April 2025
But What have you done lately?
Well, I haven’t been booking very many gigs. I had to cancel everything on the calendar due to the heart surgery. I was unable to get back out and play until April of 2024. That really slowed me down for the reminder of that year. Here we are at the beginning of April 2025 and my calendar is still pretty bare. It feels like i am starting over again from scratch and for some reason I have been having trouble making myself work on booking. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
I’m in the process of getting ready to record a new album. Doug Davis in Winston-Salem NC and I have been talking about doing something together since at least 2019. He has been telling me for a couple of years that he doesn’t think I have ever been recorded properly, meaning no one has ever been able to capture the true Jeff Wall experience and that he would like to take a shot at trying to correct that. We went out to dinner and batted around some ideas. I sent him a list of songs that I wanted to record as well as some rough demos recorded on my phone.
1. Be Your Dog
2. Along for the Ride
3. Broke Down South of Denton
4. Erics Blues
5. Get Thee Behind Me Satan
6. Hole in my Heart
7. Out on the water
8. Storm a Coming
9. See You Naked
10. One Is Too Many
11. It Ain't Really Church
12. Hard to Love Sober
13. Bodies in the Basement
14. I Am Not Here
15. Wake Up Mama
16. Trading Time for Money
17. Staring Out the Window
His thinking was a little different than mine. Instead of working just from this list, He wanted to listen to ALL of my songs, new and old, and pick the best 10 or 12 from all of them. He’s now been listening to my complete catalog for the past month. Poor Bastard.
He sent me a message yesterday saying:
”OK! I’ve been listening and listening and feel pretty solidly about what I think the best songs are, taking into account the songs that I think would make the best recordings. You and I definitely have some different ideas about the songs we want to focus on are, but we also have lots of songs I think we could find common ground on. At this point, I’ll spare you my whole list, but here are on the ones that I think we might could see eye-to-eye on:
”Love Everybody” - There's certainly an argument to be made that that's your signature song, and you oughta have a definitive recording of it. I tell ya what'd be pretty awesome: we oughta get together a children's choir to shout the "Love everybody ... Don't be a dick" chant part of the song. You could bill 'em as the Pfafftown Prison Choir or something.
”Be Your Dog” - A slam dunk. All about this one.
”Along For the Ride” - Everybody needs a good sea shanty.
”Storm A Comin” and “Get Thee Behind Me Satan” - We can have all kinds of Tom Waits fun with these stompers. -
”Bodies in the Basement” I’m not sure that this one is in my Top 10, but it’s skirting the perimeter, and I know that it’s the missus’ favorite. And, frankly, I don’t want to end up in the basement.
Songs that you didn’t mention but I really think are strong: - “Get Your Shit and Go” - “It Could Have Been Me” - “One Is Too Many” - “Move Back To the Country”
I think there's a lot of tunes on your larger list that we could really dig into. I also think there are a number of songs on there that I just don't think are among your best. If you really wanted to dig in on some of those, I'd be open to working with you on how we might do some rewrites. “Broke Down South of Denton” is one example; I think that there's a song in there, but you just haven't hit paydirt with it yet.
We're looking at a whole lot of tunes here, and there's more than enough to make a strong album. What I would recommend is that we try to come to a general consensus on a reasonable album's worth of material - 10-12 songs, maybe - and then after that we can do an additional no-frills guitar/vocal session that you can have for a "b-sides/outtakes" kind of album, or do whatever you want with it.
I still think it'd be a good idea to pick one, for starters and see how well we work together. After that, I personally kind of like to work in batches of 3-4 tunes at a time. I think it's easy to get distracted and unfocused a bit when you try to put all the material on the table at the same time. So, how about we pick our one, and then 3-4 more for a first batch?
April 2024
“look at them big ole tiddies!”
In the fall of 2023 my heart started skipping beats again. It used to do this when I was active duty Navy, back around 1988 or so, but medication stopped it.
Medication was no longer stopping it.
My Cardiologist at the VA had me wear a Heart Monitor for 2 weeks and at the end of those two weeks I was told that not only was my heart was skipping beats, it was also speeding up for no reason, occasionally slowing down, and acting all kinds of weird and stupid when it shouldn’t have been.
Dumbass heart.
But it wasn’t doing enough of this weird shit for her to be concerned.
