consumate bachelor until he met Mia. Mia saw Dave across our crowded RV while partying outside our gig at The Mint in L.A. and asked, "who is that handsome man!?" He made her laugh and she knew she had to have him. What can we say about that? He's a smart and charming guy! (Looks pretty damn good in a suit, too! See their picture in the photo gallery.) They got into Dave's Econoline van to take a dreamy road trip together to Canada to meet his family and made it as far as Arizona (Ihaven't quite figured that one out yet either). It was a down-and-dirty trip....literally...as they slept in the van and took few showers. Not only did Mia go the entire trip without complaint, she actually travelled well. She's a hearty girl and also has quite a fabulous sense of humor and gumption (been a while since you've heard that word, eh?) Well, Dave soon figured out that this pretty, party-girl should be his and his alone....and she agreed. Now they're Mr. and Mrs. Kilner! We love love! We wish you the best in everything, you two!
8/21/02 Last Sunday (8/18/02). We had the very first Betty Dylan Breakfast Club bagel party! Liz hosted a perfect day in Los Angeles. Bagels (all different kinds), O.J. (the drinking kind not the murdering kind), and coffee (the strong kind) were flowing and Vickie & Dr. Dan played an acoustic set under the big oak tree lamenting about their first breakdown in the RV (all under warranty, of course!) and how romantic a Walmart parking lot can be. Here's some pictures by Jesse Kanner...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; and these photos are courtesy of Darren 1, 2; and Vickie made everybody sit for a group shot! Thanks for taking pictures you guys! Now, did anybody tape the show?
8/3/02 Aspen, CO is beautiful. We did a gig at The Highlands, a new ski area built up by a big Hotel chain. It used to be where the locals went to ski with a dirt parking lot and a ski lift...no shopping mall. Now the locals are a little miffed that their quaint private mountain is allasudden another hoity-toity ski resort. Oh well, that's progress and you can't stop it, unfortunately. Fortunately, we're mobile...so we can move if we want.
We had a great time again in the studio with Ginger Ann at KSPN, the radio station in Aspen, and Josh, the concert promoter. They're both way cool. Josh invited us over to his Aspen bachelor pad (which was amazing) and cooked us an incredible meal of baked salmon, a beautiful salad and couscous. Somebody better marry this guy quick! His girlfriend, Debra, was just as cool. What's in the water up here?!
After the show in the mall at Highland Grounds, we spent the night in the parking lot in the RV, then headed down the mountain where we had a gig that night at Steve's Guitars. Steve's is a really cool little guitar shop in the quaint little town of Carbondale. Carbondale's property values have been going up over the last few years because of it's proximity to Aspen. The locals there are none too happy about that (except the real estate moguls) and we hear there's an exodus of hippies leaving Carbondale for a little town called Paonia a couple of hours away. Hmmm....we'll have to check that out sometime. We visited our friends at KDNK, the station in Carbondale, which is always cool. Amy Kimberly and Skip Naft are more than supportive of us. They let us park our RV in their parking lot so much it's becoming a second home! The Steve's Guitars gig went well...we even had a huge write-up in the local Aspen Times again this time through. Mary Margaret made "Betty Dylans" again...they're the yummiest cookies. She said she used white chocolate for me and dark semi-sweet chocolate for Dr. Dan. There's almonds and I think coconut. I will post the recipe when I get it from her. She inspired me to have an "American Trash" Pie Contest, which I hope to kick off soon. Here's some pics: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
8/4/02 We had a couple of free days and decided to go to Paonia. It's a beautiful drive through the mountains...a haven for river type sports and fishing. We had lunch in the diner there and walked around the sleepy little hippy town. Very cute. Some guy offered us ice cream...he'd just wanted a little bit and had to buy a whole bag of 8 of those little plastic dishes of vanilla ice cream. I took one...it's still in the RV freezer. I go for the Haagan Daz or Jerry's, no Carnation for me. It's probably nice to have in case of an ice cream emergency, though.
Well, we saw Paonia in about 15 minutes and decided to drive on to see the next few small towns. We heard that Joe Cocker has a ranch in Crawford, so we decided to head thataway. He has a restaurant there, too, which was GREAT (we would eat there 5 times in 2 days.) We drove right through Crawford and decided to go up to the Black Canyon (which is at the northern rim of the Grand Canyon). Dan still has not yet seen the Grand Canyon and this was the closest we'd been yet when we've had the time to stop. We decided to spend the night in the campground there.....it was a tight fit to get the RV into the campground but the big, tall, blonde ranger-man said it was cool.
