Tag Archives: hilton head

This interview makes me feel kinda sleazy

Posted on March 4, 2009 | 2 comments

Hinder brings “dirty, fun” rock back to the Shoreline

FYI: They said sleazy, not me

FYI: They said "sleazy," not me

The Guide, Feb. 26, 2009

Two things about Hinder that make them sound like every other hard rock party band of the past two decades: They drink Jagermeister, and they love Motley Crue.

Two things that prove they’ve broken out of the pack and found success: They are sponsored by Jagermeister, and they’re on tour with Motley Crue.

For a band that started out playing bars in their hometown of Oklahoma City, that’s about as close to living the dream as you can get (and don’t forget to throw in the videos full of scantily clad women dripping off the band members, a Web site that solicits “catfight” pictures from female fans and a hit song advising fans to “Get Stoned.” And when you’re a band like that, you get license to scream lyrics such as “She always leaves and makes me feel kind of sleazy / It’s kind of cool because she already pleased me” in front of writhing festival crowds.

Hinder, Theory of a Deadman, Framing Hanley

When: 7 p.m. March 3

Where: Shoreline Ballroom, Ocean Center, 40 Folly Field Road, Hilton Head Island

Tickets: $25 in advance, $28 day of show

Information: 843-842-0358, http://www.shorelineballroom.com

“For us, we actually have a real rock ‘n’ roll band,” said Cody Hanson, Hinder’s drummer, who co-founded the band in 2001. “It’s dirty, fun, sleazy rock. And we were doing it coming up at a time when emo was big.”

The love of the archetypal ’80s big, loud party band (see: the Crue, Guns N’ Roses) was what first drove the band into making music, Hanson said, to try to reclaim music from the arty, sad types ushered in by Nirvana in the ’90s and echoed in a million emo-oriented MySpace pages today.

“We want music to be fun again, we want music to have big sing-along choruses and hooks and things,” he said. “We want people to come to the show and we want them to have fun, not be angry or cry. When emo came out, then everybody was crying about everything.”

As it turned out, quite a lot of fans were ready to welcome that big, party band experience again.

Hinder’s 2005 album, “Extreme Behavior,” sold three million copies and led the band to tours with Buckcherry, Papa Roach and 3 Doors Down. But it was the single “Lips of an Angel” — one of the band’s relatively quieter songs — that saw huge success, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Pop 100 chart.

Hanson said the band wasn’t surprised that the softer song became such a success. “Everybody likes a guitar ballad,” he said. “Even guys, they won’t admit it but they like it.”

Being from Oklahoma City — not exactly the epicenter of the music scene — allowed the band to create its own niche, Hanson added. “It’s cool because you get the chance to kind of be who you are,” he said. “There’s not pressure to follow what’s going on in the coasts.”

Their 2008 album, “Take it to the Limit,” features guitar work by Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars, and the band currently is on a 29-city tour with the music legends as well as fellow rockers Theory of a Deadman.

It’s been, as you can imagine, a good time. “Anytime you get to tour with people you look up to and people that influence you, it’s great,” Hanson said.

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A hopeful winter thought: people somewhere are drinking outdoors again already

Posted on February 18, 2009 | Leave a comment

I wrote a story this week last year about how the first signs of summer already start to peak their heads out this time of year on Hilton Head. A year later, it’s snowing in New York City and so many people have flu it feels like the first act of a friggin zombie movie. And the beach bar mentioned below just opened again for the season the other day.

I still don’t regret the move in the least. And for a kid with summer breeze in the veins like me, that’s saying a lot.

Tiki Hut reopens… and it sure feels like summer

Published Saturday, February 16, 2008

photo by Jay Karr/Island Packet

photo by Jay Karr/Island Packet

Maybe it’s the eternal optimism of the school child, or the sun-loving hubris of South Carolinians who refuse to take their beers or brunches indoors even in the dead of winter.

But there’s something about this time of year, an ephemeral quality that’s hard to nail down, that causes people to start shaking out their patio umbrellas and dusting off their beach chairs as summer on Hilton Head Island comes to life.

