It would be absurd to not begin this hangover week with a picture of the great J Roddy Walston from Saturday night’s Flying Dog show, right? Right. So, while some of us spent Saturday watching Eli Gold from “The Good Wife” skipping around Studio 54 in various amounts of undress, others were lucky enough to be dancing in the rain and shouting to the skies as this long-haired rawker (with a w, please note) entranced all of your lovely faces until they hurt so good, you wanted to scream. Only one more Flying Dog show left this summer. And yes. We’ll be giving away tickets. A Heavy Bell to all, and to all a good night. Photo courtesy of Cassandra Mullinix. For more of her photos, visit https://www.facebook.com/bucketofrock.
August 2014
It’s the last weekend before the unofficial end of summer (Labor Day), and what a weekend it is. We have the third installment of Flying Dog’s Summer Sessions series with J Roddy Walston and Old Indian taking the stage (yes, we’ll be there, and yes, we’ll be getting in touch if you are our lucky winner of TWO FREE TICKETS to the show!). We have another fabulous installment of Alive @ Five about to go down on the creek in a few hours. We have Flap Jack’s birthday bash tomorrow night at Bentz Street (P.S. Flap Jack is Matt from The Knolly Moles and no, you won’t want to miss whatever in the name of God’s green earth he has in store). We have a pair of “Voice” contestants coming to town Saturday afternoon as part of the FUNomenon that we mentioned this morning (you can read all about it here). And, of course, we have something called Drunk Naked Pirates. So, there’s that. It’s going to be one hell of a weekend, friends, so come say hi to us at Flying Dog and get out to a show or eight over the next three days!
THURSDAY
Who: Alive @ Five Featuring Straight Up Tribal
Where: Carroll Creek
When: 5 p.m.
Who: Open Mic hosted by Tomy Wright
Where: Beans In The Belfry
When: 7 p.m.
Who: Jazz Jam
Where: Jekyll & Hyde Restaurant & Tavern
When: 7:30 p.m.
Who: Open Mic
Where: Bushwallers
When: Sing-up at 9 p.m.; play begins at 10 p.m.
Who: Paul Pfau
Where: Cafe Nola
When: 9:30 p.m.
Who: Freddie Long
Where: The Cellar Door
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Meagan Jean And the KFB
Where: The Opera House, Shepherdstown
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Paul Ivey and Johnny Sines
Where: JoJo’s Tap House
When: 8 p.m.
FRIDAY
Who: AP Theory Featuring Adrienne Smith
Where: Cafe Nola
When: 9:30 p.m.
Who: Chris Smaha
Where: The Bentz Street Raw Bar
When: 5 p.m.
Who: Flap Jack’s Birthday Bash featuring Twin Radio
Where: The Bentz Street Raw Bar
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Will Walter
Where: Brewer’s Alley
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Joe Murray
Where: Ayse Meze Lounge
When: 7 p.m.
Who: Banditos
Where: The Opera House, Shepherdstown
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Dan Mack
Where: The Frederick Coffee Company
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Cumberland Valley
Where: Beans In The Belfry
When: 7 p.m.
Who: Jukebox Underdogs
Where: Elk Run Vineyard
When: 6 p.m.
Who: Amy White and Al Pettaway
Where: The Hill Chapel
When: 7:30 p.m.
Who: Hard Swimmin’ Fish
Where: The Main Cup
When: 8:30 p.m.
Who: Bodine Brothers
Where: Hard Times Cafe
When: 9 p.m.
Who: Soul Easy
Where: Champion Billiards
When: 9 p.m.
SATURDAY
Who: Dapp And Joint Effort
Where: Cafe Nola
When: 9:30 p.m.
Who: Paul Ivey
Where: The Bentz Street Raw Bar
When: 9 p.m.
Who: Andy Carignan
Where: Brewer’s Alley
When: 8 p.m.
Who: The Dan McGuire Band
Where: JoJo’s Tap House
When: 9 p.m.
Who: ML Flenner
Where: The Frederick Coffee Company
When: 8 p.m.
Who: Moon Music
Where: Beans In The Belfry
When: 7 p.m.