So, we squeezed into the only spot we could fit into which just HAPPENED to be right next to the ONLY other campers in the entire campground. This older couple had their ten set up and everything already but we really didn't have much choice. We would be tucked away inside of the RV most of the time anyway, so it wouldn't really bother us to be next to someone. So, I step outside for a moment and the guy yells to me, "are you gonna run your generator?!" I say, "well, yes." After all, we had to cook our dinner and it was hot as hell so I knew we'd run our a/c for a while until it cooled off. Well, I know the generator makes some noise and I felt a little bad that we may be interrupting this guy's peace and quiet. So, thinking I was being nice and all, I said, "oh, we won't run it all night or anything", thinking that it would be cool. Well, the nasty old dick said, just under his breath but loud enough so he knew I could hear in a really nasty tone, "I hope not!" It never ceases to amaze me how nasty people's attitudes can be from the get-go. Obviously, they're prejudiced against RV's. Sometimes these "nature-lovers" (which I consider myself to be, too, btw) are the nastiest, most hypocritical people around. If he'd have been really nice and approached us with a friendly attitude saying, "the peace and quiet is so nice here, is there any way we can talk about this generator thing, maybe compromise a bit? How about a beer?" But no, the passive-aggressive asshole and his bitty actually packed up all their stuff and moved to the other side of the campground which suited us just fine. I'm sure the guy thought, "I'll show them! I'll just move! Ha!" Stupid ass. Dan was happy to turn on the generator immediately just to piss the guy off. So, alone we were at last. When night fell, we turned off the generator and opened all the windows. We had a hard time falling asleep thought cuz there were signs about bears and mountain lions and you never know if a bear's gonna smell your food and rip a hole in the wall to get to it!
On our way out of Crawford, we stopped back in for lunch at that diner in Paonia. Some guy walked up to our table and said, "what the hell are YOU guys doing here!?" Oh-my-god, it's Josh Grange (Creekdippers, Randy Weeks, etc). We met him in L.A. He and Mark Olsen (Jayhawks, Creekdippers, and Victoria Williams' hubby) were out doing some gigs and radio promotion for the Creekdippers and just HAPPENED to be in the exact same diner in the same small town at the exact same time as us! What the hell are the chances of that! Trippy, man. They're doing a bunch of rock hunting on their trip. I think their van's gonna be a bit heavier when they get home than when they left home.
Here's some pictures we took on our way to the Black Canyon...strangely enough there are no pictures of the actual canyon! But there's a lot of pictures of cows and deer. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
8/7/02 Well, we ended up staying in Crawford quite a while! We're looking for our dream spot and wondered if maybe this town of Crawford wasn't just what we had imagined. We met the nicest realtor who spent the day taking us all over the area showing us different properties. We fell in love with a little 40 acre plot near the Black Canyon We both fell in love. There's a frame for an unfinished octagon-shaped house for which I've already drawn up a rough floorplan. I've researched greenhouses, how to raise chickens for eggs and meat, how to skin a deer, beekeeping...it goes on and on...(I get a bit obsessive when I get excited about something). It still needs to have a septic put in, electricity and phone brought in from the road and of course, the house needs to be finished. It's a desert-type landscape which i love, nestled in between beautiful green mountains and pastures. The sage and Pinon trees grow slowly and there's little bitty cactus growing on the ground everywhere that snag your socks. My favorite scene in the Barbara Streisand/Kris Kristopherson version of "A Star is Born" is when they buy and build that cabin in the desert. Here's some pics of the property ...(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17; 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29; 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38,)
8/8/02 We finally pulled ourselves away from Crawford to get to the Nowoodstock Festival in Ten Sleep, WY. We stayed in Buffalo, WY last night at a KOA camp with the only luxury camp spot in the COUNTRY (you get your own private jacuzzi and fire pit) . We didn't get that spot, it was taken (bummer, dude! I was dreaming about that jacuzzi and usually pass on going into the public ones.) We did get a spot one level below that which had a fire pit and we made our first fire since we've been "roughing it" in the RV. It smelled nice. We cooked steak on the charcoal grill they had there at our site.
