6/11/22

 Well here it is, months late as usual. 

My final show as a Texan, down in San Antonio where I really feel loved, playing with two of my favorite bands! That is the way to go out!!

At this point I don’t really remember too many specifics other than having a blast with people I love (and currently miss!) 

I got a ton of hugs and a little tipsy by the end of the night! Nothing but warm squishy feelings.  

It’s been a pretty big adjustment to going from playing in several bands with a decent amount of shows to zero. I’m “in process” on a few ideas and I’m sorting out the Baltimore music scene slowly ( I have some time, we did move there!)

But mostly there are a bunch of kick ass people I feel lucky to have as friends and even if I’m not around them all the time, they are still with me and I’m with them. That’s a wonderful feeling. 

5/30/22

 

Last of the three Bigfoot shows. Finally home in Austin.  It felt real good sleeping in my own bed last night! We were up at the Parlor with Gravyboat, hicks and Pat Todd for our third afternoon show in a row. 

We were second and quite frankly played a pretty great set. After three days, it’s to be expected. Kinda on fire. 

And the “boat” and Hicks were pretty great at well but Pat and the Outsiders just killed it again.  I know I’ve said that a hundred times, but it’s true. One of the best bands out there, in any style. 11 out of 10 and just fucking awesome. 

Here is where we come to the hard part. This was my last show in Austin. The wife and I are heading north to get the hell out of this state and away from the republicans that have been running it for the last ~30 years. It really sucks here. Austin in particular gets more depressing daily. So we made the decision and are headed to Baltimore. That’s right, we are choosing “murder town” over Austin and both of us are backflip thrilled for the move. 

I won’t dump too much but if you don’t already own a house or you aren’t going to school, there is no reason to be here. It never was what it wanted to be and it’s way worse than it was. 

Gonna miss the hell out of a bunch of people! But we won’t miss this city. 

So I’ve got one to go down in SA with Harvey and the Hicks and that is it. Boom!

5/30/22

So we hopped on the van and made that long ass drive from Clarksdale to Dallas. Oh boy. I’ll just say that some of us were fairly hungover, nothing too awful, but…

We went on at the Three Links early and kinda killed it. We were first of five and there weren’t a hell of a lot of folks there but that didn’t stop us!!

We were followed by the Me Thinks, Pat Todd (!), Lauretta Suede and the Hickoids. 

That’s right, the Hicks and Pat have been out while I’ve been out with Bigfoot. It’s a crazy world, changes everywhere!! ALL YHE TIME!!!

Speaking of… Austin tomorrow. 

5/28/22

 

Bigfoot went on at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale. We were there to play Goat Fest. This was our makeup up gig from the  first part of the pandemic. Makeup gig from 2020. 

We were up in the afternoon at the Hopsun store out back playing in the shade and hiding from the sun. The stage was a truck bed that had  tin over the spots where the wood was rotted out. It would pop when you moved around and shake the whole stage. Jarring and made for an interesting time. 

Our set was decent, nothing magical but we didn’t tank it. And the crowd dug it. Again, all that really matters. 

After all the planned music was over there was a little jam session where I got up and played bass with a few different folks, including a dude we saw playing drums at Reds the night before. That was amazing he was a serious badass player. 

No clue when I went to bed. Kinda how it should be. 

5/25/22

 

Walter asked me to do this quick little pickup gig at the Sahara Lounge with him and Danny B Harvey, uhhh… yes!

We went up with no rehearsal, no set list and very little clue as to what was gonna happen and it was great!

45 minutes of straight covers called out right before we played them. For the most part we were on it. And really dug playing with the drummer Clint. I met him a half hour before we went up. We gelled pretty quick and threw the fuck down like we’d been at it for years. Yeah!

4/322

 So somebody thought it was a good idea to do another Woodshock. I did the last one and I think it went broke on the last day. I watched this great band getting in to a fist fight out on 6th street and then they broke up. 

This one was way better, out at the Far Out Lunge. We are second to last ion the Sunday and there was a really nice crowd when we got up. But first, Lance had covid and couldn’t make it. In steps Gary, errr Ned from the Breaumints. He fucking tore it up!

We did most of our “regular” stuff that Gary’s seen us play a thousand times so he had it all down. Pretty cool he was on it and that we ended up having a pretty great set.  

3/20/22

 Last sxsw show of the year was at the chili dog fest held at Empire Control Room and The Sidebar. 

