3/21/14

Hickoids got added to a last minute bill at Stubbs. We were playing inside on the small stage right after Flogging Molly finished outside on the big stage. They had a sold out show and a couple thousand people going nuts, jumping around and fist pumping all over the place. We played to about fifty folks and Smitty told them that fist pumping was not allowed. They complied so we rocked them.

Our set was very short. "Molly" went a little long and the sound guy cut our set after about a half hour so the next band could get up. Black Irish Texas was next, but they were missing a fiddle player and they wouldn't go on without him. So there it was 12:45 AM, the big show is long over, the recently inducted hall of fame band is done... and there is about forty minutes of dead air... the week after sxsw... and nobody wants to wait to see another band...

ouch

SXSW Wrap Up

Here it is, the big wrap up. As always it was a clusterfuck of a weekend. I had a lot of fun running myself in to the ground and I saw some pretty cool bands, but the festival is just too big for Austin. It's been that way for the past ten(ish) years and it's just continued to multiply. If you've read any of the post-festival fallout (examples here and here) you've probably noticed a trend towards the negative, there are some very good reasons for that. Austin and SXSW are changing and it may not be for the better.

It's not easy to see the changes when your living here, they can be too small and/or subtle. It's like plastic surgery. At the beginning you may notice one or two small changes here or there then suddenly one day you look up and you can't recognize Joan Rivers anymore and it scares the hell out of you. She may have the same personality but something isn't right... That's what Austin is like right now. I still love her and I don't want to move, but the grievances are stacking up. I know I'm gonna sound like a pissed off old man by writing the next few paragraphs, but they are accurate and my grievances need to be aired.

Read this first http://i.imgur.com/KRWNNiR.jpg

Imagine that in the "land of the free". The city is forcing a business owner to dedicate one of it's parking spaces (on private land) to another businesses vehicle. It isn't even an Austin (or US) based company, they are from Germany. I like the Germans a lot, but they should not be able to force another business to store their cars and prevent an actual customer from using a parking space and the city shouldn't be writing policies for it to happen in the first place.  The Car 2 Go folks have also taken a number of the regular downtown street parking spaces and converted them into Car 2 Go only spaces (as in if I park my truck in one I will get towed.) If you drive a Car 2 Go you can park in any of the regular spaces and not have to pay for it... So one Car 2 Go can prevent two regular cars from parking. Are you pulling your hair out yet?

Last year I pad $20 to park, all night,  downtown a week and a half before the music fest. It was a total ripoff, but I justified it because it was very close to where I was playing and I was getting paid. This year I saw signs that were offering $35 parking for three hours. When did this become Manhattan? I parked on the street in San Fransisco for three hours for less than five bucks just a couple of years ago. The last time I checked there are a lot more people in a lot less space in SF and NYC then there are in Austin, why are we paying this much for parking?

We have the metro rail. It was screwed up as a concept when I moved to town twenty two years ago, now it's a screwed up reality. This is a two parter.

#1

They never bought the proper sensors for the trains. They are loaded with the gear that is meant for freight trains. The sensor is different because a freight train travels long distance at a fast speed, so people at an intersection a half mile away will be stopped from crossing the track when a freight is barreling down. This makes sense. Metro Rail trains don't travel at freight train speeds. They also stop at multiple stations along the track, so they need a different kind of sensor. Currently when a metro rail train is stopped at a station you are not allowed to cross the tracks anywhere near it.

On my daily (bike) commute to work I cross Guadalupe at Airport four times a day. This intersection has two stations about a quarter of a mile on either side of it (this is also pretty stupid, it's miles in between the stations on either side of those.) If there is a train at either station I am not allowed to cross the tracks. There have been days where I have literately spent a total of twenty extra minutes out in the sun waiting on the metro rail to leave it's station and go past. It sucks in February, it is misery in August.

#2

But part of me was ok with it. Since I live near two stations I would head downtown on Mondays and get my mail from the PO box and get a little lunch and head home. It was nice and it was $2 a person to do the round trip. That's all changed. Now it's $5.50. There is no longer any "local" service. If you come in from the Lakeline Mall stop (the northern, end of the line) it's $5.50 for the round trip. If your headed all the way downtown, you will save a lot of money on the 30-40 mile round trip and you won't have to pay for parking or screw around with traffic, it's a great deal when you factor in everything. But when you get on in my neighborhood and your charged $5.50 for the ten mile round trip that was $2 a month and a half ago it can piss you off.