8/10/02 Arrived in Ten Sleep last night. They make you feel real welcome here. There were hundreds of bikers making their way through from some huge biker event further north. There is a coffee shop, two restaurants, a hardware store, two bars, a couple of small hotels and a very nice RV park where we stayed. The owner of the RV park wore a big cowboy hat and kept himself busy at night chasing away campers trying to pitch tents for free. So we felt safe. Janna Hampton is an incredible woman that owns a sheep ranch and a coffee shop (The Percup) in town and helps organize this festival. In it's first year, they got over 800 people at the festival. This is the second year and the crowd grew to nearly double! I can't wait to see what next year brings. It was so cool. After we played, we couldn't walk through town without being asked for an autograph! The people were so nice and appreciative, it was a beautiful park with perfect green grass, perfect shade trees, lots of vendors with great food (I got addicted to the kettle corn with it's buttery sugar coating, steamy-hot in a bag) and the weather was perfect. There was a lot of bluegrass music...and us. We played with a local rhythm section--Andy Robertson(?) on drums and Mike Reardon on bass--who kicked butt! We were sorry Blake couldn't play bass with us, but since he was doing all the sound engineering it was too difficult so he found us an extremely suitable replacement at thelast minute. We met Janna and Blake last year when we played at the Mangy Moose in Jackson WY...that's how we found out about this festival and how they found out about us and we're so glad! (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
7/25/02 Hastings, NE is where they invented Kool-Aid. We found a bar/steakhouse there, the Barrel Bar, that served the best piece of filet mignon we'd had in a while. Apparently they're known by the locals for their bleu cheese dressing. If you're ever in Hastings, go find it. They grow a lot of corn in NE and surrounding states. We got a dozen ears of sweet corn and a huge juicy watermelon and at it all day. Really cleaned out our systems. We took the opportunity in the parking lot of the Barrel Bar to take a few snapshots...one of the bikes and me hugging the RV, named "Homey", because I love it so much. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
7/21/02 Locobazooka Tour, Council Bluffs, Iowa. What a BLAST! Betty Dylan won a contest through Universal Music's Inside Sessions program and got the opportunity to play at the last show of this hard rock tour. We were supposed to play on the second stage opening for the local bands. BUT, the morning of the show came (we had spent the night in the RV up on the lawn of the second stage area), a guy in a golf cart comes rolling up to us and say, "Betty Dylan?! Your'e on the mainstage! Drive your rig down the hill and park next to the line of buses!". How cool is that? This was the biggest stage we'd ever been on. Dan and I opened the show, just the two of us playing acoustic guitars! Did I mention that this was a hard rock festival???!!! We opened for Sevendust, Filter, Mad at Gravity, Dry Cell, Mushroom Head, etc. ---- What a trip. At first the crowd looked confused, then they were amused, then they were totally enthused! It was such fun to change the green-mohawked, pierced crowd from hard-ass rockers into putty in our hands! Really, all it took was the line in "Asleep & Awake" where I say I like to give head...and they were mine...aaahhahahahahahahaha! But seriously, hanging out backstage was quite the rock and roll experience, too. We felt as if we'd been on the whole tour with everyone. It was the last day and everyone was hugging and saying their goodbyes. It was so sweet. Don't let the metal/hard rock guys fool you, they're teddy bears and the kindest souls. Dr. Dan is inspired to play some hard rock now. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
March 2002 We took Randy Guss (drums, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Lapdog) and Greg Hyatt (bass, Zoo People) on tour with us for three weeks through Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. It was March. It was snowing. We almost killed ourselves. Randy was taking video of us sliding around the road while semis screamed past us barely missing us. The locals had to help us turn around and get back down. We missed our gig in Phoenix cuz we couldn't get over the pass. We had chains but were too spooked to try making it the rest of the way. We holed up in a cute little motel for the night and partied with lots of junk food. Maybe I'll get more pics of this adventure from Randy. It scares me just to think about it. --- Travelling in two cars, a Lexus and a Volvo...we were NOT the picture of a tough rock and roll band exactly. But the cops in Utah still thought us suspicious enough to follow us all the way into our hotel driveway when we pulled in to get a room. Okay, so we had California plates, but we're driving a Lexus and a Volvo! What criminal activity would we be up to? I guess it was 3 a.m. and we coulda been drunk. Don't mormons drive at 3 a.m.? I guess they do, but maybe they're all drunk. Wait, aren't they not supposed to drink? Maybe the cop was bored. I dunno. But he wanted to know what we were doing and where we were heading. Why do they want to know that stuff??? Do I look like a criminal? Dan does, but none of US do. Dan stayed away from the cop. --- The radio station, KAFM, in Grand Junction, Colorado, (shout out to Judy and Tman) plays us all the time on the radio which makes them the coolest. The Mesa Theatre there is really great, too. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,13, 14)
More stuff is coming, we're catching up!
