The Skinny

Things used to be different. Yup. Gruene Hall was not a huge crowd this time around, but, they were a skinny crowd, and we like that. Elvis and Jesus opened up for Santa across town so things were a bit slow that night, but not to worry, Cooder has come together recently more than we ever thought possible, musically speaking of course. And I must apologize, if you haven't been at our shows lately, you don't really suck, and you aren't stupid, and you're probably not an idiot, but you have missed some glorious musical magic. And you're gay.

Our next show was at the Rockin Rodeo in Denton with Randy Rogers, a righteous romping regalia ripping into to the Arctic air. Yea it was butt biting cold. Poor Randy though, if he could only draw a crowd, or have some good songs, or get a good band. It was packed and one fun effer to play. (We'll be back around Feb. 23rd) The next night found our happy hearts hopping on down to San Angelo to Graham Central Station, our first time back to this particular stop since the late 1990's. Another great crowd and this one was decked with dancers and old friends. Also our best crowd in San Jello in a long time. This is a party town and we were happy to be back. We didn't get to go see Blaine, he had Billy Joe Shaver in town, and had to hear a little preaching.

Saturday found us fireside, Houston, Texas, the Firehouse Saloon, a fairly familiar favorite for the Fab five. (all right, I'll quit with the allit. in a bit) Suki, the in-house chef fed us famously and the folks who had come in looking for a fire truck, or a fireman, or some kind of help along those lines, finally figured out after three tequila shots, this was not "that" kind of firehouse and left screaming, "Fire." But, we all had a great time playing with the pencils on the benches and listening to the jukebox until the live music sparked the night off. Fans found the U-joints and Josh Owens starting the show with their own firedrills, so the night was packed with plenty of precautionary measures leading up to the actual pyrotechnics Cooder had to offer that night. FIRE.

Sunday we were off, and uh, I don't remember what we did. Monday we floated over to the 25th BGM Christmas party, at the Tavern in the Gruene, New Braunfels, with all kinds of yea-who's, Johnny Bush, Tommy Alverson, Ryan James, the Pearratz, Darren Tripp - DJ from a long way away, Twangcast folks, and of course Bill and Debbie Green and their whole entourage. Alot of other folks, who I'm not remembering, but who we love nonetheless. It was an awesome party and one of those you leave and remember why it is you do what you do. Good times, good times.

Tuesday and Wednesday were acoustic gigs and were both cool and very different than your weekend Cooder. Tuesday at Suede I met some great folks and took requests for about three hours from the hardcore Cooder fans. I played with Colby Logan who used to play with "Anytown". Wednesday, Buffalo and I played the Overtime Bar and Grill in Burleson, to a packed house, thanks in no small part to Casey Donahew, a Burleson picker who started the show.

We picked back up with the band around thursday and headed to Wichita Falls, another Graham Central Station, they must have one hell of a little railroad running. They've changed the stage around and made it larger and took out the karaoke room. They also shut the club down that night except the "Cowboys" portion, and there was a train load of effer's there. I'm crapping you negative. It was probably our largest showing there.

And speaking of a large showing, we definitely had our biggest crowd ever at Sweetwater. Of course it was the first time we played the Azteca, a very big Assteca at that, but since we played the Rattlesnake Roundup's, 3 and 4 years ago, we haven't been back to the Aguadulce of West Texas. In fact later that night, we all commented on how we were shocked at how many folks came out. Big crowd, yup. Biggest of the weekend.

Saturday, December 17, Waxahachie, our annual Christmas show, Texas Theatre. Amazing, this story ends like it began, this crowd was a bit, well, thin. Sorry, I think oftimes in terms of crowd size, probably because the band feeds off the energy you folks being there, gives us. Oh, we can play one freight load of a show to a small but robust grouping, but a certain amount of indescribable energy comes from the masses. Now don't get my murmurings wrong, we rocked around the christmas tree, KT played at least two, yup duex, christmas songs, and Buffalo and KT played Canon in D, and no one got married. And tonight we finished off the weekend on the radio with Justin Frazell on 99.5 the Wolf, the Front Porch Show. Now there is one cool cat, man. He has this big freakin show on one of the biggest radio stations in the nation, keep on rockin in the free radio world, Justin. Hey Amarillo, anybody listening?

