The Zero Boys Rock in the heart of Texas.



Story by Jeff Napier
Photos by Melonshe Continue reading "Texas Size Rock and Roll Road Trip"

New Duncan Imperials, and Bare Jr. keep the Holidaze entertaining.


Bare Jr. rockin' Nashville Continue reading "Rock and Roll Thanksgiving roadtrip"

ALL PHOTOS BY MELONSHE

We walked into Headliners just in time to catch Lordi. The place was packed wall to wall with metal heads, goth kids, meth freaks and elegantly wasted hipsters. Within two minutes it became clear, Louisville, Kentucky knows how to party. Everybody and I do mean everybody was wasted drunk. The kind of drunk where gravity is all fucked up and time and space are warped. Continue reading "Monsters, Compassion & 10-inch Whore Shoes"

On the way to Louisville for the sixth annual Lebowski Fest, I wasn't sure what to expect. But being as The Big Lebowski is one of my favorite movies of all time, I decided to it was time to check out the scene.

From humble beginnings as a fan fest, The Lebowski Fest has evolved to the point where it's as big as most trekkie/Star Wars conventions. For the past couple years, in addition to the annual Louisville event, Lebowski Fests have popped up in LA, NYC and this year, London. When we arrived at the Executive Strike and Spare bowling alley on the southside of Louisville the Afternoon Garden Party was in full swing, with games like Coffee Mug chuck and the bag of underwear throw, merch and a shitload of Jeffrey Lebowskis and Walters milling around as a horrible chick tried her best to channel Neko Case doing Wilco songs.



But then a funny thing happened I got my self introduced to probably one the most entertaining, dangerous and deranged bands I've had the pleasure to see in the past decade. The Legendary Shack Shakers just came on and promptly melted everyone's faces with a fiery set of Irish, punk-rock hillbilly music. The Guitarist, Bill Lee was a sight to behold, all tattoos and sweat in your face as he blazed his nice old gretsch guitar.



The real star of the show was The lead singer, the Col. J.D. Wilkes who looks like the product of an unholy union of Thom Yorke, Johnny Lydon and the Inbred banjo player from Deliverance. However he proved himself to be one of the most electric performers I've ever seen, His vocals were of the Jello Biafra punk school, and his harmonica playing was born straight from a black delta swamp. Where as most frontmen who also play the harp do little more the honk on it from time to time, Wilkes made the harp as much a lead instrument as the guitar.



A Nadir was reached when during a song called "Blood on the Bluegrass" he was bleeding from bashing his head with the microphone and was astride an audience member stimulating getting oral sex, playing the harp perfectly and screaming the lyrics almost stimutaneously. An astonishing performance.

Once the party moved inside the bowling alley, things took on a more surreal bent. Almost every major and minor character from the movie was represented. One guy came as a giant globe with a sledgehammer and axe contraption and called himself "A World of Pain." We ran into Tom and Brad from the Alley Cat who made for a picture perfect Dude and Walter. Tom, a local Bass playing legend in his own right, has been to 7 Lebowski fests and last year won as the Best Costume as the Dude. and indeed he does look just like The Dude. He is set to travel to London next month to catch a Stones show and of course attend the Lebowski Fest.



Good, good stuff a trip well worth it for the Legendary Shack Shakers alone.
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Day three started out pleasantly enough, with nice sets being turned in by Ziggy Marley, Spoon and Franz Ferdinand. It was Ween, however, that had the bad-ass set and the rowdiest crowd. Pretty cool considering Gene and Dean were probably the least rock-star looking act out here, and put on a set that was pretty no frills. But the connection forged between them and the audience made for pure musical magic.
Then we ran over to the Ben Harper set and made it just in time to catch a jaw-dropping run-thru of "Dazed and Confused" with John Paul Jones sitting in on Bass. Wow.



Then it was on to the big field for The Police. After opening with a rocking "Message In A Bottle," the rest of the set turned into an adult contemporary cheese rock set of the Police's greatest hits. Perfect for all the middle-aged chiropactors and attorneys paying 2,000 bucks a head to see one of their stadium shows, but in the middle of an tennessee cow pasture with 80,000 delirious, half-crazed, sunburnt and doped-up freaks who have been seeing musical miracles for the past three days, it was totally the wrong sound in the wrong place. Jesus, I kept expecting Paul Simon to come walking out.

Thank God for The Flaming Lips and Gov't Mule. the late night belonged to them.



"I heard a nasty rumour" Wayne Coyne leader of the Flaming Lips announced from the stage. I heard John Paul Jones' Bass was stolen just before he got here." The crowd booed, and he continues. "Sting, we know you took it. So, if you're out there, just bring it here and we'll have a little jam and work it out."

Needless to say Sting never showed up. But there was lots of balloons, millions of laser pointers, aliens, santas and a giant spaceship. They also turned in a killer version of "Kashmir." With Wayne playing some sort of Electronic Bugle instead of trying to sing it. Amazingly it was spot on, and set the tone for a fun-filled feel-good set under a gorgeous night sky.

