Shorty And The Mustangs: Pics!

Swing It Man!

We play a mix of western swing, honky tonk and roots country music. Ken Woodside plays drums and Brian Hays plays bass. Long time member Mike 'Lefty' Moore and new guy Geoff Clarkson both play guitar. David Lipkind plays harmonica and Mitch ‘Big Tex’ Gilbert plays pedal steel. Shorty Barnett fronts the band with his clear, high voice and constant wisecracks. Shorty even sings ‘Crazy’ in Patsy’s key.

The band was formed in the Spring of 1996 after Big Tex called some of his musician friends to see if they wanted to try something new. Having grown up in Texas, Big Tex wanted to put together a western swing band. Shorty figured he'd give it a shot and one by one Mike 'Lefty' Moore, Ken Woodside, Kay Peterson and Brian 'Cousin Roscoe' Hayes joined up as well. After a few hundred performances, over the next ten years, Shorty And The Mustangs managed to develope a pretty sweet following. We'd produced two CD's and sold out of both.

Since things were going so well, we figured it was time to do what all bands of any consequence do. We figured it was time for a break. Besides one or two gigs a year for fun, it looked like Shorty And The Mustangs might have bit the dust.

About four years passed and all of a sudden Tex, Shorty, Mike, Ken and Brian found themselves back in the practice room. Our fiddler, Kay, had moved on to another great Portland band by the name of "Los Cowtones," so we started looking for some new blood. We managed to fool two very talented guys, David Lipkind and Geoffe Clarkson, into joining us.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Pics!

Here are a couple of pics just to get things rolling. I need to get photos of our two newest band members, David Lipkind, who plays harmonica, and Geoff Clarkson doing guitar, mandolin, etc. I should get that chance during one of the two shows we'll be doing on Nov. 28th.