Martin Luther King's Birthday Celebration: Sunday at Bud's
Bud's 501 Club, 501 Morse St NE, Washington, DC 20002

I was early; I arrived a little before 10 PM. I met Bobbie Westmoreland from the TMOTT board; she's one of the bartenders at Bud's. Packy was the only one from the band there at the time. He said he hated the long weekend because it meant he had to work five nights in a row. He joked that "I think Donnell is trying to kill me." I told him about Friday's show, he had heard about it from Vincent who did the sound (Vincent was the guy I talked with working at the monitors soundboard at Safari the Friday before. I recognized him at the Chuck Brown show, but didn't know his name). I ate dinner and waited as a crowd started to form.

Familiar Faces
BJ was a little late, but aside from him everyone was in the opening line up. There was no happy hour set; they proceeded almost immediately into the throw down crank. The second song performed was Destiny's Child's Soldier. They also did Snoop's Drop It Like It's Hot, and DIP. A number of regulars were in attendance, including Ytee and Kato from TMOTT, Tamara, Ray, Don and Mama Chelle. Donnell had a couple of girls, whom he referred to as "Alicia Keys" and "Tina Turner" dance with regulars who danced by themselves. However, he joked with the one he called "Alicia Keys": "I told you to dance with him, not make babies with him." Little Benny was in attendance and they got him to perform with them on vocals. They performed a couple more songs before going into the break.

I talked with Dwayne during the break. We heard the original Snoop version in the DJ music, which is almost nothing compared to their cover. We discussed the Chuck Brown/PFunk show - Dwayne said the Soul Searchers didn't have much time to rehearse Cosmic Slop to make it fully tight. We heard in the DJ music, Lil Jon & East Side Boyz's Aww Skeet Skeet featuring DJ Flexx - I recognized the lyrics as a chant that George Clinton had performed on Friday and at the September 2004 performance I attended. Dwayne said "That's old." Dwayne then talked with RE Angie.

The second set was even more crankin. Donnell mentioned celebrating Godfather's birthday, someone joked that it was his "69th birthday". The highlights of the second set, again with Little Benny performing with them were Rare Essence's Work the Walls and 911. They had some really crankin' percussion this set. Little Benny went over and danced for a while but re-joined them for the final song: Lap Dance. They stopped after a while, then Donnell said, "Let's do it again while Little Benny is still talking." Little Benny walked off the stage, Donnell said, "He's still talking". Little Benny said, "Hey Donnell, I'm still talking motherf*cker." Then they finished and most of the crowd cleared out, security ushered them out. Donnell joked "The 501 security is furious!" A bunch of girls hung out up front still; he asked them "What are you going to show?" When I walked out, there was a thin level of snow over all of the cars including mine.