EB's Blog

EB lands in Europe....

Sat, 3 May 2008 10:35:00 -0500

SATURDAY MAY 3, 2008
Typing this from the American Western Saloon in Berlin. It’s “the best American food and country-and-western line-dance music in Berlin!”… !!! at least that’s what it says about itself.
It’s way to the north of central Berlin, and we drove in today from Lauenau, a small town where Michael lives.
Who’s Michael? He works for Corazong records, our Dutch label. Dutch label? Yep, that’s why I’m here. Or how I’m here. Or something.
M. and I fetched Peter Cooper at the Amsterdam airport yesterday (we’d spent a little time in France taking care of some family biz…) and we headed to the little town of Niewendyjk for our first gig. It’s barely an hour south of Amsterdam, and we stopped in Gouda (pronounced “Howwwdah”) for lunch and had a splendid afternoon there, walking the canals and walking through the old medieval town before heading to the Xinix club in Niewendyjk. We were also with Bert de Ruiter who’d met us at the airport and went with us to Gouda and to the Xinix club. Bert is one of the principals of Corazong, and we got along just great, hanging out and yakking.
Peter Cooper is also signed to Corazong records, as is Last Train Home (among several other folks…), and so the label suggested that Peter tour with me (as solo “Eric Brace from Last Train Home”) to try to stir things up over here. Peter and I have worked up a bunch of stuff together… I’m singing on his songs… he’s singing on my songs… and we’re singing a bunch of country/folk/misc covers together to keep people entertained. Last night at the Xinix was our first night.
There were about 25 people there, and we had a grand time, frankly. We played two 45-minute sets and when it was over, around midnight, we hit the highway, and drove 4 hours to Lauenau. Mostly autobahn driving, but damn, 4 hours leaving at midnight… sheesh. M. gets big propers for the late night driving. That’s where Michael lives… but I said all that before. We Lauenau is near Hannover, and is on the way to Berlin, so we were saving money on hotels by driving until 4 am. Let me just say: that’s crazy.
After we loaded our luggage and guitars out of the car at 4 am, we tried to close the back of the station wagon (some Opel rental car) and it wouldn’t close. Wouldn’t wouldn’t wouldn’t. It was one of those automatic deali-os, and so we just left it open overnight.
This morning we taped the rear door closed (another round of applause for duct tape) and drove to the Hannover airport where the swell folks at EuropCar allowed us to switch to a bigger car for no charge. It all worked out great.
So then we followed Michael to Berlin and loaded into the American Western Saloon. It’s a pretty cool space, but I hope the people here don’t expect hardcore country. We’re two guys with acoustic guitars, who like Townes Van Zandt more that we like, say, Alan Jackson
…. A little break now…. [insert elevator/on-hold music here]… okay, I’m back….
Hard to know how much detail to put into this thing, but I’m back at the hotel room in Berlin. It’s late at night, and we want to get some sleep. Jet lag is still an issue (especially for Peter), and we want to get up around 8 a.m. so that we can do a driving tour of Berlin.
But we had a fun show at the American Western Saloon. Only about 15 people there, when it can hold a lot more than that. But they were all really cool, as were the folks from the club: Frank the owner, Lars the DJ, Janine behind the bar.
Michael was there with another fellow, the Corazong Berlin representative named Manfred.
Peter and I sang mightily, I think, and it’s coming together in cool ways: figuring out harmonies, deciding how to play solos (neither of us is much of a picker but we’re diving in headfirst), pulling songs out of thin air to play, on the fly. The drag is that we have to bring our own p.a. to most of these German gigs, and so we’re squeezing some of Michael’s sound gear into the rental car and hauling it around…
Tomorrow Michael takes us around Berlin, where he lived for 25 years… then we head to Hannover where we play the Celtic Tiger, the local Irish Bar. Hmmmm.
It’s a Sunday show, and so it starts at 6 pm. Wonder how THAT’S going to work out…
I’ll report back…

Jammin' House Concert

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:45:00 -0500

We just wanted to say thanks to Barry and Cathy, who hosted Last Train Home (Eric, Jim, Martin, Kevin, Steve) at their house near DC on April 25.... at one point (was it on "Crazy Mama" perhaps??) the littlest members of the househole, M. & T., brought out *their* guitars and joined in. They were shredding.

On behalf of the band, we apologize to Barry and Cathy for the life they will now have to endure, as parents of budding rock stars....

EB's new nails...

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 10:40:00 -0500

So, I've been trying to fingerpick on a few songs, and it just hasn't been going my way. I'm not much of a picker, anyway, but somehow my nails just weren't up to even the lightest task I was asking of them.

And so, like any good craftsman, I blamed my tools... in this case, my inadequate fingernails.

Asking around, i've discovered that plenty of pickers go to the nearest nail salon and ask for some acrylic nails to be glued on top of their own nails. I've delayed this decision long enough. Time to go to the Venetian Salon, in Green Hills, Nashville.

I figured I'd start with a high-end joint, figuring they sterilize their tools etc. When I got there, they were not at all surprised I wanted just three nails on my right hand. "You a musician, right? No problem! Sit down!"

So 15 minutes later I was the proud owner of some completely over-the-top nails. In the picture they're very pointy... I hadn't filed them yet... i have now.

As for what kind of fingerpicker I now am....? I haven't really had time to sit down and work on it, but it's going to be fun, I can tell.

Renaissance Painter vs NFL

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0500

Driving up Gallatin Road here in East Nashville, headed to Lowe's, I note with great civic pride that the CVS store near me is a big fan of a certain 16th century Italian Renaissance painter. A perennial MVP, Titian was known for his astonishing brushwork, his groundbreaking depth-of-field landscapes, as well as his ability to read defenses and call audibles at the line. He died of injuries sustained in the 1576 Pro Bowl, held in gondolas on the Grand Canal of Venice.

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1485 – August 27, 1576), better known as Titian, (TEESH-uhn), was the leader of the 16th-century Venetian school of the Italian Renaissance. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno (Veneto), in the Republic of Venice. During his lifetime he was often called Da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.

Recognized by his contemporaries as "the sun amidst small stars" (recalling the famous final line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits and landscapes (two genres that first brought him fame), mythological and religious subjects. Had he died at the age of forty, he would still have to be regarded as one of the most influential artists of his time. But he lived on for a further half century, changing his manner so drastically that some critics refuse to believe that his early and later pieces could have been produced by the same man. What unites the two parts of his career is his deep interest in colour. His later works may not contain vivid, luminous tints as his early pieces do, yet their loose brushwork and subtlety of polychromatic modulations have no precedents in the history of Western art.

The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). Previously known as the Houston Oilers, the then-Houston, Texas, team began play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League. The Oilers won two AFL championships before joining the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL Merger.

