Another weird, sad day in America,
After 20 years of being the face of live, local rock and roll in the city of Philadelphia, WMMR and Paul Jaxon have parted ways. Caught up in a string of greedhead corporate cuts, an era has truly ended in Philadelphia. Always remember, your job will demand you give them a two week notice but you're just a piece of meat, a number to them. They'll kick you out on the street like a dog without hesitation. I'll never forget the day we met Jaxon. We were playing a Tuesday night at Grape Street, which was hosted by the man himself. Not only was WMMR gracious enough to host a weekly showcase of local musicians but they would run ads all day long for it and Jaxon would come host to bring out fans. That was back when WMMR had a soul and that soul was alive and thriving in Jaxon, one of the biggest pure music fans I have ever met. All we wanted to do that night was impress Jaxon, we had no idea that we'd become good friends and that he'd change our lives. The first time we were ever on the radio was Y100. Dan Fein was a DJ there at the time and we had a big party at our house on 10th Street to listen with our friends. We called to check in with him an hour before we were supposed to air and he told us he didn't have the audio disc. Frank and I jumped into the Big Liz Mobile, a tattered Mercury Cougar that was a hazard to all those inside and outside of it, and blasted down 76 to Bala Cynwyd in the darkness. Dan ran down to the lobby as the song before ours played, grabbed the CD, and darted back upstairs. Frank and I listened from the parking lot of Y100. I will never forget that moment, the first time Cowgirl hit the city on the airwaves. But our relationship with Jaxon was different. We were friends, drinking buddies, 3AM diner buddies, and 'off-the-clock' hangers. We'd go to other bands shows just to sit and bullshit with Jaxon. He was kind enough to put us on his Local Shots 2 CD and even made sure there was a cowgirl on the cover. 
He also introduced us at plenty of shows, WMMR affiliated or not. We played live on the air a few times, were featured regularly on the air, all because of Jaxon. I have never in my life seen a major FM Radio personality curate and culture a local music scene in the city of Philadelphia like Paul Jaxon did. Now that the era of WMMR being a chill, real deal rock station is officially dead, I mourn not only the firing of Jaxon but the death of fun.
Jaxon. There is no feeling like looking outside of the window and seeing 76 backed up with a million cars while you play live on the city's biggest FM rock station. I remember when we'd speak in the mics telling myself 'don't curse, don't curse, don't curse.' For that feeling and 100 more memories, I will never be able to thank you enough. And for your friendship, kindness, and constant support, I am even more humbled and grateful. I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors and you'll always be a huge piece of what made my life so special. Travel well, sweet prince, Nick Currently Listening to: Little Too Late by Nicki Bluhm 
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 Hey Ya,
Today marks 19 years since the first Fat City Reprise show. I was 20 years old, it was a Monday night at Doc Watson's - a place that no longer exists. We opened for a band called Hilliard who much like Fat City Reprise and Doc Watson's, no longer exists. It's crazy to look back to this time period because it feels like it was yesterday and also feels like it was in another lifetime. I remember being super excited, we rehearsed from January until August trying to make sure we came out swinging. I don't think Cowgirl existed yet, the set list would have been around 20 minutes and included She Said, Step In Take Time, Caution, maybe 57, maybe 10/6. Some things never change though. At that time, all I wanted to do was play guitar and that's the same. We may all be spread out in the world doing different things in different places but that one thing remains, we just wanna make some damn noise. Thanks as always to the Fatheads who supported us, you'll never know how much we appreciate you giving us the best lives ever, I'm old, Nick Currently Listening to: Turmoil and Tinfoil by Billy Strings  Good Morning, Campers, They say you don't know how good something is until it's gone. Well, that was never a problem we had with Dr. Dog. Sure, we went through the very brief 15 minute phase of 'hey, this sounds like the Beatles, the Band, and the Beach Boys had a baby,' but it immediately melted away when we realized how hard it is to sound like those bands, and also to do it so damned well while somehow staying unique. From songcraft to harmonies to instrumentation, to arrangement, song-writing, melodies, imagery, merch... shit, even the name - in every aspect of being a band: Dr. Dog is a tour de force. The prolific way they output new songs always blew us away. Every album was amazing, they all sounded new and fresh but also like Dr. Dog, a hit factory in our own backyard. Every time we thought they had peaked, they came back swinging with another offering that was full of finely crafted songs. They are currently in the middle of a 5-show run in Philadelphia that will cap off their retirement tour....no more touring for the Dog. I didn't expect to have so many emotions about this but well....here we are. The end of an