OK so here we are in Texas. SXSW again and AGAIN how cool is
it to be here! Always a blast!! This time even the weather's nice. .No rain!! Yeah!!!
Against all advice from our management company and against all reason in general, we have arrived back in this wonderful town...
We have just played some AWESOME shows in the Pacific Northwest (Seattle and Portland ROCK!!!) and SF in the last week thanks in no small part or effort to our dedicated agent who made it all happen, Miss Mamma Casserole from Mamma's Booking in Seattle, Washington!
Mamma also lined up the free Day parties we played in Austin at SXSW.
Beyond the Call, Babe.
If you are ever at the Comet Tavern in Seattle, stop in and say hello!
Thanks, Mamma!

But alas.. suddenly.. before our SXSW warmup show in LA. (a cool show at Safari Sam's with John Wicks and The Records of " Starry Eyes" fame) the night before we left, Cyril had become sick ..He was hurtin'!! He claims that he was having out of body experiences and wasn't sure he could stand up on stage.. much less play! .But finally just before stage time, being the trooper he is, he decided the show must go and that he would just have to hold on for dear life as Paul, Clem,and Eddie watched him turn green..

We all thought there was no hope.. that he was actually going to die on stage from this severe bout of food poisoning he got from his Chili Cheese consumption at a Carl's Jr. the night before but regardless of this huge handicap the show was great and Cyril played as outstanding as usual and nobody in the crowd was ever aware of his condition.

He only got sick after the show in the parking lot for those keeping score.. That show was a close call ..let me tell you. That show almost didn't happen and now SXSW was in jeopordy too...But again, luckily, Cyril after remaining in LA laying low and recuperating for a couple of days, flew out and met the rest of the boys. Clem had arrived, Paul had arrived and Eddie had arrived!

The first day at SXSW, after playing a cool' in store' at Cheapo Records at 2.00pm and a REAL AWESOME show at the wonderful Gingerbread Man at 5:00pm we arrived at BD Riley's Showcase at 1.00 ..........!:00am in the morning that is! And it felt
great!! The audience ROCKED! Already high from 'Muck and the Mires', and ready fo anything and everything! And we gave it to them! They did not leave disappointed! Probably our favorite show EVER!!! It was so Cool!! Thanks to all who were there...We LOVE you!!

The next day our first venue was the Dog and Duck tent........OK apart from the fact that the band before us------The Slits------did a complete no show and we were
late to start due to the usual Rock N' Roll drama..... See Paul and Eddie for more info on that one........, we had no idea what we had in store for us.
BUT as always we were prepared for anything!. AND thank god we
were!. If anything could go wrong it pretty much did go wrong!
At one point (and there is a picture of it somewhere) Clem
jumped off his drum seat and leapt directly over Paul's head while Cyril sat in a chair had a smoke and laughed at all the chaos around him...........Clem's
bass drum pedal had completely broken.........and within seconds he had us all off stage. Calm, cool and collected we waited, the audience seemingly digging the delay as much as the show, until a replacement was found and the show went on........that is until Paul broke his mike stand in two from his frustration at a stagehand!
BUT, despite everything, our energy survived and even got stronger and the audience felt it too!
Amongst them was Steve Homer of Live Nation UK and he was so impressed that we find ourselves on the road to the UK for the O2 Festival 2008 in Hyde Park, London. No less opening on the Main Stage on the last day (Sunday, July 6th) for the Counting Crows, Ben Harper, Goo Goo Dolls and Eddie
Grant.
To go to London for just one show you ask? YES this is what we do! Absolutely! And THIS is why we love rock'n'roll! Actually fate would have it that not only were Blondie (in the middle of their Parallel Lines 2008 World Tour) near London that day but our show time allowed Clem to play the festival with us then be limo-ed to his Blondie show a hundred miles away in time for their set.

And because of this a great big thanks to Blondie from us all!

Okay back to Texas and the last day of the SXSW Festival.
After playing at the Spider House (our 5th show so far) we went out to the Get Hip! showcase to catch some more great acts. The Ugly Beats, The Stems, Paul Collins Beat, and the AMAZING band The Cynics!! Paul's current favorite band!! What a show! A good time was had by all and only one more show left to do..........

On the Sunday afternoon before everyone departed this most amazing city of Austin to fly home and recover from the party experience that is SXSW, we played Headhunters.

Our final show over and everyone starting to wind down, off we go to a party close by. We were invited by Paul Collins who played a cool, energetic
set righ in someone's side yard. Did we already mention what a cool town Austin is!! Cyril even sat in for a tune on Vocals.

All that was left now was for us all to go home, exhausted but excited by all the promise and expectations that being in a great rock'n'roll band gives!!!

We would not trade it for the world.

Thanks to all for coming out to see us.. and to all we bid you goodbye for now.. More to come soon!!!