*** YEAR 2001 ***
10/12/01 Aahhh, I've been remiss on filling in the tour diary. But don't despair, there are lots of stories to tell on this last tour to the East Coast. I'll catch up in a matter of days....come back and check it out.
8/14/01 The Roxy, Los Angeles, CA. We opened for Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks. Jack Nicholson was there! Jack's been following us around for YEARS now. But that's another story. Dan Hicks wasn't mean and nasty like we'd heard. He was actually a nice guy, albeit a bit stand-offish but that's not surprising really. We met Susan, one of the Hot Licks, who was really sweet. They have a good time on stage, you can tell. It was the first time Dr. Dan and I have done an acoustic show just the two of us at the Roxy. There was a guy who came to the show who won tickets from us when we did the KPIG radio show a couple of weeks ago up in Santa Cruz which is pretty cool! Pictures coming soon.
6/23/01 The Blackstone, Cumberland, R.I. We got into town early and realized we were out of digital video tape and went on a quest....took us 4 stops to find it! Radio Shack didn't carry it, Staples didn't carry it, the local placed called something like "Everything Video" didn't even carry it....good ol' Best Buy. Our last gig sure creeped up on us. It was arguably our best show of the tour and after all that running around.....we forgot to video tape it!! So, all the people that were there are the only ones who experienced it. It was crowded and we got a ton of new fans/friends. Everyone was so nice and supportive. Thanks to Erik Narhwal for lending us his sound system and helping us set up. Since it was our last gig, I didn't hold back to save my throat (talking is difficult after a show and I can overdue it)...I spoke to everyone in the place! But we had a three hour drive to CT and headed out. I finally let Dan do some driving cuz I was falling asleep. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
6/21/01 The Lizard Lounge, Cambridge, MA. We didn't even know if this gig was confirmed until 3 days before, so we rushed up to Boston/Cambridge to open for Greg Trooper again! It's great to hook up again with the same musicians on the road. Greg's guitar player/background singer, Chip Dolan from Indiana, was so cool to help us set up our sound and everything...he's a great guitar and backup singer, too! It was a really nice room and we had a lot of fun. But we DIDN'T have fun driving around in this town. My god, I have NEVER seen so much construction, so many windy streets, so many streets that didn't have any street signs...people in Boston can't even give you good directions because they don't know the name of the streets either! We were late to our radio interview and acoustic performance with Kate on WRBB 104.9fm at Northeastern University, but it went well and now we have a new friend in Kate, who was really great to talk with. (1, 2)
We ended up walking all over downtown Boston and eating in China Town...so we had our own foot-tour of the city which turned out to be kinda neat. The funniest thing was when we asked three construction workers where Summer Street was and three arms with pointed fingers flew up in all different directions...illustrating just how confusing this city is....I burst out laughing so hard I could barely stop. I wished I'd had the video camera on that one. It was truly a sit-com moment happening in real life. We found good food and Boston tends to keep it's kitchens serving til a pretty decent hour...but after midnight, you can't do anything there but drink alcohol. That's right, we tried to find a cup of coffee and maybe a piece of pie, and we even asked around....but all that was open was the bars and they didn't have coffee or pie. The place was totally hopping, though! Thousands of drunk kids swarmed the streets. We headed for the hotel and ran into a Dunkin' Donuts where they gave us really bad coffee and hard donuts and a seventy-year-old trucker was talking about something to do with a "big dick". Don't order "regular" coffee unless you want them to put cream and sugar in it. Dan was wearing a cowboy hat so the guy behind the counter made some comment about him being from the South...HA! (1, 2)
6/19/01 The Bottom Line, NYC. Playing with Bernard Purdie and Jerry Jemmott is such a great honor, a kick, easy, exciting, playful, just darned amazing. The two Bottom Line shows were awesome. Chatting with Rosie Flores and Greg Trooper was cool, too. They were both so nice! Both of us really admire Rosey and her guitar playing, and we are truly fans of Greg Trooper's new album. I had a dream that Greg was coming on to me a couple of nights after this show. It was cool to meet some of Dr. Dan's old friends, too. And Dr. Dan's mom and sister finally got to see us play live which was pretty neat for us all.
