The new speakeasys

Adrian Wulff · From: Portland, OR, USA

Last night I went to the pre-grand opening of a new "country" bar in town. Imagine Studio 54 but with a mechanical bull. Loud techno-country, I mean Top 40, flashing lights, huge TV screens showing the latest video, etc.

Relating to the irony/anti-smoking thread, maybe we'll end up in basement speakeasy bars where we have to give the password at the door to get in. People will smoke Camels illegally and everyone scatters when the BMI police show up.

Adrian

Tim Whitlock · From: Colorado, USA

Too funny, Adrian, but frighteningly possible!

It's amazing and sad what the old rural honky tonk has evolved into. Sounds like the name of the place should be "Dante's Country Inferno".

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I know a bar here in California where people still smoke. They have aluminum foil ashtrays that can be crushed and slipped out of sight when the cops come in. The bartender and waitresses all smoke, too.

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Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
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Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

I have asthma, and I get violently ill when I'm around smoke for any prolomged period of time. Myt mother, whose physiology I inherited, ultimately died from this disease( (She actually died from injuries she received in a car accident, but the injuries were in themselves not terribly serious, and had she not been so debilitated from the dosease, she would have survived.) I take this issue VERY seriously. I have to.

The smoke factor was one of the primary reasons I gave up gigging.

The California anti-smoking law is one of the best things that has happened in this state in a long time. If people want to poison themselves I suppose that's their right, but they do NOT have the right to make other people sick.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

On the other hand...

When Montgomery County went "smoke free", a local TV station interviewed people on the street to see what they thought of the new law. (You can't even smoke on your front porch if there is an adjoining house - i.e., townhouses, rowhouses, and condos.) One of the "interviewees" said he was happy to see the new law go into effect.

And...

...his occupation was...

(You guessed it.)

Firefighter (LOL!)

Paul Osbty · From: Seattle, Washington, USA

Don't any of you think of opening your own club, or do you prefer to run someone else's?

I guess it's easier to run someone else's business while you don't have to pay the bills.

Adrian Wulff · From: Portland, OR, USA

Waaalll, what I really was thinking of is traditional country lovers having to go underground to enjoy their music, not so much whether or not people have to swallow their cigarettes when there's a loud knock on the door.

It's not all bad, there's a great bar off the highway in SW Washington that has a jam night every Sunday that has some great pickers. I think the newest song I've heard people do there is "Neon Moon".

People are still getting decent gigs (Eric West is the Waldo of the scene, only with a black Stetson and instead of searching for him you can't show up to catch a band in town with out his Emmons being in place) and there are plenty of good bands in town. I talk to people who been here for 20 or more years and they just see everything drying up one club at a time.

Maybe traditional country will end up like bluegrass, people will just get together to pick at whatever bar will let them set up. I can't really think of a good analogy. Anyone?

Adrian

Daryl Stogner · From: San Diego, CA * R.I.P.

The music being passed off as "Country" today isn't anymore country than if Tim McGraw could sing without an intonation box in the studio.

Sure some song's today are as country as the record company know-it-alls will allow, but "real country" requires a few things.

1. Fiddle

2. Steel

3. lead guitar

4. bass

5. drums

6. Someone that can at least sing San Antonio Rose

(note: It don't hurt none if the steel player can play Bud's Bounce once in awhile too.)

Mind you I'm only 54, but I like my country, country.

Larry Behm · From: Mt Angel, Or 97362

Adrian I am at Jubitz this week end come see.
There is no smoking in the section in front of the bandstand, we are loving it.

Larry Behm

Graham Griffith · From: Tempe, N.S.W., Australia

Venues still have smoking here in Sydney at present (although you can't smoke at the bar anymore)but that'll change sooner or later. A few beaches are banning smoking because people stub their cigarettes in the sand and that's where it stays. Restaurants and public buildings ahve all banned smoking and you can't smoke on the trains or buses (for a long time). Smokers, when visiting, rarely light up in your house without asking and some usually just go outside as a matter of course.

I really believe that smokers will adapt to non smoking venues as long as they can at least go outside and have a puff ... much better for all concerned ... they smoke less and you don't wake up in the morning with a smoking (active or passive) hangover.

Just my view

Graham

PS Bluegrassers here have a reputation for sitting on a glass of water all night! Is that the situation in the States? Not a great incentive for venue owners who like to sell some product.

