2/5/16

The Ladies had a show at the Hole a week ago. There were four bands on the bill and we had the early shift. The crowd was sparse at 9:30 when we went up but there was some improvement by the time we finished. It was a pretty good considering we had one practice so far this year and it was nearly two weeks before the show. Someday we'll be rehearsed... I swear it...

Eric Hisaw Band was next and they killed it. Eric really plays the shit out of that Tele and his tunes are really tight. The third (or fourth) tune in they nailed some Buddy Holly and that is always a good thing.

The third band was Garner Sloan I'm not sure if that's the name of the band or a person IN the band... didn't really get around to that. They had a nice, calm blues/old timey feel with an adorable girl playing fiddle for the leads. Good stuff.

Then the last band went up.... I'm not even gonna give their name, not because they were shitty. They actually played really well (even though it's music I don't like...) but the front man...What a dickbag... The "Sloan" folks hadn't even switched off their amps and that dude was onstage with a big particle board box. He didn't even look at the folks who had just finished playing, he just sat on the stage (with his box) and chatted up some people standing at the front. What an asshole!

So the box is his "stomping box" he sets the mic stand on it so when he stomps his foot it comes through the PA. Nice idea, but the sage at the Hole is a big box the transmits the sound of stomping through the mic without a giant second box that takes up space on the stage WHEN ANOTHER BAND IS ON!!!!!! Not to mention there were eight people in that band including, trumpet, accordion, fiddle, two guitars and on and on... there is no way in hell that "stomping" is coming through.

He also had the attitude that he had the most original music ever imagined... I'd heard that tired-assed, played out shit fifteen yeas ago IN THE SAME CLUB!!!!! Uhhh.... And to wrap it all up he was a dick to the soundman.

Anyway, it was a cool night up until the end, when the last hour felt like ten. The first three were pretty cool.

4/4/14

Hickoids played at Giddy Ups last night. There is a classic car festival in town this weekend (there is crap going on EVERY weekend in Austin) so the field behind the club was packed with really cool looking cars... and the cars from the bands... Bands don't have really cool looking cars. They are either vans or hand-me-downs with over a hundred thousand miles on them. I have the latter.

We are playing two shows with the Loco Gringos this weekend. They were gonna play right before us on this one, but the opener was stuck in traffic so the Gringos went first. The sound was terrible. The wind was blowing more than 20 miles an hour and that alone was making the mics howl. Early on the soundguy had overheads on the drums... Howl. All the amps had mics on them and were way too loud, the bass rig was direct and it was too loud, the toms on the drum kit were louder than the kick or snare and the PA speakers were designed for an indoor space that was about 20% the size of the area they needed to cover...

The worst part is that since everything was turned up so loud the vocals were completely buried. I heard a couple of Gringos tunes that were suddenly "instrumentals", sad.

They finish up and the next act was the worst carbon copy of a hillbilly rocker I've ever seen. I'm not even gonna mention his name, but what a bunch of shit. He was going for that Hank III, Wayne Hancock vibe that is still popular amongst the folks that like to play dress up, but he had none of those guys skills. His band was lame. He made his lead guitar player set up his guitar before he set up his own (what a dick) and he spent most of the set bitching about how awful the sound was...

He wouldn't let up about the soundman. Even after he was finished he was trying to bitch to us about how bad it sounded. I get it, the sound sucked. But bitching about it the entire set (and after) ain't gonna fix it. Move on and play.

He was trying to be our best pal in between the sets, saying things like "That's how it is on the road" and "Just another night of rock and roll". DEAR JESUS LORD THAT I DON'T BELIEVE IN, WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a fake little ego maniac of a hack. Pitiful, just pitiful. (I could go on for an hour about this jackass, but I've already wasted too much of my energy on him.)

Anyway, we went up and did our thing. The sound sucked but we knew that going in. We had a pretty good set and the crowd was really in to it. It was cold as hell out (well, for a thin blooded Austinite, it was windy and in the low 60's) so I kept the jacket and tie on the whole set. That's a first. Smitty tried to get some women up in the front to take off their tops and the only person that got to do it was a guy in a wheelchair.

That's what you get when your a Hickoid.

Dale Watson finished things up. Incredible as always. His band it tight as hell and all of them are solid bad asses. And they didn't bitch about the sound once.

More with the Gringos tomorrow.

1/25/13

Late again...

I did a thirty minute set to kick off the Pocket Fisherman's latest event at the Hole in the Wall. Cunto and a few others were also involved. They had both stages going, "acoustic" in the front and bands in the back. Of course I wasn't very acoustic playing my Jazz box through a vibroluxe, but it sounded great!

The night was a lot of fun until the break between the last act up front and the last act in the back (Fishermen). The band upfront, Boomswagglers, kept playing on and on and the Fishermen (the folks who put the show together) were waiting for them to finish. It started to get a little uncomfortable, but it seemed like they were about to finish their set... until they started another song.

So PF's said fuck it and kicked their set off. I'm not exactly sure what happened next but I see the big oaf singer from the Boomswagglers come running at Mike Nicolai with his fist in the air. He looked like a real idiot. He was literally running with his fist over his head, telegraphing his punches ahead of time like a two year old in a preschool fight. Pitiful.

I don't know what the results were, but Mike seemed fine after.

Breakdown

I got paid and a few free beers! I win!!

My new solo rig sounds amazing, I'm loving the hell out of it.

It was a great night other than the idiot from the Boomswagglers.

Goodbye Music Lab

I'm not going to miss you.

$12 to $15 an hour to practice in an under air conditioned 12' X 14' space, with the sounds of ALL the other bands around you coming through the under-sound proofed walls, or through the under preforming AC ducts. That's right, it was an exceptionally smart move running straight pipes from one room to the next guaranteeing crystal clear sound from the connecting rooms. Brilliant!

I'm also going to miss the microphones you let us use. I know I shouldn't expect much, but I'm in a band with Jeff Smith and he sticks his mic down his pants and makes me smell it. That mic smells like a rose garden compared to the mics you've let me use in the past. I'm not even gonna get in to the ones that have shocked me...

But most of all I'm gonna miss your employees.

I know it's hard being a musical genius and being in the coolest/best band in the whole goddamn town. It must be especially hard when some asshole wants his room (that he paid $12-$15 an hour for) opened and he has the gall to expect the PA to work and you need a smoke break... It's a tough life.

I'm just glad that you are no longer a part of mine.