Well, if for some reasonable reason I don't make it to the drawing board or the mailbox and you haven't gotten your Cooder Christmas Card yet..... wait, don't open any other cards until you get ours. Ours will be the best. Or just go ahead and open the others and pick out your favorite one and pretend it is from us, because, other than us saying, Hey, Merry Christmas Y'all, from the Cooders, a pretend card is as close as you'll get to the real thing. So find a good one, maybe with some fake snow on it, or a "far side" card, and scratch out Love Aunt Dorothy, and write in, ever so festivally, Love, the Cooders, Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year.

Who Wants to go to Fire Lake?

I demand a recount. So what, big whoop, want to fight about it? Here's a brief recount of the past two and a half week's events without any bias or musical references.

We last found ourselves about to get freaky at Floore Country Store, Saturday night, playing with Charlie Shafter and his band of miscreants. Practically normal show for the most part, and what looked like a country crowd, cool when country wasn't, ended up to be a freakin rockin buttload of musical joy. It was the best show of our lifetime and you were an idiot if you missed it.

Then Bird-day flew in and everyone went to Squanto's house for Turkey, Wampanoag stew, and fish-sticks. Oh and a bottle of red or white or whatever kind of mood were in that night.

Being Cooder Graw means outdoor shows must be scheduled either during the middle of summer.....or.......winter, whichever is likely to be more miserable to all those involved, and since winter is around the corner, we needed to test our grit. So last weekend meant Granbury and Mineral Wells would provide the perfect time for our outdoor exam. Well slap my long john's and call me a fool, here came the sun, doit-n-doodoo, it was nice and warm. Granbury, Mike's Ice House, was incredible, one of the greatest places known to man. If you weren't there you are an idiot.

Mineral Wells the next night was a private party. Sorry, I'm not allowed to tell you anything about the party by reason of a nondisclosure agreement we signed under duress, but it was great, huh, hard to believe, probably the best we have ever sounded as a band. Our buddy Tommy Alverson came by and played the better part of the night with us, we saved the worst part for later, after we had more than uno mas cerveza too many. This show was at the bottom of the Stairway to Heaven, and there are only 96 stairs, in case anyone wanted to know. And, you guessed it, if you weren't there you weren't on the coolest guest list EVER.

The following weekend we went down to Fire Water. I'm not quite certain, but, was there a full moon, or free cable, or smoke on the water, or something weird going on last night, because once Cooder got cranked up, oh my god, look the hell out. Yea, it was two hours, count'em peeps, of Fire in the Sky. After we were done, we were just lucky to get all of the misdemeanants home and back to the bus. Enough said except that if you plan to be a juke box hero, remember that the glass on those things shatters, uh, rather easily. So you probably already know this, but those of you who weren't there, suck. Tonight is Durant, O.K. and tomorrow is Gruene Hall, each show will find us better than imaginable. Till our next amazing performance.

Martindale

Willie every Saturday Night

Well, you guys haven't heard from me lately, so I thought I'd let you know how the pavement is treating us. We arrived at the bus' new home to find our tandem axled trailer missing a very crucial part, the very part that makes it tandem in fact, the second axle, which Gyro informed us, relieved itself from further duties somewhere between Abilene and Fort Worth. No two weeks notice, no complaints lodged, no lawyerly inquiries, just an outright AWOL. Well we loaded up the bus and moved to Beverly, Webster that is, down the road from NASA and home to Big Texas.

