I hurt everywhere. I'm sleep-deprived, aching in muscles I didn't know I had, and there's sweaty clothes and guitar detritus all over my room. Yup, looks like I'm playing live rock 'n' roll again.

We had a blast. I could not believe the amount of old Hormones fans that showed up for the Austin gig, many of whom I hadn't seen in ten years, which means they were not on either of my MySpace pages. Word got out, despite the complete and utter lack of press. (And believe me, I left info with both local weeklies, emphasizing this being my return to the Austin stage after a ten year absence and working with another ex-Hormone and the nucleus of Jesus Christ Superfly. How you ignore a natural-born news item like that, I do not know.) I loved the fact that I could look around the room the entire time we were on and see wall-to-wall smiling faces - that didn't happen a lot with The Hormones, from what I remember. And each of The Humpers (more on them later) echoed a lot of what I heard from others': "Wow, Tim! That sounded good! You guys are better than The Hormones!"

That was what I was hoping for.

The Austin show had a lot more punters and general craziness, especially once The Humpers hit the stage and lit the fuse. Even as a part-time proposition, The Humpers remain one of the finest, most explosive American rock 'n' roll bands extant, as well as just some of the most swell people you could ever hope to know. It felt very comfortable being able to debut in the company of family, and getting paid one hundred bucks to watch these guys just tear the room apart. Two nights running.

San Antonio? We came. We ate at Pig Stand. The club made us sweat over the prospect of getting paid, unnecessarily, before we played. We left. SA yawned, generally. I kinda expected it. Those who were there, generally, gave us a warm, enthusiastic response, however. I can't complain, and I doubt my bandmates could, either.

The other bands we played with? Deadly Companions were a good, trashy, snot-nosed garage punk band with a positively soaked lead singer with a serious Stiv Bators fixation. (He even showed me his Stiv tattoo that night.) Gentlemen's Social Club sounded like they'd been bathing in melted Hanoi Rocks and Dead Boys records. Not the best way to get clean, but great to create a nice, sweaty, stomping rock 'n' roll band. Dick Wiggler And The Cattle Guards are what country music would have sounded like had its' spiritual home been CBGBs, rather than the Grand Ole Opry - good, loud, and rockin'. Top Dead Center work hard and manage to fuse AC/DC and Motley Crue with punk rock energy - I loved how they play to 20 people like it's a packed Madison Square Garden! More bands need that level of commitment.

Our setlist for these two shows:

"Cherry Says" - One of three new originals, this an instrumental witten by the entire band.

"Burn Victim" - a Hormones oldie

"Castaway" - another Hormones oldie, and one neither Ron nor I have played since the band broke up ten years ago. (Incidentally, Ron and I figured out the Austin gig was also ten years to the date The Hormones played our farewell show. Which loaded the significance of the date a lot heavier than it was already bearing.)

"Didn't Tell The Man" - one of Ron's two songs in the set, this a cover of a song written by Chris "Klondike" Masuak and played by two of his bands in succession, first Radio Birdman and then The Hitmen. We stripped some of the hayseed out of it and played up the powerchords, for our version.

"Holiday In West Memphis" - A song I wrote in the latter days of Napalm Stars about the intense miscarriage of American justice that is the West Memphis 3 case. The "Johnny Clash" groove of this one seems to grab people watching us.

"I Fall To Pieces" - Yes, the Patsy Cline classic given a hard rock treatment, and boasting lots of tasty twang from Mr. Rick Carney's Stratocaster. Scott "Deluxe" Drake of The Humpers insists we should record our version: "That could be your ticket to the big time!" Knowing how little praise that guy gives anyone? Wow!

"I Should've Seen It Coming" - Ron's first songwriting contribution to this band, sounding for all the world to these ears like Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" reimagined by Ray Davies in 1965. A really smashing little riff rocker I'm really enjoying playing.

"I Feel Fine" - We treat The Beatles as Motorhead might. This has been dropping jaws all the way around.

"Julie's In Love" - Yup, The Hormones classic that I carried into Napalm Stars. And now into this band. As is....

"Sell Out Young" - Where it all began. The first Hormones A-side, one I'll be playing to my grave.

"Milk Cow Blues" - Closing with a little piece of Mississippi mud splatting deep in the heart of Detroit. A chance for me to unstrap the Gibson and manhandle a micstand, giving you my best lonesome polecat rock 'n' roll frontman routine.

Photos are right here. Thanks to everyone who came out, the staff and management of both Red 7 and the Rock Bottom, our booking agent Deborah Toscano at Devil Dolls Booking, and especially The Humpers for helping to create a great, great weekend. Meantime, here's about eight minutes' worth of footage shot by our drummer's wife from the debut gig, comprising much of "I Should've Seen It Coming," "I Feel Fine," and about half of "Julie's In Love." Now if you'll excuse me, I need some rest....

Tonight, we honed down the set and organically began working up a radical mutation of an old blues standard. I won't even say what it is - I want you to be surprised. But let's say this one's gone up the river from the heart of the Mississippi delta and ended up in downtown Detroit, where we kick the living shit out of it. It's fun making a bloody rag out of this one, even if it is done with love and respect.

11 songs. That's damned respectable. Now we're in the home stretch...and have to figure out transportation to San Antonio, who's gonna video the show, etc., etc. Here we go, kids!

