Carter: Best of 2011, part 1 of 2

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Best of 2011, part 1.

Richard Carter

Slabrat playing the Backdoor in early 2011

For the end of the year, I chose some great posts from 2011. This is part one.

Van Halen cover

I wish you could be here to listen to the Mr. Fairchild guys put this Van Halen cover song together in practice. It’s really cool to hear it come together. The pace is a little quicker than you would think, and the guitar parts are sort of involved with lots of tremolo bar (both Jon Richerson and Cody Tucker are playing Strats on the tune). But the real key to the song is the spoken interlude for the tune where David Lee Roth is talking to a girl about what he likes. That part said with a straight face and the right attitude should bring the house down.

“Cinderella”

I got to check out the live music of the staged “Cinderella” on Friday night. I went to check it out for like 20 minutes and ended up staying for the whole first act.

The show has a lot of charm and just the right amount of magic. Watching the horse-driven coach appear from nowhere was pretty amazing. It was also very cool to hear everyone sing. I thought everyone did a very good job, and they should be very proud of the production and their accomplishment.

Forever the Sickest Kids

The vocalist for Forever the Sickest Kids had the forethought to wear a Bowling for Soup shirt. They toured with the Denton-based band last October in the UK and said they had a blast. Both groups play power pop and have a great sense of humor, but the Kids also had a guitar player who had an ear for some more electronic oriented stuff. Because Forever the Sickest Kids has such a reputation for horsing around on stage, I was wondering if the bass player took a back of the head stage dive on purpose. I think it was accidental because he looked a little shaky getting back up. Good thing he had a hard head.

35 Conferette

Last Thursday, the 35 Conferette four-day music festival began in Denton Texas, and numerous bands from all over the place played a city with a population about the same size as Wichita Falls. Already in its third year, the festival continues to grow and this year features bands and such diverse music as Big Boi, !!!, Mavis Staples, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Dr. Dog and so on. 170 bands played Denton, and people from all over the state came and visited and enjoyed the city square, the numerous clubs, the great coffee shops and all the cool things to do in the city.

Culture Crawl

I also got to listen to my favorite band locally, Dr. Philgood and the Let’s Get It On’s and they did a four-piece show with some hand percussion, electric guitars and a bass, and it was pretty amazing. The band has a huge crowd in front of Alley Cat Collective and it was a good time. There were people of all ages coming and going with a guy selling pizza from the Spot and people at tables giving away literature for what I do not know.

Slabrat

Last night, I happened to wander by a meeting of (wait for it, wait for it…) Slabrat where the band members were actually talking about their set list for a forthcoming show at Backdoor Theatre and I guess an upcoming tour where they play all over the region or something.  Don’t count on a whole lot of shows, but the good thing is they they’ve scheduled practices and stuff. How long has it been since these guys actually played? I think anyone who has seen Slabrat play will pretty much recognize most of the songs on the group’s set list, but there will be some special guests and stuff like that, and there will be a few new tunes. Needless to say, I hope we have a few shows coming from up from them including perhaps a Neon Spur show. That would be cool.

Drums and documentaries

You really hear music differently when you’re on stage, especially as a drummer, and it’s something that I wished more people got to experience. It’s not just the drums either. You are more part of the musical process, and you hear things as they come together. The cool thing is that you take that experience with you when you hear that band again, as well as others. Speaking of being closer to the band experience, I got an e-mail from Tim McMillan the other day about his new band Tantrum. On April 29, there will be a screening of a film made by an MSU film team that’s been following the members of Tantrum for the last two months.

Too many drummers

I am sitting in the Bluelight Special Blues band studio right now as they get their show put together to open up at the Pub this Saturday. Sadly the drummer has not yet shown up and Rob “I am a harpist now” Kirkland is sitting behind the drums to play, and it sounds pretty good. Ooops, the drummer just showed up, and now Kirkland is leaving the drums to check out the keys of his different harps. I honestly thought I would never hear him play drums again. But then again, now Rob is singing again and I’d much rather hear him play drums. For the record, there are three drummers in the band: Troy (who actually plays drums when he is there), Dustin (who plays keys) and Rob (who cheerleads, plays harp, sings background vocals, and is right now playing cowbell).

Denton:

I was in Denton the other evening on the town square. The square is gorgeous at night, and it’s always lively. There’s at least 14 clubs within a block either way but that magic to me really is about all the people hanging out and walking around or sitting on the lawn of the courthouse or sitting at tables at the coffee shop (Jupiter House) or liking the chill scene at the wine shop or whatnot. It’s an amazing area to hang out at night that’s not only scenic, but cool because it brings such a wide variety of hangers out as well as musicians. I love the idea of walking into a coffee shop at 10 p.m. and sipping quality espresso and listening to a band play jazz standards from the ‘50s and ‘60s. That’s pretty cool and it’s not so loud that you cannot sit down at a table and talk with friends.

Alternative places to see shows locally:

There is some really great music out there, and it’s cool to go to the Kemp Center or Memorial Auditorium to see a show. Because, the music can be pretty fresh there as well (it doesn’t just have to be a club). Remember, it was at the Memorial Auditorium that the Clash played one of their last shows. And it was Ely who was responsible for them coming here to play that show. Just saying. Okay, Ely didn’t jump on my table at this show like he did in the mid ‘80s at the old Shakey’s Pizza Parlor (now a church) behind the old Treasure City (now a building supply store) off Southwest Parkway and Jacksboro Highway.

Band stress:

I went to see White Knuckle practice the other day, and I really like their band dynamic. At one point their drummer Michael Christmas was bouncing a drum stick off one of his floor toms while the guitarists were trying to figure out an intro. He was bouncing it higher and higher and then catching it and then bounced it where it hit the wall behind him and made that part of the routine. The singer was laughing while that was happening and I was rolling, because it was so funny. Band practices can get really stressful when a part isn’t working, and I thought that was an inventive way to undercut the stress.

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