Best Of C-ville: A Sincere Thank You

Posted August 19, 2008

Thank you thank you thank you. For the second straight year, the C-ville Weekly readers among you have named us your favorite Charlottesville band. We can’t begin to tell you how much this means to us. To get that kind of support from your hometown is an unqualified blessing in this rough business. Since the beginning we’ve always been able to endure long stretches of mediocre shows far from home because we can look on the calendar and see a hometown show looming not too far in the distance. Those shows at Outback Lodge and Starr Hill and Satellite Ballroom were always a rejuvenating shot in the arm that kept us going strong until the next time we had a chance to see your shining faces.

However, this brings us to the unsettling part of this email. Starr Hill and Satellite are gone. Outback, still a fantastic place to get your face rocked, has grown a bit small to hold all of you. We seem to have no place to rock out in C’ville. This, needless to say, is an unprecedented tragedy. Public outcry recently crushed a proposal to open a new venue on Preston Ave. This leaves us nowhere to resurrect the glory days of standing in the rain on West Main St. waiting for Starr Hill to open its doors and unleash the horde of rabid SoB’s on unsuspecting bar-sales records. While we wait for public outcry to build in favor of opening a new rock club, we do have some chances for C’villians to get their SoB fix.

September 13th! We will be playing the downtown Pavilion with none other than Robert Earl Keen. It is an honor for us to share the stage with a man whose name is prominently featured in one of our songs (a song which is somewhat anti- his home state, but unequivocally pro- his music) and we can’t wait to throw down under the big top with him. Our good old friends Wrinkle Neck Mules will be opening the show, so it promises to be a full night. We realize that the comfort, space and fresh air of the Pavilion are no substitute for being jammed into the sweaty upstairs floor of a brewery (or the former storage room of a local record store) to get beer spilled on you, but until we have a space to re-enact those great nights, civilized evenings at the Pavilion will have to do.

In summary, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the honor of being named your Best Musical Group for another year. We hope to see you at the Pavilion on September 13th, or soon afterwards in the greater Central Virginia area. Keep your heads up, there’s already a CVS downtown, so at least they won’t be shutting down Gravity Lounge anytime soon.

humbled in gratitude,
Sons of Bill

Update: August 2008

Posted August 15, 2008

Last time we checked in it was blazing hot and our A/C was broken. Well, it’s still blazing hot but, in a masterful display of foresight by our booking people, we got to spend a good portion of July in and around the Atlantic Ocean. Nothing like a beach show to keep the juices flowing.

We had a lovely 12-hour stay on our first trip (as a band) to the great state of Florida. Jacksonville Beach was all we ever dreamed it would be, and the North Florida crowd seemed very enthusiastic for this little old band from the Old Dominion. Don’t worry folks, we’ll get back to Florida before too long. However, the overall winner for favorite SoB Beach Spot seems to be Charleston, South Carolina. The Wilson brothers have a deep family connection to the area and we just can’t seem to stay away. We played three shows in Charleston in July. One with local heros The Blue Dogs, and two more with Shooter Jennings. All three went great, with packed houses at the Windjammer each time. Apparently the Windjammer closes down in the winter months, but not to worry, we’ll be back there next summer and we’ll be figuring somewhere to stop in downtown Chucktown this fall and winter.

Closer on the horizon, we are playing two more dates with Shooter Jennings and his rocking band, The 357’s. We’ll be joining him in Raleigh on Saturday August 16th, and then again in Falls Church, VA (right outside of DC) on August 21st. If you’ve never seen Shooter, you need to ask yourself two questions: Do you like in-your-face country music? Do you like big fat, kick-you-in-the-gut 70’s rock riffs? If the answer to either of these questions is “yes” then perhaps you should check him out. If the answer to BOTH of these questions is “yes” then I guess we’ll be seeing you in either Raleigh or DC.

Slightly further down the horizon, we’ve got a glut of shows in the greater Virginia area in the coming weeks, so get out there and see us on our home turf. One sure highlight will be the Highland County Fair (where we will be following a tractor pull and performing in one of the country’s most beautiful Blue Ridge valleys). We do regret to tell to you that we’ve had to reschedule our show at the esteemed Toad’s Place in Richmond on September 12th. While Toad’s is one of our favorite venues, we were offered the chance to play two shows with Robert Earl Keen and, let’s face it, the man’s a legend. We will be joining him on September 12th in Portsmouth (near Virginia Beach) and the following night in Charlottesville. Our good friends the Wrinkle Neck Mules will be joining us on both dates as well, and if that’s not the night of country rock that you’ve been dreaming of, I don’t know what is. We deeply apologize to all of our dedicated Richmond fans. Rest assured, we’ll be back at Toad’s soon. Check out the calendar and keep in touch. If you missed us down South, don’t worry. We’ll be back down in a few months, after we take care of melting some face closer to home.

holding it down (two up two down) in VA,
Sons of Bill