Thoughts From The Townedger-Nov 2021

Unlike last year, we have yet to see snow.  Which is fine by me.

Erik Marshall passed away, he was part of the Meekats and early Surf Zombies with Brook Hoover, Kyle Oyloe, and Joel McDowell. I didn't know him personally, only from the Surf Zombies and Meekats albums.  It is always sad to see a fellow musician pass away, more so when they are youuger than you.  I'm sure he and Kyle are having fun in the great beyond with Jimi, Lemmy and a few others.

I did show up to the Black Friday Jam at the Eagles Club but didn't play.   Mitch Smith and Mike Clair was there, Eddie Jarrell, Rocky Smith, Herman, Bonnie Harrison, Mike Williams, Dan Hartman and Matt Panek did play.  Oh, forgot about Leroy Munn there too.  The host drummer had a wide variety of trash can lids that sounded like crap and the drums were vintage Ludwigs.  Had that nice 70s sound, but the cymbals didn't cut it.  Plus they had a boom cymbal stand that kept falling over. I wouldn't be surprised if the cymbals had a bit of keyholing. there.  It was for a good cause.   I think somebody made me sick when I was up there. I've been hacking and coughing since Friday.  And had to bow out of the jams for Sunday. 

This month I managed to get out there to play on idle time at work.  But the flu is going around and I think Terry caught it last weekend.  I usually have the sneezes that bother me big time but can't get close to my girlfriend.  Otherwise I'd be sleeping outside.  She and Dave will be hosting the Unhibinated Acoustic Showcase in Iowa City on Tuesday Nights starting this week.  As they say, I'll be there in spirit. 

The question of loyalty remains whether or not if it brings any sense of reward.  The Artisan Sanctuary open mic has been the main choice, I can play acoustic guitar and play the songs that I want to play.  There's always those who want to dictate the rules, I know who they are and they have been around the block for decades.  I love em all and like to be a part of their jams.  I haven't convinced Julie to take part in our band, she's busy with Dave and other projects.  Does this mean I should just not try somebody else to play the acoustic music and songs that I like?  Kimberly has been the more receptive of the songs, tho I know she can be as strong willed as Cathy Hart as well.  If I host a jam with Kimberly, then I get raked over the coals, even if it's a paying job.  This kind of attitude has taken the fun out of playing it seems. But I do my damnest to support the likes of Hart/Parker, Jules and Dave and Kimberly's No Limits Band.  The reward is to be compliment on being part of any band and helping out the cause.  I seldom get paid.

For the Sunday Funday Jams, the drummers are coming back.  Which might be the time to get back to playing guitar more often.   In the case of Rumors, the object is to get there early and play and then high tail to Stone City for the acoustic jam.  I haven't thought about Dharma's in Troy Mills,  Stone City is closer, but who knows.

I remember seeing a You Tube video of Skip Lowe playing and winning the drum battle at Guitar Center in Des Moines in 2014.  Skip was once part of Billy Lee Janey's prog rock EXP band and was working at West Music in the late 80s and early 90s.  He was more dedicated to playing drums than I am so I never believed it when he mentioned me to be one of the best.  When I see his video, there's no way I can top what he plays.  Maybe Skip did move to Des Moines and continued on, but I have yet to see a FB page with him.  Maybe he's one of the smart ones and don't have a FB page.  Of course, you are going to have keyboard warriors slamming his looks, but even in a three piece suit Skip Lowe can run circles around them.  He should be a legend in the Iowa HOF of drummers.

For the first time in three years, I have picked up the flu and cold.  I suspect being that Eagles Club Friday might have done that or Thanksgiving at Mom's place. The fever and shakes suck, so does the coughing.  Terry has been hit hard by the flu crud couldn't host the past couple jams.  My guess was that Herman took over.  For this month I'll be laying low for a while.  Getting this shit saps all the energy out of me.   Blues Rox will be back to improve on their music in December. 

