otis gibbs

i was fortunate enough to be invited to tour with the bottle rockets last fall. we did a stretch of dates in the northeastern united states at the end of last year and then a couple weeks in february through the southeast. here are some somewhat random photos of my travels.

this is a boiled peanut stand somewhere in south carolina. i survived on
nothing but boiled peanuts for nine days in a row and i returned a better man
because of it.

chicken reflection -yeehaw junction, florida

bait shop outside of athens, georgia

lincoln memorial -washington, dc

bleachers in arlington cemetery -arlington, va

store wall detail -somewhere in rural georgia

these last three photos were all taken by my buddy todd fox. please click on this link to see more of his photos. he is featured in the current issue of black and white fine art photography magazine. needless to say i’m very happy for him.

me onstage with the bottle rockets in macon, georgia.

hanging backstage with mark and brian of the bottle rockets in charlottesville, va.

onstage in lake worth, florida.

thanks to all of you who came out to the shows and thanks to the bottle rockets for inviting me to tour with them. i have quite a few photos from these dates so i may post a part two photo blog if there is enough interest.

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in early spring of this year a friend of ours in austin, texas (laura thomas) asked if i’d be interested in playing at a homeless shelter in austin during south by southwest. we said yes. she asked us to pick between two days and we said that it didn’t matter to us. she said that she needed us to decide so….we flipped a coin and chose friday. she then informed us that we would be playing at the homeless shelter with billy bragg! billy and i ended up having a great conversation and he enjoyed my set so much that he asked me if i’d be interested in doing some shows with him. i was more than happy to take him up on his offer.

me and billy at caritas soup kitchen in austin, texas.

billy at the alladin theater in portland, oregon.

i didn’t have much spare time to take photographs but i did manage to take a few. here are some random images.

salmon ladder in seattle, washington.

fishermen in fog seattle, washington.

i have no idea what this game is called or how to play it but i really enjoyed watching the old men sit around playing it. two men would play while a dozen or so would stand around cheering and laughing (most likely trash talking). i watched for two hours or so. san francisco, california.

i’m not sure whose grave this is but i found it to be interesting. hollywood, california.

grant, mushi, billy, vaughn and andy. billy is blessed with some wonderful folks around him. there was no shortage of laughs back stage!

if you have any photos of the shows please feel free to post them here.

war mother.

he said that his name is jack marvin and that he is lee marvins cousin. i don’t know if it’s true but i do know that he was the most cantanquerous person i’ve met in quite a while. he served in three wars and didn’t like to talk about it. he spends most of his time sitting on a park bench in san antonio whistling at girls passing by.

this might be the smartest bird i’ve ever seen. it was waiting for cars to pull of the highway and park in the lot across the street from the alamo. after the people left it would swoop down and eat dead insects off the grill of the car. pretty damn bright for a bird!

derrick frazier was executed two days after this photo was taken.

self portrait in a funhouse mirror.

carls corner truck stop.

these last few photos are of the residents and sights of luchenbach, texas.

i had the good fortune of spending all of august in austin. i spent most of my days wandering the countryside with my camera and most of my nights on a barstool. here are some photos of some of the people i met and some of the things that i experienced.

i want to send out a special thank you to my friends cameron and jenn for letting me stay with them at their place in austin.

i have quite a few more photos from texas that i’ll be happy to post if anyone is interested in seeing them. thanks for allowing me to share these with you.

i was sitting on a barstool last week at a bar in bastrop, texas. i was asking some fellas if there were any ghost towns near by and after a short while the conversation finally came around to someone mentioning mcmahan, texas. it’s a tiny town that’s been all but abandoned. it’s been around for about a hundred years. the population peaked in the 1960s at 250 people and it’s been on a steady decline ever since. a local rancher started buying buildings as they became available in hopes of preserving the town. he’s now the owner of what’s left of the town and he’s trying to sell it.something about this whole story struck a nerve so i decide to drive out to see it for myself.

after spending about an hour chatting with a fella that runs the local BBQ
joint i started thinking that i might be interested in owning my own town. i checked into it and you can buy the whole town for 215 grand. to tell the truth i think that it might be a little bit overpriced but i’m still interested.

i told amy about it thinking that she would send me to a psychiatrist but she was more interested than i was. who knew?

i like the idea of being boss hog and owning a whole town. we could set up speed traps and live off of the money i get from speeding tickets. i could become a cult leader and set up a compound where everyone would worship gillian welch as the one true savior. we could build the worlds greatest roadside attraction featuring the worlds largest statue of harry dean stanton that would lure weary travelers to us from all over the world. we could open up an artist colony where we could house artist that needed somewhere to create without the distractions of everyday madness. there are way too many options to keep up with. i like the idea of just moving out into the middle of nowhere and just telling the world to kiss our asses.

i’m doubting that we’ll go through with it but who knows. i’ve done dumber things!

thanks to everyone who helped make my trip as wonderful as it was. we made
a ton of new friends and were treated like long lost family members.

the strange looking building on the right is the venue that i was fortunate enough to play. it’s called the “sage gateshead” and it’s an amazing facility. i opened for guy clark and played to a sold out crowd.

the tyne bridge. newcastle and gateshead are seperated by the tyne river.

view of the tyne bridge from our hotel room window.

another view of the sage and the tyne river.

here are some photos from durham, england.

yummy!

cowboy shadows in the sage

i don’t know what in the hell this is about.

i’ll leave you with some random images from the train

“carhenge” alliance, nebraska. we drove a few hundred miles out of the way and risked being late to a gig in omaha just to see carhenge. it was worth every mile. this is easily in my top five favorite roadside attractions that i’ve been fortunate enough to visit!

the nerds among us already know where this was taken but for everyone else it’s riverside, iowa.

church folks protesting an adult film store outside of uniontown, indiana. the man in the second picture yelled at me for about twenty minutes about fire and brimstone. every time i tried to smile and make nice he’d start screaming out bible verses. the woman just stood in the background quietly. he eventually ran out of scripture and asked if i’d like to take a photo.

thanks to everyone that came out to the shows in nawlins. i was fortunate enough to be a small part of a reconstruction effort led by a group of hoosiers that took a week out of their lives to rebuild a house in the 9th ward. there are good folks in this world who are trying their best to help out. now if we can get the white house to do it’s part we might be able to make some headway. individuals can help individuals but it takes a federal government to reclaim a city.

here are some photos of people that i met on the trip

a couple of fellas tryin to beat the heat. the man on the left spent four days stranded on his roof after katrina. he saw dozens of helicopters flying over each day but they never stopped.

he said “my name is stephen as in saint stephen”. i told him that i’ve seen the mummified hand of saint stephen in a cathedral in budapest. he said that it wasn’t his hand and then started talking about the bombing of dresden for twenty minutes.

live oaks are beautiful!

a bible that i found in the wreckage of the lower 9th ward.

this is a photo taken by my buddy todd fox. i think that it sums up the entire experience pretty well. be sure and visit his page at www.myspace.com/toddfoxphotography

here are some random photos of some wonderful street musicians.