Saturday, December 4, 2010, 11:51 PM

So we were a bit apprehensive about playing the "early" slot at Dan's tonight in Denton but to our surprise, we had quite a nice sized crowd that came out to spend their Saturday evening with us. We played a full 2 hour set and SLAYED it tonight!







So much fun! Thanks to everybody who came out and be sure to mark your calendars for later in the week when we'll be back up this way twice. We'll be back up in N. Texas on Thursday night to play Cape Buffalo and Lakewood Bar and Grill on Friday night - both in Dallas. Saturday night we'll be rocking The Armadillo Palace in Houston. Gonna be a good week! If you're anywhere near and you feel so led, come out and join us! Rhoades is now driving us through the night to get home from Denton. "And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep..."

- Doddsy

Saturday, December 4, 2010, 3:16 PM

It's a cool 50 degrees in Tulsa, OK today. After all too brief a rest after last night's fun, we left our hotel to grab lunch. Rhoades and Fallon and I fed our bellies at an Indian buffet and shared some laughs about last night. In case you missed it, I'll share my thoughts with you now. After having left my home at 10:30am to meet the guys at 11:00, we made our way through time and space to arrive on the other end of what wound being 10 hours on the road (9.5 together in our time capsule). Surprisingly, we were all feeling pretty good despite having been packed into the van for such a long time together (although the van smelled somewhat of a locker room by the time we crawled out of there). We arrived in Tulsa at the Merc and set about to unloading our gear and using our best Tetris skills to fit all of our instruments into what is quite a small area that serves as the stage. Once setup, we even had plenty of time to say our hellos to old friends and a few new ones too, and time to quench our thirsts; our throats dry from such a long day's journey (Wink! Wink!)










We then played a long first set of just under 2 hours before breaking to visit a bit more with our patrons and wet our whistles one more time before finishing out the night with another 60 minutes of music. We quit right around 1:30am and then our night "began". Not quite as wild as other nights we've spent in Tulsa, but long into the wee hours of the morning (as is so often the case with my friends in this band.) Rather than dread these late nights out every weekend, I've come to where I really enjoy them and even look forward to being out til way past crazy-stoopid o'clock.




After so many miles unbroken by nothing except a few stops for gas and vulgar bumper stickers, we were hungrier than we were thristy and the hotdog vendor outside on the corner hooked us up with however much (or little) nourishment there is contained his tubes of salted animal meat product squeezed between the sides of a white bun loaded with everything we could possibly fit onto them. The "Party Bus" rented for the night that was parked out in front also made for some very unique entertainment while we dined, the likes of which can only be witnessed after midnight outside of one of the many area watering holes. (Remember - there's a reason why yo' momma siad to be home before midnight, because "nuthin' good happens after midnight".) And of course once the festivities outside had calmed down, we made our way back into the empty lounge to enjoy a nightcap (or two) (or three) and see what the few remaining bar employees really look like under flourescent lights.










After lots of ridiculousness and lots of laughs (some of which was captured and committed to celluloid for posterity's sake), we said our thank you's and goodbyes and ventured into the early hours of a new day to find our quarters for what remained of the darkness. Once checked in, Dennis decided he was hungry enough to head back out in search of something tasty.




Rhoades and I followed him back to the van where I attempted in my own weird way to assist in his hunt for food by using the map application in my iPhone to navigate us to the nearest late-night eatery but we only wound up burning fuel and stopping at a local filling station for what offerings we could find at that hour. (Note: The maps app on the iPhone WILL chart a course "From: Current Location" "To: Eggs". However, the chances of being led to anywhere that actually serves eggs is anybody's guess and thus, our settling on a gas station for a "meal") I settled on a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit and some chocolate milk, followed up by an Andes thin chocolate mint and I'm not sure what Fallon found but Rhoades ate something with a corn tortilla and it was very fried. That's all I know. The rest of the night was pretty tame and we all found our way into our beds at roughly 4:30am. Party! We're now approaching Denton to play Dan's Silverleaf Tavern and rock everybody's faces off. We're playing the early set tonight which means we'll make our way back home through the night to wake up in our own beds tomorrow. I'm not sure what shows are on the schedule this week, but I'm sure we'll have a blast a couple of somewheres a couple of times this week at least. In the meantime, enjoy this cooler autumn weather and be safe out there and we'll talk soon.