The team relocated to the state of Tennessee in 1997, first playing in Memphis for one season before moving to Nashville. For two seasons, the team was known as the Tennessee Oilers before changing its name to Titans in 1999.

Big Night for Red Beet Records !!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:20:00 -0500

What a night.... the show at the Station Inn was one for the ages...

In celebration of Peter's "Mission Door" CD and Fayssoux's "Early" CD, they both got up on stage at a sold out Station Inn, and did what they do best, make incredible music.

Fayssoux was up first, joined by the phenomenal guitarist Brandon Turner. Her voice is such a treasure. Wow.... She was then joined by a little known country singer, Emmylou Harris.... See, the way this worked was, when Fayssoux lived up in the DC area in the '70s, she was married to John Starling, lead singer for the great Seldom Scene bluegrass band. John was great pals with the young folk/country/rock singer Emmylou Harris, and when Emmylou got signed, she had Fayssoux singing harmonies on her first 4 records, "Elite Hotel," "Pieces of the Sky," "Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town," and "Luxury Liner." So it's fair to say that Fayssoux had a hand in some of the most important country records of our time.

Now that Fayssoux has her *own* debut to be proud of, Emmylou returned the favor, singing on the recording, and joining Fayssoux on stage at the Station Inn. She's a gracious lady...

Also joining Fayssoux was Peter Cooper (their trio version of "The Blackest Crow," with Emmylou, brought tears to everyone's eyes....)... Peter produced Fayssoux's CD, and after her gorgeous set, Peter changed his clothes, put on a fine western suit once owned by Grand Ole Opry star Charlie Walker and came out for his set.

And what a set it was: joined by pedal steel god Lloyd Green, LTH keyboard wizard Jen Gunderman, Bill Lloyd on electric guitar, Dave Pomeroy on bass, Paul Griffith on drums. I was feeling particularly lucky when Peter asked me up (along with Fayssoux) to sing harmonies on "Gospel Song" (a great great tune he put out on an EP a while back, but which he has re-recorded for his *next* CD, which is going to be even better -- if that's possible -- that "Mission Door."

The crowd was eating it up and full of Nashville royalty, like Cowboy Jack Clement.... (he's one of my heroes)....

I ate lots of Station Inn popcorn, and worked the merch table. Proud am I to have Peter and Fayssoux on my humble little label.

People blogging about the Last Train Home.....

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:55:00 -0600

..... It's leap day...
raining in nashville....
I had a swell birthday yesterday.. bowling with my very own bowling ball and my very own friends!
My bowling ball, by the way, is an Ebonite Maxim Captain Fireball Glow...
That's "Captain Fireball" to you, buddy....

Most of you probably know about Google's "Alert" system. That's where you ask Google to search the web daily for certain key words... so I set up "alerts" for the phrases "Last Train Home" and also "Red Beet Records" as well as "Eric Brace"....
Every day they send a digest of all the mentions of those phrases on the web that day. You can click on the link and see what's being said.
It's been useful, because when we send out promo copies of our records, we don't always know whether someone has written about it or not, and then out of the blue we find out that the St. Louis Times-Dispatch has written some nice things about us, for example.

The "Eric Brace" search is funny, because more than half the "hits" are about *another* Eric Brace... he's an illustrator of children's books, and he's also an illustrator for Hallmark Cards. I finally contacted him, and we've become pen pals. We've talked about collaborating on something... a kids book, a kids album, with LTH and his illustrations.... He wrote back: "I'd love to collaborate with you, if only so that we can fight over who gets top billing." HA! Well, you can see why he's writing cards for Hallmark...

The "Last Train Home" references fall into 3 categories:
1) folks writing about my band
2) folks writing about songs named "Last Train Home"... (this is a HUGE category.. song titles can't be copyrighted). Lately, Ryan Star's song is mentioned most... followed by the Lost Prophets' song "Last Train Home"... then the Pat Metheny song "Last Train Home"....
3) folks writing about catching the *actual* last train home. It's amazing how many people use these 3 words every day. These are mainly people in London and Tokyo, and make up the biggest slice of the "Last Train Home Alert" pie. Most are pretty boring ("went to the Ritz Bar last night. Got drunk. Barely made the last train home..."), but some are pretty amusing.... a window into other lives that people from earlier generations never had...
Here are some examples that have come along in the past few days... I don't know when I cut and paste these whether the links will remain "hot".... happy browsing :

Google Blogs Alert for: "Last Train Home"

HAPPY LEAP YEAR EVERYBODY :D 28 FEBRUARY 2008 IT'S THE DAY OF ...
By [vanessa]([vanessa])
... me and LIFANG home. hahas, they took CAB and we took MRT. took the last two trains with LIFANG and alight at JE with her. after we saw her left, we then board the LAST TRAIN home. hahas, can say i enjoyed myself yesterday, DO YOU ?
...
VANESSA.♥ - http://deaddgurlgurl.blogspot.com/

It was strange being back in Barcelona…
By jaime
Nancy and I kept working until just before the last train home. I left in a complete daze, totally exhausted, my brain emptied. ready to go home. My work for them was done. Tuesday I woke early and was quickly out the door with only a ...
Jaime's Blog - http://jaime.hemmett.org/blog

Richard Fairhurst in 'Future of the commuter blog'
... Arrived at Paddington to catch the last train home on a Saturday, only to find that (with no publicity at Charlbury) it's starting from Ealing Broadway that day... and has already left;; Had a five-change journey completely thrown ...
Charlbury Forum - http://www.charlbury.info/cgi-bin/dview.cgi

wed 130208... no sch day! haha.stayed at home, wanted to sleep ...
By wondergirl-(wondergirl-)
and took the last train home and last bus too. 090208 sat. third day of new year. went to auntie house as she invites her frens for dinner and of cos us. and ya anyway her friends i also know one la. haha ...
theSMILE - http://imissed-everyhappening.blogspot.com/

ZZZZZzzzzz
By Elizabeth's Blog(Elizabeth's Blog)
Its a little after 12 and we head back to the station so we can catch the last train home. Trains and what not stop by 1 at the very latest, and the last train into baarn is at 12:36, stoor 10b (usually, sometimes 13a - in case you ...
Baby went to Amsterdam - http://dutchliz.blogspot.com/

happy valentine's again!! after teppanyaki with mum, met gloria to ...
By MAINE(MAINE)
took the last train home and he managed to catch the last bus home. wah heng day for both of us =) although we could only spend the last 3 hours of the day together, i enjoyed every single minute of it. it doesnt have to be full of ...
<3 PRINCESS DIEGO - http://mainelove.blogspot.com/

Woke up at the canal at around 10am plus yesterday.. Didn't really ...
By Ailerone(Ailerone)
Slow and torturous death.. Finally it's time for the movie.. Couldn't concentrate on the movie because of my headache.. After the movie Weichieh went smoking again.. Then we went home and I took the last train home. ...
My World - http://ailerone.blogspot.com/

