With Opener Shoot Jake

Too Slim & The Tail­drag­gers
Your ticket pur­chases you entry to the show and a chance to win a Rev­erend Gui­tar with gui­tar bag!

If Tim “Too Slim” Lang­ford only played slide he would slither around most other blues gui­tarists and put a fero­cious bite on their pride. How­ever, as the sole six-string slinger, main song­ster and lead singer of the power trio he founded in 1986 in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton, he is a total force of nature. Leav­ing musi­cal tracks for oth­ers to try and fol­low with now 16 albums and count­less gigs, he remains as untamed and men­ac­ing as ever.

New bassist Polly O’Keary and drum­mer Tommy Cook pro­vide bone-rattling punch as Lang­ford makes his estimable pres­ence known via eyeball-melting slide stomps, melan­choly bal­lads and butt-kicking rock­ers on 12 far-reaching, orig­i­nal tunes. “Stoned Again” shows his razor slide in open D, a tun­ing he owns along with Blind Willie John­son and Elmore James as he makes a star­tling pitch for jus­tice regard­ing get­ting high with, “The devil drinks his whiskey and Jesus drinks his wine.” The melan­choly minor key blues of “Dad­dies Bones” is a brac­ing change of pace with Joe Doria pro­vid­ing Ham­mond B-3 pads for Lang­ford to pick straight lead while he sings a brood­ing tale about a way­ward father that seems to ref­er­ence the recent movie Winter’s Bone. The big arena rock sound of “Can’t Dress It Up” would give Tom Petty a run for his money as Lang­ford uses his sig­na­ture vocal growl to dra­matic effect in con­trast to the rous­ing horn hits and anthemic cho­rus. “In Your Cor­ner” con­tin­ues the fist-pump with a rock­ing Mem­phis boo­gie groove and vocal hooks that stick to the ribs while Lang­ford unleashes his slide.

Guest soul man Cur­tis Sal­gado brings his vox bono to preach under­stand­ing on “I Heard Voices,” a smooth slice of funk that Lang­ford gooses with tart lead licks that leads into “Everybody’s Got Some­thing,’” a heart­felt plea for uncon­di­tional love with, “Everybody’s got some­thing to give.” Lang­ford next deliv­ers a pointed rant on the insou­ciant lazy funk of “Workin’” about the cur­rent eco­nomic plight of the work­ing folk that evolves into an angry, run­away train of a rave-up in the coda before fad­ing. “She Sees Ghosts” is another funky slice of R&B dri­ven by catchy hooks and fills as Lang­ford employs an inven­tive tale about a dog who “sees things that nobody sees” as a cre­ative metaphor for his own fears.

“Inside of Me” extends his uneasi­ness musi­cally with a minor key, medium rocker fea­tur­ing Doria on keys while Lang­ford wearily expresses his con­sum­ing pas­sion for his woman with the restrained, resigned line of “I’m inside of her, she’s inside of me.” With a dif­fer­ent take on love and a riff that acknowl­edges SRV, Lang­ford rocks the shuf­fle on “As the Tears Go By,” snap­ping off prickly fills and a solo that is Texas as well as blues-approved. The title track vis­its grunge city and finds Lang­ford step­ping back with his gui­tar while his rip-picking son Austin Elwood acquits him­self with the exu­ber­ance and angst of youth as the father emotes with chill­ing pas­sion about his demons. Clos­ing with a melodic and mov­ing instru­men­tal named for the Mex­i­can town where he hon­ey­mooned, “Bucerius” also pays homage to the instru­men­tal bands that came out of the North­west in the early sixties.

Lang­ford has used the evoca­tive images of cat­tle and human skulls as tal­is­mans on his album art while his music laughs in the face of life’s chal­lenges. In addi­tion, it exudes the deep­est blue feel­ings that flow through it like the muddy Mis­sis­sippi. It is an expe­ri­ence often imi­tated and rarely repli­cated, but in great evi­dence through­out Shiver.

Dave Rubin, 2005 KBA win­ner in Journalism

BIOGRAPHY

Tim “Too Slim” Lang­ford, with his band the Tail­drag­gers, have cre­ated an eclec­tic style of blues and rock that has become a genre all its own. Too Slim‘s ever evolv­ing musi­cal direc­tion can­not be clas­si­fied into any box or cat­e­gory. The eclec­tic nature of the band allows Too Slim and the Tail­drag­gers to eas­ily crossover and appeal to audi­ences of var­i­ous musi­cal tastes.

Expe­ri­enc­ing a Too Slim and the Tail­drag­gers‘ con­cert is like tak­ing a jour­ney through the his­tory of Amer­i­can music. Too Slim’s style ranges from down-home blues, funky blues rock, Amer­i­cana, south­ern swamp rock, and instru­men­tal gui­tar styles. The band, led by singer, song­writer and gui­tarist, Tim Lang­ford, is backed by the top-shelf rhythm sec­tion of Polly O’Keary on bass and vocals and Tommy Cook on drums and vocals.

Free Your Mind, the pre­vi­ous stu­dio release by Too Slim and the Tail­drag­gers, charted as high #5 on the Bill­board Top Blues Album Chart in 2009. The bands 2007 CD The For­tune Teller charted as high as #9 on the Bill­board Top Blues Album chart in 2007 & 2008. The For­tune Teller was also nom­i­nated for “Best Con­tem­po­rary Blues Album” in the 2008 Blues Blast Music Awards in Chicago, IL. This award-winning band has been voted the Best Regional Act 11 times by the Cas­cade Blues Asso­ci­a­tion, the largest orga­ni­za­tion of its kind in the US. Too Slim has won mul­ti­ple indi­vid­ual awards as Best Gui­tarist, Best Slide Gui­tarist, and Best Song­writer and the band are in the Hall of Fame in three NW blues soci­eties. Their devoted fan base has grown over the years into a national and inter­na­tional fol­low­ing. Too Slim and the Tail­drag­gers music was also fea­tured in two MTV series “Road Rules” and the “Real World.”
Too Slim and the Tail­drag­gers are head­lin­ers at the­aters, fes­ti­vals, and con­cert stages. The band has shared the stage with the likes of Bo Did­dley, Brian Set­zer, Johnny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shep­erd, .38 Spe­cial, Robert Cray, Otis Rush, Jeff Healey, Ted Nugent, Los Lobos, Lon­nie Mack, Blue Oys­ter Cult, Heart, Travis Tritt, Junior Brown, Gate­mouth Brown, Neil McCoy, Del­bert McClin­ton, Blues Trav­eler, Step­pen­wolf, Johnny and Edgar Winter.