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Palomino Club in the suburbs of LA, Warren, Allen and drummer Matt Abts along with their "roadie" Eric Hansen, moved into the Big House for ten days and created the band that is known as Gov't Mule. We cleared all the memorabilia out of the two archive rooms, the same rooms as the band used as rehearsal rooms when they lived there, and the Mule set about creating themselves. Since we were fairly new to the neighborhood and we had a house next door with a lawyer and a judge, we wouldn't let them play loud music after midnight. So for eight hours every day amplified music emanated from those rooms and after midnight it was the same songs played acoustically. Our young friend E.J. De- vokaitis had moved in with us at the Big House only the week before and here he was living with and witnessing the creation of a new musical entity by his heroes. It is ironic and fitting that E.J. is today the curator and heart and soul of the Big House Museum. There are no coincidences - fate had a hand in this. Every night before Kirsten went to bed she would make a tray of peach or cherry cob- bler and by morning that tray was empty. During that ten day period if the band wasn't rehearsing, arranging or playing they were eating at the H & H or getting a new tattoo. I photographed them all over Macon, at Rose- hill Cemetery, Otis Redding Bridge and Little Richard’s Tic Tock Lounge. In those ten days those Mule boys got Macon all over them- selves. At the end of their time at the Big House they went downtown and played their first gig at Elizabeth Reed Music Hall. Playing music for your ass! I introduced the band that first night at Liz Reeds and 18 years later I'm still doing the occasional intro....Friends, Seen and Unseen.....


We all loved Allen Woody. Tell us about Woody from your perspective. Allen Woody was the funniest motherfucker I ever knew. He was quick, brutally incisive, a gentle and complicated dude. Had upwards of


500 various stringed instruments and a taste for things that were not good for him. But the man could play bass with more courage and fearlessness then any man I knew. And he looked really good in hot pink sweat pants. I loved him and I miss him and think about him constantly.


Tell me more about your photographs. Do you sell prints? The web site we have up at www.kirkwestphotography.com is a good ex- ample of a cross section of what I have avail- able. A full range of fine art black and white collectors prints, 8x10 up to 16x20, with the occasional storytelling blog entry on the web site. I started to use social media such as Facebook to kind of spread the word and in- crease awareness and interest in my work. The first quarter of 2013 is pretty exciting on several levels. One being this feature here in Kudzoo, which is a digital magazine. I also have an extensive feature in the upcoming issue of Macon Magazine, a print publica- tion, that is in conjunction with a gallery show being hosted at the Macon Arts Alliance Gallery on First Street and Poplar in down- town Macon, Georgia. The gallery show will open March 1 and will be up through March 31. There will be an opening night cocktail party reception on March 1 followed later in the month during Cherry Blossom Festival with an evening with the artist at which I will share some stories about some of the photo shoots involved in those pieces on display. In July/August 2012 my photographic work


was featured on CNN's web site. Then in No- vember I was one of three artists whose work was featured in a show sponsored by Master- card in Chicago. This show told the story of the history of Chicago Blues in pictures. Hopefully 2013 will afford me the opportunity to stage more gallery shows, a solo artist show in Chicago, in New York and in Mississippi. Also I recently signed a representation con- tract with Getty Images to rep me to publica-


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