“I would stand in that hallway and watch my heroes walk by.” -Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters)

When I was a broke twenty-something year old, I had the chance to buy tickets to see Johnny Cash at the 9:30 Club and (being broke) I didn’t. To this day I have always regretted missing that show, so any time one of my heroes plays at the “best music venue in the world”, I go. During my goth period, I saw KMFDM, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and Lords of Acid. During my waxing nostalgic period I saw Garbage, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. Now, in my alt-country/Americana phase I’ve enjoyed Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson and the Drive-By Truckers. The 9:30 Club is an iconic part of DC music history; it has endured 35 years and has hosted national acts like The Smashing Pumpkins and The Dead Weather, as well as being a huge supporter of local acts such as Godhead and The Morrison Brothers Band. Their reputation is so highly regarded that bands clamor to play here, in fact, Rolling Stone Magazine online named the 9:30 Club the #1 Big Room in America.

Founded by Dody DiSanto and Jon Bowers, the original 9:30 Club opened in 1980 at 930 F Street SW (hence the name) and held 199 people. The building itself was built in 1888 and at one time was used as President Benjamin Harrison’s inaugural committee headquarters. The first 9:30 Club show was headlined by The Lounge Lizards (Joy Division was supposed to perform, but lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide two weeks prior to the venue’s opening). Twenty years later, new co-owners Seth Hurwitz and Rich Heinecke moved the 9:30 Club to its current location at 9th and V streets NW into the former WUST Radio Music Hall (which was Duke Ellington’s music club in the late 1940s) where the capacity topped 1200.

To celebrate its double anniversary, the 9:30 Club is hosting a free five-day long multimedia “World’s Fair” exhibit filled with interactive, hypnotic imagery and 35 years worth of memorabilia. Tickets went fast (but a few more were recently added), which just reiterates how important this venue is to fans. Tickets are timed and when I attended last night, the line snaked around the building, slowly inching its way to the side doors. Once you enter the building, you are given a group pass (mine was Group B) and wait until your group is called. The process is efficient and easy to navigate, plus if you have a hankering, the bar is only a few feet away. Your group enters the cavernous basement bar where vintage concert flyers frame the walls and TVs playing old concert and interview footage hang above a mannequin in an R.E.M. t-shirt.

As you make your way up the dark stairs, signs for free 9:30 Club logo tattoos and cupcakes (which the club is famous for providing to its artists and who, in turn, constantly tweet photos of) dot the walls. Old booking calendars, VIP badges, set lists and signed concert posters are everywhere; its a virtual museum of music memorabilia and the work that went into collecting, archiving and displaying these pieces is astounding and breathtaking. In the main entryway there’s a screen set up with concert footage of bands like Shriekback, Virgin Prunes and The Smashing Pumpkins from the old venue. Smoke emits from underneath (for those who never get physically sick by the smell of dry ice) and there’s a tongue-in-cheek recreation of the annoying column that blocked your view of the stage. The balcony and main floor have gigantic screens which project old and current concert footage (including the Garbage concert I saw there two months ago), interviews and press footage. Another wall displays photos of club employees, including a large gold-framed one of beloved long-time manager and crew chief Josh Burdette who passed away in 2013.

Making your way along the balcony, attendees are offered a rare look into the green room backstage where local musicians were hanging out playing music (singer-songwriter Margot MacDonald was playing the night I went). The room is a nice size and seating areas wrap around offering enough space for bands and their entourage to hang out. I once interviewed Camper Van Beethoven in that room and they offered me a slice of their pizza, and Lily Allen adorably threw her leg up into my face so she could show me her shoes which were given to her “by the Mormons”; I have a lot of fond memories of that room.

Photo courtesy of Maureen Cohen Harrington

Photo courtesy of Maureen Cohen Harrington

Photo courtesy of Maureen Cohen Harrington

Photo courtesy of Maureen Cohen Harrington

Downstairs is an impressive Hall of Records which houses a collection of vinyl and CDs chronicling every band that has ever headlined a show at the club. The plan is to leave this room intact (and hopefully continue to add to the collection). I was really excited to venture onto the stage, the one area of the 9:30 Club I have never been. A screen is set up from the performer’s perspective which projects a screaming audience at a sold out show. Several instruments are displayed on stage, including Fugazi’s drum set and Thievery Corporation’s keyboard. Everything about this event is immensely impressive, but sadly, temporary (a closing party this Saturday with DC rock royalty Bob Mould hosting was just announced– the cost? $9.30).

If you can’t make it to the celebration, you can still buy the limited, first-edition, 264-page commemorative book featuring photos, stories and urban legends of the club’s tenure at both locations. The book includes quotes from musicians, employees and press. Devo’s Jerry Casale recalled playing the club in 2005 and the crowd wouldn’t leave after the show was over. The band had already changed, but came back out to play a few unrehearsed songs: “We played in our street clothes and we hadn’t done that since the beginning of the band.”

There’s also a chapter on the club’s famous surprise shows, including Radiohead’s 2am appearance after their scheduled performance at the Tibetan Freedom Festival at RFK Stadium was cancelled due to lightening. I’ve never seen a surprise show there, but I do remember hanging out with Foo Fighters keyboardist Rami Jaffee at Jammin’ Java the night before their unannounced 9:30 Club show. Jaffee was playing keys for local musician Owen Danoff’s album release show and I had no clue who he was at the time, but he was gracious and super chill.

The merch table was selling commemorative event t-shirts and I wondered why there was a giant rat on the back of them. When I got on the metro, I opened my book and was staring right at a photo of this giant, mummified rat and a chapter entitled “Rats! Urban Legends vs. Backstage Reality”. Co-owner Rich Heinecke remembers one time, hours after the club had been fumigated, the band performing that evening had just sat down to eat pizza when a rat stumbled along a pipe above their heads. “It stopped and breathed its last breath, then fell on its back in the middle of the pizza. Splat. The guys were looking down at the pizza at this rat that had just died.”

The 9:30 Club is such a cool venue that they can turn rats into part of their alluring character, Barbie dolls into bathroom door icons and an old brick building with a radio tower into a living legend.

For our complete photo album of the event, visit our Facebook page.

