Hello interwebs!

It’s been a long time, I realize, since last we posted a tour log or note from the van or anything (March, I believe). There’s no great excuses for this, besides general laziness, and perhaps the nausea that comes from riding in a van and staring into a laptop.

PF here, lounging in my palatial Richmond abode. We’re coming to the end of a very leisurely spring: many 3-5 day trips, mostly regional. It’s been pretty relaxing. There’s no way for me to catalog every moment for you, but I will illustrate some highlights in the form of linked pictures.

1. Busking in NYC, Jake starts to look like Walter Sobcheck from The Big Lebowski!

2. Deep Fried Butter at the Texas Pete Twin City Ribfest!

3. This happens So Frequently!! There’s no way not to include a picture. Poor Ed’s intestines.

OK, I realize that basically none of this had to do with music, but hey who can take pictures when they’re playing? Not us!

The new EP is moments away from completion, stay tuned and you’ll know. This one’s coming out on vinyl, which is pretty exciting (and totally suicide from a business perspective). We’re pretty proud of our ability to sound old-timey, while not sounding neutered. More info ASAP.

OK, this is clearly not going very far, but I did feel the need to write something, so you’d know that we’re still out there!

Stay tuned for more topical rants!

Love,
PF

Hello there.

PF Hot Seat here, sitting shotgun to Meester Heironymous Volcano, who’s currently yelling at a driver in a ridiculously done-up Civic who can’t decide if he wants to go 75 in the right lane or 60 in the left lane. We’re in hour 15 of our Austin to Richmond extravaganza and perhaps the senses are all a bit acute at the moment. Such long jaunts in a van are known to beget altogether new senses and abilities: the 6th sense of hilarious/disturbing billboard detection, the 7th sense allowing the driver to know just when a band member’s bladder has reached capacity, the ability to sleep in cartoonishly contorted positions, and the unusual realization at the similarity between fast food restaurant exhaust and fart smell. Personally, I find that currently my arms and hands are moving somewhat independently of my brain. Not that they’re doing things on their own—more that, as I stare at them, they seem to have no significance as originating from my body. Oh, I see now that Jake is actually poking his arms through my armpits, having a larf. Hah. We joke! So funny! ( …only 9 hours to go.)

I realize that a whole tour has gone by with no blog reports yet. No excuse for that, I’ll admit, just the easily distracted mind of the professional stringband musician. Too many details have already faded to give a proper day-to-day report, but here’s a summary.

I’ll start on a more general note. You may not have a good sense of the life of the migratory stringband—hell, we’re not even clear on how other bands do it—but for us, it works thusly. Frequently we’ll roll into a town with no clear idea where we are sleeping. We Hot Seats are firm believers in the Priceline bidding system of hotel roomery, but generally we are looking in the under $20/room range. As you might imagine, this sometimes leads to hotel beds upon which you DO NOT want to sleep. More often, however, we end up staying at someone’s house. We have slept five abreast on the tiniest floor of the shittiest apartment, and we have lived like kings with separate rooms and meals aplenty.

Now, if you are a person that puts up traveling bands, you are automatically a saint and there’s a special place carved out in whatever afterlife you choose, just for you. When next you see a band on stage, if you can just tell that they can’t afford a hotel room, and don’t seem to have any friends in town, and if you have a relatively clean house with floor space and/or couches and/or spare bedrooms, you can instantly make 2-7 new friends, just like that! Now, I can’t speak for other bands, but when The Hot Seats come to stay at your house, we aim for the “Best Guest” award. E-v-e-r-y time. We’ll do dishes, we’ll sweep, we’ll empty yer trash, we’ll make you breakfast (and then clean up after ourselves).

In this way, we have been fortunate in our travels to have made some great friends. Some offer their homes and company ahead of time, and some turn out to be that particular saint who says at 2:30am, “Sure, you can come stay at my house! We have two guest rooms and I just happen to have made a massive 10 gallon pot of soup that I’ll never finish on my own.”

