A Vein of Gold...

This just totally cracked me up...
After Friday's unbelievable show in Winston- Salem NC, where we played to an audience of 6000, we returned home to do a show of maybe 12 tonight; the class reunion of George Washington High School class of 1980...they were few but they were mighty. Considering the fiasco that almost caused it not to happen, it turned out to be probably the easiest gig we've ever done.

As I sit during one of our breaks at this class reunion we're doing, a well dressed woman walks up and begins to pick my brain about the type of band the Carpenter Ants are... "well I've heard you all are an R and B band, I've heard you're counrty ( to picture her voice think, Thurston Howell III, from the TV show, Gilligan's Island !!), so I'm trying to establish here what's your deal." As I try to explain to her the types of music that we cover, she now wants to know individual history, so off in that direction I go, twists and turns abound.
Then she says that she wants to hire us to do a celebration of her husbands death ( you can't make this stuff up folks !!), she explains that the location of the event is to be held on a mountain top retreat, and that once we were there we wouldn't want to leave. She also explained that they (she and her late husband ) hired Bob Thompson (the great jazz pianist; look for a story on him soon, in the Spotlight On link) to play their wedding and she wanted something more festive in honor of the husbands death.
Now I'm completely certain that her intention for this is not in that way that it's being portrayed here, but it still just struck me as funny, especially after we went back to the stage to play and Jupie (our drummer, Jupiter Little) exclaims..." well now, we seem to have hit a vein of gold," and later in the drive home he says, "I started getting that Black Widow feeling."

I know, it's sick humor, but you gotta admit, this is the true essence of being in a band, and playing for a throng of 6000 one day and 12 the next, you have to make light of it...all.

This post is dedicated to James "Jupiter" Little, without a shadow of doubt one of the funniest men I've ever known.
It also goes out to Heather H ( the woman who inspired this story), please call or e-mail me soon, we'll be more than happy to play for your celebration.