Howdy all,

The election of Board officers is coming up, won't you consider running for one of our Board of Directors positions? This year we will be electing a President and a Treasurer, both 2-year terms, and Secretary (1-year term).

We also have committee chair positions open for your consideration: Social & Entertainment, Rodeo Events & Training, Fundraising/Sponsorship, Membership and Public Relations.

Please consider serving your association and helping to keep ASGRA alive.
Contact me with any questions.

Membership Time

Well it's that time of year again, membership renewal! According to our bylaws, the membership year begins on August 1. You can renew your membership in one of two ways. The easiest is online using PayPal Online Membership Renewal. You can also renew by printing out the form and mailing your check to the ASGRA address listed on the form. Regardless of which method you use, please renew your membership this year- and get your friends to join too!

For more information, please check out the membership page. One item not listed - if you sign up for a premium membership, your name (as your list your preference on the application) will appear in the newsletter instead of a the rodeo program (since we won't be having a rodeo this year.) Please consider a premium membership if you can. Please get all your friends to join too!!

Thanks,

Mike Benner
Membership Chair

Trace Adkins Turns Comic Book Hero

For all of your Adkins addicts that enjoy seeing Trace's big boy form in concert, photos and videos, you will now have a new way to enjoy him -- comic book. It has been announced that Trace Adkins was the inspiration and basis for a new and original comic book series. The series will feature the title character Luke McBain as he returns to his hometown after serving prison time for a crime he did not commit. Upon return home, McBain, finds his town taken over by greed and corruption. McBain set about making things right.

The series is to be in four parts and will be published as a four part series by 12 Gauge Comics starting in November. You can get a preview of what Adkins looks like as the McBain character visit Adkins's website.

Vagabond Chuckwagon is Summer Brunching II!!

We had our largest group yet who turned out for brunch on Sunday July 19 at Freddie's Beach Bar and Restaurant. 14 ASGRA members and friends enjoyed a delicious brunch, unending mimosas and the warm and breezy outside patio seating. It was a beautiful morning and we had a terrific time. Freddie's was also very accommodating and made sure that we had anything we needed and were enjoying our brunch experience. So kudos to the staff and thanks for hosting us!!

Brunch was such a success that we're going to do it again in August, but at another location. This time we'll be meeting at Clyde's in Chevy Chase, MD, at 11 am on Sunday August 30. The Chevy Chase location has a diverse menu and is easily accessible by metro, as it is only a few blocks from the Friendship Heights metro stop. It is adjacent to the Chevy Chase Center parking lot for those who prefer to drive. They have directions and their menu posted on the website.

I'd like your RSVPs by noon on Monday August 24, please!! I will call and reserve a table that afternoon. You can contact me via email at ajtygger@aol.com or on my cell at 703-371-7865. Come on out for another fun event with your ASGRA friends and family!

Sunday August 30, 2009, 11am
Clyde's of Chevy Chase
5441 Wisconsin Avenue
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
Phone: 301.951.9600

Lonni La Bel

DC Eagle Bar Night and BBQ

On Sunday, August 9 ASGRA will be hosting a BBQ at the DC Eagle. We will have burgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, potato salad and all the fixins. The cost for the BBQ is $7 a plate - that includes your first draft beer from the club bar. Each cup after that is $2. Come out and get some good eatins. The BBQ will run from 5 - 9pm.

Meet Me at the Fair 2

Music Reviews

1 star - Sucks, save your money and buy a beer
2 star - Borrow it from someone
3 star - Wait for it go on sale
4 star - Don't leave Wal*Mart without it
5 star - Stop whatever the heck you're doing right now, and download this puppy  

Brad Paisley

American Saturday Night

First things first; for all of you Brad Fanatics out there who want to run out and buy the CD based on Paisley's pose in that tight t-shirt, you are going to be disappointed in the CD booklet. There are no more additional pictures of Brad and his biceps; nor are their photos of his puppy dog eyes; nor are their photos of that welcome-ya-in grin that he has; nor are there any good photos of Paisley's posterior for you to dream, drool and sigh over. What you do get instead is actually a very smart concept booklet.

The photo that you see on the cover is the finished product. The photos that are on the inside of the booklet are the work in progress - and I'm talking about the background for the photo, not Brad's sculpted form. You see the mural of the cityscape come to life as Brad paints the colors of the sky, buildings and lights.

In one part of the CD booklet, there is a contact sheet of photos with Brad painting. The cutest of the photos is the one that has him painting with his son, Huck. In other part of the booklet you have splotches of paint or a bucket of paint thrown here and there. This helps to keep the photo idea from getting monotonous. The primary colors that are used really help to bring out a zing as well. This booklet goes to the level that Martina McBride's Shine should have gone to and the music that goes with it is just as well done.