- Doddsy

Friday, December 3, 2010, 2:41 PM

It's been soooooo long since I've posted an update and I really have no reason why I haven't been more diligent about keeping up with this online journal, nor do I have anything substantial enough to say that warrants a new post but nevermind that. If you've read this far, you're hooked. Plus, it's 9 hours from SA to Tulsa and we're not even to Dallas yet which brings me to my first item of interest. We're driving to Tulsa (duh!) to play The Mercury Lounge tonight. While 9 or more consecutive hours in a van is most certainly not the first thing I think of when I decide what would make for a fun day, the weather outside is beautiful, my companions are my pals, and above all I get to see the layout of our great state of Texas (& my favorite place to be in the whole world). The Mercury Lounge has recently come under the ownership of our pal Reggie, who prior to owning the bar was previously our favorite bartender. (Well, "male" bartender anyway!) It's been quite awhile since we've been back through Tulsa to play the Mercury and I can safely speak for all of us when I tell you how much we're looking forward to playing the "Merc" again tonight. We've had the good fortune of making friends with so many great people in Tulsa and it will be great to see everybody again out there tonight. Of all the places we play, the concert posters for our shows up there are easily the coolest of any made for us anywhere. Thom and Ian with A-Studio Design do some fabulous work. Head over to http://www.astudiodesign.net to see what I'm talking about - you won't be sorry. I love their work.




So here we are. Dallas, Texas. Just like I pictured it. Rhoades is driving and his GPS shows black lines all along our route. Green lines = open lanes, Yellow lines = congestion/traffic, Red lines = slow moving traffic, Black lines = apparently means everybody for that length of the road has stopped completely. Oh well. More time for me to spin into written words the random thoughts generated through my synaptical points of electrical currents pulsing through my grey matter. The absence of my online presence since we returned home from our midwest tour is no reflection of a lack of travelling since that time. We've continued to play and play and play, and play some more. We've been back to play Granada Theatre in Dallas, Hank's in McKinney, Phoenix Saloon in New Braunfels, Broken Spoke in Austin, Continental club in Austin, Austin City Limits music Festival, and many other fine establishments since my last dispatch.










I took part in the Texas Big Beat in Houston which is a drum related event and benefit and I also held my first ever "clinic" at Sam Ash Music in San Antonio. With Halloween and Thanksgiving now past, we are finally starting to wind down a bit in preparation for the Christmas holidays. Looks like the first couple of weeks of January we'll be taking off to spend time with family and decompressing/rejuvenatung from our 200+ dates played in 2010. The end of January will find us flying back to Norway where we'll play on a boat trip travelling from Norway down to Germany. From there we'll head over to Amsterdam and play 2 nights at a festival in Holland, another of my favorite places in the world. In the meantime, stay tuned right here for more updates throughout the end of the year. We have a few more really fun shows before ringing in in 2011 and I'll do my best to keep you up to date with my brand of verbose entertainment describing our all-around tomfoolery. This is really my outlet to do my best to create a black-hole vortex of "timesuck" that by the end of which you wonder where your time went and why you spent so much of it reading this. My best to everybody and I'll have more to say soon, I promise - and next time it'll even be worth reading.

Cheers.

- Dodds

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TTS Fall Tour - Day 12

TTS Midwest Tour

Day 12, Dispatch 1 - If you ever have the chance to see a show at The Cotillion in Wichita, KS, you should. The place is a giant dancehall - and I do mean giant - and it although it was built sometime in the late 50's or early 60's, it has the same feel of a room that Gene Krupa's or Artie Shaw's big bands would have performed in.




We arrived yesterday afternoon and were welcomed by stagehands that dwarved us all and one of the guys told us our trailer was "cute" while another guy let us take pictures of him pressing down on the top of it.




They could have been vikings for all I know, but these boys were well fed! And friendly! They assisted us by unloading all of our gear into the hall while we waited our turn to setup and soundheck. We were there to open the show for Delbert McClinton and we were all excited to play such a neat room. While we setup in front of Delbert's band in a line across the stage, there was still plenty of room for us all to fit comfortably.




The crew finally brought down the house lights and fired up the stage lighting just before the doors opened at 7:00 and the illumination of the stage was fantastic! See the pics below to understand what I'm talking about. So cool!