There have been too many hosts to name, and we don’t want to offend by neglecting to mention anyone by name, so I’ll stick to this tour and thank the following people: Don in Damascus (possibly our longest standing patron), Brent in Knoxville, Jon and Pam in Huntsville, Margaux in Ocean Springs (twice!), Brook and Gavin in Montevallo, Steve and Mary in Baton Rouge (Special prize for these two. No offense to any of our other hosts, but these two had gumbo ready for us to eat the moment we arrived, and an endless buffet of delicious sandwiches, boudin, beers and bourbon after the show. Phew1 Hard to top!), and Chad, Corey, and Christina in Austin. Every one of you, and any of our other hosts, you will all be welcome in the kingdom of The Hot Seats, some day after January 1st, 2012.

Again, sparing you the blow-by-blow account of these last 10 days and shows (almost wholly successful and tons of fun), I’ll lay out some highlights (and a few pics):

Middle seat of the van, Thursday, February 25th, 5pm eastern time, heading east through southern Kentucky . . .

PF here, just checking in again with you folks. We’re currently headed through the Daniel Boone National Forest in the Kentucky hills, making our way to Whitesburg, Kentucky to play at Summit City Lounge. Hopefully we’ll see some old friends and make some new ones to boot.

When last I left ye, we were leaving Eureka Springs, dashing towards Memphis. Alas, the Memphis gig was a bust. It happens sometimes, it’s true, but it never fails to leave you feeling more than a little stupid. The booker for the club had assured us that the trivia night would be over by 9, and we’d be on by 10. Somehow, the words “over by” and starting at” must have gotten mixed up in his head – in other words, we roll in a little before 9, and the trivia night is just starting. Now, far be it from ME to perhaps assume that an audience would be interested in a little background music while they do trivia, but apparently the mental rigors required to match a beer brand with it’s slogan are too much for any outside distraction. So, not to be deterred, we headed into downtown Memphis, loaded up on BBQ and headed for Nashville, our planned late night destination. Sorry Memphis, we’ll try again soon, we promise . . .

Wednesday, February 24th (my birthday): Nashville TN:

We were staying with a friend of Graham’s – James – who is a former Richmonder, a musician, and a great guy. He lives in the Belmont neighborhood of Nashville, on the southern end. It’s a sweet part of town, right next to Belmont College, an area of Nashville where we’d never before been.

I’ll pause right now to say that our experiences in Nashville, “Music City,” have been mixed, to say the least. On our first two visits to town, we played at a shitty little club called Cafe Coco, where you’re allowed to play on their stage and put up with the animosity of the wait staff and soundman in exchange for tips and, if you’re lucky, some applause. Since it’s open 24 hours, this place has posters in the bathrooms, alerting you that, if you should spend more than 5 minutes in there, they’ll call the cops on you. Apparently, there was a little problem with junkies shooting up and nodding off, while late night diners are just trying to pee. OK, so, not a great spot, not great gigs, basically, you leave there, knowing that Nashville neither wants nor needs you, especially if you’re not trying to play some pop-style of whatever genre you happen to play.
Our third trip to Nashville was a different story – the Independent Music World Series at 3rd and Lindsley, which, if you’ll remember, we won. That was nice. We got paid well (in giant novelty check form), and left feeling victorious. However, under that victory was, to me anyway, a strange bitter and confusing taste of having just been judged by industry professionals. How did they decide? What criteria is used to decide whether a band is bound for stardom or obscurity? Talent isn’t it, because after that show we headed to the strip of Nashville to celebrate and watched the horribly pitiful scene of a crazy good guitarist being forced to play classic rock standards for pass the hat – he played “Can’t You See,” by the Marshall Tucker Band THREE times in the 45 minutes we were in there, at the request of drunks at the bar. It was unnerving to see such ability squandered and unappreciated. Didn’t make professional musician seem like such a great job title. Anyway . . . about our FOURTH trip.