Whiskey Jo-Thanksgving Eve Bash

Songs:

Some Kind Of Wonderful

Long Time Gone

You Don't Know How It Feels

Up On Cripple Creek

Knocking On Heaven's Door

The One That I Love

Take Me To The River

Me And You And A Dog Named Boo

Bobby Bourbon-Sings on all songs, plays bass

Tommy Bruner Sings on Long Time Gone and Take Me To The River, plays guitar

Donna Jo Farley-Sings On The One That I Love, plays percussion

Rodney Smith-Plays drums and shuts up

Terry McDowell-Host as always

Troy Mitchell showed up to play drums.  I can't recall the last time he played drums at a jam

DJ Hovenstot played drums

So did Jasper

Most of the faithful were either at Checker's celebrating DaddyO McMurrin's birthday bash or at Riverside Casino with the Blues Ladies Rock with Avey Grouws Band providing the music. This is Bryan West, Avey Grouws Band's drummer extraordinaire.    The big surprise was Troy Mitchell playing drums.  He always rock, even with the blues, he's pure rock n roll.  He and Bryan are two are my fave drummers, and of course Terry too.  That is Bryan with yours truly during the Avey Grouws Jam of last month.  I don't expect to see any pics of tonight's jam.  Could be wrong and if there's any of note, I post them.   Either now or the end of month report. 

It was a simple drum set that Terry had,  One less crash cymbal so basically I played a more stripped down beat, tho I got a bit too fancy pants on Take Me To The River.  Gotta keep it simple.  It was a interesting song to conclude the jam, the Lobo cover.  Never played it before I don't think.  It sounded like we knew the song, where the breaks and accents were at. 

Kimberly did sing the majority of the songs with Troy providing drums.   Donna Jo did figure in the last five songs.  We chatted for a bit and I told her that I've been dealing with health and family issues and didn't mean to ignore her when I showed up.  Nothing against her, but I tend to bottle things up and not let folk know what is going on.   

My boss was good enough to let me play tonight's jam, tho we did have work that first shift didn't do.  I'm sure come December I will pick and choose more jams on the week nights. 

Bottom Photo is Tommy, Troy and Herman, one of many drummers that showed up tonight.  

Above is DJ Hovenstot and Jasper.  Billy Bourbon took these photos, Old Stone Face was camera shy tonight. 

Down in Riverside the Women Of the Blues did a show down at the Casino to which Avey Grouws Band were there as backup.  This is a photo of everybody getting together at the finale.  Chris Avey and Bryan West are having lots of fun, despite the drum shield.  I hate those things. 

Rumors-You're Playing Too Loud Herman Stop It!

Songs:

Hey Bartender

Dock Off The Bay

Wildwood Weed

Long Time Gone

Mary Jane's Last Dance

Midnight Rambler

Billy Bourbon-Guitar and vocals

Tommy Bruner-Lead Vocal on Long Time Gone and Midnight Rambler, guitar

Tim Canfield-Bass

Terry McDowell-Host

Nick Lnenicka-Harmonica

Maurice Morris-Guitar

R. Smith-Drums

To which Terry was under the weather to the point that he let Herman take over at around 4 30.  Herman got a bit too rambunctious that he was told to quiet down.  I don't believe I was that loud, tho we did have a lot of jam time fun on Long Time Gone and Midnight Rambler, to which I actually figured where Tommy was going to with that song.  Last time we did this song, it didn't come out very well but it's a jam and nobody cares.  This time out, it went pretty good.  

Tommy Giblin and Brook Hoover are the new guys in Chad Johnson's oldies revue known as the Past Masters.  I still hope to record with Brookie on some new music.

While Terry wasn't feeling well, he did have plenty of drummers to take his place.  I did six songs that totaled around 30 minutes.   Even DJ Hovenstot's grandson  Jasper was there, Bob Miller popped up later, as well as Mikey Lint and Tino Kaufmann and a drummer that replaced me but didn't get his name. 

I didn't make my way to Stone City, opted to go see Julie and Franklin and watched most of the Sparks Documentary which should pick up interest in that band.  I have a few of their records, including Pretending To Be Drunk, which was the deal breaker with Atlantic from what I heard.  But then again that label has always been a farce to anybody outside of Led Zeppelin it seems.  

Long Lunch With Kat Blue And Tommy Bruner At Checkers

Songs played

Fox On The Run

Logic And Lies

Drift Away

Cheating Songs

Realitesvville

Train Goes Nowhere/Gallows Pole

For What Its Worth

Cinnamon Girl

Call Me The Breeze

Further Up The Road

Dreams

Gimme One Good Reason

Kimberly Trevillion-Lead Vocal on Drift Away, then the last five songs

Tommy Bruner joined up later to perform on the last five songs too.

Freddy Jones played Harmonica on Call Me The Breeze and Further Up The Road

(Photos from the Kat Blue Collection)

This was the third and final of the Long Lunch jams this week for me.  However, I had to go to the ER to take care of chest pains, to which nothing was found but I was still lying in pain most of the afternoon.   They had me there for three hours, while I took a couple naps during to a constant beep.  247 dollars for a three hour stay.  Lord know what it would have been if I stayed the night.   Once they let me go, I went to Checkers to support Kimberly's jam,  to which a few folks showed up. 

