2004

20 August– NYC, kenny’s castaways in greenwich village

23 May – 5 June, Club Hoppin’ in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts

Lurky’s back in action, fer sher, fer sher. We played an interesting variety of venues and clubs over the last two weekends. After rolling back into town from the Beyond Bluegrass Tour in Kentucky, we hit the AS220 in Providence on Sunday night, 30 May. That’s a happening little venue, with funky looks – a scholarly-type of rock ‘n’ roll hall somehow. There were three bands in the lineup: chez us, The Brother Kite and Clones of Sam. I liked both other bands. The Brother Kite’s wall-of-guitar sound put me in the mind of Radiohead, and they were a nice bunch of folks – plus they had a chick bass player – and you know that hit Lurky’s homestrings really well – hahaha. The Clones sounded very “Who-ish” to me. Check ‘em out! Sound man there did a great job and was a pleasure to work with. On the 27th, we invaded the New Wave Café for a set, and sold a few CDs and Tee’s.

June 4th found us pounding down the road in Miss Kitty II toward Portland, CT where we played the Soaring Eagle for the first time. That’s a cool little biker club with pool tables and some good eats. Club seems to draw an eclectic age group, but they all dig live music and Beyond Blonde, so that’s cool. We sold 5 or 6 CDs in there and got a few on our emailing list… oh and yeah, got some more shows at a higher price – now ya can’t beat that can ya? We all met a very good-looking biker chap in there with a naaaaaaace No’th Caholanah accent - can’t remember his name, but will definitely remember his face and drawl… snicker, snicker. ‘Nuff drooling. That’s a bit of a drive and we took a wrong turn on the way home, but it only put us a few miles out of our way – takin’ the scenic route we were. Big Kudo’s and thank you’s to Lisa, who has, much to her chagrin, pretty much become the band’s driver. Donna had to work the next day, so she was sleeping, and Suek was sleeping too. And Lurky? Welp, I have this bad habit of falling asleep when I drive, specially at night, so needless to say, the band don’t really like the idea of me taking the controls of the van at 3 in the morning.

The next night we played the Capeway Manor in Brockton… interesting old building that apparently used to be some wealthy person’s house. Crowd filed in all at the same time, and all in the second set – thank god. Otherwise, this would have just been a good paid rehearsal. We rocked out at this show and sold a few CDs. Funny thing – one guy who bought one doesn’t even own a CD player… now there’s a dedicated fan! Thank you very much! All in all, it was a pretty good night… well, ‘cept for the really drunk guy who came in at the end of the evening, tripped over a table and a chair and then proceeded to ATTEMPT to heckle the band. I say “attempt” because he was really too drunk to talk. Good thing our fans/friends are nice cuz one of ‘em wanted to whip out a can of serious ass-whooppin’… but he decided to take a leak instead. ‘Course, reckon that’s what he thought of the drunken goof anyway. Ah… what the world needs, is one more drunk in Brockton. Lurky’s over ‘n’ out

LURKY’S LONG LACUNA, 15 Feb through the “Beyond Blonde: Beyond Bluegrass Tour” & Beyond

Hiya folks and sorry for the L O N N N N N G G G G G G absence. Are you happy Lisa? Richard? Dave S? Rachel? Did I miss anyone? Now shut up all of ya’s! ;-) Where was I? Ah yes. Welp, the girls and boy of Beyond Blonde just returned from their Kentucky Tour, aka “The Beyond Bluegrass Tour.” But trust me baby, tweren’t no banjo twanging, high-ended harmonies waffling on about the “Orange Blossom Special.” No sirreee, just the I’m gonna slap you in your face rock ‘n’ roll of the BB band. So we hit the road in our new stretch van, named “Ms. Kitty Two” on Thursday, 13 May. Hats off and sweet denouements to Ms. Kitty the First; she’s gonna retire but still awaits us faithfully in Lisa’s driveway. Nothing real spectacular happened during the drive, though we did meet some… ahem… interesting southerners at the hotel in Morgantown, WV. Seems some road-working boyz were very interested in the rock chickies who rolled into town. Too bad we didn’t have a show there. Anyhoo, played Mia’s and The Phoenix Ballroom in Lexington, the former to great noise and abandon as the shots of Jaegermeister flowed freely. We were turned onto and humbled by, the awesome hospitality of Steve and Lucy, the entertainment buyer and owner, respectively, of The Phoenix. We stayed at their very cool and superbly decorated house and visited their “out-in-the-sticks” place for a great BBQ. Thanks Steve and Lucy! Had a cool guitar player named Sean sit in – keep rockin boy! Thanks and hello to the HOG rider who sped me through the KY back roads to buy a bottle of Mr. Daniels (yeah, I know, Tennessee whiskey in the State de Bourbon; what can I say? Old habits die hard). Also got to meet our Kentucky connection, Mr. Kool, a.k.a. R.C. Carter, who booked many of the Louisville shows for us. He and Steve were a riot after the show, regaling us with tales of their Height-Ashbury adventures… and I’m talking in the 60s babe, so you get the picture, even if they can’t remember much of it. RC’s the only guy I’ve seen grilling omelets with a harmonica. Whas that you say? Yep. Grillin’ omelets with a harmonica. Well, that, and about 10 pounds of butter, vegetables, cheese… ya know… the whole garden ball of wax. Pass the sausage please… back to reality. Now what in good God’s name was the harmonica for? Aside from the fact that RC can spit out a few good blues tunes on it, he just plain downright would grab that harmonica in the middle of cookin’ when someone was giving him sh*t for how he was making the eggs or just whenever he felt like it, and blow one short note. Then, he’d put it back in its proper place… on the stove… ya know, where every good harmonica belongs. As Suekey will testify, the omelets weren’t much to look at, but they sho was good! (Note to readers: the omelets’ looks improved over the course of the morning – Suekey ate the first one).

