2003-06-16 - 9:05 p.m.
April 17th
Headin’ to Memphis. Home of Beale Street, Sun Records and Elvis. We have to re-cross the Mississippi and come into town from the west. We’re scheduled to do another radio show and we’re late. My bad. Carey mentioned it last night but I spaced and nobody reminded me until we already got a late start. They were very accommodating and just put us on when we got there. Cool people! Thank God for community based radio. Thanks to Clear Channel and Westwood it’s a wasteland of bland, sameness out there in radio world. This place is even smaller than the last one but we do a nice segment. The PD at the station is a Hound Dog Taylor fan and that’s something we have in common. She points out that the Alligator Records 25th anniversary CD has a video of him at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival and offers to show it to me. I’m psyched, as I’ve never seen him live. Years ago my friend Kent Dykes (Omar from Omar and the Howlers) turned me onto him. “Give Me Back My Wig” is a favorite. She cued up the video and there was Hound Dog playing guitar while his cousin played a guitar that was tuned low with a few missing strings (sounded grumbly, like a bass with indigestion) and a drummer with broken cymbals. They rocked the place! It was an amazing video; Hound Dog all gold tooth grins and wildly distorted guitar. Wow!
Newby’s is a great venue. A big ole’ stage with an ancient RC Cola sign hanging behind us (I think). ……We interrupt this saga for a public service announcement. As of right now, this journal is being pieced together from memory. I’m doing as good a job as my drug and alcohol addled brain of advancing years will allow. Soon I’ll have caught up to real time. Ah, but then, undoubtedly, the real world will intrude and I’ll fall behind again. I now return you to your regularly scheduled journal and thanks for reading…… We have a nice crowd for our first time in Memphis and they’re very kind to us. Like myself, the house soundman turns out to be a big comic book fan and we talk for a long time after the show about Sandman and Neil Gaiman. I tell him that a bunch of songs I’ve written are influenced by Neil and Concrete writer, Paul Chadwick. He picks up a copy of my solo record to check out the comic book influences.
Thanks to Priceline we stay in yet another Sheraton. I love these places because they have indoor pools and conference rooms I can meditate in.
