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. 

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!

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!

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. 

11/6/21

 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!

10/2/21

 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

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

6/19/20

 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. 

2/8/20

Last night it was a double up with Bigfoot and Harvey at the Black Sparrow out in Taylor. Made the drive and set up both bass and guitar rigs. Might as well lend them out since I’ll be there and using both. 

Right after he got there Harvey’s piano took a dive and the action got all screwed up.  As in a lot of keys didn’t work at all.  Fuck. We covered as well as we could but it was kinda hurting. Next time....

Bigfoot went up and we had a decent one. Couple of newish things here and there and plenty of the same old... not a bad set.  We might be in an upswing!!

Beautiful Delilah’s closed it out, but because I had to work at 8am in the morning I drove my ass home!!!

5/26/19

The last show of this little tour was Gringopalooza at Three Links in Dallas.  We have done this before, many times.  As a matter of fact, they did it without me last year when I was in Greece(!). 

Went up with Harvey first. It was the best we’d been received so far but I didn’t do as well as I should have.  Missed some stuff...  Oh well. 

Mean Motor Scooter was next. I don’t think describing them as “on fire” is a good enough description.  Those songs, and the way they are play them, that’s some serious shit!

Gringo’s played the best set I’ve seen them do in a while. They were up and ready.  Always nice to see them, that might have been my 30th time?!  

We closed it out with Frontier Dan.  Didn’t do any of the tunes we recorded with him but we hit our classics.  The crowd was really in to our set with and without him.  Great feeling having the biggest show of the tour on the last night. 

5/25/19

Whitewater Tavern in Little Rock last night. Same deal as the night before except for the Frontier Circus in the middle slot. 

The crowd was light when we got up with Harvey. It thinned out further as the night went on.  First set was great. We really got it going right from the top and only a couple of easily coverable screwups.    

Danny and the Circus were great. Better than I’ve ever seen them. And he is so stupidly charming.  

We kinda kicked it. Pretty sure all of us we so out of it that we were in full “fuck it, let’s rip this shit up” mode. And we did!!  

Wish the crowd was better but it’s kinda how it seems to work when we play here. Still fun. Dallas tomorrow. 

5/24/19 show

We got to the Lamplighter and got ready for the first set. Lance and I have been rehearsing with Harvey and we have a five song set we are playing on these Hickoid dates.  

We did a decent job of it. This was only the third time we’d played together so there were mistakes, but nothing horrifying and we never got derailed. Pretty much a win. Looking forward to getting it nailed down. 

Joecephus and The George Jonestown Massacre we’re in the middle slot. They were tight as hell and tore it up.  That is until a cymbal stand fell and chopped the power cable leading to the pedal board. A huge spark jumped out and the rig was dead. It was crazy. 

Hickoids were last. The set was pretty good. Of course Frontier Dan got up with us. That guy kills me...  felt good making music with him all day. I spent a fair amount of time outside in the window behind Lance. When I looked up in to the sky I could see planes taking off and landing. Pretty nice night. 

3/15/19

My first of only two shows this SXSW. Hickoids were closing out the night at ABGB.  

I’d snuck in two other shows on Wednesday and Thursday. I literally snuck in the back door (no badges or wristbands for me!) to see De La Soul Wednesday. They were unreal.  And the crowd was so happy to be there. Still only about half as happy as I was!

The next night I saw Maseo dj and it was pretty dam cool as well.  I happened to walk by him as he was headed to the  stage, that dude.... too cool!

Anyway back to last night. I got there and Harvey was up, but for only the last two songs...  The Sloths were up next, LA rock and roll. With costumes and magic?!!!  A very pleasant surprise!

There was still a good crowd for us at the end. Those folks ate us up and we gave it good!!  Early on in the set Smitty knocked the mic stand over and broke it. As I saw it hit the ground I wrote up a little short story in my brain that had Paul, the sound guy, putting his worse stands in front of us whenever we played. Sacrificial lambs of live music. I asked him after if that was true, he denied it but I still have my suspicions. 

Only one more set tomorrow!

10/12/18

ACL week two, day one

Hickoids were on at ABGB with a handful of our favorites for one hell of a night. I had to go back for some more dental work and I was (still am) on antibiotics... totally bummed I really like the beer at ABGB and I’m not “allowed” to have any....

We got there and Jean Caffeine was finishing up. She was playing drums?!!  Never seen her do that before. They were also playing “Wimp” by the Zeros. Happy me!

Harvey was next and they whipped it.  Duh... he’s got a sweet ass band and they’ve brought it every time I’ve seen them.  No exception on this night. 

We were next and our stuff was fine. But then  the man, the legendary Frontier Dan got up!! We did five tunes with him. The last one was the “Arkansas Twist” and there was a dance contest!! Fun and funny as hell!! And it’s always fun when Dan visits. 

Pocket Fishermen finished us off. Yeah! Really great night. 

And week two night two. I’m not playing!! But I’ll be there. Loads of great stuff goin on!