Best Of C-ville: A Sincere Thank You
Posted on August 19, 2008
Thank you thank you thank you. For the second straight year, the C-ville Weekly readers among you have named us your favorite Charlottesville band. We can’t begin to tell you how much this means to us. To get that kind of support from your hometown is an unqualified blessing in this rough business. Since the beginning we’ve always been able to endure long stretches of mediocre shows far from home because we can look on the calendar and see a hometown show looming not too far in the distance. Those shows at Outback Lodge and Starr Hill and Satellite Ballroom were always a rejuvenating shot in the arm that kept us going strong until the next time we had a chance to see your shining faces.
However, this brings us to the unsettling part of this email. Starr Hill and Satellite are gone. Outback, still a fantastic place to get your face rocked, has grown a bit small to hold all of you. We seem to have no place to rock out in C’ville. This, needless to say, is an unprecedented tragedy. Public outcry recently crushed a proposal to open a new venue on Preston Ave. This leaves us nowhere to resurrect the glory days of standing in the rain on West Main St. waiting for Starr Hill to open its doors and unleash the horde of rabid SoB’s on unsuspecting bar-sales records. While we wait for public outcry to build in favor of opening a new rock club, we do have some chances for C’villians to get their SoB fix.
September 13th! We will be playing the downtown Pavilion with none other than Robert Earl Keen. It is an honor for us to share the stage with a man whose name is prominently featured in one of our songs (a song which is somewhat anti- his home state, but unequivocally pro- his music) and we can’t wait to throw down under the big top with him. Our good old friends Wrinkle Neck Mules will be opening the show, so it promises to be a full night. We realize that the comfort, space and fresh air of the Pavilion are no substitute for being jammed into the sweaty upstairs floor of a brewery (or the former storage room of a local record store) to get beer spilled on you, but until we have a space to re-enact those great nights, civilized evenings at the Pavilion will have to do.
In summary, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the honor of being named your Best Musical Group for another year. We hope to see you at the Pavilion on September 13th, or soon afterwards in the greater Central Virginia area. Keep your heads up, there’s already a CVS downtown, so at least they won’t be shutting down Gravity Lounge anytime soon.
humbled in gratitude,
Sons of Bill
Update: August 2008
Posted on August 15, 2008
Last time we checked in it was blazing hot and our A/C was broken. Well, it’s still blazing hot but, in a masterful display of foresight by our booking people, we got to spend a good portion of July in and around the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing like a beach show to keep the juices flowing.
We had a lovely 12-hour stay on our first trip (as a band) to the great state of Florida. Jacksonville Beach was all we ever dreamed it would be, and the North Florida crowd seemed very enthusiastic for this little old band from the Old Dominion. Don’t worry folks, we’ll get back to Florida before too long. However, the overall winner for favorite SoB Beach Spot seems to be Charleston, South Carolina. The Wilson brothers have a deep family connection to the area and we just can’t seem to stay away. We played three shows in Charleston in July. One with local heros The Blue Dogs, and two more with Shooter Jennings. All three went great, with packed houses at the Windjammer each time. Apparently the Windjammer closes down in the winter months, but not to worry, we’ll be back there next summer and we’ll be figuring somewhere to stop in downtown Chucktown this fall and winter.
Closer on the horizon, we are playing two more dates with Shooter Jennings and his rocking band, The 357’s. We’ll be joining him in Raleigh on Saturday August 16th, and then again in Falls Church, VA (right outside of DC) on August 21st. If you’ve never seen Shooter, you need to ask yourself two questions: Do you like in-your-face country music? Do you like big fat, kick-you-in-the-gut 70’s rock riffs? If the answer to either of these questions is “yes” then perhaps you should check him out. If the answer to BOTH of these questions is “yes” then I guess we’ll be seeing you in either Raleigh or DC.