Paisley, who couldn't sing a bad song if he tried, does better again on this CD. I think that what makes him such a great musician is his love of the guitar. If he weren't married to Kimberly Williams, I think that this boy would be hitched to a Fender or a Stratocaster. He strums those strings in a way I'm sure a few of you would like to be strummed as well with Paisley's clearly nimble fingers. Where you can here this at its best is on the title track "American Saturday Night". The songs got some good pickin' on it.

My personal favorite of the whole album is "Water." It's my personal favorite because it celebrates something really close to my heart; the joy that you get from just being on the shore. I grew up just minutes from the beach. You could walk to it in about 5 minutes. There was nothing like splashing around in the ocean; doing my own impression of Ester Williams. Though Paisley's experiences recounted in the song are different from mine; i.e., "Dayton Beach…18 girls…white t-shirt about to be sprayed with water" the message in the chorus rings true enough for me and for others, too.

When that summer sun starts to beating down/
And you don't know what to do/
Just go and grab someone you want to see in a bathing suit/
And drive until the map turns blue.

"Oh Yeah, You're Gone" is another favorite of mine. It's a favorite because the song highlights how modern melodies can be put to a classic theme and work. You could take these same lyrics of this song and place them with a melody from 30/40/50 years back and not lose anything with its impact. "Gone" sounds as though it could've been written for George Jones. It's one of those songs that sings about your love who's gone, but still lingers by habit in your thoughts and actions.

I open my eyes; look at the clock; it says 8:15/
I stumble out of bed; fumble down the hall; still half asleep/
Open up a window; open up the paper and put some coffee on/
Grab two cups/
Oh yeah, you're gone

Shower and shave; take a little time to read the news/
Sort through the mail; see something about some sale they have on women's shoes…
…Billy's band is playing at the Canyon club on Friday/
I bet they sang our song/
Maybe we can go/
Oh yeah you're gone

I still say us when I ought to say me/
I still say ours instead of mine/
Then suddenly it hits me/
Oh yeah, you're gone

What makes this song so great is that it is sung with such a straightforward delivery, but you can still hear the regret dripping off of each lyric. Additionally, the melody is delivered with such subtly that you almost forget that music is playing in the background. When it does move more to the forefront in order to punctuate a particular lyric or theme in the song, it gets its right. It doesn't do it just for show.

Of all the songs on this CD, this one is destined to be a modern classic. So soft and easy, but so hard hittin' at the same time.

In a lot of what I have been reading about this CD it's said to have themes that are a lot less of the humorous Brad Paisley that we are used to and more of a personal reflection of where he is now and the things that matter most to him. I found that not to be true. The CD is still loaded with lots of wink-and-grin songs to them. The funniest of them all is "The Pants."

Now, we have all heard about that person that wears the pants in a relationship, especially when it's between a man and woman. The pants wearer is the one who makes the rules; is the alpha; is the leader and decision maker of the relationship. Typically, for guys, the one who wears really wears the pants is woman. No matter how much we may think that we have all the control in the relationship, in reality we don't. Often, a woman is the one who really controls things, though we may be given the illusion that we do. Brad takes this reality and turns the phrase the phrase around stating "It's not who wears the pants, it's who wears the skirt." (It would be curious to see how this phrasing might play out in some of our more gender bending relationships.) It is not only this turn-of-a-phrase that makes the song great, but some of the other imagery that is used that makes it a yucker:

In the top drawer of her dresser there's some panties/
Go try on that purple pair with the lacy frills/
With your big ol' thighs I bet you can't get in 'em

Is the one that tickles me the most. Secondly, there is also:

A big ol' boy like you could probably bench 350/
A little thing like her could barely lift the bar/
Just wait until that woman has a headache and she sits there with her legs crossed/
We'll see how strong you are.

"You Do the Math" is another humorous song about a trying to get that someone who strikes your fancy to date ya or commit to ya:

It takes two to make love, baby/
I'm sure of that/
I'm one, you're one/
You do the math

"Math" also contains some strumming on it that showcases the love of the strings that I mentioned about Paisley before.

"Catch all the Fish" is another one funny one. This song is a quick picking song. Paisley's sure got to have nibble fingers to keep up with all the chords strummed on this one. This song sings about one of those other loves that sometimes a guy has--going out on the lake with your bud and spending a day catching some bass.

We're gonna catch all the fish/
Drink all the beer/
We'll anchor down and stay right here/
Might take all day/
might take all year…

…As long as there's still beer in that cooler/
As long as there's still bass left in that lake/
That just means that we've still got some work to do here/
As long as there's still gas left in that tank.

Late in the song he switches around the phrasing to the humorous and potentially buzz-induced "We drank all the fish, and caught all the beer."

One could almost imagine this song as a companion to Paisley's "I'm Gonna Miss Her."