Jokefest for the Dateless
By Flori
Was it only a few years back when me and two other girls sneaked into his room in an all-male dorm in ICU to spend the night when we couldn't make the last train home because we had a blast at a karaoke bar? Oh well… as I was saying, ...
Sugoi Stuff - http://www.sugoistuff.net/

flying kisses
By fabuloustrut(fabuloustrut)
catch the last train home. so we bus-ed from tampines all the way home. it was sososo long and it got so bad until we were having motionsickness. the bus passed eastcoast, bedok, eunos, joochiat, bartely, serangoon ...
fabuloustrut - http://fabuloustrut.livejournal.com/

some afterthoughts
By rachoo58
there was this man who was rushing for the last train home. upon the arrival of the last train…there was a mad crowd rushing in.. the man was holding onto a big helium balloon. and he was one of the last person to squeeze into the train ...
her life..her stories..hear her rant - http://rachoo58.wordpress.com/

Nick Lowe Tribute

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:10:00 -0600

So Bill Lloyd called a little while back asking if I'd care to be in on the big party celebrating "Jesus of Cool." That's the fine, fine, fine Nick Lowe LP he released back in 1978 and which lived on my turntable for months and months... ahhh vinyl...

Bill explained that with the release this month of the newly re-mastered version of "Jesus of Cool" (which was released in the U.S. as "Pure Pop for Now People"), there were concerts being lined up in eight cities across the country where folks would play the whole record, top to bottom. Bill is the ringleader of that great Nashville combo, the Long Players, who recreate classic LPs in their entirety and put on a big show....

This one wasn't a Long Players gig, officially, but several of the LP-ers were on board: drummer Steve Ebe, guitarist Steve Allen, and Bill Lloyd (more guitars). We had a blast rehearsing the record... I chose to sing "36 Inches High" and "Marie Provost." Other singers were Chuck Mead (ex-BR549), Mark Horn (ex-Derailers), Robert Ellis Orrall, while the rest of the band was Jay McDowell (bass), and Barry Walsh on keyboards.

At rehearsal I told Robert that I had all his RCA releases from the early '80s from when we were both living in Boston. And I told Steve that I'd seen him and his band 20/20 opening for Joe Jackson's Jumpin' Jive in 1982 in Boston, at the Paradise. They were both a little stunned by that...

The show last night (Feb. 23) was amazing.. it was at the Basement here in Nashville, with Mike Grimes -- aka Grimey -- running sound and making sure all the craziness was in check. The place was packed... the band rocked... i was nervous as all get out, but made it through. It was just a great great time.

Strangely enough, this was the second Nick Lowe tribute I'd been a part of in 2008. Back on Jan. 5 at the Barns of Wolf Trap outside D.C., I got to sing Lowe's "What's Shakin' on the Hill" and "Shting Shtang" with a great band (Jon Carroll, Louie Newmyer, Dave Chappell, Bill Kirchen, Robbie Magruder). That was just a general tribute to Lowe, pulled together by the folks at Band House Concerts (includes Ronnie Newmyer and Chuck Sullivan) and they've done tributes to Dylan, Neil Young, Nils Lofgren, and the Band over the past few years...)