Slightly further down the horizon, we’ve got a glut of shows in the greater Virginia area in the coming weeks, so get out there and see us on our home turf. One sure highlight will be the Highland County Fair (where we will be following a tractor pull and performing in one of the country’s most beautiful Blue Ridge valleys). We do regret to tell to you that we’ve had to reschedule our show at the esteemed Toad’s Place in Richmond on September 12th. While Toad’s is one of our favorite venues, we were offered the chance to play two shows with Robert Earl Keen and, let’s face it, the man’s a legend. We will be joining him on September 12th in Portsmouth (near Virginia Beach) and the following night in Charlottesville. Our good friends the Wrinkle Neck Mules will be joining us on both dates as well, and if that’s not the night of country rock that you’ve been dreaming of, I don’t know what is. We deeply apologize to all of our dedicated Richmond fans. Rest assured, we’ll be back at Toad’s soon. Check out the calendar and keep in touch. If you missed us down South, don’t worry. We’ll be back down in a few months, after we take care of melting some face closer to home.
holding it down (two up two down) in VA,
Sons of Bill
Update July 2008
Posted on July 15, 2008
Well folks, it was one year ago this month that we boarded a plane in Washington DC and exited the same plane16 hours later in Guam. It’s been a long year and much has happened since we briefly gave up the Southeast for the Far East. If you feel yourself getting nostalgic for our overseas updates, or you have no idea what we’re talking about, you can still find the story of our month in the Pacific, available for public consumption on this very website. As far as the SoBsD Arachnids and Phone Lines Department knows, internet links don’t get rusty or anything, so you should still be able to read it.
Enough reminiscing. This year, Sons of Bill got out their collective travel bug with a trip down the road to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Unfortunately we did not perform. Fortunately we did watch Metallica perform…and they were awesome. Other highlights abound but we won’t bore you with them in this forum. Whatever you may or may not have heard about Kanye West’s performance, take it from us: Seth stayed up all night to see it and it was awful. Despite the fact that Seth is prone to waxing sympathetically about Kanye and his plight to reconcile his musical genius with his delusional megalomania, we must be honest in reporting that it was just bad.
After Bonnaroo we were right back on the road with an excellent show at the Visulite Theatre in Charlotte (with the Masonboro Boys) and our first trip to The Soapbox in Wilmington, NC. Both are great clubs with cool vibes worth checking out. If you’re ever in either area, be sure to pick up a local rag and see what’s happening at those spots. However, for better or worse, these shows were both overshadowed by our show at the Norva with Jason Isbell.
We can’t say enough about how good Jason is. He is a former member of the Drive-By Truckers who is now on his own and touring with his (awesome) band, the 400 Unit. If you haven’t seen Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, you should get into your car now and drive towards his next show. I believe it’s next week in Asheville, NC. He’ll be in the Carolinas for several shows next week. Go to his MySpace and check out his tour schedule. Listen to “Try” and “Dress Blues.” If you’re not convinced that he rocks…listen to them again.
Back on topic, we played with Jason at the Norva. We’d heard that the Norva has a backstage hot tub and full-court basketball court. We assumed this was just an urban legend, but brought our bathing suits and hoop shoes just in case. We can now tell you that there is in fact a (quite nice) hot tub backstage, although it was in Jason’s dressing room, so we didn’t get to use it. These is also a basketball hoop which has been placed in an old raquetball court backstage. Not quite full-court, but impressive none-the-less. Especially impressive considering most backstage areas include two, perhaps three couches, one cooler (often empty) and (occasionally) a toilet. The Norva’s also has a big screen TV, ping pong table and pool table. We rocked a very appreciative crowd, and then joined the crowd to be rocked by Jason and the 400 Unit. Afterwards we hung around the pool table just long enough for Jason to challenge Seth to a game with our guarantee (i.e. our night’s pay) on the line. Seth (somewhat jokingly) offered to bet our guarantee against his band’s guarantee (him being the headliner, his guarantee was somewhat significantly bigger than ours). We might at this point say that Jason is a hustler, except that a hustler would never have agreed so quickly or excitedly to such a lopsided bet. A real hustler would have casually hemmed and hawed before agreeing to the game and easily walking away with our money. Jason is not a hustler. He’s just a friendly musician who later mentioned that he carries his own pool cue on tour with him and he would be glad to take half of Seth’s balls off the table before the game even started. Luckily for us, Seth was dragged into the van before any bets were agreed upon. Despite that narrowly avoided disaster, we had a great time and we hope to do more shows with them in the future. We reiterate: go see them, they rock. Also, buy their record Sirens of the Ditch. Also rocks. We hear the live one is good too.
