Menu
What a great weekend,
For most folks, Labor day weekend can be a sad milestone on the
calendar. The end of summer, back to school and all that. Around these
parts, it means the beginning of the College football season, the Drive
Invasion in Atlanta and for us, two weekends of gigging in a row -which
last happened 4 or 5 babies ago.
We set out for Atlanta around mid morning on Saturday in Dr. Duke
Stupor's vehicle which meant I got to ride shot gun armed with the XM
radio remote control. XM has quite a few cool features but a couple
draw backs as well- no SEC football, and no Instrumental / Surf
channel. If they can have a blue grass channel, I think they can find
room for our beloved genre of sonic harmony. Don't you? If this rumor
of Phil's retirement is true, maybe he could be talked out of it to
program a surf channel on XM?
Anyhow, the original idea was to roll into Atlanta early afternoon and
get a little practicing done to finish a tune or so but the forces of
G.R.E.M.M.I.E. won this battle by strategically placing a nail that
punctured Trace's tire in Tuscaloosa pushing his arrival in Atlanta
back to 6pm. Practice was out but Alabama kicked off at 7 so we cracked
the top on a tall bottle of Jim Beam and watched our beloved Crimson
Tide play to a 1-0 start over MTSU. The evening was capped off with a
loss by Auburn which was very nice indeed.
Now in retrospect, we should have called it a night closer to twelve,
one, maybe even two or three for goodness sakes, but funny how those
old habits kick in when you start swapping stories about road trips,
gigs, and such. Finally at 3:30 we made our way inside and found a
pillow to lay our head on.
11 am came early. We paced ourselves pretty well so hang overs were not
so much an issue as was the out-of-whack sleep schedule. We were set
to hit the stage at 4 pm. The sky was blue, humidity was fairly low for
these parts but on a black top parking lot 88 degrees still gets
pretty damn hot.
I had been looking forward to this show not only for the opportunity to
splash Atlanta with reverb again but to see a lot of old friends and
syndicate operatives. We were really looking forward to seeing the
International Weirdo who played organ for us on Locked and Loaded. The
Weirdo lives in New Orleans and relocated to Atlanta earlier in the
week after first fleeing to Baton Rouge when Katrina hit. He made it
out to the Drive in Saturday but unfortunately didn't make it Sunday. I
did hear they got a lot of stuff out ahead of the storm but has no idea
what condition his house is in.
Our set was only 30 minutes so we picked 9 tunes we thought would be
lively. Eddie Katcher was there with our new custom made Showman
cabinets. (fine work indeed) I set the Gemini up on my side of the
stage and the Showman on Trace's sandwiched between two bass cabinets
pushing air for his dual showman. What a beautiful sight.
Jet Powers was the weekend's MC and gave us a great introduction. As he
strode off stage we kicked things off with Aunt's Invasion. Now there's
been discussions on at least one of these lists over the last few weeks
about making sure the first few songs are gimme's. I have no one to
blame but myself for putting 50 Bucks a midget on as the 2nd song.
Ordinarily not a big deal but about a month ago I started playing it in
a different position on the neck. Now take into consideration the cob
webs in my head from a lack of sleep and a big 'Uh-oh' reverberated
through my skull.
Now I don't want to give the impression a train wreck happened on 50
bucks or any song for that matter. Just a note here or there that
wasn't quite there which happens all the time. But on nearly every song
there was some point that I honestly had no idea what came next so I
just let my fingers do the walking. Hell, I've played them enough if my
brain can't remember them certainly my fingers should. Sticks and Trace
sounded flawless to my ears so that always helps. How it sounded out
front I really have no idea but people seemed to enjoy it. I'd probably
rate it a 6.5 or 7.
Even with 9 songs, we still had time to kill so we threw in Squad Car
towards the end of the set, played Syndicate Theme, Redlined making it
an even 10 and cleared for the next band keeping the festivities 5
minutes ahead of schedule.
Of course we forgot to bring CD's to sell so I directed a few folks to
the web site for orders ( www.penetrators.com/loot ) Met a couple guys
who do a Surf show on Ga Tech's radio station 91.1 WREK ( I think
that's right) every Saturday night 2a to 4a (which is ridiculous but I
guess you take what you can get) I think they're also trying to get
their own band up and going which is described as a country surf
hybrid. I'm interested to see them. Also met a guy who owns a club in
Underground Atlanta called Alley Cats that wants to give us a Saturday
night gig as soon as he can. Stay tuned. Apparently with the demise of
the Echo Lounge and the Star Bar's new ownership, it's helped keep the
scene alive for bands that used to frequent those venues.
I spent some time at Trailer Vic's where beer and tropical drinks could
be had for a donation of any size to Hurricane Relief. Johnny Konx
built this thing out of bamboo and grass paper as a true blue oasis in
the middle of the asphalt. He and his wife covered their expenses for
booze on Saturday so everything on Sunday was for charity. I must say
there will be a large wad of cash heading to the coast. People were
being quite generous.
I completely missed the band after us but Johnny Knox and Hi-Test took
over at 6:00 and absolutely killed it. Johnny is arguably the best
guitar player I've ever seen. Heavily Rock-billy influenced and the
stuff he does on that Gretch constantly amazes me.
The idea was to leave after Johnny's set but what is it they say about
the best laid plans? We finally rolled out around 9. I had been looking
forward to having Dr. Stupor drive my tired ass 3 1/2 hours home but it
became clear that was not the best idea. Apparently Atlanta had already
shipped all it's ice to the coast which meant I hadn't found a cold
beer in at least 3 hours so I took the wheel sober but tired into the
night.
Of course being a 3 day High Speed Weekend, the adventure was not over.
Woke up Monday morning and drove half way to St Louis to pick up our 3
contributions to the next generation of Syndicate agents from the in
laws. They met us half way. We get back on the road heading south and
somewhere near the Kentucky TN border I come up on a worn out little
Red Dodge with a Sea Side bumper sticker which looked somewhat
familiar. Then I notice a Penetrators bumper sticker. I'll be doggoned
if it wasn't our old buddy Chuck from our school days in Tuscaloosa,
whom I hadn't seen since Rip's funeral, with his fiance' whom I have
never met. Of course we pulled off the road and caught up for about 15
minutes. That's the great thing about the Syndicate and High Speed
Weekends, you can run into an agent damn near anywhere.
Until Next time, Happy Reverbs!
Spanky
I'll post a couple pictures including Trailer Vics eventually.