EB in New Orleans

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:45:00 -0600

January 16, 2008
MUSIC AND FOOD IN THE CRESCENT CITY
So we decided to head to New Orleans, to visit some pals and see what’s what, 2.5 years after Katrina. Wednesday night we met up with Brett and Derek at a fine restaurant (Herbsaint) that Brett had picked out. We could do no better than to trust him, given that he is the restaurant critic and food writer for the N.O. Times-Picayune newspaper. And indeed… it was spectacular.
Brett was leaving town the next day so we caught up as fast as possible. He used to write for the Washington City Paper, and we got to know each other when he wrote a nice long story about LTH way back when we were just starting out.
Derek is Derek Huston, formerly of WDC and also formerly of the band the Iguanas, wherein he played tenor sax. They’ve parted ways and D often plays baritone with James Hunter, among others. The two of them got to be pals after the three of us had great night of hanging out down there at Donna’s, a fine little corner bar where great music was happening in the form of a piano-and-clarinet duo (more on that later).
So there we are (I’m switching to present tense now, forgive me), reveling in great food and great company.
A fine start to the visit.
The next day, Thursday, B leaves town, but we stay on at his place in the Marigny, near the French Quarter. Perfect.
We hop in the car and drive south along rte. 23, following the Mississippi toward the Gulf. We go as far as we can go, about 70 miles SE of N.O. , watching big ships going up the river, stopping at the Bayou Mardi Gras (where the first Europeans stopped gave it a name) and Ft. Jackson. Driving back up, we stop for crawfish and shrimp at Salvo’s, a fine little shack with a good reputations. It weren’t too bad.
That evening we meet up again with D and his folks at Donna’s (Rampart and 6th, I think??) anticipating a fine bit of music. That’s on account of the scheduled performance of Tom McDermott and Evan Christopher, the very same piano-and-clarinet duo I mentioned above. For years they had a regular Thursday night gig at Donna’s, but Katrina disrupted all that, and they’d scattered to various parts of the country. But they’ve returned, and this night was the second week of a new residency. I couldn’t be happier because when I saw them the first time a few years back, I couldn’t believe my ears. I proclaim them to be some of the best music I’ve ever heard. Unbelievable musicianship and sympathy with each other. I am beyond happy to have the chance to hear them again. (And how can it not be packed? How can the world not be beating a path to their door? Ahhh, the question of why musical geniuses can’t be selling out stadiums…. I should just quit asking.)
D arrives with his parents (visiting for the weekend) and when the duo starts playing we are all just giddy with musical joy. They’re even better than I remember. They play early jazz, Dixieland, and ragtime, but they also play 19th century pop and minstrel tunes, folks songs and parlor songs, Brazilian dance music and miscellaneous Caribbean styles, and it all sounds just splendid, Tom on a pretty beat up upright piano, and Evan on his clarinet (they’re joined on some numbers by a percussionist, but I missed his name). We get a couple of very fine burgers, to go along with our bourbon and Abita beer, by the way.
If I haven’t made this clear enough: Go to New Orleans. Go on a Thursday night. Go to Donna’s. Hear some of the best music ever played. I don’t say this lightly. Tom and Evan should be heroes, with big awards and record sales and MacArthur grants.
After a nice long first set D takes his folks home. He steers us to the Midtown Lanes, a.k.a. Rock’n’Bowl, where there’s more great music in store: Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys. Hmmm nice. Just about the best Zydeco band working. We pull up, park, walk up the long flight of steps, and there’s the band, tearing it up, with about a hundred dancers working up a sweat. Time for an Abita beer and some somewhat graceless but very fun dancing. (I’m the graceless one.)
Friday morning we drive along St. Charles, and it’s gorgeous. Old mansions, live oaks, street cars. This city is amazing. We meet up with Derek and his family at their home, and have an excellent breakfast at the nearby Camillia Grill, a gustatory landmark of N.O. was closed for a good while after Katrina. We need fuel for the tour that D takes us on. It’s the “disaster tour” and it’s comprehensive. To the west side of town, then north, to the shores of the Ponchartrain. Then east to the 9th ward, then across the bride and into the Lower 9th.
D is the perfect guide, knowing all that happened and why and where. We’re all in his minivan and it’s incredibly depressing. What is going on???? Why are there not even any street signs, for crying out loud, down in the Lower 9th??? Unbelievable, the number of vacant lots where homes were just washed away, destroyed. And unbelievable how many houses sit abandoned… waiting for help.
I’m ashamed and angry. But I guess it’s a pretty big club.
We swing by Café du Monde for beignets and coffee… it makes us feel a little better.
Nap time after that. Then we head to Magazine St. and love it. This city is alive. We have a fine dinner at the Petite Grocerie, and are amazed at how quick people were to dismiss the idea of rebuilding New Orleans. This is one of the greatest cities I’ve ever been in: music, history, food, people, architecture, everything. There’s that problem with hurricanes, for sure, but if I had to ponder a new city to move to, New Orleans would be at the top of the list.
After dinner we walk down the street to Les Bon Temps Roulez, a great bar where $1000 Car is playing. $1000 Car is a longtime N.O. band that broke up a few years ago when frontman Jake Flack moved to WDC. Jake is an old pal whose DC band, the Rhodes Tavern Troubadour, is one of my favorites. $1000 Car is great too, and they have reunion gigs in N.O. once or twice a year, and their old fans pack the place.
It’s a fine night of music, yet again.
Saturday, we just putter about, and because it’s turning into a food trip as much as anything else, we have lunch at the Huston’s favorite place, Bayonna. The chef there is Susan Spicer, who’s pretty well known in that world. And the food is dang good, but the place is a little stuffy, frankly.
After that we gear up for the Krewe du Vieux (say “croo doo voo), which is the only parade allowed to march through the French Quarter (since all the floats are horse-drawn), and D told us not to miss it. It happens every year a couple of weeks before regular Mardi Gras. It’s rowdy and bawdy and there are 20 brass bands or so….
Man o man !! It’s even better than I’d hoped. Really.
Even though it was cold as all get out, there were tons of people and the paraders were great, the brass bands were amazing. The floats were either lewd or angry or both, some very pointedly attacking the people who have done so little to do real improvements in New Orleans. After watching the start of the parade at 7 o’clock we ran back along Chartres St. ahead of the parade and ducked into a great Thai restaurant, SukhoThai, eating a spectacularly good meal while the parade passed outside the windows (even the Thai food in N.O. is great… !)
But the night wasn’t over…..
Tipitina’s was having its 30th anniversary party, featuring Allen Toussaint. We’d called earlier and gotten tickets ($20) to see this musical legend. If you don’t know Toussaint, get on wikipedia. He’s probably best known by the general public for writing and producing the LaBelle hit “Lady Marmalade” (you know, “voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir…”), but practically defines N.O. R’n’B and funk with his production, songwriting and playing with folks like the Meters, Neville Bros., Ernie K. Doe, Irma Thomas, Fats Domino… the list goes on and on. (And for rock folks, you might know him for the horn arrangements he did for the band on “Moon Dog Matinee” and then “Rock of Ages” and “The Last Waltz.”)
So we go to Tip’s and Jon Cleary opens the show (fine piano player and singer, but with an oddly lame “smooth-jazz” band). We run into Josh DuLac, the Washington Post music critic who happened to be in town and couldn’t believe he could still get tickets to an Allen Toussaint show.
Toussaint came out and the place lit up. He put on the most amazing show, singing, playing piano, running through almost two hours of hits that he either wrote, sang, produced, or all of the above (he played “Lady Marmalade” as an instrumental….. he can do lots of things but he can’t sing like Patti Labelle). It’s an exhausting show in the best possible way.
Sunday morning, we tally up our visit, and can’t believe the wealth of music and food and sights and friends we’ve experienced. To top it off we stop into a little corner joint called the Cake Café & Bakery for a fine breakfast. Turns out it’s owned by the nephew of the former Wash Post restaurant critic Phyllis Richman, and he’s cool to talk with. He used to be a recording engineer at Capitol Records in L.A. (and Nashville!) before turning to food (less frustration, perhaps?) We’re all filled up and head to the airport.
Perfect trip.

A New Year....

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 19:05:00 -0600

LTH rang in the new year with a lively show at IOTA, the place where we've rung in the past eight new years.... It's always a good feeling to be there among so many old friends...

Thanks to all of you that came out for that... and to you all who were at the Dec 21-22-23 IOTA shows, the Dec 29 Ashland show (happy birthday, Kay!), and the Dec 30 Kennedy Center show.... a splendid way to close out 2007.

Sad, sad news greeted us in early January: our friend Drew Glackin died. Drew played in the Silos and in Tandy, two of our favorite bands. Drew also sat in with Last Train Home on a few occasions -- in Austin and in NYC. He was an incredible musician and a truly wonderful fellow, always a joy to be around. That's a picture of him playing with us in Austin at SXSW in March, 2005, when we also had our friend Jeff Lang sitting in with us. THAT was a one-two punch.

We'll miss Drew a lot.

Sweeping across Europe !

Mon, 5 Nov 2007 15:50:00 -0600

Here's what a fellow named Michael Mee wrote in the website Americana-UK,
giving "Last Good Kiss" 9 out of 10 stars!!

"It happens all too rarely but when you do stumble across a band as good as Last Train Home, the hairs on the back of your neck really do stand up on end. Last Good Kiss is a graphic illustration of the gulf between potential and fulfilment of that potential. Hundreds of bands come close but very few reach down inside themselves and pull out an album of this calibre. Last Good Kiss isn’t built on genre, style or fashion it’s built on rock solid talent and understanding of what the band is about..

Although now playing out of Nashville, Last Train Home was formed in 1997 as a part-time band in Washington DC and everything about Last Good Kiss screams of musicians who have gone the right way about making the utmost of the talent at their disposal. The album has an unbreakable solidity that can only be born out of shared experience.

The ‘dual’ influences of the ’cooler’ east and the more exotic south plus a decade of fermentation means that Last Good Kiss is a heady country roots brew. There’s even a hint of calypso running through the Color Blue, just in case the blood should cool a little.

Perhaps the best showcase for Last Train Home comes at the very end of Last Good Kiss when the band demolish the Dylan/Danko classic This Wheel’s On Fire and then reconstruct it. It is doubtful that the song has sounded as good since Brian Auger’s Trinity was in its pomp.