era that a generation of Philadelphians will never, ever forget. I remember so vividly the first time we saw them, it was a random weekday at FYE Records on Broad and Chestnut and there were only around 5 people there besides us. One of those people was Eric Slick, who would go on to become their drummer. Another was Brett Banfe, who would go on to become our very good friend. Meeting Brett and discovering he was as enamored as we were with this band was a life changing event for Fat City Reprise. That's how we met Junebug, Liz, Sarge, Old Nat Hamhock, Ekoostik Hookah, Kevin Hambrick and the Orange Opera, Nina, Trapper, and so many other people who helped make Fat City feel at home in the Midwest. Dr. Dog is a big part of why people look at me cross-eyed when I tell them I love Ohio or Fort Wayne or when I say nothing was ever as rewarding in life than living in a van with my friends and pursuing a new rock-fueled adventure every night. They're also the reason we discovered Daytrotter and The Teeth, two more gifts from Dr. Dog to us. Dr. Dog is why The Love Song exists. We had just listened to We All Belong about 20,000 times and those vocal harmonies are a direct tribute. That keyboard part it opens with is very Zach as well, especially because he had just inspired Frankie to go out and get a Nord. It's the reason You Are The Art has that riff, I was trying so hard to pull some Scott-esque shit out of my ass. If you really want to hear me doing a Dr. Dog tribute, you can listen to every Southwork song as I do my best Toby impression on the bass, a mish mash of Rick Danko and Paul McCartney fused with simplicity and a deep connection to the kick drum. I could never completely settle into Toby's wonderful lack of being busy with my guitar fingers but I tried every song, every time. He is 100% my bassist spirit animal.  Quick! Dr. Dog exists, let's work on some harmonies and get some semi-hollow guitars. While this guitar was unfortunately stolen at a Bitter End gig in 2007 some time, I definitely wanted it because of Scott and Frank were playing semi-hollows. You can see their sticker on my shitty old monitor too (so much to unpack in this one picture, but that'll be another blog post.)
I feel sadness. Sadness I may never see them rock the house again, sadness that they aren't as famous as Uncle Kracker or Smash Mouth when they're clearly one of the best bands to come out since Nirvana. I remember watching them on Letterman thinking, if people don't blow them up after this, there is no hope for popular music. There's also so much pride and happiness, these guys DID make it, they did basically all of the awesome things you can do as a band and they're retiring now. Started off playing at The Fire and got to late-night TV, a deal with ANTI, Bonaroo, KEXP, TinyDesk, and so much more. They did Philadelphia proud, that's for sure. I'm sad to see them scale back, grateful I've seen them 9-10 times, and hopeful they'll continue to make albums in the future and throw a Philly show in every once and a while. Maybe it's because this is the first band I have liked from the hole in the wall to the big stage to retire, maybe it's because they were SO exceptional, maybe it's just because it makes me feel old, I don't know. All I know is this one hits different. Sad, happy, grateful, hopeful, pissed off, proud, whimsical, nostalgic - I'm a mess right now about this. Lucky for Dr. Dog, legacy doesn't lie and neither do your ears. My 20-year-old cousin came running up to me a few months back saying she was excited she finally heard a song that I would like. She pulls out her phone and puts on 'Where'd All The Time Go' by Dr. Dog, she watches a show called OBX and it's in the soundtrack. I couldn't help but laugh, she was in kindergarten when I first heard this band but it doesn't matter, cream always rises to the top. I loaded her up with all the albums and it grows. Pat Finnerty is fighting the good fight too, I see so many comments on YouTube about how Pat introduced his viewers to Dr. Dog. You just can't make music that good, for that long, and not have a legacy that continues to draw in new listeners. SIDE NOTE: Vivas is playing with Pat Finnerty to open the 12/31/21 Dr. Dog show. There's tickets available here and there due to covid cancellations so mask up and cross your fingers. As I sat in the Fillmore on 12/27/21 with Vivas, watching the first of the final 5 touring shows, I felt all of these emotions and so many more. Thanks, Dr. Dog. Thanks for the tunes, the concerts, the inspiration, and everything in between. I hope you have the best retirement ever until you get bored and play some Philly shows, then I hope I can get tickets. - With Love, Nick Currently Listening to : Living a Dream by Dr. Dog  Hey Everyone....or anyone who reads this blog which is basically a tree falling in the woods,
