I Ate Jim Dandy’s Cheeseburgers
[Jim Dandy, left, with electric washboard]
Disgusting Thing I Have Eaten #15
October 2005 – Jim Dandy’s Cheeseburgers – Memphis, TN
I hear the Gulf Coast region is beautiful in the fall. Of course I don’t know for certain as I’ve never actually been there in late October. But the first LFD tour almost made a stop off in New Orleans on Halloween once and ended up taking a detour balls deep into a bag of Jim Dandy’s cheeseburgers.
Unfortunately, a few weeks before we were set to leave for the first of many trips down south Hurricane Katrina decimated the city of New Orleans. The magnitude of FEMA’s inept cleanup effort had not yet been fully realized and in a valiant and commendable effort to make chicken salad out of chicken shit the promoters moved the weekend festival from the stately but then still partially underwater NOLA to the Hi Tone in Memphis. The Hi Tone, it should be noted, is a wonderful club that I have closed down several times since and that I highly recommend for any bands passing through town.
Sadly when the gig was relocated several of the headliners dropped off the bill but with some last-minute backroom wrangling the promoters were able to secure the famed southern rock gods Black Oak Arkansas to headline Saturday night. For better or for worse it was probably the pinnacle of my long and storied musical career of making a lot of high friends in low places. Black Oak and their infamous frontman Jim Dandy, best known to this generation as the band from the Dazed & Confused soundtrack, are local legends and at this point I’m pretty sure the band includes more original founding members than the current lineup of their contemporaries Lynyrd Skynyrd. We were billed as support.
The highlight came towards the end of Black Oak Arkansas’ set—they were riding high in the middle of a cover of the Bob Seger System’s crucial heavy organ grinder stomp “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” and Jim Dandy was shredding mad rippage on the electric washboard. That’s about when I happened upon his backstage cache of Wendy’s Double Bacon Cheeseburgers. After scarfing down four of the red-headed mistress’ specialty (thats 8 patties, 4 buns, 4 slices of melted American cheese, and 10 - 12 strips of bacon at 2 - 3 strips per burger for those keeping score at home) I went out and caught the rest of the band’s set then promptly fell ill in the 7-11 next door from the ill-gotten burgers now fighting for space in my intestines.
After the show I came out to collect the merch and found the Wolfman Himself slumped over passed out on Jim Dandy who was greeting fans and signing Black Oak t-shirts, CD’s, LP’s and other assorted ephemera. I put him in the van and he woke up in Atlanta where a set of bedsheets at a Red Roof Inn were later destroyed.