However, the attraction of Last Good Kiss isn’t about heart-stopping moments but from first to last, which just happen to be the same song, the band attacks its music with a will and it’s that consistency of performance that keeps the album out front.

Largely, but not exclusively, the charge is led by vocalist Eric Brace who was blessed with one of those voices full deep meaning, that would be a square peg in a round hole in any other genre. But the energy is supplied by a band that, 10 years on, is still playing like its life depends on it."

The DVD is here! We're movie stars!!

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:30:00 -0500

We converged on IOTA Club & Cafe, the eight of us:
Me and Martin and Jim up from East Nashville. Steve from Houston. Dave from Doylestown PA. Kevin from downtown DC. Chris from the MD suburbs. And Doug from Brooklyn. (Doug was playing keyboards, replacing Jen who couldn't make the trip this time.)
We were there to celebrate the release of the spankin' new DVD, "Last Train Home Live @ IOTA" ..... We filmed our weekend there on April 13 and 14, 2007, and now, you can see what we caught on camera and microphones.
We played our little hearts out to our favorite fans, the IOTA faithful.... First on Friday night, then Saturday night (when Jared Bartlett and his guitar slotted in for the sadly absent Kevin and his trumpet, making a two-pronged guitar attack), then again Sunday afternoon, for the all-ages matinee....
And there was much rejoicing throughout Arlington, as the DVD did arrive in time for the show (thank you Oasis Disc Manufacturing!)....
We're so so so proud of it, and it looks dang good, thanks to a legion of really talented people.....especially our director, Craig Havighurst, of Nashville's String Theory Media....
We'll be posting clips from the DVD onto this page and Virb and YouTube, etc etc etc soon, so please keep checking back.
And you'll be able to order it from the LTH website any day now.... (and when you DO order it from the LTH site, we'll throw in a copy of our seasonal cheer, "Holiday Limited"...)
So, all this to say that we had a splendid time, and we hope you were there.... but if you WEREN'T, you can get a sense of what these funfunfun IOTA weekends are like by getting a copy of the DVD!

Oct. 2007

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500

More soon!

LTH at the Bristol Rythm & Roots festival...

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 21:15:00 -0500

We were a late entry into the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Revival (thanks Dave, for going to bat for us !!) and we got to play the afternoon set of the Sunday line-up. This festival is only six years old, but man o man, it's already a great one.
http://www.bristolrhythm.com/
We got there mid-afternoon, yet another completely brand new LTH line-up: This time it was me, Jim and Martin, plus more East Nashville pals: Eric Fritsch on electric guitar, and Pete Finney on pedal steel. We wandered around listening to the bands on the three other stages. I was strolling down the "midway" (along Main St., where there's a line down the middle marking the state boundary between TN and VA), getting some food, when Martin called my cell phone, sounding pretty excited. He said that the band playing the set preceeding LTH on "our" stage, the Wayward Sons (from Durango, CO), were playing "My Sally"... !!! The "My Sally" that I wrote....!!!
I hurried back, but they'd finished the song. After their set, I chatted with them, and they were pretty amazed that the guy who wrote that song they played was playing immediately after them! (They were also super-nice fellers:
http://www.myspace.com/waywordsons
It turns out they learned that song from a DJ in Boulder, who played it for them thinking they might do it justice. The cool thing is, that DJ played it off of Jimmy Gaudreau's CD.... okay, stay with me: Several years ago there was a compilation of D.C. musicians playing songs of other D.C. musicians called "Americana Motel." On it, some of my bluegrass heroes--John Starling, Mike Auldridge, Jimmy Gaudreau--played a version of "My Sally," to my great and humble honor. THEN, when Jimmy G. was compiling his career-defining CD in 2005, he included tracks he played on from the early Country Gentlemen up through his days with the Tony Rice Unit and then all the way up to that version of "My Sally," AND a song from The Skylighters CD . Still with me?
Sooooo.... The Wayward Sons have been playing it for a while, and will put it on a live CD they're making... They didn't catch the songwriter when the DJ played them "My Sally," and they just figured it was an old standard they hadn't heard before. Now THAT'S flattering.
Okay, now here's where it gets really strange: The bass player for the Wayward Sons is Benny "Burle" Galloway, and HE taught the song to the guys in Greensky Bluegrass, a band from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and they've been playing it live, apparently too, and are ALSO thinking of including it on a CD! BUt wait, there's more:
Sooooo.... LTH played "My Sally" in our set, and when we were done, we were packing up our gear, and a fellow came up to me and said: "Hey, I'm Dave, in Greensky Bluegrass, and we've been playing 'My Sally'..."....
www.myspace.com/greenskybluegrassmusic
It was all too crazy and flattering and made me feel really, really good.
The other thing that made us all feel good was how wonderfully we were treated by the festival folks. Seriously, I know i said that about the Johnstown festival just a couple of weeks ago, but we're on a hot streak, and we're loving it. It's nice to be appreciated and respected and taken care of. So thanks Leah and Dave, especially.
We loaded up, wandered around, watched the sun going down, and headed back to Nashville that evening (and noticed a great hair salon sign on the way...)

LTH at Johnstown Folk Fest

Sat, 1 Sep 2007 20:50:00 -0500

It was a whole new line-up that we took to the Johnstown Folk Festival.... Me and Jim and Martin, plus our old pal Tom Mason on guitar, and Alex McCollough on the pedal steel. Sharp-eyed folks will have spotted Alex's name on the back of the CD "The Other Side: Music From East Nashville." Alex was the mastering engineer for that CD, and I also knew that he played a mean bass (often with The Wrights), but it's only recently that I knew he'd been woodshedding on the pedal steel.
We all headed north and converged on Johnstown... pondered the great Johnstown Flood of 1889 (check it out at http://www.jaha.org/FloodMuseum/history.html )
We played both Friday and Saturday of the festival, and i've gotta say, we've rarely been treated better. These folks really took care of us. (Thanks Tim and Shelley for being so great!!)
It was a blast to play with Tom Mason again (ahh, memories of the Virgin Islands.....), and a treat to play with Alex. He's quite the player and is fun on the road. He enjoyed The Incline Plane as well.
What's that??
http://www.inclinedplane.com/
Glad you asked: it's the world's steepest vehicular inclined plane... See the photo...in other words:
It's a cable car that slants up the mountainside and has a spectacular view of Johnstown, especially at night.... We went up there with Tim after our Sunday show and enjoyed a drink and the panorama (the lights of the big city.... well, not so big really... but really swell).
All in all, one of the coolest weekends we've had.
And we hope we can go back there in 2008...... pleeeeeease?

LTH in Texas and Oklahoma

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:20:00 -0500

We’re on i-40, heading back to Nashville after a speedy run through Texas and Oklahoma. Here’s how it all unfolded:

Tuesday June 25 I left Nashville, in the van, with trailer in town loaded with the band gear. I drove by my lonesome, as the first gig wasn’t until Thursday in Austin, and the plan was for me to do some radio in-studios and such on Wednesday and then on Thursday morning, prior to the band’s arrival Thursday afternoon… It was all very complicated, logistically.

