August 1, 2025 - The Drive-By Truckers played Music at Maymont in Richmond and WAMM was there. It was a chilly rainy summer day, but the Truckers delivered the goods. The 16-song set included crowd pleasers such as Bulldozers and Dirt, The Living Bubba, Puttin' People on the Moon and Ramon Casiano.
The occasion marked the 40-year anniversary of the first meeting between co-founders Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Patterson explained:
Tonight is a bit of an auspicious occasion and so 40 years ago today, I moved into possibly the shittiest apartment on earth. It wasn't really an apartment. It was like it's like they started building a house. They built the basement of a house and then it's like, "This house isn't worth building."
So, they just like put some kind of a half-ass roof on the basement and started renting it out to college students in my hometown (Florence, AL).
I had this acquaintance from college and I got to be honest, he was like truly one of the biggest [ __ ] I've ever known. He (Mike Cooley) sucked. But nonetheless, he had told me a couple weeks earlier he was looking for a roommate because he had a third bedroom in his house he was renting and he wanted to rent it out. And I needed to find a place to live really quick that was cheap. And so I called his number to call him to see if the place was the room was still available. And the guy that answered the phone said, "Don't [ __ ] hang up on me." And then hung up the phone!
That's how I met Mike Cooley. 40 years ago, about a week ago, that's how I met Mike Cooley. And so I called back and he answered, "Yeah, it's like, uh, hey, are you still looking for a roommate?" Uh, yeah, I guess so. I thought you were my ex-girlfriend calling me and hanging up on me."
And so a few days later, on the first day of August, 1985, 40 years ago tonight, I was moving into that [ __ ] hole. Every time it would rain, water would seep up through the foundation and soak my shag carpet that was in my room, which turned to mold, black mold that's probably going to kill me yet.
That's how I met him. I walked in the door, I saw a guitar leaning against the corner, and I happened to be carrying a guitar case at that moment. It's like, "Oh, you play guitar? He said, "Yeah, I guess you do, too." And we didn't have [ __ ] to do. We had no money, so we'd just sit around in that [ __ ] hole and we'd play our guitar. And that was the beginning of Adam's House Cat, which was the first of our four bands together.
So, we're celebrating the occasion tonight. Thank y'all for being here in Richmond, Virginia, one of our personal hometowns.
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