Fans and local musicians reminisce about the 9:30 Club

“When I was 17 I went to the Fifth Column (using my sister’s ID), then camped out in front of the old 9:30 club across the street to get tickets for The Cure’s Wish tour.  I remember that this sweet homeless man named PeeWee would stand outside selling flowers and made everyone smile with his gracious personality. Sadly I found out he was killed in a knife fight sometime later.  A bittersweet memory.” – Anne Roser (and btw this is the first I’m hearing of my sister “borrowing my ID”)

“Loading out into the rat infested back alley. Otherwise it’s a premier American gig.” – Jameson Elliott, sound engineer for Canadian band Whitehorse

“Overall memory is of a time gone by. My first club concert was Gwar’s debut in March of 1985, headlined by Suicidal Tendencies. 16 year old me was immediately hooked. That same year, I went to WUST – the site of the present 9:30 Club. Who knew that move would one day take place? The backstage was typically unguarded at the old club, you’d dip down into the dressing room and unless the manager of the band was stopping you at the door…you were in. And on a good night,  you (well I) was able to gank rider items. Nowadays, you aren’t getting backstage; you might meet the artist if you’re lucky or score a pass. I miss the old club. Don’t get me wrong, the new space is mighty fine, but things won’t be the same as that old F Street club. Anyhow, in a city where five years is a feat, 35 years is the stuff of legends. All the way up to the closing of the original club, you could literally drive up and park right in front of the club. Not get a ticket, and enjoy things like three bands for three bucks, including happy hour drink prices beginning around 5:30. Fact, I was able to drive, park, be in the club at 6pm for a band no one knew…Catherine Wheel. And it was the same for other names like Stairs, Barkmarket and many more on just the three-bucks series. You cannot park on the streets in 2016 – not without getting a ticket, feeding a meter…oh how I miss that.” –Sean Epstein

“I remember playing a headlining show there in 2011 right before our first major label album came out. It was SUCH a highlight of my entire career because I grew up watching bands at the old and new locations and dreaming of playing on that stage.” – Jason Charles Miller (Godhead)

“I went to see Love and Rockets in the late ’90s at the 9:30 Club. It was a fluke that I ended up backstage that night; my friend had an extra pass.  Daniel Ash told me I looked like an angel and would I like to go to NYC over the weekend with them on their tour bus.  At 22, I looked like a petite Darryl Hannah, whom Daniel Ash was reportedly in love with, but she would have nothing to do with him.  I guess I was a momentary replacement.  I wasn’t that star struck, I would have been happier with Johnny Depp, but at 22 I was definitely up for an adventure and was happy to get out of work the following day, plus I was a sucker for British accents.  Thank you 9:30 Club for a great weekend and a “new tale to tell.” – Anonymous concert goer

“Growing up in DC, the 9:30 Club was looked at as a milestone of success. It was where you always hoped you would one day play. Our first time playing there, we had just come off a string of bar gigs and smaller venues and we were not used to the kind of treatment 9:30 provides its artists. Five minutes after entering the club for sound check load in, I looked out the window and saw two guys taking our gear out of our van and going into the alley with it. I immediately ran out to stop them, fearing they were robbing us, only to find that they were 9:30 Club employees loading in our gear for us and setting it up on stage. I was pretty embarrassed, to say the least. This story remains, to me, representative of the type of first class treatment the venue and its employees give the artists that perform there. We have played there four or five times now and we continue to only have positive things to say.” Willie Morrison (The Morrison Brothers Band)

“It was summer of 2005 and the original lineup of Dinosaur, Jr. had recently reunited. I was waiting on a few friends and decided to go inside and catch the opening act, Majik Markers. They were beautifully loud, aggressive and sweaty. The gig had started on the early side and just a handful of people were there when the doors swung open. Majik Markers was about 15 minutes into their set when I felt an unknown presence standing next to me. In my periphery, I notice that it’s freaking J Mascis! He shot me one of those looks with a nod, a casual acknowledgement to a total stranger- effortlessly rad. I looked over in his direction a few seconds later and he had disappeared into the night…until he hopped on stage two hours later with his Marshall Stacks turned up to 12!” – DC musician Matt Tarka

“The first time I played at the 9:30 Club, I was a few songs into my set when suddenly all of my memories of standing in the audience as a kid and wishing I was up on the stage, instead came flooding back. I may have gotten a little choked up. Getting to play on the same stage as so many of my favorite musicians and songwriters was electrifying and beyond inspiring. It will always be one of the coolest moments for me.” – DC musician Owen Danoff

DC’s 9:30 Club has become a mecca for mainstream, established bands as well as indie artists on the rise. Named by Rolling Stone as one of the best big rooms in the country, the 9:30 Club has showcased everyone from Johnny Cash to The Dead Weather and recently hosted a famous surprise appearance by the Foo Fighters. Hometown artists rarely headline a show here and believe me, you have to be all kinds of awesome to grace this legendary stage. So when local Southern rockers The Morrison Brothers Band headlined Friday night’s show on the one year anniversary of their last 9:30 Club appearance/record release concert, everyone knew it would not be just a great show, but an ass kicking, spit-fiery, hold your Skynyrd emblazoned Bics high in the air kind of experience.

Opening the night was Nashville singer/songwriter Amy Wilcox who played with her full band which included Kristen Katich (fiddle), Patrick Thomas (acoustic guitar), Ben Miller (lead guitar), Johnny Stanton (bass) and Tommy Perkinson (drums). Wilcox has a beautiful, strong voice and she rocked out on her opening song “There’s The Door”, sashaying around the stage to the complete adoration of a very packed room. Wilcox performed an impressive cover of the Pistol Annie’s “Hell On Heels” (from Wilcox’s star turn on A&E’s Crazy Hearts: Nashville) while the stage was covered in a warm red glow that brought a sexy, burlesque feel to the performance and I swear I saw a couple in the audience making out to it.

“We’re gonna play a new one for you guys, it’s a national debut,” Wilcox announced and segued into “Hit And Run” as a few fans posed in front of the guardrail for photos. The band then went into full on reggae mode and did a fun rendition of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”, which I could tell the audience loved by the way everyone was bopping up and down in unison (it was pretty spectacular). Finishing up her set with “He Don’t”, the third track on her eponymous debut album, the guitars wailed, the fiddle electrified, the drums rocked out and Wilcox sang her heart out; all in all a grand set.