The train is no longer meant for local use. It's only purpose is to move people who don't live in Travis County, or pay taxes in Travis County to and from their Travis County jobs. Sure there is a little less congestion on the roads and that's a good thing, but it does very little for the people who actually live AND work in Travis County. It just makes it harder for the "locals" to get around.  Why are we making it easier for people to use the services of Austin when they don't pay the taxes that fund them?

I am not even gonna get in to the toll road fiasco... it is awful and depressing on a whole different level.

So how do I feel about this year's SXSW? I liked getting to see a few new bands, but I didn't really take advantage of anything. If I wasn't playing I wasn't gonna be in the middle of it. Especially since there was no easy way in or out of downtown (or parking when you got there.) It was too easy to say fuck it and just stay home. So that's what I did.

Hickoids getting in to the Hall Of Fame was pretty cool, but it wasn't that special and we had to pay for booze and food. Sure they had us stand for pictures in front of a banner covered with booze and food manufactures names and now my picture can be used for advertising, but we couldn't get any of those products for free... I would have had more fun if I stayed back at the White Horse watched some music.

One of the stupidest things I saw had to be the SX Subway thing that was set up right next to the convention center. It was a little, fenced in "village" with banners all over the place.  I'm guessing that since there was all the bad press over having rubber in their bread they spent some cash trying to make Subway "hip" and "friendly" again... Pitiful. Don't forget that SXSW let Subway coop part of the name so they got paid and allowed to allow it to happen. Pitiful times two.

So all of this bitching is coming from someone who still loves Austin. I have no desire to move and I have no idea where I'd move to if I did. I am also an optimist (believe it or not). No matter how many times my nose is rubbed in to the figurative shit that is humanity, I still want to believe things will turn around for the better. I'm hoping my grievances are just Austin's (and SXSW's) growing pains and that things WILL improve in the future. Let's just hope that we as a city can grow up enough to fix some of this before our souls are gone.

3/15/14

Yeah this one is late. I'll have a SXSW wrap up coming tomorrow (I hope) Saturday night kinda knocked the crap out of me.

The Hickoids first set started at 6PM at the '04 lounge. The drive was ok, I found decent parking and for the first time during this years fest, I used my own bass rig! We set up and played after A Pony Named Olga, again. Our set was ok, it was a little early in the day and I think we were all in the marathon mindset, as in don't blow your wad too early boy, you got three shows today. 

The '04 is a cool place, but where the bands set up is right where people walk by to go to the bathroom. So your rocking out with your eyes are closed and when you open them back up someone looking at you like "Get out of my way, I have to piss" It's strange.

Johnny Hell was there and he got up for two songs (Lance played a show before this one, so he was happy to take the break) as always it was nice playing with him. He and Lance even did a little double drumming on "Stop It", the world needs more double drummer lineups! After the set we quickly packed up and headed to...

ABGB on Oltorf. We were on at 8. I parked in the back and loaded just my bass and cords in (backline!) I was immediately asked what I wanted to drink and eat. I could get use to this. I had a couple of lagers but I held out for the pizza until after we played. When we showed up DD Dagger was on the stage and whipping ass. I haven't seen Allison blow sax in years and I really, REALLY liked this band. I've got to do a show with them and the Ladies it will be an "Animalistic Rock-A-Thon"! 

This set was a lot better than our first one. All of us were giving it a little extra gas and the sound was really good which makes the job a whole lot easier. It also felt more like a real show, ABGB has a stage! We did our thing and the crowd was in to it. We finished the set, ate some pizza and head to...

The Triple Crown. "Olga" was up when I got there. I settled in to the back and hung out with the Grannies and a Beaumont until they finished. Grannies were next, I hadn't seen a whole set from them since Europe last year so I caught every song. Sluggo was playing a cheap SG copy and I knew it wasn't gonna last. During the solo on the last tune of their set Sluggo jumped up on the bar and started playing the guitar with an ashtray. Then he hopped to the ground, took it off and started swinging. Pop, Pop, Pop. The satisfying sound of a cheap guitar hitting linoleum. 

