Friday's show

The show this past Friday was a fun one. Jackson Lee Brooks Band opened for us to an enthusiastic crowd and set a good tone for the night. A great deal of their songs remind me of early Cross Canadian Ragweed stuff. The lead guitar had that same fuzzy distortion tone, that is prevalent in Cross songs. Tyson Kerby is the lead vocals for the group and does a good job steering the band through songs. Also taking part in vocals occasionally is Jarrel Brooks who plays rhythm electric for the band. He sang a good cover of Mickey and The Motorcars' "Twilight". The band as a whole is fairly new to the stage, but I could see that they were comfortable performing and had few serious hiccups. I'm sure they have enough staying power to be gigging for quite some time and will easily carve themselves a niche here in West Texas.


Our two sets were pretty vanilla in the spectrum of all the shows we've had. No one forgot any words or notes and the crowd was having a good time. I personally felt off for most of the second set. Some kind of funk settled in on me and it was hard to shake the mental block. I played my parts and solos fine, but I was a little lost in my head and kept finding myself really not liking my tone at this part or my phrasing in that last solo. Mental hoodoo is always frustrating and I've had those demons bouncing around in my head before on stage. It makes an annoying cycle where you keep being too hard on yourself while you're playing and at the same time can't really improve because you're focusing so much energy on your momentary flaws. I shook it off finally near the end with the help of the band's collective stage energy and was able to hop off stage, for the most part, satisfied.

There was talk about playing a show up near Amarillo next weekend, but I do believe that it never got hammered out all the way. The weekend after that we will all be celebrating Cody's engagement to his girlfriend Sarah and not playing any shows. The rest of May is going to be a busy couple of weeks sending us on the road to a few different places. I'm excited to have some more time to practice on my personal sound which has been bothering me slightly. Hopefully by the time I find myself on the way to our road shows i'll have some of those tone kinks hammered out.

On a harp side note I was thinking recently about buying a Harp Attack Pedal made by the Lone Wolf Blues Company. It is a tube powered pre amp pedal that gives a great deal of warm crunchy tone when used with a P.A. and some amps. I threw some e-mails back and forth to, I think the owner and builder of the pedals, and found sadly that it would most likely not be the best purchase for me. What was really cool though was that Randy, the man I had been talking to, was very helpful in telling me the pro's and cons of using that pedal with my rig. He had no problem losing a sale and giving the advice to hold off on buying one of his products since he wasn't sure it would provide what I was looking for. I really appreciated his honesty and good ethics. I urge any harp players out there to have a look at his products because they are bulletproof and are backed by a man with better intentions than solely profit.

Way to go Stephanie Briggs and The Oso.

One great band that I have to bring people's attention to is Stephanie Briggs and The Oso. I first heard them on a random stop at a bar called Tavern in the Gruene in New Braunfels, Texas about three or four years ago. Her music is awesome and for me really hard to define. She has extensive talent at playing the guitar, it being acoustic or electric, and her voice is just brilliant. On top of that, Stephanie and her husband Matt (The Oso) are some of the nicest people you can come by. When my friends and I first heard them we were the very sore thumbs in the corner of the bar. At the end of the show Stephanie jumped off stage made her rounds with friends and then tracked right over to us and introduced herself.

Over time, through the insistence of my friend Chase, they even set up a few gigs in west Texas that we came running to. Later when I first met Cody Davidson it was through Stephanie and Matt. She had actually sung back up in our CD on the track "Don"t Lie". They were opening here in Midland for the Cody Hughes Davidson Band and we came up for the show. Matt wanted me to play on a few songs and asked me to run home and grab my harps. By the time I got back though, I had missed the rest of their show and Cody was already up on stage. So Matt just snuck a mic to me and told me to play. After a few odd looks around stage trying to find out where the harmonica was coming from Cody saw me hiding behind the sound board and invited me up on stage. Pretty much the only reason I get to play with such a talented band is because of them. Pretty cool.

Well now I get to say congratulations to Stephanie Briggs and The Oso. On March second they will be hooking up with Cross Canadian Ragweed up in Chicago and playing along with them all the way to California on their tour. My only wish is that I had a big sack of money so I could catch a show somewhere along the way. Also in other great news for them is that in July Stephanie Briggs and The Oso will be a part of the Big Music Cruise featuring such bands as Reckless Kelly, Stoney LaRue, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Wade Bowen, Brandon Jenkins, Jason Boland, and a few more of the Texas music scene's best acts. Tickets are available for the cruise now. If you happen to have your own sack of money to go cruising through the Caribbean with some great bands I say jump on the deal.

Well I just wanted to share the good word about a great band and all my happiness for their very busy schedule coming up. There isn't another band I know that deserves these great things more than they do. Give them a listen. They really have a wonderful infectious sound that is hard to press stop to.