11/8/14

Back before this show was booked I'd heard all abut the eventual demise of the Triple Crown, San Marcos' finest place to play. It was falling victim to the same kind of property development that's been happening up here in Austin, clear out the old crap and build the new/fancy and rich folks will buy it up as fast as they can.

So it was a bittersweet drive when I headed down for the show. After (literally) hundreds of late, sweaty nights the last time I would play there would be with the Hickoids and we were opening for the Beaumonts.

Since the Dog and Duck closed on Halloween (and with this last show looming) I'd been bummed out about all the change in central Texas. I was getting all sentimental and missing cherry picked parts of my past. I even Tweeted about the show with the hashtag #anothergreatbarcloses.

I pulled in to the parking lot and loaded my gear then headed outside to talk with the fellas. At some point I said something about our last night here and I was told...

"Oh no, it's staying open. The guy that owns it decided not to build condos."

I was thrilled! The Crown was staying! And I had just posted the stupidest tweet possible in that situation...

It probably wont be the last time.

11/1/14

Bigfoot Chester was back for an "All Saints Day" show. We went on at the Longbranch around 11, first on a bill of three.

With Davy still "out of the loop" we played as a four piece, like it was 18 (or so) years ago when I first started out in the band. Except we are all older and the drummer is a different guy.

The crowd was good and our set was solid as we rocked through our regular stuff. A couple of songs were a little on the lean side, but I think that kind of thing can get ironed out with practice and we didn't practice for this show... It's a recent theme.

Speaking of themes, a bunch of people dressed up, including us. A few hours before the show (and twenty minutes before we were gonna practice) the texting began. "Are we gonna dress up?" Over the next hour there were forty eight texts about it... Literally, 48. FORTY EIGHT TEXTS ABOUT DRESSING UP FOR THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN!!!! (I wish I was kidding...) it was decided (and not by me) we were dressing up for the evening.

Bill did Lucha Libre, Walter did Harpo, Trey was some kinda fighting guy (I barely talked to him off stage and I couldn't figure it out on my own) I wore a suit and told people I was in Churchwood.

El Pathos and the Flash Boys played off in to the night and I stayed for both 2AM closing times (DST was over so we saw it twice). I got home at 4AM, but it was really 5AM in yesterdays reality. I was whipped and slept most of the next day.