NEXT SHOW: DECEMBER 22
MERMAID LOUNGE
with the FORTY-FIVES
...right back where we started from...

NOVEMBER 21 2001
Mermaid Lounge
with The Finishing School
"The Finishing School is one of our favorite local bands; if you like the Dirty Knives you will probably like this band. Last time we saw them the guitar player, Josh, played a solo using just the CABLE to his axe. Todd told me that "more alcohol is sold on the night before Thanksgiving than any other night - even New Year's Eve." So you better show up unless you are saying Todd is a liar."
Good show, maybe some holiday doldrums, cause we played our heads off to maybe fifteen people. The Finishing School drew about forty, but they mostly left before we played. The ones who stayed seemed to like it: Thanks Peter, Erin, and Jeff for making the trip, and of course the usuals: Elise, Jay, Jason, Peggy, and Johnny.
thesleepyheads.com is now up. That's the other band of Dave and Sara Dirty Knife. They are playing thrice in December: the 7th at the Circle Bar, the 21st at the Mermaid with the Sophisticats, and the 31st. That's right, New Year's Eve! At the Circle Bar.

NOVEMBER 2 2001
Mermaid Lounge
with Immortal Lee County Killers
Hazard County Girls
Rocket 350

A pretty rocking show. I broke three strings on the first song and I didn't have a working spare, so it was back to the old school style for yours truly. I just sang and let the band do the hard work like they always do. Shaun played great in his stage debut. This show was picked as a 'hot pick' by Gambit Weekly.

October was a lost month due to overplaying in September and an unfortunate lineup change. It was the first time I heard a RUMOR about the Dirty Knives! Too bad it was a rumor that we broke up. What really happened? Musical differences that are nobody's fault and are as insurmountable as personality came to the fore, and the result is we are trying out a new drummer. Everybody's still friends. Rumor has it that Dan will be back on the road with godheadSilo this winter.
For the November 2 show we we be joined by Shaun Washburn. Shaun also played with Dirty Knife Dave's side project The Hi-Balls last fall, and is the regular drummer for Sara's side band The Austins. We've been sharing rehearsal space with Shaun since the band began. The karma of it all is that I briefly met Shaun fifteen years ago when his band Bleached Black was touring the South and they stayed at our house in Knoxville.

SEPTEMBER 29 2001
El Matador

"Our last show here was a benefit to help Antoinette K-Doe, and it was very successful: we played to a pretty full house though we went on at 2:30. We'll probably go on a little earlier this time. Fontanelles UK open - haven't actually heard them but we picked them to open based on Josh's performance with his other band, Finishing School. It'll be a great show -- SHOW -- y'all come on."
Pretty good night: Fontanelles UK turned out to be crazy: Josh spazzes out all over the place and I mean that in a good way, Eve, the drummer, plays a little stand up kit and appears to be very happy. They have a lot of good songs and they are probably deaf. Somehow we came on and rocked....rocked in kind of a stentorian manner, like a large wall, one that is about to tumble. If I do say so myself. Thanks for coming.

SEPTEMBER 13-15 2001
Athens GA, Huntsville AL, and Knoxville TN

We'll have lots more to put here, but for now let us just say this was a great trip and doing this was the reason we started this band in the first place. We considered cancelling in the wake of the World Trade Center bombing but we felt we should go ahead and honor our commitments and see this great country, even in a time of crisis. We didn't do it for the money, that's for sure. We drove 1800 miles to do three shows, reading comic books (esp. Michael Kupperman's Snake N' Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret), eating barbecue (especially Couch's in Collegedale, TN) listening to music and the news.

SEPTEMBER 8 2001
The Sleepy Heads at Circle Bar
New Orleans
Now featuring SARA from the DIRTY KNIVES on bass! Now half the band is the same.

SEPTEMBER 7 2001
We'll just be a trio for this show; Trey has a work commitment he can't get out of. It's O.K., we started as a trio and we have played as a trio a couple of times since then. This show is at Checkpoint Charlie's which a lot of people apparently don't like for the reason that it is ugly or déclassé in some fashion. OK, whatever. Don't come. Don't come to this show. It will be in an ugly place with cheap beer. So stay home. Nobody said you had to rock and roll.