It was the first time I actually got play guitar with Tommy since The Longbranch jam of about four years ago. He talked about wanting to play guitar on a couple originals but my mind was drawing a blank, looking back the song Teri My Love would have been perfect with his guitar lead.  The surprise was playing the Gallows Pole riff on Train Goes Nowhere.  First time I ever attempted that and it came out of the blue.  A couple of messups on the songs but I'll never reveal which songs they were. 

Kimberly did join back on stage to play Cinnamon Girl with Tommy for the first time.  We usually do Gold Dust Woman or Stop Draggin My Heart Around.  But then I dropped my pick inside the guitar and ended up getting a couple blisters on my thumb.   Freddy Jones did some harmonica work then left to enjoy his supper.  

Whiskey Jo's-Yet Another Long Lunch Night

Songs:

Far Away Eyes

Sane (Billy Bourbon's original)

Can't Find My Way Home

What's Up

Me And Bobbi McGee

Simple Man

Folsom Prison Blues

Billy Bourbon-Vocals on 1-2, Guitar

Tommy Bruner-Vocal on 3, Guitar

Dee Vieman-Lead vocal on 4-7

Terry McDowell-got a lunch break

I played during his lunch break.

And then off to support Julie and Dave's Acoustic jam at Uniniabred in their debut night in Iowa City.  No, I didn't play.

It was the first time since I played Whisky Jo's since September and got to play a variety of music and ideas done by the Mandela's and Dee coming up to sing her songs.  

DJ, Joe and Greg were there

Jeff Brown gave me grief about skipping lunch

Matt Panek was there but declined to play

Quintin Duarte played at the Open Mic acoustic jam

Will see about hitting Kimberly's jam tomorrow for a hour or so. 

Since there was no action photos, you're stuck with a Hello Kitty drum set. 

Artisan-Protective Stupidity

Songs:

I Can't Be What You Want Me To Be

The Last Time

Help Me

Logic And Lies

Behind Blue Eyes

No Expectations

Cinnamon Girl

(Missing Mike Moran, who now lives in Virginia and teaches students about protective stupidity) 

Back at the Artisan for the first time in two months and closed the open mic down with a uneven set of songs that got better as the night progressed.   Tried out Can't Be What You Want Me To Be for the first time in a while.  Fucked up the chords so I kept expanding it.  I need to practice more if I'm going to play these songs on a whim.

I followed yet another dude who was rappin'.  He mentioned that he only started to do his stuff three weeks earlier.  I wished him the best of luck, he's going to need it.

Mike Moran is the former Goat singer that played at the Artisan a few years ago.  He has played harmonica on a couple songs that I did.  He's certainly is missed around these parts.

My guitar playing has taken a back seat to the drumming with Blues Rox and the Sunday Funday Jams.  I have been very lazy of not practicing the songs outside of the usual five or six that are now standard procedure songs in Stone City.  We don't have the Whittier Jam anymore, so that's one less place to showcase the Acoustic Adventures, Waubeek has been placed on hold and I pick and choose Checkers whenever time is allowed.   I haven't bothered Julie or Kimberly on the Stevie Nicks songs they sing. I haven't bothered Terry about playing guitar at the Whisky Jo's or Rumors, last time I did that at Rumors I got the switch changed on the songs that I did play.  The old guard sticks to the chords that they can play.   So I don't bother much with them.  

Since moving to CR, The Artisan Sanctuary has welcomed a few more folks to play, but there has been Phil Bo not being there all that much, Stu Pershing and Sean Ster don't come to play, (probably of the fact that Stu lives around Waterloo or works strange hours and Mr. Ster's political nonsense has turned a lot of folk off, with his protective stupidity, likewise the ersatz Ryan Paul, who's willing to revolt for the sake of getting the past POTUS back into office.  Jim has been quite nice to the efforts of me and more so to Blues Rox.  I hope to continue to get back into playing more guitar but I'm not so certain of the future of the latter band.  I had thoughts of going to Davenport to check out their Tuesday Night jam but my HBP issues and being tired all the time dealing with the ongoing shoulder pain made it impossible.  And besides I took a hour nap this afternoon before coming into town and doing the Sanctuary open mic. 

