Billy Duffy/Brian Setzer/Slim Jim stories

Hi there, I´ll be brief, cause I´m about to pass away....

I went to see THE CULT saturday and sunday night. In fact, I worked for them, cause my brother is a promoter here in Spain, and he books them everytime they want to tour Europe. Anyway.... this past weekend Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy have been really nice to my brother and me, and last night, after their gig in Valencia, which was absolutely brilliant (pics and videos to come soon), Ian Astbury told me brother they wanted to go out to some bar, and he wanted us to be there. So, imagine.... Ian Astbury, Billy Duffy, my brother Ivan, myself, and Billy´s girlfriend sitting in a bar, on a sunday night, rainning outside... have something to drink talking about life for hours..... A DREAM for both of us!!!!!!!!!

My brother was interacting more with Ian, and I was interacting more with Billy. So... I had to bring up the subject, and asked him if he knew Brian Setzer; he said he didn´t know him personally, that they may have meet in the past, but they are not friends (meaning he hasn´t really had the chance to hang out with him or anything). BUT he was: "man, that guy is really good.... the way he plays, it is amazing; I like what he does". He didn´t proclaim himself a fan of the BSO or the Stray Cats, but he pointed out the "virtousity" Brian has when playing his Gretsch. For those who don´t know, Billy owns -at least that I saw on the stage- 3 Gretsch White Falcon, so he knows about Gretsches well.

I told him that it would be cool and would make some people happy if they would team up sometime and do something together. He said, "Yeah, that would be cool".

Then he said him and Slim Jim are really good friends, they hang out a lot, talk on the phone a lot, and live like a few blocks away. He told me the story how Slim Jim broke his arm last year, and he said that even though his arm is fully recovered now, it was a really bad injury and was in really bad shape at the time.

Also, he said Christine Setzer, was putting together a picture book about "guitar players" and a little story of who they were. He said she´s been working on the book for years, and he is not sure if it will ever be finished, but for what he had seen, it would be a really cool book.

And again, about Slim Jim, he said that as of today, Slim Jim is in "Kilimanjaro mountain", which is in South Africa, climbing there, as part of a benefit program that some rock stars/musicians do to raise money for kids in need of help. That´s a cool thing of Slim Jim to do! he mentioned other musicians that are there as well, but can´t remember them.


And those are the things I wanted to share about Billy Duffy and our heroes Brian and Slim Jim. All the other stuff we talked about, will stay with me. But it sure was a great evening with a couple living legends of rock´n´roll.

Thanks David!!

Billy Duffy and Slim Jim did a few gigs together with Mike Peters, Kirk Brandon & Glen Matlock with their band Dead Men Walking. They do some kind of acoustic gigs, playing the hits of the bands the different DMW members belonged to

Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, not South Africa

Cool story ,Spanish David. i wouldve liked to have been there

Swansea City wrote:

Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, not South Africa

you are right... I was not exactly right. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania, which is not in South Africa.... it is in Central Africa.

Sorry.... but anyway, the deal is, Slim Jim is climbing in Kilimanjaro raising money for a good cause.

Lord Vincent Blackshadow wrote:

Cool story ,Spanish David. i wouldve liked to have been there

Thanks man. Yeah, I feel very fortunate for what I got to experience last night. It wasn´t actually the first time we hanged out together. My brother has booked them 3 times as The Cult in the past 3 years... and has booked Ian Astubury with The Doors/Riders On the Storm twice... so I guess they kinda start feeling confident with us.

The first time I met Ian, I drove him in my own little shitty car to the airport... he was pretty cool though, and had a nice chat. Imagine a 45 minutes ride with one of your idols sitting next to you, having a normal conversation...

The second time I took them all out party in Benidorm, which is a wild town by the beach in the Mediterrean side of Spain.

And last night it was the highlight.... hanging out in a bar, sitting around a table, like 4 old friends, around a few drinks. And to be fair, they were not even drinking alcohol. Ian got Coke Light, and Billy got water. Just for the record.

They are returning to the US to finish their Love Live Tour soon.... if they play around your area, you guys MUST go see them. Actually, they are playing in Raleigh,NC at a very small venue... less than 1,000 people. There´s a personal reason Billy explained to me of why they are playing there, but I´ll keep it to myself. But it was his decission to play there, and he is really looking forward to it. So if you guys have the chance....

Friday Nov.13th. http://www.lincolntheatre.com/schedule.htm

By the way.... in Spain, in both shows, they did an encore. They still hadn´t at ANY of the previous gigs of this current tour. But they were so excited about the people´s response during the gig, and they felt they owed them something. They went back on the stage, and the first night they played "She Sells Sanctuary" for second time. They had played it at the regular set... and when they said they wanted to go back to the stage, they thought that would be a good ending show, cause people went nuts the first time. So imagine... playing twice the same song during the same show.

The second night, when they decided to go back, Ian decided to play "Lil´Devil". Believe it or not, Lil´Devil is not in their current set list. There´s another reason for it as well. But well, it was not planned to be played at all during the tour... but last night they broke the rules and played it.

They were explaining they are not the kind of guys that would come out for an encore; they have their set list, and that´s it. BUT they said they really vibrated with the fans during the gig. They really insisted this was something they won´t often do, but again, in their own words.... "it´s been our best show in years".

Alright... off to bed... I really need to catch up some sleep.

By the way, I told Billy that "we"... the hoodoovoodoo community, EXIST. And that he has some fans in here. He appreciated that. He said he is not good friends with computers though, and doesn´t get on-line often. But well.... he now knows we are here. You never know....

Buenas noches.