10/24/23

This time iI was filling in for Tony with The Fleet St Blues Band at the Cats Eye. Baltimore’s premier live music venue!! Scott and Tim from the blues jam are in this along with Tansu on guitar and Elon on harp and vocals. They’ve got the last Tuesday of every month except this one because of Halloween. Hell I don’t know what’s up… I’m just filling in.  

Three pretty decent sets of fairly straight forward blues. That is not a complaint. I love it and it feels good to play and I REALLY dug playing with these folks. 

First off, all of them are solid as hell players and they love this band/show/club. You can tell it’s a total lovefest there. 

Also Tansu is a lefty!! AND WE STOOD RIGHT BESIDE EACH OTHER!!! I bet it looked cool as hell!!  I know it did from where I was standing.  

This wasn’t the first time I played with them any the Cats Eye. Tony had me sub for half the night sixish months ago to test true waters and I guess I passed the audition!

Tony will be back. And I’ll be there to watch them. 

1/7/17

You know what happens when you play three nights in a row? You can't help but slaughter it. Fuck ups be damned! Nothing is getting in the way of the Hickoid, three day freight train. We were even stronger than when we tour because we'd all slept in our own beds every night. I could tour like this forever.


It was a big pile of a lovefest at the Lost Well. It was Tub Rex from the Gringos' birthday and folks from all around made it out. I've never see the Lost Well that packed before. It didn't hurt that it was still cold as hell outside so there wasn't that much "going out side to smoke" going on.



Rio Jordan started it off. Holy shit. I missed them at ACL so glad I chance to make up for that. It seems real traditional at first, but that quickly changed when they started mixing up some pretty serious Jazz in the middle. And they didn't do it like they were showing off, they just whip that shit out whenever they want. Got to see them as much as I can.


Me Thinks made it down for their first show in Austin ever. Hard to believe I saw them for the first time nearly ten years ago and they've NEVER played Austin, crazy. Anyway they kicked ass, hard. So hard it made us step up our game when we went up next.



Gringos did a mini set after us. They were wearing pig masks when they did "Nurture My Pig." It was pretty disturbing. The mouths moved just a little and it looked like some kinda shitty animatronic doll that Disney scrapped in the fifties. Thanks for the nightmares fellas...


Beaumonts and Cunto finished things off. I was loading out and chatting folks up while the Beaumonts were on. I caught a fair amount of the set but I wasn't paying too much attention. I was so whipped after the last three days of working and playing I was gone with an Irish goodbye before Cunto even started.

12/19/15

Last post of the year and I might as well keep with the theme of 2015, this one is late... Life has gotten in the way in more ways than one...

I was asked to re-join the Gay Sportscasters for a "super" version of the band for a party at the Hole in the Wall celebrating Debbie's birthday. Since she booked me (literally) hundreds of times when she worked there I was happy to rejoin the biggest, messiest band I've ever been a part of.

I played bass and there were drums, keys, four guitars, a singer, two dancers and no room on the stage. The stage was packed with gear and bodies. I barely made it up to a mic to help on some backing vocals. It was a hell of a lot of fun being in the middle of the maelstrom and getting to push it around with my bass.

The room was loaded with folks reeling from the orgy-like sensation of this lovefest. Both stages were going and there was basically a minute in between bands. Pocket Fishermen, Wannabees, Peenbeets, Superego and many (many) others were on the bill. All of them were big bands that people wanted to see. I showed up when the Wannabees were about halfway finished, fought my way through the crowd and stashed my gear. I thought I'd check out the rest of their set, but I never actually got to see ANY of the other bands while they were playing, it was way too crowed for the casual fan. I even had a little trouble getting to the stage when we were going on!

Let's do it again!

10/3/15

It was day two of the Corn Lovers Fiesta and the evenings festivities were at the White Horse. The place was jammed with people most of the night. At some points there was a line from the door to the street, about fifty people deep. ACL really brings them in. Everyone loves that corn.

There were five bands on the bill and a whole lot of ass kicking top to bottom. I'm not even gonna get in to specifics here, I was too busy having fun to pay too much attention to anything other than the set I had to play. And getting drunk, stoned and having as much of the aforementioned fun as was possible.

We went on at midnight and it was PACKED! Packed like it usually is for the Beaumonts, but this time they were looking at Hickoids. Our set was short and punchy. I had to ask for a little extra vocal when we did Driftwood. The little bit of monitor I had for the first few songs was fine, but when I really got to "sing" I need a little clarity. Picky son of a bitch...

When the Beaumonts went up the crowd thinned a little and the line at the front was down to nothing. Lance and I snuck out when those boys from Lubbock had around fifteen minutes left. We were attempting to beat the 2AM bar closing time cluster fuck that had been leaning down on us with an ever increasing pressure. Fail. It took twenty minutes of dodging drunken morons to get five miles down I-35. Yuck.

3/18/15

The Hickoids had our first show of SXSW last night. We were at the White Horse and there were a bunch of label mates and friends on the bill. Lovefest all the way.

I got there late when the Hares were finishing up. Great fucking set (well, what I caught...) Horns rule. Not much else to say because, Horns Rule!

The Protest were up next. They have a new guitar player who moved all the way from LA to join them. The ever expanding awesomeness that is Pinata Protest is a pretty amazing thing to behold. When I first started in the Hickoids they were just another little punk band from SA. Now they have employees! Well deserved and really cool.

