Roedown Review

It's over. It was successful. There were no major incidents or catastrophes. I was able to get up for work the next morning. That's pretty much all that matters and I could leave it at that. But that would be no fun for you, the reader. So... here's all the juicy details on the year's greatest rural horse race/music fest.

Here's a little background... ROEDOWN - it happens every year in April -usually the first Sunday. This year was the 35th running. It's Steeple Chase Racing - a little different than the standard around-the-track racing. And the biggest question every year for Roedown is "What's the weather forecast?" Aside from that, it's not only a horse race, but it's a huge conglomeration of tailgates -the social event that ushers in spring.

Me and/or my band have played at Roedown for 4 out of the past 5 years. This year, my wife and I did an MS fundraiser in conjunction with the live music. There were two other bands involved too: Sweet Leda and Pressing Strings. Wendy Marxen, the Marlborough Hunt Club's Marketing Director (and super-cool chick) was heading up the "Music Festival" angle of Roedown and was counting on a local radio station to do most of the grunt and leg work when it came to getting a stage, sponsors, etc. Unfortunately, this local radio station fell FAR short of Wendy's expectations and she called me to "help coordinate" things. My wife and I turned it into a huge fund-raising tailgate. Wendy got PRS to donate a guitar, we got OpenMortgage to donate an iPod, and Rams Head kicked in some free tickets to UB40. Blah, blah, blah... that's enough the background.

So... I have very interesting and colorful friends. One of them is Charles Funk - one bad-ass photographer (check out http://charlesfunk.com) He's been a close friend on die-hard fan of my music for years. Charles also has some colorful friends. One of them is named Buzz. I'm sure Buzz has a proper first and last name, but "Buzz" is all I ever knew. And this kat lives up to his nickname quite well since 90% of the times that he's been present for a band outting, he's managed to get shitfaced - quick. Buzz aparently suffered a terrible motorcycle accident years ago that rendered him a little mentally challenged. You wouldn't really know it talking to him in general conversation, but it's obvious after prolonged exposure that his reasoning skills are greatly diminished. Especially when it comes to consuming alcohol. And after our first dose of Buzz years ago, everyone in the band sorta grins when Charles announces he'll be attending an event. This was the case for Roedown. Buzz was there in all his splendor. Zak and Terry (guitar and bass player) were excited to see Buzz again... not to catch up on old times or talk about music... Nah, they just wanted to get old Buzz shit-faced again and see what trouble they could get him into. They did a GREAT job at Roedown.
For most of the early afternoon at Roedown, I was busy running around doing coordination-type stuff. With the bands, with the Roedown officials, with the tailgate people... Busy, busy, busy. So by the time my band, The Populists, were ready to hit the stage, my band had already played a significant hand in leading Buzz down the Whisky Highway via EarlyTimes Avenue. Zak had arrived at Roedown with his signature super-size plastic bottle-o-EarlyTimes and was anxious and happy to share it with whoever would take a swig -especially Buzz who was happy to partake. A few days before Roedown, Charles had come up with the idea of having Buzz introduce the band before we rocked out. I thought it sounded like a harmless enough idea at the time, but little did I know that Buzz would be in rare form by the time we were ready to play. Somehow he managed to get to the stage and proceeded to introduced us as "the greatest fuckin' rock-n-roll band in the world" followed by some other unintelligible gibberish. Zak, my guitar player, was laughing so hard after Buzz's intro, he was doubled over - 'course, he been partaking of the EarlyTimes too. Good Times compliments of EarlyTimes. And, for the record, I did not have even one little sip of the whisky. In fact, when we took the stage, my alcohol consumption for the day consisted of a tiny shot of Tuaca minutes before.

I'm pretty sure Buzz kept on cruising down EarlyTimes avenue after his MC duties for the band had ended because about an hour or so later, he was having problems standing. Uh, he was also having problems sitting. So much so that he went from sitting in a chair to laying on the ground face first. Somewhere between the chair and the ground, Buzz managed to gash his head open on another nearby chair. So there he was, on the ground, bleeding profusely from his head, unable to right himself, unable to get up, unable to form a coherent sentence. And to his rescue comes my Florence Nightengale wife. She got direct pressure on his wound and ordered me to find Charles and a first-aid get. I found the first-aid kit in our van and I found Charles in the big red barn taking photos of Zak and his nearly-naked wife with a guitar. Ah, another two passengers on EarlyTimes Avenue. I called out "Hey Charles, Buzz just fell and hit his head - it's pretty bad." Charles looked at me like "yeah? so?"

I continued "Hey man, he's probably gonna need stitches..." Charles paused from his photo shoot and shot me an irritated glance "Can't you see I'm a little busy here?!"

Got it. Boobies come before Buzz. OK.

Anyway, my wife ended up getting Buzz back on a chair. But not before Terry (bass player) grabs the half-empty bottle of EarlyTimes, props it up under Buzz's arm, and snaps a picture. Classy. And then once Buzz is back in a seated position, Zak comes to lend a hand... "Buzz, what you need is another swig of whisky, man!" I quickly grabbed the bottle from Zak and gave him the "what the f*ck are you thinking, dude?!" look. He sheepishly grinned and mumbled "sorry"

Well we got Buzz into a car and Charles got him stitches later that day. Terry got his trophy picture, I got sunburned, Zak got fired from the band, and the MS Walk got nearly $2k from our fundraising efforts.

That's the long and short of it. Or at least that's all I have to say for now.