The Morrison Brothers Band then took the stage to frenetic screams from their (many) adoring female fans; drummer Matt Nolan expertly twirled his drum sticks in the air and started the show off, literally with a bang. Incorporating fiddler Alex Ruiz (who plays a one of a kind custom made electric fiddle) into their show tonight, the band was tighter than ever. Lead singer Willie Morrison kicked things off with “Everytime I Roll The Dice” by “bad ass honky tonk blues country” singer Delbert McClinton. This tune is a whiskey-drenched blues tinged hillbilly jamboree and the good times did roll. Next, the band performed “Easily Pleased” (off their most recent album State Of The Union) to a spirited audience who sang along as if their life depended on it. It’s always great to see such a passionate response from fans and it resonates back to the band who connect fabulously with their audience.

“PBR” is another crowd pleaser and bassist Dave Benson sang harmony while one animated lady in the audience acted out the entire song (again- awesome!). Morrison held out his mic for the audience to sing the chorus: “I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love” which they did exuberantly and, it must be noted, in key. Truman Morrison (Willie’s brother) switched from an electric to an acoustic guitar for Sturgill Simpson’s clever get-over-it song “Life Ain’t Fair & The World Is Mean” (the title reminded me of that classic William Goldman quote: “life isn’t fair, it’s just fairer than death, that’s all.”). Willie Morrison introduced the band and their “two sets of brothers” the final member being Matt’s younger brother Kevin Nolan, a brilliant songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Nolan switched from electric guitar to pedal steel on “Small Town”, a lovely tune filled with nostalgia and lost loves: “I had to run with wild horses to sow these wild oats and the east-bound train’s a-callin’ my name as she rolls.”

“I love you guys so much!” exclaimed Morrison. “We are starting to record a bunch of brand new songs, so is it cool if we play them for you now?” After the screams from the audience die down, the band plays “Better Than The Rest” which has a kick ass bass intro and sizzling guitar riffs. This song belongs in a stadium rock show, no doubt about it and the crowd’s reaction was great, one lady carved out a small space and danced around happily, flailing her arms up in the air in what I’m sure was a musical epiphany. “The Giving Tree” is a very catchy tune that really showcases Matt Nolan’s incredible percussion accents and the finale was faster than a cat catching a canary. “Love It All”, another new song came next and then one of my favorite covers that The Morrison Brothers perform, Blackberry Smoke’s “Up In Smoke” burst out like flames licking a bonfire. This is a tough song to play and they nailed it perfectly.

The jazz influenced “Ain’t No Stopping You” from State Of The Union was played next and then Morrison graciously threw some of their new merch out to the crowd (love the trucker hat) before kicking into a tune from their 2011 album, Shotgun Silhouette, called “Every Little Sunday” which really showed off Ruiz’s exhilarating fiddle skills. With Truman Morrison on acoustic guitar and Kevin Nolan on pedal steel, this is a happy tune that makes you want to just go out and frolic in a field. At the end of the tune, Matt Nolan, without missing a beat, finished up the song and then immediately threw his arm out and pointed to Ruiz, acknowledging his awesome performance.

“One year ago today was our album release show. It’s great because we got to recycle our posters,” jokes Morrison. With Truman Morrison on electric guitar, Willie Morrison playing acoustic guitar and Kevin Nolan switching to keys, the band goes into “Without Me” before Morrison asks “are you all excited about our special guest tonight? Make some noise for the one, the only Alyson Gilbert!” Gilbert performed often with The Morrison Brothers, but has recently cut back her appearances to raise her child, so it was a real treat to see her back onstage.

“Treat Me Right” is an entertainingly cheeky song that Gilbert and Morrison sing together. Gilbert laments: “how can you love me when you always disappear?” and “you know being alone was never part of the plan, I never signed up for a part-time man.” Whether you’re dating a musician, a traveling salesman or George Clooney, the tune acknowledges how hard it can be to maintain a relationship when one half is always on the road. There was a super cool instrumental segment and Morrison grabbed a tambourine, then jumped down into the audience for an interactive hoedown, much to their sheer delight.

Morrison took a short break while Gilbert sang a song called “Why Can’t I”. At this point, some audience members had downed a few too many Jack and Cokes and became quite amusing. One very tall guy in the audience took a moment to shout his adoration for Gilbert telling her that they were “meant to be” while a girl in the front row unbuttoned her plaid shirt and let the sun shine in. This was truly an honest to goodness rock concert.

“Gimmie All The Love” is one of my favorite original tunes and is definitely one you’re meant to shake a tailfeather to. It’s an audience participation song and Morrison got everyone singing along with their fists pumping in the air. If you’ve had a crappy day, this tune will turn that frown upside down.

“It’s been a rather fun summer for us,” Morrison said, “and there’s no place we’d rather be right now.” The Morrison Brothers spent a good portion of the summer playing with country greats Maggie Rose, Leon Russell, Merle Haggard and Frankie Ballard so they treated the audience to a throwback country song from 1994; a David Lee Murphy tune called “Dust On The Bottle” (‘but it’s one of those things that gets sweeter with time’). The crowd sang along to the chorus and were so in the moment that as soon as the song finished, one guy shouted “we’re not worthy!” (hey, at least he didn’t yell out “Freebird”)

A super fun rollicking cover of “Bar” by Georgia singer/songwriter Sonia Leigh kept the audience not only singing along, but everyone’s arms shot into the air and started swaying for the duration of the song: “you can say what you will, but I’m drinkin’ til I get my fill, so if you’re lookin’ darlin’ I’ll be at the bar.” Benson took a photo of the crowd as Morrison told everyone to keep their hands up in the air, then they started playing one of my favorite new tunes “Summertime Shine”, written by Kevin Nolan: “livin’ it up like the world stopped turning/school’s out but I’m still learning/the way to ease the sting of that sweet sunburn.” It’s a catchy song that belongs on the radio ASAP. Morrison swayed his arms back and forth in time with the chorus and in a nifty piece of synchronicity, the audience mimicked his moves.

“This last song is on our last album,” said Morrison. “Clay Walker heard it and liked it. He just recorded it and he’ll release it soon, so be sure to ask for it to be played on the radio.” Clay Walker has 960,000 likes on his Facebook fan page, so I have a feeling there will be a lot of air time for “Little Miss Whiskey.” This song has been a huge hit for The Morrison Brothers and garnered them a WAMA nomination for Video Of The Year. It has killer drum beats, a wild electric guitar riff and is the perfect definition of a true Southern Rock tune. Morrison held the mic out for the crowd to sing the chorus and at the end of the song, the band left the stage, the audience screamed for more, people held their beer up in the air and the chick up front was still flashing everyone. The evening couldn’t have gotten any better, until it did.

