Many of you may already know, as I posted on Facebook Sunday, that I’ve been working up a new band with some musical pals...we're calling it The Morpholinos (nucleotide analogs that recognize and bind short sequences)(humanoids who bind songs together for an enjoyable evening) and includes the humans Karl Hoffmann, Neil McCallion, and Nick Augustine.
When you get together with a new combination of players you never quite know what the mix will sound like. That’s part of the fun and the mystery. With this cast of characters I’m hearing the Texas Tornados meet up with Nick Lowe and John Hiatt in New Orleans for a drink or two.
Neil McCallion has had a long-running band in town called The Mighty Maxwells. Over the years, I’m ashamed to say, I just never caught the band live. But I will say that Neil knows how to pen a song so we’ll be featuring several of his originals. He’s a triple threat as a songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist. (He also plays bass in his sister Nancy’s band, The McCallion Band!)
Speaking of bass, most of you know Nick Augustine as a bassist. He was one of the original members of Tucson’s legendary Rainer and Das Combo. I’ve played drums with Nick on bass with Mitzi Cowell’s the Valiants (nine years ago!) on several occasions, too. But he also knows his way around the drum kit, that man.
And the third bassist in the band is my long-time pal, Karl Hoffmann. Karl and I got to know each other and play music together in the 1980s during our Lawrence, Kansas days. Now settled in Tucson for the last seven years, Karl has become a journeyman bassist about town. He and I also hold down the rhythm section for Kevin Pakulis who keep us quite busy.
So, three or four years ago I started thinking about the idea of producing a show where various singer/players would reinterpret songs from my catalogue. Since the early 2000s, I can lay claim to having written about 100 songs, 80 or so which have been recorded on the seven CDs released from that time to 2021. Most of those are my arrangements, along with help from Karl Hoffmann on the most recent four CDs, so the idea of hearing what someone else would do with the material was intriguing. Then came the pandemic.
Fast forward to now. I started approaching some of my musician friends last fall with this idea, those who I thought might enjoy giving this a go, and a few said yes. So I booked a couple of ‘off’ nights with Greg Haver at Monterey Court in Tucson and went to work. Instead of being just a singer/songwriter night, I thought it might be most fun to present the musicians singing my songs during the first half of the evening, whilst enjoying the fine cuisine, and then the ‘let your hair down and stomp on the dance floor’ portion of the show with The Morpholinos during the second half, whilst quaffing beer and other libations.
I’m calling this event An Evening of Tallsome Tales and the first show will be Thursday, February 24 from 6:30-9:30. $5 cover…reservations are recommended. Many thanks to Don Armstrong, Liz Cerepanya, Petie Ronstadt, and Dan Davis (Here’s Dan on mandolin and vocals) for coming along for the ride!
And if you like planning ahead, we’ll be presenting another version of Tallsome Tales Thursday, April 28. Catherine Zavala and limell’ lawson, along with their M2M cohorts Tom Dukes and Liz Fletcher, have been working up three of my songs…and it looks like both Luddites, Dan Hostetler and Dan Davis will chip in, and Mark Anthony Febbo has also expressed interest. Dang, I’m blessed!
And now…