That said, you will have many opportunities to see us as well in the coming months. Check out our tour schedule for a complete listing of shows. Imminent highlights include two nights in a row on the beach in Charleston with Shooter Jennings and our first ever trip to Philadelphia! We’ll hope to see you all soon over a cheese steak and copy of Things Fall Apart.
until then,
Sons of Bill
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Update: April 2008
Posted on April 9, 2008
Spring time again. Last spring was heavy on the sun dress and pastel shirt crowd for Sons of Bill. This year we are most certainly making our rounds of the finest Fraternal Orders and Organizations in the South and Mid-Atlantic, but we also have plenty of non-collegiate events on the schedule. Read on, read on.
The month in review should take special note of our March 21st show with Sparky’s Flaw at the Satellite Ballroom. It was a hell of a night, stretching far into morning and ending with James smashing his face on the stairs on his way off stage and playing a Bruce Springsteen/Ramones encore with blood streaming down his forehead. That’s right folks, we’re a rock and roll band. We’ve sold out the Ballroom before, but this marks the first time we sold out of tickets before the first band even took the stage. Some nay-sayers may contend that the heavy advance ticketing was due to our alliance with the Flaw for the night. Nay-sayers need be reminded that they should watch their backs when talking about Sons of Bill on the sly. We don’t take kindly to such trash. You may hear a knock at your door and see Johnny Stubblefield through your peep hole. He’s skinny but he’s mean. You don’t want to find out first hand.
Another project of the past month is that we’ve undertaken to convert our trusty Street Team from some hodgepodge boondoggle of pieced together farm equipment into a smoothly run, high-tech juggernaut of promotional efficiency. Those of you who are already on the Street Team already know this. Those of you who are not are thinking “Promotional efficiency?! Juggernaut?! Farm equipment?! How do I join?!” Simple. Email us at SoBStreetTeam@gmail.com and you will be put on the inside track to all things Sons of Bill. We can’t wait to hear from you.
Things are looking rosy for the next few months. Coming right up, we will be opening the season of Charlottesville’s venerated Fridays After 5 concert series on April 18th. The very next night, we’ll be back at the Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte, NC opening for Reckless Kelly. A few weeks after that we’ll be headed to the Outer Banks for some beach shows and back to Raleigh and all sorts of other beautiful locales. Make sure to keep up on the Tour Dates section of the site and be sure not to miss SoB when we roll through a town near you. Here’s hoping we see you soon in the warm April rain.
counting the days till May flowers,
SoB
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Update: March (and February) 2008
Posted on March 4, 2008
It’s been a long cold winter, but don’t worry folks, we’ve been keeping warm. The Sons of Bill have taken barely a single week off since we last spoke in early January. We’ve headed South twice, taking in Atlanta for a second time, as well as various fine cities throughout Virginia and the Carolinas. One such city was Charleston, where we reunited with our old friends The Blue Dogs for a show right off King Street at the Music Farm. Things went so well that we’ll be heading back to Chucktown for a July 4th (actually the night of July 3rd) show down on the beach at the Windjammer.