I guess there was some kind of 11:00 p.m. shuttle launch we weren't made aware of, because everyone seemed to be there, and not at the show. Of course, I say everyone, we were blessed with friends, Jim and Linda, Bubba and Debbie, Mike, others who make our shows regularly in the Houston area, but the shuttle watchers were busy elsewhere. That's alright, the folks at Big Tex made us feel like we didn't have to wipe our feet and we could feel at home, we had fun and the sound was great.

The next night was Schroeder, yea we played her, Hall, the second oldest dance hall in the state. We played our dance hall set, and had to go through our rigorous pre-show calculations and formula to figure out exactly which show to present to our apres-shuttle launching watching crowd there in betwixt Goliad and Victoria. For those of you possibly unfamiliar with the two very different shows his Cooderness has to offer, they are, using the vernacular of the lazy, our Country show and our Rock show. Our system for determining which show to employ is your basic, peak inside and see if it is an older, dancing crowd or a younger, drunker crowd. We quickly surmised all the hats and broom handled skirts meant one thing. Drink. We played and had a fun show, and we still threw a few U2 licks in to let everyone know U2 is not country.

And here we are at Floore Country store. The Charlie Shafter Band plays with us tonight. Ought to be a good night. Tamales and burgers await inside. The sign outside says, "Willie Nelson every Saturday night."

Martindale

Seperation anxiety

Funny, I look back on the titles of my blog and just two entries ago, the title was "Neglect". I felt bad having not written in so long and then here I go, again. But as most of you know, I have been busy, busy, busy. The radio station has me working almost every day now. So, my time with Cooder Graw is limited.

However, I did manage to attend the show last night at The Horseman. The crowd was light...too light. Why? Willie Nelson & Ms.Womack were having some free show in Dallas, Cory Morrow was at Billy Bob's and Stoney LaRue was jammin' over at Woody's. Texas Music fans had to have been torn. And the usual loyal fans of Cooder may have felt like it was time to see someone else play this weekend since we're in the DFW area so much lately. I say "we" and that gets me a little emotional here. Feels like forever since I was on the bus last, traveling with my Brothers. I miss them, plain & simple. I was commissioned to announce the guys at The Horseman, like I have done at dozens of shows, but this time was different. This time I started with, "I am Rock, with 95.9 The Ranch..." It made me feel so seperated from the guys. You know, like that feeling when you bump into an old girlfriend/boyfriend...or maybe someone you knew back in high school. It was bitter-sweet to be up there announcing them as a seperate entity than myself.

Okay, the crowd sucked, like I said. It's usually much more packed in there. And I know that it affects the guys. They want that mob of fans, screaming at the stage-front, like so many times past. The girls winking upwards, wishing for a drummer or fiddle player for Christmas. Notice, I left out the others...they never get flirted with, right?

The intro the guys took on this show was quite unusual from the standard shows. I wont give it away though for those of you that are coming to a show soon. Well, on second thought, you should have had all your asses there anyway...so, they get announced while they aren't on stage. Then, the stage goes black and a Robert Johnson song begins to play over the sound system. For those of you not familiar with Robert Johnson, he was the blues guitarist that was reported to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his extreme talent (Clarksdale is about that). Then, the old blues tune's haunting sound fades and the guys jump in with a rockin' version of Dirty Little Hometown Girl. The folks that were there really liked it, as did I. It raised the level of excitement in the room and kicked things off well.

Later during the show, Fish was messing around with the beat from "Louisianna Saturday Night." Remember that old tune, "Well, ya get down the fiddle, ya get down the bow, kick off your shoes and you throw 'em on the floor..." Matt decided to throw the lyrics out there and was quickly joined by KT & Paul. Then, the magic happened when Nick pulled on the bow and belted out perfectionism with the song. Everyone started singing along and dancing. It was spontaneous and beautiful.

