My first experience with Six Day Bender was years ago, back when Boylan Heights was called Orbit, also back when Six Day Bender had a five piece band that included a female fiddle player who has since then become estranged.  I was attending an all day party put on by the Charlottesville Music Showcase which, since, has moved to Rapture on the Downtown Mall.  It's funny I remember that day like it was yesterday... it's all so very clear.  I'm standing there, my girlfriend at the time by my side and we've just listened to this fantastic little string band that we had heard so much about.  It was then when the lead singer, Luke Nutting, grabs the whiskey, not the beer, that was sitting patiently beside him, then in a grizzled and heavy hillbilly-ridden vernacular, introduced the band, took the opportunity to thank the audience for their applause, and then, I'll be goddamned if he didn't down the large glass of whiskey, raise the glass above his head and then smash it on the floor of the bar.  I didn't move an inch I just watched all the broken glass ricochet off the floor and hit myself as well as my girl in the knees.  It was in that moment where my thoughts became very clear and I thought:

 "Holy shit, I'm a fan for life."  And still to this day will rally for the Bender, but at the same time I do watch them from the third row now and not the first... One of life's little lessons. 

I had been hearing a lot about them in the weeks prior, so when I approached the people who had told me about them, in order to congratulate them on being so right, I realized that the Bender already had more than a couple of die hard fans, because I was getting a lot of people saying "I told you so."  But then a couple of days later I was speaking about the subject at hand with a source that has asked to remain nameless.  Regardless, he patiently waited as I relayed my Six Day Bender story.  Then as he began to speak I knew that his story was going to dwarf mine, however the story is so good that I find it hard to vouch for its integrity even though I completely trust my source.  Maybe by the end of this article we can finally get to the bottom of it all.

Nevertheless, the story goes as follows:  One night Luke is bumming around the corner and is approached by two policemen, who appear to have been tipped off that he has a gun.  The two cops ask him is name and ask him if they can search him.  Story goes when they ask his name, Nutting chuckles and gives them the name of the famous beat writer William S. Burroughs and agrees to the search.  Whereas, they do not find a gun, and one can only speculate why they would have thought that.  But along the way they do find his wallet which alerts them to the fact that he is not who he has claimed to be.  And this happens to be illegal; even though I'm sure in Nutting's head it was nothing more than a joke and really couldn't even dream that it would result in actual trouble.  So, our story picks up a couple of months later when Nutting and my unnamed source ended up having court together.  My source explains that Nutting went to court to deliberate the ridiculous charge, he struts into court wearing a sear-sucker suit and a red bowtie.  I still think that's one of the funniest court stories I've ever heard but apparently the judge did not and just shook his head as Nutting approached the bench.  So, after adding these two anecdotes to my repertoire I've not been able to get them off my radar.  Unfortunately for your humble narrator as well as the entire city of Charlottesville, they've been doing extremely well for themselves which has resulted in spending a lot of time on the road.  Luckily they're playing a show this Friday at The Southern and I feel lucky that we are being graced with their presence.

By Author: John Bolfing

John is a freelance writer for Magazine33.

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