Tag: jamband

LadyCouch Loves It Cold and Fruity

LadyCouch Loves It Cold and Fruity

If it’s cold and fruity. We’re happy with it. — Allen Thompson and Keshia Bailey of the 12-person jam band, LadyCouch

How does a band of 12 people travel around and perform shows? With lots of snacks and bubbly water, at least if the band is LadyCouch. Keshia Bailey and Allen Thompson, two of the band members, discuss their favorite carbonated beverages — of which they have a lot

That’s what makes us work with the crew of humans we have as well as we do. We have 12 stars in the band but they are in the same band and no one is the star of the band — we’re a constellation… a galaxy, if you will.

What are the dream bubbly water flavors of these two, plus host Sloane Spencer? Find out more by giving this episode a listen, and prepare to be extra thirsty thanks to these musicians’ passionate opinions on drinks and life in Nashville. 

80 percent of our group text thread is about a new flavor of bubblies:  LaCroix or Wild Basin or Pickers.  There’s no real good grape ones of any kind. Everybody f**** up a grape flavor, and the watermelon flavor too!

List of links

Beverage Mentions

Don’t forget to give Bubble Bottles a five star rating!  

AI Transcript

SLOANE SPENCER  Well, hey, y’all, this is Sloane Spencer. And you have found us at bubble bottles at the brainy podcast where we ask music people, what’s your favorite carbonated beverage one of my favorite backstage conversations to have with folks. And these answers have been all over the place. I have a couple of folks with a band I have seen twice spread out pre pandemic. And then just recently as well, we haven’t checked out lady couch yet you need to catch their brand new record. And they’re on the road quite a bit as well. But have them introduce themselves. So you get a little bit of background. Hello.

KESHIA BAILEY Hello, I’m Keshia Bailey here.

ALLEN THOMPSON And I’m Allen.

SS tell us real briefly what’s been going on with LadyCouch.

KB Oh Lord,

AT we just put out our first full length record on September 10. With Blackbird record label out of Los Angeles, it’s called the future looks fine. And we’ve really just kind of been spending the last few months working on that and doing all the necessary things you’re apparently supposed to be doing when you put out a record album.

SS Well, if y’all have not had a chance to see Lady couch, live, there are a number of folks on stage. And the core of the band is Alan and Keshia and their voices together are absolutely mesmerizing and memorable. And each amplifies the others like it, it will be a touch your heart kind of show. And that’s not something I say very often like I really mean that truly, like I saw y’all recently, as we were saying, and it was like, Wow, this was really just an emotionally powerful moving experience. And so I think a lot of us are seeking that these days.

KB Oh my god. Well, thanks. I don’t even know what to say for that. I mean, genuinely, it’s a powerful and moving experience for me every time but I think I really got to feel it through Americana fest here in town for my first one this year, and it was nutty. So to hear anyone else feel the way that I feel is I’m pretty nutty but yes, it’s strange. We cry a lot and we cry a lot sometimes in happiness and sometimes in what the hell do I do?

AT Well, so sometimes, you know, we’re not exactly doing tear in our beer kind of songs these days. However, beverages are an important part of daily life.

SS So hit me what is your favorite carbonated beverage?

KB Well, we’ve got a couple you know, I love a good look for it right? But I also love a good vodka soda. So I have kind of by the grace of God, I’ve been blessed and funding tickers, banca who also has a brand called pickers unplugged, they became cocktails and took basically a canned vodka soda. So if you were thinking of a truly or a canned vodka soda, but its essence was fresh fruit from like, grandma’s the grapefruit, tangerine. They were my kayaking drink of purpose and preference all summer and last summer as well.

AT I definitely prefer them to some of the other the other ones of those on the market. I wish that they would make a cucumber lime, because that’s definitely my favorite Of course. I would like to kind of have that box of tea. Plum I’m more of a peach pretty damn

KB hot biscuits. This is the Yeah, I can’t I can’t get enough of that. There’s something about it tall and skinny carbonated beverage. I don’t really care what it is delicious.

AT Yeah. There Yeah, we’re we’re not super discriminatory on the on the entire wave of alcoholic and non alcoholic carbonated beverages. If it’s cold and fruity. We’re happy with it. Some are a little bit differently essence than others. A little too much to take.

