My thumbs are finally healing and Danny has stopped wearing adult diapers, taking a more vegetarian approach to his diet. We made up, and even though he can be a bit of a prick, we’re getting along famously. These least weeks have passed quickly, following the Knitters around this great country of ours, it’s been difficult to write. Here’s a quick overview.
We drove through ice rain and blizzard snow to Milwaukee where I met a wonderful photographer named Jim Herrington. He shoots film, and he has a way of capturing the person behind the eyes like nobody I have ever personally known. We stayed out late after the show and talked photographs and heart. Find him on google or MySpace!
Next was Indianapolis where DJ Bonebrake performed a puppet show during our set with the three sock monkeys I purchased at the Case knife discount store. A gifted drummer and a master puppeteer, we are now changing the band name to “DJ Bonebrake and the Sock Monkey Singers with Dead Rock West”.
Cindy and I have been sitting in with the Knitters on a few songs, starting in St. Louis, and Dave Alvin is my favorite guitar player in the world. He’s got class and plays from his guts; there is nobody like him out there.
By the time we hit Houston, road mode had finally set in. Cindy and Exene got a wild hair and by the time we made it back to the hotel after the show, Cindy was out of her mind with the drink. She and Exene decided they were gonna write songs…….on the walls of the hotel, in the halls and in our room! There was no stopping them. I was wakened at 5am by the hotel desk clerk warning me that if the “two young ladies” didn’t go back to their rooms we would be asked to leave. In the morning I opened my room door to see large sharpie written lyrics all over the corridor walls the entire way to the lobby. I dragged Cindy out of bed, paid the hotel manager two weeks worth of merchandise money to clean the walls and headed for KPFT 90.1 where Rick Heysquierdo was kind enough to invite us for an interview and a few live songs in studio.
Today we leave Austin for Tucson, then home. California here we come, and we’ll probably be broke.
frankie lee drennen/dead rock west
