Mama Willadean, "The Mississippi Songbird", booked this gig for her and her boys. Some cousin of a cousin of a friend had called her and she gave her standard reply... "Sure sister, we'll come!"... "Now Willadean, we cain't afford to pay y'all but we'll take a love offering and y'all `ll get the whole thing - unless of course, ya wanna give it back to God's work". That's always a red flag for me and makes me wonder if these folks think we're just chopping liver. Mama never seems to notice. We'd already missed it once and had to back-track several miles before we found the place. It was on Old State Route 13 just like it was supposed to be, but the little clapboard building sat way back from the road and their sign lay broken on the ground from the tornado that came thru the week before. In retrospect, that was appropriate for a church called "Broken Heart Assembly". We're used to scouring the hills and hollers of Tennessee to find places where the faithful meet - but this place surprised even us. The "middle of nowhere" comes to mind. There wasn't any gravel down on the drive, it was just dirt. The church was built box style and badly needed a coat of paint. As we walked to the front door we checked for a power line (just to be sure) and spotted it. We knew we wouldn't really need the P.A., but it always makes folks think they're getting professionals whether it's turned on or not. We tried the knob and it was open like the preacher said it would be... "never locked, no need fer it", were his words as I recall. We'd not be leaving beforehand because whether or not they had anything worth stealing - we do (unemployment's endemic in the hills and hollers of Tennessee - just as well we don't give a body more call to be sinnin' than they already got). We always scope out a place before we set up. The wood stove was smack dab in the middle and the AC was non-existent. It was early fall so neither would be needed. There was a platform, a pulpit and an upright piano (we were in luck - the accordion wouldn't be needed but for one song). The pews in the place would seat about 50 people. If each gave a dollar that would almost cover our gas but I knew that was too much to hope for. Just to be sure we checked the farthest points on the platform for a Viper Box - no snake handling, that's always good. We'd seen all we needed so Dabo and I started hauling equipment in and setting up. After about 45 minutes I noticed Mama looking `round the church for something. Finally, she called to us, "Hey boys, where's the rest room?" I hadn't thought to look but with a sheepish grin on his face Dabo answered... "go out that side door, walk down the path 50 feet and look for a little structure with a half moon cut in the door." - "An outhouse? - O no!", was all Mama said as she made her way to the door. I don't recall ever seeing such a look on her face before... Mama's kind of funny about bathrooms. As she stepped outside I called after her, "You're the one who booked this gig!" Me and Dabo fell on the floor laughin' so hard we had to hug our bellies. `Fore he keeled over, Cuz'n Jimmy always said, "Kazkill's die young cuz we laugh so hard". A couple minutes later, between guffaws, Dabo said, "C'mon!" Now I knew he was up to no good and I shouldn't do it... but I did. "Quiet!", he said as the half moon door swung shut. Now I wanna make it clear... this was none of my doing, it was all my brother's fault... I just followed him down the path. I wondered what mischief he was up to as he picked up a stick and crept up to the outhouse door, then I saw the clasp as he stealthily slipped that stick in, sealing my sweet Mama in that stinky place.

Mind you... this was all his doing, I was merely an innocent bystander. A few minutes later the door rattled. There was a brief pause - then it rattled again. Another pause and this time the door shook, and it shook, and it shook. Pumph... the sound of a body slamming against wood... pumph - pumph - "Help!" "Boys! - Boys? - Can ya hear me? - Help! - I'm locked in this outhouse! - Help!" By this time we were crying. I never knew laughing could hurt so bad. Between sobs we heard a car pull in the drive so we ran and hid in the bushes. O no... it was the preacher. That poor fella had to be 80 years old but when he heard the ruckus Mama was raisin' he ran down that path. He was so out of breath he couldn't manage the strength to get the stick out. By this time Mama was frantic, "Help somebody, please!" - "Calm down Miss Willadean, it's Pastor Theo... I'm here, I'monna help ye!" Pastor Theo finally managed to get that stick out and Mama came tumblin' outta there lookin' like death eatin' a cracker. We'd've gotten away with it too if Dabo hadn't busted a gut and let `em know we were hidin' in them bushes. It didn't help my cause that I was laughing so hard when they found us I nearly peed my pants. Just because of that sad fact, I, an innocent man stood condemned along with Dabo in the eyes of Mama and Pastor Theo. Neither of `em said 2 words to us the rest of the afternoon. Those hills and hollers emptied out that evening and it was standing room only at Broken Heart Assembly. `Bout half way through the gig we took a break so the love offering could be taken up. Pastor Theo looked right at us as he announced that he had a little sermon to preach before the offering. "If ya got yer Bible turn to Deuteronomy 21: 18... If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you." Ole Pastor Theo got to preachin' on that text and dogged if he didn't get them folks stirred up. All I can say is - it surely is a good thing we live under grace `cause if we still lived under the law - Dabo and I would be dead men.

