Jeremy Porter Road Blog

Road Blog: Tuesday October 18, 2022 - Atlanta, GA

Road Blog
October 18, 2022
Atlanta, Georgia

Our day started with breakfast at Maple Street Biscuit Company, a regional chain that Jacob found. I got this two-egg with sausage gravy and biscuit thing called the Eggs-Traordinary Risky Biscuit and harmony grits and it was pretty righteous. When you placed your order they asked who your favorite musician was, and I was caught a bit off guard and I muttered “Keith Richards.” A couple minutes later…”Keith Richards” bellowed over the PA and my food was served. That’s three days straight of southern biscuits, if you’re keeping score. Let’s see what today holds.

Jake drove down I-75 with Gabriel navigating while I sorta dozed in the back seat and sent texts to our AirBnB and promoter and friends in Atlanta. Karen Jacobsen - The GPS Girl couldn’t get us to the house, but within a half mile, so we turned it over to our iPhones and got there. The cleaning crew was just wrapping up and asked what kind of wine we wanted and I said red, of course, and they left and returned an hour later with a bottle of merlot, on the house. Jake is in the Buddah room, Gabe is in the Island Paradise. “There’s your room” Gabe proclaimed, sending me into Princess Boulevard – all pink lights and carpet and linens. It was pretty great, but I passed on the foot massage machine on the count of who’s feet might have also been in there.

After a little downtime we headed deeper into the city and stopped at my pal and the show promoter Jeffrey’s house. We had a beer and some good conversation with him and his wife Jenny. Their rottweilers were quite intent on receiving attention from these weird Yankees, and they were the consummate hosts (the Browers, not the dogs. Well, the dogs were too, but…anyway). They had a friend in town from Chicago who flew in for the show as well. Their twin daughters came out and played a short set of tunes for us and it was nothing short of awesome with an original, a Green Day song, and a Stones tune. These kids are the future of rock and roll, folks, and we had the best time watching them play! Jake and I each gave them skull picks and we thanked them for their set and left with awesome tee shirts! (and just in time cuz I’m outta clean ones).

The EARL is an Atlanta institution. They’ve been doing shows for a couple few decades now. It’s a square, concrete room with a nice big stage in the corner and a bar in the opposite corner, and lots of space to mill about. There’s a green room in back and restaurant out front. We had dinner – I got their version of the Big Mac – The Big Earl, which was awesome, and stepped outside to call home. TrooperGirl22 is holding her own, keeping the house intact, all that, and glad to have hurricane Jeremy out of town for a few days of quiet.

This dude Jim came out and we have a couple friends back in Michigan in common – William and Maria mostly, and on and off throughout the night we talked about shows back in Ann Arbor that we’d both been at and some shared experiences, even though we didn’t know it at the time. He had some amazing stories. Very generous guy, and a great hang. Then I ran in to my good friend Robbie from my old Ypsilanti days, and his friend Mandi. Rob played keyboards in a band called Culture Shock back in my Chutes & Ladders days, and I’ve seen him just a couple times since. We had a deep dive into the hierarchy of fast food fried chicken chains and it was so good to see him again.

Chickens and Pigs went on around 9PM to a great crowd and played a fun set of Stonsey-blues. Jeff Evans plays a great riff while Silvia plays percussion and Celeste kept a great groove on the bass. It was only her second show? Wow – great harmonies and feel all around. I loved their set! We went on second to a fantastic crowd. I had some guitar issues early on and off, and Jake had one to two as well, but we did our best to keep it together and played a high-energy fun set. The sound on stage was fantastic, which makes it that much better, and we left it all up there. After us Dysfunctionals played and they were a great headliner – big, fun songs and a fantastic stage show – very high energy and just suer fun. We had a great time hanging out, selling merch, talking to the locals, and watching the other bands – it was an incredible show and we couldn’t ask for more.

Gabriel drove back to the AirBB and we devoured some leftovers and hung out for a couple hours before crashing. It was truly an incredible night – Atlanta was really amazing, and we can’t thank Jeffrey (this is all mostly because of him!), The Earl, Chickens and Pigs, and Dysfunctionals enough. These nights are the reason we keep doing this, the reason we don’t get too down after the bad nights, and are the ones that stick with us. We are eternally grateful to everyone who was a part of it!

We’re off to Tuscaloosa in a couple short hours where we’ll play a couple sets from 8-10 at Druid City Brewing Company starting at 8pm. It’s been a minute Alabama – see ya tonight and thanks for reading! xx