West Trinity

West Trinity will be playing an acoustic set at the Hunky Dory on 9th St. in Durham this Saturday, Sep. 25th.

We hope to go on around 6.30

The Hunky Dory is a cool little place – part tobacconist, part record store, part local bazaar.

The HD sits in the same space once occupied by Schoolkids Records, back in the day before mp3 efficiently killed that business model.

The store was also briefly occupied by High Strung Violins.

So, it is great for us to get to play some music in this little slice of Durham history.

Once you’ve toured the grounds of East Campus, come on over and chill with us – we will be looking for you!

Hi Folks,

Kenray – on bass – writing here.

At the Cellar 101 show this past Friday night, West Trinity performed Chuck Berry’s “Johnny Be Goode” in public for the first time ever.

We’ve jammed the song at practice a few times, but never played it live. And in doing so, I should confess that I flubbed a few of the words, which is surprising considering how long I’ve been at that particular song.

It was really marvelous to get to share that with the band, and with the folks down there in Fuquay Varina – Thanks to all ya’ll – you danced for us and that means a lot.

Playing Chuck Berry is a big deal to me, Kenray, personally.

When I was a kid, one of the first records I ever owned (and by that, I mean an LP that I spent my very own cash for) was a collection of Chuck’s greatest hits.

I was pretty astonished, upon my first few rounds of playing that record (at near-maximum volume), to find my little country-and-western loving mother in the kitchen singing along, note for note, word for word.

This completely unpredictable situation forced me into the position of asking that lilly white Southern Belle how it was that she should stand there, knowing every nuance of Chuck Berry’s rock-n-roll catalog.

The story she told me went this way:

When she was young, my mother had fallen in love with the song “Maybelline”, incorrectly assuming that the song was sung by a wayward (and white) country singer, tempted into the sinful arms of rock-n-roll.

She got the single (in those days, a real “plate” of plastic with grooves as deep as your fingernails) and played it day and night, memorizing every moment of it.

Then came the day when her father, my grandfather, discovered surreptitiously that the singer of the song, the creator of the little 45prm record was, in fact, not some Bill Haley knock off from Tennessee; he was a NEGRO. A BLACK MAN. Yeah, you betcha, he had a much more offensive (and destructive) word for Chuck Berry, but I shan’t reprint it here.

Needless to say, he confiscated my mum’s little platter, and broke it into a multitude of shards, right in front of her fifteen-year-old caucasian face.

That’ll teach her.

Yep, that’ll teach her to love rock-n-roll in a way her father could never imagine a person loving music. And even though she failed (as a lot of people in her generation did) to completely understand the ramifications of that love, and to completely accept the deeper implications of that attachment, she did leave us, her children, with a bedrock foundational love of rock, soul and rhythm…and for us, all that that implies. In the end, as a side effect, we are color-blind, if not downright shady.

Go ahead and pull any one of her children to the curb and demand that we sing “My Ding-a-Ling” from front to back – we can do it. All the proper lyrics to the Jefferson’s opening theme as well, and in my case (because of my particular age group) spot-on impressions of Flip Wilson’s TV show characters – yes, I can do Geraldine to the hilt - Killer ‘gone getchu, suckas.

Experiencing the joy, the completion, the honor of performing Chuck Berry meant a lot to me…being in a band that revels in the moment, the near-improv state of reaching back to the earliest part of rock history, and resurrecting it with wild abandon is beyond valuation, a near religious experience.

Come see us sometime, we’d love to share this with you.

~Kenray

We just found out that our Sep. date at the Blue Bayou has been postponed.

We will post more about a future date in the venue as info becomes available.

Best to all in Hillsborough – we hope to see you soon…

As is usual, we pulled out the stops for the poster promoting the upcoming show at BSC.

We’ll have  a few extra at the show, if you are collecting (looking at you Derek!).

We are also looking forward to the upcoming show at Cellar 101.

This is the first time we’ve had back to back shows in alternating formats…the Cellar show is acoustic, BSC is electric.

And yes, we will be playing a lot of the same originals at both shows.

Come out and witness if you can, both shows are free.

Very nice of Durham Magazine to turn their eye our way!