10/11/12

Day one ACL

What a night. I put in a full shift at the White Horse last night and I am paying for it today. Got there a little after 6 and left around 1:45. I wonder if they offer health insurance?

The Ladies and I started things off. We had a good set, but I'm starting to think my amp is too small to deal with the SPL of two drummers. I had that thing cranked and I wasn't getting much out of it. 22 watts through a 12" speaker may be a little on the wimpy side. We started things out early and played to a handful of people, but we had a lot of fun.

By the time the Hickoids came on the place was PACKED. It was hard getting to the stage. We did two of the new songs we've been working on. Including "If Drinkin Don't Kill Me" which has four different choruses. I think I sang most of the words right.

There were a total of seven or eight bands including The Beaumonts, Mike and the Moonpies, The Swindles and Cunto. Apparently the guys in Cunto count ACL for their anniversary because they started playing right before the first one. Beautiful.


Breakdown

The club was very generous to us. I had a bunch of Lone Star and I didn't pay for most of them! They took care of ALL the bands the same way.  My old friend Waldo was even working the bar. What a cool fucking place.

More tomorrow

Things Change/ACL

ACL weekend. It's a busy one. As I posted here, me and the ladies are opening the fest on Thursday (Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta of course). But now it's 7PM at the White Horse, NOT Hotel Vegas. Things change...

We were practicing last night at BC's and the cops came and shut us down. That hasn't happened to me in years, it almost felt nostalgic (if it weren't for it being a total pain in the ass). Shut down at 9PM on a Wednesday night. Live music capital of the what? We'd been practicing there for a few months so this seems a little out of the blue.

We were in a practice space with some other folks, but things got weird and we bailed. We've been doing it at BC's but something has to change there, we can't have the cops showing up all the time. We are gonna try little amps and go from there. Ideally we'll get in a new practice space at some point. Things change...

Friday night is my last show with the Casters. It's time to move on, so I am! Tom is taking over. He did the same thing about a year ago replacing me in the Ideals, now it's the Casters. Things change...

I was joking with the ladies last night (pre cops) that Tom should replace me for a couple of shows. It would still be called "Rice Moorehead and His Ladies", but Tom would fill in on guitar and vocals. Personally I think it would be hilarious.

Updates all weekend!

ACL Promo!

9/23/12

Bigfoot Chester at Million Dollar Sound.

I don't know who came up with the idea, but when I was asked about it I said "Hell YEA!" immediately. This was Bigfoot Chester with Ted Roddy singing and playing Harp. We did two of the Howlin Wolf tunes we've played before at the Wolf birthday party (we did those songs with Ted then) and we hit one that was a harmonica "duel". Two harps and a twelve bar in E, GO!

The first song Walter didn't even play on it. He just let Ted do his thing (so cool). I almost screwed up one of the endings in a big way when Ted was blowing some bad assed harp. I'll admit I'm easily excitable, but that solo on the way out of "You'll Be Mine" was pretty amazing. Walter came in to the tracking room to blow some sax on the second number and, of course, harmonica on the duel at the end. I can't wait to hear it.

This is the fourth or fifth location of Million Dollar Sound I've recorded in. As usual Kurtis has his shit together and his gear dialed in. Things were sounding really good and he is SO easy to work with. He got everything set up and three songs (five takes) with minimal overdubs done in under three hours. Thanks Kurtis!

A very nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

The happiest place in the world

For a deaf cat...

It's official, we are opening ACL!*‏

It's just been announced, Rice Moorehead and his Ladies will be the opening act at this years ACL!

We kick things off at Hotel Vegas, 1500 East 6th st, Thursday, October 11, 9PM. **

Mark your calendars now, we will rip this one up!***



* Austin Corn Lovers Fiesta, don't confuse it with the other ACL that happens at the same time.

** All times/dates/venues subject to change. Refer to Smitty corp public relations manual page 114, section two paragraph 1 for more information.

*** This will be a figurative "rip up". We would like to play Hotel Vegas some other time in the future and if we literally rip things they may not have us back.

8/31/12

And another one bites the dust...

Last night the Hickoids were the final band to play at the Scoot Inn. Today they are closed, sad. I liked the place and played there often. This is the current state of Austins "progress".

There was some band playing outside when I got there and the place was packed. Loads of good looking women, way more than your average Hickoids show so I knew something was fishy. They came for the outside band and most of them left when they stopped. El Pathos ran out the remaining stragglers so by the time we started so it was just a room of Hickoid fans. Let the party begin!

Our set was pretty wild. Roger was there and he showed great restraint by only getting up to sing on two songs and at no point did he fuck with Davy (which is actually a shame). It was Davy's birthday and there were a million old man jokes flung around. There was enough sweet cruelty to bring a tear to your eye. Jonnie Hell is back from the dead. He showed up and sat in on the Fruit Fly. It was a pleasure to play with him again. It was a mini time machine. The way I play my parts with Lance is a little different than the way I played them with Jonnie, so when I started the song it began in "Lance" style but quickly shifted to "Jonnie" style. A strange music geek thing and I'm sure I was the only one that noticed...

Breakdown

I got a ton of drink tickets at the beginning of the night AND I had several drinks handed to me by various, kind people. !
Most of my beers that made it to the stage were spilled by Hickoid stupidity and/or Rodger... oh rodger... It's OK, I really didn't need any more at that point.

The Scoot is gone. It's going to be replaced by a bar with no music.

And another one gone and another one gone...