Ever been digging through old pictures looking for something specific and find like 100+ pictures from a day you thought was (pun intended) long gone? Well, it just happened to me when I found a folder in the Fat City Archives called Grape Street Pub 12-23-2005. Here's a photo album of 58 pictures that are so old, one tee shirt is a Gwen Stefani reference, another is an Anchorman reference and neither were purchased on the internet. You can also click the picture above for the album if it pleases your fancy. I remember this show so well because it was my first year in the seafood business and I worked 18 hours that day, after like 6 consecutive 12+ hour days, ran out of the fish store onto the stage, played this show, then jumped back in the car and went right back to work at 4AM. At 22, I could do things like that, now 16 years later, not so much. I think what I miss most about those days is living in a tree house full of my friends and just hanging out constantly but life takes over, bills gotta get paid, dogs gotta get walked, shit just happens. Either way, I know exactly what I was doing 16 years ago today, younger, lighter, playing a strat I no longer own. I was sitting in my kitchen with Vivas not two days ago and we were talking about our aches and pains from moving furniture. In these pictures, he is all of 18 years old, not even old enough to get into the bar and wearing his classiest Bud Light polo shirt. Aches and pains didn't exist for us in 2005, we were all piss and vinegar. There is a DVD of this show out there in existence, I do not possess it but I think Vivas might. I'll see if I can get it online one day. I used to do a yearly Christmas poem on this blog and instead of writing a new one, I think it makes more sense to post the one I wrote after I crawled out of a seafood coma on 12/26/2005. I hope everyone out there who ever helped us on our road to eternal fun had a safe, healthy, and happy 2021. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals....Dick Nolte December 26th, 2005 The fire has vanished, the ham is long gone, The Aunt and the Grannies have all gone back home. This Christmas was fun, you can say that indeedy We rocked out the Grape Street and sold our new CD. The stockings are back in the basement with care, The smell of burning pine trees fills the Philly air. Christmas is over but you can hardly tell Because 104.5 is still playing Silver Bells. We want to say thanks to our Grape Street followers For paying the cover and being drink swallowers. All of our fans, you're truly the best, And we want to say now, before someone protests, That even though we're a little bit tardy Merry Christmas and thanks for coming to our Christmas party. Happy Holidays from you Boys, Fat Cizzle Reprizzle Jingle Jingle 
I don't know if anyone reads this or not but if you do, you may have noticed I've been digging on Alan Watts.
Alan was a scholar, studied many religions although he is most famous for helping the West discover Zen Buddhism in the 50's. His philosophies and observations have been fascinating me to no end because they have always been in my life, even before I knew who he was. It's no secret that Fat City Reprise was a psychedelic enterprise and along the way, all those doses and journeys taught us many things. I have journals full of anecdotes and ideas about how the universe really works across years of indulgences, little snippets of wisdom summarizing hours and hours of discussion on a random starry night. All of these little tidbits of wisdom directly align with the principles of Buddhism. Peace is within, you have the answers to all of your questions, knowledge comes from self-knowledge, connect to your truest self, live in the present. Alan's big thing in a lot of lectures is living in the present, mindfulness as he calls it. The past is a memory, the future is a promise, the present is everything. Now I have always known that there are many roads to enlightenment and psychedelics are definitely one of those roads, although definitely not the only road and 100% not the road for everyone. I have also always considered the idea of playing/making music to be extremely psychedelic in and of itself but now I think I finally know why. Making music IS mindfulness. While you're playing music, it can only exist in the present. As soon as you stop playing, it goes away. When you're in a room with your best friends in the world and you're all chomping away on some jam, you're communicating without words, you're all in one primal meditation as one vibrating hivemind. This is why drum circles are a thing. As a kid, music called to me like a siren on a rough sea. When I stopped to listen to music or play music, I felt peace and it all makes sense now. In a world of non-stop advertisements and never-ending distractions, anxiety about the future and regret about the past, music is a moment to exist purely in the present, to let time dissolve around you as you beam forward in the eternal now. I remember getting to Same Old Song on so many gigs and just trying my best to stop and look around, absorb the moment because the whole set had just flown by as if time didn't exist. I specifically remember having talks with Vivas about this, from the first chord to the last song, it was like you didn't even get to experience the show, one big blur of extremely focused mindfulness and life in the now. Speaking of Vivas, he just crushed a really cool gig with Pat Finnerty for XPN. Pat is a hilarious dude and a gifted musician, he makes an insanely entertaining YouTube series called 'What Makes This Song Stink' and I'm hopelessly addicted to it. Pat much like myself is blessed to have Vivas to rock with, if you get a chance check out both videos below and remember, live in the now. Hope no one got flooded or tornadoed, - Nick Currently listening to: Hot Stepper by Dr. Dog 
Wow. 65 years old. Glad I stopped smoking.