Checkpoint Charlie: déclassé

If all goes well, we will have our five song CD for sale at this show. $5. Or e-mail us if you want one.
On the bill with us are two bands from Auburn, Alabama: The Wednesdays and the Natchez Shakers. I haven't seen the Natchez Shakers but The Wednesdays are phenomenal. The leader is Jamie from the Quadrajets, so that gives you a little idea. When we saw them at the Mermaid, they climbed on literally everything that could be climbed on and some things that couldn't. But they're not just circus apes! No! They rock! We asked them specifically to come out for this show so don't let us down - come and see them.


THE WEDNESDAYS

AUGUST 30 2001
"We're going to be opening AND closing this show, so whether you are an early riser or an all night person, you CAN'T miss us. We go on first, then 66 Goat, a two-piece gnarly rock band plays, then Soupchain's new band, The Hip Replacements. Soupchain played in the Archdukes, who were great and who played a grand total of two shows. Then we will go back on if there's anybody still standing."

Well, it didn't quite happen like that. Once again we had major problems with the volume in the Mermaid. For some reason they miked us. My vocals were beautiful (though aren't they always?) but I could not hear my own guitar over the din. It's possible for us to play in there, but not if you actually add to the volume. I take the blame for not telling them to remove the mikes, though. So, if you came to this show (and a good number of you did!), sorry if you're deaf.
66 Goat was good as always. The exciting part was when the soundman took Dan's floor tom and started playing it. Dan was just thrilled at this professional behavior. Our pal Jay Holland took the floor tom away from the soundman.
The Hip replacements were great. I know they hadn't practiced much, but at least they all wore the same clothes (white t-shirt, black slacks and cop shades). They did a lot of the kind of material I like: Chuck Berry covers, a Royal Pendletons song, more classic ol' school jams like that. Raw, but it cooked.
We went back on and played three songs. Dan had already taken his floor tom and gone home, so who sat in but...the soundman. He's a good drummer, but it was a disaster. These things happen.

AUGUST 24 2001
Playing in Metairie was like playing out of town. We opened for our friends in Lowerline, whose drummer had about a hundred piece kit. Our stuff looked pretty funny set up in front of theirs. Also, the club had TWO soundmen, which is probably two too many. But I wish I had brought a recorder because they miked everything and we sounded exquisite in this large, not very crowded room.
It was kind of a weird show but we enjoyed it.

AUGUST 18 2001
This was our weirdest show yet. I broke my guitar climbing over the stupid fence in front of the stage - I fell off it and somehow detached the ground wire from the jack. It's better now, thanks. I had decided not to bring a spare so I just sang the last half of the second set. We did a new song that is currently known as "Mr. Unsatisfiable" (because Sara called me that when we were rehearsing it and it seemed to fit the chorus) and a new cover: Devo's "Gates Of Steel."

AUGUST 4 2001
"Circle Bar (New Orleans) : The Sleepy Heads - just Dave with Jay, Talbot, and Zack from Royal Pendletons.
We'll be playing a mostly instrumental set, backing up the secret weapons, following the Porch Ghouls."
This show went great; the bar was packed (about 100 people in a living room, basically), so even if you wanted to dance you couldn't do much more than hop straight up and down. We played about half originals and half covers (including "In Motion" by the Lyres, "I Can Only Give You Everything" by everybody, "Bug Juice" by the Rivieras, and "Mr. Custer Stomp" -- I don't know who it's by). Fun show - we had the go-go dancers and the goofy outfits, oh yeah. Look for The Sleepy Heads to return to the Circle Bar in September.

