When I first began exploring Texas music seriously in the early 2000s, one of my most joyous discoveries was Lubbock’s Thrift Store Cowboys, a funky Americana band with major cosmic cowboy influences.
I saw the band several times at the Golden Light Cantina, listened to their 2003 album The Great American Desert on repeat, and interviewed frontman Daniel Fluitt as often as possible.
At some point, I’d lost track of the band and figured they, like so many, had moved on to other projects, possibly even out of the music world. One member, Amanda Shires, definitely stayed in music; the Grammy winner did a long stint with The Texas Playboys, performed with ex-husband Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, and co-founded the supergroup The Highwomen. But other than an occasional algorithmic resurfacing on social media, I lost track of Fluitt.
I was delighted, then, to run across the news that Thrift Store Cowboys would reunite this weekend for a pair of shows in the area. Following a concert in Basalt, Colorado, the Cowboys will head to Turkey for a 7 p.m. Friday show with Charlie Shafter at the Hotel Turkey, 201 Third Street, then to Lubbock for an 8 p.m. Saturday show at the Blue Light Live, 1806 Buddy Holly Ave.
Fluitt and I caught up recently about his new life in Knoxville, Tennessee; the plans for this mini-reunion; and the possibility of new music from the band. (This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Chip Chandler: It’s been more than 15 years since we last spoke. What’s new?
Daniel Fluitt: Yeah, it’s been a while. I’ve been living here in Knoxville, Tennessee, since 2014, so it’s been about 12 years at this point. I’m still playing music, but not doing a whole lot of touring or anything like that. We do have our own version of Thrift Store Cowboys out here, a Knoxville version and our Lubbock or OG version of the band. This little short run we’re going on is the first time we’re mixing both bands together, so it should be fairly interesting.
CC: That’s great. Who’s still in Lubbock these days?
DF: Clint (Miller), our bass player, and Cory (Ames), who plays guitar both live in Lubbock, and then Nick Shute, who’s been playing trumpet for us for the past couple years, is in Lubbock. Tugboat, Kris Killingsworth, lives in Richardson now, but he’ll be playing drums. Me and our guitar player, Robert Richards, who lives here in Knoxville, are going to fly in and meet up in Denver before the tour. It should be fun.
CC: How did this little mini-reunion tour come about?
DF: You know, everyone gets older and you can’t be young forever and sleep on floors and all that stuff. We weren’t really going to do a whole lot together other than maybe a one-off show here and there. But a buddy in Colorado does the Basalt Summer Showcase series, and he’s been wanting us to play for the past couple years. It’s on a Wednesday, so it made sense that we could play that gig and then end up in Lubbock on Saturday.
CC: You put out a live album (Live at Luxury Wafers) in, what, 2020?
DF: Yeah, it was an old one, too. We got the tracks from a show we did years ago and had never released it, so it was just kind of one of those pandemic releases where, hey, might as well put it out, you know? But we haven’t put out anything in, like, 16 years. It’s been a while. But we’re we’re working on remedying that soon, hopefully.
CC: Good. So, what have you been up to in the meantime? You’re still doing music on your own mostly, right?
DF: I do some solo gigs around here and the occasional full band gig here and there. My wife, Jess, and I have our own company called Tomahawk Booking. So we book bands and do festival consulting and different things like that—artist hospitality, concessions, general setup and stuff like that. Our main job is the events management team for Sugarlands Distilling Co., so we do lots of music festivals, lots of nonprofit events, lots of food and wine festivals, things like that.
CC: When did you hit that realization you mentioned, that it’s not time to be sleeping on the floors anymore?
DF: It was one of those kind of inevitable things, you know. I was still living in Lubbock. You know, everyone’s getting older and getting married and having kids and, you know, having to get real jobs and all that stuff. Amanda moved to Nashville, and Colt (Miller) moved to Marfa (to found Cobra Rock Boot Co.). It just got harder and harder to get everybody together. Hell, I might still be in Texas, but we got a job opportunity to come out to Tennessee, where my wife’s from anyways, and it was a good spot for me. I still love Lubbock very much. It’ll always be my home, but you know, it’s pretty nice living where there’s mountains and water and rivers and lakes.
CC: I’m a big Amarillo chauvinist, so convince me of why you would miss Lubbock.
DF: I love the people there. I miss the music there. I miss the sunsets and the sunrises. I kind of miss the dirt sometimes, but not really.
CC: During your time in Lubbock, y’all had some really great music there. What is it about Lubbock that has produced such great music over the years, do you think?
