Charleston, South Carolina is…. pretty damn nice right now.  I thought I was going to leave my dreary, rainy town of Chico, CA to come to an even rainier, colder and much more depressing place, but I was completely wrong.  This town is amazing.  It’s been sunny and warm; the locals have been out walking the town, enjoying life, not too bad in my book.  When we’re not in downtown Charleston rehearsing we’ve been spending time at a vacationers dream beach house.  I am literally twenty feet from the ocean, and it’s beautiful.  The days have been long, but surprisingly stress free, despite all preparing we need to do.  Besides the flaming amplifier everything has been routine for me.  The band, on the other hand, has decided to practice songs they haven’t played in over year the day before the first show, but everything is sounding great.  I’m sure some sort of last minute detail will need to be worked out, but we’ll tackle that when it comes up.  Tomorrow I get to visit my second home, and the town where my car resides, Nashville, Tennessee.

view from our back porch.

seagull feeding

rehearsal

By now I’ve learned not to give too much credence to first impressions. Though I’ve hung around too many hippies in my life to have high hopes for a band named “Dirtfoot,” and listened to one too many coffee shop crooners to take notice of a song titled “My Girl,” you know what they say about book and their covers.

Here’s their deal: Imagine Nick Cave on a bed of rusty nails, the cover of “Gin and Juice” often mis-attributed to Phish (it was actually the Gourds), some old-timey “Dem Bones,” Old Crow Medicine show culture-clash, and that subtle fecal stench of Mr. Bungle skronk sax craziness: Get theses elements, let them stew in an oaken barrel for a number of years and out comes Shreveport, Louisiana’s Dirtfoot.

I’m glad I got past the fat of their wordy band bio. They should have started their pitch with the Tornado that helped form the band:

Seven years ago when a tornado blew through Shreveport, Matt was standing on his porch, shortly after a tree decided to test the landlord’s homeowner’s policy. J walked up and initiated the conversation, after spotting Matt immediately following the disaster. Amidst cracked countertops and scattered shingles, conversation ensued and the two musicians became friends.

But whatever, it’s all about Dirtfoot’s music, which you can sample here.