People in other parts of the country are still crowding around living room fireplaces and digging out from harsh winter snowfalls. Not here, where the most nascent signs of the season debut this week.

Planning for the island’s big spring events is well underway by now and a handful of restaurants that closed for the (albeit short) winter season reopened over the past few days. [MORE]

I used that word “hubris” on purpose, and I wasn’t being in the least bit pejorative. One of my favorite qualities about coastal South Carolina was its absolute stubborn refusal to cede the outdoors to the changing of the seasons, even when the paltry feint of winter rattled the windows. Everyone kind of looked at the weather in January and February, said “fuck it, you’re not the boss of me,” and went outside anyway. This is why propane-powered heat lamps were invented, why I stood in a light jacket drinking a beer at an outdoor oyster roast while watching through the window of a bar the Packers and Seahawks battle it out in a snowstorm so violent it looked like the TV was covered with static, and it’s why the island’s most-popular brunch spot used space heaters, plastic guards on the patio railing and even blankets left on chairs for customers to reclaim the use of its outdoor seating when that other, non-summer season was around.

The other environmental hubris I’ve noticed is in the arid California desert near Palm Springs, where civilization has been forced to pipe in water from afar to exist in a place probably not really meant for human habitation. That one makes me less happy. But I do not know what their brunches are like out there (save for the date shakes).

Still, only 122 days until summer. Not that I’m counting. Except I am.

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Tom Rhodes to help re-open Comedy Club

Posted on February 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

(The Guide, 2/1/09) It’s hard to remember, but there was a time when comedy had to flourish on TV before Comedy Central, before “Chappelle’s Show” and crank-calling puppets and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s nightly sanity checks. But if you’re going to thank someone for helping end the tyranny of network sitcoms, comedian Tom Rhodes, who is helping re-open the Hilton Head Comedy Club starting Feb. 3, is as good a person as any.

Rhodes received Comedy Central’s first-ever development deal in the mid-’90s, and his long-haired mug became an early face of the network. He’s since trimmed his mane, but he’s proud of how far the network has come. “I think they’re one of the best networks period,” he said. “Stewart, Colbert, those are American icons now that actually influence our political system. Comedy at its greatest should inform or teach people.” During his swing through Hilton Head Island, Rhodes will celebrate his 25th anniversary of being a stand-up, a career he launched a week after he graduated high school and which recently included a talk show on Dutch TV.

There’s been a lot to laugh at about America overseas in the past eight years, Rhodes said. But, he adds, President Obama is fair game too. “That’s the great thing about America: We can make fun of our president, and we always do,” he said.

Tim Donnelly, special to the Guide

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Matching game!

Posted on February 2, 2009 | 1 comment

Places I’ve Lived and Worked, As Represented Through Songs I Would Hear At Least Once A Day

Place:

A. The boardwalk, Seaside Heights, NJ

B. Brooklyn, NY

C. Darryl’s Restaurant, Raleigh, NC

D. Hilton Head Island, SC

E. The GW Hatchet, Washington DC (Hint: DC101 was always on)

F. South Campus Commons (with Barry Schwartz), College Park, MD

Song:

1. Sublime, “What I Got”

2. Ted Leo, “Me and Mia”

3. Lifehouse, “Waiting on a Moment”

4. Jimmy Buffet, “Margaritaville”

CM Wangs?

CM Wangs?

5. Bon Iver, “Skinny Love”

6. Wings, “Silly Love Songs”

This test is so easy it should be in a pop-up ad advertising a free iPod.

You think people would have had enough of hearing the same songs.

But I look around me and I see it isnt so.

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Loretta Lynnterview

Posted on January 14, 2009 | Leave a comment

(I guess this show is back on after almost being canceled. There’s strange things afoot at this venue regardless)

Loretta Lynn at Shoreline: ‘I still think there’s great country out there’

–>(From The Guide, 1/16)

Country legend Loretta Lynn tries to take at least a little time off in the winter these days.

After all, she has 21 grandchildren who visit on Christmas Eve.

