Real alligator tour roll on

We got rained out in Norwich last night. We got an hour in. It was raining most of the time we were playing. But these folks didn’t care they were prepared with their rain gear and they were dancing in the mud. Onto Northampton mass tonight for a sold out show at the Iron Horse. Everyone is staying healthy, playing at a high level and enjoying the tour.

I certainly am enjoying meeting all my great fans from all over. So many stories I am hearing from so many fans that have been listening to me for years, but had never had a chance to see me play. And that’s always special to me. To hear how people came across my music, even if it was just the algorithm to me that’s like magic. These are music lovers that hear my stuff and dig it. It’s not your average Music consumer who just likes whatever is popular at the time. These are people that know what they like when they hear it. One guy drunkenly bitching about his wife’s taste in music listening to. Nashville contemporary country flavored music. I can’t even really call it country music. It’s country flavored. And artificially country flavored at that. He good naturally talked about the shit he gives to his wife about her music taste. I told him stay on her man. Don’t let her get away with that shit. Lol. I kid I kid. But I don’t.

Buffalo was a light crowd in a big giant venue, which is not ideal. But there were some really wonderful people there old old time old school fans going back to Gourds and early Shinyribs days. They were elated that I was playing Buffalo finally. We stayed in an Airbnb in Buffalo in a little neighborhood. Which was kind of fun. We were all very surprised at the number of spiders in Buffalo like everywhere. There were friggin spiders. There are tons of bugs as why there are lots of spiders. And there are a lot of bug bugs because they’re proximity to Lake Erie. I would imagine. But still I’ve been around other lakes that didn’t have that many spiders. Buffalo might be the spider capital of America. Some of my fans recommended since we were going to Niagara Falls on our day off the next day that we stop at a place called Kelly’s corner for lunch. For their beef on weck and their wings. It was a smallish place with most tables occupied when we got there and we were all a little bit Hangry. But one of the locals told me to just ask, and there was a big table in the back that they could come in. And sure enough it was like they reserved us the perfect table for all of us to sit together and eat. And we all agree the beef on whack is awesome very similar to the pit beef of Baltimore. And other classic beef sandwiches. But very good. The wings though! We all agree those were the best wings we’ve ever eaten in our life. And I don’t even really like wings I don’t understand them until now. Those were amazing and I’m still thinking about them. Like I might fly back to Buffalo just to eat those wings.

Some other highlights were the House concert in Joplin. Just a little old house in a little neighborhood unsuspecting neighborhood. You wouldn’t even know there was a concert venue in this house. It looks like every other house on the block. But Geoff and Jaimee a couple there said after the tornado they had to do a lot of renovations to that house as it had been severely damaged. So Jeff said that moment he reevaluated his life and what he wanted from it. Got friends and family to help him turn the house into a concert venue. It was very cool very inspiring in a great way to begin the tour.

All the Midwest shows were really great Newport, Kentucky, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis all of them we had good crowds and fun shows.

And now we’re headed up to the north east finally to Massachusetts, where we will see Peter, Lily, Gregorio and maybe Anthony? Kathy and Steve, who else. I can’t wait.

Here’s an epic jam from Domino Room in Bend Oregon—our live version of Members Only, a Bonny “Blue” Bland cover in which we also segue into Shotgun Willie by Willie Nelson and back again with a lot of cool ass solos from Eric and Cat and I even take one a little bit, I think. Have I said this is an epic jam yet? Color me impressed! With epic jams like this you can never be lonely and that’s all right. It’s members only tonight.

Recorded & Mixed by Mark Creaney

Video: Harrison McKinney

Editing: Cap’n Gravy Boat

As our new single gathers momentum at Radio, I thought it’d be fun to share this video edit I did of a live performance from Bend, Oregon at the domino room. This was from our last West Coast tour, which is to promote the release of real alligator. The library version varies slightly from the recorded version and that me and Cat Clemons really lean into the guitar harmony or “Guitarmony.”

I loved this from the beginning because of that Guitarmony potential. The Country and Southern rock overtones are quite delicious. Y’all may not know I was a big a southern rock guy. Skynyrd was my favorite, Molly hatchet, Blackfoot, Charlie Daniels, The Outlaws, Marshall Tucker, the Allman Brothers, of course and Doc Holiday if anybody remembers them? probably you don’t. Doc Holiday was to southern rock what Shinyribs is to Americana, lol.

