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. 

10/31/21

 Harvey band on the day before Halloween at the Lighthouse!

We did it up good for all the costumed folks. There were some sexy devils and a dude with an awesome Ghost Rider outfit but one dude was Dr Mantis Toboggan and it was the funniest fucking thing I’ve seen in a long time. He even had the look in his face. Amazing. 

We dressed up, I did my regular dumb yachting dick costume. Chad had these messed up contacts in, every time I looked at him I was thrown. Awesome. Joseph was a squid game dude and had his face was covered the whole time. Harvey kinda looked like the hamburglar, I don’t know what he was trying for…   Andrea was the hands down winner. She went as Harvey and she nailed it. The wig, the fake mustache, perfection. 

The gig was pretty good. They had Joseph’s keys way wayyyy loud  in the pa it really threw me at first. Sound guy even came over and yelled “turn it down!” at me    I did and there was no change in the bass volume…. Ahem. 

Anyway we got it sorted and had a really fun night. All that counts!

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!

10/9/21

 Hicks were at ABGB the other day. We went up after Croy and the Boys who were pretty damn cool. First off, it’s not all “boys”! The bass player is a woman and she was kickin that low end ass! They had some really great tunes and I had a blast hearing them for the first time!

We went up and did our thing. Good sized crowd that stuck around for our mess. I can’t think of anything crazy that happened other than it was Tom’s birthday and he didn’t fall over drunk in the middle of the set. Let’s hope we aren’t really learning how to adult

10/2/21

 Corn lovers time!!

It was a beautiful, one day event. Acl may be over two weekends and packed with a 100,000 tourists throwing money all over the place but corn lovers has a cache they will never touch! 

The Sagebrush really is a beautiful place. They’ve done it up nicely and with all of that space they can do almost anything.  We’ve needed a place like this in Austin for a while. 

I went up with Harvey at 4:20 between Gravy Boat and The Me-Thinks on the other stage. There were dueling stages 20 feet apart and at a 90 degree angle. So while we were on I was watching Gravy Boat break down and the Me-Thinks set up. Kinda weird and not the best place for a dude who can’t help obsessively watching bands moving gear.  In other words, I played terrible. 

The Hickoids, featuring Frontier Dan went on at 10:40. Inside because of the noise ordinance,  We put on a hell of a show. It was wild.  At some point a lady was up at the front with an ice pack on her head. Turns out she picked a fight with some couple and they kinda stomped her.  Then she came up to the front for the loud music.  Three different dogs ran up on stage at three different times.  And I heard about some other wild shit since, that’s just what I saw. Fun night

9/3/21

 So lame… playing so few shows lately and I STILL can’t get this done in a timely manner.  And I didn’t really want to write this one…

Hicks were at the Lost Well playing a party for Matt Silaski’s birthday.  We were on with the Fishermen and a band I can’t remember….  It’s been that long. And I wasn’t at the club yet when they were on. Woooooo, rock and roll man. 

Anyway our set was pretty good. We had to wait on me to start because the bartender was ignoring me and I wanted a couple for the stage. Took forever. So dumb, I end up in a pissy mood right before we started because she wouldn’t take a minute to help someone in the band, who was tipping her. Hopefully the next time she isn’t working.