SXSW week

SXSW is here. It's been here, but I'm just now writing about it. The music side of things starts today and that's all I really care about/all I am involved with. Here is my general schedule.

Tonight the Ladies and I go on at the White Horse at 7. After that Hickoids run off to the music awards to be showered with love and inducted in the Austin Music Hall of Fame. Then we head back to the White Horse to play at midnight.

The bill at the Horse is pretty amazing, but I'm gonna miss most of it because of the HOF thing... That's what "sucks" about SXSW, I'm usually too busy to enjoy any of it. (Disclaimer, the traffic, parking, price gouging and general drunken stupidity also sucks, but what you gonna do.)

I only have one show each on Thursday and Friday. Hickoids play at the 29th St Ballroom/Spider House around 5 on Thursday and Bigfoot Chester is playing the Peelander Z party at the Grackle on Friday at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Saturday there are three Hickoid shows. The 04 Lounge at 6. ABGB at 8 and The Triple Crown in San Marcos at midnight.

That's it for the moment. Details will follow. Be prepared for action.

3/9/14

Hickoids made the drive to Bend to play at Bob's again. He was having a festival at the store/bar and we were giving them three hours of musical love. Smitty brought a bass amp so all I needed was my instrument and some cords, It's a semi-backline!

We jumped in to Freak 3 (she just had her one year anniversary!) and made decent time on the drive. The weather was amazing, the cold rain that had been hitting Austin dried up, the sun came out and it was in the mid 60's. Everyone was happy about that. The freak got unloaded and we started in on our first set. It had a nice, leisurely pace and the crowd was small, but appreciative. At the end Bob, was gonna jump up and play some with us, but Tom's rig started giving him problems so we stopped for a bit.

After the break we hopped up and did a few and THEN Bob got up to help. The second set ended (without amp failure) and we pretty much did the same thing again for the third set but we played different songs. I can't remember the order, but we did a couple of Hickoid songs then some covers like Gloria, Wild Thing and Knockin on Heavens Door. The Hicks (with Bob) were a classic rock band for one glorious Sunday afternoon in Bend TX. 

3/7/14

Friday night I played at the Local with the ladies. We were the band for the night and played from 10-1. When I got there all if the ladies were set up and already drinking. I had some catching up to do...

I got my rig together and hit the bar. Both of the (lovely) bartenders were old pals of mine, it was great seeing both Janna and Tiffany again and having them give me beer all night!

We got up and did the first set. My old drummer Jill was there and she brought some friends, good to see her and she loved seeing the double drummer lineup. There were a number of other folks who were watching us and enjoying themselves and we played pretty well. Nothing glorious, but nothing shitty. 

Second set Jill left and took her pals. The other folks slowly dissipated all over the place and our quality started slipping... Nothing awful just some overplaying here and there and we were missing some of the stops. It happens, we moved on. 

Then set three happened. I don't want to be too melodramatic here but it was pretty bad... I'm pretty sure it was the booze. I wish (and planned) for it to go better, but it didn't. No excuses. It kinda sucked. 

After everyone loaded out I had a beer at the bar talking with Tiffany and Janna. They noticed the sloppy but they didn't seem to care about it too much. Janna books the place and she asked if we wanted to do it again. I'm up for that, but we got to do better. 

Wiley on recording

One of "the ladies" wrote a blog about the first recording session.

Check it out!

More ladies in the studio

BC and I went back to the studio last Saturday. She knocked out all of the keyboard parts and I'm pretty sure, I knocked out all of the guitar.

We got there around eight and BC set up in the control room. She'd never played keys on anything with me, just bass. So there was a fair amount of figuring things out in the early stages, but she quickly got past that and moved on to whipping some keyboard ass!!!

It was my turn so I set up the vibroluxe and got my rig ready. We started with doubling my earlier rhythm parts and then nailing each of the solos before we moved on to the next tune. Usually I would do all the rhythm then all the leads, but I guess I was kinda feeling it when I was playing the rhythm parts so we just went ahead and finished all the guitars on each song before moving on to the next one. 

I did a bunch of the guitar parts on the Tele (it's what I play most of the time with The Ladies) but I did a couple of them with my hollowbody Guild. Kurtis had a mic on the amp and a mic on the room so I stood by the room mic with the Guild, getting the sound out of the amp and right off the wood. It sounds extra thick and glorious.

I did a solo that was four bars of call and response on "First Time, Next Time". The odd numbered solos were slide on the hollowbody and the even ones were straight on the Tele. I nailed that fucker in one take for each part! That really feels good, like I know what I'm doing.

When I took a pass on the solo in "Wonderful" Kurtis really like what I did and he asked me to double it. I told him I had no idea what I'd just played, but I'd be willing to give it another shot. I did and failed miserably. I had no recollection of what I'd played just a minute before! We laughed for a couple then moved on...

This is why you work with someone like Kurtis, his only agenda is to get your music on tape. He doesn't have a specific way it "needs" to get done (although he is great with suggestions). If you say "I have and idea" he says "let's try it." That is the most important thing in a recording engineer. 

I'm headed back this Saturday to do the vocals. At that point we should have a nice little EP.

2/23/14

Another Hickoids show in San Antonio. It was a benefit and we were going on nice and early at 1:30 in the afternoon. I made it to the Pop Culture Museum (just like in Austin, it's next to a Planet K) with just my bass and cords and I was set up in seconds. Gotta love a back line.

My old pal Eddie was running the turntables and playing some sweet ass Latin rock (ever heard of El Chicano? Bad ass stuff) as we milled around before starting time. 1:30 rolled around and we were off!

The crowd doubled in our first couple of tunes and it doubled again by the end of our set. By the time I was leaving it looked like even more folks were piling in! A very good sign for a benefit.

 We played pretty well for that early in the day and the only thing that was a little screwy was a nasty room node that would pop up and get multiplied by the PA. It was an A and since three of the nine songs we played were in A those tunes were a little lost in the swamp. No big deal, that kinda crap happens all the time and you just play through it.

I took off right after Sexto Sol went on (Eddie's band). Things looked promising for a kick ass set, but I had a rehersal back in Austin, so I was gone!

2/8/04

It was an easy drive to San Antonio, traffic wasn't too bad and I was parked behind the Mix in no time. There was some sharing of gear so I only needed to bring my bass and some cables. Easy!

I got there and the Hormones had about four songs left. Tom was (is?) playing bass with them and this was his first show. I thought it sounded pretty good from the outside. According to Tom I heard the best part of the set, I think he said "The first part was shitty". I'll have to take his word on that.

Next up was our old friends the Guillotines. They now have THREE guitar players with THREE Marshall half stacks!  Talk about a load of sound, they were supersonic.

We were last. The side of the "stage" (there is no stage, you stand on the floor at the Mix) we were on had the stickiest goddamn floor in the world (only a little hyperbole here). Tom and I were leaving chunks of shoe behind. I tried to spend most of the set in front of Lance and away from the glue trap floor, but every time I sang I had one food stuck...

I survived the set/floor, helped with the load out (after all I brought barely anything) and made the drive back home. An easy Saturday night.