Who: Josh Bayer
Where: Elk Run Vineyard
When: 1 p.m.
Who: J Roddy Walston And The Business, Old Indian
Where: Flying Dog Brewery
When: 6:30 p.m.
Who: The Swon Brothers, Danielle Bradbery (part of Family FUNomenon)
Where: Frederick Fairgrounds
When: 4 p.m.
Who: C 9
Where: The Main Cup
When: 8:30 p.m.
Who: Scorpion Rose
Where: Jekyll & Hyde Restaurant & Tavern
When: 8:30 p.m.
Who: Bad Influence Band
Where: Hard Times Cafe
When: 9 p.m.
Who: Drunk Naked Pirates
Where: Champion Billiards
When: 9 p.m.
Who: Signs Point East
Where: Olde Towne Tavern
When: 10 p.m.
Today’s Video Of The Day comes from former “The Voice” winner Danielle Bradbery. Why? Because she’ll be performing at the Frederick Fairgrounds Saturday as part of the Family FUNomenon. And what’s the Family FUNomenon? Well, it’s a fundraiser for the Patty Pollatos Fund, which is a local organization that helps raise money for cancer victims and others in need. Or, in short, it’s a pretty great thing. Like what you hear? Tickets are still available for the show Saturday night.
Note: The below story was written by Cassandra Mullinix. You can check out all the great stuff she has going down on her Facebook page, or, if you’re so inclined, you could follow her on Twitter.
“Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of fuel. Sentimental people call it inspiration, but what they really mean is fuel. I have always needed fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.” — Hunter S. Thompson
On those nights that the great Hunter S. Thompson believed his car could run on the radio alone, a J Roddy Walston song could have very well been blasting. J Roddy is coming to Flying Dog Brewery this weekend in the midst of touring for his successful new album, “Essential Tremors,” that has received a lot of public radio airplay across the nation. J Roddy Walston & The Business are known for their old school, Jerry Lee Lewis rock ’n’ roll energy on stage, and they share some stylistic synergy with their ATO Records label mates, including the Alabama Shakes, Drive-by Truckers, and My Morning Jacket.
On stage, it feels like a dirty competition between J Roddy on piano and his drummer to see who can beat on their instruments harder. J Roddy sways from crooning to wailing, providing motion and emotion to every song. He contorts and convulses all over his personal Rock of Gibraltar, a 1970s Yamaha CP-60 upright piano, as if filled with the Holy Spirit. In short, in the seven or more years that the band has been touring to support its three full-length albums, the energy has always been there.
On a not-so-average Monday morning, we were able to grab a little bit of J Roddy Walston’s time to talk about Flying Dog Brewery, touring and making records.
Flying Dog Brewery is one of our best venues in town, but it’s sort of a specialty venue that most bands will probably only ever play once. This will be your second time. What keeps you coming back?
Actually, Billy, our guitar player is from Frederick, so it’s kind of fun to get close to home for him and it’s just kind of a chill place. Everyone who works at the brewery seems pretty happy about the job they have. So that kind of creates a situation where everyone is having a good time, at least for the band. I always ask everyone what their favorite Flying Dog beer is, and what favorite meal they would pair it with. I know everyone in the band is digging on the Old Bay specialty brew — you know the one with the crabs and all that. I can say that I personally gave pause to drinking a beer that tasted like Old Bay or that had Old Bay in it, but it’s actually pretty banging.
It’s sort of an evil genius beer, isn’t it?
Yeah, that was a strange risk, but I think it’s paid off for them. As far as pre-show food, we don’t really eat that heavy before we play just because our show is so active that we don’t really want to fill our stomachs up before. It’s not really conducive to doing a full blast show. There’s a quote from the Queens of the Stone Age lead singer, Josh Homme, on an “Anthony Bourdain No Reservations” episode, where he says something like you can’t play rock ‘n’ roll on a full stomach — you have to be hungry to get some real emotion out. That’s about right. You know it can be an issue because you roll up starving and if there is food around, you’re like, I better not. It’s all for the rock!
What was the last big band meal that you all had?
