After interviewing Stoney Curtis, name sake of the Stoney Curtis Band on Thursday June 23rd, Digital Journal made its way back to the Sanddollar Blues Bar in Las Vegas to listen to this modern version of a traveling blues band and was the better for it.
Coming in half way through the first set, to an almost full room of Stoney fans in Vegas and a few from other parts of the USA, it was obvious that everyone there had come to enjoy the music.
The Sanddollar Blues Bar is a small dark smoky bar just off the Las Vegas Strip on Spring Mountain Road and Polaris. It is one of that venue’s that you dream about in a blues fantasy. You are right on top of and practically on the small stage which lends to a blues experience the way it should be as Stoney says, “in your face.” Your no longer in Vegas, you feel like you’re on the south side of Chicago, or a bar in Kansas City, or a whole in the wall in New Orleans. The whole place reeks of blues.
Going right up front and left of the stage, a table was waiting, which put this Digital Journal reporter in position to sit at the feet of this modern Blues master guitarist. It was the, in your face, blues fantasy come to life.
The first full song enjoyed just happened to be a Robin Trower classic. There really is a Blues heaven, and Stoney Curtis is at the gates smoking riff’s on his guitar from a past archive of Blues bar magical songs.
Now stunned and but ready for what was next, the band pulled out ‘Thrill is Gone.’ The trio began to bleed blues. Stoney Curtis’ fingers dripped blue blood all over the fret board.
 Jay David Murphy Stoney Curtis playing his Stratocaster at the Sanddollar Blues bar in Las Vegas |
It was raw and it was real, it was the Blues being played at its best, by the Stoney Curtis Band. You could almost feel the heat being generated from Stoney’s guitar strings as he took his white Stratocaster into a rage with his guitar pic, gripping it like tongs pulling steel ingots from a boiling vat at the mill.
It was raw precision and real speed. It was like Eddie Van Halen and Stevie Ray Vaughn had been sown together by some mad scientist creating a blues rock metal monster.
After a short brake, the band started up with its new original single from their album ‘Raw and Real,’ ‘Last Train to Chicago,’ now out from Shrapnel Records Blues Bureau. This is the Stoney Curtis Band’s second CD. ‘Acid Blues Experience’ was their first.
 Jay David Murphy Stoney Curtis and Rog X play the new featured single, 'Last Train to Chicago' from Raw and Real. |
Stoney could have a modern era Blues classic in his repertory now. ‘Last Train to Chicago’ is new, it honors in the old school, it was all Stoney and he played and sang the Blues. He has taken old school blues and infused it with rock, and trimmed it with metal for a familiar but all new blues sound. Stoney Curtis with ‘Last Train to Chicago’ has brought the sound of his youth, playing in Chicago blues bars starting at 16, into this new century now almost a decade old, and has created potentially a new Blues classic that following generations of Blues musicians will have to know it to please Blues lovers at every dark bar, in every back alley, of every city and cow town in the US and beyond. It was just plain cool.
His next song was like flipping a funk switch. ‘Girl friends always by my side’ was funk rock blues. The rhythms coming from the bass and drums mixed with Stoney’s guitar slaps was so different from the earlier evenings offerings that you had to stop and recalibrate your ear for this funky vibe with cheeky lyrics, yet it was still the Blues now funkified and rocking hard.
 Jay David Murphy Stoney Curtis Performing at the Sanddollar in Las Vegas. |
The bands third offering was an instrumental ballad. It was like a mini rock Opera. This is the Stoney Curtis Band got everyone in the bar and transported them to the planet Blues.
 Jay David Murphy Stoney Curtis at the Sanddollar in Las Vegas |
This 3 piece turned into some kind of cosmic orchestra bent on creating the grandest crescendo in the history of mankind. It’s about a feeling, as the band reached out with waves of rock tones touching off the audience members with vibe of tone; they sat mesmerized as if in some kind of Blues voodoo trance that had been cast from the three musicians on stage. It transcended anything that could be written on musical staff paper, it went beyond the notes, it was three Blues men living a musical moment outside reality, creating a musical dimension all its own. It was the Stoney Curtis Bands own galaxy, they owned it, and allowed the audience to come in for treat, most have never had and probably never will again.
