There was this one gig each of us played in different bands. All part of the Whistlestop Jamboree - a whopper of a music festival put on by the Frisco Music Scene each October where musicians' names are drawn from a hat to create some new, ad-hoc "Scramble" bands.
You never know what kind of Frankenstein you're gonna get with the Jamboree Scramble. You could be pulled in with a rockabilly bassist, a punk-rock drummer, a jazz trumpeter, and a gospel singer. It's a mad musical science experiment in an effort to breathe some creative oomf! into the music scene in that area.
So, you get these hodgepodge ensembles with names like "The Peepshow Janitors," and "Thorns & Roses," and "Taste Of Echo," and "That Sound Flipper Makes" - all consisting of members from legit bands from around DFW, like The Buffalo Ruckus, Matthew Bell & The Next of Kin, Droo's Peace Crush, and a buncha others.
And sometimes a legit band may even come squealing into the world from this Scramble. One of them, fronted by my pal, singer-songwriter Stacey Shope, has stuck together and now developed into a mighty powerful quintet called Mockingbird. Look for that to officially take flight soon. It's gonna be a face-melter.
Because these bands are encouraged to come up with original music, some of our Bodarks tunes have even taken root in the Scramble. "The Frisco Line" is one of those. And here's an early recording of "Get Born," which my 2016 Scramble band, we called "Secondhand Luke," was toying with at rehearsal (Brad Haefner from Buffalo Ruckus on guitar, Ben Wade of Mark Shelton's band on drums, Robert Carter from Undead Joe Trio - prior to joining The Bodarks - on bass, Steve Anderson of Wooden Nickel on acoustic, and me throwing my lyrics on it):
The Scramble bands are also tasked with whistling up a few experimental covers. Here's Secondhand Luke's honky-tonk rendition of "Little Red Corvette":
In a way, this musical mixer is what Hootenanny is all about - a grassroots hodgepodge of different types of folks coming together to get-down-turn-around-picka-baila-cotton. And on the main stage, they've had some heavy hitters on the scene such as Uncle Lucius and Dalton Domino.
Y'all come to the Frisco Rail Yard this October and see what I'm talking about. The Whistlestop Jamboree is one giant hootenanny, and who knows what kind of Frankensteins will be lurking about at the Scramble stage. (Ain't lying! Check it all out at: www.TheFriscoMusicScene.com and thank me later.)
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