Speaking of the beach, we’ve started booking for the summer. Festivals and Friday afternoon street parties abound. The action starts (a little early) with Charlottesville’s own Fridays After 5 on April 18th. For the second year in a row, Sons of Bill will be opening the season of free Friday evening concerts at the Charlottesville Pavilion on the Downtown Mall. We’ll be playing similar events in other cities throughout the summer, so keep an eye on the Tour Dates page to make sure you don’t miss one near you. And get your tent and mud boots out because we’ll also be hitting the festival circuit this summer. Get your tickets ahead of time for FloydFest. Three days of great music in scenic Southwestern Virginia. What could be better? I’ll tell you what: Sons of Bill is playing a set each day! Go there.
Closer on the horizon, we will be heading down I-64 this Sunday to open up for Cross Canadian Ragweed at Toad’s Place in Richmond. Last time these guys left Texas (Oklahoma, technically) we opened for ‘em in front of a sold out crowd in Harrisonburg. You don’t want to miss this round.
Looking ahead several weeks, March 21st will see SoB back at Satellite Ballroom in Charlottesville. For the first time in over a year and a half, the Sons will share the stage with our friends Sparky’s Flaw. Both bands have sold out the room recently, so we’re planning to pack it in. Make sure to get your tickets ahead of time. We don’t want the place full up with Sparky’s fans by the time you people shake yourselves out of your fog and go looking for a way in to a sold out club.
Shows keep rolling in for the spring and summer, so check back before you plan your beach trips and picnics and whatnot. If you’re lucky you’ll catch the SoB rolling through your town soon. If not…it’s almost Springtime! Take a road trip.
Always on the road, rarely tripping
SoB
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Update: January 2008
Posted on January 15, 2008
Welcome to the New Year folks! Sons of Bill ended the last one with a bang, selling out both the IOTA Club in DC, and Satellite Ballroom for our Two Year Anniversary Throwdown. We’d like to express our deepest gratitude to all those who threw down at either of those shows. It was a fitting end to a great year in the Sons of Bill corner of the universe. We compiled a 2007 By the Numbers summary which can be found by clicking on the colored, underlined text in this very sentence. Some of it is funny. Some of it is even true!
Moving ahead to the current year, we’ve taken several weeks off in early January to learn some new songs and continue planning our world domination. Not to worry, the SoB Train will begin rolling soon for the Frostbite Tour 2008, starting on January 25th at Rocktown in Harrisonburg. It’s been far too long since we hit the ‘Burg, so we plan to do it up in style. Make sure to check the rest of the tour dates on the (creatively titled) Tour Dates section of this website. You’ll notice we roll South several times this winter (not a coincidence), so if you live down where frostbite is just a scary story you tell your kids to keep ‘em in line, make sure to check out the schedule.
Shows are still being added to the February line up as you read this, so make sure to check back often to make sure you don’t miss your much needed dose of hillbilly rock and roll. We’ll be covering some ground this winter so we hope to see you all soon enough.
to more of the same in the New Year,
Sons of Bill
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Update: December (and November) 2007
Posted on December 5, 2007
It has been brought to our attention that when we title our updates with the month that just happened it makes our website look neglected and out of date. Of course, all you true SoBs out there know that we here at SoB Central Offices consistently have our finger on the pulse of the online community and we would never let the Official Sons of Bill Website suffer from neglect. But just to appease the casual surfers and dilletantes, we will now be titling the updates for upcoming month instead. And so this update (titled December 2007) will serve to catch you up to speed on what we did in November 2007, as well as point you toward the upcoming December festivities. Always ahead of the curve here at Sons of Bill. And here we go…
November went swimmingly in the East Coast hillbilly rock and roll world. The Sons of Bill completed a five date swing to the South with Austin, TX rockers Reckless Kelly. The tour went great. We rocked out, expanded our influence in the Southeast, and got to see five awesome Reckless Kelly shows. Yee haw. Furthermore, tentative plans are underway to get us to Texas next year to join the boys on a brief tour of their home state. Circle your calenders (your entire calender that is) and book the plane tickets. Them boys rock out in Texas and we plan to rise to challenge.