Recorded & Mixed by Mark Creaney

Live performance video-Harrison McKinney

Edited by-Ye Olde Cap’n Gravyboat

This is made from 10 years of video, field recordings, found objects and forgotten gems. It may seem a bit odd or even disturbing, these layers of sonic bedlam and disjointed piles of video. But, I’ve long considered such works of density and comic chaos my raison d’être. Inspired by the likes of Revolution #9, Negativland and My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts I’ve decided to show y’all some weird shit.

Negativland

I find it entertaining in a noisy, banal way. Though little of it has seen the light of day for fear of harsh critics waiting in the wings, I intend to remedy this shirking of my artistic duty more and more as we go along. Love it, hate it, ambivalente, whatever, lemme know. These are the kind of weird ass things I do and have done over the years. It’s sound collage, essentially. And y’all know I love the collage. It’s like a massage for a mirage in my mind-the visage of a corsage before it was chosen to be given to the chooser as is custom among the girls and boys in some places I’ve been

My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts

So there I was in the Saxon Pub at a memorial for Jon dee Graham. Up to my table walked a woman beckoning my attention.. I did not recognize her at first I hadn’t seen her in years. It was none other than Cathy Crane. Part of a friend group, who I refer to as the old guard of new sincerity. Cathy had an idea for me to musically protest the building of a wall through Big Bend national Park. This was early 26 maybe February or March. Her idea was to change the lyrics of the classic Cole Porter tune to, Don’t Fence Big Bend. I immediately liked the idea, very clever and musically perfect. She felt I was the one to do it. And I considered it until I came upon the idea to make it a multi artist kind of thing. I didn’t know exactly how I was gonna do it, but I thought I could edit together multiple artist’s takes of the song. The key, timing, none of that mattered. It would just be raw, real, honest, Texas Artist, singing in their own way into their cameras this song. And I could edit it together one line at a time. Depending on the performances I got it could be really magical. I reached out to a lot of artists, some big names, some locals. Luckily many of them responded with the video and followed the instructions perfectly. Some could not accomplish every instruction accurately, but they did their best. Some did not answer at all. So it took multiple asks— one or two even called me and played devils advocate about whether such a project like this could actually move the needle. My position on that is this one project doesn’t have to do all of the heavy lifting. It’s just one piece in a united front opposing the wall. And though I know a couple of people that have tried to justify it or at least tried to ignore it as being a serious problem that needed to be addressed, but most all Texans are united in believing that there’s no reason to build a wall through Big Bend. It’s a waste of money and an environmental disaster.

Once I got into the editing room, I was able to play around with a few different edits, shared a few with some of my conservation buddies and people in the industry whose opinion I respect. Got some feedback. Did a couple more edits and finally hit upon this one. Which I am very happy with. It’s got a little of everything in it. And yes, we’re not all singing in the same key. We’re not all seeing to a Click track. It’s not perfect AI slop. Indeed, it is very human and very Texan, except for Nick Offerman. But he loves Texas and he loves Big Bend. He probably is the biggest star in the lineup. I’ve known Nick since before he was famous. He was a Gourds fan. And then he became famous and I still didn’t know because I just don’t pay attention to fame or celebrity or Hollywood or any of that stuff. Anyway, there’s a lot of funny stories I could share about our casual acquaintance. He’s a very sweet guy who I was honored and quite tickled that he agreed to send me these videos. Really cool. I have so many more videos really, great performances in variations that I intend to edit together as well at some point. I just wanted to get this first one done and get it out right now while the damage is been done to Big Bend.

I don’t know if this will help at all. A federal government empowered by corruption and the disrespect to the rule of law is not easily stopped by a citizen’s revolt. But we could make existing political currents flow even more against the incumbent party destroying our way of life here in Texas. I am proud of how this came out. I like that it is positive and not preachy. It is playful, passionate but clear in its opposition to this

So often promoters will request. I do a “shout out video” y’all have no doubt seeing many of these. I am ambivalent about them because I just don’t know if they move the needle in any meaningful way? The venues do share it with their clientele their community so you get some direct local impact from them I suppose. I don’t know what do y’all think? Not just with Shinyribs but with any band y’all like do you rely on these kind of shout out videos?