My guitarist, nihilist father will never forget the day he heard Running with the Devil on FM radio, he knew immediately that disco was over. I was supposed to be thankful for that really smiley guy who was so good at guitar that he made me want to quit. That's the guy who saved you from disco, that guy is the reason you don't have to stand in a crowded room wearing platform shoes while the DJ plays the worst music ever created and girls go nuts for it. Eddie Van Halen is a fucking legend. I have always hawked Jimi Hendrix as my #1 rock guitarist of all time but Eddie is 100% #2, and some days, he takes the cake. I just listened to Eruption Live and holy shit, there is nothing on a guitar this man couldn't do. People often look at a Picasso painting and remark "I could draw that." The difference is Pablo Picasso was painting photorealism and classical Renaissance-style when he was 14 years old. He became a cubist because he could, because he had mastered the replication of reality and wanted to do something beyond. Eddie Van Halen is like Picasso, he was so good at traditional guitar, he created a whole new genre. He is very well known for his tapping style and playing tap solos that are so fast, they sound like synthesizers using computers to make arpeggios. Maybe he didn't exactly invent tapping but it is indisputable that he revolutionized it, did it better than anyone, and owned it. I know what you're saying. So what? Tapping is lame, everyone did it to death and even though I don't play guitar, or maybe I do, I think it's easy, even though I can't do it very well. You need to listen deeper. The solo in Hot For Teacher? He flat picks that whole thing. There is not one tap in that solo outside the repetition of the riff from the end of the intro. He is SMOKING through that thing, doing hammer-ons and speed picking like a maniac. It's hard as hell to play that solo, let alone write that solo - let alone write that fucking riff, damn man, so many riffs. There are guitarists I classify as riff-meisters. Keith Richards is one, Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, Tom Morello. All of those guys can just shit out an all-time rock and roll guitar riff while they're eating their Cheerios. Eddie Van Halen is a Master Riff-meister: Hot for Teacher, Panama, Running with the Devil, Beautiful Girls, MEAN STREET. The list goes on and on, and none of those other guys can play both sides of the ball like him. Riffs, rhythm, solos, songwriting, Eddie Van Halen was a 360 degree guitar master, there was no category of guitar that he didn't dominate. Listen to Dance the Night Away, that riff comes in over the cowbell and it's soooo groovy. The breakdown is awesome, when he's teasin' the riff and making it all chunky and fat by adding harmonics. Best part, there is not a guitar solo on this song. That's song craft from a guy who slayed 24/7, the guy who played the solo on Beat It, the guy who Marty McFly looked up to, the guy who saved us from mother fucking disco. You know why Van Halen could play like that? He loved it. You can see that shit-eating grin right now if you close your eyes and concentrate. He never put that guitar down, he was a perfectionist in an obsessive way. He did interviews playing guitar, took the guitar in the bathroom when he had to shit. When you watch him play, it's effortless, the guitar is an extension of his body, his fifth limb, there is no filter between his musical stream of consciousness and the amplifier - it flows through. I love a lot of guitar players and I always figure out how to replicate them, it can take a long time depending on the guy but eventually, I get it. I can do Clapton, Page, Richards, Harrison, Townsend, Frusciante, Morello, Hendrix, Gilmour, Garcia, I can play so you hear the influence and in the same style, I can replicate their solos and know the musical choices they would make in different situations, I studied the masters. Now, I can FAKE Van Halen, but I can't play that shit as clean as him, nowhere near. It's unreal the way this man surgically operated a guitar. I have played the guitar millions of hours over the last 25 years and I am nowhere near close to that level of precision and speed. The only other guitarist I put in this Eddie Van Halen category of being unplayable is Prince, those two guys make me put my guitar down for a few days and rethink my life. No one can play the guitar like Eddie Van Halen. You can mimic him all day but that mother fucker invented it AND played the notes. Truly a musician for the ages, a talent and dedication unmatched. History will show that he