The Morrison Brothers came back for an encore and it was a doozy. Willie Morrison picked up his acoustic guitar, Ruiz played mandolin and Matt Nolan sang (the coordination and focus it must take to play drums and sing at the same time just amazes me). The initial drum beat sounded like a shotgun blast as Nolan performed Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road”. The energy in the room was electric and it was obvious the band was enjoying themselves immensely, which permeated through to the audience. At the end of the song, Nolan threw his drum sticks into the audience, both Morrison brothers threw their picks and Kevin Nolan pretended he was going to throw his fedora.

I spoke with Willie Morrison, Matt Nolan and Kevin Nolan about their new songs, specifically “The Giving Tree” which Morrison says is “one of those tunes about somebody who gives and gives without getting anything in return” and “Summertime Shine” which Kevin Nolan explains was written “in a 10 minute burst where I had the whole song and then we spent the next month trying to write the second verse, but we’re really excited about that one.”

Next week, the band will be back in the studio to record three or four new songs and plan to release them before early September. “The reception to the new songs has been very positive,” says Kevin Nolan, “and one of the things that kicked us into gear to record them is that people are going home and trying to buy them on iTunes, but they can’t find them.”

Matt Nolan explains that the band “has enough songs to make another record, but we’re choosing to go in this direction.” Morrison adds, “the most important thing for us is letting our fans have new music, so this is the quickest, most efficient way right now.”

The Morrison Brothers Band will be driving up to Philly next month to headline a show at The Legendary Dobbs on August 7th, then they’ll play two sets at Musikfest on August 8th “We’re bringing our A-game,” says Matt Nolan, “we definitely feel that Philly is a songwriting town; we’ve done several shows with songwriters from Philly and we’re excited to play there.”

A fun, why-not quick poll of who they’d love to tour with netted votes for Zac Brown (Willie Morrison), The Police or The Black Keys (Alyson Gilbert), The Black Crowes (Matt Nolan) and Blackberry Smoke (Kevin Nolan and Truman Morrison) Hmmm…I’m sensing a color theme here.

The next morning I saw a post on a band member’s Facebook page where someone had commented, “must have been a heck of a show. You’re blowing up the internet today!” The Morrison Brothers Band know how to write great songs that capture their audience’s imagination and their heart, plus they’re consistently delivering exciting, memorable live shows, creating a steady stream of new fans along the way. So move over Steve Earle, there’s some bad-ass new gunslingers in town.

After a very successful PledgeMusic campaign and a new EP last year, The Hold Steady return this year with their sixth studio album, Teeth Dreams. This year also marks the 10th year anniversary of the band, another milestone most bands cannot say they’ve met. Last week I caught up with longtime and founding guitarist, Tad Kubler, to chat about the new record and the big differences between it and their PledgeMusic funded EP, RAGS.

I spoke with Kubler on April Fool’s Day and while no pranks were played on one another, he shared one of his all time favorites that he has assisted with. Back in the early years of the group, Kubler handled booking the plane tickets for their former front of house sound manager to meet them at the first stop of the tour. “When you book plane tickets [for someone other than yourself], you have all these options you can give them,” Kubler tells me. “It’s everything from a kosher meal to a wheelchair. You can even mark if they’re blind and need assistance”.

Kubler goes on chuckling along the way as he recounts the pranks. “I used to check at least three or four of those things. When he would show up in New York he would be exhausted from trying to explain to people that not only could he see but he also did not need a wheelchair.” This was not a one time thing, either. These unexpected surprises would come up every time the band toured. “It got to the point where every time he flew to New York, he knew it would it a fucking adventure,” Kubler adds right before we move on.

Once we finished discussing Kubler’s favorite pranks, we got in to what the band has been up to these past few years. In two years they have two released, one EP and one new album. For the EP, the band took to the music based crowd funding site PledgeMusic. “I wanted it to be something that was extracurricular and fun and different, something outside of a record release,” Kubler tells me. They wanted to do something outside of the typical rock life-cycle of releasing an album, touring behind it, come back and write a new one.

The band had two goals in setting up the Pledgemusic fund. The first was to setup a fan club scene and structure and to create a platform for better connecting with the fanbase. The second was to raise money for a foundation in honor of the band’s late close friend, Jersey Mike, and his family.

For Teeth Dreams, the group’s recently released album, they decided to do things in a more traditional fashion. “For an album, I still believe that the best way to do that is to partner with a record label,” Kubler explains. The group still values the specialization each role in the record making process holds. He adds, “our expertise as a band is not putting out a record, it’s making them”.

For Kubler and company, they leave the business side of the music industry up to those within the record labels. They handle the creative process and leave the business process up to their label. It’s a familiar formula that has suited The Hold Steady well throughout their successful careers so far.

Teeth Dreams was released last month and already has stellar reviews from fans and media alike. In keeping up with the cycle, they are also currently on tour to help support it. On Monday, they come to the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, one of Kubler’s favorite venues in the entire country. Next month, they return to the area to take part in Non-COMM at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia.

Portland, Oregon based country/folk band, Blitzen Trapper, opened the Drive-By Truckers show at the 9:30 Club on Saturday and Sunday, double-fisting it at one of the best rock venues in the country. Consisting of Eric Earley on guitars, vocals and keyboard, Erik Menteer on guitars and keyboard, Brian Koch on drums, Michael Van Pelt on bass and Marty Marquis on guitar and keyboard, the band members are talented multi-instrumentalists and put on a energetic, lively show. Most of the audience obviously arrived early to catch their set and were not only familiar with their tunes, but screamed in excitement when the first riffs were played.

Promoting their latest release, VII, the band played several tracks off this album to the fist pumps of their fans before launching into a cover of the 1973 Joe Walsh song “Rocky Mountain Way”.  Joe Walsh is mentioned again Sunday night after Drive-By Trucker Mike Cooley sings a Patterson Hood song (“Til He’s Dead Or Rises”, the first time a Trucker has sung another Trucker’s song) and commented, “thank you. That was a Joe Walsh tune.”

