11/13/21

This was month and a half ago… sad sad.  

Oh yeah! The day after that Hicks show I drove down to SA again to play with Harvey. It was at a bike shop that’s a few blocks away from the Brick. 

This crazy ass town… most of this area has been built around the “Brick complex”. Loads of new and boring mixed use developments and their parking garages. But over by this bike shop it’s a bunch of empty industrial buildings. And this crazy bike shop. 

Apparently they do this every month, a show up on the roof with a half dozen bands carrying gear up some rickety ass stairs. DANGER!!

The roof was all covered in gravel and they had a couple of carpets down for us to stand on. I took full advantage of my longest cord and walked around a bunch while we were on. It was awesome. 

The walk down those rickety ass stairs with both of my cabinets was a little rough but I got all my shit in to my car without breaking anything including myself. Solid. 

11/12/21

 Just got home from a pretty great night at the Lighthouse in San Antonio. Hicks finally got to play here, thanks to the pandemic we’d been postponed a number of times. FINALLY!!

We went on after Shandon Sahm! Hell yeah! It had been a few years since I’d seen him. He moved to Amsterdam a while back and he isn’t really coming this way that often. AND WHO COULD FUCKING BLAME HIM!!!  HE LIVES IN AMSTERDAM!!!!

Anyway, his combo had been playing for about a month and they were nearing the end of their run with two shows left, so they were tight as hell. He even had a couple of Beaumont’s up there with him!! Happy happy. 

Our set was solid. It took a little while to get going but we got to full on out of control locomotive in no time. I’d never seen that many folks in the Lighthouse before. They got right up on us and got wild! Damn that feels good

11/6/21

 Harvey band at the 502 bar in San Antonio last Saturday night. This is a place in a strip mall in way north SA. Sort of a sea of strip malls loaded with bars and clubs all over the place. Such a weird and cool city. 

We went on after Sweet Charbonneau and the Fir Trappers. Hell of a name there. I dug them! Bunch of solid players with some pretty amazing gear! I was drooling over both of the guitar amps. Boutique tube amp with two knobs? A dream for a kid like me.  The front guy had this really fun presence while they were on. One I’ve the tunes was about SA vs Austin. Pretty funny shit. AND he lent me his bass rig!! I was not angry. 

Our set was decent. Big ass stage with lights and a pa that fits the room.  But there was something weird with the sound. Everything was tinty sounding. Like all mid and high end, very little bass. Even from the bass rig. I thought I’d made a mistake by bumming the rig until I noticed the guitar amps sounded the same. 

What the hell causes that? Bad power? Is it the sound of strip mall sadness? We may never know. 

10/31/21

 Harvey band on the day before Halloween at the Lighthouse!

We did it up good for all the costumed folks. There were some sexy devils and a dude with an awesome Ghost Rider outfit but one dude was Dr Mantis Toboggan and it was the funniest fucking thing I’ve seen in a long time. He even had the look in his face. Amazing. 

We dressed up, I did my regular dumb yachting dick costume. Chad had these messed up contacts in, every time I looked at him I was thrown. Awesome. Joseph was a squid game dude and had his face was covered the whole time. Harvey kinda looked like the hamburglar, I don’t know what he was trying for…   Andrea was the hands down winner. She went as Harvey and she nailed it. The wig, the fake mustache, perfection. 

The gig was pretty good. They had Joseph’s keys way wayyyy loud  in the pa it really threw me at first. Sound guy even came over and yelled “turn it down!” at me    I did and there was no change in the bass volume…. Ahem. 

Anyway we got it sorted and had a really fun night. All that counts!

10/24/21

 Hickoids again but this time we were in SA, FINALLY!

The Lonesome Rose is really working it good. Sunday show that starts at five? People show up for that! Smart as hell. 

Now we didn’t actually get up at five… all of us that driove from austin talked about the same truck that was stopped in the right lane of 35 by New Braunfels. We’d all driven separately and got stuck in the same traffic jam over the course of two hours. Texas don’t do a bunch of stuff right….