AUGUST 1 2001
Dixie Taverne (New Orleans) with Bright Calm Blue, and To Dream Of Autumn
Another swingin' show. We only had one new song ("Heading For The Texas Border") which we didn't even write, but since this was a new venue and a new crowd for us, what's the difference? We played really hard and loud - Sara's amp was hot enough to fry a dog's brain. I liked us! The audience was very serious - at one point I whispered "everybody dance" in the mike, like Corky in Waiting for Guffman, and four or five dudes walked out of the room. I saw some devil horns though, and they clapped real loud.
The other bands were "screamo" bands, which is a kind of "emo" which is a kind of musical genre...I'm not really sure what it is. Bright Calm Blue came on and just wiped the floor with us - total volume and chops. the screaming was absolutely unintelligible. I liked it! I can't review the other bands because my ride was leaving.

JULY 28 2001
Surprise Location with Fireball Rockett and This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb CANCELLED

JULY 21 2001
El Matador (New Orleans) with Sugar Tank and The Headwoundz
This show started late because the club has flamenco dancers on Saturdays and they went way past their scheduled end time. Then we had to put up with some joker blowing a trumpet to a packed house of rock fans for half an hour while the bands waited to set up. So The Headwoundz went on at midnight. Do you think maybe they were drunk? If you don't, you haven't seen them. They put on a smoking show with lots of broken glass and other dark-green energy. They definitely polarize the audience but I didn't notice anybody leaving. They ended with a Shaun Cassidy cover, and Jerry carrying a girl out the front door.

Sugar Tank followed, and I heard rumors this might be their last show, but they seemed to be having a good time up there. The high kicks were high. They seem to laugh a lot during the show, like they're getting away with something. They're fun people and they need to stay together...for the kids.

We finally hit the stage at 2:30. We all played the first song, "Spelling It Out (For You)" in our own unique indivdual ways, so if you walked out thinking we were a free-jazz outfit, you are hereby forgiven. Please come back. We really do rock. We played a nice short, fast, exhausting set with one all-new song ("Out Of My Mind") and came back for an encore(!) and played a nice long, slow, relaxing "Mona", by request. Thanks are due to Sugar Tank for getting us this show. The proceeds from this show will go to benefit Antoinette K-Doe, the wife of the great singer and wonderful person Ernie K-Doe, who died July 5, 2001. We had hoped it would be a benefit for Ernie, but that was not to be.
I feel like I owe Ernie more than I could ever repay him. Our little take at the door will probably not amount to much but I hope it's the thought that counts. (We actually raised a very decent amount of money, in my opinion. Thanks also to Rio and the El Matador for hosting us and this show, and thanks to everybody who paid the cover and helped Antoinette. Keep going to the Mother-In-Law Lounge! Ernie may not be there, but his spirit is. But it won't be if nobody goes to look for it.)

JUNE 23 2001
Our best show yet. The club, Checkpoint Charlie's, has kind of a bad rep for being a dump wth dumpy bands, but that was not the case on this Friday evening. We played two sets to a big crowd and the club treated us great. They have to get rid of the fence in front of the stage, though. The band after us was called Hoodoo Taxi, which I think is a not so promising name, but they are all employees of United Cab, the big cab company in New Orleans, and they rocked out. Somebody told me they have been together for ten years and they have only played on Decatur Street. I don't get it: they have cabs, why don't they tour? Solid, AC/DC style blues/booze rock.

JUNE 9 2001
Both ultrababyfat and the Dagons cancelled Saturday June 9, leaving just us and the other local band, the Quaalords, to split the dough. They put on a great show, actually making use of the Mermaid's new, unnecessary, kind of obtrusive projection system. Then we played, chasing all the nice people out into the rain with our obnoxious volume. But we played a great show for a bunch of drunk people. We introduced two new songs, "You Got What I Want" and "Spelling It Out For You." This would have been our first show not playing "Power Of My Love" (if you don't know it go get From Elvis In Memphis) but we did an encore of sorts and we have now played that song at every gig we have done. Uh, our best show yet.