Our show went well but we didn't stick around too long afterwards. A 6-7 hour drive to Plano meant we needed to hit the road last night and cover some ground while we could to help split the drive up since we have to be to Plano by 1:00pm today. We all function highly late at night and nobody enjoys the early morning alarm call-wakeup like we do, so we decided to stay up late and drive rather than wake up early and drag ourselves out of our biscuits, shielding our eyes like vampires at the break of day. And here we are again in our vessel that has propelled us through space and time for the better part of 2 weeks.




One last road trip to one last venue on this run. We're headed to Love and War in Texas (in Plano) for a benefit and the weekly Shiner Sunday series. Love and War is a fun place to play and while it's only been 12 days on the road, it seems like we've been out for a month. 12 days seems like a lifetime ago. Like I've said before, for better or for worse, somehow we always seem to pack more into a few days than others do in several weeks. It will be great to be back home in Texas and to perform in front of our friends and family. I'm not sure what time we start, but look it up online and if you're in the area - stop by and say hello. Tonight is a "home" game! I'll have one final tour post tomorrow recapping this run but until then, I hope everybody out there has a fantastic day and hopefully we'll see you tonight in Plano!

- SuperDodds


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- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

TTS Fall Tour - Day 11

TTS Midwest Tour

Day 11, Dispatch 1 - Last night in Kansas City will easily stand out as one of the most memorable evenings from this trip (that has had so many memorable evenings!) We pulled into Davey's Uptown Rambler's Club only to find it wasn't so uptown.




More importantly for me, as I was loading in my gear for the night, I glanced across the street to find the hand of providence had gifted me a crazy nice laundromat only steps away and with plenty of time to get my drums set up and all of my dirty threads laundered and smelling fresh and clean. I was down to my last pair o' boxers - and that's not the most pleasant place to find yourself, staring at the prospect of a suitcase full of dirty chonies. Several days on the road with consecutive shows and the incosistancy of regular showers will leave a man with a bad case of what Dr. Rhoades-Bomb has diagnosed as...




Fortunately for me I was able to get all my laundry taken care of and repacked away just in time to get changed for the show and walk across the street and go to work. We played another fantastic set to a room of quite a small crowd. No matter. The folks that came were not there by accident. They were as animated as any crowd we've played to before and everybody had a great time. We played the early slot which meant once we were torn down and loaded out, it was still really early. This is where my memory of last night will stay so vivid for many years to come. A big part of what makes these evenings spent away from the comforts of home in Anywhere, USA is not the fact that we played a certain bar in a certain town. On one hand, a bar is a bar is a bar. We play lots of them in lots of towns and they all start to kind of blur together after awhile. It's the memories of experiences that happen before and after and around these performances that make these trips seem real long after we've returned home. Shane is a new pal of mine sent out to see us from a mutual friend back home. Crazy nice guy and a fellow musician as well. Jeff and Stacy are fans of the band who have followed us and supported us in Kansas City on past excursions into town. Jeff and Stacy were kind enough to treat us to a barbeque feast that included almost every conceivable kind of meat that could be cooked! A few pitchers of some very tasty and locally brewed witbier along with several sides and lots of delicious barbeque sauce made for a wonderful meal amongst friends new and old. It was nice to take a break from "the road" and escape to a place similar to where an evening meal might find me at home in that we were out with friends and sharing stories and laughter. Always lots of laughter.







So thank you, Jeff and Stacy, so very much for your warmth and hospitality and for making Kansas City such a wonderful stop on this tour.




Due to many things going on in town over this weekend, we were forced to drive an hour over to Topeka to find lodging last night. This morning I made my way down to the van to find that once again the heartland of America had dawned on an absolutely beautiful day with a light breeze and quite a chill in the air (and only just a short drive to Wichita, where we'll open the show tonight for Delbert McClinton tonight.) The only thing that will make this day any better is if I can find somewhere to watch my 'Horns play OU after we arrive in Wichita. Gonna be a great day everybody -- Cheers!

- Dodds


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TTS Fall Tour - Day 10

TTS Midwest Tour

Day 10, Dispatch 1 - The Gramophone is located in an older part of St. Louis that is slowly coming back to life. The improvements to the area in the last 6 months are noticable and help to make the area friendlier to folks passing by. Roo and Matt and everybody at The Gramophone are waaaay cool.




