whoa, remember this show? man, i used to love watching this on nickelodeon. i think that was even before they had nick at nite. i remember watching moose, kevin, christine and the gang get slimed and watered like fools. remember that old guy that was in all the skits? i used to think he was the dad and those were all his adopted kids. now that guy was a talented, as opposed to this guy.

i saw one of the most amazing things last night. it was something that only chad edgington could be a part of and it was absolutely and totally perfect for him.

to: scott jeffries
from: david dewese
date: 7-30-01
subject: in the ghetto

sloth-

well the edgingtons rolled out last night about 10 p.m. it was pretty sad to stand there and wave them goodbye. chad seemed pretty thrilled to be leaving though. he screamed, "ha ha, i'm the first one to go back!," as they rolled away. he'd evidently gotten over his "blues" from earlier in the week.

the exit party was amazing. the church hosted a 50's party in their honor. they wanted chad to lip synch as young elvis AND as fat elvis. they rented him costumes and everything. he got the great idea to have the soul bandits back young elvis. it was fun. we played 5 old elvis songs. then the church played some hulla-hoop games until the lights went out and the 2001 space odyssey music began. fat elvis emerged with twin spotlights following him. he sang a few songs, said some funny stuff, and gave out some sweaty scarves. it was great. then a lady came up and wished them well and told chad he could KEEP the costumes. they were gone within an hour. it was one of the most amazing music city exits of all time. nashville will never be the same. take care of them in west texas.

former soul bandit sloth jeffries just pointed me to this site. looks like fans are trying to get joshua tree national park to dedicate a park in honor of our namesake. (well, not really our namesake but he wrote a song called luxury liner that we named the band after.) this story was posted on a cool fansite dedicated to an early lux liner influence called the mother hips. sloth got our whole college excited about the mother hips back in the day. they are just one of the many bands inspired by gram parsons' music and legacy. i just liked his hair cut. or lack of.

well here's a bit of interesting news from yahoo. Paul McCartney Engaged to Heather Mills. i guess the only way to top the amazing paul and linda (sounds like linder in england) marriage is to marry a girl with only one leg. paul is my favorite beatle and i'm really happy that he's found a new gal. i don't consider this a celebrity flake marriage that'll end in a year. when paul mccartney falls in love, he falls in love.

while we were rocking out in knoxville last night (hi new east tennessee friends), founding former lux liner chad edgington was at a super-rare big star concert. alex chilton borrowed chad's fender telecaster for the gig. chad's email report to me was so rock-n-roll i just had to post it. i'm jealous.

to: david dewese
date: july 26, 2001 10:24 a.m.
from: chad edgington
subject: RE: how was it?

It was pretty amazing. Chilton looked like a plain old middle aged guy, Jody looked like an old rocker - but he is holding up well. The posies guys were good players, and they sang the really high stuff- like feel and those sorts of songs. Alex did play my guitar for one song- and I can't remember which one, but I know I'll remember next time I hear the song. I was so blown away that I forgot what the song was. I did snap about 7 pictures of him playing the tele, and I got an autograph after the show on my bigstar cd insert.

they played the ones you'd think they'd play. They did play Jesus Christ was born today. They played Way out West and it was really good. The highlight of the show was either Jesus Christ, or feel- mainly because the guy playing bass had an incredible high voice that sounded more like chilton than chilton did. Ballad of El Goodo was fair, but the drummer didn't hit all fills in time and it sort of slowed the tempo.

This shaking drunk college kid wandered up towards the front of the stage during what must have been a sister lovers song, and nobody was letting him get past them, He was just about to lean on me when I stepped out of the way and he passed out and fell flat on his face- one of his friends came up and picked the bloody faced binge drinking fool off the parking lot and every one laughed. Alex smoked a cigarette and held it in the old school way- it was pretty funny. He was drinking diet coke- and so was the rest of the band- even the guitar tech.

On thirteen the crowd sang louder than the band, especially the part about "would you be an outlaw for my love," and the "Paint it black" line.