“I got out of cooking,” she said, a note of relief evident in the twangy voice that has ruled country for four decades and become one of the most recognizable in the genre.
But the break won’t last too long. Lynn will kick off her nine-month 2009 tour with a show Jan. 16 at the Shoreline Ballroom.
Loretta Lynn

When: Doors open at 7 p.m., show begins at 8 p.m. Jan. 16

Where: Shoreline Ballroom, Ocean Center, 40 Folly Field Road, Hilton Head Island.

Tickets: $45-$55

Information: 843-842-0358, http://www.shorelineballroom.com
“When I go on stage, I don’t think about it being the first show or the last show,” she said in a recent interview. “If I start thinking about it, it will bother me. I just go on and do my show and it doesn’t upset me.”

Lynn once was best known as the “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” whose honky-tonk Appalachian-based style earned her several No. 1 hits in the ’60s and ’70s and made her the unofficial spokeswoman for the feminist viewpoint in country music.But her career saw a major resurgence in 2004 when she teamed up with Jack White of the White Stripes for the album “Van Lear Rose.” White produced the album and provided guitar and vocals, and the record went on to become a crossover success, putting Lynn’s music in front of a new generation of fans.

“I think me and Jack both are kind of surprised,” Lynn said. “Of course Jack, he believed in me all the way. I said, ‘Now Jack, I don’t know if country people will accept it or not.’ But they loved it.”

But even before that album, Lynn said young people always have been a staple at her shows. “It thrills me to death,” she said.

Over the years, Lynn has stayed true to her Kentucky country roots, never — even when working with White — bending to trends or fads.

“Everybody was saying country music was going pop, and I came in singing just about as country music as I could sing,” she said. “Country music just kind of got back on the track, I guess. It’s been going forever. I haven’t lost any crowd no matter how I go. I still think there’s great country out there. If you don’t sing real country music, it’s you that’s going to lose.”

With songs such as 1966’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” Lynn introduced a strong female voice into country, an influence felt four decades later in artists from the Dixie Chicks to Neko Case. It takes dedication, she said, and some of today’s rising artists don’t seem willing to invest the time.

“You know what’s missing? It’s not the voice, it’s the work,” she said. “I think they think if they put a record out there everybody will play it, everybody will buy it. But if you don’t put out the work, you’re not going to make it big.

“It takes everything. It takes the touring. You have to work the disc jockeys, you have to work the record.”

She’ll soon be back to working her own records again. Lynn is in the studio, collaborating with Johnny Cash’s son on re-recordings of her No. 1 hits — something to satisfy old fans, she said. New material also is in the works and could be out as early as summer.

As for that big family, Christmas is over, but they’re still around. Lynn often includes her son, twin daughters and granddaughter as part of the live show these days, a way to keep family around while continuing to work. “Usually I get a good hand everywhere I go,” she said.

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Loretta Lynn and the sirens of breaking news

Posted on January 10, 2009 | 1 comment

Uh, so, there was supposed to be an interview for The Guide to follow this story, but after a long and in-depth phone conversation with her strongly disappointed (not at me) tour manager today, it became very apparent I shouldn’t bother to finish writing it up.

And suddenly, hundreds of miles away, I found myself right back into a familiar role reporting on intricacies of Hilton Head business deals. And to think I was starting to forget how much I love the rush of breaking news, which came back full force this afternoon as I made an brief yet whole-hearted attempt at the almost certainly improbable task of trying to get to get three people to call me back in the hour before 5 p.m. on a Friday.

But instead of following the news, I went to work and held a sign telling people where the end of the “12 items or fewer line” was.

Actual conversation today:

Female customer: Excuse me, where is the end of the line?

Me (holding a white laminated sign on the end of a 6-foot pole above my head with the words “End of Line” written on it):  I think it’s here.

All for the bigger dream, Tim. All for the bigger dream.

(Billboard.com)

Loretta Lynn Busy With Two New Albums

Loretta Lynn
January 09, 2009 02:52 PM ET
Tim Donnelly, Savannah, Ga.

Country legend Loretta Lynn is preparing two projects this year to follow up her 2004 crossover hit, “Van Lear Rose.”

Lynn, 74, is working on an album of new material that she says could be ready by late spring. The album will be in her traditional country style but will deal with modern issues. “(A friend) told me: ‘Loretta, don’t quit writing, because if you do, no one in Nashville is writing songs,'” Lynn tells Billboard. “I write about what’s happening today and how I feel.”