We taught Rick "I Should've Seen It Coming," Ron's Kinks-y new one, which I keep messing up the opening riff on! Dammit! And I'm the one who rewrote it! Rick also made some really cool suggestions on guitar arrangements on two of the songs that really uncluttered them, dropping the noise and mess letting them breathe more. God, it is SO NICE to play with musicians who understand dynamics and don't want to just blast away straight through in a testosterone blitz! The only hurtle in today's practice was a brief communication breakdown trying to explain how I'd rearranged the song structure to Ron. He was not grasping my talk of bars and measures, which seems odd to me after playing with the man since 1991. But...it happens.

We are definitely on the bill for San Antonio, despite the guy who was supposedly getting us on the bill now being in jail for a long time! *rolls eyes* Still, it's two weeks away, and we have no idea who else is on the bill nor what kinda money we're getting. Sneer at us for wanting to get paid, but when you're having to rent a van and finance filling up its' tank and possibly feed yourself at some point, you'll be worrying about getting paid, too.

Second practice of the week is tonight. We have three more to go before the show, and Rick will not be at one of them. Now we start nailing down the set list. This is exciting! I also need some ultra-fine grit sandpaper to tend to the bridge on Dan's Les Paul - I am snapping strings left, right and center, and don't normally do that on my guitars now. There's gotta be some burrs in the bridge saddles. I'm thankful Chris "Klondike" Masuak taught me how to properly change a string, however - tune-up and stretching time has been SIGNIFICANTLY reduced. Thanks, Dan, for the guitar! And thanks, Chris, for the tips!

Well, Al reminded me that no one sent me the memo before yesterday's practice that it would be Hat Day. Al wore his porkpie, and Rick was sportin' his fedora. They were stylin' hardcore. I'm proud of my boys.

Rick couldn't make it tonight, due to an ear infection that he's developed. I can understand: Loud guitars and crashing drums create noises that get trapped in an infected, stopped-up ear, and they will drive you batshit crazy. So it was just the core trio tonight, and that worked fine. We fine-tuned the newest material, being the instrumental "Cherry Says" and my own "Holiday In West Memphis." Then we began work on two new ones.

Ron brought in a set of riffs a few weeks back that had all the earmarks of vintage Kinks. But being as heavily damaged (er, sorry!) by Black Flag as Mr. Williams is, it was fucking relentless. The riffs now have a lyric and a title, "I Should've Seen It Coming." And I arranged them and dissected them then pieced them together until we ended up with the best 1965 Kinks single Ray Davies never wrote. I even ad-libbed such a perfect pastiche of a vintage Dave Davies guitar solo, it was an instant keeper! And it was more perfect that it was so off-the-cuff! This is definitely my favorite new song to play already! Can't wait to hear what Rick adds....

And with us finally tackling "I'm Sorry, I Love You" - the angry hard pop number that I brought in to our last rehearsals last year with Raul - it was definitely power pop night with The Cherry Darlings. It also means we now officially have 12 songs! Perfect! We achieved my goal! (Well, I guess it's actually 13, counting "Looking At You.") Now all we need is to get 'em cemented with Rick, and we have plenty of material onhand for a ten song set, plus enough if we get called back for more. I also feel better having more new originals - I so do not want to be going out there playing shit loads of old Hormones songs. I will always play those songs, but I wanna be moving forward and showing you guys where we're going, not just where we've been.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm beat. Time to log off and watch more of "The Henry Rollins Show." See ya next time!

Yeah, I know I usually post these straight after getting in from the practice at hand. Was too beat and sweaty for that, this week. Then I've spent the time in the interim posting a MySpace invite for the first time, to get the word out on the band and on the show. Didn't realize you had to PHYSICALLY POINT AND CLICK ON EVERY NAME ON YOUR FRIENDS' LIST! Tom, I have a killer suggestion: An option to just invite EVERYONE on your list with one button. You can even provide a window to click those you want to exclude from the invite, or even a filter for those who do not want to be on invite lists. Just a thought.

Not a whole lot to report about this practice. For one, it nearly didn't happen: Every bit of my gear is in pawn, thanks to my discovery that making a living from eBay takes awhile to happen. Thanks to longtime pal (and ex-Stretford guitarist) Dan Carney, I have a really sweet Tokai Love Rock (their version of a Les Paul) on loan to tide me over until I can bail out everything. (In fact, if you were seriously wondering about what to get me for my birthday Friday, I wouldn't get mad at a little spare cash to help at least pay the interest on my gear, if not help bail it out, outright.) I didn't feel any of the usual weirdness involved in playing on borrowed gear, however: Dan's guitar and Rick's Fender Pro Jr. are sweet pieces to be working with. In fact, that Love Rock has one of the finest necks I've wrapped my hands around. Guitar players: Start checking into those Japanese Les Paul knockoffs! They seriously rival any Gibson product. (I favor Burny Les Paul Customs, myself.)

The band is getting tighter and tighter. The energy is remaining consistent, the feel tight and explosive. We added another new tune to the repertoire: "Holiday In West Memphis," a song written for and performed by the last Napalm Stars lineup, a punkabilly protest on the West Memphis 3's behalf. (Check the link to their MySpace in my Top Friends if you are unfamiliar with their case.) It was a quick learn for this mob: They're pros. I have misgivings that there might not be enough time to get much more new material into the initial set. I think the direction of this band will be evident, however, and I hope people will stick with us and watch us grow. Hard to say: My observation after two serious bands and over 20 years at this is you're hugely popular when you first get going, then people lose interest just at the point where you start growing and maturing and getting better. Maybe your local fans just get tired of seeing your face all the time? Not quite sure. We can only do what we do, and hope it catches on.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a life to go live. *winks* 'Til next time....