The Drive-By Truckers walked on stage to shouts of “DBT!” and took their places in front of a backdrop of the cover from their current album, English Oceans, created by the band’s long-time artist Wes Freed. The audience consisted of about one half die-hard Truckers fans and the other half who hadn’t listened to them in awhile, but loved the new album so much, they helped to sell out the night’s show.

A few people I met in the crowd didn’t hesitate to explain why they’re a fan. Joe B. said, ” they make songs about all the glorious mistakes I’ve made.” and Rob told me, “the new album brings back some of the Southern roots from their previous album. A lot of us in DC are Southern transplants and we can get a little piece of home with a live show.”

Cooley blasts off with a hit off the new album called “Shit Shots Count”, which the audience has been yelling for before the show even began, so they must be psychic. Keyboardist/guitarist Jay Gonzalez tickles those ivories like it was a great ball of fire and bassist Mike Patton is refreshingly fun to watch; he smiles constantly, flips and shakes his hair, then gets lost in the music to the point that I started considering taking bass lessons the next day.

Hood once told me that they don’t make a set list, they just “decide the opening song as we’re about to go up to play and then it gets winged from there. We have all kinds of elaborate cues and signals to give each other so we know what’s coming next. It usually works and keeps it fresh and exciting for us, which I think translates to a more fun evening for the fans.”

Fan favorite “Ronnie And Neil” off one of the band’s older albums, Southern Rock Opera, is played next and the crowd sings along to that “Muscle Shoals sound”. There’s a lot of jumping and dancing and since it’s a sold out show, there is absolutely no room for even a puffer coat, let alone a get-down-make-love dance move. But, no one cares and everyone is having a great time, including the band, who are feeding off the crowd’s energy and loving the ride, which translates into a kick ass live show that lasts for three hours (which is typical for a DBT show) and ends with eight encores.

After Cooley sings “Self-Destructive Zones” from their Brighter Than Creation’s Dark album, Hood tells everyone that it’s his birthday week and that “Cooley’s been saying he’s gonna kill me on my 50th birthday (when they are playing a show in Indianapolis), but I’m not gonna die in a red state. Fuck that!” So Hood celebrated his 50th birthday with the cast and crew at the 9:30 Club. On Sunday during the encore, he was presented with a cake, hugs from the other Truckers, a 17 year old bottle of scotch and everyone, I mean everyone, sang “Happy Birthday”. If the South ever rises again, it’ll be here for sure.

Watching Cooley wail on his electric guitar is what I imagine watching Jimmy Page was like for Led Zeppelin fans 40 years ago. I noticed that a lot of the same faces were in the crowd Sunday night, as well as Saturday, which says a lot about the dedication of their fans.

Cooley sang “Hearing Jimmy Loud” off the new album and then Hood gave us a rare treat by performing “Steve McQueen” from their Alabama Ass Whuppin‘ reissue. I had never heard this song live, so I was pretty darn excited. Hood stopped in the middle of the song and had the 9:30 Club bring up the house lights so they could check on a woman who had passed out near the stage. Ever the class act, Hood waited until someone had come out to check on her and asked “are you ok, m’am?” After she was determined to be fine, Hood picked up where he left off, saying, “on my birthday weekend, let’s sing this one up to heaven for my granddaddy and down there to wherever they put Steve McQueen.” Hood told me in our last interview that he “wrote that song as a tribute to my granddad who was a huge Steve McQueen fan and who also died of mesothelioma. He was a bad ass, like a McQueen character (although much nicer).” Hood also confirmed to the audience that he really did have his driver’s license taken away when he was “just 16.”

Hood and Cooley took turns singing and continued the night playing tunes off English Oceans including “Hanging On”, “Pauline Hawkins”, “The Part Of Him” and “Primer Coat.” When Cooley started playing the opening riff for “Sinkhole” off their critically acclaimed 2003 album Decoration Day, the audience went into an excited frenzy and when Hood put his palm out in the air for the lyrics, “house has stood through five tornadoes,” the audience followed suit.

I love the cheeky song Hood sings about the time his “mama ran off with a trucker.” “18 Wheels Up” is off Alabama Ass Whoppin‘ and tells the story of how his mom went to work  for a trucking firm. It was her job to make sure the truckers all got enough rest. One of her charges, a 350 pound man named Chester, fell in love with her and they got married in Dollywood. “I couldn’t make this shit up,” says Hood.

“Puttin’ People On The Moon” ended the set until the Truckers came back on for one of their famously long encores. The woman next to me was shouting, “we want it! We really want it!” Cooley started off with “Love Like This”, then Hood sang what’s kind of become a DBT anthem, “Hell, No I Ain’t Happy.” The audience always, always sings along to the chorus and pump their arms in their air for this tune. It’s fun to watch Cooley and Hood jam out together on this song and have so much fun with it. Never fails to lift up the room, especially with Hood jumping across the stage without missing a beat on his guitar.

“3 Dimes Down” began and people rushed from the bar to make it to the dance floor in time to hear how “rock and roll never forgets.” “Guitar Man Upstairs”, “Lookout Mountain” and “Zip City” followed. Hood changed the lyrics a bit on “Dead Drunk and Naked” to “if my daddy was here, he sure would be proud. The 9:30’s a sold out crowd! You mother fuckers rock!”

“Grand Canyon” was a touching finale to the evening, paying tribute to the band’s long-time friend Craig Lieske who passed away last year and the audience raised their drinks in tribute. The show’s ending was lovely and a fabulous send off, with each Trucker taking off their guitar, waving and exiting the stage, one at a time, while still playing their set, until just drummer Brad Morgan was left. He finished, waved to the audience and sauntered off like a cowboy into the sunset.

Drive-By Truckers shows are like an epic novel, they tell a rocking, sweeping story and remind us all that “it’s fucking great to be alive.” It may be long, but it’s never dull and once it’s over, you can’t wait to read the sequel.

Culminating at Philly’s Trocadero and DC’s 9:30 Club, The Reverend Horton Heat ended the two week leg of their tour as they normally would; with some surprises, lots of frenetic energy and a whole lot of fire and brimstone, head-banging, shack-shaking, rockabilly freak out.

Besides hula-hooping whilst watching the latest episode of Supernatural and playing chicken with large tractors on a field with ‘No Trespassing’ signs, attending a Rev show is one of my favorite pastimes. Their high octane reinterpretation of country blues rock and roll leaves you on a glorious evangelical high.

