Route 33 Rhythm and Brews W/Trent Summar & The New Row Mob

So this weekend I jumped in a fully stuffed big white van with 6 road musicians and headed north for an overnight gig in the still frozen north to sell t-shirts for "Trent Summar and the New Row Mob". Trent Summar is a one of Nashville's great artists who never got his due but is still one of the best entertainers around. He now has a day gig writing for Universal Publishing. He allowed me (thanks Trent) to go along with them in helping me learn how to "road manage and sell merchandise".  The place was in a cornfield, 20 miles from BFE. We got to the gig, unloaded the gear (and my lil merch table), did a sound check, ate and headed to the hotel for a coupla hours of rest. Route 33 Rhythm & Brews is an honest to god road-house owned by Ron Lininger who with his whole dang family run the place and who's owned the place now for 14 years and runnin.

 Ron's a big, long blond haired, passionate REAL music guy who told me "as crazy as it sounds, I only book bands and the music that I love". He promotes the bands through the very few avenues possible being in the middle of now where and DAMN if people don't show up (it was a full house)! Local newspapers and radio Ron says are pretty useless for him and most people come from the bigger cities 45 min. to and hour half away via his e-mails, phone calls, word of mouth and website postings. To give you an idea about Ron, the really big fella stood behind me (at the merch table) "man-ing" the door and giving his own standing ovations, hollers and claps the whole show and ended the night (abandoning the "door") and moving to the front row. He IS a true fan of music! Trent Summar is one of the few artists who don't take himself too seriously, doing everything from walking like a rooster to flopping around on the floor like in a last gasp death seizure (DAMN FUN-NY!). He plays some of his big Nashville cuts (i.e., Jack Ingram's "Love You"), hits along with his great older stuff. A LOT of young artists could learn SO much from him (they call it entertainment, people)! It is just some hilarious (and damn entertaining) shit that the crowd goes crazy over. It was like I was back out in Texas again just enjoying the shit outta the music with a loud and crazy crowd. The band was entertaining as hell too.  There's Soup (from the original "Ozark Mountain Daredevils") playing bass and occasionally singing into a mic stand, Dave who sang and played (kinda) a bad-assed version of "Wild Thang" (and playing drums when he was not singing), Ken-who oddly enough I'd went to school with 20+ years ago but never met (and has a wickedly SICK sense of humor) playing guitar and singing and Jim, the subdued nice guy (every band needs one) who played steel & guitar. I don't know if these guys make a bunch of money doing this but you can tell that it's like a vacation for them and kind of away of getting away from the music bizz (even though they do get paid to play). The bar itself was a true "road house" with some pretty damn good food to boot. The locals/crowd are all small town people who are truly passionate about the music. They drink like fish and are loud as hell (there must've been a sale on Yeager or something but I abstained seeing as it tastes like a mix of motor oil and cough syrup to me). On this night the crowd demanded 2 encores and Trent and the guys closed with their eff-ing GREAT cover of "He Stopped Loving Her Today". Btw, my "merchandising" skills were excellent (O.K., I just stood there and took their money). All I know was in the end it was a GREAT night for me cuz all I had to do was to watch a great show, sell some t-shirts and drink free beer! Thanks guys for letting me free-load. :)

"Wild Thang" being an accurate title.

This is shortly before Soup threw up from "Head-banging"

 Btw, I'm doing this stuff to experience things that I've not experienced before and find things that I like doing. Some people may look at it as a step back, I'm looking at it as just taking a step (gonna have to look back on it to see which way I "stepped"). This week I'm going to "work the door" at a downtown bar "The Wheel" for a coupla nights (7PM-3AM). Oughta be interesting and ya oughta come on down! Over and out, S

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