Thee Fourgiven, the Freaks of Nature, Kevin Daly at the Grand Ave Brewing Co, Phoenix, Az, Saturday Sept 23, 2017

I know it's normally against my rule to write about outta town shows, but since I played and this is my blog, here we are!

Thee Fourgiven are currently playing a few reunion shows (30 years since our big European tours!) in each member's current home towns. Bela, our drummer, now lives in the Phoenix area and with a bit of finagling, cool cat and local legend Kevin Daly was able to pull off this underground gig in the yet-to-be-opened Grand Ave. Brewing Co. Cool space, great people, excellent bands and word of mouth got a few dozen people out to check out the scene!

Kevin Daly was gracious enough to open the night with his three piece combo blasting through some rockabilly/Americana-inspired rock'n'roll with excellent, swingin' drums (Dave),  fiery, slappin' stand-up bass (Chay) and, of course, Daly's biting guitar work. Songs like "Rednecks, White Sox, Blue Ribbon Beer" and "Mutant Daddy" extol the virtues of desert living to a rockin' back beat. Great stuff!

The Freaks of Nature are a new (ish) garage combo that have returned from a hiatus with a smokin' line-up of Dave (again) on drums (with a completely different style - frantic, garage bashin' this time, as is completely appropriate for this group), James on bass, new cat Jacob on lead guitar and frontman Daniel. Their sound is thrashin', fast'n'raucous garage punk that was like an original mix of the Untold Fables, Gravedigger V, Miracle Workers, Unclaimed and the Raunch Hands! Pretty freakin' amazing! Covers like "Social End Product" and "Bad Girl" (that Ray and I used to cover in the Unclaimed!) blend in with their own numbers for a classic sound that still just sounds like the FoN! Right up there with the best of the new batch of garage groups. They're doing some touring, so dig 'em whenever you can!

Thee Fourgiven had some equipment issues and maybe we could use a little more practice (after a 30 year lay-off), but we still had a blast playing to the folks who hung out and did our best to make it an experience. Always a good time to play with Ray'n'Bela and we will be appearing in Las Vegas this coming Thursday and back in our old stompin' grounds of LA on Saturday! Come out if you can!