The show at the 9:30 Club opened with two psychobilly bands, Canada’s The Creepshow, whose songs are mostly about horror films, and Danish band, Nekromantix, whose founder and frontman Kim Nekroman has a custom-made “coffinbass” that has a body in the shape of a coffin. These bands kicked the night off with hard-core psychobilly rock and a resulting mosh pit in the center of the club that even security couldn’t penetrate.

The Reverend Horton Heat (founder Jim Heath, bassist Jimbo Wallace and drummer Scott Churilla) took the stage at 9pm-ish and went straight into a rockabilly instrumental, followed by “Smell of Gasoline”, which is my favorite song off their new album REV. Heath is a kick to watch, he’s very precise in his actions and habits. He will march in place, point to the audience, make subtle hand gestures and smiles a lot. I would, too, if I were having this much fun!

“Psychobilly Freakout” burst out like flames from a house fire and Kim Nekroman joined the gang on stage to play Wallace’s bass for a few minutes. The energy in the room was palpable and I could hear people next to me saying ‘that was awesome’. You could tell that the band was having a grand ol’ time and they seem to psychically know what each other is thinking, they gel so well after years of performing together.

‘”The Devil’s Chasing Me” is pure hot-rod rockabilly and Heath punctuates this song with his famous “I can stand on Jimbo’s bass without missing a beat and make it seem effortless” that anyone who has ever been to a Rev show waits anxiously for. The hit “Martini Time” was played next, which is always a great late night tune to hear: “Hey, buddy do you got the time? No I don’t got a watch can you spare a dime, but I got two olives and a couple of limes, guessin’ that means it’s martini time.”

When the Rev introduces a song off their album Space Heater, he jokes that “this album is widely recognized as being the worst album we ever did.” The song, “Jimbo”, is about “America’s foremost truck stop knick knack shopper. He’s from Deerpark, Texas, home of the Shell Oil Refinery.” This is a fun song because it’s an audience participation sing-a-long.

(photo credit, Jane Roser)

Next came the single “Let Me Teach You How To Eat” off their new album and I noticed a man in a huge cowboy hat off stage who was so in the moment, that he couldn’t help but play along to this song, too. This man turned out to be the guest star of the night, Deke Dickerson, whom Heath introduces as a really hot guitar picker that he discovered killing it in Southern California. Dikerson is not only a bad ass guitarist, but is also the ‘world’s foremost guitar archaeologist’ who wrote a book called The Strat In The Attic, which I hope I can find on Amazon this week. Dickerson comes on stage wearing his huge cowboy hat and carrying a nifty double neck guitar that even has his name printed on it. The audience is chanting “Deke!” from various points in the crowd until it becomes a really cool echo. He starts off with a song called “I Got A Big Guitar And I Play It Good”, and I’m glad to know that’s very true. They play a Gene Autry tune, then a Reverend Horton Heat instrumental song called “The Millionaire”. “These guys did a great song called ‘The Millionaire'” to which someone in the crowd shouted out “Fuck yeah!” Deke, without missing a beat, says politely, “that’s right!” This was a great, whip-fast song that made your heat skip a beat and my friend, Hugh, to comment, “it’s kind of like a rockabilly ‘Devil Went Down To Georgia!” After the applause had died down Dickerson says, “and just in case you were wondering; yes, that was as much fun as it looked.”

Dickerson had the audience rolling when he said, “if any of you girls are thinking of going out west, I’ve got a Chrysler covered in salt and we can stop at every $39 motel along the way.  I even got a shine, and when I say shine, I mean I got a case of moonshine in the trunk.” Then he commented, “I like this, it’s like a stripper mosh pit out here tonight.”

Dickerson played a few more songs with the Rev, including “Muleskinner Blues” (“an old country song”) and kicked it up a notch with a song he called “Speed Metal”. During this number, they did something I have never seen done before. Heath sat on a stool and Dickerson came up behind him, put his double neck guitar in Heath’s lap and then they each played a neck. I had to blink twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. Wallace then gave his bass to Dickerson to play while he worked the chord changes for Heath, who strummed along. Did I mention that this was all in tune and timed perfectly? Incredible.

After Dickerson left the stage, they played “Bales of Cocaine”, which is my go-to road trip song. Heath changed the Dallas reference to DC and the audience ate it up: “So I loaded up them bales in my pick-em-up truck, headed west for Dallas (DC), where I would try my luck, I didn’t have a notion if I could sell ’em there, but, thirty minutes later, I was a millionaire.” “Big Red Rocket Of Love”, which was a hit off of the It’s Martini Time album, threw some more fuel on the fire and as Heath played his guitar solo faster than the speed of light, he shouted, “somebody stop me!” I love it when musicians throw their picks into the audience and in true neighborly style, Heath did this twice.

The encore may have well been a show in itself, it was fabulously long and intense. Heath came out to say, “we’re now going to do the most obvious cover song in the history of rock and roll,” and they launch into a rocking retro “Jonny B Goode” that had folks literally dancing in the aisles, while Heath and Wallace at one point in the song switched instruments. “Did you see that?” commented Wallace on Heath’s bass playing, “he was riding that thing like a horse!”

Churillo performed a 15-20 minute drum solo that I can only describe as this man can channel Led Zeppelin’s Bonzo. He played so fast, you couldn’t even see the drumsticks, which he was able to twirl around in each hand, beat the drum, twirl in the other hand, beat, then twirl in both hands and kick some ass. No one can teach that, it’s just magic. Hugh keeps saying to me, “are you seeing this?! Oh my God! Pour some sugar on me, you’ve got to respect someone who can drum like that.”

The Reverend Horton Heat always delivers a show that will knock your socks off and this one was no different. Heath couldn’t help but joke that, “we’re actually one of the only bands since the 1960’s that will actually fade ourselves out.” But until this cowboy retires his spurs, the Rev will keep saddlin’ up to ride off into the sunset and we’d be wiser folk for joining that posse.

“The Rev”, as Jim Heath is affectionately called, has been preaching his high octane, fast paced, big red rocket of love rockabilly music for twenty five fiery years. The flame still burns gloriously on their 11th studio album appropriately titled REV. Reading Heath’s press release from Victory Records, whom the band recently signed with, is akin to thumbing through a cool, retro pulp fiction novel. It’s full of heroes and thrilling, colorful images of places you’d never dream of visiting, “he’s a time-traveling-space-cowboy on an endless interstellar musical tour, and we are the richer and psychobillier for getting to tag along.”

