Dark Side of the Moonshine

As the song says, you can’t mix Deep Purple and Bill Monroe, but it’s not really true. I did find out it was hard to get a date for a show that takes so much splaining.


It’s turned out to be harder to meet people than I anticipated, but when you add trying to entice them into going to a Hayseed Dixie show... No Deep Purple tunes that I’ve heard, but AC/DC, Black Sabbath, KISS, Green Day, Van Halen, all done as bluegrass complete with banjo, mandolin, fiddle and such. A sort of hillbilly headbanger thing that appeals to an audience enamored of Richard Cheese, Weird Al, Tim Wilson and Luther Wright and the Wrongs. An audience of me.

So lacking a date, I gave my ticket to a guy getting ready to pay at the door, who bought me a round by way of thanks.

In my usual slow-on-the-uptake way, I only realized on Saturday how much ‘Hayseed Dixie’ rolls off the tongue like ‘AC/DC.’ If you’re ripped on corn liquor, it really starts to sound about the same. For instance, if you’ve drunk enough to believe the bit about these hillbillies discovering hard rock through records recovered from a car wreck and played on an old Victrola at 78 RPM (mighty fine country music).

So anyway, I never go to shows. For starters, I can’t afford it, but even if I could I always forget about them until I hear someone telling me how great _______ was last night. And I was married for a long time to someone who doesn’t exactly share my tastes, and as the marriage became the Petty Dispute Festival, concerts were just cannon fodder.

So when a guy I work with told me Hayseed Dixie was coming to Davy’s Uptown, I asked him if he was going. ‘I’ll run it by my wife,’ he said, not sounding too hopeful.

I don't have to do that!


This was a curiously elevating realization, that the only reasons I can’t go to shows now is because I can’t afford it and would forget to go anyway. But my inner child really locked onto that, and it became something I just had to do. Except I did have to run it by my wife, because normally I’d have had the girls that night, and this isn’t exactly an ‘all ages’ sort of deal. Fortunately, she was great about it, didn’t even call me on my obviously childish motives.


Now I find myself imagining rockgrass arrangements of ‘Love Roller Coaster’ and ‘Handsome Devil.’ Ohio Players and Smiths on banjo, fiddle, mandolin and such? Why not? ‘War Pigs’ worked. It was a little scary being in front during that one, in fact, because you have the stage on one side and a near riot on the other. The only thing that trumped it for driving the audience berserk was ‘Dueling Banjos,’ which isn’t, strictly, ‘rockgrass’ as it wasn’t originally a hard rock tune.

Squeal like a pig, motherfucker.

Ooh, that line should help my meta...

And I had a great time, if you can’t tell from the pics. And yes, there was considerable shotgun marriage material there, encouraging the bad behavior of those around them, bless their hearts.

I fell in love with a twin, too. But I lacked the presence of mind to get her name. Anyway, I can’t say my behavior with the girls who took the stage during the encore was the kind of thing that would win me a lot of points. Took her picture, though. The one in the gray sweater, for some reason I wasn’t as interested in the one in plaid. Can’t figure that out, since a costume would be worth extra points on my usual scale, and it’s a little weird to think there’s a ‘hot one’ among identical twins.


There were other Hayseed Dixie Chicks there, of course. And I took as many pictures as batteries allowed. Well I tried to take a short video but my cheapo camera only has that feature to taunt me. The band encourages recording and sharing the recordings, but I'm not interested in making sure you never listen to Hayseed Dixie again, so it's strictly still shots. Fewer of the band turned out than I hoped, but the women turned out swell.

Even the girls who have gone past attracting a freak who'd like this show and gone on to be on the verge of going into labor. What kind of effect do you think this show would have on a baby?

And for those of you who, like me, haven’t been to Davey’s since Ronald Reagan was President: don’t worry, they haven’t cleaned it. And you still get kicked out if you wont’ drink an Old Style.

There's a whole gallery of photos I took in the cyber junkyard.
Including nekkid hayseeds...