Live Texas Music at Maklemore's...

Some people went and saw Kiss this weekend. Others saw Charlie Daniels. Those were big ticket shows either in the East Texas area or within striking distance. We met our friends Ann, Suzi and Charlie at Maklemore's in Doches for a meal and to catch a show by Chris Edwards, Johnny Ray Hubbard and J.D. Christopher. 

Here is Johnny Ray on the left with Chris on the right. It was a song swap type gig with each man mixing in covers of familiar material with their own songs. Chris is more in the Texas singer song writer style with story telling between the tunes and Hubbard is a flashy lead guitar player with a really amazing vocal range.  

In addition to their original songs which tell the story of the human condition often with a hint of humor, the covers of such song writer mainstays as Dylan, Todd Snider and Townes Van Zant were given fresh treatments and often graced with Hubbard's slightly fuzzed out guitar solos which lent the songs a new place to set your imagination.   

Of course the cool people, the ones that wear sunglasses in the dark came out to the show. It was a $5 ticket. Remember, in the big city you pay more for this kind of thing. 

J.D. Christopher opened the show. Cathy described his music as "punk acoustic." I'll go with that. It was another mix of original songs and covers. J.D apparently has another project, a band called Pretty Decent because he gave me one of their stickers after his set. Seems the acoustic show was a new thing, he's used to making loud music and he did great with the change of pace.  

I did meet a couple of people face to face that I had only know from facebook. One was Casey who runs a facebook page called Any City Music where you can find when shows like this happen. More local music info can be found at Hannah's page Local Scene Music Production.