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. 

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. 

11/12/21

 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. 

10/24/21

 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!

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. 

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. 

10/31/19

Hicks were at Lonesome Rose last night.  The big Halloween spectacular show with the Sons of Hercules!!

Of course since it was my third set in SA in eight days I was late as hell and barely made it for the last time by the Sons. Maybe I should move down there. It would make it a lot easier on me.  

So we went up and most of us were in costume. The set was sloppy as hell but the crowd was way in to it. We rocked their asses!!

During “Truck” I ate a cornball during the breakdowns and sang with a mouthful. Good night!! 

10/26/19

Third night in a row in San Antonio, BUT first there is a party in San Marcos and Bigfoot was playing it. 

It was a pretty cool affair. Out on a ranch that had a real stage and food and BEER!!

We were kinda terrible. We aren’t good at playing tunes longer to fill time. It’s a huge flaw in that band and a skill we should learn. Not sure we will...

Then the Harvey band played at Francis Bogside. I’d never been here before but it’s a really cool joint and our set was pretty damn good. Felt nice to have a good one after the earlier one. 

10/25/19

Last night was way better/easier than the night before.  The Harvey band (I’m calling it that until we get a name other than the “trio”... there are four of us now!!!) was at The Bang Bang bar. He’s done this Friday before Halloween the last three year’s and I was happy to be a part of it this time. 

Beautiful Delilah’s went on two minutes after I got there. They are so damn good with the new bass player. Tighter and stronger in every way. I liked them before but now....  man.  

We went up and had a solid set. All of us had costumes on but the finest of the bunch was Andrea. She’s not usually playing with us but since she’s with the last band on the bill she hooked up for a few. 

And she wore an inflatable T-Rex costume... holy shit that was funny. Seeing her get on and off stage was amazing, those inflated feet and legs inching up the stairs... But the best was seeing her play!!! It kinda killed me. 

Anyway our set was great. We did two new ones and we nailed them pretty hard. I’ve been spending a lot of time at home going over them and it payed off. Yea for homework!

I took off soon after we finished.  There is another San Antonio show tomorrow and... sleep!

10/24/19

Crazy ass night of driving yesterday.  The Harvey band was playing at the Lonesome Rose in San Antonio at 9, a little earlier than usual.  That kinda guarantees a a traffic heavy slog from Austin.  I’ve done it enough times I’m used to that, but this rain came out of nowhere right at the beginning. And it came down hard the whole drive...  

Even when I loaded in and out it was a mad dash to avoid getting soaked further. It also got cold as fuck....  joy of joys.  

Our set was pretty good. First full set as a four piece and we played pretty good. The sound was a little weird and on occasion there would be some loud distortion coming through the monitors. It actually took me by surprise a couple of times and I screwed up what I was playing.  Weird. 

Then on the drive home 35 was closed heading north because there was a lake worth of water on the interstate.  So a usually less than three hour round trip turned in to a white knuckle six hour trudge.

Should be better going back tonight.  

9/18/19

Second night with Daddy Long Legs but this time it was in San Antonio with the Swishbucklers. I think I mentioned that before...  and that it was at Paper Tiger. Broken record over here. 

We went up and there were so few people  we thought we’d do some rehearsing... no joke. Dead city. So we started up on one of the four new tunes we’d been working on and then a dozen or so folks come in.  Oh great, now we got to play a real show.  Thanks a lot audience...

Anyway we did pretty damn good. Didn’t get through any of the new stuff. Have to wait till Thursday for that one. 

I only caught a few tunes from Daddy Long Legs. They were three pretty awesome but all I could catch. I needed to get back home and I’ll be back in SA soon enough (matey)!!

6/29/19

Back at the Bang Bang Bar in SA the other night. Such a good place and when we showed up it was more crowded than I’ve ever seen!!!

Genzeles had a couple of tunes left. They seemed more on it than the last time I’d seen them. I think they might have a new drummer(?) but I don’t really pay that much attention so...

Tex and Pony Island were in the middle. Also with a different drummer (this I KNOW!) their set was solid. Apparently it was the new gals fourth time, including rehearsals with them. Pretty great work. 

Our set was good. I felt like we were a little all over the place, we haven’t rehearsed in a bit but the crowd was really into it. Kinda all that matters. 

Two folks were drunk enough to hit the floor. This one gal who was trying to grab Smitty’s junk (she fell right after, pretty funny). Later on this dude who was hugging the monitor right in front of me went down. Both were trashed but neither one of them were hurt. I’m doubting they even noticed!

3/30/19

The San Antonio night of the Hickoids anniversary was at the Bang Bang Bar!

This place is pretty sweet.  Big club and not stuck in some corner in some busy part of town. 

We missed the first band.... and only caught a few of the Next’s set.  Sometimes that drive is longer than you think...

But we did catch all of the Beaumonts!!  Almost the same set as the last time I saw them. But they ended with the Bowie AND the Melvins!  I got extra lucky, the “Ice Cream” song was dedicated to me!!

There is a good chance I could eat all of that ice cream.  At a minimum I’m up for the challenge. 

Our set was pretty damn good. If I’m being picky (and I am...) not quite as unhinged as the night before but pretty sweet.  The only guests were Wade, Tommy, Arthur Hayes for one and Odie replaced me on three. 

I had to run back home ASAP so I didn’t get much of a chance for post show bullshitting.... It’s not all parties ya know. 

3/8/19

We’ve been swishin it an awful lot lately, I’m pretty happy about that!

Last Friday we did The Brick at Blue Star. We played there a year and a half ago, I was sick as hell and I am certain I played like shit. I may not have done much better this time, but it sure felt better!

This was a skate deck art show. Lots of nice decks done up in different ways. After our set I got a chance to check some of them out. Not before....  when I loaded in the band before us was rocking it, hard. After I parked Lance was setting up....  I took forever I guess.  

It’s hard to hear in that room.  You are in the middle of the space and the PA can’t really take up the slack.  Oh well, people said we looked good.  

After our set we hung out and watched Sex Pump. Man they had a lot of gear. It took me a while to realize who was in the band, but once I did it all made sense!  Pumpin!

12/22/18

We swished it up the other night in San Antonio. Joined at the Bang Bang Bar by our buddies from Bend, Dr Green Dreams and Austin’s own We Are The Asteroid.  

The drive down was nice and easy. The Holliday slump had traffic moving fast down the 35 corridor. Of course that means the crowd was guaranteed to be thin. Ehhhh.  I was still ready to kill it. 

The Green Dreams crew tore it up. Different drummer than when we played with them back when were on tour. I think he is based in Houston. Didn’t really have a chance to talk to him to find out...  but he complimented their style in a really nice way. 

We were next and had a good set. Not the best but solid. Had some folks up at the front for some of it and we rocked them all the way down the gangplank.  

I missed the asteroid.... had to head home to take care of a dog that was cooped up in the house too long!!!  Wish I’d stayed but we’ve got some shows with them coming up in Louisiana around carnival time. I’ll get to see them plenty then!

8/4/18

That was a little more like it. Hickoids were at the Bang Bang Bar saturday night. A place I’ve never been before. It pretty big and nice inside. And it’s in an area of town that makes you remember San Antonio is one huge fucking city.  

We were on our game here. The night before we’d started half of the tunes too fast. And WAY too fast in a couple of instances. Not to mention we weren’t really doing our best with accuracy...  Last night was different. We had those tempos and (most) of of the notes correct. 

Glad we got this second tune up show before we head out! Needed it.