Nobody I'd Rather Straighten It With

So inspiration sometimes comes from the damnedest places. For me, of course, inspiration usually comes from the damnedest places.

I was humming a rockabilly ditty to myself a few days ago and thought, "Wait a minute. I know that song. What the hell is that song?"

Sherman, set the wayback machine.





It's moments like this when you realize just how far back your roots go. Joey the Saint's roots go back to 1984, and the movie Top Secret, starring Val Kilmer. Who, incidentally, sang all the songs in the soundtrack.

I loved this movie. I especially loved every minute of the concert footage. And I remember, because I had just started my first band, how hard people laughed at this scene, and thinking how great rock and roll and humor go together.

I also remember my mother explaining to me how damned dirty this song was. Which is why I brought it to the band at practice last night.

If Eddie Wilson was my first rock idol, Nick Rivers followed him closely. (Nigel Tufnel is running a distant third.) I like to think that, if I'm doing it right, Joey the Saint fuses the two. Admittedly, it's kind of weird that my major rock idols are fictional movie characters. Their impact on my fragile adolescent psyche should tell you something about the power of facade and the inherent duality of show business. But I digress. Of course.

"Straighten the Rug" is on the set list for the 19th. I'd better work on my backspin.

See you there.

Stage Dives

The local blues magazines really need to get their shit together. I spend a great deal of time, it seems, going to jam sessions that no longer exist. Like tonight, for instance. It wouldn't be that hard for someone at the WBS and/or Blues To Do's to take an hour and just phone up every listed jam session and find out if it's still going on. I've shown up to jam sessions in Tacoma to find the club boarded up and the parking lot overgrown with weeds. Twice.

"No, no jam here," I was told tonight, at the North Point, which was at least still open. "Not for three months. We have karaoke, though. Do you sing?"

I ended up rolling past Dawson's. Stuck my head in the door. Different doorman. So far, so good.

Ah. Different jam host. Even better. Tim Hall, who lives in my neighborhood.

I played a set, and at the end I got to sing one tune. I kept it more or less clean; figuring it was a blues jam, I called the saddest blues song I've ever heard: Bo Carter's "My Pencil Won't Write No More." The crowd response was terrific. I'm still not going to push my luck at Dawson's, though.

The trick, at this point, will be finding venues where the material not only works, but where the owners have the requisite sense of humor.

It Starts. . . . Finally. . . .

So it more or less went down like this:

I got 86'd from the jam at Dawson's, in Tacoma, earlier this year. January, I think. As I've mentioned, this creates a complication -- well, not so much a complication as an annoyance -- because the jam host at Dawson's also runs the local jam near my house; he doesn't allow me to sing at our local jam anymore as he fears for his job. Bear in mind, I didn't mutter a single obscenity onstage during the performance that got me kicked out. Someone complained to the management that my songs "weren't appropriate." Apparently, it's a class establishment and come on: like I knew that those were expensive peanut shells on the floor.

Then, a couple of months later, at a jam in an Army bar in Lakewood -- a bar that makes Dawson's look like Dimitriou's Jazz Alley -- I was delivering a rousing rendition of "She Won't Get Under Me Till I Get Over You," and this happened:

(and no, clicking on it does not make the CENSORED sign go away)

If you squint you can see my saxophone on the left side of the frame. Needless to say, the photographer wasn't focusing on me.

Joey The Saint got 86'd from that bar, too. I'm on a roll. On the plus side, I might get a spot on the next Girls Gone Wild video. And I handed out a TON of business cards.

Then we did the album, and things kind of dropped off. Which surprised me. I did get an email from the Washington Blues Society asking me to play a WBS function but, and I quote,

> If you have it together by 9/14 - how about doing an
> ELECTRIC Set at the WBS Monthly Blues Bash???
> I will caution you though - it is an ALL-AGES
> meeting....so no risque stuff....

I can safely assume that they didn't hear about the Lakewood gig.

I don't expect great things from the local scene. Frankly, I'm waiting for the Washington Blues Society to throw a brick through my window once this band takes off. But I would never do anything to purposefully screw over the WBS. They've been good to me. No, seriously. So I declined.

We did a set at Doug McGrew's jam at The Barrel a couple of months ago, didn't hear much about it, and frankly, I turned my attention back to my mundane, non-getting-kicked-out-of-bars-for-freaky-MILF-antics life.

Phone rings not long ago. It's the owner of The Barrel. He wants to book us. Immediately. He's been trying to reach me, apparently. People have been going bonkers over our appearance.

"Ricky," I said, "This is Joey the Saint. I'm the guy who sets my horn on fire and sings songs about hand jobs. Are you sure you don't want Scotty Harris? Nice guy, plays jazz, drives a late-model car. Flosses." I'm not making this up; Scotty Harris has a set of teeth to rival Donny Osmond.

"We love what you did," says Ricky. "They're still talking about it. Can you be in here the 19th of September?"

"Um, sure." (Like I'm booked, right?)

"Great!"

Then comes The Awkwardness.

"Ahem," I ahem'd. "You do understand, right, that we're not going to do Mustang Sally. Or Stormy Monday or, uh, Takin' Care of Business. And that fuckin' Tracy Chapman song. We come in there, we're doing three sets of originals, jump and shuffles, and a short set of encores. You understand this."

"Oh, yeah. It'll be great."

So. September 19th. Saturday. At The Barrel.

Bring your own CENSORED placards; I only have so many.

Googlin' Blues

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Back in the Saddle Again

The obligatory first blog post, wherein I tell you all either A.) how great it is to be back; B.) how much I've missed blogging; or C.) what in the holy hell happened to me in late 2001 that made me give this up on the brink of taking over the world.

Sure, hell. I've got time.

A.) Yeah. It's great to be back. Thanks to Mike Jasper for lighting a fire under my perfectly-formed, 6-minute-miling ass. This will be fun.

B.) No, I'd be bullshitting. Blogging is information pollution. My father has a blog. My nephew has a blog. He's four. No, I won't give you the link but I might post excerpts, here. Thanks to bloggers, trying to do any sort of actual research on the Internet (it is a research tool, people) is now the equivalent of going to the library and finding that high-school mash notes have been jammed between every page of every book. I know, I know: I gnashed my teeth and vowed never to become part of the problem again. And yet, here we are. Chalk up one more for the incorrigible capriciousness of purpose.

C.) Nope. Still a matter of national security until I'm advised otherwise. But I'm back, now. And I vow to not get into politics on this blog; you're gonna have to get me drunk. And that's all I'm gonna say on that.

So here it is, 2009. Pacific Northwest. It's raining sideways. My band has been offered a record deal. Not much has changed in all this time. See that? You missed nothing.