Matt always makes us sound so great and the staff are just hip. It was fun to catch up with everybody before our set and to relax in their newly remodeled green room in the basement. Some nights we play, our performances are better than others. Seems the shows on this trip have been really consistant from night to night and the sets have become increasingly easier to play. Roo (who owns the place), complimented me on my playing last night too and my ability to play appropriately to the room. It's great to have the owner of an establishment give you kudos for your efforts but truth be known, I couldn't do it without my band. Because those guys are also professional to be able to play appropriately to the room, it helps to make me look great - especially since the staff at The Gramophone probably see way more than their share of rhythmatists come through their doors that overplay, overpower, and blow the place up! After the show we hung out in the parking lot awhile and talked surfing with Fallon, and BMX with Rhoades, and skateboarding with me. I rode around the parking lot on Matt's board popping little ollies along the way while Matt told of the local skatepark being constructed under a highway bridge (a-la Burnside) by local vigilante skate guerrillas. (Like I said, everybody there is just hip!) It sounded like fun to go see too but due to lack of lighting, we abandoned that idea and made an effort to seek out lodging for the night.




We don't always get along in this band. Just like any relationship, there's give and take. Somehow we keep it all together though as we head up and down these paths that run like arteries through our nation. Today we're headed to Kansas City to play Davey's Uptown Rambler's Room. Just the name alone sounds like fun! I think we're done relatively early tonight too so maybe we'll venture forth in search of excitement after the last note's been played for the night. Who knows. Que sera sera. Much love friends...

- Dodds


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TTS Fall Tour - Day 9

TTS Midwest Tour

Day 9, Dispatch 1 - When we pulled into Fitzgerald's yesterday, I was feeling great & in a great mood. Fitzgerald's is more a pub than what I'd call a "bar", and everybody involved there is friendly and hospitable. I was glad to be back in Chicago and was excited to catch up with an old friend I hadn't seen in years. Turns out that Dennis knows him too - he used to give him guitar lessons! (Who hasn't Dennis given guitar lessons to?)







Rhoades also had some friends come out to the show early and we arrived late enough in the evening that after a quick setup and soundcheck, we were getting hungry. Dennis, myself, Rhoades, and our entourage of Chicago friends exited the venue and walked nearby to enjoy some Chinese food for dinnner and lots of great conversation.




I was glad we had enough time to eat (withOUT rushing!) and once we had finished dining, we arrived back at Fitzgerald's with plenty of time to catch the Hoyle Bros. The Hoyle Bros. are a Chicago band playing Texas Honky-Tonk and they are really great! All the players are very good at their instruments and all of them are crazy super cool. It's always good to see them in either Chicago or in Texas, and it's always fun to hear their set.




Once they were finished, we tore into our set and KILLED for almost 90 minutes. Over the course of playing every night for two weeks, I find myself in great drumming condition and I'm super relaxed onstage behind my kit and we're 3/4 of the way through the set before I realize it. Some nights 90 minutes can seem like an eternity. Other nights (like the nights on this run), 90 minutes is gone before I know it. We finished out our night with an encore of a couple of songs and then made our way into the crowd to visit and cool off. Don't know what it is about all this cool weather up here. In Texas, we all open our windows and are thankful for some respite from the heat of the long summer months. Up here, everybody's already in windbreakers and all the windows are closed which makes for some stuffy rooms. Anticipation of the long winter months to come perhaps? Once we were torn down and loaded up, we said our goodbyes and Bill Fitzgerald pulled me aside to tell me how much he enjoyed our set and my drumming. He's been there for 30 years and he's seen a lot, so his kind words were extremely appreciated and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. We made our way to our hotel and after dropping off our belongings, we ventured out into the cool Chicago night air for a nightcap and hopefully more laughs. If there is anything we do well, it's make music and make each other laugh. There's always somebody saying or doing something silly that has all of us busting our sides. Last night was no different.




We found a little pizza joint/bowling alley still open and we arrived just in time to bear witness to a good old fashioned bar room brawl. Some dude said something to somebody and next thing we knew, KA-POW! Sucker punch! Despite the vulgar expletives and the blood on the floor, the bouncers were successfully able to contain and remove the parties involved and it was back to fun and games for everybody. We stayed out til stoopid o'clock (again) and I was glad to get back to our room.

Today's skies are clear and the breeze is cool and the temperature is perfect. I hope this weather follows us home to Texas upon our return. Summer's fun, but I'm ready for the seasonal change that the comes with the annual planetary trajectory around our star. Tonight we're playing the Gramophone in St. Louis. I'm looking forward to being back there too. Good times. Have a great day out there everybody and I'll report from there soon.

- Doddsy


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