Eli Wedel's Frequency One Man Jam Band was before me.  A bit rough around the edges but stick with it Eli.  Everybody gets better the next time around.  I should know.  BTW, I do like the way you think. 

Dave Bonham didn't make it to the open mic.  He and Julie host the Iowa City Unimpaired Bar debut Open Mic Wednesday Night and then play there Friday and then the Davenport Unimpaired Bar on Saturday.  

Rumors-Tami's Birthday Bash And Other Tales Of Woe

Songs:

Running Down A Dream

She Caught The Katy

Keep Your Hands To Yourself

Cocaine

Beast Of Burden

Barefootin'

Billy Bourbon-Guitar and sings on 1,3,4

Tommy Bruner-Guitar and sings on 5

Jeff Taylor-Keyboard and sings on 2

Tim Canfield-Bass and sings on 6

Terry McDowell-Host Drummer

Tom Berdo-Harmonica

Nick Lnenicka-Harmonica 3-6

I played drums

Spending time out and about Saturday Night, I caught the Surf Zombies at Iowa Brewing Company and picked up their new album and chatted with Brookie for a while.  He's been doing his best to get me to record some songs for him.  Brook has been part of the return back into the music scene and is a total great guy.  I will record something with him next year.

Tami's birthday was Saturday, and I got to say Happy Birthday to her during the Four Day Creep final gig of 2021 at North Point, a very roomy bar, to which Mike Fleck moved over since shutting down Aces And Eights.  There has been talk that Tami would be a wonderful person to share life with, or at least get some. That's not going to happen since I've been with Julie and continue to be loyal to her.   Tami is sexy and I know she'd be fun.  She got annoyed with me after we took a photo together and I poo pooed the way I looked in the photos, I tend to be my own worst critic.   Needless to say, she was disappointed in the way things turned out that night.   Tammy from Anamosa popped up to say hi as well.    If Julie wasn't a part of my life, who knows what would happen but Tami is hardcore GOP and Trump fan.  And that would not make us a compatible couple. The other Tammy dated Mike Serbousek for a while.  I'm sure both Tami n Tammy are fun women.  Problem is they both smoke and I don't date smokers. 

It was Rumors this afternoon, and Tami got another hug before we went separate ways.  I managed to stay in beat to Runnin Down A Dream (I always play it too fast) but Barefootin' was a problem since Tim plays a very slow version of it while the versions I know are Brownsville Station and mostly Pete Townsend's version from 1985.  These old legends seem to play the more slower version and somehow I have to figure out who to gradually get into their tempo.  The story of my life, too loud, too overbearing or too fast.  I can't win either way.  When you're playing with Hall Of Famers approaching seventy I can see why they slow down but to be honest, the Pete Townsend version was faster and the one that I am  more used to playing. It's hard to break away from a fast to slow version of some songs,  it cannot be helped, Barefootin' should be a  mid tempo backbeat, not a death march snare tap. 

Troy Mitchell and Ian Jacoby showed up but left after the first break. Kimberly showed up later and paired up with Tim Kauffman for the final set.  DJ Hovenstot and Kimberly Kay were there.  So did Rocky Smith who got to jam with the Firegirl.  I later caught up with him at Kwik Star, to which I picked the Kwik Star that had no tea available.  Another fucking wrong Kwik Star picked  again. 

By the time I got to Stone City, they were wrapping up. Dave said they had a good crowd at the beginning but when I got there they were all gone.  Carl Meiners, Mikey Frederick, Rick Wngle and Danny Trumm were there.  But I decided it was too late and didn't play any acoustic songs.  Which is just as well. 

Blues Rox At Checkers

What goes wrong, will go wrong.

I haven't been the same since my bone spur in the shoulder issues and setting up the drums before, really wore me out.  Nothing like having somebody stabbing you in the heart about 100 times.  So I stumbled upon a pointless drum solo to Wipe Out, to which Kristopher's mom was long gone by then.   Kris had a bad chord and it shorted on him during the second set.

Not much to say about this performance.  By the time Kris got a better chord, we were ten minutes away from concluding this gig.  Another try at Texas Flood, Leave My Woman Alone before throwing in the towel with a tossed off Your Momma Don't Dance.  

Julie and Dave were there, so was Rick Wingle and Scotty Bascom and Russ's Brother Ron with Matthew Russell. and Virginia Harlow too, she was there from the start.  Ron took the photos provided.

Russ was a hurry to get to his Cancun vacation that he forgot to take his bass guitar home. But I got it back into his procession when I was going home. 