Well, it wasn’t with the band, but we just played Lollapalooza and we were in one town for like three or four days. So we were in Chicago for three or four days which is pretty rare for us on tour and I went out with some friends and my wife and had this insane Polish meal. I ate my body weight in pierogies and then immediately passed out.
Let’s talk about your albums a little bit. You have three full-length albums and it really amazes me that each of them has this consistently palpable high energy level. How do you maintain that?
It’s all stuff that we are excited about. It’s not like we’re faking it. It’s what we do when we get out there and play, so that makes it a little bit easier. I think there are some bands that get caught up in some sort of genre or style or trends or something and a year or so later they realize they don’t like the music they are making. We definitely write the music for us, so we’re not really paying attention to trend or what anyone else is doing. I mean we’re not really influenced by the success of other people. We’re not like, “This is really working for somebody, let’s do that.” That’s not our process of creating music.
It sounds like you guys are just naturally high-energy musicians then.
We do write a lot of slow songs, but yeah. I mean, maybe if there is any part of our process that’s really with the people who are going to listen to record in mind. … It’s like, we are a band that put’s out albums and that’s a little bit of our life, but a lot of our life is touring behind it. And so I consider what songs are going to be the most fun to play for people once the record’s out there and everyone’s familiar with the stuff. The more high-energy stuff usually gets out, rather than the not-quite-as-high-energy stuff.
You were saying that sometimes you do write slow songs and that makes me think of “Boys Can Never Tell” off “Essential Tremors.” It’s also another classic J Roddy song about father and son relationships. Can you tell me a little bit about that song and the energy behind it?
I do write a lot of ballads and we kind of put together our record based on what we wanted to play (live) and sometimes it’s just like, I don’t care, I like this song so much or I think this song is important enough that I just want the world to hear it. The band definitely felt like that was a special song, so we just kind of wanted to get it out there. It’s strange, a lot of people really love that song, but when we first started touring for the new record, people basically just knew the more rocking tracks. … It’s not one of those songs that are always in the set, but once in a while we’ll be playing a show and it feels right, and the audience is there for a full range of things and not just to rage — then we will break it out. Overall the vibe of the song — sort of this generational idea that parents are like “I love you unconditionally” and anything that happens in life is never the kid’s fault or something like that. That’s kind of the whole vibe of the whole record, just kind of the strangeness of family. All these people with issues and weird internal things and these groups of people who continue to deal with you even though you have all this stuff. It’s like if they were friends, I’d never talk to them again … but with family, after some blow-out argument or some strange disagreement, you’re sitting down at dinner that night and there’s a weird power that makes you want to stick it out. I guess most people stick it out.
You tour a crazy amount and you live locally in Richmond, Virginia, but all of your family is still back in Tennessee, so do you try to stay as close as possible with them still?
Yeah, yeah. Actually, my parents are coming to visit tomorrow. All these songs are about me and my experiences, and I pretty much have the most normal, functional family out of anyone I know. I don’t know if that somehow let me be able to peer into other people’s lives.
So Richmond and Baltimore are still good home bases for the band? How does that work out?
We had a day off on this last run and to break up the travel we all dipped down to Baltimore and had a big crab feast blowout. Definitely for a band that’s going to tour at all, the East Coast is so much easier than anywhere else to live just because there are so many cities and towns with in a two- or four-hour drive. So this is definitely a great central spot. I love it.
With all the success “Essential Tremors” has had so far, do you think you’ll have to spend less time on the road touring? Allowing you to get back in the studio quicker than you were able to with the last two records?
I think so. We have this big fall run of tour shows and that’s essentially the last big set of shows that we are going to do for this record. After that, I’m hoping that we will get to buckle down and start writing for the next record, which would be way sooner since the record has only been out for maybe about a year. We weren’t even close to taking a breath a year after the last record. We pretty much toured two and half years on that one. Then took nine months to write (“Essential Tremors”). So hopefully starting around Christmas and who knows how long after that. We are definitely pretty meticulous about wanting to make sure that we have real songs that we believe in and not just say “Here’s a collection of things.” There’s a good chance the next record will be out way sooner, but it all depends on the songs existing first.
