Red Rock Hot Club in a backyard

Salt Lake can be such an amazingly small place sometimes. Take last night for instance, after having a nice dinner with my friend Julie (wow, Cherokee Purple tomatoes are so damn good. Or "Turkey Purples" as Julie likes to call them. lol.), we went to one of her friend's houses for a party. I had no idea what it was until we arrived and there was a giant, well, you can use your imagination, hanging in the front doorway, through which you had to enter. Then Julie tells me, "Oh, yeah, it's a colonoscopy party." Oy. It was a hoot--they went all out, had exam gowns for everyone who came, served drinks in test tubes (gatorade and vodka meant took look like a urine sample-ugh), people in nurses' outfits, IV drip by the bar, etc.

Anyway, someone clues us in to the fact that a great local gypsy jazz band is playing at a backyard party not too far away. So, after a few hours we made our way over to hear a bunch of the members of Red Rock Hot Club play in the backyard of the guy who owns the Guitar Czar, Eric Sopanen. It was definitely hot.


Great jam session--a number of folks rotated in and out. Note the near-empty bottle of Jameson on the stage (backyard deck, actually). They played a bunch of gypsy jazz and moved into some Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Very accomplished musicians--these are the guys who teach guitar to people around town.

The guy in the middle is one of the family who owns and runs Chanon Thai. He came up and played an amazing song that he wrote for the woman he loves. It was very technically challenging, melodic and just fun to listen to. I was really impressed. Afterwords, he told me that the song was an assignment from one of the other guys on stage who was his guitar teacher. Crazy.

Great night, great libations, great company. Thanks, Julie, for opening up that evening of fun.