There are certain laws of physics that can't be denied. "In the beginning God created..." and God created in unchanging ways. God created water to exist in 3 forms - liquid, gas and solid. That's a great thing. Because of it we can pour Kool-ade into ice trays, freeze it and have koolickles. Cold is the absense of heat - dark is the absence of light - always was, always will be. That last physical law awes me. An area can be totally dark but as soon as a light's turned on darkness is dispelled or defeated or overcome - however ya wanna say it. Happens every time... try it. My Bible tells me, "God is Light" - God's the Light of the world. There's also a prince of darkness who just doesn't get it. Light wins - dark loses - every time. To not understand that is to be dim-witted; yet darkness rages against the Light just like any dim-witted criminal rages. Raging against Light is often demonstrated in music projects and goes by the name of "Murphy's Law". This happens every time we set out on a project. A CD that should take no more than 4 months to complete and release runs into all sorts of attacks. Prior to our newest release, we made the mistake of trying to help a brother out who was having financial troubles. In Christian music that's nothing unusual. We pre-paid him for mastering and production and in return we got put on his back burner. What should've taken 2 weeks took over 9 months. We still call that project "our baby" because the gestation period was about the same. With our newest project, "Dance of Innocence" we discovered that darkness resides in small town Tennessee and disguises itself as a squirrel. We were ecstatic with our new state of the art 32 track studio board (with limitless virtual tracks) and basking in new technology. What the sales rep never told us was that there was a design flaw - if there was a power outage during formatting it would fry the power card. A very remote potentiality - but there. It's easily solved by adding a battery back-up unit (which we've done) but at the time we didn't know we needed it. We complete weeks of work and now we're done. Time to format the CD. It's formatting - it's formatting - BOOM!!! An explosion rocks the studio... we look out the window and floating down from the electrical transformer (smoking from every hair) are the remnants of an exploding squirrel. My old hound dog even got up off the porch and had himself a grand ole time - rarely does he enjoy fresh cooked food. That squirrel took out the whole town including our formatting board. To make a long story short... the board was so new that nobody in "Music City USA" would touch it. They had no experience with the make and model. We finally found a feller 6 hours away in the mountains of east Tennessee that weren't afraid-a nothin'! We went there. He diagnosed the problem but found that there were no parts available because the machine hadn't been in circulation long enough to require maintenance. The home office in NYC said we were the first (we finally went #1 at something). The part had to be ordered from the manufacturer in China. Beloved... we now understand the meaning of "a slow boat to China". It took 6 months to get the board repaired with our entire project sitting in it and un-down-loadable. The project's in production now and we'll release it in a few days (Lord willing). We didn't lose any tunes, the studio's back up and we're starting on our next CD. The hound dog's got a smile on his face. Savoring this fleeting moment we share in Robert Browning's word of 1841... "The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His Heaven -- All's right with the world." Light wins again.

We pulled up to Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home in east Nashville and knew we were in the right spot. Out front stood long hairs, babes in bomb black dresses, dudes sporting cool vintage clothing, smoking and engrossed in pockets of conversation - "MUSICIAN" may as well have been stamped on foreheads. It was a gathering in Nashville not seen unless one of our own crosses the Great Divide or it's Awards Night. We hadn't been with Randy for many years since we were kids. Not little kids but at this time in my life, I class late teens & early 20's as "kids". Randy was a drummer. There was a talent pool among the music scene in Hendersonville, Tennessee at the time that was extraordinary. We played - we laughed - we loved - we lived. If we'd had a motto it'd have been the classic... "Sex, Drugs & Rock-N-Roll!" We lived like we invented it. Now, nothing on Earth remains of Randy but ashes in a green marble box. We didn't know what had killed him, he was just 52. Beyond the recent scare for guitarist Raskuvanitch Pa-Newton's (now college professor) double by-pass surgery, Randy is the first of our gang to go. I looked up his band web site "Horse" and found it... cancer. Posted, was an article from "The Nashville Scene" in which he was dicussing living with and fighting that dread malady. Like Mellencamp's lyrical fight with "the law", Randy's fight with cancer came to the same end. Scattered upon the tables on either side of that green marble box were pictures and momentos encapsulating Randy's brief life. We met up with Pete from back in the day (a phenominal guitarist who edits music videos now) and together the memories started flooding in. As always, we recalled the fun and funny, leaving the bleak and hung-over trapped somewhere in the furthest recesses of our minds. We left early. We had a 2 hour drive ahead and we'd had about as much as we could handle anyway. This gave Dabo and me a chance to ponder our own lives. Most of our buddies have lived what people consider fast paced, exciting lives. Lives filled with wine, women and song... in many cases that translates to booze, divorce and road burn-out. I wish we could tell you that Randy's drumming in a Heavenly angel band now but we honestly don't know. We chose a different path many years ago. Perhaps it's more apt to say a different path chose us. It alienated us from friends of our youth... friends forever in our eyes of love. They know our stand for Christ and it doesn't fit into the partying lifestyle so da KAZKILL boyz ain't on too many "Who's Who" lists of party invitations. We still love them and we miss just being with them... we'll miss Randy dearly. In the end, for us at least, it can best be said in an old poem by Rhea Miller, set to music and made popular by George Beverly Shea... I'd rather have Jesus than men's applause; I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause; I'd rather have Jesus than world-wide fame; I'd rather be true to His holy name: Than to be the king of a vast domain or be held in sin's dread sway! I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today. Never do those lyrics reach deeper into the soul than when standing before the green marble box.