Thoughts and Prayers

I've just had word that band member John-Boy Dickison was in a motorcycle accident on Tuesday morning, October 9. He survived the wreck (praise God), but is laid up in the hospital and faces surgery and a fairly long recovery. Be sure to keep John in your thoughts and prayers. I'll post further news as I get it.

That's Hino as in "Hi!" - "No!," Dude!(Band Profiles, Part II)

Slide guitarist Jeff Hino's early musical experiences included run-ins with piano and 'cello, but he was fortunate enough to come away from both without serious injury. Not long after that, though, he encountered an electric guitar. The effects were life-altering. Early blues influences came from Michael Bloomfield, Eric Clapton, and Dicky Betts. Eventually, the country-rock scene in Tucson, Arizona sent Hino searching for new inspiration, and he found it in the high and lonesome Bluegrass sound.

By the mid-1970s, Jeff had migrated to the Pacific Northwest where he experimented with country and city swing on dobro and lap steel. He appeared in a mouthful of Mid-Willamette Valley incarnations of Bluegrass, country-western, Cajun, and hillbilly jazz groups with names like The Highwater String Band, Spontaneous Combustion, The Sophisticado Swing Band, Cow Patty & Pals, and Waterbound. It's not uncommon to see Jeff performing with five instruments on hand at once, including National steel guitar, Dobro, acoustic guitar, lap steel, and 5-string banjo.

Jeff met up with harmonica-player and singer/songwriter Dave Plaehn in the late '80s, and something clicked. They played their first gig as a duo in 1990. Seventeen years later, the Plaehn & Hino duo is still going strong. They have two CDs in release: On Your Bond, a mix of rural and urban blues plus a George Jones classic, Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away, and one of Plaehn's original songs, and Can't Get My Rest, a collection of tunes that ranges from bare bones country blues to pop blues and R&B.

And capping it off, of course, Jeff has a once-a-year gig with the X-Tension Chords. Since the Chords' first sessions at Lake Tahoe, Jeff's easy, fluid slide guitar backup, hot breaks, and tasteful interstitial licks -- not to mention his outstanding professional communication skills -- have made him an indispensible part of the Chords trademark sound.

The Legend of Rongo (Band Profiles, Part I)

Born in Davenport, Iowa, within shouting distance of the banks of the Mississippi River and then moving to within a few hundred miles of the fabled Suwannee River in Florida as a baby, Ron "Rongo" Thomas grew up with music in his blood. After costly medical treatments, doctors were able to control but not eliminate this condition.

His grandfather played drums throughout the Midwest with a group called the Whiz Bang Orchestra, and in fact jammed with the legendary Bix Beiderbecke on several occasions.

Ron started playing electric bass at age 13 while under the influence of a heavy dose of Paul McCartney and the Beatles. Unable to shake the compulsion to pluck on four strings, he bounced around a series of bands in multiple genres, including a performance of Led Zeppelin tunes that scandalized his high school talent show. In college he acquired his first top-quality bass, a Gibson Les Paul, and any thought of leading a normal life was abandoned.

Aside from backing up some of the original Drifters, Ron's musical career has been spent playing with brilliant-but-unrecognized-by-the-hoi-polloi fellow musicians (e.g., the X-Tension Chords). He currently plays a Rickenbacker and a heavily modified Fender Precision bass through Trace Elliott or Hartke amps with a Beatles tribute band called the Impostors and several other rock and jazz groups.

Asked to comment on his yearly stint with the X-Tension Chords, Ron said, "Genius is pain, but love is all you need. What was the question?"

Puttin' the "Quirky" Back in Albuquerque

The Land of Enchantment was just that much more enchanting Sunday through Tuesday nights, June 17 through 19, as the ACE X-Tension Chords alternately rocked and rolled from 9 to midnight each night.

Sunday night was a rock-out dance as lead singer Owen Roberts gave it his all, eventually (and temporarily) blowing out his voice in the dry, high-desert air. Guitarists Owen and John-Boy, bassist Ron Thomas, and drummer Robert Casler were complemented by Bruce Schultz on harp and Jeff Hino's amazing lap steel, Chris Dicus's magic fingers on the keyboard, and the subtle, under-mic'd stylings of the mando twins and newcomer fiddler Amy Smith. A special nostalgia set brought back a reunion of the Hot Flashes, a vocal combo first heard at ACE 1997, just blocks away from Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was like a scene out of Never-Neverland, with the stage and dance floor filled with communications professionals who were discovering that, no, they never really did grow up after all.

