Paul Martin's First Flood Gig

#212 / Flood Time Capsule: 2015

Eight years ago this week, freshly minted Floodster Paul Martin played his first public show with his new band mates, sharing tunes at a remarkable venue: the new and already legendary V Club in downtown Huntington.

Paul — bringing mandolin, guitar and vocals — officially joined the band six weeks earlier. The operative word is "officially," because Paul already had been part of the extended Family Flood for nearly a decade.

As early as 2006, Paul was occasionally jamming with The Flood, often accompanied by his old friend, Randy Hamilton. Here's a Paul Martin-Randy Hamilton tune from those early days, a September 2011 take on a cool 1970s tune that we knew from a Doc Watson recording:

Later, when Randy came on board as The Flood's bassist in early 2012, Paul started running sound for the band at gigs. In addition, as an extraordinary singer-songwriter and soloist, Paul became a regular featured guest performer at shows around town and on the road.

But it was after he actually joined the band in the spring of 2015 that Paul's remarkable talents began to inspire the next new direction for The Flood's evolution, starting with his mixing and editing skills on the band's next two albums, “Live, In Concert” in 2016 and “Speechless” in 2021.

About Paul’s First Gig

But let’s get back to the scrapbook entry for Paul’s first gig. The date was May 20, 2015, and the place was the V Club, a downtown Huntington bar that regularly brought in big national music acts. Not Rolling Stones big, but young musicians who usually had an album or two to their credit.

V Club concerts usually started late (around our bedtime), but once a month the Huntington Blues Society was inviting a regional band to play the hall early -- 7 p.m. -- followed by a jam session.

For its turn in that series, The Flood concentrated on blues numbers blended with a few jug band tunes to lighten and sweeten the mix.

The Herald-Dispatch did a huge story in advance of the gig, noting that all proceeds from the show were going to help earthquake victims in Nepal. As a result, they raised nearly $1,000 that evening.

The fundraiser was inspired by Chris Sutton, head of the local Blues Society, who had been on tour in Katmandu the previous fall and made some musician friends there.

(Chris, who has sat in with The Flood over the years, is an excellent musician, and had won lots of national blues contests, including a big one in Memphis.)

In a later email to his cousin Kathy, Charlie called the band’s V Club evening "a super gig!" adding, "In fact, Doug said it was one of our best gigs ever, and I'm inclined to agree. Everything worked so well." Click the button below for a couple of tunes from the night, both with tasty solos from Paul for his Flood debut:

In addition, one more tune from the gig turned up in weekly podcasts later that month. Click this button to hear “Tear It Down”:

Video Finds

For a long time, we thought there were no videos from that fun evening, but later we found Dave Peyton Jr.'s recording of "Somebody Been Using That Thing”:

And recently — more than six years after the gig — our old buddy Michael Lyzenga came across his own long-lost video, this one of The Flood’s performance of "Rag Mama / Gimme Dat Ding:"

While that video itself is a hoot — you just can’t keep from grinning at those old hokum songs — we also have a bit of a lump in our throat when we think about Michael’s sending us what he found in his files.

That’s because the date of his thoughtful email to us — Oct. 21, 2021 — was just six weeks before his sudden, unespected death. He was just 65.

We miss you, Michael.

Dancin’ Jim

On a happier note, another long-time Flood buddy also will always be linked in our V Club memories.

Harmonicat Jim Rumbaugh of the Huntington Harmonica Club raised few more dollars for the earthquake fund with his dancing to the band’s tunes. A dollar a dance was what he charged or paid, as we mentioned in this podcast in advance of the gig:

"I'll probably spend all my lunch money," Jim said, "but shoot, it's a good cause!" Here’s the way we told that story that evening:

V Club Postscript

The good ol’ V Club closed in March 2020, victim of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought about the shuttering of so many live music venues across the country.

By then the club had operated for 15 years, opening in the summer of 2006 by Patrick Guthrie Sr. and his son, Patrick Jr., who revamped the old Valhalla Tavern at 741 6th Ave.

Today, a new establishment has emerged at that location. The building was remodeled and The Loud — Live Music & Beer Garden — made its debut in mid-2021.