As the night progressed, Matt pulled a couple of his acoustic tunes out while the guys went over to Woody's to check out Stoney for a few minutes. Everyone except Fish & Matt. It caught me off-guard when I heard Matt, "Let's get Fish up here to do a song." Strolling up to the front and donning one of Matt's Taylor guitars, Fish took the stage. He did his rendition of "Crazy Eddy's Last Hurrah" by Reckless Kelly. Not a song you would imagine being played acoustic, yet Fish stepped up and redefined what we are used to hearing. He shattered the mold of that coffee house acoustic singing blob and sounded fantastic...he really added life to it.

When all was said & done, the boys came around the merch stand to sign autographs. It was then I realized that there seemed to be more people in the place now. Brittney worked the merch stand nearly all night and did an incredible job of fighting the boredom, since the crowd was so thin. Got to meet her folks, too and her mom is way cool.

This was about the end of the night for me. I don't recall much else...if you know what I mean. Robin & I headed back to my place after dropping Arminda off at an IHOP in Bedford. I think Arminda had the same problem I did...well, not so much a problem as an escape. A drink or two isn't bad, right? Three?

David Ball just got home a bit ago. He spent a good part of the morning in the hospital after the show. Apparently, he caught a ride with some idiot that somehow went off the road. And in the confrontation between the car and the tree, the tree seems to be the victor. Luckily nobody died.

RANDOM PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE ABOVE STORY: If you want to have fun, cool, but STOP THE DAMN DRINKING AND DRIVING. Drink & drive and I hope you only kill yourself in the process. Too harsh? Bullshit! Dumb asses run around every weekend, drinking it up, laughing & chasing girls, wearing their starched up clothes, whatever, etc, etc....and they end up killing families. I'm done.

Can't leave you on that serious of a note, can I? Can I encourage each of you that read this to talk to just one other person about Cooder Graw this week. Introduce our music to someone that says "Cooder What?" Let's get the fire burning for this fresh winter season and build these crowds. Bring someone new to a show, play a CD at a party, tell them to check out the website...even read my mindless chattering here. Reply back to me here and let me know some cool stories of new faces we are conquering from the Nashville side of music. Let's put Texas Country on top and help Cooder to lead the way.

Any names, animals, events or botanical inferences in the above stories may be altered to protect the innocent.

Weird run

The run this weekend was odd. We started out at the Firehouse Saloon in Houston. Usually, this is one of our better gigs. This time was different. There were maybe 50 people there. Hell, one of those was my friend Allen. Bubba was there with Mrs.Bubba. Kris Moseley was there, too. So, let's say there were about 46 present. This was set to be a damn good show, too. Mickey & The Motorcars were opening for us. There wasn't any reason to have less than a few hundred in attendance. Bubba mentioned that there was a "thing" for the Astros downtown, so many went to that. Come on, that sucks: The Astros can play the World Series anytime...this was Cooder Graw at the Firehouse! (That's sarcasm folks)

There were two guys that got in a scrap right before soundcheck. That was interesting to watch. People resorting to violence...never a good thing. But that's what big city living can do to folks. Always some excitement with Cooder Graw in town. Anyway, they made up and even stayed for the show. Thank goodness, we needed both of them there.

The show went decent. The guys sort of went into this "well, there's nobody here, let's party" mode. There were some mistakes made during the show, but hell, there wasn't enough people there to notice. And it was the first day out, so that tends to happen....right Bubba!? Some of the guys from Mickey & The Motorcars got up with our Cooder boys and jammed with them. That was something that sent some chills my way cause it ROCKED!

When the night ended, we packed up relatively fast and were ready to head towards Dallas.

I awoke the next morning, crawling from my bunk to the front lounge to find we were parked at "The House" in Fort Worth. Cool! Showers were taken and everyone was refreshed and ready (most everyone) for the show. Gyro steered us for Dallas and we made it to Gilley's. This performance was outside of Gilley's this time, in the parking lot. It was some big BBQ cookoff thing raising money for some kids thing. Okay, so I can't recall exactly what it was about, but hey, some kids are suffering, Cooder played and it was nice. Notice I said it was a BBQ thing. O'yea, you know they fed us BBQ. "This is some of the best you've ever had" was the theme at every station I stopped at...and every gig we've ever been to. Why is every venue dead-set on stuffing us with BBQ. I don't want to seem ungrateful, cause it's nice they do stuff, but somebody has to break the chain...someone has to speak up against the BBQ abuse going on with bands. Can we get some Mexican, Italian or hell, maybe some Chinese. I see why Nick tries to grab some sushi when we're anywhere near a decent town. Am I really babbling on about BBQ??? Crap.