We went on at midnight a bunch of the Protest's crowd stuck around for us and we gave them some of the good stuff. It was a sloppy set filled with our special brand of stupidity and some girl in the front flashed us! That's almost as good as getting paid. Almost.

Beaumonts were last. They finished out the night on a beer soaked stage littered with cans and telecasters. I heard two songs I think I've never heard before! New songs make me so happy!

Rumor has it there were a couple of uber famous people in attendance, one of which was planning an Electric Kool-Aid Acid type of evening. I didn't get invited... Hell they didn't even offer me a beer or ask me to play bass with them! Guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing.

4/21/13

Fishermen Fish Fry. It's as glorious as the Corn Lovers Fiesta. Sunday, all day at the "new" Scoot Inn. It looks like the old Scoot, but they don't turn the AC on... It was one hot bitch inside that place.

There were plenty of cool bands on the bill, I showed up later than usual and was rewarded with the Fishermen going on. Whipped it. Purple Stickpin, next. Whipped it. Then everything went inside (noise ordinance). Churchwood, Whipped IT. And we finished things off with a fair amount of ass whipping as well.

Decent crowd for a Sunday night. There was a whole lot of that "I'm drunk and it's late, so let's get it on" vibe going on. Not so much a lovefest, more of a fuckfest. A great kind of crowd to play to.

Breakdown

One lame little beer ticket... Oy.

6/9/12

Two shows in one night for me and Davy Jones. Both the Caters and Bigfoot on a Saturday night.

#1

Casters at the White Horse

This place was an old east side bar that was gentrified by the folks that own the Hole in the Wall. They did a damn nice job of it. It's a big room with loads of cool AC blowing everything all around. There is a little beer garden (or smoking area) with a food truck. Yup, they hit all of the bases with this joint.

They even have a good PA and the stage was big enough for the nine of us. Plenty of space to spread out. Loads of room for the dancers, dancers need SPACE!

Breakdown

At the start I ordered a Lone Star and I was told that one was free so I paid for a second right before we went on. During the second song someone brought a 12 pack of beer and a half dozen waters. Nice touch!

Little things like that go a long way

#2

Bigfoot Chester at the Continental Club

Once again, the best club in town. This was the annual Howlin Wolf birthday party. Lots of slow gritty Blues, Bigfoot fits right in. Davy and I show up about 20 minutes before we went on and the place was packed! It was tough getting up to the bar! Don't worry, I got a beer...

We had Dan Rupa filling in for Bill. Dan and Davy and I have all been "Ideals" in the past so it was good to play with him, dude can pick! It's also neat having a different sound in the band. I like shaking things up if only for a night.

On a "review" type of night there are a lot of special guests. We had Tex Edwards, Texacala Jones, Ted Roddy and Gary from Black Eyed Vermillion. One of many high points was finally getting to play "Insane Asylum" live with the two Texes. I played bass on a duets record with them that it was never released. Doing one of those songs felt great. Nice to pull it off.

Breakdown

Best club in town. Great PA with Jason on sound. My first couple of beers were free and they were $1 past that. A genuine South Austin Lovefest.

I love the Continental Club.

4/22/12

It was the Pocket Fishermen Sunday fish fry at the Scoot and boy was it fun. A shit load of bands on two stages with the usual lovefest vibe. Bless those fishermen, except the drummer (Biff?), I ain't too sure about him.

The Casters were kind of a cluster fuck. The only chance we had to rehearse was an hour before the show. Bill showed up sick (st least that is what he said) and started jumping around the room. I told him he might want to take it easy because we have to play the SHOW in a little while. He didn't listen. Five songs in to the set and he wanted to quit.

It's sad giving unused advice to people who are older than me...

Breakdown

Two free beers and a couple extras given by friends (once again, lovefest). Even with Bill's problem we had a pretty good set. We were inside so we PACKED the stage and that always looks cool. I had dancers flanking me, always a good feeling especially after a few tunes when everyone if getting sweaty. Fun!

12/30/11

Last show(s) of the year! Me and the girls and the Hickoids (and Glambilly) at the Mix. San Antonio is the perfect place for a pre NYE show.
We all shared gear, it was a genuine love fest.

Breakdown

I can't say enough good things about the Mix. Free booze (!) and a whole bunch of happy drunken people. The "girls" and I whipped it good. We played "The Boyds Creek Breakdown" for the first time and it rocked. I even came up with a new intro for "You Make Me Feel...", it was beautiful.

Hickoids had Tony on drums and Lutz on fifth man duties. Luts had just finished a 15 hour shift at a fireworks stand. Hickoids!

(I know it's a lame joke but I can't help myself) See you next year...

12/2/11

Casters at the Scoot with the Pocket Fishermen, a guaranteed good time, but when it's Lance Farley's birthday the place could explode That badassed fucker turned 50 and whipped the drum kit like a rented mule.
The whole night was a real love fest, everyone there was drunk and happy. I got hugged and kissed countless times by members of both sexes and I didn't really mind it at all.

Breakdown

Buff from EL Pathos used my rig and it sounded real good from the audience. It sounded better when we played...
I only got two beer tickets (lame) but Schlitz was $2 a can. Not too horrible. I had plenty. The crowd was extra randy after we played, I think scantily clad dancers set a certain kind of mood and people get horny. It's perfectly understandable.