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Nice article on Bill Kirchen by Joel Selvin in today’s San Francisco Chronicle. Excerpt:

… for the past 12 years, Kirchen has been pumping out a series of solo records featuring such songs as “Tombstone Every Mile,” “Rockabilly Funeral,” “Truck Stop at the End of the World,” “Womb to the Tomb” and “Poultry in Motion,” nominated in 2001 for a Grammy for best country instrumental — built around his twangy, rumbling guitar work and a lot of truck songs, although Kirchen is not exactly sure why.

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it,” says Kirchen, who turns 59 on Monday. “My interest in a truck goes no further than that. I don’t want to own one. Don’t want to drive one. Don’t know a Kenworth from a Peterbilt. Maybe it’s just that I spent a lot of time on the road and that sort of road image.

“There were a couple of records, and one of them in particular was that Red Simpson ‘Roll, Truck, Roll’ album, which had this ungodly fabulous guitar player, Gene Moles, who I’ve only recently found out who he was now that he passed away a couple of years ago — Gene Moles out of Bakersfield — and I started associating truck-driving songs with this real fluid, low-end guitar work.”

And here (again) is a photo I took of Bill w/ Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen at the Hollywood Bowl in July 1974.

Bill is celebrating the release of Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods at gigs on the west coast this week, starting Wednesday 1/31 at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. Tour dates are here.

Here is Chris Jones’ review of Railroad Earth‘s January 25 performance in Nottingham, adapted from a post on the eurotraders mailing list and posted here with his permission:

I have to confess that I was in two minds about going – I didn’t fancy the 200 mile round trip… But I said to myself, it’ll do me good to get myself out to a gig, and someone’s got to let these guys know we want them to come back here.

So I set out from Easingwold (not exactly full of enthusiasm) at nearly 3pm.

The weather was glorious – I had sunglasses on all the way down – and the roads were pretty clear so I made really good time. I went straight to the venue – I didn’t have a ticket and I wanted to buy one. I parked my car at the back of the Forest Tavern, and discovered (pretty much as I expected) that I’d parked almost directly outstayed rear entrance to The Maze.

There were people coming and going with equipment so I went in to see what was happening.

What was happening was that RRE were setting up their rig for the evening. I got chatting to a few of the people – in particular, Phil Kalstrom (a Deadhead who had taken early retirement so that he and his wife Stacy could look after RRE – Stacy was the bouncy, buxom, friendly blonde woman who was in charge of the merchandise), George Carbone (fiddle player Tim’s brother), John Skehan (mandolin) and Andy Goessling (guitar, banjo, and lots more). I mentioned that I’d heard of the Shockenaw Mountain Boys thanks to David Gans – and George hadn’t realised until the penny dropped yesterday that the name came from Bush’s Operation Shock and Awe – the initiation of the Iraq campaign. We had a general moan about Bush – but then who doesn’t?

I discovered that the band was due to come on at 9.00, but they weren’t sure whether there’d be a support band. Todd said they felt bad that they’d only played for an hour [at a previous gig]. That wasn’t their idea, and they’d been as surprised to learn that they wouldn’t be able to do a second set. He said that they planned to do that night.

After about an hour I left to check in to my hotel (still without a ticket – there was no-one around to sell me one). The band were going off to do an interview and a live number or two for BBC Radio Nottingham (must check if that’s available for listen again).

I left my hotel at a little past eight (I had to drag myself away from the TV as Film 4 were screening the excellent Frankenheimer film “The Train” with Burt Lancaster) and arrived at the venue a few moments later. I got in for just £8 (one of the people on the door recognised me from earlier in the afternoon) and I looked around for Ross to see if he’d be recording the gig. But then I got a tap on my shoulder, as I found that I’d sat down next to Tommy & Kerri Traynor and Richie Samosa. It was good to hook up with some ET [eurotraders mailing list] members. I also found myself sitting next to a guy called Patrick, who it turned out is a friend of ET-er Rick Tooth.

The venue itself was a small square room, the stage was in a corner further from the bar. When I arrived it was about half full (around 60 or so people); by the time the band came on around 9.00 it was comfortably full (around 140 bodies).

I have to say that RRE were absolutely brilliant. They played their hearts out for us. We got two sets plus three encores – altogether around 2-and-a-half hours. I can’t provide a set list or information about each number as I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable about their songs, but it was great from start to finish. There were people there who knew nothing about them beforehand but I know that they gained a few converts last night. If you haven’t heard any of their music, the nearest comparison for me is SCI. They again demonstrated a complete mastery of their instruments and tremendous professionalism. If that makes them sound mechanical or clinical, that’s down to my description not their performance, which was warm, friendly, heartfelt and joyous.

During the interval between sets, Stacy told me that when Jerry died there was a huge vacuum in her and Phil’s life. They couldn’t cope with Bobby singing Jerry’s songs with Ratdog (I pointed out that Jer sang a lot of other people’s songs and that Ratdog on their day are a hot band so I hope that they’ll give them a try again), and that they couldn’t cope with Phil’s singing full stop. She told me that RRE were Phil’s friends on one occasion, and that Phil was engaged in a particularly heavy-handed vocal mauling of Terrapin before handing over the vocals to Todd and how a feeling of relief immediately spread round the venue 🙂

One of the things that made it really special was the friendliness of everyone. It was almost like a party for family and friends. John Skehan’s mother was there (she goes to all the gigs apparently), and it was lovely to see a grey-haired lady in her late 60s/early 70s dancing away to the band. Tim’s wife Martha (she of the beautiful cheekbones) was up and dancing too. It was just end-to-end fun.

After the gig, the band mingled with the crowd, posing for pix and so on.

And by the time everybody left I felt just so pleased that I’d decided to go. I went back to the hotel with a light and happy heart.

If you live within three hours travelling distance of Glasgow, I urge you to get yourself up there. I’m sure you won’t regret it.

This morning I woke with a headache – not from the music, I hasten to add, but from the German cherry beer that Richie persuaded me to sample (never again).

CJ

PS: One advantage that the Borderline crowd gained over subsequent gigs was the price of merchandise. Stacy discovered that she’d been selling the CDs too cheap. The price I paid for Elko last night had risen to £15.

Photos by Chris Jones:

After playing and recording with the Shockenaw Mountain Boys, I did a house party on January 19 in Randolph NJ with mandolinist John Skehan.

Here’s a photo taken by my friend Chris Jones at the Forest Tavern, Nottingham on January 25 during Railroad Earth‘s (the Shockenaw Boys’ “day job”) UK tour:

And here is one of the jams we did at the January 19 party: On Frozen Pond. I developed the theme from a jam with Gary Greenberg in Connecticut the day before, so Gary is the co-author of this composition.

I have a lot of musical selections, and links to complete performances on the Archive, at dgans.com/tunes.html

I went to New Jersey to do some recording with Tim Carbone, Andy Goessling, John Skehan and Johnny Grubb of Railroad Earth. This quartet also perform as the Shockenaw Mountain Boys. And what fun we had! We rehearsed for a day, did a radio show, and then played two live gigs before heading into the studio.

Here is a matrix recording of our January 13, 2007 show at the Fountain House in Newton, New Jersey. Recorded recording by Johnny Maj, host of the Railroad Earth Happy Hour, and Rich Levy (who also mastered the discs); concert audio by Mike Partridge. Extra special thanks to the Hobo Stage for making such a splendid gig happen! And thanks to Molly Thrash for uploading it to The Archive.