Okay, so the weather was nice in Dallas. The Eli Young Band opened for us. Those are some bad ass dudes(got to love my expansive vocabulary). Little Rock fell asleep in his bunk after touring all the little peddler booths. I woked him up after we realized he was MIA past two songs into the set. Turns out he wasn't feeling good and had to take some medicine that knocked him out. Damn that Morphine!

Was a virtual family reunion for me, Fish & Little Rock...as usual when we're in Dallas. Uncle Bill made it out, as did Mikey, Sissy....okay, I can't name everyone anymore and we shall just say "The Family" to save my typing time.

Gary Turner & Warren Cole were at this show and that always means it will be fun. Gary & I spent some time yelling at KT on stage. You know how you always here people yelling at band members and you can't even understand them half the time. So, I just took it to the extreme, yelling: "Come on you F***ing puppet, play a damn song, you Bastard!" It just blended in and nobody noticed. Well, KT finally realized and had a good laugh. Warren seemed more subdued, probably since his lovely Stephanie wasn't able to come.

After the show we all vacated quickly. We had loaders! And Pat Babb showed up with some of his posse(although I would love to have that word pronounced differently). They helped load us and they saved us a lot of time. Robin & I made it to the house just before the bus. However, some of the guys weren't on the bus. Seems that Mike Mancy was playing at Adair's so some of them went to watch...and even play. I just know that there was a HUGE mess in the backyard of the house come morning. And you know that hot tub was used, too. Crazy guys. Although I know Matt was innocent, cause I saw him working on his article for Texas Music magazine all night.

Morning came and I went and got some donuts, much to the delight of Matt, Gyro, etc. I began working on my show for tonight for the radio station (95.9 The Ranch) and the guys got ready to head out to Amarillo. Today is a Katrina benefit there.

Time to go head to the station. All of you that read this, try to turn someone new onto the Road Diary, our whole website, etc. Help us to share the good music and the behind the scenes antics. Keep us all in your prayers and hope to see ya down the road.

Neglect?

Have I neglected this blog so long that the 14th was my last entry. Okay, it's been busy, but damn there's so excuse for that. There's not a show tonight, yet thought I would write for the hell of it. Tomorrow we're headed for the round of gigs and just thought some insight into our lives here prior to leaving out would be interesting.

Matt was just on the computer for awhile working on some stuff. I say the word "stuff" cause I have no idea what he was doing. Paul, KT, Gyro, etc., are in the hot tub relaxing. I was in there for a little while and had to get out to work on stuff for my radio show this Sunday. Again, that's 95.9 The Ranch in Fort Worth (www.959theranch.com). Check out the show online if your not busy.

Bubba called me tonight to see if I would be at the show there in Houston. He's a cool cat and we all sure love him. He's done a lot for us and wanted to let me know he would be there for load-out. He's ready for some Cooder Graw after having to go through all that evacuation crap from that bitch Rita. Thank God, she spared the Houston area.

Paul just came in and is about to grab a shower. It's funny, our little quiet neighborhood and there sits our huge tour bus in front of the house. Actually, it almost takes up the houses beside us, too. KT just came in now to bring my jacket back to me. It's chilly outside...and no we're not gay.

Guess that's enough of this mindless chatter. Remember to live in the present moment and enjoy the things God is giving you NOW. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is yet to be seen. If you don't like a situation you can deal with it, walk away from it or just accept it...either way, find peace. Okay, I am almost done with that book Nick read. Love you all!