truly changed the instrument for all time after him. Sad day on Mean Street, Nick Currently Listening to: Mean Street by Van Halen I got my wisdom teeth yanked out this week by some manic mutant who has dedicated his whole life to the defense of mastication and it gave me four full days of nothing but time, a rare commodity in the Boring 20's. I spent most of it on a diet of yogurt and vicodin re-exploring the worn fretboard of my timeless friend Larry Goldtop and the mixolydian mode but at some point, I needed to veg out so I popped on Long Strange Trip, a six-part documentary on the Grateful Dead that is streaming on Amazon right now. Wow. Whether you're a fan of the Dead or not, this documentary is pretty damn neat. I'll spare the entire laundry list of gory details and get to the point. It all starts at the Acid Tests. To anyone who doesn't know, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was introduced to LSD by the CIA during project MKULTRA and decided to introduce it to pretty much everyone he could. Kesey would throw massive parties in warehouses called Acid Tests where the Grateful Dead would jam out and everyone would have some LSD and explore their consciousness, have a good time, and yuck it up. There's a fantastic book about it called The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Sounds fun, right?  During one particular Acid Test in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, they pull over the bus and get out to view the Watts Towers. Again, wow. I didn't know about these things but apparently, one dude just built them for shits and gigs and they're massive. His philosophy was you only get remembered if you're "good good or bad bad" and he wanted to be remembered for being good good. He spent his whole life painstakingly building these massive things until one day he fell off one and got hurt.  So Jerry Garcia is looking up at these massive things with a head full of the most amazing LSD ever made, produced by Owlsley Stanley, and he can't get over it. The time, the energy, this guy labored his whole life over this one art installation, tortured himself because he wanted to be remembered. Eventually, he gets into this thought loop about fun, he just wants to have fun. He doesn't want to labor over his art alone in the sun for 50 years and die, he wants to live in the NOW, he wants life to be fun, he wants to play his guitar. The Dead never tried to be commercially successful, instead basing their career around playing live, spreading psychedelics to the masses, and having fun. They made a great living but they never sold out, never tried to make a shit song for a few bucks. They allowed their shows to be taped, didn't like being photographed, and once dosed a film crew to get out of being the subjects of a documentary. Life was about fun, free spirited in the eternal now. In these Boring 20's of modern civilization, we are often pressured to assign ourselves value based on our own wealth, our career, or our accomplishments. Taking time off from work is looked down upon as if you're a heretic and a lack of hustle is perceived as a lack of character. Pay no attention to these bullshit rules. They are perpetuated by human garbage who are jealous of the free, jealous of those who fill their days with silent enjoyment of their own pastimes with no expectation of wealth accumulation. They will get to the end of life and realize that it was never a race, never a game. The number one regret of people as they lay in hospice is working too much. You only get so many minutes in your life, no one knows how many you'll get but we all know it will be a finite amount of minutes. Use them wisely. Read a book, write a poem, take a fucking nap. Be you, do not compromise, and do not let the rat race turn you into a pig. Don't get to your death bed and realize you didn't have enough fun. Fly your freak flag high. Do No Harm but Take No Shit - Nick Currently Listening to: Morning Dew - Grateful Dead, Europe '72  Currently Listening to: Dry the Rain by the Beta Band Happy Birthday, Hunter S. Thompson. Oh, what would you have to say on your 83rd birthday? The United States has been crumbling and gasping for air since 9/11 and a pandemic looms in the midst of race riots and massive protests, economic disparity, homelessness, evictions. I’m sure Hunter would have had far more and far better words than I could ever write. As I sit at my desk and watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the 10,000th time, one quote sticks out. “All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet.” Below is a piece I