KB Our number one right now would be pickers unplugged.

AT I would say the pickers cranberry lime and then the cucumber. BlackBerry Lacroix. Those are probably

KB the shit. Yeah. What’s your favorite?

SS I gotta quit live right here. Alright, so I don’t like any of this. Oh, no, you don’t like me. So I’m like a tangerine Lacroix.

KB Sloane, please send me your address. And let me send you some let me send you a little goodie packet.

AT So this is absolutely hilarious because one of my favorite parts about it is, you know, anytime you’re packing the van for a tour with a band, it’s like everybody has to have their own flavor. Not so much because they need their own flavor, but you need to know who’s Candice who’s so like, okay, no, you’re pumping by the store and you’re gonna live with that.

KB Well, I’m gonna go ahead and tell you what this lady couch crew, no one can belong to anyone. No snack that belongs to one or the other. I make it a point. Every time that we leave, I bring a little mini cooler of lots of bubble water. I think the last round of trips we went on or shared zoom in on. I brought some lemon cello Lacroix. Yeah. And I think that it made it halfway to Roanoke, Virginia, from Nashville before it was gone.

AT I was about to say like, what 12 of us the only way that anyone gets their own flavor is if one of us gets some Costco card access. Yeah. And we’re able to get the five variety case otherwise, like, Alright, guys, everybody’s getting a pop on this.

KB And maybe my sleeves, the guitar at home. So we have room for someone else to bring a cooler with different writers at this point. We’re running out of room.

SS Yeah, if y’all missed that 12 people in the band, like I said, it’s an experience.

AT Yeah, it’s an experience for sure.

SS There are not a lot of newer bands that are out there with this many people and who bring that kind of show on the road. And it’s really exciting to get to see y’all when Lady couch hits the stage.

AT You know, it’s really it’s really exciting to do it. Obviously, when we started three years ago, like we didn’t really see 2020 Come in. Yeah, the way it did. And so, but even then, like in 2018, we first started whenever someone would come and see us and be like, Oh my god, this is so great. How do you guys do it? And we’re like, Well, we, you know, we just kind of show up and perform, you know, what do you mean? And but now after 2020 hours, Keshia and I were talking about this the other day, and it’s like sometimes I feel like the two of us are at an appointment for like adopted child like returned to explain why we think this is a financially feasible.

KB Yeah, our spouses definitely feel the same way too. Like, are you guys doing? What is it that you’re doing? But then they are also totally supportive and see it and understand. But I can see how the naked eye would be like, What the hell the dogs in society we’re gonna do and how is this working?

SS That’s a really great statement, because the two of you come from very similar, but also very different, both musical personal and professional backgrounds.

AT Yeah, yeah, we, we both grew up in Appalachia, I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, and Keshia  grew up in Kingston, Tennessee. So we do have a lot of that common Blue Ridge mountain upbringing. But we were raised in very different environments as well, different bestessay Not not as different ideas, I think we would have thought years ago for sure. But that’s sort of what brick, you know, what makes us work as well together as we do. And what makes us work with a crew of humans that we have, as well as we do is, there’s a lot of common threads in what we do. And there’s a lot of differences in what we do. But ultimately, family is one of the most important things to all of us. And so having that ability to compromise and have some diplomacy, and figure out what is for the good of the family as a whole as opposed to just a couple of individual. We have 12 stars in the band. Yeah. But they’re all in the same band to nobody is the star of that band, which is a cool place to be

KB constellation, if you will. Yeah,

AT yeah, Galaxy. Yeah, I mean, the closest thing I can even maybe even compare it to is Wu Tang Clan, we all kind of had a little bit of difficulty trying to do it by ourselves. And what started out I think is more of a support group became just a group, you know, we’re able to do a lot more and get our point across a lot better as this unit than we any of us had been as individual.