Luckily, despite going on at the same time, Gov't Mule played for another hour after the Lips were done, including an encore that included one of the best versions of "Sweet Leaf" I've ever heard.

Tomorrow: Wolfmother, Wilco, and The White Stripes.
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My hand was resting on the half-naked girl's muffin. I was involuntarily giving her a hand job as she was unhooking my bracelet which had painfully snagged her belly-button ring. She unhooked us, kinda gave me a half-smile and handed me a glowstick. This was just after a combination of tennessee mountain fungi and Tool had me shaking all over.

Maynard, Tool's lead vocalist stayed towards the back of the stage, ducking in and out of the shadows and video panels, striking weird poses and howling at the moon. The band was in full floydian overdrive. The relentless pounding of the music and the lasers and the spotlights and the fucked-up video and the weirdness and sheer brutality that was pouring off the stage was almost too much. Almost. I'm glad I was able to hang on.



It's been an up and down ride here at the bonnaroo. Our plans for shooting video was shot, when somehow, the video pass failed to come through, but on the other hand, we got to see a great set from Cold War Kids, a most welcome set from Kings of Leon in prime rocking mode and a groovalicious good time set from Michael Franti and Spearhead that included an awesome tribute to Sesame Street and a guy doing some flower arrangements onstage(?).



We also saw Alexa Ray Joel, who has the body of her momma, Christie Brinkley and the face of her dad, Billy Joel, and who sings like her mom trying to be her dad. Yikes. Bang Bang Bang was a Nashville buzz band I was anxious to check out, but they turned out to be just an Uglier version of Kings Of Leons, with worse songs.



Later after being assaulted by Tool and almost having hand-vagina intercourse with a stranger, All I remember is an epic struggle to move against the current in a fast moving river of people and feeling like I was at a rave at the STS9 set, and being chased back to the campsite when String Cheese Incident started playing "Staying Alive."

Tonight, The Police and The Flaming Lips and probably a new tennessee mountain chemical potion. Wonder who my hand's gonna meet tonight?

-Jeff Napier
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Thursday night, the energy was thick, electric, hanging in the air, harboring the events about to unfold here in Bonnaroo. As were heading out into the thick of things, we passed a campsite where they had these huge cookers set up into which thousands and thousands of live crawfish were being boiled. This was just one
campsite. There are at least 50-60,000 other campsites doing pretty much the same thing. Getting our party on.



The first band of the evening, The Black Angels ripped out of the gate with a gorgeous shoegazing set that ended with a Spaceman 3 meets Iggy version of "I Wanna Be Your Dog."

Then Mutemath came on and literally destroyed the place. The band's album is kinda Margo meets Electronica, with a couple interesting songs, however, live, this New Orleans band pulled out all the stops, taking the crowd on a musical tour de force that summoned the spirts of everybody from Jerry Lee Lewis, Jagger, even GG Allin(!). They were so good they got the first naked guy of the fest up on stage with them. Paul, the Mutemath lead singer was a psychopath, rolling over his keyboard rig like it was a gymnastics horse, and ending the show by taking out the giant light display behind them. The Dude ran and threw himself full-on sideways into it. No shit.



After that the hippies split over to wiggle to Tea Leaf Green, while the rockers stayed to see Clutch, who sounded like the Fat guy in BTO trying to be Robert Plant. And the cool indie kids went to mope with The National.
They all had some moments, but nothing like what Mutemath pulled out. Things ended up with a late night set by Athens, GA band The Whigs who did a nice little groovy garagey set capped by a fuzzed out cover of "Instant Karma"
As I'm walking back to die in our new home, I could hear a thousand voices filling the air. "And We ALLLLL SHINE ON!!!!"

Nice way to start things off.

-Jeff Napier
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Funny thing happened on the way to Bonnaroo. We got our asses rocked by Bobby Bare Jr's Young Criminal's Salvation League at Headliners in Louisville. Playing in between strong set by The Elms and The Slip, BBJ and his band rocked the house. Featuring a powerhouse drummer, a good lead guitarist and a flat-chested ugly girl on keyboards and a big baritone sax, BBJ roared thru a set of his best songs. I was taken aback by the sax chick. She was kinda maybe sorta attractive in a lonely librarian kinda way, pasty white skin, with the figure of a birch tree. But when she started wailing with that big ol' sax between her legs, well, she was a rock queen.

Then the Odyssey began. A cotton pickin' belly-busting joy ride thru the finest hill country Southern Kentucky and Tennessee has to offer. Big meat-necked state troopers lined the whole way, but thankfully left us alone.



Now we are here at Camp NUVO chillin' and getting ready to go see Mutemath, Tea Leaf Green, Clutch and The Whigs. Stay tuned.

-Jeff Napier
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