We were next and we played fine. I used Tom's bass rig because it was still on the stage and no one, including me, felt like moving it. There was some definite ass dragging going on in our third set (fourth for Lance!) But we survived the full 45 minutes and broke our shit down. SXSW was over for us. Now all we had to do was watch the Beaumonts! They were great as usual. Nothing new, just regular old, bad ass Beaumontin'.

After that Smitty and I went to IHOP and got some food. I drank almost a full pot of coffee and I was still buzzing from it after the 45 minute drive home. I drank three beers after a shower and finally went to bed around 6AM, twelve hours after the first show started (and that doesn't include me being at the day job from 10-4). The next day I woke up around noon, ate and managed to stay awake for a couple of hours before I fell asleep again. When I woke back up it was Monday afternoon and I was still on the couch. It's kinda a SXSW tradition.

3/14/14

For the second year in a row Peelander-Z hooked up Bigfoot Chester with an afternoon show at the Grackle. It's the fourth year they've had this party and they always have really cool bands on the bill. This years lineup did not disappoint.

I snuck this show in on a long lunch from the day job and I made the ten minute drive in twenty five. But, I got some serious princess parking, right on the street by the club! Last year I parked and had to walk a half mile to get to the gig. It's a small but glorious victory.

I get there and The Otonana Trio from Japan is on. The singer has a mic stand attached to his guitar and is jumping all over the stage. The rhythm section is tight as shit and on fire. They get to their last song and it's a mini-rock opera about ramen. The first part was about how great ramen is and how all of the world loves and celebrates it. The second part was about how the bad people came and said ramen was no good for you and it was made by people who wanted to hurt you. In the third part a ramen superhero came and saved ramen by defeating the bad, anti-ramen people and made all of the world love ramen again. A super cool comic book in a song.

The next band was Wolf Face from Tampa. They all had their faces covered in hair and wore basketball uniforms. The singer's name was Michael J Wolf and the songs were about things that happened to them in high school. As in "This song is about what my basketball coach said to me..." What a rocking/funny set.

We were next, we did seven songs and pretty much whipped it. I used Purple's bass rig. 6 x 10" with 500 watts! I nice, loud, warm and thumpy. A huge improvement from yesterday's rig AND I didn't move shit! During "Harpoon Man" Walter jumped off the stage, blowing his harp on the big solo at the end. Yellow ran up and started faking a harp solo with his Iphone. It was a real vs fake harp off! Pretty funny shit.

We finished and I pack up my crap and say goodby to the Bigfoot fellas and Yellow comes up to me with a concerned look on his face. We have the following conversation (keep in mind Yellow speaks broken English with a Japanese accent and he is a highly animated fellow.)

Yellow "Are you going to play somewhere else?"

Me "No, I've got to go back to work"

Another gig?

No, My day job.

What do you do?

I sell stereo's.

Oh, You very busy!

Yeah, I came here on my lunch hour.

(Smiling and laughing so hard he is almost on the edge of hysteria) Your lunch hour?! You a very busy man!!! VERY BUSY MAN!!!!!!!

He shook my hand again, slapped me on the back and said "Have a good day, busy man."

I did!

3/13/14

Day two was easy, I only had one show and it was earlyish. HIckoids were gonna go on at the Spider House around 5:30, but that got pushed back to 7. They had three stages set up (usually there are only two) and all of them were rocking, hard. They were rocking so hard hard that during our set you could hear the other two bands playing between songs. There was another temporary venue across the street, in a parking garage under a building and you could hear them as well.  Antone's Records had stuff going on. You couldn't hear it but it was still happening right there on the same block. During SXSW there is music everywhere. Do you have a trailer? Can we put on a show I. It? I know some bands that are coming to town and...

We got up and did our thing on some pretty sketchy backline equipment. They had me going through a 2X10" cab... Tom was using a Chinese Vox amp that was an equally horrible piece of shit as the amp I was using and the drums fell apart on Lance three or four times during the set (in the middle of the break on one tune, Smitty put part of the kit back together so Lance could keep playing.) 

