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Greetings,
The weekend is coming to a swift end and I sit before the keyboard in
an old familiar state of mind and body once experienced far more often.
A slight ring in the ears, lungs and sinuses that would jump out of my
mouth and beat me about the head if they could for subjecting them to
far too many cigarettes in an unventilated bar. And lest we forget the
affects free draught beer has on the central nervous system.
Not a fantastic state to be in had Saturday had not been such a great
night for the Southern Surf Syndicate.
The locale was Egans in Tuscaloosa Alabama. Since the Chukker closed
it's doors, this is about the only bar left in town for bands that
don't play hippy jams or alt rock cover tunes geared for the greek
scene. Egan's is on the small side and patrons are forced to literally
walk through the band to get to the can. Polite folks wait to go
between songs, but not always and it's really not considered rude to
walk through during a tune. The crowd is right on top of and behind the
band which makes for a fantastic atmosphere for playing in my opinion.
This was the first weekend of the University of Alabama's fall session
so we set up a tag team gig with The Vindicators from Nashville. Bucky
G Lover's new band (formerly of Thee Phantom 5ive). The game plan was
to revive the tag team set format. The Vindicators would start with a
30ish minute set, then within 5 to 10 minutes, we'd play about a 45
minute set, back to the Vindicators for about a 40 minute set with us
closing the joint down at 2am.
The Vindicators brought with them a good mix of Garage originals and
covers flavored with a little bit of country at times and a couple
instrumentals from Henry Mancini to Bobby Fuller's "Our Favorite
Martian." This was only their second public gig and were very well
received and played tight with energy and feeling.
It's been nearly 2 years since we've played Tuscaloosa and we had only
played there sporadically before that so in many ways we were a brand
new band playing to a brand new crowd. There were obviously a few
familiar faces in the crowd but in a college town the bar flies move on
and replenish often. We were about to find out what the new generation
thought of instrumental music Penetrator style.
We opened with "Good cop bad Cop" straight into "Aunt's Invasion."
Before launching into "Night of the Drunken Cheerleaders" I decided to
address the crowd which now stood shoulder to shoulder about 4 feet in
front of us stretching all the way to the front of the bar. I generally
don't believe in microphones and didn't bring my megaphone with me so
that meant I'd have to yell at the top of my lungs. Within about 5
seconds my vocal chords were stripped but the show must go on.
The fun of a 'tag team' gig format is as the name suggests, it's
loosely based on professional wrestling. So, hurling insults at the
opposing band is very much encouraged. This is also quite fun playing
with a 'vocal' band. Much fun was had referring to those "Yankee's"
from up north in Nashville needing a sissy PA system etc...
Anyhow, the first set was great with the minor exception of playing the
first chorus of "Lamento a Go Go" on the A string instead of the D.
What a joy it is to stare at your hands trying to figure out why it
sounds so incredibly bad (and loud) when you know you're on the right
fret - or are you? So you start playing going up and down the fret
board but to no avail. Finally as the measure comes to an end - Eureka!
wrong string. Too late to rein that one back in so you just move on.
The Vindicators second set featured their instrumentals highlighted by
"Our Favorite Martian" which we happened to play and beat them to the
punch during our first set. Of course that provided Bucky G plenty of
ammo to fire back at us. The Syndicate's medical advisor, Dr. Duke
Stupor, was in attendance and prescribed us each a Glen Livet. A fine
alternative to draught Budweiser but with our more difficult songs to
come in the second set, I resolved myself to the fact that at worst, it
would be interesting.
The second set was right on target featuring songs like High Tide, The
Truant, Guns Don't Argue, HPS Theme, Carl's Bad and the Southern Surf
Syndicate theme song. As we were told to make the announcement for last
call, we played Mr Eliminator and ended the night with Redlined. Rip
had often opened shows with that tune and as the evening came to an end
it seemed to be the perfect song to end it with.
I'm not one to believe "Rip was there smiling tonight" as someone
mentioned. I figure he's got better things to do but it was an eerie
feeling as the night came to an end how much it felt like many of the
gigs of years ago for the first time. If that makes any sense to you.
As we were trying to load out, the Egan's folks were trying to talk us
into coming back to play on Sept 9th. No decision on that one yet. A
guy who owns a local pizza joint called "California Underground" loved
it so much he claimed we now have free pizza for life. I have no
problem with that.
We'll be back in Atlanta next sunday at 4 o'clock for Drive invasion.
We could always fall on our face but I'm really looking forward to it.
Either way, we're going to have a good time and that's what it's all
about. When we played our first gig 11 years ago we said we'd play
until it wasn't any fun anymore. It's still fun...
Happy Reverbs!
Spanky
023
ps I only have two pictures from the evening that I'll try to post in
the pictures list section
Spanky - thanks for the great show report...written from someone in
the band! Cool, I like that perspective too. Best of luck at the next gig.
BN