Then it was on to Louisville on Sunday, where we again enjoyed great hospitality by the relatives and friends of Scot Hoffman (Lt. Col., USMC retired – hoo-aah). We stayed in a 3-bedroom apartment above his mom’s house, and his sister Elaine lent us a car and showed us around town. Showed up at all our gigs, brought friends to see us, and cooked us a great dinner. In general, Elaine made the trip a WHOLE lot more fun! Thanks Elaine!

Lemmee tell ya… Lurky has a problem with the simple things in life… ya know, like one of my favorite and most-oft repeated remarks is: “Where’s my f*ckin keys?” Donna says I’m looking for a good-looking intellectual man who’ll help me find my keys. She’s right. Any takers? You know my email address. Anyway, I digress. The point is that, as usual, I forgot the keys in the house, so we had to wake one of the tenants at 0-dark-thirty in the morning. Good thing he had a sense of humor. I staggered through his apartment and up the stairs only to find everyone else already milling about the apartment - Miss Goodwrench (aka Donna) had pried her way into the flat with a screwdriver. We had four shows in Louisville, sold some CDs and T-shirts and made some new fans. Thanks again to RC, who also showed up at many of our shows and worked the door at Air Devil’s Inn!

One of the funniest things happened at Jim Porter’s on Thursday, 20 May. I went out to the van - in my band gear - to get something. Threw open the sliding door, was standing up in it leaning over the back seat, denim-mini-skirted derriere displayed proudly in the wind, when I heard the distinct sound of a large diesel engine pull into the parking lot. According to what my ears told me, the possessor of that engine was right behind me. “Must be some dude in a Ford F150 truck with a rebel flag stretched across the back window, a shotgun, and a bumper sticker that says “They’ll take my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.” Least that’s what I told myself. Then I heard “Hey Joyce… Hey… Joyce.” And ah said to mahsef, “Sef, did somebody just call yer name? Nah… couldn’ta been.” And Ah stayed bent over lookin’ for whatever Ah was lookin’ for, until Ah heard it again. So Ah decides to turn around, and Ah did, and lo and behold, the generator of that diesel engine sound belonged to a full-fledged, big-ass, red fire truck, and it was full of boyz in Louisville Fire Dept. outfits. The driver introduced himself as Eric Hoffman, Scott’s brother, and the men in red suits… they were part of the Louisville fire department. Think they scared the club workers tho… musta thought they were going to be inspected or something; the show’s promoter slinked up to the stage, wanted me to know they were here; told me to make sure and say “hello” to the Louisville Fire Dept. I said “ok” with a smile. The promoter was none the wiser.

All-n-all, the Kentucky tour went well, as we generated a lot of press down there - thanks to all those in the Lexington and Louisville area (Chevy Chaser Magazine and the Leo Weekly) for writing us up. Most interesting line came from the Leo writer, who said our band sounds like Melissa Etheridge’s “band WOULD sound if they snorted a pound of speed and learned their chops from 70s power rock bands.” Yep, we’ll take that… thank you very much… thank you very much. We’re’ also generating some national and international-level press; Gritz: Music at the Crossroads – a southern rock magazine published in South Carolina – wrote us up in their “2 Good 2 Miss” column, and that sparked some interest in the UK, yep, that’s right, Great Britain, so we received some radio airplay there the other day and our album is being reviewed in two magazines – heavy metal magazines of all things: Burn and Powerplay. Word has it that the reviewer in Burn loves us – can’t wait to see it in black ‘n’ white! We’re also getting some radio airplay in France and will be reviewed on the French version (there’s an English section too) of a website called the Road to Jacksonville.