It was a good show- it didn't do the records justice to be honest, but it was cool to see Alex Chilton in his blue jeans, ropers, and button down long sleeve polo shirt rocking next to the bass player with the bright orange/red hair.

i'm taking a break from recording right now. larry is laying down some pyscho tremolo fuzz bass right now. tonight we've worked on fifteen again, woman, and equasue. it's been pretty fun rocking out down here on nashville's famed music row. i don't know when we'll finish it all. we're slow pokes in the studio. scott just split. we're headed to knoxville tomorrow so he's gonna catch some shut eye while he can. whoa, i just heard some weird noises come out of the control room. larry is out of control. someone's gotta stop him. he's layering stuff on equasue like a madman.

i guess i need to tell the story behind equasue. we'll, my high school buddy, jason clark, made up the word. for those of you that i've known for a while, you might know him better as alf, rick moranis, migidy, the mac, jas, or kansas. well, back in college he decided he was going to "make up" a new word. he wanted the whole world to catch on. so instead of saying "sweet", "awesome", "cool", "darn", or practically anything, he'd say "equasue". it sounds like this: the letter E, qua as in quasi, and sue as is sue. E-Qua-Sue. well, as you might have guessed, the word never caught on. i kinda wish it would have caught on instead of "sweet" or "tight". but oh well. so, now the word is back and ready for the world to adopt. all thanks to the luxury liners. jason, lets give it one more go. equasue.

we were in the studio last night and we're headed back in tonight. i'm only writing this because i'm trying to work out a problem with this page so i thought i'd give a bit of lux truth as opposed to simply writing "testing 1,2,3.."

Well, the show last night was a real success in my book. Lots of fun for everyone involved. It all started out with a bang as francis took the stage. They had the usual rock trio stage setup but played phat white boy indie rock rap. You know like old school beck. It was cool to have something so interesting open the show.

Jetpack rocked out as usual. I’m a big fan of their songs and sound. I also love the dudes in the band so it was great to play a show with true lux friends. They were proud to report that they’d been in the studio all last week working on the forthcoming jetpack EP. I know I’m excited about that and you should be too.

Our show went pretty good as far as I could tell. I think people liked it and so did i. we played the usual hits plus a couple newer songs that we’ve recently worked up. Scott was surprising everyone with his harmony work and larry was winning new fans with his bass god pedal work. I on the other hand was alienating fans, insulting namm convention goers and bashing nashville bands. Just joking. Seriously though, I hope people understood my dumb jokes. Sometimes I worry that certain people don’t "get" the fact that I’m kidding. But oh well, it’s all about the music anyway. Shut up and rock.

The real highlight of the evening came when someone from the audience requested the old luxury liner/soul bandit favorite called blockbuster. We decided we could do it but I had to seize the opportunity to pull founding liner chad edgington on stage. Chad came up and played my guitar and led us all through a scorching rendition of blockbuster. Then he treated the crowd to an encore of think she’s coming around. I hope the audience enjoyed it as much as I did. It was a real treat for me. Chad is moving back to texas next week and I’m gonna miss him. It was fun to rock out in nashville together one last time before he moves.

Here’s the setlist from last night. I’m try to mention any interesting parts that I can remember from each song.

Equasue – this is an older song that we hadn’t played in about three years. It had a short shelf life so most people have never heard it. Last night was our first time to play it and scott did some nice harmonies on it.
new beginning - "that’s right, reach high, just try"
it's you – we got some good crowd participation from this one.
Woman – our sappy love song power ballad with monster riffage.
fifteen again – I’m finally feeling comfortable with this one. I guess it takes a few moths of gigging to let the new ones really soak in.
shake it up - indeed
constellation invitation – we only played this one a few times back in 1999 so it’s back in action again.
waiting for sun – it’s beginning to grow on me.
left sideways – foxymoron plug.
blockbuster - chad slayed the audience on this jerry james original.
think she’s coming around – chad challenged us to follow that.
crash and burn - we accepted the challenge.
Cher – unplanned cover song. I thought we’d finally retired it.
waiting game – our new set closer.

this is an interesting concert realization by a young performer in minnesota. i'd never really thought about that before. the strange comfort that comes from being disappointed by the lack of a crowd. i always really really appreciate the people that do show up for concerts, but i also find comfort in being able to predetermine the people who don't show up. it's kinda fun to figure that out. "i promise, we're gonna come see y'all tonight." i'm usally able to figure out who's serious and who's not. like right now, i'm being serious. i'm going to see the luxury liners tonight, becasue i'm in the band. i'm prepared to tell the same stale jokes, and play a bunch of the same old songs. but i'll also probably have some new jokes and we are playing a couple newer songs too. so it should be interesting, fresh, and exciting for those people that do show up. and for those of you that don't come, but told us you would... don't feel bad. we already knew.

