Sittin' in with Brett Warren at Fat Matt's Rib Shack - where it all began for our family!

Took the family out to Fat Matt's Rib Shack for great BBQ - Sabina was all for this.  We met 16 years ago there...

Adrain Ash was playing drums (he also is the bassist when they have a drummer) for The Brett Warren Band, a blues revival force hailing from Tennessee.  Brent played and sang at Adrian & Heather's wedding, so I have known him for a bit now.  He had Adrian on drums (Adrian usually plays bass with Brett, I believe), Ronnie White on keys, and  Jacob Holliday on bass.  Jacob played with a lot of fire and passion, careening all over the neck of his Squire Jazz bass equipped with black tapewound strings.  I had brought my bass to sit in, but took Jacob up on his offer to let my play on his axe.  Got up there for the last song of the set, as Bin and the boys couldn't wait through the break for the next set, and played on a funky version of Albert King's Crosscut Saw in A.  Brett gave me a solo - funny!  Blues bass solos are silly sometimes.  I had some good ideas and finished off 2 choruses in fine fashion.  Only problem was he wanted me to go longer.  The moral is don't wrap it up too soon!  Be ready to keep it going until every else is ready for you to be done!  Words of wisdom that I may heed one day myself.  I loved the sound and feel of Jacob's bass.  My apologies if I happened to get some rib sauce on the strings!  You know that's goona happen at Fat Matt's!  Really, Jacob, thank you so much for letting me play on your bass!  You are a wonderful player and I appreciated the chance to get up there and play in front of my wife and kids for one rockin' ditty. 

The ribs, beans, Brunswick Stew, and even the Wonder bread dipped into the bbq sauce really took me back to the good old days of playing there every Wednesday with Randy Chapman & The Big Green Bottle Revue (a crafty tongue-in-cheek tribute to Mickey's Big Mouth Malt Liquor), which unfortunately was never properly documented (too early for internet documentation), as well as Randy's Interstate Brickface, Buffalo Alice, and even Jellyroll.  I spent many nights there playing back in the day.  One great brush with greatness for me was meeting James Hetfield of Metallica there.  He watched us (a band with my bud Reece Harris on drums) play a bunch of stuff a bit too fast.  I remember apologizing for the tempos (tempi?) and he said he liked the faster versions.  A great memory.  Fun to be up there again, dodging the bathroom doors with my bass headstock!