After we packed up our stuff, Dan went to get the rental Jeep....and the indoor roof lamp wouldn't go off! What the hell! We drove all the way home with the inside light on and could NOT get it to turn off....Dan cussing up a storm. So, we let it stay on all night long and hoped it would start the next morning so I could take it to the rental place and return it. We can't have a car that will be dead on us in the morning when we're traveling! Well, it started alright in the a.m. but Enterprise said they didn't have any cars at all to trade with us...but if I brought it in they'd take a look and see if they could turn the light off. We had no time to spare as we had to get on the road again. As soon as I got to the rental place, someone had just returned a Nissan Pathfinder....a bigger, better SUV with a 6-CD changer and everything!!! Now, if you believe in such things, it occurred to me that Dan's father (who has passed away) seems to have this thing about lights...always making his presence known by turning them off and on and such...so I figure Dan's Dad enjoyed the Bottom Line gig and wanted us to have a better vehicle for the remainder of the trip. Thanks, Dad. You never know when a bummer is actually a blessing. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
6/16/01 The Higher Ground in Winooski, VT...boy oh boy, are we in love with Vermont. What a beautiful state, and EVERYONE's so NICE! Not in a stepford wives kind of way, more in a Venice Beach, California kind of way, if you know what I mean. Everyone is so cool. We met up with Eric and Kate from WNCS, "The Point", who played our song on the radio. Eric is now a bro. His beautiful wife, Rebeka is my spaced-tooth sister (word up, girl, we are royalty). Next time we get to your neck of the woods, we'll take you up on your offer to crash at your place and spend some time skipping stones on your lake (I'm afraid I'll never leave).
Anyway, back to the gig....the show at Higher Ground was awesome and opening for Blue Rodeo (who is big in those parts) was really cool even if their road manager wouldn't let us touch their equipment enough to even make room for us to play on the stage without our toes hanging over the edge (no, don't touch it...don't even look at it!) In the end, the show rocked and Betty has a lot of new fans. Thanks to Shawn from the Blue Rodeo crew who helped us out with our merch sales...that was way cool.
Everyone had bad dreams this night....we think there's a Father's Day connection. Jerry Jemmott dreamed of riots, Bernard Purdie was there. Our niece, Grace, had nightmares, too. I dreamed that me, Dan and his mother were in her kitchen and the chairs we sat on started floating around the room with us sitting in them! Weird.
But I can't forget the drama that happened in VT.....it was 2:30 a.m. when they finally kicked us all out of the club and we headed to our hotel. When we got to the hotel, I realized I'd forgotten some very important bags inside the club, not the least of which was my PURSE with all the credit cards and everything in it!!! We can't leave town without it. Needless to say it was very tense as I grappled with my tendency to sabatage things. I barely slept, woke up and took Jerry Jemmott to the Burlington Airport and headed back to the club on Sunday morning, Father's Day, knowing that the club didn't have another show scheduled until Thursday! I left a gazillion messages on the cel phone of the Manager, Matt, who wasn't answering. I wished I could have broken into the club and just locked up again on the way out....my bags were just inside the door...I could see them in the window!!! How frustrating. I stopped and asked a nice man who was spending father's day fixing his car with his son if he happened to know anyone from the club...being a small town, he did. I proceeded to drive him around town looking for his friend who was on his lunch break from the bagel store. Being brilliant, I looked Matt up in the phone book and found his address. I tracked him down like a dog and got him out of bed as he was down with a terrible flu. I felt so bad...but he didn't complain and took me down to get my stuff. Whew. Disaster averted. We're on the road again. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
6/13/01 Philly Music Conference....We hung out with some of the coolest people we have yet to meet! Ariel Hyatt (of Ariel Publicity) is da bomb. She was speaking at the conference and introduced us to Caroline (The Indie Music Forum) who has an awesome crash pad near downtown Philly. Too bad we didn't bring the video camera with us...she's a fascinating and dynamic person, and talk about smart. Both these chicks are giants. One of Ariel's clients is a band called Fathead....we met Chris from Fathead during the day and went to see them play that night. We were so thrilled to see that Fathead kicks major ass! They are such a great band. They're hip-hop with a lot of melody and a jazz soul--amazing musicianship. We only had one problem....getting out of Philly!!! It was 4 a.m. when we finally quit partying and headed for our hotel which was just outside of Philly. We couldn't find the right highway entrance and went back and forth for over an hour trying to find our way out!! Philly can be very scary at 4 in the morning and stopping to ask for directions is not very smart. Don't ask me how we finally made it out...I can't remember.
