Karen’s Place

Anyone who knows me know that music is a very important part of my life.  It seems in fact, songs are kind of a documentary of my life.  This past summer there have been some great songs that no matter where I am or how much time has passed, I will always remember this summer.  I’m going to place a few of the videos here.  If not for your enjoyment, then so that I can look back later (for as long as youtube or yahoo or whomever continues to host them) and remember them with a smile.

Hazzard County - PBR Sky Bar

This is a video made for my friends in the band Hazzard County by the folks at PBR Sky Bar down at the Power and Light District.  As it turns out, they were such a hit (especially Shawn on that bull!) not only have they been booked almost every weekend from now until the end of June but they are not allowing any other guitarists who might play there to play from the bull.  That’s Shawn’s trademark now.  Very cool, Shawn.  I really hope these guys make it.  You really couldn’t meet three nicer guys.

Hazzard County - Power and Light District Kansas City

This video of the guys was taken earlier in the summer before I met them it is smack in the center of the Power and Light District.  It’s poor quality, but at least you (or I) get to see all of them.

Brad Paisley - Online.  First of all, could there be a better looking man?  Whew!  I’ve been listening to mostly country the past 8 or 10 months, don’t get me wrong I think I’ll always love my metal (who sings this my brother asks  - uhmmm? AC/DC I answer? - inside joke between us, sorry I digress) but country is just great story telling. 
Second - This summer I met a few people who met the profile of this song.  Albeit personally or through friends. 

Gretchen Wilson - Redneck Woman.  I consider this my personal anthem.  If you listen to the words to this song, it describes me:

“Well, I ain’t never been the Barbie doll type
No, I can’t swig that sweet Champagne, I’d rather drink beer all night
In a tavern or in a honky tonk or on a four-wheel drive tailgate…

Victoria’s Secret, well their stuff’s real nice
But I can buy the same damn thing on a Wal-Mart shelf half price
And still look sexy, just as sexy as those models on TV
I don’t need no designer tag to make my man want me
Well, you might think I’m trashy, a little too hardcore
But in my neck of the woods I’m just the girl next door…”

Blake Shelton - Home.  Wow, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to listen to this song without almost crying.  This song in oh so many ways reminds me of my Army man (now former Army man).  He was only supposed to be here a short amount of time on assignment.  As I got to know him, I found out he didn’t exactly volunteer for the assignment.  I think of him with this song because he absolutely hated it here, he just wanted to go home.  He told me he was leaving with mixed emotion though, how could he be so happy yet disappointed at the same time?  I didn’t know my Army man very long at all, I wonder when it will stop hurting to hear this song???  I don’t hurt any longer to think about him.  hummm…

Trace Adkins - Swing.  Oh mamma!  Trace Adkins.  This man is so sexy in so many ways!  Is it because he’s larger than a mountain?  Is it his smile? Is it his hair? Maybe his deep voice…I don’t know, he’s just damn sexy!  On to the song.  This song describes almost every time my friends and I go out on the weekends.  Not saying we are ‘all that’ and all the guys are after us.  I’m just saying we have heard all the lines and if we hadn’t been around the block a few times we’d probably fall for them.  Let’s see, what are some of the best ones so far…???  Oh here’s one  “What’s a sexy body like yours doing in a dirty mind like mine?”  Yeah, no matter what?  I would never have fallen for that one!

I could go at this all night, but I’ll close with just one more.

My friends Paddy and Bill.  Paddy’s Irish Public House just voted ‘Best Bar’ and ‘Best Attraction’ also, Paddy and Bill were just voted ‘Best Band’!  Way to go guys!!  These are the guys I visited in North Carolina in February and I’m so happy to say I’ve just scheduled a return trip back at the end of October.  This time I’m taking my friend Tricia with me.  She hasn’t had a vacation since long before her four daughters were born, and her oldest is 16 years old.  She’s had an extremely rough couple of years, so she’s looking forward to these few days away.  I’m looking forward to that and to seeing my friends again.  Also out of coincidence it will be Paddy’s birthday that weekend.  Should be a lot of fun!  Look for pictures (if they’re fit to posted!) in a couple of months.

Oh by the way, PBS is rerunning Celtic Thunder again tonight!  I love them!!!  Two months until they’re in Kansas City!! yeah!!

****Warning this is gonna be a long one folks, I’m rambling today! ****

As I sit here on what is supposed to be the last weekend of summer, I’ve been thinking back on the past 8 months.  You know, even though the year has been somewhat tumultuous in ways, all in all I really think it has been one of the best years (thus far) I’ve had in a very long time.

As everyone is aware of by now, the personal changes I decided to make in my life made all the difference I do think.  It’s funny I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in North Carolina.  My friend is Irish, born and raised.  He was telling me when he was young his Mom used to tell him this story and he never knew what it meant until he was an adult.  I knew as soon as he was finished I would never remember it, but I sure wish I had.  I know it involved two cats and one that chased his tail all the time.  Anyway, the moral of the story was that you will never find happiness as long as you are chasing.  However, once you stop and start leading your life for you, happiness will find you.  I found it ironic he chose that story to tell me, because that’s just what I did.  I stopped everything I was doing.  I stopped working so hard at trying to control every aspect of my life and decided to just do what I wanted.  As it turns out I’m a much happier person and in turn so are those around me.  He said he began doing that a couple of years ago himself and found the same results.

So this year, I’ve been lucky enough to take my trip out East, I toured the USS Theodore Roosevelt where I was able to see my first boyfriend and good friend the Navy Chief and catch up with my old friends in North Carolina.  I’ve reconnected with my friend Kim.  I had a great albeit much too short romance with my army man, and I’ve been spending some great quality time with my oldest friend Tricia.  All this isn’t anything nobody doesn’t already know, so I’m not really sure why I’m repeating it for like the 100th time.  Probably because I’m exhausted and not really thinking straight… ha!

