4/30/2011

Felkers Fro, Topless Sorority Girls, and a big middle finger to KOMA

It was about time someone shaved that thing off of Evan Felker's head, but much like the sword in the stone, only one man was up to the task of removing all that foliage.

McClure.

I'm not saying I wouldn't let him cut my hair (especially since I'm lacking in that department) but I wouldn't let him cut MY hair.  He can produce the hell out of whatever he wants, but I've seen him wield a machete with less than surgical precision...

However, Felker is no Sampson and Mac is definitely no Delilah.  The Troubadours provided a few hours of unadulterated crock and roll for the fine folks of Tecumseh, fro or no fro.  They're salty as the flats and tighter than a highwire and it doesn't take a genius to realize these cats deserve every bit of the ridiculously good press and awards and recognition and buzz-chat that they get.  We Damn Quails opened up the gig with a slightly pared down full band...only 7 guys on stage this time.  Which brings me to my next point.

I have desperately missed playing electric guitar.  The first year Gabe and I started this whole duo fiasco, we played somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 acoustic shows...and 2 electric shows.  We're doing our best to tip the scales the other direction this next year though, and I've got to say that I've never had the pleasure of picking and grinning with so many insanely over-the-top talented guys.  It's a marvel to behold from my little corner of the stage.

So, in the spirit of getting back into the electric swing of things, we took Dan the Van on his second trip to Stillwater for an electric show at the College Bar last Tuesday.  Dan's road legs are getting officially worked in as we've put on just over 1000 miles in the past few weeks.  Still, there is one fatal flaw in the design of our lovable, mid-90's GMC Safari: No CD Player.  We got a tape deck though, but good luck finding anything other than Conway Twitty and Kenny Rogers tapes at truck stops.  They don't carry Tom Waits tapes anymore.  Due to this lack of tunes, we decided to kick the radio dial over to 92.5 and see what kinds of delicious oldies we could come up with to make the drive more pleasant.  As it turns out, the music played on KOMA has seriously changed in the last 10 years since I've actually listened to the radio.  It seems they've gone to a strictly Eagles/Eddie Money/Eagles/Captain and Tenille/MORE EAGLES kind of rotation instead of the really good music that has existed for the past 50-60 years.  So, I decided to do something I haven't done in almost a decade...I called the request line to a radio show and talked to the icon himself:  Mr. Danny Williams.  I was almost certain my first request would garner a "nice tune!" or something of the like from Danny Williams, followed by a prompt spinning of Leon Russel's "Alcatraz" and much joy and rockin' by everyone in the van.  Instead I got a hard "Nope.  We don't play any Leon here".

No Leon Russel.  At an Oklahoma based station that plays the best of the 60's, 70's, and what little there was to choose from in the 80's.  NONE.  Much to my dismay, I threw out my safety pick.  "How 'bout some "Blueberry Hill" then, Danny?  "No, we don't go back NEAR that far."  An oldies station doesn't play one of the most rockin' duple-type piano songs from the immortal Fats Domino in 1956, or Elvis Presley in 1957, or Little Richard in 1958, or Bill Haley and His Comets in 1960. 

Disgusting.  It's not Danny's fault, but someone should wring the necks of whoever is programming KOMA these days and remind them that the Eagles weren't the only band to create music in the past 60 years, and not everything that's old is lame.  Guess it was time for KOMA to get hip to the vibe of the ridiculous crap that's played on most other commercial radio stations...the lamest of the lame of anything that was extremely popular and nothing else.  But I digress...

The first time we played here (College Bar in case you got lost in my KOMA tirade) the crowd was huge and we had them eating out of the palm of our sweaty, grubby, musician hands.  This time, the crowd was huge but we had to forcefully tie on a feed bag to get them to eat...until the booze kicked in about midnight, that is.  College Bar is one of those places that reminds me a lot of the Deli.  They have cheap beer, strong shots, live music, and a smokey "just smoked a pack without ever lighting one up" vibe.  I love it.  Not to mention the tables and tables of sorority girls out for a night on the town.

About halfway through the second set, we decided a freebie T-shirt might get things moving on the merch front as there was not a lot of interest due to the high content of frat boys that were annoying just about every piece of tail in the joint.  So, after turning around and tossing a ladies small like a wedding bouquet, I turned around just in time to see one of said sorority girls taking off the shirt she'd worn into the bar to change into her brand new, slightly too small Damn Quails shirt.

And the frat boys were instantly converted to lifelong DQ fans.  See you at the show...

3 comments:

  1. Just wanted to say good luck to you guys. I remember meeting Danny Williams when I was 14 years old, the same age Mike McClure and Robert Grogan , my stepson, were when I met them. I was in a band and and the drummer`s parents used to party with Danny and he came to their house to hear us practice, listened to one song and announced we
    looked like a bunch of wooden statues. We thought we might get to play on Dannysday, a noontime tv show in OKC, but we thoroughly failed the audition.

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  2. Thanks a ton, man. We can use all the good luck anyone sees fit to throw at us right now. Glad you enjoy what we do, come see us when we get close.

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  3. Thanks a ton, man. We can use all the good luck anyone sees fit to throw at us right now. Glad you enjoy what we do, come see us when we get close.

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