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Holy smokes -- that was the best weekend we've had. And we mean ever in our entire lives. Like Dr. Bob says, it was like we'd won some kinda million dollar sweepstakes. From July 15-19, more than 70 bands from around the world performed at the Cabooze in Minneapolis, MN, for the third annual Deep Blues Festival. Most of the Old Dudes are bad-asses tied directly into the earliest history of the blues from the Hills and the Delta. Meanwhile, most of the younger players apparently grew up rocking out to Dead Kennedys and the Stooges, and the crossbreed of sounds at the Festival is unlike any mainstream blues. "It's not smooth. It's not Chicago," to quote Chris Johnson, the man who pulled it all together.

DAY ONE -- THURSDAY
We landed at the Cabooze Thursday night, arriving late but in time to check out Restavrant, and those bad-asses from Left Lane Cruiser, and Iowa boys Radio Moscow. Lute Tucker and the Kid wandered around gladhanding folks and lifting beers in the green room. Meanwhile, Dr. Bob snuck around chatting up Chris Johnson and the bar staff, arranging for us to play a guerilla set on the patio soon as the music quits inside. So we get going and now here come the music lovers gathering round as they filter out of the club, everybody getting their boogie on. And then this crowd parts to make way for an old dude who comes leaning on his cane, smiling in his gleeful way. Hallelujah -- it's T-Model Ford, the Taildragger, and here he comes to sit in front of us, to listen to us play. Words are not fit to describe the honor. For example, Tucker started hollering "Aw hells yah!" soon as he saw who it was.

And that's when T-Model waved for Tucker to hand over his guitar, "What the hell's this? I play in E." So after tuning the thing to standard, T-Model took the guitar and broke into a three-song set, everybody going quiet to hear his fingers light the strings. Then like magic, the Kid started his dobro, picking out T-Model's notoriously rambling lines while Dr. Bob came banging on his street kit, and soon folks were clapping and dancing, and Tucker was stomping his shambourine on the bricks, screaming like a berserker, "Aw hells yah!" And when he was through, T-Model sat down to play just one more and jumped right into "Chicken Head Man."

Anyone who has seen T-Model perform has seen the way he stares grinning into the crowd, making eye contact with everybody, tilting his head and lighting his eyes when suddenly he drops a beat and brings the song back to I. And thats how he looked at us playing with him, nodding and grinning because we were following him along best as we could. Crazy.none of us has any memory of what went down after T-Model leaned away on his cane. We think we played some songs, and a bunch of folks hung around, and soon the bartender was kicking all of us out, so lets go back to the hotel. But our souls had been lit on fire, and we couldnt stop from giggling at every goddam thing.

Tucker then runs into the infamous Dale Beavers who is need of someone driving his vehicle back to the hotel across town. And Tucker, who makes his money as a cab driver, takes him up on the gig, nearly crashing into the Hamline viaduct while listening to a private recording of Dale playing bass with Junior Kimbrough. We go screaming along, barking about how mind-blowing it is to play music with heroes.

Back at the hotel, we catch up with our pal Smokestack and the Foothill Fury, an explosive one-man-band who is punk as fuck. The name his act makes him sound like a full band whereas our name makes us sound like one dude, and that isnt the only corollary between us. Weve played with him in Iowa City and Smokeys a lot of fun. Tonight, he carried along a jeraboam of strong dark beer hed scored from playing at a brew house and he shared it with us. Dale also had booze to share and we had whisky and cigarettes, etc. Theres more here but the narrative gets spotty. Dr. Bob went to crash and the Kid stayed up plinking at his dobro while Tucker marched off with Smokey and Dale for mischief in Chris Cottons room until we were kicked on down the road, and onto tomorrow....