To a lesser extent "I Hope that's Me" also fits into the humor category. It's another 'I'm the guy for you song' talked about through all the little things that mean a lot for your partner:

Somebody's gotta scratch your back in places that you can't reach/
Somebody's gotta make you laugh when that's just what you need/
Somebody's gotta throw on a coat when your fever hits 102/
Go down and pick your prescription up/
Come home and fix you soup/
I hope that's me.

Added on to all the good music and the good looking Brad is the fact that this CD is chock full of music. Talk about a value deal. You get sixteen - sixteen tracks with this puppy. A couple of them are reprises or different edits of a previous song, but even with those what you get is so different from the previous that it's like having an entirely new song or at least a new perspective on one. Even if ya didn't, you'd still be getting fourteen songs! When was the last time you found that on a CD? All of this creates a great CD that is perfect not only for those American Saturday nights, but for every other night of the week as well.

Jackson Taylor & The Sinners

Aces 'N Eights

This CD interested me because when it first came across my "recently released" albums on iTunes it had the "explicit" tag attached to it. Intrigued, I listened to a couple of sample tracks. From what I heard in those few seconds it sounded like any other country album. I didn't hear anything that would seem explicit or offensive. Thinking that Apple had made a mistake in tagging the info, I went over to Amazon.com. There, too, was the "explicit" tag on the album cover as well. Now, I had to download and listen to all the tracks in full to find out what was just so offensive. There was a track called "Cocaine" and another called "Sex, Love & Texas", so, perhaps, it was those, or maybe hidden deeper in the lyrics there were statements about how homos were ruining the country and blacks were causing crime in the city.

Upon hearing the first few tracks, I didn't notice anything offensive. "Back on the Bottle" deals with a guy who's fallen off the wagon. "Ball & Chain" is about how chasing your dreams can often leave you feeling lost and tired. Nothing offensive there. Then, I got to track three, "Country Song." It's a seemingly innocuous title, but the song contains a fair bit of swearing. Taking swipes at the Grand Ol' Opry, Trace Adkins/Jamie Johnson, pop-star wannabes, the music industry and typical country music fare (pick-up trucks and grandpappy's farm) with the kind of colorful adjectives that I haven't heard since I last rented Queer As Folk from Netflix, the song seems to want to be a anti-establishment tune, but never gets out of its bashing phase to make that message clear enough. The song spends so much time talking about what it is not, it never really gets to the next level and says what it is.

Toward the end there is a mention of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash being fired from the Opry, so I guess that Taylor is trying to equate himself as some kind of new outlaw music, but these last lines are done in such a throw-a-way manner that I missed them completely the first few times I listened; lessening the impact that they may have had if they were featured more prominently elsewhere in the song. Nowhere else in the song does it give you a clue as to what the real statement of the song is supposed to be except for F* everything.

If Taylor and his band are trying to establish themselves as a new breed of outlaw music, they only do it with the above song. The music sounds like any other band that I would hear on any given night at Nick's Nightclub, Cancun Cantina or at any of the plethora of country fairs that hire local bands for entertainment or opening acts during the month of August. While certainly not radio-ready music by what you hear coming out of your speakers to today, it doesn't have an edge or alternative sound to it like I would expect to hear from Outlaw music--especially now-a-days. It's just regular ol' honky-tonk music and good music at that.

The music, which leans mostly in the rockabilly direction, sings about what you would find in a lot of other country music songs. There are songs about love, loss, drinking. There is also a song about getting high; the afore mentioned "Cocaine." This is actually another explicit track that talks about a dude who turns to coke after a break up with his girl and enjoys it along with other dark things and is my least favorite of all the tracks.

Highlights of the album include "Sunset" in which a country boy sings to his lover about how hard it will be for her out there in California. Sunset referring to Sunset Boulevard. "Going Back to California" is a song about a fly-by-night cowboy saying so long to his seniorita lover from across the border. "Circle of Trust" sings about the devotion that two married folks will have to each other during their life together. This one will make for a popular wedding song. Keep it in mind for when Marriage Equality comes to all, 'cuz it's a nice one. Finally, on the opposite end of the spectrum from "Trust" is "Easy Loving Stranger", which happens to be my favorite of them all.

"Stranger" sings about the desire of wanting to have something more long term, but in the mean time an "easy loving stranger" will do; something that speaks to a decent number of us from what I see on some chat site profiles.

What's best about the album is Taylor's voice and the melodies. In doing some research on Taylor and his band, I found a lot of comments that Taylor has "lived his songs." It certainly sounds it in his voice. He's got that raspy, whiskey tinged voice that goes great with honky-tonking. The melodies, for their southern rock influence, actually are fairly danceable. They make for some good two-steppin'.