I know it sounds like I'm bitching about the "inferior equipment", I'm not.  Getting to use a crappy backline beats the hell out of having to screw around with my own gear during the fest. It's a lot easier to park and walk to the show then it is to load, drive, unload, park and go do the show and then do it all again in the reverse order when you're finished. And there's a multiplier on that when your doing it in a town that's overrun with folks trying to do the exact same thing that you are... And your all fighting for the same parking place.

I only got to see two other bands. A Pony Named Olga, and Crying Nut. Olga is from Germany and they are a surf/rockabilly trio with an upright bass (and are on Smitty's label) . They whip ass in a big way. Their version of "Caravan" has been running through my head on a loop since yesterday. Crying Nut is a band from South Korea that plays Mexican music. And that is the reason I love SXSW.

3/12/04

Day one was pretty interesting. It stared with a thirty minute drive to the White Horse, it usually takes ten in normal traffic... Needless to say SXSW traffic is awful.

The Ladies and I got up and did our thing. There was a decent crowd of people who had been day drinking and they were digging our sound. It's easy with folks like that, all we had to do was play "Bouncin" and they were hooked. "You Make Me Feel..." and "Selfish" just put them over the edge. Day drunks love songs about sex and drinking and we have a lot of songs about sex and drinking.

We finished up and I said goodbye to the ladies and Smitty, Tom and I hopped in a pedicab and went to the convention center. It was really nice that the Hickoids were inducted in to the hall of fame and on paper it seemed like it was gonna be really cool, but...

We go to the check in desk and get our passes then we were escorted upstairs to the green room. Escorted, as in they stuck some poor, adorable 20 year old intern with us. She led us up the escalators and over to the place where they gave us some wristbands. I'm pretty sure we could have gotten there ourselves, but this is a classy affair and they don't want to leave us to our own devices for too long. After that we just hung out in the green room for about an hour and a half bullshitting with folks.

The green room was pretty big and probably had a hundred people in it. They had a bar! But after we waited in a twenty minute line there was a cash register... My Hall Of Fame winning ass paid $14 for a rum and coke. They had food and I got excited about it until I heard they were charging for it as well... Pretty lame stuff.

We were told it was time to get ready and we were posed for pictures in front of a big banner (they were really trying to make it like the Grammy's or the Oscars with all of the silly pomp, but it doesn't work at all, this is Austin not LA) then we were told to wait. About thirty minutes later we were escorted by a different escort from the green room to a staging area. Then we waited in about three different places for about ten minutes each before we finally got up to the stage. In other words, there was a whole lot of hurry up and wait. And we were escorted every step of the way.

We accepted the award then they had us step down to a second stage that is right in front of the real stage so the same people who took pictures of us in front of the banner could take more pictures of us again. Then our escort (yes, she was still with us) walked us off the stage as they were announcing that Blondie was next! Holy Shit! That's Debbie Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke!!! I had no idea that was coming and neither did our escort. As soon as they were announced we looked at each other and she said "Well that's about the best fucking thing in the world!" She was right, it was pretty exciting.

Since we were finished with the awards show it was time to head back to the White Horse. Got there and the Grannies were on! They whipped it and we went on after. Our set was pretty short, but the place was packed and really in to us. It made the whole ordeal of the Music Awards worthwhile.

This probably isn't shocking to anyone but it's a lot more fun playing music than it is being awarded for it.

SXSW week

SXSW is here. It's been here, but I'm just now writing about it. The music side of things starts today and that's all I really care about/all I am involved with. Here is my general schedule.

Tonight the Ladies and I go on at the White Horse at 7. After that Hickoids run off to the music awards to be showered with love and inducted in the Austin Music Hall of Fame. Then we head back to the White Horse to play at midnight.

The bill at the Horse is pretty amazing, but I'm gonna miss most of it because of the HOF thing... That's what "sucks" about SXSW, I'm usually too busy to enjoy any of it. (Disclaimer, the traffic, parking, price gouging and general drunken stupidity also sucks, but what you gonna do.)

I only have one show each on Thursday and Friday. Hickoids play at the 29th St Ballroom/Spider House around 5 on Thursday and Bigfoot Chester is playing the Peelander Z party at the Grackle on Friday at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Saturday there are three Hickoid shows. The 04 Lounge at 6. ABGB at 8 and The Triple Crown in San Marcos at midnight.

