061309 Rivertown Breakdown

of Dwight Yoakam and Maxell…

Each year, Jake Speed puts together an all-out jamboree at ye olde Southgate House with bands that run the genre gamut from folk and Americana to hip-hop and experimental music—and all this in the name of cleaning up the banks of the Ohio River. The wild night is called Rivertown Breakdown and we Seeds tore it up this year in the Parlour.

Mike and I loaded our gear in around 5 p.m. and promptly hit the road at 90 MPH a totally reasonable speed—we had to book it to Belterra, Indiana where the amazing Dwight Yoakam was crooning a bunch of high rollers (and us!). After the 2-hour set we re-booked it back to the Southgate House and met up with Brian just in time to catch the end of Magnolia Mountain's set.

When we entered the Parlour, we discovered that the fine folks charged with setting up the Breakdown event had put rows of chairs in the room. Most of the bands playing the Parlour were bluegrass or folk of some sort and we found a nice group of folk appreciators sitting patiently in place while we got our gear set up. We got ourselves on stage as fast as possible and proceeded to pump up the jams. I like to imagine that the folks sitting in their rows of chairs had their hair blown back and their skin blown back and their clothes blown back and their beers blown back with terrific force like the old Maxell ad because we were rocking it so hard. Since I primarily sing with my eyes closed, it was easy to imagine. In reality, however, this didn't happen unless there were wild, wild, rocking winds while I had my eyes shut that quickly ceased when I opened them. Kind of like the idea that my stuffed animals *might* have been partying down in my room as a child when I'd leave it, and would jump back into place when I'd return so I wouldn't suspect anything. Well guess what, stuffed animals? I did suspect fun and games. All along I did.

Despite playing to rows of seated folks—which for us is a little stiff since we encourage dancing and the such during our sets—we had an absolute blast. The stage manager had not anticipated us having so many instruments and outputs, and thus had not allotted adequate time for us to set up and break down our equipment. We had to cut our set 3 songs short—something we really regret, especially since our audience had no way of understanding why we weren't playing longer. Even so, the event was fun as heck and we're very glad to have been a part of it this year.

—Margaret