the hotdamns, red clay river

i went to see the ever-awesome the hotdamns friday night. each time i see them they get better and better. they debuted a new song at their last show (at gallery 5 with o'circus), one that has yet to be titled. i say they should call it "saturday night hooligans" but they dont like that as much as i. here is a snippet of the song that they deleted from their comments when i posted it. fuck that!


one of their opening bands was red clay river, whom i've seen before. dan bivin's grisly voice and backwoods riffs really hits home somehow. there was even a girl (presumably his wife/gf) stomping along to the beat with some radical boots. he has a slab of wood on the floor which he uses with his foot to keep time. check them out asap.

red clay river, the fox hunt

red clay river was one of two openers for mason dixon disaster's cd release show saturday. dan bivins played banjo and steel guitar while his associate, aaron parker, played his custom-made (by himself) guit-cell. that is, it had a cello base and a guitar head for a sweet sound. being from roanoke made for a realistic, rusty sound as bivins' voice spread on grisly charm.

the fox hunt was made up of four gentleman, two of whom switched between double bass and guitar. they are also here. the other two were a fiddler and mandolin player (who also switched to banjo). their blended four part harmony was impressive, especially when they went a capella. the final song was "old drinking song" during which the female singer from MDD joined in (drunkenly). below please see a horrible snippet youtube of them from another performance. it was the only one i could find. anyway, their music was swinging and hollering and just lovely. oh, and the fiddler's arms were beautiful:




i didnt stay for much of MDD because 1)the show started about two hours later than advertised and we had some other plans and 2)MDD isnt my thing. they are loud, but that doesnt make them good. the female singer is alright, but she just stands there during half of the songs doing nothing (sometimes using a harmonica to do that nothing). they have a new bassist (who is in marionette and barstool heroes, both of whom i've mentioned in this blog before).