Consisting of singer/guitarist Jim Heath, Jimbo Wallace on upright bass and Scott Churilla on drums, The Reverend Horton Heat ain’t your mama’s rockabilly. “We take rockabilly and make it a little more punk,” explains Heath, “we’ll take country and get a little jazzy and a little bluesy.”

Heath has a slow, Southern, purposeful way of speaking that reminds me of my Uncle Homer in Macon, Georgia (by way of Dallas, Texas). He laughs a lot during our conversation, obviously loves what he does and enjoys telling a good, juicy story. Heath, for the most part, taught himself how to play music. “I took some lessons here and there, but I started just figuring out how to play by ear and was hanging around other guitar players, learning different aspects and chords. You have to teach yourself and dive right in.”

Heath’s cousins helped drive his passion for music, playing at family get-togethers during Christmas and other holidays, “I remember that one of my cousins was back on leave from Vietnam and he bought a new Camaro that had an 8-track player. He was playing “Folsom Prison Blues” and driving me around-he drove real fast. That kind of hit me, how powerful lyrics could be. On that recording, you could hear the reaction from the prison inmates and it was really powerful. Before that, song lyrics were just rather sing-songy and I suddenly realized how much power they have. My parents got me a little guitar and that was the first song I ever learned how to play.”

For the past few years, the band has been knocking around and talking to record labels, “the music business has changed so much,” says Heath, “because of downloading and streaming, the labels just don’t offer the same money on a recording project that they used to. They’re just not selling as many CDs, but also because a lot of bands now don’t really need a recording budget since they can record for themselves.”

Heath started collecting recording gear, got in touch with several sponsors, did some research and put together his own studio and rehearsal space. At that point, the band decided just to record the new album themselves. “Once we started on the project is when we got the deal with Victory Records, so we were actually able to do a bit in the commercial studio. I started recording this album about two years ago, so it’s just a process you go through and also finding the time to spend on it.”

The band tours constantly and took only a month off to make REV, so time is certainly precious. “This particular tour started in 1986 and I never unpack. I just do laundry, so there’s always a tour regardless of any record release. On this leg, we’ve had some memorable shows. We did three shows where Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys came onstage and sang six songs with us at each show, but we always have some really interesting shows.” Heath laments not being able to stop and enjoy the cities he breezes past on his song “Scenery Going By”. “It’s like, I’ve been everywhere, but I haven’t seen anything because you’re in and out so quick.”

I ask Heath about another new song entitled “Hardscrabble Woman”, wondering if this is someone he actually knew. Heath chuckles, “the girl that inspired that song is not nearly as crude. The song is about a woman who drinks and gets into fights with her old man, but the real girl is a friend of my wife’s who one time decided she was going to repair a leak in her sewage system on her own. It was in her backyard and she didn’t want to pay someone thousands of dollars to fix it. At one point, she figured out it was the section that was running under her back porch, so she went out and rented a jackhammer and busted out that concrete herself. I just thought, man, she’s a hardscrabble woman, so really she just inspired the title.”

Heath then tells another colorful story about this same woman and I’m glued to the phone like a teenager on a Friday night. “Recently, she’d moved out to a farm that is far from the main highway; you have to drive up this country road and then open a gate and walk another ten or fifteen minutes to get to her house. One day her nieces come running up saying ‘there’s a man out here!’ She thought uh-oh, looked out the window and saw him walking up, so she grabbed her pistol and told him to stop right where he was. The man asked if she had any gasoline for his car. She answered ‘maybe I do, but you need to stop right where you are or else I’m gonna shoot’. Well, he kept on walking towards her, so she shot at him, over his shoulder, and he finally stopped. She told him there was a can of gas in the shed that he could take, but not to bring the can back. You can’t really tell by the vocals, but the guitar part of that song very much harkens to Luther Perkins style (Johnny Cash’s guitarist). The boom-chick is kind of his guitar pattern.”

I love it when bands use album art that honestly conveys their sound, image and identity and REV holds true to this. “The cover is by Max Grundy. I’d never heard of him, but one of my friends is a mechanic who’s worked on films as a stunt driver, he’s done drag racing, built hot rods and also has good taste in music and art. That was an original piece of art that he has in his shop. I saw it and thought, oh man, that’d make a cool album cover. So we contacted Max Grundy and he was cool with it, so it worked out really good.”

Heath has a lot to look forward to this year, with the release of REV this past week, touring and playing several festivals, including one that he is especially excited about, “my friend, Oliver Peck (owner of Elm Street Tattoo and a judge on the Spike TV show Ink Master) and I are doing this festival in Dallas called Elm Street Music And Tattoo Festival. It’s the second one we’ve done so far. Elm Street is located in an area of Dallas called Deep Ellum; it’s an old neighborhood that goes back to the teens and twenties, it’s one of the early birthplaces of jazz and blues music, then there was a resurgence and now there’s a lot of cool clubs and shops there. We try to base it around Friday the Thirteenth, so this year it’s on June 13th, 14th and 15th. Hopefully we can keep it going every year.”

I have been itching to ask Heath one last question that I’ve been pondering for the past ten years. How does he stand on Jimbo’s bass and make it look so effortless? Amused, Heath tells me, “you know, those things are wide enough and pretty stable, so as long as you don’t try to get cute and jump on it; I just put my foot in he same place and I’m not on it for too long, so it’s not that hard to do.”

I’ve caught the Rev’s shows at the 9:30 Club in DC on several occasions over the past decade or so and if you’re lucky enough to attend a live show, and you should, prepare to rock hard, dance like you’re at a funkadelic revival and have your rock and roll loving soul saved. Amen.

The Reverend Horton Heat will be blasting his way to the Trocadero January 25th.

“I think a friend named the band,” I’m sitting backstage at DC’s iconic 9:30 Club chatting with Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven, one of the bands that truly defined rock music of the 1990s (and one whose cassette tapes I wore out from playing Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart on repeat).