Monday and Tuesday nights were mild by comparison, but terrific fun all the same. Mandolins, guitars, a fiddle, and even a hammered dulcimer were heard with solo and group vocals from the back room of the hospitality suite. We had folk, Cajun, Irish, and old-timey tunes, a little bit of blues, and some familiar songs from O Brother Where Art Thou ("I'm a Dapper Dan man, myself," John-Boy reminds us).

Photos, videos, and who knows (MP3s?) to come!

Thanks to everyone for dancing, listening, and buying all of those cool T-shirts and posters!

Underground Video Sees Shadow, Goes Back Underground

Early documentary footage of one of the X-Tension Chords' first performances has surfaced, and you can surf over and take a look: http://www.blindtoaster.com/MuSigVideo.htm. Thanks to Dennis Hinkamp for uncovering this gem from the very beginnings of Chordmania.

Now take a moment and open your ears - if you listen really hard, you can hear it rustling to life again. All across this great continent (and maybe beyond), from Canada in the north to the tip of the Florida Keys, from the foggy vales of Pennsylvania to the sunny climes of California, once-a-year musicians are preparing for their annual moment of glory: guitarists are drumming their fingers incessantly as they try to re-create calluses on their fingertips, drummers are tapping their pencils annoyingly in weekly management meetings, and everyone is searching though closets, under beds, and in garages and storage lockers, trying to find that precious instrument that they last saw just 11 months ago. "Where did I put that thing?," their weary spouses hear again and again.

And then the music begins. At first it's just a jumble, a cacauphony of thumps, bangs, twangs, and wheezy voices, but soon it starts to take shape, becoming gradually more recognizable as, Yes!, the unmistakeable, trademark sound of the legendary X-Tension Chords! Whether it's blues, rock, funk, or folk, ACE fans rely on them for one thing every year (and NETC fans every two years): a live band that you can dance to, but you don't have to pay them. And it's happening again in just a week and a half in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

So get out there, X-Chordians! Change those strings! Dust off those drums! De-grease those harmonicas! Warm up those chops!

And X-Tensionheads, get out your dancing shoes! Do a few stretches so you won't hurt yourselves! Put some rock classics on the ipod so you can practice your signature moves when you're alone between floors on the elevator! Hey -- You're gonna turn some heads this year!

The Legend Continues: Quebec City

(Elton John-Boy's account, loosely based on actual events): We had a sweet setup in Quebec in 2006, playing in an actual club room, and added some real international flair with Chris “Hugh’s Kid” Maynard on blistering electric guitar, a few cameos from the CaslerJammer Kids, and an astounding discovery in Bruce Schultz, who brandished a fiddle and harp with the best of ’em. And a thoroughly amazing federal-level walk-on by USDA chanteuse Janet Allen, whose pipes could compete with Aretha, or Koko, or Whitney, or even the self-proclaimed “greatest singer who ever lived,” Celine Dion.

It all becomes a blur after that. All I can say is, “Man, what a ride.” I was lucky to be a part of it. Who knows what these dudes will come up with next?

(Hint: You can see for yourself what happens next! Just hit the Hospitality Suite at ACE/NETC Albuquerque after about 9:00 pm on Sunday, June 17, 2007. )

San Antonio: The Saga Continues . . .

(further hazy recollections of Elton John-Boy): By the time the next ACE/NETC meeting rolled around in San Antonio (2005), lots of changes had taken place. Larry Jackson from Kansas State was rounding up instruments ahead of time. People brought stuff. They even had a room set aside for playing at night. And we knew how to work the hotels by this time, so we grabbed their white baby grand piano and wheeled it into the room with us, hoping they wouldn’t bill us for using it. They didn’t care. And it was cool. Lots of people coming in and out of the group, playing different instruments, all kinds of stuff. That’s when they let me start hangin’ around with ’em.

What a line-up – Owen “Big Money” Roberts, the Guelphian Troubadour; the Mandolin Twins (“Ammond Brother Jim” Coats and “Reno Robert” Moore); Kyla Kruse, fresh out of the coffee club circuit in Central Illinois; Robert “Steady” Casler on tubs; Ron “Wildside” Thomas on a borrowed fretless bass; Larry “Action” Jackson on electric guitar; Chris “Fingers” Dicus on electric keyboard; Tom “Walk the Line” Knecht doin’ some side man vocals; and Jeff “the Lap” Hino throwin’ down some brilliant National steel guitar stuff.



From there it just mushroomed. There was the “X-tension Chords Unplugged” at the Don Strange Ranch (Coats, Moore, Kruse, Hino, Dickison, Sams) and a whole bevy of musicians accompanying the Development Fund auction and playing after hours.

To be continued (will this madness never end?) . . .