MAY 23 2001
Perhaps our most fun show yet: we played the Mermaid with Fireballs of Freedom who now live in Portland Oregon but a couple of whom growed up in Fargo along with Dirty Knives Dan. So there was a lot of laughter and hearty handshakes. The Robblers, who were also on the bill, asked if they could follow us since all their fans work in food service or stripping or other late night jobs, so we said OK, which was our best decision. We played a self-described smokin' show, after which we went outside and found that somebody had the foresight and good humor to bring a keg to the show, as well as a barbecue grill. They didn't have any buns so we kind of skipped out on the hot dogs, but we had a good time with that keg. The Robblers played a great show (their last -too bad- Grady and Justo are moving to Portland, it turns out, where they will become famous), and then the Headwoundz got up and played a few numbers and spilled a lot of drinks. Finally FOF came on and made all the other bands sound like the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. The term "shred" might be appropriately used in this instance. They played until the club shut down but still managed to get "Lido Shuffle" and "Thunder Island" in under the wire.

APRIL 26 2001
We played the Strathmore Ballroom, which is otherwise known as the Mid City home and studio of artist Joe Kight. the cops came after five songs, and we spent a little time trying to play purty, but ewe finally just said "let's play everything faster and get out of here." There were more dancing people at this show than any other. A real treat for the band, we hope it was a treat for you too. Stunning (if I say so myself) version of "(You Got My Mind Going In The) Wrong Direction."

APRIL 21 2001
The Bayou show (promoted by Wake the Dead and The Silver Machine) with Rigid and Ouroboros (replaced the Electrical Spectacle, who cancelled) was, uh, eventful? We played great despite the giant drinks (beer cups of liquor) that made me forget some of the parts of our songs, like, for example, the choruses. We just played louder when we made mistakes. After we played it was hard to know what to do - some girls got in the cage (yeah, they have a cage on the stage) and took most of each others clothes off and did some stuff to each other, which really got the guys to move up to the front. Outside, the action was almost equally active with a feisty firecracker of a gal slapping the hell out of some guy who was dressed as a bouncer but wasn't one (please don't ask me why). Classy! I can't wait to go back!
Rigid turned out to be super nice guys. I thought maybe they would be kind of rigid. They seem to be having more fun than they used to.

MARCH 1 2001
The show with Astroblast and The Westbury Squares (mp3.com) (Sara's first show) was our best yet. The Mermaid was full and we played without making any mistakes, nope, none whatsoever. We opened with "Brown Eyed Girl" - not the Van Morrison chestnut (which I LOVE) but a song done by the Golliwogs, who were Creedence Clearwater Revival before John Fogerty took over. We ended with a new song called "(You Got My Mind Going In The) Wrong Direction" that I, David, wrote while I was trying to figure out the mixing board and track the vocal for our new album (soon to be released on Wargner Brothers Records). The guy in the next studio likes to practice his drums through a PA. I pulled a bass drum, a mic, and my amp into the center of the room and made up this song at the top of my lungs. The drummer went home, I finished the album, and now you will soon have a record of the muthafukkin Dirty Knives. Ha!

NOVEMBER 15 2000
Tipitina's uptown again, with the Rock*A*Teens from Atlanta GA. Rock*A*Teens are an impressive, intelligently gloomy rock band with grandiose ideas. That you knew. What might surprise you is that they are smart and easy to talk to. We really enjoyed playing with them. I talked to some people who came from Baton Rouge specifically to see them. I can't remember the last time I went as far as Metairie for a show; I'm impressed.

Talbot got his MSW (and got into a great band: The Darkest Hours. Featuring Matt from Royal Pendletons and Peg from the Gories - who can blame him?

That was the last show for Talbot, our bass player - he's got serious schooling going on and will soon be a Master of Shaolin Social Work...if the grind of being on the road with the Dirty Dirty Knives doesn't bring him down, that is. So we're looking for a bass player, preferably one who has completed or abandoned his or her education. We're at about a 50% attrition rate in the band right now which just proves society is breaking down.

(OK, we have a bass player on board now, but you should still click on the "bass" link above if you've even ever thought about being a bass player.)

