Back on the road...Minneapolis

I'm off on my latest US trip along with Alan Lloyd, John Howard and John Stowe. We flew in to Minneapolis having changed planes in Chicago and spent a day and a half exploring the city including its extensive Skyway shopping and office complex in Downtown, the Minnehaha waterfall and the enormous mural featuring Bob Dylan, who spent a lot of time there in his youth. Our first gig was at the Turf Club in St Paul, a historic and very pleasant venue that was built as a dance hall in 1945. Main act was surf guitar instrumental band Los Straitjackets who are celebrating 30 years in the business. Wearing their trademark Mexican wrestling masks they were note perfect on a range of driving numbers, many of them made famous by the likes of the Ventures and Dick Dale. Their shtick is to maintain silence with only leader Eddie Angel speaking in Spanish rather than English. He introduced a new member of the group who he called Taco and also brought on stage for several numbers Danny Amis, aka Daddy-O Grande, a founder member of the band who grew up in Minneapolis. As ever their act, which included a brief tribute to Duane Eddy who died yesterday, was good fun and ended with a raucous version of 'The Bird's The Word'. Other numbers included 'Slaughter On Tenth Avenue', 'Squad Car', 'Perfidia', 'April Showers', 'Love Potion No 9' and 'Batman'. The support act was Wasted Major, an excellent young six member band from Knoxville who have four guitarists including three who sing well both individually and in harmony. Their songs include southern rock, Country and some Americana and they made a very good impression. A band to watch I think.