Fishhead Blues

Gimme' Heat to Eat!

I'm taking a page from an old friend this weekend and going to hear AND taste the blues with Mr. Bill Wharton, aka "The Sauce Boss" up in Orlando. Talk about hot...Bill's slide playing is every bit as burn-alicious as his hoit sauce "Liquid Summer."

When Bill comes to town, I just get this overwhelming urge to do things that hurt. I put too much spice in my food. I listen to music turned up way too loud. I yell at the dog. I beat on my drums. And I stand out in lighting storms and howl at the thunder. It must be the dead of summer in central Florida, and "the livin' is easy, and the fisheads are jumpin'."

I played three weekends in a row, with three different bands at the same bar, and I guess I am just in a mood to hear one of my favorite blues guys jack it up another notch and buzz saw the crowd of suits that show up at the House of Blues in Orlando. If there is anyone that can cut through the crowd and get to the meat, it is Bill Wharton. "Let the Big Dog eat!"

In fact, Bill is so inspiring to my musical persona, that I will probably do some songwriting this weekend. I already have the nuts and bolts to a song I am writing for Bill called, "Gimme' Heat to Eat." I feel certain he will leave me sweating and drained Saturday night, and Sunday I will revive myself with a cold brew and some hot gumbo and go on to write some justifiably nasty and clever lyrics for songs about snakes, liquor, women, gambling and money. Ain't life grand?

It seems that lately, I have been on a tilt to acquire more musical toys than I am really allowed, except that I find that as I am still divorced, there is nobody to stop me from going to the music store whenever I damn well please. And while there, I just pick out what I want, beat on it for a while, and then take it home like a shiny new pet dog. The result is that I have a new Telecaster, a new Stratocaster and a new Tube amp with way more power than I can justify, which is of course the criteria all guitar players use to purchase amps—they get one that is way louder than any mortal can actually listen to.

But my base urges do not end with simple acquisition. No. I am now in the process of getting custom pickguards, replacing the neck on the Tele with a hard to find vintage "V" neck in satin finish, and getting quotes on having the Tele body painted Fender "Surf Green" to ameliorate my desperate need to move to the Carribean and languish with my extensive musical instrument collection in a beach bar where I play roots music and drink no-name rum with nothing but ice. Again, ain't life grand?

So here is my advice for the present...eat gumbo with lots of hot sauce, fire up whatever musical instrument you play, even if it is just the howling, off key raving of your own voice, like something caught in a bear trap, and flip the world a finger to show your utter disregard for your own cosmic safety and the natural order of things, because as we all know—there is nothing natural about the order of things as we know them.