In the morning we were scheduled to be interviews on WSM – 650 AM. This involved a trip to Opryland, which is a bit like Dollyland. There’s something so incredible about these islands of commerce and schlock, shining in the distance with over the top architecture and false front feeling (not too dissimilar from Oral Roberts University, to be honest). Anyway, it is a big thing for us to get to be on WSM, as you might imagine. On top of the excitement of the interview and performance, we also got free valet parking! This van may never again get that service. The interview went off without a hitch, and I think we were both amusing and entertaining to the DJ, and hopefully the listening audience.

The actual gig was at the Loveless Cafe, outside of Nashville just a bit. A big barn, all set up for performance, or perhaps a square dance. We roll in for our soundcheck, and are greeted by the sound engineers and managers like we were actually expected and, more importantly, like they were happy to see us! Our liaison, Laurie, talked us through the night (live broadcast, scheduling an interview, food, drinks, our own luxury coach to relax in (!!!!), and how HAPPY she was that we were there). It was a great introduction.

Showtime came around, and we are on the bill with 4 other acts – Wil Kimbrough, the Vespers, Amber Digby, and Ashley Cleveland. We were second to last, a flattering place to be put, no doubt, but probably having to do with our level of intensity as much as anything else. The barn was full up with people, and our show hosts were Bill Cody and Eddie Stubbs, someone who had a huge influence upon my personal interest in bluegrass music, both as a musician with he Johnson Mountain boys and, more importantly as the host of Bluegrass Country on WAMU in the DC area, every day from 3-6pm when I was a kid. The acts before us were great, although certainly bent more towards the nostalgic and pretty side of music. We’ve heard about those sides of music, but never had much experience in that realm. Anyway, we got up and shook it around for 20 minutes, much to the delight of the crowd, and then also rejoined the stage at the end of the night for a superjam version of “Higher Ground,” an odd choice, we thought, but hey, we jus’ do as we’re told, all “yessir,” and “nossir!” It was, all around, a great experience, and I didn’t even mention the VIP room with booze and fried chicken, or the gift baskets we all got (posters, mugs, water bottles, biscuit mix, strawberry jam, boot socks), or that the Vietti Chili Cowgirl was there!

After the show, James took us to an old time jam in east Nashville, which was the perfect topper of the evening. We roll into the place (Matty’s, I think), and it’s a big room with lots of jams taking place. We chatted with some folks for a while, saw some old festival pals (of course), and then took up in the corner with a few guys from the Hogslop Stringband. It was a blast – these guys are all about North Georgia oldtime music, with the short bow fiddles, the wild bass runs on the guitar, and the ridiculous high pitched singing, a la Gid Tanner. Within a tune, we had a massive, three banjo, 6 fiddle jam taking place. These jams may not be the best for the clarity of music, but when you are in the middle of it, surrounded by all the melody, it is fairly uplifting, to say the least. Anyway, oldtime music and bars, you can imagine how the night ended, and how the morning felt.

So, in short, our fourth Nashville experience = #1 ace best super time!!

Reports from the road . .

PF here folks, just sitting in downtown, underground Eureka Springs, Arkansas. That’s right! The Hot Seats have invaded Arkansas. We are halfway through our little jaunt through the lower midwest, and have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves thus far, let’s have a quick recap, shall we?

Thursday, February 18th: Indianapolis.

This was a big day of driving. Luckily, we have our new van, which handles the hills and valleys like a greased up stallion, snorting and hoofing the dirt, haunches all a’glisten, just taunting the inclines and synclines with it’s haughty whinny . . . wait, what was I talking about? Oh yes, it was a 11 hour drive (with all of our pee breaks and constant pulling over at every scenic byway), and we rolled into Indy right before showtime. The Vollrath Tavern is much like many of the places we play – a neighborhood-y type of establishment, TV on, regulars well-planted at the bar. An uneventful setup and performance, the crowd was pretty into it, however, hooting and hollering. We were supposed to be on a three band bill, but The End Times Spasm Band, our Fort Wayne pals, weren’t able to make it. The other band on the bill was a group from Indy called Harley Poe. Kind of a Dead Milkmen vibe, I thought – very high energy and quirky, with lots of songs about vampires and also cannibalism (so right up our alley, you might imagine). Another typical Indy night for us, inasmuch as we had almost no repeat customers, but those who attended were happy with our product, which is to say that they hooted and hollered, as I said before.

