My groove place!
June 4, 2013 Leave a comment
Don’t recall if I posted this video before, but I hope you enjoy it. The music at the beginning is Linda Witsell on flute, Womack Howard on piano, Ben Adkins on drums and Yours Truly on the bass (a gig I did a few years ago).
May 5, 2013 Leave a comment
During May 1-4, there was a sub-tropical low that dumped upwards of 12 inches of rainfall on Northeast Florida, causing widespread flooding throughout the region (mostly due to the many creeks and tributaries of the St. Johns River overflowing their banks). Just yesterday (May 4) a State of Emergency was declared for Clay County (south of Jacksonville). The rains finally ended last night, but in some areas they ended with a bang, as a massive supercell-thunderstorm raged through southern Duval County and into St. Johns County with quarter-size hail, 60-70 MPH wind gusts and a possible tornado just west of St. Augustine, inflicting some damage to the area surrounding the World Golf Hall of Fame complex.
During a lull in the action yesterday I paid a short visit to the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens and noticed that Jones Creek was itself overflowing its banks with a strong current. With the sun finally returning today I re-visited the Arboretum. Though the water levels receded considerably, Jones Creek was at such a high level that I haven’t seen in months, and the open limestone-depression marsh area (also known as the “Seasonal Pond”) was flooded to the max (it will likely take 1-2 weeks for the water there to evaporate & dry out, which is normal for that particular ecosystem). The last time the Seasonal Pond was this flooded was after Tropical Storm Beryl nearly a year ago.
The above Photo Gallery shows pics I took today (May 5). A video of Jones Creek will be coming shortly…
April 28, 2013 Leave a comment
Continuing on a theme started with my previous post, here’s a YT-offering of the full album (w/bonus tracks) of A Gathering Of Promises, the only album released by the legendary Texas psychedelic band Bubble Puppy.
Bubble Puppy continued in a vein of Texas-bred psychedelic rock that started with The 13th Floor Elevators and Janis Joplin, and continued into the 70′s boogie-rock of ZZ Top, the fiery blues of Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughan… anyway back to The Puppy – formed in 1966 in Corpus Christi by a couple ex-members of a local garage-band, The Bad Seeds, they built up their fan-base in San Antonio, Austin & whereabouts, opening for The Who in a 1967 concert in San Antonio and also opening for Winter, The Elevators & others.
Their one big hit, “Hot Smoke and Sassafras” (name inspired by a Beverly Hillbillies TV-sitcom episode) came in 1969 and peaked at No. 14 on Billboard (US) that summer & is featured on the above aforementioned album. With a few personnel-changes (and a name-change, to Damian, in 1972 at the behest of their manager, ex-Steppenwolf bassist Nick St. Nicholas) they continued until 1974. The Puppy tried several attempts over the years at reforming, given their still-passionate fan base in east Texas & other locales, up to their current existence which began in 2011 when the newly-reunited band (most of the original lineup plus a couple of add-ons) performed at the Austin Music Awards that year.
The band is still groovin’ to this day in the Austin/Corpus Christi/San Antonio area. Sadly, one of their co-founding members, bassist-vocalist-songwriter Roy Cox, just passed away a few weeks ago. Godspeed, Roy! Groove on, Puppy!!
Direct link to YT-page for the above (includes track-listings)
Bubble Puppy (official website)
Info on the Sassafras tree
