The Night Shift... Continues!

[WildcatOne]

Saturday was a great day. I played 2 gigs with Pee Wee. Early we played the Strawberry Festival in Dickinson from 1-3PM, outside in the shade, with a nice breeze blowing and an appreciative crowd. After we finished and I was unplugging from my amp, Tommie Lee Bradley walked up to me and gave me a kiss and a hug and told me we sound great...took me over and introduced me to her Mom...made my day! Tommie's CD is available all over the place now and it is excellent.

That evening, we played at Rice University, at Cohen House on campus. It was for the 50th reunion of San Jacinto High School, class of 1958. Parked in front was an immaculate pink '57 Cadillac Coupe DeVille....Elvis pillows inside, it was showroom condition...wish I'da thought to bring the Photos From The Road camera with me! These folks are all 68-69 years old, with a few "trophy wives" as exceptions...we played an all-50s hits night for them and they LOVED us...I hung out with them after we finished (they ended their evening at 10:30 and let us go home) and I spent a lot of time in the museum that's there, with photographs from 1912 when they were building Rice Institute. I went all over that building from top to bottom. It was a fascinating place. Pee Wee showed me the Steinway Grand piano in the formal room and I sat down and played it for 20 minutes...it was gorgeous. In absolutely perfect tune and condition...I hung out more with Pee Wee at that gig than most that we do. We gave out business cards to some folks who are having their reunion next year for Lamar High School...they said no way we're not playing for it...Life is good. Here's a URL to one of Tommie Lee's CD outlets. She looks fantastic and she's as sweet and down to earth as ever. Cheers, WC1
http://www.groupietunes.com/artists/tommieleebradley

[draglist]

She sure got my attention at the Blues for Becky deal! bp

[jim sanders]

got some on-air local and online ink? for the Cat and the Citykings tonight....

[WildcatOne]

Thank you, Doc...Let me know if there's anything I can do...WC1

[pro70z28]

[jim sanders]

WC1.... I know this "sounds" a little basackwords but i am restoring the 1992 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon ..... I need Fourlifetimes and anything else you have done on a basic casette tape.... for road trip music.. no CD player in the Buick but the tape deck works perfect.... JS

[WildcatOne]

Well, I tellya, Doc...I have everything from "Sound And Fury" on casette...that's how it all started out back in the 80s and early 90s, but I can't say's I have "Four Lifetimes" on casette...not real sure if my casette duplicating deck still works, haven't used it in quite a while, ya know...but I'll see what it does with some tracks from S&F...Thanks, WC1

[draglist]

Hi gang. I ended and locked the original night shift thread as it was working a little flaky. This one is now where John will regale us with his tales of Texas nightlife! bp

[jim sanders]

GLAD IT WAN'T MY FAULT

[Billy Mac]

musta been too many pages and the staples got bent or some such, cause i couldn't read the last page....it kept telling me there were no post in this thread, and I dadgum well knew better than that.....

[WildcatOne]

Thanks, BP...there's been some fun going on for sure...last night we played at T-Bone Tom's in Kemah to a packed house. There were probably close to 500 people there, and they were a partying crowd. Debby showed up with some friends and they had dinner and got a table. She said we sounded great out front, we're running everything through Pee Wee's new mixer now and it's a very balanced sound, also not as loud as before. Right after Debby and her friends left towards the end of the night, this pretty lady who had been dancing all night got up in front of Pee Wee during "Bo Diddley" and she was shaking and swerving...she just went, ah, what the heck...and she lifted up her dress to show us that she wasn't wearing anything underneath it...Yikes! We lost the rhythym of the song and it fell apart on us. That threw us off...we started it up again and finished it, but she had us by the ... ahem ... for a moment there. She was a beautiful lady, doubtless a little tipsy, and I would guess she doesn't remember doing that, but whoa, Andy...that stood out...it's hot here, well into the 90s every day now, with high humidity, and a lot of our gigs are outside. It's hard to play in a steam bath like that, much less dance, but folks have been doing it for as long as this region has been populated, so we deal with it. Our gigs at Club 21 in Galveston have been my favorite, even though it doesn't pay much. The reason I like it so much there is because they appreciate us so much there. The crowd is mostly women and the dance and dance and dance and then they dance some more. They dance with each other, they dance with us, they dance by themselves, they come up to us and do it. I'm happily married and I bring my wife there, she gets asked to dance all the time by guys who hang out there and she dances with 'em and I'm cool with that. She's a great dancer and she's beautiful...can't say's I blame those guys for trying...I dance with her on breaks...but back to the Night Shift...today I drove to Galveston and presented the Pansy Bockelman Drama Award at O'Connell High School's graduation ceremony. This is the 21st year the award has been in existence and I'm proud to go there and do it for my late Mother. Yes, her name was Pansy. She had 3 sisters, too. Fern, Violet and Rosebud. It was a wonderful party. My Mom wrote plays. She produced and directed them as well. They were comedies, using a lot of Vaudeville, costumes, props, live music, dance routines, and singing. All of her dialogues rhymed. The plays were performed by our school, and they were all smash hits. She was the first of her sisters to go. They're all gone now but their memory lives on with all of us. Tomorrow we're playing at the Haak Winery in Santa Fe, and I expect a few of my cousins to be there. Roberta and Robert (Fern), Phyllis Ann (Rosebud) and me (Pansy). Debby will be in Austin visiting her sister Lisa, who will be there for a few days. Lisa lives in Santiago, Chile where she has a wine company. The Haak Winery gig will be from 6-8:30, so it's not going to run all night...but the last time we played there on Memorial Day, the crowd was huge...close to a thousand people...we're off next weekend, but the following Thursday night we're playing at the Rice Hotel downtown for a private party, then the next day we're playing in Beaumont at a wedding, then that Saturday we're back in Pasadena at the Lone Star, the nightclub that used to be a supermarket. It's like riding a merry-go-round, but as Sylvester said last night (we carpool to the gigs...he lives right down the street from me, I drive and he carries my stuff and pays my Beltway fee...great guy...he doesn't have to do any of that) there are musicians lined up in this town that would give ANYTHING to be in this band. We're very fortunate to have this gig. Not just because we play these high-profile gigs for thousands of people a month, but because Pee Wee Bowen is a good man with a big heart and he takes care of us. We're all equal in that band under him, and he bends over backwards to make it good and keep working to make it better. As a team, this band is the best, and last night we played solidly as a team. It's all good. Cheers, WC1
http://www.haakwine.com/winery_events.htm

[pro70z28]

Cool deal WC
Sounds like you guys are very busy.

[Rapid Randy Baker]

Wow, the life of a big time rock star WC!! Very cool

[jim sanders]

Great read this morning WC!! The Night Shift Rules !!

[draglist]

I always love this column. Thanks, WC1. bp