re: Did you have a Dave Matthews Band phase?

Yes. Todd Nance wife Tammy was one of our bartenders. I hung out many nights there after hours and drink with some of the guys in Panoc One of my good friends knew Bill (Aka Gomer) who was their sound board guy. He also always had the cache of exotic weed at his house in Athens. We went over there many times when they were off the road and sampled stuff with Schools every time(LOL) and with JB and Todd once or twice.

I don’t know if you were around then but there were a couple of occasions when they were in town and played locally under the moniker “Bar Tab.”

I lived in a loft on East Clayton Street right above a bar called High Hat Blues Club. Flanagan’s was right beside it on the corner of East Clayton and Jackson. Half Moon Pub and Ratskellar were the two bars below those two under street level.

One day, the owner of High Hat saw me going up to my place around midday and came outside to the sidewalk before I went in the door that led up the stairs. He told me that Panic was going to be playing there in a week for a private fundraising benefit for local musician Vic Chestnut. He said it would be Athens music scene royalty and wanted to know if they could have the after party in our place. There was a back stairwell that led from backstage area up to the level of my loft which made it where nobody would have to exit the front door. They anticipated a large crowd gathering outside on the street to watch through the windows once word got out that Panic was jamming there. That did happen.

Anyway, they had several kegs and a liquor bar set up in my place earlier that day. John Keane, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Jack Logan, the Bloodkin band members Mark Cline and Armistead Wellford of Love Tractor, John Poe of Guadal Canal Diary, Dashboard Saviors members , Randall Bramlett, Patterson Hood, the Panic crew, and a lot of other musicians were there along with a shite ton of people I had no clue who they were. It was a fun event. A funny aside is that my roommate was hit on by Stipe. Stipe asked him to go back to his place. LOL. That was 22 years ago and I still badger him that he puts off the gay vibe because Stipe was trying to hook up with him.

Great story

never liked them, never will. that's my phase