johnnyhickman.com road blog 2

Johnny and David..."The Cracker / CVB Acoustic Duo Tour 05." Western run Day 5. Hello friends....thank you everyone who braved the relentless rains to come and see us. The first three shows have been an absolute pleasure for us...

2/20 : The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano CA was delightfully packed. The first show of a tour can be a little rusty but due to the great crowd response we soon felt right at home replete with synapsis firing back to life. David and I had a good night taking the occasional boisterous request (including one from my two year old son) and pulling out some rarely played songs.

2/21 : The Big Fish Pub in Tempe AZ. This cool little punk rock club did a great job of setting the show up for us last minute after the original venue closed mysteriously. The night was whiskey fueled and rowdy for an "acoustic" show. Our buddies The Drive By Truckers would have been proud me thinks. The staff at the club were hospitably appreciative....so much so that shots of a certain German poison were lined up on the bar after the show which led to....

2/22: Solar Culture Tucson AZ. Hangovers pummelling us from within, we inched our way from Tempe to our long beloved Tucson. David started the show with this recently learned wisdom...."Never try to keep up with your 25 year old tour manager". I’ll drink to that....water. For those of you who may not know, Cracker has had a decade and a half love affair with Tucson. We recorded herein 93, naming the 4 song EP after the town....it contained the first recording of "Eurotrash Girl". Years later wrote a batch of songs here which became most of our record "Forever". I recently returned to record most of my solo record here as well with local alt country legend Teddy Morgan producing.

2/23 : With our multi tasking, multi talented tour manager/soundman Casey at the wheel we made the long drive to San Diego through sheets of silvery desert rain. The storms out here have been so relentless that the normally gray brown desert is now a bright green....the weeds overtaking the cacti for visual attention. Beautiful day of gray, stopping for a fine, cheap Mexican lunch halfway. "Life is good...or so it seems."

johnnyhickman.com road blog 1

Greetings all. Although I plan to make this about the road, my first post here comes from home. The closest I've been to the road lately was a trip to Los Angeles 2 days ago to see Michele Shocked playing with the Sin City Allstars at Molly Malone's. I shuffled in with my buddies Sluggo and Mark from the band Skeetertruck. A Maker's Mark on the rocks was promptly placed in my hand......nice when your friends know you. Michelle was in fine form as were Sin City. For those who may not know, Sin City is a collective of Southern California based cowboy rock/country musicians. They organize the Gram Parsons tribute show known as "Gramfest" every year. Gram's daughter Polly is part of the scene. Wednesday's theme (these characters like themes) was The Dukes of Hazzard. They had a constant silent movie of episodes from the 70s cult favorite projecting over the audience and onto the opposite brick wall. You could sip a beverage and watch constant muscle car chases interspersed with close ups of Daisy Duke's famous back bumper as rough and ready country and southern rock faves shook the rafters. They called me up to sing a number so I launched into Merle Haggard's (hey...sounds like Hazzard right?) "Mamma Tried". Of course the band, many of whom are Bakersfield alumni knew it like the backs of their PBR grippin hands. It was well worth the drive for this Inland Empire desertbilly. I can't promise that all of these posts will be as coherent as this one...(jet lag, sleep deprivation and or alcohol may be a factor) but I will speak my mind and enjoy myself here from time to time. Thanks for checking in friends. All the best, Johnny