In This Issue: Rick Shea & Brantley Kearns are interviewed about their new album Trouble And Me, The Original Five Blasters record a live album, and The Knitters tour again.

Rick Shea and Brantley Kearns have been making a name for themselves in Southern California as a guitar and fiddle duo while splitting their time as members of Dave Alvin's Guilty Men. Rick Shea has spent the last 4 years as a regular member of Dave Alvin's Guilty Men, while Brantley Kearns has been a part-time member. With this year's release of the Rick and Brantley duo's first album, titled Trouble And Me on Tres Pescadores  Records, Rick & Brantley have now earned  national recognition.

Rick: The arrangement fell together very easily with guidance from Dave and Brantley's wonderful twin fiddle parts.
Brantley: That actually ranks close to my favorite contribution to the album.
Rick: The little icing on that is that as I was recording the guitar part, there was a cricket in the studio, and it's pretty apparent in that song at the beginning. When we mixed and mastered, we made sure that it was in there. The cricket can also be heard at the end of the previous song - LET MY HORSES RUN FREE.
Brantley: We were channeling Buddy (laughs). Jiminy Cricket or Buddy.
Rick: He didn't get a credit, but I'm expecting to hear from his lawyer (laughs)

Brantley: That's a couple of fiddle tunes that I have been monkeying around with. BYRON'S IRON, the tile is kind of corny, but I was in that kind of mood.
Rick: But there are direct references to a couple of your real strong influences.
Brantley: Byron Berline was a fiddle player that I knew of when I came to California. He came from Okalahoma and his father was a famous fiddle player. Byron came to CA in 1975, played with Doug Dillard, and had his own band and also founded the L.A. fiddle band. He had a very strong and distinctive style and is THE fiddle player in Nashville now. So he is quite an influence. So I had been goofing around with that song playing riffs that he might play. I started playing BAKER'S ACRE in the 70's when I wrote it and I was playing a lot of Bluegrass. It's like a three-part tune that changes keys. I was trying to sound something like Kenny Baker, who played fiddle for Bill Monroe for many years. Those were the fiddle players who were catching my ear. ~~AM

June 11, 2002. -- The Original Five Blasters reunited in March of 2002 for their first tour in 17 years. They recorded a few shows with the possibility of releasing a live album. After listening through to the tapes, they felt they needed a few more rare songs to include on an album. So they booked one more date in Hollywood, CA at the House of Blues in June. The recordings were a success and the Original Five Blasters live album titled Trouble Bound will be released by HighTone Records on October 15, 2002.

Dave left the stage last again and said "Goodnight and see you all somewhere else. He started to walk away and came back and repeated what he said earlier "And I hope you had a good time cause we did."
Set List: TROUBLE BOUND, RED ROSE, FLATTOP JOINT, I'M SHAKIN', BLUE SHADOWS, NO OTHER GIRL, BIG F CHORD, LONG WHITE CADILLAC, CRAZY BABY, HELP YOU DREAM, COMMON MAN, TOO TIRED, HOLLYWOOD BED, TAG ALONG, DARK NIGHT, SADIE BROWN, BORDER RADIO, SO LONG BABY GOOD BYE, AMERICAN MUSIC, LOVE 24 HOURS A DAY, ONE BAD STUD, HONEY DON'T, MARIE MARIE
I thought this was the best of the 6 reunion shows. The band sounded great; they were all loose and really getting more used to being a band again. Dave later recalled, "If we sounded that good back in the early eighties, we would all be millionaires now." It was a good show to represent the live album. In fact it's great that HighTone and the Blasters are putting out a recording so that everyone who missed the reunion tour can have a great new live CD by the original members, 20 years after Over There (Warner Bros 1982), and sounding better than ever. ~~AM