That's it for the moment. Details will follow. Be prepared for action.

3/9/14

Hickoids made the drive to Bend to play at Bob's again. He was having a festival at the store/bar and we were giving them three hours of musical love. Smitty brought a bass amp so all I needed was my instrument and some cords, It's a semi-backline!

We jumped in to Freak 3 (she just had her one year anniversary!) and made decent time on the drive. The weather was amazing, the cold rain that had been hitting Austin dried up, the sun came out and it was in the mid 60's. Everyone was happy about that. The freak got unloaded and we started in on our first set. It had a nice, leisurely pace and the crowd was small, but appreciative. At the end Bob, was gonna jump up and play some with us, but Tom's rig started giving him problems so we stopped for a bit.

After the break we hopped up and did a few and THEN Bob got up to help. The second set ended (without amp failure) and we pretty much did the same thing again for the third set but we played different songs. I can't remember the order, but we did a couple of Hickoid songs then some covers like Gloria, Wild Thing and Knockin on Heavens Door. The Hicks (with Bob) were a classic rock band for one glorious Sunday afternoon in Bend TX. 

3/7/14

Friday night I played at the Local with the ladies. We were the band for the night and played from 10-1. When I got there all if the ladies were set up and already drinking. I had some catching up to do...

I got my rig together and hit the bar. Both of the (lovely) bartenders were old pals of mine, it was great seeing both Janna and Tiffany again and having them give me beer all night!

We got up and did the first set. My old drummer Jill was there and she brought some friends, good to see her and she loved seeing the double drummer lineup. There were a number of other folks who were watching us and enjoying themselves and we played pretty well. Nothing glorious, but nothing shitty. 

Second set Jill left and took her pals. The other folks slowly dissipated all over the place and our quality started slipping... Nothing awful just some overplaying here and there and we were missing some of the stops. It happens, we moved on. 

Then set three happened. I don't want to be too melodramatic here but it was pretty bad... I'm pretty sure it was the booze. I wish (and planned) for it to go better, but it didn't. No excuses. It kinda sucked. 

After everyone loaded out I had a beer at the bar talking with Tiffany and Janna. They noticed the sloppy but they didn't seem to care about it too much. Janna books the place and she asked if we wanted to do it again. I'm up for that, but we got to do better. 

Wiley on recording

One of "the ladies" wrote a blog about the first recording session.

Check it out!

More ladies in the studio

BC and I went back to the studio last Saturday. She knocked out all of the keyboard parts and I'm pretty sure, I knocked out all of the guitar.

We got there around eight and BC set up in the control room. She'd never played keys on anything with me, just bass. So there was a fair amount of figuring things out in the early stages, but she quickly got past that and moved on to whipping some keyboard ass!!!

It was my turn so I set up the vibroluxe and got my rig ready. We started with doubling my earlier rhythm parts and then nailing each of the solos before we moved on to the next tune. Usually I would do all the rhythm then all the leads, but I guess I was kinda feeling it when I was playing the rhythm parts so we just went ahead and finished all the guitars on each song before moving on to the next one. 

I did a bunch of the guitar parts on the Tele (it's what I play most of the time with The Ladies) but I did a couple of them with my hollowbody Guild. Kurtis had a mic on the amp and a mic on the room so I stood by the room mic with the Guild, getting the sound out of the amp and right off the wood. It sounds extra thick and glorious.

I did a solo that was four bars of call and response on "First Time, Next Time". The odd numbered solos were slide on the hollowbody and the even ones were straight on the Tele. I nailed that fucker in one take for each part! That really feels good, like I know what I'm doing.

When I took a pass on the solo in "Wonderful" Kurtis really like what I did and he asked me to double it. I told him I had no idea what I'd just played, but I'd be willing to give it another shot. I did and failed miserably. I had no recollection of what I'd played just a minute before! We laughed for a couple then moved on...

This is why you work with someone like Kurtis, his only agenda is to get your music on tape. He doesn't have a specific way it "needs" to get done (although he is great with suggestions). If you say "I have and idea" he says "let's try it." That is the most important thing in a recording engineer. 

I'm headed back this Saturday to do the vocals. At that point we should have a nice little EP.