Well, this is a pretty great photo. Check out Old Crow Medicine Show gettin’ on down with Mr. Boh at Saturday’s Hot August Music Festival near Baltimore. If this doesn’t get your Wednesday started right, who knows what will. Photo courtesy of Cassandra Mullinix. For more of her photos, visit https://www.facebook.com/bucketofrock.
Video Of The Day: Beggar’s Ride’s ‘Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon on Earth’
We LOVE these ladies (notice the capital letters). Love, love, love them. That’s why when they shot us an email last week, saying they had a new video online and an EP coming down the pipe … well, call us as happy as a pig in mud (or something like that). Behold this performance of a song written by John Herald and feel your jaw become slacked as the vocal harmonies blow your mind. For more on Beggar’s Ride, click here.
Dr. Dog perform at the Hot August Music Festival on Saturday. Photo courtesy of Cassandra Mullinix. For more of her photos, visit https://www.facebook.com/bucketofrock.
Note: The below story was written by Cassandra Mullinix. You can check out all the great stuff she has going down on her Facebook page, or, if you’re so inclined, you could follow her on Twitter.
We were so grateful to be part of this year’s Hot August Music Festival. It was certainly one for the record books, this being the 22nd consecutive installment of the event. Here are five fantastic things we discovered at this year’s festival:
1. There’s not a bad seat in the house. Go ahead and sit, stand, or dance wherever fate lands you. There’s plenty of front row real estate along the main stage barrier to scoop up on, but if you want to spread out a little, the jumbo-tron and gently upward-sloping field at Oregon Ridge Park are extremely conducive to some great views. I made my way up to the “cheap seats” at the end of the night and thoroughly enjoyed the laid back atmosphere. Even better: The upper field is closer to the beer stands! And if you want to throw some real excitement into the mix, you might try reverting back to your seven-year-old self and roll down the slope as a few folks did during Nickel Creek! Festival-goers were pretty chill over at the two side stages and it was entirely possible to maneuver into your own personal sweet spot.
2. Even when it’s not hot, it’s hawt. It wasn’t quite as hot as in years past, which made this year an exceptionally awesome Hot August Music Festival on top of all the hawt, hawt, hawt headliners the event boasted. There were so many highlights every hour between stages, it’s hard to single out a few. Certainly, the main headliner, Old Crow Medicine Show, did not disappoint and played a rowdy Baltimore-themed set where even Mr. Boh got down to Ketch Secor’s fiddle. Nickel Creek provided the oohs and ahhs from a musicianship perspective. Dr. Dog took no prisoners and rocked the midafternoon crowd, as if to say “welcome to the party” to all the late comers who had just finished trickling in. And highlights from the side stage included Cabinet and Sister Sparrow and The Dirty Birds, who both had an absolutely wild party raging over at the tree-lined end of the festival grounds.
3. Every band gets more than 15 minutes of fame on stage. Hot August Music Fest is without doubt one of those festivals that’s really about the music and the bands. Main stage performers were given two-hour set times and side stage performers enjoyed one-and-a-half hour sets. Houndmouth wasn’t quite sure what to do with their two hours because they have only one album to date. Still, they managed to keep the main stage rocking by relying on a few tricks up their sleeve, including taking cover-song requests from the audience. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the lengthy set times came in handy for Turkuaz whose gear was held up in traffic and did not arrive until 10 minutes after their set time was supposed to begin.
4. Brad Selko can sing and play the harmonica. Founder. President. Director of Hot August Music Festival. Whatever you want to call Brad Selko, at least call him awesome for jumping on stage with Old Crow Medicine Show during a grand finale song.
5. A one-day festival can actually feel like a legitimate festival. Festivals are known for having that sense of reprieve, that vacation-like feeling of getting away from it all. That’s a feeling that’s hard to accomplish in one day and in a location just north of Baltimore City, but the Hot August Music Festival pulled it off pretty well. The event does a really good job of creating a self-contained, own-little-bubble-world of fun where even the kids are entertained (between hat making with Tattered Hatters and harmonica lessons with musicians, your kids can enjoy the festival as much as you might). There’s plenty of room to explore, and many food and beverage choices are at your fingertips. There are no worries once you’re in the gate.