Bigfoot was up and our set was decent for the first one with the new lineup. We’d had two rehearsals so… 

There were three stages and two of them were running about an hour behind and of course we were on one of those. At least it was backlined.  When we got up we had a decent crowd that seemed to be in to it, but that five o’clock sun was really taking its toll on all the day drinkers. You could see them slowly shrivel as the sun beat down. Even the townies were feeling it. 

Mike Watt was up after us, heard it was pretty amazing, but I had to get the fuck home. I was whipped from being in the sun  all day and having all those beers… lord.

3/19/22

Night two! I actually have it pretty easy this year, only four shows and they are pretty spread out time wise and two are at the same place on the same day!!

Let’s talk about those two shows. 

Smitty had one of his usual mini fests  at the new Hickoid home, the Sagebrush. Loads of bands on both of the stages. Tons of talent and all of it backlined!

I went up with Harvey for a quick 40 minutes set with a new drummer. We really played fast and furious this set, slugging hard most of the time. AND we had two new tunes! 

Later on the Hicks went up on the main stage and we killed it. It was pretty packed with folks who wanted our bullshit and we served it up nice and fresh.  

I also got to see Tex, They Might Be Deadly, Josephus,  Die Spitz and some others I can’t really remember… I ended up pretty toasty by the end!! Yeah music!

3/18/22

 The season is upon us…

No mater what the endemic thinks, sxsw is happening and we are diving in face first.  

Hicks were down in Hunter at Rileys last night with the Beaumonts and They are Deadly. I was pretty excited about this show. Of course I love the Beaumonts but I’m also a huge fan of a few of the “Deadly” folks and I was excited to finally get to see them. 

But the day job got in the way and I made it to the club when we were setting up…

Fortunately there was a bass rig ready so I just got up and started.  Our set was decent, a little all over the place but we rocked the crowd and gave them the goods. 

I hung for a little bit and talked with a few folks out back, but it quickly became time to run so…

2/11/22

 Well this was a godadamn great set. Hicks went on last of four bands at Hotel Vegas, a place I’ve barely played because they don’t usually do bands like the ones I’m in. 

We went up and we were all figuring it would be the usual “old men go up and people leave” type of situations but that was way wrong. The room was pretty full at the start and I said on the mic “geez if y’all’d only come closer” and everyone stepped right to the front of the stage and other folks filled in behind them. Ok!

We had a rocking ass set and they stuck with us till the very end. Pretty crazy that some random Friday night ends up being the best Hickoid show I’ve played in the 13+ years I’ve been in the band.  

2/4/22

 

Hicks were out at the Gray Horse in San Marcos last Friday night. It’s a pretty cool joint in a strip mall just outside of town on the way to Wimberly. I would have missed it if the lady in my phone hadn’t told be to turn in the parking lot. 

We went up after the Bulemics who i hadn’t seen in… forever? They were so fucking good!!  When they went up I was getting crabby because they started late. But once they were going I was all “Holy Shit!! They are rocking this shit!”   THEN they ended after thirty minutes (oh, they didn’t start late at all…). 

I’m easy to get crabby but hard to impress musically. This was a definite win here. 

Then we went up and had a decent one. Harvey wasn’t  with us and we were missing some of our sound but we kept it going and played until 80% of the crowd left…

It’s what we do. 

1/21/21

 

Catching up here with the second lost show…

Went on with Harvey at Low country down in SA. We were missing Andrea on this cold as hell Friday night. But we ended up having a real nice low key set with just  the four of us. 

It was pretty sweet. I was playing right by the door so I “greeted” everyone as they came in. The room packed out at 10 folks watching us play. And gear, not a huge space, but its the perfect size to really feel the love. 

This was a semi release party for the new ep. Three tunes we recorded with the Austin version of the band about a year ago. It’s pretty good sounding little record. And Harvey got someone to make an animated loop to go along with the instrumental “Man Eating Chicken”. 

Pretty cool shit!

12/31/21

 The Hickoids were at the Sagebrush for New Year’s Eve. We went on after the Beaumonts and another band…. I got there when the Beaumonts have three left so I missed most of the night. 

I am not a fan of New Years or any “party” holiday, I tried to avoid as much as I could. Also we lost our  our buddy Klaus the day before so I was in an absolute funk before I got there. 

By the time we got up I was feeling better and happy for the distraction. I ended up getting pretty drunk and that helped even if it was temporary. 

Klaus!