Jen caught a plane from Nashville to Austin Thursday along with Mike Esser and Aaron Oliva. Mike (who engineered and mixed ‘Last Good Kiss’) was filling in for Martin, and Aaron (who plays bass with Thad Cockrell) was filling in for Jim. (Them boys had things going on and couldn’t make it.)

Steve drove down to Austin in his car on Wednesday, wanting to get a carload of his stuff down to Texas anyway, in advance of his moving back there in July (more on that later), and he got to Austin Wednesday evening (having left Nashville at 6:30 in the morning that day)

And that leaves Kevin, who flew into Austin from NYC on Thursday afternoon.
So that was the band for this run: Me, Steve, Jen, Kevin, Aaron, and Mike.

On Tuesday as I drove, I got my first taste of the crazy weather that’s been happening a little east of Little Rock on I-40. The rain came down in biblical torrents for a few miles, then would let up, then start again, all the way to Dallas. There, I hit a huge backup trying to get to I-35 south, with accidents and flooded roads making me just pull off and get a room.

Wednesday I headed south early. I made it to New Braunfels for my first radio spot by 2 p.m. that’s radio station KNBT, where music director Mattson Rainer rules the roost and has been very kind to LTH over the years. He had me on the air chatting and playing my guitar from 3 to 4. He’s one of the greats, truly. So fun, cool, smart. He’s found himself a great life, playing music he digs for a living, on one of the country’s finest stations, and living in one of the most magical places on earth. (Have you ever been to New Braunfels, and Gruene, where Gruene Hall is? If you’re planning a trip to Texas, you should route yourself through there, if only to listen to KNBT on the radio, and to go see a show at Gruene Hall. We’ve played a lot of shows there the past few years, mostly on Sunday afternoons, and it’s one of our all-time favorites. I stopped in that Wednesday afternoon, before heading to the radio station so as to say hi to all the folks who work there, but the only person there was a bartender I didn’t recognize…. I waded into the Guadalupe river before my interview as well, but it was kind of cold out, and a little rainy. That should be a mandatory stop for you as well: float in the Guadalupe in Gruene. Okay, there’s your travel tip.)

Back up in Austin, I checked into the hotel, had a phone chat with Steve, who had also just checked in, then headed to meet up with friends. We made plans to meet later, when he would sitting in at Momo’s with the Band of Heathens, guys he used to play with all the time when he lived in Austin a while back.

I wandered South Congress Ave., getting a margarita in the side patio of Guero’s, underneath those amazing oaks. I was just standing there listening to a cover band in the bandshell doing a Doug Sahm cover when the skies opened up. It was another torrential one. All of Texas and Oklahoma have just had their wettest Junes on record. There are floods everywhere. It’s nuts. I just stood there under the enormous live oaks and sipped my drinks while everyone else scattered. Lightning was crashing all around, so I figured I’d better get inside, so I headed into Guero’s proper and ordered a bowl of tortilla soup.
After that I popped into the Continental Club where Jon Dee Graham and James McMurtry were scheduled to play that night. It was too early for them, so I just introduced myself to the doorman and had a Shiner Bock, and then said goodnight.
I made my way up to Momo’s where I met up with Steve, holding up remarkably well after his 13 hour drive that day. Said hey to Gordy Quist, the Band of Heathens member I know best. (He’s Steve’s good friend, and he’s just released a really good CD that he recorded in Nashville at Joe McMahan’s studio… Steve, Jim, Martin, and Jen all play on it). The band started playing and sounded pretty dang good. It’s solid Texas rock/soul/country with lots of harmonies and great playing.

Steve wasn’t going to sit in til the second set, so I had to bail, on account of needing to be at the KGSR-FM studios at 7:45 a.m. the next day. I got to do a bit of Brian Beck’s show, and he told me they’d just played ‘Last Good Kiss’ on the air Wednesday night. That’s pretty cool, because if you can get onto KGSR, then you’ve got a lot of people listening to you. For a big commercial station, it’s incredibly cool. So, yes, I did wake up in time to crawl onto I-35 with the rest of Austin commuters and had a great time yakking with Brian and Andy Langer, a music writer who does a “What’s-up-in-pop-music” segment with Brian every Thursday. Apparently, LTH at the Continental Club is what’s up !!

After that, I grabbed Steve at the hotel and we head to Curra’s for breakfast. I have waxed effusive about the migas to be had here. Let me say simply that they’re as good as ever (especially when served with refried black beans (not the brown pintos). And have I mentioned the coffee? They call it their Oaxaca blend… it’s got a “hint of vanilla” and perhaps another hint of cocoa.

After breakfast, we made our way to the studios of ME-TV, a great new local station that produces most of its own music and arts related shows. Steve and I brought our acoustic guitars in, but we ended up just spending some time on the “big red couch” and talking for about 10 minutes with Josh. Instead of us playing live in the studio, they just ran the video to “Last Good Kiss” and told people about the show at the Continental.

Then it was nap time.
I fetched Jen, Aaron, and Mike at around 3 p.m. at the airport, and after getting them settled in the hotel, we wandered up to South Congress. I wanted some coffee at Jo’s, the little stand across from the Continental, and Mike had never been to Austin, so he needed some quality time checking out all the cool stuff on “SoCo.”

The rain had let up, and it was a lovely afternoon.

That night, we couldn’t load into the Continental Club until after 9 pm, when the Mother Truckers had finished their happy hour gig (6 to 9), so we all went to Guero’s for dinner.
More goodness. Loading into the CC, we found Kevin had arrived, along with his friend Jean (from high school days) whom we’d met in Oklahoma City a while back. She has volunteered her house in Norman, Oklahoma, after our Saturday gig at the Blue Door. She’s one of the greats.

We also met up with the Wrinkle Neck Mules and Stephen Simmons at the CC. We shared the bill with them. WNMules are from Richmond, and we’ve done gigs with them before. Great guys. They go on first, the Stephen (a Nashville pal of the whole band), then LTH, and I’m surprised at how many people showed up. The WNM and SSimmons had fans for sure, but I’m thinking maybe all this hard work and promo time is starting to pay off, at least in Austin.

After the gig, we head to La Mexicana on 1st St. for some late night food before heading back to the hotel. It’s 3 am before we get to bed, and I’m regretting the late night, because I know I have to get up at 7 a.m. to get the van door fixed. At the hotel Thursday, after the ride from the airport, the lower hinge on the side door cracked, and the door isn’t quite closing, making for a noisy and dangerous ride.

A cabbie in font of Guero’s Thursday evening had this advice: “ Head east on Cesar Chavez Boulevard, and you’ll find a whole ton of Mexican chop shops. They’ll have everything you need to fix that.”