The second project, an album of re-recorded versions of her No. 1 hits from the past four decades, is being produced by John Carter Cash and could hit stores this summer.

Lynn says the idea for that album came out of her live performances, at which she finds crowds clamoring for old favorites, particularly “Dear Uncle Sam.” Lynn released that anti-Vietnam War song (“I hate war,” she said) in 1966, and it became her first self-penned track to make the top 10. But, she says, it has gained new resonance with anti-war crowds today.

“I want to make sure that they get all the old No. 1 hits over the years,” she says. “They holler for them.”

Lynn’s children and grandchildren usually join her on stage for live performances these days, and have also been in the studio to help with the album. John Carter Cash, the only child of Johnny Cash and June Carter and a country music singer and songwriter himself, is easy to work with because Lynn and his father were close.

“Van Lear Rose” was produced by the White Stripes Jack White, who also contributed vocals and guitars. The two stay in touch, but Lynn says she doesn’t get to see him very often. But she says she plans to call him soon “see what the devil he’s up to.”

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Wining about the cost of living

Posted on January 7, 2009 | 4 comments

People say New York City is the most expensive city in the world to live in. “Horse feathers,” I say, immediately before Googling the term “horse feathers” to see if it means what I think it does.

As long as you have no intentions of living in a Manhattan penthouse or eating diamond-encrusted Berkshire pork tournedos served on the back of one of P. Diddy’s man servants every night, you can amble fairly comfortably along the boulevard of low-cost living. Living on Hilton Head was equally if not more expensive, simply because there weren’t that many damn options for stuff, like restaurants, bars, stores, etc. The lowest cost place to eat was a fried seafood shack, of little use to a vegetarian other than its cultural significance (it was once visited by Rachel Rachael Ray, of course).

It’s all just perspective.

An example of the change in my life living in the city vs. living on Hilton Head:

Today I paid $11 for four bottles of Two Buck Chuck (actually Three Buck Chuck in New York City), including employee discount.

The honorable Charles Schwab

The honorable Charles Shaw

In August, I sat at the bar at MichaelAnthony’s on Hilton Head and ordered one glass of house cabernet . The tab? $15.

a glass of price gouging

The wine was just OK too. That’s not even to mention the universal mediocrity of the dozens and dozens of island restaurants, few of which I could get excited over even after four years getting to know every corner of the island. The biggest iconic restaurant on the island, the Salty Dog Cafe, had a near-ubiquitous market presence on souvenir T-shirts, stickers and the like. But the food, as Justin Paprocki’s mom once aptly phrased it, was largely “unremarkable.”

Frank Chapman, a former mayor who died last year, was despised by the local tourism industry for his “turning the welcome mat over” attitude toward the island. This quote in 1995 was his undoing:

At a meeting of the Hilton Head Hospitality Association, Chapman gave his opinion on island restaurants.

“They’re too expensive, and the food’s bad,” he said.

The comment caused an outcry and a swell of support for the more pro-tourism candidate who defeated Chapman in an election that year (and has been mayor ever since).

The problem the island faces today is one of obsolescence. Its strict development rules and laissez-faire attitude toward business development worked fine in the early years to keep away monster beachfront development. But now the buildings have begun to crack with age, the amenities have a warmed-over feel and people are clamoring for new options like a modern movie theater and shopping.

Those visitors are starting to look towards other fresher options in Myrtle Beach and Charleston instead. For a long time, island businesses and leaders took for granted that people would keep coming back to their sleepy resort town, even as mainland strip-mall sprawl and crippling traffic made the trip less and less attractive every year, transforming the drive to the island from a rural passageway into a speeding highway past the mattress suppliers, chain restaurants and payday advance storefronts of Anywhere, USA.

Chapman got the boot — maybe justifiably — because he told restaurants they weren’t trying hard enough to provide worthwhile and unique experience for the island. It created an unacceptable public image of a tourism town with an anti-tourist mayor.

But no one seemed to stop and wonder if maybe he had a point.

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