About six weeks ago my friend Laura and I went to a club that has live music almost every night.  We were not familiar with the band playing, but were pleasantly surprised.  After the second break or so, the guitarist, Shawn came over to our table and started chatting us up.  He was an extremely nice guy.  I’m sure at this point if I were to rave about his talent you would just assume I was being bias, but I’m not.  This guy can play like you wouldn’t believe!  Truly it blew me away.  So he talked to us on that break, and then came back during each subsequent break.  Each time he talked more and more about this other band he was in; a country band.  It was pretty clear he liked the country band much more than the one he was playing with this night.  So we all visited a while after the show was over with promises to ‘friend’ each other on myspace (you know that’s what you do now days - friend each other on myspace! ha ha). 

So a couple weeks later, I saw on his myspace that his country band (I wrote briefly about this band in a previous post) was playing on a night I could go and got my girls together and we drove out to see them.  I tell you what, he wasn’t kidding when he said that group was much different.  These guys had so much energy, got the crowd going and wow could they play!!  You can tell the guys are good friends in real life as well.  In fact Shawn and the lead singer, Chan are best friends.  I think that makes all the difference in the music.  I was called out as soon as we walked in the place and on the first break Shawn brought the guys over to meet my friends and me.  They sat and visited with us on many of the breaks and we were able to learn quite a bit about them.  Oddly, Chan was stationed at the same army post as my army man and was aquatinted with him…small small world.  So, we’ve been able to see them a couple of more times since then, the last time being Saturday night.  They had a great gig Saturday night.  Kansas City has a new entertainment district in our downtown area, called the Power and Light District.  Their gig was at one of the clubs down there called PBR Big Sky Bar.  Usually we get there when they are a good hour or so into their show, but this time we wanted to get there from the beginning.  We didn’t quite make that goal, but we were close.  None of us had been down to the P & L District before and might I say, we absolutely LOVED it!!!!!  Oh my gosh!!!  It was awesome!!!  It’s about time Kansas City did something as kick ass as this!!  We can’t wait until we can go down there again and just go from place to place.  It reminded me a lot of Vegas, it had that feeling where you were outside, but you didn’t feel like you were outside.  If you’ve been there, you know what I mean.  We were a little concerned about parking, we all heard horror stories about parking.  Then we saw the magic sign:  “VALET PARKING” *ding ding ding ding* worry over!  sweet!  Of course it cost, but with three of us splitting it, the cost was next to nothing.  Honestly, they could have really ripped us off with the cost of valet parking, but really $6 not bad at all.  I hope they don’t raise it after everyone gets used to using it.

We pay (again this was even less expensive than I’ve paid in the burbs to get into a club), get our hand stamped and head into the bar.  The guys are already playing.  We lead singer spots me right away and says ‘ahhh the posse’s here!!!’  Now is it a good thing or a bad thing to be recognized that quickly?  I’m not sure?  ha! naw it’s a good thing, he’s a sweetie.  The first thing we noticed about this joint was there were absolutely NO tables, or seats of any kind anywhere near the stage.  What the heck?  The second thing we noticed was the mechanical bull in the middle of the room.  Okay, that’s pretty cool I’m not sure if I’d seen one of those in person before.  The guys play wireless which allows them a lot more freedom than a lot of other bands.  Here’s a good example, when the third set started everyone wondered where Shawn was, Chan and Danny (the drummer) were there, but Shawn was nowhere to be found.  Then all of a sudden we could hear him.  This is where he was:

How fun! 

One thing my friends and I noticed about the people in this bar is that they seemed to be younger than us.  At first we thought we were going to be quite a bit out of place.  This didn’t seem to bother them.  They were a lot of fun to dance with.  In fact, one guy (who I should probably call a kid, but my ego won’t allow me to) came up with his friend and danced with my friend Kim and me. 

***oh at this point I should probably point out that I was barefoot.  To me shoes are only worn to get me in the door.  They come off probably 10 minutes after I get there.  Everyone tells me I’m going to get glass in my foot, or something more horrible.  I know, I know but I hate shoes - it’s a risk I take.

Okay, so this guy is dancing with me and he leans in and says “I promise I don’t want anything from you, I just want to tell you that you are SO pretty!  Then he points, from your feet to your face, you are SO pretty!”  Whoa!  I just said thank you!  Now what the heck is wrong with men of my generation being able to be open and honest like that?  Okay, maybe men of my generation don’t think I’m SO pretty.  ha ha.

We also stepped outside for some air where the three of us were immediately hit on by two college boys from Warrensburg.  Now that was fun.  One was sober, clearly thank goodness the DD, the other drunk off his butt!  He was hilarious!  His sober friend was so embarrassed of him, but the three of us just found it funny because at some point in our lives we’ve all been either that sober one, or that drunken one.  The drunken one offered to have us come back to their place the next day for some ’shrooms’.  We had to explain later to my friend Tricia these were psychedelic mushrooms, not the stuffed kind.  As soon as the invitation left drunk guys mouth, sober guy was all “NOOOOO!!!!, dude noooo!!!!”  It’s a good thing we’re cool people.  It’s a good thing Kim is a cool person - Her brother is a cop.  ha!

So the night ended and after standing for over five hours; since there were no tables or seats we were so thankful for the valet parking.

Final thoughts - yeah as if I haven’t had enough already?  As always, thanks Tricia and Kim for being posse!  Laura we missed you while you were out on sick leave.

Everyone if you’re anywhere near Kansas City, or Centralia, MO check this band out - they are Hazzard County