What's worst about the album is the swearing and the drugs. "Country Song" is really just a bitter artist song. While Taylor may have written it to be an anti-establishment song, it just winds up being anti. The only thing notable about it is the swear words. "Cocaine" I don't like as well for its lack of redemption. While I appreciate a song that is sung from the perspective of someone who's lost, I like a little more hope in my songs and a little less joy about how you enjoy the dark things in life. Maybe I've been listening to too much Martina McBride, but I'm a pull yourself up from your bootstraps kind of cowboy and I like hearing some little piece of inspiration in my songs about your down dark times; especially when it's something as damaging as coke that you are singing about.

Luckily these are only two strikes of the album, so, it doesn't wind up being totally out. Jackson voice and the music help to redeem the rest of the album and though Jackson Taylor may not be a mainstream artist that you'd hear on your radio, he is somebody worth hearing. Swears and drugs aside.

Tanya Tucker

Classic country from a classic lady is how you would define this album. Tanya Tucker shows she's still got it on her latest album. My Turn is a collection of country music standards from various decades of the 20th century. "Lovesick Blues" is the earliest at 1925 and "Rambling Fever" coming in as the latest at 1977. For those of you who have a real appreciate for classic country this album is for you. For those who appreciate a variety of country music this album is for you. For those who like a little bit of twang in your country, this album is for you. For those of you who love a smooth sounding country voice, this album is for you.

Though the album does have a bit of a more old school country feel too being heavy on the steel guitar and an accordion in places, Tuckers voice is like butter across each and every note. You can easily see why she is one of the first women of country as she sings the notes as easily as if she was in her own back yard. That's part of what makes this album so comfortable. The other thing is that the music doesn't get too bogged down in the old school sound. It is not so twangy as to be ridiculous and unbearable to listen to unless you are a die-hard of the die-hardiest country fans.

This is one of the most easiest listening CDs I think that I have ever encountered. It was interesting to listen to this in the selections with Brad Paisley's American Saturday Night. Both of the CDs are great easy listeners. Pleasant plays for a night where you want to unwind. Paisley's being a more modern one and Tucker's being the classic one. For My Turn it's the melodies and the voice that stick with me more so than the specific song or lyric. Though, I do love the extended, almost yoddle-like quality on Lovesick Blues.

Tanya stated about this CD that she wanted to do something that was a tribute to her dad, Beau Tucker. She wanted to pick songs that he would have liked to hear her sing. Well, Tanya, I can tell you, with this one, you sure have done your daddy proud.

Patrick Hunter
Trail Ride Coordinator
Atlantic States Gay Rodeo Association (ASGRA)

Coosie's Corner

Cowboy Burgers

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• ½ teaspoon seasoned salt
• ½ teaspoon seasoned pepper
• 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons butter or margarine
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• 1 (1.0 oz.) envelope taco seasoning
• 4 slices Cheddar cheese
• 4 Kaiser rolls
• 4 lettuce leaves
• 4 tomato slices

In medium bowl, combine ground beef, seasoned salt and seasoned pepper; shape into four patties. Grill or broil to desired doneness (about 5 to 6 minutes on each side for medium).

Meanwhile, in medium skillet, melt butter. Add onion and taco seasoning; mix well.

Cook onion over medium high heat until soft and transparent. Top each patty with onions and cheese. Return to grill or broiler until cheese is melted. Place each patty on a roll; top with lettuce and tomato.

Yield: 4 servings

Uncle Harvey's Plane

Being raised down on a ranch n always ready for a little adventure
I knew that I could figure out a way
Well Delmer Gill's got a parachute and Uncle Harvey's got an air-plane
So I said Call the boys together, today's the day

I found out too late what Uncle Harvey called an air-plane
Wudn't nothing but an engine and a wing
And I could feel my fear a-rising as Delmer packed the parachute
'Cos he kept telling me I was doing the right thing

John McLoughlin shook my hand as JD strapped me in the harness
And Tildon brought a jug and passed it around
I took one look at that air-plane and at that parachute and that whisky
And I tipped that bottle up and drank it down

Well I was drunk as Cooter Jones when they poured me in the plane
And the engine coughed and headed for the clouds
But I was sober as a judge by the time they opened up that door
I've never known my heart to beat so loud

I said, Tildon, I can't do it as he kicked me out the door
And I wrapped my hands around the landing gear
And I was holding on real good 'til that sucker stepped down on my fingers
TJ said he heard me yell from way down there

I thanked God and Del Gill when my parachute finally opened
I said Well, heck there ain't no use in being afraid
And I went crashing through the hen house, scattering chickens and breaking eggs
And I kissed the ground and fainted dead away

Now friends I've done some fighting, and I've been shot at once or twice
And I've dang near got run over by a train
But I don't ever once remember being any more afraid
Than the day I jumped from Uncle Harvey's plane

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