Cat's Eye Pub 12-25-08 The Regifters

Cat's Eye Pub
1730 Thames St.
Fells Point
Baltimore, MD

So, I spent the week before X-mas in Austin visiting my folks (where I saw the Monday night House Party that is Dale Watson at The Continental Club). The night before I left, X-mas Eve, I sent a text to Tony, owner of The Cat's Eye asking if he had music tomorrow night because I knew I was gonna' be out on the town. I get a response back at noon-thirty on 12-25 saying, "No, we don't have a band unless you wanna' play."

Hmmmm.

But, I was about to board a plane. I don't know, I'll think about it.

Get dropped off at BWI at 5:30 where Rucker is nice enough to pick my ass up. I frantically start making phone calls and by 6:30, I've got a band: Wolf (who has to drive all over MD to make this happen), Ian, $lim Money, and myself. I also texted about 25 people trying to get some folks sick of their relatives out. While I originally wanted to call us The Christmas Rejects, I liked Wolf's idea (yikes, I don't think I've ever said that) or The Regifters.

If you've not heard Ian Walters on keys yet, I highly recommend it. The guy can play (it's all he does) and he's got this huge, soulful voice that you don't believe until you hear.

I had a feeling the gig was gonna be fun, but, in the words of Joe Rucker, it ended up being the best Christmas ever. A modest crowd showed up and the staff told me that our thrown together little thing was better than most of the music that rolls through there.

The Cat's Eye was able to maintain their streak of having live music every day in '08 and I was able to keep my streak of only answering the question, "Gig?" with "Yes" or "I'm busy".

Next: Tomorrow, Idle Americans at JV's