MUSIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

HIGH SPEED CHICKEN

This was the year 1994.
Whitebread was so 1992 at this point. We were a tightknit group that practiced pretty much every day for a year. It was like songwriting and guitar junior high for me. Scotty’s and Kevin’s eventual departure to Boston to continue their musical and sound engineering education left a big hole in my life. I continued to write as much as possible, though. Kevin and Scotty would both come home as much as possible early on in their college days and we’d get some work in. Kevin and I would write songs in the Gilson Cafe lounge during any hours we could get in there, and Scotty would come home and play drums with a group we were going to name the Barking Spiders at one point
but ended up calling PROON.
PROON was comprised of Scotty Allshouse, Frank Brockelhurst, Bart Holcomb, Shelly Asselin and me. We practiced in the cellar of Scotty’s lakeside home. Mr. and Mrs. Allshouse were very accommodating to the bands Scotty was in, even making us a DIY light rig which still worked as of 2022 when I moved back to Winsted. (My Mom supplied Spaghetti and Cake). The band was focused heavily on original music, doing only two cover songs at this show at Billy Ray’s Cafe in Winsted, CT.
HIGH SPEED CHICKEN, (a song about an alcoholic beverage originating at Syracuse University where Darren went to school), was written by Darren Barrett, Keith Eisenlohr, Scott Allshouse, Kevin Beck and myself at BARRETT ENTERPRISES while having a four-day weekend as the SONS OF CEMENT BONES. We had so much fun that week. Scotty switched over to play bass, Kevin got back on the drum throne, Darren played trumpet, and Keith played Phelps Collins to my Chicken Gunnels. I remember we laughed and laughed while recording the songs. It was the fun I wanted to have when I’d first heard that NRBQ concert. (Seems the tape is lost to the wind, though…. argh.) However, we have THIS recording from just a couple of years later. A killer rendition, complete with a new bridge and a nicely constructed ending which we NAIL!
The song starts at 30 seconds in, but I wanted to include a bit of the previous song to show how well rehearsed and on top of it the group was as we do the transition with zero problems.
LISTEN TO BART playing those ‘chicken squawking noises on his Strat!! Frank slappin’ and poppin’ his homemade fretless hamhock bass! I’ve eq’d this to death trying to sculpt Bryan’s keys out of the mix , but they’re lost in the cymbal wash (cymbal wash happens in small rooms). And lastly, this whole show is nothing but a showcase (IMO) for the force of nature and immense genius of Scott Allshouse. I’m proud to have been a part of this group, and sit here hanging on every musical transition in the compositions.