Derby Weekend — May 1994 at The Rocket House
May 1994
June of ’44
The Rocket House in Louisville
Derby weekend, Terry really needs to write the background of this one, how we found out and decided to go. We drove to Louisville from Knoxville, TN in my old combustible Betty 1988 Ford Mustang. We had no hope of a hotel reservation, nor would we have been able to afford one, so we went up there intending to sleep in the car. Pavement played at an outdoor tiki bar type place and it rained like crazy. Due to the impending sleeping in car situation we were subdued at the show and tried to stay dry under a tiki hut. That’s when we noticed someone that looked a bit familiar and he was wearing the red lightning bolt Versus t-shirt. We started chatting and realized he worked at The Great Escape in Nashville. I had went there a lot when in college in nearby Clarksville, TN. We introduced ourselves and that could have been it. Then the next day we went record shopping at Ear Ecstasy and ran into him again. From there Terry invited him to this party we were going to at the Rocket House. Turns out now that Doyle is one of our best friends ever and we still hang out and pick up right where we left off on the last visit. And he is also the unofficial mayor of Nashville by way of his legendary funk show on WRVU (D-Funk) and by being one of the owners of Grimey’s Records. Anyway on to the Rocket House. This was the original reason we went to Louisville. I remember I was wearing a Hominy Bob t-shirt. Hominy Bob was a great Knoxville band that had recently moved to Austin. Someone there recognized the band and I honestly don’t remember why it was significant but it was. The bands played in what probably used to be the dining room. I don’t remember all of them but I know we saw Rodan and that in itself makes it a legendary trip. I recall something about Doyle running into the ex-boyfriend of a girl he’d met in earlier that summer - a very small world moment pre-internet.