i hate when this happens. i hear about it all the time, but now it's happening to something that i really need. i guess that's the one good thing about the luxury liners not being a '"signed" music act.

okay, the really important link in that last entry was the yahoo group. if you're reading this and you aren't on our yahoo group, you need to go sign up now! it's pretty cool, everybody get's to post messages so you aren't stuck reading the three lux liner's boring prose. i'll admit that an ollie north fan page is neat but a luxury yahoo group is, ...um, ...neater.

last night i got to hang out with the luxury liner yahoo group founder "sloth" jeffries. true fans will know that sloth and i were in a band in college called the soul bandits. he was the dancer/tambourine player and i was a singer/guitarist. we rocked all over brownwood, tx for a semester in college. then he went on to form a band called big eugene and the loose screws. (later to be known as simply 'big eugene'.)

it was fun having life, family, car, house, baby, rock-n-roll talk with one of the guys that got me into rock-n-roll. before i met sloth i was listening to stuff like harry connick, mariah carey, pearl jam, and susan ashton. sloth taught our gang of friends about the byrds, gram parsons, mother hips, and wilco.

i quickly sold my mariah carey albums and bought a wilco record. then i borrowed a copy of the gram parsons book "hickory wind" and let my hair grow out. sloth turned me into an alt-country rocker. no more volleyball, CCM, or ollie north haircuts. i wanted to rock!

thanks sloth. these days i might have dropped the "country" from my rocker status but i'm still rocking thanks to the most rock-n-roll guy i know. oh yea, just to prove his never ending rocker status... he let me see his 22 month old baby girl sing along to a jamming mother hips song. i was speechless.

did everyone have a good 4th? if you have a good story, you can post it on the luxury "message" page.

i had a good day. we hosted a cookout at our house. verde was there, a few lux liners, some jetpackers, a former lux liner, a couple of badgers, both members of redhot madness, a ballerina, a record producer, a scientist... the list goes on and on. we had hotdogs, hamburgers, bocce ball, bugles, shirley temples, roy rogers, martha stewart food, blankets... all the usual suspects.

after eating and goofing around we all packed into cars and headed to the cumberland river in downtown nashville. the mayor had a big fireworks show for everyone. we even got to listen the independence day classic "i'm proud to be an american" by lee greenwood. amen.

pirates larry and scott here on david's account. what should we do? he's on the phone, none the wiser to our evil scheme to take complete control of the lux liners. (insert evil laugh here) scott's over in the corner with a big spoon creating an evil lair to harbor creatures for lux domination. now he's retuning david's guitar. we're taking bets on whether he'll notice. now for a nice game of darts. we need a target oh andrea?!?!?? oh no! here comes david!!

well, our memphis weekend was a success. it's always nice to have an audience to play in front of. we played with a strange mike myers "deiter-esque" band called automusik. we all ate bar-b-que before the show because memphis is supposed to be famous for their bar-b-que. we also had to cruise beale street just because we could and we listened to an elvis impersonator and heard about fifty different blues bands.

the three hour drive down was a delight compared to our last eight hour road trip. traveling tunes included the new travis record, a new-old joe, marc's brother ep, and the innonece mission.

when we finally found the map room (the venue) we were pleasantly surprised to see how "cute" it was. it was a nice and quiet little coffee shop. however once we started loading in we found we were to play in the basement. so the "cute" coffee shop vibe was replaced by the usual sweaty, dark, and dirty rat holes we're used to playing in. we were obviously more at home in the smoky basement. once we were about to start all the coffee sippers started filing down into the basement much to our surprise and delight. we rocked out on all eleven songs that we currently know. it was fun and i don't think it took people long to figure us out. i know this because i heard people clapping between songs. that's always a good sign for a traveling rock band.

scott and his clan decided to stay the night and visit graceland the next day so the rest of us loaded up the gear and drove off into the night. driving tunes included the awesome old-school amy grant lead me on album, a double dose of the new david mead album, and finally the new weezer just when i was getting sleepy.