And so, indeed, at 7:15 Friday morning, I’m rolling down Chavez, and see lots of auto body shops, but most are closed. I turn up a side street and see a guy spray-painting a hood to an early ‘60s Pontiac in a repair bay, so I pull in and ask him if he might have time to repair the door. Very cool guy, he calls his boss, who’s on his way to work, and who says, “yeah, sure, I’ll check it out when I’m there in 15 minutes.” So with a little time to kill, I ask the man who’s painting the hood if there’s a breakfast place around. “You like Mexican?” Yes. “Just at the end of the block, a little place with breakfast tacos. Very good.” Very good, indeed. I got three of them, soft flour tortillas, rolled up with egg-and-bean, sausage-and-egg, cheese-and-chorizo…. For a buck each. Oh yes. I had three and a coffee.

For more than two hours, these two guys pounded and chiseled at the door, trying to get it to close, seeing as how they didn’t have a door or a hinge to weld on there. The finally got it to where it would close with no risk of popping open, and I happily drove off, knowing we’d make it up to Denton that day.

We check out of the hotel and head back to Curra’s. It’s still great. Well, I don’t have much, since I’d recently eaten those three breakfast tacos. But I do have a soft taco with mushrooms and nopalitos (the stewed cactus strips). Mmmmmmmm. Lots of commentary along the lines of: “Why the hell can’t there be a place like this in Nashville for a great Tex-Mex breakfast?? How hard can it be??”

We caravan out of town, with Kevin and Jen riding in Jean’s wagon, while Aaron, Mike, Steve, myself, and Stephen Simmons roll on in “Stealth Tiara.” The band van. (S. Simmons is opening both the Denton show and the OK City show.)
We make the obligatory visit to the Czech Stop, exit 253 on I-35, for kolaches, savory and sweet.

As I type this, I’m thinking of the rambling tour diary I kept when we were in Australia in 2001. I don’t believe it’s still up on this site, but I’ll do my best to get it up one of these days. What I liked about that was how I’d put in hyperlinks to lots of the things I referred to. And I should do that here too, no? To things like “kolcaches” and things like that… Okay I’m going to try to do that.

It starts pouring someone along the way. By the time we get to Denton, it’s coming down in black sheets. It’s insane. We check into the LaQuinta and make our way into downtown Denton (just north of Ft. Worth) for dinner and then the gig at Dan’s Silverleaf.. The way the night will unfold is this: Todd Sinder is playing an early show, from 8 to 9:30, and I’m looking forward to seeing him and saying hey. Then the club will clear out, though the owner, Dan, will invite everyone there to stay for free for the rest of the night. It’s officially the 5th anniversary party of Dan’s Silverleaf, and it’s just coincidence that LTH is the band for the party. Though maybe not coincidence: When we played there last time, Dan and the folks who work there—soundman Jimmy and bartender Kate and co-owner Marcus—were all incredible complimentary and cool with us. I’m bummed it’s taken this long to get back there, because frankly, Dan’s was instantly an LTH favorite when we played there last time. Very cool room, great sound, great vibe, cool owner… all the right ingredients.

We stop at a joint in town for dinner, and are sitting at a bunch of different tables. I have a nice talk with Jen and Kevin about the future of the band, because here’s the thing I was alluding to earlier: Steve is moving to Houston. Yep, heading back to Texas. And while he wants to still play as much as possible with LTH, the fact that he’s getting a real job is going to make it hard to play very much. I’m definitely counting on him for the “DVD release” shows at IOTA at the end of October, but other than that, we’re just playing it by ear. Martin and Jim both have to play fewer gigs because of changes in their lives, and Jen goes back to teaching at Vanderbilt in the fall. So I’ve got to figure out what form a continued LTH will take and how hard I’m going to push it. It’s a little frustrating, because we’re getting more attention now than we’ve ever gotten: the video has helped, and releasing our best CD yet certainly helps. But that’s the nature of being in a band. We’re lucky we’ve lasted this long. And we’ve certainly weathered personnel changes. But through it all have been Martin and Jim, and it’s tough getting used to the idea of not having them up there on stage for every single gig. Aaron and Mike have been admirable in stepping up, so I’m not taking away from them. They’re just not the guys I’m used to playing with …. Heck, it’s been 10 years!! Probably around 800 gigs. Yoiks.

So back at Dan’s Silverleaf, Todd finishes up, and we say hey for a little bit, then LTH loads in and sets up. SSimmons takes the stage with LTH backing him up, and they sound great. LTH does just fine, and we have a really fun time playing our one long set.

After the show, Kevin and Jen again ride with Jean (who is hanging with the band and is great to be around), and they leave for a 3 hour drive to Norman (in the pouring rain)… while I head back to the hotel in Denton with Mike, Aaron, Steve, and Stephen.

The rain looks incredible coming down into the hotel swimming pool, which is still all lit up and glowing at 3 a.m.

We sleep hard, and then get lunch at Rudy’s Country Store, a Texas BBQ chain that is – according to Steve – the best chain BBQ in Texas. There happens to be one at the same exit off I35 as our hotel. Perfect.
It’s pretty dang good. I have a combo plate of beef brisket, short ribs, and sausage. The green beans in the green bean salad were pretty much frozen, but other than that, it was just fine.

Aaron puts in a good bit of time behind the wheel and gets us up to Norman in short time. We pick up Jen at the house where we’ll be staying later. Kevin and Jean and Jean’s kids have gone shopping and we’ll see them at the club (the Blue Door) later). Jen spent the night at this house, owned by Jean’s parents, formerly owned by a family friend of their’s, one who had an obsession with Asian art and architecture. She designed the house herself and it looks like the setting for a ‘70s martial arts movie. And I mean that in a really good way.

INTERRUPTION

Sorry about that… I just wanted to say that I took a couple of weeks off between that last sentence and this one…. Life just gets a hold of you, and it’s hard to find the time to look back and comment on it all.

The show at the Blue Door in OK City was really fun, and we met up with lots of the folks who had seen us there before and had rounded up a good crew… I played a few solo songs first then Stephen Simmons w/ band, the me and the band.
After we tried to leave, but the van’s wheels got stuck in the mud alongside the club (did I mention the rain??) and we waited a good while lying outside on the concrete sidewalk (it wasn’t raining then), fighting off mosquitos and large ‘water bugs’…. Finally the wrecker came from AAA and yanked us out, and we went on our way, back to the Asian Fantasy House.
Steve had heard stories from Jean about the ghost in the basement (where he and Stephen and I were all to sleep) and he wouldn’t go downstairs until I did and turned on the lights and did an anti-ghost dance. Who knew?

We slept well, but not nearly long enough, as we had a 10 hour drive to Nashville ahead (except for Jen and Kevin, who had to fly back to their homes…)
And we made it back….. man, that’s some flat country though…..

