He strapped on his guitar and got set to play thecafé's “Alive at 8” series. The showcase is a chance to catch live music in anintimate setting from 8-10PM Saturday nights.
On this evening Bone's back up included two guitarplayers, bass, drums, a bongo player and a flutist. They looked like a band ofgypsies and took up a large part of the bar's floor space themselves. A smallcrowd of about 20 people, ranging from wide-eyed college kids to vets of the Milwaukee music scene,had shown up for the set.
Tapping their namesake, the band started with“Folsom Prison Blues,” the first of many Johnny Cash covers throughout the set.They also covered “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky,” “Walk the Line,” “Big River,”as well as a duet with Bone and singer Ellen Warren on “Jackson.”
Besides Cash covers, the band performed two songs bysongwriter and producer Dave Alvin (of The Blasters, X and The Knitters): “BusStation,” and “4th of July.” They also ran through songs by Steve Earle, Bob Dylan and somehonky-tonk versions of songs by The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.
Some of the band's best-performed material, though,is their own. Bone brings an emotional desperation to his gritty “Dig Me aHole,” a song that's like a shot of rough whiskey. The band sometimes growls at you and othertimes you feel your toe tapping along.
The band ended the set on a somber note with anotherJohnny Cash cover, “Sunday Morning Coming Down.” The song is about a Sundaymorning hangover, and many of the band's celebratory fans were well on theirway to living out Johnny Cash lyrics by the show's end.
