J Dog's 2009 Tour

[jdogric12]

Columbia, SC was fun again. I got to meet up with Jwilli at the Flying Saucer and have some enlightening discussions on Ricks and other assorted stuff. Check it out, they have many many many many beers there. I dink bers. I go ply getar ad go slep. I converted my room at the hotel into the mobile J Dog studio, and recorded some tracks, even using the bathroom for a vocal booth! Just shove a pillow into the corner of the ceiling (use a boom stand to hold it in place) and you've got echo damping.

On the way out of SC I stopped for a bite to eat and saw a person in a chicken suit. At this point it is painfully obvious that THIS THREAD IS USELESS WITHOUT PICS, but I'm at work and I don't have a way to resize here, so please reference facebook if you want visual aids. Back to the chicken suit. It turns out it was the grand opening of a Bojangles location. We used to have this chain in Tampa when I was a wee tot, but they blew out of town decades ago. I got my picture taken with the person in the chicken suit (like ya do) and had a chicken sandwich. Kind of a grim combination, now that I've thusly juxtaposed those two actions. Yikes.

Raleigh, NC was next, although everything I did on this stop was not in Raleigh. Unfortunatley MP and I ran into a little scheduling conflict, so we didn't get to hang out, but I had a plan B ready: headed over to the Backyard BBQ Pit in Durham and had the best pulled pork, green beans, sweet potatoes and sweet tea I've had ever. They are truly worthy of their inclusion on the Man V. Food website. Next was Chapel Hill to play at The Library's open mic, but I showed up and the place was dark, looked out of business. Bummer. Had a beer and watched some college basketball at a bar called "Four Corners" (which is the title of an IRWO song).

Leaving NC and heading up towards VA I finally saw some leaves changing color. I guess it was a warm year, because last year I saw these colors passing from GA to SC.

I had another great time at the Koelling house in Newport News. We went to that Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles show, had BBQ at Pierce's, and wrote music and played acoustic guitars by the fireplace while the perfect storm raaaaaaaged outside and killed the power for eight hours. While at John's, I recorded the unintentionally-double-tracked 4080 bass line for "My Perfect Disguise."

After finally spending two nights in the same place, I was well refreshed and ready for some more driving, which I will get to in the next post...

[jdogric12]

...time to drive up to Winchester. The plan was to do Skyline Drive on the way. I got there. There was fog everywhere. I could barely see the front of the shuttlecraft. The nice park ranger lady told me "You can give me fifteen bucks if you want to but you won't see anything." I thanked her for her honesty and headed on to Winchester via the regular highway.

Now all this time I've had the worst luck getting anyone to take Traveler's Cheques. Apparently since everyone has debit and credit cards now, and there has been a lot of fraud with TC's, no one takes them anymore. Walmarts with banks inside even refused me. How lame. But two very nice ladies at a small town bank in Harrisonburg cashed some for me. I can't remember the name of the bank, but it's next to a Taco Bell, and pretty close to Hometown Music, just off the interstate.

I arrived in Winchester with a few more greenbacks in my pocket and ready to see a whole bunch of my friends. Stayed again at the Nancy Shepherd House Inn http://www.nancyshepherdhouse.com/ and had a great time. We all went down to Luray Caverns and up to the Skyland Resort on Skyline Drive - so I got my wish after all, and even better that I could see those wonderful views all while having lunch with my friends!

We ate at a few very good restaurants (and you all know how critical I am with restaurants!) but of course with such great company, I could have had ******* on a biscuit and still enjoyed it. Sorry, that was gross. I'll try not to be so gross.

At the world famous Tater Hill Tavern we had an impromptu meeting of the Ale Sampling Society of Winchester (of which I'm honored to be a new member) even if it wasn't quite a quarum! My friends are the best beer snobs in the world!

After two great nights at the NSH, I packed up and got ready to head even further northeast. I had a great lunch at the Mezze in Baltimore with a guy I know that used to work with us at my day job. We had a blast catching up and trading "dirt" and whatnot. I even got a quick drive-by photo of Camden Yards.

...

[jdogric12]

After Baltimore, I went up to a filthy little ghetto north of Philadelphia I had Steve's Prince of Steaks, which everyone says is the best, but I still remember Jim's in Philly slightly more fondly. Also did a quick walk around the town of New Hope, cruised the strip in a very cool car, had fun. Recorded a track for the album on dude's Hammond B3 & Leslie. How cool is that?

Next up was NYC. Just Staten Island, actually, which might as well be Jersey, right? So I'm told. Hung with JB at his casa de music and JB did some cool banjo and upright bass tracks for the album. That night performed at... well, you saw that already. First official J Dog and the Argonauts performance. Ate shark at the Cargo Cafe. Good stuff! Feels like meat, looks like fish, tastes like... shark!

Ok.. somebody needs a copy of their K-1... gotta run, more to come later.

