Leather Vests and Regional Bar Bands

As far I can tell almost every band started as a regional bar band. Some stand out and get lucky, most just entertain for the love of music. Some regional bar bands I saw: Living Earth, Solar Circus, Splintered Sunlight, Dark Star Orchestra, Max Creek. And thats just the Dead related music in my area. Right now I enjoy some local guys called Box Of Rain.   Just watched a Stevie Ray Vaughn bio. He bounced around for years in bars before making it "big". So support your local musicians! For 20 bucks, cheap beer, good music, friends, dancing and fun.

.Didnt Pigpen like his leather when the GD were a regional bar band?

Most bar covers are about $5-10 in Telluride and I'm always open to checking out a regional act at a bar ... tonight Euphorquestra is playing ($10) at a local bar; however, not a big fan of 10-11pm start times that are typical at bars.  There are a few larger "non-bar" small venues (300 - 500) that get $20-40 ... and it's typically of regional/state and smaller national act that are coming through town.   Have been pulling back on the latter in recent years since it's become a virtual "Groundhog Day" (movie).   The Sheridan Opera House have announced much of their winter schedule & it's "rinse and repeat" from the past several years:  LOS, ISD, CRB, and Elephant Revival as mainstays.  They're not bad by any stretch, but definitely thinking twice now ... have realized CRB is good, but hardly face melting and CR's recent commentaries re: GD related topics have been a big turnoff.  Would rather spend the $20 to see some other regional acts I like or haven't seen.

Someone is all up in RRGs brain bucket.

We took our son Esau to see a regional bar band called Jesus Sons at a bar in the mission. 

We loved it. We're going back for Roky Erickson on Halloween. 

These guys are doing some punkin'. 

http://thephilzone.net/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=296

Thanks for the link to Slackerlurkshardzonedotnet

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My favorite regional bar band was Bill Kirchen & Too Much Fun who played for $3 every Tuesday night at the Sunset Bar & Grill in Annandale, Virginia when I was living in Northern Virginia in the early '90s.  That original Too Much Fun line-up, with Jeff Sarli on bass and ex-Danny & The Fatboys drummer Dave Elliott, kicked ass.

The Sunset was this tiny little biker bar that put out free peanuts in the shell and served $2 long neck Buds.  There was a hallway to a slightly larger adjacent room where hair-metal would be playing while Kirchen ran through his set of Commander Cody tunes and Honky-Tonk and Cosmic Country material.  The contrast was surreal.  Peanut shells would be scattered over the floor and crunch at your feet as you sidled up to the bar.  Inbetween sets, Bill would come off the stage and sit at your table and shoot the shit with you.  The crowd was a mix of biker regulars, white collar DC professionals, stoned hippie kids, and Alt-Country proto-hipsters.  It was just about exactly perfect.

As Grateful Dead tickets had passed the $30 mark. Brent had died, and the quality of GD shows was fading, I started to seriously rethink why I was blowing money and time going to see them when I could see acts like this for a fraction of the cost and sleep in my own bed at night.

Danny Gatton, The Nighthawks, The Grandsons Of The Pioneers, The Seldom Scene, The Tony Rice Unit, The Johnson Mountain Boys, and if you want to stretch out the definition of regional a little, Jorma Kaukonen, The Iguanas and NRBQ were all on my regular under $20 bar band show list in those years.

>>>I bet some, if not all larger acts started out as "regional bar bands" 

True for most acts, except for "super groups" founded by established musicians or pre-fab acts like the "Monkees."   Even the Beatles started out as a regional bar band.  One exception might be the Grateful Dead, which started as a pizza parlor and acid party band.

While there are great regional bar bands around here (covers run from free to $15), I haven't really been into the ones that have hit the national scene, which have tended to fall into the punk or "indie" scene.

Does Stu on Wed. nights count?

sometimes they're the best shows.