Mat d. and the Profane Saints:

 Not much to write about this weekend.  Business as usual.  Loaded up for the road with Bob and Kurt opting to bring Mrs. Birch and Mullins respectively;  Monty, Kelley, Jeff and I hauling the trailer to Council Bluffs Friday afternoon.  One of the coolest things that happened all weekend was the SUV with South Dakota Plates driving up beside us about 40 miles out of Sioux City with a gal hanging out of the passenger side window holding a Profane Saints Koozie in each hand yelling HELL YEAH at 70 miles per hour.  That got a howl and a hoot from everyone on board the Profane Ford.  It was great to meet the Mezcal Brothers from Lincoln- what a fabulous band.  Straight rockabilly done right.  Harrahs wasn't packed (our first time in Council Bluffs- something we expected) but those in attendance were very enthusiastic.  I'd like to give a shout to our new friends from Minnesota-one of them being Brando Reinhart (a bitchin’ name if I say [...]

Alright- first off.  I'm not broke.  Not completely anyway.  All of my crew and band members are gainfully employed at their day jobs and the band/music has become a second job for us.  After going through our receipts (not including hotel costs, food etc.)  There's no polite way of putting this.  We're taking it in the rear with no lube.  No joke.  Gas prices are killing us.   Food is going up but we can pack a cooler, which helps.  Hotels?  Half of the songs I write are about dirty, dingy places.  I don't mind staying in a dive, but I speak only for myself seeing as Jeff, the drummer had a a vivid dream on the road that I changed into a silverbacked gorilla and was picking the bed bugs off of him during a nightitme attack- and Bob has resorted to sleeping on top of the sheets.
 
So what does this mean for independents like us?  More solo gigs?  Sure.  Less vehicles?  A must.  Got me [...]

As we rolled east down I-90 on an unending stretch of badland Dakota highway I saw a lone truck stop in the middle of nowhere.  Run down, falling apart and blowing away in the spring wind.  I felt I was looking into the future through some prophetic window flashing scenes of the pending apocalypse.  That mopment inspired one of the first of what I suspect to be many road songs to come.  Here's what I came up with
The Truck Stop at the End of the World
words and music by Mathew R. deRiso copyright 2011 Mary Moe Music
 


this was the place he knew it always reeked of diesel fuel and bbq/ they'd keep the coffee on as black as hell and hotter than a midnight sun /another graveyard shift closer now to the dying than the day before / he'd watch the waitress dip as she slid a soggy mop across a hardwood floor
might see a letter fall jumping off the roof line of a crumbling wall /the shattered glass exposed casting crystal shadows in some secret code [...]

 We pulled into the Hotel and Casino around 1pm on Friday afternoon.  The skies were overcast and made the prairie look a little bit foreboding in a good way.  We all checked in and were pleasantly surprised how nice the rooms were.  They were comped as well along with two meals per guy.  We could get used to this.    Surrounded by the typical casino fare of elderly gamblers, hundreds of ashtrays, plastic cups and the smell of meat and potatoes and cigarette smoke hanging heavily in the air; we all went down to the lounge and the crew started unloading the gear.  We got everything loaded in and waited for our sound tech to show up.  After about an hour of dead time, hanging out and joking about Jeff's new pants (a pair of grey stone washed skinny jeans we was incredibly proud of - one of the central topics of the weekend) our sound man Little Bull showed up and got us a few monitors onstage.  We weren't going to be playing through a [...]

With the trailer loaded we set off for Mitchell, South Dakota; the first stop on the American Roadhouse tour. Merle and I made a few stops in Sioux Falls on the edge of the state border, 75 miles north of our home base in Sioux City, IA. Headed east on I-90 to the town of Mitchell nearly 70 miles west- home of the world's largest and last Corn Palace which at one time was constructed entirely of corn and has become a large auditorium decorated with corn from head to toe. A sight to see. Across the street stood the husk of what used to be the Doll museum which I found during the show had been closed for some time. On the way we passed the world's largest Longhorn sculpture, a landmark that stood like on of the infamous Easter Island faces with a redneck sort of flavor. Patches of snow collected in the ditches- glued to the dead grass like a dying lover clinging on for dear life- a strange sight to see in 60 degree weather on a spring afternoon. Road kill was everywhere, scattered on the [...]