The very next weekend saw us back in action in the Old Dominion, rocking Alley Katz in Richmond with exiled hometown boys the Wrinkle Neck Mules. The Mules opened the night and had the downstairs filled to capacity and the balcony overflowing by their second or third song. Sons of Bill took up the torch of rock around midnight and melted the faces of the faithful until damn near closing time. It was a triumphant return to our Capital after a long six month absence. Richmond, we missed you.
Looking ahead we have two shows looming on the horizon that promise to be epics in their own right. The first is IOTA Club and Cafe in Arlington, VA (also known as Washington, DC South for those not familiar with northern Virginia geography) on Friday December 14th. This promises to be another triumphant return, as we haven’t played that Capital in quite awhile either. The show will be an early one, starting around 9pm, so get your Metro stops straight and cruise over to Wilson Blvd for some pre-rock chow just to be safe.
The other show is the legendary Sons of Bill Two Year Anniversary Throwdown at Satellite Ballroom on Saturday December 22nd. I feel like saying more about this show would make us sound like we dabble in hyperbole and self-aggrandizement, so I’ll try to restrain myself. Let me just mention that our One Year Anniversary Show set a bar sales record at Starr Hill Music Hall last December. Starr Hill is now closed. We have another record to set.
Keep in touch throughout the holiday season as we are currently planning the Sons of Bill Frostbite Tour 2008, kicking off in late January. Shows will be posted here and on MySpace as they are nailed down. Until then, we’ll see you in DC or at home on the 22nd.
be good,
Sons of Bill
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Update: October 2007
Posted on November 6, 2007
Fall has finally arrived in Central Virginia and the Sons of Bill are ready for it, especially since the air conditioning in Little Debbie (our venerable 2003 Ford Econoline Hi-Top Chariot of Rock) has been broken all summer. Fortunately, the heat does work. Winter tour here we come!
October had several notable highlights, sprinkled in between lots of private engagements. Some of those included another military gig, this time in DC, and an alarmingly intoxicated rehearsal dinner party (only alarming because the actual wedding was scheduled for the next morning). The biggest highlight however, was Sons of Bill’s first visit to the Music City.
You heard right: Nashville, TN finally hopped on the SoB train, and boy was it a ride. We played the historic Exit/In Club, the walls of which are covered with the names of those who have formerly taken the stage. These names included Tom Petty, Willy Nelson, Steve Earle, REM, and all sorts of other intimidating luminaries of their genre. Luckily the Sons of Bill are unphasable and we proceeded to piece together fifty minutes of country rock fury for the (surprisingly large and receptive) crowd of Nashvillians. As we were walking out of the club, we noticed a commotion to our right and were informed that Jessica Simpson and her entourage had just entered the club. At this point nearly everyone in the Exit line turned on their heels and took a spot at the end of the In line, leaving the Sons baffled at the glamour of big city living and the rock and roll lifestyle. Apparently it’s not enough to see someone’s mug plastered all over your TV and grocery store check out line. Apparently, when given the chance, one should also crowd into a sweaty club and stand on one’s tiptoes to catch a glance of said mug in the flesh. Apparently we didn’t get this memo.
Instead, we headed for the honky tonks. Nashville is the only town we’ve ever been involved with where a street exists with nothing but bars and in each of these bars you can find at least one obscenely talented band playing at all times. Some bars have country bands. Some bars have classic rock bands. Some bars have two bands. Most bars in Charlottesville barely have a working jukebox. That last part isn’t quite true, but suffice to say we had a good time in Nashville. Another note of praise and thanks is due to our host, Mr Jess Achenbach, for showing us not only some excellent evening entertainment, but a great breakfast place the next morning.