Then I was a little north of 410 in SA when Smitty called me. Apparently the bass head at the Rose popped and he was wondering if I had one of mine…. uhhhh I have three in Austin…

So we didn’t get going till sixish. We had a good show and it was a ton of fun. It was Tom Rowsey’s birthday and folks showed up to remember him. It was real sweet (eve for Tommy!) and Smitty snuck in a bunch of stories about him in-between and during our tunes. 

Tex and Coney Island went up next but I was driving back the next day and I was whipped so I got the hell out!

10/9/21

 Hicks were at ABGB the other day. We went up after Croy and the Boys who were pretty damn cool. First off, it’s not all “boys”! The bass player is a woman and she was kickin that low end ass! They had some really great tunes and I had a blast hearing them for the first time!

We went up and did our thing. Good sized crowd that stuck around for our mess. I can’t think of anything crazy that happened other than it was Tom’s birthday and he didn’t fall over drunk in the middle of the set. Let’s hope we aren’t really learning how to adult

10/2/21

 Corn lovers time!!

It was a beautiful, one day event. Acl may be over two weekends and packed with a 100,000 tourists throwing money all over the place but corn lovers has a cache they will never touch! 

The Sagebrush really is a beautiful place. They’ve done it up nicely and with all of that space they can do almost anything.  We’ve needed a place like this in Austin for a while. 

I went up with Harvey at 4:20 between Gravy Boat and The Me-Thinks on the other stage. There were dueling stages 20 feet apart and at a 90 degree angle. So while we were on I was watching Gravy Boat break down and the Me-Thinks set up. Kinda weird and not the best place for a dude who can’t help obsessively watching bands moving gear.  In other words, I played terrible. 

The Hickoids, featuring Frontier Dan went on at 10:40. Inside because of the noise ordinance,  We put on a hell of a show. It was wild.  At some point a lady was up at the front with an ice pack on her head. Turns out she picked a fight with some couple and they kinda stomped her.  Then she came up to the front for the loud music.  Three different dogs ran up on stage at three different times.  And I heard about some other wild shit since, that’s just what I saw. Fun night

9/3/21

 So lame… playing so few shows lately and I STILL can’t get this done in a timely manner.  And I didn’t really want to write this one…

Hicks were at the Lost Well playing a party for Matt Silaski’s birthday.  We were on with the Fishermen and a band I can’t remember….  It’s been that long. And I wasn’t at the club yet when they were on. Woooooo, rock and roll man. 

Anyway our set was pretty good. We had to wait on me to start because the bartender was ignoring me and I wanted a couple for the stage. Took forever. So dumb, I end up in a pissy mood right before we started because she wouldn’t take a minute to help someone in the band, who was tipping her. Hopefully the next time she isn’t working. 

7/23/21

Harvey band was up in north SA last night at a place called Fitzgerald’s. It’s a “Rock” club with a big ass stage, barriers between the audience and the stage, smoke machines and lasers.  Yes, you read that right, lasers. 

Not our typical place to play but we were up for being the first of three. We are doing a little live recording the next day and we were doing little on the spot rehearsal to tighten things up. 

We killed it and put on a hell of a show for the two other bands, five employees and six other folks who happened to make it up there. Thankfully there was no need for the barriers to stop hoodlums from storming the stage. 

A third in to the last song the power went out. As in it was 100% dark in the place. No amps, no PA, nothing. Joseph, who was about to play the solo walked up to me and said “thankfully it died before I had to do that solo!”  Funny ass shit right there

7/2/21

 So late on this one… sad. 

The Harvey band had a pretty great set at the Lighthouse in SA. This place is owned by my old buddy Eddie who I hadn’t seen in years and it’s really  great joint!

The DJ duo, Strawberry Jams Vinyl we’re doing the before and after playing loads of good soul 45s. It felt like I was listening to records at home. They were also pretty cool folks!!

We had a great set. We gave it to ‘em good and the crowd was there for us the whole set. A couple of folks even bought us some beers! We must have been great!