KB I will also say that a fizzy water dish does not taste nearly as good as it does with these boys and girls. And there’s something about knowing that like we created our own family, you know, it’s not traditional, and then we’ll never be but how we’re not traditional what is a tradition until you make one like exactly so? Yeah, from soda water to snack, to sing in tune to switch an instrument to fill in our thoughts like we are One big gathering of weird Hamon. And this is how we found each other. We all really did kind of find each other over fizzy water

AT 80% of our group tech threads or whenever a new flavor from somebody, whether it be whether it be bubblies or Lacroix, or wild basins or pickers or white claws or what if a new one comes out, one of us has to make sure that the other 11 of us know about it. It’s nothing like bonding a modern day version of the big houses in the family and seasonal flavors of bubble water.  

KB We get so excited if I have not seen it. I don’t even care if I need them. Even if I know I have like my water was there my not to mention brands. I will say though I’m more of a Chico kind of lady with Chico Santa lady. I love the the original really?

SS Not the flavors. Not really

AT the flavors, man. I don’t Yeah, no, just give me a straight up bubbly water. But you’re I remember being a kid and me. I’m like, Why did people drink a shit? Here I am a 33 year old woman and I’m like, I can’t get enough of every flavor. I want to try everything of anything. Now I just like plain Topo Chico and I never thought I’d be that woman that like plain soda water.

AT When I was younger. My mom had a big New York Seltzer and clearly Canadian affinity bordering on problems. And I think I got burnout on the sugars Cobell Perrier or, or Topo Chico, Harry, to me, but then in recent recent months and years, I’ve definitely I keep going back to that cucumber, lime, that BlackBerry cucumber.

KB So good. Well, if anyone’s listening at Topo Chico, I think they’re missing a great branding experience.

AT We could definitely, we could definitely use one of those coolers at the at the purple building.

SS Yeah, yeah, by the way. So for folks who don’t know, tell them about the purple building.

AT So purple building, or big purple is a rehearsal space slash studio in five points neighborhood in East Nashville. It’s owned by Todd Snider. And that’s kind of been his practice area office space studio for a good long while, He’s been kind enough to sort of let us and a few other folks judge at her widespread panic and Hayes Carll and two other neighborhood people really Wynwood as well. It’s become all of our clubhouse. That’s where we recorded our record future looks fine. And that’s where Todd did his record, the first agnostic church Oh, from wonder. And so that’s sort of, it’s all of our little spot. Definitely, we’re super thankful to have had that spot in our lives. Over the course of this last few years. That’s where we started. And that’s where we just left there today working on stuff. And it’s nice to have that office in the neighborhood. And it’s nice to have a team and like Todd in our lives, who lets us use it regardless of whether or not we can financially assist them with a play. If you wouldn’t told me at any point in time that I could just go into the space and play judges, piano knowing that they have been so many other beautiful pianists and keys and humans to play in him to play this instrument. And we just sit there and try to pluck out the little things that I can pluck out. more helpful than using the Casio in my, in my guest bedroom.

KB Or the Casio in my living room, which is also in bad shape. Yeah, a real dream come true in that building is very, very important to us and probably will always be like I don’t I can’t imagine no matter what that space or that corner of a blog could ever turn into. It will always be a thing to us. And that’s

AT it was as much as this city in this neighborhood are are changing and growing exponentially. You know, every day and every year. It is nice to have that little piece of old weird East Nashville that you know, not going anywhere. That’s our little home.

SS Definitely, definitely. Yeah, boy, if you all haven’t traveled to Nashville, and specifically East Nashville over the last 10 years. I mean, every six months ago, it’s like portions are unrecognizable. It’s stunning. Oh, yeah.

AT Yeah. I get lost on a regular basis, just driving around to the places that I’ve been familiar with, you know, for the last 15 years.

KB You know, now we’re looking at my 11th year in town, and I’ll grab like three hours out of the way, but my three hours out of the ways The country country like, you know, traveling 20 to 30 minutes to get to a grocery store or Walmart, you know. So to go come here and for it to It felt as big as it did 10 years ago and see what this must feel like, or be like for a kid that left town like I did, I would be overwhelmed and I’d be you know, it would take me off guard. It would make me feel weird. You know, we don’t build towns for how people are going to feel in generations anymore. And then, you know, the people make this we will make the pound not the town. We’re trying to keep in that in that spirit. But it’s a lot different. I did fizzy water then. Now we’re here talking about fizzy water.