After the show, we cruised to Bloomington, the current home of our very own Heironymous Volcano and his lovely wife, Esmerelda Campbell-Volcano. We stayed up too late, and crashed out.

Friday, February 19th: Press Photos and St Louis.

In the morning, we (I) got fully caffeinated and sat around, goofing on this and that – much of our general conversation is hilarious to us, but probably every group of friends feels the same way, we’ll get back to this in a little while. Given that we have a new member of the group Graham “Nickname Not Yet Established” DeZarn, it seemed prudent to take new press photos. Which we did in the Campbell-Volcano’s kitchen and backyard. I’ll post a few for your consideration. The taking of a press photo is a hard thing for us. The last thing you want is a band in front of a brick wall, or any wall, really, it’s just terribly cliché and overdone. Same thing with bluegrass bands near trains or tractors or some relic of the good ol’ days. Not our thing, you know? So . . . well, you can see for yourself what we came up with and let us know what you think.

Around midday we departed for St. Louis, our first foray into the state of Missouri. We rolled in and went immediately to the house of Mister Pokey LaFarge. Now, Pokey is certaionly someone you’ve heard me mention before, and perhaps you are now a fan. If not, please allow me to ask you to consider/reconsider the man and his band – The South City Three – for they are fabulous. Unlike so many of the modern stringbands, who distill the sound in order to present something more modern or palatable, Pokey and his boys keep it gritty and raggy, but also full of ingenuity and non-standard/cliche lyrics. Also, they look great. Ok, so anyway, we have a little dinner with Pokey and then head off to the club – a great spot called Off Broadway. By the time we get on, the crowd is large (maybe 170 people) and ready for action. We play a great show, they especially like the Beef Suite (everyone does), and hen Poke and his boys get up and rock the crowd for a bit.

RANT #1 I would like to pause for a moment and mention a little show-etiquette point. If you, the crowd, want an encore – you HAVE to clap and shout and ask for it! Otherwise, the soundman will pipe in house music after about 3 seconds of silence. After Pokey and the South City Three stopped their final song, the crowd kind of petered out in volume, so they got off stage. And then, I heard many folks talking amongst themselves, “Why didn’t they do an encore?” Well . . . because you didn’t cheer for one. There’s nothing more humiliating as a band than asking for your own encore. So, if you want it . . . stomp and cheer and clap. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when you don’t get one. And, one person in the back going “one more song!” or “don’t be lazy!” ISN’T gonna cut it.

Saturday, February 20th: Kansas City, MO.

I’ll try and keep the fluff down here. To that point, if I don’t mention anything specific about our set, it just means that we were well received, but not in some totally unique way. So here’;s what was notable about Kansas City. (1) It was snowing like crazy! Alas, that meant there was a low-ish turnout for our early show. Our good pal Betse Ellis, of the Wilders, has sent a message out to their hometown folks, so we had a few that braved the snow, but a lot of folks were there for our cobill (2) The Kansas City Bear Fighters. A great band. In some ways, much like The Two Man Gentlemen Band – up tempo novelty songs, sweet harmonies, etc – but in song content, almost entirely different. A lot of post-apocolyptic themes, and a lot of randomness, just like we like it. We have another favorite band!

(3) Gates BBQ. After our show, we treated ourselves to a BBQ feast. Of course, everyone had their suggestions – Missourans take their BBQ VERY seriously – and Bates was the closest. We walk in and are greeted immediately by an almost threatening “Welcome to Gates, what do you want?” It’s one of THOSE kind of places. We ended up with a massive platter of ribs, pork, beef, and also lamb, plus beans and slaw. Oh man, we feasted like kings. It was a funny late night scene, BBQ at 11pm, but, as you know, we live for these moments. You can witness our before and after carnage here.