wrote around November 2019 and it has only become truer as time has passed. I hope everyone out there is safe, well-fed, sheltered, and eating gobs of delicious hallucinogenic drugs. There is a human issue, transcending borders and cultures. It has nothing to do with political parties or affiliations, nothing to do with nation-states as it effects us all equally and worldwide. We are sick, ill, the world around us is sick and everything and everyone keeps getting sicker. It’s almost like we have a huge hangover from the 20th Century. The worst part is we sit back and watch it all happen in complete and utter denial that we are in any sort of danger. Something is fundamentally wrong. I know you feel it - I feel it too. We’re angry, we’re depressed, we want to kill ourselves, we want to take others out with us. We have anxiety that prevents us from enjoying life at all. We crave numbness and distraction, burying our heads in glowing screens of ads, pornography, and empty entertainment. All of us traverse the globe with our sunglasses on, our headphones cranked, and our faces in our phones, hoping that no one tries to actually talk to us. Something is fundamentally wrong. We hate Mondays and we love Fridays. They’re the same but not to us. We sit at our jobs and wish away huge portions of our lives – I wish this day were over. Every human life is finite but we sit and pray for the end of a day, ask for hours of our lives which we will never get back to disappear as if we are serving lifetime prison sentences. Something is fundamentally wrong. We are so full of hatred, we hate each other, we hate ourselves. We walk into malls and schools and kill as many people as we can while hoping the police end our lives, police dressed like marines, strapped with incredible weaponry, juiced up for a war they’ll never see, beating protestors, locking up non violent offenders. We go to political rallies and spit in each other’s faces, we beat people to death over differences in sexual orientation. Women are stoned to death for not wearing the right religious garb. Something is fundamentally wrong. Corporations have more rights than individual humans. The air is poison, the drinking water is poison, the ocean is a landfill, and no one wants to cut off the endless cycle. Politicians in the USA spend more than 50% of their time in office begging corporations and lobbyists for more money to run again. The will of the few outweighs the will of the many. I don’t know when it happened, maybe it’s always been this way. Globally, 300 million people suffer from an anxiety syndrome. In a time where mass murder, war, genocide, and sex trafficking run rampant, 1.5% of global deaths are actually suicides. We have more empty homes than homeless people. The number one irrigated crop is grass and people live without clean water or fresh produce. Our souls are suffocating under the endless race to have the biggest house, the nicest car, the newest phone, all to impress people we don’t even like in the first place. Something is fundamentally wrong. Turn on, tune in, and drop out. - Dickie  Nelson.....you stink -Nick CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Nelson Agholor Stinks by Sane People Everywhere  Hi Everyone, So it's October 3rd, 2019, which means that Frankie and I are both officially 36 years old. It's fucking gross and I hate it. Happy Birthday, ya filthy animal. I have so so much stuff and so little time these days, which is the opposite of my original problem. I just posted three albums from the Jay Bones Archives to the Images Page. One album is from the day we made the Long Gone video with our awesome buddies Cesar Kuriyama and Tommy Agriodimas. They shot the whole thing using still photos in burst mode and we moved in super slow motion. A bunch of it was shot while we weren't around but these pictures are from the band day. Another album is from the Trocadero Theater on April 26, 2006. This is a great photo set, we had a horn section that night. The Troc was a really awesome room and growing up in Philly, it was a big time bucket list venue for us. The Troc was supposed to closed down in May but from the looks of it, it's still going strong 149 years after it opened. Frank's dad used to cut school and go see burlesque shows there when he was in 4th grade, or so the legend goes. The final set is from the demolished and famous Philadelphia Spectrum, where we played on the ice during a Phantom's game for WMMR. That was a really cool gig, Jay and I were checking each other into the boards and talking about the Flyers and the Soviets when the booker