After we hung a bit and listened to the sweet soul music. Really nice night

6/25/21

Had a Bigfoot show the other day. We’ve been practicing on and off for a bit. Some decent  gigs got scheduled then got cancelled. Then finally, FINALLY we played one!

It was at the Little Darlin down south. The last time I was there I was watching Maceo from De La spin, so I have some very fond memories of this joint. 

Our set was decent. We’ve been playing a bit but not nearly enough. There’s also the pandemic slump…. But we did a pretty good job of kicking some ass for the crowd   They were all warmed up by the time Lonesome Dave went up.  And that was the whole reason we were there. 

6/19/20

 It was just me and Harvey last Saturday at the Lonesome Rose. We did a little duo set opening for Jessie Dayton. We’d never attempted one of theses before but we were able to sneak one little run through earlier in the week.  We even leaned two new ones as went over the rest, my dog was really happy it wasn’t just me playing in the living room for a change.  

It was a pretty decent crowd for an 8pm start time.  We only played one of the two new ones and we’d been a little worried that we had enough stuff to fill the time, but we had five still on the list when we got the “one more”. Solid. 

We wrapped up and I jumped back in the car and drove back to Austin. I would have loved to see Jessie but getting home and being lazy as hell was a high priority at that point. 

5/30/21

 Another Gringopalooza? Yes. The pandemic killed it last year, this year it was back with a vengeance. 

At the Three Links with the Gringos (duh), George Jonestown Massacre, a band from California full of young dudes that I didn’t see or meet, and the Hickoids!

The place was pretty packed. I drove up myself and got a room down the street so I could stumble back and not worry about driving home until way later. The club was full when I got there. As in one in and one out with no covid capacity limits. Packed. 

The pandemic isn’t over but folks sure are acting like it. I’m desperate to play and travel and see shows and live a somewhat normal life again. But I’m pretty worried that we as a species are handling this in the worst way possible.  

I 100% blame our former national leadership and our CURRENT Texas “leadership”. Total assholes that are fucking up the world for personal gain and have zero compassion. There is a fair amount of willful ignorance and stupidity in there as well. It’s all gross and avoidable. 

Anyway. The show was a lot of fun. It was great being out and seeing a ton of folks I haven’t seen in what feels like a decade. We really tore it up and Frontier Dan even made the gig! It’s always great getting to hang and play with him. 

At the end of the night it was a series of drunken hugs with half the crowd and most of the band folks. Feels good to be missed

5/1/21

 And there was another one!

Things are not back to normal but it sure feels like it’s creeping back there slowly. 

Hickoids had a show in San Antonio with the Beaumont’s and We Are The Asteroid. It was gonna be at Lonesome Rose out back but the 90% chance of rain moved it over to Paper Tiger and it was “presented” by Lonesome Rose. 

Some things don’t change. Just like the screwball nature of how, where and why this gig happened. A semi standard down here in the low rungs of rock and roll, all three of theses bands were primed and ready to kill it. We’ve been in “ready, set” mode for a while. NOW GO!!

Paper Tiger can hold a thousand and we had 200-250ish there. It was mostly safe as far as covid goes but once folks got drunk it was probably a different story. 

I’m not gonna go in to to much detail. I’ve written about theses bands a bunch and I still love them and I’m thrilled we got to have a bill like this again. But it was the same old story. “The ______ did _____ and it kicked ass”. It still applies. 

4/17/21

 Holy shit! I played a show!!! 

We’ve done a few livestreams and some recording here and there but it’s been pretty slow since the pandemic hit. But, BUT! We had a show a St Paul’s Square right by the Amtrak station in San Antonio and it felt really good. 

This was the Harvey band with our current badass lineup. I am so I love with being in this band. I was made for it. It feels so good playing and hanging with everyone in it. 

This place is pretty cool. It’s a courtyard with a bunch of restaurants and bars that have patios. The whole place is “entertained” by the band in the middle. We did two long sets at a very safe social distance and even though this was a straight money gig it felt amazing. Who cares if barely anyone is paying attention. I get to do good stuff with folks I love!

1/14/2021

 Hmmmm... this seems to have floundered a bit. Wonder why I’m not playing any shows?