Generally speaking, “Hat Shop” in band form consists of
Randy “Randel – Lets kick this one in the ass” Priest – Vocals, Banjo, Patriarch, Shaman, Heart and Soul, Medicine Man
Mike “Mickey” Holms – Vocals, Acoustic and Electric Guitar “Mr. Blues – don’t get him started on shred metal”
Bob “Bobby/Window Weenie” Glasscock – Acoustic Guitar (Drunken Vocals if we’re lucky)
Andrew Emde – Vocals, Acoustic and Electric Guitar, occasional Bass when Ben’s playing fiddle “Country, Blues and Bar Rock – Mustang Sally …”
Benjamin “Benjearmo or Bengineer” Herbst – Bass, Fiddle, backup vocals (Note: Paul Herbst played bass on most of the tracks on this CD)
Paul “My microphone is broken” Nelson – Harmonica (Vocals on Long Haired Country Boy if Andrew is outa town) – not to be confused with Paul Herbst, played most of the shit on this cd cause hat shop guys can’t stay sober for 2 songs.
Dan Wilson “Dano or Dan the guitar man (now mandolin man)” – Mandolin, backup vocals
And any drummer we could sucker into coming down including Dan, Bruce, Andre, Rob, Jarred, Sam, Andrews friend from Boise, German dude, Jeff Crosby’s drummer, and Paul “Boom Boom Boom Boom – what’s he doing?” Herbst, who can sing and play any instrument (except drums) better than anybody else … o.k. … you can kick out a solid beat … boom, boom, boom … Disco Beat - heh heh
And most nights there were visiting musicians, who all played better than any of us and made us sound better than we really are. Thanks!
Influences
john hartford, canned heat, Tommy Jarrell, ernest becker
Sounds Like
old and in the way, old crow medicine show, muddy waters, charlie daniels, john prine
The silver tip hat band, commonly known around Donnelly, Idaho and vicinity just as “Hat Shop” - as in “what are you doing tonight? I’m doing hat shop. Or, “I heard hat shop was playing here tonight” - was a jam. It was a band. It was an institution. It was a religion. It was always a fun party. It was basically a group of friends who got together every Saturday night at the Silver Tip Hat Shop and smoked and drank a few beers and played some music with friends and who ever wanted to hang out. For this reason, it was also known among the McCall musicians (the “real” musicians) as “The Donnelly Drunks”. It eventually turned into a gigging band that played house parties, barn parties, at the Donnelly Club-a local bar, winter carnival and the summer folk music festival – local’s night, political fund raisers, other fund raisers, beach parties, and even went up town for a Tamarac gig (a new 4 seasons ski/golf resort that drove most of the locals out of this small town).
Hat Shop developed and grew over several summers and the years quickly floated by. People dropped by to play, dance, or just hang out and listen to the jamming. There always seemed to be some musicians visiting the area, and they would drop by and play a few songs and jam with us. Sure there were some disasters, musical train wrecks, the occasional off night as would be expected from a bunch of drinking Donnelly fuck ups. Hey, when you mix booze and a bunch of amateur musicians trying to playing music, one is never sure what the outcome will be. On the other hand, since everyone played on feel, there were moments, and sometimes entire nights where everything would click, lock up, and magic and some of the most genuinely beautiful music anywhere in the world was made. Occasional goof up were part of the magic, just another thing to make everyone laugh. Looking out into the crowd we could always see smiling faces and people having a good time.
Hat shop would like to thank all the wonderful people of Donnelly for your love, support drinks … yeah, that’s one sentence, encouragement, and making every jam a party. Thanks to our families, wives (no, we’re not from Utah), kids, girlfriends, pets, etc. for letting us get out and play some music. Thanks to Randy for letting us all come over, and jam in, and trash his hat shop every Saturday night - beer cans and full ashtrays! Hey, is this an extension of the Donnelly Club? We still gota finish that song “On the other side”. Thanks to the Donnelly “The Club” Club for the drinks, go-go dancers, and letting us come over and play – too loud and fast. And last but not least, thanks to Paul Herbst for tracking, mixing, playing on, and putting in the many hours to make this CD happen.
I'm happy cuz I've been sittin around for 6 mo. and now I'm back at the wind mill stuff and going to a little town on the other side of Glacier National Park! I get to roam around Montana & northern Idaho and stop in on old friends in Whitefish & Bonners Ferry. And I get paid for this? Dats why I'm happy!