My cardiologist asked me about my family history and I told her “Well, those of us that don’t drink ourselves to death, we usually die of some type of horrible cancer, or some heart thing. Both of my father’s parents died from Cancer as did my uncle and one of my aunts. My father had 3 heart attacks and leukemia and died of Congestive Heart Failure. My little brother died of Congestive Heart failure following a really bad MRSA infection, and my aunt died from an aortic aneurysm. ”
”Well, your echo-cardiogram was actually pretty normal for an old, fat guy with big ole tiddies, as was your stress test. In fact there is nothing in any of your tests that indicates a necessity for this, but my gut would feel a whole lot better if you would let me give you a heart cath.”
”Well, If you tell me that i need to get one, then I guess I’m getting one”
So I got one.
When they woke me up following the procedure, I was told “There ain’t no point in you making any plans for the next few months. Your Left Anterior Descending Artery, the one we call the Widowmaker, that sumbitch is 99% occluded, or blocked. If that wasn’t bad enough, all the rest of your coronary arteries are like 70-90% blocked as well.
At some time in the very near future, like within the next 30 days, you’re going to be getting bypass surgery, or you’re going to be getting buried.”
So I cancelled all of my gigs and on Nov 15th 2023, I was cut open from asshole to elbow and received a quadruple bypass. I’ve since spent the last 4 months recovering from that, and am just now getting back to playing shows.
You have no idea how much I’ve missed playing shows.
I’m stronger than I ever was before, I’ve lost 30 or more lbs. I’m exercising regularly, I’m drinking more water, getting more sleep, and I’m much more careful about what I eat. I don’t run out of breath walking to the bathroom anymore. I don’t have any more crushing chest pains and I’m still above ground.
It’s a great day to be alive.
April 2023
https://bigdumbhick.bandcamp.com
FREE DOWNLOAD, FREE DOWNLOAD, FREE DOWNLOAD
I wrote a book. You probably didn’t think I could even read a book.
This is a book containing the lyrics to 70 of my songs along with the story or stories that go with each song. There are 87 tracks here + an ePub version of the book Bigdumbhick - Songs and Stories.
So why are there 87 tracks? Because a live recording may sound a lot different than studio version, or there might be a couple of different demos where I was trying to nail down an arrangement, or it could be that I'm just a total self-absorbed narcissist.
You might say “BUT I WANT TO PAY FOR IT!”. I’m not going to turn down your money, all I ask is that you listen to the music and start reading the book PRIOR to making a purchase. I want to make sure that you get full value for your money.
https://bigdumbhick.bandcamp.com FREE DOWNLOAD
1. 1968 Lebanon Tennessee
2. 40 Days and 40 Nights
3. 90 Miles an Hour
4. A Little Bit Weird
5. Ain't Noboby in Here Listening to Me
6. All of My Heart
7. Battery Operated Boyfriend
8. Be Your Dog
9. Bodies in the Basement
10. Check-Out Time
11. Choices
12. Chokehold On my Heart
13. Drinking Whiskey
14. Drinking with the Devil
15. Erectile Dysfunction Blues
16. Every Bone In Her Body
17. First Cup of Coffee
18. Get Your Shit and Go
19. Gotta Wear a Mask
20. Grandaddy Was a Railroad Man
21. Guitars and Titties
22. Hard to Love Sober
23. Heartbroke and Lonesome
24. Hell at 30,000ft
25. Help Me Mama I Can't Breathe
26. Holding Up a Sign
27. Hungry Anymore
28. Hurry Up and Die
29. Ravens and Crows
30. Everything You Wanted
31. I Ain't Afraid of Dying
32. I Don't Know Where I'm Going
33. I Saw Your Name
34. I Started Drinking Again
35. It Ain't Really Church
36. It Could Have Been Me
37. It Wasn't There
38. Look Out Jesus
39. Love Everybody
40. Move Back to the Country
41. New Wayfaring Stranger
42. Ole Black Snake
43. One Is Too Many
44. Outlived my Dick
45. Riding Around Naked
46. Santa Got Busted
47. Searching for a Rhyme
48. See You Naked
49 She Ain't Letting Go
50. Something is Wrong With My Baby
51. Staring Out the Window
52. Storm A Coming
53. Street Corner Preacher
54. The Family Plan
55. The Fuck-Up Fairy
56. The New Golden Rule
57. The Other Side
58. The Silent Treatment
59. The Sweetest Boy
60. Three on the Tree
61. Too Fat to Fuck
62. Trading Time for Money
63. Unicycle
64. Up Here On Ledge
65. Viagra Prescription
66. We're Gonna Die Some Day
67. What We Ain't Got
68. Will I Ever Get Laid Again
69. You Can't Trust a Fart
70. You're Making My Head Hurt