Jeremy Porter Road Blog

The Rock and Roll Adventures of Jeremy Porter and Jeremy Porter and The Tucos

Birmingham, AL
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Road Blog: Thursday October 17, 2019 - Birmingham, AL

Sun Studio — with Gabriel Doman and 4 others  in Memphis, Tennessee. Which one? — with Gabriel Doman at Memphis Drum Shop & myCymbal.com. The Nick Rocks from the stage at soundcheck. — in Birmingham, Alabama. Chicken Diamond — at The Nick


Road Blog
October 17, 2019
Birmingham, Alabama

We left our hotel in Mississippi, drove into Memphis, and headed to Sun Studio. This is the place where Elvis got his start, Johnny Cash recorded dozens of great hits, and scores of other iconic country, rockabilly, and early rock and roll artists recorded hits. The tour is free for bands, which was a nice perk, and we really enjoyed it. That’s some mojo there in that room, and I found it educational and inspiring.

From there we went to Memphis Drum Shop & myCymbal.com on Gabriel’s request. It’s a cool store with vintage drum sets owned by many great drummers, including my second favorite – Steve Jordan. Gabe was a kid in a candy store, but he resisted the temptation to get this ride cymbal he’s been eying up. He did get a couple drum heads and got to try out some things he’s been wanting to.

We headed out of Memphis, into Mississippi, towards Birmingham. As we approached Tupelo, we were all getting a bit hungry, so we went to Yelp! for the best fried chicken and landed at Connie's Fried Chicken. Bob and I liked it more than Gabriel did, but we each felt better with some fried food in our bellies. We hit Birmingham around 5pm, into a closed freeway and massive traffic jam, but we made it to our hotel around 6. I changed the stings on the Gold Top, called TrooperGirl22, got cleaned up, and we headed over to the venue.

We parked the van at The Nick Rocks and walked over to The Garage , a nearby bar and grill. We got a round of craft beers and sandwiches. It was good food, super convenient, and fast. We loaded into The Nick, set up, and did a soundcheck. The Nick is a big place, a long shed-like building with a big, high stage at one end, a couple pool tables in the back, and a bar along the back side. It’s older – the walls and ceiling are covered with stickers, posters and 8x10 glossys of shows past, dating to decades ago, including a couple from The Junk Monkeys, some friends of ours (@David David, Kevin) from Detroit who were here in the 80s/90s. We played here a couple years ago and while the people are cool and the sound is great, the turnout wasn’t. Unfortunately, last night was no different as the place was virtually empty, with just a few paying people and the staff. That’s tough any night, but in a big place like that it’s even more of a drag. We made the best of it, enjoyed the stage and the PA, broke out a couple new songs that haven’t seen much stage time, and finished up.

After us this dude Charles from northeastern France went on. He’s a one-man-band called Chicken Diamond. Friendly dude, in the states for a short southeastern tour. He sits in a chair, kicks a drum and some cymbals with his feet, plays a vintage, over-driven guitar and sings some dirty blues-rock songs. He’s got his thing down and we enjoyed his set. We headed back to the hotel at 12:30 as he was wrapping up, finished my turkey reuben sandwich, had a quick nightcap and crashed out. The show was a bummer, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. We had a great day at Sun, a beautiful drive, and can’t wait to see our great friends Vibrolas in Somerset KY tonight. Hope some of my Lexington/Danville friends make it down to Jarfly Brewing Company!!!!




Jeremy Porter

Rock and roll, traveling, touring, guitars, records, dive bars, whiskey, good food, TrooperGirl22.

www.thetucos.com
www.jeremyportermusic.com
www.gtgrecords.com


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