Renegade Saints cover on You Tube

I was doing a little work on my You Tube channel, when I discovered a rare gem: Smooth Audio Flow covering my old Renegade Saints song, “Deep End,” at Lollapotato.

Over the years, I gather this song has seen a good bit of action. I know of a church band that plays it at their services. (Which, by the way, I think is wonderful, in spite of the fact that its origin lay in a more secular variety of epiphany… sort of Edgar Alan Poe on peyote.)

S.A.F. did a fine job on this. It makes me want to get my ass back in the studio and write another song.

Shipe-Ebbage Chaos at Hogan’s w/ Cargill

Hard to describe what happens in Clarkston on the Hogan’s stage. I warned Ebbage; we wouldn’t be lulling them with our sensitive side. So we get help from Scott Cargill (Lucas) on mandolin, and Jim on Jembe and Ryan on bass (with whom we’ve never played a note.)

At Hogan’s, you’re tucked in a nook, behind giant speakers, on a stage deeper than it is wide. If you’re not loud and rowdy, the music can’t make it all the way to where everybody’s sitting.

We’ve never rehearsed. Scott, my dear Lewiston friend, practices on his own, and greets us with newly crafted mando parts. We just jam it out like street musicians. All bravado and energy. Plus, he calls out songs I don’t play often, from my older rock albums–”Jasmine,” “Crawlspace,” etc. Also, he’s a Renegade Saints fan, so we bust out Al Toribio’s “Letter Home,” Mike Walker’s “Delivered,” and Dave Coey’s “Tara.” He’s got all the hooks down.

A pleasant surprise was how gorgeously Ebbage’s country side shined with the mandolin in there. Perhaps it wasn’t the best stage for his lullabies, but two-steppers like “Hurtin’ Me” and “The Way She Does It” sounded best of the entire tour. (I felt good on twangy lap steel, to boot.)

With the quasi-rhythm section, and Scott’s mad energy egging us on, why not have Ebbage play electric most of the night? His tone was so awesome, we just let him go off on long indulgent solos. (Did I mention that Scott’s right arm is a rhythmic machine? Sticking the groove while Ebbage shredded, especially on “Road Story.”

Speaking of “Road Story”, there were some devoted Jerry Joseph fans who called me out on my influences: “So, Shipe,” says this one dude, “Did you write ‘Road Story’ before or after Jerry Joseph’s ‘Drive?’”

“Okay, fine, you caught me,” I said. “Just for that, we’re gonna cover an actual J.J. song. Sit back down in your chair and soak up ‘World Will Turn.’” (Ebbage has gotten very good at thickening up our version with the electric… even without a rhythm section. I dare say we acquitted ourselves properly with that homage.)

But we pressed our luck. We should have stuck to the Miles Davis rule: Always leave them wanting more. Whether it be a musical passage, or a whole song, or a set, or an entire show, stop just short of topping out the tension by extending the climax. Restraint is key. For this Hogan’s show, the climax unmistakable; we were obviously done. But we were having too good a time to quit. As fatigue and one-Jager-shot-too-many kicked in, we ran the train of the rails. “These Days” took 15 minutes to get through three verses. I don’t think Ebbage knew what song we were playing, but he added some nice spacy notes, and the thing sort of went searching through the stratosphere–not the concise Jackson Brown song we’re familiar with. Last, and certainly least, “Crawlspace” turned into three and a half minutes of breakneck random chords.

Ah, well. That’s rock-n-roll for ya. I love it. That’s what makes it fun. You’re on stage, you’re in it together, and it ought to be a little risky. Like driving a car too fast around a curve.

Shipe Year in Review

The start of 2009 found me in North San Diego County. In the middle of my Yellow House run, it seemed a mistake to up-and-leave headquarters just to get out of Northwest rain. Sure, we lived on the beach, and the sunny weather was awesome, but they don’t have much of an original singer/songwriter scene in that surfer strip between L. A. & S. D.

What they do have, however, is a great Irish scene. Irish bands and Irish pubs. (Gentlemen from Flogging Molly reside there.) I was lucky to fall in with these folks. Ned Giblin, of Brehon Law, invited me to play Wednesdays at his pubs, J.J. Landers and R. O’Sullivan’s. So, I had regular gigs and a close look at a timeless style of music. (The influence of Ned and his cohort David Lally is bound to show on my next album.)

In Oceanside, I befriended Doug Whorly and several of his showcases at McCabe’s, where I met the lovely and talented road warrioress Jacqui Foreman. She honored me by covering my “Faith in the Man.”

It was at a Whorly showcase where my wife, Amy Wray, filmed the video of me covering The Pretender’s “Brass in Pocket.”

I didn’t bother working the L.A. scene. Too big, and like different country. But at the urging of my publicist Leona, I played a couple times at The Gypsy Den in Orange County. (Once with Trevor Davis.)

We lived down the beach from football star Junior Seau, who has a beautiful blue Pit Bull named Rocky. I mention the dog, because it was about this time that my connection to the international Pit Bull community really deepened. I was getting daily e-mails from dog lovers about my song “Pit Bull Blues,” which I gave out freely to anyone engaged in canine care and rescue. Soon, videographer Jeff Fleiss contacted me with the idea of making a video. By spring, he had hauled me up to L.A., filming me in front of the Coliseum amidst 25 Pit Bulls and their trainer, Dogman. He put it together with some excellent footage taken by Amy, and boom… there was a sweet video… still getting legs on the web.

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