DF: Lubbock typically does not support the arts as much as they should. They do now more than they used to. But back then, you had to find your group of people to make music or make art or anything like that. I loved it because everybody kind of helped everybody. If you had a show or if one of your friends had a show, there’d be a ton of artists in the crowd just supporting everybody. There’s that, and there’s the fact that there’s nothing else to do, like Joe Ely said. You can be bored and just get hammered every day, or you can try and make something cool out of your time there.
CC: Where did your sound come from? It was always a sound I loved that I wasn’t hearing in a lot of other places.
DF: I want to say it came from growing up in West Texas. We try not to pigeonhole ourselves into any one type of music. We always like the openness. I don’t think we ever really thought about it. It’s just something that happens when we come together and play. I love hearing people, even now, tell me they’re driving through West Texas and put our music on and it fits perfectly with driving through the flatness and the openness of everything.
CC: You have done some shows with the original band, or most of the original band, in Lubbock over the years, right?
DF: We’ve done a few. We try to do one every year if we can. We had been doing it around Christmas, and then last year, we ended up doing one in August to coincide with the Blue Light’s 25th anniversary and our 25th anniversary as a band.
CC: You’re working on some new stuff?
DF: I’ve just been writing. We haven’t recorded anything yet, but Tugboat has a little house studio. Hopefully we’ll be able to at least put out an EP or something like that here in the next year or so.
CC: We’re talking about your show in Turkey, I know, but this is an Amarillo newsletter. So what are your memories of Amarillo?
DF: I loved Amarillo. It was always fun. We had some really crazy times there. Typically we would play at the Golden Light and get really drunk and have a good time and stay at the Fifth Seasons.
CC: I should ask about Amanda. Any chance she’ll be coming in for any of these shows?
DF: There was a chance she might be able to do it because she’s playing with The Highwomen in Red Rocks (July 19), but she’s got other things that she has to fly back for. Maybe one of these days we’ll rope her into doing it.
Tickets for the Hotel Turkey show start at $15.
This week’s other can’t-miss options:
Brandon Trey Borup: 6 p.m. Tuesday; 575 Pizzeria, 2803 Civic Circle; 806-322-5575
Starlight Theater with Big G & The Tradewinds with The Repeat Offenders with Hank Vincent: 6:30 p.m. June 21; Sam Houston Park, 4101 Line Ave.; free; 806-378-3036
Much Ado About Nothing: 8 p.m. Tuesday; Pioneer Amphitheatre in Palo Duro Canyon State Park; tickets $25; 806-651-2181
The Maggie Valley Band: 6 p.m. Tuesday; Stoex Design Gallery, 723 S. Georgia St.
High Noon on the Square with Bomb City Bluegrass: 11:45 a.m. Wednesday; 501 S. Fillmore St.; lunch $12; 806-372-6744
Cameron James Smith: 6 p.m. Wednesday; Teddy Jack’s, 5080 S. Coulter St.; 806-322-0113
Peeling Flesh with Ingrown, Horrid Demise and A Quick Death: 6 p.m. Wednesday; Rockwell Event Center, 16307 Interstate 27; tickets $28; 806-683-2156
Music at Wellington Square Courtyard featuring Esquire Jazz: 7 p.m. Wednesday; 1619 S. Kentucky St.; $15 cash or Venmo at the door; kids ages 10 and younger free; 806-584-9571
Wibby Wednesday with Piles of Potential: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; Six Car Pub & Brewery, 625 S. Polk St.; 806-576-3396
Texas Outdoor Musical:8:15 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays through Aug. 1; Pioneer Amphitheatre in Palo Duro Canyon State Park; ticket prices vary.