6/11/01 Cafe Tattoo outside of Baltimore is a friendly little down-home bar with some really great fresh beer on tap. It was a slow night but, as always, we had a great time playing with Chuck (drums) and G.H. (bass) anyway. What a riot those two guys are! They had me ROFL all night long! Dan and I decided to get a swanky hotel room for the night to get some nice food, service, "breathtaking" views, and quality sleep. Everything that could go wrong pretty much did. They gave us wrong directions to the hotel FIVE times on the cel! The restaurants they suggested for late-night fare were already closed when we got there, there was a dead mouse on the sidewalk outside the hotel, the food we finally ate sucked and we left without paying (the manager took care of it), Dan got out of his chair many times to flag down the waitress, the in-room internet connection was totally useless....naturally, we fought. Then at 7 a.m. there was a loud knock on the door by a busboy delivering breakfast we didn't order...he had the wrong room! We slept a bit more, made up in the shower, had a really GREAT breakfast at Blue Moon Cafe in Fells Point, and headed back to the road. Tomorrow's a free day. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
6/10/01 Drove to CT w/Jerry Jemmott in the back seat. He brought some delicious sesame seed cookies, and chocolate chip ones, too. Seth met us at the Tune Inn Cafe for the gig. It was a GREAT show!!!! We totally jammed! Dan threw his guitar across the stage once again...he's so tempermental. We met a very hip chick, Perilous Cheryl, from the UConn station, WHUS 97.1fm, and we videotaped her interviewing us which was pretty cool. We'll work on getting that interview up online cuz Dan was in not-so-rare form as he ranted on and on about Brecht and Warhol and art and so on. You gotta pay close attention to keep up with him. Cheryl was waaay cool. Another radio station, WCNI, was there, too, but we didn't get a chance to meet Jana who was there representin'. Maybe next time. (1, 2, 3, 4)
6/9/01 JFK sucks! You'd think that when you land in New York at a major international airport, there'd be at least one sign that points you to New York City or Manhattan...no such luck. Just a bunch of highways, one of them has three different names! Geez. If you're not from here, don't even THINK about driving around yourself. Just take a cab or a limo or something. We took the wrong highway three times..and Dan IS FROM HERE! I gotta say, though, the road rage is less here than in L.A. even though the myth of NY drivers is that they're rude...they aren't unless they have good reason. In L.A., people make stupid moves in traffic and then get mad at YOU for being in their way. Here on the East Coast, it seems like everyone is more cooperative on the road...whole different mentality. Not suprisingly, we fought.
6/8/01 Hung out with our friend, Andrew, and his beautiful family in Buffalo. Thanks for putting us up, driving us around and adding some joy to the trip. Emma and Karen are two of the luckiest kids we know! Emma has a patch of her own grass in the back yard...the girls and Lise are all green thumbs. They're peonies were captivating. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 12)
6/7/01 Played at Spot Coffee in Buffalo, NY. Very cool place. Corporate American is trying to take over in the form of a Starbucks right across the street, but it's nice to see that Buffalo supports its own as there wasn't anybody over at Starbucks...they were all at Spot! The folks here in Buffalo are way cool. (1, 2)
6/5/01 NY is the same...construction everywhere. Cabbie knows a shortcut, but is it? Not too bad. We're tired and sleepy. Dr. Dan is wide awake. I am in the back seat snapping a few shots and getting car sick...can't wait to "go flat" as we say. Dan even got some tennis in with his good friend, Omar. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
6/4/01 Packed all day, did a million idiot-checks, drove to Pomona, dropped the car off at mom's, transferred all the luggage to her van, she drove us to Ontario airport....made it in plenty of time. Whew. We're taking the redeye...no fast food places are open in the airport and we're starving...we sometimes forget to feed ourselves and then find ourselves stuck and hungry.....oh, the pizza place is the only place open...mmmmmmm. Not the greatest thing to eat, but it's comfort food. Meanwhile, Ms. Eddie handles just about everything back home. Wish she coulda come with us. (1, 2, 3)
6/3/01 KPIG is great!!! Flew into San Jose and drove to Freedom (near Santa Cruz) and did our very first live radio show on KPIG! What a blast! Great way to kick off our first tour! Head back to San Jose, return the rental car, fly back to L.A....and PACK for our first East Coast tour! Darn it, we didn't take pics at KPIG. You can check out the live interview we did though at KPIG.com, they archive their Sunday morning live show. Check it out!