(Kristopher's Mom took this photo) 

Due to technical difficulties, we didn't play Free Bird, nor Voodoo Chile, had we played the latter, it would have been the first time we played it in over a year.  having Kris play through the monitor didn't help much, in fact it hampered him on the final set.  We might have done the worst version of Rocky Mountain Way ever.  Can't Get Enough wasn't an improvement either.  The problem remains that if Brian sings these songs, it sounds like he hasn't played them since our last gig.  There was a disagreement on the chords to Rocky Mountain Way, and Russ might have picked up on that. Another problem was that Russ' bass was overpowering of trying to follow Kristopher.  Last month, when Chris Avey sat in, we were at our best.  This gig, showed us at our worst, tho we did rebounded with two blues songs and the odious Your Momma Don't Dance.  But nobody danced to our songs tonight.  We were out of it and it showed. 

Cymbal lineup:

20 Inch A Sizzle Ride

16 Inch S Trash Crash 

18 Inch A Medium Thin Crash (Brillant)

18 Inch K Custom Dark Crash

14 Inch K Dark Crash (Top), I4 Inch K Custom Trash (Bottom) for Hi Hats

The 18 inch Custom Dark Crash made its debut and it sounded at home better than the Medium Thin Crash.  For a budget priced cymbal, the S Trash Crash still sounds mighty good as a China sound cymbal, I think this compares to Charlie Watts' FPIP China cymbal, tho Charlie usually mixes and matches other cymbals.  I still go with either a all Zildjian or all Paiste cymbal.  The guys would love to see the 24 inch A Ride return and I'm thinking perhaps they'll get that wish at the Artisan next month. 

We did do a good version of The Sky Is Crying earlier in the evening which can be found somewhere on the net, but I'm still not that impressed in the way that I played that song.  

Rumors-With Ed Butler

Songs:

All Along The Watchtower

Beat It

Ode To Billy Joe

Price Tag

Battle Of New Orleans

Wicked Game

Dyer Maker

Come Together

Ed Butler-Guitar and Lead Vocals

Tommy Bruner-Guitar

Tim Canfield-Bass

Nick Lnenicka-Harmonica

R.Smith-Drums

Terry McDowell is your host

Billy Bourbon got to take a break. (but the photos of the Rumor's Jam are from him) 

Me and Phil Bo from a jam at the Artisan earlier in the year, Happy birthday to him!

The weekend started out filling seven bags of yard waste and then off to see Terry McCauley at the Bohemian and he was happy to see me.  He was still raving about our last get together at the Monticello barn eight months ago.    Got to see Flex with Rick Clay's debut and then went over to Phil Koening's birthday bash, which was winding down when I got there.  I did managed to play a few songs with Phil and Dakota McWhorter and Corey Baker.  I missed Ed and Tanya English and Guitar Dave, who were all long gone when I made it there.

For Sunday, losing an hour of daylight, I opted to do a bit of walking around NewBo and the Sinclair walking circle and still trying to overcome the bone spur in my shoulder which is causing pain at times. There's nothing I can do with it except learn to live with it.

Greg Nost, DJ and Joe Millenux were there, Donna Jo arrived later and Terry spared me of suffering through another of Russ Gracklin's limited song list of the usual.  Herm Saruday got that job.  It was a restless set, Russ probably had too much to drink and it showed on Mustang Sally.  

So it was Ed Butler to come up on stage and deliver a eight song set, to which he showed his eccentric side, with Beat It (yeah, the Mike Jackson song) and his greatest hits.  I was not familiar with Price Tag, to which in Ed's odd sense of humor, was done by Jessie J and off the Pitch Perfect soundtrack.  While the crowd may find him an acquired taste, I love his song selections and how I managed to somehow, find the right beat, tho on Price Tag, I was throwing different drum patterns.  His Ode To Billie Joe, another off the wall song, was eventually figured out, but Price Tag, well, I made the beat up as we go along.

The highlight has always been his Dyer Maker song, by now, I figured out where the breaks were at and went from there.  I don't think his Wicked Game was outrageous as it usually is, but still those two songs will be forever associated with him. 

By the time I got done, most of the bar crowd went home, leaving Donna Jo with Billy, Tommy, Freddy Jones, and Tim Canfield with there version of Margaritaville.

To which I excused myself and went home.

Somebody left her bra behind and Terry did find it and displayed it on his drum set for all to see.  Needless to say, nobody has come forward to reclaim it.  Hopefully Terry would throw it in the lost and found at Rumors.