(4) The lengths to which bands will go: Our show was the early show at Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Lounge. The late show was a mess ‘o’ rock bands, one of them was a group from Houston. Now, Houston is about 13 hours from KC, and this band had driven all that way for ONE gig. ONE GIG!! A poorly attended gig in a small dive bar on a snowy night. Folks, musicians in the USA should garner the same respect as firefighters and policemen, well . . . at LEAST mailmen. Risking life and limb on dangerous highways, snowy mountain passes and vicious windy Oklahoma straightaways. For what . . . $40, split 5 ways, one free pitcher of PBR or Highlife . . . occasional applause. All I’m saying is the next time you see a small band in a nearly empty venue, give them a pat on the back and maybe cradle them in your arms for a while. I guarantee they are tired and broke and feeling unappreciated.

Sunday, February 21st: Tulsa, Oklahoma

A wonderful house concert in Tulsa, a great time. Nothing especially remarkable about this day, though nothing terrible. We really enjoy these kind of shows – no mics, no stage, but a very attentive crowd that listens to your bad jokes and also the lyrics to your songs. After the show, Ben and Jake went to a club and saw a cool group from Dallas called Mount Righteous. Another of these highly charismatic, large brass ensembles, all tattooed and indie and sexy (I didn’t see them, remember, this is just my imagination). Seems like these kind of groups are getting more and more prevalent. I guess that’s OK. Tulsa is the home of Cain’s Ballroom – the spot where Bob Wills became popular and really formed his texas-swing style. So that’s something, right? So, OK, not much to report, but the real glory of Tulsa happened the next day . . .

Monday, February 22nd: Oral Robert University and Eureka Springs AR.

In the course of the evening before, we had engaged our hosts – Nathan and Kristen – in conversation about things to do around Tulsa. It came out that Oral Roberts University is in town, and is a sight to behold. Now, keep in mind that we are from Virginia, home of Liberty University. However, in comparison, Liberty is a fully reputable place. Have you BEEN to ORU? Have you seen the city of gold? Well, if not, have we got some pictures for you! The whole place looks like it was built in some sort of 1970’s not too distant future. Gold plating on every surface. A fantastically absurd prayer temple that looks, in the word of heretic and part time ranter Edward Brogan like, “an interstellar escape pod.” Massive praying hands! OK, yes, it’s an easy target for agnostic and cynical East Coasters such as ourselves. And we love easy targets! Low hanging fruit also. Just look at the pictures. Please take notice of the many many MANY “No Weapons Allowed” signs on every door. I’ll also point out that there was an article in the student newspaper about how the fire alarms had to be removed from the men’s dorms, due to an overabundance of pranks. Those crazy kids! If they can’t have premarital sex, false fire calls are second in line!

After leaving Tulsa, we drove the scenic route through Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation towards Arkansas. Needless to say, the Cherokee Nation, at least that we could see from the road, could have been less depressing. Signs of poverty abound, and the one shiny thing was the casino, right on the AR/OK border. Yech.

We arrive in Eureka Springs, just on the SW end of the Ozarks. It is a lovely little town, much like Thomas, WV or Dahlonega GA. A resort town that specializes in spas, hills, and curatives waters. One of the springs apparently had the power to heal the blind! Anyway, in keeping with our “born loser” mantra, we decided to visit this town in the off-season. The good part of this is that the locals were out, and it’s always good to get in with the locals! We posted up in a corner of the bar – Chelsea’s Corner Cafe – and rocked out with some stringband-y madness. The beers were flowing, the dancers were dancing, and we had a great Monday night on the road.

