The year was 2002. I had been living in Austin almost 2 years and playing with a country dance band for about 18 months, mostly in the greater Bastrop/La Grange/Elgin metroplex. We played a lot of Bob's Country Bunker sorts of places (including a few with actual chicken wire) but had also stumbled into a couple of decent gigs opening for Kevin Fowler and the like. I was already starting to become disenchanted with the band by early August of that year. Maybe it was having to drive 45 minutes every week to rehearse in the smoke-filled back room of the lead singer's double-wide. Maybe it was the fact that I had, in a youthful daze, invested $4000 of my money into recording an EP and buying equipment for the band, and it was looking unlikely that I would get any of that back anytime soon.
I had already made initial contact with another band, a jazz fusion ensemble, when an offer came in for us to play the 2nd Annual "Rosanky Musical Festival & Biker Fun Run" in Rosanky, Texas. The lead singer apparently knew the organizers, who apparently somehow managed to book David Allan Coe (a feat that, in hindsight, wasn't as spectacular as it seemed at the time.) Pauline Reese opened for us, and we opened for David. Even though we had a huge stage, David insisted on setting up his back line literally 10 feet from the front of it, so we were practically dangling our toes off of the edge while we played. I had invited my friend Liz, a lawyer at the time, who had invited her friend Crawford, also a lawyer. Liz's first impression was: "I felt overdressed by virtue of the fact that I was wearing a bra." At one point, one of the bikers had approached her and said, "Hey, nice shirt. Wanna trade?" That pretty much sums up the general gestalt of the place.
Having finished a set that was among the better ones we had played as a band but still possibly among the worst country music ever to have been purveyed within 50 miles of Austin, I packed up my gear and joined Liz and Crawford on the grassy knoll to watch David. He was totally phoning it in, perhaps because he wasn't that interested in playing for a crowd of dozens in Rosanky, Texas but really needed the money ... or perhaps because, at the end of the day, he'd rather be performing "P**** Whipped Again" instead of "You Never Even Called Me By My Name."
At some point during David's set, our fourth drummer in a year (a teacher out of Huntsville) stumbled by us so piss drunk that he didn't even recognize me. On his arm was a local woman sporting Daisy Dukes and a tube top (and having no business sporting either), Tammy Faye Bakker make-up, and a hairdo that would have necessitated driving a car with a sunroof. She looked intently at Crawford, who was holding his newly-purchased genuine Rosanky Fest T-shirt. "Heyyyyyyyy....", she said, leaning in close enough that he could tell exactly what brand she smoked. "Uh, hey?" he replied quizzically. "Yew wohnt may ta sahn yer shiiirt?" Crawford was a deer in headlights, but she unfortunately elaborated. "'Cause Ah'm f***in' the druhmmer ..." And of course Crawford couldn't pass up that opportunity.
Liz had only one thing to say. "Dude, you owe me. Big."
