The show I'm gonna miss

On Saturday night this is gonna happen. As a last minute addition, the Hickoids were asked come and play a Dicks song on a huge bill. Hot Damn! Look at that lineup! Lucinda, Rosie, Butch, Terry, Alejandro, Roky (and so on...)  What a show!!

But there is one little problem. I'm headed to New Orleans on Saturday and I can't do it. This trip has been planned for a while now and there is no getting out of it (not that I really want to, it's been months since I've been to NO and we are only playing one song and it ain't even ours.)

So, what happens? The Hickoids do it without me.

Hunter Darby is stepping in. He was a Hickoid before I lived in Austin. He's also a bad ass player who will pull it off with ease.

We split the practice last night, the first half with me the second half with Hunter. It was really weird leaving with everyone else still hanging around ready to play, but since there are a few shows I won't be able to do this year, it's time to get use to it.

I'm still in the band, 100%. And if you see us in the US (other than this weekend) I will be the bass player. But this summer we head to Europe and I'm only gonna be there part of the time. They are planning to go for four weekends and between my day job and personal life there is no way I could swing that amount of time away. If I was getting paid (as in PAID, not $50 a show) it would be a very different story, but that's not how things work in our end of the pool. So we move forward.

I'm gonna be in Europe for some of the tour, but someone is gonna come and replace me (or I'll replace them depending on the schedule.) It will be cool, I'll get a chunk of time playing over there without fucking anyone over in the band or fucking up my life and finances (not to mention The Ladies!) It's not the best of options, but it's as close to a win/win as we're gonna get.

So this weekend, when my band mates (and Hunter) are hobnobbing with some of the biggest big shots of the Austin music scene (at the Moody Theater no less, where they film ACL) I'm gonna be in NO watching a bunch of brass bands at The Howlin Wolf.  This show will be one hell of a substitute.

10/12/13

ACL Week Two Day Two

It was the last night of ACL, the corn will be scarce until next year. We all played at the White Horse under the threat of the sky opening up and dumping buckets on us. It had been trying to do it all day, but there was nothing other than light rain so far.

First up was Rosie Flores. HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love her. I'd never seen her before, but I knew I'd be in to it, I just didn't realize how much! She is a total bad ass with her Bigsby whammy bar on her old as dirt Telecaster. She can play all of that surf stuff that looks (and sounds) really easy, until you actually try to play it. She can sing her ass off and I think she wrote at least 80% of her set. She was backed by an upright and a drummer who were tight as shit and complemented her style perfectly. They even started the set with an instrumental!

This was my favorite show of the whole festival.

Some point near the end she popped the high E string. She made a couple of jokes about sticking with the five string while she re-tuned and then she did a few more! Talk about rolling with the punches, I'd be 70% fucked without all six on my guitar.

Churchwood were up. They really whipped things in to a frenzy (as usual/expected).

We were next and had a good but short set and the Beaumonts were after.

They started in on their first tune and I decided to run my gear out to the car... right when it started raining... HARD! It's dumping rain and my phone is screaming at me that there is a flash flood warning for... NOW! But I'm already outside and not that far from the truck so I go for it.

I'm about to take a left down the sidewalk when I see it's a pothole with two feet of water in it. Since I'm trying to think fast and attempting to stay as dry as possible I head straight across the street. Comal is a river and I step in past my ankle... and then my other foot goes in... It's too late, my shoes are filled with water and my socks are completely drenched.

By the time I made it to the truck all of my gear was wet and I was soaked to the skin. I was finished for the night. ACL was officially over for me and the Beaumonts were probably on their second song...