realized we were South Philly sports nerds and took us on a tour of the whole place. Another awesome bucket list day. Dropping audio in the near future, Bitter End New Year's Eve is definitely on deck, first album CD Release Party is on deck. I have about 25 more shows now that I got the last dump from Jay, just going through them to see when we were too drunk and when we played good enough to upload it. Currently Listening to: Do You Feel It? by Chaos Chaos Go Birds, Nick  Hey All, Been an interesting September. I never thought I'd get to say this but I have so much new content, it's hard for me to keep up. Let's break it down. Jay Bones I have a ton of sorting left to do but Jay just gave me 15GB of pictures with about 20 live shows of audio coming to my house this week. There ARE four new videos on the Video Page from Jay's collection, they're from a March 2009 show at Not The Viper Room. I had never seen them before, I think they're pretty solid. I promise to get everything up on the website as soon as I can. Vivas Full grown man, Mike Vivas, just gave me a 29 minute long recording of us playing live at the Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip circa February 8, 2008. I haven't seen it since it was recorded, the production value is slightly.....dated but it's nice to have. I am wearing a leather jacket on stage, I must have been sweating like a hooker in church. The video is posted on our Video Page. Tom Perko Tom gave me all the audio from when we played Live on 93.3 WMMR so I posted that to the Audio Page and the SoundCloud. I have a few short videos of the day from Jay but I don't think they are really worth posting, Tom's audio is pretty great. I don't know if everyone is aware of this but Jay plays in a cover band with Brett Talley of Ike fame called Bangarang. Turns out Vivas, Frank, and I were able to make it to the same show yesterday. Great times were had by all, shout out to Al and Joe Smith for sharing their punch bowl drinks and to Fran for buying us pizza. Keep your eyes on the blog, a ton of new stuff dropping very, very soon. Currently Listening to: Althea by the Grateful Dead (Live, 12/31/79, Oakland Auditorium Buy Us Pizza, Nick  Holy shit, Jay has so much audio. I got the pleasure of hanging out with Jay Bones the other night and he showed up at my house with a phone book sized CD case of Fat City audio and pictures. Unfortunately, I have no way to get data off of a CD right now and we'll have to make it a slow leak. For now, I have posted NEW AUDIO. That's right, brand spanking new, old shit. Jay also came with an old school iPod and I figured out how to rip what he had on it. Stuff I thought was lost forever. There's Hookahville 29, the amazing festival we were lucky enough to play in May 2008 with the crazy talented Ekoostik Hookah, there's Grape Street 9/21/2006 with Jaxon telling us we suck in the beginning and a ridiculous rendition of Juicy at the end where Frank plays bass and Vivas plays guitar and I can't stop talking into the mic. There's also a really cool five song recording from sometime in early 2009 when we played a place on the Sunset Strip that totally wasn't The Viper Room. It's all up on the music page. Look forward to a bunch of Bitter End shows, a bunch of Grape Street shows, and who knows what else from Jay's vault. I also heard a squeaky little rumor that Vivas has video of us playing the Whiskey A Go Go that I am trying to investigate as quickly as possible. Currently Listening To: Audra Mae and the Almighty Sound ft. Frankie Pedano Stay Tuned, Nick   August 25, 2003 - Fat City Reprise plays their first show ever at Doc Watson's in Philadelphia, opening for a band called Hilliard. It was a Monday night. Sixteen years is a long time, a lot of people born and dead in that time period. It's pretty trippy to even think about, we were mostly 21 at the time, sixteen years before that we were 5. In recognition of spending the day struggling with my own mortality, I just dropped a massive photo bomb. There are 183 new pictures in the Random 2004 album, 56 in 2005, 5 in the Press Pictures, and a NEW album with 93 Halloween pictures. I spent the other night hanging out with Trov and he gave me the mother load. Still no new audio, I'm thinking we'll have to take a trip to New York for that. Maybe when Frankie gets back from Kentucky. I also got the right artwork up for the Black CD Demo and the Monkey EP, again thanks to Trov. Artwork on the Monkey Demo by Johnny Zito. Another anniversary treat, on the Apparel Page, the original Fat City Reprise Sound Wave shirt is back up and for sale. Before