Sarah Shook and the Disarmers
With Six String Drag and Dex Romweber
Friday, Oct. 16, 9 p.m.
$8–$10
Cat’s Cradle
300 E. Main St., Carrboro
919-967-9053
www.catscradle.com
Sarah Shook and the Devil had some good times together.
In a busy month, the hard-gigging country-rock band would play eight shows, many of them at downtown Pittsboro’s City Tap, one of few places to hear live music in the Chatham County town. Sitting at an outside table at Chatham Marketplace, Shook affirms that the bar, just a few blocks south, was home base. Nearby, her 8-year-old son, Jonah, cavorts. He wears a Godzilla shirt. She’s tattooed and dressed all in black, equal-parts country outlaw and street punk.
“I tallied it up once that we played there 30 times in one year,” Shook says. “There were some serious shenaniganseveryone being drunk and us coming home at, like, two in the morning, and somebody’s climbing up on the roof, screaming, ‘Highway speeds! Don’t slow down!’”
“Madness,” she concludes levelly. “All kinds of crazy stuff.”
Sarah Shook and the Devil dissolved in 2013, alongside her relationship with bassist Jon Baughman. Shook and guitarist Eric Peterson moved on, forming Sarah Shook and the Dirty Hands. The antics continued. Shook admits it was the most partying she had ever done with a band. But it wasn’t sustainable, and they soon broke up.
Shook, though, had built a small fan base during three years with The Devil. Grammy-nominated producer Ian Schreier had even offered to make a record with her at Manifold Recording, a top-of-the-line studio nestled in the gentle hills above the Haw River. So the songwriter put together yet another band, the Disarmers. Peterson stuck around, while celebrated honky-tonk bandleader and Shook’s boyfriend, John Howie Jr., joined on drums. They got a bass player, and then the group lost that bass player.
You must be logged in to post a comment.