(The head Boy Scout Hippie)
I'm still dealing with the walking cold and spent most of the day washing three loads of laundry and then taking another nap before waking up to hear Ron frantically calling about me playing at Aces n Eights after all. Thankfully he caught me before I decided to head into town to do my nightly grocery shopping. Otherwise they would have to cancel the gig. Well, they would have moved on without a drummer but I was too happy not to pass up another 100 dollars and four hours of playing music.
(Cali Jean Blake and Crabby and the amazing moving drumset)
Aces n Eights has a concrete floor, which meant the drumset would be moving and it moved through the whole time I played. Nick came around to play harmonica for the final set and did his best to convince me I should go help him play for spare change at St Patricks' Day at Czech Village. I told him sometime in the future when I'm feeling better.
As always, I always encounter somebody that wanted to play drums and impress their woman. But this time this woman came around touting her boyfriend's drum talents and we decided to give Brian a trial by fire, the version of Can't You See to which it speeds up and ends the song on a train wreck ending. For a first time, Brian did quite well since he never played with the guys before. And on that, got all the women to dance with him through the gig. It might have pissed off his woman but I'm sure they kissed and had make up sex later on.
Fran, Ron's wife shot a couple videos: a good version of Midnight Rider and then Hard To Handle. I still cannot get over the fact that I look like I rather be somewhere else besides playing but the rhythm was quite good. I'm adding more of the fire and fury of the Tyrus years once again but for the most part I'm throwing accents and drum fills through the songs anyway. I was getting tired of pushing the drums back into place after each and every songs it seems and even the hi hat stand was moving away from me. I dropped the drumsticks a few more times that I would like tho. Plus I got another war wound on my knuckle and can't remember what song I did that on.
We had a crowd most of the night, tho' it wasn't as packed as Waubeek was last week but we had plenty of dancers. Everybody was in good form tho' there were a couple missteps (For What Its Worth was started and then faded off before we went into a part 2 of that song). I think I played better this week than the Waubeek gig but I was beginning to drag before the closing of the final set.
It also didn't helped that we had yet another fucking snowstorm that dropped three inches of snow on the cars and getting snow on the drums on the load out and on the way home. But at this point, the weather has warmed up to the point that the roads weren't bad and the snow would be all melted this afternoon.
And so it was decided that I would return to help them out next week at Whiskey River in Monticello as the other drummer tries to get over what he has. But the impression that I got was the guy didn't do a very good job at CRL Friday Night. So I agreed to help Ron and Dakota one more time and one more Saturday Night. Maybe then, the new guy will be able to perform better. All he has to do is to know when to rock out and when to make it mellow and not go all out. Somehow I have seemed to be the only one that can read Ron's cues better and adjust accordingly.
But I'll be back again. Cuz I'm the world's greatest drummer in town.
(All photos: Fran LaFleur)
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