Fair to Midland

After a few days of being off the bus to do my radio stuff, the guys picked me up in Ft.Worth on the way to Midland. Sporting a chocolate milk for Gyro & some donunts for the boys, I arrived back on our silver fortress. We took off soon after my arrival and were bound for Midland to play "The Ranch" as we always do. Past two years we were there for Halloween, but a tad early this time.

As we were getting the stage set, The Charlie Shafter Band showed up to open for Cooder. This was a good sign for what would be a great night for music. We're carrying some of Charlie's music with us now, so if you don't have their CD "Orange", you need to make a little purchase at the next show. Seriously good music!

Charlie & his boys took the stage pretty early. The Crowd hadn't even really got in the club yet. Still, they rocked the house and got the energy rollin' for Cooder time. Matt & the boys took the stage and were quickly jammin'. Pat Babb & Justin came out. And Jayme, Aaron Watson's merch guy showed up to hang with me, Rodney & Shannon came out, too. Great guys & incredible musicians. Aaron's bus broke down, thus the visit by the Honkey...I mean, the Honkey Tonk Kid. Hey, Aaron, I know you read this, so where the hell were you last night??? O'wait, I forgot you owed the guys one for not coming to your show at The Horseman when we were off and in town. Now we're all even.

During the show, a friend of Robin's came by to say "hi". I went to show "Abby" the Cooder bus while the guys were playing. On the way out, one of the cops at the back door gave me some crap about Abby not being my wife, so she couldn't go out that door. Well, it's been a long week and I told him to "quit being a dick!" He said that cussing in front of him can get me arrested and I apologized saying, "Awe, I didn't know you were soooo sensitive." That spawned a whole incident between your beloved Rock and the police. But hey, I didn't go to jail and before the nights end it was all cool. It did feel good though to stand up to "The Man's" oppression and win. I say "win" cause I didn't end up in cuffs and Miss Abby did get to see the bus. Let me add that I do respect the cops out there; overworked & underpayed. But why......awe, hell, never mind....you know what I mean. We made peace and all was well. Two proud men in a pissing contest.

The night ended smoothly enough. Wish the crowd would've been better. Jacque Daniel's, the coolest DJ in Midlanc/Odessa said it was probably the weather. It had been raining all day there.

We got all loaded and were ready to head off. Gyro blew the horn and it was time to come running. Head count was right and we started to roll. Fish was already in bed. He had already vomitted earlier in the night (maybe something he ate???) Hell, we all felt pretty good and I even had to pull out Gyro's video camera to get the Paul & Fish show. We filmed KT while he slept (he looked so peaceful) and stayed up till around 5am discussing "The Power of Now" a great book that Nick read and I am in the middle of. Everybody should read it! It talks about living more in the present moment, leaving the past behind and not worrying so much about the future. Time is an illusion and problems, too. It's pretty cool.

One of the funniest things I heard last night was when Paul looked around, sitting in the back lounge, he smiled and said, "All you MF's are here for my entertainment." He was actually being pretty philisophical, how to look at life like everyone around you are just characters placed there by God to entertain you. Yea, we got pretty deep last night.

We determined that Little Rock is like a little Otto. He's quiet and always in the background. Some folks like to be there in the limelight. Even seen some that will walk onto the stage smugly at any chance they have to feel important. But Little Rock just hides well and still gets shit done. So, you may not see me writing about him all the time, but that's just cause he's like a Ninja or something, you even forget he's there. Gyro's been teaching him, stuff and let me tell you, there's nobody better to have as a mentor.

Well, it's morning/afternoon and we're all up now. KT wanted us to watch some Andy Griffith, to help settle us down. He said all that "Lords of Dogtown" and "Sin City" movie stuff had poisoned our brains and it was time to get back to some quality basics...I agree. Ya just can't go wrong with Andy. I will be getting off the bus after tonight, again so you'll have to bear with my absence once more. Hopefully, Matt will chime in with some of his words to satisfy that Road Diary craving.