Colton Amerson: 7 p.m. Thursday; Georgia Street Taphouse, 2001 S. Georgia St.; 806-803-7000
Music in the Gardens featuring The Solano Project: 7 p.m. Thursday; Amarillo Botanical Gardens, 1400 Streit Drive; admission $10 nonmembers, $5 members; 806-352-6513
Scorpion Hike: 9 p.m. Thursday; Palo Duro Canyon State Park, 11450 Park Road 5; free with park admission; 806-488-2227
Gee Family Farm Sweet Corn Festival: 5 to 9 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday; 7651 S. Whitaker Road; admission $10 in advance, $12 at the gate for adults, $8 for seniors and veterans, and free for children 3 and younger; 806-346-5899
Scott Sean White: 7 p.m. Friday; Buffalo Grass Music Hall, 123 Main St. in Panhandle; $20 suggested donation; 806-236-2933
Clown Bar: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 3 p.m. Sunday; Amarillo College Experimental Theatre; tickets $10 adults, $8 seniors and students, $6 AC students; 806-371-5358
Even It Up (Heart tribute band) and Chicago’s Own Piano Man: 7:30 p.m. Friday; Shark Beach Burgers, 1505 E. Farm-to-Market Road 1151; cover $20 plus fees in advance, $25 plus fees day of show; 806-335-5644
Lavatone with Buffalo Freakout: 9 p.m. Friday; Golden Light Cantina, 2906 S.W. Sixth Ave.; cover; 806-374-9237
The Roman Carbajal Band: 9 p.m. Friday; Western Horseman Club, 2501 E. Interstate 40; cover; 806-379-6555, Ext. 2999
The Tanner Lane Band: 9 p.m. Friday; Blind Pig, 609 S. Independence St.; cover $5; 806-412-4251
Canyon Farmers Market: 8 a.m. to noon Saturday; continues through Sept. 26; Fourth Avenue and 15th Street in Canyon; 806-567-0746
Sunset Marketown: 8 a.m. to noon Saturday; continues through Sept. 19; Arts in the Sunset, 3701 Plains Blvd.; 806-354-8802
Labyrinth (all-ages screening): 5 p.m. Saturday; Don Harrington Discovery Center, 1200 Streit Drive; tickets $5; 806-355-9547
Summer Nights on 6th: 5 to 9 p.m. Saturday; Texas Route 66 Visitors Center, 1900 S.W. Sixth Ave.; 806-310-9503
31st Annual Original Harley Party: 5 p.m. Saturday; Amarillo National Center on the Tri-State Fairgrounds, 3301 S.E. 10th Ave.; tickets $120 for two; 806-342-2500
Fervence with Breaking Solace, Annelida and Bardown: 7 p.m. Saturday; Atomic Yellow, 3701 Plains Blvd.; tickets $10 advance, $15 at the door; atomicyellowict@gmail.com
The A-Town Rockers: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Shark Beach Burgers, 1505 E. Farm-to-Market Road 1151; no cover; 806-335-5644
Labyrinth (21+ screening): 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Don Harrington Discovery Center, 1200 Streit Drive; tickets $10 to $25; 806-355-9547
Jerry Seinfeld: 8 p.m. Saturday; Amarillo Civic Center Complex Auditorium, 401 S. Buchanan St.; tickets $79 to $101, plus fees; 806-378-3096
Travis Roberts: 8 p.m. Saturday; The Lumberyard, 850 N. 23rd St. in Canyon; no cover; 806-804-3000
Adam Faucett and William Blackart: 9 p.m. Saturday; Golden Light Cantina, 2906 S.W. Sixth Ave.; cover; 806-374-9237
Colton Mortensen: 9 p.m. Saturday; Western Horseman Club, 2501 E. Interstate 40; cover; 806-379-6555, Ext. 2999
Jack Cryver & The Bad Decisions: 9 p.m. Saturday; Blind Pig, 609 S. Independence St.; cover $5; 806-412-4251
Leslieboy’s Lone Star Comedy Tour: 9 p.m. Saturday; Hoots Pub, 2424 Hobbs Road; cover
Starlight Theater with The Prairie Dogs and Chelsi Woods: 6:30 p.m. July 28; Sam Houston Park, 4101 Line Ave.; free; 806-378-3036
Much Ado About Nothing: 8 p.m. July 28; Pioneer Amphitheatre in Palo Duro Canyon State Park; tickets $25; 806-651-2181
Amarillo Sod Poodles vs. San Antonio Missions: 7:05 p.m. July 28 to Aug. 1 and 1:05 p.m. Aug. 2; Hodgetown, 715 S. Buchanan St.; ticket prices vary; 806-803-9547
Email submissions to info@brickandelm.com.
Movie options:
Opening Thursday: No major openings, just limited runs of faith-based comedy Bad Counselors and Broadway hit Hadestown: The Musical (Cinemark Hollywood 16, 9100 Canyon Drive)
Special engagements: Candyman (Tuesday and Thursday, Cinergy, 9201 Cinergy Square); Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (through Thursday, Cinergy); How to Train Your Dragon (Wednesday and Thursday, Hollywood 16); Jurassic Park (Friday, Cinergy); Trolls (Monday through July 30, Cinergy); From Dusk Till Dawn (July 28 and 30, Cinergy)