6/2/01 The tour starts before we leave L.A. with a show at CIA. Thanks to those of you who came to see us off. Had to leave pretty soon after playing cuz we had to get up early to catch a flight to San Jose....
9/23/00Betty Dylan opened for Hank Williams III at the Roxy! Dr. Dan and Vickie started out the with a ballsy rendition of Hank Williams' classic, "Cheatin' Heart", acoustic style, which totally got the sold-out crowd rockin'. We were scared at first thinking they could very well throw us off the stage but it turned out to be the BEST show! The Hank III crowd isawesome!
7/29/00 Live Review By Noah Newman - Betty Dylan at the Roxy with The Blasters
Down the street, Weezer was playing host to a slew of teenage kids, the streets were packed and cars carrying all the classic European names were slothing their way through traffic. And there was Betty Dylan stuck between two hillbilly punk outfits that played everything the crowd came there to hear. In Hollywood, Sunset Blvd, where else. Women taking makeup breaks on sidewalks and men calling them to their cars that are already full. Betty Dylan allowed them to sit down and reflect. How hard is it to get a Saturday Night crowd at the Roxy to reflect? How hard is it to reflect after you have gotten your brain stopped on? With their embryo fan base they are sneaking in on the hippies and the low riders, touching a few nerves here and there; sneaking into the Jazz Clubs of LA with their humble entourage and trunkloads of equipment. They're sneaking up on the LA music scene.
Whether Merl Saunders, Marylin Manson, or Barry Manilow, Betty Dylan fits right in (to your head), adding a nice pillow and bed. (The Betty Dylan Bed and Breakfast, like Morrison Hotel). They haven't headlined yet and they haven't stolen the energy from the headliners, but it is safe to say that the headliners are glad they have gone on after them. In the state of nusic where fans come dressed for a certain type, Betty Dylan has no type, uneasy to pin down, tough for the contemporary fan or critic to know what to wear or which way to dance. The Blasters would have sounded like a big blur if not for the ambience provided by Betty Dylan. The whole set would have been stifled if not for the breath of fresh air provided by Betty Dylan. "Mr. Rock & Roll", which returned after a leave of absence, was hotter than ever, with Vickie up there twirling and dancing, and Dr. Dan's style that is purely his own. Their new bass player, one gig and one rehearsal old as of today, fit right in as one can see at the climactic closing jam of "Mr. Rock & Roll". There is certainly new paths for a band that is constantly reinventing themselves as the familiar revolve and the new assimilate to the wide open range of songs.
They debuted their new anthem, "Hard Country", which depicts the hard road for these former junkies to a much appreciated relative sobriety. Dr. Dan, a former crack and heroin dealer (junkie), was forced to sell his last guitar last year at a pawn shop in the middle of the Alvarado district of LA. He never lost touch with his music though, listening to the rhythm of tires rolling over the bumps in the road, the timing of traffic lights, the sychronicity of shutting windows, slamming doors, and the hypnotic sound of footsteps. He could walk with his eyes closed and never walk through a red light. He created beats on sidewalks with rigid sticks, and hummed tunes to keep his junky friends alive. Vickie once overdosed on Horse Tranquilizers and is now clearly on the road to recovery. Although Dan still has his occasssional bouts of relapse, the band is truly sincere about not doing smack. Jessie, a recovering vampire is on the road to a fine recovery with his block piano chords hugging the edgy changes of "Turn This Thing Around". Their music depicts recovery from beings who have certainly been down those roads and slept in those unwholesome cracks. --Noah Newman
2000 It just keeps getting better. Opening for Rodney was amazing. He totally rocks and his songwriting knocks us out. We have his new CD, The Houson Kid, in our CD player all the time now. It makes us cry. Anyway, his crowd was well-behaved but extremely warm and enthusiastic. They even bought a lot of our CD's and signed our email list. Rodney was way cool, too. We gave him a copy of American Trash, the book and CD, and he told us he was working on a book of his own...cool.