Before our little jaunt to the saaaaaoooooouth, we played a boatload of clubs in RI and MA… a lot of our favorite digs – Okie’s in Narragansett, the End Zone in Foxboro, and Club 125 in Bradford. Also had the privilege of donating some music and good fun to Music for Middlesex II, and that’s where we encountered two other members of Aerosmith: Joey Kramer and Tom Hamilton… the effinist tighest rhythm section Ah ever laid ears on… and man, does Kramer whack the shit outta the drums. Whoddah thunk that little blue-eyed wonder would hit ‘em like that? By the way, in my book, Joey gets the “Wickedest Suit of the Band” award in the cover art of the Smith Brothers’ newest venture, “Honkin’ on Bobo”. Brings out his eyes. Love that cover of the Aretha song too.

Everywhere we play, people – bar owners, patrons, soundmen, etc - keep goin’ “What the hell are y’all doin’ playin’ in a bar? You should be at the Fleet, or wherever their local big concert stage is.” Lemmee tell ya, I’m right thankful for them saying that, and I’m agreein’ – so keep supportin’ us fans, and maybe we will! Meantime, we’re looking forward to playing the Manchester Blues Fest, Laconia, a Portuguese Festival (the Madeira Feast) in New Bedford, the Brockton Fair, and the New Bedford Whaling festival. And… I’m having a butt-truckload O’ fun. Nuff said. Ahm signin’ off. Lurky Loves ya and yer hair

NINE GIGS A ROCKIN’, 15 January – 14 February

Brrrrrrrrrrr… the butt-assed cold 4 weeks that passed between these dates found Beyond Blonde frolicking in the snow - well I mean schlepping heavy gear (that’s the sexy part of rock ‘n’ roll ya know) at several new places. On the 15th, we played Jarrod’s Place in North Attleboro for the first time and got rushed by a crowd o’ people during our sound check. Wicked it was – and we rocked da house so well that Jarrod’s has contacted us a couple times to see if we can play for them. Now whoduh thunk it? We haven’t been able to oblige them because of our playing schedule, but perhaps we will in future – who’s up for showing up? The next night, we F I N A L L Y got to play the Patriots’ club in Foxboro (officially called the End Zone). Now, hmmmmmm… what to say what to say? Well lemmee tell ya, one of the friendly employees there, who is no longer connected with the club, was tryin’ his luck with every one of the girls, but to no avail… we just weren’t buyin’ that beret he was wearin’… nuff said. };-)

The 17th, we trekked on out to the Cape and played Grumpy’s Pub in Falmouth, where we met some people from Worcester who were vacationing there. What the hell you say? Worse-ster folks vacationing in da middle of winter? Yep by golly! Me too – on the count of three, everyone raise your hands and scratch your head. One… two… THREE!

We rocked the hometown area on the 23rd when we played the Steel Horse Saloon in Portsmouth. That place is coming along nicely under its new owners – go check it out, especially in summer when, rumor has it, the place will have an upper deck that allows folks to sit outside and watch the band from above. Now the bikers will love that!

LOOK OUT because we made live recordings on the 30th and 31st at Okie’s in Narragansett and Brendan’s Pub in East Bridgewater. We got a serious encore at Okie’s and folks dug our version of “Dream On” so much, that I could actually FEEL the crowd screaming – a rush lemee tell thee. Guess this is also a good place to mention and thank all the lovely professional people who have been working with us. First, hats off to Dan Stapleton of Middlehouse Sound, who graciously brought his gear and himself to Brendan’s to provide a nice sound system for us. Frank Gardiner of Dream Edit studio, who is a top-notch soundman – he had us up and running in no time at Okie’s. Toby Holcomb was live recording engineer at both events, and traveled his Florida-baked butt all the way up here to freeze out… er… uh… I mean chill out with us. We also met some cool people who have offered other help – like the making of a new video that will soon be in the works – thanks to Richard Pacheco for that! Richard is quite a writer too – check out his review of us on CDBaby.com! Heck… buy a CD while you’re there!

Even more exciting, we played the Club Lido in Boston on February 8th as part of the Emergenza Festival. WELL… we advanced to the semi-finals, so we’ll be playing at The Paradise Rock Club in Boston in mid-April. Stay tuned ‘cause we wanna get ya’s up there for some screamin’ fan support! The ultimate prize is a trip to Germany courtesy of someone else’s money. And, by golly, Lurky’s up for dat because duh Goims got the best beer in the svelt velt! Then we “shook all night long” when we opened again for Fat Angus at Copperfield’s on the 14th. We did a show, gained a gig there (thanks again Fat Angus!), and then Hells Bells!!! … stayed there the rest-o-de-night rockin’ out with crazy Angus (aka Dave), Coop, Randy, Frenchy, and the rockin’ ass drummer! Cheers to ya, guys! Rock on Rock on Rock on. L4S.