Wally Maples · From: Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

I agree with Darly. I winter in Yuma and there isn't much steeling there since Bud Isaacs stopped playing clubs. Glad to catch the bands down on Lower Broad in Nashville for a few months tho.

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

Emmons?

Watch it change into a Sho~Bud at Jubitz next weekend (28-9).

This weekend I'm an Offender at the Flying M.

Smoking Allowed.

I think that publication idea is worth trying.

I'll get with what's his name this weekend.

EJL

Emmett Roch · From: Texas Hill Country

I've played in a club in Fresno where we were allowed to smoke onstage, but nowhere else inside the building.

Stephen Gambrell · From: Over there

Graham, that IS a problem(?)with bluegrass audiences. 'Grassers are kinda like golf galleries, everyone watching also plays. So, the bluegrass audience comes to hear the band, and compare themselves to the folks onstage. They'll drink a beer or two, behave nicely, then go home in time for the 11:00 news. Not really attractive to club owners.
But not a lot of them smoke, either

Jennings Ward · From: Edgewater, Florida, R.I.P.

NEW COUNTRY, IS TO COUNTRY, LIKE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW IS TO MORALS...... Just a thought! By Jennings

Ron Page · From: Penn Yan, NY USA

Yeah, and when the no-good do-gooders outlaw the trans-fatty-acids in cookies I'll go the black market before I stop eating "Coffee & Cream Oreos".

Country music at large is in pretty sad shape. Fortunately, I don't rely on commercial radio anymore to find good music that I enjoy. Didn't I read something somewhere about a new Dale Watson CD?

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HagFan

Daryl Stogner · From: San Diego, CA * R.I.P.

I've played in a club in Fresno where we were allowed to smoke onstage, but nowhere else inside the building.

Emmett,

You mean there is actually a club these days in Fresno that has Country Music? What the name and where is it? My friends up there say there isn't much country there these days and that's hard to believe since country was alwasy big up there.

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Daryl Stogner
daryl@davestogner.com
www.dstogner.com
www.davestogner.com

Michael Lee Allen · From: Portage Park / Irving Park, Chicago, Illinois

DELETED

Emmett Roch · From: Texas Hill Country

Right here, Daryl: www.clubfredfresno.com

Mark van Allen · From: Watkinsville, Ga. USA

The issue with smoking in an enclosed area isn't about the rights of smokers being eroded, but I think a recognition of the rights of non-smokers always having been in jeapordy. I'm sure I've endured some internal damage from the many years I spent playing in smoky clubs, my choice, but I hated it. My county (Gwinnett, GA.) has just passed a no-public-places smoking ban, and it seems the smoking public are grudgingly accepting. It appears this particular ordinance was motivated less by health conciousness and more to ward off the series of health-related lawsuits on the horizon from bar and restaurant workers. It disturbs me to see smokers taking the concept of enforcing the rights of all people to breathe cleaner air as a personal assualt on their "right" to pollute their immediate area. This week I had Buddy Miles in the studio here (he's been here before and knows my non-smoking policy). Again he asked me for an ashtray, and I reminded him that the gear and other performers don't like smoke. Next time I checked in with him in the iso booth, he had two smokes going at once, and a couple stubbed out! He said he just didn't feel like walking outside. Of course the next couple of vocalists I get in there are gonna be miserable. (Where's the febreeze?) Shortly before the local smoking ban took effect, my wife and I were out to dinner at a local (smoky) restuarant. We had taken a table outside on the patio to be smoke free- a couple of guys pulled up in a truck right against the fence where we were sitting and left the engine running with some kind of exhaust leak spewing directly onto our table, while they talked and listened to the radio. After about 10 minutes I finally got up and walked outside and asked them pleasantly if they would mind turning off the engine... resulting in getting sworn at, a beer can thrown at my wife, and the truck pealing out of the parking lot. I don't understand why people are so quick to anger, and so slow to think of others first. I see a whole lot of that in this smoking controversy.

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Stop by the Steel Store at: www.markvanallen.com

Eric West · From: Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.

It's getting damned unsafe to go out anymore...

EJL

James Morehead · From: Prague, Oklahoma, USA - R.I.P.

Mark Van Allen, I couldn't say it better!

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