Played a fun show at this past saturday night at a Harley Davidson/Waylon Jennings/Slayer/San Jose Sharks fan/dive bar in Pacifica, CA with Reid Johnston’s tongue-in-cheek country rock project, The Ray Johnson Band. With CD covers like Gone (pictured left), patriotic tunes with sing along choruses like ‘Lets take one in the ass for America!’, good players and a chance to rip telecaster solos most the night, how could I lose.
Winters bar has some classic dive ambiance – a shuffleboard table, a pool table, incredibly salty free popcorn, slutty girls and greasy guys. And did I mention Harleys? There were a couple times onstage where we were like – ‘what’s that sound? Is there something wrong with the PA?’ It was the sound of a Harley (or Harleys) starting up and idling outside in the parking lot.
In between sets they blasted Metallica and Slayer videos. It was good to drink and smoke along with this. At least the beer and liquor was free (top shelf!), otherwise it mighta turned into a ‘The Good Ole Boys’ situation from The Blues Brothers movie, where the bar tab was bigger than the band fee. As expected, the bathroom contained the usual curiosities and the rope dangling from the window across from the toilet proved interesting – perhaps there to help drunks get off the seat. Good people.
Below is the first song of the eve, a honky tonkin’ tune called Barstow. I managed to trip over the last 16 bars of the extended solo, but hey, we was just getting warmed up. It got way nuttier from there, at times careening into spacerock territory with some of Reid’s ‘Temporary Rock Formation’ songs and finally ending at 1:30am with an epic version of Gordon Lightfoot’s, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. People didn’t know what to do with it. Good times.