Wasted Days & Wasted Nights

pic of my pal Tyson of the band Diego's Umbrella wrangling an oversized inflatable Hippo

Diego's Umbrella - Drinking In Spanish

So despite the fact that I spent most of lasterday as a balloon wrangler for a mock touring version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade...



yesterday was actually Castro Day in SF...

Nope ...

Not a new gay holiday named after the upper Market St neighborhood...

(or even a tribute to the ailing Cuban dictator popular with the beret & camoflage pants crowd...)

Yesterday was "Tommy Castro Day" in San Francisco as proclaimed by our always up to something Mayor Gavin Newsom!

who is Tommy Castro you ask?

Well, he's some white guy from San Jose that plays the blues...

Perhaps the mayor has enjoyed Castro's soundtrack contributions to mediocre TV programs like "Nash Bridges", "NBC's Comedy Showcase " and "The Young and the Restless." Uh...

still perplexed? read on why our day in SF actually belonged to Tommy and Tommy alone...

Well, I actually have no idea why they dedicated the whole darn day to him... maybe he's got some ill backstage partyin' story about the mayor he promised to keep quiet...

( course Billy Getty has plenty of those, and I don't think they even named a half day after him yet)

Or maybe Tommy played a gig to retire some of that campaign debt...

pic from ModernGuitars.com

Anyhow...
Here's a cut from his last disc called Soul Shaker, during which he name drops our very own Hwy 80 & The Golden Gate... d'ya think that won him official stauts ?

Tommy Castro - Take Me Off The RoadMe, I skipped Tommy's gig at some overpriced South of Market watering hole... and instead borded a bus & went across the bridge to a 9 band kegger at an art studio in West Oakland instead ...

Grant Irish... a big ol' artsy metal worker & all around nice guy held a bar Bar BQ for about a hundred or so pals ... and a shitload of bands...

I'll include some feisty party pics here...

and here's a track from one of the bands that played (pictured at left)

Sweet Nothing - Black Sugar




Anyhow, came home to discover some news to interrrupt a wicked weekend bender...

Seems that the media is reporting that Freddy Fender, the legendary Tex-Mex musician who started his career as Baldemar Huerta, has passed away. By almost all accounts he was a sweet gentlemen, an elder of American music and someone who will be missed, especially by his family for whom he was the patriarch...

Freddy Fender - I Love Mi Rancho Grande

His song he'll likely always be remembered for is his first grande exito from originally recorded in the late 1950's "Wasted Days & Wasted Nights"... about a lovelorn man who battles the bottle...a story Freddy no doubt had personal experience with.

Freddy Fender - Wasted Days & Wasted Nights

here's one from his early Tejano border rawkin daze... compiled on an Arhoolie release of Freddy Fender's early recordings called Canciones de Mi Barrio, The Roots of Tejano Rock...

I found it and about 50 other Freddy solo tracks, and more from the Texas Tornados at Emusic.com

It's a cover of a Fats Domino tune, one you may know from Cheap Trick's Live At Budokan album as well...

Freddy Fender - Ya Me Voy ( aka Ain't That A Shame)

Freddy ended up in prison for a spell... but made it out & started having hits again after his probationary period in which he was forbidden to record...

But although Freddy had lived through some ups & downs, he spent some of his last years surrounded by family , and of course prior to that playing in a super group with Doug Sahm & Flaco Jimenez in The Texas Tornados

Here's another classic... from his mid 70's comeback period...

Freddy Fender - Before The Next Teardrop Falls


Here's a festive track from some fellow Texans... cause you know Freddy wouldn't want us all bent out of shape for too long.




"Bad Livers - Dancing Days" (download 192 kbps MP3,)

from the compilation "The Song Retains The Name Volume II"

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