Another band??

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:25:00 -0500

So Peter Cooper and I have been knocking songs back and forth at his house and mine, each becoming fans of what the other does.... Peter and his band also opened for The Skylighters (my *other* other band, with Martin and Jim from LTH, plus bluegrass heroes Mike Auldridge and Jimmy Gaudreau) when we had a Nashville show at the Station Inn back in January....
Finally we figured we'd do some shows together, acoustic-y, with harmonies (we're both always singing over each other's stuff), so we made up a song list, featuring some of his and some of mine and many of those of our heroes: Townes, Emmylou, Rodney, etc....
We played at the Hermitage Public Library earlier this month, as a trio with me, Peter, and Jen Gunderman, keyboardist/accordionist extraordinaire, who's also in LTH.... It was fun though sparsely attended.
Then last week we played again, same three plus Alex McCullough on pedal steel. Alex plays bass with a few folks around town, but has been woodshedding on steel, so he's in now, and is tremendous.
We played at 3rd & Lindsley, closing out a night that started with Lori McKenna playing (Faith Hill and Tim McGraw showed up to hear her... woowooo Nashville star sightings!), then led into Kylie Harris, a New Zealander songwriter who's also a VJ on GAC, then it was us... we've been calling ourselves the Mission Doors after an Eric Taylor song that we've been playing, but I suspect that name may evolve into something else....
Not many people still there, but we had fun.
Here's a picture from the balcony of us.... minus Jen, who was unfortunately outside the frame.....
We'll play again sometime (in fact we DID play again two days later, Sat. May 26, at a block party on Peter's block.... but that's material for another blog chapter, as soon as I get photos from Seth.....

Breakdown....

Wed, 30 May 2007 21:40:00 -0500

So there I was rolling east on I-40, having just picked up my laptop from the folks at MouseCalls, way out west of Nashville...

i heard a funny sound... I quickly got worse. flat tire, right rear.

I heard the rim hit the pavement and know it was truly blown... I was rolling beside a guardrail with no shoulder so I drove on my rim for another 500 yards until there was some shoulder to pull off onto...

And I had no spare, because for *convenience* I'd moved the spare into the trailer.... but i didn't happen to be towing the trailer today. Because i wasnt' traveling with the band. If Chevy vans would jsut make the spare a little more accessible than the current design has it (ludicrously lame....it's jacked up under the van using a two-piece jack you shove down a little hole and turn, turn, turn, turn, forever, then crawl underneath to unhitch it... etc etc)

Called AAA... took 'em a while, but the guy was nice and loaded the van on his flatbed .... he took it to my guys in East Nashville but had a devil of a time rolling it off his truck because the trailer hitch was sticking out and catching in the concrete... i managed to unhitch it and it was like a geometry lesson getting into the repair bay.

But finally done.

Got the front brakes fixed while I was there. I'm just happy it happened on a day where there was no great penalty for me being out of commission for a few hours.... like, say, if LTH was on the road..... (though at least then we would have had a spare with us!!)

I'm really only writing this for one reason: the photo. I took it on my phone and I like it.

The other reason: I can't pretend that all the while this was taking place that I wasn't thinking of Buck Jones. Buck died a few weeks back when a drunk driver hit him along the highway in Texas when he had blown a tire. He was a young country singer here in Nashville. We weren't good friends, but I knew him and he was always upbeat and chatty and cool when we'd cross paths. Peter Cooper of The Tennessean newspaper wrote this tribute to him that ran on the front page of the Tennessean last Sunday. Be careful out there. Please.

LTH video was on CMT !!

Wed, 23 May 2007 17:20:00 -0500

So we got the word on Monday May 14 that the folks at CMT liked our video to "Last Good Kiss" well enough to put it on TV on Thursday May 17 right in the middle of the day on the "Top 20 Countdown" show. And that they would replay the show on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday !!!

We also heard that GAC played the video on Tuesday May 15 !!!

I didn't hear about that one 'til after the fact..... but I wasn't going to miss the CMT debut.

The "Top 20 Countdown" show runs from 4 pm to 7 pm Eastern Time... I have no TV at my place, so I had to find a television from 3 to 6 pm Central Time. The band was all busy that afternoon, and so we were all catching it wherever we could....

I wandered up the street from my East Nashville house to the Rose Pepper Cantina, the local Tex Mex joint. I went up at 4 p.m., having missed the first hour.... They'd just opened for dinner, and there was no one there but the waiters and the bartender. Sat down at the bar, ordered a margarita (they're mighty good at Rose Pepper), and asked Juanita if she'd mind changing the station to CMT. She did. And just in time.... right after a Kenny Chesney video of him in a big stadium with his hat and sleeveless T-shirt, the "VJ" comes on and says, "Coming up, it's a new video from Last Train Home!"....

And suddenly, there we were !!

Apparently, they tuck a video that's NOT in the Top 20 into that show every week to show that they're cool, and to advertise their "Wide Open Country" show on their Hi-Definition channel or some such. I don't really know how or why, I'm just glad it happened....

Juanita was excited too, because she recognized Jim, Jen, Martin, and Steve. It was an East Nashville moment.

There we were on the big screen! It looked good. Sounded good. I was happy and proud.

One shot of tequila later, I headed out, grinning like mad.

LTH, movin' on and on....

Fri, 4 May 2007 16:40:00 -0500

O Blog,
Did you miss me?

I just wanted to say that last night's show at 3rd & Lindsley here in Nashville was a blast...
It was me, Jim, Martin, Jim, Steve, Jen, Kevin, and Pete (Finney, great Nashville steel player, if you haven't been keeping up)
Kevin had flown down from D.C. on one of those super-cheap Southwest "Ding" flights...

LTH did one long set from 7 to 8:30 (Nashville has lots of these early shows so that people can come right from work....)....

I"ve been spending some time this week reviewing the footage that we got on April 13 and 14 at IOTA... It's going to become a live DVD, coming out in October...

There's lots to say about that weekend, but I've got to run... and will post more later I hope...

Oh !
And there's an e-mail about to go out to everyone with a link to our BRAND NEW VIDEO, which is finally edited and going to be on TV somewhere sometime... we'll keep you posted on that too...

okay then.... that's it for now...

foreign percussion....

Fri, 4 May 2007 16:30:00 -0500

Since you asked,
The sound you hear on "The Color Blue" (the final tune on the new CD "Last Good Kiss") is a 'cuica'......
It's a percussion instrument, from South American via Africa....
Martin had bought one to play in an East Nashville pick-up band called Hags-A-Nova (a bossa nova band led by Hags, great bassist, great guy) that was playing a series of gigs at The Family Wash...
Martin and Jen took turns playing it on this track ... I believe the final cuica track belongs to Martin...
(It sounds uncannily like a straw going in and out of the little hole in the plastic lid of a 16 oz. soda from Burger King..)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuica