Them Thar There Those Darlins

So Hacienda was lucking enough to fill in some time playing some shows with Those Darlins. They're from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. They are a fun band. One of my favorites from the last year. We played together for a week, but I've been running into these guys for a year. Not sure how to descibe them. Its Johnny Cash, its Loretta Lynn, its the Ramones, its Roger Miller, its the Shangri-las. Shit, what am I saying, its THOSE DARLINS! Anyway, I'm sure they'll be huge. We met them on the Canadian border, and powered through the tour. Afterall, we'd been on the road at this point for about 5 weeks, so Hacienda was getting burned out a bit.

Something really cool about this run, was that I had a special reunion. I was reunited with the Fender Telecaster. You see I exclusively played Teles for years. In fact, I didn't feel like a pro guitar player until I learned how to play a telecaster. I put down the tele and started playing Gibsons live when I began playing with Dan Auerbach. His sound is big and ballsy, so the tele was at times too thin.

Kelley from Those Darlins and I have been friends for some time, and she was looking for a telecaster to add to the mix. I had a couple lying around and lent her one. It was a white Japanese 62 style tele. In fact its the first telecaster I ever owned. Its the main guitar on the first Hacienda record. I tried a bunch of vintage guitars, but that one ended up on all the tracks. Sometimes its about what your playing more than what your playing on thats important. Its a rare one, in that it is double bound. There are almost no double bound white teles anywhere. In facts I've only seen one other that had creme binding. Most are black.

Watching Kelley play that guitar got me jealous, and sure enough I've been mixing in fenders again on tour. I just took out a blonde esquire on the current tour with Heartless Bastards.