Day 11: Station House Bistro. Russellville, Arkansas

We woke up in the van for the first time all tour, breaking a solid streak of nights slept fully stretched out on floors or couches or even beds. We managed to sleep in to 10am, though, in the gas station parking lot that we had selected in the dark of night and a power outage in the area. In our search the night before we had driven a majority of the hour and a half to Russellville, and thus had some extra time, so we jumped off the motorway and drove into the town of Ozark to explore the area a little bit. We tooled around some thrift shops and some antique stores in historic downtown Ozark -- or atleast its skeleton of a more vibrant past. There were some pretty interesting cultural landmarks around, like this tobacco store -- pretty classic. That and the Hillbilly Carwash. The Hillbilly Burger. The Hillbilly One-Stop Shop. Etc. etc. etc.

We rolled into Russellville around 1pm and made our way to the Station House Bistro where we’d be playing that evening. The Station House is a cute little café / coffeeshop with rad murals on the wall and the coolest staff and ownership ever. They took great care of us as we hung out all afternoon drinking Rich Irishmen and munchin sandwiches and checkin ye ‘ol internet and learning about the local scene -- the drama around the current theater production of “Assassins“ at Arkansa Tech University, the hippies in the hills, the straight up hillbillies, the nature of a “dry county” and everything in between. So much cultural education to be had -- in this country alone -- we’re learning a ton. Love it.

They cleared the tables completely out of the room by mid-afternoon and opened the place up into a decent sized little venue and we setup basically in the middle of the room. The sound in the room was really really good. -- it held the sound really nicely -- it didn’t bounce around too much or get too muddy and muffled. It was pretty amazing.

There was a nice little crew of kids that made it out in time for our set which began at 8pm. It was a really fun set as we finally gave the new version of Mahoney (My Homie) some love and pulled out a few other things we hadn’t played as much. Cloud Minder from Philadelphia played after us. Super nice folks playing some pretty epic instrumental music ala Tristeza and other post-rock heroes. The textures and nuances in their music translated extremely well in the Station House as they had the crowd -- including myself -- mesmerized. Local William Blackart wrapped the evening up with his “hand-rolled voice” crooning some pretty rad tunes over his fingerpicked steel string guitar. Really moody and he too sounded soooo good in that room. Loved it. Great show. Cool bill thanks to the Fort Delicious crew. Everyone was rad. Thanks to Colin, Stan, Jamie, Michelle, Amy, Emily, Brandon, Dustin, Daniel, Amber, Dalton, Cloud Minder, William Blackart and everyone else that made the whole Russellville experience so educational and joyous.

The after parties were pretty epic in their own right as we explored Russellville with the locals. The Fort. Some late night piano duets. A ridiculous amount of riduculousness. And other adventures carried us into the wee hours before Cam and I saddled up the van (with Lisa sleeping in the back) and cruised to a Waffle House for a quick hit of greasy breakfast before hitting the road for about an hour to give us a head start on our big drive to Chattanooga, TN. We slept in the van again. It was good. Oh so good.

Reporting from the Ghost Ghost in motion for all of us Finn Rigginses.
==gilbert


PS here's a little video taste of William Blackart's set: