Southern Culture On The Skids "8 Piece Box"

In the Spring of 1994 I started my first radio gig, at a small independent station in Southwest Virginia. I had my own, nightly Alternative specialty show.

I think it's kinda hard to grasp today, just how weird it was to hear bands like Green Day and The Ramones and Sarah Mclachlan and The Cure, on a radio station in 1994. Maybe it was normal if you lived near a major metropolitan area. But for most of the country, those artists were sooo far outside the mainstream, that they just weren't going to make it on any radio station.

So my little "What's The Alternative?" program was, to some, a bizarre, welcome oasis. And the fact that I was the host, opened a few doors for me.

There was a great restaurant in town called The Starving Artist. Great, high-end food, in a casual, artsy atmosphere. Several of the people who worked there were well regarded local painters, visual artists and creators. They had a great scene unto themselves.

And because I got off the air around the time they were closing the kitchen, I'd get invited to the head chef's house on the outskirts of town, for a few after-hours beers, where they'd feed me (because I was an impoverished waif) and where we'd talk about and listen to music.

From the get-go, they were selling me on Southern Culture On The Skids.

SCOTS was a regional, hard-touring rock/rockabilly/country/semi-comic party-band, that was soon to be releasing a major label record.

And The Starving Artist was on the verge of celebrating their 10th Anniversary.

"There gonna play right here!" the chef told me, gesturing to his spacious living room area. "You gotta come."

Well, I think we've all been oversold at one time or another, on how great a party is going to be, only to show up and have it fall miles short of expectation . . .

So I said that Yeah, I'd try to come after work.

Let me tell you what I saw when I walked through the door, shortly after midnight on party night.

The room was PACKED with party-goers. 100 people in the living room? Probably.

The band was cooking, in a groove.

The chef was shirtless, in a tiger mask, doing an interpretive dance right in front of the band.

And then they introduced "8 Piece Box."

As part of their tour rider on every show they play, Southern Culture receives a bucket of fried chicken. It is set aside, for when they played "8 Piece Box." They invite a dozen or so girls up on to the stage and the girls eat the chicken while dancing to the song.

Normally (not that this scenario is "normal" by any standard in the first place), the girls stand on stage and vamp and maybe eat the chicken seductively (sexy carnivores!).

But this night, it was more like Velociraptors tearing into carrion.

I remember the maniacal, greasy faces of women with mouthfuls of chicken, tossing the bones out into the audience.

Now I know the bucket of chicken couldn't really have been that big, but when I see it in my mind's eye, dozens of bones flew back and forth above the sweaty, dancing crowd, like the chickens had been partially re-animated, and were trying (but failing) to fly.

Part of me was thrilled that I had somehow stumbled through the door of a secret sub-culture.

Though the really hungry impoverished waif DJ thought it was a big waste of perfectly good chicken.


Hear the song on Youtube.


See a live version with dancing girls on Youtube.

Southern Culture On The Skids "Banana Pudding"

When the weather is hot like this, and I'm hungry, I think about the years I lived in Virginia, and all the good, regional cuisine that came into my life.

Growing up in New England meant clams and lobster and baked beans and other foods that people in the rest of the country aren't regularly exposed to.

And growing up with Italian relatives meant homemade raviolis and pizzellas and such, which I'm sure were foreign to my Southern friends.

On the flip-side, I spent the first 25 years of my life, completely unaware that there was such a thing as Chicken & Dumplings.

Chicken in a pot of gravy, with flat flour "dumplings," without an ounce of fat being spared . . . Man, that is some good comfort food.

My roommate's Grandmother knew how much I savored the dish, and she'd make it for me on my birthday. No one cooks like Grandma. Even someone else's Grandma.

Somewhere in those years, I had a girlfriend who could not cook. Would not cook. Didn't really care too much about food. She was perfectly happy with pre-packaged and frozen and just-add-water meals.

But the one thing she could make, was Banana Pudding.