OPEN NOTE TO VENUES: Dear venues, do you want happy musicians who speak well of your club and want to return? Here’s a few tips. Feed them, drink them, and lodge them. Wow, a novel concept to be sure. Of course, payment is also great. But, just as good is making them feel like it’s worth driving 4-8 hours to play at yer establishment. So frequently, you treat them like a nuisance or freeloaders when they are brazen enough to think that you might prepare a pizza or salad for them, or that they might get a free drink or two, you know, for whipping it out and bringing customers to your bar. A small thing, I admit, but just think about it.

Anyway, back to Eureka Springs. We had a great walk around town, and Jake had a flashback to his tween years in Arkansas. We picked him up, dusted him off, and pulled the mouth screw out of his teeth, and kept going. We will DEFINITELY return to this town.

And now I’m just about as caffeinated as possible (eyeballs are vibrating, depth perception is failing), and we are exploring options for hikes before heading off to Memphis for the day. More BBQ is in our future! Talk atcha soon!

Buy your tickets now for the Second Annual Richmond Roots Extravaganza!
Join your pals the Hot Seats – http://www.thehotseats.net
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$20 for the whole night of music, plus heavy hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast at midnight. At Richmond’s best source for food, music, and fun – The Camel - 1621 W Broad St.

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Enough of You – live on \"Virginia This Morning.\" Zombies . . .

Greetings!

It’s me, PF (”Pretty Frightening”) Hotseat, just bringing you a heads up on our comings and goings.

There’s a lot of new gigs coming up, all of which you can see right at the bottom of this very email (new technology!). Also, you can go to our Show Page on our website. We’ll soon be en route to the Midatlantic and New England. Also, we have a new server, and all complaints of slowness should now be quashed.

Hey, Facebook Users, did you know you can be a fan of the Hot Seats? Well, you can! The Hot Seats Facebook can be found at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Hot-Seats/20885708328. Join us on this new (ok, not so new) social networking journey!

Now, you know that Halloween is this Saturday, and although there will not be a full fledged musical play, as there has been in the past, there ARE some performances of the Annotated Zombie Stringband (see above) that you might consider attending, especially if you are a Richmond native!

Back in the van, headed north to Inverness! Watch out all monsters, mythical and otherwise!

PF Hotseat here, in fine spirits at the moment, just leaving the Border town of Hawick (“HOICK”), after a large British Breakfast and an early wake up. We’re leaving early for a couple of reasons: a) it’s a long drive, and b) we want to do our touristy “snap snap, grin grin” thing up there at Loch Ness! Maybe the most “touristy” place we’ve ever been to. There’s all kinds of schlock to buy and staged photos to take, our fanny packs are full of carrying cash and our jogging suits are matching. You know, they just don’t make ketchup here like they do in the States! My legs are tired! When’s dinner?

Anyway, let’s see . . .

Two nights ago (Thursday, Oct 1), we drove from the Kingdom of Fife to Newcastle, England. This is a wonderful drive, through the Scottish and English Borders – impressive hills and plenty of stark emptiness, really makes you appreciate the difficulty that various invaders must have had in trying to conquer the Scottish people. This is to say nothing about the difficulty that modern invaders (read: US) have in trying to understand what a Border dweller is SAYING. Every town is an isolated pocket and has a dialect to match – crazy words and accents.

Newcastle is an old town, with many a cool building to gawk at. We played at this cool club called The Cluny, as part of the Jumpin’ Hot Club music series. Our host, Graham, is a super nice fellow, a musician also, and was very pleased to see us. Alas, the show was poorly attended, at least comparatively to our other shows on this tour. Nonetheless, we rocked out as best as we could, giving our all, as we do to many rooms more empty and dingy than this one. The folks were well impressed and told us so. There was one man in particular who was well-marinated, and who was not shy about loudly proclaiming his love for the banjo multiple times over. Not only was his language slurred by drink, but apparently (I found out later) he had a strong “Jordy” accent, which is a region in the English Borders.

