Found an old board recording of The Clutters from September 12, 1997 when we played the Gold Dollar in Detroit ... we're nimble as always, pretty well blasted and blasting through each number like an underwater fistfight, not our finest hour, but there is a good take on one of guiterrorist Ramirez's songs, a heavy outlaw number called "From Here To There" that we used to play all the time but never got to a studio. It's up now on the Clutters Myspace page.

I remember this particular night, the Clutters opening for Two Star Tabernacle and Easy Action ... I found the flier for this show reproduced in a book about the White Stripes because apparently Jack White was playing drums for Goober at the time. I don't recall that, but what I do remember is the joint emptying out halfway through Easy Action's headliner set to watch a vacant building behind the Gold Dollar go up in flames. EA joined the rest of us in the parking lot after they wrapped up, quietly drinking and considering the inferno -- standing next to John Brannon as the city burned was a quintessential Detroit moment for me.

Tyson and I have held preliminary practices for a hard country band lately, scoring ourselves a father/son rhythm section and drafting J. Blacktree for the voice. We tank up at the Tin Hat and then holler at each other for a while ... so far nothing that anyone else should have to listen to, but it's good to be loud again.

PS. Now that I consider it, I think you gotta see Easy Action, too ... sorry, guys. But seriously, this band is for real. "There's no pension plan for rock and roll," sez Brannon. "This shit for life."