Looking ahead, the Reckless Kelly tour looms bright on the horizon. Atlanta and four lucky cities in North Carolina better get ready, ’cause there’s a rock show coming to town and we plan to tear it down. For a full schedule, and links to the venues, check the Tour Dates section of this site. Richmonders can also look forward to our triumphant return to Alley Katz on November 23rd. We will be co-headlining the evening with the Wrinkle Neck Mules, in their only scheduled date in Virginia this year. It’s been far too long since either of us showed the state capitol our love, so we can’t wait to bring some much needed rock to Richmond. Further in the future, we’ve got IOTA Club (in DC) on December 14th and then the big time 2-Year Anniversary blowout on December 22nd at Satellite Ballroom. Unless you’re clear on the other side of the globe, we’ll expect to see your shining faces at one of these shows. Until then…
fueling up for the long haul,
Sons of Bill
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SoB on iTunes
Posted on October 19, 2007
The Sons of Bill have achieved digital distribution which, to the lay folk, means we’re on iTunes. We are also on the following download services: Napster, Ruckus, Muze, Liquid Digital Media, Audio Lunchbox, GroupieTunes, Tradebit, BuyMusic, Inprodicon, MusicIsHere, PayPlay, Verizon, GreatIndieMusic. There will probably be more to come, but those should be more than enough to tide you over. Tell all your friends to check us online and make sure to look at the Tour Schedule to see when we’re coming to town.
staggering into the information age,
SoB
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Update: September 2007
Posted on October 8, 2007
Here it is again, the beginning of the month. And what have we been doing with ourselves? Rocking! Well, actually a number of other (less glamorous) things as well. September was characterized by an abnormal amount of Behind the Scenes Planning and Politiking in the Sons of Bill camp. Unfortunately, most of it was either too boring or too interesting to mention in the this forum. We did play a few shows though.
One highlight was our third visit to the Knitting Factory in NYC, which was notable for both the brevity and concentrated intensity of our set (45 minutes! damn oversaturated Big City) and the esteemed company who came to watch us throw down. Not only was the show full to the brim with members of James’ Deep Springs College class, we also had the pleasure of meeting one of the God Fathers of southern rock, Mr. Warren Haynes. A pleasure to be sure.
However, the most serious work done by Sons of Bill this month concerned not the shows we played, but the shows we booked to play in the coming months. Most notable is the opening spot that SoB scored on five dates of Reckless Kelly’s East Coast Tour 2007. The tour is gonna kick off in Atlanta on Tuesday November 13th and roll through the Southeast for the rest of the week, ending on Saturday November 17th in Charlotte.
There are several other dates worth marking down on the calender as well, including our hometown appearance at the first annual Crozet Music Festival on October 20th. This is an all day event taking place in beautiful Claudius Crozet Park, not 5 miles from Western Albemarle High School (where 4/5 of the SoB crew were once students) and about 200 yards from Crozet Pool (where a pre-pubescent James Wilson used to get pushed into the deep end by the local Young Rednecks of America chapter). The festival features about 20 or so great bands and you can get tickets from the link above. Music starts at noon and we’ll close things down around 7 in the evening. We’re all pumped to be playing a show to benefit the hometown, and we hope you all will come out and support some great music and a good cause.
Looking forward to November, we have our reunion with the long lost Wrinkle Neck Mules at Alley Katz in Richmond on November 23rd, and our return - after a prolonged absence - to the IOTA club in DC. Most importantly (historically at least), we must mention our Massive Hip-Shaking Ear-Drum-Shattering Panty-Igniting Bar-Sales-Record-Decimating TWO YEAR ANNIVERSARY THROWDOWN at Satellite Ballroom on December 22nd.
For a full (and we do mean full) schedule of our next three months on the road, check out the Tour Dates section of this website. We have also been working on rejiggering our email list and Street Team (more behind the scenes anti-hoopla) so don’t be surprised if you receive some, previously rare, communications from SoB Central Offices in the next few months. Stay in touch and we’ll see you on the road.
rock on the horizon,
Sons of Bill
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