Sounds of the hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
What a week it’s been! And I don’t mean that in a good way, but I am here, and that’s fine by me. Some of the things I’ve shared with you over the past week include the death of a friend and bandmate and a Twitter post by XTC’s Andy Partridge, in which he calls our upstanding community a nasty name. If that wasn’t enough, little Fred Savage gave us the finger. That’s just the half of it, just the pain I find fit for public consumption. Nobody told me there’d be weeks like this. Well, they didn’t have to tell me, because they happen frequently enough to stay fresh in mind the next time a wave of bad mojo hits.
Following tonight’s show I am meeting up with my bandmates, walking a few blocks down the road from my house, and playing a mini-set with the band, between sets at a private party by our friends The Donuts (featuring the Hall’s very own cdm and at least one other occasional participant in our weekly chatter). I am really looking forward to this, even though I’m a bit terrified at being, for tonight, the lone guitarist in our band. We rehearsed our mini-set on Thursday night, then pulled a bunch of ancient songs out of the hat, just to see if we could still remember the chords and get through them in more or less one piece. Man, that was fun. Man, that was the right way to celebrate the fact that we keep on rolling. May you roll on as well!
RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 116
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RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 116 by Mr Moderator on Mixcloud
Hi Mod,
Another enjoyable show and a nice shout-out to your friends in need.
I’m going out on a limb here and admitting to you all that the first version I heard of “Little Wing” was Sting’s.
The Bats have been a fav in our household for a long time. For a nice starter, may be recommend “Daddy’s Highway.” Robert Scott played with both The Bats and The Clean.
Tally-ho, Tally-ho!
Did my anxiety, reluctance, even grumpiness about the mini-set I was about to play the night I recorded this ever lead to one of my many Ralph Kramden moments! It turns out the whole thing with us showing up as special guests with The Donuts at a party they were playing for one of their friends was a ruse. Our wives set up a massive joint 50th birthday party for me, andyr, chickenfrank, and sethro. Wild, wild night, featuring suprise appearances by all sorts of people near and dear to us, including our founding member John Quincy Nixon and folks you might know from here who we don’t get to see in person too often, like sammy maudlin and hrrundivbakshi. HVB wasn’t content to merely show up; he, machinery, and their old friend Jane also reunited their college band, Bob’s Revenge. It was the first time machinery picked up his bass in 27 years. They still sounded great. My mind is still blown. I will appreciate any efforts others do to keep the Hall running today. I also have a ton of work stuff to manage today. Reality is staring me right in the face!
You are too kind, Mr. Mod. We were pretty ragged — but not half-bad given the fact we’d only played for an hour or two earlier in the day. An hour or two of practice every 27 years — not THAT’s a practice schedule I can live with!
It was an honor to serenade you guys. I have two regrets about the event: one, I totally forgot to thank Nixon’s Head for all the opportunities you guys gave us over the years to open for you — and for generally being massively inspirational to us. And two, I sincerely regret the fact that I had bolt before you guys played your RRHOF-like mini-set at the end of the event. Wish I could have been there!
That was a really fun night. It was great to see the many iterations of Nixon’s Head, all of which sounded great.
I really liked Bob’s Revenge as well. I had never seen them before and Machinery was all “Aw shucks” about his playing before the set. Then they stepped up to the plate and crushed it. That drummer rules, by the way.
I’m glad to have finally met the non-cyber versions of Sammy and HVB.
Well, since we’re being nice to each other, let me say something in public that I shared with you in private: The Donuts rule! Seriously, all you Philly cats, I recommend them highly; go see them. Tight songwriting, even tighter bandliness, excellent musicianship, and they wear uniforms!
I regret not getting more than a second’s time to actually talk to you! I was in such a daze that I’d see people, shed a few tears of joy, then move on before I realized I probably didn’t say a word. And here I was last week saying the Ramones were too dumb to form a sentence or wipe themselves. Maybe they were just really happy to see our band on the elevator at GW.