Yah, Jaggernauts!

I sure like my band the Long Beds.  They show up for work on time, they mouth the words to my songs when I turn to them live and mid-verse with that slow-puppy look, and they hardly roll their eyes much at all during the first four bars of the opening song of the set when they invariably have to remind me to plug my guitar in so the sound can come out.  On the road we cut just the kind of swath you’d expect from roughnecks of our calibre: the first time we got a job where the contract included hotel rooms to trash, we rushed back (to the LaQuinta! Because that is how we ROLL!) to get the party started but then Chuck dozed off, Billy yawned, I got drowsy, and Chris said, “Weellll…I s’pose…,” and twenty minutes later all was quiet at the La Quinta.  When you are a Long Bed, you live on the edge…the edge of a nap.

All this to say when you see us these days, the guy generally off to my left and your right playing keyboards and lead guitar is Chris (we had another guitar player once, but he blew his chance to hang at the La Quinta when he left to pursue some silly little side project and wound up stuck at places like, oh, Lollapalooza).  Whenever I look over at Chris during one of our shows and see him chicken-pickin’ deep twang or plinking out some sweet keyboard harmony (or even sneaking a Go-Gos riff between songs) I’m always amazed at the range of his talent and influences.  Case in point, his longtime band The Jaggernauts.

These guys are a blast live (as the video plays, Chris is in the white shirt and tie over to the right of Noel, doing things you won’t see/hear during yer average Long Beds set), and are about to release a new album.  This Saturday Saturday, August, 29, they’ll be playing in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at the House of Rock, or “H.O.R.,” known with local affection as the…the…well, just pronounce “H.O.R.” phonetically.

Over there on MySpace, “Don’t Change” will give you a good sense of The Jaggernauts sound, and for what it’s worth, “Wings, Blah, Blah, Blah” is one of my favorites (when I visited their MySpace page, the songs were preceded by a small gap of silence, but then came charging on fine).