2000 We opened for Leon Russell at the Roxy in L.A. He is pretty cool, but I think it was hard to watch him while his very hot daughter stood in the middle of the stage playing on rhythm instruments and looking cooler than anyone else in the place. She didn't break a smile or show any enthusiasm throughout his whole set...too cool for that I guess or maybe she's just bored playing with gourds. Anyway, we opened and it went great. We didn't know what to expect exactly. We did sell a lot of cd's and met some interesting people. His band and crew were cool, but we never met Leon because he hid on his bus.
April 2000 We played on the streets of Hollywood for the "Rogue at Vogue" shows, an independent film festival sponsored by Mz. Eddie Daniels. It reminded me of when the Beatles played the rooftop in London, very unexpected. Lots of characters told us how much they loved us, and one woman took our number and told us we would be big stars. So, if you look up at the night sky and you take a deep breath, you might see us.
2000 We opened for Merl Saunders! Again, the Roxy offers us another cool gig. (Thanks, Nikki!) Merl is cool, of course. But he set up his organ and keyboards right in the front in the middle of the stage during soundcheck and it couldn't be moved. Where was I supposed to stand?! I know it's a bit "diva" of me, but hell...I AM a lead singer who IMHO deserves to be able to stand front and center when I perform if I want to. But, alas, I said nothing and stood to the side, giving Merl's keyboards center stage during our set. Then I set it on fire.
5/24/00 By Noah Newman --
The vibe was immensely comfortable; feeling like the band was in your living room. Shot glasses were filled. After the opening duet of "Kiss Me Back", Dan said that the room was meant for Jazz chords. As soon as Jessie sat down at the grand piano, everyone knew it would be a special night. Dr. Dan's positive energy excited the crowd. He was ready to play while the others were setting up their equipment. No heightened platform of a stage, but definitive space for a band and an excellent sound system. The fullness of Betty Dylan's sound was immediately evident during the building up of the second number, which was the first for the whole band. As the band kicked in for the first time, Betty, looking very red in her telecaster dress, let out a Springsteenesque cry, "Praise the Lord!", in perfect time and the lord seemed to answer back with a hurricane of sound. What better way to praise? Throughout the night the similar power moved the songs along, a catapult for Dan's lead guitar playing and Vickie's singing songs that stick in your head. (Randy Guss, drums; June Falkenstein, bass; Jesse Kanner, piano)
1999 RECAP: The Roxy gave us our first opening gig for a national act, Susie Boguss. She was up for a Grammy or something so the place was packed with celebs. It was a great night. We met Marvin Etzioni, producer for Toad the Wet Sprocket, Counting Crows, Lone Justice, etc. He was really enthusiastic and encouraged us to take this music stuff seriously. Since this gig, we've gotten together with Marvin several times and he thinks we're ready to record an album.
Thanksgiving comes. We drove the '69 green El Camino to Sony Studios in Santa Monica. It was hard to figure out where to unload the amps and guitars. Finally, we slipped around to the back door. We set up in this one big room, but we just couldn't get the sounds right. In the studio, time is precious. We moved to the smaller room that felt like old Sun Studios where Elvis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins first recorded. The sound was better right away, but the morning was shot. It was one of those days where everything is happening at once - Randy and Marvin are on the horn grabbing a baritone sax player, I was writing backing vocal parts, Marvin was helping Dan arrange the slide guitar parts. More than twelve hours later everyone is gone except me, Marvin and Dan waiting like it's a doctor's office while Pete, the engineer, does rough mixes. We are all too drained to be celebrating. Finally, we loaded up our cars and found that we were locked in the underground parking garage of Sony Studios on Thanksgiving day and couldn't get out.
When me and Dan went to NYC soon after, we wanted to play some music. So, we called up Bernard and Jerry to jam with us and decided we should record whatever we do even if we had no intention of using it. When we sent the tapes to Marvin for a listen, he said, "it's a record! Go finish it!" So we booked another day in the studio and recorded the rest of "American Trash" with Bernard Purdie and Jerry Jemmott. Marvin comes up with this great idea. The album goes perfectly with a book that Dan wrote a while back and had given him to read. Ta da! "American Trash...14 Songs and a Book" is born.