Clem Burke has joined the band on drums.
Welcome Clem.
The band is rehearsing and recording now and

there are upcoming shows so stay tuned. 
Check out Tomorrow Never Comes.

http://www.catalog-of-cool.com/

Historys Groovy Ball & Chain

I guess there must be some collapsing-and-expanding theory of time & the universe that proves that everythings connected or temporally adjacent or something. The point being: its all relative, these POVs we all make and stake our opinions on. Some recent examples Ive noticed

On American Idol, which I, like most Americans, watched religiously this season, the judges -- all music-biz veterans with some real credentials-- repeatedly proved their lack of knowledge about popular music. When one finalist chose to perform Ray Charles Believe to My Soul, Paula Abdul complimented him on his brave choice (Thats a hard one to do, because most people dont know the song). Simon Cowell frequently dissed anyone who performed country, sometimes even likening the singer to an animal with its foot caught in a trap. How square can you be? This standard anti-C&W shtick was old back in the 50s and 60s when mainstream celebs made fun of hayseed cats. Sometimes, if a finalist did an oldies ballad (like, say, on 50s theme week), Simon would sourly opine that, It sounds like something grandmothers would love. Interesting. Nothing against grandmothers, but if, in using it this way, Cowell meant boring and old-fashioned, the music that really fits the description is the kind Cowell, Abdul and Randy Jackson routinely celebrated: bombastic power ballads (every single one of which Mad, in its current Idol parody points out, must contain the word dream). As far as I can tell, this sort of crap, which many fellow citizens really eat up, began in 1972 or so, when Melissa Manchester or some other Clive Davis find found a way to introduce sentimental pre-rock torch balladry to rock audiences. This dreadful dreck has thus been going on for more than 30 years, but its not considered old-fashioned yet? Please explain.

Moreover, the judges never ever really got Taylor Hicks, the winner, a bama bar-band guy who wore his affinity for old soul and more basic r&r on his sleeve. Hicks is no Roy Head or Charlie Feathers, of course, but when he chose and delivered a fast, straight-ahead Jailhouse Rock and worked himself up in one performance to the point where he rolled around on the floor (Tony Conn lives!), they could only appreciate it as a) evidence of Hicks spirit and his charming goofiness and b) camp. When Hicks would rock out, Simon usually compared the performance to something youd hear in a karaoke bar any night in any town. How so? Because Simon had no grasp or appreciation of basic, unadorned, unselfconscious rock & roll; unable to just dig something simple & direct for what it was (a groove, no lyrical content, an excuse to have fun), he had no context in which to evaluate the performance other than a bunch of drunks goofing on late-period Presley in a karaoke joint, which, in this jaded, cynicism-dominated culture we now inhabit (tired of David Spade and Greys Anatomy yet, anyone?), is the only route allowed.

It is all relative, I guess. Now, a week ago I went to a gig here in L.A. Cyril Jordans new band, Magic Christian, was playing. They were great: a rockin four-piece hitting the vein of precisely the kind of r&r that wouldve sent Simon running for his Diane Warren publishing demos. The band did some covers along with its originals, and heres what I noticed: The time-expanding-and-contracting theory was in full warp effect. Fifteen or 20 years ago, if a band covered the Stones Gotta Get Away or the Beatles Any Time at All, from the vantage point we stood on then, most of us wouldve said, Nice, but why bother? since comparisons with the originals would make the covers inferior.

But now, 40 years after the fact, these pieces -- like Johnny B. Goode and Summertime Blues have passed into some other space, one where theyre no longer exclusive signatures of great artists but rather full-blown parts of the standard rock & roll canon. Theyve been liberated; theyre free to be taken and performed by anyone, and if its a good version, its a good version of a great song, plain and simple. And, Christ, MCs Any Time at All was positively torrid, as was an inspired take on the Dennis Wilson rocker from 20/20, All I Want to Do.

Believe me, Im well aware that folks who dig r&r have been a minority community for a long time; thats just the way it is some folks collect postcards, others golfing paraphernalia. Seeing that band (and the three younger outfits that preceded it, all good) reminded me that Im a resident of that township. Near the end of the set, when Jordans group blew the lid off Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight, this young kid, in a Brian-Jones puddingbowl, came up to me, a resident graybeard, and asked Who did the original of this? The Easybeats, I said. Thats what time it was. G.S.

A week from this Friday, July 7th Magic Christian will take the stage and open for our old friends The Plimsouls at Cafe Du Nord on Market Street in San Francisco.

This will be an anniversary show as we did one like this last Summer and it was AMAZING!

Peter Case, Eddie Munoz, Dave Pahoa and Bryan Head set the El Rey in LA on fire last week. Our friend, Victoria Joyce sent us this pic of Peter and his World Travelling Rickenbacker...