[jdogric12]

Okay, after SINY, I was off for a nice drive through New Jersey. Met with Bob Belloff for lunch at a very nice little place that started with a C, can't remember. Had a really good, really big sandwich. Talked about Rosie (Bob's fav 360/12) and this that and the other, and noodled around on some of my guitars before heading further south to Lindenwold for a nice afternoon with Chris at Pick of the Ricks. Then it was back to Pennsylvania, particulary Hatfield, to check into my room at the John Kindig House http://www.johnkindighouse.com/, a lovely place built in the 1860's by Mennonites. Ed, the innkeeper, was a real nice guy. I think I may have surprised him by bringing in all the guitars for the night! But there's no way I'm leaving them in the car, not even in this quaint friendly little town.

After getting everything sorted out there, I headed over to Sellersville Theater to see the Sara Watkins (from Nickel Creek) concert. I have to admit I really went to see the opening act, The Infamous Stringdusters, whose CD "Fork In The Road" is one of my favorites. For some reason, Sara and her band played first. She blew me away, she was just great. She even did a couple of songs on the ukelele and voice, namely a beautiful rendition of Tom Waits' "Pony" which was already one of my favorite songs to begin with. In fact, that inspired me to buy an inexpensive uke in St. Louis, but now I'm getting ahead of myself.

After Sara's set, the SD's came out and rocked. Imagine 6 bluegrass guys who are as good as you can possibly get on their instruments, constantly shredding. That's the impression I got - very different from the well-exhibited songcraft heard on the aforementioned FITR. I was exhausted and a little disappointed in what I perceived to be a lack of artistic contour and left after 6 songs, but walked out a very happy new SW fan!

After a much needed restful night of sleep at the JKH, Ed made me and the other traveler staying there a delicious complete breakfast. Then it was off to Pittsburgh, for lunch, for the famous sandwich-with-fries-and-slaw-on-it at Primanti Bros... but currently (as I type this) it's 5pm, and time to go home, so I'll pick this up later and maybe add photos this weekend.

[jdogric12]

Photos are up on the facebooks. Since there are about 150, I won't be posting them here. Sorry. Resizing and posting them here would take FOREVER. I'll try to finish the captain's log sometime this weekend.

[collin]

Loving this thread so far, Jdog!

Not only do we feel like we're there with you, but you're making me hungry too!

[jdogric12]

When we last left our hero...

So full of pastrami from Primanti Bros' I headed for Cleveland. Jeff and Shari welcomed me and a short time later we met up with John Allgaier for an evening of jazz at NightTown. This is a great little jazz club, and we got to enjoy Jean Luc Ponty and his band. They were so good it reminded me how much I love jazz!

The next morning we headed over to Jeff's lab and met Jim and Teddy. Teddy really liked wearing those glasses. Then we met up with Steve Wood and tooled around town for a while, hitting that candy shop, dim sum, and Heights Guitars, where I was very lucky to stumble on a Vibratone cabinet in pretty good shape and working condition. Unfortunately by the time I got it home to Tampa, the fast motor stopped working, so it's in the shop right now. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Later we had MICRIO at Jeff's house, and Kevin Teed showed up, crutches and all! What a trooper! Jeff's band The Karma Kings showed up and jammed too. We got to oogle some cool instruments. Some non-Ricks of note included Jeff's acoustic fretless bass and Kevin's Jazz Bass.

The next morning I had to get an oil change, so I did that and got back on the road.

I arrived in Chicago just as the sun went down. I got to the Thomas house at exactly the same time as Paul Boyer, so we ordered some deep dish pizza from Gino's East. Really good stuff. Don't be fooled by imitations. That stuff Papa John's slings is not even close. Bill Henshell showed up shortly after and we had our little Chicago mini mini confluence. Paul had a big weekend planned with the family so we said our goodbyes to him and turned in for the night.

More to come...

[johnallg]

This is great. I'm heading over to Facebook to see the rest of the pictures - I saw the first installment you had up. Awaiting the next installment.

[jdogric12]

Thanks JA! All photos are up now on FB.

[byu]

Now that we're at the Chicago part of the Jdog tour, here are some shots of the jam from my camera.

Chuck w/RCA 12 string.


My girlfriend's son Mason w/Comstock 12 string.


Jeff w/4001S/FL


Chuck on drums, me on 5002.


Jdog on 5002.


Me on 660, Jeff on 4001.


Chuck, Mason, Me, Jeff.


Jdog w/6/12 converter.


My friend Lindsey on non Ric.


Jeff on 21 fret '71 4001.


Jdog on drums.


Chuck w/4080.

[jdogric12]

Cool, great photos Bill! Your BYU CD is great!!! Everybody buy Bill's CD if you don't have it already!!!

[rickenbrother]

Great photos, Bill!

[cjj]

Excellent photos! Thanks for posting them. Looks like everyone had a great time!

[rickaddict]

Nice pics, Bill.

Good times were had by all!

[8mileshigher]

Nice pics, Bill.

Good times were had by all!

Thanks for posting the good pics and glad to see you all had a fun Ricken-jam