I have to make this about me for a minute, I may have mentioned here or there I am involved in music. Myself and a good friend and bass player (/waves at Jimmy) have been doing some recording for the last couple of years. Well a guitar player I used to gig with a long time ago called one day, looking for something to do. I told him what we were doing and he jumped aboard. Things progressed to the point where we decided to look for a drummer, found a great guy on Craigslist (hey Randy!), and we have been practicing for the last few months. Which is part of the why I haven’t been blogging much but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, there was a local band phenomenon in these parts years ago, they were known as *TR Crooks. They had an album with a lot of good music on it, but they are renowned for their song Farmin Man. I have played Farmin Man in the past in a cover band situation. If you want to see people get off their butts and fill up the floor, Farmin Man is a southern anthem that everyone in these parts loves to hear.

Well me and the guys I’m playing with have all done the cover band thing to death, from the beginning Jimmy and I decided this time we are doing original stuff. Doing other peoples songs is fun, but nowhere near as rewarding as seeing your own stuff come to life. My aforementioned buddy Jimmy and I are responsible for the writing and composing thus far, but we just have to stray from the originals and incorporate Farmin Man in our set. So I have been practicing with it, I’ve played it before so it won’t be a big deal guitarwise, but I’m also having to carry much of the vocal parts, not because I’m a vocalist or pretend to be one, but because I wrote much of our original stuff and I know where the words go. 🙂

So I have been working on the song Farmin Man, and I decided to look up TR Crooks on the net and see what I could find. Well I found the album I remember in its entirety posted on Youtube, and I decided I would share it with WP. Farmin Man is 3rd on the album. Song of David is definately worthy of mention, much of the rest is pretty good stuff too. I swear I can’t hear Song of David without have to wipe my eye…

I saw these guys live a few times way back in the day playing roadside redneck bars. They were really good, and so many people in W. Tennessee have an undying love for TR Crooks. One of the guys (Jimmy Stewart) in the band by the way, went on and made a name for himself, winning a Grammy for a song or two he wrote. The group lost a member here and there, and faded away without ever becoming widely known, which is a shame. But all of us who do remember them, remember them well.

Believe it or not, there is an ad on a local tobacco shop door, where you can pull off a phone number, and get guitar lessons with none other than Jimmy Stewart! I keep thinking I ought to get me a lesson just to formerly meet the guy. And no I do not smoke or otherwise use tobacco, I quit that habit cold turkey a long time ago, but I do have a tobacco addict in the house 😉

I saw a more recent TR Crooks short acoustic set (2 songs) on Youtube as well, one of the songs here is Song of David. This is a far cry from what they used to be and do, it is still quite good, as far as I know the singer (Jimmy Stewart) is the sole original member.Of course if I’m wrong, and this being the internet, 27 people will chime in to correct me, and I welcome it when it comes! There are some things I do not know and I’m proud of it.

*TR is short for Tennessee River.

As for me and the guys I’m practicing with, we haven’t booked anything yet, but we are close to being ready. I tossed out a band name the other day that hasn’t been shit canned yet, so we might have a name soon. Double Aught. If you don’t know what that is it’s a pretty bad ass shotgun round, I hope its a fit for a pretty bad ass band. It ain’t set in stone yet though. A name hasn’t been our number one priority, getting things nailed down is issue #1.

Our drummer is formerly from Memphis and I understand there are a couple of places there that favor bands with original stuff, so we may be headed that way soon. We passed an opportunity to play a music festival at a place called Starlake Ampitheater on the 12th cuz we just need to tighten up a bit first. It’s a slow moving train getting a band tightened up to where you are ready to play live and do it well, but it’s soon the leave the station, assuming there are no extinction events, or guys dropping out in the next month or two.  🙂

Just for the record, we are all too old for this to be some kind of mid life crisis thing, we are doing this because it is just part of our DNA, that and we are just too stupid to quit.

Oh, here is a studio recording of one of my originals, this was done a long time ago, we don’t have this vocalist with us, and we have omitted the acoustic solo early, but the the rest is pretty close. I was responsible for all guitars. This one will be in our line up. I wish I had more than rough demos of our other stuff, as soon as we knuckle down and do some real recording I will see what I can do to get some of it up.

That’s our musical history lesson for the day, I hope you enjoyed it!