El Diablo y La Pistola

Friday, December 15 @ Flicker Theatre & Bar

originally published December 13, 2006

Jim Wilson

Jim Wilson is best known for his percussion work in local rock bands Mother Jackson and Don Chambers + GOAT, and Matt "Pistol" Stoessel is known for fronting the gritty Lake City and lending his pedal steel talents to acts like Summer Hymns, Centro-matic, Sleepy Horses and Dark Meat, among others. Tonight the two, who've played in bands together on and off for the past decade, perform stripped-down sets. "I don't play very many solo shows," says Stoessel, "so I'll be playing some older material, Grand Fury and Lake City stuff, and a few new songs I've been tinkering with but haven't worked out exactly. We'll just sit up there with a bottle of tequila. Have fun, do what we do." Says Wilson, making his solo performing debut tonight, "It'll be basically each of us with the guitar. We're either going to sit up there and pass the bottle back and forth, y'know, and switch off songs, or we might decide to do two separate sets. Still haven't figured it out yet."

So how'd this show come about? "We've been hanging out a lot and he mentioned it, and I thought about it," says Wilson. "At the moment he mentioned it I was excited, but then later I thought, 'Man, I've never done that shit before.' But now I'm excited again." Stoessel's take: "I was sitting at the Flicker Bar late one night and apparently talking to Jim about doing a solo show. So then I saw him later and he said, 'Hey, I booked that show we were talking about. We're going to play together down here.' And then I had to be told about the conversation, and I said, 'Sounds good to me!'"

As for Wilson, this'll be the public debut of the "heartfelt" songs he's been writing for years. "Maybe that's why I'm always taking my shirt off in the back, because I always secretly wanted to be up front," he jokes. "One step at a time." Tonight's show at Flicker gets underway roundabout 8:30 p.m.