Texas Special and Suzi's Birthday Bash

Kel was originally going to do this review, and she was working on it in her blog section on MySpace. Well, I checked it out and started thinking, man, she’s already done so much work on it over there, with pictures and everything. Now she’s going to have to come back and do it all over here. Too much work. So I told her to just leave it on MySpace and people can go read it over there. So go check out Kel's take on the night! Go to
http://www.myspace.com/mindlessdrizzle
and read the blog entry entitled "Friday Night - A Little Bit 'O Everything."

And, just for fun, I’ll give you my take, too! Here it is:

After talking to M’Lissa over in the forum and hearing the manager of the Elbow Room rave about how good Texas Special is, I’ve been wanting to check them out. So when Kel said, “How ‘bout dinner and some music?” I suggested Janitzio’s and some Texas Special at the nearby Elbow Room, then heading over to Rock City for Suzi’s (of Suzi’s Rock Page) birthday bash. Well, the tamales were dry, but the music was hot!

Texas Special

At the Elbow Room, we met the guys in Texas Special and spoke to them for a few minutes before they went on, and if you asked Kel and me which one we thought was the singer, we would have been wrong. Because, looking at James Ponder - slender with long wavy blond hair and big innocent eyes, you just don’t expect him to start beltin’ out the blues. But that’s exactly what he did. He has one of those great low gritty bluesy voices, and enough range and versatility to pull off everything from CCR to Black Sabbath. It’s like...Robert Plant channeling B.B. King.

James Ponder

And as good as he is on vocals, he’s even better on guitar. This dude can play! (Check him out jamming on Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” over on the Video Page.) Alternately making love to his guitar and just beating the crap out of it, fingers flying, strings bending, now and then giving it a strong bump with his knee for good measure, James churns out a steady stream of kickin’ solos. With (his brother?) Brad Ponder back there on bass, thumping away with a peaceful look on his face and psychedelic lights slowly spinning around him and Delrick providing hypnotic rhythms on drums and percussion, this band forces you to just sit back, mellow out and jam along. They definitely had us in the groove.

Brad Ponder

Delrick

So much so that we had a hard time wanting to get up and leave this groove for the loud craziness over at Rock City, we were so down in it. But we finally, after waiting for M’Lissa to get there so we could meet her (Hi M’Lissa! We’ll have to come hang longer with you guys soon!), we managed to tear ourselves away and face the madness.

When we walked into Rock City Bar, Heather Leather was just finishing up their set. This band is fronted by two women on guitar, bass & vocals backed by a male drummer. If I understood what Suzi said correctly, I think they’re both somewhere around 40. That may be true, but it’s irrelevant. I’m not much of a judge on girls, but going on the reaction of the guys in the place, these chicks are hot! And rockin’! I rarely get to see a female just tearing up a guitar and it’s a great thing to see. I wish we had caught more of their show.

Heather Leather

Next up was Sintense, kicking some rock-n-roll butt as always. Their set was shorter than usual, so unfortunately I didn’t get to hear all of my favorite Sintense songs. They did do my #1 fave, “Probandt,” but they changed it up some. This version was missing the thumping beats that I love so much, but it had a cool kinda psychedelic guitar solo that I really liked.

Sintense

The party was really going now, with Suzi handing out prizes (we didn’t win anything) and trying to find a woman brave/drunk enough to take off her top (I don’t think she ever found one). Then Rev Jones (bassist for Michael Schenker Group), the singer and drummer from Blind Sacrifice and a great guitarist (I didn’t catch who he was) hit the stage doing some hard-rocking cover tunes and the party kicked up another notch. Rev Jones is something to watch. His head is shaved other than a high dreadlock ponytail which he whips around like a human helicopter. He’s lean, mean, covered with tattoos and charged with energy. The highlight for me (and I think some others would agree) was when Rev took the mike for Judas Priest’s “Victim of Changes.” I caught a video clip, but not the whole song, because I ran out of room on my camera’s memory card, but you can check out the clip over on the Video Page. There’s also a clip of the guitarist doing the solo from “Crazy Train” over there.

Rev Jones

It was a great night of music, and Happy Birthday to Suzi, who knows how to throw a hell of a party!

Where you can catch em:

According to the schedule on their website, you can catch Texas Special at Kennigan’s on March 11th and back at the Elbow Room March 24th.

Sintense will be at Tiffany Billiards April 1st.

Of course, you can catch Suzi over at Suzi’s Rock Page.

Thanks Kel, I had a blast! It's been too long!