“It was originally called Camper Van Beethoven and the Border Patrol,” explains Segal. “The name’s based on a type of poetry that rests on a fulcrum [the fulcrum (also called pivot or volta) is the place where the poem shifts meaning from one tone or idea to another] and it’s sort of out of balance. So ‘Van’ can go with either ‘Camper’ or ‘Beethoven’, but as a fulcrum, it never quite balances.”

Camper Van Beethoven is celebrating thirty years of creating truly unique  rock and roll. The band started in Redlands, California in 1983, releasing their first three albums within a year and a half (Telephone Free Landslide Victory, II & III and their eponymous album).  Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart was released in 1988 and included their popular ‘Eye of Fatima’, which is still often performed at their live shows. Their debut single “Take The Skinheads Bowling” became their biggest hit, resurfacing years later when Michael Moore used Teenage Fanclub’s cover version as the title track of his documentary Bowling For Columbine. Currently consisting of band members David Lowery, Victor Krummenacher, Greg Lisher, Jonathan Segel and Frank Funaro, Camper Van Beethoven has been touring to promote their current album La Costa Perdida playing to full clubs and sold out shows.

“Everything’s really good; we’re doing the same kind of run between Christmas and New Year’s that we do in San Francisco, Petaluma and San Diego. Our record came out in January of last year, so we did a lot of shows up until September, then we did our Camp Out festival, which is in Pioneertown near Joshua Tree.”

The Camp Outs started in California nine years ago and have been very popular with fans. This year, Camper and Cracker (David Lowery’s other band, formed in 1991 with guitarist Johnny Hickman) will be hosting a Camp In at Athens, Georgia’s famed 40 Watt Club January 23-25. “The Camp In is a club festival,” says Segel,” The last time we did one was about two years ago. Camper played one night, Cracker played the next and I did a little show of electric guitar improv next door at the Flicker Bar. David teaches at the University of Georgia and his wife books the 40 Watt, so he spends a lot of time in Athens. We’re mixing the new album there at Chase Park, so it’s very convenient for us to do the festival there and this year Camper and Cracker will be playing both nights.”

Camper will be performing at Philly’s World Cafe Live with Cracker tonight at 8pm. “We’ve played there many times now and they’re great! We’ve also been on their radio show. The sound is really good, it fills up and there’s always a great audience that comes out. Philly is one of the early hot spots for us from back in the mid 80s and we still have many friends there.”

I ask Segel how they come up with a set list every night when they have a catalog of over 173 songs (I counted). “We get into veins of doing specific groups of songs and that changes night to night. We try not to do the same set list every show, but we get into grooves. Like, we’ve opened the show with the same two songs for the past two shows (“Waka” and “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”), then it diverged.”

Segel is an impressive multi-instrumentalist. I counted a guitar, violin, mandolin and keyboards the night I saw Camper perform. Segel was obsessed with the electric guitar when he was young, then took up violin when he was 10 years old, dropping it for a short while, only to pick it back up again when he joined the band after moving out to Santa Cruz to attend college. I’ve always been impressed by Camper’s ability to weave diverse genres of music into their rock songs (“O Death”, for instance, is a traditional American folk dirge).

Citing The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Beatles as examples of bands that incorporated various ethnic sounds into their music, Segel explains, “As Camper continued, we mostly just thought, we’re a rock band and rock bands can put any kind of music they want into their songs. For instance, our song “Peaches In The Summertime” is a version of  “Shady Grove”. But how that developed musically was more from listening to Turkish music. As artists, you’re a filter, so everything you hear comes out somewhere. We all have wide-ranging tastes in the type of music we listen to.” Intrigued, I ask Segel what’s on his iPod and discover everything from Bach to Brian Eno and some bands I had never heard of before (and am now enjoying) such as The Bye Bye Blackbirds and Game Theory.

New Roman Times was released almost 10 years ago, so why was there a long break between albums? “We got back together in the late 90s and started playing apothecary shows that were Cracker shows in which members of Camper would come out to play, then we started playing as a full band again in 2002. Then between 1999-2002 we worked in the studio in Richmond, where David was living at the time. We worked on several projects such as Tusk and Camper Van Beethoven Is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven. New Roman Times was released in 2004 and we toured, but then Cracker started making a lot more records. We kept saying we all wanted to write the next record together and it just took awhile to do that. But we had a show in the Big Sur in June that got rained out, so we postponed it for a week and all went to my house in Oakland and just worked on these songs.”

There are 12 songs total that Camper is now mixing for their next album and Segel says, “we recorded La Costa Perdida over the course of six months, so in the meantime, we’d been writing new songs and finally finished the recording this past fall. La Costa Perdida wound up being a Northern California based album and so this next group of songs will be a Southern California based theme; and then Cracker is currently working on a new double record that’s related to Bakersfield.”

La Costa Perdida‘s album cover is really unique and I come to find that it was created by a friend of Segel’s named Michael Wertz who created the cover to Segel’s solo album Honey in 2008. “David liked his work, so we hired him to make the poster for our Christmas run in San Francisco and we just started using his artwork all the time. We basically give him free reign at this point!”

Listening to Camper’s lyrics, you find that they are poetic and unexpected, “David does a lot of character writing,” explains Segel, “he gets  an idea of who the storyteller is; he likes the unreliable narrator.” A fan favorite off the new album is “Too High For The Love-In”, which turns out to be based upon a true story, “the first verse is about a friend of ours who was really high on mushrooms and one day he came home to find a giant sea bird in his kitchen. It was awkwardly trying to get out and shitting all over the place! But the second verse is about my wife. We live in Sweden and were staying out in the country after just having a baby; she was out walking and gets bitten on the toe by a viper. We called for an ambulance, but the dispatcher didn’t seem to worried about the situation. We go to meet her at the hospital and she’s not there- the ambulance got a flat tire and didn’t have a spare! It was also August, so all of the doctors were on vacation and the hospital was manned by medical students. So she finally gets to the hospital and starts going into toxic shock, the students don’t know what they’re doing, so they call the poison center. Meanwhile, while they’re waiting for the anti-venom to arrive from another hospital by taxi, my wife is asking us to make her a sandwich. With salami. It was just such a ridiculous situation.”

Camper Van Beethoven has endured for thirty years and their music is always full of fun stories and intriguing lyrics, their live shows a rocking, fabulous experience. I recall spending many a night replaying my Camper cassettes and wondering who “She Divines Water” was about. One of these days maybe I’ll figure, figure it all out.