I think a large part of Southern cooking (and probably other types of regional cuisine) came from using the seemingly unusable. The scraps. The leftovers.

Banana Pudding is at it's best when the bananas are, as the song says, "Day old, and Bold!" and the Nilla wafers are a little bit stale.

And when the whole thing sits in the fridge for a day or two, and the wafers suck up the pudding and it all gets a little mushy, but with a skin on top . . . yah-friggin-hoo!

You know it's a bona fide American South cultural phenomenon, if Southern Culture On The Skids writes a song about it.


See the video on Youtube.

Southern Culture On The Skids "Dirt Track Date"

It was called "7 Maples" and it's where I called home for five years in that stretch of the 90s when I lived in the most western part of the state of Virginia.

The farmhouse had come with the acres purchased by our artist landlords, who had built a beautiful studio at the top of the hill. "7 Maples" was the original homestead on the land, with parts of the structure dating back 100 years.

It was called "7 Maples" because the land had 6 maple trees on it, but the original owners thought "7 Maples" was more poetic-sounding than "6 Maples."

It was rickety and rustic and just right for as a space for a pair of 20-somethings to live in. It wasn't too nice---we couldn't really do anything to ruin it. And it had space for me and my roommate.

And one more.

Throughout our tenure, we had a rotating array of 3rd roommates. They were always close friends, but always changed the dynamic from the consistence of the two of us.

The sprawling layout was charming in the daytime, and would have been as charming at night, if we'd never heard the story of the murder/suicide that had occurred in our front room, early in the century.

At night, when the mind plays tricks, the house could be a bit scary, with its creaky floors, and maple branches brushing the roof, and the quiet, quiet countryside of southwest Virginia.

And then there was the creepy appeal of the 2nd floor room that we gave to the rotating 3rd roommate.

The room itself was fine, but it lead to a large walk-in closet. The closet was only partially finished. And off the walk-in closet, was another totally unfinished space.

A room, within a room, within a room. Like a panic room. Or a place you'd hide a body.

As I said, Roommate #3 was always the wild-card. And one night, I came home to find a certain #3 passed out on the couch.

Not unusual. Roommate #3 liked to take a drink. Or five.

Climbing the stairs to my bedroom, I had to pass by her room. And from the room I heard breathing.

Not unusual. Roomate #3 liked to take a drink or five and bring home a guest from the bar.

I worked the night shift those years, and sometimes, on my way in well after midnight, I'd pass some stranger, on his way out.

But this one was breathing loudly. I shouldn't be able to hear breathing through the closed door, should I?

I inched closer to the frame. Heavy, heavy breathing.

Mechanized sounding breathing.

There was something strangely robotic about this heaving, in and out, in and out.

It's after midnight. It's dark. I'm alone, except for a passed out roommate on the couch downstairs, and whoever is behind the door.

In and out, in and out.

Breathing from the creepy room.

I'm a reasonable, rational human being. What is there to be afraid of?

I stood there for another full minute, hoping I could come up with a good excuse.

Failing that, I thought I'd better look in the room.

The hallway light was harsh, entering the bedroom that was completely dark, except for the tiny glow of a stereo light.

A stereo that was playing. Counting. Spinning on low volume.

I'd been haunted by the ghost of Southern Culture On The Skids album "Dirt Track Date."

At the very end of the album, when the title track fades out, you are left with a sound. The sound of a dirt track.

Cars, vroomming around the track past a microphone. The doppler effect making the pitch rise and fall.

Vrooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . . Vrooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . .
Vrooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . . Vrooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . .
Vrooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . . Vrooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . .

It goes on for 5 minutes or so, this mechanical pulsating of cars roaring by, which, when turned low on your stereo, sounds a lot like mechanical breathing.

Jump ahead to 3:21 on the Youtube video, to hear the song end, and the cars/creepy breathing. (they fade it out; it actually goes on for 5 minutes on the record)