April Showers 4/27/24: Crescendo. Finale. Cluster Fu©k.

Old Hank: Holy Shit Bazz, what just happened?

Bazz: Rock and Roll is what happened, my friend. Luckily, we took copious notes.

Old Hank: Good because I’m going to nod along as you lay it out and act like I have some  kind of clue about what actually transpired yesterday into last night, which…too much.

Bazz: It’s been a month. 9 shows covered out of the 20 some we elevated. 17 Bands. We hit JPJ, Ting twice, The Jefferson, The Southern, Superfly and Durty Nellies 3 times. 

Old Hank: 578 beers. 340 bowls. 84 chicken wings. April showers indeed. And the whole fucking ride began and ended with Koda Kerl at Durty Nellies. Such beautiful symmetry.

Bazz: But the sheer bounty of very, very good live music in Charlottesville is kinda the story here again, right? Last night alone there were 4 shows with 7 of us running between them.

Old Hank: Jeezus. What a clusterfuck. What we learned yesterday is that the only idea worse than making Old Hank the webmaster is putting Old Hank in charge of tickets.

Bazz: Ugh, can I tell them what you did?

Old Hank: Yeah, I don’t give a crap.

Bazz: Old Hank had a senior moment Saturday morning, counted wrong, and long story short, sold 2 of the 7 tickets we needed on Stub Hub. Then had to go buy them back from himself.

Old Hank: It was the 2 free ones from WNRN that confused me. And the fact that we were all just going to the Flores show and then at the last minute decided to buy multiple tix and cover three (it ended up being 4) shows instead of one.

Bazz: What about that confused you?

Old Hank: I don’t flippin’ know, that’s the nature of being confused, Bazz.

Bazz: Let’s dig in. Last night Wyatt Flores, a young gun out of Oklahoma was at Ting, War and Treaty were at the Jefferson and Them Dirty Roses lit up the Southern (with Koda and Marie).

Old Hank: Crazy wealth.

Bazz: But to do justice to the bands we have to focus. Who do we do?

Old Hank: Them Dirty Roses. Because Rock and Roll, fuckers!!!

Bazz: Let’s do it. Set the stage.

Old Hank: OK. So I was all set up to go to Wyatt Flores but the Roses show just kept nagging at my dried up old heart. The conflicts really hurt this month. We had to miss bands to make bands. Then I heard Koda and Marie of Chamomile and Whiskey were setting up Them Dirty Roses and that was the straw that broke the camel’s dick. I called an audible, and bought tickets to the Southern.

Bazz: Then I got FOMO so The Mysterious Jon, Patrick and I bought tickets to both shows. Eli decided to go with you to the Southern and JB, who turned us onto Flores in the first place stayed at Ting with Jane. And The M. Jon at some point slid over to the Jeff to catch part of the War and Treaty show.

Old Hank: So Koda and Marie came out and immediately went right into my 2 favorite C&W songs of the moment, “Put it all together” and “Hard Luck Dreams”.

Bazz: They were on it last night, but what I loved about that set was that Koda really opened up, talked about his Dad, about writing, about making (and not making) money, just really warm and honest and engaging.

Bazz: During the break Jon, Patrick and I ran to Ting to catch the first half of the Flores Show, then come back and catch the back half of the Roses show.

Old Hank: Whom I heard was phenomenal. JB said the amount of young fans that were singing Flores’ songs with him was ridiculous for an artist this early in his career.

Bazz: Kinda Zach Bryan-ish.

Old Hank: High praise. So when the lights flickered Them Dirty Roses hit the stage like Air Cav jumping out of a chopper into a hot LZ. They secured the perimeter and proceeded to detonate rock and roll bomb after rock and roll bomb. The Southern Cafe and Music Hall swam in their Alabama swagger.

Bazz: Tell it Old Hank.

Old Hank: If La Luz was about a Stratocaster and a Fender amp, for Them Dirty Roses and “Southern Rock” bands in general, the tools of the trade are a Gibson Les Paul guitar thru a Marshall stack. And these boys wielded those tools like a viking swings a battle axe, which we’re not making up. If you’re old enough or cool enough to know your Southern Rockers, Molly Hatchet used Frank Frazetta posters for their album covers.

BAZZ: Go Old Hank! That poster was on the wall in your dorm room wasn’t it?

Old Hank: Fuck yeah it was. I mean we can sit here and run the set list and describe things the way music blogs do but let’s cut to the fucking chase, son: If my Southern Rock Pantheon was Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Crowes, and the Drive By Truckers, it is now Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Crowes, The Drive By Truckers and Them Dirty Roses.

Bazz: These studs are on a mission to save Rock and Roll. As CDB put it: The South is gonna do it again.

Old Hank: You know who else was on a mission to save Rock and Roll? That fuckin’ crowd. They didn’t just want rock. They demanded rock. So The Roses were like “hold my beer”.

Bazz: You’re onto the theme of the month for me, the resurgence of Rock and Roll. I mean St. Vincent, Them Dirty Roses, Pinkish, even La Luz, they all just laid down the law on easy listening.

Old Hank: They put the wood to it, buddy.

Bazz: Just to do the due diligence, The Roses are James Ford up front, his brother Frank on the kit, Ben Crain on bass and Andrew Davis on lead guitar (dude can shred and he IS like the Frazetta Viking). In their own words they were born and raised in ‘Bama Clay. They played the crowd favorites –”Cocaine and Whiskey”, “I Grew Up in the Country”, “Molly”, “Black Magic Lady” and more. They covered The Allmans, Led Zep and Mountain.

But Old Hank, let’s talk about one song. 

Old Hank: Whippin’ Post?

Bazz: Yes sir.

Old Hank: I knew you were gonna say that. What a muscular, athletic, testosterone-fueled, bordering on rage-filled but also love-filled cover of the Allman Bros.

Bazz: It was the very moment for me that they assumed the mantle of “Southern Rock Gods” from their forefathers. 

Old Hank: That bell was rung for me when they covered “Missiissippi Queen” in the encore. 

Bazz: And Frank the drummer! In a plexiglass cage like some kind of Hannibal Lecter. I have never seen anyone hit that hard. It was as if Mike Tyson was a drummer.

Old Hank: What a show. The stage sack these guys bring. Holy shit.

Bazz: Tell ‘em about what happened next.

Old Hank: Then Koda told the Mysterious Jon they were all heading to Durty Nellies, so we piled into an Uber and headed over to Her Durtyness, too. And when we got there, Pinkish was just into their set, and I mean they were killin’ it! I’m really glad you got to see them. The M. Jon and I saw them at Superfly but honestly I think this band is getting better by the day.

Bazz: They were so tight! Compact, super hooky punk missiles. Nina Chaplin is on fire.

Old Hank: Sorry about the quality of the vid, Pinkish, it was late and you packed the place so we got as close as we could! Speaking of on fire, I got ribs ready to come off the smoker and I’m hangry so let’s wrap this up.

Bazz: Dude, what an April. What a town. What venues. What bands. My, what live music we have. 

Old Hank: My, what hangovers we have. It’s tough when it takes two nights to sleep one off. Honestly I’m surprised we survived the month.

Bazz: Word. Has anyone heard from Patrick though?