Wildcat Spratt 65th Birthday Bash/Stone City Acoustic Showcase

Rumor's Jam

Joe Hutchcroft-Lead vocal on Simple Man
Tommy Bruner-Guitar on Simple Man
Randy Burgendorf-Bass on Simple Man
Billy Bourbon-Guitar on Simple Man, Bass on the rest of the songs (Vocal; Wonderful)

Then
Dangerous Dan Hartman-Lead Vocals and guitar (Two Bottles, Six Days, Standing There)
Guitar Dave Bonham-Lead guitar and vocals (Watchtower, Red House)
R.Smith-Drums

Songs:

Simple Man
Two More Bottles Of Wine
All Along The Watchtower
I Saw Her Standing There
Red House
Six Days On The Road
Some Kind Of Wonderful

Terry McDowell-The Main Man

Stone City Acoustic Showcase Batch Of Songs:

Fox On The Run
Sundown
Long Black Veil
Summertime Blues
If You See Her
Cinnamon Girl

Lane Gaffney, Bart Bock-Hosts

With: Amanda Marshall, Kimberly Trevellion, Carl Meiners, Phil Bo King, Angie Marie Cox, Mae Johnson, David Pedersen and others.


Saturday Night-Guest Star drummer for Four Day Creep

Mississippi Queen
Movin On
Cheap Sunglasses

With: Amanda Marshall, Rick Clay, John Baughman and Troy Mitchell and Jeffery Brown

Friday Night: having fun with Notes From The Underground

I did seven songs of note including Let's Work Together, Wooly Bully, Good Lovin,  can't think of the rest.


Notes:

A very busy weekend of catching bands and having fun one last time before I return back to my regular job.  Dreams Of Arcadia opened for Toxic Blonde at CRL Friday Night, Lisa Harbit was the percussion player that night.  Between sets I popped over to Checkers to have fun with Tom Berdo and Notes. Toxic Blonde was loud, and Terry McDowell's drums were like a earthquake.  He makes it rock good.  Sad to say Dawn lost her voice before the Fresh Fighters took the stage.  A big surprise seeing Ron and Fran Lafleur at CRL.  He wasn't impressed with the Whole Lotta Love jam part.

Ryan Paul didn't even noticed I was there especially I was teasing him with Tom Petty shout outs.   However, Julie did see me and we popped over to say hi to Franklin and dropped her back to CRL.  Then I was off to catch Notes From The Underground at Checkers and Tom Berdo put me to work.  The regular drummer Mike had some foot issues so I did about seven songs before they concluded the set with Piss Up A Rope, a song that I had no idea of how to do.  So I conceded the drums back to Mike.  I enjoy sharing the stage with these guys, they are so much fun, the most odd band I have been involved with but they're all my brothers.

Saturday,  Cathy Hart was playing at Walford with Royal Liar, so I went out and hung out with her and David Spina plus Jeff Gage and his wife for two sets.  It turned out to be more of a Wooden Nickel Lottery reunion as well at they played half a set and Rich Toomsen helping out Cathy and Royal Liar for a while.  At that time, we got hit with a big thunderstorm so I decided to hang there longer than usual.  Once the rain stopped, I went to Aces N Eights to say hi and guest starred on three songs, two with Amanda singing.  I've never done Mississippi Queen and Movin On for them, and then with Rick singing Cheap Sunglasses.  The first time that we didn't play Dreams I'll Never See Again.


Sunday:  I played Stone City for the first time since the beginning of the month and played it safe with six songs that I have been playing.  Kimberly and David popped up after my set so I couldn't play Gold Dust on guitar for her.   Kind of a small crowd but since I made the obligation to go to Rumors, I led the beginning of the jam.

Rumors:  It was the Wildcat Show and he belted out a ten minute long drum solo, just as Tim Canfield popped in.  Kraig turned 65 and he still can put out a overdrive double bass beat.  Hard to top that but Joe Hutchcroft held his own while helping Barb Francisco (formerly Myers) on Rain, Roll Over Beethoven and couple others.  Joe and I traded places as he sang Simple Man.   Terry had a full drum set with about 14 cymbals to choose from, including my favorite 7 inch Z Bel.

It was the first time I've seen Dave Bonham since Stone City, and he was at Rumors so I backed him up on a few songs.  He have been ill of late.  He didn't stay long after his set and was off and running someplace else.

The Royal Liar gig at Wild Hogs was supposed to be the Everlou gig but Cathy left that band and had to find folks to cover this gig.  That's where Rich and Jess Toomsen came in, Rick Gallo, Cathy's son was part of Royal Liar.  I didn't make it to the Shellsburg gig so I opted to see them in Walford. 

The acoustic gigs I have been playing it safe, usually the songs that I know best.  I seem to be in a comfort zone of doing the same six or seven that don't need the book.  If Kimberly was there, I would have had her sing Gold Dust Woman.  I think they got there too late at Rumors to play anything else.  Another drummer Tommy replaced me when Dee Vieman came to close the jam out. He was a bit clueless on Folsom Prison and did a different beat for the Gold Dust/Chain medley that I didn't play tonight.  I think the five songs, that I played on, were fairly long themselves.   The Wildcat did sang on a few songs including Wonderful Tonight to which he added a F Bomb here and there.  Terry n I looked at each other funny but for 65 years old Mr. Spratt is certainly one of the top all time drummers in town.

Billy played more bass this time out than usual.  I'm sure Tim Canfield could have joined in the fun, but he usually more of a watcher than player.  Can't say I blame him for that.

Will Terry go full drums any more this year,  it depends if somebody special has a birthday coming up.  I don't expect him to go full drums when my birthday comes up but I wouldn't say no if he did.

Finally-Joe Hutchcroft says.

"Always nice to do songs with someone that knows what they're doin."

(in reality Joe can hold his own with anybody on drums but I'm honored to play behind him when asked).