SEPTEMBER 27 - 29 2000
We opened for the excellent Zoom at the Mermaid Wednesday September 27. They're a terrific band, so this was a real treat. Yes, O.K., we were up against Yo La Tengo, but we had a good turnout. The following Friday, we went to Athens GA to play the Tasty World on September 29 with the Woggles - if you don't know, they're one of the great live acts of to-day. We didn't get to play all that long because there was a Sex Pistols tribute band (the singer had on a thermal undershirt with an anarchy "A" on it; it was really quite touching) on before us and we didn't kick them off stage. All our stuff broke (including Talbot's E string on song one, note one) but we played hard. I got to do kind of a fun thing: grab my guitar by the strings and punch it like one of those punching balloons. It deserved it. I'd like to think we made the Woggles play better but they always play great.

The fun thing was that the club asked us to stay and play the following night. Of course we were up against Flaming Lips AND Maceo Parker, but OK. Only Talbot and Dan couldn't stay, so Trey and I played with Richard Grant from LaBrea Stompers and Sara Essex from the Innuendos and Austin Thompson from New Orleans' Dinteen (who were also on the bill). They told us to stretch it out, so we played a full set which included songs about the football game we were watching, such as "(The Vols Kicked A Field Goal And It's) Going Into Overtime."

At left is a magic flyer designed for the Athens show (click to watch it grow). It would cost several hundred dollars to actually produce it, which is why you should invest in yourself and get a fast web connection or give us monay to make beautiful flyers. It is, may I mention, the debut of my new font, Flunkrin. Here seen with a 1-pt. stroke added.

AUGUST 31 2000
Our gig at the Mermaid Lounge with Rotary Downs went great even though we went on in the early hours of September 1. They brought out a lot of people, but, you know, so did we. We played an encore because we felt like it; probably that was a mistake. Sorry. Rotary Downs were...I don't know the word, not "fun", (though I had fun) more..."enlightening." Good music. They sound like a famous band; maybe it'll happen. Don't get to hear much violin on stage since quitting the symphony but it didn't hurt me none.

AUGUST 23 2000
The Tipitina's show with The Forty-Fives came out great; lots of loud people. No broken strings and and very few identifiable screw-ups. It was a great time. Our new line-up did not disappoint and I hope it will be the last one for a long time. In fact, we are so wonderful, full of fire and flavor, that we will soon be able to play you a copy of the show recorded onto a compact disc. Look to your left and down some. Click there.

mp3:
Mona (a composition by Ellas McDaniel)
Trouble. The opener. Under 2 minutes.
I'm The One Who Really Cares. The closing song. Over 5 minutes.
These were all recorded live at Tipitina's thanks to Reed Billingsley.

The Forty Fives played an excellent set (including "Come See Me," a Pretty Things favorite). I recommend their album, Get It Together.

The Dirty Knives (#2) was:
Dave: guitar and vocals
Talbot: bass
Dan: drums
Trey: second guitar

We now have members of LaBrea Stompers, The Black and Whites, and godheadSilo in the ranks.

The Dirty Knives #1 was:
Dave: guitar and vocals
Eric: drums
Marcus: bass

These are mp3s recorded live by the first line up of the band at our rehearsal space; no overdubs, no second takes. This was an awesome line-up; we were only together five weeks then everybody moved away.

Trouble (1:55 of sonic mayhem)
I Told You So (a little bit longer, thanks to the accidental fake ending)

JUNE 16 2000
We played a house party near UNO. Theis was the last gig for Marcus, who was replaced by Talbot Adams. This was a fun gig because there were no cops, there was a keg, and we played "Jailhouse Rock" in a manner similar to that of ZZ Top on the Fandango album without ever having rehearsed it.

JUNE 15 2000
Our (Knives #1) show at the Mermaid Lounge with the Bruisers and the Bullies went great. Lots of people there; the girls were dancing. Anthony del Rosario kindly recorded it for us and has even played selections from the show on WTUL. Here's an mp3 from the show. WARNING: this was recorded LIVE to two-track (mini-disk!) and the right side is kind of in the red. I can fix it....later. For now, if you want to hear the band, download When Are You Coming Home? (Right-click or click and hold, then choose 'save to disk...' or whatever your machine says.) If you tried to download this and it was 31 seconds long, sorry. It's the right length now.) Flop the balance over toward the left channel, audiophile. Life is too short.

The Dirty Knives have a 'sixties-type garage band energy without being disgustingly retro or kitsch.

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