For The Record Podcast Episode 14 – Erin Westin of Flying Dog
Who doesn’t like a good reason to drive over to Flying Dog’s tap room?! That’s what I did a couple weeks ago to sit down with Erin Westin, the brewery’s Director of Communications. Why do that? Because we are smack-dab in the middle of Flying Dog’s Summer Sessions concert series. Considering how the fine people over there have been gracious enough to allow us to set up shop at each of their four concerts this summer, we thought it’d be a good idea to dive in a little more to learn about the planning that goes into these types of events. Among the thing we discuss:
– How they choose the bands for each summer.
– How important it was for Flying Dog to keep the opening acts as local as they could (Old Indian and Heavy Lights are taking the stage during these final two shows).
– What might set Frederick apart from surrounding cities.
– What Flying Dog has in store for this weekend’s event, which will feature J Roddy Walston And The Business in the headlining spot.
– And, of course, who some of Ms. Westin’s favorite local artists are.
For those interested in entering our two-ticket giveaway for the weekend’s show, click here. For those interested in buying your own tickets, you can still do so here (though hurry – they’re going fast!). As you’ll hear if you click on the button at the top of this page, we play songs from both bands set to perform Saturday night, so if you’re wondering where you can find out more about each artist, you can follow J Roddy on Twitter here or you can check out Old Indian’s Facebook page here. There’s a lot of good stuff that you’ll want to devour (I promise), so even if you’re sick of me … listen for the music! You won’t be disappointed.
OTHER EPISODES:
Episode No. 13 – Mystery Ton Studios
Episode No. 12 – Studio 301
Episode No. 11 – The Knolly Moles
Episode No. 10 – Lloyd Dobler Effect
Episode No. 9 – Chelsea McBee
Episode No. 8 – Heavy Lights
Episode No. 7 – Peter Goodwin
Episode No. 6 – The Artomatic Crew
Episode No. 5 – Silent Old Mtns.
Episode No. 4 – Elon Eisenberg
Episode No. 3 – Crystal Sands
Episode No. 2 – Doug Alan Wilcox
Episode No. 1 – Cassandra Mullinix
Who doesn’t like a good reason to drive over to Flying Dog’s tap room?! That’s what we did a couple weeks ago to sit down with Erin Weston, the brewery’s Director of Communications. Why do that? Because we are smack-dab in the middle of Flying Dog’s Summer Sessions concert series. Considering how the fine people over there have been gracious enough to allow us to set up shop at each of their four concerts this summer, we thought it’d be a good idea to dive in a little more to learn about the planning that goes into these types of events. Among the things we discuss:
– How they choose the bands for each summer.
– How important it was for Flying Dog to keep the opening acts as local as they could (Old Indian and Heavy Lights are taking the stage during these final two shows).
– What might set Frederick apart from surrounding cities.
– What Flying Dog has in store for this weekend’s event, which will feature J Roddy Walston And The Business in the headlining spot.
– And, of course, who some of Ms. Weston’s favorite local artists are.
For those interested in entering our two-ticket giveaway for the weekend’s show, click here. For those interested in buying your own tickets, you can still do so here (though hurry – they’re going fast!). As you’ll hear if you click on the button at the top of this page, we play songs from both bands set to perform Saturday night, so if you’re wondering where you can find out more about each artist, you can follow J Roddy on Twitter here or you can check out Old Indian’s Facebook page here. There’s a lot of good stuff that you’ll want to devour (I promise), so even if you’re sick of me … listen for the music! You won’t be disappointed.
Do you want to win two tickets to see J Roddy Walston And The Business? Of course you do.
All right, friends. In case you didn’t notice on our Facebook page last Friday, we have officially opened up the doors for our Flying Dog Summer Sessions concert series giveaway this month by putting two tickets to see J Roddy Walston And The Business, along with Old Indian, on the contest block. You know the drill by now: There are a trillion different ways you can enter, as you’ll see below. You can follow us on Twitter. You can like us on the FacePage. You can vote for your favorite band this summer. So many ways. So much beer. So much music. If you’re the lucky winner, we’ll be getting in touch Friday morning. Enter as many times as you’d like – tickets are going fast, and no, as always, friends: You won’t want to miss it!