The next day we made for Hawick, back north into the Borders. On the way down this curvy valley, we passed by Hadrian’s Wall, which is as an impressive edifice as any I’ve seen before, as much for the clear amount of effort required on the part of the Romans to build it. It also makes me appreciate the amount of history in this place. After the Romans tipped out of here, the Vikings were in charge, which explains very much the crazy dialects and fierce independence of the Border folk.

The gig last night was in the Heart of Hawick Auditorium, located inside of an old mill and situated directly overtop of a river (NAME?), as most mills were. Hawick was the cashmere capital of the world at one point, and still has lots of the industry there. However, as with mill-towns throughout the first world, much of the industry has picked up and moved to places with less stringent or nonexistent environmental and worker’s rights laws. Alas. Nonethelss, we were promised cheap cashmere upon our next visit. V Neck Sweaters, anyone?

The show was totally sold out (ah, how nice it is to write those words!), and the crowd was the perfect mix of enthusiastic and polite. Pretty much every song went down a storm and at the end of the night we had a double encore, and probably would have done three had the house lights not come on. If only we could lock into this kind of thing in the States . . . sigh. There were two relatively drunk folk in the front of the house, full of hilarious chatter. During the quiet section of “Czardas,” the fellow commented loudly, “Can I Clap yet?” I thought it was funny, anyway.

After the show, we retired to a pub just behind the gig for a couple of quiet pints, or so we thought (cue foreshadowing music, string swell)! First of all, the aforementioned drunk fellow was there, and proceeded to talk to me and Ben about Cinderella (the band), and how effing great they are. Hmm . . . Also, Loudon, our agent, was in attendance, and had grown up around Hawick, so had lots of old friends and some relations along, and there was much mirth, merrymaking, and storytelling afoot. In the pub there were actually a couple of press shots from Loudon’s old bands in the 1960’s, an R&B band and a psychedelic group. Great to see shots of him in the midst of his mod moment. Of special entertainment value was Loudon’s good friend, Bob Fish(of Johnny and the Rocco’s) – a guitarist and rockabilly fellow. This man had backed nearly every Sun Records artist that toured the UK in the last 40 years. Wanda Jackon, Billy Lee Reilly, Chuck Berry, etc. Bob had some great advice about dealing with the women from many European countries (Sweden, most especially). He and Loudon swapped stories about their old band days, casually dropping names like Ginger Baker, Eric Burdon, John Bonham, and others. It was super informative and quite the thrill for relatively young bucks like ourselves. Another example of a man who has been able to make something of a living in the world of music while still maintaining a semi-sane home life.

And now we are curving ’round small Scottish road, two gigs left! I’ll probably wait to post this until the last two gigs are posted, so sit tight . . .

OK, I’m back! Sitting in the Artist’s Lounge in Caird Hall, Dundee, waiting for our final gig. Given that there’s WIFI here, I’ll go ahead and post some final pictures and a final blog for the tour.

Last night in Inverness was great! We got to town early and decided to cruise up to the Loch for our touristy business. It was a classic Highlands Day – great, foreboding, and very windy. We got exactly what we were told – horizontal, cold rain. I didn’t see the monster, although I thought I caught a glimpse of Bigfoot while standing on the banks of Loch Ness, but it was just Ed, creeping up beside me.

How good is the feeling of having 200+ people cheer for you before you play a single note? Very good. I realize that 200 is a relatively unimpressive number in the face of a large band, but for us? Pretty nice. Another great crowd, full of spark and energy, one of our largest in the UK! Things are growing well over here, so come on USA, let’s get on the bandwagon too!

So now we wait for our final gig, and it looks like it’ll be a good one. Caird Hall is this massive structure in downtown Dundee – a city right on the North Sea. We’ve got the pleasure of an opening act tonight – The Lost Todorov’s. They look like a great deal of fun and excitement. Hopefully it’ll set the mood for the night.

And now, some final thoughts:

And now we return home, back to wide roads and wide loads, SUV’s and Micky D’s, and the great wide yonder! New gigs are on the horizon for November/December and beyond.

More pics available here – PICS

Hope to see you soon!

PF Hotseat, et al.!