Casi Muerto

This has been a very crazy few weeks filled with rehearsals, remembering the dead, shows, driving, and a lot of drinking. It's over now, and I can breath... somehow.

On Sunday, November 8th I took part in the filming of "Flor De Muertos;" a film documenting the All Souls Procession that happens every year in downtown Tucson. The Procession was fallowed this year by a performance by Calexico and friends at The Rialto Theater. I had the great honor of performing a new song of mine, entitled "None Of This Is Mine," with Calexico as well as joining them on a few of their songs. It was a great night to say the least.

Performing "None Of This Is Mine" with Calexico


I spent the next day rehearsing for a two day Borderland trip with two musicians who had never played my music with me 'till that day. To no surprise, Clay Coweek and Eric Parisi picked it all up damn fast and before we knew it we were off to Texas. We played Lubbock, Las Cruces and Tucson with our friends in Tumbledown House and had a blast. Driving along I-10, through El Paso especially, is a drive that haunts you everytime. Seeing Juarez only a hundred yards away really puts things in perspective.

Claw Coweek, Gabriel Sullivan, Eric Parisi


Sunset over Juarez, Mexico


Live at El Patio, Las Cruces, NM


The next few weeks will be dedicated to prying some new songs out of my recently acquired bajo sexto. The woods so damn thick there must be a hundred songs hidden in there.

Gabriel Sullivan
Tucson, AZ 11/18/09

New things and such.

Well. It's been a little while. Since the last time I wrote a lot has happened in my musical life that ought to be written about.

On July 28th, 2009 we (me and my 12 friends) did a big ol' party of a set at my "By The Dirt" CD release at Club Congress. It was one hell of a time. Everyone played, everyone sang, everyone rubbed against each other. It was grand. OH. And a couple was married at the show!

CD Release Show


Since then, I've taken a little time to myself to catch up on things I've been meaning to do. Such as write, practice instruments, listen to music (funny how hard it is to do that sometimes), etc. These couple weeks of being a sort of home-body has been great. A lot of new music is coming, and again it is all wildly different from song to song. I've been listening to a whole lot of mariachi and latin music and playing bass for a whole lot of rockabilly and it's all starting to show. These new songs are wild!

Back to the road soon though. November I'll be doing a short Texas trip with my friends from Montana Tumbledown House. Check the Myspace for dates.

That's all for now. Oh yeah. I moved in the middle of all this.

Home sweet home!


- Gabriel Sullivan

Im going to release something on you

Okay. SO. This is the show that I've had planned since i started writing this record. There were so many amazing musicians who contributed to the record, as well as a few fantastic folks who were not exactly on the record, but contributed in so many other ways, it just didn't seem right to have a CD release show with myself and a couple openers. So here's what's going to happen...

I will be doing one performance on Friday, August 28th with no "opening" bands. Instead, I'll be performing all the songs on my record (and a few new ones) while parading all the musicians who played on the record on and off stage in an extremely hectic fashion. On top of having these folks play their parts from "By The Dirt," each of these superstars will be performing their songs through out the set. Now, if this all goes as planned (which it will) and Bob Dylan doesn't pass away before August 28th (which he won't), this will be an amazing showcase of some of the best musicians in Tucson.

The band will be....

Gabriel Sullivan - Guitar, Piano
Chris Black - Upright Bass
Jake Sullivan - Drums, Percussion
Connor Gallaher - Guitar, Slide, Lap Steel
Vicki Brown - Violin
Tom Walbank - Harp
Andrew Collberg - Guitar
Mike Hebert - Guitar, Slide, Piano
Amy Rude - Guitar
Arthur Vint - Drums, Percussion
Johnny Saczko - Guitar

This is all happening Friday, August 28th @ Club Congress. The show starts at 9pm and will cost $10 with a free copy of "By The Dirt" or $5 without the CD. Sadly, it is 21+ (there will be some all ages show coming) which means there will be people inebriated on that brown water doing bad things so don't be bring yer children.

Oh yeah, and I'll be selling some original art, and some very nice large prints of the poster shown below...

Can't wait to show you all the horrifying stage antics we've picked up on the road!

- Gabriel Sullivan

What do you do with 98 acres...

Missed a few days...

In short, we have played the Deep Blues Festival, we met Santa (wisdomofsanta.blogspot.com), we made some wonderful French friends, played a few more shows, and are now staying on a 98 acre ranch in Bozeman, MT.

We're in a bit of a hurry, so I'll tell the story in photos...

Deep Blues Festival...






Our French buddies, Thee Verduns



St. Cloud, MN



98 Acre Ranch in Bozeman, MT





Billings, MT tonight, Missoula, MT tomorrow with Holy Rolling Empire. Yesssssssssssssss.

-Gabriel Sullivan

We have one less tooth than we left with.

Some interesting things have taken place in the last couple days.

Friday we played with the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash and had a great time. Great people, awesome venue, lots of beer. As good as it gets.

At 3 Kings Tavern


Saturday we played a show that we had our doubts about, but turned out great. We played Union Station in Colorado Springs with a band called Supersonic Audiochronic.... folks seemed to dig our tunes despite our lack of marijuana reference. Although my album title, "By The Dirt" has now turned into "Buy The Dirt" in reference to the rumored times that Connor and myself had to make the difficult decision to buy the "dirt weed" or the "nice weed." Buy the dirt weed.

After a lot of wine and mcdonalds the night before, we woke up Sunday morning to the news that Chris was in excruciating pain due to a tooth ache he'de been dealing with for a few days. After a couple hours of thinking Chris might be forced to get back to Tucson, he got his tooth pulled and was forced to sit out our show that night. Jake and I made our best attempt at a two piece, black keys esque set. Connor helped us out on the acoustic guitar for the last few songs. We still had fun.

At Walnut Room

In summary, we had a good weekend, Chris is still on tour, and we are collectively missing a tooth. But we're all still here.

Chris when he could eat solid food


Deep Blues Festival this weekend.

- Gabriel Sullivan and The Titty Mountain Blow Jobs

El Paso to El Patio

In Pueblo, Co stayin at Chris's parents house drinking Poison Blue Ribbon watching Family Guy... Not bad at all.

Last night was a bit of a roller coaster. We got to Zeppelin's in El Paso to find closed doors and no one at the venue. After getting ahold of the promoter and him explaining to me that the show was not going to happen because it was my job to find the bands and flier the show. After using most four letter words and explaining to him that he had things a little backwards, we made some phone calls and got on a show just down the interstate in Las Cruces. We got there to find an amazing 75 year old bar filled with people, and good bands. We played, people stuck around, and had a blast. A very good night.

Denver tomorrow with Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash. Should be good times.

Drove past the Rio Grande today...













The van... Our sliding door works for the first time in 5 years. God is it great.