Anyway, here’s what I did for The Ramkat in Winston-Salem. Which is a great venue great people looking forward to playing there with local Austin, Singer songwriter Scott Strickland, who is gonna do that whole tour with us I believe opening for us.. We were having Schaefer open for us on alot of these shows but I just want to do something different and scott needed a hand getting out there into the land and getting in front of people. I’ve been a mentor of his for years now and I’m real proud of his growth into his musical career. It hasn’t been easy for him. It’s not easy for anyone but especially younger Artist today I think it’s just tough to break through all the noise and chaos of social media and bots and the overwhelming amount of music being released by bots and humans. Not to mention everything ever and recorded history that we are competing with as well 😂

In the past, I’ve just done simple quick iPhone selfie shout out videos and that’s probably enough. But I also think of all different kind of things I could do. It just takes more work and more time and more planning which I’m just making it hard on myself really. But to me, it’s worth it because I’m making something that I like and I’m inspired by that is interesting entertaining and as an extension thereby of my Brand for lack of a better word. It’s not sustainable in any way shape or fashion and I get that. So at times, especially her. I’ll probably just do the quick and dirty shout out video. While I’m at home and I have time and I have ideas then I’m gonna make fun videos like this with cool editing and something funny or interesting. I’ll add to them.

But y’all knowing me as well as you do, I would like to ask you sometimes to tell me something about a town you know I’m playing in your area and maybe a weird story about something that happened there. or some kind of interesting landmark or history, food, something about the local places that I could use as a hook to make a video like this. I do cursory searches and look for interesting little things, but y’all’s local knowledge coupled with your understanding of who I am and what I am interested in what I find funny could be a great recipe for some really great shout out videos. No pressure no obligation. You don’t have to do anything, of course but if you’re so inspired, drop me a direct message here

Sorry for the bait click title. This post is simply about me leaning into video creation from writing, scripting, planning shots to editing and producing them. Suffice it to say I’m finding space for my unstructured imagination to shovel into these little weird movies—

I seem to have a creative focus that is an ever present force in my life. I don’t know what that is, where it comes from, but it’s in my inherent being. I am always making art. I’m always dreaming scheming teeming with poetry and thought ideas, like how to do something unethical and get away with it so that is nobody’s fault I was. I just went a long way to rhyme thought and fault. I’d say that’s how I was taught, but I wasn’t taught really, I wasn’t thought about—poetry I found it myself and I understood it. It was a language that is a temporary placeholder for a one that doesn’t exist yet, to describe the way things I feel in the future to criticize the past

It always moderately irks me when I dig down into my statistical insights on various platforms. These numbers shown are from Spotify. Mostly it’s just something to riff on for social media attention grabbing.

With this video I tried some tricks I’ve learned from some other short form video makers. I’ve been using my phone for most video stuff lately. But, managing the data storage has become kind of a pain in the ass and unnecessary angst inducing to me. At the time I’ve been paying out the nose to Adobe world for my use of photoshop and premiere video editing software. In an attempt to get out from under that burden I’ve been learning a new video editing tool, Final Cut Pro. I’ve been using it on my iPad pretty regularly and that’s great. But the desktop version is a bit more involved. So this is my first desktop video edit. And it came out pretty good, I think. Not too good of course. The idea is not to make the best video in the world. It’s just to capture something interesting, compelling or thought provoking using words, movement and editing. I’ll probably post this early next week Tuesday or Wednesday.

While we hope all parties can find some reconciliation and understanding for the good of all we must act in the best interests of our fans and make arrangements that are less volatile to conduct our business. Therefore we have moved our show at this late hour to Bearsville Theater on Aug 29 in Woodstock NY! With Scott Strickland opening

See ya then

Link will go live 10am July 16

Bearsvillle Woodstock

Buddy Was A Bluebird (for Buddy Flett)

Buddy was a bluebird

Never said a mean word

To anyone

who didn’t already deserve it

He knew the way

to make the guitar say

Hard things and he served it

On a silver platter

It mattered to him about you

and me and anyone who might

see troubles and think

They can’t ever climb out

of the heavy load they’re under

He had a soft serve

That could feel like

The sweetest thunder

you ever heard

Buddy was a bluebird