Crib Notes

Date line: 10:40 a.m. February 1 at Erin’s very cool house some where in Cleveland. The sun is shinning hard and melting off the mountains of snow. It feels like spring is on it’s way. We only have a two-hour drive to Pittsburgh and it’s looking like it will be a good Super Bowl Sunday.

Let’s back track to snow-bound Milwaukee. We left town and hit the road for another gruelling, hellacious drive, but this time we didn’t get lost. The elements where doing all they could to fuck us up, but we were on a mission and nothing was gonna stop us now. We made it to the windy city with enough time to dogg-it down at Dough’s famous hot dog joint. We met up with Anna and Travis and they escorted us over to the dog house, which was packed as usual. We damn near froze to death as we waited outside to get in. Dough was happy to see us and when he found out that we were indeed the Gentleman Jesse/Paul Collins fabulous road show he invited us all to whatever we wanted … very cool dude, as Warren would say. Jesse and Warren had the rattle snake sausage while the rest of us had more normal fare. It was good as it always is.

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Warren making some tea.

Paul Collins Tour Journal: On the road with Gentleman Jesse and His Men.

Memphis, Tennessee
It’s Tuesday morning and I have already had my grits and eggs! The boys are just waking up. We kicked ass last night at the Hi-Tone, it was the second night of the Paul Collins Beat & Gentleman Jesse and his Men whirl wind tour.

It almost didn’t happen, Monday morning as we were getting up at the Jesse Smith mansion in East Atlanta things were looking dodgy. I had been laying low all week as we rehearsed up the show and hung out around the house having fabulous meals and just chilling. I was itching to get on the road, but in the early morning hours pour ole’ Jesse woke up with a 102 degree fever and no voice! His lovely girlfriend Karen had to rush him to the Piedmont emergency room for we were fearing the end might be near for poor old Jesse! Thank god for modern medicine, they gave him a few shots in the ass and pumped him full of antibiotics, and at 4:30 p.m. we were ready to roll!

We called the Hi-Tone and told them we were running a little late and would probably not make sound check. They said not to worry and that worse things had happened.

So we hauled ass for Memphis in the Silver Bullet Van. It was dark and raining as we pulled up to the Hi-Tone and loaded in our gear. Tyler Kieth and the Apostles already had their gear on stage and were ready to rock. We wolfed down a really good pizza jumped into our stage clothes had a few whiskies and at about midnight we hit the stage.

This was only our 2nd show but the band was starting to sound like a frieght train out of control in all the right places. As we carreened through the set it was clear to all in the room that this was indeed maximum Rock N Roll! Today we will chill in Memphis, go to Stax and have some BBQ at the Cozy Corner, for tomorrow is another day on the Road!

(Photos courtesy of Paul Collins).

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Call it the home field advantage, but ex-Nerves drummer Paul Collins’ show at the Earl Saturday night was fantastic to say the least. Not to say that his last show at the Earl back in August wasn’t a good one, but this grand unveiling of the line-up of the Beat, featuring Jesse Smith (bass), Dave Rahn (drums) and Warren Bailey (guitar), wielded a much stronger dose of chemistry than what the prior Beat brought last time around. If ever there was a time to catch Paul Collins, it was Saturday night.

It’s interesting to note that at the same time Paul Collins’ Beat was tearing it up at the Earl, British Ska band the English Beat was playing across town at the Loft, which has to have set some sort of historical precedent. In case you aren’t familiar with the story, the English Beat has to alter their name in the states because Mr. Collins already had the name for his far superior power pop outfit. Photographer Perry Julien shot some photos at the other Beat show .

(Photos by Chad Radford)

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