Al Bruno's famous classic logo, we used this guy. Artwork by Johnny Zito, font by Microsoft Word. One last Easter Egg, in the first blog we ever posted back in 2004, we detailed the story behind a bet between Trov and I about whether or not I could run a mile in less than ten minutes. I ran it in 7:20, at 1AM. We posted pictures that I thought were lost but BOOM SON! Currently Listening to: Chariots of Fire Still Fast, Nick    The working man is a sucker. Got caught up slinging fish this week. Thanks to everyone who is buying shirts and sending files, I really appreciate it. I just got a huge photo dump from my favorite Ohio resident Liz Maher (sorry Junebug, I love you too.) You can see these pictures in the Hookahville gallery as well as the Midwest Tour gallery. There's more pictures in the Random 2008 gallery too, we played Brew's on one of our cross-country jaunts, either coming from or going to Los Angeles some time July 2008. Minor details escape me, my brain doesn't have a ton of miles just yet but most of them were off road - I'm dinged up. I have probably talked to Frank more in the last three weeks than the last year. Jay was supposed to hang out with me this week but I think we are bumping it. As always, I will post when I get more stuff. Trov has a MOTHERLOAD of really old stuff I lost years ago, I'm really excited to get my hands on it. Currently listening to: Life is a Carnival by The Band (Live, Winterland 1974) Get Schwifty, Nick   Been a nice week in Fat City. I talked to Tom for a few hours via text and he is currently crate digging. I will probably have a big dose of early stuff from him in the next 5-10 days. He's a Papa Bear now so he's got priorities. I'm sure everyone has heard from Frank because he is blasting me pictures and gig requests like a frenetic animal. Thanks to the Sisters of Davis for shooting over their pictures. If anyone would like to reach Frank directly, you can do so here: Frankie@FatCityReprise.net. The Sanner Unit hit me up with some of his pictures. For those who do not know, Dave the Artist Sanner is the artist behind our Ganesh artwork as well as all of the gigantic hand-painted banners we used to drag everywhere and play in front of. I am dropping his pictures here as well as in the Random 2006 folder on the images page. Dave was also the inspiration for the lyrics to our song 'You Are The Art.' Always nice to hear from a homie. Judging by the blog archives, we played the Bitter End in NYC at least 11 times and I know Paul records everything that happens there for posterity so Frank and I are working on setting up a road trip to grab the files and get groovy with Monsieur Rizzo. We'll get them online as soon as we can. Currently Listening To: Much Love in the Evil Sound by Diet Kong (Hi Keith) - Nick
I'll tell you what, it's been pretty trippy going through all of this old stuff. I mean, 2004 was 15 years ago.
Yuck. Anyway, I just added six new picture albums, even though they're not super heavy in images yet and I also added these two videos I found. I am pretty sure that this is from Abilene's. We flew drove home to play the TLA (June 2009?) from Los Angeles and we played a surprise show at Abilene's the next night. I don't have a ton of live recordings of the Pirate Radio songs so finding these was great. I never felt like the studio stuff did us any justice anyway. I hope you enjoy. Today I talked to Jay, Vivas, Tony Trov, Matt Harrow (of Elephant Ride fame,) and Joe Ricci. So far, this website has been a nice revisit to all of my friends. Jay, Vivas, Trov, and Tom all have stuff that I don't have so keep checking back for more content. Currently Listening to: Machine Gun by Band of Gypsies I think I'll call Tom tomorrow, Nick So now I know that I hate making websites but I think it's done for now. New photo dumps will come before audio because I am pretty sure I posted everything I have. I think Trov has a copy of Live at the Bitter End, I know Paulie Rizzo does. There's two good Live at the Bitter End sets from different eras out there, I will find them! I also learned, this is my favorite picture of me and Jay. (also featured, Larry Goldtop) - Nick  Hey, it's me Nick
Frank and I were talking the other day about how there's no repository of all this media we all have and we decided to buy this domain and launch it all in one place. I suck at website stuff so bare with me. If anyone has any Fat City Reprise audio, images, or anything else they'd like to donate to the site, hit me up at Nick@FatCityReprise.net. I'll try and keep the blog updated when a bunch of new media shows up. |