The three became one voice, note for note, beat for beat, rhythm meshing rhythm, melodies everywhere, yet all coming from a single point in the cosmos. This was power blues rock and to hear it live was one of memories you could take to your grave. You could only wonder if those Ace Frehley silver sneakers Stoney was wearing were the equivalent of Dorothy’s red ruby slippers from the Wizard of OZ. It truly was a tornado of sound that put everyone in a state of Blues Nirvana. You felt the joy of the band; you could feel the Stoney Curtis Bands true love of playing music for them. It was bliss.
They finished second set of the night, now quickly approaching 3am with three covers from ZZ Tops and Hendrix’s ‘All along the Watchtower.’
Stoney’s fret work on ZZ Tops tunes was a clinic, as his fingers danced across the pearl dots on his strat like a desert rain storm.
The band made ‘Watchtower’ look like child’s play and Stoney made Hendrix’s licks his own. Stoney’s right hand is a magical musical sword, and on this song his left hand became some kind magical dragon breathing Hendrix fire with each note, while dive bombing the country side of terrified citizenry with pin point precision.
The third set was just plain fun and radical. Stoney had Charlie Franks, the ultimate Elvis experience, come up on stage for three songs, ‘Suspicious Minds,’ ‘Hound Dog’, and ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ It was a blast watching these guys pull off these tunes cold.
Later in the third set, Stoney must have had a real wild hair, because he took his guitar and without strumming a note began to work sound through body and neck. He took his strat and shook it rhythmically; it was kind of like Conan when he was practicing with his sword before he went out to slay his foes.
Then Stoney pulled out the guitar cord, without loosing sound and began playing his guitar with its male end, sometimes touching the female receiving port, then moving it up to the pick ups and creating electronic feedback music. Stoney is truly a master of his guitar. There is no way to accurately describe what was witnessed, it was surreal.
 Jay David Murphy Stoney Curtis joined by Pride of the Deadly Seven. |
Towards the end of the bands final set, they invited Pride of the local all woman band known as the Deadly Seven, to do a Sex Pistols song. It was punk down and dirty. Pride, when on is vicious, and goes all the way. It was not pretty it was fun.
Pride actually jumped up on stage for the last chorus of the final song of the night, the Kiss cover of ‘Rock all Night’ and really got wild and crazy, ending on the floor in the middle of the stage after grabbing the mike stand and landed on top of the tip bucket screaming out obscenities. Again, it was all fun from this maven of the Deadly Seven. It was a Vegas original moment.
Digital Journal took some time after 4am, after the band had wrapped and most the audience members had said their goodbyes to the band and slipped out of the dark blues bar, to speak with Stoney’s drummer and fill in bass player.
 Jay David Murphy Rog X playing bass for the Stoney Curtis Band. |
Rog X on bass, a Vegas staple guitar player who has been part of the Country Superstars on Fremont Street for sometime said, “I’m just filling in tonight, I normally play guitar, but I have played with Stoney before on his US tour last year.”
He was really excited to pass on that his steady gig with Country Superstars, “was moving off Fremont Street and out to Primm to start a long term stand at Whiskey Pete’s.” In today’s music scene, in Vegas this is a plumb gig, steady, and well paid.
 Jay David Murphy Charlie Glover drummer for Stoney Curtis |
Charlie Glover the drummer who “has been with Stoney for 12 years,” said, “we love playing together, it’s just fun, it’s like a thrill ride, and you don’t know were its going.”
Charlie has been playing drums since he was 16. He played both football and basketball. In college while playing basketball, he made a “conscious choice to play drums for a living. At one time we were a five piece, then when the singer and bass player left the band, Stoney asked me, what do we do now, and I said go out play music and we have doing it for 12 years together.”
Digital Journal asked Stoney if he wanted to add anything to Thursdays interview, he smiled and said, “I just let the music do the talking.”
 Jay David Murphy Stoney Curtis at the Sanddollar in Las Vegas |
You can keep up with the Stoney Curtis Band on
myspace.com or check his videos on
YouTube or get his CD’s on
Amazon.