One of those things is visiting T-Bone Tom’s in Kemah, Texas.

This place has been around since 1974, which says a lot in itself. The drawing card for us over the years has been the free 7-11pm live music gigs on their expansive back deck, coupled with delicious grub and cold beer.

After the tragic Hurricane Ike battered this joint 5 years ago, they chose to build a huge covering over the seating area. It has spawned a huge crowd to show up on the weekends and tonight was no different.

Our buds, Kristy and Larme Medina, had been on our butts for years to catch a band out of Waco, Texas called ‘Pride & Joy’. Billed as an “electrying blues experience” we were finally glad we got to see them. They’ve been together as a band for 17 years running. Father Tony Castaneda holds down the bass, son, John, hammers the percussion with his other song, Austin-area resident bad-boy on the lead guitar, Chris, mashing non-stop throughout.

This was the band’s third visit to TBT and the loyalty the crowd showed as they buzzed open the show with an electrical tune-up of a blues rockin’ jam followed by, what else, but a cool cover of SRV’s “Pride & Joy”!

P&J did a marvelous job of digging out some clever covers to add their special ‘Waco Jam’ to like Tom Petty’s “Last Dance with Mary Jane”,  Bill Withers epic “Use Me”, off the wall rockin’ version of Michael Jackson’s “Hey Pretty Baby” and the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running” in the first set alone.

There’s nobody sleeping at a gig with this band using their machine gun blues assault style with all three contributing vocals. Chris warned me at the break that “We’re fixin’ to let it go” and man did they.

Pride & Joy has three CD’s to their credit and are working on a fourth. This band reminds me of the Los Lonely Boys and their leave it on the stage style mirrors them in a good way. Chris definitely has that throw back on stage presence complete with beer bottle on the neck of the guitar antics and mouth harp ala Frampton/Walsh tossed in for good measure.

From all the acts we’ve seen here in Kemah, these fellas seemed to stand out head and shoulders over just the cover band monikors and hats off to T-Bones for advancing their horizons as far as bands they are booking these days.

Stand outs for me were “How Blue Can You Get”, “Got a Thang for You and I Can’t Let Go”, double Jimi Hendrix “Foxy Lady” followed by “Hey Joe” done in a bluesy jangle sort of way that steamed up this beer slammin’ crowd!  ZZ Top’s “Tush” burned right thru the house and “Proud” rocked. The sing along “Gettin Us to the Ghetto” was a super nice touch delivering the funk to all in attendance which were many!

This meat market-turned-restaurant got national attention when it was featured on the Food Network’s acclaimed cable television show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in November 2009. They first started smoking meats in the 60’s and have always made everything from scratch. So come on down and enjoy music 6 nights a week with a laid back setting especially once the heat blast of summer dies down a bit…You’ll be glad you did!

Take it from somebody who’s been coming here since there was a drawbridge nearby…Now that’s a nice slice of tradition there my friends!