All of us at Oblio want to say how great last night's show at the Mercy Lounge was, and how grateful we are to all the great people and musicians who were a part of it.
The show was entitled "Me and My Arrow: a tribute to the music of Harry Nillson". In case you don't know, we owe our band name to Harry, and we (along with a lot of people) think that he's the bee's knees (or cat's pajamas). Anyway, last night the idea was to have several of Nashville's finest come out and play a few Nillson songs to have fun, and help raise some money for our singer Terry's medical bills. Again, in case you don't know, Terry contracted Ramsey Hunt syndrome in February and it put him out of commission for quite a while. Ramsey Hunt syndrome is very similar to Bell's Palsy, except that it also has a few fun extra symptoms like SEVERE vertigo. Terry doesn't have health insurance (like SO many of us) and had to miss a lot of work, which put a strain on his and his fiance Kat's finances and well-being.
After our good friend and man-about-town Mike Grimes (owner of world famous Grimey's Record Store and The Basement) and our good good friend Aaron Adams heard about Terry's predicament, they decided a benefit show was in order, and furthermore it should be a Nillson tribute. Next thing you know, some of our favorite people in Nashville are siging on to play great songs and have a good time at the Mercy Lounge the Thursday before the 4th of July. On the roster were:
*James Wallace and the Naked Light
*The Features
*Hey Penny
*David Mead
*Grimey and Friends - which included Brendan Benson of the Raconteurs, Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket, Daniel Tashian of The Silver Seas, Marc Pisapia of Josh Rouse's band, John Rogers of Hot Pipes, David Mead, and several others whose names I didn't catch but were incredible
*Eureka Gold
*Pico vs. Island Trees
*Your's Truly (Oblio)
Everyone did an incredible job - some of my favorite moments were Heypenny breaking into the riff from "Frankenstein" during "Lime in the Coconut" (I think that's what they were playing?!? I was kinda drunk and they were having their way with the song arrangements - but it was awesome), Carl Broemel absolutely KILLING IT, bringing the house down on "I Can't Live (If Living Is Without You)", and Bryan and Jeremy from Pico vs. Island Trees doing "It's Early In The Morning" in bathrobes and slippers (also KILLING it).
We had a good time with our songs too, and thanks to all who stuck around to the end to hear us. We were joined by our good good friend Bern Kelly (batting the cycle on keys, acoustic guitar, AND bass!), and our new friend Crystal Thomas who has the voice of an angel - she's on our record.
The last - and possibly most important - thing that should be said about last night was how refreshing it was to have all these bands and artists under the same roof playing music purely for the love of doing it. For those of you who don't know because you don't live here, in Nashville music is big business, and we can all get caught up in doing things for weird reasons and letting stupid things get in the way of what's most important about music. But last night really felt like that was taken away because of the tribute/benefit nature of the show, and having so many talented musicians who are aware of each other playing good music for fun and without ego was a really special thing.
Thank you all for everything, a million times. We are humbled.
-Travis
(on behalf of Oblio and the Bangsmash family).