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winter update, photos, bottletree nye show, etc.


i'm attempting some sort of coherent year-end-review later in the week, but i'll preface that post with this summation of winter thus far, including the festivities...

xmas was pretty much flawless... i'm quite pleased with my gifts, and i'm fairly confident that everyone appreciated mine... including the rare/esoteric stocking stuffers courtesy of the cold war era. i spent xmas with alison and her family in fairhope and got a lot of hours logged in playing wii tennis with alison's sister's husband bill. good stuff. alison's dad kicked my ass a few times at fake tennis for good measure. we also had a xmas-day dinner at uncle sam's ranch for wayward dogs. totally.

we got off to a late start, but alison and i eventually made our way over to mcshan's girlfriend dawn's house for some treats and wine... around 10pm we visited the wells nye party and had some bubbly and beer and amusing conversations with clint, liz, brad lyons and that elle mac genius lady... eventually making our way to bottletree for this year's event which was themed: 'exile at bottletree' : rolling stones tribute night.





we intended to get to bottletree around 11pm, but by the time we made it backstage, it was already 11:45. we spent a few minutes watching vulture whale and chatting with friends... and out of nowhere... BOOM... the countdown began! two years before, to the minute... i had been standing 12 feet away, on stage - doing the countdown to the bottletree audience.


shortly after 12... jody nelson, john strohm, greg slamen and i were joined on stage by mr. wayne perkins, who is a local rock n' roll luminary who spent some time as a rolling stone. we had done a 45 minute rehearsal a few days before (without wayne), and were prepared to play 3 or 4 songs. we ended up playing 5, as the crowd kinda-sorta wanted an encore. we played the following rolling stones staples:

moonlight mile
sway
honkey tonk women
jumpin' jack flash
start me up

although we were under prepared, the sold-out crowd carried us along and we ended up performing some solid renditions in my opinion. i've never been particularly proud of my live drumming, but i was thankfully quite solid. we rounded out the night doing the usual drinking and chatting.. photos... etc. - and i still haven't had a cigarette since september.
thanks to liz wells, morgan johnston & hannah slamen for the photos.


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